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TI: I should back up a little bit, so not only Broadway High School, but they, your mother attended the University of Washington?

BS: Yes, for a short while. I don't think she ever graduated. I think she got married in, you know, real... she went to Broadway High School, and she would work during the summertime and then save enough money to go to University of Washington, to save enough money for tuition. And she worked in a restaurant in the International District called the Rizal Cafe. I cannot find what side of the, King Street the Rizal Cafe was. My feeling was Rizal Cafe must've been in the Atlas Hotel building.

TI: Oh, so where the old Atlas Cafe or that restaurant was, that corner right there.

BS: That might've been, that might have been it, across the street from Tai Tung. 'Cause the photos that she had would be taken on the corner, of her and this young boxer that she was dating, guy named Sammy Santos. In the background you could see the Milwaukee Hotel. You could see the sign, the Milwaukee Hotel sign. So she'd be in her, she was in her waitress uniform and she'd be arm in arm with this boxer, Sammy Santos. And that had to be about 1928, 1929, and I think they got married soon after that. He was... athletes at that time were pretty popular, and my dad being a boxer was, I hear, quite the ladies' man. He had a crop of cauliflower ears, and that was a status symbol at that time, just like these, some of these fighters that, the cage fighters nowadays. You look at professional boxers today, no one has a cauliflower ear, no one. None of the boxers do, professional boxers. But the cage fighters, the, whatever they are...

TI: Those extreme, yeah.

BS: Extreme, yeah, extreme fighters, they all have cauliflower ears. That's their badge of honor. But back in the old days everybody that fought, wrestled or boxed, had cauliflower ears. I had an uncle named Tommy, my dad's younger brother, who would follow my dad around and he just, he was just enthralled with all the attention that my dad had walking around town, especially with the ladies, would just, wanted his autograph, wanted to date, whatever. So Tommy decided, hell, he'd get himself a pair of cauliflower ears, and so he became a boxer. And we looked up his record, and it was eleven losses. No wins, eleven losses. [Laughs] But he had his crop of cauliflower ears, and he was a very popular guy, not in the community of sports followers, but he was a popular guy in the community and with the ladies, so his goal was reached. So Dad and Mom met, and she was pretty popular. She ran for the queen in the Filipino community. They had the coronation of the queen every year, and she ran as a princess in 1928 for the Seattle title of queen of the Filipino community of Seattle, and we have her photo, her portrait of, in her regalia and all this kind of stuff. And I guess she lost, and Dad said if it was up to him she would've won.

TI: But it sounds like your parents were quite the couple in the community.

BS: Yes. They were.

TI: Your dad was a well-known boxer, and she sounds like quite the beauty, your mother.

BS: Yes. So they got married and started a family almost, soon after they got married. They must've gotten married in 1930, '30 or '31, and their first son, Sammy Junior, was born in 1932, and that's when my dad quit fighting, in that year. I think it was 1932. His last, we have an article about him. I guess he quit for a while. My father had lost eyesight in one of his eyes due to boxing injuries. You know resin that they had on the canvas? Some would fall down and they wouldn't wipe it off, and so the boxers would get the resin in their eyes from the boxing gloves. And so my father, his eyes started to deteriorate, both of 'em, but he lost sight in his left eye, and I think that's when he quit boxing. He couldn't pass the medical exams for the matches, so in 1932 he had four or five fights in Spokane, and soon after that he retired from boxing. And I have an article from those last four, five fights. Someone came up with that article and sent it to me about a year ago, so that was --

TI: And these are written from Spokane?

BS: Written in, from Spokane, yeah.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.