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TI: So let's go back to your story because, I think we started this because you were gonna say something about Okayama, your, on your dad's side. You said you didn't know much about the family?
ES: No. He was the youngest son of four, and he evidently came to America on, in a very illegal kind of way. He jumped the ship or something and decided to go someplace, because his father, we know, was a politician and he was running for some office and he didn't make it. So this son was quite disappointed, and he was only fourteen.
TI: This is your father you're talking about?
ES: Yes. And he came illegally to America, so he, and he really wanted to be on a farm and wanted to be sort of like a veterinarian. I think he had that in mind.
TI: But let's go back. When you say illegal kind of, he entered the country illegally, how did he do that? You said he jumped ship, so --
ES: I think he did.
TI: And do you know --
ES: We don't know too much about it, but the only reason we know is that when they were trying to get these two people together, my mother and my father, they found that he came at this early age and didn't have any papers with him at all, so finally found out that this man who was the baishakunin for my father, found out that he was not legally in this country. So her father, my grandfather, he said, "Well, we're not gonna have you marry this man if you're here illegally. So we want you to go back to Japan again and come into America legally." So that took a few months for it to happen, but this was very unusual too, that my grandfather would ask him. He approved of this man, but wasn't too sure that he wanted his daughter to marry someone who's come to America without any legal papers.
TI: Interesting. Interesting story. So let's go back to your father when he was younger, though. He's like fourteen, jumped ship, what does he do? You mentioned he wanted to be a veterinarian.
ES: Yeah, and he gave somebody that idea so then he must've met, gotten some information about this farmer who lived in St. Helens, Oregon, and he took him in and really raised him until he was old enough to be around by himself. And so my father and my mother were married in 1915.
TI: And you mentioned a baishakunin, so it was someone who was familiar with, I guess, the families back in Okayama that sort of brought them together?
ES: Yeah. They knew of the family.
TI: Okay. And so what did your, where did your parents go? Where did they settle, the two of them?
ES: They settled in Parkrose.
TI: So nearby your mother's family.
ES: Yes.
TI: And was it farming that they did or what?
ES: That's what they did, until 1920. And they were told that there was a farming community in Oregon that could be cultivated and would be a good place to grow crops, so somehow they got word that, to my father, that it might be a good place, and to my grandfather also. So actually they both moved from Parkrose to Salem, Oregon, to, actually it's Brooks, Oregon. It's, and Brooks is still there. That's the, that was the mailing address. But I don't know, my sister-in-law just moved from there a couple of years ago, sold the farm. My father bought the farm through my brother, who became eighteen so he could buy...
TI: So let's back up a little bit, so this, so they're starting a new farming community. Was it, was it designed to be with Japanese farmers?
ES: No, it wasn't really designed for it, but there, they had this man by the name of Ronald Jones who actually was quite a politician in the area and seemed to know Japanese some way -- and I'm not too familiar with what happened that they were allowed to take over this, lease the land -- and they started out with about ten acres at a time. And at about 1938... I think my brother... anyway, it was about the time that my father could buy land with my brother's name and so that's where my father started his farming, and as time went on he had forty acres.
TI: Okay. So it sounds like this, this start up with ten acres grew to something much larger.
ES: Yes. But, and my grandparents were there on the farm too.
TI: And this is on your mother's side.
ES: Yes.
TI: Okay.
<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.