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proceeding to New York to see Sarra Sam. While she and I were on a sight-seeing trip to Coney Island, we were bombarded with the exciting news of the end of the Second World War. We immediately returned to Chinatown where there was already great rejoicing. After a return visit with Dora and her family, and a short one with Mrs. Johnson, I left San Francisco on the Monterey for Honolulu, arriving home on 5 December, 1945.
In April 1946 I was briefly seconded to the American Red Cross to interview victims of a huge tidal wave that swept the islands and claimed a number of lives. I was assigned to the island of Molokai, where I found that those with losses were mainly Hawaiians leading a simple life of agriculture and fishing along the seacoast.
Out of the clear sky in 1947, I was invited to apply for a scholarship from the Honolulu Chapter of the National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis under the chairmanship of Mr. Riley Allen. I had been recommended by Miss Mary Cattan, Director of Social Services at Queen's Hospital, who had given assistance to Ruth during her hospitalization. It was a generous grant and the only condition was that I would return to serve the community for two years. Accepted by the New York School of Social Work, Columbia University, during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. I studied there from March 1947 to August 1948 for a Master of Science in Social Work degree. My field work was at the Presbyterian Hospital and my thesis was "An Explanatory Study of Thirty Poliomyelitis Patients Having Social and Emotional Difficulties”, patients selected from the Poliomyelitis Research Project, Department of Rehabilitation and Physical Medicine, New York University, Colleges of Medicine, at Bellevue Hospital, under the direction of Miss Mary C. Jarrett.
I lived with Sarra Sam on 135th Street, between Riverside Drive and Broadway. She also shared her apartment with her sister Esther and with a friend from Fresno, Eunice Ma. Although the apartment was small and crowded, we managed to have some enjoyable gatherings there. We had many visitors from Hawaii: Ching Wan and his son Edmund; B. Y. and Mary Kamin Wong; Dr. F. H. Tong and his wife; and Bernard Young. Lillian Louis, Charlotte Wong and Jean Shigemura, all studying at Columbia, often shared our pleasantries. Dr. John Kometani, after