<Begin Segment 4>

AC: So what did you do after you graduated from high school?

NH: I just remained on the farm, helped toward the family pot, you know, as one of the helpers to keep the crops going.

AC: What did you want to be when you grew up and you just graduated from high school?

NH: Well, I guess I just didn't have a choice, 'cause I knew it was impossible. So I just took my daily chores as I went along. So it was something I accepted.

AC: Was there something that you wanted to be?

NH: Well, I didn't... I guess I just didn't have that opportunity, so I never gave it a thought, seriously.

AC: Did your family stay on Bainbridge Island the whole time?

NH: No. See, I was six years old when I moved from Bainbridge Island to a place called Hillsboro, it's a farming community in Oregon, and we moved there. So then there we continued on with the strawberry farming in that Hillsboro community there for about, until I was in eighth grade in grammar school, I guess. Then we moved on to a community called Banks, Oregon, and continued on with strawberry farming. The reason why we kept moving like that, to raise good strawberry crops, if you got on virgin soil, it produced a good crop. So at that time, I was unhappy with having to make these moves, but it was due to having the different soil to raise the crops, 'cause it always did produce better crops. Of course, the folks could see that, but we siblings thought that was so much trouble to keep moving on like that. So that was the last place I remember, to Banks, 'cause after that is when I met George, my husband. Then it wasn't long after that that we were married and I moved to eastern Oregon, which was a big move again. Then I continued to... and George was a farmer. He had gone to college in BYU for a couple of years then, I think, and then he went into farming after that. So that was about the size of our moves, which was pretty frequent, I thought.

AC: Well, why didn't you just rotate crops? Why did you just, growing just strawberries?

NH: Well, that's what they were equipped to raise that, and that was their type of farming. And they knew that having different soil to raise the next crop, produce so much better, so that's the reason why they just kept moving on like that to different soil. And it did produce very good crop by the move, 'cause they kind of burned the soil out, I guess, by keeping it, raising it in the same soil for so many years.

AC: What about... it must have been really hard on you kids.

NH: Yes, to change, have to change schools and leave friends and such. But that was the type of living so many of the Japanese, they lived that way until they got to the point where they could purchase land. And so that's why I lived in a place called Banks, that community there, is a place where my folks finally bought that place. So they didn't have to move anymore 'til after, 'til the war broke out, they had to leave it then. So they had some Caucasian neighbors that offered to take care of the place during the time that they were gone since it was purchased in my family.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.