Densho Digital Archive - George Nakata Interview (denshovh-ngeorge

<Begin Segment 29>

GN: We then uprooted from Saint John Woods and moved down to downtown Portland again, back to Northwest Portland, a different Northwest Portland. We went to Glisan Street and not Burnside Street. We went up to 7th, and my father got the Park Hotel right next to North Park Blocks across from the post office. So again he was in the hotel business, bit older, didn't have the steam heat. We had sawdust heat, but he made do with that. And then during the summertime, we would go pick berries, and my whole family went one time to pick beans, the LNH bean farm. We picked berries at the Urata Farm, at the Burg Farm, the Snyder Farm, and of course ended up at the Kaz Kinoshita Farm, so we did your share of berry picking. During that time, my father was trying to make ends meet, so he even had a part-time job making mashed potatoes at McByran's Restaurant, so he did an awful lot of things. And again I mention that he was an artist. He carved little birds out of wood. He carved a robin, a bluebird, a blue jay, a red cardinal, poke a wire to represent their leg, put a little twig on the bottom, put a safety pin on the back, became a beautiful lapel pin. The Naito family knew and heard of my dad's talent. They weren't as big as they are today in 2004. They had a tiny little retail shop on Morrison Street across from Oldes and Kings. They bought my father's little birds. Albert Naito, younger brother of Sam and Bill Naito, used to come over to our place about once a month to replenish his supply of little birds that my father made. And harking back to those days of Jiichan, my father, Shigeo Nakata, making mashed potatoes, picking beans, he was a fast boysenberry picker, making little birds, running a hotel, just to make ends meet. I'm really amazed at all the things he did because he wanted to buy another car, a 1950 Chevrolet from AB Smith Company on Burnside Street. He wanted to improve the hotel, the heating system. He wanted to take us on even short trips. No, we didn't travel then, but at least maybe go down to Salem, maybe get up to Seattle once a year. So he was ambitious; he was industrious; he was resourceful. We did a lot of things back then just to make ends meet.