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EK: But, just wondering, I mean, I know, Bill, you could speak to this, but I think that there are difficulties and hardships in life that shape individuals and leaders who they are today. And so I'm wondering if anyone could share specifically on the barriers that Elaine faced as a leader or just in her lifetime, and even if you don't necessarily overcome them, they still shape an individual. So, if anybody could attest to that, I would love to know.

AL: Well I knew she was diabetic, and I'm not diabetic, but we occasionally talked about it and... because I knew she would tell me -- oh, she had, I was working at a hospital at the time and she actually went to that doctor. And she felt, maybe she changed doctors actually because the one that I knew of at Virginia Mason was... because she was a very good student of being, because she knew she was diabetic and she took care of herself and she would go to this doctor... what was his name? And but she didn't like him because he would not really... she was, took care of herself, she did all the right things, she did the things that he said to do, and she took care of herself. She was really adamant about... and so she told me these stories, and I said, so she felt like she was sort of like being punished for taking care of herself because the doctor really didn't... she didn't really connect with him because her health was obviously really important to her. And she knew she had, it's a big deal to be diabetic. So I'd hear bits and pieces about that, maybe in our personal conversations, but so yeah I think...

BT: Yeah. Oh, go ahead.

AL: No, go ahead.

BT: No, I was gonna say that I think that you're absolutely right. Elaine attacked her diabetes like she did any issue. She was very aggressive and when she was diagnosed -- I'd known her for a long time, she actually lost a lot of weight in this process, and she was constantly checking her blood sugar. And if you were, went out with her at all, some time or another, she'd be checking her blood sugar. That's how conscientious she was.

AL: Yeah, it says a lot.

BT: One issue that we did talk about, because we're both from the Midwest -- I grew up in Cleveland -- is coming to Seattle, and coming to the Seattle JACL, up until, I don't know, the mid-'90s, maybe, Seattle JACL was very different in that it was very much a homegrown organization. So the members were all friends from elementary school, junior high, high school, a lot of them went to a Minidoka, were incarcerated there. Many of them served in the services, 442, or MIS, and then they came back, endured the same experiences. And so there was a real kind of, I don't want to say club atmosphere, but there was that closeness that they would normally have as an organization. And this was between officers, members, everyone. And for... they were, everyone was very welcoming to new members. I'm not saying that. But you always knew that you were on the outside, that you weren't fully a member when you couldn't talk about the high school days or things like that. And we would talk about that every once in a while. And Elaine said, "Well you just have to, you have to just keep working. Get yourself involved, and it'll happen." And, I think over a period of time, yeah, it did happen. But I remember that was one barrier that both of us had to overcome a little bit.

AL: Yeah, I think she kind of shared that with me, I'm sure. I'm not sure what our age difference was. I mean, I don't think it was that much. But she, but that goes to show she had so much wisdom and knowledge. Now that I think, it's just incredible. I mean, to have somebody like that now would be like, amazing, because you sometimes need that person to kind of remind you of things and what's important, and it's not, what we're doing, the kind of work that we did in JACL was so important. And so it kind of made me sad. Like when, even like for the banquet committee and not having people enough people to run the committee effectively and how, back in the day, we had all kinds of people helping and people were just, would love, would want it to really be there and be a part of it. So I'm sure a lot of that had to do with her, and because now it's not the same. And I really value that time in my life. I remember making name tags at like three o'clock in the morning or in working on the spreadsheets, it'd be all alphabetized and categorized like five different ways, and it's like, god. But I think a lot of that had to do with her, herself, you know how she was as a leader or just a person to kind of help guide, always guiding us in the right direction, I think, and you just sometimes don't totally appreciate. I mean, I think we did. But now that I'm talking about her this way, it's like, it's making me sad.

EK: Yeah, like I said, she -- just everything that I'm hearing so far, just a force of nature. She's a community person.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2022 Seattle Chapter JACL. All Rights Reserved.