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TI: So talk about, so at some point, the word got out that people had to leave. So what happened to your family? Thirty acres, I think you mentioned earlier, one of the Filipino workers took it over. But talk about that time period. What can you remember?

FS: You know, my brother John and my sister were the most involved in that. But as I look back on it, it's really incredible what those two did, when you think about it. Betty was twenty-two, John was, like, nineteen, twenty, right in there. Sophomore in college, he comes home because they had to, and they're in the process of dismantling and getting rid of the whole farm. You know, Tom, when June and I moved from Woodinville to Midori three years ago, man, what a chore that was, just to move from our house here. And I think back and I think, what in the world and how in the world did my sister and brother do all this? Because you know that Mom and Dad did not read or write English well, so it was all dependent upon my older siblings to take care of all the paperwork and to understand what the rules were, what had to be done, and what timeframe we're talking about, to get rid of all the stuff on the farm. You know, my dad was trying to sell his crops, some people were giving, offering him such a ridiculously low price, he finally said forget it, he'd plow it under if nothing else. He finally found some young couple that came from, I think, back in Oklahoma or someplace, and bought the crops on his farm. But the guy didn't know how to handle it, and I understood they went belly-up, they couldn't even pay the loan they got from the government to buy the stuff. And that's the kind of stuff it was, but everything my dad had was lost upon a fire sale basis, that's all it was.

TI: You mentioned earlier though, one of the Filipino workers took over some part of the farming?

FS: He took over some of that for a while, but I'm not sure what the sequence is. And there were some interesting dynamics that went on. And I don't know the details of it, I wished I could ask brother John and sister Betty. But, see, my mom and dad were hopeful that maybe those two Filipino workers take over that farm, because they knew the farm, they knew the operation and everything. But somehow I think... I don't know what it was, there was some greed or something involved, they didn't want to pay anything, they wanted it given to them. And that was part of the thing my father got pretty ticked off about. But I don't know the details, I just kind of was on the outskirts of the whole thing.

TI: And so I think you mentioned earlier, the farm was being leased, the land.

FS: Yes.

TI: So what happened? Eventually you just walked, the family just walked away from everything? At this point, what happened?

FS: No, they got, I don't know how much, they got a minimum amount. This couple that came from Oklahoma or someplace back there, got a farmer's assistance loan or something like that, and they bought the crops.

TI: Okay, and so essentially took over the lease also?

FS: Yeah.

TI: So your parents got some money for that when they bought the crops.

FS: Very nominal amount.

TI: But at that point, your family was giving up its home, though.

FS: That's it.

TI: You were leaving that.

FS: Yeah. Well, we were having to leave, and there was a time, certain, you got to get out of there, and people knew it. And so anything you wanted to sell, you just couldn't get anything. My dad had a 1941 Chevrolet sedan that he had bought.

TI: So almost brand-new.

FS: It was, yeah, almost new. I don't know how much he got that, got for that thing, but I know it wasn't very much. It was just that people that were buying the stuff like that knew that we had to leave, and they weren't gonna give an inch to give you the benefit. That's just not the way it is.

TI: And do you remember people coming to the farm to buy things?

FS: Not much, because other than the car that my dad had, you know, all the farm equipment and stuff, he wasn't selling any of that, it was being sold as being part of the farm.

TI: And how about the family things that you weren't able to bring to camp? What happened to all of that?

FS: You know, our personal belongings, the farm belonged to a couple named Baumgartner, and old Swiss couple. And they were good enough to tell my mom and dad that they would store whatever we couldn't take and wanted to keep. And they stored it, and I remember when I came back in 1947, '48, after I finished high school, I moved back with my family, we went to get some of that stuff, like old dining room table and sofa and stuff like that. Well, a lot of it was deteriorated. What it was, stored in the basement, open basement, under one of the homes that the Baumgartners had. So it wasn't a good storage spot. And so it didn't really weather well. They essentially lost everything.

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