<Begin Segment 17>

TI: Now, when you were raising the children, what were some of the values that you thought were really important to make sure your children have? I'm guessing hard work was one of them, they're farm kids after all.

SI: Whatever they can do to help the farm, they did, after school.

TI: Something else that came up with Lon's interview was the importance of education. That I think most of your kids went off and got college degrees, for instance, I mean, that's something that Lon was mentioning.

SI: The only one who, Wayne is the only one that he came home to help us. He only had one more quarter to go or something, but he didn't graduate, because he didn't finish that, and he just said he's going to come and help run the farm, because he knew he was in... what would you call it? He knew the books, anyway.

TI: Like accounting?

SI: Accounting. So we needed that for the business, you know. He would know what to do, so he came and helped. And Lon was in Richland, I'm just trying to remember, where did he work?

TI: So he told me the Battelle research.

SI: Battelle Northwest, yeah. But then after, I don't know what year it was, I don't know whether it was before incorporating, that we told him to come home and help or something, I don't remember when, but he knows.

TI: How did it feel for you to have Lon and Wayne come back to help with the farm?

SI: I think it was good because I think we needed help with... Lon, he would do some of the business, and then Wayne would know all the accounting, so they kind of worked together.

TI: Uh-huh. And then how well did the two of them work with not only you, but... because up to then, you and your husband kind of would run the farm, now you have your two oldest sons involved, too. How did the four of you work together, how well did you work together?

SI: I think we all did our parts. Like Lon would help, I think he learned all this drip irrigation, so he helped the irrigating more. And then Wayne did the accounting and Ken would the farm, so I think they all worked together.

TI: And was there, was Ken kind of in charge, still?

SI: Yeah, we were still in charge, and they were working for us, the corporation. So later on, the four people, all of us became a corporation, I think.

TI: And when it first started, the corporation, like the early 1980s, the farm wasn't that large. Lon was saying maybe two hundred acres, and then the corporation was going to start doing more packing and you put the cooling unit and things like that? That Wayne was going to do more marketing and selling?

SI: Yeah.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.