<Begin Segment 27>

SS: Were you able to eventually do something for yourself, after working all these years, working so hard to raise a family? What did you do once the kids were out of the house?

EW: Oh, yay. [Laughs] I got a job with the Seattle School District and I worked, started out part-time and worked up to six hours, than a full-time job.

SS: What did you do for the district?

EW: I worked at Asa Mercer Junior High at that time, and I was there for twenty years.

SS: You must enjoy being around kids.

EW: I do, yeah. You know, each day is different, each hour is different, minute, when you're with kids. And I've always said that teachers and people who work with junior high kids deserve combat pay, because it's, it's hard.

SS: Do you ever look at these kids, or did you ever look at these kids over the course of your twenty years there, and say, "If they had gone through what I went through, they wouldn't be this unruly, they'd be more mature." Did you ever think that?

EW: No. I don't think I did. No.

SS: Did they ever ask you about this?

EW: They did, they did. Because at that time, they knew a little of what we had gone through. And their books didn't say much about it, it touched upon it. And then by that time, then there were other people who were coming into the schools and talking to the social studies classes.

SS: How do you feel when these kids ask you about this? Is it sort of an intrusion of privacy? It is an uncomfortable memory?

EW: No, no, not at all. I'm thankful and I'm glad that they want to know. That they are thinking about something that's more serious, other than these little teenage things, you know. No, I think it's gratifying.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 1996 Densho. All Rights Reserved.