<Begin Segment 10>
AI: Well, you were just saying that it was surprising how many Japanese farms there were.
TH: Yeah. It's really...
TI: Well, I think there were about sixty families, and around 300 people. And I guess almost all the families were farming at that time. I don't recall anybody that was doing, or in other kind of businesses. And the produce that was not being shipped from the Vegetable Growers Association, for the most part were sold in Seattle. Some of it, a good portion of it I'd say, at Pike Place Market. And most of the rest went to West -- what was called Western Avenue, and it was a row of commission houses that sold produce that was produced on the farms not only in Bellevue, but in the Kent Valley and Fife, and areas of the other Japanese communities. People either had trucks to haul it in there themselves, or else they hired a transfer company. In Bellevue, there was, Mike Downey had a transfer company and Anderson Feed and Fuel and they would make daily rounds towards the end of the day, when the produce was harvested and packaged, and ready to be shipped out. They'd come by and pick it up and haul it in to Seattle. I don't know whether they brought it in that evening or the following morning. But most of it was sent over there on a commission basis, so if sometimes things didn't sell, well, you didn't get any money for it. Other times when they sold, why, they would send a check out.
And the other source of marketing as I recall was that, some of the farmers had small individual stands alongside their farm, and they sold some of their produce in that manner. In those days, you didn't have to have a permit to put up a stand or put up a shack of a house, like at the present time, why, it's strictly on permit. Permit only.
AI: Did any of you have any of the, did any of you sell your vegetables there at the side of the road?
JM: For a short time, I went to, sold at Pike Market, but it was on farmers' row. And there were (...), I would say there were Japanese and Italians, were selling there. But the way they worked it, for the individual farmer, why, you worked from way down -- it would be, I guess towards Stewart Street? The first day you got one that wouldn't, no customers'd be around there so much. And gradually you'd work up more towards the Pike Place, and if you're lucky, why, you would get the stand every day. But I think, if I remember right, maybe every other day or every three days, we got a stand that we worked up. And if you got a stand up close to where everybody was coming, why, you'd make pretty good. I hit it one time, and I sold everything in half a day, and I don't know how much it was, I wasn't too much on finances. But I thought it was good. I had to just give the stand up to the next guy next to me, and they did all right. But, I didn't stay there very long. This is right, little bit before the war, and I think Tok Hirotaka was down there for a while, too.
And I had a neighbor that had his, had greenhouses and he used to sell cucumbers there, that was his specialty. Those things sold because they were produce that were out of season, and they sold very well. But things that couldn't be sent to the commission houses in Western Avenue, they would take down theirs, sold. And a lot of it was not very good. They were edible and all that, but they weren't number one, as people in the commission house wanted. So, sometimes I'm a little bit reluctant to buy things at the Pike Market. [Laughs]
That's the way another outlet was, down there. I know some Japanese families that just made businesses of it, because they'd come, I see them down every day. But they would buy from other farmers, and they would make a little bit every day, so kept alive on that. And some of these people were widows. That had families, and they went down there, and I've really gotta give them credit. Because that's the way most Japanese were, those days. They just did whatever they could do to make a living, make an honest living, anyway.
<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.