<Begin Segment 8>

SS: Let me ask you a couple of more questions about your childhood. You talked about working in the laundry, and that your parents would let you do mangling? Tell me a little bit about that.

EW: Well, a mangle was a long machine, quite a heavy thing, standing pretty tall. And it had a roll thing, and then you lay your item on the roll, and then pull down on the top and then run the item through. And it would come out, go over the top, and out here. And it was hot and I would get burned once in a while. But you know, at that age, if you feel that you're helping in some way it really makes you feel good.

SS: Were you very little? Were you a teenager?

EW: I was a teenager, uh-huh. I would go over to the laundry and ask if they needed help, and if they did, well then I would stay and help.

SS: Was it very close to your house?

EW: In a small town, maybe about two or three blocks. But I remember that I would always like to go home, or rather to the laundry, and tell them what I did at school that day. And I was so proud of the arithmetic and everything that I thought I was learning, and show them and tell them about it.

SS: Tell me a little bit, too, about the games that you'd play. Hopscotch I know, and you used a couple of other terms that I wasn't familiar with.

EW: Oh, Annie-I-Over? Well, you have a kind of like a house or a shed or something like that, a small building -- and throw a ball over it. And then, there, people would be on either, both sides of the building. And I can't remember now what we were expected to do, but it was fun at that time. And then, of course, we played hide-and-seek, there were a lot of places you could hide. And it was fun.

SS: It was cheap entertainment, too.

EW: It was cheap entertainment.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1996 Densho. All Rights Reserved.