Densho Digital Archive - Henry Nishi Interview II (denshovh-nhenry

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RP: Henry, lead us through the, the process of, of the donation of, of your father's nursery to the VA.

HN: Yeah.

RP: Yeah, tell us a little about it. It sounds, to me it sounds like your mother had a great deal to do with the eventual decision...

HN: Oh yeah, she had to make all, all of the decisions, of course.

RP: But she consulted with, with the kids?

HN: Yeah, uh-huh.

RP: And so what... he put a, a estimate of a price on how much the nursery was worth at the time of evacuation and why you didn't try to find someone else to lease the nursery or buy the stock. And instead you chose to donate the nursery.

HN: Yeah. In estimating something like that at that time and being as young as I was, I would say, on today's market, I would think it was at least a million dollars worth of inventory. But back then, probably, I don't know, maybe twenty, thirty thousand dollars.

RP: Did you attempt to find a buyer for the, the stock? Did anybody come forward and offer you X amount of dollars for what you had there?

HN: No. They wanted, they wanted everything for nothing. So we decided... at the very beginning when we knew that we were gonna be evacuated, we decided that well, whatever we can, we'll just start liquidating whatever material that, nursery stock. And then, of course, then we decided well heck, with the rest of it we'll ask the the VA if they, if they would just, if we donate it if they could use it. And of course they said, "We could use the nursery because we need it for the, for the cemetery, need it for the, for the grounds, whatever." And so that's how that came about, the donation, they offer, we offered and they, they said they were willing to take it as a donation.

RP: Were you involved in the process at all in terms of deeding over or the nursery stock? I think this article mentioned that you were, you know, had involvement with...

HN: Well, it was just a verbal agreement.

RP: Uh-huh.

HN: Yeah. Yeah. Because at, at... otherwise we would have kept on trying to liquidate as much as possible until, until we left. But by donating this, we just gave it to the... and, and left the property.