<Begin Segment 33>

TI: Now, how did your life change as Paul became more and more famous for his work?

BH: I was working, so most of the time I didn't know. He stayed home every day and he built a, we built a house finally, and so he had a big studio that he... whole basement was a studio almost. And he painted there all day long. And so when people wanted to buy, why, all these ladies would come. I was working already, and they'd come and they'd buy the painting. And I wonder what the neighbors must have thought. Here he's all alone and all these ladies coming in every day, walking out with a big package. [Laughs]

TI: And during this time, as he sold his paintings, you continued to work at Seafirst.

BH: Oh, I worked there even after. I retired, I think, when I became sixty-two, when a woman can retire. Men can... sixty five or something, I forgot now.

TI: And why did you continue to work?

BH: Well, I was working 'cause I enjoyed it. And the kids were big now, so I didn't have to stay at home all the time. And Paul would be at home painting, and sometimes he'd cook dinner and things like that, and work on the yard. But he liked it. So I'd come home and sometimes I'd see all the windows and the doors all open, and I'd say, "What's going on up here?" He comes up to warm up something that he was gonna have for lunch, he'd forget, he puts it on the... goes downstairs. Says, "I'll be gone a few minutes," so he'd go down. Of course it burns, and I don't know how many stoves we went through. [Laughs] He burned all the elements. It's a wonder we didn't have a fire in the house.

TI: And so how did your life change after you retired? What was your life like?

BH: Oh, easy after that. We did what we want, go places we want. So Paul went to see his mother for the first time when he was... he came when he was fifteen, so he didn't see his mother for a long time. So I think the first trip he went was... let's see, we went together in... I think I went in '58, Paul went when he was, when he became, '60. I think it was something like that. I was still working at the bank, so I didn't go with him, and I still had kids at home. So Paul went by himself to visit his mother after thirty years. He had two sisters and a brother over there. He was gone, he said, "I'll be gone maybe a month or so." Well, he went and he wouldn't come back for three months. He said he liked reliving his old place and all his friends there, his schoolmates were there. Anyway, he had to come home for so many days, otherwise he couldn't come back in again, so he came home. And then the following year, he talked about Japan so much that I said, "Gosh, I'd like to see that Japan." So 1960 I went by myself, because he had to watch the kids then by that time. And I enjoyed it very much, met all my in-laws, Paul's mother was still living then, and his two sisters and a brother, but they were, three of them were born in Wyoming, and they were, after the father died, why, they had to go back to Japan. So the mother and the three kids all went to Japan. So that's the first time I saw all my relatives here, in-laws.

TI: That's a good story.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.