Dad's Life Story

Dad's life story
an ongoing project
This "chapter" began as an interview about Dad's 1935 Plymouth and grew from there.
May 2004

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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.

Dad and his 1935 Plymouth
restored in 2002-'03

1920 Model T 'Center Door' Sedan similar to what Dad's parents had.

That fall Uncle Bill was trading off his 1935 Plymouth for a 1941 Dodge fluid drive. '41 was the first year that Dodge's had fluid drive (which referred to the fluid coupling between the engine and the clutch, and had nothing to do with the transmission). He traded their Plymouth into Oscar Fern who operated the Dodge-Plymouth garage in Almira. I put in all my harvest wages and mom made up the difference to buy the Plymouth from Fern for $325. Bill brought both cars to Spokane in October and we met at Sally's. Neither my mother nor dad could drive a shift gear so I drove it all around. Before that all we had were the old 1920 Model T truck and the 1922 Model T Center Door Sedan. Mom would drive the Sedan to school to pick me up and geez the kids would laugh at us.

Grandpa's 1920 Model T Truck which Dad restored in 2003-'04.

1935 Plymouth similar to Dad's

1941 Dodge Fluid Drive similar to Uncle Bill's.

I started Kinman Business School in September of '42 and drove the Plymouth everyday. I also drove it to my job at Northwest Supply and to church. Dad got sick in spring of '42 and I had to quit Northwest Supply after working there all winter, to take over the spring work. He had liver problems and was so dizzy he couldn't walk. He was out in yard working one day and got dizzy and couldn't make it back into the house. Mother had to go out and help him in. He was ill for the best part of a month.

In the Fall of '42 I worked at the YMCA from 4:00-6:00 PM doing their books and got $.50 an hour. Two nights a week I'd wait tables at the Elks Club. I worked from 7:00 PM to midnight for $.50 an hour plus tips. I never made less than $10 with tips, and on New Years Eve I made $28, which was a lot of money back then..

I thought I was in hog heaven making $.50 and hour because going to a show cost $.15, a hamburger was $.10, and a milkshake $.15. You could take a girl to a show and get popcorn and the works and have a heck of a nice evening for $2.00

1936 Ford V8

I taught mom how to drive the Plymouth before I went off to war. When I got back in the Spring of '46 mom didn't want to give it up so 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. I needed a car so that summer I bought a 1936 Ford V-8 with mechanical brakes. The brakes were terrible - one wheel would pull all the time - but it would go like crazy. There weren't many used cars available due to the war shortages so you couldn't hardly find a car. Not many were for sale so the '36 V-8 was the best I could get.

After leaving the service in the spring of '46 I began working in the cafeteria at the Naval Supply Depot out at the Industrial Park on Trent and Sullivan. Having been in the service, I was in the 52/20 club which meant I was eligible for 52 weeks of unemployment at $20 a week, but I only got one check. Naval Supply paid $175/month. The current manager had run it into debt. He had 52 people working in the cafeteria and was reluctant to fire anyone because they all needed the job. He decided to retire rather than let anyone go. I let people go until we were down to 17 employees. There wasn't enough business to keep any more. We got it back to making a few bucks in the one year I was manager. I kept all the young good looking girls. The only ladies I kept were my girlfriend's mother (pastry chef Maude Balch) and Tillie Thorson (man, she was a good cook). I only kept two men, the janitor and one man to do the dishes. That was a fun job. I tell you, I enjoyed that. (Colonel Melvin M.Smith commanded the Depot.)

I was dating a girl in Couer'd Alene and on two occasions the Ford broke down on the way home around midnight. I had to walk to the town of "State Line" and call Ray Saling. He'd come out and pick me up and we'd go get the Ford and he'd tow it back to Spokane and cuss me the entire way. The last time Saling told me to get a girl in Spokane or a new car. Ray was one of my high school pals and at the time I was keeping books for him at his business, Saling's Garage.

International TD6

While I was waiting for my turn to buy a new car, 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 orchard on it. In '49 or '50 Hugh Goldsmith pushed the trees out for

1948 Plymouth Deluxe Business Coupe

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.

My turn for a new car finally came in the spring of 1948 and I bought a blue Plymouth Deluxe Business Coupe from Lynn Bronson Motors in Dishman. When I had signed up in '46 they were $800-$900, but by the time my turn came around two years later it cost me $1500.

1950 Ford 8N

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.

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.

1959 Pontiac Catalina 4-door Sedan

Lyle married Trena in the summer of 1965. Their wedding was in Roseburg, Oregon where he worked as an accountant for Pacific Fruit. I was the best man. Son Bill was just a baby then, so it was around August of '65. We had the big 1959 Pontiac Catalina with the V-8 Interceptor engine and Jeanne, Diane, baby Bill and I drove there in a day. That car would really fly. Ray Johnson had put seatbelts in it for us because they didn't come standard. We thought that would be safer for Diane.

When my mom passed away in '69 we sold her house for $9,000 or $11,000 after renting it to Lyle and Trena for 2-3 months until they found a place. They had just come back from Alaska as Lyle had been working at Pacific Fruit's warehouse in Fairbanks or Anchorage.

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excerpts from http://www.crownwest.com/news/customerFirst.pdf

War Brings Activity and Renewed Growth – 1940s
With the fear of war looming, the U.S. government made the decision to build an aluminum plant in the Spokane Valley. The federal Government also recognized the need for warehouse space and facilities to support the coastal naval activities during wartime. In 1942, the Spokane Valley was chosen as a site for one of these Inland Supply Depots.

Almost overnight unemployment disappeared and a labor shortage began in the Spokane Valley as hundreds of workers immediately began working on the aluminum plant and the Naval Supply Depot. Begun in 1941, the Trentwood Aluminum Rolling Mill opened in 1942 with 450 employees. By May 1944, the $12 million supply depot included twelve general storehouses, five heavy material storehouses and outside storage for approximately 3,000 railroad carloads.

The war years were a boom time as new people arrived to work in both the aluminum mill and the Naval Supply Depot. Valley residents cleaned out old houses, barns and even chicken coops to use as rentals to house the newcomers. Businesses and the community thrived despite wartime shortages and rationing.

In 1948, with the war over, the Valley was growing rapidly and looking forward to a bright future. Valley industries were impressive - an aluminum rolling mill, cement plant, paper mill, brick and lime plant, trailer fabricating plants, match block factories, seed plants, canning factories, a Naval Supply Depot besides dozens of smaller industries and businesses.