Densho Digital Archive - Marian Uyematsu Naito Interview

<Begin Segment 1>

RP: This is an oral history for the Manzanar National Historic Site. Today we're talking with Marian Naito, maiden name Uyematsu.

MN: Right.

RP: And the interview is taking place at the Main Street Station Hotel, room 701. The date of the interview is October 15, 2008. The interviewer is Richard Potashin, videographer is Kirk Peterson. And we'll be talking, discussing Marian's experiences at the Manzanar War Relocation Center with a special emphasis on her father who was a nursery owner in Montebello. And the interview will be archived in the park's library. And Marian, do I have permission to continue?

MN: Yes.

RP: Thank you very much for joining us this morning. Tell us a little bit about your early background. Where were you born and what year?

MN: I was born in Montebello, California, November... month and date? November 30, 1927. And...

RP: And can you give us your... did you have a Japanese name at birth?

MN: Right, Sachiko. In fact, I think my birth certificate says Sachiko Marian, I think.

RP: Sachiko, can you spell that for us?

MN: S-A-C-H-I-K-O.

RP: Uh-huh. And your maiden name?

MN: Uyematsu, U-Y-E-M-A-T-S-U.

RP: About your, your mom and dad, did they come from the same area in Japan?

MN: Uh-huh. They're both from Shizuoka-ken, which is, I guess, very close to Tokyo. And...

RP: You might... know much about your father's early life in Japan? His family's economic background? Farmers?

MN: Not a whole lot. I'm not sure what his family did. In fact, I don't, I guess they were farmers, I don't know. I know more about my mother's side.

RP: What brought your father to America?

MN: Oh, that's an interesting story. And this he told me when he was like in his nineties and he was a frail, frail man. He was only about, oh, five foot one or two, maybe a hundred, not even a hundred and twenty pounds at his, when he was healthy. And, but he was considered frail and I guess there was a war going on with China, and they were conscripting young men. And he was working in a jewelry shop and so his uncle told him, "You wouldn't be able to make it in the war, so you'd better go to America." And so he said he came here. And my first thought was, oh, in our terms it would be he was a draft dodger. But, so he came and he was, he was in a labor camp in Salinas, California. I guess it was farm labor. And then after that he spent time in San Francisco, I believe. And doing schoolboy type of work, domestic, domestic help. And then in nineteen... I don't know if it was just before the earthquake, he came down to southern California. And I have no idea how he got into the flower business. But he had a, I think he leased some land on what's now Figueroa near Olympic. And he was running a little nursery there. And from there he moved further east to Montebello and bought... well, he couldn't have bought property then. Or could he? I'm not sure. Because of alien land laws, I don't know if at that time he could. But he bought, he had this piece of property in Montebello and he started business there. And, later on his stationary he had written, "Established in 1908." That nursery.

RP: The nursery in Montebello?

MN: In Montebello, yeah.

RP: What was the name of the nursery?

MN: The, well it was Star Nursery, but in 1933 he incorporated it and it became Star Nurseries Incorporated. I think it was about 1933.

<Begin Segment 2>

RP: Your mother, was she a "picture bride" or did your...

MN: No, she was... well, my father had, he was married once before, before my mother came. But it didn't work out and he had a daughter. And he sent them back to Japan. And then he married my mother, and that was... she came in nineteen... they were married in 1919, I think.

RP: Did he go back to Japan to bring her to America?

MN: Probably, probably. I think so.

RP: What about the other daughter from the previous marriage?

MN: She... well, I didn't find out 'til I was well in, well into my adulthood. I had always assumed that she was with her mother. But later I found out that no, she was not with her mother, but she was with my father's parents. And they raised her until she was about eleven, I think. And she came, she was brought to Montebello. And hers is an interesting story, too. Because, so she was like eleven but she didn't speak English. So she went to grammar school. She went to first grade. She jumped to like third and then sixth grade, to get caught up to where her age level was. But, she left when she was, you know, some years older than we were. So I didn't... I was fairly young yet when she left. But she ended up with, in Poston, with three children and her husband had been taken. Her husband, who was born in Japan, was taken to Crystal City until he was released and then joined them in Poston. And from there they went to Seabrook and spent the rest of their lives there. And they raised five children total, yeah.

RP: What was your relationship with her like?

MN: Well, the early years were like I said, you know, she was Neesan. And, but she left when I was... I can't figure out how old I was. But anyway, she left when I was less than ten, I think. And then, so then I didn't get to really know her until I was in my, I think in my late, in my twenties I (went to) visit her in Seabrook. And then after that we were, you know, kind of visited back and forth or corresponded.

RP: Tell us about your parents a little bit, the personal side that you experienced growing up with them, certain characteristics or features that you always remember. Maybe also you can share with us what they passed on to you in terms of values and kind of shaped your life, your future life.

MN: Well, in general I guess they were old traditional, you know, honesty, respect for your elders, responsibility, and one thing was, about discipline, my father was the type that would, you know, yell at you. And, so we weren't so afraid of him. But my mother, all she had to do was give you a look and, you know, you knew you were in trouble. But, I don't know, it was a pretty normal, easy-going life.

<Begin Segment 3>

RP: How about your siblings, brothers and sisters? Where did you fall in the pecking order?

MN: Okay, besides my older half-sister, my oldest brother was born in 1921. And then came my sister born in '25.

RP: Can you give us their names, too?

MN: Okay, okay. Francis... full names? Japanese name? Francis Genichiro and then Alice Kumiko born in '23. Then a brother Starr Kunio. He had a different, he had a different (Japanese) name at birth but we changed it because they thought it was bad luck or something, his Japanese name. And he was born in '25. And then, then I came along. And then six years later I have my youngest brother, Sam. Oh, I didn't give my sister's name. Or did I? Okay. Then my youngest brother is Samuel Michiro, who was born in 1933. And...

RP: And other than you, who else is left in the family? Sam?

MN: Just Sam and me now. Starr died just before the war and he had, through an accident at school or something, he suffered epilepsy. And I think he had a heart attack when he was taking a bath one night. He was sixteen. So it happened just before the war. And then my sister Alice got TB while we were in Manzanar. And so she spent some time in the hospital there. When we were let out from camp she went straight to Hillcrest Sanitarium in La Crescenta and then to Olive View (Sanitarium) where she died in 1947 at age twenty-three. And then my older brother died five years ago in 2003.

<Begin Segment 4>

RP: I'd like to talk a little bit about your father's nursery in Montebello. Did he specialize in specific crops? What do you remember him growing there?

MN: Oh well, different periods of time he had different things. My first recollections are when he used to do cut flowers so he'd have good gardenias, camellias, and take them to market on Wall Street. And besides that he would have potted plants for, seasonal potted plants. Like cyclamens, poinsettias for Christmas, Easter lilies, and gosh, I don't know. A lot of other stuff. But, but though, but I remember those, those seasonal plants were, you know, he had to time them to bloom at a certain time so he would spend a lot of hours, you know, in the greenhouses regulating their growth so they would bloom when they were supposed to. And after that he got into azaleas, camellias. After the war we got into some green indoor plants, philodendrons and...

RP: And he grew most of his own stock?

MN: Uh-huh. Yeah, he was strictly a wholesale.

RP: Wholesale grower?

MN: Wholesale nursery, Uh-huh.

RP: He sold to other nursery, retail nurseries and landscapers and...

MN: Right, right. And it was just about that time when, when that eminent domain came and the school wanted our property. And so we were forced out of Montebello, and to them, they just wanted the land. We had all these greenhouses but they weren't interested in greenhouses or the house or anything. They just wanted the bare land. So I guess, you know, we didn't get the value that, you know, we thought we needed. But luckily, he like to buy land. And so he had, he already had some property in Sierra Madre. And so we were able to move whatever we could up there.

RP: Were you able to move the greenhouses?

MN: No, no. We, we never did... Sierra Madre was mostly lath houses. So I think by then we were probably out of the greenhouse stuff. And... I don't know if I'm recalling right. I guess we were more into camellias and azaleas than... oh, but wait. Before the war, he had property in Sierra Madre. He had Camellias up there. And that's where... you've heard of Descanso? That's where, I guess, Manchester Boddy came in. And, to put it his way, he just bought everything... all the, all the...

RP: Manchester Boddy?

MN: Yeah.

RP: The editor of the Los Angeles newspaper.

MN: Yeah. But to hear my brother tell it, it was more like he, well, I don't want to, I don't want to use the wrong words. [Laughs] But, but we probably didn't get, you know, what they were actually worth, you know. And he got 'em for a song.

RP: So Boddy bought up your...

MN: He bought up the camellia stock.

RP: Your father's...

MN: Yeah. I don't, I don't know if the azaleas were involved or not but, but it's the camellias that, you know, they're, that's featured at this...

RP: Did he buy the land, too?

MN: No, no.

RP: He just bought out the...

MN: No, we kept the land. So that's why we had to move, why we were able to move the Montebello nursery. And that was like in 1954, somewhere around there. And by then my dad was already... ooh, how old was he? He was already in his (seventies). So my older brother had taken over and then my, I guess Sam and I both helped, I mean, worked, worked in the nursery. And my dad just kind of did his own thing at home. He was living in Altadena at the time. But he had a home, he was growing wisteria and, let's see...

RP: Was the family a pivotal part of the nursery operation? Did you, yourself and your brothers and sisters work in the nursery or help support it?

MN: Yeah, from the time we were in... well, see, from when, right after the war in Montebello, my older brother was working it mainly with other managers. And then I got involved after, after going to school a little bit, as a bookkeeper. And then the rest of my involvement with the nursery was bookkeeping.

RP: Before the war you...

MN: No, before the war...

RP: You were just going to school?

MN: Yeah. Before the war I was, that was before going to Manzanar, I was a teenager, yeah.

<Begin Segment 5>

RP: Tell us a little bit about the evacuation of your family from Montebello. You were sent to Pomona Assembly Center, right?

MN: Right, right. And I don't remember a whole lot about that. All I remember is being on Garvey Avenue with buses and that's about all I remember. Except I do remember at Pomona, well, I live in Claremont now so we're, I'm familiar with the fairgrounds. And my husband worked for the county as a mechanic, and they had a repair facility at the fairgrounds and I think where their facility was, was near one of the gates, the visitors' gate, Gate 19 where people would come to visit us.

RP: Who visited you?

MN: The man that took over, that was running the nursery for us. It was a man named Harry Robinson.

RP: Talk a little bit about the arrangements that were made to preserve the nursery. This gentleman was a friend of your father's?

MN: Right. I really don't... I don't know how it happened but I know they were family friends. One of the, one of the sons was a classmate of mine in junior high. And...

RP: Your father felt like this was the man he could trust with the nursery?

MN: Right. Right, he was trustworthy. He was honest. But he wasn't a businessman. And so he had a, he had trouble running the business. And then he turned it over to somebody else.

RP: Who was that?

MN: Should I give his name? I forgot his first name. His name was Augsburger. And apparently he was... I don't know if he, I'm not really sure but anyway there were a lot of financial problems and there was a lot of correspondence between my dad and him, you know, in camp. And like I mentioned before, there's, there were the WRA records -- I don't know what they call the records that they kept -- there was a big stack of papers of, I think every single letter that my dad ever wrote. My dad didn't write 'em. My, probably my sister or my brother, you know, wrote them and then he signed them, but... there was a lot of back and forth business-wise.

<Begin Segment 6>

RP: Now, the folks who normally were sent to the Pomona Assembly Center should have ended up at Heart Mountain.

MN: That's right.

RP: How did your family end up at Manzanar? Can you speculate a little bit about might have been the factors?

MN: Yeah, I think it was something about he didn't want to go to Heart Mountain. I don't know if it was because it was cold there or because it was too far away, but he did something to get us to Manzanar. And I think it had something to do with donating some cherry trees. And at the time I don't think I really knew anything, I just knew that we weren't gonna go to Heart Mountain. And, you know, being asked about it later, I'm not really sure if those cherry trees ever got there or not. But people tell me they were there.

RP: Do you remember much about your trip to Manzanar?

MN: Not a whole lot. It was, because everybody else was sent to Heart Mountain, there was our family and there was one other family. And we went to Manzanar in passenger cars. There were, you know...

RP: Government cars?

MN: A government car so it was a caravan. It must have been oh, at least six cars and...

RP: Can you remember military police or soldiers as part of that convoy?

MN: Specifically I don't remember that. Yeah.

RP: Last night you mentioned that you stopped in Olancha?

MN: I think so. I think it was Olancha, yeah. And it was, well, I guess you know, being wartime and a lotta people were, you know, were, I guess they were scared of the Japanese or they were, they didn't like us. So, it was kinda scary. We just got some looks that weren't very friendly. Yeah.

RP: Did your father bring with him any plants or seeds or nursery stock on his trip to Manzanar?

MN: I don't know that. I don't know. I don't know if he had any access to anything from Pomona. But, knowing him, I don't know. 'Cause he'd been -- I shouldn't say this -- but he'd been known to sneak some seeds from Hawaii to the mainland. [Laughs] But I don't know. I don't know for a fact.

RP: Marian, what block did you live in in Manzanar?

MN: Well, were late in getting there 'cause we didn't get there 'til August. So we were first put in Block 36. And then later we were moved to -- I don't know how much later it was but -- we were moved to Block 6 where we, where we ended up. 6-10-2.

RP: Besides your family, were there extended family members like aunts and uncles or...

MN: No.

RP: No other ...

MN: No, neither my father nor my mother had any other relatives over here on the mainland.

<Begin Segment 7>

RP: Your father was fortunate in the fact that he was allowed to leave the camp supposedly for a trip down to his nursery to collect stock and maybe those cherry trees, too. Can you tell us what you recall about the circumstances of that?

MN: I really don't know a whole lot about that. All I know is that, is what my brother told me, my older brother, what Francis told me. But they went, they were going and they were stopped in... I don't know if it was Lone Pine or Independence or one of those small towns around there. And my father had forgotten his papers. I guess they were papers for passage. And they threw him in jail. And my brother didn't want him to spend the night there alone so he, you know, went in with him. But I don't know how it was resolved. They must have... well, they must have, they must have had guards with them, I don't know. Because I don't think they would have been allowed to go out by themselves.

RP: But to your recollection it might have, he might have been taken in in Lone Pine?

MN: I think so. I'm really not sure.

RP: Maybe he was able to go back to Manzanar and get his papers.

MN: Maybe, maybe. Or else maybe they had guards. But I'm thinking that what you suggested. That they, they must have guards or something with them, somebody with them. I don't know. But to my own recollection, I don't recall it myself. It's just what my brother had told me, yeah.

RP: Do you recall him bringing back plants and...

MN: No. No, I have no recollection of that.

RP: Too busy going to high school.

MN: Yeah. I know. That's it, we were just... I mean camp in general, you know how so many people were affected, is like we were just there having fun, you know. We were at the age when we were, you know, middle, early, middle teens, and we didn't know a lot of the serious stuff that was going on.

<Begin Segment 8>

RP: You said early on that you were kind of a quiet, shy person. Did you start to open up a little in Manzanar in terms of, you know, seeking out new friends and...

MN: Uh, not really. I've always been, well, I guess I was always pretty quiet until I got to know you or until you got to know me. And then I would have very few... in fact, all my life I've always had one special good, best friend. And then, you know, a group of other close friends. But I just found in the last maybe ten, fifteen years that I've just, I don't know, just become more, more open and I... in fact, my mother, I think my mother said she was like that. I've always thought she was such an outgoing person, able to talk to anyone, making friends with anyone. But then when I mentioned it she would say no, she was very shy when she was young. So maybe the same thing is happening with me. But...

RP: Well, the last, these two days you're here for the Manzanar high school reunion, and maybe you could share with us some of your memories of school at Manzanar. Teachers or social experiences, friends that you met there. How that, you know, sort of resonate with this gathering.

MN: Well, we were... like I said, I only had a few close friends. So we had this little group, you know, of girls. I mean, everybody was in a group. And...

RP: Did your group have a name?

MN: Yeah. [Laughs] Oh you're gonna laugh at this. We were the Wee Funsters, W-E-E Funsters. But, then later we just dropped the "wee." But to this day there are a group of girls. They call themselves the Funsters. They're... of the ones that were in camp, there are only, well actually the last few years I haven't been involved all the time with them, but there are three girls that were in camp. And as the years went by, our friends would change. We would, you know, be in different locations and so there have been different groups of girls. But the name has just carried on. And the last few years, the last group has been meeting for lunch like once a month or once every two months. And, and...

RP: That's really amazing. That's sixty-seven years ago.

MN: Yeah. But, you know, all the older, older ones from camp don't know any of the younger ones that were all... well, not that, not that they're that much younger, but the newer members that came from different, different places. Like when we came out of camp there were some that we picked up at UCLA. And then after that there were other friends depending on where we were living, where some of the older ones were living and we had friends and that's how it, how it changed. But there's...

RP: So what did the Funsters do for fun?

MN: Oh, just whatever any young, young group of girls do, you know. Yeah.

RP: Did you date in camp at all or go to dances with guys and how was, was that awkward for you?

MN: Yeah, I didn't, I didn't date much, no. Some of my friends had steadies and... but me, I didn't have, I didn't date too much. But...

RP: So who were the handsome guys in camp?

MN: Oh gosh. [Laughs]

RP: The Manza-Knights?

MN: Oh yeah, oh yeah. We were, we were close to them. Well, I mean some of the boys clubs and the girls clubs would have parties together, yeah. So, we were close to the Manza-Knights. We'd know most of them. And...

RP: Kow Maruki?

MN: Kow, yeah. In fact, he coached us. He and others, you know we were involved in volleyball, softball, basketball, and so one time or another he was one of our coaches. Yeah. Oh, in fact, so was Shi Nomura. He was a coach of ours one time. He's a Manza-Knight, too. Yeah.

RP: Do you remember any, anything about Iwao Takemoto? A gentleman who was in the Manza-Knights?

MN: Iwao Takemoto...

RP: He became a, you know, a famous animator for Walt Disney.

MN: Yeah, I know the name. Yeah, I think... yeah, I didn't know him personally. Yeah, but I know the name, yeah.

<Begin Segment 9>

RP: Another gentleman that was, you know, kind of noticed and recognized just because he was a little different, not being a Japanese, was Ralph Lazo.

MN: Oh, Ralph Lazo, yeah. Yeah, I know him. Everybody knew Ralph. Yeah.

RP: What did Ralph mean to the camp?

MN: Well at the time we all just assumed that he was, that he must have had some part Japanese blood, that he was from, from the orphanage. And it wasn't until years later that we found out different. And it was, it was amazing. Yeah.

RP: A lot of people last night were talking about one particular teacher, Louis Frizzell.

MN: Oh, yeah. He was our favorite.

RP: What made him so popular with kids?

MN: I don't know. He was just... he was just a friendly, just so friendly and he was more like a friend than a teacher. I remember when we came out of camp, he, he was living in Eagle Rock. And, I mean we went to, we went to his house and I remember him... I was living in Sierra Madre at the time, and I remember he drove me home. He had a, what do you call one of those Ford, Ford Model A's, the one with the rumble seat. And I think he drove me home in that. But he... I guess because he was so young. He wasn't much older than we were. I think he was just out of college when, when he came to camp. And he, I think he was a classmate or a he had known Gregory Peck, I think.

RP: Oh, that's right. Who was it? Who was I talking to? I think it was Henry Nakano, was talking about the rivalry between Louis Frizzell who was from UCLA and Gregory Peck who was from University of California.

MN: Oh, oh.

RP: And they kind of tried to outdo each other, maybe acting-wise or...

MN: Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah.

RP: You mentioned earlier, you were talking about your father's nursery during the wartime when you were at Manzanar that there were some business issues with the second owner of the nursery.

MN: Oh. Of the manager, yeah.

RP: Did he, did your father lose money as a result of this, of the situation during the war there?

MN: I think so. Because I think a lot of those letters were involved in his asking for more money to run the business. And I, if I remember correctly, I think my mother and father cashed out their life insurance policies to raise money. And, I don't know.

RP: Was there the perception that this man was fleecing your parents?

MN: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. But, but to my personal knowledge, I don't know. It was all stuff that my, my older brother and sister, you know, did the paperwork for my dad.

<Begin Segment 10>

RP: So the family went in to Manzanar, would you say that your father was in a pretty good financial condition before the war started?

MN: I have no idea. All I know is that when, during... you know, during the Depression he said business was very good. And that surprised me because I thought business would be bad during a depression but that's when he... he used to go, every time he had a baby he, he'd take 'em back to Japan to visit the grandparents. And so, so I was taken back when I was two, so I don't remember. That's my only trip to Japan. And...

RP: In Block 6, where you lived, do you recall your father working to construct or design gardens in the block or in the camp?

MN: I think he, he didn't work in the block. He worked, I don't know, he worked out, I don't know if it was, was there a park out the camp?

RP: There was a park inside the camp.

MN: Inside the camp. On, on the far end.

RP: Merritt Park or Pleasure Park?

MN: Maybe one of those. I think he was...

RP: But his... can you recall that his job was working with plants and gardening?

MN: Yeah, you know, I really don't know. All I know is that he was a professional so he got the $19 rate. He got the $19 salary instead of the $16 that, you know, the regular people got. But, yeah.

RP: How about around your barrack? Can you recall, was there any flowering plants or...

MN: You know, I don't think he did, I don't think he did anything around our place. I know there was grass between the barracks eventually, but I don't know if that was because of the other families or all together or what. I guess I just didn't think about those things at that time.

RP: Yeah. There is a, there was a part of camp, near the orphanage, that was established as Cherry Park.

MN: Oh, yeah. Maybe.

RP: And supposedly a large number of these cherry trees that your father brought up were planted there. We, we really have no evidence of what happened to 'em afterwards.

MN: Uh-huh. But there is evidence that they were there?

RP: Well, there are, there are no trees left there...

MN: Yeah.

RP: ...but we just have, you know, historical documentation that there was some plantings there.

MN: Oh.

RP: We don't know what happened to them.

MN: Yeah.

RP: But...

MN: 'Cause I have no actual knowledge of those trees.

RP: Later on, in the '50s, your father donated, again, donated some of his nursery stock to a project in Griffith Park?

MN: Oh, some cherry trees to Griffith Park and Bronson Canyon. And, yeah.

RP: They were cherry trees?

MN: Yeah. Uh-huh.

RP: And was that a, was a part of the park dedicated to him or...

MN: I really don't know.

<Begin Segment 11>

RP: One other question about your education at Manzanar was the fact that you graduated in the class of 1945. What do you remember most about your graduation ceremonies and... you couldn't leave the camp to have a prom so, did you, did you...

MN: Well, we had a prom in --

RP: In camp?

MN: -- we had a prom in, in the auditorium, right. And...

RP: What do you remember most about that?

MN: Gosh, not much, except that I got to go with this guy that I liked. [Laughs] Oh...

RP: Do you want to reveal names?

MN: No.

RP: No. Okay. I thought I'd try anyway.

MN: Oh, but...

RP: So you had, you had dancing. Who provided the music for that?

MN: I don't remember. Records maybe. I don't know.

RP: Or the Jive Bombers?

MN: Yeah, I don't know. One of the... the girl that played the piano was in our class, Kiyo, Kiyo Nishi. And, then I guess you know about Bruce and the others. But...

RP: A lot of these camp experiences not only involve your parents and the Nisei generation that you're a part of, but also the Sanseis and the Yonseis and then one of your nieces took a, took a strong interest in your father's stories and experiences.

MN: Uh-huh.

RP: Can you tell us a little bit about that?

MN: Well, she's a poet. So she's written a couple of books on poetry. But I don't know if... she was doing some research on her grandfathers. And I guess, I guess she knew more about her other grandfather because her mother, on her mother's side, she had more information. And I guess she wasn't too, she didn't, she didn't talk to her dad too much about Grandpa. And so then she'd ask me stuff. And then a lot of times... I'd give her give her whatever I could, but...

<Begin Segment 12>

RP: Tell us a little bit about your life after camp. You said you went to work for your father's nursery, bookkeeping and did you eventually go to college or what?

MN: I went, I went to UCLA for three years, yeah.

RP: After camp?

MN: Yeah. And then either I got sick or my mother got sick. We both did, but I forget which order it was. And so then I didn't go back and then I started working in the office. And...

RP: How about your, you got married eventually?

MN: Yeah.

RP: Your husband, was he at Manzanar?

MN: No he's, he's from Hawaii.

RP: Oh, Hawaii.

MN: He's from Kauai, yeah. And...

RP: Is he here at the reunion?

MN: He's in the casino, not in the dinner. [Laughs] Yeah.

RP: That's where we all ought to be right now.

MN: Yeah, yeah.

RP: So he didn't experience camp. He grew up in Hawaii during the war?

MN: Right, right. But you know, I'm just finding out that there were camps in Hawaii. I never knew that. And, I know, I know a lot of people were sent from Hawaii to the, you know, to the mainland. But now they're saying there were camps. And they're naming places. Even on the island of Kauai where my husband's from. But...

RP: So you're still learning about this experience?

MN: Oh, yeah. All the time. I mean, I go on the, online, and even from your site, I find out stuff that I didn't know.

RP: And how many kids do you have?

MN: Oh, I don't have any, unfortunately, yeah. Unfortunately or fortunately, I don't know. [Laughs] In a way, in a way, I don't know.

<Begin Segment 13>

RP: And is the... what happened later to your father's nursery? You said he kind of retired from the business and your older brother ran it for a while. Is there still...

MN: No, it, from Sierra Madre again, a development forced us to move.

RP: Eminent domain?

MN: No, not imminent domain, but just residential development. And so we found some property out in Ontario, and we moved out there. And so then again the, the type of plants we're growing changed completely 'cause it was all, we didn't have any lath houses or anything in Ontario. So we just grew one, one juniper.

RP: That's all? One juniper?

MN: Yeah. Later on we added, we built a small, not a greenhouse, but a, you know, covered house. And we had some Rhapis Palms.

RP: Which type of palms?

MN: Rhapis Palms.

RP: Rhapis?

MN: I think they call 'em Rafus or Lady Palms. And it's an indoor plant. Yeah. And then eventually that business, you know, was getting so competitive and difficult, and not financially desirable. In fact, it was terrible. So, we finally folded up in the end of '88. Geez, twenty years already. Yeah. So we found, we found buyers for whatever stock we had and then we, for a while, we rented the land out. Fortunately we had bought the land so we owned it outright. But we rented it out and then later we were able to sell it. And... but one thing about my father, he came here with nothing. He owned all this stuff. Oh, he actually once owned 140 acres in Redondo Beach. Which is now, I don't know if it became the school or civic center or something. But that, because of the downturn in the nursery during the war years and right after the war years, piece by piece that got sold off to raise money. He, he had dreams of building a big cherry park there. He had planted a lot of cherry trees there.

RP: Redondo Beach?

MN: Right, right. It was a little bit inland, off of the, off of the main highway. But it was a hilly area and he had, he had planted a whole bunch of cherry trees there. I think I still have an old picture of that.

RP: Huh. That would have been before the war?

MN: Right. He had, he had bought it before the war. Yeah. I think the picture I have is from 1940 probably. But, it all got sold off piece by piece. So, like I say, he came here with nothing, he had all this money, he made all these trips to Japan. But then, you know, then he had his home in Altadena and then as they got older and we were in Ontario, we built, they built a small home on the nursery so that they could be, you know, where we could keep an eye on 'em. And eventually they died while living there, both of 'em in nursing homes at the end. And they had already passed on the property rights to the children. And he died the way he came, with no money. And, but, they say that's a good thing. They say it's not good to die with money. I've, I've heard some rich people say that, recently.

<Begin Segment 14>

RP: Okay. Just a few more questions, Marian. Was your father involved in sort of establishing new breeds of different flowers like cross-breeding or hybridizing?

MN: Uh...

RP: Did he have...

MN: The only thing I can think of is that the camellias, if you don't make 'em from cuttings, if you just plant seeds, you get something different. And so he had some, he did have some camellias. And in fact there was one that he had named for me. Yeah, he had named one My Darling. [Laughs] Can you imagine that? But anyway, but then that was before Mr. Bodie came on the scene and I think it got renamed something, Mrs. Boddy or something. Yeah. But other plants I don't know.

RP: Is there any part of Descanso Gardens that still have your father's camellias?

MN: Yeah, I think so. A lot of them. And in the Boddy house, there's a picture of my father. Yeah. I was surprised. And they give him credit, I mean, that the plants came from him. Yeah.

RP: Anything else you'd like to share with us before we complete our interview?

MN: I don't know. One thing about my mother, I've been thinking about this 'cause a couple of years ago I was talkin' to one of the other, other, at the reunion, one of the other, a girl I'd just met at the reunion. But, she was talkin' about that she had come from a farming family and so her mother had worked so hard, you know, before the war in the farm. So that when she went to camp it was like vacation for her. And so she was able to enjoy, you know, sewing and embroidering and flower arranging, stuff like that. So I got to thinking, that was completely the opposite for my mother. 'Cause she was raised in, in fairly, you know, good financial conditions and she, you know, had to drive, she had some, you know, one of the nursery workers to drive her if she had to go someplace. And, but yet, when we go to camp, she had to do all the laundry, you know, and, and do all the menial chores that, that wives and mothers do. And, at the time, being a teenager, I wasn't very appreciative of that. But as I grow older and after talking to this girl, I thought, you know, what a struggle it must have been for her. But it's such a different life for her. But, you know, she never complained and she just accepted it. They both became citizens right after the war when they were able to. Right.

RP: And probably would have before if they could.

MN: Yeah. So all that property that he bought, if it was after the alien land law, it was all bought, it was bought in the children's names. But...

RP: I wonder if those cherry trees are still out there.

MN: I don't, I hope so somewhere. Yeah.

RP: It's kind of an interesting story of all these different cherry trees in different places.

MN: Yeah.

RP: Manzanar, Redondo Beach, and Griffith Park.

MN: Yeah. Well, he was, he was kind of... he liked the attention. And he kind of... we used to tell him if you're doing something great or good, you don't have to tell people. They know it. But he was the kind that, you know, kind of liked to, to brag about himself. But... I don't know. I guess I didn't appreciate him at the time.

RP: Marian, thank you so much for sharing some time telling great stories, remembrance of your family.

MN: I hope it helps.

RP: We appreciate it.