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TI: We've been talking a lot about your grandfather, I wanted to also bring in your grandmother on the Shikuma side. What was her name and what do you know about her?

HY: Haru. Just said Haru, but maybe Haruko or something like that.

TI: Any memories of her or stories about her that you can share?

HY: She was very little, she was a very small person, always smiling. Very hard life, I imagine, for her with all the children and work. I mean, even after the war when she was in her seventies, she was still working, would go out in the fields and work. Very hard worker. She would always do the ofuro, they built an ofuro on their farm in Watsonville, and she would always start the fire at night, wood burning ofuro.

TI: So describe the furo. You said wood, but how large was it?

HY: Oh, it was a very small area. The tub was maybe three feet by... it was very small. When I went in with my brother, we would both have to bend our knees to get in there. But it was a metal, square metal tub over a fireplace. And the fireplace, we fed wood from the outside underneath the ofuro. We'd heat the fire, hot water every night, we'd have an ofuro every night. It was great, you could soak in that, it was like a hot tub, I guess, today. Yeah, it was just a wood building that they built. Very simple.

TI: Now, was there kind of a... what's the right word? Not a ritual, but was there like an order in terms of who got to take a bath first, second, third, like that, in terms of an order of the bath? Or was it just whoever was ready?

HY: Yeah, whoever was ready. Normally the kids would be ready first, and we'd all look forward to hopping in there. Especially... well, sometimes with our grandfather, grandpa would be there, we'd all jump in with him. And there was a wooden rack that, of course, would be on the bottom so we wouldn't burn ourselves on the metal tub.

TI: So tell me about, yeah, more about your grandfather. We got a taste of your grandfather on the Tsuda, or the Yoshida side in Hawaii. How would you describe your grandfather Shikuma?

HY: Oh, yeah. I would say he was a gentleman. I remember, as a kid, I thought he was sort of like a Gary Cooper. You know, he's lean, he's tall, he was always very nice to everybody and never said a bad word about anybody. He was a very strong Christian, he became a Christian when he came here. He was one of the founding members of the church as well. He was a leader; people would gravitate to him and he would always treat people well. And I guess that was the secret of his success is that he just was a truly, generally nice person.

TI: And how were his English skills? Was he bilingual?

HY: No, no, he was not bilingual. Though he, I'm sure he understood quite a bit of English because of his business connections. He made many friends with hakujins. There were several pioneers in the strawberry industry there. One was Mr. Hyde, and he was a good friend with him, and with Tony Tomasello, who was an Italian. So he had many good non-Japanese friends.

TI: And so was it with Mr. Hyde that... we mentioned the precursor to Naturipe, was it with Mr. Hyde that Naturipe kind of emerged?

HY: Yes, I think so.

TI: Okay. So it was kind of an interesting combination. I mean, so it wasn't just all Japanese, it was hakujins or Caucasians and Japanese.

HY: Well, yeah. But I think the main reason for... it was a co-op, essentially, of Japanese farmers, and it was really, it was difficult trying to sell their strawberries to the commission house and getting a good price. Because the farmers there would, the other commission houses would control the pricing and all that. So when the railroad came to Watsonville, they formed a co-op and it was mostly Japanese farmers, and Mr. Hyde helped, I believe. And they branded their berries Naturipe so it didn't have a Japanese name, and they shipped it to Chicago on these trains. And they would pack 'em in these big, large wooden crates, chests, really, and they did very well. And that was beginning of this company called Naturipe.

TI: Earlier your mentioned that your father, when he graduated from Berkeley, worked at a commission house. So did he help run the co-op because of that, or was he part of... I would think that he may have played... well, I guess Naturipe happened much earlier, but because of his work with the commission house, did he get involved in more the operations of the co-op when he went to Watsonville?

HY: Not prior to the war. Prior to the war, he was mostly into lettuce and row crops, something that you could grow more on your own, less labor intensive than strawberries. And he wanted to be on his own, he didn't want to be, he just wanted to be on his own, so he was mostly in strawberries. But after the war, when he came back, then he went into strawberry growing and became more active in Naturipe.

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