<Begin Segment 11>

AI: And then how did your life change when you moved to Kirkland? Can you describe what --

CN: Yeah, it changed a great deal. The... my immediate friends, school friends, were all Caucasian now, and we didn't live near any Japanese families. There were two that lived several miles away, but not within walking distance and so that changed. And also going from actually raising cauliflowers and cabbages and strawberries and all to the greenhouse was also very different. And our house was different, too.

AI: Can you describe that -- the house and greenhouse area?

CN: The heating... the greenhouse was heated by oil, and so the house was also heated -- it was right next to the greenhouse -- and the house was also heated with oil rather than the way that we had done it before. Although in the kitchen, it was a wood stove. And then we had (an) indoor bathroom whereas before we had to go outside. And so that was also a tremendous change.

AI: And what types of things did they grow in the greenhouses?

CN: Flowers, you know, chrysanthemums, and lilies, and also bedding plants, and, as I say, cucumbers. I think we had tomatoes, indoor tomatoes, too, and lots of bedding plants like daisies and pansies and stalks and things like that. It was, life seemed to be much easier, though I'm sure it wasn't, but it seemed to me to be a lot easier than those back-breaking work that had to be done. And also the soil in Bellevue was not all that -- where we lived anyway, those two places where we lived -- weren't really conducive to good farming, I didn't think. Well, I shouldn't say good farming, but easier farming. And there in Redmond and Kirkland -- I say Redmond and Kirkland because we were right on the dividing line. Everyone living across the street went to Kirkland school and on my side of the street went to Redmond. And across the street on the south side, they all went to Bellevue. [Interruption] But anyway, so life seemed to be much easier, and we were able to take trips whereas before, trips meant around here. We did go up to Anacortes and also went fishing and that kind of thing, but it was day trips. There, we had more time, it seemed, during those off seasons, during the summertime especially. We were busy with bedding plants and all, but it seemed to me that we were able to go to Yakima and Spokane and Portland.

AI: So you had more free time?

CN: Yeah. We seemed to have more free time. And I don't know whether that was, those were the reasons, but at least we seemed to have a little more time.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.