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AI: Well, now, after you came back to Seattle, I wanted to back up a little bit and ask what was, what was your, what were your parents doing after they came back to Seattle, they still had their house and yesterday you told about how they had, what they had to go through to get back into your family house.

RI: Uh-huh.

AI: But were they able to go back into business again?

RI: Yes, well, they, they came back to the house. And I remember between my second and third year I came back and stayed with them at that house. But I think eventually they were in business by taking over an apartment house on Minor and Stewart Avenue. So they went back into business, but they moved into that apartment complex in order to run the place. And eventually they sold that house. Then when I came back, my father bought another apartment house, so I stayed there for a while. So my father was a businessman, so I guess that he was always into something, but of course my mother was always helping him too, so she was always put to work getting rooms ready or cleaning up or something like that. So they were always around. But oh, when I started practice, my father said to me, "Now, Ruby, you are starting your practice. Be sure to set your schedule so that you'll take your vacations, take your days off, and be sure to stick by it." So I said, "But Papa, you know, I hardly have any patients, I'm not busy at all." He said, "Soon enough you'll be busy so you start with the right schedule and you'll, you'll take care of yourself." And later I was very appreciative of what he said, because he was thinking about me and my health. And it served me good.

DG: Did he help to finance your, setting up your office and equipment?

RI: I don't remember that he had to finance me... well, of course he had to because I didn't have any money, did I?

DG: Right.

RI: So maybe the first rental --

DG: What kind of equipment did you buy?

RI: Well, let's see. I had to have a table, examining table, and I had to have laboratory equipment to do blood tests and urine tests. I don't know where I got the money, but I must have got it from him because I certainly didn't have any, because internship did not pay anything. We had to work for free and I remember at Christmas time we got a Christmas gift of twenty-five dollars. Well, twenty-five dollars in those days meant a lot more than now. But I think the residents, interns get paid nowadays, because a lot of the residents nowadays are married and have families. But I'm sure that he had to help me. And after a few months I remember doing the accounting for myself and found that I was breaking even. So I don't think I lost money right away, but I don't remember even paying him back. [Laughs] But that's how parents are. You sort of take them for granted but they're always there for us, huh? I really appreciate them.

DG: Did you hire some assistants?

RI: Yes. I hired a secretary. She was fresh out of high school. In fact, she's still around Seattle. And she was my secretary, made the appointments. But she didn't do any, any laboratory work or anything like that. I did everything myself, because I wasn't busy. Oh, and then the first, first half-year or so I wasn't busy so I also moonlighted and worked in a hospital, took calls at night to give anesthesia to labor patients, pregnant, women in labor. And that's where I met my husband, at the hospital. He was interning there trying to get training so that he could apply for license in Washington State. And he was from China.

AI: And what was his name?

RI: His name was Evan Shu. S-H-U. But his English was terrible because he had come from China in 1948, I think. And he really went to California to do post-graduate work in ears/nose/throat. And he was intending to go back to China after he got this graduate degree, I guess, at Loma Linda, and then he couldn't go back because the Communists took over. So he was stuck in the United States and he was, I think he was raised, I would call him like a botchan, you know, where he came from a wealthy family who had servants and he had everything. So all of a sudden he was cut off from all economic help because I think his parents were sending money to him. So he had to fend for himself and had to work and then it was a matter of trying to get licensed in the United States and so he was in Seattle at this hospital doing internship. And when I was moonlighting, giving anesthesia, he was around there.

DG: Which hospital?

RI: It was called Seattle General Hospital, downtown, on Fifth and Marion. And when I started practice I did a lot of my work there because one of my friends from medical school, who graduated with me, was at that hospital. She had that hospital, so she helped me get, get permission to practice there. Her name was Naomi Pettingill, but she was also a missionary to India. But she's not around now. She has since died. But that's where I used to practice a lot.

<End Segment 38> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.