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DM: And when you first moved to Seattle initially, what grade school did you attend?

AM: Bailey Gatzert, famous, with Ada Mahon as the principal. And I remember when I first got, I can remember walking from Sixth and Yesler up to, and I think it was Twelfth Avenue, where Bailey Gatzert is now, off of King Street. And I remember walking there, and one of the neighbor boys took me 'cause I could not speak English when I was five years old, to start kindergarten. And I remember his walking me up that hill, sort of following him 'cause he didn't want to walk with me, he walked ahead of me. But he's the one who took me to school, and that's where I got registered for school, at Bailey Gatzert.

DM: You changed schools shortly after that.

AM: Well, I went to Bailey Gatzert, I think, until I was about third grade. I remember that in second grade was when I broke my collar bone. For anyone who knows, Yesler is a hilly street. There was a kind of retaining wall, and I think it's probably the boy who took me to school the first time. Anyway, he challenged me to a "chicken fight" on this retaining wall, and I took him up on it, and I think I was about eight years old. And he knocked me off the wall and I rolled all the way down to the bottom of the hill. And when I got to the bottom, of course, I had broken my left collar bone. And my grandfather came running out and told me it was perfectly fine, "Don't worry, just get up and stop crying." And swung my arm around, and I remember passing out because it was so painful. And my father rescued me and took me to the doctor's after that.

DM: Wow.

AM: So I had a broken collar bone, and I had a cast all summer long. And the mother of the boy was so upset that she, that I was hurt by her own son, so every day she would bring me a cup of ice cream during the summer. I just remember that. And I felt a little guilty at the same time that I was enjoying the ice cream.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright ©2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.