<Begin Segment 17>

SO: So you continued teaching?

LK: Right. And then I taught for eight years and then once we had children, the I told my husband I was not going to work again and that was it. I put myself through school, I helped him go through school, and then the three children. I thought they could do it on their own. And fortunately, I could say it, we did not pay one tuition. I mean, we helped. They all went to the university which I loved. I thought you could get as good an education there as any place. And our oldest son, he became a mechanical engineer, then later on he got his MBA at St. Thomas, our other daughter wanted to be an engineer, but it wasn't for her, but she was still in I.T. -- Institute of Technology, and the quickest way for her to get out was to be a math major. So she became a math major, but it paid of. She worked for Northwest Airlines as a fuel analyst and figured out all their taxes at every airport and we benefitted for eleven years travelling on her passes, it was great. And then she quit, I was so sad. [Laughs] And then our youngest one, Peter, at least one went to St. Paul Campus. He was a graphic designer and he became that and then he worked for Aveda in their art department. But then he got this notion that he wanted to have his own business. And so Lisa Chen and he started a coffee house eighteen years ago and it's still in business and it's become a cafe now. Then he opened up Bev's Wine Bar and then he opened up another bar, Jet Set. So he's having fun. And fortunately I get to help him every Wednesday and Saturday. It's good after I retired.

But to go back, I was out for sixteen years. I didn't teach because I was raising our children, and I volunteered everyplace, in the kitchen. I always wanted to be a librarian, but when I volunteered they used to make me file all the books back and the periodicals. You had to get on the floor filing those books, and I thought, "Oh, Lordy, why am I doing this?" And even if I said I wasn't going to teach again, I belonged to a bridge club, that was my hobby. And they were still teaching and they said, "You're foolish not going back to teaching when your kids are going to start college. You need to help them." So then, since I taught in St. Paul, in 1977, it was easy to get back in. The supervisor was different but I went back and I taught for eighteen more years, can you believe it? It was really fun. When I went back to teaching, it was interesting, the attendance cards didn't change after sixteen years, and the biggest change I saw when we were in Home Ec. we always had to make the coffee for the teacher's meetings, after school and do all the clean-up and all that grungy work. Well, when I went back, here I saw the principal carrying the coffeemaker and he was running down the hall and I thought, "Oh, my goodness, things have changed, things are better." So I enjoyed it. And just personally I think I was a better teacher after I had children, that I sort of understood them more. I don't care if you say you understand, unless you're in this situation, for me, you really can't understand it as well. I think I was a little bit more understanding. If I had a senior and he'd fall asleep in class, and I didn't condone that but I just said to him -- but I understood, our oldest son, they all worked thirty hours a week in the grocery store business, so I can see where you're tired -- but I did say to him, "That's not appropriate. Maybe you should cut down on your hours or you should get to bed early," but I didn't yell and scream at him or anything, just saying wake up. But I just think I understood it better, and I enjoyed it and I would have kept going on but it seemed silly when we had all these passes for traveling when I'm teaching. We might as well enjoy it.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.