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TI: So at this point, the United States is at war, and your father is in the middle of it. But you remained in Sonoma.

MH: Yes, we were in Sonoma.

TI: And how was that? With the war going on, knowing your dad's over there. Was life pretty much the same after that in terms of Sonoma, school...

MH: You see, actually, Dad didn't, Dad came home.

TI: Oh, I didn't know that.

MH: And went to, went to Washington and became, you know, and got on Admiral King's, was on Admiral King's staff, and later became his Chief of Staff, War Plans officer and Chief of Staff. So he was out of the war as far as we were concerned. I mean, he was in Washington, D.C.

TI: And so I'm curious, why do you think they, they called your dad back to Washington, D.C.?

MH: Because of his war plans.

TI: So they felt that he'd be more valuable back in D.C., kind of more strategic planning than...

MH: Oh, he was one of the few war plans officers they had. That was not a field that many of the naval officers went into, I don't think. He was well-known from way back, I think further than Guantanamo as war plans.

TI: And so this was war planning not just for the Pacific, but for the European, the whole war.

MH: Yes, for the whole war, every part of the war.

TI: Did you ever talk to your father about that time and the types of things he did?

MH: He talked to my brother, he never talked to me about any of it. Charlie was, was going to be his successor, you know, the boy of the family.

TI: And so he felt more comfortable or more close to --

MH: Oh, no, no. He was training Charlie in a sense, you know, or at least building him towards becoming a naval officer.

TI: And how did that make you feel, that he would choose your brother with all this information? Did that ever bother you?

MH: I wasn't happy about it. I mean, it was strictly a male thing. He sent, he sent, they sent Charlie to a private school, I think, here in California in order to prepare him more for going into the Naval Academy, an expensive private school. And I was sent to Santa Rosa junior college and told that I wasn't going to go on to college any further. Because, as my father said, the brightest women he knew hadn't gone to college.

TI: And...

MH: That was it.

TI: It seems so unfair in this day, to come across a bright, articulate woman, and to realize that those paths weren't really open to them.

MH: Yes, yes. It was, as I say, this accepting, which I learned early in life. I accepted it, I was very unhappy about it, of course. So I was just staying here at home with no future prospects until he had us come out to China.

TI: Okay, so let's, but you finished the Santa Rosa junior college, and this was June, 1944.

MH: Uh-huh.

TI: And you boarded at Santa Rosa.

MH: Yes, that was nice. That was the second time I was around a group of girls that I got to be very close with and had a very happy time with them, yes.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.