<Begin Segment 21>

TI: So let's go, so after you finish high school, what happened next?

ST: Well, I wanted to go to college, of course. I'd never not thought I wasn't going to college. My father had always said, "You're going to college." Well, my sister worked at a college. And so she said, "Well, why don't you take the entrance exam?" We had recruiters come to the school, and they would always invite me because I was one of the few minorities, and they were always anxious to see us. So I would go to the interviews, and they were always interesting. They would be very encouraging, but I knew the realities of the whole thing was we didn't have money. I had to go to a school where I could commute. And so my sister said, "Well, take the entrance exam, 'cause they offer twenty freshmen scholarships." So I took the exam. Well, I got one of the twenty scholarships, so I entered as a scholarship student. So that helped me very much. And then when I went to school, her boss was the comptroller for the school, and so he made sure I had a job at school. So I had enough money to pay for the bus fare and things of that sort. In fact, he said, I remember, the salary paid for your job was according to not the quality of the work you did, but your year in school. It didn't matter what you did. If you were a freshman, you were paid so much an hour, if you were a sophomore you paid a little, nickel more. That was the way you were paid at school. But he said, "That's not fair." He says, "You need more than that," so he paid, he made sure I was, I got a higher salary. So they just took care of you. And then he decided that they were going to have a, print their own material there. So he bought a printing machine, sort of, it was an offset printer. And so he said, "Now, you're gonna have to learn how to run this so we can, you know, you can run this and be the printer." And so I said, "Okay," so I learned how to run this offset printer. And so then that meant that I ran all the tests for the professors. I didn't run my own tests, but I ran everybody else's tests, and I ran the booklets and the registration cards and some things of that sort. And that was skilled labor, he said, so I always got more pay for that. And then he made sure that I had a job in the summertime. I worked at the school; I worked in one of the offices.

TI: So Lewis and Clark has been really good for you.

ST: Yes. They were a Presbyterian-related school. And Dr. Odell was the president of the school at that time, and when I was finishing up my freshman year, he said to me, "Do you have a job? Have you found a job?" And I said, "No, I really haven't." Actually, I had two jobs, come to think of it. But anyway, I said, "No, I don't have a job." And he said, "Oh, just a minute. I'll make a phone call." And I had a job. One of the directors or the supporters of the school had a company, and he spent his summers in Portland, so as long as he was at the main office, he said, "You have a job." So, and I got a very nice salary. I was a terrible typist, but I had a job.

TI: During this time when they really, it sounds like, went out of their way to help you, did the fact that you, your sister and your father were in the camp ever come up? Did they ever talk about that or mention that?

ST: Well, you know, we talked about it somewhat, and I used to, in English class, what we called English class, you had to make little speeches, you know. And so I always used to try to bring up something of that in my presentation. But I found out that quite a few of the kids knew about this, that the ones who had friends who were in Portland schools had heard about it, and they had, some of them never had. And I think some of them really could hardly believe it. And then, of course, at that time, you didn't want to make it sound out terrible. You really kind of made a joke of the whole thing. And, but there were times that they would ask, but they would shake their heads. I think maybe they thought it was painful, too. But I think my sister talked to her boss, they were very close, and the families were very close. And so, you know, she worked there for so long, and everybody, it was just like family.

TI: I'm curious, going back to your sister, so she helped establish the family back in Portland, encouraged you to go to Lewis and Clark. Did she ever go on and get her college?

ST: No, and this is the sad part. Because, see, Dad always said, he told her when she was in high school, "Take the college prep course," and she did. And she was able to get out in three and a half years. But before this happened, his partners had older children, and they had sent their oldest son -- the girls, of course, didn't get to go -- but they sent their oldest son to school. And they were well-to-do, so he had his car, and he had an allowance, a monthly allowance, and he lived at the university. But my dad said, "Well, I can't do that for you," he said, "but I think I have enough money to send you away to school for a year," he said, "so you can some taste of it, some idea." But he said, "I think we can do that and maybe if you can find a part-time job when you're at school, we can, I think we can make a year." Well, then when the war came along, that was the end of that. So she missed out on everything. However, I know that other people in Seattle, for instance, they went to Wazzu and then that way they didn't have to go to camp.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.