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KO: I am Kete Okazaki. Now living in Seattle, Washington. And somehow I didn't get back that last ten miles to the island.

[Interruption]

KO: I was born and raised right in the heart of Winslow, in the high rent district, directly between the Dair mansion and Doctor Shepard's house. And they were both pretty substantial buildings. Unfortunately the Dair mansion burned not too long before our departure. The Allens took over that property. And... I drew a blank.

HM: What did your family do? Who consisted of your family?

KO: Right there on that property the family had control of ten acres of ground. It was owned by Mr. Black from Black Manufacturing in Seattle. And he allowed us to remain there on the property and use it for whatever we could. The ground at the Winslow site was pretty well depleted and grew berries up 'til probably the late 1920s, or in the mid-'30s I could recall being out in the middle of the fields. We did raise berries until the ground just wouldn't produce much, much of anything anymore. And it went, went back to grassland and Dad was, had more brains at that time than I ever gave him credit for. He horse traded, or cow traded and got himself a cow. And that was a, one of the biggest boons to our family well-being. The cow and a couple of pigs and always had the horse, of course. But at that time the original home property was pretty much a home base. 'Cause we had small plots here and there in Winslow and in Eagledale... later on in Eagledale. Almost to the top of the hill there, above McDonald School, is where the bulk of our farming endeavors ended up. And, let's see, ground on, in Winslow and on the island in general was really, to our thinking, didn't, wasn't fertile enough to really produce berries in the way we needed it to be. We did go off island and south of Port Orchard is where they found additional property that we were able to buy. And we were, at the time of Pearl Harbor and evacuation, part of us were at this new area, the new farm, so called. And that was South Port Orchard, but I think it was in Pierce County, where, up from Minter Creek, which is well known today for its oyster production. 'Course we were not thinking anything about the oyster production other than the fact that it was there. And there was a hatchery on Minter Creek, and salmon and such would come up. And we bordered Minter Creek, so the salmon, after they were spawning, or attempting to spawn, would be on the banks. And it was quite a, quite a new thing for us, or for me at least, to see these salmon try to swim up the small creek, and a novelty, I suppose. The dog loved it. He'd come from down in the creek and come back up to the house and we knew exactly where he had been 'cause he smelled to high heaven.

[Interruption]

HM: Tell us about who was in your family and who your family consisted of.

KO: Getting back to the Minter Creek farm, December 7th there was just two of us, George, and older brother, and myself were there. And on that particular day he was running the tractor and cultivating, I suspect. Anyway, I was out doing some hand weeding I believe, just to kill time. And I went in the house for lunch a little early to crank up the firebox in the kitchen range and get ready to make some lunch. And I came in and turned on the radio, and about that time I hear all this commotion on the radio about Pearl Harbor having been bombed. And I was totally shook up, and the first thing I did was forget lunch and ran out to see where my brother was. And he was pretty close at that time, at least within earshot, my shouting and hollering. I stopped him and told him what I heard on the radio. That was that particular Sunday. And from there we were up to... we checked back with the family on the island after that and they said, "If worst comes to worst, come on back to Bainbridge and we'll work it out from there." So that's what we did. We dropped everything there on the new farm and went back to Bainbridge.

Then there was a little, few other little incidents on the island that might be notable. The FBI thing, well, first got an idea that there may be something like that. One Sunday we were all out of the house and looking out at the street, and we see these nice black cars going up the street. And something's going on, and sure enough, one peels off and comes into the yard. That happened to, apparently that FBI was investigating all of us and we didn't know what to make of it at first. But I let them do what they had to do, and I was the youngest of six offspring, and I was kind of maneuvering myself around to see if I can hear what they were trying to uncover. And I did overhear a couple of remarks they may have made. One was the fact that our grand all-band radio, product of Sears-Roebuck and company, Silvertone, was or could be a transmitter if somebody wanted to make a transmitter. And I thought that was an odd comment for them to make, but apparently that's one of the things that they were looking for. But I let that go right by me because I wasn't in any way capable of doing anything with that radio. Other than that, I don't think they could object to anything that was on the premises.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.