<Begin Segment 8>

MH: Okay. You came back to Gresham with your dad in February of '45, who was in your house at that time?

EF: Well, this family that my father, people that worked for it before that said they would run the farm while we were gone that was very nice of them. It was a father, son, and a mother.

MH: Do you remember their names?

EF: Cunningham was their name, Cunningham. In fact, I just went to a Troutdale Historical get together last Sunday in fact and Scott Cunningham was the main speaker and he spoke of, you know, my father, and since he was one of the people involved in taking care of the farm, so all those, that conversation was all revolved around our family, and he remembered everything. He remembered all the trials and tribulations. But they did a good job, and he still lives around this area.

MH: How was the reception in Gresham, the Japanese --

EF: Very, very hostile. They didn't want us back here. It was very hostile. But they tried to, they tried to put us to a point where we were not able to get the supplies to farm, but they always forget that, you know, we've been around a while too before that, so those connections were still available for us, so we were able to get the items. Actually, we had friends here that they were very supportive of us like food products, no problem, and fuel and fertilizer and those items that they were trying to make sure we didn't get. Hey, we had no problems getting those items. So once we got started, everything went full bore.

MH: Can you name any of the families or organizations that really were very helpful towards the Japanese Americans?

EF: Most of those families are all gone now. Most of those families have all gone. I still have a neighbor right west of me here whose husband was in the anti-Japanese group, but he's gone, but his widow is still here. But I have never had any problems with her. We've been neighbors for a long time here.

MH: What's the worst thing you could remember when you first came back?

EF: The worst thing I can remember was our trip back from Ontario, Oregon. That was, that was almost like a nightmare actually because, you know, we never had the freeway, I-84. It was a Highway 30, two lanes, and I was driving the truck. I was the oldest member of the family, so I had my brother Jim and my brother Tad with me at that time in the truck, and we left Ontario on a Saturday afternoon about two o'clock or two-thirty of all the times to leave. They didn't get out of Ontario and here comes a cow across the road. There's only two lanes, so I had to hit the brake and then had a Caterpillar tractor on the back of the truck that weighed five thousand pounds and a refrigerator and other household goods and fifty gallons of gas, and I had to hit the brake. Well, the brake line broke about the time I hit it, so there went the brakes. No brakes. Well, anyway, I dodged the cow. But since it was Saturday afternoon, no place to get the brake fixed, so we traveled all the way to Pendleton before we were able to get that fixed, and I had to go down Cabbage Hill. For those who know Cabbage Hill back in the old days, that alone was a nightmare. Well, I'm thinking about my two brothers who are riding with me and boy I says, hey, you sure can't make a mistake here and the hairpin turns and only two lanes coming down the top of that mountain. Finally, there was a fact we had to gear down because no brakes, finally, blew the distributor cap off, the back pressure, but my dad, my father was in the car in front of us, so he knew we had some troubles, so he went down to Pendleton to get a mechanic and came up and took the distributor out of his car, and we managed to wiggle down to Pendleton. So that alone took two days already to get to Pendleton from Ontario, so it was a long trip back home. But once we got the brakes fixed, we managed to get home finally on the third day.

MH: Tell me about your experience of taking your younger brother to school, first day of school.

EF: Well, I had the task of taking my brother Tom back to Gresham High School, 1945. He was going to high school in Nyssa because we were there. But anyway, I didn't know how things were going to go, but I had to take him to the principal's office and he'd seen me, he'd seen me. So I was on, you know, he was a very friendly person and he knew, you know, we returned, the order was that we returned. And he told me, "Hey, Ed, you know how the conditions are?" And I told him, "Oh, I'm very much aware of it," I told him. It's not too friendly, but I understand, I told him. Well, he was very supportive and made announcement over the PA system to all the students that, "We have students of Japanese ancestry returning to school because the order now is lifted that they can return." So he handled it well, and my brother Tom hadn't had no problems. Everything went smooth for him so that was great.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.