<Begin Segment 20>

TI: But then eventually your family was exploring going to Idaho. So tell me about that?

LH: And I don't know why that happened, but the Kakus and Kanemotos decided to move to Idaho, so, and I don't know why I got to go again, but I did go. And I know that my father paid it, paid rent to stay in Payette, and I remember the house, but I don't remember where the Kanemotos were gonna stay. I knew the Kakus were gonna stay in Weiser, but the house we were gonna rent was, it's on a plateau, 'cause if you go to this edge you could look down and you'd see the Snake River way down there, so it's not safe, but people that live in circumstances like that will adjust to it. But I do remember the Snake River way down. And I don't know if you know the Furuichis in Los Altos, but they lived in Ontario and I remember they went to visit them and I thought maybe they were the connections why we went there. I don't know, but, and I never asked, 'cause I lived right near them in Mountain View and they're all gone now. I should've asked while some of the older ones were alive.

TI: And what was the attraction of Idaho at this point? Why were families going there? Was it for farming?

LH: I think they were gonna farm, uh-huh, in the sugar beets, 'cause that's, looked like that's what they were growing there. And then the Kakus said they worked in the onions, onion. They raised onions. They worked in the onion fields. And then from Weiser they moved to Quincy, I think it's in Washington, and I think the father and mother were there until they died and then the, then the girls got married and they all went different places. And the boys all, Mr. Kaku was the type that wanted all the boys to go to college, so they all went to college and two became doctors. The rest are engineers. And the girls all went to commercial, to take typing.

TI: So like business college?

LH: Business college, that's it. That's what, that's what they did.

TI: But then your family decided not to go to Idaho in the end.

LH: When we got back they said, they announced that they, we can go back, so my father wanted to go back. He didn't want to go back to Idaho.

TI: Back to San Jose?

LH: Uh-huh. And the Kanemotos, too, so we both came back here, and the Kanemotos, the house they lived in, the landlord still had the house vacant and the farm vacant, so they went back to the house they were in. And we had nowhere to go, so we stayed at the Buddhist church, I think at that time the old Buddhist church was still there 'cause it seemed like that's where we were, downstairs, 'cause the church was upstairs. You had to go up and we were downstairs, and the rooms, we weren't the only ones. There were other returnees staying there during the interim looking for a place to stay. So we weren't there very long. My father got a job at Bracker Ranch. Brackers were the Germam family that had a big pear ranch and they used to have Japanese before the war, too, so they had living quarters for their workers in the orchard.

TI: I'm curious at, in that period of time you were at the Buddhist church, sort of like a, like a hostel almost, did people ever ask you, "So what camp were you in?" Do you ever remember people asking?

LH: I don't remember anybody there but us. I don't remember talking to anybody.

TI: Or just returning to San Jose, when you came across your friends, did, was that kind of a common, as people are reuniting, reseeing each other, they're asking, where were you, what were you doing?

LH: I don't remember going through that. All I remember is we moved to Bracker's and we worked. We started work. My father worked for the pear ranch. My mother and I worked for Frank Narimatsu, and Frank Narimatsu was in Utah with us. He came from camp, and I don't know which one, but anyway, he came to live or farm out where we were, too, for a while and that's how we knew him. And he came to San Jose and he, he rented farms around the valley, so we'd travel from one farm to the other planting celery and, I don't know if you know, celery planting is, they have these little plants that they, they grow in the nursery and they have long roots and about that much celery, and they cut the tops off so it's, it's this little plant with no top and the roots. And they're all in bundles. They come in crates, and we'd take a bundle about this big and put it in our hand like this, and we have boots on and the row, all the rows with running water and so we'd step sideways planting in, you'd dig a hole with your finger, put celery in and kinda cover it and then go plant the next one, so it's step by step like thinning, only you're planting celery.

TI: It sounds like back breaking work.

LH: It was, but with thinning you, you're, we're used to that. But we did that a lot, and then of course we had to hoe and then we had to harvest, and then we picked, he had tomatoes, too, and I think he had peas someplace, but basically he was a celery farmer. We did that for two years at least, and all the workers, they were from downtown Japanese Town, so I got to meet all these guys from downtown and then a lot of them were relatives, the Koguras and all the Kogura relatives, and then... well anyway, I think I was the only young girl and all the rest were mothers, and so I, it was a fun thing. We were just a group. We all got along and we just worked hard. And topping time was, or sugar, not sugar beets but celery harvesting is, you use a big knife and you cut, cut the celery and you take all the, you trim the root and then you take all the little pieces around it, and then we piled 'em and somebody came and put them into crates. Let's see...

SF: Where did the, your, these celeries and so forth, where did they get sold to? Were they sold to a Japanese...

LH: I don't know. Somebody used to come to the ranch, but I don't know if they, I can't remember. No, I don't remember. But those are the days when, because I was the only young girl and a lot of 'em were married to, to first sons, they always, I remember because they told me, "Don't ever marry the first son." [Laughs] You have to work, you have to take care of your in-laws. But I married the eldest son and I did the, exactly what they told me not to. Oh gosh.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.