<Begin Segment 23>

AI: So, and now tell me a little bit about your business school experience.

MN: It was uneventful; I had to go every day.

AI: And was this something that you thought would lead to another position?

MN: Yeah, to advance myself so I could find a position, because I needed to work. And then, soon after that, I worked for the Boy Scouts of America, and that was right in the heart of downtown Chicago.

AI: Oh, tell me about that.

MN: It was, it was a good place, and yet, it wasn't a good place because at lunchtime, you went to shopping -- [laughs] -- in the big stores, 'cause all you had to do was cross the street and get there. But people were pretty nice, and we didn't have any difficulty except for this one woman. She worked in the addressograph department, and in those days, they didn't have the computers or anything, and so she had to use this old machine to get addresses and labels made from her old... it was really antique system. And she would never speak to me, and if I had to get her to do something for me, she would just nod, yeah, and was very cool to me. So one day I asked Bernice, a good friend there, I says, "Why is she, Sibyl so cold to me? I didn't do anything to her." And then she told me that her nephew was fighting in the Pacific, and that's why she had no use for me. And I said, "Well, what do you think, where do you think my brother is?" And so she went to tell her that, and then she started to get a little warmer, but she was never a warm... yeah. But that helped when Bernice went to tell her that.

AI: That your brother was also in the service.

MN: Uh-huh, fighting the same war.

AI: So other than that, it sounds like your treatment at the Boy Scouts organization was all right.

MN: Yeah, it was very good. 'Cause I worked for four men, and the man I worked under, he was a real gruff man, and nobody could understand why I got along with him. No problem.

AI: What kind of work did you do there?

MN: I was secretary for the four men.

AI: And then as you were saying, at lunchtime, if you went out shopping, it sounds like even in the downtown stores, that you would be served the same as anyone else.

MN: Uh-huh. We had no problem.

AI: That sounds like that would be quite different than some of the treatment that you might have gotten out on the West Coast.

MN: Right.

AI: Well, so then, about how long did you stay at the Boy Scouts, then?

MN: Maybe about three years.

AI: And during this time, then, in the meantime, your sister Carol left Salt Lake City...

MN: And joined me, and later on, Anne came and joined me. She, she went to beauty school, 'cause she had to make a living and she had just graduated from Hunt High School, and so she went to beauty school and she became a beautician there.

AI: And Hunt High School was, of course, the high school in Minidoka.

MN: Right.

AI: So then after Anne had come out of camp, then your mother stayed in Minidoka?

MN: By herself, with the dog. And then she soon came -- and then I don't know when it was that she joined us, but she joined us.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.