<Begin Segment 22>

BF: So you leave school, you get married, and you're working in your father's shop, you're helping him out.

AS: Yeah, as well as, yeah, and I had another job, I worked at Frederick & Nelson for quite a while, as well as at my father's. And so, and then our first child was born, let's see, in '46, October of '46, so about four-and-a-half years after our marriage. And then the second child came nineteen months later, and I realized that I was not happy. I loved the children and that they were great, but meantime, my husband had gone into business for himself, and so he expected me to help out, and he had a partner, so they couldn't, Art said according to the accountant, they couldn't pay me, which didn't make sense. Anyway, but I was quite annoyed because he hadn't told me he was planning to do this. [Laughs] So... but I did work there. I did work there, and, and then... oh, and then I, I just became, I became pretty depressed at the situation, because I didn't really like what I was doing, the work I was doing, and I didn't think I was being recognized for the work I was doing. [Laughs] So I told my husband, I says, "Now, if you want me to continue working for you" -- by this time, he had bought out his partner, so he was, I said, "Now, if you want me to continue working for you, I want to be vice-president or somebody who has a say in how the business is run. I'm not gonna be a support person. I'm gonna, I want decision-making. I'll do the work I'm doing, but I want to have a say in decisions. And if you don't want that, if you can't accept that, then I'm going to the University of Washington." So he didn't say anything, so, by this time -- I waited until our daughter was six years old, and so she, it would give me a little block of time to go to the university, and then come back in time for the kids. And so it was seven years later I had my -- because I was going part-time, so I... and so I had my bachelor's degree, and so then, and I do the work for a teaching certificate, I really didn't want to be a teacher, but I thought, "Well, gosh, I'm gonna graduate, I might as well do something where I can get a job and get the same hours as our kids have." And so that's how I got into education.

And, and then after... well, then I had this -- I applied for a program that the federal government was... in the War on Poverty, where they were looking for people who could work with young people from sixteen, between sixteen and twenty-one, from different ethnic groups, especially African Americans, others who've been very poor or who had a juvenile or criminal record, and, to work as counselors, and it would be part of the State Employment Service. And so I applied for that and I was accepted. And so that's how I got into the counseling. They had a special program... well, they did this all through the country, but locally, the University of Washington, they had the program, and it was a summer program, very intense, and so then I was, had a job with the, what they called the Youth Opportunity Center. And, and then the federal government said, "Well, all people working as counselors in this program need to have master's degrees." So the government paid for it, and so I was able to go and be a full-time student and get a master's degree in counseling. So that was very nice, and, but I knew... things were changing so rapidly, they had already discontinued the Youth Opportunity Center. It was still, we were still providing counseling, though, for anyone who was disadvantaged background. I mean, same kinds of conditions, but it was not limited to twenty-one. It was all ages. But then they keep, kept cutting back, and I felt they weren't really serious about this War on Poverty. I really wish somebody would do a history on it, because the only program that was good was Head Start, and that's the only thing that still continues, but it should be expanded.

But anyway, so I thought, "Now that I have a master's in counseling, I want to get a job in either a community college or a high school." And, but I had to put in two years. For every year the government paid for my education, I had to put in two years. And so I had completed my master's degree in one year, had gotten some credits from that summer program, and I was carrying eighteen to twenty hours a quarter. [Laughs] Anyway, I survived it. But yeah, so then that's how I...

BF: Became a counselor.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.