Henry Lloyd "Hank" Phillips
May 2004

 
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Farming
 
My first harvest was working with my Uncle Bill on his Almira farm in 1940. I had my drivers license so I drove truck and did the chores. Breakfast was at 5:30, and then I did the milking and fed the calves while he got the machine ready. They didn't have sealed bearings back then and there were a million places to grease. I was in the truck by 7:00. We'd take an hour off at noon for supper and then go until 7:00 at night. After dinner I did the evening milking. I was paid $1.00 a day plus room and board.
McCormick-Deering Harvester-Thresher
(hopefully this is similar to Uncle Bill's)

Uncle Bill only hired help for harvest which required 3 people; the truck driver, the "cat-skinner" (driving the caterpillar that pulled the combine - self-propelled combines weren't around until the 1950s), and the combine operator. Uncle Bill "punched header" (operated the combine). "Punching header" entailed raising/lowering the combine header to keep the it off the ground and out of the dirt, but make sure it was low enough to collect all the grain. There was a big wheel to turn to raise/lower it. Heavy weights counterbalanced the header so it raised easily, almost like it was raised and lowered by hydraulic power.

D4 Caterpillar
In the fall of '41 I worked harvest with Uncle Bill again as a catskinner. I had trouble staying awake on the cat. I would get so terribly sleepy with the hum of the engines all day long combined with the hot weather and the chaff. Both the combine and the D4 cat had loud engines that would lull me to sleep. Uncle Bill hooked up a rope to a bell on the cab right by my ear, and if I'd go to sleep and he'd ring that bell. He'd jiggle that rope if my head nodded at all and man I'd be awake.

He set up a 50-gallon barrel and filled it with water each morning and the sun would heat it. At lunch we'd all take a warm shower to get the chaff off - it would get inside your clothes and really itched. We took an hour for supper at noon.

I did that for 18 days in '41 and earned $3/day plus board and room. Uncle Bill had a crazy tradition. He'd buy a new straw hat each year for harvest. It would get beat up, dirty and greasy. He'd toss the hat into the combine with the last of the grain to signal the end of harvest.
 
International TD6
When I got back from the Service in the Spring of '46 I signed up to buy a new car with the money I had saved in the Army. Due to the war, not enough cars were available so you had to sign up and wait your turn. While I was waiting Dad told me to use money to buy the 20 acre Nelson place for $400. It was next to Bollman's where Claypool's later built their house. I also bought the Guidotty place, which was 10 acres on 44th where we later built our house. I paid $700 for that because it had a big 7 acre apple orchard on it. In '49 or '50 Hugh Goldsmith pushed the trees out for
International TD6
me with his International TD-6 bulldozer. I cut them up and burnt them in the stove for heat. Apples were a hard road to go and they didn't produce as well here as in Wenatchee. I didn't want to mess with them so I just tore them out. Later I sold an acre from the NE corner to Terry Erickson. I couldn't farm it because it was all brush.

Dad had a small stroke at lunch one day in 1946. He got dizzy and sat in the chair for a couple of hours before returning to work. There was hay on the field and CB Evans and Roy Betlach came and helped me haul hay into the barn that year. That was the summer it was so damn dry. I tried to plow on Memorial Day but it was too dry - the ground was hard like a rock. It hadn't rained all spring and didn't rain all summer. It rained the 15th of September and Leo Bollman and I plowed day and night with that little 1946 Ford 8N to get the crops in. Dad passed away a few years later in June of 1949.

1950 Ford 8N

The next year (1950) we had a pretty good harvest because it was all fall wheat. Paul McElroy harvested for me with one of the first self-propelled combines. I was working at Brown Trailers so I didn't have time to do it. Wheat was $2.00 a bushel. We probably paid him about $20/acre to harvest it. We had 40-50 acres of 20 bushel wheat. Dad didn't fertilize or anything. Later in '51 when I took over the farming I sprayed weeds and fertilized and eventually got as much as 80 bushels an acre.

I bought the store in the spring of '50 looking to get some cash income. Molly and I lived in the house attached to the store and mom lived at the farm house. Molly ran the store for about a year and a half until she had Elizabeth in June '51. We decided that it would be better if I didn't have to drive at 5:00 in the morning to do the milking so mom moved to the store in '52, and Molly and I moved to the farm house. Mom ran the store and averaged around $5000/year take-home. Back then teachers only averaged $3000 so it was a good deal.

We built the new store in '58 or '59 and bought the house behind. It was a comfortable nice little house with oil heat and a carport. Mom really enjoyed it. It was a neat little house. We bought it for $2000 and put a basement under it.

Molly moved out in October of '59 and Lyle "Sandy" Saunders and I batched at the farmhouse for about 3 years and did all the work.

When I married Jeanne in September of '63 we rented on a house on 16th. The hired man (Joe) and wife lived in farmhouse. Although I was paying Joe, I ended up doing most of the milking. Joe would start at 6:00 or 7:00 AM instead of 4:00 AM like I wanted him to.. Subsequently, I was doing the morning milking. In addition, Joe would break in the middle of milking to go in the house and have coffee. I always had my coffee in the barn while milking. So in 1965 I fired him and cleaned up the farmhouse for Jeanne and I to live in.

Emma Martin (Both sides of Hwy 27 just North of the Palouse Hwy)
I wanted to pay Emma a third but she was too smart and wanted cash rent. We agreed on $1200 per year. She raised the rent to $1500 before I had even gotten into the field. Emma's husband was a very poor farmer who did not believe in fertilizer or herbicide. We reaped $20,000 in crop and Emma felt cheated. Hugh Goldsmith, Emma's estranged brother, said he wouldn't have paid her a dime more than the agreed upon amount. I felt a bit sorry for her so I paid the extra $300. The following years we paid $2000 and $3500 in rent.

In 1976 Emma Martin wanted her stepson to farm her 160 acres. The Sheards, whose land bordered Emma's on the West, were subdividing their 400 acres. Suddenly having so much less land to farm, Jeanne and I went into real estate. Mom earned $17-18,000 year. While still farming other land, I earned between $10-12,000

Mom went into real estate so she would have a way to support the family in case something happened to me. I went in real estate because of the Emma situation and because of my health (asthma). I was in the hospital 4 times in '76 because of asthma. Ventolin allowed me to return to full time farming in 1980. I farmed the Jarvis, Pearsron, Parkinson (since '57), and Linke ranches. Our lifetime lease with Fred Parkinson started in 1957 when I agreed to buy his cows if I got to farm his land in return

Emma's step son wasn't a serious farmer and couldn't make a go of it so we got the lease back in 1980. Plus, Emma figured out she was better off with us because he didn't paher any rent. This time we agreed to 25%. We farmed the land for 5 or 6 years and then gave the lease to Doug Goldsmith, Emma's nephew.
(When did dad start farming Emma's?)
Rathdrum Farm (Hwy 53 (East Trent), 25 miles NE of the farm)
In 1965 we traded Phillips' Corner Grocery for the Rathdrum farm. We logged it 2 or 3 times and reaped several harvests of oats and wheat from it. These crops more than paid for it. We sold the land in different parts starting in 1974. The total price was $250,000 at 4% interest. The $1000/month payments were very helpful. I was very happy that the land cost him approximately $100/acre and he sold it for $1000 to $3000/acre.

John:
"I remember the annual trek to Rathdrum for a Christmas tree. I vividly remember being light enough to walk on top crust of the snow while dad was up to his neck. I remember walking next to him with his head below my knees. This doesn't seem possible, maybe I just remember a time when dad fell or something.

One time we were on the hill across from the house when we ran into another Christmas tree hunter who insisted that we were on his property. Dad was friendly while trying to convince the gentleman that he was mistaken. I think this was the time I had to hike all the way down to the house (to ask the people who lived there about the property lines.

One summer I was chased by a goose that was as big as I was. I remember running and hiding behind dad's leg as he laughed.

Flagging for the combines on the way to Rathdrum seemed to take forever.

The farm was well above the highway in a valley. The road up to the valley was steep and had a very sharp turn. Dad used to always tell us about the time he and Delbert Carston (?) slid off the road when it was icy. They hit a tree and the engine ended up on the seat between them. Dad held onto the back of the car's bench seat so tight that he bent its frame."
Diamond Lake (8 miles before Newport on Hwy 2, 43 miles North of the farm)
In 1969 we bought the Diamond Lake farm for $65,000. It was nice grazing land but too far to take the cows so we sold it in 1972 for $125,000..

John:
"A stream that emptied into the lake ran through the property. We always spent one day a summer fishing in that creek with the Johnsons. In several trips I only remember 1 fish ever being caught. I do remember Kurt climbing the tree branches out over the creek and Aunt Vivian yelling at him to be careful."
Plummer (35 miles South of Couer D'Alene on Hwy 95, 35 miles SE of the farm)
We bought the Plummer land in 1978 for $60,000. I really wanted to buy George McPherson's Dairy but figured the $200,000 price was too much. It was a big farm with lots of land just North of Rockford.

John:
"I remember going out and looking at all the McPherson Dairy with dad. I think he knew about it because he listed it through Lemley Realty."

We originally bought the land for the purpose of grazing cattle which we did do a few times. The problem with having cattle at Plummer was when they got out they didn't come back. The rumor was that "Ol' Rattle Snake Joe" sold more locker beef than anyone in the area, but never owned a single cow. All in all, we only lost 2 cows.

The land was profitable for logging though. We sold $7,000 to $8,000 in logs off the land 2 or 3 times. In 1992 we yielded $17,000 in logs. In between we rented it out to a pea farmer for $1,800 year.
We finally sold the Plummer land in 1994 for $150,000 at 8% interest.

John:
"I remember going to Plummer (via CDA) in the cattle trucks a few times. It seemed like Plummer was a million miles away. I couldn't believe it when I drove through Plummer on the way to Spokane from Pullman. From what I remember, Plummer was much farther away from Spokane than Pullman. I also remember dad laughing while complaining about Indians getting his cows."
 
 
 
 
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