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CN: And during this time, my mother was in the hospital. (...) She became ill in early 1942. I was going to say around June. But she was aching, her neck and all. She was holding her neck like this. I remember her walking and my friends and I walking behind her, and you could tell how she was in pain. And so when she was not able to do much, she, it was recommended she have bed rest at home. And a very nice Issei lady, who was a visiting nurse, would come every day to help her. And another Nisei person, who was a nurse's aide, also for a visiting nurse service would come, until the point where they decided that she should be hospitalized. And she was hospitalized during the time that I was working, and I'd go see her. And she was there for six months before she died.

AI: That must have been so difficult.

CN: It was. It was very hard for her, too. She became just skin and bones.

AI: There was nothing that they could do?

CN: Well, they did what they could at the time, and I thought that the doctors there were... found out later they were excellent doctors, but they didn't know all that much about cancer as we do now. And so it was very sad. She was so young. But anyway... she, she died. Which left my sister and father and I. And we had her cremated and brought her ashes home when we came to Seattle. And once we hit Seattle, of course, we were on our own. We stayed at one of the Japanese churches. They turned the churches into hostels. And then from there, my father spent most of his time looking for a place to live. We lived, we got a place to live in through the housing office in Renton, in Renton Highlands.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.