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TI: So at the point they started buying land, earlier you mentioned how the plan was this was going to be a temporary thing, "After things settle down in California, we'll move there." But once they started buying land, was the sense that they might stay there?

MS: I guess so, because the Sam Yada's family bought land. They were still within that little compound when we left seven years later, and he bought lots of land afterwards. He didn't buy land to farm, though, he bought land to, for a nursery, I believe. He started a nursery business. My uncle Harry's land got leased out. And I think that's part of, that was part of my aunt's income, and they didn't sell it for a long, long time. The other families did eventually move back to California.

TI: But while they were there, you mentioned how you were doing a lot of truck farming, vegetables, and that they were pretty successful doing this. How would you know? What made you say they were successful? What would be an example of their success?

MS: Well, the vegetables were so much nicer than what was in the Safeway markets there, Kroger markets. And people used to come to the farm to see how we did it. And the irrigation pumps that pumped the water out, that was all something that had not been done there before. So...

TI: So a lot of innovations that probably your uncle learned in California, he brought to Arkansas.

MS: Uh-huh.

TI: And where would the family sell their produce? How would they sell it?

MS: Well, every morning, we were kind of the central location, we had a telephone. And every morning they would call special markets like the Kroger markets, and some of the bigger markets in Little Rock, in North Little Rock, and they would take their order. So this would be for the next day. So that day they would divvy it up according to how many people had beets or how many people had onions or whatever, tomatoes or whatever the season was, they would divide up so many bushels of this, and, "Mr. Yada, you make this many," you know. And that's, that was how they did it. I remember a lot of times that they would ship it out, I mean, one of them would have to drive the produce the next morning really early to the stores. And sometimes there would be rain, and the trucks would get stuck. I remember once, it was just a really bad rainy season, and the truck got stuck and they could never, they couldn't get the truck out of the mud. So we just lost that whole order, and my dad was so disappointed, I remember that.

TI: Because the truck was filled with produce, ready for the market, and they got stuck, and everyone's out there trying to...

MS: Push it, and we had the tractor out there pulling, and just nothing would move that thing. So they lost that. So, you know, that's the way farming is, I think, it's sort of risky. But in a short time, they, we were there seven years, and they made enough money and saved enough money that they bought a car and drove back to California, they bought a house. You had to have some savings to be able to do that.

TI: When... I'm trying to think... oh, in terms of, so when the order came in and they had a harvest, was it like an all-family type of thing, too, where the kids sometimes helped out with harvesting or the preparation?

MS: Well, in the summertime, we were, we helped out. I always, I hated to go out in the sun and work in the field. So my job was to do the ironing, and my baby brother would be taking a nap at that time, so I would be the one to watch. And when he woke up, I would carry him on my back all the way to the fields where my mother was working. So we all had our little chores. We didn't work out in the field a lot, but sometimes.

TI: And so your father was, during this time, a farmer. And even though he had this advanced degree, he had to farm.

MS: Yeah.

TI: Did he ever express frustration, did he ever see, sort of, him regretting...

MS: No, he never complained, but I know my grandmother on occasion, she sometimes had a little mean streak. She would say, "I told you so," kind of, kind of attitude. "You should have been a doctor," or whatever. But generally my dad had four kids, his parents, wife to support, so I think he was just too busy to even worry about all that. He just had mouths to feed and shoes to buy. [Laughs]

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.