Early Recordings of Karl's Family
Karl and Alice Dahlke, children of Carolyn Lucas, daughter of John Lucas and Mary Lapish. The focus is on John Lucas, also known as Pappy. He is a character that can hardly be captured in words, pictures, or even audio, but for the sake of our descendants, we'll do the best we can. I spent many summers with him in his home in Kamas Utah, and traveling around the western United States in his "pacel" camper, which he built on top of a yellow flatbed Dodge pickup truck. In 1970 he came to our house in Royal Oak Michigan for 3 months and remodeled the front of our house, turning the front porch into an extended living room. The man could design and build just about anything! This website contains audio recordings of Pappy and other relatives, and some anecdotes, as I remember them. The recordings are made on a low quality cassette tape recorder. These have been turned into mp3 files, but you can still hear some tape hiss and flutter. You might want to read all the notes first, then go back and listen to the audio, it might make more sents. Some of the audio is a snore, particularly the restaurant meals, where they are talking to each other instead of us. Don't be afraid to skip those; I won't be offended. I'll put stars by he audio that is easy to listen to.
I'm going to start with the last recording, when our family got together in 1988 in Eckley Colorado, where Pappy spent the last 3 years of his life. This was the last tape made, but it describes their early genealogy and family background. Carolyn (my Mom) convinced Pappy, Mary, and Alberta (Mary's sister), to sit down and describe their ancestry and their childhood. They were in their mid 80's, and we wanted to get this information before they passed. Carolyn asks questions and directs the conversation throughout the recording. She is the first voice you hear, asking her parents how old they are, when and where they were born, etc. The information is slow in coming, really slow. The hour long conversation could probably be compressed into a few pages of written text - and in fact I tried to do just that (see below).
My Mom calls Pappy Daddy, as she should, since he is her Dad, but Mary, his wife, also calls him Daddy, and Mary's sister Alberta (Birdy) also calls him Daddy. He is indeed a dominating, patriarchal figure. Rarely, you might hear my aunt Sylvia (Carolyn's older sister), Monti (Sylvia's husband), Tony (Carolyn's second husband), and young Alice. I'm sure it was my tape recorder, and yet I am not in the recording at all. Perhaps I was hiding in another room. If you don't want to listen to all the audio, you can click on my summary. It doesn't contain all the personal anecdotes, but it has the vital information. Family Background and More Talk or my abbreviated transcript
Pappy's father was also named John Abner Lucas, though his ancestors were called MacLucas; the Mac was dropped at some point. John senior had a sister Leah. Pappy's mother was Ada Richmond, and Ada's mother was Matilda Richmond, from Bermingham England. My Grandma the nurse recalls, "They were getting ready to go back to England, and Grandpa Richmond knocked the skin off his knuckle. In those days they didn't have antibiotics, and he died of blood poisoning. Grandma Richmond said that red line went up his arm like lightning." So Matilda stayed, and married Mr. Ross, and then John Garget. Along with Ada, Matilda had Harry and Fred, and as we will see below, both of these names were used again for Pappy's siblings.
Pappy was one of 12: Dorothy 1900, Alice 1901, John Abner Lucas (Pappy) 11/06/1904 in Homestead Pennsylvania, Fred 1905, Hary Leroy 1906, Barbara 1907, Alberta 1908, Cathleen 1909-1915, Sturgis 1910, David 1911-1980, Infant died at birth and not named 1912, Ella Mae 05/12/1913. Pappy was closest to Fred and Leroy. For a time they slept up in an attic, which gave them a certain amount of privacy, and license to act a fool. One day their Dad was coming up the stairs to check on them and they threw a huge bolster at him and knocked him backwards down the stairs. I guess he was in good humor that day since he didn't beat them all, all 12 of them, don't care who did what, or pick one of them up and knock the others down. These were his favorite threats. In another experiment, they wrapped a black necktie around a lightbulb until it started to smoke, and was just about to burst into flames. The most famous antic may have been the bullets on the track. Pappy found that he could place a bullet on the metal train track and strike it with a hammer and it would go off. It didn't have the muzzle of a gun to propel it, but still, one of the bullets had enough velocity to penetrate Leroy's thigh. They had to go home and explain how Pappy shot Leroy. After the understandable shit fit, his mother said it was a consequence of a broken mirror earlier that day.
Pappy, referring to his father, "He was a steam and electrical engineer, and a damn good one! He was in charge of the electrical power, including the electricity that ran the streetcars from Pitsburg to Botworth. Fascinated by the latest technology, he built a crystal radio set at home, and adjusted the whisker just so, until he could hear KDKA, the first radio station in Pitsburg. He had a shop, like I did, but not as many power tools of course. He made his own shellac and would shellac anything that didn't move. He had thousands of dollars worth of tools out there, but would raise the roof whenever Mom bought a yard of goods."
Pappy in the army: "at Age 16 I got a job in the coal mine, but injured my foot on a mining cage, and my Mom wouldn't let me go back. Too dangerous. So I joined the army when I was 17. They looked the other way on my age but I was under weight. The sergeant told me to go home and eat a lot of bananas and then come back. I ate bananas till they were coming out of my ears, and gained a couple pounds, and then joined the army at Fort Bragg, in Feyetteville North Carolina. I would stich aerial pictures together to make one composite picture. Then I drew maps with certain colors for highways, bridges, railroads, etc. I was the only one who could do that. My buddy was Brigadier General Boilen. When he found out I was an engineer, he asked me to design a new home for him. I was housed on the second floor of the barracks. We placed balls on the floor and hit them with bats, trying to break the windows. We had a system for keeping score. We also stole pigs from the post piggery, and cooked them, and ate them. Sometimes we dropped things through the floorboards into the barracks below. Captain Spitzer remarked that if there was any trouble, Corporal Lucas must be behind it. I joined the army in 1921, and went AWOL in 1928 to get married, and never went back. I would be prosecuted for that today. I didn't have to go to war, but my brother Leroy, he survived the Bataan Death March. The Japanese, boy they really worked him over good. He use to hide food in the spaces between the bunks to try to survive. Our brother David brought him home, but Leroy didn't live long after that, probably because of what happened over there."
during the depression: "I worked for the PWA stringing wires along the highway. I couldn't afford gloves so my hands got all cut up on the wires. Later on I worked in a steel mill. Any work I could get. I did some contract work for a woman who had no money but she paid me in canned goods. Peaches, corn, etc, it kept our family going. We went a long time without meat, then Birdy came to see us and brought hamburger; I never knew hamburger could taste that good! It was such a bad time I don't really want to talk about it."
Pappy and his violin: "Sometimes I just wanted to play my violin, so I would sit out in the woodshed and practice. My buddies wanted to play, so they threw rocks at the back of the woodshed so I would stop practicing. Sometimes I went way out in the field to play, where nobody would find me. I couldn't take my violin in the army, so I took a xylophone instead. I went out to the rifle range and played my xylophone." After he cut his hand on the saw in 1946 he couldn't play the violin any more; this is described later.
Grandma Mary Lucas was born to Edward David Lapish and Sarah Ann Logan on 08/11/1904, in Pitsburg Pennsylvania, and died 01/01/1997. Unlike Pappy, there were only 2 in her family. Her younger sister, Alberta, also known as Birdy, was born 11/21/1905 in Allegheny Pennsylvania. Their parents, Sarah and Edward, were known as Mamo and Popo. Popo was a twin, his brother was Harry. Other siblings are Dick, Elly, Ethel, and Charlie. Popo's father was James Spratly Lapish, married to Mary Amanda Wright, and they both came over from England. Mamo's father was John Logan, and he came from Scottland. Birdy claims both her grandfathers fought in the Civil War, which would make them about 60 when she was born. It's possible, but generations went by faster in the 19th century, so I don't know about this one. Popo was a barber, farmer, carpenter, and first rate painter. He painted houses and buildings in Evans City Pennsylvania. He was working on 7 houses when the depression hit, and construction stopped, so he went back to his old farm. Popo died in Kentucky in 1963. Mamo died in 1961, just 9 months after Birdy's husband died. Birdy never remarried. Instead she spent the next 22 years in Wakashaw Wisconsin, working for the New Tribes Mission Bible Institute. After that she retired in Florida.
Birdy tells how she lost the sight in one eye, but I don't understand exactly how it happened. I'll just relay her story. "I think I was just about 2 years old when we lived in that Aunt Fowler's house in Warrendale. We were playing in the yard. Mother had found the wire at the bottom of the broom handle you know how it's wound around real tight. She threw that up in the tree so we wouldn't get a hold of it. She left one end hanging down, and sister found that end of that wire and gave it a yank and pulled it down, and that's when the wire went into my eye and punctured the sight. Mother took us to every kind of doctor but they couldn't do anything. But they said my other eye was perfectly normal."
Popo took the girls to church every Sunday; Mamo had to work every day and couldn't take even one day off. You'll see this below if you look at her diary entries. It was work, work, work! the conveyance was a horse and buggy, or horse and sleigh in the winter. Their first car was a model A Touring car, but not very practical. On their first trip out of town it got stuck in the mud. All roads were dirt roads, basically paths for the horses, but horses could operate in any weather. "You never drove a car during the winter. You just put it up on blocks."
Sporadic diary entries from Sarah Logan, my mother's mother's mother. It's just a life of work. View
Principal Players
The narrator is Sarah Logan, my mother's mother's mother. Naoma and Alberta are her daughters, Naoma being my grandmother, who married Pappy. Ed is Sarah's husband. Hairy is Ed's twin brother. Daddy is Sarah's Dad, John Logan. Sarah often refers to Mary, but that's not her daughter (who is named Mary); perhaps it is a friend. Johnny is mentioned often, not sure who that is. We may never know who some of these people are.
Whenever they go somewhere, it is (usually) by horse and buggy or horse and sleigh, or sometimes on foot. In the cities they rode the electric streetcars. It's hard for us to comprehend how church-centered their lives were. Twice on Sunday, weather permitting, and also throughout the week for various church functions. The entry on Dec 16, 1914, is telling; "Alberta's fingers was almost frozen", as they rode in their one horse open sleigh, but by God they weren't gonna miss church! This seems absurd to us, or at least to me, but church wasn't just worshipping some invisible force that may or may not exist, church was their safety net. If you can't afford food, or you're sick, or you just need 8 strong men to harvest the crops before they go bad in the field, other church members will come to help. Today we recognize the systemic, and almost unimaginable harm done by organized religion over the past 8 thousand years, but we haven't found any type of social community to replace it.
You might get bored with the weather, and church, and cooking, and cleaning, but you should really read it all to understand how they lived. Only 100 years back, but it's another world.
Mar 14: Drawed the deeds up For the Trwin farm. Traded the Dehaven property for the Trwin farm.
At this point her girls are about 10 years old.
Oct 29: I went to Mrs. Rankin's. 5 automobiles went. There was 30 people there. We had a fine time.
Oct 30: Went to Couberts schoolhouse to an entertainment in the evening. Windel came.
Oct 31: Abilard, Mary and Willard stayed til next day.
Nov 02: Wendel went home today. Ed went to Evans City to a church meeting.
Nov 03: Reverend Myres came to see us. House all topsy turbey!
Nov 04: Washed dishes, cooked, served, cleaned, packed 4 dinners, and lots of other work.
Nov 05: Ed, Naoma, Alberta and I went to the reception at the methodist church. Had a nice time.
Nov 06: Ed and Johny hauled in corn and fodder. I wrote a letter to Mary.
Nov 07: I worked hard, washed, baked, ironed, and scrubbbed.
Nov 08: Ed wend in Home. We did not go to church. Was a stormy day. Snowed all day.
Nov 09: Ed came home today. Had pain in my back. Did not work much.
Nov 10: Put the stove in the room this morning. Men husked corn in afternoon.
Nov 11: Nothing new happened today. Just the same old thing. Cooking and washing dishes.
Nov 12: Washed and baked cake.
Nov 13: Ed and I went to Evans City.
Nov 14: Worked hard all day.
Nov 15: Ed, Naoma, Alberta and I went to sunday school and church. Rained all day.
Nov 16: Stormy all day. Snowed some. I baked 9 loaves of bread.
Nov 17: Same old thing, cooked, washed dishes.
Nov 18: Washed today.
Nov 19: Sold the ducks at Zemans. Got 14 cents a pound for them. They weighed 35 and a half pounds.
Nov 20: Sent an order to Sears and Roebuck.
Nov 21: Baked bread and put down carpet.
Nov 22: This is Sunday. Did not go to church today. Ed went to church this evening.
Nov 23: Ed went to Butler this morning. I put down oilcloth on the kitchen.
Nov 24: Went to Butler. Got Naoma and Alberta dresses. Paid $2.50 a piece for them. Nothing but cotton rags, but had to buy them. Could not get anything better. Killed a pig.
Nov 25: Baked 9 loaves of bread and apple pies.
Nov 26: Thanksgiving. All went to Abilards. Had a nice time. Ed and Johny came home in the evening. Naoma, Alberta, Daddy and I staid. We went home with Mary.
Nov 27: Was at Mary's. Mary took us down to Wildwood for the train. We stood up on the road afraid to go down to the station. Big cowards we was.
Nov 28: Did not do much today. Cooked and washed dishes and churned.
Nov 29: Ed, Naoma, Alberta and I went to sunday school and to church. When we came home, Dick Lapish was here. Staid for dinner and supper. Went home on the 6:40 car.
Nov 30: It is raining today. Order came from Sears and Roebuck. Sold 3 dozen eggs.
Dec 01: Ed papered the kitchen.
Dec 02: Had chicken dinner. Ed hauled a load of sinders from the coal tipple.
Dec 03: Did not have so much work today. Got some sewing done.
Dec 04: Baked and ironed.
Dec 05: Ed went to Warrendale.
Dec 06: Raining and snowing. Ed, Naoma and Alberta went to church and sunday school. All went to church in the evening. Had a very poor preacher. Could not preach at all. Raining hard and very dark.
Dec 07: Raining and very muddy. Cut out a calico dress for myself. Suppose I will spoil it.
Dec 08: Raining and snowing. Not very cold. Ed went down after Naoma and Alberta. Roads very bad.
Dec 09: Got my dress maid. Very poor fit. Still raining and snowing. Daddy came home from Mary's.
Dec 10: Still snowing very muddy.
Dec 11: Washed today.
Dec 12: Bought the sewing machine.
Dec 13: Ed, Naoma, Alberta and I went to church and sunday school in the norning. Ed, Naoma and Alberta went to church in the evening. Has been snowing since 1:00 and is still snowing.
Dec 14: The wind is blowing and is verry verry cold.
Dec 15: Still very cold, down to 0. Ed went to church this evening.
Dec 16: Very cold. Ed took Naoma and Alberta down in the surry to the church to practice for Christmas. Alberta's fingers was almost frozen.
Dec 17: Very cold.
Dec 18: Below 0. Went to schoolhouse to an entertainment in the evening. We went to church in the sled with the two horses.
Dec 19: Rained and snowed all day. I baked 9 loaves of bread.
Dec 20: We went to church this morning. The road was very icy. Ed went to church in the afternroon. It was just for men.
Dec 21: Rained all night. Awful icy this morning. Ed took Naoma and Alberta to Evans City to practice their Christmas pieces. Had to walk down, the horse was not sharp enough to take him out. I washe dtoday. Was nearly frozen hanging the clothes out.
Dec 22: Awful cold and icy.
Dec 23: Verry cold. Ed went to the blacksmith shop in the morning. Had to stay til 5:00 in the evening.
Dec 24: Went to Evans City. Sold 3 turkeys. Got $3.20 for one and $3.85 for the other two. Not so cold today. Went to Methodist church in the evening to the treat. Naoma and Alberta had recitations.
Dec 25: Christmas day. Not so cold. All went to the auditorium to the sunday school entertainment in the evening.
Dec 26: Very icy and cold. Ed and I went to Evans City.
Dec 27: Ed, Naoma and Alberta went to sunday school and church.
Dec 28: Not so cold. Washed and baked today.
Dec 29: Not very cold. Rained all day. Ironed today.
Dec 30: Not so cold today. Baked a layer cake. Cleaned a goose and turkey. Also Ed, Naoma, Alberta went to church in the evening. Reverend Buck preached.
Dec 31: Prepare for New Years.
Jan 01: Ed and I went to the staTion to meet Abilards and Mary and Stella, but nobody came. Was very much disappointed.
Jan 02: We was invited out to aunt Maggie Dixons 26th aniversary, but we did not go. Was very stormy today.
Jan 03: Naoma, Alberta and Ed went to church and sunday school in the morning, and all went to church in the evening. Went down in the sled. Had a fine ride.
Jan 04: Washed today, very nice day.
Jan 05: Went to Mary's, stayed all night.
Jan 06: Wednesday morning, raining hard. Mary and I went to Pittsburgh. Bought a blue dress and hat. Then I went out to see Grandma Lapish. Was there about 2 hours. Then started for home. Got to Evans City at 6:00.
Jan 07: Daddy went to Mary's today.
Jan 08: Baked bread today.
Jan 09: Alberta is taking the chicken pox.
Jan 10: I did not go to church today.
Jan 11: Ed and I went to Evans City. Took three pair of chickens with us. The jew bought them.
Jan 12: Done a little of everything.
Jan 13: Baked 9 loaves of bread.
Jan 14: Went to Mr. Erwins to a surprise party. Had a good time. There was 42 ladies there. Mr. Erwin was presented with a rocking chair.
Jan 15: Worked all day at a little of everything.
Jan 16: Church. Ida Blackstock came today.
Jan 17: Raining and very icy.
Jan 18: Raining and very muddy. Ed and Aunt Ida and myself went down in the surry to look at Andy Walls farm. Then she went home on 5:00 car.
Jan 19: Snowing and cold.
Jan 20: Ed and I went to Evans City. Sold 4 dozen and a half of eggs. Got 35 cents a dozen.
Jan 21: Started to make a dress for Naoma.
Jan 22: Baked. Did not get any sewing done.
Jan 23: Have not go tthe dress finished. Got is sewn up. Had to rip it out; got it wrong.
Jan 24: Naoma has got the chicken pox. Ed went down to the meetings. They started tonight.
Jan 25: Washe dtoday.
Jan 26: Went to the meeting at Evans City. Grand sleighing.
Jan 27: Ed and I went to Evans City. Took y6 dozen eggs down. Went down in the sled. bought a sleigh and came home in it.
Jan 28: Went to Evans city this morning. Grand sleighing. Went to the meeting in evening. From this, went to Mrs. Marburgers. Had a surprise for the preacher and his wife. Got him a library table and carpet sweeper. Then we had music and lunch. Had a nice time. Got home at 12:00.
Jan 29: Went to the meeting at the hall.
Jan 30: Baked bread.
Jan 31: Went to the hall in afternoon. The sunday schools marched to the hall. Had a good meeting.
Feb 01: Rainy and icy.
Feb 02: Rainy and cloudy. Got some sewing done today. Sold 7 dozen eggs.
Feb 03: cold and very icy. Ed went to meeting tonight.
Feb 04: Went to Evans city to the hall to mothers meeting. Very icy. We had to walk.
Feb 05: Very bad weather, raining and very icy. Cleaned upstairs today.
Feb 06: Nothing new today.
Feb 07: Ed, Naoma, Alberta went to sunday school and church.
Feb 08: Naoma and Alberta started to school. Had not been there for a month. Had to stay at home. Had the chicken pox. I took their dinner down to them. Also called on Mrs. Marburger.
Feb 09: Ed went to Warrendale. I sewed some.
Feb 10: Washed today, and they butchered a pig today.
Feb 11: Ed and I went to Mars to look at a farm that was to rent.
Feb 12: Sewed some and baked 10 loaves of bread.
Feb 13: A very nice day. Done all kinds of wash.
Feb 14: Harry Lapish came out. Ed, Naoma and Alberta have gone to church. Took harry along to the station. It is very dark and rainy.
Feb 15: Sewed some.
Feb 16: Very nice day, made myself a calico dress.
Feb 17: Veyr nice day. Washed today.
Feb 18: Ironed today. Very nice day.
Feb 19: Baked today.
Feb 20: Ed and I went to look at Wilson's farm. Then we went to look at a farm out by Garvins. Then we got home. Ed went to Evans City for a box of chickens that Harry sent out. Then Mary came out on the half past 7:00 train. Stayed til Monday.
Feb 21: Me and Ed and Mary went to church in the evening.
Feb 22: Mary went home today.
Feb 23: Ed and I drove about 20 miles looking for a farm, but did not get one.
Feb 24: It is raining today, very muddy.
Feb 25: Baked 11 loaves of bread today.
Feb 26: Went to Gipsonia to a sale, bought some carpets, a clock, and a table.
Feb 27: A very cold day. The roads awful rough. Have a very bad cold.
Feb 28: Ed, Naoma and Alberta went to church and sunday school this morning.
Mar 01: Ed and I went to Gipsonia for the carpet, table, and clock that I bought at the sale. The road was terrible rough. Had to walk some. Marburger came over in the evening. The teacher was with them.
Mar 02: Did not do much, was tired. Ed went in home with the team.
Mar 03: Ed got home this evening at half past 8.
Mar 04: Ed and I went to a shower at the parsonage. There was 90 people there. We had refreshments and had a good time. We took a chicken, cake, and a jar of blackberies.
Mar 05: Ed made a trip of 25 miles today. Got 5 pigs. got them from Gruvs.
Mar 06: Daddy went to Mary's on the 7:30 A.M. train. Ed, Naoma, and Alberta and myself went to Wilsons farm in the sled. Took over some things and we swept and scrubbed.
Mar 07: Harry Lapish came out today.
Mar 08: Went to Pittsburg. Got $8.36 oil money.
Mar 09: Ed got a cow from Billy Warren.
Mar 10: Baked 10 loaves of bread.
Mar 11: Moved today. Had a dreadful time. Snowed and blowed. The bed clothes was all wet. We did not sleep much that night.
Mar 12: Can't find anything, everything thrown together. We have no stove to cook on. Sent to Sears and Roebuck for one over a week ago.
Mar 13: The stove has not come yet.
Mar 14: Harry came out today, a lovely day. We took a walk over the farm.
Mar 15: Had an awful time. We had no stove to cook on.
Mar 16: Thank goodness the stove came today.
Mar 17: Cleaned cupboards and lots of other work.
Mar 18: This is a cold place. The wind howls around the house.
Mar 19: Ed went to Waxford for a horse that Harry sent out. Got home at 11:00 at night. It was raining and very dark. Daddy came home today. He came from Mary's to Evans City, walked up home, then walked over here, then he walked from here to Evans City, got the car to butler. Then went on the train to rockdale and had to walk to Harry Logans.
Mar 20: Uncle Harry Logan's wife was buried today.
Mar 21: Very cold today. Ed, Naoma, and Alberta went to church.
Mar 22: Very cold.
Mar 23: Very cold, cannot get the house cleaned up.
Mar 24: Awful cold weather.
Mar 25: Cleaned some upstairs.
Mar 26: Papered the kitchen.
Mar 28: Harry was out today.
Mar 29: Very cold, snowstorm in the evening.
Mar 30: Very cold, one inch of snow on the ground. Ice on the crek, almost frozen over.
Mar 31: Snowing and very cold.
Apr 01: Very cold, still snowing.
Apr 02: Daddy came.
Apr 03: Not so cold. Daddy, Naoma, Albetrta and myself went to Evans City to a sale. I bought chairs and an iron bedstead, and bought a carpet.
Apr 04: Easter Sunday. Not so cold. We did not go to church today.
Apr 05: Baked and churned.
Apr 06: Very nice day. Me and Ed went to Evans City in the evening. When we came back, Mrs Wilson and the school teacher was here. Stayed til half past 9:00.
Apr 07: Very nice day.
Apr 08: Went to the Wilson school house. Was the last day of school. There was an entertainment and picknic. Had a good time.
Apr 09: Washed today. Daddy started to burn brush in the orchard and it spread all over the hill. We had an awful fire. I rang the bell on the neighbors and got them to come and help. It was a terrible fire. Ed took his plow and plowed a furrow around the fields. It burnt for two days.
Apr 10: A very nice day. We had a windstorm in the evening.
Apr 11: A big storm this afternoon. thundered and lightened. Harry came out.
Apr 12: Made some garden.
Apr 14: Washed today.
Apr 15: Painted dresser and washstand floor and many more things.
Apr 16: Ed, Naoma and Alberta and myself went to Coverts schoolhouse to an entertainment. It was very good. Got home half past 11:00.
Apr 17: We all went over home. Daddy went along. Stayed a few minutes. Got a jug of vinegar. Then we went to Evans City. Daddy stayed over at home.
Apr 18: Ed, Naoma, Alberta went to church. Harry Lapish came out.
Apr 19: Ed plowed all day. Me and Naoma cleaned the hall upstairs and down and Naoma and Alberta cleaned the yard. We are all very tired tonight.
Apr 20: Naoma and Alberta went to Coverts schoolhouse. It was the last day of school.
Apr 21: Ed plowed all day. I painted floors.
Apr 22: Worked hard all day.
Apr 23: Ed sowed oats today.
Apr 24: Cleaned pantry and kitchen.
Apr 25: Ed, Naoma, Alberta went to sunday school and to church.
Apr 27: Ironed today.
Apr 28: Made some garden today.
Apr 29: Am all alone. Ed, Naoma, Alberta have gone to Rineharts with eggs. It is half past 8:00. I wish they would soon come, it is very dark and they did not take the lantern.
Apr 30: Worked in the garden.
May 01: Baked bread and cream pies.
May 02: Harry Lapish was here.
May 03: We went to Evans City.
May 04: Ed drove the Bob horse down to Warrendale. The boy came out from the store at Westview and got him. Ed got home 12:00. Set out tomatoes and cabbage plants in afternoon.
May 05: Washed curtains today. Daddy came home from Mary's today.
May 06: Put up my curtains today.
May 07: Daddy, Naoma, Alberta and I went over home in the surry and got the buggy. Tied it on behind the surry.
May 08: We all went to Evans City to a debate at the hall.
May 09: Harry and charlie Lapish drove out in the wonderful one-horse shay. We was at church when they came. Brought a littl epig with them. Went back in the cars.
May 10: Ed plowed all day.
May 11: I went to Evans City.
May 12: Floyd Mahon was here for dinner. He is helping to build fence.
May 13: Floyd Mahon was here for dinner.
May 14: Naoma, Alberta, and I went over home after supper to see Daddy. He was over there for a few days.
May 15: Daddy came over today.
May 16: Harry came out today.
May 17: Floyd Mahon was here for dinner and was building fence.
May 18: Very nice day. Floyd was here for dinner.
May 19: Washed today and all of us went to Evans City in the evening. Floyd was here for dinner.
May 20: Floyd did not come today. Rained some.
May 21: Raining very hard today. floid did not come.
May 22: Still raining. Daddy went over home today.
May 23: Ed, Naoma and Alberta went to sunday school.
May 24: Daddy came home today.
May 25: Daddy drove Prince in the buggy out to the graveyard. Took flowers out for the graves.
May 26: Daddy came home today. Staid at Cordelia's all night.
May 27: Very nice day. Made a dress today for Alberta.
May 28: Daddy and I went to Evans City.
May 29: We all went to Evans City. Rained all day.
May 30: Ed, Naoma and Alberta went to sunday school. Harry came out. Rained all day.
May 31: Ed and Alberta went to Wallville. Got 3 pigs. Daddy and Naoma went over home in the buggy.
Jun 01: I washed in the morning. IN the afternoon we all planted potatos.
Jun 02: Ed planted corn, I built chicken coops.
Jun 03: Rained hard all day. Ed and I went to Evans City in the afternoon.
Jun 04: Very nice day. Kugel came and bought some eggs.
Jun 05: Ed finished drilling in the corn. Daddy went over home today.
Jun 06: Ed, Naoma and Alberta went to sunday school and church.
Jun 07: Daddy took Naoma and Alberta to Evans City to practice for childrens day.
Jun 08: Me and Ed went to Evans City.
Jun 09: Washed today. Me and Daddy drove over home and got the surry tongue.
Jun 10: Ed drove down in the buggy to Westview.
Jun 11: Ed came home with hay, ladders, dog mowing machine, cider press, and chickens.
Jun 12: Daddy cut his hand very bad. Went over home.
Jun 13: Rained verry hard.
Jun 14: Me and Alberta went over home in the buggy to see how Daddy's hand was.
Jun 15: Daddy came home today.
Jun 16: Daddy took Naoma and Alberta to Evans city to the church. They are practicing for childrens day.
Jun 17: Great oil excitement in Evans city. We all went to Evans City.
Jun 18: Busy feeding ducks and chickens.
Jun 20: We all went to church. Daddy went over home and Harry came out.
Jun 21: Daddy did not come today.
Jun 22: Me and Naoma and Alberta went over home in the evening.
Jun 23: I washe dtoday.
Jun 24: We all went to Evans City. Great oil excitement. Uncle Levi Logan died today in the Alleghany hospital.
Jun 25: Daddy went out to Logans today.
Jun 26: Ed, Naoma and Berta went to Evans City in the big wagon.
Jun 27: Uncle Levi is to be buried today. Ed, Naoma and Berta went to sunday school and church. We all went to church this evening. Daddy came home this evening.
Jun 28: Worked hard all day.
Jun 29: Mrs. Furlton and Annie and baby was here today. Ed took them home in the surry.
Jun 30: Daddy went to Mary's.
Jul 01: Work work work.
Jul 02: Daddy came home this evening.
Jul 03: Me and Ed went to Evans City.
Jul 04: Grandma Ethal, Harry, and Charley came out.
Jul 05: Made ice cream. Ed and Harry went to Evans City for ice. They all went home this evening.
Jul 07: Floyd Mahon was here, hoing corn.
Jul 08: We all went to Evans City. Daddy came back from Mary's and Abilards.
Jul 09: Washed today.
Jul 10: We all went to Evans City. I got a sack of sugar, paid $1.70 for it.
Jul 11: Nobody went to church today.
Jul 12: Baked today.
Jul 13: I went to Pittsburg today. Then went out to Mary's. Staid all night.
Jul 14: Stayed all day at Mary's. We had spring chicken fried for dinner. It was so good. Then Mary took me to the station in the buggy. We stopped at Abilards. Was there about an hour.
Jul 15: It's raining this morning. Me and Naoma and Alberta picked some raspberries.
Jul 16: Ed started to cut hay today.
Jul 17: We all went to Evans City.
Jul 18: We all went to sunday school and church. McClung and Billy Warren came in the afternoon. Stayed for supper.
Jul 19: Me and Ed put up hay.
Jul 20: We put up more hay today.
Jul 21: Ed cut hay today.
Jul 22: Hauled hay in today. Cordelia, Luella Snider, Hariet and Pauleine all came in the automobile. Stayed for supper, and Mary, Stella, Catherine, and the baby came in the evening. Stayed all night.
Jul 23: Mary, Stella, and baby and daddy went over home.
Jul 24: Washed this morning. Hauled in hay this afternoon.
Jul 25: Me, Naoma and Alberta and Catherine went over home. Mary had a fine dinner. Had ice cream and chicken. Wendel was there.
Jul 26: Hauled in hay today.
Jul 27: Me, Naoma and Alberta went over home in the buggy.
Jul 28: We went to Evans City.
Jul 29: Mary came over, baby and Catherine.
Jul 30: Mary went over home this morning. Daddy, Alberta and I went over in the evening.
Jul 31: Very warm. I ironed today.
Aug 01: Mary started for home at 6:00. Daddy came over this morning.
Aug 02: Baked and put up blackberries.
Aug 03: Sewed some today.
Aug 04: Ed and I went to Evans City.
Aug 05: George Wilson was here cutting oats with his binder.
Aug 06: George Wilson was here for dinner. Naoma, Alberta and I picked blackberries.
Aug 07: Mary and Wilard came this evening.
Aug 08: Abilard and Mary went home.
Aug 09: Ed churned and hauled rails. I did not do much of anything.
Aug 10: I went to Butler.
Aug 11: Naoma's birthday.
Aug 12: Washed today.
Aug 13: Ironed today.
Aug 14: We all went to Evans City.
Aug 15: We all went to sunday school and church. Harry came out today.
Aug 16: Washed and baked bread and ironed.
Aug 17: Ed and I hauled in oats.
Aug 18: We hauled in oats today.
Aug 19: Me and Naoma and Alberta drove Prince in the buggy over home. Mary and Stella was there, and Luella Logan came out. They had a dance in the barn. We stayed all night.
Aug 20: Came over home this morning. A man came out and got Prince and took him to Westview.
Aug 21: A man was here for supper. Harry sent him out with a team and a load of junk.
Aug 22: Ed, Naoma, and Alberta went to sunday school and church. Harry came out.
Aug 23: Floyd Mahon was here for dinner.
Aug 24: Naoma, Alberta and I went over home in the evening.
Aug 25: Dressed two chickens and washed today.
Aug 27: Mary, Stella and baby was here for dinner.
Aug 28: We dressed 5 ducks and 2 chickens and done lots of other work.
Aug 29: All went to sunday school and church.
Aug 30: Churned and baked today.
Aug 31: I got ready for the threshers. Made lemon custards, dressed 5 chickens and 2 ducks, and 2 cakes.
Sep 01: The threshers was here for breakfast, 4 men. Mary and Stella and Elva came over from Daddy's and helped me, but the threshers was not here for dinner. Harry came out and we had him for dinner. We had 225 bushels of oats. Daddy was here also.
Sep 02: Naoma, Alberta and I went over home, got some apples and a basket of plums. Harry is here.
Sep 03: Washed dishes and cooked.
Sep 04: We dressed 5 hens and 3 ducks, Churned, baked bread, and washed some. We all went to Evans City in the evening. Harry went home.
Sep 05: We did not go to church this morning, I was too tired. Ed went in the evening. Harry came back this evening.
Sep 06: Harry was here and plowing.
Sep 07: Ed and I went to Evans City this morning. Sold 14 chickens.
Sep 08: Ed is working in Evans City, Harry is plowing.
Sep 09: Ironed today and washed some. Harry went home on the 12:40 car.
Sep 10: I went over home in the morning. Got Ed's papering board. Then we all went to the Wilson schoolhouse and papered til evening.
Sep 11: Finished papering the schoolhouse at 2:00, then we dressed 6 hens and 1 duck. Got done at 9:00 at night. Daddy came over.
Sep 12: We all went to sunday school and church in the afternoon. Daddy, Naoma, and Alberta and I went over home.
Sep 13: Uncle Harry Logan was buried today. Daddy went to the funeral, came back this evening, had his supper here, and went over home.
Sep 14: Washed today.
Sep 15: Harry went home this evening. We all went to Evans City in the surry.
Sep 16: I had a lovely time today. The womens progressive Bible class took an outing. Ann Robert Irwin is our teacher. We went in a party car, did not stop for passengers. We went strait through to Beaver Falls. We went to the Methodist church and had dinner. We all took baskets. The ladies at the church furnished coffee and ice cream and hot creamed potatos. They was fine. Had a fine dinner, left Beaver Falls at 1:00, then went to Newcastle. Went to the Methodist church. It is a very large church, and o the nice time we had and the nice supper. Had chicken, ham, veal loaf, cake, and everything good. We left Newcastle at 6:00. On the way home we had the moving pictures on the car. Everything was lovely. Got to Evans City at 8:00.
Sep 17: Churned and gathered peaches.
Sep 18: Put up peaches. There was a big storm in the evening.
Sep 19: We all went to church.
Sep 21: Ed and I went over home in the big wagon. Got the ladder and sleigh and some apples.
Sep 22: Ironed and baked.
Sep 23: Cooked and washed dishes. Ed was working on the oil well.
Sep 24: Had chicken for dinner and supper.
Sep 25: Baked a cake, washed two dresses, and dressed a chicken. Went to Evans City.
Sep 26: Ed went to church. Daddy came over, stayed all night. Harry came in the evening. Rained all day.
Sep 27: Harry took the two horses into Westview. Wendel Hickey came over in the buggy. He was over at Daddy's all night. He took Daddy over home in the buggy. Ed cut corn, I done some sewing.
Sep 28: Canned tomatoes and cut a lot of corn today.
Sep 29: Sewed some, cooked some, washed dishes.
Sep 30: Daddy came over today, stayed all night.
Oct 01: Rained all day, a very dreary day.
Oct 02: Dressed 2 chickens, baked a cake.
Oct 03: We did not go to church.
Oct 04: Washed and did lots of work.
Oct 05: Ironed and churned. Mrs. Wilson called in the afternoon.
Oct 06: In the afternoon Harry Lapish came out. In the evening we all went to Evans City.
Oct 07: Naoma, Alberta and I went over home in the surry. Pared apples til 10:00.
Oct 08: Made 9 gallons of apple butter. Got home at 7:00 in the evening.
Oct 09: Harry and Ed was cutting corn, I churned and made pies.
Oct 10: We did not go to church today.
Oct 11: I washed and ironed today.
Oct 12: I made two petticoats today. Daddy came over, stayed for supper.
Oct 13: Started to make a dress today.
Oct 14: We all went over to Coverts schoolhouse for an entertainment.
Oct 15: Ed is painting Likens house. I am all alone today.
Oct 16: I dressed 3 chickens, baked cookies, and lots of other work.
Oct 17: We all went to church and sunday school today.
Oct 18: A very nice day. Ed is painting the Likens house. Naoma came home from school sick.
Oct 19: Naoma and Alberta did not go to school today. Lilly Zinkhorn and Mrs. Zinkhorn called on us this evening.
Oct 20: Very foggy this morning. Ed did not go to Likens til dinner time. Dadddy came over this morning, stayed for dinner.
Oct 21: Churned and baked bread.
Oct 22: Washed. Had to carry the water up from the spring. In the afternoon Mrs. Wilson called.
Oct 23: Ed did not paint today. I ironed and Ed went to Evans City.
Oct 24: Ed went to church this morning. He walked down, the mare run a nail in her foot and is very lame. Daddy was here for dinner.
Oct 25: Made apple butter over at Daddy's today. Stayed all night.
Oct 26: Came over home this morning. Daddy came over with us. Washed curtains today.
Oct 27: Baked and churned today.
Oct 28: Painted chairs and Harry came out, went back same day.
Oct 29: There was community day at the schoolhouse and we had dinner. Naoma and Alberta sang a piece together, and Naoma spoke a piece.
Oct 30: Dressed 2 chickens and churned.
Oct 31: We all went to church and sunday school.
Nov 01: Very nice weather. Worked hard today cleaning house.
Nov 02: Still cleaning house.
Nov 03: House all torn up. Baked and churned. Mary and Stella and Elva came over from Daddy's this evening, Stayed for supper and went over home again.
Nov 04: The womens progressive Bible class came this morning. They came in automobiles. There was 40. They brought their baskets with them and had dinner. Cooked oisters and stayed til 4:00. We had a nice time. Stella and Elva came over in the buggy, then Stella went over for Mary in the evening. Brought her over, she was sick and could not get over for dinner.
Nov 05: We dressed 7 chickens and 2 ducks, had the ducks for dinner. Mary and Stella went home this afternoon.
Nov 06: Churned and cleaned up the house.
Nov 07: Ed, Naoma, and Alberta went to church this morning. Harry came out this afternoon. Daddy came over, went back home after supper. Mr. and Mrs. Simmons called. Harry also went home.
Nov 08: Ed and I washed the clothes at the creek. Harry drove out in the big wagon, brought 3 horses with him.
Nov 09: Baked today.
Nov 10: Harry and Ed are picking potatos.
Nov 11: I baked a coconut cake, it is good. Ed and Harry went to Evans City with 8 ducks. Zeaman bought them.
Nov 12: Naoma, Alberta and I went over home, stayed til evening.
Nov 13: We got up at half past 2:00 in the morning. Harry drove in with the team. Took 16 bushels of potatos, 10 ducks.
Nov 14: Daddy came over this morning. We all went to church in the evening. Daddy went home.
Nov 15: It is raining and snowing. Daddy went to Butler. He is on the jury.
Nov 16: Washed and churned. Ed went to Evans City.
Nov 17: I started to make Naoma and Alberta dresses.
Nov 18: Sewed some today. Ed went to Evans City.
Nov 19: Was sewing today.
Nov 20: Finished the dresses today.
Nov 21: Very cold. Naoma, Alberta and I drove over home this afternoon. Nobody at home. We did not stay long.
Nov 22: Baked bread.
Nov 23: Churned today.
Nov 24: Finished two dresses for Naoma and Berta.
Nov 25: Thanksgiving. We had a duck and chicken roasted. It is a beautiful day. Daddy was here for dinner. I took him over in the spring wagon and got supper over at Daddy's. We had pancakes and eggs.
Nov 26: Ed and I went to the schoolhouse in the afternoon. Naoma and Alberta was in a dialogue and spoke two pieces. It was a lovely day, nice and warm.
Nov 27: Dressed 3 chickens and churned.
Nov 28: Ed went to church this morning, came home, got his dinner, and went down to his mothers. Naoma, Alberta and I are all alone.
Nov 29: There was an awful windstorm last night. We did not sleep much. Ed got home at 1:00 today.
Nov 30: Ed went to Ellwood. Harry came out and went back in the evening.
Dec 01: Washed today. Ed got 25 bushels of slack. Naoma, Alberta and I went over to see Mrs. Wilson after supper. She is sick.
Dec 02: Ironed and sewed some.
Dec 03: Baked bread and churned.
Dec 04: Snowed some today. Ed and George Wilson butchered a pig. It is 8:00 at night and I am all alone. Ed, Naoma, Alberta are gone to Evans City.
Dec 05: Ed went to church this morning. Daddy came over this evening, stayed all night.
Dec 06: Daddy went home this morning.
Dec 07: Churned and sewed some.
Dec 08: Daddy came over this evening, stayed about an hour, then went back home. It is snowing and very dark.
Dec 09: We all went over home in the surry to help butcher. Naoma, Alberta and I stayed all night.
Dec 10: I baked bread, bendered lard, and worked very hard. Got home at 7:00 P.M.
Dec 11: Churned and scrubbed the kitchen. Ed, Naoma, and Alberta went to Evans City.
Dec 12: We all went to church this morning. It is very cold.
Dec 13: Snowing and stormy. Naoma, Alberta and I went over to see Daddy this evening in the sleigh. Ed went to Evans City.
Dec 14: Very cold and snowing.
Dec 15: Very very cold.
Dec 16: Cold and good sleighing. I went over to Daddy's, stayed all day.
Dec 17: Greenewalt bought the two pigs and Roudy, got $28 for Roudy and $10 for the pigs.
Dec 18: Cold and raining.
Dec 19: Ed went to church this morning.
Dec 20: Harry came out today.
Dec 21: We got a quarter of beef from Likens, paid $8 for it.
Dec 22: Baked bread today.
Dec 23: Dressed the gobler, weighs 15 pounds. Also a goose and chicken. The preacher called on us.
Dec 24: Baked pumpkin pies and baked a banana cake. We all went to the Christmas entertainment at the church.
Dec 25: Not very cold, snow all gone, rained and snowed some.
Dec 26: Very nice day, the sun is shining bright. Daddy came over this afternoon. Ed went over to see Mr. Krigel. Died this morning.
Dec 27: Sewed some and called on Mrs. Wilson.
Dec 28: I am sick. Have chills and feverish.
Dec 30: I have the grip. Very sick. Naoma and Alberta are sick.
Dec 31: All are sick but Ed.
They use to call it the grip; it is now called the flu. Sarah is sick for weeks.
Jan 01: It is an awful day, dark and dreary. I am verry sick today. Alberta is better, Naoma is very sick. Daddy came over this evening, stayed all night.
Jan 02: Daddy went home this morning. He had to go over to milk the cow. Harry Lapish came out but would not come in. He was afraid of catching the grip.
Jan 03: Naoma and I are very sick.
Jan 04: Daddy came over this evening. Mrs. Wilson called. We are very sick.
Jan 05: Daddy went over home. We are very sick. Alberta went to school.
Jan 06: I was very sick all night. Daddy came over this afternoon. He did not stay long, went back home.
Jan 07: I am not much better.
Jan 08: I am sick, awful pains in my head.
Jan 09: Was a little better today. Daddy came over this evening, stayed about 2 hours. Harry came at 7:00 this evening and stayed all night. He was scared, he think he will get the grip for sure.
Jan 10: This is a day of trouble, I am very sick this morning. Harry is going in home with a load of hay. Ed got the breakfast. Then they went to the barn. Did not get ready to go til 11:00. Then he had a big load of hay on, and stuck on the hill, so Ed had to go over and get him out of that. The cows was in the stable, not milked. It was 1:00 when he got back.
Jan 11: My head hurts very much. Forash Carnes came over this evening, brought 5 leghorn chickens.
Jan 12: Am some better today. Daddy came over for a few minutes this afternoon. Mrs. Wilson called.
Jan 13: I am a little better. Sold the 2 cows, two men from Wallville bought them.
Jan 14: My head is a good bit better but my kidneys are in bad shape.
Jan 15: I am some better today. Naoma is not well.
Jan 16: Harry came out, did not stay long. Snowing hard. Ed went to church.
Jan 17: Very cold.
Jan 19: Not so cold. I am some better.
Jan 24: Beautiful weather.
Jan 25: I set out on the porch in the rocking chair, lovely day.
Jan 26: Just like spring.
Jan 27: Another nice day.
Feb 02: I went over home, a very rough day, the roads very bad. The groundhog did not see his shadow.
Feb 04: I went to Mary's today.
Feb 05: Me and Mary and Elva went over to Abilards, took Elva on the sled.
Feb 06: Came down on the 9:00 car from Mary's. Went to Pittsburg, got my oil money, $10.35. Then went out to Grandmas, stayed there 2 hours, got home at 6:00.
Feb 07: Was disenchanted today. We all went, drove down in the buggy, to see the doctor that comes to Mrs. Nixon's. He had just gone home.
Feb 08: Raining and snowing.
Feb 09: Very cold.
Feb 10: Very very cold.
Feb 11: Snowing and cold.
Feb 12: Not so cold.
Feb 13: Elizabeth and Mary Zink was here for supper.
Feb 14: Ed went in home. Me, Naoma and Alberta called on Mrs. Wilson.
Feb 15: Awful cold weather.
Feb 16: Not so cold. Daddy came over and stayed for supper.
Feb 17: A nice day.
Feb 18: Ed went to work at Elwood in a barbershop.
Feb 19: Naoma, Alberta and I walked to Evans City.
Feb 20: Very cold and rained in the afternoon.
Feb 21: Cold cold.
Feb 24: Snow cold.
Feb 25: Snow snow.
Mar 01: Very nice day.
Mar 02: Nice day.
Mar 06: Very stormy, raining and snowing. Ed went to Westview.
Mar 07: Naoma, Alberta and I went over home, stayed til Thursday evening. Daddy came over with us and stayed all night. There was a terrible storm. We thought the house would blow over.
Mar 20: We moved from the Wilson farm to Evans City.
Apr 06: I went to Pittsburg.
Apr 11: Naoma, Alberta and I went to Covert's school to the entertainment and picnic.
Apr 12: I went to Butler.
Apr 15: Naoma, Alberta and I went up to Daddy's, stayed all day.
Feb 01: Ed went to work on the Lake Erie railroad at carpenter work.
Feb 03: Not so cold today. We all went to church this afternoon.
Feb 05: 17 below 0.
Feb 06: Not so cold, raining.
Jan 29: Ed gave me a check for $50 from Shnider, the man he is working for.
Feb 20: Berta went to work for Mrs. Richenson at restaurant.
Mar 01: Ed went to work for H. W. Graham in Detroit. Finished Graham's own house in March. Got $145 for finishing inside of house.
Mar 31: Went to work on another house for Graham. Started it the last of March. Inside work, got $80.
May 04: Neomi went to nursing at the Herman Keefer Hospital in Detroit.
May 19: Ed got his lenses changed from Ed Bloomer, Michigan Avenue, Dearborne.
Jun 20: Ed went to work near Vetren Hospital Friday.
Jun 29: Kuehmel gave Ed a check for $75.
Oct 01: This is what it cost us to live from the first of June until October first, for rent, groceries, ice, rent for fixing car, oil for stove, and money for preacher. $248.28
May 15: Me and Ed put 3 war bonds in the state savings bank of Lincoln Park Michigan.
When Pappy was in the army, he was stationed at Fort Bragg; he never went abroad. Some of his brothers did however. One of them, Leroy, survived the Bataan Death March. This was described briefly in the previous recording; I wish I had more information on his unbelievable act of heroism and survival. With this background, John and Mary were quietly patriotic, and somewhat prejudice against orientals, referring to them as chinks. You'll hear this in the next tape. Yet they were surprisingly apolitical. I spent a lot of time with Pappy, all day every day, for a summer here and a summer there, and he never talked politics - well almost never. And yet he liked to watch the news at night before bed, and read the paper on Sunday morning while sitting on the one and only toilet for 45 minutes. "I'm taking a hairy-chested he-man shit." he would say. (There's an outhouse back by the shop if you're desperate.) He wanted to know, and be in the know. So what did he think about any public servant or candidate? I'm not sure. He would only say, "He's so crooked he has to screw his clothes on in the morning.", or, "There's only two things I don't like, and politicians is both of them." This applied to any politician from any party. He just didn't like or trust any of them. He never voted in any election, so he told me, but as I say, he didn't complain either, so I couldn't drag out that old tired refrain, "You can't complain if you don't vote." He didn't even complain about taxes - well - no more than any other bill he had to pay. did Grandma vote? I don't know. In those days a wife usually did whatever her husband told her to do, but she was a nurse and could easily sneak off before or after work and vote, and he would be none the wiser. So I honestly don't know. She never talked politics either.
There was one time Pappy made an emphatic political statement. Pappy didn't like hippies, prominent in the late 60's and early 70's, and he was more than willing to say so. "They're lazy - they just sit around all day and smoke, and protest, and complain. How bout you get a job!" Pappy valued hard work, and did just that, morning til night, long after he retired. "And what is this trying to find yourself? Sufferin shit! Put your hands down on your ass and you'll find yourself." But one time he made a comment on the hippies and the Vietnam War, and I was stunned. "They're right about that you know, the damn war, I wouldn't go either. I'd sit my ass down, or burn the draft card, or go to Canada, but I wouldn't go." This was a man who served in the army, a man who helped America defeat fascism, a man whose brother survived the Bataan death march. Almost everyone in his position was pro-war and pro-military. In fact our rampant militarism today is still a consequence of World War II, when we were indisputably right, when we were fighting pure evil from hell itself. That generation raised the next, and the next, to believe that we were right, always right, and we would rule the earth. We were empowered by God to save the earth. somehow Pappy saw through that, he saw past it, 40 years before the rest of us - like the 2 senators who voted against the Vietnam war in 1964. I realized at that moment that there was a lot going on in Pappy's head, a quiet intelligence that most people never saw.
In civilian life, Pappy went wherever the jobs were, even if he had to be apart from Mary for a while. There are quite a few love letters between them, when they were apart; I may include those at a later date. After the depression and the war, they settled down, and didn't move around as much. But here's the surprising part. Between 1945 and 1950, they lived at 210 Waverley Street, right nextdoor to the house I grew up in, 218 Waverley Street. What are the odds? I asked my aunt Alice, Pappy's youngest daughter, about it. Remember, Pappy had four girls: Diane, Sylvia, Carolyn, and Alice, in that order. My sister Alice was named after her aunt Alice, who was named after her aunt Alice, Pappy's older sister. It's a chain of Alices that I didn't continue, as I named my daughter Elizabeth. Sorry bout that. As per the house on Waverley Street, middle Alice recollects.
"We were only there for a couple of years. I only have a few memories of that house. I might have been in the first or second grade. I guess we four girls were all upstairs, but I don't remember who slept where. I don't remember the bedrooms. I remember the sun streaming in the windows, and a big side yard. I don't remember whether Pappy had his tools in the basement or the garage but I think it was the garage. No room for all that stuff in the basement. It was his first well equipped shop. Of course I remember the saw accident, we were the only ones home. I was sitting on the work bench with the cat in my lap, and I accidentally pulled her tail, and she meowed loudly, and Pappy whipped around, and his hand went into the spinning blade. It was my fault."
To this day she blames herself, even though she was only 5 years old.
"I asked if he was ok and he said, `No, I have to get some help.' He wrapped his hand, and held his wrist with the other hand to keep the bleeding down. We went nextdoor but I naturally didn't know what to do, and he didn't have any hands to knock with, so he kicked the door. I remember him kicking the door. The neighbor opened it and wondered why someone would be kicking the door; then she saw his hand."
"It was like chopped hamburger, with blood everywhere." Pappy recalls.
A skilled surgeon repaired the damage, and a few months later he could do anything with his hands that he had done before, drawing, tools, carpentry, anything, except for one thing, he couldn't play the violin. Yes, he played, and quite beautifully by all accounts. Carolyn (my Mom) has very few memories of this, since the accident happened when she was only ten. It's interesting to me that someone who is so skilled at woodworking and architecture, from tiny wooden toys to large buildings, was also a musician. I never heard him play (obviously), but I saw his love of music. In the mid 70s he had one of the best stereo systems an individual could buy. It was the size of a small dresser, a piece of furniture in its own right. He showed me all the features, treble, bass, reverb, etc. He had at least 800 records, a huge collection by any measure. People have tons of music now on their flash drive or smart phone, but back then you generally didn't have more than a couple dozen records. He had hundreds including some old 78s. A 78 is heavy and fragile, like a dish. Drop it and it will shatter into pieces. I didn't recognize most of the records, western and orchestral music.
A sad fallout of his table saw accident was his neverending hatred of cats. I saw him kick cats out of the way, rather violently, and I've heard he did other things to cats that I hope are just rumors or exaggerations. He was a gentle patient man in other respects. Life events affect us in ways we don't always understand.
Pappy wasn't big on fear. When I spent summers with him in Utah, he wanted me to run most of the tools in the shop, sometimes with supervision, sometimes without. I started hammering nails, then electric sanders, grinders, drill press, jigsaw, bandsaw, etc. My Grandma, Mary Lucas, also called Naomi, or Naoma, or Nomi, or Nalma, would sometimes come down to the shop and say, "Jack, don't you dare let him run any of those machines. You guys be careful out here." He would acquiesce, but once she left I was back on the machines. The shop was about 100 feet behind the house, so she didn't come down all that often. Somehow I could walk from house to shop and back without cane, and without anything to guide me, just a field of grass. I don't know how I did it, the lay of the land, the sound of the buildings and trees, I guess. Next to the shop was an outhouse, which he built, since there was no plumbing back there. It was a two holer, so we could both go together. His shop had a front office for administrative purposes, with a desk and a typewriter and cabinets and a mini-fridge, and a back room full of tools. Walls of tools all the way around, and a center aisle of stand-up power tools. His favorite, and mine, was the jigsaw. After some instruction he let me run it on my own. It had a metal footing around the blade so I could put my hands on the footing and know right where the blade was. You have to push the wood straight into the blade, even as you're turning it to make a complicated shape. Push at an angle and the blade snaps, and yes I broke a few blades while learning. Pappy was very understanding; he put in a new blade and showed me what I did wrong. Soon I was making real puzzles, and I learned how to make knobs and notches so the pieces interlocked, and wouldn't just slide apart. I pasted a picture of cats on a board and turned it into a puzzle and mailed it to my then girlfriend Elizabeth. This was freshman year of college, 1979. Sometimes I'd be in the middle of making a puzzle and Grandma would poke her head in to offer us some lemonade or tell us dinner was almost ready. "Jack! I told you not to let him run those machines. He'll hurt himself. It's too dangerous." I paused the jigsaw until she left.
During the Depression Pappy made puzzles for money, a penny a piece, using this very same jigsaw. So a 30 piece puzzle was 30 cents. His skills, combined with her nursing, got them through the depression, even though they had four girls to feed. I can't imagine what a hard time that was.
There was one machine I never touched though, the table saw. Yes, Pappy's accident of 1946 was fresh in his mind, but he had another accident in 1973, with the very same table saw. I didn't remember this one at all. I guess it wasn't as serious, but there was plenty of blood, and you just don't know until an orthopedic surgeon looks at it. Pappy sent us a cassette tape describing the accident, and other events in their lives. It is essentially a letter to us in audio format. Thank goodness somebody kept it all these years. Here it is in mp3. The quality is considerably better than the previous recording. * Pappy's Hand
we received the next tape about 6 months later, at the end of 1973, as they were preparing for Christmas. Mary Lucas, my grandmother, is referred to as MereMere. this was a short-lived nickname. She always wants us to come out. They miss us terribly, as we miss them. MereMere talks about all 5 grandchildren coming out, that would be myself, Alice, Eric, and my cousins Kurt and Matt, sons of aunt Alice. Eric was my brother, but he died in December of 1974, about a year after this tape was made. I'll write more about that later, since he died in Pappy's shop. Diane had two children, Wendy and Shannon, also Pappy's grandchildren, but of course they are already in Utah, so they see them all the time. I'm not sure if all 7 grandchildren were ever together. I don't think so. By the time Matt was born, Shannon and Wendy were already out west.
Grandma refers to fresh fish caught at the local hatchery, just a couple miles from their house. She bought and cooked some trout for me, and boy was it a treat! I almost jumped up and down every time she suggested it. It is better than any fish I have ever had anywhere else, including Red Lobster.
When they talk about Pappy's teeth, they mean,primarily, dentures, affixed to the 3 or 4 teeth that remain. He had terrible teeth, and lost most of them long before I was born. I only remember him with dentures. He had a small mouth and they never seemed to fit right. He always complained about them, and hoped somebody, some day, would make a set that fit better. This is one reason he didn't eat much, plus smoking like a chimney, plus he was just too busy in the shop. Some days I would go in for supper while he continued to work. Hey, I was a growing boy. * Getting ready for Christmas
Christmas day at Diane's house, 1973. You can't really tell who is getting what from whom. They desperately needed a narrator. A bit of a snore. Christmas day
There are more recordings below, but first, a few notes on Pappy, and his home, and his shop. For a time, Pappy lived nextdoor to Diane (his eldest daughter) near Salt Lake City, to help her with her horse business. He moved to Utah circa 1968, and lived in the valley for a couple of years. I visited him in this locale, and I may write about that later, but I was young, and have only spotty memories of that time. Around 1970, more or less, he had had enough of Diane's horses and the big city, so he moved up to a small house in Kamas Utah, 6,500 feet up the mountain. This is where he built his shop and spent most of his retirement years. This is where he sent his cassette letters from, which you heard above, and more to come below. It's a beautiful area with no traffic, cool summer nights, and sparse neighbors that don't bother each other. He rented the house and land from a fellow named Jim, who had Parkinsons and was difficult to understand. Jim was a great landlord, partly because Pappy was a great tenant. Pappy made numerous repairs and improvements on the house, and never charged Jim anything beyond materials. And of course he did a first rate job every time. In fact, Pappy built a bunkhouse, with electricity, next to the shop, so Jim and his sons could sleep over. The shop was 100 feet behind the house; and as you walked towards the shop, the small outhouse was to the right, and the bunkhouse was to the left. We slept in the bunkhouse once or twice, just for an adventure. I think Alice was with us once; I'm not sure. That makes me think it had 4 beds, 2 bunkbeds on each side. As I say, there were electric lights inside, and sockets to plug in things like a radio, or a coffee maker to wake you up in the morning. It was "pacel", like everything else he built. "Just like downtown!" Can you imagine your tenant building a bunkhouse for you and your family, and only charging you for materials?
So why would Jim want to sleep over? He owned land next to and behind Pappy's house, and he raised cattle on this land. I'll just call them cows, although Pappy said they were all bulls. Raised for beef I imagine. You could see the cows just over the fence behind the shop and beyond the bunkhouse. Sometimes one bull would hump another, because that's all they had. The humpee would sometimes tolerate it, and sometimes throw the humper off, as if to say, "I'm not a girl; go away." I began to realize, at age 14, that homosexuality was ubiquitous in the animal kingdom, and not the abomination I had been taught by my church. One day Jim came over with a bag of antibiotics. The entire herd had pink-eye. When one cow gets it it spreads quickly, and you have to treat them all at once. He had to inject each one; cows aren't good about taking pills regularly for 5 days. Just part of being a cattle rancher I guess.
As you walked toward the shop from the house, the bunkhouse was on your left and the outhouse was on your right. The front door of the shop led to the office, then an inner door separated the office from the work room, where all the tools were, and finally there was a back door, which was rarely used. It opened out onto the field where the cattle grazed. In other words, the land behind the shop was not Pappy's, it was Jim's. On a hot summer day, Pappy would sometimes open all three doors to catch the breeze. (No AC in the shop.) I never saw any cattle intrusions when I was there, but Pappy described it this way.
"The cows don't want anything to do with me for the most part, but once in a while a cow would wander up to the shop and poke his head in the back door. I grabbed a 2 by 4 and waved him away. One day I was in the office, and a cow strolled into the shop while I wasn't looking. I went back to the workroom and there he was, just standing there, his head swinging from side to side."
The aisle between the workbench and the row of stand-up power tools is narrow. Pappy and I could barely stand abreast. As you might imagine, the cow could not turn around. And animals don't like to back up - none of them. In fact that was one of the tricks your horse was suppose to do at the Arabian horse show - back up. If you could get your horse to back up that was extra points. Anyways, this cow wasn't going to back up, and Pappy didn't want to provoke him, because if he charged, there is no stepping to the side. Pappy would be trampled to death in his own workshop.
"I went out the front door, across the yard, through the gate, around to the back, and in through the back door." he continued. "I gently nudged the cow in the butt with a 2 by 4, pushing him forward. He went through the workroom, through the office, and out the front door; he could hardly do anything else. I coaxed him over to the fence, through the gate, and back into his field. That only happened once."
Pappy respected animals, but wasn't afraid of them either. They were just part of his world.
I only visited him in summers, due to school, and who wants to be up in a Utah mountain in the winter anyways? Sometimes a rancher would take his sheep up the mountain to graze during the summer months. I don't know if these high elevation pastures were owned by the ranchers, or if they were public lands. When I say sheep, I mean a lot of sheep, from 1 to 3 thousand. They walked along the road right in front of Pappy's house, accompanied by ranchers and herding dogs. We sat out on the porch and watched the parade. It was an endless stream of sheep, like the longest train you've ever seen, moving at 1.5 miles an hour. I didn't need a lot of descriptions, since most of the sheep were bleating. As far left as I could hear, and as far right as I could hear, bah, bah, bah. They didn't seem unhappy or distressed, they were just talking to each other, or whatever sheep do on such a trek. I could hear the individual sheep as they passed from right to left in front of me.
Pappy liked horses from a distance, beautiful, majestic animals, but at the same time he had a grudge against them, since Diane's horse farm cost him dearly. "The only one making any money over there is the vet." he confided to me one day. "$75,000 is a lot of mad." he continued, referring to the amount of money he had sunk into his daughter's business. That's about $350,000 in today's dollars, and Pappy never made the big bucks, so that was a huge loss for him, his entire life savings I'm sure. Oh the sacrifices we make for our children, sometimes foolish sacrifices, all in the name of love. He only mentioned it once though, in all the time I knew him. He didn't dwell on it; he knew there was no gain in bitterness. He simply called it a mistake and moved on. Returning to the horses, he did enjoy going to the horse shows in Salt Lake City, though he rarely had the time. He went more often when he lived there (obviously). They are beautiful to watch, as they go through their exercises.
As mentioned before, Pappy didn't like cats, but he loved dogs. He had a dog named Heidi, and he affectionately called her Heidi-Hodey. They talked about Heidi in the previous recordings. I don't recall the breed, or her colorings or markings. She was mid-sized	, like a lab, but was rather overfed, and considerably overweight. She didn't get much exercise either. She laid at Pappy's feet, wherever he was, in the house or in the shop. There was an area of the shop floor between the band saw and the table saw where she could lie and be mostly out of the way. She adored Pappy, and spent every waking minute with him. And he adored her too , but spoiled her, hence her excess weight. Two or three times a week we would get in the camper and run some errands, getting lumber perhaps, or some hardware or stain, but always a trip to the ice cream shop. pappy and I were in the front seat and Heidi was in the back. He would order 3 cones, one for each of us. He tossed the third cone into the back seat, where Heidi gobbled it all up. She got ice cream all over the back seat, but then licked it up, so it was all clean again. He also gave Heidi parts of his dinner, he didn't eat much, due to his teeth.
The bees in that area were big and slow, and the flies were small and fast. Pappy ignored them all as he went about his work. I have a hard time ignoring stinging insects as they buzz around my head. It's just one of those things. "They won't bother you." Pappy said as he waved them away. He was right, I never got stung. But I don't understand how Heidi didn't get stung. Whenever a bee flew past her at 4 feet off the ground or less, she jumped up and ate it right out of the air. Her jaws snapped shut, and then a few chews, and the bee became a snack. sometimes a bee was buzzing against a window, trying to get out. Heidi had it cornered against the glass, and was trying to slurp it up with her mouth. Now this was a dangerous game! The bee could easily turn and sting her nose. Pappy pulled her away from the window before she got stung, but once or twice he was not around to intervene, and Heidi used her tongue to pull the bee into her mouth, and still she didn't get stung. I don't get it. She never bothered with the flies. Either they were too small, relative to the energy it took to catch them, or they just didn't taste good. My last Utah trip was in 1979, so I don't know when Heidi died, but it must have been a sad day for Pappy. I saw Pappy once more in Colorado in 1988, as per the first recording on this page, and he mentioned how much he missed his faithful companion. As the song says, "His dog up and died. After 20 years he still grieved."
Here are more details on Pappy's shop. As mentioned earlier, the front room was an office, with a typewriter and files and desks and a mini fridge. sometimes I cleared the ice out of the fridge. The main fridge in the house was frost-free but most mini-fridges at that time were not. Ice built up on the freon tubes, sometimes an inch thick. I pealed it off with a table knife, careful not to damage the tubes. I would do this when Pappy was painting or doing some other task that I couldn't help him with.
The back room was the work room. Here is an inventory as best I recall.
An aisle ran the length of the work room from the inner door (as you came in from the office) to the back door. To the left was the work bench, long and sturdy with a vice at either end. Bright lights shown overhead. Basic hand tools were all around, dozens of hammers and screw drivers and wrenches and plyers, and nails and screws of every size and type and pitch. A bin held stacks of wood, many different kinds. He tought me to identify wood by smell. A propane heater also stood against the left wall, though that was for winter, and he never turned it on when I was there. The tank of propane was wisely located outside the shop, on the other side of the wall, with a tube passing through to feed the heater. At the far end of the bench, just before reaching the back door, stood a power grinder. "If you haven't clipped your nails, this will do the job." The rough rock wheels were strong enough to grind metal. He only used it a couple times that I recall.
Now return to the inner door, and walk to the back door again, this time looking right. First is a power belt / disk sander, with a box below that accumulates sawdust (technically sanddust). Most of the saws had similar boxes. Sawdust all over the floor is a bit messy, and a serious fire hazard for a man who smokes constantly, and sometimes drops live ashes onto the floor. A neighbor, Sue Ann Crittendon, came in once a week and swept the floor and cleaned the shop. She was enthralled with Pappy; that's all there was to it. She was only a bit older than me. Next we have the crosscut saw, for perpendicular cuts, then the table saw, the big boy, for "ripping", i.e. cuts parallel to the grain. When he turned that on, the lights would dim in the house 100 feet away. Grandma always knew when Pappy was using the table saw. This is the beast that cut his hand in 1946, and again in 1973. Next comes the bandsaw, and then the jigsaw. The blade of the bandsaw is a continuous loop of metal with teeth on one edge. A drivewheel spins it around like a conveyer belt, and it makes thin precise cuts. One day the band broke, and boy did it wap and flap around before he could turn off the machine. He replaced the band and we were back in business. The jigsaw had a 5 inch blade that snapped into a reciprocating motor that drove it up and down, cutting on the down stroke. Yes, jigsaw blades would break as well, especially if you were just learning how to use it, as I was. He was very patient; he just put a new blade in, then he tought me to push the wood directly into the blade, never at an angle, which is tricky when you're turning the wood to make curves and notches. He always said the jigsaw was his favorite tool.
Just before and just after this line of power tools was a passage that one person could fit through, to get to the other side. In other words, there was a second aisle to the right of these power tools. We'll get to that in a bit.
Beyond the jigsaw, and the opening that granted access to the right side of the shop, stood a drill press. It was against the back wall, next to the back door. He had a wide array of drills, including some that would cut through metal, and various jigs. This is another tool that I could use independently.
Now let's walk around to the other side of the saws. This gains access to the right wall of the shop (as you face the back). The entire wall is hand tools, and some hand held power tools such as skill saws, sanders, routers, hand drills, etc. There were clamps from 4 inches to 4 feet, and specialized hammers, and magnetic screwdrivers for difficult places, and awls, and countersinks, and yoyos, and plumb-bobs, and levels, and paint and stain and varnish, and just so many special tools that I can't remember them all. Wise to keep the flammables away from the heater, and away from his work area.
Somehow he knew where each tool was, and he could put his hand on just the right tool for the job.
He spent years assembling this shop, and it probably had the retail value of a new car. It was sad to see it scatter to the four winds when he moved to Colorado, unable to do his work any more. The tools probably sold at auction for a tenth their retail value. He always wanted someone to keep the jigsaw; I don't know what became of it. I asked Shannon (Diane's eldest) about this, here is his reply.
"I have the table saw, lathe and survey set. I believe Charles has the drill press. Not sure what happened to the jigsaw. I use his tools often and always think of him. Pappy taught me alot that has served me well."
One more thing in the far right corner of the shop - a drawer full of tiny bottles of alcohol. He got them on airplanes, when he flew, or from his friends who flew. They use to hand them out; I'm sure they don't any more, broken glass being a potential weapon. He had dozens and dozens, different brands and different cocktails. He never drank them, well almost never, but he liked to have them. Sometimes if a good friend dropped by unexpectedly he would hand them a bottle, and take one out for himself. He kept them out here because Grandma, a proper Christian, wouldn't have approved.
Let me describe the first project we worked on together, the first project where I was actually a help, instead of just a little kid underfoot. It was the summer of 75. I flew out and he explained what he wanted to build. First some background. An irrigation ditch ran across their yard, just inside the front gate. To leave their property, you had to step over the irrigation ditch, then through the front gate, and out to the street. The gate was usually closed to keep Heidi in the yard. These ditches are common throughout the mountains of Utah. They run 1 day out of 3 (or 4), or maybe 18 hours out of 72, I don't remember the exact formula. Water flows through them, and the farmers use the water for crops and livestock. Pappy didn't need the water but maybe his neighbor did, or his neighbor's neighbor, so 1 day out of 4 it would flow. The water was cold, but not ice cold. I could put my arm in it and fish around for a while. I don't remember why I was doing this, but it entertained me I guess. The ditch was about 2 feet deep and 2 feet wide. Wet or dry, it was easy to step across, unless you had your hands full of groceries, so Pappy had a wooden plank that he walked on. Think of it as part of the sidewalk, bridging the irrigation ditch. The plank was only a foot wide, but that wasn't a problem, except for the winter. There's plenty of snow in the mountains, and it filled the irrigation ditch and covered the plank with several inches of snow. If he missed the plank, he fell down an extra 2 feet and tumbled into the ditch. Uttering more curse words than usual, he climbed out of the ditch and went on his way. When I arrived he said he wanted to build a real bridge across the ditch. And when he built anything, it was gonna be pacel! We assembled the frame for the floor, a rectangle that was 5 feet wide and 10 feet long. "I want a cow to be able to walk across this bridge." he said. Remember, cows did wander into his yard from time to time. I helped him nail the flooring onto this frame with large spikes. He pounded a spike in with 4 strokes; it usually took me 16. Having built the base, anybody else would stop, but not Pappy. A big snow could cover this bridge, so he wanted railings that could be seen from 50 feet away. Also, he liked the look of the bridges that railroads built across rivers and canyons. Remember, he worked for the Army Corps of Engineers for a while. So we built side tressels and gussets, and hand rails along the top. The gussets were wood, not metal, and were not needed structurally, but they made the bridge look authentic. The railing was 4 feet high and strong enough to lean on; nobody could fall over into the ditch. We painted the bridge silver, as though it was a metal train bridge, and then it was done. We jumped up and down on it and it was rock solid. Yes indeed, a cow could walk across it. This bridge served him well for as long as he was living in that house, and I'm sure it serves the current occupants today.
Ok - I'm getting ahead of myself. I spent the summer of 75 with Pappy, in Kamas Utah, when we built the aforementioned bridge, and so many other things, but let's back up to the end of 73 and the start of 74, as captured in the next tape. Sylvia begins by talking about Heidi, their beloved dog. Then Pappy lost another tooth, and New Years Eve, and the weather, and Wendy's plan to marry Gary. Gary had lived in Diane's music studio in the back of the house for 3 months prior, so they knew him well. A navy man, he was soon to return to his submarine for 3 months, and then they would get married in May. He was 35 and Wendy 17, and he lived on ships and Wendy on horse raanches, so they (wisely) did not marry. * New Years Eve, Wendy&Gary
The tape also includes dinner at Banjos, a restaurant in Heber City. This is rather a waste cause all you can hear is the background music. I include it because maybe you have some of that NCIS software that can pull the sound of one chirping bird out of a forest. If not, you can listen to the conversations between the songs. It's 39 minutes long, and not much to be gained therefrom. Banjos Restaurant
A second tape followed just a couple weeks later, a continuation of the first. This tape covers February 1974. It includes Lori Ann, Howard's granddaughter by birth. Lori spent most of her childhood with Diane and Howard, and was legally adopted on December 21, 1973. You'll hear her talk and play the recorder.
Grandma talks about the leak in our roof. This refers to the addition that Pappy put on our house in 1970. That brought back some bad memories for me. Every year it leaked, usually around Christmas. It started leaking in 1972 and got worse each year. The spring and summer rains were ok, but the combination of rain and snow and ice caused the leak, ice dams perhaps, and that happened in December and January. We had pots and pans all along the bay window, catching the water, as many pans as we could spare, and still water spilled over onto the carpet and threatened to ruin it, and who knows how much damage was being done to the ceiling. We never had money to fix it. We had the Christmas tree and presents in the front of the extended living room, and we always had to move the presents to the side so they wouldn't get wet. It really put a damper (pun) on Christmas. we told them about this in our December 1973 tape, and Pappy replied with much sadness, feeling responsible. The next year, 1974, the leak seemed even worse. And Eric died on December 1, so my Mom just looked at the water falling from the ceiling and cried. She was in the midst of a divorce, and hadn't worked in 17 years, and didn't know how she would support Alice and me, and this house was all she had, and the roof was leaking buckets, and no money to fix it, and above everything else, her son died at the tender age of 16, by his own hand. There was no Christmas joy that year. We opened presents in a mindless, mechanical fashion, emptied the pots to collect more water, then went back to our rooms. I don't recall if the leak was ever fixed, or if we sold the house in the summer and that became the next guy's problem. I think we were in Tony's condo by Christmas of 75, so I'm guessing somebody else had to deal with it. * Diane and Lori
On this tape they recorded another restaurant meal, no kidding. There's no background music, but still, they are talking to each other, not to us, and it's not very interesting - but here it is. Jordanellos
At this point the tapes stopped, probably because we were dealing with the horror of Eric's mental illness, and we didn't have the time or the energy to record happy glowing stories about life with the Dahlkes. We didn't send tapes to them, and they didn't send tapes to us. It all stopped, and never started again.
Eric's problems didn't manifest over night. He watch the footage of the Vietnam War on the news, and couldn't process it - but neither could he look away. He watched our parents argue and fight, and couldn't process it. He saw the cruelty of the bullies at school, and was sometimes the recipient of their taunts, and couldn't process it. He failed most of his classes, and the teachers asked why he couldn't be like his younger, blind brother, who got straight A's, and he couldn't process it. He heard the message of God and Jesus and perfect love at church, and his parents said the message was true, even as they demonstrated no love for each other, and he couldn't process it. During the spring of 1974, shortly after the previous tape was made, Eric shut down and would not interact with anybody. He was admitted to Beaumont Hospital for psychological evaluation and treatment. The doctors gave him pencil and paper to write down his thoughts, which is fortunate, or we would never know what he was thinking. He had to follow the directions of his doctors and nurses, so he viewed them as robots. Robots brought him food, and told him what to do, and he obeyed. One night Dad brought a chess set to try to cheer him up. Eric and Dad and I played chess often, and we were (almost) evenly matched, Dad a bit better than Eric, a bit better than me, so the games were good. Eric wrote, "A chess set appeared, and the pieces moved by themselves. I decided to play along. It was a good game. The pieces went back in the box, but the next day they came out and we played again. I will play whenever the set wants to play."
Mom went and talked to him every day, but he didn't hear her, or didn't register it in his writings. I heard her say once, "You can retreat as far back as you want, but we will always love you."
We had Auto Workers Blue Cross, which was the best insurance in the state, but even that had limits. After 30 days in the psych ward the insurance ran out, and Eric still wasn't interacting with people. I was in my room and I heard a conversation that I was not meant to hear. Dad began, "The insurance runs out next week. We'll have to bring him home."
Mom replied, "The doctor says he is close, he needs a few more days, is there some way he can stay for a few more days?"
After a pause, my Dad said, "I guess we could sell the diningroom furniture." He was referring to a beautiful set that we bought a couple years earlier, a dark wood table with leaves, six chairs, a china cabinet, and a hutch. We would lose a bundle selling it, but you do what you have to do for your children - something I understand now all too well. That was the first time I realized money was a serious consideration in our home. Things had been tight before, especially when Dad was unemployed, but they managed to hide it from us. We ate gravy bread for dinner, some gravy poured over bread, and we kids just thought it was dinner, we didn't understand it was poverty. When Dad got back to work we ate real food again. Gravy bread was something we ate now and then; we took it in stride. But that night I was afraid for all of us.
Eric snapped back to reality just before the insurance ran out. He came home and insulted me, which made me feel better. But we knew his environment, home and school, was not sustainable. Mom decided to sent him to Utah, and the grandparents were more than happy to have him. In their mind, any visit from a grandchild was a gift from God. Eric went out some time in April, a one way ticket, we had know idea when he would be well enough to return. He had a chance to start over in a new home and a new school. We knew that he and Pappy would get along famously, and would work together on all sorts of projects, just as I did whenever I was with him. It was the right thing to do. By any measure, and any reasonable judgment, it was the right thing to do.
I have seen more than my share of depression in the past 50 years, in Eric, in Diane, and in others who are still alive so I won't mention their names. There is a common theme throughout. If you say the wrong thing, if you have the wrong tone of voice, if you glance at them the wrong way, they read it as, "You don't love me, and you never did." And they truly believe it. anyone else would look at all the sacrifices that were made, the hard work, the tears, the sleepless nights, and recognize the love, but that unassailable mountain of evidence flies right past these people. Nobody loves them and they are worthless and there is really no reason to live.
After several months, Eric decided we sent him to Utah because we didn't want him around. Mom called him often, and wrote him almost every day, but nobody loved him. I don't know that these were his thoughts, he wasn't writing them down, but it is consistent with other depressed individuals that I have known and loved.
Eric seemed to be doing well, especially when he was working with Pappy on various projects. He got along well with Gradma and Sylvia, and was doing ok in school - not great but ok. On November 30 he seemed very relaxed and at peace, as though everything was going to be all right. He made muffins for everybody as an after dinner treat, while humming his favorite hymns, then he went out to the shop. Pappy thought he was going to check on a project they were working on, but Eric had other plans. He knew where Pappy kept his gun. It was just for target practice, almost a toy. They had shot tin cans with it before, in the back field, careful to avoid the cows. It wasn't powerful enough to shoot through bone. If Eric had shot himself in the head, he would have survived, possibly with some brain damage. He knew that, and so, he shot himself in the chest between the ribs. The bullet had just enough energy to penetrate the heart. It was carefully planned and executed. He bled out on the shop floor.
After midnight Pappy became concerned and went out to the shop. Both the front door and the back door were locked from the inside. He thought he saw Eric on the floor, so he broke the glass and went in. It was too late. Time of death was recorded at 1 AM on December 1.
We went to church on Sunday morning as usual. When we came home there were cars at our house. We went inside and there was aunt Alice. I said hello, always happy to see her, and hoping we could play with our cousins today. Then we saw Tony, who was sort-of dating Mom, but trying to stay low until the divorce was final. "Oh, it's company day." I blurted out, without considering the incongruity of both of these people in our house uninvited on a Sunday morning.
It was very quiet. Aunt Alice spoke. "I've got bad news from out west." There was a pause. Mom told me, years later, that she knew. Alice didn't have to tell her the rest; she knew Eric was dead. There wasn't any doubt in her mind. Alice continued, "Eric went out to the shop last night and killed himself." There really wasn't any other way to say it - or any better way to say it. She reached out to hug my Mom, but Mom backed away and said, "Don't touch me!" She didn't scream, or yell, or cry; she ran into her bedroom and closed the door. Alice turned to Tony and gave him some advice.
"You'll have to leave her alone for a while, maybe quite a while. You were here to support her, she knows that, but she and Carl will have to work through this together as a couple, as parents, their divorce notwithstanding. And after that she will need time and space. She will call you when she is ready."
Tony left, and sister Alice and I were silent, staring at aunt Alice and wondering what to do next. There was no sound from Mom's bedroom, as though she wasn't there. Aunt Alice knew we would normally eat lunch at this time, and Mom was in no condition to cook, so she put 2 chicken pot pies in the oven. I don't remember any words after that. Maybe there were some but I don't remember. 45 minutes later we ate our pot pies. I remember the taste of it, it tasted the same as always, but somehow I knew nothing would ever be the same. Mom told me, 40 years later, "I was given a life sentence that day."
I didn't witness the effect on my grandparents directly, but it was devastating. "He was like a son to me." Pappy declared. He had four girls, and finally he had a son, but now Eric was dead on the shop floor in a pool of blood. Pappy stayed in his room for 3 days and would not come out. Perhaps he went to the bathroom, but he wouldn't eat, and he wouldn't come out, and he could not be consoled, even by the love of his life, his wife of 50 years. After a time, Mom was furious with Eric for doing that to Pappy. He could have gone off into a field; he didn't have to kill himself on the shop floor. But remember, these people are convinced nobody loves them, so there will be no repercussions when they are dead, no tears, no heartache. It doesn't matter who finds them, because they will simply sweep the body away and move on with their lives. Such are the thoughts of the chronically depressed.
My Mom and Dad had to get back together long enough to go out to Utah for the funeral. "Your Dad was very supportive." she told me later. "We put all our differences aside and just tried to get through the funeral and help Pappy and Grandma as best we could." Mom asked me if I wanted to come, believing Alice was too young to understand. I said no. I didn't require closure - to this day I'm not sure what closure is, or if it even exists. I don't have to go to the funeral to know he's dead, just as I don't have to see electrons to know that electricity is real. So alice and I stayed with aunt Alice and Uncle Mike and Kurt and Matt for 4 days while our parents went to Utah to bury their son.
The weather did not cooperate. We were slammed by one of the worst snow storms in Michigan's history, over 20 inches across the county. My parents were lucky to get out before the storm hit. They might have been on the last flight out of Metro. The snow was a welcome diversion for us. Schools were closed, so aunt Alice didn't have to worry about getting us, or her own boys, to school. We just stayed in the house and played together, as we had done so many times before. But it wasn't the same. One morning sister Alice and I got into a physical fight, which never happened. We got along better than any two siblings I know. Maybe we were trying to process Eric's death in our own way.
Uncle Mike provided a diversion by taking us outside and building an iglu. I was cold initially, but after stomping down the snow I was plenty warm. Mike cut bricks out of the compressed snow and laid down the first circle, with an impressive circumference. We laid down the next layer, and the next, leaving a gap for the door. The wall rose waist high, and we had to call it a night, ready to continue the next morning. After another day of construction the wall was two meters high. I don't think we finished the roof, but it was an impressive structure nonetheless. Back inside, we played board games, and pachinko, and hide and seek, and the usual things we cousins did when we were together. Tony came regularly to read a book on Steinmetz, which was part of my homework. Mom was reading it to me but she was away, and she didn't want me to get behind in my school work. Tony did so much for us over the next 16 years, but that's another story.
about a week later, Tony brought a small gift for my Mom, and she took it, and looked at him, and pointed to the corner of the living room and said, "Get those out of here." She was refering to a stack of Christmas presents that she was going to mail out west for Eric. Tony took them away and probably threw them out. We slogged through the rest of December in a daze, as water fell through the roof and sogged the carpeting, graduallly turning it into mold. I imagine we opened some presents on December 25, but I don't remember it.
Fast forward to spring, and Mom wanted to send me out to Utah as soon as school was out. It would be a great experience for me, and she wouldn't have to entertain me for the summer, but the subtext was her true motivation.
"Mom, Dad, it wasn't your fault. I don't blame you for Eric's death. Please don't think about what you should have done differently, or could have done differently. If Eric didn't find the gun, there are a hundred other tools in that shop that are just as lethal. It's really not your fault. I'm sending Karl out this summer, to tell you that I trust you with my children. I know you will take good care of him, and he'll have a wonderful time, and come back with skills and experiences that can't be learned in school. Please stop crying - I love you both very much."
This isn't my supposition; Mom told me, many years later, that these were her thoughts. She wanted Pappy to know that he was not responsible in any way. Yes, sending me out to Utah helped, it helped a lot! It helped Pappy, and it helped me. The summer of 75 was not my first trip to Utah, nor my last, but it would be the most important.
Ok, let's go back ten years earlier. My first memory of my grandparents was a temporary apartment in Indiana. I'm thinking Richmond but I honestly don't know the city. They lived on Starr Road in Royal Oak Michigan, but spent this particular summer in Richmond Indiana while Pappy did some contract work. As I say, he went where the work was. I stayed with them for the summer; I'm sure my Mom didn't mind the break, she still had Eric and Alice to watch. So it was me and Pappy and Grandma and aunt Sylvia. I don't remember Sylvia but she must have been there; she lived with her parents until she was 53, when she married Monti and moved to Eckley Colorado. I believe the year was 1965, and I was only 4 years old, soon to be 5, ready to start Kindergarten in the fall. My Mom told me that Grandma asked if she could just keep me for a year; I didn't really need to go to kindergarten, that wasn't important. Therefore, the year was 1965. I remember the diningroom and the kitchen, though it looks a lot like their house in Kamas Utah, so those memories may have blurred together. I remember his desk with lots of papers on it, and a big red office chair with wheels. The desk and the chair were definitely from Indiana, no doubt about that. I was so small I could lie down in the chair on my stomach or my back with my legs sticking out. I used my feet to push off of the desk and spin around. Each time around I gave another push, so I would spin as fast as I could. It's a wonder the chair didn't tip over. I did this quite a bit during that summer, basically any time I was bored. I guess they didn't mind.
Soon I returned to my home on Waverley Street, just in time for kindergarten, and they returned to their home on Starr Road. The Starr Road house had three big rooms on the first floor: kitchen, diningroom, livingroom (clockwise). Ok I was small, but the rooms seemed big to me. At the back of the house, where the diningroom met the livingroom, was a back door, and stairs going up to the second level. The kitchen had a bright tile floor and maybe an island, the diningroom had a dark carpeting, and the livingroom had a bright carpeting with an interesting pattern that I use to look at. My aunt Alice confirmed immediately.
"Yes it did! I think it was red and pink flowers against a white background."
One Christmas I was sitting on the floor, looking at the pretty pattern in the carpeting, and someone handed me a gift to open. It was an assortment of tools. I didn't know what to do with this. It was meant for Carl Dahlke, my father.
The back yard was big, with a circle of track and two engines, a blue engine and a black engine. A small child could sit on the engine and turn the handles and run around the track, and I did, sometimes for an hour. I found it very relaxing. One side of the track was a little higher than the other, so I had to crank the handles to go uphill, then I could sort of coast downhill, then around again and again. Sometimes the train would jump the track on a turn, and I had to get off and seat the wheels back in the track, but I knew how to do that and it was fine. After they moved to Utah this train set moved to aunt Alice's back yard for the benefit of my cousins Kurt and Matt, and I continued to ride the train until I was 11 or 12 and just couldn't fit on the engine any more.
I only saw the upstairs of the Starr Road house once, when I slept over. I remember the little bedroom I stayed in, where Grandma read me The Little Engine that Could. I remember the bathroom because I took a bath that night; I think it was the only time I was ever in that bathroom. All these had to be early memories because they moved to Utah in 1968, when I was just 7 years old. They moved west some time after September 1967, because we celebrated my seventh birthday in that big bright kitchen, with a rocket shaped cake on the table. How my Mom made a cake shaped like a rocket lying on its side, I'll never know. She use to make special shaped cakes for us on our birthdays. One year the shape was an elephant, and Krista (our dog) ate the trunk off, so Mom had to replace it with an iced twinkie.
Here is another memory of Pappy at Starr Road. He had just purchased a Dodge flatbed truck. The metal bed was painted bright yellow, with walls about 2 feet high. When the tailgate was opened, it formed an extension of the metal floor, strong enough for two men to stand on. This was a "pacel" truck, in Pappy's words, and he was proud to show it off. I sat in the passenger seat and he showed me the shifter on the dash. PRND21, for park, reverse, neutral, drive, second gear, first gear. Drive represented automatic transmission, which existed in some cars but was rare in trucks. This was the latest model, with all the bells and whistles. Still, the manufacturer expected the owner to go off road, or perhaps climb a mountain, thus first and second gears were provided. Believe me, we used those gears when climbing up the mountains of Utah. Another novelty was the altimeter, built into the dash. Pappy knew he would be out west some day, so he wanted an altimeter in his truck. He explained how it worked, translating air pressure into feet above sea level. I understood pretty well, for a 6-year-old.
Pappy had already started to modify the truck, soon to be a camper, the likes of which have never been seen before. He drilled rectangular holes along the tops of the side walls, 1.5 inches by 3.5 inches, every 2 feet. Yes, he's cutting into metal, but of course he has a tool for that, he has a tool for everything. He inserted 2 by 4's into these holes, standing up like the ribs of a giant animal. This would be the framework of his camper. He didn't get much further than the skeleton before he moved to Utah; he would finish the camper out west. As I watched, he was adding braces and horizontal beams across the top, to keep the wind from blowing the ribs about at highway speeds. Even at age 6, he was showing me the methods of construction. For example: what are the dimensions of a standard 2 by 4? Answer: 1.5 inches by 3.5 inches. So it has always been. He explained why; I don't remember now. I helped him with the braces as best I could. At one point I reached over to see what he was doing, and my knuckle touched his lit cigarette. I remember the sharp pain, and the sore that took a long time to heal. I learned a valuable lesson that day; Pappy always has a cigarette in his mouth, or in his hand, or nearby if he needs both hands for a task. And he learned to keep his cigarettes away from his blind grandson.
I have two more memories from this time, and I'm pretty sure they are connected. I have an image of my Aunt Diane's house in Denver. I remember looking at the kitchen, and I remember looking over the top of a dutch door, the top being open and the bottom being closed. That was just so cool! And I remember taking a bath in a small bathroom in the back of the house. I remember that because Shannon gave me my bath, not my Mom, not even my Aunt Diane. I'm not sure why the task was entrusted to my older cousin, who barely knew me. The memory is so vague I had to ask my cousin Wendy if it was even real.
"Did you really live in Denver for a short time?" I asked.
Wendy replied. "We did go to Denver. I think I was barely 7 years old, if that. My Mom loved the west, and My dad thought that if my mom was able to get out from Gramma Lucas' thumb, she would not be sick any more. You know she had a lot of struggles with mental illness, right? Then I was probably 10 years old when we moved from Denver to Utah. My dad had a good job offer there I remember that. We lived in several places, but since Pappy got our first horse, we ended up eventually buying and moving to the farm in Bluffdale.Pappy loaned us money to do that in some way. That would have been in 1968 I guess. I was going into 7th grade so I was 12. There was 20 acres on that farm. we grew tomatoes for del monte, barley, and a few other things. Pappy and gramma moved to Utah due to our financial situation, plus, Pappy LOVED the west, and cowboys, and always wanted to live there. They lived in a little house next to ours. Pappy wanted to participate and help us with the horse investments, etc, which were just beginning at that time. As I say, he bought our first horse. But my dad and gramma hated each other so much. And it dragged pappy into it. It made my mom even sicker, and my dad would not let pappy build stuff the way he wanted. I'm sure there was much more to it, but they moved up to the little town of Kamas in the mountains where they stayed. I was broken hearted. Pappy was such a powerful force in my life. I didn't really know the facts."
So ok, my Denver memory is real. Another memory, which is more vivid and detailed, is riding the train with Pappy across country. Why would he do that if he was living in Utah? I would go to him, or come back home, but we wouldn't travel cross country together. I can only deduce, 55 years after the fact, that Pappy was still living here in Michigan. I'll call it the summer of 1966. I was 5, turning 6 in September. diane and family had been in Denver for a couple years, and would move to Utah soon, with Pappy following soon thereafter. Pappy wanted to go out and visit his daughter and grandkids in Colorado, and he asked to take me along on the train, and my Mom said yes. That's how it went down, I believe.
Nobody understands train travel today. You should watch White Christmas every December, or maybe North by Northwest, to see how it use to be. Pappy and I were in a private room, with a door that closed and left us undisturbed. Sometimes a porter would knock on the door and ask if we needed anything. Room service perhaps, or he would even shine your shoes if you wished. The room had comfortable seats and a window to watch the scenery go by. When night came, a double bed pulled down from the wall. Plenty of room for Pappy and me. I tell you, there's something wonderful about sleeping on a train. The gentle movements, the clickety-clack, the bells going by illustrating the doppler effect, it's just a wonderful thing! During the day I played with my legos, which I took along for entertainment, since I didn't get much enjoyment looking out the window. The box spilled all over once and we had to pick up all the pieces, which seemed like a lot of work but really wasn't, since my lego collection was just beginning. I also remember the club car. The food was pretty good, and I kept asking for extra pickles. The sandwich I ordered just didn't have enough pickles. Pappy smoked like a chimney of course. In those days everybody smoked, on trains, on planes, on buses, that's just the way it was. Planes had separate smoking and nonsmoking sections, which helped a little, but still the smoke spread throughout the cabin. ditto for restaurants. So Pappy smoked while he ate; remember that he didn't eat much anyways. He turned his empty glass upside down and held his cigarette beneath, until the glass was full of smoke. I put my face close to the glass so I could see the white smoke inside. Then he would lift the glass up and release the smoke into the air. He called it a "Moke Doggy". I ate the rest of my sandwich, and then he did the same trick again. I never got tired of watching it; it seemed magical.
So it was just Pappy and me on a train heading west, probably to Denver to visit Aunt Diane and her family. I only have two or three foggy memories of Diane's house in Denver, as described above. No wonder my Mom didn't give me my bath; she wasn't even there. Then we took the train back home, and I'm sure the two train trips have blended together in my mind. Soon thereafter, Pappy and Grandma and Sylvia and Diane and her family would be in Utah, putting 1,500 miles between us. We visited each other as often as we could, but we certainly missed them, and they us.
I will add more stories about Pappy as time permits.