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BY: Which reminds me. So was Mr. Tomisello then taking care of the farm that whole time?

SS: Yeah. So Tony Tomisello was this Italian immigrant who must have come over in the late 1800s and started an apple orchard farm. Anyway, my grandfather, one of his first jobs when he first came over as a teenager was to plant apple trees for Mr. Tomisello. So when we were driving around the country, my dad would always point out at this one corner, he said, "Your grandfather planted those apple trees." And then if we went even further out in the country, then we'd go by the Tomisello cold storage, a big warehouse with 'Tomisello' printed across the side. And he said, "Tony Tomisello's the reason we have our farm." So I don't know. I'm pretty sure Tony Tomisello didn't speak much English, and I know my grandfather didn't speak any at that time. But they must have hit it off because this was, like, thirty years later, forty years later, when it became clear that the Japanese were going to be cleared out, Tony Tomisello approached my grandfather and offered to take care of the farm.

BY: Do you think the fact that -- I'm assuming he was an Italian American -- the fact that he was of Italian ancestry made him realize or take it more to heart?

SS: Yeah. Because I think both he and my grandfather immigrated around the same time, at the very end of the 1800s, early 1900s. And I'm pretty sure he realized that if they were to treat the Italians the same way they were treating the Japanese, that he would get taken away as well from his family. So I think that's one of the reasons he had maybe more sympathy or felt better about helping out the Japanese.

BY: And he took care of the farm that whole time?

SS: He took care of the farm through the whole war. Even when my uncles got out and moved to Colorado, they got out of Poston and moved to Colorado to a place called Longmont and started farming there, Tony Tomisello put one of the tractors on a train and sent it out to them. So they don't have to buy one or go without a truck.

BY: So he really went out of his way to help the family.

SS: Yeah.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.