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TI: Okay. So let's go back to Beaverton. And when you were born and you have two older siblings, tell me about the family home. What was the family home like when you were young?

TH: Well, it was very bare. My parents loved animals, so we always had a dog. And my dad... and in the pictures in the museum in Portland, he built a greenhouse. I don't know how he did it. I only remember he had a hammer and a leveler, but he must have had other tools. But how he ever built... it looked just like a regular greenhouse, all glass. I wished that I had asked more questions (then).

TI: And what was in the greenhouse?

TH: He raised, he planted flower seeds and vegetable seeds. And (...) it was heated with hot water pipes going through it, and I don't know how he even knew how to do that. Being an only child, he had no education in building anything. So somebody probably helped him.

TI: Oh, so interesting. I'm an engineer, so I love to kind of figure out how things work. So he had a piping system in the greenhouse so things wouldn't freeze, essentially?

TH: And make the plants grow faster.

TI: And how did, so it was hot water that would do that, how did he heat the hot water?

TH: He had a... I just remember a big stove outside in the back. And I didn't pay much attention to it, I thought everybody did that. But the pipes went through the greenhouse, and it was a pretty large greenhouse. Not huge.

TI: Well, so how large would you say it was?

TH: (...)

TI: Okay, so maybe... this is about thirty feet, so maybe sixty feet long?

TH: Right. And then about this wide, because it seems like there was one, where you walked, and then there were boxes on both sides filled with seedlings.

TI: So let's go back to the living quarters. What were the living quarters like? Like how many bedrooms?

TH: Well, there was an upstairs, (...) three bedrooms and a wood stove. But a real fancy stove, because it had one section that the hot water would heat, and (a section) where you could keep your food warm. I can't explain it. I have pictures of it, but it was a fancy stove.

TI: So it was like a wood burning stove?

TH: Oh, yes, always.

TI: Okay, so it had, sounds like a warming chamber, something just to heat water also?

TH: And on the side there was a place you fill it with water and it became hot water.

TI: Interesting. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that.

TH: Oh, yeah. [Laughs] And we had a washtub like this and we'd take water from there and fill it. That was our bath.

TI: And with the three bedrooms, how were the sleeping arrangements? Who slept where?

TH: The two girls and then my brother, parents had the downstairs.

TI: And how about things like running water? Did you have running water in the house?

TH: Yes. But bathroom was outside. Sears and Roebuck catalogue was the paper. [Laughs] I don't think everybody did, but most people did.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.