<Begin Segment 40>

AI: Your, your first baby was a boy.

RI: Yes. My son? Yes. He was a boy.

AI: And was it 1953 that he was born?

RI: Uh-huh, '53.

AI: And so, and you were saying that your sister would take care of him while you were practicing.

RI: Uh-huh.

AI: And then, then after him you had two more children?

RI: Oh yes, two more daughters, yeah. But each time, well, since my husband wasn't really settled down anywhere because he, he was trying to get his license, I think I was the bread-earner and I was also taking care of the family. And since I'm the American and know how to get along, my husband was not really doing a lot of things at home. I mean, he... I don't think he was doing fifty percent of the housework or anything like that. But I think that I had the ability to be pretty well-organized and take care of things, so somehow we were getting along okay. And my children, as I got my children I began to feel that just because I'm in a profession I don't want to be neglecting them, I don't want them to be getting into trouble, so I tried very hard to be sure to participate in whatever activities they were in. So when the schools had open house or parents day, well, I was sure to go, most of the time it was in the evenings anyway. My son belonged to the Boy Scouts at Baptist Church, and who do you think went? I went. My husband did not go. My daughter was in Girl Scouts and of course they were selling Girl Scout cookies and she said that whenever I made house calls the kids go with them and I used to tell her, "Well, maybe you could go in and sell Girl Scout cookies" -- [laughs] -- like that. But they made a lot of house calls with me.

And one time I remember that my son, Evan -- I don't know how old he was -- he might have been three or four years old. I took him on a house call and I told him to sit down over there and I'm going into the sick room. But whenever I go on a house call with my kids, most people pay more attention to the children and they, they want to give them soda pop or something. And I said, "I came to see the patient," but first the kids get settled down and then I'd go in. Well, my son went with me one time. When I got home, in his pocket was this knife, but it was a dinner knife, a butter knife or something like that. I said, "Where did you get that?" "Oh, it was on the table. I liked it so I took it." I said, "My goodness, you could never do something like that." So of course, right away the next day I had to bring it back and apologize for it. But I think he learned a lesson. It was a shiny knife, and it's not that he needed a knife, but he liked it. So, it was a matter of trying to teach him something. But he doesn't remember it. Nowadays I tell him about it, he doesn't remember that.

But my children made lotta house calls, as I said, and they had to sit in the car a lot and wait while I went in the hospital to do my rounds. And that's when it was that runaway car. One, one Saturday I was making a house call and I left them in the car and the car was at a slight incline hill and I went in and did my whatever, visiting, and came out and I couldn't find the car. And then down the street was the car stopped and people gathered around and I found that whether I didn't pull the hand brakes or whether one of the kids -- there were two little kids -- whether one of them released the brake I don't know what happened. But anyway, the car started to roll slowly down the street. And fortunately, there was a teenager sitting in front of his house, probably next door, or next-next door and he jumped into the car and pulled the brake and stopped it before it got to the bottom of the hill. And after that, every time some mother comes into my office and I say, "Oh, did you bring your child?" And they say, "Oh, he's in the car." "Don't leave the child in the car. Be sure to bring him in." I used to warn every one of my patients like that because of my bad experience. So, never leave your kids in the car by themselves. You can't tell what they'll do. [Laughs]

AI: What a frightening experience.

DG: Did you worry at all, when you made house calls, about being exposed to germs and things, the kids?

RI: The kids being exposed? No. The kids were never exposed because they were never in the same room as the patient. But I never worried about catching anything from my patients. And as said, my immunity is so good I don't remember ever catching anything from any patient, and people were coughing in my face, I was taking care of people with fever and all that, but I didn't get sick. I was always there. I'll tell you, during my years of practice I was absent from work two days total. The first time I had a sore throat with fever so I stayed home. It was a Friday. So by Monday I was able to go back to work. The second time, I got up in the morning, I was very dizzy and I still wanted to go to work but then I was nauseated and so I had to stay home. And that also was a Friday. By Monday I was okay, so I went back to work. But, that's what kept me going. I think my immunity is very good. So I'm very fortunate.

DG: Do you remember any other patients, that specifically, some incident about something that one of the patients you treated...

RI: How they were treated?

DG: No, any incidents particularly, special patients that you remember?

RI: Oh, well, maybe I remember more some of the patients that maybe I don't really like, you know, the obnoxious patients. Well, I used to tell my secretary, "Ooh, she made appointment, oh gosh," Okay. So when that patient comes in I try to be extra nice. I don't like this person, so I'm going to do double the duty of trying to be nice. So it always worked out okay. That was my theory, that, I don't want to show on my face that I don't like this person. Oh, it's somebody who's complaining all the time, so then I try to be extra nice, listen more carefully, and give good advice. [Laughs]

<End Segment 40> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.