Densho Digital Archive - Bennie Ouchida Interview (denshovh-obennie-01-0007)

<Begin Segment 7>

SG: So when you were living on the farm with your brothers and sister and your mom and dad, can you picture in your mind what your house look like?

BO: It's an old, it's a big building, house, large, and be about three of us in a bed, something like that, different room, cold in wintertime. Snow used to come in, old country home, and they're not partitioned, so we have two by four in between, you know. It was all planks layered in different angles. That's the kind of building that was, the planks like this, lean this way or this kind of angle so they won't shake. Even though it shake, it won't go down, old building.

SG: You shared rooms with your brother and sister?

BO: Huh?

SG: You shared bedrooms with your brother and sister?

BO: Yeah. Sisters had a different room, and brothers all, yeah, about three to a bed, got to do something.

SG: What was that, what was it like living in such a, that type of old house?

BO: I don't know. We came through it. Everybody else did too until they start modernizing and you get the later type of building.

SG: Growing up, did you ever get in trouble from your mom and dad?

BO: Me, not so much Mom. Sure I got scolded by Mom but not too much. Dad, yes. But like I said, my sister and I, we walked out and we headed about two and a half miles almost three miles to Gresham, then they found us, you know. But we were young kids, then, seventh grade, eighth grade. But other than that, we did our best. We bought a car and all that. They didn't teach us very much. They just said you do this, you do that, go get the driver's license. They don't even give us chance to even, in driving, they said go get driver's license. So okay, I take a truck. They won't let me have a car. They give me a truck to drive. So I take the truck out, and you have driving test and I passed, so then what happened? Got to haul cow manure and stuff from the dairy to home. That's why they want me to get driver's license because we always, well, my big brother, he gets about three loads a day. Me and my brother, we said we're four. We get four or five load a day, just work harder, and that's how hard we worked. And we keep Mom happy. We don't care about Dad. You know, there's a difference right there.