<Begin Segment 16>

AI: And what about when you think back to that farming that you did in those days, what were some of the hardest parts of the farming? It sounds like a lot of work, but what sticks out in your mind?

JM: I don't think that we thought it was real hard work, because if you look at it now, from what the people did those days, you'd think it was a real struggle. But I think most of 'em took it for granted, that's just work. Everyone else done it, so why can't we? Oh, it was hard work, I guess. But we were all young, and healthy, and strong.

TI: I think we were all going through the same thing. I mean, no one was playing around when somebody else was working, I think we all pretty much worked and then pretty much played together. While I was at Peterson, though, I do remember one other thing, is this First Creek. Like many other streams and creeks around Bellevue, they were just loaded with sockeye, and chum salmon, and sometimes cohos, and kings. And you could stab a pitchfork into a small pool, and most times you could come up with two or three sockeye. Almost every time. And I don't think people would even believe that today, if you talked to them about what the streams were like in those days. And that was also a good food source for many farmers, at least it was for us, and those people that lived along the stream, on First Creek.

AI: So you would just go out there, take a fishing pole out there?

JM: We didn't have a fishing pole, you just fished 'em out with a shovel or pitchfork.

TI: I'm sure there was some regulations, but then we didn't, we disregarded all of that.

JM: Well, there was so many of them. In my case, why, it was more of a ditch along the side of the plot, garden plot. But it was maybe two or three feet wide, and the water was coming out from some source, I think probably up there at Midlakes.

TI: Yeah, I believe that was out of Lake Sturtevant or, Midlakes as we used to know it.

JM: And like Tosh says, why, the fish would come right up in those ditches even, and spawn. Then, summertime, all year round we used to go fishing down there, but all we'd catch is little baby salmon. They weren't very big, but they had hatched up somewheres, and we'd fish for 'em. Once in a while we'd catch something that's probably six, eight inches long, a rainbow, but most of it was little salmon. But that was the source of fun, for us to go down there and fish.

AI: It sounds like good eating, too.

JM: Well, they weren't very big, but you'd sure catch enough of 'em. And another thing was down there was crawfish, and...

TI: Oh, yeah.

JM: And freshwater mussels.

TI: Did you ever try eating those? I, we never did, but I...

JM: No. But I find out that they're edible.

TI: There used to be a lot of freshwater eels in the streams, too. It was just, it was unbelievable.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.