<Begin Segment 18>

TI: How about your family? So you were able to go to this two-room schoolhouse and really get a good education. How about the business? What do you know about the business in those early years coming back to Watsonville? How was it?

HY: Yeah, well, my dad came back, he was driving tractors for other farmers. And then... well, we lived in my grandfather's, we converted the garage or the shed to be a home. It wasn't just a shed, it was where they kept the tractors and everything. But my dad put in a floor and walled it off. Of course, the bathroom was easy, you just dug an outhouse in the back. Just ran some running water and electricity to it, and we lived there for a couple years, I guess.

TI: And where was this property?

HY: In Watsonville.

TI: And so this was just... I'm sorry, the shed belonged to...

HY: My grandfather.

TI: Okay, so it was still on your, on that (100)-acre kind of...

HY: Yeah.

TI: Okay.

HY: So he put in a wood burning stove, so we made it a cozy home. And those days, I guess you could do these things without permits and things.

TI: Now, were the, did any of the other families do the same thing? Like Uncle Mac, did his family also...

HY: Oh, they lived in the main house with my grandfather.

TI: Okay, so it was just too crowded for you to also be there.

HY: Yeah. Oh, and then my uncle Mac and uncle Kenji decided that they want to try farming in Oregon, eastern Oregon. So they went up to eastern Oregon and they were farming there for four or five years. But that weather up there is very harsh, it's like a desert, high desert country.

TI: So I'm curious why they thought eastern Oregon versus... I mean, it seems like Watsonville is such a fertile area for farming. And I'm guessing your grandfather needed the help. I mean, a (100)-acre farm was pretty large.

HY: Yeah. Well, at that time, half of it was orchard and the other half was not really used except for he would start tomato plants, beds, bedding plants. Yeah, I guess the land up in eastern Oregon was cheap. So they had a big farm there, but that was really hard. In fact, my aunt Mary died in childbirth there because of the, I think the harshness of the weather and the life up there. My aunt Hiroko said that was sort of like being a pioneer out there. It was just, I think that was the first time that area was being farmed. So they tried to do that for a couple years but then California farming is so much better. So they finally came and came back when the kids were in high school. But they tried that for a while. My father also went out there to look at it, but decided that that wasn't the area that he wanted to be in.

TI: No, I've done interviews in that eastern Oregon, Ontario, yeah, it's...

HY: So you knew some people who lived up there?

TI: Yeah, because a lot of people in the Seattle area, there was a time where there was a "voluntary evacuation." And so farmers in the, what's called the Auburn area, some families moved to eastern Oregon. Because eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, was outside the exclusion zone, so they could stay there, and so they stayed there during the war. But it was, like you say, it was difficult farming. But some families are still there, I mean, there's still a Japanese...

HY: Well, my aunt Hiroko said she really enjoyed it because the people there were so friendly, hakujin people.

TI: Yeah, no, it was fun to go back there. Dana and I took an interview trip there, I remember. I still remember that.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.