<Begin Segment 15>

VY: Okay, but it sounds like you and your brother had always intended to come back and work in the nursery, is that right?

FN: Right, yeah. But we needed somebody to really take care of the books, and neither my brother and I, we were not interested in that.

VY: Your mother had done that before.

FN: Yeah, my mother had done that. And it was a time, when we came into the business, of great expansion.

VY: So when was this?

FN: Well, my brother graduated in 1960, I graduated in 1957. And so the '60s started the real big expansion. And my father had stopped going to the flower market, we had decided that we should just specialize in growing, and we would not do the selling ourselves. So we joined a group, and this was led by Yoshimi Shibata of the Shibata brothers in Mount Eden. And so we became a part of a group of ten nursery people. And this also included Mr. Aebi. And so we all started expanding our nursery at that time, and we started another nursery in Salinas, and we were encouraged by Shimi. And so I would say that the two people that influenced me, my brother and I the most, were Mr. Aebi and Shimi Shibata, Yoshimi Shibata, and his brother Jerry Shibata. Because Jerry and Shimi encouraged us to start this operation in Salinas. So my brother's job was to go back and forth between Richmond and Salinas, he would spend three days in Salinas, and then four days in Richmond. And then his wife's job was to drive them. Because our traffic is so bad that he would do most of his commuting at night.

VY: So even in the '60s, the traffic was pretty bad.

FN: Yes, it was bad. And then David had other responsibilities, because we wanted him -- and also Shimi encouraged him to participate within the community. So I stayed in Richmond, and my job was to do the growing and the greenhouse, and David would oversee the whole nursery business, and then also he had to volunteer for the community, both in the floral industry and within the community.

VY: How long was that drive between Richmond and Salinas?

FN: Well, it's a hundred miles from door to door, and it would take about two hours. But in traffic, you never knew how long it would take, it could be three hours, four hours. So that commute was done at night.

VY: And so what kind of volunteer duties did your brother do in the community?

FN: Well, within the community, he volunteered for the Boy Scouts, he volunteered for the Y, he belonged to several different groups like the Rotary Club in Richmond, he also was active at the San Francisco Optimists, because he didn't have a lot of Japanese friends. And so it was through the Optimists, his friends in the Optimists, that he met his wife. She was a San Francisco girl, and she lived in Japantown, and so it was quite a shock for her when she married him, and to come and live on the nursery, and then also be involved in this, building Salinas. So everybody had to contribute something.

VY: It sounds like if you marry into a nursery family, you have to expect to work. [Laughs]

FN: Right, yeah. And so as far as the flower business, my brother was, he was the president of the California Flower Market in San Francisco. And after my brother passed away, my sister-in-law was appointed to be on the board of the San Francisco Flower Market, and she was first woman in the whole history of the flower market to be on the California Flower Market board, and she has been the only woman on the flower market board, there's never been another woman appointed. So that's really something.

VY: It is.

FN: And then he was also president of the California Florist Association, the California Floral Council, he was president of a national flower growing association called Roses Incorporated, and this was greenhouse flower growers. And that was really good for him, and there are other associations in other countries, and so the Roses Incorporated group made a lot of field trips to other countries like Europe, and to Japan, and we were able to meet other professional flower growers. So I really enjoyed those trips, because those are the first times that... you know, flower growers are always really busy, and those are the first times that you could meet your fellow flower growers in other countries, and also just relax. And whenever we went on those trips, they always took us to historical places to visit. So on a trip to, we went to Israel once, and there are so many ancient places to visit there. In Europe we could see castles and monuments and museums, so we just didn't see... but the most important part of these trips was the fellowship we had with the flower growers of other countries. It's really something that, I really cherish those memories.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.