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RP: How about giving us a little background on your father?

MS: He, well, he graduated from University of Waseda in Japan. He lost his mother when he was five, then his father passed away when he was eighteen or so. But he, he worked for the Japanese government. I don't know just exactly, but he went to the Russian-Japanese War as a, he could speak Chinese so he was sent over there. So he was goin' round the world. Olden days they used to, ship used to go around the world, and he was on some diplomatic service and he was, the boat landed in San Francisco and while he was in China, he had contacted malaria, got malaria, so he, it reoccurred when he was in San Francisco. So they left him in a hospital because they couldn't keep him on the ship, and he, the ship only came round I think once six months a year, so while he was waiting he met someone there and he decided to... so he came in 1898 and he never went back to Japan. He never ever went for a visit because he didn't have any parents. He had nieces and nephews or something, but he felt he didn't remember them, so he never cared to go back to Japan. So he, so he never went back. All his life he lived here.

[Interruption]

MS: And then he had friends in Los Angeles, so he came to Los Angeles and he worked for a bank. He had friends, and those days the bank controlled all the property, like, you know the history, so he went out to develop land for the bank. That's why he was living in La Habra. And he, I remember, I was only five or six when we left there, but I remember, I think they told me he had about a hundred acres. He developed it, and then he went down through, they sent him to property in Vista. We went down there and he, I remember we looked out the window, there'd be jackrabbits and coyotes and you know, running around. In those days...

RP: Wild wilderness.

MS: Wild wilderness. And then so, well, we were supposed to go from La Habra to Vista, so my father would send me and, there were three of us then, on the train and he was gonna tow a wagon and carriage for horses and go, so my mother said no, she wouldn't let my dad go by himself, so we all decided to go together. So he took the wagon, made a tent over it and we slept in it. Took us two nights and he, we towed a carriage, carriage, and so we had the two horses and the carriage and another horse. And I remember going down, it took, I think, two nights. It took us --

RP: This journey was from La Habra to Vista?

MS: Yeah, we went from La Habra to Vista.

RP: Basically in a covered wagon.

MS: [Laughs] Yeah, really.

RP: What do you remember about --

MS: 'Cause they didn't have hotels or anything, so my mother said she wasn't gonna let my dad drive the two horses... he had to take the wagon anyway and then tow a carriage, but another carriage, that'd be three, three horses. So I remember we camped on the way. It was just desert. I remember vaguely. I must've been about six, I think. I remember vaguely, and then there'd be coyotes howling around us. I really... and then we stayed in Vista I don't know how many years. Anyway, we ended up in, ended up in Glendora at the end, but I know, have you heard the Zamboni machines, though?

RP: The machines that surface the ice?

MS: Yeah, well I knew them.

RP: There was a family...

MS: Zamboni, his wife and I went to school in Vista and she married Zamboni, and the first ice thing he built in down in they call it Heinz at the time, and it was just on the ground with just a boat around ice skating, and he, we went to visit him. I had my kids, children then. It was after the war, we went to visit them, Zamboni. So we knew the Zamboni family. He passed away, I think, a few years back. He made, started from a lawnmower. He started by making, he took a lawnmower and he made, made that.

RP: Oh, the idea originated with a lawnmower.

MS: There's a picture of him in the paper, Times paper, when he passed away. And then he used to travel with Sonja Henning, he probably, when she used to skate he used to go with her and they, he made the ice and took care of that, so I tell people that. They mention, "Here comes the Zamboni." That's the, the man that did, invented that Zamboni machine.

RP: You know that guy.

MS: And he sells all over the world, like in Japan I hear, and Europe. All over the world. And he made money. I think his son is running it now.

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