<Begin Segment 4>

TI: So let's talk about school. So how close was the school, what was the school's name, like in elementary first, grammar school? What was that?

RO: Well, they were, every grade was in the main building called Main School. It was up on this hill. It was a big structure. And I went there all through high school.

TI: And so from, like grammar all the way through high school, same building?

RO: Yes. Yes.

TI: And how large was your class, the same people your age? How big was that class?

RO: Not more than a couple dozen, I don't think.

TI: Okay, but it was a full class, so it wasn't like one of these one school classrooms where you had multiple classes.

RO: No.

TI: It was like one class for each one.

RO: Yeah.

TI: And tell me about your class in terms of just the makeup of it in terms of different races. I'm just curious to get a sense of your class.

RO: Well, up to junior high school, Caucasians and a few Japanese.

TI: And then earlier you mentioned how you'd play with the Native kids, so you said your school was white and a few Japanese.

RO: Exactly.

TI: Where, where did the Natives go to school?

RO: They're about, let's see, maybe about four blocks south of Ketchikan and up Dearmount Avenue, they had this special school there for the Native Americans.

TI: And tell me why. Why did they have a separate school for Natives?

RO: I think it was prejudice in those days. I really do. They were good people.

TI: So it was kind of like a segregated school in the same way like the South would have segregated schools for blacks and whites.

RO: Yes. But in junior high school they were allowed to come to the regular school.

TI: So this would be an interesting kind of, I guess, question. So when they got to junior high school, how well was their schooling in comparison to the whites and the Japanese. When, so you came up in the regular school; they had a Native school. When you guys all came together in junior high school, were they, was their schooling as yours, I guess?

RO: I think it was fine.

TI: Okay. Okay, so it was just to keep 'em separate then.

RO: That's the whole thing. But the other thing was when they got out of the high school a lot of them went to Sheldon Jackson. That's in Sitka.

TI: And this is after high school or before high school?

RO: After, usually.

TI: And what, describe what Sheldon Jackson is.

RO: Well, I think it was sort of like a junior college, and my brother actually went there.

TI: And so why did all the Native kids after high school go there? Was there a particular program or something that...

RO: That might've been part of it, but their peers all went there. Some of them came south to, I think there was a (school) in Oregon called Chemawa, but I'm really not familiar with that.

TI: Now where would the whites and the few Japanese, when they graduate from high school, where would they usually go, for college for instance?

RO: South.

TI: So to places like the University of Washington?

RO: Washington, (yes).

TI: Okay, so universities back down in the lower forty-eight.

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