<Begin Segment 4>

RP: What are your memories about growing up on a farm? I imagine the house was right on the land there.

NN: I do have a picture of that, where we, the four kids. And they had an aerial shot.

AF: He was a very hard worker, and in fact, he had one of the most modern house, postwar, first to build a modern house.

NN: He had a --

AF: He was very successful.

RP: What was your house like before the war?

NN: We have a big -- oh, no, maybe I didn't bring that. [Laughs] But it was just a wooden house, and, with a garage attached to it. And behind the garage is where he had the packing house where he had this huge refrigerator where he would, for the flowers, for the gardenias. So, and he would work from sundown to sunset practically, and he would go to the markets early morning.

KT: Get up at one o'clock and go.

NN: But he had a hay fever problem, and so --

KT: Asthma and hay fever.

NN: Yeah, hay fever, and so you could hear, with the allergy, even with the flowers, he's still working with it. But you could hear him sneezing away. [Laughs] So he endured, and the Lord blessed him with that.

RP: Now, did you, did all of you have some responsibilities in working with the flowers on the farm?

AF: Not really.

NN: Not the flowers.

AF: Our parents never really pushed us physically.

NN: But actually --

RP: What did they push you into?

NN: Well, actually, it was -- getting back to working -- it was after the war, where Kiyo would help my father.

AF: Since he didn't have any sons.

NN: And then she went into nursing.

AF: Going into number one.

NN: And so my other sister would help out with the, in the office, and I would periodically help out as I got older.

AF: Oh, that's right, three of you.

NN: But not that much, but a little bit. And we had these women, at that time he was doing celery seedlings, and he had a group of, oh, I'd say about ten Issei women who would come, who would chauffeur them, pick them up, and they would work their eight hours, and then we would deliver them back to their home. And so that was part of our involvement.

AF: Yeah. My father never really pushed us physically to do any of the work.

RP: What did these Issei women do? Did they plant the seedlings?

NN: Yeah, the seedlings are very small sprouts. And they have this box of dirt, and you have to separate them.

KT: They would replant it in a uniform way. There would be 110 plants in a box. So from the seedling, they would plant it in the...

NN: Outside in the farms, outside in the fields.

KT: Right.

RP: But did he hire additional labor during the harvest time, other workers that helped him out on the farm?

NN: He had Mexican workers, and he was fairly fluent.

RP: In Spanish?

NN: Yes. I wouldn't say it's the best... [laughs]. But, you know --

RP: So did you pick up a little?

NN: It's, well, you do hear. And, but he was able to communicate with the workers, and so they did get along quite well.

RP: And he was part of a cooperative?

NN: No, no, he was on his own.

AF: My father was very industrious, so he just went on his own and he became very successful.

RP: How was his English?

AF: Terrible. [Laughs] Worse, I mean, I can't imagine to this day how he got so successful without any knowledge of English, but he did. 'Course, he hired people, but he had the brains enough to get along in that respect.

RP: He had a strong business sense?

AF: Oh, yes, yes, extremely.

KT: Yeah, I could remember my mother saying, "Your dad, he doesn't want to do anything for a penny, he wants to do everything for two cents." I mean, he was very ambitious and had big thoughts all the time.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.