<Begin Segment 25>

KP: And one more question. Can I go all the way back to when you lived on the Bissell estate.

MS: Uh-huh, yeah.

KP: Molly was the Bissells' --

MS: Bissell's daughter. Yeah, the young...

KP: What did she die of, did you ever know?

MS: Uh, she, I think she, she went to a summer camp or something. Some kind of a camp I think and she got some kind of a disease, uh, I don't know what she got but she, maybe it was, you know scarlet fever. I don't know what she got, but I know that she died. Uh-huh.

KP: And then the other question I have of about the Bissell ranch and the La Crescenta area, did you ever hear anything about the Hillcrest Sanitarium?

MS: The what?

KP: The Hillcrest Sanitarium. Was that there at that time or was that...

MS: The Hillcrest? Sanitarium?

KP: Sanitarium.

MS: Sanitarium. Yeah, there might have been. You know that area and then also Mount, Olive View, I think too, was a, people with Tuberculosis went. Now, that would make sense. Because that's why Mr. Bissell came out. See he was the only Bissell son that came out west. And, and it's because he had lung problems, something, yeah. Now that would make sense. Was there, had you heard of any there? I think there was.

KP: Well, we've just did an interview with some folks, Japanese Americans, whose two brothers were put in the Hillcrest Sanitarium during internment and died there.

MS: Oh.

KP: So that's where the Japanese with tuberculosis were being sent.

MS: Oh.

RP: There were, what, a hundred and thirty Japanese --

MS: Really?

RP: -- that were sent to Hillcrest during the, during the war.

KP: And that's right up there between La Crescenta and Tujunga.

MS: Yeah. Well, that could be because, like I say, they had, I know people came here for... now, the people that went there that was sent there, now, did they have any diseases, I mean lung, they had lung? Yeah. It was a great place for everybody that had lung problems, I think went around there somewhere.

RP: Yeah, then of course, then, then you have a, you have these sanitariums and then you've got this smog problem, you know, that, even, even people who didn't have lung problems --

MS: It'd get worse now.

RP: -- developed issues, you know, with... so it didn't quite, it wasn't quite the recuperative place later on.

MS: Yeah.

RP: But... I don't know if you mentioned it on the interview, but maybe we can mention it now.

MS: Yeah.

RP: Mr. Bissell...

MS: Yeah.

RP: Who, whose estate you lived on, was an heir to the, was he an heir or was he the guy who actually created... what did he create?

MS: No, no. I think... no, well we didn't talk. I was a little kid. [Laughs] But, no he was, I think he was one of the, I think there were some brothers and then probably the father was the one that started the Bissell, you know, sweeper thing. And, but he was the only one that came west and... so the other, others are east somewhere. [Laughs]

RP: Maybe in New York.

MS: Yeah, probably. Yeah, yeah. Probably.

RP: Do you have any more questions?

KP: Not any more.

RP: Margaret, on behalf of Kirk and myself and the National Park Service, thank you so much for a fascinating interview.

MS: Oh, it's my pleasure, yes.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.