Mitsue Salador was 93 in the winter of 2017, when a Newsday reporter met her in her cozy West Islip living room to interview her about living in an internment camp during World War II.

Despite the decades that had passed, she spoke about the experience as if it were yesterday, sharing details about everything from the type of wood on the walls to how she created a mattress for herself out of straw.

Her stories revealed a sharp, analytical mind and she told them so expressively, and with such thoroughness, that it was easy for the reporter to see why she impacted so many people over the course of a life spent teaching in two school districts and telling the tale of what she had endured during the war to audiences across Long Island.

Salador died on April 22 after a battle with the coronavirus. She was 96.

Mitsue Salador (nee Endow) was born on Oct. 28, 1923 in Hood River, Oregon. She was raised on an orchard of apples, cherries and pears with two brothers and a sister. She had an intrinsic love of nature — in her later years, she proudly cared for handfuls of white orchids.

Salador was studying at Oregon’s Linfield College at the time of Executive Order 9066. Issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942, it led to the internment of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry as a reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Salador was 18 when she was sent to the Portland Assembly Center.

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For three months, Salador lived there without her family. Her parents, sister and younger brother were taken to California, first to a center in Pinedale and later to Tule Lake Relocation Center. Her older brother was a part of the Army’s 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

Salador was able to leave the assembly center to attend William Jewell College in Missouri after filling out an application and getting the recommendation of a professor from her previous college. She finished up her studies in nursing but later earned her master’s degree at New York University to pursue the career she had in mind all along: teaching.

Around this time, she met Fred Salador. They were married in 1952 and moved to West Islip two years later. They both found jobs in the Brentwood School District; he was a guidance counselor and she taught elementary-level reading. After having two children, Deborah and Jerome, Salador took some time off and returned to teaching 10 years later, this time in the West Islip School District. She retired in 1984.

Salador spoke at events in libraries, courthouses and museums about her internment camp experience. Her daughter, Deborah Smith, said Salador was never angry about what she went through — she just wanted people to learn about it.

“9/11 is what really propelled her to be more vocal about it,” Smith said. “It was important to her to treat everybody equally and with respect and dignity. That’s her legacy.”

Bob Machida, a longtime friend of Salador who also raises awareness about his family’s experience in internment camps, said she always had a “soft-spoken, methodical” manner of speaking.

“Mitsue had a way of simplifying it; giving an exposition on what had occurred,” Machida said. “She would explain it in an intelligent, calm way so people could get a glimpse into what had happened in the past.”

In her free time, Salador loved to travel — Smith took her back to Hood River, and she also enjoyed seeing Japan and California. Her yard is home to a lush garden of flowers and vegetables, and a cherry tree.

Salador was also always caught up on current events, reading and watching the news every evening.

“She really did instill in me the love of learning,” Smith said.

Perhaps Salador will be remembered most by her bravery, not only during a time of trauma, but in telling her story to ensure history may never repeat itself.

Salador is survived by her children, Jerome Salador (and daughter-in-law, Lynn Salador) and Deborah Smith (and son-in-law, Albert Smith); her sister, Connie Morioka; six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Her husband preceded her in death.