<Begin Segment 39>

AI: Well, so at that time, were your father or mother talking to you at all about getting married or having a family?

RI: No, they never talked to me about getting married.

AI: Because I remember --

RI: Why would they tell -- yeah, they did tell me that, before I started going into pre-medical training, that my role as a female was to get married. But after I was in practice they never said anything like that. Oh, I guess that, it just was determined that I was a career woman.

AI: But as it turned out, you met Evan Shu and, so, how did your relationship develop with him in that his English was not very good and he was from China...

RI: Well, when I look back on it, I think that it was, instead of being mutual, he probably was the pushy person. Maybe because he was a displaced person and not very comfortable in America, maybe he felt that he could get more Americanized with me. So, anyway, I kinda think I got talked into it but anyway, that's part of looking back. [Laughs] And since he's not here to defend himself, I, I probably shouldn't say too much more. But apparently, in China -- this is what I found out later -- he was engaged to another physician, or about-to-be physician, woman physician. And then when he came to America I guess that maybe she married somebody else. So maybe he was looking for somebody in the same profession. But, he always had very lofty ideas and he says, "Oh, we'll build a hospital together," and all kinds of things like that, but...

AI: And so when did you get married?

RI: I got married in 1951. So I was thirty years old. And at that time he told me he was two years older, but he was lying because he didn't want to appear like he's the same age, but he was same age as me. He was, he's two months older. But, you know, thirty is pretty old to be getting married around that time, because my friends were all married. But I wasn't really intending to get married, or looking for anybody.

AI: But you did. Well, and so 1951, and then what, what happened after your --

RI: Well, so then afterwards he, after we got married he did one year, another year of internship in a Colorado hospital. And then he was going to Eastern State Hospital in Washington, in the state of Washington, so that's when I quit my practice and joined him and I also got a residency at this Eastern State Hospital -- actually it was a psychiatric hospital. But it was mainly so that I could, we could be together. And that's when I was pregnant. So then, with pregnancy I stopped my intern-, my residency, and we came back to Seattle and I decided that I'm going to start practicing again. So then I was a wife and mother with a baby so I, restarted my practice and this time I was above Dr. Nakamura, the dentist's office. And my sister took care of the baby. In the meantime, my husband got another internship in Tacoma, so that he was commuting between Seattle and Tacoma, weekends, coming home. But he was still having a difficult time trying to get his training and to qualify for taking the Washington State License. It took him a long time to get a license from Washington State. So, in the meantime I was doing most of the work.

DG: So your office was there on, on, right here...

RI: On Jackson and Sixteenth, uh-huh, above Dr. Nakamura. I was there until about 1963, from 1953 until 1963, about ten years there, until we built our new building.

<End Segment 39> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.