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TI: Well, eventually you were sent to another school.

MB: From camp. My mother had died and my father, in talking with my brother -- my oldest brother was already in the military -- my father decided that it was inappropriate for him to be living with me alone and trying to raise me, and so somehow my brother, even though he was lieutenant for, second lieutenant or whatever, he helped. And of course, they didn't know how poor we were, or they never said anything about scholarships, and so it was nine hundred dollars a year, room and board nine months, and in those days it's a lot of money. And never offered any scholarship, but I remember the principal took me and this German refugee and this black guy to all these Quaker schools, private schools to say, "Yes, I have all these different people," and he's bragging about it, but never gave me any kind of a scholarship. And I went there two years, and the senior year I just felt guilty about my brother having to spend so much money for me, and so I came back to Walnut Grove and went to Courtland High School.

TI: Let's talk about the school you went to, so where was this school located?

MB: Poughkeepsie, New York.

TI: And, and how --

MB: Seventy-five miles north of New York City.

TI: And how did you select this school? I mean, of all the schools that you kind of...

MB: My brother's officer, boss, suggested it. I guess he had gone there, and it was not a real rigid Quaker school. It was a milder, modern type. You know, Quaker schools can be pretty rigid, that old fashioned way, and anyway, he had gone there so he suggested that. I had written to several schools, Wisconsin, Michigan, Massachusetts, but that seemed to be best money wise as well as not being so rigid one way or the other, as a Catholic or other. Some of them are, of course, more grade oriented. I mean, I went to Amache school, which is not the best, and so I more or less had to start all over.

TI: So did you find yourself that you're behind the other students?

MB: I felt, yeah. For one thing, history was not emphasized, U.S. history in camp, and I know that my teacher frequently questioned me about history.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.