Vern’s Stories: The Oregon and Washington Adventure
Genevieve and Pat have been a great encouragement to me to write more stories about the Harris family. They are both excellent writers and have been an inspiration to encourage me to write more.
When I think about it, Daddy's father came across the plains in a covered wagon when he was just a little boy. Think of all the stories that could have been written that are now lost forever. Daddy was a great story teller but he didn't write anything down. Mother's family moved to California from South Dakota. They came by rail. They put all their worldly goods in a railroad car called a gondola: livestock, farm machinery, household goods, furniture, and they rode in the caboose. Sounds like there were some good stories that never were recorded and are now lost forever.
So thinking along this line and with Genevieve and Pat's encouragement, I am writing this story down. (They say I have a style all my own.) Well, I don't know about that, but here goes as I take pen in hand. I am going back 80 years when my memory begins, in fact, I am going to go back 81 years, before my memory kicks in.
Our story begins on a warm spring day in Southern Oregon. We are purring along through the Siskiyou Mountains in our Model T Ford. Daddy is driving and although the road is very rough and windy, everybody seems to be enjoying the scenery and the fresh mountain air. Daddy is sitting serenely behind the wheel with a broad grin on his face like he is reminiscing about something in the past. Perhaps it could be he is thinking about how we have made it against all odds this far from Lordsburg, California, some 800 miles back. It has been a struggle and sometimes hard work but he thinks he can begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel, Portland, Oregon, our goal. However, I think more likely, he is probably thinking how he outsmarted the proprietor of a gas station at the bottom of a steep grade just the day before. The man in the station had said, "Sir, you had better fill your gas tank to the brim or you will never make it to the top of the hill." Daddy looked at the gas tank that was a little less than half full , then at the hill (It was steep.), and then at the price of gas, over three times the regular price and shook his head. Daddy was always good at figuring out a better or cheaper way to do something.
The Model T Ford of that day, (ours was probably a 1915 model), was a very basic automobile. It was basic in that it had the necessary parts that a gasoline engine needs to be able to run and nothing more. It had pistons and rings, connecting rods and crankshaft, camshaft, valves, spark plugs, and carburetor but nothing that wasn't needed. It had no water pump, gas pump, oil pump, battery, generator or starter. Henry Ford built an empire by making an automobile the average person could afford to own and drive. (At one time you could buy a shiny new Ford automobile for just $350.00.) Henry was able to do this by making it simple and cheap to manufacture. The fuel system was an example--no moving parts, just gravity flow from the gas tank under the front seat to the carburetor on the lower part of the engine. It was almost a fool-proof system--no parts to wear out, no diaphragms to break. It worked fine as long as a hill wasn't so steep that the carburetor was higher than the gas tank.
This man, who owned the gas station, had a profitable business selling his high-priced gas to all the Model T owners that came that way. (A good percentage of the cars of that day were Model T's.) Most people would pay the high price, mumble a little about being taken, take their lumps and be on their way, but not Daddy. He turned that Model T around and backed alI the way to the top of the hi11!
Now this day he drove along trying to steer around the worst of the potholes and ruts, but he just couldn't miss them all. Mama had little Glenn, just a few months old, in her arms. The constant jouncing had put him to sleep. Vernon was in the back seat. He seemed to enjoy the rough road as he bounced up and down on the back cushion. All at once, Daddy in dodging one pothole, hit the grand daddy of them all. The T Model shook from stem to stern as the great stress put upon her metal innards transferred to her springing undercarriage. It was like a baby elephant with the hiccups as she convulsed from the terrible stress and tension and recoiled. Little Vernon was catapulted straight up 2 1⁄2 or 3 feet, sitting on air, looking down on the cushion he thought he was corning down onto, but alas, the Ford had driven out from under him. Instead of coming down on a nice soft cushion, he landed in the pothole. After Vernon, somewhat dazed for the moment, became oriented and his body returned to normal, he jumped up and headed north toward the last place he had seen the T Model.
Meanwhile back in the T Model, the roads had smoothed out a bit and Daddy was pleased that we seem to be making good time when all of a sudden Mama happened to glance back and little Vernon, the first born, wasn't in the back seat! Oh, oh, oh! Daddy quickly stopped and turned around. They were beside themselves with worry and dread as to what they would find. Would it be just a blob of grease? Would they find him all broken up, arms and legs askew? They were terribly upset as they headed back up the road in the direction they had come. As they came around a bend in the road, to their pure delight, here was little Vernon high-tailing it down the road toward them. Their precious little one was alive! After dusting him off and checking him over, he seemed to be alright and they were on their way again.
You say, "How do you know all this, seeing you were only a little over two years old and your memory didn't kick in until you were three?" Well, because I have heard both Mama and Daddy tell it many times. I did use a little imagination in what was said and done in the story but yes, it did happen eighty-one years ago. Yes, Daddy did back up that steep hill. Yes, I did bounce out of the back seat of that open car and landed on the hard road. Yes, I was running toward them as they came around a bend in the road and was unhurt. As remarkable as it was, it all happened! Was my guardian angel there to catch me and let me down easy? Perhaps we will know in heaven. It will be interesting to know, don't you think?
Well, we arrived in Portland a few days later in the year 1917. Daddy worked on the Columbia River Highway all the way to the eastern part of the state. Then we crossed over into Washington to the Yakima Valley and to a little town called Mabdon. Daddy bought a blacksmith shop. He bought and sold and repaired farm machinery for awhile before moving back to Portland, Oregon. Now it is 1918, I am three years old and my memory bas come to life.
Funny thing happened when we were in Portland. We were down in the main part of town walking down the street when Mama and Daddy got lost. All at once I found myself walking down the street all alone. It was like they fell into a manhole or something. I don't know how they got lost but here I was all alone. I didn't know if I would ever see them again. A big crocodile tear rolled down my cheek; I was trying to be brave but it's a little hard for a three-year-old whose parents are lost somewhere in the big city. Soon the flood gates broke and I was crying out of control. Enter the scene, a big burly cop. "What's the matter, Sonny," he asked? I looked up into the face of this huge cop in the big blue uniform. He did have a kindly face. I explained the situation to him as best I could with my 3-year-old vocabulary between sobs. "Well, we will find those poor lost souls," he said, "but first you look hungry." With that he went into a candy store nearby and bought me a big bag of jelly beans. The candy seemed to do wonders for my shattered nerves. About that time Mama and Daddy became un-lost and showed up on the scene. One little boy was never so glad to see anybody in his life. Happiness reigned supreme in flatbush, in the city of roses, once more!
Daddy was now busily engaged in working on a concrete grain elevator down on the waterfront near the Willamette River. This type of construction used what is called a slip form. It would go all the way around, perhaps six silos all in a row. They would start at ground level on a foundation and it would be a continuous pour of concrete 24 hours a day until the top was reached, perhaps 70 or 80 feet above the starting point. They had a type of jack to raise the form as they went up. It was a lever with a foot pad that took considerable weight to push down to raise the form up a certain distance each time it was stepped on. Daddy's job was to walk around on the top of the building as it went up and step on these jack levers to keep raising the form as the concrete was poured. He was selected for the job because he was 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighed probably 250 pounds so he could easily walk around the building stepping on each lever as he walked along.
Ralph was born during this time in November of 1918. Glenn would soon be 2 years old and I would be 4 years old about 22 days after Glenn's birthday. We were big boys so Mama could spend her time with little Ralph.
After the grain elevator was finished, Daddy decided to try his hand at lumber jacking in the woods, so we moved to Washington on the Columbia River to a little town called Stella. It was down the river towards the coast from Longview, Washington. When we first moved there we rented a house in town. We had a couple of billy goats and Daddy made a little harness for them and hitched them to our little red wagon. We boys were delighted as the billy goats pulled us around town. Well, now Daddy decided to buy some land out in the woods and build a log cabin near where he worked.
After we moved into the cabin which wasn't all finished yet, Glenn and I decided we wanted to be lumberjacks like our Dad. I picked up an axe that happened to be handy and we marched off into the woods. Imagine two little boys, two and four, with a big sharp axe all alone out there. So many things could happen; someone could have lost a finger, an arm or a foot, who knows? As it turned out I grazed the side of Glenn's head as I was swinging the axe. It was only a flesh wound but it bled profusely and I'm sure Glenn thought he was dying and I thought I had killed him. Mama heard us screaming as we ran out of the woods. She looked out and saw the blood running down the side of Glenn's face. She grabbed a canister of flour and ran out to us. She put flour on the wound and the blood stopped flowing.
We still had the billy goats and they seemed to have the run of the place. Daddy had bought the windows for the cabin but he hadn't installed them yet. They were leaning up against the cabin on the ground below where they were to be installed. I came by, seeing a window all covered with dust, decided it was a good place to practice on my latent art talent. I was stooped over, intent on my art work with my hinder parts protruding upward behind me. About this time, Mr. Billy Goat came strolling by. He looked the situation over and decided it was too good an opportunity for any respectable billy goat to pass up. Rearing up on his hind legs, he charged
full speed ahead, hitting the target dead center. Poor little Vernon didn't know what hit him, if a logging locomotive had jumped the track or what. He had gone clear through the glass window and was on the ground between the frame and the house, his art work shattered in small pieces under him.
Daddy seemed to like his work in the woods; he was kind of the outdoors type. The work was interesting but dangerous. Logging was done much differently back in the early 20th century than it is today. Back then they didn't have the large behemoth tractor of this day that can hook on to a giant fir tree and drag it over hill and dale to the railroad or truck loading area.
In those days it was all done with donkey engines and cables. When they moved to a new area to log it off, they would pick the biggest and highest tree in a central location. Perhaps the tree was a hundred feet high or so. A climber would climb up near the top of the tree and top it out, that is, cut the top out. This was dangerous business as sometimes the lumber jack would be hanging in his belt sawing as the top of the tree toppled over with loud pop. He would have to be quick to skirt around the tree one way or another to keep it from hitting him as it fell. Once in a while as the top fell off, a tree would split down the middle and spring apart, squeezing him to the tree with his belt.
After the tree was topped, a large heavy sheave was anchored to the top of the tree. This became the pulling point for the whole operation in this location. A donkey engine hoist was anchored down at the bottom of the tree and a large cable was threaded up through the sheave block on top of the tree and then it went out in the woods in any direction they wanted to log. The donkey engine was a powerful steam engine. The steam was provided by a steam boiler nearby that was fired usually by wood which was plentiful. They could be dragging huge logs from over a hill and a valley away. It was all done by flags or hand signals because the operator running the donkey couldn't see what he was pulling at all until it was near to him.
These donkey engines were so powerful that the log might catch on something and stand on end, knock down a couple of trees, and the donkey would just keep pulling it in. Sometimes a log being pulled might roll sideways down a hill; then it would be out of line with the pulling sheave, so it might be pulling around a small tree or sapling. After a while the cable would cut through the tree and with the great strain the cable was under, and the spring of the cable, it might fly sideways 50 or 100 yards at great speed. If anyone happened to be in that area, they would probably be killed or maimed. Daddy worked his way up from chocker setter to fireman, then to running the donkey engine, as I remember him tell it. We kids always enjoyed hearing him tell about all the excitement of his work in the woods.
Well, our stay in the Northwest was coming to a close. I guess Mama and Daddy were getting tired of roughing it in the woods. Things were always slow in the winter as most of the lumbering shut down in the winter. Mama was busy packing our bags and filling two big picnic baskets with sandwiches and home-made cookies for the long trip to California on the Southern Pacific Railroad. Daddy would come later after working awhile longer. This was a surprise to us kids as it seemed to happen all at once. I suppose Mama and Daddy could have been planning this for some time but it seemed like a spur of the moment thing. They had bought this land and had a house under construction. It looked like they were planning ahead for the future. I don't know if Mama got tired of the Spartan life, moving so much, or perhaps the rain?
If it was the nomadic life, there was much worse ahead. Well, that is another story. Perhaps that will be the next writing. Bye for now.
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