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YB: And he was still offered a very good position in Washington D.C., but at that time our little boy, who was then eight, became very ill, and had headaches. And our very dear friend and classmate of Clarence's, Dave Williams here, who is a lawyer also, attorney, said, "Clarence and Yone, don't worry. We're gonna do everything to get that boy over to the Mayo Clinic. Anything to help him out, and don't you worry about financial problems or anything. We're going to get him there." But Ken just didn't want to go any place; he wanted to return to Seattle. "Daddy and Mommy, I want to get back to Seattle. I don't want to go to Washington D.C.," and he did. He came back here to die, of course. But he lived only three months, and died of a brain tumor which developed into cancer, at the age of nine. And then Clarence took ill. So depressed and down-hearted. And I was feeling the same, then I, all of a sudden it dawned on me, "We both can't go down. Somebody's got to hang in there, and pull one of us out of the pit that we've fallen into." So I had to really snap out of it, and help him because he just kept going down. He was very, very depressed, and very sad. And I felt the same, but I found a way where I came out of it. And his mother managed to get along okay, but she wasn't too well either so I had two sick people on (my) hand.

In the meantime I went to night school at the Broadway night classes, and heard about a very good teacher that taught photo oils. Coloring, they called it tinting. But I eventually learned from another friend how to do heavier oils on photographs for window display, or special orders and wedding pictures. And so I really went into that, and then opened up a shop downtown and had two girls that I trained. So I managed to make a fairly good living until I had two sick people. Clarence's mother got quite ill, and she stayed with us instead of with her daughter. However, Clarence was unable to do -- he had the office and he pretended he was doing legal work, maybe notarizing or talking to friends, but other than that he was really unable to work anymore.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.