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KP: Okay, first I'll introduce the tape. My name is Kirk Peterson, and we're doing an interview this morning for Manzanar National Historic Site. This interview will be archived at the Manzanar National Historic Site. The interview is taking place at the Japanese Methodist Church on Franklin Street in Sacramento. And again, today is December 16, 2009, and we're interviewing Melvyn...

MJ: Juhler.

KP: Juhler.

MJ: J-U-H-L-E-R.

KP: Okay. And first I need to ask you, do we have your permission to videotape this interview?

MJ: Absolutely.

KP: Thank you very much. So, first let's start with where, where were you born?

MJ: I was born in Salinas, California. I was, I was born on the ranch that my dad owned and operated. But then when I was two years old we moved to a place called San Benancio Canyon, which is halfway between Monterey and Salinas. And it's just a beautiful, beautiful area. It's a boy's dream to live on it. We had sixty acres there that he had purchased over a period of about ten years. There was hills to climb and trees, trees to climb up, a creek. It was just a wonderful place... I could hunt, you know, back in those days that was, you could shoot anywhere you wanted. Wasn't anybody... we only had six neighbors in the whole canyon. Now there's probably close to eight or nine hundred homes in there.

KP: What, what year were you born?

MJ: I was born in 1939.

KP: So, let's go back even further and talk a little bit about your father. When did your, where was your father born?

MJ: Well, my father was born in San Francisco. His father came from New York and he came out here because of Spreckels Sugar, he was a mechanic. And he came out here to work with Spreckels Sugar Company, which at that time was in Watsonville. And then Claus Spreckels bought a strip of land alongside of the Salinas River because he found out that most of the beets were grown in the Salinas Valley, and it would be a lot closer to ship them to what's now the town of Spreckels, but right to that factory. So they moved the plant and my grandfather helped move it. And then of course he was a mechanic at the, at the factory. My dad, who was born in 1903, was born in San Francisco. They lived in San Francisco at that time, and then moved, moved to Spreckels.

KP: So what about, what about your mother? How did she...

MJ: Okay, now my mother, she was born in Spreckels. And she was born in '05, 1905. And she'd lived very close to my father. And when they, when they moved there he worked for the, for the company and then he also was a part shareholder of the general store that was in, which was purchased, or built by Claus Spreckels. But he was a partner in that. Well, as the town grew and things happened, they decided to get rid of that store and he was the largest shareholder and he bought out the rest of the shareholders and he ended up owning the Spreckels Emporium, which is still there today. And my dad and his three sisters ran it, basically. And my father didn't care for the retail business. He really didn't. Probably more than anything he didn't want to work with all those sisters. And he wanted to be a farmer. He really wanted, liked to try farming. And he was also a mechanic, he went to mechanic school also. So, he talked to my aunt who was Etta, which was, ran it mostly. And she said that she would help him get a loan and he would give up his interest in everything out of Spreckels. And that's what happened. And he bought the, the ranch in Carr Lake, which was owned by Mr. Carr which was a lawyer in San Francisco.

KP: Where is Carr Lake located?

MJ: Okay, Carr Lake is, is actually right in, almost in the city limits, now in fact probably part of it is in city limits. It's very close to the, to the city. It's only, you can walk from Main Street of Salinas to his, to his ranch in probably thirty-five minutes. It's that close. The reason it always stayed there, it was always a flood problem. In the, in the heavy winters the water came out of the Gabilan Mountains and came down there and flooded that area. And he, it was the last landowner at the, he was at the end of the lake before it went over a little weir and then flowed out to the Monterey Bay. And when it got down so low, then you had to pump it out. It wouldn't, wouldn't flow naturally, all of it. So in the winters when it had heavy rains, everything would be washed down onto his property. He never, never had to fertilize. He always got all the other farmers' good soil, that came down there.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.