Densho Digital Archive - Roy Murakami Interview (denshovh-mroy

<Begin Segment 37>

RM: And then later on, I think was '49, something like that, we moved to another house he had on the Sherman Way and... Sherman Way and Sattuck Way, I think it was. No, not was Sattuck way. Sherman Way and... oh, I forget that road. Whitsit. Whitsit.

RP: Uh-huh. Did you --

RM: That's where your, my father and mother started a nursery. He would do gardening and he would bring some of the cuttings in and my mother would plant 'em and start nursery.

RP: That's how it started.

RM: And we had, we were out of high school and became FFA student. I had three sheep and my brother had two cows, steers. We raised 'em to market and then we sold 'em. And we had chickens, rabbits.

RP: This was on the nursery grounds.

RM: Yeah. Not the nursery but the place where we raised, started the nursery. Then when my father found this place where we are now... he knew the guy that owned it. He was across the street and he had moved in from Hollywood about '29 or something like that, Mr. Moser. So we, we, he negotiated with him and bought one parcel and then later on he bought the other part. So then he got that nursery there and then we started there.

RP: That was the Sego Nursery?

RM: Yeah, Sego.

RP: After your dad. And did you dad continue to garden?

RM: Oh, no. He quit that.

RP: He became the nursery guy.

RM: Yeah.

RP: Was that also a retail nursery, too?

RM: Yeah.

RP: Uh-huh. And how was business in the postwar years?

RM: Oh, not bad.

RP: Was the area starting to develop?

RM: Yeah, yeah.

RP: Bought homes and...

RM: Yeah.

RP: Did your dad ever get involved in any type of landscaping?

RM: Little bit. Before the war he went up, I remember going up to Taft, Taft in, up north, some motel there. He landscaped it.

RP: In Taft? That's an oil, oil town.

RM: Yeah. Was a motel and he, he stayed on a couple days I think there, and he landscaped there, with his helper.

RP: Huh, did you go?

RM: Yeah, I went to see. I was there a couple days.

RP: What type of landscape did he put in? Was it..

RM: Oh, it was just shrubbery.

RP: Just shrubs and...

RM: Nothing fancy those days.

RP: Not for Taft.

RM: No.

RP: They're not ready for Japanese rock gardens. Oh, yeah. Did he do any rock work?

RM: No.

RP: No.

RM: No.

RP: Just plants?

RM: He stayed with plants.

RP: He work with irrigation at all or...

RM: No irrigation that time. Just faucet type of irrigation, that's about it. No sprinkler system. I don't think they had it.

RP: So the Sego Nursery grew most of their own plant, their own stock?

RM: No we bought it.

RP: You started buying it?

RM: That's a retail.

RP: Okay. Where'd you buy it from?

RM: Oh different places.

RP: Monrovia?

RM: Yeah, Monrovia or out, White, White, there's White Oak or whatever. One up in Gardena, there's two or three. Up north there's some.

RP: Were there any other Japanese-run nurseries in the San Fernando area at that time?

RM: Oh, in before the war? Yeah, I think there was.

RP: After the war?

RM: After the war, I don't remember. After the war they started them. One on Sherman Way, the Ishibashis did. He had a five acres of his own land so he started nursery. But he sold the land that's what. He was farming, but he didn't want it anymore. And then the little ones came all over the, that side.

RP: Little nurseries?

RM: [Nods]

RP: So you eventually took over the nursery business?

RM: Yeah, two of us. My brother.

RP: Your brother, too?

RM: Yeah. We went corporation and then, then my, I got my kids in and they're all in it now.

RP: Oh, they're running it? There's still a nursery?

RM: Yeah. Yeah.

RP: Three generations.

RM: Three of 'em.

RP: Uh-huh. Has it expanded and...

RM: No, we can't go any further up here. There's a parcel of land there that they wanted us to rent. But heck, who wants go against the oil companies and stuff?