My mother's name is Nora. I don't believe that was her given Korean name. I think it was a name that they gave her at the missionary school. She told me Nora is a biblical name, so I believe that.

The school later became a university and according to some Korean women I talked to since then, they say that the school was a forerunner and a foundation for what later became Ewha University. As far as I know that was the only school in Korea that taught women. My mother, having graduated and being considered a special student, was permitted to teach there. It was while she was teaching there that the missionaries thought it might be appropriate for her to come to America to further her education. She came to America accompanied essentially by the missionaries to attend the University of Chicago, not to be with my father. But she was betrothed to my father when she was a child. Of course, marriage papers were all made up. So legally she was married to my father. Also physically she was never married to my father but legally she was married to my father.

When they arrived in Seattle, this fact was surfaced by the immigration officials. Then the missionaries felt that they were obligated to notify my father that his wife was in this country. Of course, when my father, upon hearing that, was delighted that his wife was in the country and he demanded that his wife join him. And so upon that request, the missionaries would no longer have anything to do with her. And my mother was left only one option, which was to come South and join my father. This is reinforced by some people in San Francisco. She stopped in San Francisco and spent a week there. I talked to Mr & Mrs. Har, who back in those days had a little dry cleaning ship in San Francisco. She stayed with them a week. Mrs. Har is the one who told me my mother spent the whole week crying because she wanted to go to Chicago instead of being married to a stranger. So she ended up in Orange County picking walnuts, instead of going to school, you know. All the year I was growing up I never knew my mother had a secret ambition. It wasn't until I came back from Korea the second time as a full colonel, that I could speak Korean then. I can't now; but I studied for two years in Korea so I was fluent in conversational Korean. My mother made a rare exception. When I came in, she said I don't want you to go out with your friends. I want you to stay here and talk to me. You are the only child I have that I can converse in my native tongue. And so she says, I'm so happy for you to be able to go to Korea and learn to speak Korean, so we could talk.

So I spent a week talking to my mother. I learned a lot of things that I would have never learned otherwise. For the first time, she treated me as a friend. I think among all the children, I'm the only one she ever treated as a friend and an equal, because I was the only one at that point that could converse with her in Korean. And my mother being very, very religious never drank a Coca Cola, never drank hard liquor, never drank anything but, well, she limited herself to one cup of coffee, water and milk and tea. She never drank anything else. But at that time when I came home from Korea, she wanted me to stay home so badly, she says, I'll go out and buy a bottle of Scotch for you. And I told her not to, right? I didn't believe she would, because that's something against her very deepest principles in her body, fiber; but she did go out, got one and when I came back, there was a bottle of Scotch sitting on the table. I couldn't believe it, you know. But, I didn't feel, as much as I loved to drink, I didn't feel right, so I never opened the bottle. I never drank it in front of my mother.