Densho Digital Archive - Alice E. Sumida Interview (denshovh-salice

<Begin Segment 6>

MR: Well, before we go much farther, I would like to ask some dates and get details. I'm wondering, let's see, when you went to Nyssa, what year was that?

AS: Let's see, that was soon after we went into "assembly center," and it was what, let's see, 19, we were married in '41 and the war started. So let's see, '42 I think, yes, uh-huh.

MR: And then you stayed in this tent camp for a while. Then you were saying you went to, you found this vacant farm, this house that you fixed up.

AS: Oh, that was, yes, just a house with a small farm. There was nothing grown on the farm at all.

MR: And when did you buy the farm?

AS: Oh, this farm we just rented. And then the other big farm, 200 acres, we bought from a lady in Spokane, Washington, I think. I've forgotten her name. The real, we bought it through the real estate. He arranged everything for us.

MR: And was that in Nyssa as well?

AS: Pardon me?

MR: Was that farm in Nyssa?

AS: No. This farm is in a place called Dead Ox Flat which was supposed to be very fertile between, situated between Payette, Idaho, and Weiser, Idaho, right along the river, Snake River.

MR: I read somewhere that that was the largest gladiola farm?

AS: Yes. You probably read my book, Music For Alice. Yes, we were the largest.

MR: And that is in the country, right?

AS: Yes.

MR: When you left the farm after working so hard at building it all up, how did that feel to leave that farm?

AS: Yes, it was very sad. I thought that I would be living there forever. We were the first ones to build a new home. After about seven years later, we built a new home, brick veneer they called it. We got the bricks from Salt Lake City. I understand it came from there. It was a very beautiful brick and kept us warm in the winter and very cool in the summer. The basement was very cool. Yes. In those days, before we built the house, the house we moved into was full of holes and the, this particular house was insulated by rocks put between the walls, and the rocks were so heavy. They were bulging out. And every time the wind blew, the wind blew right through the house, and oh, was it cold in the winter, you know. And I remember then no washing machine, no electricity there, so I had to use those washtubs and washboard to wash the men's overalls, work pants. It was very hard. But one nice thing, it was so hot there, 100 degree weather in the summer, so we had a line and you hung it up on the line. It dried very quickly. That was really nice. Then we had lamp in those days, no electricity, no lights, no hot water. For bath, my husband built a bathhouse which was all by itself. They had a tin underneath the wood tub, and I had to feed the, to get hot water, I had to feed the woods, underneath. Oh, it was so smoky. My eyes would really, get smoke in your eyes. That was really it. And then to wash clothes, I had to heat water in the bathtub and scoop it out into the washtub to wash clothes. It was a rugged life. But I was younger and I was able to stand the rigors of hardship at the time. Didn't even think about any hardship, have to do it, just did it. And every morning at 6 o'clock in the morning, my husband would be ready, so I had to have his breakfast all ready and finished before the men came to work. We had men to irrigate. We had men to drive the tractor. We had men to do different jobs.

We had twenty families living on the camp, and we had to build the camps for each family. And they wanted to work for us because at that time my husband was, before the war, he was in a vegetable seed business. He had a store on Union Avenue. And if you were in this business, the government considered seed as a very useful, necessary since it would produce food. It was necessary, so boys that worked on our farm were able to get deferment from going to war, so everybody, they want to come and work for us, but we were able to take care of only twenty families. And every night, my husband will be staying up all night. This man will do this. This man will do this. This man will do this. He'll be up all night thinking what each one will do because he had to give work to everybody that was working. He couldn't be choosy and tried to be fair, and I think we got along pretty well.

One thing that happened, I don't know what, whether I should even mention it, but it is history now, so I will. When we first moved there, we needed tractors. We needed all kinds of farm equipments, didn't have anything. Then he read in the paper a man was having an auction sale, and he had all kinds of equipments on sale. So he called this man, and he offered him so much money for the whole thing, so he got all the equipments he needed. But the people who are planning to go to the auction were very disappointed. They were mad I heard later. [Laughs] But that's how we got started, you know.

Well, all kinds of things happened while we were there. We had the Bishop and Lady Otani from Kyoto, the headquarters of the Buddhist temple, come and visit us and stayed with us. So I had to buy all new bed, new mattress, and new blankets and pillows, everything new, new rugs to welcome them. The Japanese community at that time, Ontario, they asked us to house them, so we did. Since we had just built our house, it was clean and nice enough to welcome them. What else happened? Oh, and Tanaka Kinuyo, she was a foremost actress in Japan, and she was in New York and she was going to stop in Ontario, so the Japanese people in Ontario asked if she would put on a show for us. So they asked us to house her when she came, so we did. And I had to be kind of a stagehand, to be her assistant, you know. While she was dancing, I have to give her this or that or take this away, you know. It was kind of interesting for me. Well, I don't know what else we did there.