<Begin Segment 5>

TI: All right, and when you moved from the first place and then you had to sell the land and move, did you move the house?

FM: (...) Well, the house was moved, and we had barns, we had a barn, had some bunkhouses that people would live in when we had... our big crop was. (...) our big crop was ten acres of string beans, which we would pick and contract to a cannery. But during that time, we would have people come and stay with us on the farm, and so we built bunkhouses for them. We probably had, oh, maybe fifteen or so people that would live out on the farm with us during the summer. The summer, five or six weeks that we were harvesting the beans. Actually during the time that we were there, we always had some gentlemen that would be with us to help us on the farm. We had, I remember Mr. Doi and another man, two guys (...). They were friends that had worked with them in the sawmills when Grandfather and my dad worked in the sawmills.

[Interruption]

TI: And they would live in these outbuildings?

FM: Yeah, it was an outbuilding, yeah.

TI: Now, were they Japanese?

FM: Yeah. In fact, the family that lived with us was Mr. and Mrs. Mori. I know there was some kind of a relationship like my mother's second cousin or something like that. And so they lived with us and helped us on the farm. They were there constantly, all the time.

TI: Now when you mentioned the twenty acres, first you were in one place and you had to move, did your family own the land?

FM: Yeah, we owned it. But as I think about it now, I think it was owned under the name of my brother George.

TI: Because of the alien land laws?

FM: Yeah, because of that problem. But I think he owned it.

TI: Yeah, because when you said they condemned it and they got money to buy another piece, it sounded like your family...

FM: So I know that when we left, when we had to leave after the war started, this is skipping a little bit, but we had... the airport decided to build on to their...

TI: To expand the airport.

FM: (...) Initially it was a mile square, and we were right in the middle of it. And then we moved to this place adjacent to the airport (...) They probably expanded it another mile maybe, another square mile. It's a pretty good sized airport, it's the municipal airport there in Portland right now. And as I think about it, I've been there driving down on, through 205. (...) There was an island, government island right in the middle of the Columbia, in the river, and I've driven by on Marine View Drive, which is along the river. And based on where that government island is, our house was just about where the terminal is right now, you know, the big terminal. (...) It was pretty hard life, but we just kind of enjoyed it.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2015 Densho. All Rights Reserved.