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MA: So I'm curious about the effect of the Depression on Watsonville and your family.

KI: Watsonville being a farming community did not suffer as much as places, because you know, well, like when my husband's family, they had, they rented apple orchard and stuff, and they just shook the apples off the tree 'cause it wasn't paying enough to get 'em picked and stuff like that, but at least we could eat 'em. And then, like, if you were living on the farm, you can always have plants in the ground. And I know when the times were rough, we used to go through the apple orchard and pick the nice mustard greens, and my mother used to cook it or pickle it, you know, things like that. And when, and even if it wasn't a bad time when the apple crop was picked, when the leaves fall off the tree you can see the leftover, we used to go get a long bamboo pole and put a sack on the end, and we used to pick 'em off the tree, and they used to keep for a long time, and we'd eat them. I mean, go through the apple orchard when they're pruned and pick up all the leaves and branches and bring 'em home. Because in those days, ofuros were more or less separated from the house, and we would always have to burn. And wood was, I guess it wasn't as expensive as it is now, but still, you had to pay for it, so that was our job, to go and pick up all those wood. I remember doing those jobs. [Laughs]

<End Segment 4> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Watsonville - Santa Cruz JACL. All Rights Reserved.