<Begin Segment 22>
TI: So John, that's the end of my questions. Is there anything else that you want to say to end this interview?
JH: To go into detail, we lost our third child to a brain tumor. Surgery and she died on the operating table, then funeral, so forth and so on. Money was going like crazy and I thought, "Gee, Alice, please don't have a nervous breakdown." She was awfully quiet, but she was strong. And, well, we started farming and our well ran dry on our premium crop. We lost a bundle there, right on top of losing the child. There again, I thought, "Please, Alice." And she hung in there. She didn't have a nervous breakdown or she didn't say the hell with it and she didn't dump me or anything. Out of a clear sky, she says, "I'm gonna go look for a job." So I took her to the nearest streetcar terminal and she called me back -- telephones were hard in those days, but being a board of directors of the berry growers, we had a phone -- she called me back, she came home and said, "The pay is lousy and the environment is awful." Says, "I'm not going there." And our daughter had heard that at the dinner table. By the same token, she was -- she was twelve, I think -- she was an office assistant at the grammar, one grammar school, superintendent principal, and the principal had talked to his Nisei secretary, "We're gonna build a new school pretty soon and you Japanese ladies are very well work-oriented. Do you know anybody that might want the job?" And my daughter pops up, "Yeah, my mom's looking for work." And that's how it started.
TI: So she got a job through your daughter.
JH: She got a job. And I figure, well hell, I'm not gonna stay home alone. I'm gonna put in a blind application to Eastside (Union) High School District because they're building a new high school right near us. I got called in, and he said, "We're building a high school, but we don't need a gardener 'til school is up and running." "Well, then I'm no good here. I'm gonna, might as well go home." So I start getting up. He says, "Wait, wait, wait." He says, "We got a groundskeeper opening in the district level," meaning three high schools. "Gee, I'll tackle that." By golly, I got it. And that led to, just like it being assistant chief, from grounds maintenance, two years later, supervisor of grounds at ten high schools. We grew every other year and I grew right along with 'em. So now we get four checks. [Laughs]
TI: So all the pensions and...
JH: The story is I got a phone call in my office, "Hey, John, I understand you're supervisor of grounds." I says yeah. Says, "You hiring gardeners?" I says yeah. "How much?" "Three hundred and sixty dollars gross a month." "Oh hell," I said, "I drink that much." Okay, this is fine. A year later, "Hey, John, this is So-and-So. Yeah, what's doing?" Says, "I'm looking for a job." I said, "I thought you were fixed?" He says, "No, I got fifty acres of prunes and I can't pay the taxes." But I wasn't gonna give him a job, not after what he said the year before. I mean, rough is rough, but jeez.
TI: Yeah.
JH: By the same token, the gardeners were making six dollars an hour, grounds maintenance. But you have to babysit the mama of the house, the kids come riding, ride on your back while your... that's not for me.
TI: Yeah, sounds like a good job. Well, John, so thank you so much for the interview. This was excellent.
<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.