<Begin Segment 21>

TI: And then after you were married, did you have children?

RY: How soon?

TI: Or how many children did you have?

RY: Oh, I got four, two boys and two girls.

TI: Can you tell me their names and the order?

RY: Dale is the oldest, Karen, Clyde, and... [laughs]. God, you give me names like that, things like that so fast, I can't remember. She was just here. [Laughs]

TI: Sorry to put you on the spot like that. [Laughs]

RY: DeAnn. [Laughs]

TI: DeAnn, okay. I know, sometimes this happens when I ask these questions, and people forget at that moment, but it's sometimes the most easy thing for them to remember, and they just can't, they can't pull it out. So you had two boys, two girls, Dale, Karen, Clyde and DeAnn. What, what it like raising four children in Spokane? What was that like?

RY: Oh, I don't know. It wasn't too much for me, my wife did all the work. So like she said, says, "You didn't do anything for the kids," and well, I couldn't play baseball with my boys, 'cause my eyes wouldn't coordinate, and I never played baseball with them. The only thing I did with the boys was judo, naturally. And then my oldest daughter, she took judo for about a year. And then my youngest daughter, my wife took her to dancing schools, and so that's why I didn't have much to do with my kids growing up. Like I say, I would have liked to play ball with them or something like that, but I, my eyes weren't any good.

TI: And currently, where do the four of them live?

RY: Hmm?

TI: Where do they live now, the four, your four children?

RY: Where do they live now? Oh, the oldest one, Dale, he's an actuary, he lives in Chicago. Karen is a veterinarian, she has a shop at Liberty Lake, and my son, Clyde, is, he's got a good job, too, he owns his own job, he does... not actuary, he's a, he's a... that's his work.

TI: Okay, so it looks like a small manufacturing company.

RY: Yeah. Yeah, he worked, he worked for somebody for so many years, and his boss, well, I guess he must have been in good with him from the beginning. He was in, working in Seattle, and he worked with him, and he'd tell me his boss is... well, his boss got three, three businesses, but all three businesses, he told him to come work for him, you know. And then the last business is just the same thing, same company as this, same kind of company as this, so, "You can't, you won't get your, you won't get as much wages as you're getting now, but we'll give you a share in the company." So he went with him to this last company, and he retired, this guy, this guy that, friend of mine retired, and when he retired, my boy says, "I gotta retire, too," 'cause I guess he was getting too much for his share. So anyway, him and his friend started this business about three years ago.

TI: And where does Clyde live now?

RY: Lives at... it's off of the, in Seattle around there...

TI: Okay, Seattle is...

RY: Seattle area, I might as well say.

TI: Okay, and then DeAnn, where does...

RY: DeAnn lives at, in northern Seattle.

TI: So north Seattle. And what does DeAnn do?

RY: Huh?

TI: And what does she do, DeAnn?

RY: DeAnn is a... oh, I know what she does, but... she's a, she runs a battered women's, in Bellevue.

TI: Okay, so a battered women's shelter.

RY: And well, there's Clyde and then DeAnn.

TI: Well, it sounds like all four of your children are doing really well.

RY: Yeah, they're doing better than I am. [Laughs]

TI: That's good.

RY: Better than I ever did.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.