<Begin Segment 18>

AI: Can you tell me how that happened? Because you were in Utah, and you said, then your family got the permission to go back to Seattle, so you came back to Seattle and then how did you start working?

AK: And Reverend Andrews and Floyd Schmoe met us at the train station, we were the first family back. And asked if they could help us and took us to our apartment and then... and so we kept in touch that way. They would ask how they could be of any assistance to us. And then they said -- I said, "Well, I'm looking for a job." And they said, "Well, the Service Committee is looking for a secretary."

AI: American Friends Service Committee?

AK: American Friends Service Committee. And so I went, and Floyd was the one that was looking for a secretary, and so he hired me. [Laughs] And it was wonderful, because it wasn't the typical secretarial position where you sit and take dictation, but you just learn so much. And I learned a lot about what the Service Committee was doing and had done all over the world, you know, as a peace organization. And it just fit right in with a lot of my beliefs. And then when I wanted to continue my education -- and so I was going to the U.W. -- and Floyd said, "How would you like to go to a Quaker college?" And I said, "I'd love to." So I applied for Friends University, and Floyd's wife's family, the Pickerings, lived in Wichita, Kansas, and Ruth's sister was the Dean of Women at the Friends University. So they shipped me over there and I moved in with Ruth's family 'til I moved into the dormitory. So I had that transition period where they really made me feel welcome. And her mother was still living and was really nice.

AI: When was it that you went to Friends University?

AK: That was 1945. After, after I'd worked for him as a secretary, and then I wanted to go to school. So then I went there.

AI: Because you had always wanted to go to college in the first place.

AK: Uh-huh, yes. And it just was a thing, that, I'm going to go eventually. And, and, I'm going to go.

AI: Do you remember any particular highlights of your time at Friends University?

AK: Oh, I just loved it. Everybody was so friendly. And, you know, I'm a very gregarious person, so I just got in there and did all the mischief that all the other girls did, you know. [Laughs] And it was a very conservative school and...

AI: What was the focus of your studies there?

AK: And I always wanted to be a social worker, so I majored in Sociology there. And then I moved back to Seattle. And when I moved back, I went to the U.W., and then I got married.

AI: And that was in 1948, I think you said.

AK: Uh-huh. And all of us got married about the same time, my sister-in-law, my girlfriends, all of us. It seemed like we were getting married one week after another. [Laughs] In fact, Tom Ikeda's aunt and I got married the same year, too. All of us ran around together.

AI: That was a very busy and happy time for all of you.

AK: Yeah. And I'm wondering, "Gee, did we do this just because everybody else was?" [Laughs] But, I was always a happy person. And I've always been fortunate because I've had association with happy people also. People who have a... and it's not to say that I didn't understand some of the ills that were going on in the world.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.