<Begin Segment 4>

BK: The other thing is that, my concept when I went to Molokai, the big thing, and historically, has been the leper colony.

FM: Oh, yeah.

BK: How did that impact, or did it, or... that seemed to be the most, the thing that I remembered is that, looking down as we came down, and the leper colony. How did that interplay with your life?

FM: It didn't bother me at all. But I haven't been down their myself.

BK: You never did?

FM: No. Just from the top of the hill, we look down and see little cars moving around, and all that kind of stuff; but, I never been down there. And I read, I heard stories about Father Damien... and all that stuff, but I never been down there at all.

BK: And was the leper colony there when you were born, and...?

FM: I think so, yeah.

BK: Always there.

TI: Well, that's interesting, I didn't realize this. But what, what -- when you're growing up, what kind of stories did you have about the leper colony? Were people sort of wary or frightened about them, or what kind of thoughts did they have?

FM: Yeah. We were sort of frightened, hoping that they won't come up and touch us or something. We thinking about, you know, they -- no fingers, the fingers rotting away, and hands rotting away, and all that kind of stuff. We heard stories about that. We didn't want to get close to them.

TI: That's interesting.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.