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TI: Well, earlier you mentioned that you were at Lewis & Clark for twelve years. So what happened after twelve years? Why did you leave?

MN: Why? Oh, I left to get married. [Laughs]

TI: So tell me that story. So after twelve years, you found somebody. How did you find someone?

MN: A blind date, so to speak. [Laughs] Well, my friend, my girlfriend called me one day, probably like Monday or Tuesday, and asked me if I was... well, a church friend, too, and wondered if I was free for the weekend or what I was doing. And I said I was free, I wasn't doing anything particularly, so she said, "Well, I have a friend who's bringing his friend for the weekend," and she was wondering if we could do double-dating. So I thought, well, okay. I knew her, so I figured I could trust her. And so that's how we met. So I think we went... I'm trying to figure out if we went bowling or what. But anyway, that's how I met Giro. And then after that, why, I thought he was a very nice man, he seemed very kind and everything, so he used to travel from South Bend down to Portland to see me, and that's quite a distance, you know, two hours' drive or more, hundred and something miles. [Laughs] And so anyway, he finally proposed, and so that was in, like (December). Then the following June I got married.

TI: Now, he lived in South Bend, did you ever visit South Bend before you got married?

MN: I've never been anywhere except to Long Beach to clam one time with our church group, adult group. But no, I didn't know anything about Washington, so to speak, nothing. And so after... oh, I received a letter from him, and it says South Bend on his address. So I figured, I said to myself, "Oh, South Bend, oh, we must be, it must be like the outskirts of Portland," and I figured it must be a small town. So I just left it at that. And so one day my sister and I, oh, we got a car. My sister and I decided that we would buy a car together. So we saved our money and bought our Plymouth, and we decided we'd take a drive out here. And we had, for preparing to go out in those days, we didn't wear jeans and all that kind of thing. Well, anyway, we put on blouse and a skirt, and I had heels on, all that stuff, for a regular casual whatever. So my sister and I took a drive out here, we got out, and Giro was waiting for us at the bridge. He had caught his two steelhead or whatever it was, and he was waiting out there. Anyway, we were driving and driving and driving, and figuring how, he had directions for us, I know it's Johnson's Landing now, but at this fork you turn toward Raymond, South Bend, and it was five miles from that corner. And that's where he was waiting, and we, my sister, we drove in here, and you know, it was, "What? It says South Bend." It's not even in town. [Laughs] And so anyway, here we were in our heels and tromping around here.

TI: So I have to explain a little bit, because where you live, it's very rural. There's nothing around here. I think your closest neighbor is, what? What would be your closest neighbor? It's pretty far away.

MN: Yeah, it was. The Yanas, they were very nice. Well, that's how... anyway, that's what happened, and I remember he took us out to Nahcotta and all the, Long Beach, that way and everything, and here my sister and I are in our heels walking around there.

TI: And most of the people, like, are in jeans and boots and things like that.

MN: No, we just had... yeah, we had our street clothes on.

TI: Now, so I have to ask you, so you grew up in Portland until you were in your thirties, and then did it sort of scare you to think about living in a place like South Bend, which was so not city-like, very rural? Did that kind of worry you?

MN: Well, first of all, I was very thankful that my sister and I had taken driving lessons from the AAA. Our ten, we had ten lessons and no car to practice on, but we made it, my sister and I both got our license. And then, anyway... it was quite a transition. But I couldn't walk anywhere to get my, you couldn't walk anywhere to a grocery store, you had to drive a car. So thankfully, I had a license. But then I had to take a... since it was an Oregon license, I had to take a Washington license, I had to go through that all over again. But the license examiner was very nice, he was very, very nice.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2014 Densho. All Rights Reserved.