<Begin Segment 11>

DM: Did you or your brothers, or your brother and your sisters go to school?

BS: Oh, yes. We, well, my brother was out of school. I think my sisters were also graduate of high school, and I believe they, they volunteered and taught kindergarten or taught the young ones.

DM: So you went to high school then.

BS: Yes, yes.

DM: And what was your school experience like there?

BS: I, I have to say that you have to give our parents a lot of credit, because at least what it did is it kept our mind busy, and it kept our mind busy, and for something to keep us busy instead of just wasting our lives there.

DM: Did you have classes, for example, in U.S. government?

BS: You know, I don't remember that. I have to admit that when I went to school in California, we had, we had an option where we could take eight solids and graduate high school in two years. And so knowing that my father needed help on the farm as soon as I can get out of school, I took eight solid subjects from eight to four at Washington Union High School, when I went to high school in Centerville, California. And so I really had enough credits to graduate high school, even get a diploma. So I did not attend school, but there was an opening, we were, the people in the camp were all mostly from the city, the San Francisco, the Bay Area. And there were very few farm people there. And so they were, the camp officials were recruiting anybody with agricultural experience so that we could start attempting to be self-sufficient and start some farming in that area. So I volunteered and got recruited immediately. And a government agency called the Soil Conservation Service were there and had an office there that I was recruited. And instead of going to school, I went to, I went to work.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright ©2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.