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AI: Well, now both Stanford University and University of Southern California are considered very prestigious, very challenging schools, rather elite schools. I'm wondering what, it sounds like you had a very enjoyable experience there. What was it like intellectually and in, in some of the academic work that you did?

RC: Well, I had an open mind. And if I wanted to do something, my mother said, "Well, go ahead." You know, that was the way she looked at it. (...) So I, I tackled things that probably people would not have done. (...) When I was at USC I waited table in a boarding home where visiting professors and their families lived. (That) was something I had never done. But I was used to serving food at home with my mother, you know. And there was a time when, when my brothers were at Stanford and my twin and I were home alone. My mother was traveling. She demonstrated foods, Heinz Foods throughout California and Nevada. And I'm sure that kind of situation would not occur today. My twin and I were in junior high and high school. But we had a next door neighbor, the lady that took care of my twin when my father lost his life. She would, "Hoo, hoo," through her kitchen window. And our kitchen window, if the weather was good, would be open and we would hear her and we would let her know that we were up and about and getting ready to head off for school.

And another thing about that time was that my mother went to the little (...) neighborhood grocery store. And it was run by a man and his wife and the man's mother. (My mother said), "Now these two children will be coming to get food and they know how to (...) cook and how to prepare things. And if they want something that they really don't know, (will) Grandma (...) show us how to do it(?)" (...) We charged the groceries. And they took care that we bought the right kinds of food, and that we didn't exploit our mother and run up (high bills), because it was the Depression. And we both learned to cook. I don't know how people would do things today like that.

AI: But it sounds like you learned to be very self-sufficient.

RC: Yes.

AI: At a young age. And so by the time that you were in college you were working and able to support yourself and do your academics at the same time.

RC: During the summer between... I didn't go to summer school, I worked for the state. I took a state exam, as a junior clerk. And in those days I earned ninety dollars a month, and that was a lot of money. But it meant that I could pay maybe two quarters' tuition. Then I took out tuition notes. And before the end of the first year, after I got my credential, I paid off my tuition notes. That was another thing that my mother was very firm about. No debts. You pay your debts. You don't walk away from them.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.