Ed Yun, a long-time resident of Grass Valley, California, shared his life story in an interview with the Nevada County Historical Society. He recounted his family's move to Grass Valley from San Francisco when he was 14 years old, and his experiences attending local schools and adjusting to a new community. Ed's father opened a grocery store, which later expanded to include a meat market, and Ed played a vital role in helping run the family business. He shared anecdotes about his school days, his passion for fishing, and the diverse community of Grass Valley, which included Cornish miners, Chinese immigrants, Italian restaurateurs, and lumberjacks from Oklahoma and Arkansas. After graduating from high school, Ed attended Sacramento Junior College and then enlisted in the army during World War II. He served in India and was stationed in a finance office due to his business background. After the war, he attended UC Berkeley, where he met his wife Alice. The couple returned to Grass Valley, where they raised three children and remained active in the community. Ed's interview provides a valuable glimpse into the history of Grass Valley and the experiences of a Chinese immigrant family in the mid-20th century.

Full Transcript of the Video:

Hello, my name is Robert Moore.

I'm with the Nevada County Historical Society and this
morning we're going to sit down and have a conversation with a gentleman by the name
of Ed Young.

Ed Young has been around these parts, Grass Valley, Nevada County since he was a young
man.

I believe he came here when he was 13 years old.

Ed is going to share some of his stories
and give them as a gift to the people of Nevada County.

Ed, welcome and I would like you to tell
me some of your first recollections when your family came to Grass Valley.

How big was your
family? Where did you live? How did you get here? And maybe you could describe a little bit your
first recollections of Grass Valley.

I came to Grass Valley from San Francisco when I was 14 years
old and when it came to Grass Valley naturally I had to go to school.

So my sixth grade was eighth
grade.

Eighth grade was in a Columbus school where Hennessey school is now.

It was a big nice big three
story building and so we had the third floor for eighth grade.

I finished eighth grade there and
then went on to high school in Grass Valley High on Auburn Street.

I never was too much for studying
so I never took book home to study but I did fool around in class.

I did things that were probably
good in my math so I did all right in math but in my history and civic class the teacher there told
me if I didn't behave myself I would be back next year.

I told her fine when I come back next year
I'll be twice as bad so she graduated me and when eighth grade I had a fellow assistant in front of
me he's not too good on math and I had no trouble with math so he would turn turn back and I would
know he'd want the answer so I would give him the answer and he told me ask me one day ask me how
do you know all the answers so quick and I had to give him a quick answer and I didn't know what to
say so I said well since my minutes were EY I said that's the EY process so he called me EY
process whenever I was a field playing ball and so other kids that didn't know my name I heard him
call me EY so all of a sudden my name was EY everybody on the field called me EY.

Do I call you Mr. Yan or do I call you EY? Just EY everybody said EY in fact well I didn't even know
my name was Ed a couple of them thought my name was Eli so anyways my name was EY from there on
even the family kids called me EY a lot easier to say than Ed.

When you came to Grass Valley you were
the oldest child of the Yan family and there were several other siblings that you had.

Yes we are on the oldest of seven five boys and two girls I came to Grass Valley
because I was the oldest my father opened a grocery store here and so I worked in the grocery store
and there was just groceries and groceries and vegetables on the Neal Street and then one day
some fellow said there's a market a little market out Hills Flat that's up for sale a little meat
market so he looked at it and he liked the looks of it so he bought it and he knew from people
in Chinese people in the Eylton and Cortland area and there's one fellow there he was a
butcher so he came and worked for the butcher at the butcher shop was a good butcher and we had
nice fresh meat and that brought in a lot of people because there's not too many fresh meat in the
Grass Valley at the time there was two small meat markets but we had a nice long counter
pork and beef and real and also all kind of good with good good meat so we bought in a lot of people
excuse me the name of the market was the Hills Flat public market I was a Hills Flat market and
then when we built it made it bigger we called a public market and so Hills Flat public market
and where did the where did the produce come from where did the produce come from and where did
the meat you had fresh meat you had pork and beef and chickens where did that did that come
in those days they had these delicatessen trucks coming from Sacramento uh I thought made right
was when I'm made right and then there's another two of them and they would park in front and
they would have the pieces of boxes of weenies and uh lunch meat the whole lunch meat which we
slice ourselves when we sell them and the meat I had meat from Sacramento also our truck salesman
come in and what kind of meat and then pretty soon we had a we had our own solder house where the uh
huge road is now and they bought the they killed the beef there and they bought the bought them by
quarters and our butcher was known enough to do it so we bought them by by the quarters and he would
cut them up and roast and station whatever and uh I would help and sometimes so I
I was just all around the place so I helped when the meat sometimes learned how to do the meat and
the produce and so I had a lot of fun doing it so you were your daddy's right hand man you helped
in the market and then yes I did I helped quite a bit here and there and we uh
had a place to live we lived in a hotel for a while
well that's right then cross valley on the church street and then he found a house down by the bowling
alley and he bought the house and we had a house to live in then when we for him when he rebuilt
the hillside market to a bigger market had a lot of room in the back so we had four garages
for storage and above the garage to build a three three bedroom house there and so we live in back
of the house there and so we were real handy didn't have to get up too early to go to work
and your daddy was in the store pretty much sun up to sun down
yes next door next door to us we had a the hellback brothers a Ford garage opened up on there
and on the other side of the store was a empty building and that's
so a little gift shop and all that so we we had pretty good little area there
was that considered Chinatown no Chinatown was uptown
uh between between Bank Street and
Copac Avenue there was a little little side street in the middle of middle of this
between uh oh let me see you know back of Albin Street that's my back of Albin Street
was a little little street there was not paved as rocks and dirt were dirt and rocks and
so we had built how wooden houses on two sides and cars cars drove in the middle there and uh
so three four families on each side of the street and that was Chinatown that's where
all the Chinese live and uh when my family moved in Cross Valley of course my sister and I went
to Chinese school in San Francisco after regular school so so my father thought all Chinese kids
should learn Chinese so they hired a Chinese man from San Francisco he lived in Chinatown
and went to Chinese school there after regular school so you went to Columbus school and then you
went to Grass Valley High and then after you got out of class there where you were a bit of a mischievous
child you you went to Chinese school for a while for several hours during the day so
Chinese school is for three hours usually five o'clock to eight o'clock that's a long day for a
young guy that's why we hate a Chinese school because it all had a regular school all day and
then go back nice time to learn Chinese and of course Chinese is hard to learn too because each
word is a separate word this is not like a alphabet or anything each word is a separate word like a
water it's a one word uh man say man it was one word so you had a lot of words there were a lot
of words to learn did you learn how to write in Chinese the caricatures yes we did we also uh
use a Chinese brush and uh the indian ink is put on a piece of silk on the little little
middle containers and so we learned to write how to hurl the pen there's a certain way you hold
the brush and learn to write little by little that's fascinating but that's tough for a young person
that's sitting down all day in class that's right so all day in school and in Chinese school again
go home and have dinner so we have late dinner when you had dinner with the family
would they gather around the table and was your mother the chief cook and what kind of
dinner would you have yes uh for dinner we usually the mother used to cook and of course
it was just a Chinese food so every every night we had Chinese rice cooked rice and
uh pork or some kind and they would pork was easier to make and pork and some vegetables
and uh we didn't didn't like too much of the old Chinese food either we had a neighbor
how he was left there we had a huge a huge family had quite a few kids and this one little boy there
he used to come over he liked to look look look as we hang around and time starts we invited him up
for dinner one night and he liked to draw dinner so every night he would come over for dinner
have dinner with us so one more mouth to feed you know I would think it would be very difficult
for a 14 year old young man to move from town to town and to learn to get a whole new set of
friends and you were kind of an outsider coming in was that a difficult process for you oh no not
really I see it seemed like there's always somebody it's in the same situation you just moved here
and not having been here too long so uh we get along pretty good everywhere in uh
oh I was taking a grass valley grass valley high went to Sacramento junior college and well let's go
back to back to high school here you went to grass valley high that was before the existence of NU
and you were also active in the sports program yes that's right this grass valley high school uh
so I guess I was used to running around so I played football and I didn't play football
too much because I had to went back to a store to help with a store early you know after schools
so I come back to I like I think I practice about one night a week instead of five days a week and
to put the coach hot move where he was very good he was meeting a few plays when I come to the ball
games and the track meet I his attract me didn't have to practice too much because I was pretty
fast at running so I ran the hundred and a 220 and I brought jumps and so I can spot myself for more
years I didn't realize it but on the on the track meet in Auburn I see those five schools in our
in our uh all we call the conference and anyway there's five schools of Auburn
Roosevelt front union the vaccine grass valley and anyway I didn't realize it but I
broke the hundred yard dash record that year and then found out later on I've all also broke
the Bronson record so I had to track records for quite a few years.

UI when you were a young man
you must have found some time to do some recreational activities.

Yes there were a lot of fishing here
because there were three reservoirs in the Delta Street and there's also three more three more
reservoirs out between here and Nevada City and they all had trout in them because in those days
they put trout in the reservoirs to keep the water clean and so I found out one day that
somebody told me about fishing in the reservoir so I tried it and it gave me a habit there I
after catching a couple of fish right off I got lost after my sport so I'd get up before
before dawn even to get in there early fishing and uh so you put I think the trout was
limit was something something like 15 trout when I started but then it got down to five
five with limits or always caught the limit didn't take too long they had put the I could say
the trout in the on the reservoirs to keep the water clean and then later on somebody said there's
no more fish in the reservoirs they found that what happened they found that the chemicals
would keep the water clean and those who didn't need the trout there so so all the chemicals
were also killed off the trout so this is why the water change in I.

D.

change had underwater
pipes and had one in our uh big big place where the water kept clean so fishing was done here
so we had to go further on up lakes folding and down the lake or did a lot of fishing up there
in fact a lot of time up down the lake the water was so so rough I should even get on there
but we did have a lot of coconuts up down the lake real nice the biggest one I ever caught
was an eight and a half pounder uh some kind of a bass and so anyway we did a lot of fishing and I
was see what got married and we had other things to do how would you get around town how would you
get from your house you lived behind the public market correct and then you how would you get
up to the reservoirs to do your fishing well we had a pickup for the store we didn't have the
waste management at the time so we got to get rid of our garbage ourselves so we had a pickup
that was out of the load we'd take it to the dump and then we also had a fellow bill uh
they had chickens that's why they raised chickens and so he came to the store to pick up all our
uh produce that sort of clean clean up thing and all that and he also took our garbage we
put up by getting all that so we had somebody pick up our garbage and all that and uh
you see now in our house garbage I took out the store so I didn't have to have the garbage service
until the store closed and then we had to the new garbage for uh like now
how would you get supplies for the store would uh would it come in by uh truck from Sacramento
and what about the produce was that all locally grown yes uh they had a produce truck
factory produce truck that brought produce from the wholesale house in Sacramento
but then we we had our own truck our father had our own truck because we had our grocery store
there's a valley wholesale at the wholesale all the canned goods and candy and everything else
uh there was not not less not less than buying that from the wholesaler that delivered so we had
our own truck uh went down Sacramento twice a week picked up our produce and our groceries
would you deliver groceries yes we had the delivery service so we delivered also
people would call in or would they have a standing order and would they
a lot of times the old grocery stores had credit they ran tabs yes yes we had a
delivery service and uh people would come in by groceries and then
that's not too much to carry so we would leave it there perhaps they are addressed so we would
deliver it to form and then uh
just trying to think whether something would be delivered to deliver groceries and
oh there used to be a lot of apple trees that's why we had apple good apple orchards here in
grass valley uh that huge road there are all those houses used to be big apple orchards
and also by Lake Olympia there was apple orchards out there and Lake Olympia was a
recreation area people had their boats and canoes and swimming pool there and so anyway we had uh
did you ever dive off of that high dive out there at Lake Olympia
no i never did dive i uh was in the army i'm not much of a swimmer in the army there we went
they took us to this Bartmore hotel they let us swim in a nice swimming pool so i thought one
day well i'm going to dive in and see how how it is so i dive in feet first and i open my eyes i
did there's no movement i found myself standing underwater i didn't realize you had to move to
get back up ed can you e y rather can you tell us a few the stories of the local characters
near your house well we are our market our hills flat we live in the back of the store
and across the street from our market on the other side let's call the place called the Spanish Inn
and i was run by a man named Jasper and he made the best hamburgers in town at the time
as there's no uh no no burger king and all these things like that in those days
but he made good hamburgers they make a good spaghetti people brought in their pots and he
made a spaghetti a real good spaghetti as he would buy the meat and make the meat make the hamburgers
make uh all ground up by by himself he had a grinder there as usually a grinder you put
a piece of meat in the grinder and you have a piece of wood stomper to stomp the meat in that
the through the grind up the meat but Jasper he liked to push it in with his hand and you can tell
because one hand he had only two fingers left and the other hand he had a couple of tips the
fingers are gone so if you had a good part of spaghetti you might find a piece of finger in it
but he was quite a character he uh went back to Spain and brought back a he must be 50 years old
he brought back a bride she was only about 20 years old and so they they worked there for a while
then he sold out sold out and went through another town somewhere and the uh spanish
yen was bought by some people that made a bar out of it so people go in for a drink and have
hamburgers at the same time and at that time next door on the next door to our market the
helberg brothers opened the Ford garage so that took care of cars mechanic mechanical lubrication
and all that and uh there's anyway the two two brothers as of course spanish in across the street
had was a bar and seemed like the two boys that owned the Ford garage lacked their drinks so you
see one going over to get a drink and when they come back and the other one they'll go over get a
drink and if we turn the other one they'll back anyway the two helberg boys are good customers
for the franchise for their drinks can you tell us about this fellow named jasper across the street
from the market yes jasper he's the one that made the hamburger and so spaghetti he bought the piece
of property next door across the next door to our market and put a little building in there as he
had one car that he put on for sale he I think he must have sold about two and said he sold the
business but anyway by then the helberg brothers uh had all the car business there when we talked
earlier you had mentioned about the immigration into the grass valley area and you said it was
different groups would come in from different areas of the world yes uh
some mines were opening up at the time they were finding a little mine mine so melvin mine
mine came open which was not too far from our store the empower mines and quite a few
small mines there too
oh okay the people here were not too knowledgeable about mining and so they are
so there's some people came from england we call them the cousin jacks because they are
uh had mining tin well tin tin mining in england and so they brought in these miners from england
from london to work in the mines and they were that's why they call them cousin jacks because
they were cousins to the american people here and so they worked in the mines and they got the mines
going and then of course there was with all the cousin jacks come in the grass valley the
population started to grow and so we needed food here there's not too many good stores here for
food stores and so uh got a little grocery stores started opening up but a lot of chinese people
from china town saw the saw the opportunity so they some of them opened the other some
opened uh grocery stores here and there and of course out of missusco
oakland were booming at the time so a lot of a lot of these chinese people
moved while the while the china town and moved to san francisco and different places
we had uh migrants coming from england to work the mines we had the chinese that came in to kind
of assist and work in the grocery stores and produce and then what there was two other groups
that came in we needed the all the population was growing so we needed restaurants there as italians
are good restaurant people so there's so many restaurant people and so they had quite a few
italians come in open restaurants here so we had restaurants to travel to hotel that's right at
that hotel restaurant which they took care of and so needed the lumber to build the houses
as grass valley we just between we drove a different from kofak's highway there's all
nothing but trees so we had a lot of timber to be cut and so uh people were cutting the cutting
the timber and cut them making timber out of it to build houses but they were having quite a time
they were very expensive to cut the trees uh making roads to pull trees out out from the uh
forest and so the uh people in oklahoma and arkansas they did a lot of tree cutting over there so
they were pretty well knowledgeable in cutting trees so so somehow we got a lot of uh people
from oklahoma and arkansas came to cut forest cut the cut all the trees and open small lumber
yards and so we had and that's that's how uh b and c got started the father family is two
father boys and if mr father started uh uh there's a little small lumber yard and cut trees into
timber to build houses and then the two boys took over and that's how the b and c got started there
you were a young man you graduated from high school and where did your career go from there
after i got out of high school i went to saccabella junior college and of course the war was going on
after i got there as the kids were all and enlisting in the army so i graduated from there and i
thought well instead of going to work i'll probably be drafted anyway so i enlisted in the army and uh
it wasn't too long we got called called into the army and from the army uh when i got the army
i was sent to indianapolis indiana to finance school and uh and basic training because i had
all the business courses and so after i got through with the uh
after i got through with the army finance school uh i got sent on the ship with about three thousand
soldiers they're heading for we don't know where uh i thought maybe we might be heading for china
but then but then the ship was all by itself so we didn't have any battle ship to
to uh keep keep keep watching on enemy coming over so anyway we ended up in bomb bay india
and then just from india we took the train that took our train up the carachi and from there i
actually was supposed to go to china but i was put on temporary duty in the finance office in
a place called malare in india because there was a uh china air force training cab close by
and they would come in our finance office to exchange the indian money chinese money for indian
money so they have money to spend and so so instead of sending me to china i sat in india that that
office for my whole career well what do you do when you time off when anyway we play ball
play baseball play football and so one day when i played baseball that's when i got my
leg broken you got your leg broken yeah it's all running base i just felt well i guess they
thought he was a strong brute there instead of tapping base he put his shoulder into me and
rammed into me real hard i flew up in the air and i heard a big crack and well i couldn't get up
with my leg so that ended my working days for a while so you were in the army for four years
and from there you went to cal yes that's why i went to cal i had uh i had to see if i had
five semesters when i graduated from my senior college so i only took me three three semesters
to finish cal graduated from cal uh business course but you always wanted to come home to
grass valley yeah i also thought that we'll have to market there and a lot of things going on in
grass valley that's when the uh uh my wife Alice she was uh at Berkeley going to school also so we
met her there and we got together and so we stayed together for 65 years congratulations and three
children later yeah three children six grandchildren ed young or maybe i should say ey i want to thank
you very much for sharing your stories and your history and your memories of grass valley with
your family and with the people of nevada county and the nevada county historical society thank you
very much