<Begin Segment 30>

MN: Let me go back to your work life. Now, you worked for this German farmer, was it for two years?

TY: I think about two years, yeah.

MN: And then your family decided to do your own farming.

TY: No, not my parents. We did.

MN: You did, okay. How did you start? I mean, where did you go find land?

TY: Well, we looked around, and people helped us, so we found, we found a hundred acres here, couple hundred acres there. And so we had our equipment, so there was no big deal to start a farm, so we rented a hundred sixty acres, half section.

MN: What did you grow?

TY: We grew sugar beets. We grew onions, cabbages for the marketing, fresh market. And then the buyers from the fresh market came, knowing that we grew cabbage and onions, they bought 'em for the military and we shipped 'em over to the military. Sugar beets went to the Western Sugar Company, Great Western Sugar Company. So we didn't have no problem of disposing or selling our products because it was in demand.

MN: So the military didn't have a problem purchasing produce from Japanese Americans?

TY: No. They purchased from the farm is the way I look at it, okay?

MN: But I guess they didn't think that the farmers would sabotage the produce.

TY: Yeah. I didn't think so, no. Well, it was inspected, you know? It had to pass three government inspections, so it was almost guaranteed.

MN: So was life better farming for yourselves rather than working for someone else?

TY: Naturally, yes. Freedom.

MN: You were also able to buy a brand new truck.

TY: Yes.

MN: So what did you do with this new truck?

TY: Well, first of all, in order to get a new truck we had to go to the OPA, Office of Price Administration. We had to apply for it and then we were farming and then we had to be farming so many acres before we can, OPA would okay the documents or the papers, and so that's how we were able to purchase it. So that's how we got it.

MN: So now with this truck you started to haul peaches, right?

TY: Peaches, sugar beets, made a sugar beet bed and made a regular truck bed, and we hauled peaches from Grand Junction over to Loveland Pass, to Denver. Then we hauled, contract hauling sugar beets from the farm to the sugar, to the gondolas on the railroad track. Yeah, so they put 'em in gondolas to ship the sugar beets to the factory.

MN: Going back to this, the Grand Junction to Denver, Loveland Pass, can you share with us what that's like?

TY: Ooh, it's murder. Have you been through Loveland Pass? Now they have a new highway along the Rio Grande river. Loveland Pass was a terrible pass. It's so hot in Denver, hundred degrees, hundred ten degrees, so we'd pack a water bag in the front of the car so that we won't run out of water, the trucks or us. By the time we got up to the top of the hill the water bag was frozen and we couldn't drink the water. That's how different the temperature was, from hundred degree temperature to the top of the Loveland Pass. And the Loveland Pass was just a hairpin curve, back and forth until you get to the top of the mountain. Ooh man, it's amazing. In order to pass two trucks, you can't pass two trucks. Oncoming and outgoing, you had to stop and wait for one truck to go by for us to go by. It was a steep, steep, terrible mountain pass. You know the ridge route used to be that way years ago. So now the Loveland Pass is closed now because they made the new highway alongside the river. It's really nice now, so we don't have to climb the Loveland Pass, but that's how bad it was.

MN: And now we have a grapevine instead of ridge route.

TY: That's right. It was quite an experience.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.