Densho Digital Archive - Tadashi Sakuma Interview (denshovh-stadashi-01-0006)

<Begin Segment 6>

GS: When did your family and the Kobas decide to move to Moses Lake?

TS: Well, we decided to move because I thought maybe I might make, while over there, we might able to earn some money doing work for the farm, and I felt it would be more of a family for the boys, the children and so forth.

GS: So the Koba brothers sharecropped potatoes and onions.

TS: More, that's right.

GS: And what did you do in Moses Lake?

TS: Well, I was helping them, because they had a Mexican labor for the harvest time, especially, so I used to take equipment and water for them to work with, you see. That was more my job to see that they have adequate water and you know, other equipment that needed to be done.

GS: Did you work anywhere else in Moses Lake?

TS: Well, in the fall, after the harvest, I used to work across the road from where we used to live. And there was a turkey farm so I worked for them during the, before the Thanksgiving and so forth.

GS: And your wife, did she have other duties?

TS: No, she did housework. She was, you might say she was a cook. She cooked for the boys, her brothers and her father was there too, you see.

GS: And there were other Japanese families there at Moses Lake?

TS: That's right. Harui family and Shibayama family, they were neighbors

GS: And when did you decide to leave Moses Lake to return to Bainbridge Island?

TS: Well, when the war was over, incidentally, Nakata family relocated to Moses Lake too. So we decided let's go back together and see how it is. And we moved back to the island. The Nakata family had a house, but I didn't have a house. But we had to buy a house, you might say, and so we moved back together in November of 1945.

GS: And where was that house on the island?

TS: It's on Madison Avenue, where I live.

GS: But not the same house.

TS: No, we decided to, after a while, that house was very difficult to fix, so we decided to build behind it and tear the old house down.

GS: When you were in Moses Lake, did you have any dealings with the local people there other than...

TS: No, I didn't because I wasn't in business. I think the Koba boys had quite a bit of business with the Hanson family. They were very able to help them too.