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MR: You were a pretty big family. Did you all fit in the car? Could you all go together?

HY: Oh, heavens no, heavens no. [Laughs] But you know, our spread, well, let's see. My brother was born in 1913, and Yuka was born in '27, so that's fourteen year spread, you know. So, my oldest brother was a lot, fourteen years older than my youngest sister. So by that time, he could drive, so he, by that time I suppose we had two cars. In fact, I know we had two cars. So my older brothers would be taking off, doing whatever they're doing, farming or playing baseball or whatever, and then my father would have the other car. I was too young to drive, so I walked. But the town of Hood River was small like Rainer, I suppose. You could walk to most places. It wasn't that bad.

MR: There was a lot of fruit to move in Hood River, too.

HY: Oh, yeah.

MR: So how did they sell their fruit?

HY: Well, the Hood River people were very entrepreneurial. In 1903, they had several different farm cooperative organizations to sell. For example, apples was big in those days, and so they'd have an apple cooperative, but they were also starting strawberries, so they had a strawberry cooperative. Eventually in 1913, because of competition and they had Danielson's and Statermund's and several, Duckwall and Pulley, they say, this is no good. They were cutting each other's throat trying to get a little piece of the pie. So many of them amalgamated, these small consortiums amalgamated, and they formed what was called the Apple Growers Association, the AGA. This is in 1913. And in those days for reasons that I don't understand, it's very democratic, you had to be elected by the board of directors of which there were thirteen or fourteen board of directors of the AGA. And the member farmers would apply, this is a cooperative, a marketing farming, a marketing cooperative, selling cooperative. They'd apply to join the cooperative, and depending upon what the rules was, if the majority of the board of directors approved them, they became. So many, many in fact, I would say most of the Japanese farmers, orchardists became members of the Apple Growers Association, and this existed for many, many years. So that's the way they got the fruit. Then the Apple Growers Association got bigger and bigger and bigger, so they made branch offices and canneries and packing houses in places like Pinedale, Pine Grove and Odell and downtown Hood River, and they ran a cannery. They ran a distillery. They even had, well, they made alcohol, booze, made vodka, in fact, pear vodka, so it became pretty big. Eventually, they changed the name. It was the same company, but they changed the name to Diamond Fruit Growers, and that still exists today. But the genesis was actually 1903, but then it changed in 1913. And from then on, it's taken off and still is in business. So that's how they, and then of course, the fruit were mainly, in the beginning, it was mainly moved from the railroad. But then later on, they had trucks that hauled. And then the farmers themselves would haul their pears and apples and cherries to the canneries or the packing houses individually on their own. They didn't pay out for that.

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