<Begin Segment 9>

BK: So upon your return, then, in 1932, June or thereabouts, so that you can make the graduation, then what did you do after graduation?

SU: Well, as I told you, there's a connection with the Baptist Missionary Training School, because of these two women who influenced my life. And then also, very close friend of mine had, a sister-in-law of the pastor's daughter had gone there, was going there right at that time. She was a senior when I was a freshman. And I wanted to go to the same school. And my mother said, "Okay. As long as you write to me every week." So they sent me there on the train. And, but since I was with this Japanese girl for one year, my mother must have felt that I would behave.

BK: How, was it very unusual at that time to send a daughter off? I mean, number one, to go to college, but number two, to go so far away to college?

SU: In Depression time, too.

BK: Right.

SU: This was right in the Depression. But as I said, whatever I would say, they never, my parents never opposed me. Isn't that something?

BK: That is. That is amazing.

SU: So I'm very grateful to them. And then in my last year, my father died of cancer. So I had to come home, because my mother said, "You've got to start working at the dairy and protect the interests of your brothers." So I started working under my sister. [Adjust collar] Forgot. Closing it up.

BK: Can I go back to the Chicago, the Baptist Missionary Training School? What was your experience there like? Was it a positive one? Did you encounter -- I mean, this is the first time you've been to a really large city on your own, even though you did have friends?

SU: That's right. We were the only Japanese. Of course, my girlfriend left after she graduated. And so I was left, the other years, I was the only Japanese. But thought nothing of it. They were so open-hearted, and in welcoming me, I really loved it. And during the vacation time, I couldn't come home, because it took how many days on the train, that was the only way of transportation. The girls would vie for me, "Come live, stay with us, or come..." So I have a choice of going to various states, and be accepted.

I remember one family, they had a farm at Marengo, Wisconsin. Marengo. Anyway, it was a regular farm where I learned how to eat breakfast, farmer's breakfast. Oh, I thought was so good. I had mashed potatoes and gravy, for morning. [Laughs] Because the menfolks would go out to milk the cows and do their chores, and then they would come back to eat breakfast. And so that's how I learned how to eat biscuits, homemade biscuits and things like that. Another family, one other holiday, lived in southern Illinois. And the mother made all kinds of homemade Christmas candies, and divinity, and things I never knew people could make at home.

And so everywhere I went, they welcomed me with open arms, so I was lucky all my life, where I didn't feel any prejudice. The only time I felt it little bit was, my roommate's brother came into town from Wisconsin, tall fellow, blond. And he took me out to a theater. Of course, we had to travel by the bus. And as we were coming back home, I could see the other passengers looking at us and talking about us. And I felt very, for the first time felt a little bit uneasy. So from then on, I just started dating Japanese boys.

BK: So that was the very first time, though, there was that kind of feeling, then, as far as --

SU: Perhaps. Or else we were curiosities or something. Because Chicago, at that time, had only about 300 Japanese, including babies and grandparents. So it's not like it is now.

BK: Right.

SU: So maybe we were just, aroused their curiosity. Especially when the fellow was tall and blond, and I was so short.

BK: So really, your three and a half years at the Chicago Baptist Missionary School was really a very positive experience?

SU: Oh, yes. I made many, many friends. And we have an alumni chapter now in Seattle. We don't, we didn't have to graduate the same year, just the fact that we went to the same school. And so, which was really good, because in 1960, I was asked to join the board for, executive board for the school. And I served for four years. And we, when I was going to school, it was a undergraduate school. Now it's a graduate school. And moved to Rochester, New York. So I've had that pleasure of going to Chicago, and back to Chicago, and then on to Rochester, New York.

BK: Right. How wonderful.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.