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MJ: I think the, the Juhler family itself, all the way through the family, was kind of oriented in helping. My aunt was, she helped a lot of people. My, my dad was a twin and his twin sister, Alma, when she worked in the store, I know Dad said, "Etta oughta keep her out of there 'cause she gives more away than they ever, than she ever sells." So she was always slippin' somebody somethin'. So, there was a lot of that. I know when we, when Etta died we went through the, some of the books down there, and there was hundreds and hundreds of these charge books. You'd put 'em in a big thing that came out and they had rows and rows, all in alphabetical order. There was hundreds of 'em. And some of 'em went back five, six years, still hadn't been paid. Just kept credit more, credit more. So, I think that was kind of, the Juhlers kind of helped one another and so, that's where my dad got that.

KP: Where do you think that trait came from?

MJ: Probably way back, maybe, probably on the Kugler side, since they, they helped the slaves. I don't know. I mean, that's probably, probably where it started. And I don't know anything about my father's, my grandfather, Jess. But he probably was a very nice, very nice guy too. I think that's where it came from.

KP: Sometimes kind of hard to see what you're raised with and try to figure out where it came from because for you, that's the norm.

MJ: Yeah, exactly, yeah. Well, like I say, my dad was always willing to help. He was always helpin' the neighbors or pullin' 'em out of a ditch with the tractor or somethin'. So, and he was very active in the, with the, with us kids as much as he could be with 4-H and FFA and all that. And my mother was very active in all that. So, they kept busy. And then we lived ten miles from town so he had to drive back and forth and back and forth. Yeah. I didn't have anything, no affiliation with church much. The, when I was in the Cub Scouts the cub den leader asked my mother to drive 'cause we had a, what they called a Woody, an old Pontiac station wagon. And she knew that she could haul a lot of kids. So she... "Would you please use your car to haul the kids in," while I'm gettin' my church experience. So said, "Sure." So she hauled us all in there and the den mother, and we got out and she said, "I'm gonna go do some shoppin' and I'll come back and pick you up in an hour." Well, we all went to church. Well when we came back we all piled in the car. There were no safety belts or anything then. You just got in there. And the Sunday school teacher came out and she went around to the side of the car and she said to, "Ma'am, I want to thank you very much for bringing the children in. That was very nice of you. But, just between you and I, you can leave that blonde curly headed one home next time, or forget to pick him up." And of course she didn't know who was who. So, my mother remembered that 'cause I don't think I ever saw another church until Kay and I were married. [Laughs] But now I'm very active in church, so I don't know. It probably was some other kid did it and I got the blame for it anyway. [Laughs]

KP: Where and when did you meet Kay?

MJ: I met Kay, she lived in the canyon, a subdivision area at the end of the canyon by Highway 68, in nineteen, about 1960, '59, '60 I met her. We both went to high school, graduated together but I didn't know her and she didn't know me. She knew me as I went by in my little truck. I drove to high school in my pickup truck and I had chrome stacks on it and it made a lot of noise so she knew me by then. But we didn't really meet until in the, about 1959, late 1959, one of my good friends introduced me to her. He was going with her at times. And, we hit it off right then and we, about two and a half years later we were married. And, we, I couldn't work for Spreckles, in Spreckles any longer because I had an uncle that worked there. And the union found out about it and they said, "No, you can't work here." Nepotism thing, you know. So that's when they tried to find me a job up here. And just the day they called, the machinist had quit up here. So I transferred up so on December 8, 1961, we moved up to Woodland on our honeymoon. So, we've been here ever since. It was a perfect distance away from all the relatives. about two hundred miles. It wasn't that far to go, but yet it was far enough. So it helped us a lot. Her dad told me that. He says, "You're moving just the right distance away from us." Yeah. And now we have two children. One's in Alaska. She's married to a Air Force, her husband's in the Air Force. And he's got twenty-two years in, twenty-three years in now. So he'll be retiring pretty soon. And my son took over my business. I left Spreckles in '82 and I started my own heating/air-conditioning business. And he took it over about nine years ago. So, he's doing fine, right in Woodland. So, half of my family lives in Woodland and half of 'em are in Alaska, or Germany, they've been in Germany also. But it's been wonderful for Kay and I 'cause we travel to go see 'em and have a place to stay.

KP: So how is the, how do you think that the, the family helpfulness has been expressed in your life? What have, have you carried on that tradition? The tradition of your father?

MJ: How what?

KP: Your father helped a lot of people, you said your grandfather did. It seemed to be kind of a family tradition. Have you carried that forward?

MJ: Yeah. Like I say, I'm very, very active in the church. I enjoy going down there and just see somethin' needs fixin', I just fix it. So I've been doing that for about thirty-five years. I would say I probably spend on average a total of six to eight hours a week down there doing stuff. And I just come and go when I want. Also, being in the business I was in, I was able to help people. And that's one reason I left Spreckles. It got to the point it was just strictly the bottom line. That was all they were worried about. They didn't worry about, too much about the employees, and they especially didn't worry about the facility. They were just going downhill, and it was five of 'em at one time. So I decided maybe it was time to leave. So that's when I left in '82 and went into my own business. In that business I was able to help... in fact, most of my business at first started through the church. The church membership found out I was going into business for myself and I did everything. I did plumbing, electrical, everything, which I learned at Spreckles. Because I was the shop foreman for the last ten years so I had all these different shops under me. So, while I had 'em under me I went ahead and learned 'em. So it came in handy. And my son, he does pretty much... he doesn't do commercial refrigeration anymore. He used to do some of that but he does heat and air and carpentry and stuff like that. And is doing very well. So I think that has carried over and from what I hear from people my son's doing the same thing. He does a lot of things for nothin'. [Laughs] Which pays off in the end. Yeah.

KP: You'd make a good park ranger.

MJ: Yeah. [Laughs] Exactly.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.