Toy Kay, now 79 years old, married Bill Kay in 1941 when she was 15 years old. It was an arranged married and they had met only once before they got married. Both of them weren’t happy with their marriage. Especially Toy, as she wasn’t really ready for marriage but it was expected of her, because her mother told her that marriage was the way of life for a girl. She regretted that she couldn’t go to high school, but had to be the obedient daughter-in-law and please her husband’s family.

The newlyweds couldn’t spend much time together. Bill Kay went to work in Texas and Toy Kay went to work at Kay’s Cafe, which was a Chinese restaurant Bill’s mother opened in downtown Olympia in 1941. She worked at the Cafe for 12 to 13 hours a day, 7 days a week. She worked really hard; however she only earned $5 a day. The Chinese custom didn’t allow women to have money, because they thought women should stay at home. Eventually, women couldn’t spend their money, as they had to stay home.

After she gave birth to her first child when she was 16, Toy’s mother left her father. She was agitated, and she couldn’t believe it. Divorce was strictly prohibited in Chinese tradition. She felt a real contradiction, because what she was told by her mother --that a girl must obey her husband and his family-- and what her mother did to her father was different.
Not only Toy, but people around her were influenced by her mother’s escape. They looked down on her and treated her cruelly. Gradually, her mother-in-law oppressed her. She abused her by telling what a bad wife she was to the Café’s customers, and denied everything that she had done. For example, the way she served customers and the house chores that she did. She was depressed and felt she was nothing. Bill was still working in Texas. She didn’t have anyone to talk to. She was lonely. She obeyed her husband’s family, though.

When World War II started, Bill Kay returned to the Northwest. He worked as a welder for Todd Shipping in Seattle. Toy Kay said it was very hard being a Chinese immigrant at the time, because many people couldn’t tell the difference between the Chinese and the Japanese. The Chinese and other Asians had to wear cards to show they weren’t Japanese. When the war was over, Bill Kay returned to Olympia. The couple bought Kay’s Cafe from Bill’s parents.

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