When I was only 3 years old, the Japanese were evacuated from the West Coast, course I don't remember that, but I can imagine what a tough and terrible thing it was for Mom & Dad, to have to leave a successful produce business and leave their home with everything loaded into their truck with their little kids, I was three and Irene was just one. Mom talked about those days by saying, they were told that they needed to destroy everything that showed they were in Japan, so they destroyed or burned all these memories from Japan. She tells of selling everything for 10 cents on the dollar, she told of a black woman who said, "I know how you feel, we've been going through this all of our life". The family moved to Utah during the voluntary evacuation phase, and stayed first in Layton, where we lived in a converted chicken coop for a time.
After Layton, we moved to Rockport, where dad farmed. I remember that we grew a lot of lettuce which did well in the cool weather. I remember mom working hard in the fields, and being pregnant and working right up to the time she delivered, but I don't know which of the kids was born there, but it must have been Ron or Sharon.
I don't remember much about Rockport, but there was an old schoolhouse, which was no longer being used, just about across the street from our house, then there were about 4 houses in a row across the street from the school. In front of our houses was the school and on the other side of the school was the main road going from Peoa, Wanship and Coalville going toward Park City. Park City was an old mining ghost town, with only a couple of people living there. One time the rains came and the water poured down the canyon and completely flooded our fields.
Those buildings from Rockport were moved to Lagoon for the pioneer village there and you can't visit the place where we lived now unless you have scuba equipment since the Rockport Dam was built (and where we lived is now the lake).
I remember that these young men would come and pick up the crates of lettuce and carry them out of the fields, but these guys would hold the heavy crates of lettuce with two hands and carry them over their head and my parents were so impressed at how strong they were.
The Brown's lived a couple of houses down, they are the ones who had a well, and we would have to go down there and get our water. It was a typical well like you see in the movies, with a rock wall and a crank that let the bucket down and you would crank it to get the water up.
Mom told Carolyn of a time that she carried the bucket of water back and when she got it to the house and looked at it, there was a frong in it, so she dumped it out and then thought, that was stupid, if I go back and get another bucket its the same water that the frog was in. The Brown's remained life long friends and attended marriages and other events for years after we moved away.
I went to school in Coalville and rode the bus to school, that was in the first grade, until we moved to Murray on 45th South and about 5th East.
Our farm was south of 45th South and we had a very long driveway to get to the house. Part of the farm was around the house, there was a small garage type building to the right of the house with a road which led toward the fields and the lower part of the farm, which was next to the lttle stream which ran at the bottom of the farm. In the summer, the Fish and Game trucks would come and plant trout in the stream, after planting, you could see hundreds of fish in the stream. I don't remember that we ever went fishing though. There was a little area next to the farm where there was kind of a pond in the stream and kids had a rope strung from a tree and they would swing over the water and drop down into it.
We lived there until I was in the 6th grade. I used to order fireworks assortments from out of state and sell them to other kids in the neighborhood, it wasn't really legal, but it was fun having fireworks. One time a police car drove up in front of the house and mom got really excited and thought that we had been caught and were going to be arrested, but he had brought a lady from some restaurant, who wanted to buy some vegetables.
In the sixth grade, our family moved to West Bountiful (Woods Cross) on Pages Lane. We farmed 10 acres there. Next to the house was a huge old tree, we nailed a basket to the tree where we would shoot baskets. Our water was from a flowing well to a faucet outside the house. The water for the farm was from another big flowing well at the other end of the farm. I remember drawing a square on the bricks on the side of the house and pitching a baseball against the house, it must have made a racket, but mom never complained, until I missed the wall completely and the ball went right through the kitchen window. Even then I don't remember Mom or Dad raising their voice or getting mad.
Mom worked in the fields every day as all of us kids did. We had a lot of hand work, growing radishes, parsley, green onions, table beets, turnips, green beans, dry onions. We had a tractor and did a lot of disking after the crops were harvested, so we could plant the next crop. Radishes grow really quickly and we could do several crops during the summer, since they took about a month to be ready to be bunched. I can still see Dick at 10 years old, running the tractor pulling the disks. Mom was really fast with her hands, seems like a lot of time, I would be working alone with her bunching radishes, parsley and green onions. We would pull them, put them neatlying into bunches and wrap them twice with a rubber band. I would always act like I was racing her and could actually come close sometimes, but she was really fast.
Our house had a high ceiling, I believe we eventually got running cold water in the kitchen (I'm not sure). The outhouse was behind the house, it was a 2 holer. The bath was in a bathouse attached to the back of the house. Dad must have built it, it had a metal tub, it must have been about 2 feet wide and about 4 feet long and about 3 feet deep. We would fill it with a hose, there was room to build a fire under the tub until it was hot. There was a wooden platform next to the tub, so we would soak in the tub, then get out to wash off. Seems like we should have washed first then got in the tub, maybe I just did it backwards. The water would run off into a little ditch behind the house.
At the end of the day, we would need to wash all the vegetables in the huge metal tub in the "shed" (it must have been about 4'x10'), then put them in boxes ready for market. We used to have Quality Produce pick them up every day, later on we took them to the produce market in SL, Ron did a lot of that.
We never thought about whether we were rich or poor, but doesn't seem like we ever did much, especially as a family, except on Memorial Day, we would always go to the Cemetary, then go to Lagoon afterwards. We must have done pretty well one year, we got a new 1955 yellow and white Chevy, I guess it was brand new, I don't remember.
At West Bountiful Elementary, the church was just around the corner, and once a week, all the kids in the school would walk from school and go to primary, we went with them and attended primary. I'm sure we didn't have a clue what that would lead to.
Omar Bangeter was a ward missionary and they started to come to teach us the lessons, I don't remember anything about them (kind of like sacrament talks the following day). Irene and I were baptized when I was 12 and she was 10. Ron and Sharon were baptized later. All of us kids were going to church and at some time, they asked mom to teach primary, even though she wasn't a member. I must have been a priest since I baptized her later. We were all active in the church, but there was still farmwork to be done on Sunday, so we would go to church, then come home and work on the farm. Dad also hired a lot of the kids in the neighborhood on the farm. Even though we worked hard long hours on the farm, we never came close to the number of hours dad worked. It was a great way for kids to learn how to work, but we also learned that we didn't want to be farmers.
We were always allowed to go to church and participate in church activites, I always loved playing church sports, softball and volleyball, strange... I don't remember much about playing basketball, I was probably too short anyhow. I remember playing volleyball a little bit, but it must have been enought to give me a taste for the game.
Mom went to work at Clintons Bakery, where they baked wheat bread. Clint Miller was the owner of the bakery, and the motto was "The Whiter the Bread, the Sooner you're dead". I went to work there part-time also, especially after the farm work was done, I would get the wheat from the round metal large round tin, covered bins outside and bring it in and load the wheat grinders, which would turn the wheat to flour. Mom worked in the bakery making bread and worked there for many years. She was a very well-liked worker.
Mom was working at Clinton's when I was called to go to Japan on my mission. We never talked about going on a mission when I was growing up and I had never really thought much about it, but when the time came I felt that I needed to give back to the church which had given us so much. We didn't even know any other Japanese members of the church. Our family lived in the south end of Davis County, there were quite a few Japanese families in the North county, but I don't believe any of them were LDS. I didn't know there was a mission in Japan, so as far as I knew, we were the only Japanese members of the church.
When I was called to go to Japan (Northern Far East Mission), Paul Buys who was in our bishopric offered to pay my way, but mom said she could do it and she did. As I think back on it, I don't know how she did it, I suppose she must have supported all three of us on our missions. Paul Buys is the one who supported Elder Kikuchi on his mission. I met Elder Kikuchi in Hokkaido when I was a traveling elder, we were in his branch for one week and he was a university student and wanted to go on a mission in the worst way, but had no funds to do it. I was really impressed with him, so I wrote to Brother Buys and asked him if he would sponsor him, he wrote back and said "but, if this guys not a good missionary, I'm going to take it out of your hide". Well that didn't happen, and the Buys family and Elder Kikuchi became like family.
She was always very frugal, I didn't realize what a good cook she was, and she must have been very resourceful also. We grew a lot of parsley and I remember having parsley tempura, we loved it, if you've never had it, you should try it. Actually, I haven't had it for years, so it might not be as good as I remember it.
After Clinton's, mom worked at the Jewelry Manufacturing place with Wally Cragun called Movitz, where they made costume jewelry, since she was so fast with her hands, she must have been a great worker. Wally was a returned missionary from Japan and remained a great friend throughout her life.
Mom was very active in the church, but dad never went. I think a lot of it was because of language or he just wasn't interested - actually he didn't have time either, Dad spoke English and did well, but was not completely fluent, especially when it came to the gospel. When Irene was ready to get married, they were planning on getting married in the temple, but at that time, women could not go to the temple unless their husbands were a member. It was Bishop Samuelson that said, well your dad's a good man, lets just baptize him, we talked to dad and he agreed. I had come home from my mission by then and was able to baptize him in Japanese. So mom was able to attend Floyd & Irene's marriage in the Logan Temple. Dad never went to church and was never active, but by getting baptized, mom was able to attend all of her children's temple marriages, and she spent her life active in temple work.
You just gave me an idea! We should have a grandma blog where all the relatives can write random stories about grandma just as an ongoing basis. We could start with all the stories people wrote when grandma passed away. Then people could even write two sentence stories, or quotes. It might be fun. What do you think?
ReplyDelete