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TI: And so why... well, before I ask about leaving, talk about how Moses Lake, that area changed during this time period. So you got there early 1940.

CH: And there was just hardly any, the school was... well, the school was being built, I think, when you started junior high, didn't you? [Addressing daughter] Because when you guys started, you started junior high, but didn't Dick start in grade school down in town? Oh, you both did? Oh, that's right, Air Force. You know, the Air Force emptied out and then they had that -- I'm always touching. [Referring to microphone]. That's right, the Air Force left, and you guys went to school there, didn't you?

TI: Oh, so they used the old Air Force base for school?

CH: School, uh-huh. And then they started building... isn't that junior high new?

TI: So they had to build all this new infrastructure because what I read is that with irrigation, and I guess the Air Force, I mean, the population was just really...

CH: Just really grew, yeah. And that's when they started... even our potatoes that were, like I say, we made big money in raising the potatoes there. And so Bill went big, I mean, just... in the meantime, the Japanese farmers there got together, and they made kind of a...

TI: Like a cooperative?

CH: Co-op, uh-huh. And he ran the co-op, and so we had, I don't know, Jack and Mike were farming the rest of the... huh, the farm? I just remember going out there and taking lunch out to them several times. Not on our own home base only, but other, I mean, other acres around the area.

TI: Now, who were the cooperative, where would they sell the potatoes?

CH: Well, back east. But as I recall, they were going, shipping them back east somewhere. It wasn't... I mean, it was local, too, but most of it I think was going back east.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2015 Densho. All Rights Reserved.