<Begin Segment 2>

KP: So where did your father, how did he get this land? I mean, what, you said he'd never farmed before. Was it...

MJ: As far as I know he'd never farmed. He knew a lot of farmers. And of course it would, being in the retail business and groceries and stuff, he knew a lot of people. He was very outgoing. He just knew a lot of people in Salinas and in Spreckels. So when he did that and he bought this land it wasn't real good farm, farm ground at that time. He had to do a lot of work on it. It had a lot of sandy spots and a lot of tulles. And he got that all cleared and got to where he started growing things. But he didn't know really a lot about it. So that's why he used the Japanese farmers which were all the way around that ranch, were Japanese farmers. And he asked them if they would help him and they helped him.

KP: And what year was this that your father purchased that land?

MJ: What...

KP: What year did your father purchase land?

MJ: Oh yeah, that was in '27, is when he bought it. And he was married in '28. And they lived on the ranch. There was a little ranch also and he didn't build it. It was already there.

KP: So do you, do you know if the Japanese owned their land there or if...

MJ: They were buying it, as far as I can tell. They were buying it. They didn't own it. But I'm sure my dad knew that, you know, if, when they get taken away that land can be, you know, taken back by the banks or whoever, whoever the land loan person was. So I'm sure he just decided, "Well I'll help you out. I'll farm your ground." Now, there was four Japanese farmers as far as I know. And he could only help two mainly because he couldn't get across the canal. He couldn't get his equipment across the canal. So he helped the two that were right there close by.

KP: Okay. Want to go back a little bit.

MJ: Okay.

KP: I'm kind of interested in the early days in the, the valley there and in particular there's a, there's an interesting connection with your mother's... where does your mother's family come from?

MJ: My mother's side of the family?

KP: Yeah.

MJ: They're from Denmark.

KP: Okay.

MJ: My grandfather was put on a ship when he was twelve years old in Denmark, in Newcombing, Denmark. And he was put on that ship because they had child labor back then and his folks thought he could do better in the United States where there was a cousin living in New York. And he was put on the ship and he never went back. He never ever went back to Denmark. Never saw his folks again. But he ended up in New York with the cousins and then he ended up in Fresno at a Danish Fresno camp. It was a, oh, I don't know what you'd call that, a Danish community is what it was, in Fresno.

KP: And what was his last name?

MJ: Ulrichsen. And he worked there in the Danish community and he worked in the Fresno area and then he found out about Spreckels that was opening and he was a carpenter. And he went there and got a job there. He also met his wife who was an orphan, a Danish orphan. He met her there and was married and they settled in Spreckels, in the little town of Spreckels. And he worked as a carpenter.

KP: And that, again, year wise, do you know approximately when that would have been?

MJ: Oh, well... no, it had to be probably the early, early '20s, somewhere in there, I would think. Because, yeah, well, it had to be. It had to be before my mother was born. She was born in Spreckels. So, yeah. I would say.

KP: Okay, and she was born in what year?

MJ: '05.

KP: Okay.

MJ: So it had to be in the early 1900s when he moved there. Yeah.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.