<Begin Segment 15>

RP: Let's, let's move on. You graduate high school, and where did you go to high school?

CT: Baldwin Park High School.

RP: Baldwin Park.

CT: Yeah.

RP: And eventually you pursued a nursing career. What made you choose that profession?

CT: Well, I had to work three years to save the money to go to nursing school, and I chose that profession because it was the cheapest education available, not for any, you know...

RP: High moral calling or --

CT: Yeah. No, not for the fact that I want to see world peace, that type of thing. I just liked, I said, gosh, and it was a practical thing with me. I says, nursing is the cheapest education available and that time it was three hundred dollars for three years, room, board and books, okay? And you get your RN degree. It was not LPN or nurse's aide. I wanted the RN because I figure you could use nursing in many different fields, and that's the reason why I chose it.

RP: Now, just to step back just a little bit, you turn eighteen and you're no longer --

CT: On the welfare rolls.

RP: Yeah, your guardian is no longer the state of California. How did that feel?

CT: How did it feel? I felt free, because they were always trying to, well, I remember as a teenager I would get a job as a paperboy, and it was paperboy because I cut my hair and put a baseball hat on and stood in the street and said, "Herald Express and Daily Newspaper." [Laughs] And one of my friends, Dean, told me to do this and I would get paid maybe two cents a thing, so I did it for him and he would pay me. Well, when the welfare department heard that I was, had a paid job they told me that I would have to gather all that money and pay that towards my room and board. I says, "You kidding?" I says, "I want to save for college." So I had to quit that job, then I would get another job washing down showers and I got paid. Welfare people came in and found out about that. They would take the incentive out of anything because I didn't feel that I should have to pay my room and board and get nothing in return, so I says, "Okay, I'm not gonna work." And then I would find work where they couldn't find me. I would find some kind of job, mowing lawns or anything to get some spending money, 'cause I needed spending money. They gave you two dollars a month and I needed spending money because I was about to go into junior high school.

RP: So finally being out from under their thumb was a huge --

CT: Oh, that was a huge relief. Huge relief. And I was no longer, I could no longer be called a welfare child. That was so important to me, more than anything. So I went out and got a job. I first worked for a mimeographer, one of those old fashioned machines, put that ink and all that, and then I went to the Magan Clinic and worked for the file, as a file clerk. And then I, then the nurses, all the girls there encouraged me to go into nursing too, and they gave me a big party and bought a lot of different things for me so that I could have it. They were real nice and have it for my first year of school.

RP: And you, where did you go?

CT: To that (Knapp) College of Nursing in Santa Barbara.

RP: City College?

CT: Yeah, City College affiliated with Cottage Hospital (and Knapp College of Nursing). It was a diploma school, but, but this is how stupid I was. Let's see, I was about twenty when I applied and my grades were terrible in high school, so I competed against a lot of students, but I only filed at one school. Dense. But I wrote a beautiful letter to the dean, and she was a Dutch lady and I told her, I said, "I know I goofed up, but if you're willing to give me this chance I promise you that I will pass and make you proud of me." So I found this out years later, okay? So all six instructors rejected my application, but Miss Heisman, the Director of Nursing Education and Director of Nurses, in those days you were a dictator. This was in 1958. She says, "I overrule you all. I'm letting this child come here." And after, when I found that out years later I wrote to Miss Heisman, told her, "You know, you made a difference in my life accepting me." And I thanked her, I wrote a beautiful letter, and so she was in a retirement home at Boyle Heights. I never did get to visit her, but the director of her retirement home sent me a letter and said that Miss Heisman had died and that she was so proud of that letter she framed it on her wall. She was, and everybody used to call me Miss Heisman's pet because she was just wonderful. Everyone else was scared to death of her, but I wasn't, and you stop being scared. So, but she made a difference in my life and from there I met my Peter.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.