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DH: So together they began to build this produce stand into an expanded business.

JH: Yes, they did.

DH: Describe that.

JH: Well, along with the produce stand and the building of many greenhouses, they started to raise nursery stock, and sell nursery plants. And then they developed this fantastic sunken garden, which was in the south portion of the property, and had a viable running stream coming through it which furnished the water; and they had very intricate pond landscape with carved lion heads, and art pieces, and lots of flora and fauna -- fauna, meaning that there was ducks and geeses. And it was a, they built it to a real treasure, landscape treasure, and people would come to see this for many, many miles, just to see Bainbridge Gardens.

DH: It was 20 acres?

JH: Yes, it was... at the time it was, I think, around 27 acres in total.

DH: I'm trying to get a picture then, to have you describe sort of a picture what it would look like. So there was produce growing in one section, sunken garden in another section. Describe more, describe how this was laid out.

JH: Well, the north -- basically the north portion of the property was basically in produce and nursery stock. And then, what they also did was they built a produce stand, which slowly developed into a full size, large grocery store. That was toward the southern middle part of the property because Miller Road divided the 27 acres. The predominant west side of it had more acreage. There was 17 acres on the west side and approximately 10 on the east side, but the sunken garden was totally on the south portion of both sections of the property because the river flowed from the east to the west under a culvert in the road, and it was a beautiful flowing stream. I recall nice, fresh rainbow trout coming up the stream, and also fresh watercress and crawfish. And those were my childhood delights to observe all those fauna in the wild, more or less.

DH: There's hardly any stream running through the property today, but you caught a trout.

JH: Yes, I caught a trout one time with my bare hands. That was a real thrill.

DH: How old were you then?

JH: I was -- well, actually this was after the war, so I was about thirteen.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.