<Begin Segment 12>

LD: Did other people work on the farm when you were growing up other than your family?

HT: No. It was mostly family. It was just a small farm, so we didn't hire anybody, you know.

LD: What specific crops did you raise?

HT: I guess it was strawberries to begin early, well, in the spring would be lettuce, lettuce and then strawberries. And then Dad always want to have something coming out during the whole year, so he used to have cucumbers in August. That's one month that's not too many other varieties. And then during the fall, we'll be into, started the cabbage and cauliflower, and we didn't raise too many brussels sprouts and then carrots and parsnip in the fall. That area was, as people know, is really known for the east winds, so we never did raise raspberries. During the harvest, it would always just shake those berries off, you see, so I'll never forget after, I guess, people had probably a lot of money to invest came into Troutdale and purchased the land and raised a lot of raspberries and lost the majority. That east wind is famous for that. You try talk about, oh, that east wind, but you know, the more I think of it, I wouldn't mind living there now because in those days, you hate because you had to make a living off of it. But now people live there, if you have the east wind, you can have a nice home. All the more, you appreciate the living there. But in those days, a little different story. [Laughs]

LD: Well, in those days, how did you get groceries?

HT: Oh, we, there was, in our area, there was, Springdale was our closest place. They used to have two grocery stores. One grocery store would go around once a week and take your order, but then we didn't order very much. But there again, we were so poor, the majority of them was they were making a living, but... so we usually, during the winter and spring, we would charge our groceries and then say we'll pay you when the strawberry season come along, see, so that's what we did, you know. We just charge it for a couple, three months. And then when the berries came, we paid them off, so we still don't have any money. So, and we start charging again. And then we say, we'll pay you in the fall with the fall crops, the cabbage and cauliflower, so it's a complete cycle. And then, so but then it still wasn't enough, so I still remember they formed an organization down there. There was about seven farmers down there. They used to have a meeting in our place. We had the place to have it, you know. And then they'd go and then they'd get loans like for the winter, for the whole winter thing like two hundred dollars, maybe a hundred dollars just to live on, the whole family mind you. So we're living, we're always catching up you might say, and this is how it was. And so, but no, we were always behind and not, one crop behind time, but we made it, you see.

LD: Did you have a refrigerator?

HT: What?

LD: A refrigerator.

HT: I thought that's what you said. I thought that's what you said. What is that they were saying? No, they never had one, never had one until way later and way later, I don't know, what I mean later was just probably before the war. They first came out with this refrigerator. They didn't come out with the refrigerator. General Electric came out, so the people would go, they start buying those. That was the biggest investment. That's when they started buying the refrigerators. General Electric, I don't know how big it was, but it's all small. Up until then, we never had any. I don't think most of, we didn't, but I don't know if they had any ice boxes and such. So we just --

LD: You didn't have an ice box?

HT: No, no. We didn't, but I don't think most of them did either, I don't think in those days. The refrigerator was the big thing that came out at that time, and everybody invested in that, you see.

LD: What about meat and milk?

HT: Well, we didn't have... most, well, I shouldn't say most of them, but the Japanese, they don't use milk. We didn't have milk. There again, when you talk about milk, the only time we had milk was when Mother had her third child, my brother Shig, you know. She didn't have milk, and so we had to get milk. There again, like you said, milk so what happens? We went out and purchased a cow. Can you imagine milk from a cow, and Mother milked the cow. I can't believe, I can't, to this day, I can't believe my mom milking a cow, but that's okay. As your necessity, you do these things but that's how we got milk. But then I shouldn't speak, I shouldn't speak for everybody. I don't care for milk myself. None of my family drink milk, but that's how we got that milk, you see. And that's the way you probably got it, you see. Even the water, we were the only one that had water on, according to our neighborhood. They all came to our place to have, get water. The well wasn't that available, you know. We have water, and the neighbor came to get the water.

LD: How did they get water? Was it filling up buckets or --

HT: Yeah. You came with buckets, yes. And then we had a well, you know. So they came, brought the buckets, and then they would bring their stock. They would bring the horses once a day and water for them.

LD: So the water that you used every day for cooking or bath or you --

HT: Had to pump it up. We had a little pump that you, I don't know how to explain it, but you had pumps and that was a chore, and that used to be a job for my younger brother, Shig and Shiro. You couldn't do it yourself. The two of them used to pump it together. And that was a job to pump the water especially for bath, bath every day, changing every day and that was a big job. We're going back pretty, go back in history. [Laughs]

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.