<Begin Segment 1>

TR: This is an interview with Alice Nishitani, a Nisei woman, eighty-six years old, in Nyssa, Oregon, and it's December 6, 2004. The interviewer is Tim Rooney from the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center's Oral History Project 2004. So thank you for having us here today and thank you for making it possible for me to interview you here today. Thank you for agreeing to this.

AN: Yes. It was only through Eleanor Roosevelt. She told me never, always do something you can't do.

TR: That's right. So always strive for something more difficult, right?

AN: Yes.

TR: Okay. So we want to thank Eleanor Roosevelt, too, for making this interview possible.

AN: Right.

TR: So we'll make it easy to start with. Tell me where and when you were born?

AN: In Emmett, Idaho, 1918, July the 2nd.

TR: And where is Emmett, Idaho?

AN: Emmett, oh, it's just over the hill.

TR: Oh, from here, just over the hill from Nyssa?

AN: Yes.

TR: Okay. And what do you remember about your father?

AN: What do I remember about him?

TR: Uh-huh. What kind of a man was your father?

AN: Oh, he was an amazing person, just, I can always remember his goodness to my mother, too. I can never remember that he ever spoke an unkind or disrespectful word to my mother which was an amazing thing. It was, actually, I think he was, I think he was a hot tempered man. But through the, knowing Christ and loving the Lord, he was able to change his personality completely, very understanding and very good.

TR: Did that change come about early or did he convert to Christianity while he was here or what were the circumstances and all?

AN: Well, I don't know, but I think it was while he was in Japan. He must have been going to school there because after he came over here, he came to Seattle and worked for a year in a bakery and worked in a home. And then, and then, he met his friend, Henry Fuji, and they went to Billings, Montana, and worked in the beets, in the sugar beets, working. And oh, I think they only got about a $1.70 for a day's work. So then you see, they didn't know anyone. They weren't acquainted with anyone, and so to have somebody speak to them and tell them about the Lord was highly unlikely. So I think he must have learned about the Lord in Japan, maybe a Christian missionary or something like that.

TR: Do you know what part of Japan he came from?

AN: Yes, Tottori-ken.

TR: And did he ever talk about what life was like for him in Japan before he came to the United States?

AN: Well, there isn't, there's not very much, but his father was a farmer. He had two sisters, and he did have, he had a good, good home and, because I know when he speaks about them, it's always in positive terms.

TR: Did he ever say why he came to the United States?

AN: No. He never did. But what I gather through his diary, I think, I know he's mentioned how his friends were all working for the government or teachers or something like that on that order. He says, "That it sounds too dull to me. It's not for me." So then, he found himself working on the railroad in Missoula, Montana.

TR: Did he come specifically to work on the railroad or did --

AN: Oh, no. No, no, uh-uh. He would say this is just a job, just something so I can get ahead.

TR: Did he ever mention how he came up with that job, how he started working on the railroad?

AN: Well, Henry Fuji and he went from Seattle to Billings, Montana, and worked on the beets, thinning beets and so on like that. And so from there, that was just another step to go to the railroad, and maybe they thought they could make a little more money there. It was really, really hard work.

TR: And how much did he make on the railroad?

AN: Was a $1.40 a day. And then when he received thirty-five cents for an hour and a half work, he said, "Well, it taught me patience and perseverance." [Laughs]

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

<Begin Segment 2>

TR: And what do you remember about your mother?

AN: Oh, my mother was a real help mate to my father, and she was able to speak some English, not as much. She wasn't as fluent as my father was. But I remember when we moved to Nampa from Sisum Community, to Sisum Community in Nampa, that she would go to my school doings, and she was acquainted with some of the women in the community. And she would have them over, and so she was able to speak English quite well.

TR: Were they married when they came over or did they meet here?

AN: Neither one. They went to, my father went to Emmett, was forty degrees below zero in Missoula, so he decided it was time to move on. So he went to Emmett, and there Henry Fuji and Mr. Takeuchi and my father, H.K. Hashitani, they set up housekeeping in a little shack. And they, let's see, they rented eighty acres and bought a buggy, a horse and buggy, and wagons and farm equipment and set up farming together. And then I know my father then went up into the hills into the gold mining country that it was Idaho City and Placerville and Pearl and all of these little towns way, way, way up in the hills, just a really, it was, I think it was probably a lot of them were silver mine, mining towns. And he would take the wagon with vegetables and fruit, whatever, and go sell up there. And so if the roads were, I mean, the roads. It was the weather. If the weather was bad, well, he'd set up his camp fire, and then he'd put the fire out, cover it with dirt and put his blankets on top of that, and then he'd sleep on there. And if it's snowing or raining, then he'd take his wagon, get the horse to pull the wagon over that little warm, it's a little, what is it? What would you call it? A little hot, instead of a hot water bottle, it kept him warm.

TR: Hot coals?

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: The hot coals from the fire?

AN: Yes. And he'd put the blankets on top of that, and then he'd have the cover over the top. Then he had the little motel in the mountains. So, yeah, it was very innovative.

TR: Was he mining for silver or prospecting for silver in the mountains?

AN: Oh, no. No, no. He would just take the vegetables that they would raise, and then he'd buy some fruit and sell it to the people who lived up there. The people who, they were maybe working in the silver mines or they just living up in the mountains, and so that's what he would do. Then my mother would wait for him to come home. Oh, dear. You know, she had children and, so then, they would, he would come down Freezeout Hill with the switchbacks. Oh, it was quite a hill there, and then we lived down below that. So then she would wait for him to come home, and she would wait to see his lights. I think probably a little lamp kerosene, not lamp, but a kerosene --

TR: A lantern.

AN: Yeah, a lantern. And so, yeah, that was quite a, Freezeout Hill was quite famous for being switchbacks and all like that. That reminds me, they bought, business must have been pretty good because they bought a Model T Ford. And so the Model T Fords, they had more power when you backed up. Did you know that? You ever heard that? But that's what they did. You back up a hill because you get more power somehow. It works that way.

TR: Seems a lot more dangerous.

AN: Yes. I wouldn't want to go up Freezeout Hill backwards.

TR: So these four men had a farm, and they were raising crops, and then your father would sell them to people who were either living in the mountains or prospecting in the mountains?

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: And so he would make frequent trips --

AN: Yes.

TR: -- with a horse and wagon?

AN: Yes, uh-huh, sometimes in bad weather, too, because it would be in the, after the crops are all harvested.

TR: Well, we kind of jumped here. Your father bought land with three other men.

AN: No. They rented.

TR: Oh, they rented.

AN: They rented.

TR: Okay. And they bought their equipment?

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: And then how did he meet your mother?

AN: Oh, it might have been through someone else in Japan who set it up. But anyway, he went back to meet her and visit with her, and they wrote back and forth when he came back. But then when he brought her back, he was very prudent because he sent her while he was in Seattle to a sewing school and a cooking school because she hadn't had to do that in Japan. They had a maid to do all those things, so that's what she did.

TR: So he sent her to school so she would have a skill?

AN: Uh-huh, so she could sew and cook.

TR: Do you know how long she was in Seattle before they then came out to this area?

AN: Oh, I have no idea, must have been less than a year. If I could read those letters, I could tell you, but they're written in Japanese.

TR: Do you know how old he was when he went back to Japan to marry her?

AN: Well, when he came to America, it was in 1903 probably. And then when he was in Missoula, it was 1905 when he started the diary. And he was, oh, about 19 when he came over here to America, so I don't know. He must have been in his early twenties, something like that. In Japan, they add a year on to the age.

TR: So you're a year old when you're born?

AN: Uh-huh, something like that.

TR: Do you know if he planned on staying in the United States or like a lot of Japanese men, planned on coming over here, making some money, and then going back to Japan and buying land, so there were kind of two points of view?

AN: No. I think he was planning on staying. I know, however, they, I remember my brothers, my older brothers, had the dual citizenship, not me. They didn't give me the dual citizenship, just my brothers. And then they took that out. They did away with that. So then they, that's, I'm sure that's when they decided they were going to stay here in America. I know he, he was very grateful for living here in America because I know when he was in Nyssa, he wanted to do something good for the United States because, some lasting good. He didn't know exactly what, but he was thinking of seed, in the way of seed. He raised the seed and worked with Northrup King in Boise, and he was very good friends with TA Waters and Northrup King, and so the seed really interested him. And in the summertime, it's so hard to take care of the seed, and so they, he had them harvest at night. So then he got this, the, what do you call, the can lights, the carbide lights, carbide lights on the miner's caps, and he bought that for the men to do the harvesting. In fact, I still have it out in the shop, those miner's caps.

TR: So the workers wore miner's caps so they could work on the seeds at night?

AN: Uh-huh, so the seed wouldn't shatter so badly.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

TR: Did your mother ever talk about what her life was like in Japan before she came over?

AN: No. You know, I think that's typical of all our parents. They didn't speak very much about it, and she had two sisters and, but she did go back to visit, oh, I'd say in the '30s, I think it was. And, yes, she, it was an easy life, you know. She, they just didn't do, they didn't do, have to do the work of the keeping house and so on since a maid did it. Oh, and then she took my brother with her. My brother and she went back to Japan, and he would speak about the maid that was there to do the work. They didn't think it was a very good idea for him to go in and talk to the maid.

TR: This would be a maid in her parent's home --

AN: Yes.

TR: In Japan?

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: So it sounds like, if they had a maid, it sounds like her family was reasonably well off?

AN: Oh, I don't know. In Japan, a maid was fairly common, I think. I think there was a gardener too, but it isn't like it is here. I could never have a maid or a gardener.

TR: Did she ever say what business her family was in?

AN: Sugar, something to do with sugar. They sold sugar I think.

TR: And was she from the same part of the country that your father was from?

AN: Tottori-ken, yes. Yanago.

TR: So when, when your parents got married, did they then live on the farm that the four men had rented?

AN: Yes. But by this time, there are only two, Mr. Fuji and my dad, and Mr. Takeuchi had gone back to Cascade to run a grocery store. And they lived together in the same house until they had six children under five between the two of them, and then they decided this is time to break up housekeeping, and a rather uproarious time you can imagine with that many children, and so they broke up the partnership but not the friendship. And then they had to divide all of this equipment and household goods and everything. How they were going to do, they couldn't remember who bought, who had purchased what, and so they decided by jan-ken-po.

TR: Who got what?

AN: Uh-huh, yes, uh-huh, yeah.

TR: So for a time, there were two couples and six children all living in the same probably small --

AN: Yes.

TR: -- farmhouse?

AN: Little tiny.

TR: And were you one of those children?

AN: Yes, yes.

TR: So how many brothers and sisters do you have and where are you in the pecking order?

AN: I have three older brothers, and I'm the last one.

TR: So there were four of you?

AN: Uh-huh. I can still remember when we were smoking out in the barn or garage or something, and I can still remember, I must have been, oh, three or four, something like that. I can remember rolling up a newspaper and oh dear, I guess my brothers --

TR: Was it tobacco?

AN: Well, no, not tobacco. I don't know what we used, probably seeds, those weed seeds. But anyway, it was enough to cause some damage because I remember the Ford caught fire. Oh dear, I can remember my brother hitting, trying to put the fire out. And my oldest brother George and I, I remember we ran out to my mother's, father where they were working. [Laughs] We were running back with them. I don't know. I can still remember the ditch, the little ditch by the side of the pathway. And so we were just running lickety-split back to the house, try to put the fire out. There was no terrible damage. I remember Roy hitting the upholstery, but then it didn't burn up, the whole thing didn't burn up.

TR: Tell me your three brothers' names?

AN: George, my oldest brother, Roy, and Raymond.

TR: Did they have Japanese names?

AN: Oh, yes.

TR: Do you remember what they were?

AN: George Kenichi and Roy Yoji and Raymond was Aizo.

TR: Did your parents call them by their English names or by their Japanese names?

AN: Oh, yes, yes, their English names.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

TR: And what was life like for you on the farm?

AN: Oh, we just had a good time. I remember going, my brother Ray and I riding on the donkey, no, it wasn't a donkey. Yeah, it was a donkey, a little one, and I think my dad got it so that when he irrigated, he could ride the donkey and save a little work that way. And he would, I remember Raymond and I would ride the donkey, and then he'd go up on the ditch bank and go whoof, and then we'd slide off. Then another time when he, we were riding on the farm there and he'd roll over, decide to roll over, get rid of us.

TR: Did the donkey have a name?

AN: I don't know. I'm sure he did have, but I can't remember.

TR: And did your father ever mention why he would buy a donkey and not a horse? I think donkeys are pretty hard to domesticate and pretty hard to control, aren't they?

AN: Oh, I don't know. Probably... he never did say why, probably didn't eat as much.

TR: Maybe so. Did you help in the fields?

AN: Well, this is when I was little tiny.

TR: Okay.

AN: Uh-huh. Yeah. I worked out in the fields some, not a lot.

TR: But the boys must have worked in the fields?

AN: Oh, yes. Yeah, they did. In fact, my dad loved animals. He had a dairy herd, too, besides the farm. He had, and so then they had to milk the cows. It wasn't very agreeable with the boys, but they had, he had Holstein cows and the bull, the whole works. I can, in fact, I still have a book in the shop that has all, tells all about registered Holstein cows.

TR: Well, cows have to be milked twice a day.

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: Who milked the cows?

AN: Oh, my dad and the boys.

TR: Did your mother ever help milk the cows?

AN: No, no, she didn't. She had plenty to do otherwise. Yes, she did help out in the fields some, not a great deal.

TR: That's makes for an awfully long day; milking cows in the morning, working in fields during the day, and then milking cows again at night.

AN: Uh-huh, yeah.

TR: How long was the average workday especially in the summertime?

AN: Oh well, you can imagine. My dad had to get up really early to do the irrigating, and I know that along about, I remember we always swept the floor twice a day and I know now why.

[Interruption]

AN: Now I never sweep the floors except maybe once a week, maybe more than that, but, because my dad took a nap, and he would just stretch out on the floor after lunch and take a little nap there on the floor. Then besides that, they would wrestle. My dad would wrestle with the boys on the kitchen floor.

TR: And this would be coming in from the fields and then taking a nap on the floor, right?

AN: Well, yes, uh-huh, eating, eat our lunch, and then he'd take a nap, and then he was good for just a little while, not long, and then he'd back to work again.

TR: So what was lunch?

AN: What was lunch? Generally, it was rice, rice and whatever that goes with it with chopsticks. And then at night, generally, it was potatoes and meat and vegetables, typical American meal.

TR: So it sounds like Japanese lunch and American dinner?

AN: Uh-huh. Generally, that's the way it was.

TR: So how old are you at the time we're talking about right now?

AN: Oh, grade school.

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

<Begin Segment 5>

TR: So what grade school did you go to?

AN: Sisum Grade School.

TR: What was it like in grade school for you?

AN: Oh, great. It was wonderful. Yeah. It's a country grade school, and we had a horse barn and the Kalusics, Czechoslovakian people, would come, and they came with their horse and buggy. And there were about four Kalusics I think it was, and they'd unhitch the horse and leave it in the barn. And I know Keith Witty would drive his pony. Oh boy, he was handsome and dashing. And then, oh, that was over on that side of the school. Then over on this side, there was the water pump, and it was a long handled pump, and you'd go up and down and up and down and quick, you'd run around and catch the water and drink it. Well, we hadn't, we didn't think anything of it at the time, but right next to it was the girls' toilet. You can imagine what the school, what the government would say now about that. [Laughs] Yeah, it was, and then, then we had a cloakroom where we'd put all our lunches and our coats and so on, boots, whatever, and then over here was the library. Well, it's a country school, you know. Well, the library was a little doorway, and it had shelves. It was just about the size, oh, about this size I guess, about that big, and you would go in there and then all the shelves on the wall, and so we'd just push, push against the back of the wall, and then we'd step up with our feet and go up the steps. We'd go to the top of the library. It was primitive.

TR: How many students were in this school?

AN: How many students? Oh, dear, must have been about, well, there was the little room, and then there was the big room and the, in the little room was the first four grades, and they had one teacher for the first four grades and then the four grades. So the eighth grade was the big room, there's a teacher for that room, too. Oh, I don't know, must have been about twenty, maybe that many, something like that.

TR: Were there any other Japanese American kids there?

AN: No.

TR: You were the only ones?

AN: Uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah. Yeah.

TR: And was there anything like what we would consider discrimination these days in your school?

AN: No, I wouldn't say so in the school. I think there was, probably, there was, but it wasn't in the school that I was aware of.

TR: Were there any other Japanese American families around where you lived? Did you have contact with any other Japanese American families?

AN: Well, four miles from where we lived, the Fujis lived there. The Fujis, the ones that my parents, my father was partners with Mr. Fuji in Emmett, so they were, yes. Oh, yeah, I can remember we never, oh, there were people in Nampa which is nine miles from where we lived, and one year, our parents decided we needed to learn some Japanese. My father spoke English to us, and my mother spoke a combination of English and Japanese, and so they all decided we needed to learn some Japanese. So we learned Hirohani, what's the easiest one?

TR: Hirohani is the hiragana poem.

AN: Hiragana. No, there's an easier, katakana, the one that's easier. I remember that a little bit vaguely. But we had, there were four of us, and then Mr. Takeuchi who was partners with my dad when they were young when they were just kids in that farm, and he sent two of his children, Lillian, Paul over to our house. And there were, then the six kids and then the sensei came and stayed at our house. And he took our old car, must been a Model T Ford, must have been, I don't know, and he drove us, six of us to start with, and then we went over four miles to pick up the Fujis. There were several of them. And then we picked up some more along the way. Somehow, we got in and went to the Nazarene College where they had the Japanese lessons. And I can remember while we were chugging along and, oh, where's Paul? We missed him. Oh, we look way back there. He was crying. I can still remember he took his cap off, dusting his cap off and crying and running, trying to catch up with us. We picked him up, took him to school with us.

TR: That sounds like quite a long trip.

AN: No, nine miles.

TR: So how often did you have Japanese school?

AN: Oh, during the summer, I don't remember. It must have been several times a week, to send the children over here and then have the teacher come and stay. Maybe it was every day during the summer. I don't know. I don't remember very much of the Japanese.

TR: So did it stay with you?

AN: No. I felt that I would like to know, remember some of it, so I had, I wrote to my friend Mary Fuji, and she wrote some katakana and hiragana for me, and I have it here in my horror room that I got there. You have to have one of those, one of those in your home, so the iron is out and the typewriter is out. The drawers are open, and I've got that hanging on the wall, the Japanese alphabet.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

TR: Did your brothers go to Japanese school too?

AN: Yes, they did. Yeah. We went to Japanese school, and we also, my brother Roy, we took piano lessons. Roy and I took piano lessons, and we had a big old Dodge, a new Dodge sedan shaped like this.

TR: Square.

AN: Uh-huh, yes. I have a picture up here. And he was only about twelve or so. Maybe he wasn't twelve, maybe he was eleven, and he wasn't very big. He was just a little guy, and he'd get back of that steering gear and peek over the top and he said, to go to our piano lessons. He says, "You get in the back." So he was in the front and I was in the back, two little kids in that great big Dodge sedan.

TR: He drove?

AN: Uh-huh. Oh, yes, he drove. He drove, it was only about four miles to where we took piano lessons. And in fact, at that same time, he was about twelve. He decided he was going to drive, ride his bicycle to Cascade. Oh, I guess it's about 100 miles or so through the woods. It was really, to get, it was, it was quite a distance and a lot of it was, very few houses along the way. It was just up in the mountains, really. So he just decided, my parents just, they just fought that for the longest time, but he insisted he was going to go, so he did. He did. He took his bicycle and rode that distance to Mr. Takeuchi's house. See that's the man that they were partners with, Mr. Takeuchi, when they were kids.

TR: Did he make it?

AN: Yes. Yeah, he made it. Roy could.

TR: How long did it take?

AN: Oh, I don't know. Yeah. I didn't hear the particulars. No one told me.

TR: How far were you from the nearest town?

AN: Nine miles to Nampa from where we lived.

TR: And so how often would you go in and do shopping?

AN: Oh, I think we'd go in about once a week. My mother would make bread. You know, there was three boys. And then in addition when we go shopping, she'd buy some Bonton bakery bread, can imagine, wasn't very good for us.

TR: If you had animals on the farm, did you slaughter animals for meat too?

AN: Uh-huh. Yeah. I remember they would slaughter the pigs. Yeah. We'd have the pork. I don't remember killing the cows. I don't think so. It was just the pigs, I believe. I think it's, those cows I think were close to my dad's heart, didn't want to eat them.

TR: Well, also it's pretty unusual to use dairy cattle for meat.

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: Well, it sounds like you had a pretty well-rounded farm. I think of a lot of the farms here in Ontario as being onion farms or beef farms, but it sounds like you had a complete running farm with everything a farm would ever want.

AN: Uh-huh, I think so, with the dairy cattle, so that was unusual. You saw very, very few Japanese with the dairy farm.

TR: Did the milk truck come to your farm to pick up milk or cream?

AN: Uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah.

TR: Do you remember anything about that?

AN: Well, I remember it was, we had a milk cart, and I remember them putting the milk cans, those big milk cans on it and taking it out to, for the milk truck to come along, and we used to take rides in it, that I remember, in the cart.

TR: What were your responsibilities on the farm at this time?

AN: Well, mostly helping in the house and the housework. And there were times when we would go out and, go out and weed the onions. And I was used to tell, say that no matter kind of a job you get, it will be good compared to this, weeding onions, very boring. But it was so nice to hear the meadow lark sing. It was nice. I remember in relation to that, when some of the people who in camp came out to our place and where it was, under the trees, and they'd, oh, listen to the birds. You know, that was unusual to hear the birds singing because they were in the camp and hadn't heard the birds sing at all for a long time. So that was unusual to hear, and I thought, well, what they had gone through to really enjoy the birds singing.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 7>

TR: Where did you go to high school?

AN: To Nampa High School.

TR: And how far away was that from the farm?

AN: Oh, that was only about nine miles.

TR: And how did you get there?

AN: School bus.

TR: And what were things, what was it like for you in high school?

AN: Oh, it was, it was all right. I enjoyed it. Then we came over to Nyssa, and I was in high school over here, so it was, I didn't enjoy getting acquainted again. That was hard to do. But, well, it was, I remember we had some of my friends, well, we had dances and so on that way out here and so it wasn't, and then after that, I went from Nyssa High School, I graduated from there and then I went out to the College of Idaho, and so they had dances and so on there. I enjoyed it.

TR: You said you went to high school both in Nampa and Nyssa?

AN: Uh-huh, yes.

TR: Did you move in between there or just change schools?

AN: No, we moved. We came over here and moved to Nyssa from Nampa. Well, Nampa was, oh, about what 40 miles from here, from Nyssa, I would say. And so it was, and then we went over to the College of Idaho, and my brothers, they were older, and they had gone to, my brother Ray went to BYU and so did my brother George, and then Roy went to Oregon State. He graduated from Oregon State about the time of the war I guess it was.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 8>

TR: So your father sold the farm in Nampa and bought another farm in Nyssa?

AN: We sold the farm in Nampa because he thought that there was better opportunities over here, so that's what he did. So then he rented all over. He had the home farm three miles south of Nyssa, and then he rented in Adrian in Oregon Slope, and he rented in Vale and Broten and out that way. So he, oh, he rented from, oh, say about 50 mile radius.

TR: All at the same time?

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: How did he work all of that land all at one time?

AN: Well, he just got up early and worked late. Yeah.

TR: And it sounds like by this time, the boys had already gone to college and were not on the farm; is that right?

AN: Well, they had finished college, and so then, yeah. He, yeah, the boys were helping on the farm at this time.

TR: I'm trying to imagine how you would work so many plots of land in so many places at the same time. How could he manage that?

AN: Well, he bought a pickup. He went to there. He says, gave a kick to the tires and says I'll take it. And then that pickup kept going and going and going.

TR: And was he raising the same kind of crops in each place or was each plot different?

AN: Just depended. Sometimes it was a lot of the seeds. They were grown on the home place. And then he raised potatoes and onions, and at that time had lettuce, and it just depended on the ground just what you raised. Some crops raised onions well, others whatever, whatever the ground warranted.

TR: Do you remember if he had to rotate crops?

AN: Oh, yes, I'm sure. I'm sure he did that. I didn't pay too much attention to that.

TR: And how did he, did he bring his equipment from Nampa to Nyssa or --

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: -- did he sell everything and start over here?

AN: No. He brought, he brought all of his equipment.

TR: Sounds like a big job.

AN: Uh-huh. He probably bought more equipment too.

TR: Of course, there was more land to work.

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: Well, what was Nyssa High School like?

AN: Well, it was just like any small school.

TR: Were there other Japanese American kids there?

AN: No. I was the only one there too. Well, in college too, I guess. There were just a few, maybe two or three, and mostly, mostly Caucasian.

TR: What about dating in high school?

AN: Well, mostly, we dated the Japanese boys. They built in the 1930, about 1938, they built the hall that, Japanese hall over in Ontario and was quite a big project for the Japanese that were in this area. They weren't too many, but the people from Idaho helped. And so then we had a lot of gatherings and dances and also baseball games and basketball games, and it was really a gathering place. In fact, they had, the parents had picnics there and dinners. And in fact, there was a funeral there, so it was a real gathering place for three years. And then the war struck, so we couldn't keep it because they could not rent... no, not rent. They couldn't, the insurance companies wouldn't ensure them for fire and so on like that, so they turned it over to the Ontario City.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 9>

TR: You said the community center was built in 1938.

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: So you would have been fourteen, right?

AN: Was I? Thought I was older than that, maybe not.

TR: Well, I think you were probably born in, what year --

AN: 1918.

TR: 1918. So you were twenty years old when the community center was built.

AN: I guess, I don't know.

TR: Before that, have you had any kind kind of contact with Japanese, other Japanese American boys around the area?

AN: Oh, there, and then in Seattle and other areas back toward the coast because our group, we were part of the JACL. And because of that, we were, would go and visit some of the conventions and so on like that.

TR: What chapter of JACL?

AN: Well at that time, would it be, we had one in Caldwell, that area in Nampa. I guess we had one over here too in the Oregon side.

TR: It sounds like the cultural center where, what was the name of the building that was built in Ontario?

AN: The Hall.

TR: The Hall? Did it have an official name?

AN: Well, I don't know, Japanese American Hall.

TR: Okay. Sounds like everyone called it "The Hall"?

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: It sounds like, to me, that that may have been kind of the beginnings of a Japanese American community, a place where people to meet that may not have had a place to meet before; is that right?

AN: Uh-huh. Well, yes. And then during the war, you could not meet. Japanese couldn't meet like we did before. But then gradually, they got so they met and then, but they didn't have a place, so we had a great big lawn out on that ranch, and so we'd have dances there. And on the lawn, and then Sonny Tsukami, who had the sound system, he supplied, always supplied the music, Benny Goodman and all those dance records. And then I remember Miss Peet mentioned having a picnic out on our lawn too. Well, they, let's see what was it? That was after, this was after the people came from the camps, and they came to work out on the ranches and so on. So then, that's when they, I remember Miss Peet had written a letter. I still have the letter that she wrote to me. And Miss Peet was the, she was a missionary to Japan, and then she came out and lived with the people who came from Minidoka and the camps. So then she had, they had services every Sunday morning. In fact, she had it over here on the, in the tent camp. There was a tent camp out here, three miles south of Nyssa.

TR: This is Miss Azalea Peet?

AN: Yes. Did you know her?

TR: I've heard her name many, many times.

AN: Oh, have you? Oh.

TR: Well, before we get to wartime, it sounds like there was a good three years there where the hall was being used all the time.

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: So it became a cultural center and a meeting center for the Japanese Americans?

AN: Yes.

TR: Before that hall, had people had any kind of place where they could meet or how did they socialize?

AN: Oh, I think the JACL probably. At first, it wasn't JACL. It was JACC, Japanese American Citizen's Club. It wasn't official, see, like the JACL, but we had a gathering of the Japanese. We met wherever, any hall or any church wherever we could find a place.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 10>

TR: So then, December 7, 1941 --

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: -- happened. Do you remember where you were when you first heard the news about the attack on Pearl Harbor?

AN: I was in Seattle at the time. Yeah. We had friends there and, yeah. I think it was a Sunday afternoon that we heard that and... yeah. And then people wondered whether, what would happen. They said, "Oh, we're all right. We're citizens." And I remember saying, "Yes, we're citizens, but we never know during wartime what would happen." And sure enough, that's what happened. We, of course, all I had to do was go home, but look at all the rest of the people. That was home.

TR: How long after you heard about Pearl Harbor did you come back here?

AN: Oh, it wasn't long. I came home.

TR: And do you remember what the mood was here when you came back right after December 7th?

AN: Well, no. Of course, the people were the same. I mean, we had friends there, here in this area especially the people that we knew. But I remember when we were, some of the restaurants or a few of the restaurants didn't serve us in Caldwell and in Nampa. Yeah, I remember singing for a wedding in Nampa and sat down to eat, and they refused, no. We didn't sit down. They didn't give us a chance to sit down, refused us, service to us.

TR: Do you remember exactly how they refused service to you, exactly what happened?

AN: "I'm sorry, we don't serve you people."

TR: So it, we've gotten the impression from other people that we've spoken to that while there were instances of discrimination like that, that by and large Ontario was a pretty good place to be?

AN: Yes, it was. The mayor was very friendly and very good to us and very open, I believe.

TR: Do you remember his name?

AN: I'm just trying to think of it. Elmo Smith, is that right?

TR: And in what ways was he good to you?

AN: Well, he was open to the people coming in. I think he was far sighted. He could see that the farmers did a lot to help the area when, in the farm area because they were good, Japanese were good farmers, and they did a lot to help the country and the area with the, help the economy.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

TR: So in April of 1942, the notification started going up in other places in the Western Defense Zone that persons of Japanese ancestry would have to assemble. Did you know people who had to go to assembly centers at that time who might have lived in other parts of Oregon or Washington?

AN: Yes.

TR: Did you have any communication with them at that time?

AN: Oh, I know Tom's family was from Seattle. That's my husband Tom. They were from Seattle, and they went to Minidoka, and I know Jimmy Sakamoto was a relative. He was Tom's sister's husband, and he had written for the paper, the Japanese paper in the assembly center where they met in fair, they had the fair in, what is that name of that place, where they had the fairs over in Seattle?

TR: Puyallup?

AN: Maybe, I don't know. It's some of those towns. But anyway, he had written this letter, written an editorial, and I still have it. My son-in-law found that recently on the internet, and it tells that we're having a hard time now, but we need to cooperate. And it was a very fine editorial, and I thought it was just a, really a wonderful thing. Then he also had written, he had written to President Roosevelt how they, let's see, what was it that they, they wanted to take away the citizenship, our citizenship, but he wrote a very eloquent letter about that. They did not, it didn't come to a vote to take our citizenship away, but it was getting to that point. I still have the letter that he wrote to the president, I mean a copy of that letter. There's a lot going on that we don't know about that we don't hear about, haven't heard.

TR: You mentioned your husband. How did you meet your husband and when did you get married?

AN: Oh, he was related to some friends of ours, the Kichikas, Mr. Fuji's brother, the Kichikas, so I've known him for quite a while, just, he was even in the area in Nampa at that time. And then we were married while he was with the 442 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

TR: What year was that?

AN: Oh, dear, I don't know. It was during the war.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 12>

TR: And did your husband, did your husband go to camp?

AN: No, uh-uh. He was in the army before that.

TR: Was he in the army before December 7th, '41?

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: He was in the army when the war broke out?

AN: Uh-huh, yeah, so he didn't go to camp with his family. They were in Minidoka as I said. In fact, he was in the army, he came to see them at Minidoka. Because he was in the army, they wouldn't let him in, so they let the people, his relatives, come out, and they met out of the camp, strange.

TR: Yeah. I want to talk about that when we, I want --

AN: That's all I know.

TR: I want to elaborate on your husband's career too. So what date were you married?

AN: As I say, I don't know.

TR: Okay. Let's see if we can establish the chronology here. So he was in the army before the war broke out?

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: And had you been dating or seeing each other before the war?

AN: Yeah, uh-huh, off and on.

TR: I'm trying to establish how you got married in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

AN: Oh, he was, he was in, with the 442 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and we were engaged at that time. And so let's see, actually, he wanted me to come, and I think the idea was to say goodbye since he was going overseas with the 442. But instead of that, we got married. Yeah. And then my brother was in Washington, D.C., as an economist, and he came the very last minute, typical of the Hashitani capers. [Laughs] He decided to come, and that was, oh... oh, he came in, his bus came in just at the time I was at the church, I was in the back, and I was ready to come on, and he came in without his suit, without a shave. And he said, well, when the preacher says something, you say I will and so we changed. Let's see, who was going to give me away? Was it Major White, I think it was, either Major White or Joe Saito. I can't remember which one was going to give me away. But anyway, we had to change all of a sudden, put them away, and then my brother Ray came, and he gave me away, so that was settled.

TR: How long were you in Hattiesburg before the actual wedding ceremony?

AN: Oh, just a few days, I think it was.

TR: And how long after your wedding ceremony did he ship out?

AN: Oh, I imagine about a month or so.

TR: So you did have a little time together before he went overseas?

AN: No. I don't know. I don't think it was a month.

TR: But some time?

AN: Uh-huh, yeah. Then I went on to, after he left, then I went on to New York on the way to Washington, D.C., oh, yeah. I went first to Washington, D.C. to see my brother, and he showed me around town. And I remember on the train, I talked to some man there on the train, and he introduced me to fried apple pie. Ever heard of that? It was fried apple pie. And then from there after I had visited in Washington, D.C., then I went on to New York and stayed with my singing teacher and his wife, Bud Rimley and his wife, and so I really had a good time visiting with them. I mean, I had known them well in Nampa where he was my teacher. So then he went to that New York at that university there across the river from Harlem. I can't remember.

TR: Columbia?

AN: Yeah, must, yeah, that's where it was, Columbia. Oh, yeah.

TR: I want to go back just a little bit. You were in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: And this was during the time of the Jim Crow Laws in the South where blacks and whites were separated. But of course, Asians are neither black nor white.

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: Did that cause any difficulties for you --

AN: No.

TR: -- or was it unusual?

AN: No. Nothing, nothing happened.

TR: So your husband went overseas with the 44nd?

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: And do you remember when that was, what month and year, approximately?

AN: We were married in the spring in March.

TR: Of forty --

AN: It isn't coming. You can't persuade it. [Laughs]

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 13>

TR: So here you were recently married, and your husband soon after you were married went off to war in Europe. What went through your mind having a soldier overseas? What was it like to be a new bride with your husband overseas?

AN: Huh, well, there were a lot of uncertainties, aren't there? You just didn't know what to expect. But he wasn't there in the front lines. He was in service equipment, so that that was helpful. But he did, when they were in Rome, they went around and around and around and around. All night, the whole 442 went around and around, and every time, the roads are made that way, I guess. And so they ended up, every time, they end up right in front of Saint Peter's Dome, the church, took them all night to get out of Rome. And then they had another time that they, the group, what did they do? Oh, the general, Colonel Pence and General Ryder and a number of the, Tom was one of them and I think Mike Masaoka and oh, there were quite a number of men took off, and there was a snafu in the army where they forgot to tell the general and the colonel that they had not taken, they weren't to take off that early. They were, but they didn't know. They just took off and went and Tom was with this group, and the girls were throwing flowers at them so grateful for them, for their presence. Well, they didn't know it, but they were in enemy territory because they had taken off too early and they hadn't been told, even the general. Yeah, the boot guns, they started to shoot at them, and so they dove for the ditches, and they got one person to go and go for help, so they got out of that predicament that time.

TR: And these were not necessarily soldiers who had combat experience?

AN: Well, I know Tom, this is their first time. This is the first time they'd been shot at too, so it was quite a --

TR: Were you able to communicate with him when he was overseas?

AN: Oh, just letters, but he wasn't telling me very much.

TR: And were the letters censored?

AN: Oh, not that I know of. I don't know. If they were, I didn't know.

TR: So while, you said during the wartime before he went overseas, he tried to go to see his family in Minidoka?

AN: Yes, uh-huh.

TR: And wasn't able to get in?

AN: No.

TR: Were you there?

AN: No, huh-uh.

TR: And you said because he was a soldier, he couldn't go inside the camp?

AN: In, into the camp, uh-huh, so they went out. The family went out of camp, and they met someplace in Twin Falls, strange isn't it?

TR: Because it almost seems since he's serving his country, he would be more likely to be able to get into camp?

AN: Uh-huh. You would think so. But then you wouldn't think that the people, they would let the people out, but that's what happened.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 14>

TR: And then you said people from Minidoka came out here to work on the farms.

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: Can you tell me about that?

AN: Well, I can imagine that they were uneasy about coming out here whether they would be discriminated against or what. And then at first, they stayed in a little tent camp as I said three miles south of Nyssa on the curve there near the railroad track, and it was just amazing. They were just little tent camps. But I know one lady was such a good housekeeper, at home, and she came out here in this tent camp, and it was so neat and pretty. I can remember the blue bedspread out there, and it was so neat and clean, and I thought, "My goodness sakes. Here she is keeping house in a tent and doing a wonderful job. I could not never do that." And then Miss Peet then had Sunday school there, and where has she got it. She had a piano, an old clunker piano out there. I played it for her every Sunday and here, I wonder how she ever found a piano to take out to the tent camp? Imagine. And then afterwards, after it got a little colder to live in tents, they went out to the old, it used to be the old CCC Camp. You know what CCC Camp, Civilian Conservation Corps?

TR: The Roosevelt Program.

AN: Yes, uh-huh, for the people who were out, nothing to do for the young boys and you know. And so then they went and stayed out there.

TR: Were they here year round?

AN: Yes, uh-huh, out in the camps.

TR: No. I mean people from the camps came here to work.

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: Was that just summertime farm labor or were they here year round?

AN: Yeah. They were here year round. That is after they came out to the CCC Camp. Yeah.

TR: So did the people who came to work from Minidoka, were they on some kind of temporary leave or were they what I would think of as out of camp? Were they finished with camp when they came here? Did they get permanent releases to come here?

AN: Oh, I don't know how it worked when they left, but then they stayed. You know, the Japanese, they're very ambitious, and they started farming on their own. I remember they had the, they had some German, some of the Germans came out here, and they had them working out in the fields. And we had heard that they weren't getting enough to eat, so we brought some food and took it, when they came out to our place to work, well then, we took some food out there, and they wouldn't let us give it to them. Isn't that a shame?

TR: Were these Germans who had been interned or were they prisoners-of-war?

AN: I would say they're prisoners-of-war. I think so. So I don't think they were here very long though because we never heard anything about them anymore.

TR: Can you describe Miss Peet?

AN: Miss Peet?

TR: Yes.

AN: Oh, she was a lovely lady.

TR: What was her, why was she here and under what capacity and what did she do while she was here?

AN: Oh, she wasn't, she had gone to Japan as a missionary, and since that wasn't feasible anymore, she came out here. Alice Finley was here too and so was Miss Peet. And Miss Peet lived out here in the tent camp and had the Sunday school. And then she went out to the CCC Camp and she was out there, and I'd visit her over there. And she wrote about the time they had the Japanese picnics out here on our lawn. She'd tell about that. And that, let's see, that place, CCC Camp is quite a ways from town, and so in order to do her work, she needed a car. Well here she was past retirement and had to learn to drive a car, so she chose a little old, used to be a fancy little roadster.

TR: What kind of roadster?

AN: Oh, I don't know, Ford or whatever, little gray one, and so she learned to drive very cautiously. And then one time, she went to visit a friend over here out in Nyssa about a quarter mile out of town, and this lady asked her to stay for lunch. She had some fried chicken for lunch, so oh that sounded good, so she sat down to wait for lunch. And this lady went out to the yard, and she caught a chicken. And that's the way you did it around here in those days, I guess, and I never did. But she caught the chicken, and she chopped his head off, and she put hot water on it and took all the feathers off, slit it open and cleaned it out, washed it and cut it up and had fried chicken for lunch. You had, I haven't had prayer and fried chicken.

TR: So the people who were living in the CCC Camp then were able to go out and farm on their own eventually?

AN: No. They just disappeared. I don't remember. I don't know what happened to them. I knew the, Mr. Clonigger used to be in the army, and so then he took over the head of, he was head of the CCC Camp. And I remember him because his daughter went to school in Nyssa, and I remember her particularly because she was so attractive, and they lived in Hawaii, and she had learned to, she was a dancer, so she learned the hula. So I don't know what happened to him, what happened to the CCC boys. That didn't last I guess. The CCC, I don't remember what happened to them. They did a little work around, I guess, probably on the farms. I don't know where else.

TR: I think the CCC was active in the '30s. Then in the late '30s, it was slowly --

AN: Getting dwindled away.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 15>

TR: So meanwhile, Tom is in Europe.

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: Do you remember VE Day and when the war in Europe was declared officially over?

AN: Well, I knew he was coming home. And he, he was so happy he'd gotten through the war, so he, every day, he'd take one of those green army underwear and throw it out the window, the port hole, every day one went in the ocean. That was his act of celebration.

TR: How did you first find out he was coming home?

AN: Oh, I don't remember. I don't remember anything. Well, just the fact that war was over that, over there, not in Japan.

TR: Do you remember how long it took him to get back to the States?

AN: No. It took quite a while over there, took some time over there before they came over. I think it was quite a long wait for --

TR: So do you remember the circumstances where you first saw him again after the long absence?

AN: Uh-huh. Yes, I do. He came by train to Nyssa, and I went to meet the train so that was a nice time.

TR: How long had he been gone?

AN: Had he been gone? Oh, I would say several years I guess, not too long, long enough.

TR: So you said you got married. Then you went to New York and visited and to Washington, D.C. and then --

AN: Came home.

TR: Came home.

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: And what did you do while Tom was gone?

AN: Oh, I don't know, stayed home.

TR: Where did you live?

AN: With my parents in Nyssa.

TR: And they still had the farm?

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: You called it a ranch.

AN: Yeah, ranch, farm, whatever.

TR: Okay. So there's no difference in the words?

AN: I don't think so.

TR: And so do you remember, did your father ever talk about the war, the attack on Pearl Harbor, how he felt about his native country declaring war on his adopted country? Did he ever talk about --

AN: No. But his, I remember he had written a letter and, to my brother, and he said, "Japan and United States will be good friends someday." And he said, "Japan, the war has made Japan into a newborn nation." I always remember that because it was prophetic what he said.

TR: Do you remember what your father's, after Pearl, soon after Pearl Harbor was attacked --

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: Did your father say anything about the situation between the United States and Japan or how he felt about that?

AN: Well, his loyalty was to the United States because we all lived here, and we loved the United States, so he felt the same way too.

TR: Did any of your brothers go into the military during the war?

AN: No. They raised the crops.

TR: Worked on the farm?

AN: Uh-huh. I know my brother Ray, he was an economist in Washington, D.C., and they sent him to Japan. He was among the first who got in, and he had a lot, charge of distributing food in Japan. And he, as I say, we didn't speak very much Japanese. And so in order for him to get it, he had to have a uniform, army uniform on. And so he'd have this man come in, this Caucasian man would come in with him when he'd talk to the people in Japan about the food, the distribution and so on. And so they start talking to my brother Ray thinking that he was a Japanese interpreter. Well, he didn't know what they were saying. So he said, this American, this Caucasian man was the interpreter, so he said, "Oh, okay. You take over."

TR: Must have been very confusing to the Japanese nation.

AN: Oh, yes, it was.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 16>

TR: So when Tom came back from the war, the two of you were able to start a life together.

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: What did you do?

AN: He started farming. He didn't know whether he could do it or not because in Seattle, he didn't do any farming at all. But his family had a greenhouse, but he saw, Joy Atayi was one of the girls here that raised on a farm. She was about so high, and she was out there driving a tractor, just speeding along. He thought, "Well, if she can do it, maybe I can do it too." So he started to, he decided he would go ahead and start farming.

TR: And what did he raise?

AN: Potatoes and onions, mostly that. Mostly, it was potatoes and onions, I think so.

TR: And did you work on the farm too?

AN: Not a great deal. I taught piano, just a far cry from hauling potatoes. I do remember, though, driving the truck as they were taking out the beets, you know. Oh, dear, got stuck, backed up, and tried to back up, and you know, in the mud and wouldn't go and it wouldn't go. And here this tractor was pulling me out, trying to, oh, that was terrible trying to, then all of a sudden, the truck took hold, hit a dry spot apparently and pulled out, and I backed right into the tractor behind me. Oh, dear, these horrible things happen.

TR: Well, how many children did you and Tom have?

AN: Two, a boy and a girl.

TR: And what are their names and what are they doing now?

AN: Oh, David is looking, he's a photographer. He does that type of thing. And I see, he photographs a lot of the Oregon State Games and that type of thing. He's also in the national guards, so I don't know. I just hope he doesn't have to go. And then my daughter is, she's a musician. She's a piano performance major, and she's married and lives in, out of Nampa, Boise, Nampa, out in that direction. And her daughter, as I say, is a musician also, a cellist, and she is, this winter, this last winter, she was in Germany, studying over there because that's the cello capitol of the world. And so as I say, she's working on her doctorate now, so she doesn't know what to do whether to stay with the doctorate and do that or else go back to Germany again and study. You know, if you're going to teach, if you're going to teach in college, you should have your doctorate. It's better to have it, so she has nice, nice decisions to make.

TR: So you and Tom had the farm, and did you continue on the farm through your whole lives?

AN: Uh-huh, yeah.

TR: And tell me about Tom. What kind of man was he?

AN: What kind of man? Well, he's a pretty good guy. He passed away in 1990. That was the year of the cold. 1991, it was really, really cold that year. It was, I can remember, he was gone by that time, and I was, we had lived on my parents' old place. And I thought my goodness, I said, "What's the matter with this?" I told, David my son had come to visit at Christmastime. I said, how come this feels, this bedcovers feel kind of funny, feels odd, and no one paid any attention. Then we woke up in the morning, it was all wet. It was so cold. It was so cold at that time that the red covers had, well because of the hot, heating blanket, it had turned this frost to water and the lining was white, so it had turned red because it was so cold. It was terrible. Out in the country, you don't have that heating. And then the other bedroom, I had painted it lavender and had frost on it on the walls, and it was so pretty. Lavender frost on the, oh, it was so pretty.

TR: How did Tom pass away? What happened?

AN: He had cancer. He had, yeah. That seems to take a lot of people, doesn't it?

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 17>

TR: You were fortunate enough to escape internment, but a lot of people that you knew and your husband's family were all interned. You grew up in an immigrant family that worked very hard, and it sounds like your father was a pretty remarkable man.

AN: He was. He truly was.

TR: Looking back over all the experiences of your life, what has it taught you about living in the United States?

AN: I'm very fortunate, that I know. Yes. Yes. It has, I haven't stopped to think about it, but, you know, I have learned to, I really appreciate the love of the Lord. You know, that just, it couldn't happen just any place, so I'm very fortunate I can go to any church that I want to attend, and I think that is about the most important thing in this world now. I feel the importance of it now. I didn't when I was young. So I'm, I feel very fortunate for that reason.

TR: And if your father were here today and listened to this whole conversation and how your life had progressed and the things you've done, what do you think he'd say?

AN: Well, I think he would be happy. I think he really would. I've appreciated his personality and the goodness of his life. That really is amazing, not how much money you make or what kind of an impression you make in this world, but it's knowing, knowing the Lord and what he has done for us and what he is doing and how he controls our lives. So many times, there are so many things that we worry about and are concerned about. But if we know that the Lord has control, I always tell myself that. Not what we do or what we say or what other people or circumstances, whatever, but it is that He takes care of it all for us.

TR: Can you tell me when your mother and father passed away and what the circumstances were?

AN: Well, my father had cancer, and he died on the home place. And of course, my mother has never been well. She never was really strong, so that's why she didn't do an awful lot of work out in the field because she wasn't very strong. But she had heart trouble and high blood pressure, and it ended up with kidney problems, and so she died about two months after my father. But then one thing is she didn't, they didn't have to see what my brothers, my brothers all died. My brother Ray was in an auto accident, and he was killed instantly, and then my brother Roy drowned, and then my brother George had an auto accident. A man ran into him, so then he was an invalid, almost an invalid for about fifteen years. And they didn't have to see that, so I'm glad for that. And I know, I remember my father saying one time, he says, this is when we lived in Nampa, and we were all young then. But he said, "Do you know that just about all of our friends have lost a child, had some illness or accident?" And he says, "We are so fortunate because we're all, all four of us are still well and strong." But that didn't last.

TR: Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you'd like to talk about?

AN: I'm sure there is, just can't think of it.

TR: Well, I have one final question. Looking back on your life and the things that you've learned, what advice might you have for your great grandchildren and your great-great grandchildren in the generations to come?

AN: Well, I would say to look to the Lord. I think that's the answer, just to about everything, just look to Him for advice and for care. So you can have accidents, see like my brothers all had accidents and anything can happen. But if you look to the Lord and depend on Him, I think that is the answer to the whole world if we would just do it. We just don't seem to go to Him like we should.

TR: Well, Alice, I know you were hesitant to appear on camera to begin with but I want to thank you for sharing your stories with us and be assured that other people will see your stories and learn from them, and you'll become part of the archive of Japanese American History in Oregon.

AN: Oh, my. I surely would hate to see it.

TR: Well, thank you so much for sharing your stories with us.

AN: All right. You're welcome.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.