<Begin Segment 26>

BH: Now, now going back to you two together, what made you decide to marry him, to drop out of school?

KH: I was ready to transfer back to Seattle, and I was dropping out of St. Catherine's. Then when he said it looked like he was going overseas and he wanted to get married before he went overseas.

BH: And how did you feel about stopping school?

KH: Well, I certainly wasn't studying because he was trying, taking all my time. I think I was ready to flunk out of school. [Laughs]

BH: Okay, so were you not doing so well in school?

KH: I was a chemistry major, and I decided that isn't what I wanted to pursue. I didn't know what I was going to do.

BH: So you married Joe in 1945, moved up to Seattle, is that right?

KH: I moved home because he was sent overseas. And by that time, my folks knew that they could not have me move in with them in the apartment over the bishop's garage, so they, Auntie May was very instrumental in finding the house for them, and they found and bought the house on Eighteenth Avenue.

BH: And then when did you meet back up with Joe? You were in Seattle with your family, Joe was overseas.

KH: I was, and I was pregnant with Gerrie, and I had Gerrie in Seattle, and when Gerrie was ten months old, I was able to join Joe in Japan. And I was in Japan for sixteen months.

BH: Now, when you were pregnant with Gerrie, you knew that Joe wouldn't be there. How did you feel about his absence?

KH: Well, it was kind of funny, because you move into a new house, and then my sister Imelda, Hiroko, got married to Henry, and she got pregnant. And so both of us were staying at Grandma's house, pregnant, and I had Gerrie first. And I remember when Hiroko had Drew, because Henry was overseas in Japan, and I, we had to walk to the hospital. And we would walk so many steps and Hiroko would get a contraction, and we would stop walking, then we would walk some more. I finally got her into the hospital to deliver her baby.

BH: So you had to actually, like, you didn't have any transportation, nothing? You had to walk...

KH: Yeah, well, the hospital is just... but if you were normal, you could walk to the hospital in no less than ten minutes.

BH: Okay.

KH: But then when you're having contractions along the way, it took quite a while.

BH: Slows you down a little bit?

KH: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.