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JA: Okay, Mitzie, we've now sold the farm. And so what did your family do for a living after that?

MH: In 1953 we sold the farm and my family itself, we moved up to Bellevue, way up in the Highland area we call that, and we bought a house up there on 166th and Northrup Way. And I decided I've got to go find a job, so I went to the Bellevue School District and Mrs. Ringdall was there and she said, "If you're a Norwegian today, I'll hire you today." I said, "I am a Norwegian today." "Good." So she hired me and I started from the very bottom. I washed dishes and carted dishes from Enatai Elementary School to Bellevue High School to have them all washed there. And so I was in that three-hour job for quite a while. And then, she came up with this brilliant idea, she said, "Well, Mitzie, would you do a job that I need, somebody to be my assistant." I said, "Well, me, a Japanese, be an assistant? I don't know about being a boss to 120 ladies around here." She said, "Well, I'm sure you can do it." And so, you know my husband, he says, "Oh, yeah. You can do it. Anything, you got work hard for it, because Niseis have to prove themselves the great Americans and they can do anything anybody else does." I said, "Fine. I'll try it for a while and see what I can do about it." But it was a major job, bigger than I had anticipated.

When I first went in, I was only washing dishes. But what happened in the Bellevue School District, all the junior highs and high schools were being built rapidly because of the growing... Bellevue was growing so fast. And as they were growing we had to put a kitchen in every building, and we had to staff it and I had to help with that. And then, the program in the Bellevue School District decided to change. They decided to do all packaging like you do in the airplane. Package in foil and package in cellophane and things like that, and they were going to ship the food to all the elementary schools, is what they decided to do because of the labor conditions and the all the new schools were going to have facilities that way. So I went to Bremerton School District and looked at the conveyer belt they had there and we were happy with that plan so we went ahead and started that. And I worked all those years at every (school)... so I had seven junior high schools and five high schools, that I helped open up with some kind of kitchen staff and kitchen.

I helped Mrs. Ringdall, worked with her many, many hours without overtime (pay) (...). [Laughs] So I worked with her for many hours that way, and I worked for many years that way under her. And then, the last seven years of my life, they promoted me as a field supervisor and Mrs. Ringdall retired. And so, I came in and they had an administrator gentleman that was overseeing all of our activities, what we are doing. And I was very fortunate, I was able to work with him very well and at the end I was making all the menus and I was doing the ordering and everything else so all food products that were used in our building and staff I had to do. Fortunately, I didn't have to fire anybody, they all worked well. 120 hakujins worked very well with me. There was no Oriental, but at the very end I hired one Japanese girl who was here from Japan, and she worked out very well. I enjoyed working with her. And so that was my life for 26 years in the Bellevue School District, which worked out very well and I enjoyed it very much with 120 people.

<End Segment 65> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.