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Chang
Shirley Chang
UCLA
8/12/99
I first met Annabelle in September, 1965
when I started the master's program in nursing at UCLA. I'm
not sure if your mother was a sophomore or a junior then.
We lived at Mira Hershey Hall, an older all girls dorm (I
think the only one), close to the med center. As you might
guess we met in the cafeteria over food! It was the first
time I had attended a large university, so I was quite uncomfortable
and didn't know anyone. Your mom brightened my day. Her humor
and unpretentious ways made me feel immediately happy and
comfortable. We became good friends and roomed together the
2nd semester (Spring, 1966).
The big event at the dorm 1st semester
was that Miss America (for 1965, I believe), Vonda Van Dyke,
was living at our dorm. Everyone was trying to figure out
who she was, but no one asked each other at first, until I
sat with you mom. Then after that, we kept looking around
to figure out who she was, and of course only one person who
was brave enough to ask that person -- your mom. She asked
quite a few girls, and none of them was THE ONE we thought
it might be. Can you imagine this young girl from Hawaii approaching
girls who looked sophisticated, or very pretty (usually dressed
quite well, makeup, etc.) and asking them if they were Miss
America -- it was really funny!! Finally, one day she said,
"I found out who SHE is!" and she pointed her out
to us. We were so disappointed, because VVD looked like a
regular, ordinary person--nothing fancy, maybe even freckles
(if I remember correctly), dressed casually in jeans, etc..
The way I would characterize your mom in those days is --
naive, refreshingly honest, not easily intimated (actually
daring!)
The event that stands out in my mind for
second semester was this -- early one morning someone came
knocking on my door, while I was still sleeping, and said,
"Your roommate is on the floor in the bathroom!!"
I bolted out the door to see she had fainted. Of course, we
called the ambulance, etc. She was diagnosed in the ER as
a drug overdose!! -- from the cold medicine! Guess she didn't
feel good and had taken a pill, which didn't help. So she
took a couple more and got really dizzy when she went to the
bathroom. She didn't want to wake me up and had gone quietly
to the bathroom. Of course, I slept like a log throughout
all of this. Pretty bad, here I'm a nurse and let my roommate
OD on cold medicine--eh? I wish I could remember the name
of that med, because she used to use it for everything. Everytime
one of us had any kind of a symptom, she would offer that
to us (It had a really funky name! Doans?). Needless to say,
after that she didn't take that anymore!
The next summer I moved to an apartment,
and your mother visited us frequently. When I moved to LL
in December, 1967, she moved in with my other roommates (Audrey
Ching Kim and Helen Takasaki Horiuchi). We were honored to
be in your mom and dad's wedding. For me it was the first
time I had ever been to a Catholic wedding, let alone being
in one. Audrey and I had a time trying to figure out when
to kneel, stand, etc. I think we caused your mom a bit of
anxiety -- she had to keep us in line, plus make sure everything
went well. She was very sincere and devoted to her beliefs
and made God and her church an important part of her life.
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