<Begin Segment 1>

AC: This is an interview with Paul Saito, Nisei man, eighty-one years old. And this interview is taking place in Ontario, Oregon, December 4, 2004. Interviewer is Alton W. Chung of the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center Oral History Project 2004. Thank you so much for agreeing to speak with us today. So let's just start off with something very basic. Where were you born and when were you born?

PS: Oh, my, that goes back a long time ago. Born in Portland, Oregon. I was a twin, and somewhere along the line I guess about, after we were about six months old, my twin brother got sick, or pneumonia or something, and passed away. Of course, back in those days, that was a pretty rough time. My mother was, she was... oh, must have been about forty years old then, and so she was kind of bent over and then carrying twins. That was a very rough time for her. But that's where I got my start, living on, we lived on the Clackamas River there in a little village called Carver about fifteen miles out of Portland, and wonder if I ever made it through childhood living in that place, 'cause always temped to go down the river and fool around, fish in the summertime. It was a beautiful place to swim, and I remember several times there about hanging on the limbs over the water and about fall in and drown. It's a wonder we made it anyway. That's a good place, a great place for a kid to grow up, though, 'cause there was forests and timber, and poison oak and snakes, lot of things like that. I can remember I'd be up there in the hills, and I could hear my mother calling. Well, I'd be probably half a mile up there... no, couldn't be that far, maybe a quarter of a mile. But anyway, she could tell me that it was time to get home, and I could hear her, but anyway, it was one heck of a place for a kid to grow up. Went to a little grade school there, it was probably a quarter of a mile or a half a mile walk. And I remember in the fall, what a great place that was. Some folks had a peach orchard down below, right along the river there near the school, and so us kids would sneak down there and get a peach or some grapes for lunch. But that was some of the good things I can remember about it. And then, of course, filberts are, they were kind of a wild bush over there, and in fall we'd gather those things up and make like squirrels.

But that's... see, then we moved over here from Portland to Ontario in 1934. And that was quite a thing, because whoever heard of, us kids never heard of Ontario or Eastern Oregon. And my dad made a trip over here the previous fall to meet with some of the residents here and see what the area's like. Of course, we were always, folks always had a garden, so growing things was most important. He wanted to know how agriculture was in this area, and my folks having three sons, why, if he could find a better place to farm, why, at least he wanted to come over and check it out. He met with... oh, let's see. There was the Watanabe family here, and the Aginuma family, the Wada family, Sato family, and Hashitanis, and there were several other families. There was a Fuji family over from Nampa, and I don't know how many of those folks my dad was able to meet when he first came over here, but there was quite a few... not quite a few, but maybe twenty families over here in this area at that time. When I say "this area," I meant Ontario area over to, as far as Nampa and Boise.

And so we decided, folks decided to move over here. And so we moved over here in the first part of February, left Portland on the fourth, I think, February fourth. And we had a Model T Ford coupe, '28 model one time Rio, and the first night we got as far as the Dalles. The second night we got as far as La Grande. And we arrived here, if I remember right, it was on February 6, 1934. But as I think back about that journey, of all the bad weather we've had at that period of time, since then, that particular year, we'd come through without any weather problems at all. Even the old Model T coming up the old Blue Mountain Highway was a-boiling away several times. We would stop and let it cool off, and came on through. But it just amazes me that we were able to make that trip at that time without any weather problems. Because it's been so many times since then I've traveled that area at that particular time of the year, it's been a... well, you just had to stop, you couldn't... there'd be so much snow or fog or something, you couldn't hardly go. As a matter of fact, we went up the Blue Mountains one time, the fog was so heavy, I remember finding myself in a place where there was yellow stripes, and come to realize, I stopped and come to realize I'd just drove off a viewing area. So that's just one of those learning experiences. But we were very fortunate in that particular move in 1934.

When we got over here, why, I went to grade school, what was called Cairo school. It was a little one there by the Cairo Railroad track. Then I went there a couple of days, and then we moved over to a house that was in another district. School there was called Valley View, and I finished, went through eighth grade there and went on to Ontario High School. But neither one of those grade schools are, don't exist now, they've been torn down. And so they put up one new one at what is called the Cairo grade school. Since it was new, it's a very nice grade school.

But those were fun years, go fishing. Of course, we weren't too far from the river and the sloughs down along the Snake River, so go down there and be fishing and that kind of thing, try to make the pea shooters and try to hit bullfrogs and that kind of thing. But anyway, this has been a real good area. I remember in about '38 maybe, 1938, they were growing peas, field peas, for a cannery over in Payette. The neighbors were help loading, and I remember hauling loose peas on the back of a truck through the narrow Snake River bridge east of Ontario, and then another bridge just as narrow, maybe narrower, over the Payette River going into Payette. And you think back now, you wonder how we ever got through those narrow bridges. But everything was smaller back then.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.