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AI: Well, so then at some point, you moved your mother from there and eventually had her in a different, in a nursing home, Japanese nursing home?

PB: Well, since I promised my father that I would get her out of there, I promised him that I would get Mother out, so I thought my brothers and sisters would help me. But then they all seemed to be too busy; some of 'em were working and everything, and they said I was the only one that had free time, so I was the one that was left to do all the negotiating. And it was hard for me because I didn't know how I was going about doing this, because, 'course, talking to my mother, she, she didn't think there was anything wrong with her, she thought it was everybody else. But anyhow, eventually, there are certain tests that they have to pass, but naturally with my mother unable to understand English that much and everything, they made exceptions, and they said she could come home or be released. So then I got her out, and decided they had a Japanese nursing home which was the Hirabayashi Home, so decided to put her in there. So when she got in there, why, she acted perfectly normal. And only thing is she liked to wander away. She'd go for walks and she always came back, but she'd go, from the Hirabayashi Home, she'd go take a walk up by where the former Broadway High School is, she'd go many blocks away and she walked around. She had an idea that she owned a lot of the buildings around the place, and she'd tell everybody, "Well, this is my house and this is my house." She was just as free as a bird, and she picked flowers -- [laughs] -- out of other people's yards and bring 'em home. She'd help the other patients, she'd help dress them and she was quite happy there.

But eventually, she had a, I guess what you'd call a heart attack, and they wouldn't do anything. The nurse that was there said she couldn't do anything unless she had the permission of the owner. The owner wasn't there, and when we heard that she had a heart attack, naturally all of us went there. My two sisters and I, we, I think we each drove there independently, and we got there and she was having difficulty breathing, so right away I said, "Call 911." 'Cause they wouldn't do it; they said they couldn't do that without the permission of the owner. So anyhow, my sister got on the phone and we called the medics and they came right away, put a oxygen mask on her, and I got in the ambulance and they took her to the hospital. And I guess later on, Mother told us that that was the worst experience; she said, "Why didn't you let me go?" Because she didn't want to go through that again.

AI: So then, for a while then, I understand that she lived with your brother Hank for a while?

PB: Yes, we kind of took turns taking care of her, and somehow Mother always could get out of the house. No matter, they'd lock the doors, but she'd get out. And I think about the only place she couldn't get out of was my place. She didn't know how to get out of my place. But when she was with my brother, she'd get out the door somehow, and she'd go for a walk and she'd go out and there was a railroad track just a short distance from their house. And she'd walk on the railroad tracks, or she'd sit out there. And so, of course, my brother and them were very worried that she's going to get run over by a train someday. So anyhow, we tried bringing her to different places, and she was at my place for a while, she was at my brother's place and my sister's place. We all tried to take care of her, but she got progressively worse, and getting thinner and thinner, and we finally had to put her in the hospital, and I think that she would have died then if we hadn't put her in the hospital. I think she was unconscious most of the time, but eventually she ended up in a nursing home, a Caucasian nursing home. So she wasn't too far from where I lived, so I used to, and I was the only one that more or less free to go every day, so I went to see her every day and I tried to feed her and everything. She was, doctor said she had a heart condition, so she shouldn't get out of bed. But she was very independent; she'd get up and she'd go to the bathroom and everything, but once in a while, she'd get in the bathroom and couldn't get out, and probably mess in the bathroom. I found her one time when I went to see her, she was sitting on the floor, and she was sitting in her own water, and I said, "What in the world are you doing here?" And she said she couldn't get up and nobody would help her. So I volunteered, I said I would take care of her, I would bathe her, but they said, "No, you can't do that. And you can't bring her food and you can't bring her medicine." She had eczema on her legs, and she would scratch until it bled. And I would bring this tiger balm, Chinese tiger balm, and that would help her eczema. She said that was the only thing that would ease the itching, so I would conceal it and I would bring it to her, but then the nurse caught it, caught me one time, and she said if I did that, she would be expelled from the hospital, that I could not bring any kind of medicine. So I had to quit doing that, but she finally passed away in this nursing home.

AI: And, and she also was in her eighties when she passed away.

PB: Yes, she was, I thought she was eighty-four, but according to my sister, she says she was eighty-five. So I'm not sure exactly.

AI: And that was in 1967, I understand.

PB: [Nods]

<End Segment 67> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.