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AI: Today is September 17, 2004, we're continuing our interview with Peggie Bain. And Peggie, yesterday when we ended our session, you were talking about life in Chicago, and I was wondering if you would tell about some of your experiences with your family members. I understand that at times, you would babysit for your sister, and her two boys. And I understand you had some experiences with them.

PB: Well, my sister and her husband were separated, and so this was a day that it was her husband's turn to come and have the children for the day. So he came over and my sister had gone with her girlfriends to take in a movie further south. So she had already left, taken the streetcar. And then Dick came, and he said, "I'm going out and get some ice cream for the children, so will you watch the children while I'm gone?" So I was watching the children; of course, I was not used to having small children around, and before I realized it, David had gone up to the second floor of the apartment building. And he was coming back down, and you know how they come down backwards, and he went through the opening and he fell, and (...) hit his elbow and broke his arm. If it had hit his head, he would have been killed. By that time, Dick came back and oh, he was just frantic, because he said, "My wife's gonna kill me for this." Well, it wasn't his fault, actually, I should have been watching the children. But anyhow, he picked David up and ran out to the street trying to hail a cab to take us to the doctor. And he couldn't stop any of the taxicabs, they were either going the wrong way or they had passengers and wouldn't stop. So he was standing in the middle of the street, waving his arms, "I'll pay you, I'll pay you. Help me, help me," and nobody would stop. Finally, Japanese people came along in the car, they stopped and they said, "Well, we'll take you," and they took us to the hospital right away.

In the meantime, I'm trying to hail my sister, stop her before she got too far. But I looked down the street, the streetcar was already a block down the street, there was no way I could stop her. So we left a message at the theater for her to come back. So she did come right back, but in the meantime, Dick says, "We got to take him to the doctor" -- that was before the car came along to take us to the hospital. So we ran down the street, 'cause I saw a doctor's sign about a block away. So first he carried David down there, and he ran up the stairs and had the doctor check him out. And the doctor said, "Oh, you gotta take him to the hospital." So that's when he went back down and tried to stop any car that would come along. But when we got to the hospital, his arm had started to swell, so the doctor said can't do anything until his swelling went down a little. But in the meantime, my sister came back and we went back and took some of his toys and things. He was very brave about it, but here I, I didn't notice. I was in my slippers and apron on -- [laughs] -- running around. We were all so excited that I didn't realize that I wasn't even dressed properly.

AI: Oh, what an experience.

PB: Yes, it was real frightening because we didn't... 'course, David was just learning to walk, and two little boys are a handful to watch, really.

AI: So did his arm heal up all right?

PB: Yes, but he was in a body cast. So he was just kind of learning to walk, so he walked sideways because of the weight of the cast. And for a long time after the cast was removed, his method was walking like a crab. We used to tease him because he walked sideways. [Laughs]

AI: Oh, what an experience.

<End Segment 52> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.