<Begin Segment 23>

SS: The war years and the years after, were they, were they very difficult also?

EW: Well, when we... you mean when we came back to Seattle?

SS: Uh-huh.

EW: There was a lot of discrimination, in housing, jobs.

SS: Had you expected that?

EW: I don't think I did. Not when, when our husbands, the men in our family had been in the service and had fought the war to show their loyalty. There was still discrimination, people had not gotten rid of it.

SS: How would you deal with that?

EW: It was pretty hard to try to find a house and when we went to the realtor, they would show us houses that were terrible dumps, you know, that you wouldn't be caught dead in. And I remember sitting in the car refusing to get out, to even look, because I said, "No." And I remember there was one realtor that, the salespeople left the office and didn't want to deal with us, except one man who said, "I will deal with you." But eventually the house that we did find, we did on our own by driving around. Found one that the man was working on and went out to talk with him. It was unfinished, but he said, yes, he would sell to us.

SS: What did a house cost in those days?

EW: Not much, $35,000, something like that, something that we could handle. But it was really refreshing that the builder and the owner would say, "No problem."

SS: You must have been very grateful to meet people like that.

EW: We were, uh-huh, and to find it on our own.

SS: How did you go about explaining this to your kids? I would think that your children probably picked up on this, children are very perceptive. How were you able to help them keep their self-respect when they hear things like this going on?

EW: Oh, I don't think it touches them that much in that way. Because they have already established themselves, you know, in their schools and their friends and so forth. So that I don't think that they have run into any difficulty.

SS: But when they were little and this was going on, did the kids understand what was going on at the time?

EW: Oh no, no.

SS: How were you able to keep your self-respect?

EW: I said to myself, my husband's in the service, he's overseas fighting a war. And he's giving his life for you, you know. And so that I felt proud, that I didn't have to kowtow to anybody.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 1996 Densho. All Rights Reserved.