LA PLATA COUNTY SERIES

Melvin Butler My Life and Times

Early Days in Durango
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My folks came to Durango Colorado in the spring of 1918. Their names were David Homer (D.H.) Butler and Melinda Anne (Lennie) Jenkins-Butler. The reason for moving to Colorado was to accompany my Uncle Lester and Aunt Mary Butler. My Uncle Lester (W. L.) was in the final stage of tuberculosis and needed to live in a higher and drier climate. D.H. and W.L. were brothers and Lennie and Mary were sisters.
Both families traveled together, coming over Wolf Creek Pass in a 1913 Model- T Ford. My brother George and I and my cousins Lois, Jane and Norman were riding in the car with one adult while the remaining adults were pushing to get the car over the pass.
A brick house in North Durango on west second was home for both families for a period of time. Then my Uncle Lester and Aunt Mary moved to Dolores and my Uncle became a W.T. Raleigh salesman.
Dad ran a second hand store in a two-story building on Main Street in Durango; it's located just north of the Durango Herald. He also sold Singer Sewing Machines and Baldwin Pianos from Pagosa Springs to Dove Creek.
During the summer of 1922 we lived in a cabin on the west side of Mancos Hill, which Dad obtained in exchange for a piano or sewing machine. During my childhood we spent time on several different occasions at that cabin.
HOMESTEAD EXPERIENCES
In Oct. 1922 we moved to the 200-acre homestead located four miles west of Kline Colo. and three-fourths mile west of the Redmesa Reservoir. We made this move by team and wagon. It was a very hard winter with at least two feet of snow with no roads or snowplow. The first few months we lived in a tent. The homestead dwellings were for the most part very simple crude structures. About March, we moved into a house Dad and a neighbor had built. It was built of poles set in a foursided trench. Cedar poles were set on the corners, with pinon poles set upright in the trench between. It had 1" un-planed lumber for flooring. The roof was constructed with 2x4 rafters covered with un-planed boards and then with tarpaper as a final covering. The walls were plastered with mud and straw. This building was crude, but warmer than most frame houses of the time. These houses were framed with rough two by fours and un-planed lumber. There was no insulation and many times newspaper was pasted to the walls and then it was painted with calcimine. Some homes had cisterns made of jug shaped holes plastered with cement and sand for water storage. Many used fifty gallon wooden barrels, which were filled at the river or springs. A neighbor told me the dry-land farmers eleventh commandment was, Six days shalt thou haul water and on the seventh day thou shalt grease thy wagon.
The first winter, my brother George and I, walked four miles to a two-room school at Kline. The teachers were Mrs. Pearl Crawford and Mrs. McClendon. The roads were not maintained at this time. The latter part of the winter we attended a one-room school held in what is now known as the Cater house located one-fourth mile north of
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the Lyle Wiltse homestead. Thirteen students were attending this school (Myrtle, Hubert and Harris Booker, George and Melvin Butler, two or three daughters of the John Butler family and at least two of Lyle Wiltse's sons) Miss Underhill was the teacher. Miss Underhill was engaged to marry the Wiltse boy who was killed that spring at a dance at the Pleasantview School.
The next two winters we attended school on the Cain homestead, about two and a half miles away. The school district, known as the Rockvale district, was twelve miles long and three miles wide. The Rockvale school, a solidly built sandstone building, (which is still standing), served about 40 students. They came from coal mining families in the upper end of the district and children who lived on ranches and farms. The district allowed the children in the south end a teacher from Nov. thru April. This school was held in the Cain house. This was an abandoned one-room farmhouse, about twelve feet by sixteen feet. It had a cistern that held about five hundred gallons of water. This was filled at the beginning of school. We drank from a two-gallon bucket with a dipper. The house was in heavy pinon and cedar timber. This school had twelve students, eleven boys and one girl. As there were no toilets, the boys were to use the timber on one side and the teacher and the one girl the other side. There were no roads, only two tracks. George and I just had a trail through the sagebrush and timber. Our teacher, Miss Jesse Bell, was in her early twenties, and this was her first teaching assignment. She boarded with the Young family about a half-mile from the school. She was a wonderful teacher, although I am sure we drove her out of her mind at times. The students took turns arriving at school fifteen minutes early to start the fire in the coal heater .The teacher would pay that student a quarter. There was no walk to shovel, so therefore no shovel. That first year none of us were over nine years old. We worry about kids being unruly today, we weren't exactly little saints. When the teacher paddled us, we were smart enough not to tell Mom, as we would get another licking. Anyway at times, I am sure Miss Bell felt like screaming. One day at noon, on a snowy day, she wanted us outside. She volunteered to play follow the leader, with her leading. Anyway after a few circles in the timber she was lost. She kept the first grade boy with her and told the rest of us to scatter out, and the first one there to ring the hand bell. It was snowing heavily, but within ten minutes we were all at the school. By second recess teacher and the first grader walked in. We were throwing erasers and having fun. Needless to say the teacher was irritated and kept us in school until almost dusk that day. Another time, we all got the giggles and giggled at everything. Teacher was almost frantic; I had slid down in my seat giggling behind my Geography book. She put her knee in my stomach and grabbed me by the hair and said," are you going to stop it?" Every shake I said, "yes ma'am", and sure enough, I was cured. Another time, we boys were playing follow the leader. It was a windy day and you couldn't hear anything, even a few feet away. George was leading, and he said, "here's the teachers tracks, let's follow them." Quite suddenly he ran onto the teacher. She was squatted down doing her duty. He jumped right over her, and the rest of us scattered. After noon hour, we went red-faced into school. The
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teacher said for us not to go into the woods as we might see a bear.
There was a man who turned his pack burros loose to graze in the sagebrush and fields for the winter. We kids would capture a burro or two and ride them to school. There was a wire corral that we kept them in. Once in a while we would be late, and turn our animal in the corral, and run for school, forgetting our lunch pail. The burros would get our pails open and eat everything. On these occasions everyone shared. George and I had empty lard pails to carry our lunches in. One day I had half a bucket of lard for lunch. Miss Bell taught us for two years.
Miss Bell taught school for years. She didn't marry until after her mother died. She married a widower named Coon. In later years I met her at the Nazarene Church in Durango. She played the piano for them. I was pleased but embarrassed, when she told people that I was one of her best students.
The next two years, school was held, in an empty two-room house, a mile and a half to the east. The Kimsey place, (this house was the farmhouse that my wife Eula, daughter Linda, and I moved into after getting out of the Navy in Sept. 1945). An older lady, Mrs. Wyatt, taught us, and there were no more shenanigans. Mrs. Wyatt lived in Redmesa. During the week she lived in one room of the school. Her husband would come with a team and wagon and take her home for the weekend. Mr. Snyder of Durango taught the next year. They still had school at that house, but we moved to Durango Co. for the winter. We moved back the following spring. One evening my brothers, George, Raymond, and I were coming home from school on our burros. Raymond was thrown and kicked in the mouth. The other burro fell over Raymond and George's leg was broken. I tied a burro to a fresno and pulled it backwards over the snow. We got George inside and I went to the Thompson's and borrowed a horse. I rode four miles to Kline and Mrs. Holgate called Dr. Smith. It was near midnight before the doctor came and set George's leg. Mom suffered a miscarriage from this episode. The doctor treated her when he returned the next evening.
Dr. Smith was the only doctor in a fifteen or twenty mile radius. He and his wife lived at Marvel, which was six miles from us. He lived a very rugged life but was a very kind and dedicated man. In winter he made house calls for miles with a horse and buggy, in the summer he used a Model- T Ford. His charge was $1 per mile one-way that many times he didn't get. During that time the medicine chest contained very few items. Kerosene and sugar for cough syrup, turpentine, mustard plaster, and mentholatum for rubbing chests, black draught and calomel were standbys for liver and bile attacks as well as fever. Good old Castor oil and epsom salts for laxatives. Aspirin wasn't here yet. Iodine, creosote and peroxide were used for cuts and infections. Paregoric was used for colic and also given as a painkiller.
THE TRIP FROM CLEBURNE TO MANCOS
In 1929, when I was fourteen years old, we spent most of the winter at Uncle AI Jones, in Cleburne, Texas. My brother George, and I went to school in Cleburne. I was in the seventh grade and he was in his first year in high school. Dad got impatient to head back to Colorado, and we started back in May, before school was
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out. Dad turned in his old, 1913 Model T Ford for a 1925 Model T truck, paying perhaps $150 difference. We started out with our belongings in the truck, with Dad driving the truck, and Mom driving the Model T coupe, with me by her side to pull the emergency brake if she got excited and forgot to hit the brake.
The old truck had rotten tires on the rear so every few miles we had flats to fix. George and I had to pump up the tire with a hand-pump.
We had no money, so we were broke by the time we reached Wichita Falls, Texas. We camped at filling stations that had sheds built for campers. The sheds were free if you bought gas or groceries from the station. We worked a few days at chopping cotton, for a dollar a day, from daybreak to sunset. Mom worked with us, as she was faster than Dad and we boys. They had twenty or so choppers with an overseer to watch our progress. The chopping hoes were about 12 inches wide, to thin the cotton. You had to chop Johnson grass and crab grass out of the rows also. I was fired after 3 days, as I would get nervous when the overseer watched me chop too much cotton.
After a week, we got a tank-full of gas ahead, plus a few groceries, and we headed up the road. We camped out in a swale about a half-mile wide, around Electra Tex. We had a tent that we fastened to the side of the truck to sleep in. There were oil wells with pumps all across the valley. In the early evening, it began to pour down rain, and the water kept rising to almost a foot deep. It was to late to move the truck; we moved our belongings into the truck and waded out to a filling station about a quarter of a mile away. We stayed until about midnight when the storm abated, and we thought the danger of a tornado was over. We rented a tourist cabin that was attached to about 4 other cabins, with carports in between each cabin. It started to rain again and the wind started to gale strength. A sort of twister, picked the cabins up, swinging our end in a half circle and breaking loose the gas line on the other end. Dad and I were leaning on the door to keep it shut. Mom was praying. Raymond and Frances were excited, and George went under the bed. About 2 or 3 in the morning things quieted down, and some slept on the bed, and the rest on the floor. The next morning we went back to camp and straightened out things the best we could. The tent was saturated in oil and the bedding and our clothes were soaking wet. We lit the coleman camp stove and Mom cooked a breakfast of sorts.
We traveled a few miles that day and camped at another little store and campground. Being broke, Dad again pawned George's and my watches for groceries. These watches, a Waltham, and a silver faced watch with the balance wheel showing on the front, he traded for in Rico Colorado. Neither one would run for more than an hour or 2. He gave them to us and would always redeem them before leaving.
Anyway we got a job suckering corn for a prosperous farmer. He said that if we could keep up with his boys he would pay us one dollar a day each. We drove out to the field but saw no one in the waist -high corn. Soon, 2 guys got up and began working, throwing corn suckers. We walked out where they were. They said, "We thought you were our Dad", Our Model T coupe was exactly the same as their Dads. The boys
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were about 28 or 30 years old. One was married and had a baby several months old, that hadn't been named yet, because nothing suited the old folks. We started pulling suckers on two rows each. About half way down the row, Dad whispered, "I don't think we can keep up". I told him, "They are just taking one row each". So when we got through the field we changed to one row, and had no trouble keeping up. At lunchtime, went to the house, and the old man said that lunch did not go with the deal. Anyway they fed us. In a week's time, we finally had enough money to gas up and move on to Claude Texas.
Between Electra and Claude our food money ran out. Dad fixed phonographs, clocks, and sewing machines for a dollar or two. Sometimes taking milk or eggs for pay. On one occasion, he had a gallon of milk in a galvanized bucket that had been used for gasoline the day before. I can still remember the taste, but we were hungry enough that we drank it anyway.
In Claude Texas we camped at a filling station and grocery campground. It was wheat harvest time and George, Dad and I were paid $2.50 a day for shocking bundles of grain. George had a job handling 4 horses cultivating on a section of maize. They had a wagon parked in the field with hay and grain for the horses. A bad hailstorm came up and George unhooked the horses and tied them to the wagon. George crawled under the wagon for protection but the horses broke loose. The boss and my brother had a wild time catching them. This farmer had a bunkhouse for the workers. George was tired and went to bed early. He dozed off and excitedly called, "Mama, Mama". One of the men said, "what is it George"? George answered, "Look at the little red wagon Santa brought me". Of course he got a ribbing over that!
We soon had enough money to buy good tires for the truck. Dad got a job hauling grain from a combine to the granaries. We had to shovel grain from the truck, this was before augers and it was a lot of work. Grain was shoveled from granaries to box cars when shipped. It was a bumper crop and they could not get railroad cars fast enough to keep up with the harvest. After the granaries were filled, we hauled grain to an elevator about 6 miles away. The old truck didn't have enough power to pull up to the elevator with 2 tons of grain. There was always a long line of trucks waiting to unload, so there was plenty of help to push the truck up the ramp to the elevator. When the elevator could handle no more grain they would unload the grain into huge piles in vacant lots. As long as the piles were rounded out the rainwater would run off.
One day George and I were out of work. We were waiting for a farmer to hire us when an operator of a theater asked if we wanted to work. We cleaned the theatre in about 2 hours and swept up a couple dollars in change. We were paid in tickets for a two nights showing of, Uncle Tom's Cabin. This was the first time we went to the movies so we enjoyed it very much.
When the harvest work played out, we camped in Raton, New Mexico. Our sister, Frances became violently ill. The Doctor termed it typhoid fever. She was about 7
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years old. We moved over the hill to Trinidad, Colorado. Dad rented an apartment in a house of ill repute that had been closed by the city. The building looked luxurious and was carpeted with red carpet and the sofas and chairs were upholstered in red also. George and I did not understand about this but I knew Mom didn't like it. Anyway we got a good Doctor and Frances survived. She must have been a hardy child as she had diphtheria as a baby in Durango, Colorado. Then she had pneumonia at 3 years of age in Gallup, New Mexico. All of these were deadly illnesses at the time.
We stayed in Trinidad until Frances was well again. Dad fixed sewing machines and He, George and I did yard work, hauled ashes and trash for income. Dad traded for some goat cheese that a Mexican family had made. It smelled like Limburger cheese. George and I ate it. Mom made us keep it outside between the window and screen.
We traveled on to the San Luis Valley. Eating lunch at La Veta, we were playing around the park and discovered about 50 copies of The Saturday Evening Post, in a big culvert. They were new and had another week before the date of sale. We figured someone had stolen them and hid them. We peddled them between there and Ft. Garland. Dad had bought oatmeal, raisins and coffee wholesale to sell at residences along the road. It was in bulk and didn't sell, so we had several months supply of oatmeal and coffee. The raisins were eaten up fairly quickly. This was the only coffee we drank for years because the folks didn't care for it. We arrived in the San Luis Valley around the 1st of July. We went to work for the Japanese farmers cutting head lettuce and cauliflower and picking peas. They paid us $2.50 for an 8hour day. The County agent looked after the old Fort Garland and rented us a couple of rooms to live in. The Japanese were very nice to work for and were very hard workers. The women tied the cauliflower leaves around the heads to bleach them and mark which day to harvest the heads. I don't know how they figured this out, as they tied 3 or 4 days harvesting at a time. They had several colors of twine and this way we cut a different color each day, throwing the heads into a wagon to be taken to the packing plant. This was before refrigeration so the boxcars had ice bins at each end where blocks of ice were stacked. The ice was cut from ponds in the winter. The temperature would get down to 30 degrees below zero and freeze the ice 18 to 24 inches thick. The ice was sawed from the pond in blocks about 18 inches wide and 24 inches long. It was then stored in sawdust in ice sheds to keep for the summer.
Back to working for the Japanese farmers, I was afraid these hardworking people might have lost their farms in W.W.II and put in concentration camps. As for living in Ft. Garland it was very interesting for George and me. We found equipment like packsaddles, harnesses, and items used in the Indian fighting days. The cannon and cannonballs and some artifacts were still there. The building walls were made of adobe bricks at least 24" thick. The water was pumped by hand from a well in the courtyard and the toilet was over a hole several feet deep. The Fort at present is under the Park service.
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About Sept. 1st we moved to Alamosa Colorado and rented a house for the winter. It was a frame structure with 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room with one faucet in the kitchen and an outhouse by the alley. As I remember rent was $30 a month. George and I worked at farm work haying at Mosca about 30 miles north of Alamosa. Mosca means mosquito in Spanish. They ate on the horses more than us.
Covering their neck and shoulders. After that we worked shocking grain and hay for a Mr. Kencannon, (later we learned he was an uncle of Maurice Butler's wife Louise). He had a son our age and we worked together a day or two. There were wild ducks in the swamp nearby and we took turns sneaking off and taking a shot at them with a single shot 22-caliber rifle. We didn't get a duck but received a talking to from the boss. He said 1 boy equaled 1 boy, 2 boys equaled 1/2 a boy, and 3 boys equaled no boys at all. He put each of us in a separate field. I don't remember what Dad was doing at this time but we got together again working in the potato harvest. We tried picking up potatoes but didn't last long. About 6 men made up a crew. They had a sorter pulled by one horse. This screened out the small potatoes and a man sacked and sewed the 100- pound bags. They paid ten cents a hundred to pick them up in wire baskets and dump them in the sorter. The fast pickers tried to pick one hundred sacks a day. You weren't wanted if you couldn't keep up. We didn't make it. Dad drove the old Ford and we hauled the sacks to the cellar. George and I took turns lifting the bags and stacking them on the truck.
In Nov. as usual, we went to school. George went first year high school again and I took another try at 8th grade in East Alamosa Elementary. We had to take turns helping Dad peddle produce in Alamosa and towns in the south end of the valley. Dad had 2 truckloads of apples from Mancos and Salida. The produce was bought from wholesale and the potatoes and beans from the farmers. A lot of the older Spanish people didn't speak English and we learned the language well enough to say what we had to sell and make change. A Mexican man named Joe also helped Dad through the winter. He was a pleasant guy but his wife was missing in the spring. On asking Joe about her. He said, "His husband came and got him". The Mexicans got him and her mixed-up. We found the houses with signs that announced, "NO PEDDLERS ALLOWED", would buy the most. One house had a 4 ft high fence with a "BAD DOG", sign posted. George said,"they don't have a dog". I knew better but he went on in. Before the man could open the door, a Bulldog was after George and he went on in after the man opened the door. The man gruffly said he didn't want anything and put George out, saying the dog didn't bite. The dog was trying to get him by the seat of the pants and he jumped the 4 ft fence. We both developed a lifetime hatred of peddling!!
It was a cold winter and George and I had a daily job of cranking the old Model T. We would jack up a back wheel, put it in high gear and take turns cranking, by hanging on the side and walking the wheel. We also used a kerosene torch to warm the engine. One morning we got the carburetor on fire. We were at the front door but George went to the back door and casually said, "Dad the truck is on fire". Dad got
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excited and ran out in a hurry but the neighbor had scooped snow on the fire. We had the double job, drying the engine and starting it.
Brother Luther was born in November and Mom went to the hospital for the only time to have a baby. Dad paid the hospital bill but George and I worked out the Doctor bill doing yard work and planting garden for the Doctor's wife in the spring.
Mom's brother, Will Jenkins, came out in the middle of the winter and stayed with us for a while. Uncle Will's wife Laura had died the winter before in Wicks, Arkansas. Uncle Will had run a sawmill in Arkansas and had done timberwork. His wife's brother George came with them. His oldest son was married and stayed in Arkansas. The ones with him were: Nellie, Neuman, Neal and younger sisters, Neva and Nora. They were a fine family. Nellie, a beautiful girl was about 18 years old. Neuman was about the same age as George and I. Work was scarce and Uncle Will, Uncle George and Neuman cut tall trees along Alamosa streets into firewood. They rented a house in Alamosa for a while. Uncle Will was a fine man and I have fond memories of him. We finished out the winter in Alamosa and graduated. A few days before school was out we headed for Mancos, Colorado. I am sorry I didn't mention that Frances and Raymond also went to school with me in Alamosa. Raymond would have been about nine years old and Frances about seven years old. I am afraid I made heroes out of George and me. I don't have vivid memories of the younger ones.
Anyway we were at the cabin east of Mancos the following summer. Uncle Will and family came by that summer and stayed with Uncle Lester and Aunt Mary. They went back to Oklahoma or Arkansas.
My younger sister Vera, like Frances, was born in the cabin at Mancos. Brother, Virgil was born at the homestead near Kline. That was another story of very hard times during the Depression years.
P.S. I am afraid this story sounds like George and I did all of the work. We didn't, as all of us were in it together. I loved baseball and played hardball at Menefee School in Mancos and at East Alamosa. That was the end of ball playing days. We went fishing with Uncle Will one day in the Valley and I caught a carp. This is my only fishing story. My granddaughter Randa went fishing years later on a date with Jim. She came home wearing an engagement ring. Her Mom Sue said, "Fadi went fishing one day and caught a carp. Randa went fishing one day and caught a sucker"! Weill think I had better make another record and call this my first and last attempt to write a story. With love, Grandpa, also known as "Fadi".
LI FE I N MANCOS
The year after our trip from Cleburne, Texas to Mancos, Colorado, we lived at a log cabin east of Mancos on the West Side of Mancos hill. George and I walked the four miles to Mancos high. George was in the tenth grade and I was in the ninth. During that year we worked for the farmers in the area. Dad used the model T truck hauling produce from Farmington, New Mexico to Mancos. He hauled fruit and vegetables from New Mexico and would peddle them around Mancos and at least a few trips to Rico, Colorado. Rico was a mining town about sixty miles up the Dolores River.
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Rico was going full force at the time. There were some good homes, but many were shacks and tents, all over the hillsides. One experience that really stayed in my mind was that I was accused of stealing a woman's purse. She lived in a tent. I had sold her some green beans and roasting ears and she paid me. I went to some other tents with some green beans in my hand for samples and when I came back down she saw what she thought was money. She had hid her purse after paying me and in her excitement thought I had stolen her money. She called the sheriff and made quite a scene and me feeling bad being accused of stealing. Her husband came home from work and found where she had hid the purse. This is the only time in my life I had the sheriff after me. I learned a valuable lesson from it and never accused anyone of stealing falsely.
Another experience that stayed with me was I walked into a yard with a high fence. It was several feet to the door and after knocking; the biggest dog I have ever seen in my life came around the house. He was bigger then a half grown calf. I was quaking in my shoes, the lady came to the door and seeing my fear she assured me it was just a puppy.
After selling our load we stopped at a farmhouse a short distance from Rico that had a sign wanting help putting up hay. The elderly couple, the Barlow's, raised a garden and milked a few cows. They sold milk, berries, and produce to the miners. We stayed two or three days helping them. Dad cut the wild grass hay with a horse-drawn mowing machine. This was the only time in my life that I saw a hay field so steep that you could cut the hay only one way, with the cutter bar on the uphill side. Then go back with the cutter bar about 3 feet off the. ground. We worked two or three days, Dad cutting and raking and me shocking. It began raining and Dad was worried about getting home. We hated to leave without finishing the job. Mr. Barlow was disappointed I wasn't a fisherman as there was some nice trout in the pools along the Dolores River and I could have fished without a license being a kid.
Dad had met one of his sewing machine salesmen, acquaintances, in Rico and promised that I could ride a horse that he traded for in Cortez and keep it awhile at the eighty acres at Mancos. Dad got the three dollars and I got the joy of riding the horse. The horse was a good one who was off the minute that your foot hit the stirrup. Well I didn't have a saddle so had to put the horse along a bank and jump aboard on the run. The horse didn't slow down for ten miles, by this time I had very little hide on my bottom so I piled off and led the horse for four miles. Still being four miles from home I rode the horse on the run on in home. We had an old nag of our own so George and I enjoyed riding for quite awhile until the owner came and claimed his horse.
This being a long time ago my memory slipped. This was in the summer of 1930 and we did not start school until November of that year. My youngest sister, Vera, was born at the same cabin that year where sister, Frances, was born in the fall of 1922. We kept in shape walking the four miles to school. We cut wood on the hillside and slid the wood, on a bobsled we made. The snow was at least two feet deep. We still
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had to take turns helping Dad with his old ford. We hauled potatoes and sold them and peddled them from Bloomfield up the Largo Canyon in New Mexico.
It would take us an hour to walk each way on highway 160 to go to school. We seldom met a car and it always was going the other way. At this time highway 160 would be packed with snow and coal haulers used sleds to haul into Mancos. I remember when they finally got a plow the gravel would show by the time they passed our place. This stopped the sleds and they had to go back to their wagons. THE LIFE OF A SHEEPHERDER
My brother George and I spent some ten or twelve years herding sheep. George spent another two or three years herding sheep after I left for the Navy in 1942. Our lives were no worse then the cowboys had been for years.
A few years we spent the winter south of Farmington, New Mexico. There were about thirty sections of open desert land, with only four or five sections deeded. These were vacated by homesteaders who found the land to dry to farm. It was rolling prairie land with low hills that barely broke the wind, for tents and bedding the sheep. There were breaks or Bad Lands, skirting the open land that had sparse cedar trees and very little vegetation. What rains that came would run off so the early settlers built a few ponds to catch water for livestock. The vegetation for grazing was mainly Mormon tea and grama grass. There were herds of Indian ponies and quite a few cattle. A neighboring sheep man had two herds of sheep with around 1,000 sheep in each herd. We had around 800 ewes in our herd. We moved camp now and then, sometimes shoveling 8 or 10 inches of snow off the ground before pitching the tent. The ground wasn't generally frozen under the snow so we would dig a hole about 18 inches across and 18 inches deep. Potatoes, vegetables, and canned goods were put in the hole to keep them from freezing during the night. A sheepskin was thrown over the top of the hole. A camp stove that burned wood, a couple of chuck boxes with lids that made tables, and bedrolls made our furnishings. A ten-gallon milk can held our water. About 30 minutes after camp was set up and a few rugs scattered about the camp, the camp was comfortable. Of course on zero nights it was a bit nippy in the morning.
The Indians built their hogans with the door to the east. We were told this was
their religion. We found out that if you didn't have the door facing east the prevailing winds would blow your abode down.
The first winter in this area we would drift the sheep two miles to a water hole, if there was no snow. The second winter we hauled water from Farmington, New Mexico and were surprised that 800 head of sheep only drank fifty gallons of water a day during cool weather. We fed a sack of cotton seed cake or grain a day, so many times we would have 40 sacks of grain stacked against the walls of the tent. It was surprising what would go in a 12 by 12-foot space. Our sheep dog usually slept outside but sometimes he would come in for while. If we were crowded all we had to say was "Coyotes, Tip" and he would go out and bark up a storm.
George and I tried to both be in camp but sometimes we would be alone 2 or 3
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weeks at a time. George had to take off one winter until his heart strengthened for an appendix surgery. So I was alone most of the winter.
When George had his surgery he couldn't pass urine. The nurse told him if he didn't go soon that they would have to catheterize him. Being a young sheepherder he thought she meant to castrate him. This made him go in a hurry.
Any way back to herding. Stormy nights when it was blowing and snowing we had to keep bringing the sheep back to the bedding ground. We had an old Montgomery Ward battery operated radio in winter camp. We would turn it on loud so we could find the camp. Blow storms usually lasted about 3 hours at a time. Not 2 or 3 days like in Wyoming. The neighbor sheep man had one camp northwest about two miles of the other. One storm the up wind herd drifted away from camp with the herder after them. He saw a lantern hanging in the woodpile so he spent the night in his fellow herder's bed. The other herder spent the night about six miles down wind in the breaks.
The Navaho Indians had it rough at this time. They usually had broad rimmed-wheeled wagons pulled by ponies. Sometimes they would scrape back the snow and camp in the open with only a small fire. Sometimes if they were close by we would cook supper for them. One time our camp was about two miles back from the road. It was a foggy day with about six inches of snow on the ground. Two Indian men came to the tent. They were lost and wanted to know where Ship Rock was. When out in open country you had to keep your bearings by some mountain or peak in the area. I told them Ship Rock was about 20 miles to the northwest. While we ate supper they dried their socks and shoes by the fire. After they ate they tied feedbags around their feet and took off across country to their Hogan's.
Portable radios were not out yet so our neighboring herders on a quiet night would walk two or three miles to listen to our radio. We had a couple of hymnbooks and some times sang. This had a double use, entertainment and scaring the coyotes out of the neighborhood. We went back to the ranch to shear the sheep and for lambing time. This meant some 18-hour days. This was through April, May and early June. Our first lamb, one spring, left us red faced. The sheep were grazing in a large field and we picked out a ewe that had to be the mother. George and I relayed running in a circle until we caught her. We gave her a talking too about motherhood and staked her out on a long rope. Held her so the lamb could nurse and she claimed the lamb but had her own lamb two days later. George was the real herder. If a ewe had twins and didn't claim one and he saw them once he could pick them out and make her claim both of them. I did not have this talent so I packed a can of sheep marker paint and marked the mother and her offspring. We split the herd in small bunches after they lambed. One time George was checking on them and a killer coyote was sneaking around and cut the throats of thirty lambs. We put doggie lambs or a twin or triplet on these sheep when possible. They claimed the lambs by smell so we would fasten a piece off the dead lamb until she would claim it.
After a month or six weeks of sleepless nights, we were ready to head for the
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mountains. It would usually take about 3 days on the roads and stock trails to get to the forest ranges. One summer we spent the summer in giant larkspur country. We were about 15 miles northeast of Durango Colorado, on the Florida River. The larkspur was poisonous to cattle, but the sheep thrived on it. We had 2 or 3 miles of pack trails to camp. We left our cook tent quite awhile, and moved our pup tent and bedrolls about every night. There was a fall about 6 feet high, with spring water that made a perfect shower. This water was icy cold, and I took it quietly, but you could hear George's whoop a mile down the canyon.
There were numerous deer and grouse on this range. We had a grouse for dinner sometimes, which was illegal. We butchered a goat now and then for fresh meat. You could hang the meat in a tree at night to chill and then put it in a meat sack and keep it in a bedroll in the day. It would keep for several days this way. While on this range there were numerous rotten logs that had hives of wasps. The sheep would have these bees stirred up so by the time we came along that they would be in a vicious mood. One time we were carrying over bedrolls to another site. We had bees swarming around our head. We dropped our bedrolls and ran. We had to leave them until after dark to get them.
Once George had lumps under his armpits. During the night he had a fever and was delirious. There was no way to get help. There was a mountain spring nearby which was ice cold. I kept bathing him with towels soaked in this cold water. I did a lot of worrying and praying that night. Near day break his fever abated and during the morning the lumps burst and drained. We thought this was caused by tick bites.
It was a two-day trip in the spring with the young lambs but on moving in the spring we went down a county road through Bodo cattle ranch. We drifted into the present Bodo Park. Today this is a commercial business area. Then it was just a sagebrush flat. It was near dark so we camped for the night. We could see another herd on down along the Animas river. We thought they could see us and thought they were camped for the night. We thought wrong and about 3,000 ewes and lambs were mixed in the morning.
The ewes and older lambs were paint branded but we had a number of young lambs unmarked and Toots Markle's herd was the same. We put the herds in the Rio Grand railroad corral. We spent the whole day trying to separate them. We got through about dark and camped the night with the sheep grazing on the hillside at the entrance of the present road to Fort Lewis College. George and Toots had worked harder separating the sheep then I, so I spent the night keeping the sheep out of a nearby field of oats.
Markle took his herd through Durango heading to a mountain range between Durango and Silverton. We went across the college mesa and up the upper Florida River. The next day was spent transferring hungry lambs between herds.
Along in September we headed back home. We came down the same route we had used in the spring. We stayed a couple days on the Old Milk Ranch. The sheep grazed on the blue lupine. This area today is all covered with houses. As we drove
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the herd up College hill a small plane dropped altitude fast and landed on the mesa. George and I thought it had crashed and fought the brush getting up the hill and were chagrined and relieved to see he had landed safely. College Mesa was Durango's only airport at the time. It was also the golf course and the caretaker asked us to stay a couple of days and graze down the daisies and weeds. There were not any golfers or planes while we were there. The lambs were driven with George Kikel's lambs back to Durango and shipped on the D&RG railroad to Denver. George was amused at Mr. Kikel's telling that his sheep dog did not understand a word of English. The dog had been all summer with a Spanish herder. Dad went to Denver to sell the lambs. He came back complaining that he would never go back to Uncle Harold's and Aunt Lucy's again. As Aunt Lucy asked him if he wanted to take a bath. She was just being nice. After a week on the train trip and being around the stockyards he needed it.
The next year, about 1937, we went to a forest range. We drove the sheep nearly to Mayday in La Plata Canyon over old Baldy Mountain about ten miles into the Lightner Creek Range. A veteran forest ranger by the name of Tom Price counted the sheep at the Heather Ranch on the La Plata River. Tom was a character of sorts, one time he walked upon Joe Mestas, another sheepherder, who had just illegally killed a grouse for supper. When Joe saw Tom he quickly threw the grouse in the bushes but his hands were all bloody. Joe thinking Tom had not seen his illegal act made up a story of having butchered a sheep for dinner. Tom said he was hungry for mutton so why didn't they go back to the camp and have some supper. Joe kept making up reasons; he needed to stay with the sheep. Finally Tom said, "Why don't you just grab that bird out of the bushes and lets go have some supper?"
At any rate Tom gave us instructions on the rules for grazing in Mayday and said to be careful, as it wasn't a pleasant job to take bodies out of the mountains on a packhorse. The Lightner Creek Range was at 10,000 feet altitude at the lower end to around 12,000 feet altitude at the upper end. There was about two weeks grazing above timberline. It was so steep you hardly dared to gather the herd into a bunch, as the rocks would roll killing the sheep. As long as they were scattered they would dodge a rolling rock.
George did most of the herding at this time. The tent was setting a little below timberline. I helped him some here and remember the peak was 13,000 feet on a marker. At one camp we kept the packhorses and a burro on an open glade, on higher above the sheep. We had a yearling colt; its mother and another mare were hobbled on the front legs to keep them from straying too far. The horses would come down in the heat of the day. The colt and burro would get into the tent and raise havoc.
The government trapper had a bear trap set, which we were to watch. A cub got in the trap instead of the mother. We didn't have anything but a 22-caliber pistol. George shot the cub to get it out of its suffering. The cub squealed just before it was shot and the mother came out of the timber in a rage. George started to run and fell
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over a log. He got up, seeing the futility of running, he faced the bear and backed off a few feet and the bear left him alone. I think our collie shepherd dog helped rout her.
The next day George found the bear had eaten her cub leaving a piece of the skin. George brought the skin down and hung it on the tent saying that will keep that burro and colt out. It did all right, as when the horses came down and smelled the bear; they left a trail of dust. A hobbled horse couldn't travel fast unless they loped. George took after them and caught them about ten miles down trail. He took the hobbles and tied them around the mare's neck and the rest followed her. He rode her bareback and got into camp well after dark. I was worried when he didn't come back, but it was alii could do.
Another time he was clearing trail, and came upon a cub, and the mother charged him, but the dog routed her. We had a series of experiences that summer. In the fall we camped at the railroad corrals at Hesperus. Another sheep man was counting his herd from one pen to another. The engineer was backing cars to the loading chute; he pulled the whistle on the train scaring the sheep. The scared sheep knocked the man down four times. He got up mad and was cussing the engineer out. The engineer picked up a pickaxe from the coal bin and told the man to just call him those names again, without smiling and he was going to get it. Everyday wasn't this eventful thank goodness!
The burro is what is known as a horse burro, and followed the horses. Her load was a chuck box on each side of her saddle, the tent, cooking utensils, camp stove, and stovepipes. The chuck boxes were about 15 inches at the bottom with a lid that hinged about 12 inches up to around 4 inches at the top. There were shelves with tableware and canned goods. The lids were let down and served as tables. This made a pack about 4 feet wide. This was often wider than the space between trees. The burro was an expert on judging her space, one ear, would go back on the side that was near a tree and the ear went back on the other side when a tree was on that side. She followed behind and never scraped a box.
The next two years we were assigned the Buck Creek range, which was about 18 miles up the ridge between Junction Creek, the Animas River, and Hermosa Creek. It was a wooded range covered with quaking aspen, fir trees, and some pine. You could seldom see the whole herd. You had to depend on tracking around the herd to see that there weren't any strays.
To get there we had to cross from Wild Creek Canyon down where highway 160 is today. Then to Lightner Creek and up it to the old school house and over the ridge to Junction Creek. Junction Creek had a bridge a little over 4 feet wide. The first night we camped about a mile and a half up the ridge. The sheep were bedded down above camp with the pack animals hobbled and turned loose further up on the ridge from the sheep. I put my bedroll down the trail to keep animals from going back. About 2 o'clock a.m. the horses came down the trail on the run there was a bit of moonlight so I run after them. The trail zig zagged and I cut across each zag. I got
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ahead and was gasping for air when the horses got on the bridge. It was quite dark so they were surprised that I was there. I caught the lead mare, unhobbled the horses, and rode her bare back through the herd. About daybreak we figured it was time to move on.
Buck Creek was quite a ways from water. We found that on lush green forage the herd did as well with out water and kept us from making trails to water. We would keep the main tent for supplies and cooking in the same place for ten days. The Forest Service frowned on bedding the sheep in one place more than one night so we would let them bed down wherever night caught them. We put up a pup tent to sleep in to be near the herd. We heard of a bear killing several animals in a herd at night, but we never had this trouble. Along toward fall a bear would kill and eat a lamb, which also ate into the year's earnings.
Buck Creek was steep and was bear and elk country. We were on this range for two years. The government trappers set a trap about 1/2 mile from camp. He tied the trap to a toggle. The toggle was made out of a log about three feet long. He found he had caught one but it had taken off with the trap. It was his payday in Durango so he asked George and me to find the bear, kill it, and recover the trap. We told him we didn't have a rifle, and he said we could kill it with an axe. We trailed it for a mile and a half before breakfast. Any way the vegetation would spring back up after the bear passed. We were fearful of walking up on an angry bear. Being weak, hungry, and fearful, we gave up the chase and climbed back to the camp exhausted.
George found the dead bear along with the trap later in the summer. During a dry thunderstorm, we saw lightning strike a tree about a mile away. Fire and smoke boiled up. George grabbed a shovel and axe, crawled on a horse and headed over to the fire, telling me to gather the sheep in case a forest fire got out of control. This would have been futile, as the range was all timber. Luckily it was a ground fire and George chopped and scraped a fire lane that contained it from spreading.
The ranger and crew arrived about the time he was through. George received a letter of thanks and a check for $2.50. Ittook the C.C.C. boys 2 or 3 days to beat out the sparks.
One time I was alone for a week or ten days. My food supply was low, so I butchered a yearling, rather early one morning, on a level place a few yards below camp. I hung the meat in a sack high in the shade. Any way, I had taken the axe that evening to cut a ridgepole for the pup tent. It was getting dark when I came back to the tent to get supper. A bear was eating the entrails, it was dark, and I couldn't see it. Tip the sheep dog had a certain growl when a bear was close. I was about 10 feet away when it backed off and ran. My hair was standing on end from that encounter.
We kept fresh meat several days by hanging it in a tree to chill and then rolling it in a bedroll to insulate and keep cool during the day. One time about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, George said he was going to check on the pack animals in a glade about a mile from camp. A hard rain and lightning storm came up. It was getting late evening and he hadn't come back. I went up the ridge he had gone and I shook with fear as I
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came upon two different trees that had exploded from lightning that afternoon. I got to the place where the horses' grazed. The horse's tracks with George's footprints were on the trail up the mountain. I knew then that he was after the horses. He didn't show up until about ten o'clock, so I took the gas lantern hoping to meet him. He had caught up with the horses in about 19 miles. He did as I had done the night I ran down the path. He rode the lead mare with the others following. In the mountains you can see the white trunks of the quaking aspen trees, even in darkness if they are dry. After a rain you can see nothing. Being unable to see, he tied the mare with the hobble ropes under a large fir tree. He spent the night without a fire, staying dry even though it rained throughout the night. He came on into the camp at daybreak.
Later that summer we were moving the sheep and camp to the other side of the range a bear killed six ewes. We had some poison given us by the Government trappers to put in a warm carcass. We moved about another mile and tied up our sheep dog, Tip, to keep him from going back. He slipped out of the rope during the night and went back and died near the dead sheep. We were devastated and sad from losing the best friend and sheepdog we ever had.
That fall as we went through Durango we hired a Navajo boy, Henry Jack. He was seventeen years old and a wonderful friend and helper. That
Winter he married Edna Plantora a beautiful Indian girl from the reservation. She stayed with him in camp now and then.
The next year we took the sheep to Bear Creek Range about six or eight miles further around the mountain. I didn't go to the mountains. I stayed at the farm trying to raise grain and pasture. I would take supplies and groceries and meet George and the packhorses at different points as close as I could get with the truck. Our brother, Raymond, helped me some on the farm. That summer it was dry and the lower pastures were short. The Forest Service let the stock and sheep men stay on the ranges another 30 days. In late September, a snowstorm marooned the herd in the mountains.
Not knowing the snow was so deep I went in on foot to help George and Henry get the herd out. I tried cutting across to the range I hadn't been to before. Night caught me at about 10,000 feet on Kennebec Pass. My pant legs were freezing. I back tracked six miles and stumbled on a prospector's dug out. He had a fire going so I followed the smoke. I stayed the night with him. He shared what little food he had. left the next morning and he went down the canyon leaving for the winter. I made the mistake of taking his advise to go over the mountain by the Bessie G. Mine. I found this to be about 11,000 feet. Two men were at the mine. The pack trail to the mine went around the peak, above cliffs, so I had to tread very carefully to avoid falling over. The men gave me a meal. I left about two in the afternoon. I could see the site of the neglected mine about six miles across the canyon. It took me well after dark to get to the mine. Three men were still working the mine. Their boss, James Dennison, had gone home. They fed me and let me sleep in Jim's bedroll. They said
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a bunch of sheep had gone down the ridge that morning so we figured it was ours. walked 15 miles, and Butch Cordell met me with the pickup and we rode on to Durango, only to find it was the wrong herd. Butch took me back to the trail and I stayed the night again at the neglected mine. The next morning I went on up the trail about six miles, to find George and Henry breaking trail and driving the sheep.
We drove the sheep about 15 miles down to Junction Creek. We corralled
them and counted them the next morning. We were thirty head short.
Our losses had been heavy that spring. George and I walked about eight miles on each side of the ridge and back that day. George took the mare with a bedroll and some food back to the summer range to look for them. Henry and I took the herd across a mesa west of Durango. Today this is the present Crestview development on the west side of Durango. It was just weeds and brush at that time. Driving on the west side of the Animas River there were a few small houses. One house had a room built out to the east with a door on each side. Some of the sheep were bouncing through the rooms, not wanting to face an angry housewife. I didn't ask if they had caught a sheep to butcher.
Henry and I drove the sheep on south of Durango to the Tommy Lewis ranch. About three days later George returned from the high country. He had found fifteen sheep and put them in an old corral. He found the other fifteen and drove them with the others to find a coyote had killed two of those. He gave another to the men at the neglected mine to butcher as a token of thanks for their help. As I believe we kept the sheep at the Tommy Lewis ranch for a while and shipped the lambs to Denver. George went along and he and Mr. Brown, a sheep man and Vice President of the First National Bank got off the train and walked for exercise as the train climbed over Cumbres Pass.
In November, we heard of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In January, George, Raymond, and Cousin John went to Phoenix to see the folks. Our numbers came up for the draft. They told me they would defer both of us if we didn't hire any help. I volunteered to go so was in Denver and in the Navy in March 1943. George had the harder job staying and running the sheep. He never told me much of his hardships for the next two years. Henry Jack and his wife and child helped him for a while but was getting only $30 a month plus board. He decided to work in the shipyard for higher pay. He was drafted into the Army, and was killed in Germany. This was sad news for a young man that had very little to fight for. I drew $25 a month for a few months until President Roosevelt raised the minimum to $50 a month. While in the war zone we received another $25. I worked up to 2nd class petty officer and aviation machinist mate and never drew more than $95 a month base pay.
To get back to the story George married Phyllis Roth and Eula and I married in June 1943. I was on the U.S.S. Guadalcanal in the middle of the Atlantic when I received a letter from George asking about selling the sheep. I told him to go ahead. After selling and paying off debts he had just enough to buy some machinery, a 60-acre farm, and a house for him and Phyllis on the mesa near Kline.
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I was released from the Navy in September 1945 and Eula, baby daughter, Linda and I moved into the old frame house. George had bought some acreage, which was un-cleared, for the back taxes. It was a perfect set up if we could have borrowed the money for machinery and clearing. After struggling for two years we broke up the partnership. George and I have always been close, as brothers and I don't know even yet if it was a fair division of the partnership. George is a wonderful brother and I have never heard any blame from him. He moved to Arkansas, and always seems to have the misfortune of selling before the price rises.
SHEEPDOGS Bowser
Thought to be a mixture of coyote and English shepherd. Bowser was our dog, George and myself, in the days while on the homestead. He was a loyal pet, but at times we saw him playing with the coyotes. During mating seasons he would be gone for a few days and we thought we saw his tracks with the coyotes. There were numerous hollow logs that Bowser would chase cottontail rabbits into. He would
bark until brother George or I would chop into the log and get the rabbit. He would get the head and entrails. The carcass was fried of went into a stew.
One time he treed a young mountain lion. He lion stayed in the tree until we got close, and then it ran away.
Another time we were getting a load of wood, and we heard him bark. He was in some heavy timber on the south side of a field. George told me to go on home with the team and wagon. I saw him go into the timber and come out immediately. He found Bowser barking at a bobcat, which was hissing and spitting at him.
Perro (dog in Spanish)
In later years at the Mancos place, we had a yellow haired dog of unknown origin named Perro. A lovable pet, but not too bright. Our cousins from Dolores Colo. Would come for a visit. We would climb to the top of a high hill just south of the place. We enjoyed rolling large rocks off the cliff, down the oak brush covered hillside; Perro would run across the slope chasing them. He never got hurt, which just proved that he was just a worthless mutt.
Jogger
A black and white English shepherd, was unintelligent dog. When we were on the road with the sheep he would go ahead of cars and clear the road for them. This would get him a lot of praise, which he loved. He was a good sheepdog, but lazy. Rather than work, he would takeoff for the farm, which was miles away.
Tips
A brilliant sheepdog fathered by Jogger. A single pup he was born and raised in sheep camp. His mother a small collie named Fannie, would bark at the sheep, but
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you couldn't send her around them. In open country you could send him around the herd as far as you could see. If he was out of hearing range, he would look back and obey commands by watching hand signals. When on the move with the sheep you could send him around either side. He would chase coyotes away from the herd. When on the winter range, he would come into the tent for a while. If it was crowded, all you had to say was "coyotes Tips" and he would go out and bark up a storm. At lambing time he would catch a lamb by tumbling it off its' feet. If you thought a young lamb was being left in dense brush you just had to tell him to "hunt him up", and he would bounce here and there until he found it. He would hold it down with his feet and bark until we would get it. On the mountain range he would rout a bear by barking at it. He would dodge the bears' paws and always got it to run. This was the smartest dog we ever had.
BEE STORIES
My first experience with bee trees was when I was 9 or 10 years old. It was Dads first experience, also his last. There was a big hollow cedar tree on the north end of the homestead that had wild bees, and honey that could be seen through the knotholes. Dad decided to get that honey. My mother brother George and I went along to help. We didn't get enough smoke into the tree to sober up those bees. After chopping and sawing and getting numerous stings we gave the project up. Dad got the most stings and his face was swollen beyond recognition for a few days.
Several years later while herding sheep on a mesa in the foothills, I saw smoke on the hillside. I went down to investigate and found a neighbor with his wife and 2 children, trying to rob a bee tree. We had his wife and children to stay back at a safe distance. We borrowed some baby diapers to cover our heads and faces. We got about a gallon of honey. The neighbor wanted to know if I would help him with another tree the next day. The next day we met in a deep canyon. The neighbor, Vic Terrell and his sister's boyfriend Parks Cordell. They had brought a bee box and a large container for the honey. We smoked the bees and cut and split the tree. As soon as you would get the honey busted up the bees would quiet down and go to eating the honey. They would cluster into a ball or swarm. A bee smoker was about the size of a large coffee pot with a small bellow attached. You could put rags or cedar bark on fire, but smoldering, to put smoke into a hive or tree. Anyway my brother George, who was scared of bees, came by. He got a chunk of honeycomb, which turned out to be the only eatable honey. The rest was brood comb with young bees. The bees swarmed into a ball on a branch about forty feet up a tall pine tree. The canyon wall was so steep that we could get about thirty feet from them and throw rocks trying to break the branch. This didn't work, so Vic, being a small agile man, climbed the big pine tree by clinging to the bark. His plan was for Parks and me to catch the swarm in the open bee box and container held over our heads. He made
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it up and cut the branch loose. He yelled with his shrill voice for us to catch the swarm. We caught the swarm in the containers but they were mad again by now, and began stinging Parks and me. We abandoned the project and ran. The bees clustered in another tree too high to reach. Vic came out of the tree saying how lucky he was not to get one sting. Needless to say, we abandoned the project.
I read a story of a man finding bee trees by watching bees at a waterhole or flowerbeds. He said you could see them flying straight for home with their load in the evening sun. You could walk to the place of last sighting, and see other bees doing the same. By using this method you could always find the tree. Later that summer I found bees in a large red cedar tree on a hillside in a remote canyon. Some folks I had met came to help, and we got about 70 pounds of honey without incident. In later years, I found and robbed bees in trees and walls of buildings. Sometimes having experiences that were humorous. I later put swarming bees into boxes and left them in the timber where caught. We took part of the honey for 2 or 3 years. Some deer hunters found the hives and took the honey and destroyed the boxes. I recently talked with a nephew who lives in Kentucky. He has 4 or 5 hives. He says his bees know his voice and do not sting him when he takes the honey or works with them. I've heard of others who can do this also. I could never be deceitful enough to strike-up a friendship with bees.
MOMS TO BLAME
I have always detested people blaming a parent for cruel treatment when they were a child. They can be forty or fifty years old and not admit that somewhere they reached an accountable age where they could have straightened up their lives. I may be wrong! My mother said I bawled until I was two years old. We lived briefly in the tall timber of Arkansas while Dad sold sewing machines in the oil fields of Oklahoma.
She would put me in the feed trough while she milked the cows. What kid wouldn't be traumatized at this kind of treatment? And a mixture of cottonseed meal, molasses, and cow slobbers has marked me for life with a COWLICK!
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ALL IN A DAYS WORK
In the fall of 1952 after an extremely bad crop year I went to work cutting 1000 or 1500 fence posts to pay grocery bills. I did the fall plowing and planted fall wheat between times. Later in the winter Merrill Strobel joined me in cutting another couple thousand posts. The posts wouldn't sell till spring. Needing cash and hearing of a mile of highway to be built below Hesperus we decided to try for a job. It was the middle of March and the snow was still around 3 ft deep. The day we applied for work a dozer had just pushed down through the right-of-way. The foreman was there and we were hired. The next morning we were handed axes and told to cut some scrub oak that was 3 t 6 inches in diameter. We hadn't worked long when the foreman brought a chain saw and asked if we knew how to run it. Merrill said we did but I had more experience. I had been sawing about an hour when I turned to Merrill and asked if he knew what he had got me into. I told him they were going to expect me to saw that mile of big cottonwood and pine trees that was in the way. I had been cutting cedars for post and knew nothing about cutting tall timber. I would have walked off if I hadn't been desperate for a job. The large cottonwoods had limbs sprawling out in all directions. The foreman did tell me the trees usually fell the direction of the watermark on the trees. I was sawing in a clump of large trees and the boss told Merrill that Melvin wasn't afraid of those trees like the sawyer on the last job! He didn't know that I was sweating blood and doing a lot of praying. After about 6 weeks of cutting and bucking the trees into 10 ft lengths the dozer pushed them into piles for us to burn. After the winters work our coats were rather ragged. With our first paychecks Merrill's wife Emma and my wife Eula went to town and feeling sorry for us bought us some denim jackets. After the first day of burning the piles of brush. The sparks got into our jackets with the starch in them and burned the entire sleeve off Merrill's and mine was full of holes. Of course we weren't in the jackets as we had laid them aside while we worked. Well our wives were not sympathetic, as we had to put on our old coats. After 2 months of this work clearing and helping build a bridge across the LaPlata River. Merrill went back to spring work on his farm. I was still desperate for money. I dropped into the carpenters union headquarters in Durango. I was told if I could saw a board square and read a plumb line and read a measuring tape, I could have a job as a carpenter on the Mesa Verde tunnel. The next morning I showed up for work and told the boss he had a hayseed carpenter on his hands. I knew the man and he assured me I had a job. The tunnel was pretty well along. I wasn't told that the union carpenters had walked off the job on account of exhaust fumes from the cement trucks and paving trucks in the tunnel. I along with some other temporary workers was put to work building forms for the curbs through the tunnel. It was so smoky that you could hardly see the lights. The pay was good so I worked about 2 weeks and quit on account of the fumes. One fellow didn't know how to read the tape would hesitate and then say its good enough for a highway. Well it wasn't as there was about 2 inches tolerance on the curbs. After the engineers made us move the forms he was fired. It was interesting work as
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mine rails were laid out ahead and an arched form was moved along to shape the tunnel roof. Tons of concrete was blown into the curved forms and steel was tied ahead. I was feeling bad as I drove home one evening so I quit. I went into the union office in Durango and was assured I had fulfilled time to get a union carpenter card, but that I would likely sit on the bench, as more qualified men would get work first. I was told that if I could get a job at the Vanadium Corporation of America, (VCA.) I would have a permanent job. I applied and got seven years of worse fumes than the tunnel had been!
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W.W.II EXPERIENCES HUMOR IN UNIFORM
While I was taking machinist training in the U.S. Navy, two sailors kept playing pranks on each other. Their names were Cotton and D.O. Caloway (Droopy Drawers Caloway). One night we had a blackout in the shop. When the lights came on Cotton had evidently taken a nap. His face was completely covered with black graphite grease. One night, Droopy Drawers was my partner on a lathe. Droopy was sitting on a G.!. Can sound asleep. An officer came by and shook him. He thought it was Cotton and got up and thoroughly kicked the Gold Braid on the shins. When he woke up his expression was so funny that the officer had to laugh.
While in boot camp we were continually being marched around. One evening while being marched to the movies an officer yelled, "move it out, don't be a horses tail". Someone answered, "don't be a horses ass". The officer yelled, "halt, who said that?" It was too dark to see and of course no one answered. We were all amused. One time, I was sent to fire school, we were sent into a replica of a ships engine room to put out an oil and gas fire. We were amazed to find, with a fog nozzle to cool ahead of us, and followed by a foam nozzle. We could walk into a blazing inferno.
We put out a number of oil and gasoline fires. The last day, two crews of us competed putting out fires. A crew comprised of three men and a chief. We had to unroll 3 lengths of hose and attach a nozzle. We had to start a small gas engine, "the handy billie pump". All went well until the knot on the starting rope hit our chief in the eye. Our team won and put the fire out first. We didn't get any credit, as we had two lengths of hose connected and the third hose hooked in a circle.
One time on the small carrier "Guadalcanal", while in flight operations in the Atlantic, a plane came in and caught fire. They always had a man in an asbestos suit, known as a monkey suit. This man helped get the pilot out, in this case unharmed. A warrant officer, a good man, was always present when things happened. The cameraman had a picture of him loping across the deck with a fog nozzle in his hand. He turned it on and is astonished to find he had no water and on looking back sees the boys still rolling out hose. A fire aboard ship is no joke. The next time we had movies the cameraman said he had a special. He shows our officer in slow motion putting out the fire. I expect our officer could have killed him.
Another time between flight operations I noticed a young sailor had a toy plane. He would put the plane through all sorts of didoes, making airplane noises. I asked him if he didn't get enough of the real thing? He assured me that he did. He wanted to see how long it would take for someone to ask him if he was crazy.
When in the South Pacific aboard the small carrier Altamaha a fellow crewman who was 5' 5" and I was 6' 4" tall. Our bunks were 4 bunks high and were fastened to the bulkhead during the day. I had the fourth bunk and he the third. When it was bedtime he would say, "giant it's time to let the beds down". One morning before dawn when General Quarters sounded saying, "man your battle stations". We had 5 minutes to get dressed and out of the compartment before the hatches were closed.
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This was quite a scramble for 40 men. We would go out on the ships bow and climb a ladder to the flight deck. One morning my shipmate had started up the ladder, and I reached above him and we went up the ladder together. I couldn't drop back as another man was behind us. Anyway we made it and when he saw it was me against the skyline he said in disgust, "oh it's you".
ALTAMAHA CRUISE TO THE ISLANDS
During WWIII was on the small carrier U.S.S. Altamaha. We were transporting squadrons and planes, to the fighting on Guadalcanal, in the south pacific. The first cruise was from San Diego Calif. We had 80 Navy planes with the wings folded, and they were crammed into every available space. In case of a submarine attack, there would not have been time to launch any planes. There was only one plane ready on the catapult.
There were 700 men regular crew plus 300 men in a squadron aboard. On the return trip we traveled 2500 miles to Honolulu Hawaii, to pick-up another load of troops, without any planes or an escort. On one trip we carried 300 to 400 Marines, to Johnson and Palmyra Islands, to relieve Marines that had been there since the bombing at Pearl Harbor.
The men were in bedrolls all over the flight and hangar decks. One evening, I had to cross the hangar deck, which was quite dark. I stepped on a pups tail, and he ran crying across the deck, with me begging his forgiveness. The men were all laughing. As I was going down the ladder to go below decks it happened again. The next day I was looking everywhere for the dog. I asked a marine "where is the dog?" He laughed and said "there is no dog, one of the men is a ventriloquist, and is having fun." This made me think of the indomitable spirit of the American G.1.
AN UNFORGETTABLE DREAM
In the late Fall of 1943, I was on the small carrier U.S.S. Guadalcanal. We were escorting convoys from Norfolk Va. to Europe. The British, would escort the convoy from French Morocco on to their destination.
After leaving the convoy, we cruised down the West African coast nearly to the Equator. The crew was never told where we were, or where we were going. According to the lively scuttlebutt (gossip), about our destination and purpose. We were to hunt-down and destroy German submarines.
I dreamed that our ship was anchored in a harbor with a seawall across one side. There were some sunken sailing vessels with only the top deck above water. In my dream a German battlewagon appeared on the open ocean, and began firing at us. was terrified, and was running zigzag down the flight deck, to avoid getting hit.
About 10 days later we were anchored in this same location. I was worried the whole time we were in port. The sailing vessels were sunken, to keep them out of enemy hands and to clutter the harbor, in case the Germans and Italians took over.
I have never figured the purpose of this dream, except to keep me on the straight and narrow. The location was Casablanca French Morocco West Africa. On the deck of one of the vessels, a group of Arabs would sit in their white robes, not moving a
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muscle. One of the guys said that they were Norfolk shipyard workers.
My cousin Paul Butler from Dolores Colo. Was in the terrible fighting, driving the enemy back into Italy, and freeing some of the Jews from a death camp. Ninety percent of his original unit was casualties.
EXPERIENCES ON THE Guadalcanal
After going through the Panama Canal we caught up with our squadron and planes at Norfolk Va. We were assigned to the job of escorting convoys of troops and supply ships from the United States to Europe. We had 18 planes with pilots and airmen aboard plus a regular crew of around 700 men. We never saw the ships we were escorting from the carrier. Our job was to keep submarines from sinking the convoy.
I am sure the pilots would have seen the ships everyday. Our torpedo T.B.M. planes had a crew of a pilot, gunner and radar man. One trip out, we were caught in a storm between Norfolk and Bermuda that was as rough as I had seen. The waves seemed 50 or 60 feet high. One friend was washed off the flight deck during the night. Two of the destroyer escorts (D. E.) dropped back with floodlights searching for him but without any luck. Our planes did not fly on very rough days but often the ships would be rolling and pitching when they took off. I had great respect for these men. The British took over escorting the convoy to their destination, somewhere off the coast of North Africa. Our job was to hunt German submarines up and down the coast of Africa and once as far as the Bay of Biscay, on the northern coast of Spain. Our planes flew 24 hours a day. I am quite sure the other small carriers did the same. We were not allowed to show any lights. The flight deck was outlined with small
lights like stage lights in a theatre. A signal officer stood on the after end of the flight deck with paddles with lights in each hand to signal the altitude of the planes wings. He would signal them off if they were in the wrong position. The signal officer had to be of a brave and cool nature and had to dive into a net over the side if a plane was about to hit him. The first run out we did not have a lot of luck, operating mostly from dawn to dusk. Subs, our own and enemy, would stay underwater with their periscopes just above water when torpedoing a ship. They could locate ships underwater by radar. They ran on batteries during the day and had to surface during the night and use diesel generators to recharge batteries. The radar on the planes could spot them as soon as they surfaced and drop a bomb or depth charge on them. It took 72 hours to sink one sub. There were 65 men on most submarines. This particular sub just the captain and one sailor survived. One sub and a cow (tanker with fuel) were spotted about 80 miles away in late afternoon. Four planes were sent to sink them. They completed the job. There was a wild storm came up before they could land. The deck was rolling and pitching, and the first plane in, went into the water over the port side, taking some 20-millimeter guns off with them. The next plane went partly off the starboard side, hanging up on a cable along the catwalk. They were going to cut the cable with an acetylene torch but found aviation fuel all over the deck. The other two planes were short of fuel, and couldn't land with the plane hanging across the deck. The captain had to tell them to water land. Our
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planes would float only about 5 minutes. Just barely enough time for the crews to get out. It was dangerous to use lights but the destroyer escorts turned on floodlights and all of the men were rescued.
This cruise out we had tragedies. One plane lost its bearings while on patrol. The pilot could radio to the ship but couldn't receive. They didn't make it back. We later learned they had to water land off an island, and the water was so rough, the 3 men had fought for 2 hours and drowned. Natives of the island said the water was so rough they couldn't help them. Another plane had the engine conk out, and the pilot told the gunner and radioman to get ready for a water landing. The men misunderstood and jumped. At the last minute the engine caught up and the plane made it in. The pilot dropped marker dye where it happened but the men were never found. I remember how bad it made me feel to see 5 boxes of belongings to be sent to families. Anyway out of 18 planes, we only had one plane in flying condition, and one to take parts from. And we were still in the war zone.
The last cruise I was on the ship, we were 500 miles from Dakar off the coast of West Africa. It was Sunday and we had only one plane on patrol. As the plane came in to land, the pilot saw a submarine periscope breaking water. It was in the middle of our ship and destroyer escorts. The pilot dived and released torpedoes that were carried under the wings. The sub thought they had only one plane to fight, they surfaced and broke out their anti-aircraft gun and fired a shot about 4 ft. from the pilot, leaving a hole in the wing. The pilot dived and strafed the sub, hitting the gunner and
wounded the captain of the sub. The submarine crew panicked and abandoned the sub. The sub was running in a circle. Captain Gallery of our ship had a premonition before we left the states that we were going to capture a submarine, and the pentagon laughed. He had men on our ship and the escorts ready to man one.
These men chased the sub in small boats, and were just in time to turn off the detonators, and close the sea valves that were opened to sink the sub.
The subs crew and Captain were picked up by the destroyer escort and then sent by a boat chair on a cable to the carrier's deck. There was a space about 30 feet wide across the ship between the stacks under the flight deck from the engine rooms.
This was fenced off on each end. And the subs crew was held in it. It was a dry heat of about 80 degrees so they stripped down to their shorts. They were fed the same as we were, and released on the flight deck, and showered from a fire hose. Someone put a sign on the entrances of their quarters," U.S.O.". Our ships doctor was a German from New York, and the navigator was Dutch. The Germans had killed their families. When the subs gunner was buried at sea, our Chaplain, announced on the loudspeaker, anyone that wished could stand at attention while he said a prayer. I am quite sure this is more than our enemy would do. One of the destroyer escorts tried towing the sub, but had to turn the job over to the carrier. We kept flying
planes, even though our speed was 12 knots instead of 18. Another submarine was sunk while we had prisoners, and I wondered how they felt, hearing the cheers when our plane landed. It seemed cruel to cheer when 60 men were killed, but this was
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the terrible result of war. The submarines had sunk so many of our ships and thousands of our men had died. Another small carrier the "Liscombe Bay" sailed out of Astoria Oregon about 10 days before our ship sailed. This ship was torpedoed and 700 men out of 1100 died. I got the cart before the horse on some of this. Sick bay was allowed several cases of whiskey for medicinal purposes, for the officers. Two men stole all of this except for a case or 2 on the top. They emptied a water cask on a life raft and poured the whiskey into it. One of the men, made too frequent trips to the raft, so they were caught. Thousands of gallons of aviation fuel was stored in a large tank with a space all around it that was filled with inert air, to cut down danger of explosion, in case enemy bullets entered through the hull. To make a long story short, several cases of beer was stored in this space, for a beer party for the men, when we would get to Casablanca. Needless to say this never happened, as some of the men would risk their lives to steal the beer. The cases were empty by the time we were at anchor in Casablanca.
Back to the captured sub. After it was in tow, there was a wild storm during the night, and broke the towline. It was picked up the next day after the storm abated. A sea going tug came the 500 miles out of Dakar and towed it to the states. The Germans didn't find out about the capture during the remainder of the war. The German codebooks and maps that showed where the mines were set in the harbors were taken. As fast as the Germans changed their code, our forces had the change. I don't remember when the prisoners were taken from the carrier. Anyway, the carrier was running short of fuel, after towing the submarine. We went into a port on one of the Azores islands. It was a beautiful sight to see the terraced hills against the blue sky. They were not able to help us, so a sea going tanker, fueled us at sea two days later. It was no easy task to fuel at sea in rough water. They had to shoot lines between vessels and pull fuel hoses over. There was a danger of the tanker and carrier banging into each other. On the way back to the states, we anchored 2 days at Hamilton Bermuda. Half the crew was allowed liberty, with the stipulation that if they behaved the rest of us could go the next day. Well the majority of those ashore had to be dragged back aboard stinking drunk. The rest of us were allowed to swim in the ocean. This was my first time, and last swimming in the ocean. Those of us that handled planes were allowed to wear flat inner tube life belts instead of the bulky kapokjackets. I blew some air into my tube, and was enjoying the swim. I was out about a hundred yards, and chatting with an officer. I admitted that I couldn't swim. He told me I was brave to be out this far from the ship. Anyway, when I climbed onto the ships, "Jacobs ladder". I found there wasn't a breath of air in the belt. The thing was full of holes. I guess it is easier to swim in salt water.
On arriving back in Portsmouth, I was given 3 days leave and travel time. I was given 3 more days, but didn't hear of it until I went aboard. I was broke, but I walked off and got 3 days stevedoring, with 60 Negroes and a white boss. I stayed nights at a Y.M.C.A. It was frowned on in Virginia, for a white man to work with black men. It was interesting to me. We handled 2 wheel trucks unloading cargo from barges, and
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then loading them with 500-pound slabs of some kind of meta\. I had done some of this kind of work in Seattle, while on liberty. I found out about the injustice that Negroes had to live with. I had worked for 1.50 plus time and a half for overtime. In Virginia the wages were 65 cents an hour with no overtime. The men were great for singing as we worked. We had to push the load up the gangplank at first and then hold back, as the barge was loaded. Anyway I went back aboard ship with it about to get underway. I learned that 2 friends that had been with me from the time we shoved off for the Pacific, had put me down for shore duty, under the point system. I just had time to get my sea bag and gear, before the gangplank was lifted. They had chosen Atlantic City Naval Air Station for duty. I was given just enough time to go home to Colo. and get Eula, and my sister Frances, and go back to New Jersey. I only saw those friends once, as they decided Atlantic City wasn't as fun for liberty as they thought. I stayed in Atlantic City until I was released from the Navy at Lido beach N.Y. in Sept. 1945. This was the beginning of another story, as sister Frances, Eula and 6week old daughter Linda and I set off for Colorado in a $200. 1934 Pontiac. LIBERTIES IN Casablanca, MOROCCO
While on the small carrier Guadalcanal, we anchored 3 or 4 times in the harbor at Casablanca. Our planes landed at an air base while we were in port. The harbor was horseshoe shaped, with a stone sea wall on one side and the city of Casablanca on the hillside surrounding it. There were several, sailing type French vessels, sunk in the harbor, with their top decks above water. I understood the French did this when the enemy took over.
The crew was given a few hours liberty each cruise. We always had to struggle through a crowd of beggars and vendors at the dock. At first I had trouble, but was told some words that I've forgotten, that would give you passage. I don't know whether they were swear words or not. Tom Harrison, a friend and the ship's postmaster accompanied me. We had our pictures taken by a photographer who used the old type of camera that he had to use a hood. We had our pictures taken so that we could portray the throng around us. The cameraman managed to take the picture without a single native appearing in the photo. One man insisted that Tom hold his monkey on his shoulder, but he was upset because the monkey wet on him. Another man had some insects in a tray and wanted some money to see him eat them. Tom asked him if he liked them, and why we should pay him to eat something that he enjoyed. We paid one man 2 dollars for a ride on a two-wheeled cart that had rubber tires. He took us out to see the Sultans' palace. He kept saying "yeah" to his horses and Tom asked what it meant. He said it meant "gitty up". Tom said well why don't you just say "gitty up" in an America G.\. know it all fashion. One trip we had the privilege of some of our ships company to go in the back of a truck to Rabat the capitol of French Morocco. Some of the Sultans' guard held a parade with some outdated cannon and military equipment. We paid a Jewish boy to give us a ride on a buggy pulled by 2 ponies. There was 6 or 8 of us, which made quite a load. Some of us would walk up grades. We stood around with a crowd to watch the Sultan go to a
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Moslem temple to worship. There were guards that stood in a square around the temple. They were all Negroes about seven feet tall and had their swords drawn. I asked one of the people about it. They said the guards were to keep unbelievers out. I sure wasn't about to tell those guys that I was a believer. Anyway our guard was astounding for a boy of 16. He said he could speak Jewish, French, English and Arabic. There were some modern buildings. He took us to one of the better buildings to eat dinner. On the way back we saw a camel and a donkey with hayracks with loads that were comparable to their size. I forgot to tell that we were fortunate to have a ships photographer with our group and he was nice enough to give each of us pictures. We were not allowed to have cameras.
TRAGEDIES AT SEA
After leaving San Diego on the U.S.S. Altamaha, a small carrier. In the fall of 1942 we headed for the South Pacific, with a squadron aboard, and 80, FA.F. Fighter planes. Planes, which had the wings folded, and were jammed into every corner of the ship. After going by Honolulu Hawaii, we went about another 2500 miles to Noumea, New Caledonia. We cruised around the islands awhile, off the coast of Australia, training the pilots for carrier landings.
The fighting was going on at Guadalcanal. Our first tragedy, while training planes for dive-bombing and strafing, at a target towed behind the ship. One of the planes exploded for some reason, and all that was left was a piece of cowling floating on the water.
The next tragedy was a plane going off the port side of the ship, snapping a cable along the catwalk. We lost the plane into the ocean but the pilot survived. When the cable broke, it snapped back and caught a friend in the face. He died about 2 hours later. The next tragedy happened while we were at target practice, one man was on the flight deck watching the procedure, when a 40 Millimeter shell exploded prematurely over his head and he was killed. Our squadron flew on into the fighting at Guadalcanal and the survivors landed on a land base or carrier.
We would go back to Pearl Harbor without escort or planes, for another squadron and planes. There were some scary times, but they were false alarms of submarines. There were no more casualties while on this ship, although there were numerous accidents.
One time I was operating the forward elevator; a fighter planes tail-hook missed all of the arresting gear cables, and was slicing up the deck with the propeller. I was coming up with the elevator. I didn't have time to be scared. At the last minute the pilot hit the brakes and the plane flipped over, with the tail at my feet.
Another time a plane was revving up on the catapult. The ring hooking it to the catapult was faulty, and broke before the catapult equipment was released. This meant the plane had to reach flying speed in 90 feet. We ran across the deck, expecting to see it sink, but the plane barely skimmed the water and took flight. This was the pilots lucky, or unlucky day, as he landed after his flight, the ship pitched over a wave, and threw his plane at the conning tower. He gave full power
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and missed the tower, but landed upside down in the water. The plane sank, but the pilot emerged almost instantly, and miraculously was unhurt.
Another plane came in from a flight with a wing fuel tank that wouldn't release. It did, however, release when the plane hit the deck and burst into flames. The man that stood by in an asbestos suit, (monkey suit), helped the pilot. out. The fire crew put out the fire, and no one was hurt.
Another time, it was announced to watch the landing, as it is the 1000th landing. As it turned out the pilot came in on a wing and a prayer. It was on one wheel and a wing tip and a crash. On the last cruise that I was on the ship. After unloading the planes we were sent by a small atoll or island, Funi Fudy, which was in the process of being fortified. The Japs had been bombing it every day. It was among other small islands. We were supposed to get in at daybreak, but it was foggy and the navigator couldn't find it. We had one small plane, an S.O.C. aboard. It was sent up to locate the island. It was high noon when we found it. There wasn't a dock to unload supplies, gasoline, and ammunition. They had to be unloaded on a barge, along with 50 of the ships crew to help unload. The crewmembers were to be picked up on the next cruise. It was nearly evening when we got underway. A ship appeared on the horizon. It was thought to be a Jap war ship. There were tense moments as we manned our guns. Our anti-aircraft guns wouldn't have been anymore than peashooters against a fighting war ship. A tropical rainstorm hit almost instantly, and obscured everything. We were on the guns for hours but we never saw any sign of the ship again. On arriving in Pear Harbor it was decided to go to the states for repairs. On the cruise in, one of the boilers shutdown. We barely made more than 8 or 10 knots per hour for several days. We didn't have enough speed to cross the troughs between waves, so the ship would roll from one side to the other, making you think it might go on over. My sleeping quarters were directly under the galley. I could hear the cooks cursing as they chased pots and pans across the steel deck. Radio silence was never broken unless necessary, as there was danger of an enemy sub. locating us. We finally made port, and we took turns to go on leave. I got 3 days leave plus travel time to go home to Colorado. Eula decided to marry me. Colo. law required 3 days for a blood test, so we eloped from Durango Co. to Aztec N.M. A Methodist minister married us.
Our last day, we visited my folks in Albuquerque N.M. I left from there to go back to the ship and return to the South Pacific. Instead, 80 of us were transferred to Sand Point Naval Air Station in Seattle Wash. to go aboard another ship. This was the last I heard of the Altamaha.
W.W.II CHRISTMAS AND EASTER
At Christmas of 1942 my ship a small carrier, U.S.S. Altamaha was at anchor in a small harbor at Noumea New Caledonia. One of the larger carriers was alongside. It had a 20 ft hole blown in its flight deck. A cruiser had the bow shot off and one of the compartments was flooded. There were 16 bodies closed in it. Anyway our crew put on a Christmas play, using the forward elevator lowered to about 6 ft above the
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hangar deck. The small hills looked similar to the setting where Christ was born. The sky was different as there were barrage balloons with cables attached to keep enemy planes away and large searchlights searching the sky.
At Easter the next spring we were heading back to Pearl Harbor. We were heading back the 2500 miles without planes or escort. It was a perfectly calm sea so the chaplain had me operate the after elevator to move the ships piano onto the flight deck. He held services, with men who were not on watch attending. This seemed a very peaceful setting.
The next Christmas eve I was attached to the small carrier, U.S.S. Guadalcanal. We were ready to leave Norfolk, Va. at dawn, escorting another convoy to Europe. This was quite a memory as there were about 30 of us. We were trudging through about 4 inches of snow looking for a church service. There were a number of churches; some with the doors unlocked and with candles burning, but no services. Every time out there was the danger of being torpedoed. I have often thought how the men in the convoys that were heading for the battlefields felt knowing that some of them would never return.
The next Christmas I was doing shore duty at the naval air station near Atlantic City N.J. Eula, Frances, cousin Maurice and I went to Christmas services in Pleasantville N.J. where we were living. Maurice had gotten leave from his Navy unit for Christmas Eve.