Densho Digital Archive - Bill Hirabayashi Interview (denshovh-hbill

<Begin Segment 15>

BH: And then in 1944, that's when my boss said to me, "You're going to need some help," and I said, "Well, yes." 'Cause, see, when I went to work, I worked under another fellow, Lee Mitchell was the manager, and there was two other people besides me, so there was four people on the estate, it was an estate farm. We had regular livestock, and we had, we raised grain and everything. But at the same time, the main division, the main part of the thing was a farm and the other was, it was an estate with a swimming pool and all that. And it used to be owned by... I forgot the name now. She's a well-known movie actress in the silent movie days. I'm sorry, I can't remember now. It'll come to me later. But my boss bought that place, and that's where it had a swimming pool, well, he built the swimming pool and all that stuff. And all of his guests were the movie actresses that were going through to New York, but Chicago was a stopover. And he invited them to his Hotel Ambassador, and they were their weekend guests at the estate at Grassmere Farm.

MA: And your position when you, so you applied from camp to this estate farm?

BH: Yeah. Well, my resume was that I had experience as a farm because of my dad, raised on the farm, and I worked at Floralcrest, so I had experience with flowers. And being on the farm, we had to do our own repair work, whether it be plumbing, electrical, or whatever, and words to that effect, and so I got chosen. But that's another story, because I said to my boss one time, I said, "How come," I mean, "how was I able to get a job with you when there were so many different Niseis out there that probably were more qualified than I was?" And he said, well, Miss Weinger, his secretary, chose three out of the bunch. And then he said, "I chose you out of the bunch." And I said, "Well, what made you choose me out of the bunch?" He said, "Because of your P.S." I said, "I don't remember any P.S." And he said, "Well, I'm sure you do," and I said I really didn't. And I still don't remember, but being the way that I am and the way that I am and the way I used to be and whatever. Anyway, so he finally told me the P.S. said, I wrote a P.S. on it and said, "You might consider me a Jap of all trades." And I used the word, the three-letter word. But those days, they were calling you that anyway. No matter where you went, you were a J-A-P. And so that's when Mr. Byfield said he knew what we had to go through with the discrimination and stuff, which, like I said, I didn't really feel it, but I know my parents and them did, and Martin did, because he was older. But I was just a carefree kid, is what I was. But anyway, that's how I got it.

And then shortly after I was working for him, then the manager was doing something he shouldn't be doing, so my boss fired all three of them and I was by myself. This was in the fall of the year, and naturally, by that time, we didn't have to harvest any grain or anything, it was just taking care of the livestock. And the swimming pool was closed and all that, so I could take care of it. Well, then it was about March or so, February, March, when I was having my regular meeting with my boss, he said, I said to him, "Should I start planting the oats and the corn and different stuff like that?" And he says, "Yeah, if you could do that." And he said, "Well, you're going to need some help." I said, "Well, I could do most of it," because had, took the liberty of putting lights on the tractor so I could work day and night type of a deal. But in the meantime, my boss realized there was a lot of things I can do, so he gave me the permission to charge, sign my name, anything I wanted in town. Whether it be the hardware store, the blacksmith, the feed store, you name it. And so I did a lot of different things on my own that benefitted the farm. So at that point, he said, "How old are your brothers?" I told him, "Well, they're fourteen and fifteen, I think." He said, "Well, did they work on the farm?" I said, "Oh, sure," I said, "they had to work. That was all part of the family thing." He says, "Okay." He said, "And you said they were at Camp, at Heart Mountain?" I said, "Yes," and he wanted to know their names. And I didn't hear anything more about that. Then my wife heard from my brothers, they said, "We're coming to Grassmere Farms to help Bill because Bill's boss sent us a ticket and a release to go to the farm to work, work on the farm." So then he brought the two boys out to me one day, and they worked all summer up until September. And then he took care of sending them back to camp, and everything went real good that first year on my own that way. So then that was 1944. And then 1945, the kids wrote to my wife and said, "We're coming back again now," and so they came out, and they were with us, and then the war ended in August, I guess it was, in '45. And then they went back into camp and everybody was released, and that's when the parents moved out here to Minneapolis.