<Begin Segment 22>

DG: Let me list some community organizations and maybe you can tell me about your involvement, because after that you began to become involved with the community agencies and activities, right?

NS: Uh-huh.

DG: So we're talking about 1950 now. Is that right?

NS: (Yes).

DG: Okay. Well, so in your list, resume kind of list here, you have "Seattle Family Society".

NS: Yes. I was always interested in that because they were interested in helping families that might have problems, adjustment problems, and so forth. So I spent time with them.

DG: "Seattle Creative Activities Center."

NS: Yes. That was a fun organization of an outgrowth of YWCA, I think; a group of young mothers that had young children about the same age and wanted to have some creative children's activities. And we would meet at the YWCA and do things together.

DG: Now, what kind of creative...

NS: Like the children having -- letting them draw or play together and do something.

DG: You didn't think they got enough in the schools?

NS: Well, they were too young for the schools. They were nursery age.

DG: Okay. Let's see. You were board member of "Children's Home Society of Washington."

NS: Yes. That was a -- Children's Home was one with unwed mothers and children who were abandoned or had no place to go. There was a home, I believe, that these children were taken to and cared for, and I was on their board for a while.

DG: Now, when you joined these boards, did it make a difference that you were Japanese?

NS: No. Partly I think they included me because I was Japanese. But once I was there, it was just like any other board.

DG: Did you pay any special attention to needs in the Japanese community?

NS: No, not especially; not unless it was involved in some way.

DG: The "White House Conference on Children and Youth."

NS: Uh-huh. Well, I was on the Children's board at that time and also on the PTA, I think. And there was an invitation to go to the White House Conference. I was one of the... I think there were so many from the state, and I think I went as a delegate from the state.

DG: So then that was your PTA involvement?

NS: I think so.

DG: Can you tell me how you got involved with the PTA?

NS: Well, the PTA -- my children were in public school and I became president of some of the school PTAs. That way I got involved with the Seattle council and served a term there until I was vice president, I think -- the state organization.

DG: And then you went to the national.

NS: Yes, and I went to several state organization and some of the PTAs around in the district and also to the national PTA meeting.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.