Densho Digital Archive - Isao Kameshige Interview (denshovh-kisao

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IK: Then I came home because my dad and mom and my sister were here. While I was in the army they moved here from Poston, Arizona, after they closed the camp. And so they were here farming on forty acres of ground, halfway between here and Vale, and they had forty acres of beets. And at that same year that I came back, my sister got married and moved down to Los Angeles, so I took over the farm with my dad and we started farming there with that forty acres and I gradually expanded from there. And I bought a place in Ontario, a twenty acre farm in Ontario, and then we farmed both places for a while.

And that got us into about 1952 when I.... well, it was 1951 when I met my wife at a dance at the community hall and we corresponded. She graduated high school, she went to Seattle, so we corresponded and then I used to go visit her up there. And she finally agreed to marry me. [Laughs] And she's a pretty lady and smart, too, so I guess opposites attract. [Laughs] So we got married in 1952, November 16th, and then we moved to... we had a two-story house where I live right now, and as we progressed, well, we had three children, Randy, and Brian, and Ellen Joyce. And the two boys are still with me, they took over my farm, and we built a new home there and we moved over and just demolished the old house. Well, we moved the old house, we sold the old house and somebody moved it out. Then my sons are both married now, and I have, my sons and daughter both, they're all married, and I have six grandchildren now. And the oldest one is sixteen, and the youngest one is about five.

The boys took over the farm, so I'm practically retired now. I have been semi-retired since about 1980 when I had my neck operation, I couldn't do much work, so the boys took over then. And I recovered, and I've been helping on the farm, and they do most all the decisions now. But I like to drive trucks, so I help driving truck, and I have a garden, about a half-acre garden where I grow sweet corn, and then I grow nappa and daikon for our bazaar, for the church bazaar. Let me see, what else is there? Well, that's where we're at now, but during the time that we were here, I've served on quite a few organizations. Like I've been the treasurer for the Malheur County Onion Growers Association for about three, four years. I've been treasurer of the Malheur Potato Growers Association, and I spent one year as a commissioner on the Oregon State Potato Board. And I was treasurer and sports administrator for the JACL group here. And I've been a member of our church ever since I've come here. I've been one session as the president and I've been treasurer for about three, four years with the church here. And one thing about the church I like about here is because we built it ourselves, and I'm pretty proud about that.