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TI: So tell me about the house or the farm that you lived in in Kent. What was that like?

GN: The first house we lived in in the Soos Creek area east of Kent, was really a chicken house, converted chicken house. So everybody, they used to hear us talking about growing up in the chicken house. [Laughs] And it was a converted chicken house, there used to be all chicken farms up there when we were up there. Cleaned it out.

TI: So when I think of a chicken house, I mean, those aren't that big.

GN: It was built more like a barrack. That's where we lived in. We had no running water there, we had to carry our own. Bring in the water, boil it, and wash clothes, boil it in the washtub, and take baths.

TI: Now did your father own the land that he was farming or was he working...

GN: He was buying it. And couldn't make it.

TI: And what kind of farming was he doing?

GN: Truck farming. Raising peas, beans, cauliflower, lettuce and tomatoes. Strictly truck farming. We cleared the land, too. In those days, you can clear land along the creek and make it into a farm. You can't do that anymore, because the salmon used to be running there.

TI: And how much, how large was the farm? How many acres?

GN: I think it was about twenty acres maybe at the most.

TI: But you said he couldn't make a go of it or it was hard. But he stayed there, right, or did he move to another job?

GN: No, he farmed there. In the wintertime we used to cut wood and sell it. Behind us was all woods, and I don't know who the land belonged to or any of that, who owned it. But we used to cut wood all winter long and sell it.

TI: So was that one of your jobs then, was to cut wood and sell it?

GN: Uh-huh, yeah.

TI: What are some other jobs that you had to do growing up? Because you were, like, the second oldest boy, right?

GN: Yes. [Laughs] Other than farming, help on the farm, I used to trap muskrats and skin it and sell it. And we didn't, the game warden come up to us, see who was doing this, and he saw we were a couple of little kids, so he says, "You don't have a license to sell it." He says, "Let somebody that has a license sell it for you." He could have given us heck, but he didn't.

TI: Oh, so he came up, saw that you were doing something illegally, but he just said, just get someone else to sell it.

GN: Sell it for us, yeah.

TI: Now, could you make quite a bit of money selling muskrat?

GN: No, no. I caught one muskrat, that paid me two dollars, and I thought, "Oh, man, I'm rich." [Laughs]

TI: But back then, two dollars was quite a bit.

GN: Yeah, it was a lot of money in those days. Most of 'em, you got about fifty cents or forty cents, somewhere right in there. When I had one nice big one, worth two dollars.

TI: Now what would people do with muskrat fur back then?

GN: Muskrat fur coat was a big thing in those days. [Laughs] If you owned a fur coat made out of muskrat, you were wealthy.

TI: Okay.

GN: Yeah.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2014 Densho. All Rights Reserved.