<Begin Segment 10>

TI: At a very young age, so you mentioned the war started, what memories do you have of, of going to camp? Again, you're very young, you're like four years old when, during the move. What can you remember?

NA: Two parts. One is I remember, because the whole family, the uncle that was farming with my dad at that time had picked up his family and went off to area in central Cal because this is when everyone thought that there was a safe zone, but my father has end up, end up minding or cleaning up the farm area or whatever if you're gonna move. The hitch, he said, was that if you didn't farm and plant your seeds and do what's regular, you were definitely an enemy, so you had to do that, but then you also kind of got the sense that you're not gonna be around to pick this thing and profit from it. So he had to figure out all that and eventually had it so that a friend from, of his, actually from the Half Moon Bay days with the Morimotos. It was Paul Pera, who was a field buyer for the market, and he had got, gotten to know Paul real well and so Paul seemed interested in taking over the farm when he left with the understanding that if and when it's possible my dad was gonna come back. Now, my dad did not buy any of this land because, I guess they could've, but the land up in that area has been a long time family-owned property, so it wasn't like land wasn't up for sale anyway, but because they were in dairy farming or in lumber, they really liked my dad's crops because it brought into new, the nitrogen back into the soil for whatever other kind of crops they may go for, which is usually feed, but the peas themselves were great for the dairy farmers. They loved it, or their cattle, right, because really the dried plants really became good feed for additional milk production and all.

TI: Oh, that's interesting, so did your, did your father, rotate's not the right word, but move where the plantings were to help enrich the soil?

NA: Well, inadvertently that's, I don't know if that was in his plans, but certainly the local farmers understood the benefit of leasing land to my dad. By the time the wartime started he had over four hundred acres that he was, one crop, he was, he had out. And through, from '35 to then the wartime years he, and they got married in thirty, January '37 and they were doing very well. He got, he got an article. They came up from Santa Rosa to do an article on him and local stuff like that.

TI: And so this gentleman, Paul Pera...

NA: Is a, he was a field, one of the guys from the wholesale market, produce market, that would go out and buy products, and he was doing that in Half Moon Bay when my dad was helping Morimotos and they got to be friends.

TI: So, so did Paul come in and run the farm?

NA: Yeah, he was gonna run then and take care of the farm and possibly grow and continue and see if... you know.

TI: And do you know what kind of business arrangement he had with, with Paul, in terms of who would get the money from the crops and all?

NA: I think it's, I think there was some kind of arrangement, but I don't know the specifics. It's pretty much a handshake. And then at the same time, which would be of interest to you, is when my, at that same time Fred Wada, who was a market person, a produce market person in Oakland, wanted to start the Keatley Farms, the Victory Farms in Utah, and so he was trying to amass farmers and people to go and start this Victory Farm. And he had already arranged where, where that was gonna happen in Utah and he had asked my dad if he could have, or use my father's equipment. And by that time my father had bought a brand new set of farming equipment, so he had two equipment and he and Mom talked about it, what should they do? The future's really unknown and they knew they were gonna be leaving here to join the rest of the family, because it was so unknown they felt, I guess, as brothers and that better to be banded together and face whatever together instead of separate, so that was the arrangement, that they were gonna meet where, the Tsujis had a farm near Merced and that's where they were gonna gather. So my parents apparently, because Dad says, "Mommy and I, we talked about this and decided," well, here's a man that they kind of knew but they weren't tight friends, they knew him through mutual friends, but they weren't, but he was trying to do something good, so, "Well, let's support him." So there was a deal where my father would loan him the equipment for five thousand dollars, 'cause it was brand new. The old equipment he'll leave with Paul Pera 'cause that's all you need, is one set of equipment, and so my Dad, my Dad shipped it on the railroad to, railed it out to Keatley, so that was one thing -- that's a whole another story that...

TI: 'Cause my understanding is that, that didn't happen, the Keatley, did it? Or the land wasn't very good, or there's some problems with it?

NA: Very much. It was, it was not the Life magazine story that was promoted. It was really bad, because my dad, once we all ended up in the, in Amache, he got permission to go out and check on his equipment and so he stayed with them, trying to make best, but really in a sense, he says, "I need to protect my investment, my equipment," 'cause he wasn't getting anything from that. He says the man just didn't know land. Another interview that I did with the, one of the Keatley families that were there but didn't stay with Fred Wada's group, but went on to get another land said, "Oh yeah, the man was," they're pretty sure he leased the land in the winter when the snow had covered the rocks and then, and didn't know enough that there was no water for, to even nourish the crops, so it was just a really trying period, and a number of people who went with him were not farmers, so it was, it was just real difficult, good intent, difficult planning. No planning, I guess, basically. But ultimately -- anyway, that gets ahead in the story -- but we go down as a family, down to meet up with the rest of the family. By the time we get there the house is completely full, so our family stays in the barn, and that's the other thing, so what we could remember was sleeping on the hay or something, I don't remember, but I know there was hay around somewhere, but looking up through the kind of roof we could see the moon and the stars. And I think my parents, my mom and my grandmother, and it must've been very hard for them, 'cause here they are in a barn. For us kids it was like, wow. We're like really camping.

TI: Sleep in hay and see the stars.

NA: But what's the other interesting, afterwards, was because I think it was shortly after that that we might've all had to go get our numbers, the family numbers, because as I look up the camp records at the museum I could see that my family got one number and then after that sequentially every other family's number followed, so my mom, being the strong English speaker, and so there's a lot of that. And when my mom married my dad all the businesses went under my mom's name, 'cause by that time Auntie Shii-chan and their family had moved on to elsewhere, so after my dad and mom married it became the, basically the Moriguchi Sweet, Fred Moriguchi Sweet Quality Peas, with Two Brothers family working.

TI: Okay. Yeah, I maybe --

NA: Kind of jumped around here.

TI: Yeah, I was actually, wanted to find out what happened to your, your father's equipment.

NA: Okay. So from Amache, as I said, he had, was able to go, so when it was obvious that the Keatley farm was gonna fail, my dad kind of looked around and found land to lease, and he did that and made sure his equipment got to that area. I just know that area as, we used to call it the "Chamba house," but it's Chamber house, so that's the name of the house and maybe the farm or the landowner, but we used to call it, as kids, you know, that was a, like saying "potty house," Chamba house, so it was kind of a joke, childish kind of joke. But my father got release for our family to leave Amache on our own and we boarded the Greyhound bus, I remember that, and rode from the Rocky Ford area, or the Amache camp area all the way to, it would be like Spanish Fork, Utah.

TI: And that's where the, the Chamber house...

NA: Yes, around that area. We, my father also, his brothers who also were in Amache -- there were four other brothers, one brother, the younger one, Hideichi had gone with his wife's family, so they were in different camps, but all the rest of the brothers were there, so they were, also came out. At one point Chamber house was back being like what it was before the time of, when we all gathered near Merced. And so we, I could remember all the kids were having great time, mischievous stuff like trying to give my brother a haircut and really getting into trouble, watching my uncle try to chop the neck off the turkey. I mean the turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner, and the poor bird, he kept hiding his head behind his wing and we kept, you know, empathy with the turkey. But, so it was probably that time of year, but ultimately from there people scattered, and our, I don't know who remained at that property, but my father got another land that was closer to, I want to say Provo, Utah.

TI: And what happened to the Keatley group? So when that failed what, what happened?

NA: Okay. People, I mean, those who, I guess, who had the know how probably went to get land on their own or they went into Salt Lake City to get domestic jobs or anything, 'cause they're outside of the war, war, I mean the boundary areas, so they could go and look. Others, I heard that others found relatives who had relocated to some area and kind of connected there, but it just basically, no, you couldn't do anything with the land and the Wadas themselves had left early. Basically my father just recaptured his equipment and made sure that that was safe and... yeah.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.