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RP: I wanted to talk a little bit about the nursery at the VA Hospital, and about how you decided to, the family decided to donate that to the VA.

HN: Oh, Dad had a lease with the, with the government on that particular piece of property. And that was the reason why he was able to start a nursery in that particular area because there was not too much available property for nursery business, especially right on Wilshire Boulevard. But he had that lease from the government, Veterans Administration, which was an ideal location. 'Cause at that time, this is in the late '20s and the '30s when that Westwood area was, was moving very rapidly.

RP: So roughly the nursery, your dad began establishing the nursery on that VA land probably around late '20s, maybe 1930?

HN: Yeah, I think it was about '28, 1928. It was originally... the Veterans Administration had a, that particular plot of ground was a lemon orchard. So in order to clear it, he had to remove, it was an agreement that he remove the lemon trees. And he got a crew in there to cut down all the lemon trees. And he was able to sell the wood for firewood. Lemon was, lemon was a very desirable firewood. So it was completely cleared, which was quite a big task. It started out, I think he started out with 5 acres, then he added five more acres. Then later on it was, at the end it came up to 20 acres from, on the northwest corner of Sepulveda and Wilshire Boulevard.

RP: And what was around the area at that time? Was it, were you surrounded by farms?

HN: No.

RP: Were you surrounded by development?

HN: The, on the east side, which was right across from Sepulveda, it was the, of course, was the VA cemetery. And then to the west of the, of the nursery property, was the housing for the veterans. And then on the, on the south side, of course, was the Veterans hospital. Then that south, southeastern corner was vacant. And I think there they had vegetables there. Right now that's where the federal building is.

RP: You told us earlier, too, that the government didn't supply you with water. You had to, you had to basically drill your own well for water on the property?

HN: The property had a well, which was not being used. So we didn't have to dig a well, but we had to install a pump. And then because of, in the, a lot of the nursery business, everything is, most of it in containers, so you had to have pressure water opposed to irrigation water where you, where you just irrigated. So we had to put, install a, a large, a tank to pressurize the water. Then we had to bring in electricity which, it probably didn't have electricity, which we couldn't tap off the... they had, they had electricity for the Veterans Administration, but for private use we had to bring in our own, own power line.

RP: That's quite an investment of time and money.

HN: Yeah. You had to, you had to clear the land first, of course. And at the very beginning, until we got the water going, we did get water from the Veteran's Administration, their water source, until we were able to have our own. But the nice thing was the engineer at the Veterans Administration, he was the engineer for the, for the grounds, he helped Dad do all of the figuring out what kind of pump to get, pipes. He did all the engineering, electrical, and it was quite a bit of help from the Veteran's Administration. Well, it also so happened, he lived on the property. He had, the engineer's home was on that property. It was towards the back. But, so...

RP: The property of the nursery?

HN: Yeah. There was a portion of the ground, it was one lot actually that was, that, that had the engineer's home on it. So, what had, what happened is he got the, the help from the engineer on his off time to do whatever was necessary and especially... I think he's primarily electrical engineer.

RP: Can you, can you describe what the, what the, that area, the nursery area looked like after ten years or so or just before the war? Visually it must have been very impressive to see this...

HN: Yeah, it was a, the corner, the corner of the, northwest corner was, was landscaped nicely. And across the front of on the Wilshire side was partially landscaped. It was nursery stock in containers. And then along the, the eastern side facing parallel to Sepulveda Boulevard, there were big pepper trees, huge pepper trees.

RP: Were those native to the site or...

HN: Yeah, they were. They were there from... either they were planted, I'm sure way back.

RP: Did your father design and install any sort of demonstration gardens to show what, how these plants looked in an ornamental setting?

HN: Yeah, he had a little demonstration garden in front of the office, office building. He built it with the help of, I think there was some, I think it was, I was a young, young student then, but I think there was some, I remember there was some help, some of the veterans that were there. It was a couple of guys that wanted, they either got paid a little bit or wanted to help. And they built a rock office building. Yeah. You've never seen the pictures of the nursery? I think there was --

RP: I think I...

HN: -- a huge, a big, big long, yeah...

RP: Right... large panorama.

HN: Yeah.

RP: I saw it quite a while ago.

HN: Yeah.

RP: I think I'm ready to see it again. So, so the office building was built of stone...

HN: Yeah.

RP: By veterans.

HN: Uh-huh.

RP: And so did get quite a bit of support from the VA in terms of designing and constructing this office?

HN: Oh yeah, yeah.

RP: Was there anything else that you recall they helped you, your father with?

HN: Yeah, the... once Dad was established there, the VA helped him quite a bit as far as obtaining the lease. Because I think at the beginning it was like a, I'm not sure, but it was a three-year lease that they were able to do. But they more or less assured Dad that, that every, when the least came up that he'd be pretty much assured that he would get the re-lease for another three years. And I think it was a three-year period.

RP: And then ironically the government created internment and release.

HN: Yeah. They were, they were really good to Dad. In fact, when he was interned, they vouched for him and I think that helped a lot for his early release back to Manzanar.

RP: Now when you say "they" vouch for him, you say the VA itself? I mean was it...

HN: Well, they, they...

RP: Specific individuals.

HN: Yeah. I remember the, the head of the VA at, at this West L.A. VA was, I remember the name and I remember the person too, Colonel Brigham.

RP: Colonel Brigham?

HN: Brigham, yeah. And there was a captain... oh, I don't remember the name now, but there was... several of the officers here, they all wrote letters saying that Dad was a trustworthy person and recommending release.

RP: That really, according to what I've seen, really...

HN: Well, eventually they were all released, but...

RP: Right.

HN: But I think he was released much earlier because of, because of the endorsements from these kinds of people.

RP: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.