<Begin Segment 18>

MR: How did you meet your husband?

YH: That's such a long story. He knew my brother, younger, Mineo, and they're sort of, bunch of 'em are, pals around, and he came out to our house. And he saw me there, and I think he sort of saw the house. He lived in, grew up in a hotel. I don't mean to be disparaging, but he saw this big house, and he, they had just the one hotel, so he probably thought, "Oh, this isn't bad." [Laughs, coughs] Excuse me. And so he started hanging around and coming around, and then he got an old beat up Model T and he'd take me for rides in that. Then pretty soon he had to take the bus first, so he's staying overnight, and my folks weren't too... they'd wake up in the morning and find him there at the, down in the kitchen and wondering what, where he came from. But my mother and father liked him. My dad like him 'cause he'd drink with him. My mother thought he was okay. She says, "He's harmless." [Laughs] And so we got engaged, engaged a year and then he was finishing school, and then we got married the next year. And then he went to med school, so I was working while he went to med school, and we had a one-room apartment with a pull-down bed up in the, right by med school.

MR: Is that here in Portland?

YH: Yeah, right on the hill. And he was, well anyway, he got a bag of bones, to study, and we have a pull-down bed, so he's there and I took a shower -- no, I took a bath. We didn't have a shower in that... it was a brand new unit, though. Pulled the bed down, just getting to bed, and I looked and there's this head, skeleton head right there by my bedside. I looked at it and I screamed, and he's just sort of lookin' like, you know, "What's the matter?" [Laughs] Here's this skeleton of a head there, and I says, "That wasn't very nice, you know." But he thought it was such a funny joke. To this day I can remember him doing that. He doesn't do things like that anymore. He's gotten old. [Laughs] But it was sort of, we're going, he's going to school, I'm working, and it worked out alright. And then his folks helped us when we were, when I got pregnant and quit.

MR: So what years was he in medical school, through what years?

YH: Let's see, he finished in '53, so go back four, so that's '49? Yeah, started, he went that fall we got married, in '49. So he went four years. And we lived, we lived up on the hill for one or two years, and then we found an apartment, but it was farther away, but it was bigger and his folks got us a car. No, we didn't have a car then. I was taking the bus. No, he did have, they gave him the car. He rode to med school and I took the bus to work in town, just right downtown. And we lived there until I got pregnant. Oh no, we went to the Columbia Villa, the housing project, 'cause all the students were out there, and a lot of veterans there, so they were very nice. So we got a one-bedroom apartment, 'cause I was pregnant, and rent was reasonable and it was nice. And then pretty soon I had two kids, so we moved to a two-bedroom, and then another year I had another one, so we had, went to the three. Then we finally got to the four, four bedrooms, 'cause I had four children, in four years. I was in a big hurry 'cause I was getting old. Then he finished med school, and then they said we couldn't live there anymore. I said, "Wait, we don't have any income." She says, "I'm sorry, that doesn't matter." I said, "Why doesn't it matter? You have people here that don't have income." She says, "It doesn't matter." I says, I just argued with her. She just said, "I'm sorry. You have to move out in so many days." I said, "We have no money." And she says, "That's alright. You have to move out." I thought, you... you know. I was really, I mean, I couldn't understand their reasoning. So we started looking for a house to rent. And who wants to rent with four kids? And so that was sort of a big headache, and then finally we borrowed money from my one brother-in-law, a friend here, got enough for a down payment and found a house. And it's a colonial house in Irvington district, and it had three bedrooms. It was well-made, nice house. And the man that, the couple that owned it were pretty well off. They were very generous in their, way they handled it; we could pay 'em the balance that we owed. So I'd send him a check every month and I kept telling him how nice, he did all the woodwork in there, so I always told him how nice it was. So when we finished the payment, he wrote to George and said he was so glad that we enjoyed it, because he did all the work in there. It worked out fine, so we lived there eight years.

MR: It must've been quite a challenge to have four children, be in medical school, and --

YH: I must've been an idiot. [Laughs] It was. It just, I don't know, I had one and then I had another one. I thought, well that's good. He says, "Let's have six." And I thought he was... I said, "You're out of your mind." And then the third. The fourth one wasn't counted on. I had him a year after the third. But then my older sister -- we had six in our family -- she says, "Why don't you have six like Mom?" I says, "Why don't you?" She only had four, and I'm the only one that has so many in our family. Loann has five, but... and it was, my youngest had started school and I got pregnant with Phyllis, our youngest. I thought it was immaculate conception. [Laughs] It's not nice to, I mean, but you know. Really, I thought, "Oh, I don't know." And so we had to move 'cause we didn't have enough room. And we found this house, came up here. And my two boys, they had a room each, which they really wanted 'cause they were, had the same room, and then we were here for, I don't know, not too long, and then my brother got in a, his radiator blew up and he got burned, he was in the hospital, and so I brought him here. I thought, "He can't take care of himself." And I told my Georgie, my younger son, "Only be for a while. Give up your room and go in with John." He says, "That was fifteen years, Mother." [Laughs] To this day.

But Uncle Grant lived with us fifteen years or more, and he was, there are so many tales about him. He just was slow, but yet he was a little sly, and yet he'd, we'd take him down to the bus stop. He'd work in a bakery as a, clean up, and so we'd take him to the bus stop. He'd take the bus to Jenkinson's on Hillsdale, and then he'd, he's come back, he's supposed to meet, we'd meet him there. He's there, sometimes he's not there. Then the kids say, "Mom, he's not here. What'll we do?" I say, "Wait a little bit. Wait." I said, "Well, come home." And he's out, he's at a pool hall or something. We went through that for fifteen years. Then I finally put him in an apartment that we had, we owned, and I watched him, made sure he had a lot of frozen dinners and money, and washed his clothes, and he was very happy because he was very independent. He'd go out and spend, go out all night and nobody can say anything. But he'd go, my kids lived upstairs, he'd go up there and bother 'em. They'd say, "Okay, Grant, you have to go back home. Go downstairs, go to bed." Then he'd get a little drunk and he'd be... [Laughs] All of 'em have stories to tell about him, but to this day, he died two years ago, but they really think of him and miss him, unlike the other cousins, 'cause they didn't have much contact with him. But they grew up with him. They'll talk about him yet. He was a character, but he meant well. So it, I still think, "Oh, I see a sale. I should get him some shoes or something," once in a while. And, "Oh yeah, he doesn't need shoes anymore." But I do, I think of him quite a bit, and I know one of my daughters, so she thinks of him, she thought about him. And so it's a good thing for them, to learn how to live with an older person. I think it was a good, good thing instead of putting him, he was away, but they'd take care of him. Even her boyfriends would know. They'd all ask about Uncle Grant. So it's a good lesson, I think. Hard on us, but it's alright. I miss him in a funny way.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.