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SAMUEL PROCTOR ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM at
the University of Florida.
PBC 5A
Sub: Mrs. Bly Davis Smith (Yamato Teacher)
Int: Bernie Ward
4-27-79
Lake Worth
Page 1.
U)' PC'OC%,U tAl-QC'A^) SVY. VA. A.C.x cv/ C0 .
S: Well now he.... Did he have a family?
W: Not here. I don't think he lived here. I think he came... came and went.
w'l Yeoi, av,&M
S: Oh, just came and went./ Because I've tried to think and look at those pictures
and I ....&an not place but three families, Gummi- sar k4, andamucdhi
W: Do you know of any of the Yamuchis? Are they still around anywhere?
S: Now YaAichis only had one child. When I mean the last that I heard of em and
\um.'..- well they all.... I don't know. It wasn't too many years til \'Hdyt...
tf three.'.. those three families had all gone back to Japan except the Saii girls,
they stayed here, and for a number of years I would see em because \4. they got
a job as 'ih clerk up at PAe I' And I'm see em in there.
W: The Salis?
S: Uh huh, Saki. Uh huh.
W: Now how many were in that family?
S: 'h' .. You know let me see. I can always remember the two girls, ishy- and Moshy-
'\ \
and someone said they're twins but they're not. They were just yE=knuw real
close together. There may be a year or so difference in their ages. And .a.;
I thought they had all boys. Now I'm not sure. N6cbme.>.t> I mean girls and
CGumi.had boys. -- and I cannot think of the other children's nameS.
___. Now I don't know whether that was Mi4ad Mft. It's
etis&C-c 0f1
too bad ya don't think to have presents ir-mind to put their names on the back of
themJu ya know em.
W: Yeah, yeah. So many people don't though.
S: No and ya just don't do it.
W: Yeah.
S: But now he... well now now ia he had a boy and a girl'cause see I've got
PBC 5A -2-
S: them marked oh eg ..
W: Well I thought that Might and M1ahp were famra,
S: Not that I know of. -GuimmnirsL
W: Yeah.
S: MiWhy? No. Maybe you're right. I couldn't....... ,
C- I
W: Well, I think I am because I was supposed to have met Misht in January./I She was
down here from Wes1hntn and she was at Frank Gummi's. And.... I was introduced
as..... she was introduced as her sister.
S: Oh I see. Well you could be right.
W: And and 'ih I could meet her.
S: Because it's. been a long long time since \bh.... fifty-some years ago.
D-.
W: Right. But the Sa s had girls too I know.
S: Uh huh. Mm hmm.
G.
W: Saks.
S: And- b...... ....... and Recco-....... and I remember those two boys...
their dad hadqa,.\ the water station' k.tfw where the train used to have to
stop and get water and that was down about a mile south of Yamato.
W: Do you remember their names?
S: Their name was Smith. \ yet's see, -tiis-., the boyy,.,the old one, his name was
Dan. And i,,eA\ a he just passed away just the other day I heard.
W: Oh is that right?
S: Uh huh. And I don't remember the younger one's name.
W: But they.... Were they in charge of the railroad station or ..........
S: Their father. No their father was... the t-rain I guess. I don't know now whether
PBC 5A -3-
S: he worked there before W railroad or not But they had a house,
yac,InIt the houses railroadwere all painted yellow. l<, ou'wA water
tank would be yellow and the train would come up there and ...... need water
and go on. It was between Yamato and Boca Raton.
W: Un .......
S: Now I noticed all you newcomers PrT pronounce Yamato. Now we pronounced it
Yamato but I see no one does now.
W: Call it Yamato?
S: Yamato.
W: Yamato.
S: But we... they always they always made it.... Yamato.
W: Yeah. O.* I'll say Yamato. (both laugh together)
S: Well.... I mean that's just the way we ta .... when ijh I was i ..... pronounced
it. Yaa..... Well you hear it pronounced so many fufO bh ways. Over the
national broadcasting company they call it what... Yamato. Which... have you ever
noticed that to... David Binmkly and %.; well all of those fellows they'll
-tylEiE pronounce it Yamato.
W: When... what F,... in what relationship...t why not ... why are they talking
about Yamato? The Yamato?
S: LA W We\\ o do with an automobile accident just off the"'Y a t*-.'th Yamato Road
or something like that. Don't ya V ____
6' 6 /eoh / \) jCI YOLc-. L^'
W: Oh oh I see. And they say Yamato. A Oh I see, yeah. O.K.
S: Yeah uh huh. No nothing ever exciting ever happened that I knew of.
W: O.K. Um.... I'm gonna start get this thing going. Um.... they)what we're
going to do are transcribe these and the University of Florida Oral History's
Department is gonna make transcriptions of these and their gonna keep all
the tape recordings that we find or make uh about YamatoYamato. And 6h
PBC 5A -4-
W: so just for the record why don't you give me...,,' tell me your name.
S: Bly.... Smith.
W: B-1... b-l-y.
S: B-l-y, Bly, but I was a Davis at that time. Bly Davis.
W: A11 right and you 0t....
S: And I married a Smith.
W: And you grew up in Delray.
S: I grew up in Delray, yeah.
W: And what...- and you say you taught....
S: In Yamato. One year.
W: -N-inet-een-awentty-eae
S: Twenty-one-twor"
2-1
W: Twenty Ube and twaeny-tza .
S: And hi,,then my four years in Boca Raton. lq9 :l, .- *- L
W: O.K. Uh let me ask you about Yamato first. T Vl/ j Was it waS--e much of
a town? Wtiit, Did it have kinda city limits? Was it well defined or was
it just kinda spread out? Or what was it like?
S: Oh no. No. There was one store there. We had one '\i... you bought your
groceries and they had a few bolts of yard goods and you had penny candy and
they had a little meat. And of course if you wanted to do any shopping
you went to Delray.
W: z"h jid .... V.4
S: So that's that's all thaglai there was there when I was there.
W: Well how about where the people lived? Were they.'k :'.* scattered out quite a ..
PBC 5A -5-
S: Oh they were kind of scattered round. Uh huh. And it's 'it's the 'iin the
Japanese 0... lived west,and the Americans lived on he east side. Host
e/c J, -f ClQ6
of em. Now ... Ii ff accepted a4n the Smith family we'-s down at the
trac.. getting them down at the water station. And he was right there
at the railroad track ya know.
W: O.K. 'eiete .-r.^. How many Japanese families were there all together? Do you
know? Approximately?
S: Now I couldn't tell ya that. Cause I only had the three families that had
the children... children old enough to go.
W: Mm hmm.
S: And I don't think there could been over a dozen families.
W: Well w e e v)raTl....JWre there several bachelors who were farming there?
S: Yes there were bachelors.
W" Like Morcvy?
S: .Moeey. Uh huh, yes.
MPr( A kV--,
W: Coma -6Mia i.
S: Uh huh. They were bachelors.
W: Did they have much association uh with the other ones? With the families?
S: Yes he did. Mm hmm.
W: So they all... Everybody kind of stuck together.
S:
They just they all stuck together. And then after.,. one died why then it seemed
like that they kind of broke up. By then after I married though I-went to Georgia
and then when I came back everybody was gone.
W: Oh they were?AWhen did you come back?
PBC 5A -6-
S: Oh well I was back and forth all i you know cause my parents lived there. Um
"til frty-even when they passed away. But I didn't go down to Yamato anytime.
W: Well they were all gone long before that then weren't they?
S: Yes. Oh yes, uh huh. And tLt...yep because I.... it seemed to me like after
they closed that school of course I carried sov_ to Boca Raton.
W: Well tell me about that now on the... since I got the tape on. When did they
close the school in Yamato.
S: In twenty-two. See I was the last teach there.
W: You were the last teacher there.
S: I was the last teacher there. And then utm. t..-.-ih- Agnus Ballard who was ,u'
superintendent, she decided that it would be cheaper to t:,.. take ail te.'... what
few children there were on down to Boca Raton. So they fixed me up an old
Abdel-T and I carried all of these children back and forth i on that.
W: How many stoiifmqty- children?
S: Oh [9il a:;.. I guess we must of had about a dozen,., children.
W: And these were Japanese and American then right?
S: Yes, uh huh. Japanese and American.
W: So....
S: hAndut.. urn u Lhen-a I also picked up children that lived south of
Boca Raton and so by the time that I got there why they were just coming out the
doors and windows and everything else. (laugh) And'\l no there was a policeman,
I can't think of his name, )Motorcycle police that used to help escort me. At
that time the Dixie just as we got into Boca Raton cross icr1ss the railroad
track. So he always went with me to see that I got across the railroad track
-aT-ight. Cause I had so many youngsters I couldn't see til I got across the track
PBC 5A -7-
S: and then again I'd stop and scatter ybc6s57cf' cause they lived along there too.
W: Then the people in Yamato, like the children, they weren't just strictly Japanese
then?
S: No.
W: There's a little of everything.
S: Uh huh.
W: All mixed up.
S: Uh huh.
W: Um.... did you ever find out ti- ..: much about Joseph Sai? Did you know
him very well?
S: No, I didn't know him too well other than they wouldya know we had a little
school place. They would come to school and they were very ,reciat e ....with
anything you taught and their children as I said were very brilliant and it,
was Roeee that was killed and he was a very very brilliant boy.
W: Mm hmm.
S: And it's too bad. I think it was his first year he'd come to Delray that he was killed.
W: Oh yeah. And that was in the motorcycle accident?
S: Mm hmm. In a motorcycle accident.
W: Well was... did everyone seem to follow Sa1? Was he pretty much the acknowledged
leader?
S: Yes, uAhes he was,yes
W: In charge?
S: Mm hmm you might say,yes.
W: Well,"fah,, in what way? Did he didihe tell people what to do? Did he .....
S: They just seemed to..... Well whatever he did why they seemed to follow suit.
And of course I guess their big crop was pineapple.
W: Rfid' uh... What kind of a person was he?
PBC 5A -8-
S: I! Oh he was a very small man, very friendly ya know and polite..... like all,
like Japanese are ya know.
W: Speak English very well?
S: Very well, yes. I think he must have been a college graduate.
W: I believe that he was from New York University. At first I thought it was Harvard
and then Iwe found out that that wasn't true and that it was apparently New
York University.
S: Well I just... I really didn't know too much about it. And of course the wives
stayed in the background pretty much '" ''1" And I don't think any of the
mothers ever came to school. If \ they.... well except on these low programs
well then the man and wife would come together but if for any reason if you
had to come down why just the man would come.
W: Uh huh. \ ,.,,i4nd you said that there were about three families with children
the school age that you taught.
S: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
W: But there were other families?
S: Yeah there were other families. They had younger children.
W: They were all farmers?
S: Yes,they were all farmers uh huh. And jst cc+ b >yI must of um.... yeah
I'm quite sure that they operated that store.... or some of his family did.
W: Do you know .... I I'm gonna ask Frank Curmi of this, but weren't they related?
Ctsm and the Sa1is?
S: I think they are. Yeah they're brothers.
W: Brothers, were they?
S: I think they were brothers.
W: I don't know. I'm gonna ask him.
PBC 5A -9-
S: Isn't that um a Japanese tradition if they take uh..... how is that? If an older
person dies why then the next one .... is head of that clan you might say. And
then they become known as ya know like maybe it was Saki and he'd pass away and
then and it'd be Cmmi do -Ou k J.
W: I see. O.K. Did they Mgj. Di'dJtii.e- seem to \ih try and maintain any Japanese
traditions and any culture or did they......?
S: No. They were very interested in English. And if I never saw chopsticks when
I'd go to there little afternoon birthday parties or something like that.
W: With the children or something?
S: With the children. And they brought their lunches in the lunch bo.. uh pale
ya know in school. We'd all go out under the trees and eat.
W: Well then then they were pretty much ^,Americanized then?
S: Yes. 'Th-ey...Oh yes the children were.
W: They didn't try and stay Japanese?
S: No. I didn't.... I never could see....
W: As far as culture is concerned?
S: No. I never could see that they did
W: O.K. ,W. --: Did you have i ....':'.: What was the railroad like then? Was it
pretty much in charge of what went on around there?
S: Oh yes.
W: The railroad n things.
S: Yes. Yeah the railroad. Yeah well that's a big pastime to come and see the
train go by. (laugh) And if it stopped that was.... hat made history.
W: They they did have a railroad station there? ,-i
S: Yeah. ow ...... I don't believe-4XA 'Prk f No no. I think the
first one was...... Delray and then h Boca. I guess you could flag a train
PBC 5A -10-
S: anytime you wanted to.
W: O.K. well then Yamato would have been in between Delray and Eoc_ ?
S: Yes it was. Mm hmm.
W: Somewhere in there.
S: It was about lm .y eight miles ;.... south, I mean north of Boca I believe.
Just about half way between Delray.
W: Well you \h ,,Aqi practically grew up there, what WasAUh.j. vhitwere the
environmental conditions like? 'ihat,.,... We talked awhile ago about the mosquitos
and sand flies and....,* What was it like? Was there a lot of growth, jungle, a
lot of mosquitos?
S: Oh yes. Like I said there... .%\t we didn't ever dream that anyone would ever
move west of Dixie Highway because even that was a little swamp.... and
everybody lived along the railroad tracks.
W: Well now some of the Japanese were west of Dixie, ,_,_,,_
S: Yes they were, uh huh. Yes they went west. But then I'm thinking more like)
ya know the stores were all along the railroad track.
W: Yeah.
S: Delray had a ..... there- only hotel and it was right on the railroad track
Gran uh Grant Hotel-it's in Delray and it was right at the railroad track.
W: They had to do a lot of work then to clear that land out there and get it ready
to farm then.
S: Oh I should say because see so much of it was low ya know it was all ... it's
such a marshy land ya know.
W: Mm hmm.
S: It seemed to be a wonderful place to grow pineapples because that was really one
big crop. It was a.......
W: Did'iSh,.%Did.you know anything about the pineapple crop failing or was it destroyed
by a hurricane or something? Was there some problem there?
PBC 5A -11-
S: No. The way I understand that is that this sand will only grow pineapples so
long and of course back in those days they didn't know how to propagate the
land or make it productive year after year. Ya see they would plant pineapple
there year after year and first thing ya knew why then there ya couldn't raise
pineapples.
W: Right.
S: But then I suppose they could now with all our knowledge.
W: Yeah.
S: Ya know they know tIheyS)fow how to take care of Yli:.''..;\ the soil.
W: Did you have much contact with the Yamato? Were any people there before you
went to teach?
S: Never. No I....
W: How did you get the job there? How did that come about?
S: Well like I said when uh we drove to ,I__k school in Delray why we'd go
up and see Mrs. Ballard and we'd tell her we wanted to teach well I have an
opening in Yamato. Would you like to take it. And that's where we got our
job.
W: So they just assign you....
S: Yes, uh huh.
W: To a place.
S: We were just assigned if we could go to West Palm Beach and go to t the high school
and take the teachers examination which lastesA about two days I think it was.
W: But you knew about Yamato though?
S: Oh yes. Uh huh we knew about that.
W: t h ,.'.^ aas it known as a Japanese settlement?
PBC 5A -12-
S: Yes. It always call it Japanese settlement..... because there were more
Japanese there than there were white. Americans I should say.
W: Um.... how did it d people treat them generally? How did they get along?
S: Wonderful.
W: There's no racial problems?
S: No. No racial problems whatsoever. Because theyall enjoyed.... Ya know they
just got out and played with each other. Of course I always had more trouble
with the American youngsters Icause I never knew when I went in what maybe I'd
find a green snake in my drawer. (both laugh) And t1re1'e' drawers..... And on
halloween I knew the next morning I went down there they's gonna have the door
nailed shut. (laugh)
W: Oh really. Did they do that?
S: And of course the little Japanese didn't take part in it but they always thought
it was funny. And they'd and-thet',runm down to the store and get a hammer, ya
know, and come up and we were all working 1it the doors open. (both laugh)
W: Everybody's the same all over.
S: Yeah. (laugh)
W: "S^Q.iell then &Q'.% I suppose these kids had to do a lot of work around the
farms. They weren't big farms were they?
S: No they were. Oh these children were all small. I don't think that their parents
ever worked em. Maybe the old ones that I didn't know anything about. Ya know
I just had this those of school age which would only run up to what.... high
school. About fourteen fifteen years olddon't ya see and then come up to Delray
for four years of high school. &,1 m < fourteen years old ... come to
Delray to school.
W: Oh it was..... Yamato then was pretty well settled and and ..... when you were there?
PBC 5A -13-
S: Yes uh huh. Mm hmm.
W: They weren't they were still clearing land?
S: Yes. They were still raising pineapples and that's that was always the big
crop. And I guess what tomatoes too.
W: Yeah I think eventually they got.....
S: Yeah they eventually got into....
W: Vegetables.
S: Yeah all vegetables ya knowand eggplant and beans and.... farmers don't ya
know but thea big crop was pineapple.
W: What about the social life.... in Yamato? What went on?
S: Well I don't know anything about their social life because ya see I never
tvift',
W: What about holidays V?
S: Well we just observed th holiday and I think if there was a parade or something
you know if there's anything in Yamato because there wasn't that many people
there, don't ya know. We'd... everybody went to uh... even from Boca. They'd
come up to Delray for our parades and on the Fourth of July and things like
that.
W: Did you ever have much contact with anybody there after you quit teaching ?
Uh you....
S: No no6cause I left. You see II married and then um..... let's see I married in
)2/
twenty-one and then I lived in Delray, my husband and I, and we lived there what.....
No I didn't. No when I married we went over to the central part of the state
around Lakeland. We lived down there. We lived there .... for awhile and that's
where I lost track of him. q
W: Right. Uh huh.
PBC 5A -14-
S: And then... oh a couple years before the.... we moved back and h my husband
had a little grocery store we lived in Bo-cP' during the twenty-s---storm
of course which wasn't so bad because it hit fYc-vw.A tweity-eight storm
was when did our damage don't ya know.
W: What happened during that storm?
S: What in in our grocery store?
W: Yeah. Just around where you were living then. What was it like during that
storm?
S: Oh well uh I.... or that no that was in oiv4.v\ )don't ya see. And um it was
a great place to congregate 'yahbw and talk and youngsters always coming' in to
buy penny candy and things like that. Then my husband ih..,. We moved to Delray
and he opened a cafe and we had a cafe there and the twenty--eight storm just
practically ruined us and windows crashed in and everything. So .- my husband
*l the next morning he got up and he had a time getting home because we lived
way out on Swinton Avenue at that time and my dad lived further down so when
the storm got so bad he came and got me and took me up to their house cause
they had a new house and we were living in a well.... a house that's still there,
but it's been remodeled. But the roof went off of the house e' /{(e l yer- .
And then I thought my husband-'Oh well I didn't know what had happened to him
but so Jk I looked out and I saw a flashlight coming and-he was.., he walked
home. So he says well I'll go down the next morning and see what's left yaI^n1w
go back down there and tii then they had began to ship linemen in ya-.knew to
put up the lines and so some h linemen come in and wanted to know if they could
get some coffee and my husband said well if get up into le up there
so we could build a fire ya=knt ) cause we had a wood stove. And they did that
and so he served them and cook came and served em coffee and doughnuts.
And uh for about six weeks we served-thTeehulmr ren th reithi d meals three
PBC 5A -15-
S: times a day to those linemen. (both laugh) And our house was ya know practically
totally destroyed so (A c rou^tAel cafe in Delray and then after that
why my husband said well let's go back to Georgia so we did.
W: uJq get away from the hurricanes.
S: We went up to Georgia. Yeah get out of the hurricanes. (both laugh)
W: Well did that do a lot of crop damage? Would that of maybe... been a reason
why some of these people left?
S: Well, I don't know. Like they they'd... This rain we had the other day, they
said we got more rain out of this storm than we did any hurricane but.... that
was hard for me to believe because everything was under water. But um, they
have the statistics I'm sure/cause they said sixteen inches of rain in Miami.
But we always have a lot of rain. We had a lot of rain in both those storms.
And of course well, what was bad hit was out on Lake Oklchobee don't ya know,
when the lake went over.
W: Yeah.
S: Whole families would be wiped out .... so they didn't do anything but just
load bodies on trucks and bring em into Woodland Cemetery in West Palm Beach
ya know and just along the beach and just buried them all there.
W: Worse than a kVSr,&s tornado, huh? (both start laughing)
S: Uh we'd had our S o r c-% though between you and me, -I guess
you did too didn't. Did they still have ke-vvw? ?Soo.p ok- ,
W: Oh yeah. They still go to the cellar out there too. O.K. uh........ Um .- 0 so
a,
you think that the fact that Joseph Salk died had a lot to do with some of the
people leaving?
I *
S: Definitely. I think so, definitely.
W: They just didn't have a leader anymore?
PBC 5A -16-
S: I don't think they felt like they had a leader. And'\ she course ya know
took...... I guess she took back to Japan.
W: I believe so.
S: Yes. Yes she did. She took .,. and she took all her..... Now I don't know
whether she took all of her...-I guess she must have taken all her children and
then some of them came back.
W: l -- -. Did they cremate him? Down on \. Lake Boca? The shore of Lake
Boca?
S: I don't know. I never had heard that. I don't ,ov-o v .
W: Someone -smenc was cremated there and I don't know whether it was Saki or
someone later on after that and 't then took the ashes back to Japan.
S: It was him.
W: Was it?
S: Because she did. She carried them back in an urn.
W: Um... well what what do you remember about Yamato? What's your biggest memories
of Yamato?
S: Well it's just Ah.... eighteen year olde -e-chsoi school and uh... I just
there in the daytime ya know and I was treated royally. All all of em just...
Mh- school teacher she was just the queen you might say I,/AA A /\ And ta
like I said at the end of school everybody would bring me things. I had a lot
of t little Japanese nick nacks and things but 0 over the years I've lost
them. I don't have much l. I was trying to think. I looked for something
and some little things I hadbut I couldn't find anything.
W: How many students did you have?
S: I think there were eighteen..... as I remember. And in this picture I found
there's eighteen children.
W: And how many of those were Japanese? Do you remember?
PBC 5A -17-
S: Well let me see. I guess if you've got h one, two, three.... four, five, six,
seven. There's about ten there.
W: This was h-irnet- tyne.
2 'Z
S: Twenty-Crnn and-, y
W: And is this a picture of the school building?
S: Yeah, and that was our school building. Just a little ol4 wooden structure with
a double door and a window on either side and then there were two windows on
either side of the building. Ya know and two windows in front.
W: It's one room.
S: Yes. Just one room. Mn hmm. Of course we had two outside johns in the back of
the school.
W: Mm hmm. Well .....
S: And a-edZlet's see. What was I was just trying to think of now what what
did we use for water? 'Cause I..... 4 %,,. I'd never even thought about that.
I wonder how they got had _whe,-....... whether they had wells there or what.
I never had given that any thought.
W: I saw one picture somewhere and you could see a pump in the background.... so
maybe they did have a well there.
S: Uh huh. They may have had. It seems to me like we did have a pump and we
did have a pump out this way from the school house.
W: O.K. Well......... K, t-is didn't last very long though did it? Yamato and
the people there.
S: Uh... not after twenty-.two after they moved the school house. It was ya know
after they moved the school house tpene rf rele because Mrs. Ballard thought
it was more economical to ,-get-a fix up a bus and then.... I, I was the
bus driver too and they paid me a little bit of that too to drive down there.
W: Then you were picking up Japanese children and American children?
PSC 5A -18-
S: Yes I was picking American and Japanese.
W: Yeah, O.K.
S: Ya know on the way.
W: \AjV4ere was the post office?
S: Hmm. That's a good question. I don't know where their post... It must have
been at that little grocery store. ,
W: Probably was yeah. And that was the Csmmis that had that.
S: Yes, uh huh.
W: O.K. Well, O.K. Mrs. Smith I appreciate it. '"% \.Well yeah ya know there's
so few people around to talk to that so many of these people have left and I
can't track down their relatives ya know.
S: Mm hmm.
W: Japanese people especially. There are only a couple of families.
S: How man.... I was gonna say that it couldn't be too many.
W: Well I went to 4,... I ort-; G-vv
S: What about the inV,-tin man that took care of Mr. fa-? Umr..... 4-..
s\ ij-U, o, Lou^, ,.io, le_ ,o,, +h^'s been oL &-frC
red ~c~c 7.
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