<Begin Segment 24>

TL: How did you pursue your own interests when you got into Seattle?

YB: Then when Clarence became ill, the doctor that we went to didn't seem to do any good; and I couldn't afford to be running around looking for another doctor. And he said "Well, why don't you -- " he says, "There isn't much I can do. Go home and try to take care of him." He had extreme high blood pressure, and, "Just stay off of meats or do whatever." And so I went to the health store and checked in on some books, and read them, and asked the health store people a few things. And there would be classes going on that I'd attend.

But in one place, the doctor recommended eating brown rice and fruits three times a day, for a whole week or two. And I thought, "Goodness, it's easy preparing it, but what about the poor person that has to eat it three times a day?" I tried to think of all the different kind of fruits I could give him. And the brown rice is the same brown rice. And he was eating it, he didn't say a word. At the end of the third week, when the doctor -- we went to the doctor, and his blood pressure was down; and the doctor says, "Good. So keep him on the brown rice and fruits." And Clarence came home, and he just sat there and cried like a baby. He says, "Brown rice and fruits, brown rice and fruits, three times a day every day." He says, "How long do I have to?" I cried with him, I felt so sorry for him.

Then I looked farther into it, I could give him fish soup, cook it down, and make a broth out of it. And he wasn't to have salt, so I put lemon juice or vinegar to enhance the flavor a little more; and twisted little lemon peel. And then he would have brown rice with that, and I could put vegetables in it. Or take lean breast of chicken and sliced onion, and put little onion juice, and garlic, and a slice of lemon, and wrap it in foil and pop it in the oven; which wasn't too bad. I had to eat to see what it was like, and think of something that would be interesting to him. And I didn't give him too much red meat; he got chicken, and fish, a lot of fish. You go to fish market and they said, "Here's a big fish head." And Chinese like to make things out of fish head too, so I'd bring that home and stew it down into a soup; and it's very rich. And I had a Caucasian friend, a woman, who would eat, you know... chaga, steamed fish, and she'd go for the head first. And she'd have it lined up like toothpicks eating every bit of it, relishing it. And her husband says, "Claire, please stop eating that fish head." [Laughs] He couldn't stand it, but she loved it.

And so Clarence survived on fish, and vegetables, and fruits, and lived about eighteen years. And when, I was told that he had hardening of the artery. And the doctor, the Japanese doctor that I transferred to, Dr. Ben Uyeno -- and he's always helping at the Keiro and we call him Dr. Ben -- and he said, "Yone, the one thing that I'm worried about is, he (may) have a heart attack one of these days." And that's -- he went in his sleep. When I came he was sleeping already, and he just went in his sleep. So, I found him in bed already gone. And the poodle dog at the foot of his bed chewing on a bone, his pet dog; not aware of the fact that he was gone, 'cause he was a puppy yet. But, he did pretty much what he wanted to do and enjoyed doing, visited all the people down Jackson Street and Chinatown, and the Filipinos, the Chinese, and whoever he knew there knew him. So... it was hard to accept, but I was sort of prepared for it because the doctor had warned me. So I moved immediately out of there. We lived there for his sake 'cause he could walk and go down and visit people (to pass the time).

TL: And where were you living at this time?

YB: We were living in that big white building, which is on Maynard there, the corner of Maynard and Jackson. Rainier Heat and Power Building. Mr. Thumbler says, "Live there as long as you like. We'll fix the rooms up for you." So we had two big spacious rooms, fixed it up. It was very comfortable. And he had an office there all to himself with a big studio window, skylight window, so that he could work on his photography and do everything.

And so right after he died -- remember there was a Takano Studio? I don't know if that far back on Jackson Street, that had photography. A Mr. Miyake owned it, and they (also) had an apartment unit, which is a... what do they call them when you have a front and back entrance through the long row of apartments? And she said, "Yone, please come and live next door to us." She said, "We have a nice apartment vacancy and we don't allow dogs, but you can bring your little poodle dog," which was Clarence's dog. So I moved into the apartment and lived there until I remarried. That was about nine years.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.