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DA: Yeah. And then Tom got sick. He, he and his grandson, her youngest son, put up a... what do you call it, a fence, around our property, around property. And when they got to this property here, there was people living there, and they used to cross our property to get into their property. Well, when he came to put up the fence there, it extended into their property, but he wasn't gonna put a fence to lock them out. Because he couldn't do that, they had the right of way. Then the mad came out, and I guess he just, he had been drinking. He just told Tom, you know, "That's my property. That's my property." And Tom tried to talk to him. He said he wasn't gonna close it. All he was doing was just putting a fence around. And I guess it wore on Tom's mind, so that he had a heart attack. He had one, he went to the hospital, he came out. He had another one, he went back in, but he wouldn't go back. And then he got sicker and sicker until finally... that's about thirteen years ago, yeah.

So in the meantime, the children... I'm telling you, I don't know how they ever went to college, because we didn't have money. The first one that left was Tom. He told me one day, he came home, he said... there were, that he was picked to try for admission for the military academy at West Point. And I saw a movie when I was a teenager about West Point, and I thought, oh, if I ever had a boy and I was rich, I'll send him there. But this turned out, so he went for tests, and another boy got it. So he came home. So he went to college for a year, Olympic College. And while he was there... he went because he was a good basketball player, you know, sports. So he went to Olympic College, spent a year there, and then he worked in the shipyard a little bit. And he said, "I'm gonna try again," so he tried and he passed. And I thought, "What have I done?" So he, he passed, and so, I think it was Thomas Pelly, he used to have, what do you call it, way down on the end of the island, a home, was the one that sent him. So he went and he went for four years and graduated. Myself and my youngest daughter went to his graduation. The first time on a plane yet, and we went there, and it was beautiful. Thousands and thousands of young men all in uniform on graduation day, see them marching out of the dorm. And all you could see was white uniforms, and then they got their graduation. I forget who was the Vice President who was giving out the diplomas.

And then this one left home [gestures to daughter in room]. And she, you know, we didn't know what she, how she was gonna get through. But she went to work in Bremerton, and she worked and worked and she went to school in Olympic College. From there she went to Western? [Looks at daughter] No, Evergreen. She went to Evergreen where she got her teaching degree. That's number two.

And then the number three, he went to Olympic College, to University of Washington, and from there he went down to California and he went to San Francisco University, Catholic University down there. And he went there and that's where he got his degree. He went to work for this company, I don't know the name of it. I feel so ashamed 'cause I don't even know the name of it, but he worked there and he retired from there. He's retired, he lives in Seabeck, but he still has his small office, his own business. Now that was those, those three. How they got through, I don't know.

And then came the next two. This boy here was different from them. He had a brain. The day... he was born in the clinic in Winslow, and from there they took us down to Lynwood to a home they had down there, and they took us in an ambulance. While we were in the ambulance, a man and his wife, the wife was holding him. She told her husband, she said, "Look at this baby. He's lookin' all around, you know." Just as if he were a month old or something. So we stayed there for a few days, then we came home. Then they started school, he started school.

He was four years ahead of the other one, before she was born, and she was born by caesarean. And Doctor Wilt -- I guess you know Doctor Wilt? I told him, "I want a girl." So when we went to the hospital, after the surgery, he came and he handed me, he said, "Here's your girl." So those two are different from these three. I don't know why. It seemed like I had two different children. The girl linked with the boy, you know, she'd follow him and she'd listen to everything he said. So when they graduated from high school -- they graduated with honors and scholarship -- went to Seattle University. And from Seattle University, the first one graduated with the highest engineering degree. Four years later, he told his sister, "Now, I want you to come to Seattle University, but you have to study math really good." Sure enough, she went to Seattle University, she graduated with the highest honors. She was the top student. He was the top student in engineering. And now the boy is one of the... he's an electric, electrical engineer and she's a civil engineer. And he works on planes, those big, what is it, 737, or something like that, at Boeing. And she worked for the Port of Seattle on the waterfront, she commutes to SeaTac. She's working on the third runway at SeaTac. I don't know how they did it, honest to God, I don't know how they did it. So I always tell them, "Oh, your poor mother. Just an eighth grader."

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.