Fred Kendal - May 25, 1983
Life in the United States
You came to the United States in what year?
Nineteen forty eight. As a matter of fact I believe it was July the 27th, 1948--no, the 28th. Now wait a minute, either June or July. I would have to look that up but it was in 1948.
And you became citizens...
When I got out of the service--I was drafted in the Korean War and when I came out of the Korean War I became a citizen.
Um, how--what were your reactions to the United States when you first came here?
It was beautiful. Lot of, lot of cars. God, I never saw so many cars in my life--on both side of the street--cars are parked all over the place. That was a big thing. Well I think we survived pretty good. When we got to the United States we had five dollars when we got off the boat and that was a lot.
Now did you go to school--did you continued school here or...
I started to continue schooling here I went to Cass Tech and I went to school there for sometime and I was going for commercial art and I was doing real well in it, too. However, I think we were here about six months--may be not even that long--and my mother took very, very ill. She needed an operation and I believe that came to a few thousand dollars and, of course, we didn't have it and there was no insurance whatsoever. And that is when I left the school. I--as matter of fact, they were really--really gave me a hard time, to think about it. But it was just the matter that we needed the money and I had to go work. I quit school and I went to work but I did go to night school, for a while, and the rest of it was just self-taught.
Mm-hm.
Yeah.
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