Vern’s Stories: The Heritage of Glenn and Roberta Harris
From the day they met and fell in love, their life story is a beautiful love story. They were completely devoted to each other and were never far apart.
They were separated for a time but now they are together again in a realm that defies description.
It seems our God doesn't want us to know too much about heaven at this time. The Apostle Paul tells of a man that was caught up to the third heaven, that saw things that it was unlawful to reveal, 1 Corinthians 12:2. However, other places in the Bible, it seems to indicate we can draw the curtain back just a wee bit and peek in.
Saul was a very religious man and a man with great energy and courage; he felt that this "Jesus Sect" was a heresy that was trying to destroy his Jewish religion. He was determined to stamp it out with all his strength and energy.
On the road to Damascus as Saul was struck down by a great light, he heard a voice say, "Why do you persecute me?" and Saul ask, "Who are you, Lord?" And the Lord answered, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting." Acts 9:5 From that day on Saul became Paul and with that great revelation that Jesus was indeed "Lord," Paul turned all his great energy and dedication to serving Jesus and declaring Him to the nations, even at great cost. II Corinthians 11 :23: In prison often, beaten with rods, stoned and left for dead, beaten with 40 stripes, save one, shipwrecked and in peril from his countrymen.
Paul, unlike the other apostles, never walked with Jesus on the shores of Galilee, was not with Him when He healed the sick and raised the dead to life. But he received such a powerful infilling ofthe Holy Spirit on the road to Damascus that he had a great spiritual understanding that he could call the other disciples to task. He had great prophetic utterances that showed God was revealing to him the great secrets of the universe.
In Philippians 1:23, Paul said that he was in a trait between two things: "I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better but there is a need here." I am sure with his prophetic mind, he is seeing the beauty and fellowship in heaven that is not revealed here.
Can't you just hear Glenn saying, as Roberta enters the heavenly realm, “Berta, where have you been? I have been waiting for you!" This couple whose love was so deep and pure, are together again, along with Dwight and Marilyn whose tragic accident is now turned into a great victory as they all rejoice together with Jesus smiling nearby.
Glenn and Roberta could sing this song at the tender age of about ten years old:
"Oh, what a wonderful, wonderful day, day I will never forget;
After I'd wandered in darkness away, Jesus my Savior I met.
Oh, what a tender, compassionate friend, He met the needs of my heart;
Shadows dispelling, with joy I am telling, He made all the darkness depart!
Born of the Spirit with life from above, into God's family divine,
Justified fully through Calvary's love, O what a standing is mine.
And the transaction so quickly was made, when as a sinner I came;
Took of the offer of grace He did proffer, He saved me, O praise His dear Name!
Heaven came down and glory filled my soul.
When at the cross the Savior made me whole.
My sins were washed away, and my night was turned to day.
Heaven came down and glory filled my soul!"
By John W. Peterson
I remember Glenn was a cute little guy. When he was in the 3rd grade, all at once he seemed to take great pride in his appearance. He had a little white shirt with a blue bow tie. His black shoes had to be polished to a beautiful shine. His hair had to be parted just so. He went off to school looking like the perfect little gentleman. We all wondered: what's with this little guy? He never seemed to care that much about his appearance before. Well, it seems he had a pretty little girl friend. It lasted for a season, then Glenn was transferred to a different school and all was forgotten.
Glenn loved his mother very dearly and if he had some spare change, he would buy her little gifts, maybe a cup and a saucer. Even though they were small, I am sure Mama appreciated that and felt honored that her little boy was thinking about her. All through life, Glenn was always doing nice things for his mother.
When Glenn was twelve he had a paper route. Riding down the street on his bicycle, he delivered the paper to his different customers as he rode along. At the end of the month, he had to collect for the paper. It was 75 cents and you won't believe how hard it was to collect that 75 cents in those days. This one customer seemed to be especially vexing. She would not answer the door bell, like she wasn’t home. Ralph used to ride along with Glenn as he was collecting for the paper. They were sure this woman was home because they would hear some rustling around when they first rang the bell, then all would be quiet. Well, one day Ralph happened to be standing in the driveway as Glenn rang the door bell. He saw this woman come out the back door and run across to the neighbors'. Glenn and Ralph got their heads together and said, "We will fix her the next time we call." The next day they came back. Ralph went to the back door. Glenn went to the front door and rang the bell. Wow, this woman came charging out the back door, collided with Ralph and almost bowled him over. When they both recovered and had their wits about them, Ralph says, "Mam, we are here from the paper to collect for your subscription." She says, "Oh yes, I will go in and get the money." Problem solved; for 75 cents, can you imagine?
We lived on Ashland Avenue in Santa Monica. We were near Clover Field; it was about five blocks from our house. Glenn, Ralph and I just loved Clover Field; every chance we got we would be there. There was so much activity that was interesting. It was after World War I and many movies were made there about the war. "Wings" and other movies that were awesome to us boys. Week ends were filled with more activities than during the week; parachute jumps, wing walking, changing from one plane to another were all on the agenda to attract crowds of people. After the war, all the war planes were surplus and sold real cheap. Many pilots had bought these little jewels and would come up on week ends and put them through their paces. There were Spades Fokkers Sopewith Camels with rotary engines. The whole engine revolved and they put out a lot of white smoke that smelled like castor oil. They would fly off into the sky and go through different maneuvers, loop the loop, tails spins, rolls and dives.
This one pilot had a program that was different than all the rest. He would take up with him a roll of toilet paper. When he got up to say 10,000 or 11,000 feet, he would lean over the side of the cockpit with the roll of toilet paper, hold on the end of it and let it unroll down through the sky. When it was unrolled, it would be a long white streamer floating toward the earth. He would then bank his plane and see how many times he could cut it in two before it hit the ground. There is this young man with a bright red convertible, sitting in his car watching the activities with his girl friend. All at once they are covered up with huge gobs of toilet paper. He jumps out of the car, embarrassed and mad, yanking and pulling, trying to get all this toilet paper off that is wrapped around his car. He seemed mystified where all this toilet paper came from.
It is now 1929, the stock market has crashed and we are in the Great Depression, the worst ever known to man. Banks are failing, people are losing all their money they had in the bank. Old reliable companies are going bankrupt. People that were rich one day are broke the next day. They are jumping out of windows in high buildings. The saying goes: Men that were presidents of the boards in large corporations are now on the street corners, selling apples.
We had a nice comfortable home on Ashland Avenue, a nice big living room, hardwood floors, large fireplace, dining room with hardwood floors and built-in cabinets, large kitchen, gas stove, running hot and cold water, all the amenities of the day. This was before the days of mechanical refrigerators. It had what was called a cooler; it was a built-in cabinet that had wire mesh shelves. The bottom of this cabinet was open all the way to the underside of the house and the top had a stack that went through the roof. The stack drew the cool air from under the house through the wire mesh shelves and discharged it outside above the roof. We had three bedrooms and a bath, a wash room and back porch.
Eventually we lost our home during the depression because the folks couldn't make the mortgage payments. The mortgage payment was $35.00 a month. It seems like a pittance now but back then it was a lot of money when you didn't have any and you had to put bread on the table for seven people. They tried to sell it but no one had any money.
Genevieve and I were down there a few years back, taking pictures of the house and there was this house a couple of doors down that was for sale for one million dollars. It didn't look like anything special. Now that the housing slump is on, I suppose they might take $750,000 for it.
When Glenn moved to the desert in 1929 with our family, his home was a homestead shack about 18 by 20 feet, about the size of a double garage. It was of wood stud construction, 2x4's on 16 inch centers with black tar paper nailed on the studs and clap board siding nailed over that. Inside there was just the studs and the black tar paper showing. I think Glenn's home probably had less amenities than Abraham Lincoln's proverbial log cabin; at least it probably had a fireplace and the logs are a fair amount of insulation. In the home Glenn was raised in, if you left a wash pan on the table full of water during a winter night, it would be frozen solid all the way to the bottom of the pan. When you got up in the morning it felt like there was nothing between you and the North Pole but a barb wire fence.
Roberta's family was a family of the depression area also. Robert Steward took a job he found at the Yellow Aster Gold Mine in Randsburg, California. It was hard and dangerous work and off the beaten path in a wild and wooly town in the great Mojave desert, but work was hard to find in those depression days so he was happy to have a job.
Randsburg was a wide open town and even though it was prohibition times, whisky flowed freely in Randsburg. It was almost like a western movie, drunks, fights and mayhem were everywhere. Broadie houses and saloons were everywhere.
These beautiful young Steward girls were not dismayed by what they saw as they moved into Randsburg. They decided to set up an outpost in the devil's back yard, planting a Foursquare Church right in the middle of town. Leita Mae went to work for the Southern Sierra Electric Power Company to help supplement the family income. Roberta went to work for the local Chevrolet Agency to help out. I'm not sure what Lorraine did but I imagine she was working someplace. These brave young Steward girls found a building right in the middle of town they could rent. They put up a sign: Randsburg Foursquare Church, with a cross on the top of the building. What a testimony to the community. They soon had a nice group of young people. How wonderful that these young people surrounded by sin and lust and debauchery on every side, could learn about the love ofJesus.
I don't know if the Foursquare Headquarters sent them out a preacher right away or not. I know that later they did. Leita Mae was a very good preacher in her youth; maybe she filled in until headquarters sent one out. At any rate they were going forward. They had a ball team and took some of their youth to the Foursquare Crusader Camp at Radford Summer Camp. When Harold Chalfant, head of the Crusader Department, came to Randsburg one time to talk to the Crusaders, he was so impressed with how hot it was on the Mojave Desert, that he said, "Coming into town I saw a coyote chasing a jack rabbit and it was so hot they were both walking."
Meanwhile back at the Ranch, Glenn who loves his Mama dearly is concerned because his Mama has to work so hard to keep a family of seven in clean clothes. We had a nice square-tub Maytag washer with an electric motor which was useless as there wasn't any electricity within 20 miles of our place. Glenn, with his resourcefulness found a gas engine that would fit under the washer. He turned the washing machine upside down, took the electric motor off somehow, then with gears, pulleys or belts, connected this engine to the washing machine and "Viola!" it worked. Now his dear Mama could wash and ring the water out, without leaning over a washboard.
Daddy has moved our house to higher ground from the salt flats where it was originally built. We are now in the process of digging a well by hand, down 35 feet to water. Daddy has made a windlass out of a telephone pole with crank, rope and bucket to hoist the dirt out as we dig. One man is at the bottom digging, two are on top, one turning the windlass, pulling the bucket up, the other emptying the bucket, and we alternate at the different jobs. After several weeks of hard work we finally hit water at about 30 feet. We dig on down another 5 feet into the water to have a good supply for our windmill we are going to install. After installing the windmill and tank and running a pipeline to the house, we have running water in the house. Glenn is going to high school and will graduate in June 1934.
Our little homestead cabin's complexion has changed considerable over the years as we have added two bedrooms in the back, a bathroom, kitchen, dining room on the north side of the original cabin and an upstairs bedroom plus a front porch and a back porch.
We met the Steward Family through mutual friends, the Niemeyers who had moved from Muroc to Johannesburg. These friends told the Stewards that the Harris family was a Foursquare family living on the desert near the Muroc Dry Lake. The Stewards came down looking for us. They found us and we became good friends and visited back and forth over the years.
After Glenn graduated from high school, he went to Los Angeles and enrolled the Frank Wiggins Trade School. He took classes in sign painting. He stayed with his Uncle Bert and Aunt Emma and worked for his Uncle Bert, moving houses to pay his board and room.
After he graduated he came back to the desert and went to work for the Pacific Coast Borax Company. With his painting knowledge he was put in the painting department with Lee Golden. They cleaned and painted machinery and structures. Their crowning achievement was painting the new water tower the company had bought and erected on the property. It was a huge thing, big and round and over a hundred feet tall. How they managed I do not know. They must have used a bosun chair swung over the side.
Glenn and Roberta are now dating and Glenn is running the wheels off of his 1936 Terraplane, keeping the road hot between Boron and Randsburg.
I remember one time we were in Victorville. We were going to a youth rally at the Lancaster Foursquare Church. We both left at the same time. I had a 1936 Pontiac; Glenn had his 1936 Terraplane. It was fast; it had a flathead, 6-rated at 101 H.P. It doesn't sound like much now but that is when most cars had V8's rated at about 85 H.P. Anyway, we both left at the same time. I went straight to Lancaster, about fifty miles. I drove at a normal speed. Low and behold, when we got to Lancaster, Glenn and Roberta were already there. Glenn had traveled over 120 miles and got to Lancaster before us traveling 50 miles. I guess he took the plane in his car's name literally; he was flying low.
On September 14, 1940 Glenn and Roberta were married with a beautiful church wedding in Johannesburg, California (where the church had moved.) Ralph was the best man, Leita Mae Steward was Maid of Honor. After the reception at the Steward's home, Ralph and Leita Mae were acting as decoys to help Glenn and Roberta get away, when in the dark, Leita Mae ran into the clothes line and almost decapitated herself.
Glenn and Roberta rented a house and moved to Boron. Glenn and I both had lots in the Roberts tract in Boron. I had built on the back of the lot, hoping to build a nice big adobe-block house on the front of the lot. Glenn bought a house from Charles Roycroft and moved it onto the back of his lot with the same idea to build a big adobe-block house on the front of the lot. Before moving into the house Glenn added on a nice large bedroom with a walk-in closet, a linen closet in the hallway and a bathroom, with Vernon helping him with the plaster work. Glenn had already built a large cement basement with cement steps going to the top on the front of the lot. They had just come out with a new idea to stabilize the earth in the adobe bricks so water wouldn't wash them away. This was done by adding emulsified asphalt to the mud as it was mixed. We had beautiful pictures of these big ranch-type homes built with stabilized adobe bricks. We were sold on these adobe houses, the thick walls were fireproof and gave good insulation for heat and cold. We started getting the materials together. We made a mixer taking a 4-cylinder Chevy motor and frame. We bought a large 12" conveyor screw from the mine and connected it to the motor; it was in the bottom of a large hopper where the mud was mixed. It worked beautifully; when the mud was mixed the screw would push it out into a wheelbarrow. We bought 500 gallons of emulsified asphalt and we were in business. We were turning out blocks at a good rate and were getting quite a large pile.
Glenn and Lee Golden were very close and good friends. Lee had taken a job at the San Bernardino Army Airbase and persuaded Glenn that it was a rare opportunity to get ahead. Glenn quit his job at the mine and went to work for the United States Army Air Corps in San Bernardino.
Robert and Marie Steward were making some decisions also. Roberta had jumped out of the nest; Leita Mae had been transferred by the Power Company to Victorville and Lorraine had been transferred by the Telephone Company to Bishop. Only Claudia was left at home. They ended up buying a farm in Highland, California where they raised boysenberries. When Glenn went to work in San Bernardino, he and Roberta and Melvin lived with the Stewards for awhile. When they lived in Boron, there was great rejoicing when their son Melvin Lawrence Harris was born on May 30, 1941. Later Glenn and Roberta bought a new 2-bedroom house in Redlands, California. It cost them all of $3,500.00. Can you imagine that in this day and age?
In the meantime, Cecil Debord, Genevieve's husband, was drafted into the Army Air Corps. A few months later, their house which was rented out, was burned down in a fire. Glenn and Roberta wrote to them in Amarillo and asked if they would like to buy their house. They had the insurance money from the fire so they said, "Yes." After the war was over, Cecil had the house on the back of the lot moved to the front of the lot, over the basement and then he added on a larger kitchen and two more bedrooms and a back porch.
Glenn was a crew chief on planes under his jurisdiction. When a plane was repaired and ready to fly, a pilot would take it up and wring it out, putting it through different maneuvers to see how it performed. I don't think Glenn had to, but being the crew chief, he could go along. Which I think he quite often did as he loved to fly. He was telling me that this one time he went up with this pilot and he put it through such violent maneuvers that Glenn got violently sick and was leaning out the side of the cockpit, vomiting all over the side of the plane. Glenn contributed several inventions to the Air Corps. One was an invention to get screws started that were in very difficult places to reach. It consisted of a screw holder with a drum attached with threads on the drum. When the screw was placed in the hole and the cord was pulled, it rotated the screw into the hole. The other invention was something that had some connection to the landing wheels and tires.
While they lived in Redlands, on May 13, 1944, a blessed event was celebrated with glad rejoicing when Roberta gave birth to their first daughter, Marilyn Lorraine Harris. Before the war ended, Glenn was inducted into the Air Corps Transport Service. He was sent to Mississippi, then to Massachusetts and then to Vallejo, California, north and east of San Francisco. Roberta and the children were with him. About a year after the war was over, he was honorably discharged.
Getting back to Boron, when Glenn left, the dream houses faded away like a frost hit by the morning sun. It was really a two-man operation but I could have gone on alone, but I think by this time, I was more interested in the farm in Oro Grande and building there. I took the blocks we had made and made a wall around our front yard in Boron where we had a tree and lawn. Several years later I was gratified to see that the blocks had gone through several winters of rain and snow without any deterioration. They were just as strong and whole as the day they were put up, showing we had the right formula to have built strong houses.
After the war, Ralph came home from Italy and went to work for the Victor Cement Company. He had been in the trucking business before he was drafted into the service. Now he was working to get some capital ahead so he could get back in the trucking business.
Somewhere along the line, Ralph and Glenn got their heads together and decided to go into the trucking business together as equal partners, calling their company the Harris Transportation Company. They were both ex-G.I.'s so under the bill of rights, they had government loan possibilities. Whether they used them I know not.
Glenn and Ralph bought two K11 International tractors and two sets of double trailers. In other words, each tractor was pulling two trailers behind it, which gave them the capacity to haul around 28 tons legally. Later they added a K10 and a semi-trailer to the fleet. Now they would need to hire a driver. I believe Bud Blount was their first driver.
I think one ofthe things that contributed to the success of Harris Transportation Company was that from the very beginning, their concept was that besides making money to support their families, they wanted to make money to support world evangelism through missions. Which they did in a big way. One program they came up with was called "Missionary Assist Program." This program, worked through the Foursquare Missionary Department, sent fine Christian young people, both boys and girls, to the mission field to help over-worked missionaries. This program was a huge success; around 50 fine young people were sent to the mission fields all over the world. Ilene Shrimplin became the very first missionary assist. Some of these young people were so impressed with the importance of the missionary work, they came back from the field, went to school and became full-fledged missionaries. Jackie Coppens was one of these.
In 1960 Glenn and Ralph bought two K12 Internationals. They took the gasoline engines out and put a Jimmy diesel in one and a Buda diesel in the other. Now they are beginning to have a fleet; now they need more drivers. I believe Sid and Art Holquist and Don Enlow were some of their early drivers.
I don't know if they had an agreement to this end, but it seemed to work this way: Ralph always drove and Glenn seemed to be in charge of maintenance, in other words, keeping the fleet running. West of Ralph and Florence's house on Verde Street, there was a large vacant lot. They had made a big circle on this lot to park the trucks on. In the evening, the trucks were loaded and parked in the circle, according to when they were leaving in the morning. Say, if one was going to Santa Barbara with a 9 o'clock delivery time, they would figure how many hours it took to get there, so maybe it would be first in line because it would have to leave at 3 A.M. Maybe the next truck had an 11 A.M. delivery in San Diego; it would have to leave at 4 A.M., so it would be second in line. Maybe the third had to go out at 5 A.M. and the next one at 6 A.M., etc.
When these trucks would come in the day before, the driver would usually have something to report that needed fixing, like maybe the brakes needed adjusting, maybe the tail lights were out or the clutch needed adjusting. Glenn would come on the scene in the afternoon and would be working all night on these trucks. He would start on the first truck that was going out, then he would go to the second truck. If this truck had something wrong that was difficult, maybe he would just get it done before the driver got there and he would have to say, "I'm almost done; it will be just a minute longer." This went on all night long; perhaps as the sun was creeping over the mountain, he would finish the last truck and head for home. You could see he was so tired and was going home to breakfast and some much needed rest. About the time he finishes breakfast, the phone rings. Old number five is in Bakersfield; a blade has broken off the fan and has gone through the radiator. Please bring a fan and radiator, I'll be waiting. Glenn goes back to the shop, throws a fan and radiator in the pickup and is off to Bakersfield. The above is a hypothetical scenario but things just like this are happening every day of the week. Glenn is trying so hard to hold up his part of the bargain.
Later on, when they have a few more employees, he will be able to slow down a little, but you know Glenn, not much.
The females that worked for Harris Transportation Company over the years were very important, as the ladies relieved the men of the paper work so they could do other important things. Roberta worked in the office in the early days of the company, taking care of the paper work. Florence took care of the petty cash from her home. It wasn't so petty if you were going on a long trip, say to San Francisco or Grants Pass, Oregon. For a load of lumber you might need five or six hundred dollars for fuel or other things and on return you would give an accounting. In the early years of the company, different ladies worked in the office; my daughter Joy worked there for a time before she moved to Indiana. Ilene Shrimplin (Woods now) worked in the office for several years. Seems to me Bob Tracy took over the paper work for a time before he went as a missionary to Australia. As the company grew to gigantic proportions, over 120 employees and over 50 some rigs on the road, the Harris Transportation office had taken over one of their big buildings on Palmdale Road, with a whole battery of ladies, with Lois Ratliff as office manager and husband, Bo, dispatching in the truck office.
At this point in time, Ralph and Glenn seemed to have different ideas as to the future the company should take. I make these statements, not being in the company any more. Long ago before the company got so big I had left the company and gone back to my old trade as electrician with the Riverside Cement Company. So what I am saying here is not first-hand information but what I have gleaned from talking to people in the company and family members.
It seems Glenn felt the company was big enough and wanted to give Harold and Melvin (who were at that time both working for the company) some of the action by giving them an interest in the company and letting them take some responsibilities that in time would lead to them taking over the management of the company as Glenn and Ralph retired.
It seems Ralph had other ideas; he wanted to keep getting bigger and wanted to keep complete control of the company. I think Glenn felt he had no alternative but to leave the partnership and go it alone. They were equal partners so the assets would be divided half and half, both money, property and equipment. Well, the rest is history as most of you know that are reading this story. Glenn bowed out of Harris Transportation Company and right away began looking for a small family business he could buy. He went to the bay area around San Francisco and he inquired around Seattle, Washington. About this time Marilyn called her daddy. She said, "Daddy, I think while you are looking around you should come to Ada and see what we have to offer." Glenn did his daughter's bidding and traveled to Ada, Oklahoma. Well, low and behold, what do you know, he found a business for sale. It was a rental equipment business. The man that owned it was getting old and wanted to retire. He had some grown boys but they were not interested in the business, so he decided to sell. It was just what Glenn was looking for. It just seemed perfect for a family business. With Glenn's business acumen and with Melvin and wife Charlotte and son Larry's support, it proved to be a great success story.
With all of Glenn's business and financial success in Ada, buying land and businesses, I believe he and Roberta were more concerned about their families welfare and well being than anything else.
His beautiful dream home in a country-club-like setting, with trees and lawns, is a monument to his ability to have a vision and roll up his sleeves and carry it out.
When Melvin and Charlotte are resting at night in their comfortable master bedroom, I can assure you there is no Oklahoma storm no matter how violent that can penetrate that mass of concrete and steel overhead. Sweet dreams, O.K.?
For a young man that lived in a desert homestead shack, and a young lady that endured the rigors of living in a wild west town in the desert, they have through blood, sweat and tears and a great faith in God, forged a better life for them and their families.
A great heritage they have left on the earth is these beautiful Christian families: The Harrises, the Wests, the Detters, the Coats and the Joneses, scattered through the environs of Ada and some in other states. Their families will continue to grow and prosper, spreading the gospel by example and word, 'til Jesus comes.
Truly, Glenn and Roberta made the world where they lived a better place by living there.
Credits: I want to thank my sister, Genevieve Blenkhom, for helping me remember places, people, things and dates. Also I want to thank her for typing this manuscript. After all, if we two don't remember these events of long ago and record them, who will?
V.M.H.
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