<Begin Segment 2>

LT: When your mother and your father came to Washington, what did they do?

GT: Well, let's see. As far as I know, the history was that he was a farmer. Or he took, I don't think he knew much about farming, but he took the farming at that time. And his wife, my mother, I'm sure she didn't have any idea about farming in her background. But being the wife, and probably started out farming, and I just think about he knew so little about farming. But they did raise potatoes during the wartime, and I guess potatoes were pretty good price there while they were raising it. And a few years after they got to raising it, the market collapsed and there was just no more market for potatoes, and high priced potatoes were all gone after the war. I think they made some pretty good money at one time, and I think they lost it all raising potatoes. So they made a living, but I don't think... at one time they made some money, and I think they made some bad investments and things like that, and they lost it all.

LT: When you were two or three years old, your parents and you moved from Home Acre in Washington to Hillsboro. Can you tell about why you think you moved, and what happened in Hillsboro?

GT: That's a good question. Why they moved to that area, I have no idea, because... well, I should have a little bit. Because in that area, there were other Japanese who were farming strawberries, and I think probably my folks felt kind of at home being around other Japanese at that time. They were Hillsboro, and there was a little community called Banks, and Mountaindale, I think they still exist, and they had Japanese berry farmers all around there, and that's how they made their living. And I think Mother and Dad probably felt more comfortable being with other Japanese families. So that's why I think they moved to that area.

LT: Okay. Did they become farmers? What did they do?

GT: No, they never did become farmers. That's the amazing part, that they were mostly in retail. When I say retail, I'm talking about produce. They did potatoes and tomatoes, peaches. And at that time, cabbage was very popular because people made their own sauerkraut, and that was quite the thing in those days. They'd buy whole sacks of cabbage and make sauerkraut, and I just don't understand it. But that was one of the big things that they used to do, but you don't see that done anymore. And then peaches were very popular, apples, pears, tomatoes, those were the things that they sold, and mostly while it's in season, of course. And then they had potatoes year-round, practically.

LT: So if your family didn't grow the produce, how did they acquire them for your market?

GT: Well, there was other farmers, Caucasians, that had peaches and those kind of things that we were interested in, and they sold it to my dad. And there was the one time when there was little plots of tomatoes, potatoes, stuff like that, they just didn't seem to get around to harvesting, so we as kids, my dad would buy the whole orchard or whatever it was, and we as kids would go out and pick 'em, bring 'em back and sell 'em at the market. And there was a lot of... a lot of Caucasians did have their own method of getting them to us, so we bought them from them, too. So it was a two-way. Either we picked them ourselves, or we bought 'em from a farmer that already had 'em picked.

LT: What about during the winter when you didn't have a lot of produce?

GT: That's the thing. I notice that wintertime, it seemed like everything was gone except potatoes. Dad kept potatoes, he had 'em stacked up in that market there, but to keep 'em from freezing, I remember we had big stoves, had wood stoves at those times and kept the thing going so the air wouldn't freeze there in the wintertime. But I do know that it was... the winters then seemed like they were more severe than they are now. I can still remember the ice and snow and stuff like that, was pretty regular stuff. And if we didn't keep those fires going, I know that it would freeze and we'd lose everything. So that was quite a battle, just to keep them from freezing during the wintertime.

LT: So you kept the fire going twenty-four hours a day, then?

GT: That's just about right, especially at night, though, but that was the coldest time. But in those days, the winters were much more severe than they are now. I remember the one year that even the Columbia River, the Willamette River, started forming ice cubes, ice bergs and stuff like that, they were even forming. That's how cold it was, but you don't see that anymore. Yeah, it was, some of those... I remember the lake, some of the lakes would freeze over, I remember we used to go ice skating, but you don't see that anymore either because it doesn't get that cold.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.