<Begin Segment 11>

TI: So talk about, so the weeks leading up to when you have to leave, what kind of arrangements did you make in terms of who would harvest the peaches when you were gone, who would take care of the land, the farm? Tell me all about that.

JT: Well, at that time, we had no arrangement. This was all done on a handshake. And actually, we were on the side that, "Would you take care of my property while I'm gone?" And my neighbor, he's a German, and he says, "Don't worry, I'll harvest your crop." Well, I don't remember if we got anything out of the crop as far as money goes. I don't know if he made any money or not. So financially, yeah, it was really a big financial loss for us. 'Cause we raised the crop, and we had put all the labor and all the expense in, and then we left. When the government says, "Get out," well, you got out.

TI: What about paying for the land? Was the land paid for, those 55 acres, or did you still owe money on it?

JT: No, we paid for it in one year. So it's different than when my dad did it. He planted little by little, and this particular piece of ground was planted already to trees, and it was during prime time, the trees were in prime. And the prices were halfway decent that year. You don't do that very often, but it happened. It happened twice to us, in fact.

TI: Wow. So if you have a good season, boy, it could really, you could really increase your acreage, too, you could buy more and more.

JT: Yeah. If you wanted to become very rich and stuff, well, you don't just keep on farming just a little bit. You just keep on increasing your holdings, you know. We weren't like that. We weren't looking for some retirement. In fact, I never did look for retirement. I wasn't going to retire. I was going to slow down, but I wasn't going to retire. But I'm retired now for over twenty years.

TI: So you said everything was kind of done on a handshake, so a neighbor was going take care of it, German neighbor was going to take care of the land and farm. And so with that, you leave Gridley. And where did you go? Talk about how you were picked up and where you went.

JT: Well, just before we were ordered to evacuate, our neighbor come over, and he knew that we were trying to move. Now, like I said, this is, his nationality is German. Now, I don't know if he had any affiliation with Germany in Europe, but he came from there, at least his family came from there. And we had a German friend and we had an Italian friend. We have Italians over here on one corner of our area, and we have a German friend over here right next to our place. They both sort of looked after our place, but the German friend, he's the one that did the actual farming and harvesting. That was the year that we left, but the next year, we had some friends that would, we leased the land to 'em. So there was... leased or contract. I don't know if that was the end of the contract, it was just when we got back, the contract would... if (they) had money in it, they would finish that crop and then we would get the land back. But there was a contract the following year. But the year that we evacuated, it was just a handshake.

TI: And I'm curious, how were you able to arrange for a lease? How did you communicate, how did you negotiate?

JT: Well, these people were friends, first of all, and they did come up and visit us at camp, at Tule Lake. And we knew they had, they had a dairy, they had a grocery store. There was three brothers, two of 'em had to do with the dairy farm, and one of 'em had a grocery store, and they were Portuguese. And we knew 'em real well. They says, "We'll do the farming until you guys get back." And says, "If we have to start a new year, and say you got back in the middle of the season, well," they said, "we'd like to finish the crop, and then you could have it back the following year after the crop was harvested." So eventually we got our, the lease expired and we got our land back and we started farming again.

TI: So was this a sense that they were trying to help the family out by doing this? Was this like a big help, or was it, like, mutual because it really helped them to make some money? Or how would you describe the relationship?

JT: Well, they made some money, yeah. When 20/80 split, the person that does the farming, they usually get about eighty percent. And in our particular case, when we were in here, they got a little bit more than that. They got, I think it was about 85/15. Today, I guess if somebody was gonna lease land, the guy that would be the person that's gonna farm, they would probably -- because agriculture is not very good today -- he would probably ask for 90 percent and negotiate that --

TI: [Dog barks] Jackson, come here.

JT: -- with the landowner. And the only good thing about agriculture is the rice today. Rice grower's gonna make some money. They got a good crop and they're getting a decent price. Peaches, there's too much rules and regulations in California. And people don't eat peaches no more. You eat peaches?

TI: I love peaches. [Laughs]

BT: Oh, I love 'em.

TI: But maybe not enough.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.