<Begin Segment 18>

MN: So what year did you graduate from Placer Union High School?

MU: That would be, let's see, '47. High school was '47, two years of college back home, '49, one year at Armstrong College, 1950, finished Armstrong the winter semester and we got married in 1951, January.

MN: And how did you meet your future husband?

MU: Marvin, I was going to Armstrong College at that time and there was a Nisei club which I was a member of, at one time president of... it was a small group. There was a Hawaiian club too and so there were many Asians there and there were Chinese students there, too. And for fundraiser we had dances and we had parties, bowling parties, ice skating party, but at one of the occasions it was a dance at the Y, it was near the school which is across the post office. And some of the... I guess one or two fellows who were going to Armstrong knew of or knew Marvin and I think they told Marvin, "There's a girl from your back home going to Armstrong," and he didn't know me. I didn't know he was coming to the dance, but they brought him to the dance and so that's where we met, and it was a dance, so had asked me for a dance. And then in the course of the evening we had refreshments but with everybody, and then he asked me if I had a way home and I said, "Yes, I do have a way home." And that was our beginning.

MN: For some of us who may not know what Armstrong College is, can you tell us what Armstrong College is?

MU: A business college opened by Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong and they were there at that time, the people who opened the college, and their son also was part of the college, a small business college. My sister who had graduated Cal after Marquette, she looked for a business school for me, she graduated Cal and she was working for a East Bay Mud, EB Mud we call it, East Bay Municipal Utility District and so she had a job and she looked for a college in the area. I don't know if my mother asked her to or not so that there will be someone helping me but she found the Armstrong Business School, and so I applied there, transferred my grades and that's where I went to become a secretary, to become a secretary with a little more formal training. I always wanted to be a medical secretary. I thought the medical field was very exciting although at Armstrong College I took legal secretarial shorthand, they didn't have... I wanted a medical shorthand class, it was shorthand those days, the younger people don't know what shorthand is, I'm sure they're not familiar with it, but shorthand we had to take notes. But I did not want to go into the legal... to me legal secretary, much of it might be negative legal cases, something happened, legal case, although legal departments could be a variety of things, but the medical field interested me more. But what actually happened was I became a elementary school secretary, which was fine.

MN: And then prior to going to Armstrong you were in college, was that at Cal?

MU: No, junior high back home. Placer Junior College.

MN: Oh, junior college.

MU: Right next to the high school, a two-year college. And since then they have moved it to Roseville, where Joe Montana trained at the college there. The 49ers trained there I think a couple of years, so that may have put that college on the map. So it left Auburn and they moved it to Roseville, it's a two-year college.

MN: And then you came out to Armstrong College which was in Berkeley and then you met Marvin. Did your mother have any problems that Marvin was not from the same ken as your mother?

MU: As far as my Marvin not being the same ken as my mother, I don't think that was a problem. For one thing, there are very few Shiga-ken around, there are more Hiroshima-ken, what other, Kumamoto, whatever, that was not a problem with her. She would look at the character, she would look at the family background more than the ken, I think.

MN: And then you worked for the school district, Berkeley Unified School District.

MU: Yes, they were giving tests, and at that time we were advised to take as many shorthand tests wherever, typing test, just take the test to get used to test and to know how much you have learned or where you might stand. And so I was taking tests and they were giving these tests for public school secretaries, clerk typists, and so that's what I did. And having, going to school at that time so I did okay on the tests, fortunately.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.