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AI: Well, now, at some point, you mentioned that your husband had been working in a, in a print shop, but that you hadn't been doing that well. And so what happened at that point?

PB: I...

AI: You were living in Seattle for a while, and, and then he left?

PB: Well, the children were sick, and he said he was going out to get medicine. But he was taking a suit of clothes with him; he was taking his good suit with him as he went out the door, and I said, "Why are you taking your suit?" And he said, "Oh, I'm getting these cleaned." But he went out and he didn't, he didn't come back. And he didn't come back the next day or the next day, and I waited and waited and he didn't come back. So I called the print shop to see if he was working, or what happened. They didn't know where he was. And here he had gone to California, and 'course, by that time, I had no way of making ends meet or anything. I was running out of food and everything else, so I guess I wrote to my family and told them that I was stranded, so they immediately came in and picked me up and whatever belongings I had, and they took me home. So I think it was about a month before I really knew what happened. He had gone down there and I didn't know whether he was going to come back or not, so I started divorce proceedings and told him that he didn't have to come back. But he came right back, of course, he came out to the country, and my mother wouldn't even let him in the house. She said, "You're not to see him anymore. You're gonna get rid of him," and that was it. So I think he realized then that I meant business and I filed for divorce. But he was ordered to support the children, but he never did. He just refused to support the children, and, of course, I had him jailed several times, but he got out right away, got bailed out. I was stuck with the two children; he just wouldn't have nothing to do with them. He never gave 'em anything at Christmas, he never came out to see them, nothing. He had absolutely no interest in them; he didn't want them. And certainly his mother didn't want them, and I wouldn't separate the two, no matter what I had to go through.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.