<Begin Segment 8>

BY: So, okay. We got up through high school, so what happened to you after high school?

CH: So I actually went away to drama school, a college in the Midwest that was focused on an excellent theater program. But shortly after that, like two or three months into it, I found out I was pregnant. And so I don't even know, I guess "abortion" was a word, but I don't remember anything like that.

BY: This is in the '60s, late '60s?

CH: The boyfriend in high school, he was a senior when I was a freshman, so he was three years older and then out of high school, and then I was still there. But we still saw each other, so yeah.

BY: And so what happened then?

CH: Life changing.

BY: You dropped out of school?

CH: I dropped out of Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska, in the theater department, and decided he wanted to get married. He met my dad two weeks before we were married.

BY: And this was the first time your dad had heard about the relationship? Wow, okay.

CH: My mom kind of knew, but she kept it secret.

BY: So you got married?

CH: So, yeah, he just showed up at our house one day and my dad answered the door. My dad looked at him said, "Oh, so you're in a hell of a mess." [Laughs] But he didn't reject me. I knew of people, not necessarily Asian, but I knew people whose parents had rejected them for believing in something or something that they did, or an embarrassment to the family. I was very grateful that my dad walked me down the aisle, we had a beautiful wedding, and all of our families came together. And then I left the day after I got married, I left Des Moines.

BY: Wow, okay. So what was your husband's name?

CH: Herb. Herbert Larone Cawthorn.

BY: Okay. And tell me a little bit about his background. Had he also grown up in Des Moines?

CH: He did not grow up solely in Des Moines. He went to grade school in Portland. His mother was one of the first African American librarians, and so her job took her different places. So Des Moines, she was born in Omaha, but then to Portland, then to D.C., so she traveled quite a bit following her job as one of the first Black librarians.

BY: Interesting. And so you dropped out of college, you got married, and then what happened?

CH: Then we came to Portland the next day.

BY: Okay, and why Portland?

CH: Because he had fond memories of grade school, Elliott grade school, and he still had some friends here. My mom didn't feel so bad because it was closer to Hood River where she grew up. So it was kind of like I was going to her home to Iowa.

BY: Did you connect or reconnect with your relatives in Hood River when you moved to Portland?

CH: No, no.

BY: So you kind of knew they were there, but you didn't really...

CH: Yeah.

BY: And how long were you in Portland?

CH: I've been in Portland ever since then. [Laughs]

BY: Oh, so did you stay in Portland?

CH: Well, we stayed for two years and then went to Eugene so my husband could go to college and then he ran a program there, so we lived in Eugene for eight years.

BY: So he went to University of Oregon?

CH: University of Oregon, yeah.

BY: Okay. And then so you're in Portland for a couple years, had a child.

CH: I had one child, I had a child.

BY: Okay, you had a child.

CH: My son, and then I had two more in Eugene.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.