Densho Digital Archive - Isami Nakao - Kazuko Nakao Interview (denshovh-nisami

<Begin Segment 5>

DH: Should we do Kay's side of the story now? Your family was in strawberry farming mostly, very well known for strawberry farming 'cause you were a Sakai.

KN: Uh-huh.

DH: Let's talk about how your family came to Bainbridge. Your father came to Canada first; is that right? Tell us about that.

KN: Uh-huh. He got married and then he decided to come to America. He didn't have to come 'cause he had a good lumber business in Japan, but since everybody's coming, he felt like he needed to come too, see what's happening in the other side of the world. So, anyway, he left Mom and he was going to work and send for her. However, he came to Canada. But he never said how he got into United States, but I know it was illegal because he never said -- he wanted to go back to Japan, and he said if he did, he wouldn't be able to come back. But he never said he got in illegally. I don't know if he swam or rode across or what. He never said and I never had the presence of mind to ask him how did you do it. Somebody apparently helped him get across. And then he got his first job at the restaurant in Seattle. It was at the Frye Hotel. It was called the Puss and Boots, and he was a fry cook and he worked hard. And finally after about three years, I guess, he saved enough money and sent for Mom. And so she came over about latter part of 1918 or beginning of 1919 'cause I was born in December of 1919. And then the doctor said -- he was having stomach problems -- and the doctor said, "You need to go out to the country. Being in the city and cooking all that fry food is not good for you." And he was... because of the fry food becoming very obnoxious... after dealing with it every day, morning 'til night, he started to eat just ochazuke, and that was not nourishing, right? Rice with tea and then pickled vegetables, and that's what he liked the best. Well, anyway, finally he decided he'd come to the island, and he took over a farm that was already in operation because these people that had it wanted to go back to Japan. And I think their name was Nakata, but then they're not related at all to the Nakatas here on the island right now. And that was, the farm was where the Deschamp's Real Estate Company is now. That ten acres, but that soil became quite depleted after farming for so many years, and so Dad purchased -- let's see, how many acres? Ten, fifteen, acres where the new school is now, the Commodore Middle School, and Ordry School. That was all our strawberry field.

DH: That was all your strawberry field? Sakai's Strawberry Field?

KN: Yes, Sakai's Strawberry Field. And that was cleared by hand, horse, dynamite. And being the eldest one, I really had to help out, every time off I had from school, summer, anything, had to help out.