<Begin Segment 2>

RP: Shortly after you were born your dad decided to come west.

ES: He decided to come to California in 1922 and he had bought a Model T Ford. And we came with a group of friends and family. I think there was about seven cars that migrated to California on old 66.

RP: And were you too young to remember?

ES: I don't remember much of it. I remember the Indians in, I guess it must have been New Mexico.

RP: You do?

ES: And I think a bridge must have gone out and we had all gone down to see what was happening and when we came back, my little red rocking chair and red mittens were gone. So that's about my only remembrance of that trip. But it took us about a month to drive from Kansas to Whittier, California.

RP: And why Whittier?

ES: My father's sister lived in Whittier. His mother also had a rooming house in Los Angeles. But I guess they thought my dad could get a job as a barber in Whittier so we went to Whittier. But he wasn't happy with California and went back to Kansas in 1924, still wasn't happy, and went back again in 1925. When we came back he decided that there was no place like California.

RP: And did he just enter into a barber?

ES: He later worked at a barber shop in Huntington Park and then in 1926 we moved to Huntington Park.

RP: Where is Huntington Park in reference to Los Angeles?

ES: Well, it's probably about four miles from the city hall in Los Angeles.

RP: Can you describe to us what that community was like when you were growing up? Was it a urban community or a rural community?

ES It was more of an urban and considered one of the best business towns around. The street, the main street was about a mile long and everything was on that one street, all the businesses. But there was so much manufacturing around Huntington Park and in Huntington Park. A lot of oil tool business around in that area and the aluminum company was there too. So it was a good town for my dad to have a barber shop.

RP: Have lots of business. And your mom was busy raising you?

ES: Well, my mother had always worked and so she would have had to gone on to complete her credential in California which she didn't do and she worked at a school, Huntington Park High School cafeteria, as a salad maker.

RP: Did she rise up through the ranks from salad maker?

ES: Well, we had the big earthquake in 1932 or '33 I can't remember which of the big Long Beach, Inglewood earthquake and the high school burned down. So she was without a job then, so she went to Frank Wiggins trade school and learned other phases of cooking, baking, the cooking, of course she already knew the salad making part. So she became a manager of a junior high school in Hollywood and she did that until my dad decided to retire and leave Huntington Park.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.