<Begin Segment 35>

KL: So did Toshi and you, who moved into the housing?

AO: No, she didn't, she kept on, and then we wanted to move my mother and everybody to San Francisco so that we could all be together.

KL: Where was your father living?

AO: Oh, he had died by then. He died that first year we were back, in November.

KL: Did he go to the Yamato Hot Springs also?

AO: No, he went directly to the hospital from camp. And so my mother, fortunately, was able to get a ride from Gilroy to San Jose to see him a couple of times before he died.

KL: Did you see him again after Poston?

AO: Toshi and I took a Greyhound bus and rode down to San Jose to see him, and he had just lost so much weight and was so... I guess he was near death then, wasted away. It was a shock. So anyway, we decided that I needed to be able to work and earn money. And my sister found out about this school that trained medical technologists, so I attended the school.

KL: What was the school?

AO: I can't remember the name of it. It was just a small thing, probably wouldn't be accredited now. I know, like I thought, after I... before the semester opened, I thought, well, I'll just go to a school and not be wasting my time. And I applied at this one school, business school, to hone my typing and shorthand skills. And they said, "Oh, you know, we have a lot of GIs coming back in here, so I don't think we could accept you. It might disrupt the school." So then I went to Heald's, they had a lot of GIs coming there, too, but they opened, welcomed me with open arms. And so I attended Heald's for a while until my sister heard about this other school where I could get medical training. And so then I went there and went through that training.

KL: Was that close to El Cerrito, were you living with your...

AO: No, we were in, yeah, it was in San Francisco and I was living with... I guess I was living with the Moores yet. And then so after I graduated there, I went looking for a job, went to all the hospitals, went to St. Mary's hospital, and a Sister interviewed me, and she said, "Well, our secretary" -- because I had all this typing and shorthand skill -- "our secretary is leaving and I'm going to need a secretary. If you'll come in and be our secretary until I can hire somebody else, then I'll move you across the hall into the lab." Okay, sounded good, so that's what I did. Well, I was a secretary one month, two months, three months. And I asked for time off one day so I could go check out an opening for a med tech in, I forget, Madeira or somewhere like that. The next day she put me across the hall in the lab. [Laughs]

KL: Good job.

AO: So things just fall in place like that. So I worked in St. Mary's during the day, seven to three-thirty, and then I took call at Children's Hospital from five. And sometimes it was just five to about nine when I did the pre-ops. And then on weekends I took call, and I stayed there twenty-four hours.

KL: What does "took call" mean?

AO: Oh, if they had an emergency and needed a lab tech, they'd just call me, wake me up, I'm sleeping there in the lab.

KL: What was... can you summarize what a lab tech's job is?

AO: Well, we'd draw blood, do all the blood counts, urine analysis, and the various blood chemistries. And if need be, the stool exams and whatever needs to be done in the lab, in the various tests. So that's what I was doing. And then I found out that Kaiser needed some extra help, so I was taking, when I wasn't doing Children's, I was taking call there. So I was able to work up enough hours to make up the five years of experience you need to be able to take the exam. So I qualified to take the exam, and so I did that. After that exam, I thought, "If I don't pass, I've got to find me another job."

KL: This is it.

AO: But I passed, got my certification, so that's how I made my living.

KL: What year was that that you took the exam?

AO: So that must have been like about... let's see, that was '45. So like about... it was three years, so '45, '46, '47, '48, so yeah. So I must have started working at St. Mary's in '49.

KL: Okay. So you finished education in '48, started working at St. Mary's in '49?

AO: I think that's what it was.

KL: And then took the exam. When did you take the exam?

AO: '52 or '3. So I worked at St. Mary's Hospital. And then the Sisters of Mercy had bought Notre Dame hospital. And so three of us moved over to that lab, and we ran the lab there. And then there really wasn't enough work to keep the three of us busy. So then I found a job downtown San Francisco in a doctor's office.

KL: Was that your whole career, was always laboratory technical stuff?

AO: Yeah, and doing lab work for this doctor.

KL: Did you see any big changes in that field?

AO: Oh, I could not go back, and I wouldn't want to go back. It's no longer... I mean, you just do, put the blood and the stuff in the machines, and the machine does it all. I mean, there's no looking in the microscope and checking for this or that, and it's lost its interest. I wouldn't want to.

KL: When did you stop working in that field?

AO: When did we move? '58.

<End Segment 35> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.