<Begin Segment 22>

[This transcript has been extensively edited by the narrator.]

SY: And then by the time you graduated, were you planning to move back to Highland Park?

GN: Well, the day after I graduated -- I graduated on a Sunday -- and on Monday I got a job in Pasadena. I was one of the first Japanese Americans to be credentialed in California.

SY: Credentialed teacher?

GN: Credentialed teacher.

SY: So you got your teaching credential...

GN: I got my teaching credential.

SY: ...when you graduated from the University of Redlands.

GN: Yes, the next day I started teaching.

SY: And you had no trouble getting that job?

GN: Well, the person that hired me was a very courageous man. He looked at my character and looked at my references, and his name was Ray Hayworth. Wonderful, wonderful man. Always open, listening to ideas.

SY: Was there a reason Pasadena was chosen? Or they chose you or you chose them?

GN: Well, there was an opening and I applied there. I don't know whether it would have been so easy elsewhere, but I applied there and he was willing to accept me as a teacher. But it was in a segregated school. It was to my advantage in many ways because it was very small. It was my first teaching job and I had less than sixteen students and there were only four teachers in the school. All of them very, very welcoming. They were all much older than I am, three of them have passed away, but one of them is still living. She's older than I am. She's pushing ninety now, but she lives in (Yakima, Washington).

SY: Out of the state?

GN: She lives in the state of Washington.

SY: So where you were... it was segregated?

GN: It was interesting. I think maybe it was segregated because of the neighborhood, but there was a pocket of Mexican Americans, and there was Foothill Boulevard, and it was demographically interesting). As a person with a sociology background, it was very interesting to me. Because on (the south side of Foothill Boulevard) lived all the all the Catholics and the Catholic church. North (of Foothill Boulevard) they were all Protestants and the Protestant Church. But somehow this community, both communities came together and went to this little school. The custodian, Mr. Woodworth, was just like a member of our family and just like a member of their families.

SY: So it was segregated geographically, (it) was all Caucasian or all black?

GN: No, it was all Hispanic.

SY: All Hispanic?

GN: All Hispanic.

SY: Except for the teachers who were not.

GN: The teachers were not. Irving Garrison, he had been a conscientious objector, he was very active in the Methodist church. A wonderful, wonderful human being.

SY: And he was the one that hired you?

GN: No, he was kind of the assistant principal and he was the teacher of the (fifth and) sixth grades. I taught third and fourth. There was an opening for third and fourth. The kids had had a very experienced teacher before me, a wonderful master teacher. And then I had a rough year that first year because I was so stupid. [Laughs] And then they had (a kindergarten teacher and) her name was (Ellaree) Hansen, and Sally Horn, she taught first and second, but they were very wise. They were all excellent pro teachers.

SY: And how long were you at this school?

GN: I was at that school for two or three years, and we had a really fantastic superintendent that came, Willard Gosland of Peabody College in St. Louis. He was a humanitarian. He came into my classroom and I had an old wicker rocking chair, and he said, "This is a good thing. May I sit in this?" So he sat in the rocking chair. Teachers always like to sit in that rocking chair. And he said, "More learning could go on in your class." And I said, "Tell me how." He said, "See that little girl over there? She's very uncomfortable. Her feet do not touch the floor." He said, "If you could go get some boxes, it's all you need." You couldn't lower the table any more. Because I had double grades and I had some big kids and I had some little kids, third and fourth graders. And he said, "Just go get some cardboard boxes, put (one) there so she has some place to rest her feet, and she'll be much more comfortable." And so I did that, it made the world of difference. The kids liked it.

SY: So why was it that you decided to leave that school?

GN: I stayed at that school.

SY: You said a few years.

GN: Because they closed that school, mainly because it was segregated by the neighborhood, but they didn't want it to be that way. They were moving towards desegregation anyway, and they built a beautiful new school up in the Hastings Ranch. And they wanted the teachers that these children knew and the families knew and trusted us. They had a very active PTA and everything and we had leadership there and we wanted them to feel that they could (participate fully). But here were these homes that were really ritzy homes, upper Hastings Ranch, up above Foothill Boulevard.

SY: So you ended up staying in the Pasadena area.

GN: So I moved up with them and I continued to teach. Then they had a second grade opening, so then I taught second grade there.

SY: So you stayed in the primary grade levels until you...

GN: Until I got too pregnant with Linda. Then my principal, Ray Hayworth, said, "Grace, I'm not sure that I could deliver a baby. Maybe you better take a leave of absence until after the baby comes." So anyway, I took a leave of absence and I had Linda. Then I decided that I would stay home with her, so I didn't teach anymore.

SY: You retired for a while.

GN: I retired for quite some time, actually. Then I became involved in the PTA and all that kind of business with Linda, nursery school, and I became more involved with the religious education at our church.

SY: When did you restart your interest in art?

GN: When Linda was born we lived in South (Pasadena). Before Linda was born, when we got married, Yosh had the GI Bill, and so we built a little house in South Pasadena in the Monterey Hills. But then we had to sell it because we didn't have enough money (to build another house when he got a job). Yosh went to place after place and he was the best qualified candidate but they wouldn't hire him because he was Japanese. I said, "Yosh, Herbert Winnerberg who's superintendent in the Whittier Union High School District is on the board at the University of Redlands. He gave me my diploma. Why don't you go try Whittier Union High School District?" He had tried in Bellflower and they said, "You are the best qualified and we really want you, but there's board members (here) that do not want us to hire Japanese."

SY: So that's how you ended up in Whittier, your family?

GN: And Herbert Winnerberg hired him.

SY: And you moved to Whittier then?

GN: We moved to Whittier and sold that house, and we bought property for this house. Yosh and I did a lot of the work on (building) the house.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.