<Begin Segment 18>

EG: Let's go on just very quickly and very briefly and what happened to you after all this. You were describing the limitations of your parents.

PT: Yes.

EG: Now, for you things were more open, weren't they?

PT: Well, somewhat, but then I think I was influenced a great deal by what they would tell me. And so my mother didn't think that I needed to go to college, but I felt that I wanted to go to college.

EG: Why? How, where did you get this motivation?

PT: I always enjoyed studying as I mentioned earlier, and I thought, "Well, even if Mom says I shouldn't go, I still want to go very badly." So after high school, I worked for about two years doing secretarial and typing jobs and earned my tuition to go to college. And I enrolled at the University of Washington. And I got my degree in teaching. So I taught for nine years, and during that time I wanted another side profession, I guess, so I was attending evening classes and attended university classes in the summer months, and I was able to get my master's degree in Library Science. So for nine years, I was a classroom teacher in Business Ed and two years, I was the head librarian at Lincoln High School. And then when I started my family, I retired from teaching.

EG: I would imagine as these things developed, your parents must have been very proud.

PT: My father was very proud of me, but I think my mother had sort of, second thoughts.

EG: Why is that?

PT: She thought that a girl should just get married and have a family, and that there was no need to pursue an education.

EG: Was she working at getting you married?

PT: Well, I don't know if she was or not. I was an only child so I think she wanted to keep me close to her as long as possible. [Laughs]

EG: She wasn't looking for prospects or having her friends look for prospects?

PT: Well, she did, yes. That's another story. [Laughs]

EG: How did you work that out, though, if I may pry a little?

PT: I would just tell her I was not interested.

EG: And how did you finally get married? Without her help?

PT: No, I'm afraid it was with her insistence. Yes.

EG: And the education, she didn't think that was necessary for a girl, but...

PT: No, she didn't, but I don't regret it at all.

EG: You were very American, weren't you?

PT: Yes, I am.

EG: In that way.

PT: Yes.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.