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Show Keetley Farms 337 people he recruited had various personal reasons for joining. One feared being returned to Japan to the navy he had deserted; others had retarded or handicapped children and did not want to take them to a camp. None were well off; the rich could not abandon their possessions so quickly. The colonists pooled their machinery and wares and contributed some cash to the enterprise. Wada paid Fisher $7,500 of his own money to lease the land and its abandoned buildings. Wada, incidentally, lost everything else that he owned in Oakland when he, his wife, and three children departed.24 Wada's little group left California for Keetley on March 26, 1942. By the last week of March fifteen families had reached Utah. They were followed by a few more from San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara.25 Former Salt Lake resident Frank Endo was among the settlers; he brought not only his twelve brothers and sisters and their families but also food and goods from Oakland. 26 The one hundred thirty Keetley colonists arrived just in time: on March 30 the army's freeze order went into effect. There would be no more voluntary resettlement. Tsujimoto's account of the Wada party's trek to Keetley reflects the excitement of his youth. According to him, the residents had no trouble crossing the desert to reach Utah. He described the patriotic motives of Wada, who was his brother's brother-in-law. Wada's two brothers had enlisted in miliary service, but since family obligations kept him at home, Fred had decided to find some unused land, and, as Tsujimoto put it, "try to break all records at raising crops, without costing Uncle Sam a red cent." Wanting to avoid becoming a ward of the government, Wada intended to raise food for freedom. 27 He considered settling in Keetley preferable to going to camp, but he related much later how shocked the settlers were when the snow melted and they saw the inhospitable soil they had contracted to farm. 28 "When I first saw it the snow had leveled everything. When the snow melted it was all hilly with rocks and sagebrush. Hell, we had to move fifty tons of rocks to clear 150 acres to farm." 29 24 Galen 1-'isher. "Japanese Colony: Success Story," Survey Graphic (Februrary 1943): 41-43; Oral History, Fred lsamu Wada, pp. 50-54, 58. 1984. 2s Wasatch Wat•e, April 3. 1942. 26 Papanikolas and Kasai. "Japanese Life," p. 354. 27 Tsujimoto, " Letter to Ophelia." 28 Oral History, Fred lsamu Wada,pp. 54-59. 29 A Tribute to Fred Isamu Wada, published privately by Omni Bank, Los Angeles, November 14, |
