<Begin Segment 11>

MY: [Holding photograph] This is shaped like a big U, starts here in the front, goes up the hill and across again. But the first room was the sick room, then they had the superintendent's office room, then they had the office, then they had the girls' room on the end. And it consisted of like ten beds or twelve beds. The sick room had like about a half a dozen beds, and then from the girls' room it would go up, but they had a big hallway outside the room. The hallway was about as wide as this, maybe seven, eight, feet, and as you go up they had a hallway, you have to go upstairs because it was on a hill so you go to the baby's room next and then next to that they had what they called the second baby's room, and you go up some steps and go down the hall, and the next one they had a boy's room, they had like ten or twelve beds in there. Then they had, one of the otonas, they had a little room there for them. And then you go up a little bit more and then you make a left turn and then they had a hallway and then a dining room. Then the dining room, they had a kitchen next to it, next to the kitchen they had the laundry room way at the end, had two big washing machines, and, well, you can see it's on the end, and then from there on the outside they had clotheslines that we'd hang the clothes on. In fact, when I got older that was my job to do the laundry. Every night I'd go to the laundry room, they'd pick up all the clothes, put it in a sheet, haul it up to the laundry room, I'd separate it the night before. The morning... I guess when I was about sixteen, seventeen, then I couldn't go to chapel service, I had to go to do my laundry. So I would do the laundry for... I'd get up about five-thirty and go up there and I'd do about two or three loads and hang it out, then I'd go eat breakfast, but that was my job.

MN: You did laundry every day?

MY: Yeah, I'd do the laundry every day.

MN: Thank you.

MY: See that building itself was probably like three lots.

[Interruption]

MY: You just take it out of the washing machine, you put it in a wringer and it goes to the next machine, you rinse it out, when it gets through there you put it through a wringer, put it in a basket and take it out and hang it up. They had a clothesline outside there and I used to do the laundry every day for a couple years.

MN: What's a wringer?

MY: What's that?

MN: What's a wringer?

MY: Oh, I guess, yeah, nowadays they don't have it, but you know a washing machine has a tumbler, a big tumbler, and when it gets through, on the side they had a couple of rollers. You put the clothes through the roller and it'd dry it out, take most of the water out, and that would go to the next washing machine, you'd rinse it. And then when you get through rinsing you put it through the wringer again, a couple of rollers, right? And you put it through there and when it gets through there you just take it out and hang it up. But instead of spin dry it was a roller. [Laughs] That's right, today it's a spin dry.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.