Densho Digital Archive - Melvyn Juhler Interview

<Begin Segment 1>

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.

<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.

<Begin Segment 3>

KP: So what, what kind of, what kind of background did your father have? He was...

MJ: Well, he, like I said, he would, he had a high school education --

KP: Uh-huh.

MJ: --- in San Francisco and then he went to a mechanics school, like a trade school. And his sister, Etta, she went to Heals College. So they both got some kind of a little formal education. And then when they came to Spreckels of course they took over, they took the store. He, he bought the store.

KP: But his intent of going --

MJ: I don't know what he did in mechanics there, if he did anything. But the mechanics certainly helped him as being a farmer. 'Cause he did all his own mechanical work, so he enjoyed mechanics. So I would say that's probably all he did in the mechanics. I know he delivered groceries and you know, and then like I say he just didn't like that at all. It wasn't what he wanted to do.

KP: So he gets this, this land. And I asked about where the land came from because you said it wasn't the best land. It wasn't the worst land, but it wasn't the best land.

MJ: That's right. It...

KP: Do you think he was, was it a good deal that he got?

MJ: Well, that's right. Because it flooded you, you can't grow crops all year round. You couldn't put a winter crop in of any kind. So he raised, in the summer he raised lettuce and then for a second crop he, he'd get sugar beets in, if the weather was... but, like I say, when it flooded well then you couldn't do anything with it. So, it was a better buy. He had a chance, from what I understand, to buy something out by the Salinas River. And it was better ground and it was, wasn't a chance of flooding every year, but there was a chance someday that the river might take it away 'cause it was right next to the river. And you never knew what that river was gonna do. So he chose the piece in Carr Flat which he knew was always gonna be there. It wasn't gonna go anywhere. And I'd say he made the smart decision because the town didn't take it over either because it's a flood zone. It's still there today. It's still being farmed today.

KP: And, when he was farming, is this a dry land farming? Just depending on rains?

MJ: Uh-huh. Well, no, no. It, he had irrigation. All row crops. It was all irrigation. He had plenty of water because that dish was always full of water and then he had well pumps that he, that he watered with. He had hired help. He had Mexican laborers. He had a foreman, a Mexican foreman. He had two different ones, Ted Azivito and Steve... I can't remember his last name. But when I was a kid, I remember 'em. They always played with me and they were real nice guys. So yeah, he had a foreman out there all the time. And then of course when we moved to San Benancio, the little house, the foreman lived in the house. They had a, they had a home of their own.

<Begin Segment 4>

KP: So, you said your, your dad's farm was surrounded by Japanese American farmers? Or, Japanese farmers? His property?

MJ: The Japanese farmers?

KP: Right. They were around him. Do you remember...

MJ: Well, they were, let's see, it's Ishimaro, I believe it was, he had his farm right at the entrance of ours. You had to drive by his to get in. And I can remember when I was a kid, he raised onions. And it was just pungent onion smell everywhere. And he had a big warehouse there that he kept all the onions in. And I remember a lot of Japanese men and women in there working on the onions, and cleaning 'em and puttin' 'em in sacks and stuff. I just, just thought of that now. When we'd go by you could look in that shed and they would be in there cleaning 'em. So that's where he lived. He was very close. The, the house was right there. We drove right by his house when you went into our ranch.

KP: And you said there were other Japanese farmers there as well?

MJ: Excuse me?

KP: There were other Japanese farmers in that area as well?

MJ: There was. There was Hibino, which was the other one that he helped, was close. You could, you could drive your tractor to his land. But the other two were on the other side of the canal which he could not get to. And I've got their names here somewhere. Maybe I don't. No, I don't have it on this piece of paper.

KP: That's okay.

MJ: One of 'em was Miyanaga, Tommy Miyanaga, was the, was the grandson that I knew. And one was Miyanaga, and what was the other one do you remember?

Off Camera: Akiya.

MJ: Oh yeah, Akiya. Yeah. So there was four that I know of around that area.

KP: And you were born in '39?

MJ: I was born in '39.

KP: So you don't really have any personal memories up to, including...

MJ: No, the only thing I can remember was during the war, I think it was a navy plane crash landed on my dad's farm. They just had problems or somethin' and they landed on that big field. And I can remember my brother out there and my dad and, and the navy out there gettin' it on, gettin' it loaded onto a truck so they could get it out of there. But there was nobody hurt, but that's where they landed. Basically that's about all -- I can remember the blackouts. We had to turn the lights out in our house. I remember that. We had blackout lights on the cars where they just shined one the road, just down. Other than that, out there in the canyon we didn't have any air raid sirens or anything like that. And in Salinas they did. They had, they would turn out all the lights and stuff. So I really don't remember anything about the war.

KP: Did you have any awareness at all that your Japanese neighbors were being taken away at that age?

MJ: I didn't, uh-uh, no. My brother did. And my brother's still alive. He remembers them. In fact I called him on the phone to find out their names. And he remembers them. And he was, my brother was the one that told me that my dad probably would have helped the other ones if he could have got to the ranches but he couldn't get to 'em. But there was other people that did help them and save their farms also. My mother kept the books so that when they came back it was all on paper how much was spent and how much was made and who was paid and so they just walked in and took the place right back. There was no, no problem at all.

KP: What did your father do for these farms? I mean, how did he keep them going? I mean, did he have to contract labor and stuff like that?

MJ: He had contract labor for thinning. And he hired out also like a crew would come in and harvest the beets. They'd bring in a beet wheel and harvest it, put it in trucks. Also, the lettuce was the same way and that was mostly Mexican laborers that came in and did thinning, thinned the lettuce, and cultivated it. Well, the cultivation on the watering was up to the foreman. He did that. There was, there was one unhappy situation. Ted, I think it was, or Steve, Steve Asivito fell asleep one night and he ruined about half of, about forty-five acres of lettuce went under water. My dad wasn't too happy about that, but that's the only incident I can ever remember him talkin' about. So, they took care of that stuff and of course Steve and Ted, both of 'em of course spoke Spanish so they would, they would work with the, with the ranch hands.

KP: And, and that also worked with the Japanese farms that your... how did your dad kind of manage those?

MJ: You know I don't remember how they worked it.

KP: I mean when he, he took them over?

MJ: When he took them over? Oh yeah, he used whatever... he hired whatever he needed to do it, yeah. Their farms weren't that big. My dad was one of the biggest farmers. He had a hundred acres which was big then. Now it's nothin', but it was big then. They had like twenty-five, thirty acres maybe at the most. But the Hibinos, which my dad helped, when my dad finally gave up ranching because a freeway went through the ranch, and put the, put the high ground on one side and, and all the farmland on the other and he couldn't, couldn't get his equipment back and forth anymore. So he retired and he leased it to Hibino Farms, which was the same Hibino that he helped during the war.

KP: Well, the other question I have is what sort of burden do you think it put on your father to help out these other farmers?

MJ: Oh, I'm sure it put a pretty good size burden on him. Because, you know, I can remember when I was a kid he, he left at six in the morning and he didn't come back until dark before that, so you know, I'm sure it put a lot on him. It was a lot of extra work.

KP: You also mentioned that when you'd drive past the, the Japanese farms you remember seeing the, the Japanese workers there doing all that work. That means they would have been...

MJ: They were all gone, exactly. See I don't remember, I don't even remember if that was before... it was after the war that I saw the Japanese, yeah, that I saw them. Before the war I wouldn't have, wouldn't have recognized. But...

KP: So do you --

MJ: The, the property in, in Spreckles, was still in the Juhler name until 1980, '82 or '83, somewhere in there. It was still in the Juhler's name. It is in, kind of in the Juhler's name. It, it belongs to a lady named Margo and she was brought over by Etta, one of Dad's sisters. She was an invalid, she had cerebral palsy. And when Etta got to the point where she thought she wasn't... gettin' close to death, she had this German lady, Margo, come over from Germany. And learned the business of the store and she took the place over. And so she ran the store after that. My dad did go back after he retired. He ran the little service station in Spreckles, just for fun basically. And that's when East of Eden was filmed and James Dean used to get gas there and talk to my dad. And that was all shot right there on the Spreckles property, that whole thing. So that was kind of fun.

<Begin Segment 5>

KP: So what kind of, what kind of religious background did your parents have?

MJ: Well, we have a little bible of Dad's back when he was probably sixteen, eighteen, somewhere in there. And it, by looking through there in the notes and stuff he took, it sounded like he was real active in a church at that time. But I think after he started farming he got away from it. I know he always yearned to get back into a church because he would talk about it and after he did retire he joined a little church there in San Benancio, a little community church for a while. Well, actually he, after he retired he only, he died about three years later. So he died in 1955. So he, he didn't, he wouldn't, he wasn't off the farm for very long. 'Cause I think the freeway went through in '50 or '51, somewhere in there.

KP: So, in your, with your siblings, kind of go way back, your dad was thirty-eight when you were born. He was born in 1903, you said.

MJ: Uh-huh.

KP: He was in his late thirties.

MJ: And it was a ten year difference between my... my mother was ten years younger. Yeah.

KP: And where are you in the, with your, what are, who was...

MJ: I was, I was the last child. I have a, I had a brother that was eight years older --

KP: And his name?

MJ: -- and a sister that was five years older.

KP: Your brother's name?

MJ: Bob, Robert, Robert, Robert Juhler. And he still lives in San Benancio on the ranch. He's, he, he took a little bit of the property and, and built his own home there. So he still lives in San Benancio. And my sister is deceased. She died in, oh about five years ago. Yeah.

KP: I've got another name, Anna Wilhelmina...

MJ: Wilhelmina Kugler?

KP: Yeah, who is she?

MJ: That is my father's mother, my grandmother. And she was a Kugler and she was the, her family was the one that was in the retail business in New York. Okay. They had a department store in New York. And of course she married Jess and then they moved out west. But she's really the one that had the savvy of store, of retail business. She... when did she die? She died in... you got it over there what it, when it was?

Off Camera: '47.

MJ: Wasn't it?

Off Camera: When you were eight.

MJ: Oh, okay, when I was... so, anyway she, she was the Kugler. She died when I was young so I don't remember. I don't ever remember Jess at all. He was alive when I, in 1939, but I don't remember him. He died shortly after that.

KP: There's also some talk about how Anna and her parents were involved with slavery somehow or...

MJ: Well, from what I understand is that they, they let slaves, not runaway but that were you know, after slavery was abolished, that they were to live in the basement of their store and hide them down there. Because there was a lot of, a lot of still problems with whites didn't, didn't want the slaves free. They wanted 'em back on the plantations where they thought they belonged. Well they ended up migrating into the New York area and she hid 'em down in the basement, from what I understand.

KP: So this was after the Civil War and the...

MJ: Yeah, it was after the Civil War, yeah.

KP: Eighteen... '80s, '90s?

MJ: So that's way back. [Laughs]

KP: Yeah, yeah.

MJ: Yeah.

KP: Hmm. That's interesting.

MJ: And the Kuglers were, were from Germany. And during the war my aunt sent care packages to Germany, probably, oh, probably once a month or, or more than that. I can remember as a little kid goin' over there and helpin' her pack these packages and we'd send 'em to Germany.

KP: Do you remember what went in those?

MJ: Do you remember what?

KP: Do you remember what went in those packages?

MJ: Oh, food. Nothin', nothin' but food. Dry food, anything that would, would make it across. And I don't, all I remember is food goin' in. But there was probably other things that she put in there. Because they had a lot of good German friends in Germany and they were sufferin' during the war so they, they kept sendin' the stuff over there.

<Begin Segment 6>

KP: So do you remember the end of World War II, VJ Day?

MJ: When it ended?

KP: Yeah, I mean, do you have any memories of that? You were still pretty young.

MJ: Not really. Probably would have if I had lived in Salinas with everybody celebrating. But we lived out there in the country and it, it just wasn't that much celebrating. No, I don't really remember it.

KP: Do you remember the, the Japanese farmers coming back?

MJ: Uh-uh. No. I doubt very much that I even remembered too much, you know, I knew too much about it at that time. I've heard about it later, what, what had happened. And I've had lots of people come up to me when I was in Salinas tellin' me, "Oh, your dad was so nice to the Japanese farmers." And, and he was very well-respected.

KP: People from all walks of life?

MJ: All walks of life, yeah, knew my dad. There was one thing he used to do during the war. In fact, I think even after the war. Is when... he didn't, one thing he didn't like about farming is you were always wishing bad luck on somebody else. You wished bad luck on somebody back east that their crops wouldn't grow, it would turn hot or something, so that you would get a good market for lettuce in, in Salinas. He didn't like that part of it. So when it got to the point where he couldn't sell the lettuce, there was no market for it, he would load this big trailer he had, flatbed trailer, and he'd load it, have the helpers load it with lettuce. And then on the way home he went down through Chinatown -- I don't, there was no Japanese town that I know of. There was a Chinatown, it was called. -- and he'd park that thing there and unhook it and go home. And when he'd come back in the morning he'd hook it up, it would be empty and he'd take it back. Well, he kind of did it on the sly because the other farmers didn't like that because that was, that wasn't helping the market at all. But he hated to disk it under, you know. So he would do as much as he could. He'd take anything he grew and put it out. He also grew some, some corn and stuff on the side by the house. But that's one thing I can remember. In fact I remember ridin' with him when he did that. He'd just unhook that big trailer and he'd just leave it there. And it would be empty in the morning. [Laughs]

KP: So do...

MJ: He always was, my, my wife asked my mother one time if you had to explain my, to say what my dad was with one word what would you say? She said, "Gentleman." He was always a gentleman. So he would open doors for ladies, and I remember when I was a little kid, he'd be holding my hand, we'd be walking down the street and all of a sudden he'd go off to the side and he'd open the door for a lady to, to walk in. So... I think she hit it pretty close.

<Begin Segment 7>

KP: So what, what grammar school did you go to?

MJ: I went to the grammar school out in Corral De Tierra which is the next canyon over from San Benancio. It's the, it was the Washington Union... Washington Union Grammar School.

KP: How did you get there?

MJ: A bus. We were bussed. It was about oh, probably six miles at the most. And we just waited out front for the bus to come by and got on.

KP: So, what was the ethnic makeup of that school? Do you remember what the different nationalities in that school were?

MJ: School? It was just everybody. There was no, there was no makeup to it at all. It was just a public school was all it was.

KP: Caucasian people? Japanese? Did you go to school with...

MJ: I don't remember any Japanese. Mostly Caucasian. Mexican people, there was some, there was, one of my best friends was Mexican, Jess Hernandez, who lived in the next canyon over. His family went there. I can't remember any Japanese though.

KP: Do you have any idea where they would have gone to school? Were the Japanese, since they were your neighbors...

MJ: Around the ranch I don't remember. I would imagine they just went to public school there. I don't think there was any, any problems at all. Like I say, there was, the area of town that was called Chinatown but I don't know how many... I don't think there were too many Chinese there but there, it was called Chinatown, yeah. And that was very close to my dad's ranch. Like I say, that's where he'd take that trailer up there where the people didn't have a lot of money. And then they could get the lettuce at least. Yeah.

KP: So what kind of student were you in school, grammar school?

MJ: I wasn't really great. I got through it. I enjoyed it. But I never was a real, real good student. I really loved it after high school when I got into a junior, Hartnell Junior (College) in a machine shop course there. And that's where I learned the machine shop and I went to Spreckles and then got a job as a machinist there. And that's how I ended up in Woodland is they transferred me to the Woodland factory. And I was a machinist here and ended up being a master mechanic of the factory, so. But formal education, that just wasn't my thing.

KP: Did you go to junior high school or did...

MJ: Yeah, I went to junior high. The elementary school was up to eighth grade and then we had two years of junior high and then to Salinas High School where Steinbeck went, which by the way was in the same years my mother went to school. 'Course he wasn't, he wasn't famous then. But, yeah.

<Begin Segment 8>

KP: So did you ever have any contact with your Japanese neighbors? I mean, any friends or...

MJ: Yeah, yeah. I knew 'em after I was in high school. I used to go out and check the wells and stuff. And Tommy Miyanaga, he was a, just a real likeable guy and that's probably the grandson of the, of the Miyanagas that were there during the war. I can always remember he always was fun to be around because he had a Harley-Davidson, and he would irrigate with it. And he would start water and he'd want to down to the other end, he'd get on his Harley and he'd go down about six rows where it was dry and he'd just charge down there in those furrows and it always got me. How in the world do you keep... never fell off. So that's how he irrigated, back, he'd go back and check it and then he'd go back the other way on his Harley. [Laughs] And then Hibino, he actually was at my mother's funeral. He was a big part of our ranch after my dad died because he, he leased the ground from her. And, like I say, that was the same Hibino that my dad helped, Frank Hibino. Let's see, was there anymore? No, I think that was the two that I really knew that, that were right close by. But Hibino Farms became a huge corporation.

KP: Primarily, what would they grow?

MJ: All agricultural.

KP: What, what kind of crops?

MJ: Oh, well, when, after he took over our ranch he started doing a lot of strawberries up in the Watsonville area. So he did a lot of, got into a lot of strawberry stuff. But I don't think he ever grew strawberries on ours. He grew lettuce, celery, and sugar beets. I don't think he ever did strawberries, grew any strawberries there.

KP: You mentioned that your father... do you know that he got advice from the Japanese on how to farm, what to farm, or... what kind of, what kind of support did they... do you have any idea?

MJ: No. I think most of the, I think he just got basic things from them. I don't think he had a clue on, on really how to go about this. You know, other than he was a great reader so I'm sure he read a lot of books on farming. But, I think they helped him a lot. I think they told him how to, how to set the rows and what to plant and what to look out for and I think any time he had a question he probably went right there to Hibino and asked him, "How do you do this?" Because they'd been farming there a long time before my dad bought that ranch. And I don't know who farmed it before my dad bought it when it belonged to Mr. Carr. In fact, I don't even know if it was farmed. Probably the back part probably wasn't. It was probably, that's where the sand and the tulles were, where they kept washing them out. So he probably cleared that. Like I say, there was a canal through it so I can remember one time we went out there to, to get him to go to a movie. We were gonna go to a movie and all of us kids were, were the three kids and my mother. And we got out there and here the tractor was stuck down in the canal straight in. And he had another farmer there with another tractor and he said, "Well, I fell asleep." And he went right across the little road and into the canal. Well, he says, "It won't take us long. We'll get it out and we'll still go to the movies." So meanwhile we're playing around and there's a little irrigation ditch. It's only about three feet wide. Well my brother, he's jumping across and my sister, they're jumping across. Well, you can guess who didn't make it. I landed in the canal. And now I'm soaking wet and my Dad, my mother had brought clothes for him. So the whole thing got scrapped and we went home. And my sister and brother weren't very happy with me, I can remember that. [Laughs] And it was, that ground was adobe, most of it. And it just stuck to you. Your feet would get that big around. You just, you know. It was horrible. But you never wore out any equipment. The tracks on our, on his tractors were the original tracks. He never wore 'em out. The stuff was just like goin' through silk. You know, it was just smooth. No, no gravel in it whatsoever. After he retired we took the, the tractors up to the ranch in San Benancio and we wore 'em out a lot more up there than we ever did down in Carr Flat. So it was interesting soil, very good soil. Peat soil and adobe.

KP: And refertilized and replenished on demand.

MJ: Yeah, right. He had to fertilize too. He had, I remember, those old cylinders laying around. He'd put fertilizer into the water as he irrigated. So, you know, this was a risky business. He had, some years he did well and some years he didn't do so well. So, but he did fine. He was able to buy that ranch in San Benancio, just a piece at a time. He just kept adding to it. So I think he was pretty smart when it came to, to business. He knew how to, how to get it done. He just didn't live long enough. He had a heart attack in '55 and when he was fifty, when he was fifty... no sixty-two. I had a heart attack when I was fifty-seven and had bypass surgery. If they had had bypass surgery back then he'd have lived a lot longer. So, it's hereditary. My mother had a heart attack also. But, so I'm doing fine. But, if it wasn't for modern medicine I wouldn't even be here probably. [Laughs] That goes for a lot of us I'm sure.

<Begin Segment 9>

KP: So growing up, going to high school in that, that area, you had a couple Japanese American friends you mentioned.

MJ: No. There was, there was Japanese students, there was a lot of 'em. But I didn't have any of 'em as personal friends. I had a black boy that was a friend of mine, 'cause we sang together in a quartet. And, like I say, some of my best friends were the Mexican family, Jess Hernandez and his, his two kids.

KP: What, what kind of music did you sing in your quartet?

MJ: Oh, we sang the rock and roll. It was, it was four of us that came... we also sang at choir. That was probably one of the, the classes I enjoyed the most, was a cappella choir, boys glee, and then our little quartet, and we went around.

KP: Did you have a name for your quartet?

MJ: [Laughs] If we did I don't remember. We sang at the Senior NCO club a lot, over in Fort Ord. They would have us come over there and we'd sing. So, it was fun. We enjoyed it. And then I still, I sang up to about five years ago. My hearing got so bad I couldn't sing in choir any more at our Methodist church in Woodland, which we've been a Methodist for over thirty-five years there. So, but I don't do much singing anymore because my hearing is so bad. Yeah.

KP: Did any of the... it didn't sound like you were real close with a lot of the Japanese people after the war.

MJ: Uh-huh.

KP: Did you ever hear anybody talk about the camp experience or any of that?

MJ: No I didn't. And I forgot to ask my brother whether he did or not. No, I know it wasn't good, that's for sure. And I don't know if my dad ever went down there to see them. I really doubt it. He probably didn't have time to do that. If he would have had time he probably would have, that's for sure.

KP: You also said that your, that you kept hearing from people in the community, all types of people in the community, about how your father had stepped out and really helped the Japanese during the time of the war.

MJ: It... I think it kind of circulated around Salinas that he had helped these farmers. And I'm sure he wasn't the only one that helped 'em. There was, I know my mother said there was a lot of Japanese farmers that lost their farms. That when they came back they didn't have anything. It was gone. Either the person that was farming it or the landlord or the bank took it back and they didn't have anything.

KP: So from your opinion, what do you think the attitude toward the Japanese was in the Salinas area where you grew up?

MJ: You're saying what, what...

KP: What was the community, I mean, was there an overall community feel for who the Japanese were? I mean, some communities had animosity against the Japanese. Other ones felt kind of supportive. Do you have any idea?

MJ: I don't know that I could tell you that. From what I saw there was, there was nothing that... they just came back and everything went back the way it was except for the ones, like I say, that lost their farms and stuff. But I was, I was too young to even... the only thing I would have, would if somebody, somebody had told me about these different stories. But I don't remember any of that, no. I don't know if my brother would or not, whether he would remember. He'd actually did... I never did, never did drive a tractor or anything like that, but he did, he did some work out there for Dad. But I was too young. So I can't help you there. I wish I could.

<Begin Segment 10>

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.

<Begin Segment 11>

KP: Richard, did you have any questions that you wanted to...

RP: Actually, I wanted to hear a little bit more about the freeway project that came in through the ranch.

KP: Okay. Richard wants to know about the freeway that came through your dad's ranch.

MJ: Okay. Well, the freeway, there was all kinds of news about it in the paper and everything that they wanted to change the, put a freeway in. And they were gonna cut through Salinas, through my dad's ranch and back behind Alisal and that way. Anyway, of course, my dad didn't want anything to do with it. "No, you can't do that. You're going through the ranch." Well, they finally said, "Well, we'll just take the land if you don't, if you won't sell it." Well, his idea was to put it, the freeway closer to the Gabilan Mountains and keep it out of right downtown Salinas, put it over towards the mountains and bypass Salinas. Well, they wanted it closer of course for business. So it, finally he hired a lawyer from San Francisco and fought it as much as he could. And finally gave he gave. And, like I said, they cut the ranch in half so all his high ground and his tractor sheds and everything were on one side and the real farming ground was on the other. So that's when he, when he leased it out. But, years later, like maybe ten years ago, I was told by somebody that there was an article in the paper that Elwood Juhler had the right idea. The freeway should have been put over by Gabilan Mountains because it has made a mess of north Salinas and then south Salinas has died because of it. Everything's gone there and the south Salinas just died. Almost all the shopping centers and stuff are just evaporated.

KP: Which freeway was that?

MJ: That's 101. So it went, went on down towards King City, San Ardo, and that way. So, it's a big four-lane freeway. It did cut off the water. He didn't have to worry about the upper part floodin' but he really didn't have to worry about that too much anyway. [Laughs] But it's still being farmed. They haven't done anything with it. And when we sold it, we sold it to some German investment people that bought it from us. So, and I imagine they still have it. I have never heard what had happened from then.

RP: Are the Hibinos still farming?

KP: Are the Hibinos still farming? Is it still a viable...

MJ: Yes, oh yeah, yeah. Hibino Farms is big. You google 'em, they're just Hibino this, Hibino that, all the way down and all the kids and grandkids. They're just a lot of different ones. So they're, they're still farming. I think the other one is also still in that area. I think my brother told me last night that they're both still farming. Still have farmers, of course it's not them. It's their kids that are farming it. But, farms are still there. Anything that was in that Carr Lake area is gonna stay there because it's still, it still is a problem with the water. Not near as much. And my dad also fought that. He wanted them to dig a, the ditch deeper underneath the roads going into Salinas and lower so he wouldn't have to pump that water out. And they wouldn't do it, they wouldn't do it. Well, here about oh, probably twenty years ago, they went ahead and put a new ditch in and lowered it and you got rid of the pumping station. So it just, gravity flows out. But if you get a heavy winter, it still will backup.

KP: Sounds like your dad was a man ahead of his time.

MJ: Yeah. He was. He really was. He, he was always thinkin' ahead, and that was very expensive to pump that water. You pump, pump twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for probably a couple months, gettin' that water. It was in the canal. It wasn't floodin' anything, but if you shut off the pumps, it just backed up and then... so he had to keep pumpin' it out. Until it got to where it was real low in the ditch, then you could pull the weir boards out and it would slowly gravity out. So that was probably May or June before he could do that. Otherwise you were pumpin' it. So it was very expensive. At my dad's funeral I remember there was a... and I believe he was a Japanese farmer, that said that he remembers Dad in a, in a horrible rainstorm and the, the pump had quit and the water was backin' up, and he went out there standin' up to his knees in water and putin' new fuses in. And this Japanese farmer said, "I can't believe he didn't get electrocuted." But, that was something that he just talked about. And then there was quite a few Mexican people that got up and talked at his funeral about how he had, they had helped them over the years. Yeah.

KP: Well, anything else you want to mention?

MJ: No, I think I probably pretty much covered it all. My sister was very active in 4-H. And then she married William Barker who was the farm advisor in Salinas for many, many years. And their kids are active in 4-H still and they still have the fifteen hundred acre ranch up in Crilintera, and the kids live on it, but Bill and Norma both have died. So, but the kids still have the ranch and they're still very active in all those things.

KP: Well, that was a great story. It was great hearing your family history.

MJ: Yeah.

KP: And on behalf of myself and Richard and the National Park Service I want to thank you for taking your time to do this.

MJ: Oh, you're more than welcome, more than welcome.

KP: All right. Thank you.