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TI: And how much, tell me a little bit about your father's family in Japan. What did they do in Japan, or where did they come from?

MM: Okayama. In fact, the whole family, I wonder if there's a picture there. (Our) whole family went to Japan before they passed away, the grandparents. That was when I was ten years old.

TI: And in Okayama, what did your father's family do?

MM: Over there? The grandfather you mean?

TI: Yes.

MM: Rice farmer. Rice farmer.

TI: And so why do you think your father came to America when he was nineteen years old?

MM: Adventure. He came this way and his younger brother went to South America for adventure. But he contracted a tropical illness in South America and passed away, so he didn't get to enjoy South America. I think Brazil, I think it was.

TI: That's interesting. So why didn't they come together to America, or go together to Brazil?

MM: I don't know. They just separated. My dad came here, and the younger brother went to South America. They both wanted, I guess, adventure, see what was across the ocean.

TI: And how would you describe your father? What was he like?

MM: Hard working, real hard working. We had a small farm, yet he wanted all of us to go to school. Worked hard, "You have to go to school."

TI: And how about his personality? Was he talkative?

MM: (Yes), he was pretty outgoing. He played the shakuhachi flute. But it was a community of mostly Japanese farmers. But there were enough of us to have built a big white community building with a stage and social hall and school, we had Japanese language school. And they hired teachers from different places, and they came and taught us Friday afternoon after school and Saturday mornings, they taught Japanese.

TI: Well, so earlier you talked about your dad first going to Snoqualmie working with the railroads, and then he went back to Japan.

MM: To get a wife.

TI: To get a wife.

MM: Came back, made enough money to go there and come back, and then they... oh, I skipped that. At the Dee Sawmill, which was a pretty (big) sawmill, he worked there. There was a boarding house there, and all Japanese single men had come from Japan evidently, and my mother was a cook, became the cook there.

TI: Okay, so this is after, so your dad went back to Japan, married your mother, and they came back and they found a job...

MM: (They worked in the hop fields of Independence, OR, then later) started working at Dee Sawmill.

TI: The Dee Sawmill.

MM: There were quite a few Japanese working there. They were, I believe, all single men. I remember that boarding house was very (simple), no rug or anything like that, just board, little rooms here, little room there, these single men, and my mother cooked their meals for them.

TI: Now, were there very many other women that lived in...

MM: Not that I remember.

TI: So your mother was, I guess, unusual in the sense that she was one of the few women.

MM: And she cooked until they could (move up to Dee Flat). That's where my dad farmed. But they had to clear that land. It was brush (and trees), and they had to dynamite and clean it all before they planted any trees.

TI: Okay, so I was reading a book, so I guess a lot of that land used to have lots of timber, they would cut it down, and then there would be stumps there.

MM: Oh, they had to dynamite.

TI: So they had to dynamite, which was, I guess, very, very difficult.

MM: They (didn't) have those diggers like they have these days. They did it by hand and some horses.

TI: And so this was after he did the Dee lumber.

MM: Dee. Then he, I guess, had enough money to start the farm, and that's where all the Japanese started farms all around there.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2014 Densho. All Rights Reserved.