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AI: Well, let's back up a little bit and if you could tell me about his illness. How, what, how did it start and what happened?

KM: What was that?

AI: If you could tell me about the beginning of Jack's illness. How it started, and what happened?

KM: Oh. Well we were still in camp twenty-six. He got his job.

AI: And what was that?

KM: They offered a job, $12 and $16 and $19 that was the rate. And then being a carpenter, he liked carpentry work, and some of the barracks weren't quite finished. So he took that $16 a month. And then during the summer you go on a roof, it's pretty hot. That's when he came home, one day, exactly three months to the date that we were married. And then the ice cream came into the camp. So we said, "Oh, we'll go get a pint of ice cream and just cut it in half and we'll celebrate our three month." That's when he started hemorrhaging. And so we called emergency. [Laughs] And then emergency took a long, 'bout an hour or something before they came. And then we got some, I went to the kitchen to get some ice cube to try to stop it. But, and at that time, my mother-in-law came to me and says, "Don't take it bad now." See, I was only married three month, so she was afraid that I'm gonna just leave him. And, especially Japanese, when they detect if it's a TB or not, that was one of the dreaded disease. And then it ruins the whole family lineage. So she kept saying, "Oh, he was probably too hot and got sun stroke on the roof." And so, but I knew in my heart that he had TB. Because I knew when my mother and dad looked into background of his, that his mother died with TB when he was just three years old. And so I thought, "Well, I guess this is sooner than I expected." And that's when I realized, "Boy, I guess now Jack is sick, now I have to earn my own living. Mother was right." I mean it really sinked into me. I thought, "How could they -- ? I mean and I really appreciated that I had something in my hand. And consequently too, while Jack was in the hospital, I, the nurses saw my dresses and wondered where I ordered, in the Montgomery Ward or Sears catalog or what. And so Jack told them that I'm a dressmaker. And said, "Do you think that she'll sew for me?" So I started from sewing for, and they liked the way I sewed and everything, and said, "Can she, can you teach me?" And so that's how I had students in camp too.

AI: Wow. That's amazing.

KM: Yeah, and one of the students, her name was Miiko Taka, and she was a star in that Sayonara with Marlon Brando. So...

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.