Densho Digital Archive
Oregon Nikkei Endowment Collection
Title: Mae Hada Interview
Narrator: Mae Hada
Interviewer: Masako Hinatsu
Location: Hillsboro, Oregon
Date: June 18, 2003
Densho ID: denshovh-hmae_2-01-0012

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Masako H: You were married in Denver, and then you went back to Ames, Iowa, with your husband. What was Ames like, or how did you feel about it?

Mae H: It was, we lived in a motel, is that what you wanted to know, because it was just a seasonal job he did. But he did, the person he contacted, he himself, was a sexer, and he said there's plenty of work out this way. That's why we came out to Ames. At that time, I already had my baby, Ronny, and it was not too hard because Paul Hatasaki was the man who was a chicken sexer. He was a Kibei, and he married a lady that was a Nisei here, and so we made friends. At least I had a little social life with her. But otherwise, we were pretty much stuck taking care of our children. She had children also. And after the season for chicken sexing was over, we then moved to Michigan. I think that's where we moved to because he had cousins had already settled there. And we, he looked for a home. It took a little while to stay where his sister was also in Detroit. We stayed a short time with her, then he finally found a home not too far away, and we purchased that, and then we settled there. It wasn't long before the people in Idaho were asked to move out as they could. So we told the folks, my folks to come live with us in this house he bought, just a normal house with three bedrooms. So we were able to put them up.

Masako H: How did you feel about living in Detroit? Were they friendly?

Mae H: It was a new experience for me. I had never lived in another area with different ethnic people. It happened to be Jewish. It was fun. It was fun. My neighbor next door was outgoing. She invited me over to learn what wash was, gefilte fish was. Gefilte fish is something like kamaboko soup, pretty good. And she had children, so right away, my children had playmates. But it was fun going to their grocery stores and bakeries. I love their onion rolls. But we lived there as I say maybe three years or so. Meantime, my brother-in-law had come out and started his business more closer to the city of Detroit, you know, business area, and he started his business because meantime he had finished going to watch making school. That's what he wanted to do. He didn't want to do chickens anymore. He didn't like the driving involved. So he lived with us a while too. And when we moved out, he bought the house, you know. So it was, we were all pretty moving along smoothly, yeah.

Masako H: Okay. So you came back to Hillsboro --

Mae H: Yes.

Masako H: And he, John continued to work as a --

Mae H: And Howard helped him find other hatcheries too because they're, you know, they talk to each other. So he was able to find other jobs immediately because this is something that's his own occupation. He doesn't work under anybody. He's self-employed you might say, and so he found plenty of places to go to. They were smaller hatcheries, of course, than Howard's here.

Masako H: So basically here in Oregon?

Mae H: He did some in Washington, Southern Washington. Goldendale, I believe he went to.

Masako H: When your husband retired, what did you do together?

Mae H: Oh, he loved to play on his day off. You see hatchery business, sexing, of course, follows, they hatch on certain days, so Wednesday was a slow day. He pretty much had that time free to go fishing. I thought that's great. He's got something he can do to relax. But I found out with every breed or species of fish, there's a new pole to go with it. He had quite a collection of poles; poles for ocean fishing, porgy fishing, they used to call it, heavy ones, trout fishing, salmon's another pole and so on. So all right, he was happy. We ate fish. He was a good fisherman. He also found out golfing is fun too. So that took Sundays, a lot of Sundays. And then when the poker -- did I tell you about the poker games yet? -- started, I felt like I was becoming a widow. So I found my own interest which is music, art. We each let each other do what we like to do. We got along. It was a good marriage. I've got to thinking opposites make good marriages. So I got to do my thing. I went to symphonies with my friend, Mary Iwasaki, and we enjoyed ourselves. We had a regular schedule to go to symphonies too, and I started taking painting classes. And as I say, I was busy with the church ladies too, so...

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