<Begin Segment 12>

AI: Well, now when you came back from Japan to the United States, you were mentioning it was a very long trip on a ship. Can you tell a little bit about the trip coming back home to Seattle?

MF: Well, you know, I was on the third-class and I been only about -- was about nineteen years old. [Laughs] And there was kinda weird people on that third class. And I met a minister, a Caucasian minister from Nagoya, and he was from Maryland. And he asked the captain if he could move me to the second class. He said he would pay for it. He says, "Oh, the captain said you don't have to pay." He said, "We'll transfer her to second class," and he was awfully nice and we became very good friends. And he was about the same age as -- oh, his wife is about the same age as I am. I think he's a little older. And so I got to sleep in second class and have my food second class because there was a lot of weird old men, and being nineteen years old, the minister thought it was kind of dangerous so... and we still -- (Dr. Paul Warner) is gone, but his wife is very nice and I met her. She came here when she went back to Nagoya being a missionary's wife. And we still correspond and I just got a Christmas card from her today.

AI: Well --

MF: She says, "Do you remember the trip coming back with Paul?" [Laughs]

AI: It sounds like it was a really special trip.

MF: Oh, I liked him and he liked me. And he was going back there to be married. It was a little difficult situation for him.

AI: Well, it sounds like a trip like that can be quite romantic on the ocean?

MF: Especially, especially on a boat two weeks. That's a long time. Not like flying over ten hours across.

AI: That's right. You have quite a bit more time to visit and --

MF: Yeah.

AI: -- get acquainted.

MF: And he transferred me to second class and...

AI: Well, let's see. That was the summer of 1932 then, that you returned to Seattle. And what did you do after you got back here to Seattle?

MF: Oh, I worked in the consul's home as a maid. Or a maid or a housekeeper or something. The wife cooked and all I had to do was wash dishes, and when they had company they hired people to do those kinda things but just for the family I did the wash. I stayed over there and upstairs they had two bedrooms upstairs and I took one bedroom and worked for about year and a half. And then -- and later I worked for Mrs. Thompson next door for about six months, and then I got married.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.