<Begin Segment 17>

SY: So how did you like that job? Was it...

YY: It was okay. It was, I ate at the hospital.

SY: You didn't have to eat at the mess hall. How did that, how were you, did they have a special...

YY: They had a special mess hall for the hospital people.

SY: It was like a separate area?

YY: Uh-huh.

SY: So how many people ate in that mess hall?

YY: That, I can't remember.

SY: Was it smaller than the rest?

YY: It was smaller than the other mess halls, yeah.

SY: But the same food?

YY: I'm pretty sure it was. But it depends on the chef, how they cook the food.

SY: So was that considered a perk, that you got to eat at a separate...

YY: Well, that too, and then it's, you can go there practically any time, get something. Whereas the mess hall, it was scheduled, so you go at certain schedule.

SY: So you never, then, ate with your family at all?

YY: No.

SY: So how often did you see them?

YY: Every night, I guess.

SY: But they never knew when you would be coming home?

YY: No.

SY: Did your, was your father working at some point?

YY: He was supposed to have been working. I don't know what he was doing, but they said, he said they first started out as doing health inspections. But what happened to that, I don't know.

SY: But you know that he went somewhere every day?

YY: Yeah, 'cause I don't think he could walk that much.

SY: He was, you remember how old he was by then?

YY: Let's see, must've been in his sixties.

SY: So he didn't want to work in the hospital? Like, because he had the pharmaceutical training too, right?

YY: Yeah, but then there was pharmacists.

SY: Quite a few. And how about your mother, do you, was she...

YY: No, I don't think she ever did work.

SY: But you remember her, you don't remember her being sick?

YY: No, but I remember she was going to the hospital, but she didn't act real sick.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.