<Begin Segment 7>

KL: Do you know why they came back to San Francisco? That's kind of interesting that that's where they first settled, and then that's where you were born.

MS: It's hard to know.

ST: San Francisco?

MS: Yeah, you were born in San Francisco.

ST: Oh, yeah. Well, they had little farm there, too.

MS: I guess they just moved wherever they thought they might be able to...

KL: Where was the farm? Was it in the same part of San Francisco they had lived before?

MS: No, no. This is way out on the south end. So it's actually right on the, at that time it was probably on the very fringe, if they were farming. There's no farms out there anymore. [Laughs] As I said, that's where Balboa High School is.

KL: Do you know if they moved, if they had a group of people that they moved with, or if they just went on their own?

MS: On their own. Well, you can't say "on their own" with all these kids. [Laughs] It had to have been a very tough life for them.

KL: And then Half Moon Bay is where you were born. Is there a significance to Midori as a name?

MS: No. "Midori" actually means "green," it's a tree green. All the names have a specific meaning, and I'm sure they were picked... the naming of the children is quite a process. They always go through all these different names to come up with the proper names.

ST: Except for me.

MS: Well, it was, "Oh boy, we're back in San Francisco," maybe, you know.

KL: What is the process? I know names are really important to some people, but I've never heard anyone talk about the process of how someone chooses names. How was that in your family?

MS: Oh, I'm sure they discussed it together.

ST: Oh, yeah.

MS: To come up with the proper name, a lot of them were also based on first, second third child and their name according to the pecking order, so to speak. I'm sure they went through this whole process with each child, to come up with what they thought was the proper name.

KL: So what are some of each of your earliest memories?

MS: Working on the farm.

KL: Tell us about it.

MS: Well, we did play a lot, too, and he was the one that used to take the three sisters, the youngest ones. And he used to make slingshots, take us, show us how to use it and go bird shooting and stuff like that. And we had a creek right near us, so we used to go down there and go fishing for trout and things like that.

ST: I built a little boat, go boating at the dam.

MS: Was it after I almost drowned?

ST: Oh, yeah.

MS: Yeah, the fishing was quite good, the trout fishing was quite good. Generally we only caught one trout, and that would be Dad's dinner, remember? Our dad always had to have his little glass of wine with his lunch and dinner, and I'm sure it was something cheap like Gallo or whatever, because it was in a gallon jug.

ST: It was homemade wine.

MS: Was she making? Oh, okay. That's when Mickie got drunk. [Laughs] That's another story.

KL: If you're willing to tell it, we'd love to hear it.

MS: Well, Mickie was the sister above me, and she was a hardhead, she never liked to lose an argument. And the neighbors next door were Italian, and they had great big vats of wine that they made in what looked like a barn.

KL: Oh, yeah.

MS: But anyway, then she and this, what was her name? Anita?

ST: Yeah, Anita.

MS: Anita, they were pretty close in age, and they got into an argument about something. And they were going back and forth about yes it is, no it's not, so the older brother Nini said, "Okay, we'll settle this." He says, "come with me," and they took us out to the barn. And he opens up the spigot and pours out two glasses of wine, and he says, "Okay, whoever drinks the most wine wins the argument." Let's see, I must have been about... I think I was about four or five, but I do remember it.

ST: Yeah, at the most.

MS: So she would have been about seven or eight. Well, she won the argument okay. But and then Anita, being Italian, they...

ST: They drink wine all the time.

MS: They drank a little wine with their meals and stuff, so she probably was also used to having a little wine. And Mickie started to get kind of drowsy and weak in the legs. And my sister Hattie was, she's the older one, and it's kind of like, uh-oh, she's in trouble because she should have been looking after us. And so anyway, she and Anita are holding Mickie on each side and making her walk back home. It was about a half a mile to our place. And they finally got her up to our property line, and Chick, Chikara, I saw him working in the field, he was doing, I don't know, pulling weeds or whatever. Hattie and Anita put Mickie down in the ditch and left her there with me. Hattie was afraid she was gonna be in trouble, so I went and called Chick, and he came over and picked her up and carried her home. And I remember my mother put her to bed, and she was just totally passed out. And all of a sudden her eyes opened up wide, and here came this stream of wine. [Laughs] And then she went back to sleep. You know, she was a teetotaler after that, even in her adult life she did not drink. She learned her lesson. Poor thing. But even so, she still never liked to lose an argument.

KL: So those neighbors were friends of yours, Anita and her family?

MS: Oh, yeah.

ST: Neighbors. Our closest neighbor, half a mile away.

KL: Did you guys grow grapes?

ST: Grapes? No. They didn't grow grapes either but they bought the grapes and then made the wine.

KL: Yeah, that's a great story. What else do you remember about that community or about other people who were in it or other stories like that?

MS: What was his name? Buzz, he used to come with this plane?

ST: Who?

MS: The guy that used to come with his private plane, and he used to... wasn't his name Buzz or something like that?

ST: I forget.

MS: Let us know he was there, by kind of buzzing us and then flying off. Oh, and then the Aldriches, Mr. and Mrs. Aldrich, they lived further up the canyon from us, and it was, I guess they were trying to save gas, you remember? They would come down the hill, and they would just coast down the hill, I guess to save gas. And then once they got to our place, then they would start up their car and take off. And on the other side of the hill was the Wolf family, and Galen Wolf was a well-known painter. And he was a super nice guy.

ST: Oh, yeah.

MS: And he and his mother would come and get our mother once in a while and make her go and have tea at their place. Because his mother said she works too hard, "she comes up here to have tea with me, she has to rest for a while." [Laughs] So they were very nice people. And Galen did come to visit us when we were in Tanforan.

ST: Oh, yeah?

MS: Yeah. He was a very nice man.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.