<Begin Segment 20>

AI: So in 1930, then, Jimmy would have been about three years old, and Pat would have been about two?

PB: Uh-huh. They were just very small babies.

AI: And, and so then you and Jimmy and Pat were then back on the farm with your folks.

PB: Yes. All the, they were treated grandly. All our neighbors, they just loved the kids. Our neighbor would, like on Easter, she had some little banti chickens, they'd have those little eggs, and she'd color the eggs and make Easter baskets. And May Day, they would fix a May basket, and every holiday, the whole neighborhood would get together, and on Christmas, everybody gave 'em presents because they were the only small children around there. They were really treated grand.

AI: So they were really special when they went out to the farm.

PB: Oh, yes. They, they had, and they liked it on the farm, they had, we had chickens and ducks and a dog, we had several dogs and cats, and they really loved it on the farm. They grew up on the farm; they thought it was great. My son would sit out in the sun all day, and he'd take the seeds of the peas that we would use for seed the next year, he'd be out there pickin' the peas all by himself in the sun, 'cause he'd get paid a penny or two for picking the peas, and he would do that, so I used to think, "Oh, this fellow's gonna be a real money-saver." [Laughs] But he wouldn't save his money, and he told me after he grew up, "Mom, you harped on saving, saving so much that it just got to me." He says, "I felt like I should go against you and spend the money." [Laughs] It's funny what thoughts that went through his mind, but he did tell me that since I didn't get remarried again for twenty-five years, they grew up without a father. And he said all the other kids had fathers, but he didn't, and he missed that. But I didn't want them to have a stepfather, so that was why I was purposely, didn't want to get married.

AI: What, what was your concern about a stepfather?

PB: Well, I always heard that stepchildren are treated so poorly, whether it was a stepmother or stepfather, so I just didn't want them to go through that. I thought it was better, better not to have a father than to have a mean stepfather. Which maybe that was wrong, because all stepfathers aren't mean. He might have had a good stepfather; who knows?

AI: But at the time, that was a concern for you.

PB: Because that was what everybody said: stepmother, stepfather, they were so mean to their stepchildren but good to their own. So I didn't want anything like that to happen.

AI: Well, so for a number of years, then, you, you and Jimmy and Pat were there on the farm, and in the meantime, your mother and father -- I think you had mentioned -- had also leased some additional land, some additional property for farming.

PB: Yes. We had a, I think it was about five acres or something, down in Kent. And they moved down there; there was a little house there, and the soil down there is sand, no rocks, so it was easy farming, so they raised a lot of carrots, which grew beautifully down there. They'd grow straight down, and they'd be straight, nice carrots. In fact, there was a family by the name of Otsubo, known as the "Carrot King," because they had such beautiful carrots. And then we also leased another farm in Evergreen, that's up towards Highline or Sunnydale area. There were a number of farmers then, around there, and we had Italian neighbors. That farm was kind of a moss, can't think of the kind of ground that was. It would burn if you, if it ever caught on fire, it'd burn forever.

AI: Was it kind of a peat?

PB: Peat moss, I guess it was. If the fire caught onto the peat, I guess it was lake bottom or something at one time, but it was real good soil. So we had a farm up there, so between the three farms, it kept us pretty busy.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.