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PW: At that time, it was just your mom, dad, you and your sister, correct?

EH: In the beginning, yes. But it seemed like about every one or two years, we would move to a new house or a new family and live with them, so there were quite a few that I remember. Another family, or another group that was, his name was Wyman, Professor Wyman, was also a professor at Harvard, and he had just lost his wife. So he needed someone to help cook at his house. And so that's, my mother became the cook. So we lived there for a couple years. What was interesting was Mr. Wyman had served in India for a while as a professor, and he got to like Indian food, especially curry. So my mother had to learn how to make curry. So even to this... when we were growing up, she would make curry for us, and I thought that was interesting. But then Mr. Wyman, his wife passed away, but he got remarried. So then he didn't need us, so then we moved on to another house. But after a couple years, he got divorced so we went back to his house. But this time he was living at a different place with a relative of his, their last name was Forbes, and they had a three-story house. And so the third story was for Mr. Wyman and then us. So Mr. Wyman had a bedroom and then we had a couple of bedrooms. And then on the second floor was another family that was working for the Forbes's, and then on the first floor was where the Forbes's lived. It was a huge house. And the Forbes's were descendants of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was kind of famous. And they had (five) kids and a very large area in the suburbs. They lived in the town called Milton, but I remember we lived there for quite a while, so that was very nice. And the unusual thing about them, the Forbes's were both medical doctors, the husband and the wife. But the family also had an island in Cape Cod right near Martha's Vineyard, that famous area, but they had their own island for their family. And we got to spend one summer out there. The unusual thing about that was there was no cars on that island, and there was only horse and buggy. So everybody had a horse and a carriage, and each family had their own house. So we got to spend one summer out there, I still remember that. In all, I think I've lived, in my life, I've lived in ten states in the U.S., and most of them were in that northeast New England area.

PW: So throughout this time, your dad is still at the seminary?

EH: Yes.

PW: Did he also have to work in addition to going to school?

EH: Yes. Usually what would happen is, well, he would get part-time jobs even during the week. But in the summertime, he would take a job with another family, and so we would go to live with that family, and so we met other families as well. And he would either work as a domestic, a butler, or as a gardener, and then my mother would help with the cooking or the families. One of the wealthy families that I remember is they had a three-story house. And the thing I remember about that house was they had an elevator and I had never seen an elevator in a family home. But then we lived... they had a, I think a four- or five-car garage. But above the garage, there was two or three apartments. So we lived in one of the apartments, and then there was two Black ladies that were the cooks, and they had another apartment. They had another apartment. And that was interesting. And then another family, they had a home in Maine, in a town called Lubec, Maine, which was the most northern town in the United States, because it was right on the Canada border. Because across the border was the home of Roosevelt, President Roosevelt, he had a home there. So we lived with that family, and he was a former ambassador to (Spain). And so we spent one summer there. And what I remember about that place was Maine, in that year, Maine had decided that they were going to ban firecrackers after that year, so that was the last year that you could have firecrackers. So all the kids went crazy, and I still remember doing that. Because the next year they were going to ban it and you couldn't have many more. You want any more stories?

PW: Of course. I love stories.

EH: Okay. Another summer we went to Connecticut with this family called, it was Norman Cousins, who was editor of the Saturday Evening Review, which was a famous magazine at that time. And he worked in New York City, but his house was in Connecticut. And he had a nice house, and he played tennis, and my dad played tennis, so they used to play. And one time, my dad got to play with a famous pro, Pancho Gonzales, which was, he was very excited about that. One weekend, Mr. Cousins had a manuscript that he needed to get back to New York City, so he asked me to take it down there. So I got to go on the train, there was a train from Connecticut to New York City, so I had to take that. So there was going to be a guy at the station with a flower on his head or something that was going to pick it up from... so I was only probably twelve or thirteen years old, but I was kind of excited to go on the train. But I went down there, found the guy, and got back on the next train going home.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.