<Begin Segment 5>

FS: Well, you were asking me about Aki. It came to the place where we thought, or we knew, that she had to go also. So I sent her to a Quaker college in Wichita, Kansas, called Friend's University, where my wife had been a student, where I met my wife, Ruth, and where one of her sisters was a registrar. And she lived with Ruth's family, my wife's family, for a year there. And then... I can't trust my memory on dates, but anyway she came back from the freshman year in Wichita to the University, and stayed through her master's degree at the University. And while she was teaching she got this job at... elementary school, Laurelhurst Elementary. While she was teaching then she was working toward a doctorate in physics. The woman who could teach peace, international relations, love, understanding, could also teach doctoral degree candidates. The Seattle Times published a list one time of the ten most influential people in Seattle. There were only three women on the list. One was Kay Bullitt, who owns the Times. I think the other was Dr. Rice, Mayor Rice's wife is Ph.D., and Aki. The three most influential women in -- most influential people, not women, influential people in Seattle. Well, Saturday night we met quite a few of those people. There were some of her students, had been students, or the parents of many students. I think... I'm not sure of this, but she thought that Bill Gates had at one time been her student, but he wasn't at the gathering on Saturday evening.

I was with Aki the night she died. I went to call on her and I was told that she was very low, and perhaps incoherent, irrational. She was in a hospital bed in her home, in the living room of her home. I don't think she recognized me at any time. I held her hand. She may have. She didn't try to speak. She was restless, but not apparently in pain. She was being -- there was a nurse in attendance -- she was being sedated -- I don't know, morphine or something -- by a nurse. And she died quietly. And I think probably, although she was beyond thinking herself, that she felt it was a release, it was time to go.

EG: She was someone very, very special to you through your whole life. The first time I met you, you were talking about her and were concerned about her health. At that time the problem was already underway.

FS: I don't hear you.

EG: Yeah, at the time that we first met, you talked about her and were concerned about her because her health was already failing. So she's an important part of your life for many, many, years.

[Interruption]

EG: Matt is interested in knowing, when you saw Aki on her last day, if you said anything to her at that time.

FS: No.

EG: No, 'cause she couldn't speak.

FS: All I remember saying, over and over again, "We love you, we love you."

EG: I know that's important to you. I know she's a big loss to you. I'm sorry. My condolences.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.