As I Remember, Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

      About the next thing we did, was to lock up the old house and take a trip to Canada. We took Barrett Dick along with us. A very good friend of mine. As kids, we had gone to school together. We were gone a couple of weeks and had a wonderful time. When we returned, I got busy. We made great plans.

      Down the road about a mile, was an eighty acre plot of land that could be bought by paying up the back taxes. Most of it was still in brush and there were no buildings. We bought the place. Like the place we were living, a drain ditch ran through it. Unlike the one where we were living, there was no pipe. It was all open and ran lots of water. Just south of where the ditch crossed the road, we built a new house, drilled a well, built a barn and a chicken coop and moved in. I will never forget all the raised eyebrows among all the neighbors. The big question was; Where in hell did he get all his money! And I guess right up until this day, they never found out.

      After we moved in, I bought ten head of milk cows. I think I paid an average price of thirty dollars each. Also, I bought a cream separator. There were no rural electric lines at this time. But I fixed that. I put a water wheel in the drain ditch, attached it to a six volt car generator, backed up by a couple of storage batteries, and we had electric lights all over the place. Plus enough to run our radio. We were sitting pretty.

      Then along come little Gertrude. She was so tiny and frail that we weren’t sure she was going to make it. But she did. And not only did she survive, but turned into one of the prettiest girls that ever lived. Also the sweetest. Then along come Bill. A big ten pound boy. And I was proud. He had a chest on him that looked like a full grown man. Many a time I proudly displayed his magnificent form.

      We were now in the worst times of the big depression. But I was never out of a job. In the summer times, I irrigated the Obermeyer orchards. Either that or run a spray rig for the J.C. Pulambo Fruit Co. I got a job with F.H. Hogue, which took care of the winters. I run the night shift for his big apple drier in New Plymouth. I could write a book on what happened during this period, but will go on to the next step.

      We now had a new president. Franklin D. Roosevelt. He tried to put people back to work. The P.W.A. was formed. Many projects were going on. Men standing around with shovels in their hands, doing nothing. There was some relief. I have often thought, maybe I did break the law a bit when I made that big batch of moonshine, but I never went on any form of relief and my family never went hungry.