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MR: Earlier, you had mentioned before this interview began that your mother did raise some vegetables and plants.

MB: Uh-huh.

MR: How did it come to be that your family entered that business?

MB: Okay. Mama couldn't... let's see. Before that, Mama worked for about two and a half years mending these clothes and working on the farms, and, but it wasn't bringing in much, oh, let's see. One day, she got home about 6 o'clock, and she didn't see us kids outside playing. She thought, well, they're in the house, so she went into the house. The door was locked, so she looked for the key, and the key was in its hiding place. Well, they're in the barn, so she went down to the barn and hollered for us, and we weren't there. And then she thought, well, we like to play down by the river, so that's where they went, so she went down on the flat and down to the river and no kids. Wonder where the kids have gone. Oh, I bet they're at the Sunderlands. She's not, they're not supposed to bother the Sunderlands, but that's probably where they are. And so as she was coming up toward the Sunderlands, a farmer that lived by the Columbia River drove in. He had brought us four kids home. We, he knew that we were lost. The reason we were lost was to help Mama earn money, my brother used to go down to River Side Golf Course which was half mile away from our place, as the crow flies, and he'd pick up golf balls. He got ten cents for the real good balls, and ten cents for three of the average balls, and he could make fifteen cents or twenty cents once a week and that helped Mama. And Orga and I used to go with him, and we'd hunt for balls too, and we could make twenty-five cents, you know, thirty cents. And this one particular day, May wanted to go with us, and she didn't think that was any fun crawling under fences and going through people's fields. And she says, "We have to go on the road," and she had a friend that lived down by the river, so she knew how to go down to the friend's place taking the road, and the golf course was just beyond that. And so we went to find the balls and, golf balls, and that day, we earned thirty-five cents, and we were leaving to go home. Well, my sister had never gone beyond her girlfriend's place, and so she didn't know which road to take. My brother couldn't help because he had never gone on the road, and May decided, well, this is the right road, and so they took this road that she thought was okay. It was the wrong road. We ended by the river. And when Mama saw the farmer bring us home, she was real happy, but then and there, she decided that she had to be home when us kids got home from school.

And so she talked to our landlord who had six acres, six-acre places all in orchard. But when my father was still living, he was taking out the older trees that had stopped producing. And by then, he had about four acres cleared, and he told Mama he'll rent Mama the four acres, and so she rented the four acres. So with the house, the barn, and the four acres, the ground cost her fifteen dollars a month, and she earned her living that way. She raised produce that she could sell there by the side of the road. Mrs. Sunderland let Mama use her wash bench to display the produce on, and Mama could leave the produce on the bench by the side of the road, leave a fruit jar next to it, and people coming by would stop, take whatever they wanted, and then leave whatever money they thought, you know, and Mama said that many times she had more money than she thought she should have had. And in this way, we sold tomatoes, cucumbers, and strawberries and also pears because about half acre of that four acre we rented was in pear orchard. And then when my brother was old enough to drive a car, we rented nine more acres. Oh, your question was how did it come that my mother raised the plants? Well, she couldn't afford to buy the plants, so she started her own. And the surplus plants, she sold to farmers or whoever wanted them, and she got paid fifty cents for a hundred plants. That was real good money, and she thought sometime later she would like to raise plants for a living. But when my brother turned fifteen and could drive a car and he could take the produce to the early morning market to sell, we, Mama rented nine more acres, so we had 13 acres all together, and she raised cabbage, cauliflower, and peas. And every morning, my brother got up at two-thirty in the morning to be at the market by three when it opened, and he sold his produce, and then he'd be home by six. From six to eight, he would study, do his homework. At eight, he'd have breakfast, and then he'd ride his bicycle to school. He'd be back home by three o'clock, and then from three to five, he took a nap. And at five, he went out to the field to help Mama with the work.

Orga and I helped wherever we could like after the plants, tomato plants were growing and they needed irrigation. Mama couldn't irrigate the plants because she couldn't get water rights, I mean Mr. Sunderland couldn't get water rights, and she needed, they needed water, so Mr. Sunderland came up with the idea of digging a hole adjacent to, you know, close to the river. Well, water came from Renny's Lake three quarter, about half a mile away from our place, and it flowed right alongside of our property where it ran into the slough, and Mr. Sunderland had us, he and George dug this hole where the two waters come together. And so later on when other farmers didn't have any water, we had water because we were getting that water that was flowing from the Renny's Lake. Well to pump the water out of the hole that they had dug, at first, Mr. Sunderland pushed the two-inch pipe from the river into the hole so that the water would fill up in the hole. And to get the water out, he got a jet pump, set it up, and then using a Model A Ford for the motor, pumped the water up to the plants. Well, they didn't want to flood the whole field because that took up too much water, so Mama and George with hoes channeled the water so it flowed just around the plants. Well, the water that was coming down from Renny's Lake also brought down debris, and what it would do was clog up the creek so that the pump would stop, quit pumping water, and so it was Orga and my job to make sure that the debris didn't clog up the creek. Well, the creek was about three feet wide at the widest, but the narrowest was only a foot. And besides debris and water, carp also came down the creek, and Orga and I would be so intent on trying to catch a carp that the creek would get clogged up with debris, and the water would spread all around, and nothing went to the well or the hole, and the pump would stop. The next thing we heard was, "Mabel," and then we knew what that meant. Orga and I knew what that meant. We'd forget about the carp, clean up all the debris so the water would go to the hole, and they'd have water again. And later on in the year when the tomatoes were ready to harvest, Orga and I also helped. Mama and George would scatter the boxes, apple boxes, all around the field, and they'd start picking the tomatoes, and Orga and I would follow them with empty pails. And as soon as they finished a pail, we'd give them the empty ones, and we'd carried the filled pails to the boxes that are scattered all about and, you know, transfer the tomatoes to the boxes. Does that answer your question?

MR: I think it does, yes. Did you have to hire help? It sounds like that was quite a lot of acreage for --

MB: No, we did it all by ourselves. All of us working, we didn't have to hire any help. We had the use of the horses that Mr. Sunderland let us use. Oh, it was Orga and my job to see that the horses were fed and watered every day. We'd lead them out to water, and we'd tie them up outside and let them munch on the grass outside. Anyway, once a week, we had to clean out the stalls. And so when we cleaned out the stalls, we just tied the horses outside and let them eat, and we'd clean out the stalls. And after the stalls were cleaned out, we'd lay down fresh straw, and then we put hay in the manger and then lead them back, horses back in. And on days that the horses had worked, we'd feed, we'd give them a half a cup, about a cup full of oats to eat. The horses liked the oats. They didn't think that one cup full was enough, and they'd, you know how horses do, they tried to find the oats and, anyway, that was our job. Jerry was tame and we could ride Jerry. But sometimes, he didn't like for us to ride him, and to tell us to get off, all he had to do was walk under a low limb of a tree, and we'd be knocked off. Horses are smart, I mean, animals are smart.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.