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RP: Massie, what are some of your earliest memories of growing up on, on the farm in Milwakie?

MH: Carefree, really carefree. I think we wandered wherever we wanted to, especially in the summertime. I think it was pretty carefree. As we grew older we helped in the greenhouse. We helped go pick berries, etcetera. Actually left home to go pick berries in Gresham, etcetera. My mother took us and lived on the farm out there in Gresham.

RP: How old were you when you did that?

MH: I was ten. Right, I think I played a lot there. [Laughs] But that was a way to make money, etcetera, and so my mother took us and my oldest sister, my two older sisters went with us.

RP: You spent all summer?

MH: Yes, all summer, at two different places.

RP: Do you remember anything else about that experience?

MH: We picked berries at the Aono's and we lived in a little cabin, I would call a cabin, did our own cooking, etcetera, picked, actually, we worked from sun up to sun down, more or less. And my mother would come back to the cabin and I was supposed to be the rice maker so I always had to have the rice done before she got in because I didn't always work the whole day. There was a spring I remember going to because I loved to play in the water there. After we finished working there, which was basically berries, then we moved to another farm and it, they had beans. So beans came later, pole beans. And so it's my sisters and I and my mother... and this was next to a lake. It was called Blue Lake and so we got to go down there and go swimming. So it was kind of fun. And there were other families who also came and did the same thing. So we were able to meet other people from Portland, especially from the Portland area who came to pick berries or beans.

RP: And did some of these relationships persist over time?

MH: Yes. I still see some of those people, yes.

RP: It's amazing what berry picking can lead to.

MH: Oh yes. It's a story in itself, okay. Especially after the war or, but during or after the war that we did a lot of that as a way of making money.

RP: Tell us, did you have any certain chores or duties on your own farm that you were responsible for?

MH: Yeah, I think I played a lot, being a middle child.

RP: Kind of escaped some of that.

MH: I think... I still had to make the rice, I remember doing that. I had to take care of my younger brother and sisters. That was one of my big jobs. Was seeing that they didn't get into trouble. Or I didn't get them into trouble.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.