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TI: How desirable were these jobs? Was there a lot of competition? Were a lot of people applying for these jobs?

CH: Yeah. I have a picture in there of a group of San Francisco ladies that... okay. When I first went to San Francisco, I'm a country girl just going into a big city, and I don't know anything. It just seemed like I had a lot of nerve at that time to do those things. First of all, I did go to the YWCA, and the lady there had recommended... see, in those days, the schoolgirls were very popular where you get room and board and be able to go to school, and that's how I went to school, business school. And I was in different... in those days, it's just amazing how I just went with one suitcase, and I didn't like that lady or I didn't like that, and I just put an ad in the paper and answered the ad and move on to another place. And I did that quite a bit.

TI: How did your parents feel about this?

CH: I don't know if they knew have the stuff that I was doing. [Laughs] I never told them.

TI: But for you to go off to the big city...

CH: Well, that's true, they were worried. They did, they knew the Moriyamas, who are, the girl that I knew the parents, they knew the Moriyama... they more or less kind of depended on Moriyamas to let them know if anything, you know, if I would get sick or anything like that. But what we did, we never let people know. I mean, I didn't tell anybody.

TI: Well, did your parents, sort of, at times, try to encourage you to come back to the farm?

CH: No, no.

TI: So they thought this was a good move for you?

CH: Well, I guess they probably thought I was independent. I was independent more or less, and wanted to do what I want to do. Of course, I did go home, take the train home, I think, in particular, if there was an occasion at home that had, family got together or something, I had to get home. Or birthdays and things like that, so I was taking the train home quite often.

TI: How about homesick? Did you ever get homesick when you were in San Francisco?

CH: You know, I don't remember being homesick. I was going... and I'm not the only one. There were two other girlfriends and I, there were three of us, and the other two girls went to San Francisco State, and I went to business college. And that's all we did was talk on the phone. If I didn't like this place, I put an ad in the paper and answered the ad before the parents came home. Like this one place I remember staying, I had to take care -- I had to be home by four o'clock, because four o'clock, the girls, their two girls came home from school, and they wanted somebody to be in the house while they were both working. It was okay except that I was sleeping in the rec. room in the basement, and my study time was just a little bit hard. They'd go out, or they'd have parties or something, and I forever am being, I have to make sure that, I have to be there and help with the serving, and be in the kitchen and wash up. So I got to a point where it was just too much, and I didn't have time to study a lot. So I put an ad in the paper and went on to the next family. [Laughs]

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2015 Densho. All Rights Reserved.