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KA: But anyway, eventually, after working for the retirement home with Seattle, somebody told me that there's a job on Mercer Island as a maid, and they would pay more. [Laughs] They offered 125 dollars a month, plus room and board, and they had no children. And it was just cleaning the house. I didn't even have to cook. I don't think I knew how to cook very well, anyway, I was only nineteen.

SP: So this is when you were working for the Stryker family, right?

KA: Hmm?

SP: The Stryker family.

KA: Yes, that was for the Stryker family. They used to have a millinery, a hat shop, right downtown, between Bon and Frederick's.

SP: So it was Mrs. Stryker that actually gave you your name Kay.

KA: Hmm?

SP: It was Mrs. Stryker that actually gave you your name Kay?

KA: Yes, uh-huh.

SP: Can you tell us a little bit about that?

KA: She said, "Would you mind if I called you Kay? Because it's difficult to call you Aiko," you know, to pronounce it or something. And she said, "It would be after my sister who died." And I said, "No, I don't mind you calling me Kay." So she would introduce me to everybody as Kay, and that's how I acquired that name. And I used that as my middle name, but everybody knows me as Kay. 'Cause that was, what, sixty years ago? Over sixty years. And well, so many Niseis have these nicknames. [Laughs] But that's my nickname.

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