<Begin Segment 8>

RP: Were there other Japanese flower growers in that community?

SK: Over the hill, yes. There were the Endos and the Shishidos. Yeah, they were growing flowers.

RP: Were people specializing in a certain type of flower, or growing...

SK: Yeah, they did, but I don't know what they were, though. I know my uncle, on the fifty acres, they used half, twenty-five acres one year, and then they rotated. The rest, so the one that they used, they put a lot of that chicken manure and let the soil rest, and then they used the other one. I know that they did that. They used to put piles of that chicken manure on there, so they had to cultivate that underneath right away 'cause they did have a terrible smell.

RP: Did they work the land with horses or tractors?

SK: They had, as I recall it, they had four horses at the ranch. Those, they were, they're called mules. I think that's, yeah, they weren't the regular... yeah, they were, I guess they were mules. They're not donkeys. Yeah, because they'd pull the tractors. In those days it was, they did all that cultivating thing. And then later on, I think when the horses more or less went, he got this tractor, which is a new thing. In those, in the '20s, you see, you were '20s and '30s, those were really those horse days.

RP: And how many residences or buildings were on the ranch?

SK: Well, we had one bunkhouse, like, for the workers. I think there were five sections there. They lived there. And then of course, Grandpa, the large house that was on here somewhere, and then we had another house. And then a great big, what we called a barn, it was a packing house. We had that. That was a big one. That's where we did all the flower, nighttime pack.

RP: You picked the flowers, what, towards the late afternoon and then packed 'em at night?

SK: Well, after it was picked, then we had to bunch it up, and then in the morning, around one o'clock or so -- no, it was before that, it was about eleven o'clock in the morning -- they had to get up and put them all in the, wrap it up for the market, you see. And the market opened from, well, from eleven on, maybe earlier. I'm not sure. But my uncle used to go at midnight to the market.

RP: Did you go with him?

SK: In those days, no, but later on we did help deliver the flowers, wholesale, 'cause he had so many flowers. So here, I took my car and I used to help him deliver the flowers.

RP: Where did you deliver 'em to?

SK: The big wholesale flower market down in Los Angeles. It's on Seventh and Wall Street. It's still there, but right now it's mostly all Hispanic people. They're all taking over. Very few Japanese that's taken over the family, see. There's the Endo brothers, and the others -- I forgot their names, but I remember them -- he's still going strong on that.

RP: Endo?

SK: Endo. He specializes in ranunculus and he's got beautiful delphiniums, and he has sweet peas and some other things, but he, yeah, he's still going strong there.

RP: So what would you do on the farm there? Did you, you said you bunched up the flowers?

SK: We were just little kids. When the carnation time, well, had to disbud all those carnations so there's only one bud so they all will have nice flowers. And Grandma would be on one side of us -- they were big lines like that, and then they'd have one, two, about two strings across, and they're all in little squares so they will grow up straight, the flowers will, the plants will grow straight -- so Grandma would be one side of the line and I'll be, so we used to disbud all that so we'd have nice flowers. Yeah, we were just going to regular grammar school, but we all helped when we were kids. Then comes the ranunculi time, that's when you plant all those little ranunculi bulbs. And then the freesia times, and those little tiny bulbs, we used to help plant. And after that, they used to dig 'em all after, so I'll finish, we used to let it dry and then dig up all the bulbs. That was a job. We had a little fork like that, and then they'd dry it and then replant that again. We used to all help. That was all grade school, we all helped.

RP: After school, that's what you did.

SK: Yeah. That was our playtime, I guess. We had no time for playing around, see. But my grandpa, my grandma, she was, she was funny. [Laughs] She knew just how to work us. She used to tell us old Japanese fairytales and I used to love to listen to all that, so we used to, as she was talking, we'd be helping her doing all, digging up the bulbs and just budding the buds, plants, and all that. So work, for me, I'm just used to that. Just used to it.

RP: You showed me a picture earlier of a cloth over the flowers.

SK: Cheesecloth.

RP: The cheesecloth. And how did you make that?

SK: They used to buy bales of cheesecloth, and we had two Singer sewing machines -- I still have one up there [points upstairs], which is nice -- all by foot pedal, it was all foot pedal. So there's two machines going, and those big bales, my sister and I, we sewed those. It's a tent for those, for the flowers. We used to sew bales and bales of that. We used to have a race, so I had one of my sisters on the sewing machine on this side, sewing away, and then my sister'd be on this side and she'd be pulling it, so sometimes there'd be big stitches, like, without being sewed. It'd skip. [Laughs] So we used to have a race, who could finish first. Yeah.

RP: So the cheesecloth was like a shade cloth?

SK: Cheesecloth for the carnations and for the chrysanthemums. There'd be just bales of that, but we did it. That was our, the way we'd regale ourselves, have fun, sewing.

RP: Make a contest out of it.

SK: Yeah, yeah. See who could finish first. [Laughs]

RP: How did, did you propagate your own plants, or did you buy 'em from...

SK: Sometimes, they did most of the propagating those days. They collected the seeds and the bulbs, like the ranunculus and your freesias. We had to help dig up those bulbs. Oh my, those tiny little bulbs, take it up and dry it, then they'd replant them again. Those days, all work.

RP: You said that you had a bunkhouse for some of the workers?

SK: Yeah, it was one bunkhouse. Well, it was one big, yeah, I guess you'd call it a bunkhouse. It was one, well, it was really one big house there, but then they're all sectioned off in rooms. I think there were four, five. One had a kitchen.

RP: Did you have permanent help year round, or was it just seasonal work?

SK: No, we had some permanent. Yeah, some were seasonal, but some of the fellows, they came to work but they just couldn't take it, I guess. They weren't very good workers, so he used to get somebody else to do that. No, it's, some of the things, they were, well, you have to, especially weeding. That's something, another thing, the big, just rows and rows of weeds you got to pick. That's something else too.

RP: Did you use any sprays or chemicals for various --

SK: Yeah, they did, they did. But I don't know what kind. In those days it was, gee, I don't know. Something, I know they had a smell, an odor. I really don't know what it was. Yeah, they used to spray, this great big spray can. That thing was going, I think it was a gasoline tank and it was pumping away. In those days it was all gasoline tanks. Nothing electric in those days. Matter of fact, we, even at the country, in those days it was still little kerosene lamps and all that. Kerosene stoves, that's the way we used to do the cooking. Even in, at the packing house, it was those great big kerosene lamps. Those, there's another, one's sort of a kerosene lamp where you... well, that used to give out lots of bright light. I don't know what it was called. And the other, in the house we had the regular lamps with the kerosene. Every, after school we had to come home, fill up all the, those lamps, clean the chimney, those little things, 'cause they get that black soot. We had to clean, that was our job too.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.