Sone grew up in Seattle, where her parents, immigrants from Japan, managed a hotel. Like many Nisei children, her education included American classes and extra Japanese language and cultural courses, the latter of which were held at Seattle's Nihon Go Gakko;[1] later, she and her family visited relatives in Japan. After graduating from Broadway High School she attended secretarial school, completing the two-year course in just one year.[2] Soon after, she contracted tuberculosis and spent nine months at Firland Sanatorium with future best-selling author of The Egg and I, Betty MacDonald. Upon her release from the sanatorium, Sone discovered that her family had moved to a house in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood.
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing military commanders to designate areas from which "any or all persons may be excluded" and paving the way for the removal of all Japanese Americans from the West Coast. Sone was 21 when she and her family were "evacuated" from their home in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood[3] to the Puyallup Assembly Center, in May 1942. Three months later, the Itois were transferred to the War Relocation Authority camp at Minidoka, Idaho.[2] In 1943, Sone was allowed to leave camp after passing the so-called "loyalty questionnaire" and relocated to the Chicago area, where she worked as a dental assistant and lived with a white Presbyterian minister and his family.[2]
