Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Peggie Nishimura Bain Interview
Narrator: Peggie Nishimura Bain
Interviewer: Alice Ito
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: September 15-17, 2004
Densho ID: denshovh-bpeggie-01-0011

<Begin Segment 11>

AI: Well, as you say, that after you stopped working in the restaurant and went back to the farm, and, but Nellie had stayed in town for a while.

PB: Yes.

AI: And, and so, and then what happened? Nellie at some point, she got sick?

PB: She got TB for some reason. I don't know why she got TB, but she got TB, and then she came home and in those days, if you had TB, you were confined to the hospital, and you stayed in bed all that time, as far as I recall. And actually, there was no cure for it, and it was a pretty bad disease. Anybody that had TB was, other people didn't contact them because it was highly contagious, and a very dreadful disease at that time. 'Course, everybody in the family were supposed to be inoculated or something, or tested all the time to see that we're not getting it. I remember I was tested every year to see if I got TB, but nobody in the family got it. She was the only one, and she was confined to a hospital in Riverton.

AI: And where was that, Riverton?

PB: That's... well, it's now, I think, in the (Riverton), under Tukwila now. But there's a little hospital there. At that time it was known as a hospital for TB. Either there or... what was the name of that one in Seattle?

AI: Oh, there was another one, Fircrest.

PB: Fircrest, yes. I think that was, was that the big one?

AI: Right. So, so Nellie was, was quite ill for a while.

PB: Yes. But she was engaged to, she became engaged to this fellow, I think while she was working in the restaurant. Anyhow, she wanted to, he lived in Idaho, and she wanted to go to Idaho, so she wanted me to go with her. I did anything she said, because she was Neisan, so, you know, whatever she said, or whatever she did was okay by me. We were very close, she was two years older than me, but we were very close.

AI: Well, and for people who don't understand what Neisan means, maybe you could explain a little bit, especially in those days, the relationship and what that meant, the older sister.

PB: Well, Neisan, the older sister, the first-born, was a leader, and whatever she said was -- other than your parents -- Neisan was the one that led. She was a leader, and you were supposed to do what she told you to do, and then the next one would be the first boy in the family, who was usually the pet. And anything that the boy did was okay, too, because he was the pet of the family. So whatever my older sister said, why, I figured, well, that's gospel, that I could do whatever she said.

AI: So in other words, next to your parents' authority, her authority came next in the family.

PB: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.