"Ace" by Amidee Keven (Ace) Walden

“ACE” Arrival: May 17, 1907 This Date: July 19, 1994 Departure: October 23, 2010

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Table of Contents

“ACE” Chpt.

Title

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

contents The Starting Point Ancestry And Then there Was Me What Guess Would You Have Made?

Red Coats Our New Location An Easier Time First Grade I Was Told Not to Look Inside Plumbing Separation Once I Was a Poolhall Bum Before High School High School -- A Futile Search for Talent One Hundred Days -- Or How to be Completely Stupid Leaving Home Missoula Calgary Riding Rods and Rails Mazatlan Tiajuana Yakima And Finally Spokane My Twelth Year of Education A Highway Man Am I Further Education/Beginning Banking Ellen Young Lady/Young Man A Prologue to Banking Starting Almost 42 Years of Banking Kellogg Branch #13 Nappa Branch #6 Sandpoint Branch #19

4 5 8 9 10 11 12 13 16 17 19 20 21 24 28 29 30 32 34 36 39 41 42 44 46 49 52 55 58 59 61 64 68

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Table of Contents, Continued

“ACE” 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 -

Coeur d’Alene Branch #11 Revisited TITLE: Vice President And Now What Clean Cuspidors and Becoming Educated A Loan Request Unable to Locate Account Do I Have to Pay the Loan?

A Youngster Purchases New Boots Relatives -- Taking Stock Gripes Education The Golden Years Two Wonderful Ladies Philosophy statistics

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71 74 75 77 78 79 81 82 83 86 87 88 89 93 95

The Starting Point

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here must be at least one reason for writing a book. For me, there are two reasons.

Many times, people have suggested that I should jot down my experiences as I have plodded and stumbled through the days allotted to me. The other reason is the hope that someone will read the words I string together. If I thought there would be no reader, I would not write anything.

If you are a reader, there are some rules that I must have approved by you.

This is not a “how to” do anything treatise.

Local residents will in some instances be able to put names on some of my happenings. I will not. I do not believe it proper to use names when praise is deserved and not use names when blame appears. If you clap hands, you must also point fingers.

This is not a chronicle about a fellow who was superior in anything. I did not climb high mountains. I did not swim turbulent rivers. I did not get a college degree in anything. I was not an athlete. I did not pile many dollars on top of each other. As a politician, I was a nobody because I did not run for any office.

Do I have an ulterior motive? Perhaps. As we move along in this life, we have numerous opportunities to make choices. Sometimes the choice is entirely a result of our reasoning.

Frequently we make choices based on advice from other people. Sometimes we have no choice and must take the only opportunity offered. Each decision brings changes that become more pronounced as the years lengthen. We should beware of decision making and give each one our serious attention.

Someone has said that luck is a reward of science. If you didn’t know that points were given for tossing a basketball through a hoop you probably wouldn’t try to do it. One of my high school buddies who at one time was attorney general for the State of Idaho frequently made the statement: Some people slave for success, some people have success thrust upon them. There is also the fellow who someone shoved off a high cliff to the rocks below and he lit on a feather bed and discovered a gold mine climbing back up the cliff. I know several stories about people who were just lucky.

We now have established the ground rules and if you are a reader, and I hope you are, my book will be on its way.

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Ancestry

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o properly understand me you should know something about my forbears. My fifteen months older brother, Percy Bertrum Walden, Jr., “PB,” when he retired became interested in genealogy and it is to him and his efforts that I owe awareness of relatives dating back a few hundred years. I will not bore you with names, dates and places except for grandparents.

My father’s father was a Pennsylvanian who before he was twenty years old left home and headed for Chicago, where he learned a trade. He became a bootmaker and shoe repair man. He could do anything that could be done with leather, and he had his own kit of tools.

When the Civil War started he enlisted in the Illinois Cavalry and fought for the North.

Enlistments were for two years and when that time had passed Isaac Newton Walden signed papers for two more years, which was denied. He was too old by less than one year. He just changed his birthdate on the form by one year and was accepted. I have a photo copy of that form. About three months before the War Between the States ceased he was married in Baltimore, Maryland, to Sarah Page Mayo. His military experience continued. One night he rode out of Fairfax County Courthouse to deliver a dispatch and when returning his horse threw him and his back was broken. He was a patient in the Army Hospital at Baltimore until the end of the war. His wife was a nurse in that hospital. When the war was over, Sarah and Isaac were transported back to Chicago. According to Army regulations, Isaac was to be sent back to his place of enlistment.

If you check back in your family records, you will find one person more interesting than any of the others. For me that individual was Sarah Page Mayo. She was Irish, she was not five feet tall, she did not weigh one hundred pounds, but she was a human dynamo. She was a direct descendent of two Mayflower families--the Brewsters and the Hamptons. Leaving the Mayflower the trail led to a stay at Eastham, Massachusetts, and from there to the Augusta, Maine, area. The names of Page and Mayo received mention in the French and Indian War. The Civil War started and Sarah went to Baltimore, Maryland, to do her part in the war effort as a nurse at the army hospital there.

Back in Chicago, Isaac and Sarah decided to be farmers and for many years existed on a grain farm near Kirksville, Missouri. They raised five children. My father was the oldest child, and he had two brothers and two sisters. They decided to try a more urban life and spent a few years in Worthington, Minnesota. The Oregon Territory was being opened for homestead and northern army war veterans were to be given preference. In two wagons with Isaac driving one wagon and Sarah the other one and my father at eighteen years of age walking most of the way and directing movement they went through Boise and Baker, Oregon, and over the Blue Mountains to Milton/Freewater, Oregon, and obtained a homestead acreage on what proved to be good fruit land about seven miles from Walla Walla, Washington. The horses were sold. They lived in the wagons. They drilled a well, planted a garden and fruit trees and laid the foundation for a house. Sarah was active. Isaac was an invalid, but he was not crippled for leather working. His hands were strong.

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Smith Wilson Walton and Mary Ann (Molly) Katsel Walton had nine children, and my mother was the oldest survivor. There had been an earlier daughter who died very young.

My mother was born in Albion, Idaho. In this small town, there were many Waltons. Smith was a driver and scout for a wagon train headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Depending on the wishes of the travelers, the destination was Salt Lake City, Sacramento, or Portland.

The return trip for the employees involved bringing back items that could be readily sold in Omaha at a profit. Molly was left at Albion, and she and new daughter, Emma, were picked up on the return from Sacramento to Omaha. My mother made at least three round trips on this wagon train before she was six years old. Smith was an Oregonian. Molly’s forbears were from Alsayce-Lorraine, and her parents were grain farmers in the Ritzville, Washington, area. She was a handy lady and nurse on the wagon train. When finishing a trip to Portland, it was learned that Spokane had suffered a disastrous fire and the Waltons decided to start a new life in Spokane, and they did. Smith was a domestic animal man. He could drive one horse or twenty of them. He took good care of his stock--horses, cows, chickens, hogs, geese or ducks. He never had what we would classify as a steady job, but he was always busy. Their house, barn and acreage was at Lincoln Heights and although the land was not rich and rewarding the family survived and grew.

My mother--Emma Eliza Walton--did not receive a high school diploma but she was a bright, talented, wise lady. Being the oldest child she should be first to leave home and she was and just sixteen years old. She became a maid in a federal judge’s home. He was a widower. In less than two years, he was promoted to a new position in Walla Walla, Washington, and at his request Emma went with him to manage his new household.

The ways of the world are strange. We now have Emma and Percy in Walla Walla and Milton/Freewater about seven miles apart. They met. My father drank, gambled, smoked long black cigars, had a thick mustache and slept much of the day and stayed up late at night. Every gamble he took in business made money. He had card rooms and tobacco shops in many hotels. He was partner in a dray line, a cleaning and pressing shop, a Wells Fargo franchise. He also owned several small convenience stores in tiny towns. He was about thirty-six years old and Emma was just twenty years old. The federal judge had been given good news. He was in a few months to have another promotion--to Seattle, Washington, and he wanted Emma to go with him and manage his new home. When Percy heard about this he proposed marriage. It must have surprised Emma. She told Percy that her husband was not to smoke, drink, gamble or stay up all night with the boys and that he had to keep clean shaven. Percy agreed to the terms and divested himself from all his businesses and from the time of his marriage he obeyed all the regulations except perhaps one--if you classify playing the wheat market on margin as gambling. He did--and it was his downfall. There will more about that later on in this chronicle. He was also forgiven for playing low stake card games in the cigar store he owned and operated. After the marriage, Percy and Emma traveled often, usually up and down the Pacific Coast. They were looking for some business that he thought would be interesting and profitable and that she would approve. They were not in a hurry. There was no reason for them to be financially. They did make a trip back to the homestead so that their first child, my older brother, could be born in Walla Walla. Soon thereafter they were on the move again to California. After San

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Francisco had its earthquake and fire, they retreated to a gold mining camp in northern California--Grass Valley--the location of a famous gold mine--the Idaho Maryland Mine. It was in Grass Valley that I was born May 17, 1907, as a second son to Percy Bertrum Walden, Jr. As a reader, you must now be informed that this chronicle will henceforth feature me as the principal character. I have always credited myself as being reasonably intelligent, age considered, but you will learn that is not a correct assumption. I am aware of too many mistakes that I have made and you will learn about some of them.

I have not until lately been as curious as I should have been about the lives of my parents.

My sister probably knew how my father and mother met and something about their courtship. I did not ask my parents nor my sister. At a meeting of relatives one Sunday afternoon, my father told about a trip he took leading horses pulling a wagon over Donner Pass in a blizzard on the way to Nevada City. I left the room to do other things that were more important to me. Another time, Mom and Dad were talking about his invitation to be a member of the Vigilantes. Again, I absented myself. I wish I knew the full stories and could write about them. I know of no way to sort them out now.

Probably the main reason for writing this report is to leave a few tracks to indicate how it was around here from 1907, more aptly 1911. Coeur d’Alene only became a noticeable dot on a readable map in 1878, when Camp Coeur d’Alene was established. Thirty-three years later I was here. I will not write about happenings that I did not witness or that I did not research and find accurate during my lifetime. There is too much romantic interpretation that is now branded as truth and believed as fact by a majority of people.

If you are ready to continue reading, it is time for me to write. I’ll move along.

And Then There Was Me

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y journey through this life began at the home of my parents at 253 Washington Street, Grass Valley, California, May 17, 1907. We lived there until I was about three years old. I have not one memory about those days.

You should now know that my father’s mother had her home in Walla Walla. My father’s sisters had married--one lived in Walla Walla and the other in LaCrosse, Washington.

Neither of my father’s brothers married. Elmo was my hero. I wanted to be like him physically--handsome, six feet four inches tall, two hundred thirty pounds in weight, broad shouldered, thick chested, moved gracefully and was light on his feet. As a teenager with the start I had I knew that I would not be an Elmo. He was a cowboy and rodeo performer and traveled everywhere and was financially successful. He parked his huge Stetson hat on a door jamb when he visited us and his hightop boots were always shined. Unbroken Brahma bulls had recently been introduced to rodeo audiences and Elmo rode them. One day he got a bull’s horn deep into his chest. He made it back to the homestead for the few months he would live. Dad’s other brother, Charles, was the youngster in the family and the best educated. He had degrees from Washington State College in education and in agriculture. After trying to be a teacher he returned to the homestead and became the only relative living there. He had an idea to develop a new hybrid tomato plant that in later years made him money. I never saw my father’s father. He was gone before I showed up.

There must be a reason for my giving you this information. There is. Charles was seriously ill with a breathing problem. Someone had to manage the farm. My father was notified.

My father, mother, my older brother and I went to Milton/Freewater. My father did not have a green thumb but my mother did. Both of them were busy people. A cabin was fixed for Charles at the top of the Blue Mountains because fresh, clean air was a large portion of the health program for his recovery. Once every two or three weeks Emma and Percy herded a horse drawn wagon to Charlie’s cabin with provisions. His recovery was slow but definite.

From the next more than one year I do have memories. “Spot” was a tiny white dog with black spots and he was mine. We couldn’t take him with us when we came to Coeur d’Alene. At that time I didn’t understand the reason. I have never wanted another dog. My father’s mother frequently baby-sat PB and me evenings in her home. One night draperies in the family room caught fire from a kerosene lamp. Volunteers put the small blaze out quickly. I remember the fire, the burning smell, and the arrival of the volunteers and my parents. I did not know enough to be frightened. When Charles had recovered and was back at his farm duties he often told PB and me some cowboy and Indian stories that had us expecting to be scalped or carried off at any time. I related part of one of his yarns to my father and we heard no more of them.

What Guess Would You Have Made?

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y father wanted to find some business to sink his teeth into. There was a small group in Walla Walla that included him and these businessmen had discussions over coffee or lunch several times weekly. They came up with an idea that seemed foolproof. Let’s take a look at it.

There had been a depression in 1910 but it was a quickie and things economic were looking up. Wheat prices per bushel were much lower than they had been in other recent years. The wheat harvest was expected to be less than usual because the winter had been harsh. There were rumblings in Europe about a possible war soon involving at the least England, France and Germany. If war was declared there would be much production of bullets and tanks and although the need for foodstuffs would be great the workers and transportation would suffer.

In town there was what you would term now a commodity exchange, or brokerage office. It was called a “Bucket Shop.” Dad and his friends decided to purchase grain futures under a ten percent margin requirement. They didn’t get grain--they just had the right to purchase it at the then existing price. Obviously if the price of wheat per bushel increased profits would occur and if the price decreased participants would have to put up more dollars to maintain margin or decrease the number of bushels they controlled. The calculated reason for investing was the guess that the price of wheat would go higher. And it did--but not until my father had lost his money.

And now I must tell you a story that was told me many years ago. Ellen and I had taken a trip by automobile to California and we were now in Las Vegas. Getting there we had spent more than we had anticipated. I had answered correspondence from the cashier in the gaming room at this hotel and I went to see him about cashing my personal check. He assumed that I was planning to use the money for slot-machines and other games of chance.

He said that he would take care of my needs and then he asked, “How much do you plan to lose?” Frequently if there is a chance to be a big winner there is also a chance to be a loser.

My parents were now really low in cash. Mother’s relatives lived in the Spokane area. She and my father had visited Coeur d’Alene a few times and thought it was a proper place to make a fresh start. Staying in Walla Walla was out because they no longer could play the games they previously followed and Coeur d’Alene was reasonably close and was growing in size and activity.

Red Coats

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e arrived in Coeur d’Alene on June 12, 1911, in a boxcar. You shouldn’t demean that method of travel in those years. In relation to the number of tickets purchased you were allotted space in the boxcar for furniture and other personal belongings and you had access to the service facilities on the train. There was an advantage to boxcar travel. You and some of your belongings arrived at your destination at the same time. Our freight car was shunted to a siding at the railroad “Y” in the general area east of Kootenai Medical Center.

I must tell you that I didn’t know addresses, streets or names of buildings on my arrival.

That knowledge came later but I will use that terminology now in describing my first look at “The City by the Lake.”

We walked railroad tracks. We moved from the Great Northern tracks to the Inland Empire Electric Line tracks. We found that depot after going through the division between Blackwell Park and the City Park. We headed east up Sherman Avenue. There were no buildings between First Street and Second Street on the south side of Sherman Avenue. At the southwest corner of Sherman Avenue and Second Street there was a deep hole in the ground. There had been a hotel there. It was known as the triangle building. On the south side of Sherman Avenue between Second Street and Third Street in about the middle of the block there was a wide undeveloped area with sandy soil and scrubby trees and you could see a wide expanse of our lake through that opening. At Fourth Street and Sherman Avenue there were two tall buildings--the Wiggett Building and Wright-Stonestreet Building on the northwest corner and southeast corner respectively. Our group headed north on Fourth Street. The hill from Coeur d’Alene Avenue to Wallace Avenue seemed steeper then. We reached Harrison Avenue which was the northern city limits. On the northwest corner of Fourth Street and Harrison Avenue was a small grocery store green in painted color and white around the door and windows as a trim. Just north of that store there was a narrow diagonal path through skinny trees to Third Street. We had arrived at our rented home-1324 Third Street. We had walked about four miles to get there. A direct route if we had inquired when we left the freight car would have shortened the journey to about one-half mile.

There are two things I especially remember about that day. PB and I wore what we called bearskin coats. They were a brilliant red in color, woolly in texture, lined with some kind of leather or hide. They were given us in more prosperous days. They were hot--especially in June but they were our year around outer garment for several years. Mother repaired them and mended them as they shrunk from full length to mackinaw size and disappeared. The other memory concerned a large, deep blocked-off hole in the ground at Fourth Street and Coeur d’Alene Avenue on the southeast corner. An opera house had been located there but there was a fire and no rebuilding. I could hardly wait to get down below the street level and see what I could discover.

Our New Location

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y parents almost never talked about times when the living had been easier. My feeling is that present conditions were less painful if the past could be forgotten. It was as if nothing of importance took place before we arrived in Coeur d’Alene.

Once when Mother found that I smoked she mentioned that before marriage Dad smoked six long cigars each day and carried them in a case in his suitcoat inside pocket and that they cost $1.00 for the package. Another time I learned about a party they gave at a hotel in Walla Walla for many people that included a show at the opera house.

The day after our arrival Dad had a job loading wet slabs of rough green dimention lumber in a freight car on a spur of the railroad between First and Second Streets in the eight hundred block. The mill was classed as a one-man operation. The work day was twelve hours six days per week and the pay for unskilled manual labor ten cents per hour. He was given a raise to fifteen cents per hour in a few weeks. He also found employment as a janitor in a downtown store for two hours each day before he reported at the mill at six o’clock in the morning.

My mother made candy. She used Karo syrup, both light and dark, and she shelled walnuts and broke them up into small pieces. There were four kinds of candy because some had walnuts and some didn’t. The word got around the neighborhood and folks came to our place to make purchases. My Mother was also gifted with the use of a needle and thread.

Ladies hired her to put initials, monograms, or simple designs on handkerchiefs, napkins, pillow slips and some other more personal items. Our kitchen stove was large and always hot and there were almost at any time four kettles on the top--two for Karo syrup, one for stew, and one for soup.

My Father built a root cellar along one side of the house. It was nothing more than a reinforced hole in the ground with a cover for the top. It served some of the purposes of a refrigerator. A chicken coop was constructed with wire and felled trees for an outline and some scrap lumber. A vegetable garden was prepared and planted. If water was needed it was carried from the house in a bucket. Between the chicken coop and the garden was our outdoor privy. Dad cut small trees from near the house, limbed them, sawed them into lengths that would fit our stove, used an ax and a wedge on them and stacked the wood by the chicken coop.

We as a family were making progress. We got a rooster and some hens and had chickens and eggs to trade with a neighbor for milk--he owned a cow. Practically every Sunday Dad killed a chicken, PB and I plucked it, Mother cleaned and cooked it and with the fried chicken we had mashed potatoes from the garden with white gravy, Mom’s homemade bread and some kind of pie that she baked. I wish that I had not been such a dumb son. Why didn’t I tell my parents in just plain simple words how much I appreciated all the things they did for me and that I was aware of the hard work involved and I should have told them many times.

An Easier Time

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or some reason I never thought about hardships prior to first grade nor did I remember them. My parents in later years told me that the first few years in Coeur d’Alene presented problems.

There are things you should be told about 1912 in our town. The depression of 1910 and 1911 vanished but this area suffered. If you, and I hope you are reading this, were asked about the worst economic disaster our Lake City ever had you would probably reply the 1933 depression. Let me tell you about another knee-knocking one.

In November, 1911, the State of Idaho in its wisdom had decided that its qualified citizens would vote by counties to be “wet” or “dry.” Kootenai County in a close vote decided to be “dry.” That meant that alcoholic beverages would not be manufactured or sold in our county. There was an emergency clause in the resolution which made it law the next day.

At least twenty places of businesses fronting Sherman Avenue were now closed or changed to tobacco shops or card rooms. The biggest building in Idaho north of Lewiston--The Coeur d’Alene Brewing Co.-- prepared to close because it could not produce beer. Those folks in our county who wanted booze would go elsewhere, usually Spokane, and bring back their supply. They could have it for their own use or entertainment in their own home without penalty. When localites got off the Electric Train carrying bulky brown paper sacks that everyone was sure contained alcoholics some wise guy might yell at someone he knew, “They put up asparagus in funny bunches, don’t they.” Where our town took a punch on the chin was in our recreation, vacation, and visitor segments. These people didn’t want to be encumbered by bringing in things that they previously could purchase. If the liquor law was passed what other nuisance edict might be next. It was a dull time.

As for the Waldens--we were making progress slowly. My mother made candy for sale now only on advance order and solely for the Christmas holiday and Valentine periods. Her needlework was more profitable and she was always busy with it. And, yes, I now had a baby sister. Erma Walden was born at home on March 17, 1912.

Things were less hectic for my father. He was now working most of the time in the water at the west end of Sanders Beach. To get enough water pressure to reach the highest buildings in downtown for fire protection an intake was constructed for a reservoir on Tubbs Hill.

Dad earned more money per hour and there were other privileges. He no longer was a janitor. When work on the intake was completed he was immediately hired to assist the millwright in the sawmill where the city parking lot is now. He worked on the top floor among the belts, pulleys and chains where it was constantly noisy. He was earning more dollars than at anytime since his arrival here. Thirty-five cents per hour for a ten-hour day was luxurious.

First Grade 12

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n educated person is one who uses judgment to act wisely in any situation. It has always in later years been my opinion that the best possible education for our young people is the least we should furnish for them. I have one serious gripe. We should not have a pay scale for teachers based on tenure, degrees, summer school attendance and the grade taught. There is a vast difference between being a teacher and being an educator. An educator should be rewarded. In twelve years of public school and two years of college I was exposed to five educators. I am deeply indebted to each one of them. Miss Pennington was the first.

My mother was caring for her one-and-one-half-year old daughter and my father marched both his sons to the old Bryan School on Harrison Avenue early one evening to introduce them to our first grade teacher. It was not unusual for an older child to begin school with a younger one if the age difference was not great. I well remember what Dad said about us.

He indicated PB and observed that he was quiet and would cause no trouble. Then he put his hand on my head and told Miss Pennington that I was noisy, always busy doing something and he was sure that I would give her a difficult time. Then he dropped the bomb. If I was punished in class I was to be given a note to take to him noting the misbehavior and the punishment and I would get the same punishment at home.

The next day school began. We had steady rain the night before and the rain continued.

The school yard was muddy and slippery. And I took home a note for my father to read.

I’ll tell you about it because I would treasure your opinion. Many of the youngsters wore rubber overshoes and if they did they were neatly placed under the individual’s desk. Our restroom was a small separate outside building. If you were the first student to put up your hand to signify that you wanted to make the trip you were recognized, given permission and the key to the privy. The little boy a few rows in front of me had put up his hand three times but he was always late and someone else was given the key. He solved the problem. He carefully grabbed the rubber overshoe belonging to the girl in front of him and relieved himself and put the overshoe back from where he had taken it. I watched all of the procedure and I didn’t think it was funny. Then, I wondered what might happen when the little girl prepared to leave class and to put on the overshoe and I chuckled loudly. Miss Pennington requested that I stand at my desk and let the class know what was so funny so all of them could laugh. I stood up but refused to tell her anything. I was placed on a high stool, faced to the corner of the room and a dunce cap was placed on my head. I was cornered when class was dismissed. I don’t know what finally took place. PB didn’t have an answer for me. He waited outside the building for me to arrive. After supper that night I gave Dad the note but I told him the full story. Once while I was watching his face I thought he was getting prepared to grin but he didn’t. Yes, I got the duplicate punishment.

There were no drum rolls, no spotlights were pointed her way, no multitude applauded but a cute little Swedish girl with bright blue eyes and corn colored hair named Ellen Marie Okerstrom was at my desk. We weren’t married then but later we were for more than fiftyfive years. We had been learning about letters and numbers and some of them were on the blackboard. Our teacher erased them and then walked up and down the space between the seats asking each one of her class to write some of them in pencil on our writing tablet. She

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mentioned to me that my “2” looked more like a “Q.” On the back of my tablet Ellen drew a “2” with the declaration, “That’s a “2” do it that way.” Banking was my profession for forty-two years of the life ahead and Ellen jokingly notified people that she started me on my career because no one could be a banker if he couldn’t write a figure “2.”

My older brother had an idea and in October, 1913, he and I got started in the newspaper business. We sold them on the downtown streets of our town each weekday afternoon.

School was dismissed at 3:00 o’clock and if we hurried we would be at Third Street Dock or Electric Dock when the train bringing the latest edition of the Spokane Daily Chronicle arrived at 3:20. My daily investment was 5 cents and I had the nickel tied in the corner of my handkerchief and stuffed in the watch pocket of my knickers. The other end was tied to the belt loop. Papers were 2-1/2 cents each and we sold them for 5 cents each. I did not have enough seniority to be given a protected corner to sell from and for that reason I had to freelance and keep moving. I was not permitted to return unsold papers for credit. As soon as I sold two papers I bought others. I tried to make a profit of 20 cents each night and I did a little better than that. Father knew about our business venture and after a few weeks he gave us a lesson in economics. He remarked that the Waldens were a family group, that it cost money to maintain a home, and that all of us who had income should share that cost.

He suggested that PB and I should place half of our earnings in a bowl on a shelf in the kitchen. We agreed. Then Dad made us a promise that the half we kept we could spend in any fashion that pleased us and there would be no questions asked by him or Mom. All agreements and promises were kept.

You may be deciding that first grade was a busy year for me and you would be correct. My world was getting bigger, there were more people that were part of it, and I was wondering what I could possibly do with the knowledge I was acquiring. I have another story I must tell you because I think about it frequently and the remembrance gives me much pleasure.

Santa Claus had visited me prior to Christmas in 1913. Lately some of the newskids had indicated that because his job was so difficult sometimes others helped him. When Mom was out of an item she needed for preparing a meal she sent me to Profits’ store north on Fourth Street near Locust Avenue to get it. The holiday season has arrived. I made a hurried trip to the store and I noticed that on the front porch and around the front there were large wooden boxes of Dalton Garden apples. My father had built a sled for his sons. He used scrap lumber. The steel runners he had fashioned at a blacksmith’s shop. It could be guided and there was a rope with which to pull it. We couldn’t afford a Flexible Flyer. I couldn’t go bellyflopping on our sled. I couldn’t pick it up or run with it. There was much snow and ice underfoot and I went home and got the sled and returned to that store where for 35 cents I bought a box of apples and hauled them home. They weren’t washed, or cleaned or wrapped. There were three tiers of apples--and some small crabapples on top.

When I got the box home with my mother’s help they were placed in the root cellar.

Christmas Day when the excitement had died down again with Mom’s help we got the box of apples in the family room. We had apples. When neighbors called they were given apples. When we went to other homes we took apples with us and presented them to all those present. When I went to bed that night there were a few apples in the bottom of the

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box. And what is the pleasant memory? I learned the warm feeling that comes from giving-and it is not confined to just the Christmas Season.

Did you every try to describe your first grade teacher. My attempt will be feeble. Miss Pennington was tall and slender. She had dark hair and a long thin face and hazel eyes. Her expression was neither stern or jovial. You might get some indication of a mental reaction if you watched her eyes. She always had a clean white collar at her throat and clean white cuffs at her wrists. We thought she came equipped with an eraser and a wooden pointer because they were always with her unless she was seated at her desk. The last day of school she dismissed us. Mom instructed me to tell her something when I left but I don’t remember what it was if I did it. Miss Pennington left our school district in May, 1914. I didn’t see her after I left her school room. She was an educator to whom I owe so very much.

I Was Told Not to Look

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y parents wanted a larger home. It should also be inside the city limits and closer to the sawmill where my father worked. They found one on Five and One-Half Street--you call it now Fifth Place. PB and I were on summer vacation. It was a favorable time to move and we were getting prepared. Then something happened that I wish I could forget. The visual recorder we call a brain doesn’t permit erasures or deletion.

Dad had a rooster that won a blue ribbon at the Kootenai County Fair--first prize. The ribbon was displayed on one of the walls of our home. When it was noticed by visitors my father jokingly always said that it was the only first prize he had ever won in anything. Our different home had a chicken coop and we would move all of our fowls when we left. It was an early Sunday morning and it had just gotten light enough to see clearly. I was awakened by noises I hadn’t heard before and a pistol shot. I went out the back door. My father was standing there with the pistol in his hand. He ordered me to go back to bed and not look. I looked first. A weasel had burrowed under one of the tree trunks that bordered one side of the chicken coop. It had killed every living thing inside the coop not to eat or drag away but just to kill. With one pistol shot Dad had made the weasel pay the price for his activity. On my way back to my bed I felt very unwell. Many times over the past almost eighty years I have had a dream that always contains the same two parts. I see the chicken coop and I try to scream but cannot. Then I awaken. All I had to do was to obey my father but I didn’t.

Because of our move second grade meant assignment to a different school--Central School Annex--a single story brick building on the southeast corner of Sixth Street and Garden Avenue. Our teacher’s father had been sheriff of Kootenai County. She was in all ways adequate, fair, and a high type teacher. She taught and we learned because we wanted her approval. I must tell you about one experience.

At that time there were perhaps a dozen automobiles in Coeur d’Alene. I had not had a ride in one. The mother of two of the boys in my class gave us a ride in the family car. PB and I rode together. The automobile had a single seat and was steered by a wheel mounted on the left door which did not open. The lady wore hat, gloves, and a duster and drove east on Garden Avenue to Seventh Street, down Seventh Street to Sherman Avenue, west on Sherman Avenue to Fourth Street, north on Fourth Street to Garden Avenue, and east on Garden Avenue to the school building. The automobile climbed up Fourth Street Hill faster than I could have run up it. I was astounded. Every pupil in our class had a ride in the automobile. The world was changing.

1914 was here and we were again moving.

Inside Plumbing 16

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e were at Five and One-Half Street for only a few months. The second in command of our police force lived close-by. He was tall, husky, mustached, ruddy faced and had a delightful Irish brogue. He was an imposing physical specimen. The kids I knew liked him and respected him. My father warned PB and me that if we caused trouble he would be notified because he enforced the law and he would shape us up in a hurry. I don’t know what rating modern psychologists would give this remedy for eliminating children’s antics. With us it worked.

Our new home was a two storied house at 423 Foster Avenue. We had two apple trees and a cherry tree. Chicken coop facilities were better. I don’t know if you are ready for this or not but we had the modern luxury of inside plumbing. We were much closer to the sawmill where Dad continued to work and to Central School. Being closer to school was no benefit for us. Third grade was overloaded at Central and we were shunted to Roosevelt School.

Much valuable learning is not derived from textbooks. I’ll give you an example because it was the outstanding feature of my third grade year. But first you must be told about an important date in our family’s history--July 16, 1914.

The lady had called at our house to see my mother a few times earlier in the week. I didn’t know that she was a midwife nor did I know what a midwife did. On July 14 she arrived early in the morning and was busy in the house. I didn’t see Mom around and when I asked I was informed that she was resting. On the lady’s instruction I was sent to our doctor’s home with the message that Mom wanted to see him now. The doctor indicated that he would pack a few things in his car and be on his way. I made the report. I was given a new order--”Tell your father that your mother wants to see him immediately.” I didn’t move fast enough to please the midwife. She grabbed me, took down my knickers, slapped my bare bottom several times, and then commanded me, “Go and do as I told you.” I went. This lady must have had much practice in spanking kids. She didn’t waste a motion. And I hurt.

My father asked no questions and we made it home mostly at a trot. Later that day our family was completed. I had a brand new brother--Mayo Kenneth Walden had arrived.

Our third grade teacher had a problem and she enlisted the aid of her entire class to solve it.

This is the way she went about it. It is important because it is an excellent example in salesmanship. School continued until three o’clock but our teacher lived in St. Maries and since she spent weekends at home and used boat transportation she had to get to the boat on time and it left at three o’clock. She must leave the school at 2:45 every Friday. The first Friday she explained her difficulty and asked the assistance of every member of her class.

Her plan was that every Friday one member of the class would take her place for that fifteen minutes. Each one of us would be the teacher at least once during the year. We would know when she left and she would leave written instructions for the classmate that would take her place. We would all help because we at some time would need help. There would be no tattle-tales because everything would go along as planned. Every Monday morning the pupil who was in charge the previous Friday would stand at his or her desk and give his or her report on the previous Friday which probably would include anything that should have been completed but wasn’t. The plan worked perfectly the full year. You will notice

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that we were asked; there was no “now hear this;” there was no “you’ll do as I say or;” there was no “if you don’t do this I’ll;” and there were no secrets between the teacher, the class, or the stand-in. Was this important education for eight year olds?

Earlier that year my father and Mom’s oldest brother, Uncle Bill, agreed to lease and operate what had been the bar-room in the large east wing of the Idaho Hotel. It had been closed since November, 1911, when Kootenai County went “dry.” Their capital was $500 and that was entirely Uncle Bill’s money. Much credit was obtained. The Idaho Cigar Store was in business. At the front was a counter and tobacco in all its many forms was displayed and there was a shoe-shine stand against the east wall. Past the swinging doors was a bar that now sold soft drinks, and there were many card tables and pool tables. You would not believe the many hours and the hard work Dad and Uncle Bill put into this venture and by 1917 accounts had been paid, progress had been made, and the road seemed bright. Then came World War One--and that’s another story.

Separation

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or fourth grade I returned to the small building at Garden Avenue and Sixth Street on the Central School grounds. Ellen and PB were promoted over fourth grade to fifth grade which was located in the junior high building on the same square block. Ellen and I did not attend a class together for the rest of our education. It is true that we were sophomores in college at the same time but Ellen was at Washington State College and I was attending the University of Idaho.

There were things to learn in fourth grade. One day a classmate was missing and our teacher informed us that he was ill and having a serious operation in Portland and that we should think about him and that we wanted him back with us soon and completely well.

Until that day I had not thought about death except that it occurred to people much older than me. We were given some safety lessons about being careful on our way to and from school. There were now not only horses but automobiles and there were two sides of a street, right and left, and we were to stay on the right side and watch anything that moved.

PB and I had purchased a bicycle and shared it on alternate days until we saved $7.50 more to buy another bicycle and now we could each ride. We had paper routes now and delivered papers instead of selling them. Some bikes did not have coaster brakes so to slack speed you pressed back on the foot pedal. If the power chain didn’t brake you would stop gradually. If you were going too fast down hill you couldn’t hold the pedal back with your foot and you would be thrown over the handlebar. That took place just once for me between what is now the Sheriff’s Office and Highway Ten Alternate. It took me several minutes to pick up my newspapers and to discover that I had some clothing tears, bruises and skinned flesh. PB and I had coaster brakes installed.

I wouldn’t be surprised if every reader of this account had at one time learned to ride a bike.

PB and I were determined to be outstanding not only in operating a bike but in caring for it.

We had a small flashlight strapped to the mainframe of our bike; we had neverleak and rubber bands for repairing punctures in a basket attached to the handlebars and in the same place a monkey wrench, screwdriver and spare parts for the power chain. And, yes, we thought we were expert in all phases of bicycle riding and operation. Our parents didn’t approve of that designation. They thought, more aptly, that we were reckless.

And now I’m going to flit around and tell incidents. If I kept on at my present pace I’d never finish my labors and this writing is not a mystery tale.

Once I Was a Poolhall Bum

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ust past eight years of age I continued to sell newspapers and when the Idaho Cigar Store was in business I went there when I was through hawking papers for the day and sat in the back of the store. I would wait there until my father was ready to leave for supper and we would walk home together. Coeur d’Alene’s Chief of Police met most of the boats and most of the trains as they arrived in town and in the late afternoon he would be tired and sit to rest in the same area where I was. He taught me to play pool. I didn’t ever see him shoot a shot on a table but he must have been good at it earlier in life because he did a splendid job of teaching me. I enjoyed the game, had a talent for it, and practiced playing since no one objected because of my age and later when they did PB and I were janitors in the early morning at the store and I arranged to have a half hour to practice before the store was open for business and prior to going to school.

At age twelve World War One was over and the influenza plague was on its way to us but hadn’t arrived. To escape banishment because of my age I played exhibitions at my father’s place against anyone who thought he could beat me. I had a manager and we traveled first class to the Pacific Coast and a far north as Edmonton, Canada. He paid all the bills and he made money because he bet that I would win regardless of who I played and I seldom lost. I learned new gambling games played on the same size or different sizes of tables: live pool, snooker, English billiards, eight ball, nine ball, cribbage, fifty or no count, line-up, professional among others.

I should tell you that in those days if a young man played pool he was characterized as a poolhall bum or a hustler. And I was. In more polite circles you were labeled as showing every evidence of a misspent youth. And I did. Then I got lucky.

Scarlet fever was making the rounds in our town and I got it with complications and took it home to share with the family. When it had run its course the local health physician let us disinfect our home and take the quarantine sign off our front door. Then is when we made a discovery. I was blind. The next few days we had interesting medical visitors who made the decision that they didn’t know how long I would be blind but we should plan on it being permanent. It wasn’t. Thirteen days later I could see but my eyes have been weak ever since. I am no longer a poolhall bum or a hustler. Without exceptionally good vision I would have as much chance beating the bigger guys at pool than a one-legged man would of winning a one-hundred yard dash against someone who had standard equipment.

Before High School

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orld War One for the United States had begun and ended. The war to end all wars was completed. The world was now safe for democracy. The winners would help the losers recover economically. There would be no hunger. Future differences between nations would be settled by conversation and not by bullets.

There would be a League of Nations to make judgments which would be agreed to by all members. The world would be safe, sanitary, and full bellied. I am not trying to be cynical.

Hope is always a proper state of mind.

And influenza had come and gone and left many scars and much death. There was little knowledge about how to combat the “flu.” In our town we wore masks that almost covered our head and had small holes so eyes could peer out, an opening for nose and no opening for mouth. We should do all our breathing through our nose. No congregating was permitted.

On the streets if two people were visiting a third person was prohibited from joining. There are other memories but one shakes me even at this late date. I was delivering papers. I noticed much activity up and down the stairway leading to the Elks Lodge on the second floor of a building on the north side of Sherman Avenue between Third and Fourth Streets.

I chose a proper moment and ran upstairs and opened the door to the lodge rooms. It was being used as a receiving station for those who were dead and were awaiting burial.

Curiosity is sometimes inspired by the devil. When our schooling reconvened there were several empty seats. Death is not reserved for the elderly.

And now I must make you a party to four incidents that have left an impression on me. Two of them I was exposed to. The other two I participated. You will have no difficulty understanding any of them.

At the start of our sixth grade class one morning our teacher gave us instructions. The entire building was to have a fire drill that afternoon at precisely two o’clock. The school bell would ring exactly three times. We individually were to get out of our desks, stand at the right side of them, turn around and face the rear of the room. The row of students closest to the door would march single file out of the door and each row would follow in order. We were to move in rank and quickly and when we had crossed Garden Avenue we would disperse and only then look back at the school building. When the school bell rang three times we would walk back to our class room and take our seat. We practiced standing beside our desk and turning to face the rear of the room. Our afternoon class had just been called to attention at one o’clock when our principal arrived with two lads who were older than we were. We found out later that they were Canadian and our principal was making a determination as to what class they should be admitted. The decision was eighth grade but for now they were seated in the very back of the room at adjacent desks by themselves. At two o’clock the school bell tolled three times and there was activity. One of the Canadian lads asked what was going on and was told, “FIRE.” If he had waited he would have heard “drill” but he didn’t wait and neither did the other youngster. They broke the glass , of two windows in the rear of the room, jumped out, hit the ground running, and did not return to class. They did attend eighth grade. Whose fault was it that they were not aware of the fire drill? I blame the principal, do you? In any case there is an axiom here. If you want everybody to respond properly to a program you must be certain that at the very least everyone should have the same and proper instructions.

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I have often wished that I had many of PB’s characteristics. Less than two years older he was much bigger, stronger, quieter, and he showed little emotion. He had a calm and happy disposition. His home room teacher taught two subjects. One of them was history and Europe was the subject. The word had gotten around that the teacher habitually required her class to draw from memory an outline of Europe and a final grade would include the mark on that item. PB had engineering traits. He made an exact copy of the map in his book, transferred it to heavy cardboard and practiced drawing it at home night after night. I believe he could have done a creditable job of it with his eyes closed. One day the teacher gave the class the assignment of drawing the map of Europe free hand. Just before class was dismissed for noon the teacher gave my brother back his drawing with the announcement that he had traced it and that she didn’t want any discussion about it. The grade was -0-. PB came home boiling. Mother was home and we all listened to the story.

PB said that he was not going to return to school. Mom told him he must and he finally promised that he would return. We had a neighbor lady who was unwell and Mom went there practically every day to see if she could be of help to her. When she left we assumed that was where she was going. We were wrong. We lived at 715 Wallace Avenue and a little more than one block from PB’s classroom and Mother knew that teachers brown bagged their lunch usually. She found the teacher, introduced herself and I can’t quote exact words but the gist was that she had accused PB of tracing and he said that he hadn’t and that there was an easy way to find out who was wrong. Just request PB to draw the map while she watched him. The teacher promised to do just that and she did. When PB finished his map she asked for the other one and took it and gave an “A” on the one she had watched him draw. She did not say that she was sorry or that she had made a mistake.

Several days later PB mentioned to his sister and two brothers that he had lost any desire to be perfect at anything. Being perfect wasn’t worth the effort. Is it?

My home room teacher in eighth grade was huge wherever you looked at her. One afternoon just before class was dismissed she suggested that I should stay after school because she wanted to talk to me. I had a paper route to deliver and my customers expected me to be prompt and I saw that as a satisfactory excuse. She then offered eight-thirty the next morning as an alternative and I accepted. Between that afternoon and the next morning I thought often about any reason for the meeting. My grades were the best given. I had not been misbehaving. I had not been tardy or absent from class. My decision was that she would compliment me for being outstanding. I was on time the next morning. I can’t give you exact words but I can inform you about the sense of what took place. I was told that my teacher had noticed my growing up. I was taller, heavier, stronger, more active and I had demonstrated the possession of a pretty good brain. My grades were obtained without any homework which meant that my concentration might be also above average. Then she made her point. Mentally I was lazy. Did I expect my brain to grow and increasingly do greater things for me if I didn’t put it to work? What was the advantage of having superior equipment and never knowing its full ability? She let me have it with the idea that if I really wanted to make the effort she had a program for me. She would name a book for me to get at the public library and read each week. Whenever there was a word that I didn’t know or understand I was to look it up in my dictionary. Once each week we would discuss the book I had read and another book would be assigned. I accepted the challenge. The first book

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was “A Tale of Two Cities.” The first question in her discussion was, “Would you rather have lived at that time in Paris or London--and why?” I could name the other six books that followed but that is not important. She taught me how to read and what to read. That teacher was an educator. She only taught seventh and eighth grade classes during her tenure locally. She must have had students that gave her an unfavorable vote but I can’t name one.

She didn’t marry. In 1933 in the depths of the Great Depression she had taught here more than twenty years and her monthly salary at that time was $86.67. Sometimes life is not fair. She was one of the brightest spots in my education.

I was too young to be a Boy Scout but I was counting the days until I could make out an application. Everybody seems to want to belong to something. That desire in young lads burns brightly. With perhaps twenty other lads I had a route to deliver papers each weekday afternoon. This day I noticed that two of the paper boys had large safety pins clipped to the left front of their shirt. The pins didn’t hold two pieces of torn cloth together. They didn’t replace a button. There had to be reason. Later that week I learned that these fellows were members of a special club. The next week I found out that to be a member of the club you had to not be in high school, own your bicycle, and be an expert in the use of the bicycle. I was intrigued. I was not in high school. I owned my bicycle. I was an expert in bicycling.

My parents would probably say that I was a daredevil on a bike or that I was reckless. I could jump curbs on my bike without whacking either wheel, I could stretch out on the main frame with my head back to the seat and guide it while moving by my feet. I could climb under and over the main frame while in motion and finish entirely on one side or the other, I could come to a complete stop on the bike without my hands or feet touching the bike anywhere and start up again without touching the ground. What did it take to be an expert?

I learned about the test. The start was at the intersection of Fourth Street and Coeur d’Alene Avenue where Croonquist’s Grocery was on the northeast corner. The finish was at the top of the Fourth Street Hill where the Hotel Villa was on the northeast corner. The test: start at Croonquist’s Grocery and finish by parking the bicycle at the Hotel Villa two blocks away and never touching the handlebar with your hands once you started up the hill. I took the examination a few times by myself and went to Fred Perault’s Bicycle Shop and made some purchases. I bought some clips for the foot pedals and installed them. I purchased the new style handle bar which was V-shaped and came down along the main frame instead of across it, with the new handle bar I also got long rough rubber grips for it. Again I tried the test and was ready to apply for membership. One Saturday morning four lads showed up to be judges. One watched me at the foot of the hill, one shadowed me up the first block, one ran alongside me up the second block, and one was at the Hotel Villa when I parked. I passed the test. The five of us stopped at Houk’s Fourth Street Fair and I spent two cents getting the biggest safety pin in the notions counter and clipped it on my shirt. As far as I know the club had no name, no officers, no meeting place, no dues, no charter, no by-laws, nor did I know how many members. I wonder why it is that seventy-four years later when I sometimes am asked to list the groups to which I belong that my first thoughts are about a bicycle, Fourth Street Hill, and a large safety pin?

High School -- A Futile Search for Talent

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ith the exception of an interval of approximately one hundred days which I will report separately grades nine through twelve of my education were of no great value. Socially I was a late bloomer. You may remember a comic’s statement that suddenly he discovered that girls weren’t just soft boys that wore high heels and walked backwards when they danced. I had a sister five years my junior and I was aware of girls. Perhaps the hormones hadn’t awakened. Perhaps I was just busy and had an obsession. I did get frightened terribly once.

The school bell would ring in a few weeks and after eight years in the newspaper business I would no longer deliver or sell them, I had a prime delivery route that included the business district and ended at Sherman Avenue and Seventh Street. This day I had just put my final paper on a front porch when a freight man from the electric depot found me. He was almost unable to inform me that there had been accident at the depot and my brother Mayo was dead. I took off running as fast as I could for the depot. The station master had a family apartment on the depot’s second floor. I was directed up the stairway and entered the apartment. My mother and father were in the room with a doctor and Mayo was face up on the bed and breathing. You cannot imagine the relief I felt. I learned later that Mayo had stopped breathing but Dad had assisted him mouth to mouth and he began to breathe again.

It doesn’t take much time to have an accident. Mom and Mayo went to the depot on an errand. There was a carryall with high wheels that was pulled to the baggage department of the trains, loaded or unloaded, and returned to its place on wooden planking at the depot. It had a wagon tongue by which it was pulled. When not in use the tongue was kept off the ground by a hook that fit a metal loop on the wagon. Mayo had grabbed hold of the tongue, lifted himself off the ground, swung the tongue and disengaged it from the loop. The back of his head hit the planking and the metal loop hit his head. Fortunately his hands were between the loop and his face. He suffered no ill effects. In a few weeks his face had lost its scars. I must tell you that of the children Mayo had always been my favorite. He was seven years younger than I. If there was a chance for special success in our family he was the one. My older brother frequently remarked that when the brains were passed out we were skipped and Mayo was given our share. I agreed. Mayo at age seventy-nine now is a retired scientist.

When school started PB and I had work to do. At five o’clock each morning we were on our bikes and on the way to the cigar store. We did the janitor work--sweeping, mopping, cleaning cuspidors, brushing pool tables and card tables, dusting here and there. My father arrived at about seven-thirty and we were home for breakfast and then on our way to be at school at eight-forty-five. On alternate weekdays we were at the store from seven in the evening until eight-forty-five after which we headed home in a hurry. We were to be inside the house at nine o’clock.

And now I must tell you about my ambition.

I was determined to be an athlete. I didn’t expect to throw or catch the winning pass in football or to toss in the crucial basketball. I wanted to be recognized as a contributing member of a winning high school athletic team. Our football teams in times past had even beaten junior college teams. Our basketball team frequently appeared in state tournaments.

Being on our football or basketball team was big stuff in high school. Yes, there were track

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and later tennis teams but football and basketball teams were special. I knew my shortcomings. When I was graduated from high school I weighed one hundred twenty-five pounds and was five feet six inches tall. I was not tough. I was not quick. My reflexes were slow. I had no natural ability. One of my teachers had announced to her class that the Good Lord didn’t make any junk, and that each one of us had talent and if we kept looking we’d find it. Miracles happened didn’t they? I was anxious to look. I knew that grade-wise I could keep eligible. I would practice faithfully. I would follow all the training rules. I would stay healthy. I would try to learn something of value about football or basketball on my own.

My first year in football I didn’t last long enough to be told to get an athletic supporter and shoes. The second year the coach whacked the group down to thirty-three prospects and in slacks and a sweater I watched the games. My junior year I didn’t make the regular squad but I did get into a uniform and became part of what was called the “hamburger squad.”

When the first team wanted to practice some offenses or defenses we were used and that kept injuries to the first and second teams to a minimum. My senior year I made the traveling squad in football and played in a few games and was designated as a member of the second team. If I had just reported in one more quarter period of one game I would have qualified for a big block “C” letter to stitch on my sweater and parade around in it. But I didn’t get the letter.

And then there was basketball. The first two years I was among those whose presence was not requested. I played on a Boy Scout team and a church team. My junior year our coach cut his group from twenty to twelve and I was eliminated in that reduction of eight. My senior year arrived and with it basketball after football had terminated. Our squad was reduced to twelve and I survived. I was number twelve. Eight players were taken on trips which meant that I would stay home. Because of a mumps epidemic I made one trip. Then I got the mumps and that terminated my basketball aspirations. I got no basketball letter.

I shouldn’t have classified myself as a failure. We had an indoor track above our gymnasium in our new high school building. I ran a mile on the track a great number of times. When three milers were chosen for our track team I wasn’t one of them. There were few tennis players then as there were then few golfers. The tennis courts with one exception were privately owned. I played on the high school tennis team and later on the university tennis team. I was men’s city champion in Coeur d’Alene more than once. In my book that did not classify me as an athlete.

If you have been reading my collection of words you have probably made some judgments about me. You may have concluded that I am thin-skinned, jittery, easily annoyed, have too long a memory, am unable to forget unimportant things, and that in today’s parlance I “sweat the small stuff.” I will not defend myself but will now furnish more grist for your mill.

A boy and his sister were both in my class. They had been absent from school because of some health problem. My teacher knew that they lived close to my path home. She asked me to deliver some books and a note to their home so they could study before returning to

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class. I agreed to make the delivery. When I knocked at the door of their house their mother answered and I gave her the books and the note and started to leave but she had questions. What was my name? Was I in the same class as her son and daughter? What did my father do? My response to the last one was that my father operated the Idaho Cigar Store. Now she became agitated. Tobacco was a curse sponsored by the devil himself.

People who encouraged the use of tobacco were terrible. People who used tobacco she described as “a light at one end and a fool at the other.” And then she applied the clincher and closed the door. “Your father leads a dog’s life.” If her husband had compared my father to a dog I would have clenched my fist and hit him somewhere as hard as I could--and I might have gotten my nose broken for the sixth time before I was graduated from high school. I wasn’t much of a fighter and I seldom knew when I should start running. What do you do when a “lady” gets nasty like that? I told no one about the conversation. In the years ahead I was invited several times to that home. I always declined. I didn’t ever give a reason for saying “no.”

My family wasn’t social. We didn’t entertain. Except for the first few years Dad had the cigar store money to pay bills promptly was a continuing difficulty. All of us worked to keep our ship afloat. In our town there was a small group of parents who had a good idea.

It was time their son or daughter or both were exposed to “boy-girl” parties and learning something about nice behavior in mixed company. They made arrangements for a parish hall in one of our churches. Chaperones were present. One of the parents would bring the daughter and would call for her and take her home when the time came. Boys would get to the parish hall as best they could. After all the guests were present there would be some dancing, an intermission with sandwiches and a fruit flavored drink, a few more dances followed by a quick goodnight at about nine o’clock. The music was furnished by a piano accompanied by drums or violin, or sometimes a saxophone. For several months these parties occurred at odd intervals of three weeks or more. I was not on the invitation list.

One time I was a guest. The reason was purely mathematical. There should be as many boys present as girls so everybody could join in the fun and there would not be a wallflower.

They were one fellow short. I took his place. My mother gave me strict instructions before I made my debut. I gave myself better than a passing grade for my behavior before intermission. There was more than one table. We were seated boy/girl-boy/girl around the table. Fruit drinks were in glasses and small sandwiches were passed around by a man who was one of the hosts and chaperones. When it was my turn I took the sandwich closest to me and said, “Thank you.” I took tiny bites out of the sandwich and sipped my drink slowly. The man was back with more sandwiches and my response was, “No, thank you.”

He returned. There were sandwiches on the plate. In response to his offer I again said, “No, thank you.” The intermission was about over. The man was back. There were a few sandwiches on the plate. He asked me to take a sandwich. I made my usual response. He added, “Take some home with you and eat them when you get home.” All I should have done was to keep my mouth shut. I didn’t. What I said was, “No, thank you. I get plenty to eat when I’m home.” The table was quiet. If you tried you could hear people breathing.

Wars are started by careless words. I knew I was in trouble when I took a hurried glance around the table. Monday was our next school day and many times I was aware that my remark had become a hot topic of discussion. At my locker one fellow wanted to know if I got enough to eat at home. A seatmate questioned me about it being proper to carry home

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food from a party. I was jostled in the hall and the fellow made the observation that I must be losing weight and that maybe I should eat more at parties. And so went my day. I was not invited to another parish hall party.

You will soon be exposed to the worst mistake I ever made.

One Hundred Days--Or How to be Completely Stupid

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his day started the same as most other weekdays. Janitor work had been completed.

I was at high school. Junior year education had been completed. I would clean out my locker and wish others that I saw a happy summer. One of my friends saw me and gave me the information that he was allowed to use his brother’s car that evening. He had invited two others to join him. Would I go along? We would go to a movie. He would pick me up at home. I didn’t have to work that night. I accepted. The movie owner had established a procedure of about twenty minutes of entertainment between the first and second evening shows. This night an out-of-town male quartet sang. It was nine o’clock. We were back in the car and the driver parked at Memorial Field, got out, opened the trunk and returned with two bottles of homemade wine. I had sipped wine. I had never drunk wine. The bottles were opened and passed around. I went through the motions. I drank little. There was much conversation. I was due home not later than ten o’clock that night. It was now later than that. Someone suggested that we go somewhere and eat. When we were in the restaurant the quartet that sang at the theater arrived. One of our group asked them to sing and they agreed if we would pass the hat around and take up a collection for them. That was done. I didn’t eat much. I thought I might get unwell. It was midnight when I was home and hurried to the upstairs bathroom. I made it in time. I was clumsy, I was noisy, and I was sick--not drunk. After a few minutes I made a decision. I went to the kitchen downstairs and returned with the top to a boiler. I was again unwell.

When I thought the worst was over I undressed, crawled into bed and placed the boiler top and a towel from the bathroom within easy reach and slept.

When morning came I realized I was late in getting up. PB did the janitor work alone that day. Healthwise I knew it was not going to be one of my better days. I went through my getting up program and went downstairs. Mom and I were the only ones home. We greeted each other. My breakfast was on the kitchen table. Mother was busy. I ate and cleared the table. Mom looked my way and announced that Dad wanted to see me “when I felt like it.”

My reply was that I was immediately on my way to the cigar store--and I was.

Before I get any further along in my recounting, I must tell you as a reader how I was dressed. This was important when I left home and even more important to me when I returned. Undershirt, shorts, brown socks, brown corduroy trousers, a short-sleeved blue shirt, high topped brown walking shoes, a brown belt. In one of the trouser pockets I had a small knife, in a hip pocket a handkerchief, in the other hip pocket I had stuffed a pair of white cotton work gloves with the red colored wrist sections sticking out of the pocket, and in the other pocket I had money--forty cents.

Leaving Home

28

T

o help you come to a proper conclusion there are things you should consider. Dad was a GOOD man. He was a great father. He worked long hours every day including Sundays. There wasn’t anything within reason that he would not do to help any of his children. When at home he was usually resting, eating or sleeping. If there was work around the house that needed attention he did it--not tomorrow--not next week--but right now. He wrapped the water pipes under the house to keep them from freezing in cold weather. He rebuilt and installed the handle to the ax and sharpened the blade. If the lawnmower didn’t operate he fixed it. If the back porch needed some boards replaced and painted he did it. Mom was a jewel of much value. In the morning she was up and doing before any of the rest of us. She planned, built, prepared and served all of the meals. She baked bread and pies and fashioned cakes. She repaired, cleaned and washed all of our clothes. Her home was always neat and in order. My parents undoubtedly discussed their children but we never heard any of the discussions. Our family was together daily at one time--supper. If we had problems or needed advice and Dad wasn’t home Mom made the decisions--calmly, quietly, definitely. There was no “wait until your Father comes home,” there was no “I’ll think about it,” there was no “you’ll get your answer when I’m ready to tell you.” Mom took care of problems when they surfaced and with excellent wisdom. We children were aware that we were especially blessed.

When I arrived at the cigar store Dad was busy. I sat in the shoe-shine stand. When he was free he sat in the chair next to me. Our conversation was in normal voice. Dad began. Six people lived in our home. Rules were necessary so all of us could get along comfortably.

Last night I had broken several of the rules. It was my turn. I admitted breaking the rules. I shouldn’t have broken them. But--in a few months I would be a senior in high school. The rules that applied to me had been around a few years. Now might be a good time to loosen them. Dad agreed that in the future my rules might be changed but for now they remained the way they had been. And he added, “Until you leave home there’ll be rules.” It may have been the “until you leave home” that triggered my action. What I said was, “Maybe I’ll leave.” A customer needed my father’s attention. As he left the shoe-shine stand he gave me this order: “If you leave get in touch with your mother at least once each week.” I left the store by the front door and walked east on Sherman Avenue.

Of all the stupid things I’ve ever done this was the top of the list. I had received no chewing out, I had not been requested to furnish a report, I had not been punished. All I had to do was to live by the previous rules. Could I have received any fairer treatment? And now I was leaving home. If in this world there is a prize by being completely dumb someone should have nominated me to get it. I certainly deserved it.

Missoula

29

Y

ou wouldn’t want me to give you a day-by-day report of my wanderings and I won’t expose you to it. You will be given some episodes separately that will allow you to judge my actions. When I remember this trip as I frequently do some characteristics constantly amaze me. Every person who helped me was a man.

There were times when I could have been assisted and was not--but no one was mean to me.

My name was never requested nor did I learn anyone’s proper name. Nicknames were plentifully used. If the man who saved my life walked by me today on a downtown street I wouldn’t recognize him. These times the media surrounds itself with reports of irresponsible acts of horrible people. I am witness to the fact that there are a tremendously greater number of just plain good folks.

It would soon be night in Missoula the second day of my journey. I had walked, thumbed rides on trucks and in automobiles, had spent last night with a service station worker who shared a sandwich and some coffee from his lunchbox with me and found me a ride further into Montana, and I was walking again. At a small house near a tiny town on the main highway an elderly man who walked with a limp was studying items on a pickup truck. I helped him unload them. He was a widower who lived alone. He was going to have some stew for lunch. He offered to share it with me. I accepted. It was good food and there was wheat bread to eat with it. Later that day I spent half my money--twenty cents--for a thin slice of cheese from a wheel of cheese, a half-pint carton of milk, and a plain doughnut. I had done some thinking. I was now inside the western limits of a city. I should have a plan.

Many ideas had been considered and I selected one. I would find the bus depot. My reasoning: It would be open all night; it would be warm; it would have a restroom; people would be coming and going and waiting and if I didn’t attract attention I wouldn’t be noticed; and there would be benches to sit upon and just maybe to sleep upon. I found the bus depot.

The waiting room and the men’s room in the bus depot were in my opinion messy. There is a saying that “necessity is the mother of invention.” Necessity is also the father of ideas.

There was a small lunch counter and a cook working in the back of it; there was a man selling tickets and accepting and releasing luggage and packages; there was a man seated at a desk that had a telephone on it and he was sorting and checking items on the desk. My guess was that the man at the desk was in charge and when he stopped work to look around I was at the counter near his desk. I started the conversation. I was a good janitor. The place needed cleaning up. I was hungry. The man got up from his desk. He gave me a careful look. Then he said, “Come with me.” In the corner of the men’s room there was a cabinet that he opened with a key. Inside the cabinet were the janitor supplies. He handed me a big trash bucket and a long handled pushbroom. He gave me orders, “You should pick up papers and things first and then sweep. I’ll be watching.” Perhaps an hour later the man told me to wash up and when I had he took me to the lunch counter and told the cook to feed me and that he would sign the ticket. Ham and eggs, toast and jam, and coffee never tasted better. At eleven o’clock the lunch counter closed and the manager (my guess was correct) instructed me about mopping and cleaning cuspidors and ashtrays. He also suggested that I get some sleep and I did. The ticket seller brought me a used seat for one of the desks that had been replaced. I curled upon a bench in the very back part of the waiting room, used the seat as a pillow and blacked out until the manager awakened me at about seven o’clock in

30

the morning. I ordered the same breakfast that I had ordered for dinner the night before.

Afterwards I picked up some trash in the waiting room. There was another conversation with the manager. If I was back at five-thirty I could work another night for him. His custodian had been unwell but would be back the next day. If I was returning lunch would be furnished anytime during the day. I would be back.

It was dry and hot in the growing city of Missoula. I just walked around and looked. After lunch at the bus depot I walked some more. Everybody seemed to have something to do and to be busy. In small towns like Coeur d’Alene we greeted people even if we did not know them with “hello” and if you stopped somewhere you might have company--but not in Missoula.

My second night at the bus depot was almost like the first one. The manager talked with me oftener. He wanted to learn how I was getting along and I mentioned that I was doing OK. He wanted to find out if I had a destination away from Missoula. I didn’t. I slept much better that night and again the manager awakened me. After breakfast he suggested that he might be able to find me a ride to Calgary on a railway passenger bus if I would help the driver with luggage and other chores. I was agreeable. In just a few minutes he would find out the answer. The manager returned with the driver. He was a man of scanty words. I could work for him loading and unloading luggage and other items. When the bus was stopped for rest purposes or eating I would keep the interior clean and keep the windows so passengers would enjoy looking out of them. When I slept it would be in the bus, keep it locked, and be a watchman. I was eager. It would be easier and safer than walking and thumbing rides. The bus would leave for the railroad station in ten minutes. I would be ready to leave.

And now I had two surprises. I thanked the manager for being good to me and that I appreciated his efforts. He had never mentioned that I would be paid for my work in money. He gave me four one-dollar bills. And the other surprise: an imitation leather pouch with a long rawhide drawstring to keep it closed. The explanation: tie it around your neck or to your belt and that way you’ll have both hands free. Again I thanked him. The bus driver motioned me to join him and I did. I didn’t find out what was in that pouch until a few hours later but I won’t keep you in suspense: a short handled blade razor, a stone for sharpening the blade, a small toothbrush in a plastic case, a tin container of tooth powder, and a three-inch comb. Several years later when I left for college I took that pouch with me.

The toothbrush and tooth powder had been replaced. The razor and stone and the comb were the originals.

Calgary

31

I

have always had much admiration for bus drivers and truck drivers. Their passengers and the things they transport are valuable and important. There can be mechanical and other failures. The road ahead is fraught with danger--accidents, the weather, bad driving conditions, the perils created by other drivers.

“Baggage smashing” or “baggage loading” isn’t just putting luggage and packages in a place provided for that purpose. To really be valuable to the driver you should be aware of who’s luggage is where. That will save time. You should also be a good judge of expensive luggage as compared to ordinary luggage. Excellent leather luggage and top flight coverings should be given careful space. You will be exposed to some descriptive English language if one of your passengers notices a fresh scratch across one of his items.

Have you heard the expression “but we don’t do windows?” There are many things that disturb passengers on a bus but trying to see the outside world through a dirty window is one of the first complaints. This bus had a special cleaning liquid in an unmarked gallon jug and many cloths for drying. I am not an expert in cleaning windows. I do know that there is a knack involved in the cleaning. I would make one suggestion. Clean the outside first.

When you look outside from the inside the streaks are more visible. Whenever I noticed that our driver--for simplification I’ll designate him as X--turned on the windshield swipes it was almost a sure thing that the outside of the windows would get dirty.

I don’t have a good guess as to how many miles we traveled the way we went to Calgary.

Maybe four hundred miles. We arrived in Calgary just before midnight.

X kept me busy. I handed out and put away luggage and other items. I cleaned windows whenever we were rest stopped or at a lunch or other food break. Passengers were for the most part tidy. I tried to keep the inside of the bus neat. Sometimes passengers want to wander around instead of eating. I was told to keep an eye on the strays. X brought my food to me and I ate it while the bus was moving. The trip was much fun. When I was twelve years old I had been in Calgary but our route then was different than this one. It was hot and dusty. No air conditioning in the bus. The windows could be opened and closed.

In Calgary I slept in the bus. I locked it from the inside. X had a key. He would awaken me early in the morning. He did just that. The clock on the instrument panel showed 5:30.

The bus was parked in an enclosure with many other vehicles. A large restaurant was just across the street. X knew almost everyone. In the only long conversation we shared he wanted me to tell him which way I was pointed. My choice--toward the water--Vancouver.

We ate at a counter. X disappeared for a few minutes and returned with a middle aged man.

“Here’s a ride for you to Vancouver. You’ll have to work hard to earn it.” The middle aged man--I’ll call him Y gave me a serious looking over. “We leave now. Are you ready?” I was. X gave me two one-dollar Canadian bills. We shook hands. I remember his “Good Luck.” That was it.

Knowledge about someone arrives through various channels. One of them is conversation.

Another is observation. Y was a perfectionist. Most perfectionists are unhappy. He wasn’t.

He was friendly and greeted people with a cheery ring in his voice. He was nonetheless a

32

quiet and businesslike man. He must have had a franchise or some other permission to operate for himself a pick-up and delivery service from Calgary to Vancouver with several stops in-between. He knew his schedule and so did all his places of business along the main connecting highway. He collected what was due him at his pick-up places. They charged more than Y’s fee and thereby earned a commission. Y did the loading and unloading--this time with my help. He knew the way to place items in the truck so the weight would be stabilized and the item reached with a minimum of effort at its destination. For years I classified Y as the best driver I had watched. He was aware of every characteristic of his truck and its capabilities. When he crawled into the driver’s seat his eyes were on the road.

He was familiar with every inch of it. He obeyed all the traffic laws. Mostly he did. If he had time to make up he sometimes exceeded the speed limit--carefully and briefly.

Y was a man of habits. Before he drove his truck in the morning and after every planned stop he walked all the way around his truck and took a quick look at the eight tires. I didn’t ask him “why”--he told me. He could feel a blowout or almost flat tire on the driving wheel. If a tire was losing air he wanted that knowledge because it was easier to correct the problem where he was than on the road. He owned his eight-wheeler truck. He made two round trips each week. I’ve often wondered if Y also owned an additional truck and hired a driver for it.

In earlier years I had been a passenger in an automobile on a trip from Coeur d’Alene to Calgary and Edmonton and return. From Banff and Lake Louise west everything was a new experience. The weather was pleasant and the scenery spectacular. Loading the truck was hard work and I had to be instructed because I didn’t even know the proper moves. I felt that I was treated royally. There was a bench lengthwise just back of the driver’s seat. It was equipped with a padded cover, a blanket, and a pillow. I slept there that night. Y had a place to stay. Someone had to be with the truck. Y asked what I wanted to eat. He brought me food. We were within a hundred miles of Vancouver. We arrived there the next morning, made the final deliveries, cleaned the truck, made a few pick-ups for the return trip. Y and I lunched together. It was mid-afternoon. He was ready to go back to Calgary.

He instructed me how to find the King’s Way and get to Blaine and the international boundary. He wanted to be told how I was to prove I was a United States citizen. I would have to give them my telephone number 378-J and let them take it from there. Y gave me two Canadian silver dollars. He said, “You’ve been good help. Good luck. Take care of yourself.” We shook hands. What I said was, “Thank you for everything. I wish you well.”

At Blaine I mingled with the members of a tourist group. I signed a form--name, age, birth place, where and when I entered Canada, the purpose of my visit, names of others (if any) who were with me. The official looked over my answers and wanted to know if I had a good time. The answer--yes. I was now back in the USA.

Riding Rods and Rails

33

A

t the outset you must be aware that I rode the rods only once. I road the rails many times. Remember the year was 1924. Everything has changed in the past seventy years. I have not been on a freight car or looked under one since 1924. If you are reading this you will be getting a slight portion of things entirely unusable. Once in Massachusetts our tour group was given a thirty-five minute lecture about cranberries.

Afterwards I asked Ellen what she thought about the speech. Her answer, “I now know more about cranberries than I every wanted to know.” That may be your reaction. Or it may be your opinion that I am giving too much advice with too little experience. I am reminded of the story about the young school girl who was asked to furnish a few words about Indians. What she wrote was, “Indians always march in single file. At least the only one I ever saw did.” I am compelled to continue.

Under some freight cars were metal rods extending diagonally from one corner to the other.

They crossed below the freight car and at that juncture were wrapped to prevent wear and there also were appliances to tighten or loosen the rods. That space was called a crib or a basket. The purpose of the rods was to eliminate leaning when the train was in motion.

You could compare rods on freight trains to sway bars on early automobiles to keep them from tipping when turning corners. The taller the freight car the more probable the presence of rods. Riding rods was simple. You lay down on the crib on your back, held on to the rods with your arms, hands, legs, and feet, and stayed alert.

There are advantages to riding the rods. You will not be seen by anyone. You will be protected from rain, wind, and other weather problems. Circumstances will not make it necessary for you to move around to escape detection. The disadvantages are terrible. You can only get in place or get off the freight train when it is not moving. If there is any kind of train accident or collision you may be part of the problem that occurs. If the train finds it necessary to brake suddenly and seriously you will remember the noise for a long time.

Sometimes trains stop in the middle of nowhere and when you hurriedly leave it you believe it is close to a station. If a decision is made to “roundup” freeloaders for questioning or to look for someone you will be one of those caught. You certainly have by now made up your mind that anyone riding the rods was not particularly bright. There is one more factor.

If you ride the rods wear tight fitting headgear, some kind of goggles, and gloves. The suction action of the wind below the freight car and above the road bed will bring all kinds of dirt your way. You’ll be dirtier than you ever thought possible.

It’s time for a little humor. Yes, I only rode the rods once. If I were offered the choice of doing it again or walking unarmed into a cage containing a hungry tiger the tiger would have a visitor.

In 1924 there were many freight hoppers. They were almost entirely males between sixteen and forty-five years old. Our country was spreading out. There were more people. For various reasons these unattached fellows wanted to grow up with the country somewhere and to find out if there were places where the grass was greener. Freeloaders increased gradually until 1929 and the stock market crash when they ballooned. Through “The Great Depression” they were a plague. In recent years several times I have parked my car when I could watch a freight train move along trying to see someone who I thought hadn’t paid for

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the ride. Frequently I find no culprit. Of course there are fewer blacksmiths now than there were seventy years ago because there are fewer horses. Maybe there are fewer freeloaders because there are fewer freight cars.

I have never seen a posted list of instructions for those who steal rides on freight trains. If you do steal rides you’ll learn the rules in one fashion or another--and quickly. Some of them are listed below: Never hop a freight near a depot or inside a freight yard. You shouldn’t antagonize railroad personnel.

When you are on a freight car stay out of sight. It isn’t just railroad people that think you are a bad guy. Other people know that if you aren’t paying for transportation that the price of their ticket will increase when they travel.

Don’t play around in the space between the cars where the coupling that holds the cars together is located. That is where most accidents occur.

Don’t break anything or break into anything. Railroad people know freight cars like they know the inside of their hand. If something is amiss there will be questions and answers, delays, and if applicable, punishment.

There is no give to anything on a freight car. If you slip or are jostled or fall you’ll be scratched, bruised or hurt.

Always let someone know where you are on the train. There may be a wreck or an accident and you might require help.

Leave the train before it gets near the station or inside the yard. Steam engines pull freights.

They usually stop for water at a tower. That is the best chance you’ll have.

When you leave the freight train do it as an individual and not as part of a group. You will attract less notice. Don’t hang around the tracks. Keep moving.

This is a good place to stop writing about rods and rails and safety precautions. Because I didn’t obey one of them I almost lost my life. If you continue reading you’ll find out about it.

Mazatlan

35

P

hoenix had been my stopping place for parts of four days. The middle days I had been employed for six hour shifts hauling water and things to a construction crew laying underground pipe along both sides of a street. Thirty-five cents an hour--two dollars and ten cents a day. I was in the southern section of the city where two highways crossed. On the corner where I stood there was a large gasoline station and in the same building and in back was an even larger automobile service area.

In later days I have looked at maps and I don’t know yet how I got to Phoenix. I came south through Washington, Oregon and northern California mostly by hopping freights. I wanted to take a look at San Francisco but all I saw of it was at night from the east bay. All freight trains heading south were by my guess on the way to Los Angeles but the one I grabbed wasn’t. Freight cars do not have listed destinations.

Brains don’t always get in the way. I had searched for an idea. I selected one. I would get a large piece of cardboard and a crayon and create a sign “NEED RIDE WEST” and carry it around the gasoline station area. Perhaps the automobile service area would be a good place to get the needed items.

The world is a strange place. A man--let’s call him “A”--came out on the sidewalk near me and there was conversation. When two people talk each listener learns what the other person wants him to know. A was getting his car in shape for a long trip. He was leaving as soon as the car was ready. He was self-employed and alone. He knew Mexico would be an adventure but he had allotted two weeks to get the trip concluded. What A found out about me was that I had no ties to Phoenix; I was seeing the country, I was alone, I was not traveling by car. A made an offer and I accepted. I could travel to Mexico and back with him at no charge. I would sleep in the car to protect it.--he had heard some bad stories about vandalism and destruction. My company would be helpful in case there was any kind of trouble. His car was ready. He had extra cans of gasoline and oil in the trunk. We were on our way.

You may want to know A’s occupation. He was a self-employed drummer. Don’t make a guess--you may be incorrect. A drummer was also a person who carried samples of items that he showed to stores who placed orders for them in quantities to sell to their customers.

A’s items were in the hardware line. If we got to Mazatlan he wanted to call on a few stores just to see what the results would be. He also wanted to fish.

In today’s parlance you wouldn’t designate the miles we traveled as being on a highway and perhaps much of it as not being on a road. Moving around in an automobile was risky many times. When it was dark we didn’t drive. We had the usual car trouble--flat tires frequently.

Once the car stopped because the carburetor was plugged with dirt. A took it off, cleaned it, put it back, and it worked. We were lost a few times. Road directions weren’t plainly marked. It took us five days to get to Mazatlan. It would probably take us five days to get back to Phoenix. That left four days for Mazatlan.

There was only one place in the first five days that I would classify as pleasant--Guaymas, a resort located on the east side of the Gulf of California. A found a place to stay there. He announced that he was going to “tie one on.” He did. The next day he didn’t give me a

36

report. I didn’t inquire. The car was parked just off the courtyard and near the place A was staying. I took the back cushion off the car’s rear seat, sat it on the ground by the car, lay down on it and smelled the fragrance from orange blossoms, listened to singing and the music from stringed instruments. The night was warm. I didn’t want to go to sleep. The next morning when A came to the car he brought me a wedge of cheese, part of a loaf of brown bread, two small bananas and a bottle of water. For me it was a feast.

Arriving in Mazatlan we followed the main road along the water. There were two hotels-not adjacent--in the same area--one on the side of the road near the water and the other on the land side. A chose the hotel on the land side. I stood and looked around the lobby while he talked to the desk clerk. A made arrangements for a room. He gave me the room number. I could leave a note for him to be placed in his key box or slip it under the door to his room. He would not leave without me. We would keep in touch. That would be easier than either one of us thought at that time.

Off one side of the hotel lobby there was a shoe-shine stand with three places for customers to sit. A Mexican was walking around the stand. He did not have a customer. I knew a little Spanish. Maybe he understood some English. When I got close to the Mexican and he looked at me I told him, “I shine shoes.” He gave me a long and serious look. He then gave me an order, “Shine these” in English. He seated himself in the stand, indicated how I should start, and as I progressed pointed out what I should use. This fellow also had to do janitor work around the lobby. We made a deal. I would shine shoes for him. He would pay me ten cents an hour US money, I would sleep on the cot in the back of the stand. He would feed me. I would have access to the men’s room in the hotel. I hadn’t lied to the Mexican. My Dad’s place had a shoe-shine stand and a Greek man ran it. One summer when I was thirteen years old the Greek man had a health problem. He taught me how to shine shoes. I took his place for almost a month.

The next day I saw A in the hotel. I already knew how to find him. He now knew how to find me.

If you, as a reader, continue to follow along the words I write you will get much information about shoe shining for two important to me reasons: that ability kept me comfortable and free from hunger for four days, and; if I were authorized to give a test and graduate or flunk students in a course of shoe shining it would involve caring for a Mexican’s boots.

One of a Mexican’s most prized possessions are his boots and he may have only one pair.

He may have worn them in a barnyard or used them to kick fence posts into proper alignment, or he may have had them in water up to his knees when he cleaned a ditch bank.

His boots were usually a shade of brown or tan with a built up heel and a top that might reach upwards more than twelve inches. As a shiner you must know if he just wants the part of his boots that show when he is walking worked on or if he wants the tops also to be cleaned and shined. In the latter case you will be busy for almost half an hour. In the states shoes are shined in six minutes--eight minutes if they are white. With a soapy liquid the boots are washed, then dried. Scars, cracks, and scuffs get a primer coat of polish. Polish is then applied, the boots worked on with a brush, and then they are polished with a cloth. The

37

boots are given a special coating of polish, and there is a coloring liquid used where the sole and the boot are joined. Finally a transparent wax coat is used to complete the job and to protect the boot from dust and rain spots.

Pesos were what the Mexican charged for my services. I don’t know how many. A peso was worth in our money twenty cents or a little more. I was tipped once. A tourist guest in the hotel gave me a small tin covered package of assorted mints.

Until recently I have had little appetite for Mexican food--dark bread, several kinds of beans, tomales, burritos and coffee that seemed to me to be almost syrupy. I had no trouble spending the money I earned. I bought postcards, postage stamps, bottled water and fruit that was covered with a peel, rind, or skin that had not been punctured. I had heard my share of stories about “Montazuma’s Revenge” and I didn’t want to get it. Where would I be cared for--who would do it?

On the fourth day we headed north and found about as much trouble as we did on the way down--we were lost a few times, much tire changing and repairing, and again a dirty carburetor. A wanted to spend more time in Guaymas and he did. On the fourteenth day we were by mid-afternoon at the same automobile service center where A and I first met. There were some small repairs he wanted made on his car. I had discussed my plan with him and with his help we made a cardboard sign “Need Ride West.” He would supervise the car repairs while I walked around close to the gasoline station. A promised that he would check on me before he drove off. I’m sure he did, but I was gone. I was with the parents of two young sons. The parents were in the front seat of their automobile. I was in the back seat with the two lads. The car was headed west.

Tijuana

I

f there is one place on the face of this earth that I have visited and to which I will not willingly return it is Aunt Jane (The English name). I had been offered a ride, I was curious, there I was. I had been told if it was rainy the town would be a mudhole, that it was wicked, that it was different, that it was a tourist trap and that there would be many 38

tourists. I started looking, gawking, resting and wandering around in the late afternoon. It was past midnight and I had a ride to the international border--and back. The line closed at midnight. There was only one solution--go back to Tijuana.

I was walking within one block of a main street. In back of a building there was an open space--no alley. The back door of the building had been propped open. The space inside was lighted. What attracted my attention was a raised, square enclosure in the middle of the room. A Mexican was standing in the room with a shovel in his hand. He wanted to know if I was looking for work. I was. He and I now had a job to do. For me a most miserable experience.

This will not be pretty. The ring was the location for rooster fights. The fights were over for the evening. Some roosters are taught to fight. When battling they are equipped with razor sharp blades attached to their spurs. When the fight ends one rooster is the winner.

The loser is either dead in the ring or has quit fighting and is killed and thrown out of the ring. Bets are made on which bird wins, there is much drinking and smoking, the floor is the location of much trash.

The Mexican and I clean up the place. We collapse the chairs and stack them along the wall. We clean the ring and disinfect it with much liquid. With shovels, sawdust covering the floor is carried to two large barrels in the back of the building, we douse kerosene on the stuff in the barrels, light it, place a heavy screen over the top of the barrel and we have a fire. We then sweep the floor, mop it, spread the liquid disinfectant thoroughly and cover the entire floor with fresh sawdust. We see that the chairs are clean after placing them in rows around the ring. Our job is finished. The place is now ready for another exhibition of rooster fighting.

When I walked in back of the partition and to the front of this place I was aware that it was a tavern and faced a street. The Mexican boiled water, made coffee for himself and added a shot of Tequila. I sipped half a cup of boiled water. He was going to fix himself something for breakfast. I couldn’t eat. He paid me six US quarters. He was sure that I did not carry identification. He gave me advice. Ride a tourist bus back to San Diego. I had a white skin and that meant fewer questions would be asked. At the front of the tavern he pointed the way to the tourist bus stop.

Have you ever felt completely uneasy? I could smell disinfectant so strongly that I might have been sprayed with it and I thought everybody in the bus was aware of the odor. At the international line I was asked the standard questions. Was I a citizen of the United States?

Where and when was I born? What was my present home address? Where and when did I enter Mexico? What was the purpose of my visit? Was I bringing back from Mexico anything that I had purchased or had acquired? The tourist bus continued on its way with me as one of its passengers.

In San Diego, I located the YMCA. I cleaned my shoes. I put all my clothes in a washer. I showered. I took my clothes from the washer and placed them in a dryer. I again cleaned

39

my shoes, and again showered. My clothes were dry and I dressed. I was clean, my clothes were clean, and I smelled clean.

Later that day I delivered two messages for Western Union. Late that night I located a freight train that I was certain would be headed north. I hopped a freight car and was on my way.

Yakima

I

was now just a few miles from Yakima. During the last two weeks, I had cross piled rough green lumber in a sawmill yard so the action of the wind and the sun would dry it; I had moved dirt with a shovel and wheeled cement for the foundation of a commercial building; and the last two days I had loaded trucks with wooden boxes of fruit at a packing shed. My last postcard home informed my family that I would be home in time to 40

report for school. My senior year would begin next week. Evening came and I was again a freeloader.

There are always reasons for making a mistake--perhaps making it seem plausible. I was on a gondola car. I had no jacket and the action of wind and motion made me feel cold. The next car toward the rear of the train was a liquid tank car. It was long, slender, entirely metal. On the gondola car was a short wood slat--approximately four feet long, about onehalf inch thick, and three inches wide. I took the slat, went to the tank car and opened the heavy metal top and placed the slat next to the hinge of the top to keep it open and looked inside. The car was empty, it smelled clean, it was for the use of liquids but I don’t know what kind. There was a metal ladder of a few rungs leading down from the opening under the metal top. The top was plugged open, I went down the ladder, leaned against it and I was warm and content.

I don’t know how long I was in the tank car but this is what happened. There was a sudden braking and there was a noticeable jostling of freight cars and a little screeching of the coupling between the cars. I don’t know the cause. The shaking of the car that I was in must have loosened the slat holding the top door open and when it was away from the hinge the top came down on it and broke the slat and part of it came inside the car. The result--the heavy metal top was not only closed but also automatically locked and the car was completely dark. I climbed the ladder and felt all around the inside of the top. I pulled, I tugged, I pressed, I searched for a lever or a catch or a device that might unlock the top. I was not successful. I yelled but I knew that would be useless. I took off my trouser belt and whapped the side of the car with the belt buckle. I tried again to find a way to release the top--no luck. Panic was about to set in. There is only so much oxygen in an airtight enclosure and without oxygen you do not breathe. I began to feel that I was already having trouble breathing. I went back up the ladder to search again. The top door opened and a heavily bearded face with two eyes commanded me, “Get out of there.” I was back on the gondola car, stretched out on the platform with one arm grabbing part of a wooden form. I was weak. I was trying not to throw up. The bearded one gave me another command, “Always let someone know where you are.” I expected him to stay with me. He didn’t.

When I was strong enough, I looked around. He had probably moved toward the engine. I have never seen him again. I often wonder what he thinks of me. A dumb lad--agreed.

Ungrateful? I had not thanked him. I hope the bearded one is aware that I have thanked him many times since--in my prayers.

And Finally -- Spokane

M

y arrival in Spokane was not triumphant. It was barely daylight on that Saturday morning. I had assisted a truck driver in picking up and loading filled milk cans on the truck he drove. My guess was that he was not allowed a passenger on the company-owned vehicle because he dismissed me before he reached the

creamery.

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I knew my way around downtown Spokane. There was a well advertised recreation center that was equipped with pool tables, card tables, and sold tobacco and soft drinks--much similar to my Dad’s place except many times larger. I went there because as a businessgetter to start the day the place furnished for free the makings of simple sandwiches. When I had eaten, I sat in one of a row of chairs along a wall in the large section with many pool tables. I was comfortable, my stomach was full, I was warm, and I was quiet. I was not eighteen years old and could be booted out of the place if I was challenged. I was not questioned.

If you, as a reader, have been with me all the way you may remember that at age twelve I had been a pool hall bum so what follows in just a few hours will not be classed as a miracle. There was a “Keno” game being played for nickels and dimes. I had nickels and a few dimes. I played. This contest is more good luck than outstanding ability. I accumulated more dimes and more nickels. At the next table a game of “eight ball” was organized. This is bigger wagering--quarters--not nickels and dimes--and the cast of combatants includes experts. That game was my next challenge. I had a plan. If at any time I had four dollars I would gamble big time. I was careful--and lucky--and I owned the four dollars. I had watched “live pool” being played many times. I had never played the game. The table is half again larger than an ordinary table, the cushions are much livelier, the pockets are narrower. As many as fifteen contestants may play. The entry fee is one dollar and if another player pockets the ball that has been allotted by chance to you for one time only you may become “live” again by paying another dollar. I had sufficient dollars to play two games. A “house man” runs the game to prevent cheating and other tricks. It lasts until only one object ball remains on the table and the owner of that ball is the winner and gets all the money except the charge for the use of the table and the “house man’s” cut. One game may last more than two hours. You may not be ready for this shock. I played only one game. I won that game. The “house man” gave me a twenty-dollar bill. For more than three months I had not that much money at any one time. I took the money and left. There are many names that are used to describe guys that play one hand of poker, win it and run and guys that play one game of pool for money, win it and run. I am positive the expressions were pointed my way. I didn’t hear any of them. I had left the recreation center.

Within the last month I have purchased a tie that I thought had character at a price of thirtyfour dollars and it was not the most expensive in the rack. I mention this because my saga was in 1924. Times were different, prices were different. In 1924 in the best luncheon place in our town you could sit at the counter and be served a toasted tuna sandwich and a malted milk for a total price of twenty cents. No tip given or expected.

So in 1924 I took the money and ran. A men’s store got my business. As nearly as possible I purchased items resembling those I had worn when I left home--including a pair of white cotton work gloves with red colored wrist sections--from shoes on up. They were placed in a cardboard box. My next stop was at a barber shop for a shave and a haircut and a bath.

Yes, in those days barber shops also for a price furnished tub baths. I put on my new clothes, stuffed all the other clothes in a hamper in the bathroom. There was one more stop

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for me in Spokane. I went to the Auto Interurban Depot and bought a one-way ticket to Coeur d’Alene.

On the bus ride, I had time to think. My trip was a financial success. I left home with forty cents. I now had two dollars and eighty-two cents in my pocket. My other assets had also increased. Tied to my belt I had an imitation leather pouch with a long rawhide drawstring to keep it closed and in the pouch was a short-handled blade razor, a stone for sharpening the blade, a small toothbrush in a plastic case, a tin container of tooth powder, and a three inch comb. To this gift and somewhere along the way I had placed in the pouch a small cake of very hard soap.

For years the only time the Walden family was together daily was for six o’clock supper. It was about five-thirty when I opened the door at 1015 Second Street. PB, Erma and Mayo were in the family room. They were not particularly surprised. They were glad to see me.

Mom heard the racket. She was in the kitchen. She came to the family room. We hugged.

She said, “I’m glad you’re home. It has been a long summer without you.” Mom gave me a longer look. We hugged again. There would be questions. Mom stopped them. “Your Father will be home soon. Then we’ll have supper. After supper there will be time for questions. That way Amidee will only have to answer them once.” Dad arrived and we shook hands. What Dad said was, “Welcome. All of us are happy that you are with us again--especially me.” We had supper--then the questions.

Sunday morning, Monday morning, and Tuesday morning PB and I did the janitor work at the store. Monday evening (Labor Day) I worked at the store two hours in the evening.

Tuesday morning before nine o’clock I was enrolled in the senior class of Coeur d’Alene High School.

My Twelfth Year of Public Education

M

y senior year brought with it a bitter disappointment that even at this late date bothers me. From the time that I could understand games I wanted to be an athlete. I watched athletes, read about them, studied them to try to discover if they were outstanding because of heredity, environment, practice or what. My final year in high school I was five feet six inches tall and weighed one hundred twenty-four 43

pounds. From my viewpoint I was not an imposing figure. I had become a realist about my ability. My last chance to be an athlete had arrived. I did not plan on attending a university but if I did at that level the competition would be fierce. My goal was now tempered by the desire to just be a member of a team--maybe one that qualified to be one of eight teams to play for the state championship. At Coeur d’Alene High School to qualify for a block “C” letter to stitch on your sweater you had to be rewarded for football or basketball. I was on the twenty-two member football squad--a member of the second team. I played in a few of the games. I made all the out-of-town trips. If the coach had sent me in a game just one more time--for as little as one play--I would have gotten a letter. He didn’t. There was now basketball. Ten players suited up for home games. I was the tenth player. Only eight players made out of town trips. I stayed home. I was improving. Injuries might show up, or there could be failures to make grade requirements, illnesses might arrive. Illnesses did arrive two weeks before tournament time. I was the one who was ill. That ended my basketball chance. I was a failure and I knew it. If I had seen a shrink then perhaps I would not now have disturbing memories--and hurt feelings.

I missed many days of school. My nose was broken for the fifth time and some reconstruction was necessary. My doctors suggested that I practice keeping my mouth shut since I had amply proved I could not fight--how about becoming a runner? I had a kneecap slammed into the socket. Today that is a simple operation with complete success almost guaranteed. In my day if the knee stiffened it was drained and everyone hoped for the best in the future. Mumps and two kinds of measles descended on our school and I collected all of them.

There were some accomplishments that pleased me. I had one of the leading parts in our class play--I was the bad guy. I was sports editor for our school annual and wrote every word in that section. Grade-wise I was in the upper ten percent of my class. I was awarded an out-of-state grant of tuition and a few dollars from a Washington college. I decided not to accept it.

And there was the senior prom. When the month of May appears in the calendar, the media in its many forms highlights the elaborateness and the exorbitant costs of this function.

Parents dig deeply in pockets containing money to pay the expenses of a son or daughter at this ritual. It wasn’t always thus. You, as a reader, may draw the conclusion that my 1925 class lived in poverty acres. Not so. I’ll give you my synopsis. A group was elected to supervise--an equal number of boys and girls. The party would take place in the high school gym. A band consisting of members from the other three classes would play for free. The gym would be decorated by class members. It was not leap year but for some unexplained reason girls would choose escorts. How that was done remains to me a secret. If a senior girl was going steady with a senior boy that boy would be her escort. I thought that strange.

One day a senior girl told me that she had drawn my name and asked if I would go with her.

I would. The day of all days arrived. I had my only suit cleaned and pressed. I shined my shoes. The girl lived close to the school. I called for her at the appointed time. I handed her a corsage. We walked to the gym. I thought I behaved admirably. Whatever suggestion my date offered I approved. We walked home and I waited until she had safely entered the front door before I hurried to my home. The next day Mom asked me if I had told my date

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how nice she looked. I hadn’t. Mom had no other questions. She probably decided that unless I got some excellent help promptly that I would be a social lost cause.

As was then the custom, many of the recent graduates on the first week day following the ceremony and in the early morning paid a visit to the high school. The purposes were: empty locker and pick up personal belongings; discuss presents received; check with others about probabilities of additional education; visit about summer employment.

Graduation gifts included watches and other jewelry, clothes, and money. I avoided the subject. My present was a pair of fancy silk socks.

I had no reason to believe that I would be favored with any further formal education.

Enumerating colleges and universities bored me.

Summer employment presented no difficult solution for me. Dad had suggested that since I was now eighteen years old I could work with him and PB in his cigar store. I did not have to search for something to do. I hadn’t said “yes” but I knew I would.

And I went home feeling ill equipped to fight the world barehanded but ready to give it my best shot.

If you have been with me this far and want to know what took place next--read on.

A Highway Man Am I

U

ntil June 1, 1926, I moved around aimlessly. All the family were at home. PB was nineteen, I was eighteen, Erma was thirteen and Mayo was eleven. Dad, PB and I all clerked at the cigar store, Mom kept the group cared for, Erma and Mayo studied. PB and Mayo had built one of the first radio receivers in our town and it took up most of what we called a dining room and the table in it. PB and I bought a new Majestic cabinet radio which also had a phonograph attachment that accommodated flat records and since we located it in the family room Mom got back her dining room and table.

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PB wanted to learn to type and he and I bought a typewriter and he practiced from a manual that promoted the touch system. PB had big hands and when he hit the space bar he did it with feeling. I had gotten interested in record keeping--bookkeeping--accounting and was taking courses by mail from a university that guaranteed college credit if satisfactorily completed. And my first year out of high school marched on.

And now, and probably in too much detail, I must tell you how I became a highway man because it was important to my life and because I had little to do with it. Here is the way it unfolded. Kootenai County was Republican. In those days politically “to the victors belonged the spoils.” Almost neighbors to us lived the Kootenai County Sheriff who had a son about my age and with whom I was friendly. The son was attending medical school.

The State of Idaho Department of Highways was assembling a new oiling crew to be the first one in Idaho north of Lewiston. The Sheriff’s son was to be a member of that group.

The Sheriff thought the crew would be mostly old fellows and that his son should have someone to pal around with. The son thought of me. The father made a phone call. I was told that if I went to the highway engineer promptly I would be employed. I made the visit.

I was given a job with the oiling crew.

Let’s take a look at this employment. My pay was 40 cents per hour, which at that time was good money. The workday was twelve hours--every day including Sundays. Between June 1 and September 20 we had two days off work--Fourth of July and Labor Day. My friend and I had a tent which we pitched near the highway and if possible adjacent to water. Our foreman made arrangements for the crew to be fed--breakfast, supper and a walk-away lunch for $1 per day. If there was rain and we couldn’t work at road oiling we cleaned culverts and ditches and the travel way or counted traffic.

I should tell you about my job. Road oiling is scientific now--it wasn’t then. Equipment tore up the old road bed and new material was added to bring it up to grade--and the mix was moved back and forth across the road to get it uniform. Hot oil was added and the mixing continued. About two thousand feet at a time was prepared. I was given a threetined long handled fork. Any rock big enough to remain in the tines was tossed from the road bed. The oil was hot and sticky, the sun frequently hot, and I walked continuously up and back the stretch of highway that was being oiled. My friend was learning the care and attention a boiler needed to be coupled to tank cars to heat the oil to be ready to be poured on the road. Traffic was important when it came to throwing rocks off a road. If there was no availability for a detour half the roadway could be done at a time--and vehicles would be whizzing down the other half of the road. It was necessary to be alert. Some drivers are clumsy.

Hopefully, at least for the young, life consists of progress and promotion. I was highway man for the period of June 1st through September 20th each year for 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929 and 1930. I upgraded from a rock thrower, to night watchman, to truck driver, to night service man, and finally for the last two years I actually handled the distributors that poured the oil on the roads. At that time I was paid seventy-five cents an hour which was much money. Politics is interesting. In 1930, Idaho had gone democratic. Changes seeped down to the county level. One day--actually September 18, 1930--a representative of the highway

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department told our group that as of September 20 they would get the pink slip. Our foreman was not terminated but he was relegated to the boondocks. My friend and I were not terminated because we were not on the job when the word was given. My friend was on a trip with a truck to Sandpoint to pick up some items that were left there when we dustcoated the highway from Algoma to north of Sandpoint. I drove a truck to Kellogg to get some scarfire teeth that had been sharpened at the Bunker Hill blacksmith shop. Oiling for the year had been completed. My tentmate and I stayed on the job at Blanchard and put everything in one place that would be moved to the highway yard in Coeur d’Alene. On September 21, 1930, in the morning I reported to the engineer, thanked him for the years the highway had given me, and told him I would not be back. He seemed relieved, we shook hands, I left.

There are a great many things I could tell you about my days with the highway. I only want to tell you about two experiences. You should know how lucky I was.

I was driving a night service truck. We had equipment strung out from Burns’ Summit to Smelterville. I was near the west end of my run. I had parked the Chevrolet truck off the road near a creek, turned off the carbide lights, lit the mantle lantern that was in the truck, sat in the open door of the truck, and started eating my midnight lunch. There was some moonlight. I heard a noise I could not identify. It came from across the creek. I took the lantern, crossed the creek on a log that was there for that purpose and walked along the creek. I thought the noise might be from a beaver but the creek was not deep. In front of me, crouched, all teeth and toenails was a wild cat. Yes, I was scared. Just off one of the highway hills was a man whom I had seen who was sightless and had a badly scarred face as the result of a tangle with a wildcat. I had heard that wildcats were afraid of fire. I backed up and kept the mantle lantern in front of my face. I fell and the lantern went out. I must own the running broadjump record for at least North Idaho. I was across the creek, in the truck and the door was closed. My shoes were not wet. I remained in the truck until it was light enough to move it back to the highway and about a mile down the road. Then I lit the carbide lights and headed for Smelterville. I told the day service man where the lantern was and I had it in the truck again that night.

A mantle lantern was also the main item in another incident. My tentmate was tending the boiler for the night shift. It was located on a spur of the railroad at Cataldo. I was night service man delivering gasoline, oil, grease, parts and other things to vehicles from Burns’ Summit to Smelterville. We would have lunch together at the boiler each evening but at no definite time. This evening it was about one o’clock in the morning and I parked the service truck near the boiler. The boiler was unattended. A quick look around furnished the reason.

The water truck was gone. My friend had driven the truck to a nearby creek to replenish the water supply needed for the boiler. He would return soon. The boiler was red hot. The lantern hung on a metal brace attached to the boiler and less than a foot from it. The two mantles were flickering. The lantern needed air for which there was one attachment and a pump for that purpose or more kerosene for which there was another attachment. My guess was that air was needed and I had just given the pump a few strokes when I noticed that the top for the fuel attachment was loose and fluid was escaping. The lantern blew in my face.

It had a few wires wrapped around the glass to keep it from splintering and that saved me

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from worse damage. Instead of kerosene, the lantern had been filled with gasoline. It exploded. I was on fire. I fell back in the dust and dirt of the road, rolled in it, slapped myself with it, and screamed for help. One of the highway crew heard me, took off his jacket, wrapped it around my head and helped me put out the fire. The water tank returned.

My friend, the driver, was taking a medical course and with him at all times he had a first aid kit. He went to work on me. He finally was convinced that I was clean and we surveyed the damage. My head was almost hairless and it was blistered in several places. I had blisters on my face and on my eyelids. There were some burn marks on my shoulders. We went to Kellogg and to Wardner Hospital. The doctors there praised the care and attention I had been given. They suggested that I be a patient there for a day or two. I was, for one day. That was the only work I missed. I would have furnished a great design for a doorknocker. Hair grew back. I have no scars. How lucky can you get?

Further Education/Beginning Banking

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hat I want to do now is to give you bits and pieces of information during the years from 1926 to and including the morning of October 14, 1930. I will then backtrack in memory so you may get better acquainted with Ellen--the jewel of my married life.

On Labor Day, 1926, a highway holiday for me, PB unfolded an idea. PB was a patient, realistic, careful fellow who expected education to equip him to better enjoy his life and the people who were important to him. Many times I have wished that I had some of his characteristics. He thought we might get a college education. When I finished my highway 48

employment for the year I would work at the store. He would go to the University of Idaho and study mining engineering. When he had finished the first year at college he would work at the store; I would return to my highway job; when the work ended for the year on September 20th, I would go to the University of Idaho to study business. By alternating the years we would each have a degree in eight years. By helping each other financially, we would also be debt free at graduation. We followed that plan until each of us had completed our sophomore year. PB then decided to call it quits. It was the only decision he could make. Dad had prostate cancer--inoperable. With steam baths, much doctoring and other care he might be with us for perhaps three years. PB wanted to work with Dad and be with him as much of the time as possible. I have explained that politics had ended my highway employment. September 21, 1930, I began job hunting. In 1929 the stock market crash signaled the beginning of the Great Depression. It was with us. It would be around for several years. It would get much worse before it got better.

If you are seriously interested in looking for work, it is advisable to decide what you want to do and for which you have ability and to eliminate work you do not want to do and for which you are not qualified. Coeur d’Alene was a sawmill town with much down time during the winter months. I wanted to work the full year. I had no degree--teaching and other professions--and political appointments were crossed off the list. I was not interested in being a clerk in a mom and pop store and I had no money to use to start a business of my own. Whatever I did I had no objection to it requiring physical stamina but as the body got weaker I wanted to earn more money because of my knowledge. Utilities were attractive.

Montgomery-Ward, Sears, J. C. Penney, Woolworth took good care of their official family.

There were some large mining companies that trained employees and there were some large insurance and real estate firms in Spokane that required much bookkeeping and some accounting. In those days an applicant did not mail or present a resume’; he made a personal appearance to learn if there was any reason to do anything further. 1930 was not a good vintage year for knocking on doors. I did not want to leave this beautiful, comfortable, interesting place we called Coeur d’Alene.

On my way home for an early lunch, I stopped to visit an elderly man who was the father of one of my best friends. He operated a feed store. He wasn’t busy. I learned something. He told me in confidence that his son who was a teller in the American Trust Company, a commercial bank, knew that there would be an opening at the very bottom for a young fellow. There had been no announcement. He suggested that I give that a try. I promised that I would. I had not put banking on my list of possibilities because I had heard some negatives: starvation wages for the first five years; if there is a promotion the boss’ son will get it; stockholders have relatives who receive benefits. After lunch I went to the bank and asked the vice-president and manager if he would place my name on his applicants’ list for future consideration. I was told that there would be an opening, that there were twenty-eight applications on file, that a decision would be made the following Saturday (this was Tuesday), and that if I wanted to be considered I should bring him about three hundred words in ink in my own handwriting explaining why I wanted to be an employee of the American Trust Company and that he should have it not later than the next day. He was assured that he would have my application not later than the next day. My handwriting is atrocious. I made the delivery that afternoon.

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Saturday morning, October 11, 1930, with three other fellows I was playing tennis on the old courts at Central School when Mayo arrived with the message that the bank manager wanted to see me at his office before noon. I thought I might be in contention for employment and that further information might be required. I cleaned up, dressed up and was in the bank before the door closed--banking hours ceased at noon on Saturdays. When the manager had dismissed his last customer he beckoned me to his desk. We talked--more aptly he talked and I indicated yes or no or kept quiet. Finally, he became more direct. The successful embryo banker would have some custodial duties, he would be a messenger at times, and he would be an apprentice bookkeeper. Hours of work were not definite but around eleven hours weekdays except for Saturdays when they might be eight hours.

However, mistakes were made in keeping bank records and errors had to be found and corrected the same day, everyone helped in finding errors, if the cashier issued a call for assistance we had to be available. I was surprised by what came next. I was offered employment at $50 per month as salary. I accepted. The manager thought I should report at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, October 14, 1930. He would introduce me to the staff members as they arrived.

At the beginning of this collection of pages I indicated that all of us make choices, or have choices made for us, or accept something because we have no other choice. I had been busy searching for a chance to work at something that appealed to me. The employment I accepted I had not even contemplated. I was to start a career that extended over forty-two years (almost) and rewarded me in a more luxurious fashion than I had any reason to expect.

And yet, I must tell you, it almost ended before it started.

October 14, 1930, I was twenty-three years old. This year I am eighty-six years old. Many times in the past sixty-three years I have asked myself why I didn’t walk out the front door the morning of the first day. When I left the personnel officer’s desk that was what I planned to do. I would notify the manager and quit. What I did was to report to the head bookkeeper as I had been ordered to do. I will recount to you what happened. Maybe you will figure out the answer.

It was my first day. I reported to the manager as he requested at 7:30 a.m. There were thirteen staff members. I knew all of them but one. As they arrived I was introduced as the newest member of the staff. Finally, the man I didn’t know arrived. We were introduced.

The bank had recently established a trust department and this formerly big city fellow headed that department, was next to the bank manager in rank, and was also the bank’s personnel officer. His office was across the lobby and he instructed me to go to his office and wait for him. He would be along in a few minutes. I was about to find out how the real world operates. The trust department office had a rolled-top desk, a chair in back of the desk and a customer’s chair facing the desk. I sat in the customer chair and waited. This is the conversation as I remember it. I did not say one word. He came in the door and: “When you come in here to talk with me you’ll stand.” I stood. “Your probation period is one year If we decide that we don’t want you with us you may be dismissed anytime day or night. If you decide that banking is not for you we can require two weeks notice but we may not want five minutes. The first time you keep another member of this staff from doing

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his work because your work is not done, that will be the last time. Anyone who comes in this office to talk with me about a raise in pay should have his written resignation signed and bring it with him. There is work that must be done now. You know where the bookkeeping department is. Go to the head bookkeeper and report.” I left his office.

As you already know I reported to the head bookkeeper. If you know why I did, tell me.

Ellen

T

his will be a long chapter because it is time you got better acquainted with Ellen.

Some married fellows are lucky, some are luckier, a very few are luckiest. I was one of the luckiest. We were married for fifty-five years, two months, and six days. And all that time I knew it.

Ellen Marie Okerstrom was born in Borlange, Sweden, August 24, 1904. Her parents brought her to the United States when she was about one year old. The family spent several years in Starbuck, Minnesota, A Swedish speaking community, and arrived in Coeur d’Alene in late 1911--the same year my family brought me to Coeur d’Alene. Her mother’s father and mother lived here. Her grandfather had a boot and shoe making and repair shop south of Sherman Avenue on the west side of Fourth Street near Front Avenue. Ellen’s

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father was a grade A number one cabinet maker and carpenter. In 1912 Ellen was not accepted in school because of her lack of knowledge of the English language. In 1913 she and I were classmates in the first grade in the old Bryan School on Harrison Avenue. Yes-we knew each other in first grade.

Education is full of twists and turns. I went to Central School Annex for second grade.

Ellen remained at Bryan. Ellen went to Central School Annex for third grade but I was sent to Roosevelt School. I came back to Central School Annex for fourth grade but Ellen had skipped fourth grade and was now in fifth grade. We were never together in the same grade again. It is true that we were sophomores in college at the same time but Ellen was at Washington State College and I was attending University of Idaho.

When Ellen had finished fifth grade her mother just picked up and left her husband and nine children. Later Ellen’s father got a divorce--her mother remarried and had a daughter by her new husband. Ellen’s mother made no attempt to see any of her children after she abandoned them although for several years she was only about thirty-five miles from Coeur d’Alene. About two weeks before Ellen and I were married Ellen wanted me to meet her mother. We took a streetcar in Spokane, walked several blocks and I saw her mother for the first and only time from the waist up through a kitchen window. I remained on the walkway, Ellen rapped on the door, it was opened, Ellen and her mother talked briefly, the door closed and Ellen returned to where I was standing. The report, “My mother does not want to meet you.” That was the only time Ellen saw her mother after she disappeared.

So what happens to nine children when the father must work long hours to support them and there is no mother? The oldest daughter found work, took a secretarial course and became a secretary. The oldest son lied about his age, enlisted in the navy and remained there until retirement. The next oldest son became a wanderer, a kind of gypsy, and was that way the rest of his life. The youngest children were with the grandparents. And Ellen--she went to live for the summer with some Swedish family friends on a farm east of Coeur d’Alene at Wolf Lodge. One of the ladies was a school teacher and in later years Ellen told me that three months was one of the happiest times of her life. She was taught how to care for and like farm animals, do chores about the house and farm, and became aware of the things a young girl should know.

All of us should thank God for our friends. Ellen always had more than her quota of friends.

They knew that she wanted to return to Coeur d’Alene for her schooling. There was a middle-aged, childless, wealthy couple who wanted a girl to do housework and other chores in exchange for room and board. They learned about Ellen, she accepted their offer, she was with them through graduation from high school.

I want to be factual and not critical. No one on this earth is exactly like me. Each one of us march to a different drummer. If you classify the couple with whom Ellen was now living as frugal you would be generous. The man had only one aim in life and that was to accumulate dollars--not to at some future time spend them or use them--just accumulate them. He hoarded dollars and despised spending pennies. His wife had knowledge and interest in art, music, travel and society. In those days before women’s liberation if you

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guessed which member of a marriage would dominate you would be correct about ninety percent of the time if you chose the man. The man dominated this couple and his wife instead of seeing museums and traveling read books and looked at postcards. And they accumulated dollars. Their housework and activities were put together with military precision and clockwork. Ellen was aware of what she was to do whenever she was inside the house and to account for every minute when she was not in school. Ellen’s father kept her in spending money as best he could. They wanted to adopt her but Ellen would not approve. Immediately after her graduation from high school Ellen moved to be with the family of her best girlfriend and to pay for her board and room. Ellen had found employment.

This life has a strange unpredictable design. A forestry one-man office was to be established in our town for the purpose of studying bugs and plants that were destructive to the growth of trees. The man in charge was given a supplementary six month’s grant for help in setting up his office. Ellen was given that job. She thought life was wonderful. The man was a gentleman by any standard. The pay was more than she expected to get. Ellen could type and now she attended night school for courses in shorthand and bookkeeping.

Suddenly, the world had a rosy glow--and just maybe she could dream about attending college.

The six month’s term of employment was ending. Her employer wanted to do everything he could to help Ellen. Idaho had recently passed a workmen’s compensation law. One of his contemporaries was opening that business office in Coeur d’Alene. A recommendation was made and Ellen just went from one office to another one. She was always a happy person-now she was delighted.

When Ellen’s mother disappeared, there were nine children. When Ellen finished high school there were only six--pneumonia and a sledding accident eliminated two younger sisters, a domestic mishap was fatal for a younger brother. The oldest sister was married and living in Coeur d’Alene, the oldest brother was at sea with the United States Navy, the other older brother was meandering aimlessly somewhere in the western part of the United States, a younger brother was at a boy’s settlement in Spokane studying to get through high school, a younger sister was in a Catholic girl’s school in Spokane. Ellen would attend the University of Idaho.

Ellen had little money but she would be employed four hours each weekday as a secretary for some of the law faculty. She was especially interested in writing and literature and history. She read constantly--the classics, poetry, the lives of artists. When she finished her freshman year her former employment was given her and she came back to Coeur d’Alene.

It would be twenty-seven months before her education bills had been paid and she had saved sufficient dollars to continue her formal education.

In September 1928, PB was a sophomore at the University of Idaho; I had finished my highway work for the year; I was now employed on the day shift at the store. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays of each week I attended business school nights. I was learning

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typing and shorthand. I was twenty-one years old. I was dating now and then-infrequently--and that story will get special treatment.

Young Lady/Young Man

I

had not been a social creature. My father had a favorite expression he used to indicate ignorance and it was “he didn’t know enough to pound sand in a rat hole.” Socially that would have applied to me. When I was a sophomore in high school, Mom asked me if a girl had kissed me. My reply was that a girl had pecked at me once or twice in kid’s games. The next question was whether I had ever kissed a girl. Same answer--once or twice in kid’s games. There was another question, “if a girl wanted to kiss me and I wasn’t willing could she do it?” She couldn’t. Boys are stronger than girls and if you wanted to kiss a girl and she didn’t want you to do it what then? I was given the answer. The girl has only to say “no” and she only has to say it once and if you have your hands on her you release her and step back. Good advice?

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Our long winter would soon arrive in Coeur d’Alene. There were many activities for the young unmarrieds--moving picture parties, dances, invitation affairs of many varieties. I did not date often but many socials required arrival by couples. At one dance, Ellen was not my date but we were dance partners. Ellen was busy, she was popular. There was a special DeMolay dance scheduled for about two weeks in the future. I invited Ellen to go with me.

I was surprised that she was available and that she accepted. It was a pleasant evening--we sat up and talked for much too long a time. A few weeks later there was another dance, I made a telephone call, Ellen had already promised to attend. I didn’t. The billboards were advertising a special movie. Ellen agreed to attend with me. It was a fun evening and afterwards we went to a gathering place for our crowd and had something to eat and much conversation. There was a private party to which I received an invitation and I was certain that Ellen was also to be a guest. I asked her if she would go with me. She wouldn’t. She had already made a promise. I expressed my regrets to my hostess.

If you have followed me this far you have made a proper guess that Ellen was proving to be special to me. I should have been aware that I had made a choice. I wasn’t. I was gradually learning to sort out the different meanings of “girl talk” and something about “body language.” If you asked a girl for a date and she said, “No, thank you,” that was not the same as “No thank you, but I’m not always busy,” “No, thank you, but I know you’ll be there and I hope to see you.” Maybe I would be intelligent enough at some future time to decide that a girl would rather I was absent without her telling me “to get lost.”

There was a special party for recent graduates of Coeur d’Alene High School. Ellen and I were there. The next week my highway employment would begin. There would be only two days I wouldn’t be working--Fourth of July and Labor Day. I asked Ellen if she would spend some of each of these days in Coeur d’Alene with me. We would do whatever she thought would be interesting and fun. She accepted my offer.

It was college time again. Ellen would attend Washington State and I would be at University of Idaho. Ellen would secretary some faculty members four hours each week

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day. I would tutor some accounting students who needed assistance and would correct beginning Spanish tests. We agreed that Ellen would attend my fraternity parties if she could and I would be a guest at her sorority parties if I could make arrangements. I had another idea. Perhaps some Sundays I could get to Pullman and we could see a movie, eat somewhere, and walk around the campus. Ellen thought that might be fun but I should telephone her beforehand to be sure she did not have other plans. We had no other agreement. I had no reason to believe that I was favored among other fellows. I knew that Ellen occupied a special place in my thinking but she had not been told.

School was over. Ellen had accepted employment as a secretary in Spokane. She would live with her married older sister and her husband and three daughters. I had to hurry back to Coeur d’Alene and my highway job. Again we had dates set up for Fourth of July and Labor Day. That summer Ellen and another couple visited with me--once in Cataldo--and once in Smelterville.

It was now September 21, 1930. As you have previously read for political reasons I gave up any future entanglement with the highway department and found work at the bottom of the banking ladder. Ellen and I both had hoped to someday get back to college and earn a degree. Both of us had shared a dream that just maybe we would get married, each find work at school, and be graduated. Neither of us were serious. Ellen had school bills to pay and she was not interested in the making of any plan until she was out of debt. I didn’t owe any money--but I didn’t have any.

You have heard of the Great Depression. Thinking people should have known that it was on its way when the stock market crash showed up in 1929. By 1930 it was here, it would get worse, and we would have it for several years. This was a bleak, dismal time.

I don’t want to dwell too long on it. Every day it seemed that a friend or neighbor or acquaintance was out of work. Replacement employment was almost impossible to find.

If with your paycheck you were put on notice that your salary was cut ten percent you were thankful. You might have gotten a pink slip that quoted “your services are no longer required.” Coeur d’Alene was a small, compact, caring community where everyone knew many others and without being asked helped in any way they could. Yes, we suffered--but not as much as any average community. The years moved along and by 1934 economically things were classified as getting better.

It was in 1931 that I got what up to that time was the biggest jolt of my life. Dad had been in failing health for several months. He had been told the answer and now the children had to be given the bad news. Dad had inoperable terminal prostate cancer.

Soon he was confined to his home and he left it only for visits to a doctor or a hospital.

We installed steam bath equipment to assist in eliminating poisons, a doctor called twice weekly, another doctor gave intravenous feedings, one of his sons should be with Dad most of the time. PB kept the store open. It was not now a profitable venture. That was not PB’s fault. Times were tough. Ellen and I saw each other as often as we could.

Ellen had two fixations and both were admirable. She would pay her education bills by herself and that she did but the other aim was never accomplished--she wanted to get a college degree.

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In 1933 I lost my father. PB immediately locked the front door of the store and began liquidating it. There was not much to sell. When we had gotten all the bills together we agreed that no one would leave the nest until the Walden family had paid all their debts, and that realistically might take three years.

I don’t judge what constitutes fairness in this life. I had to talk with Ellen. I told her of the family agreement. It was not proper for her to wait for three years for me to ask her to be my wife. Years were precious--life was uncertain. I well remember her reply. “As long as we love each other we should stay together as we are now. If love disappears then we must be honest with each other and admit it.” I have told you that I was one of the luckiest fellows.

The days marched by--the years vanished somehow--Ellen and I agreed that progress for us was being made. The Walden family was debt free on July 1, 1936, and on July 19, 1936, we were married. When we returned from our honeymoon to Vancouver, Victoria, and Seattle we had forty cents in cash, one book of six round trip bus tickets from Coeur d’Alene to Spokane (Ellen was to continue her Spokane employment) and our apartment rent was paid for one month in advance. I put the coins on the kitchen counter. My statement, “Ellen whatever we end up this life with half of it will belong to you because this is all we have at the start.” Ellen’s reply, “I have news for you. We don’t have that much. I owe a bill at the Crescent for eight dollars.” I can’t tell you why both of us thought that was funny--but we did. We hugged each other and laughed.

I must now return to October 14, 1930, and give you a short synopsis of what was almost forty-two years labor in a counting house.

A Prologue to Banking

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I

t would be stupid for me to write about banking as it was in 1930. Medicine, educating, travel--the world of business and record keeping--all have changed so much since then that you shouldn’t spend your time learning about “the old days.”

Do you want to know how to handle a horse and buggy or how to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together.

Banking is a disease for which if you are hooked on it the only lifetime cure is the offer of more money and more opportunity elsewhere. You don’t know if banking is for you unless you are exposed to it--much as you don’t know if you enjoy eating olives until you have eaten a few of them.

If you will admit a few basics about banking you will be well on your way to understanding it. It is more than cashing and paying checks, accepting and crediting deposits, and saying “yes” and “no” to loan requests. The lure of banking may seem to be connected to the handling of money, or the exactness of detail, or a knowledge of the use of much specialized machinery and equipment--perhaps some prestige that accompanies acknowledging that “I am employed by such or such bank.” I have news for you. For me the joy of banking was that it is not an exact science which allowed education to continue daily and the people with whom you worked and those whom you met. Happiness was always present if you could be certain that you helped someone-anyone.

I was a trained interviewer for more than half of my banking life. Did you ever try to make what later would prove to be a proper judgment about a total stranger? I had all the practice that should have made me an expert. I wasn’t--but I tried.

When I had climbed a few ladders of success in banking at a social gathering Ellen would get the feeling that I might be bragging a bit. She would cure it by telling a story. She would say that a banker needed little command of the English language to be a giant in the industry. If his decision was “yes” you got the loan and if the decision was “no” you didn’t get the loan. A banker only had to understand those two words. And, further, Ellen would continue, if decision making was stressful the banker could flip a coin-heads and the customer got the loan and tails he was denied. The banker would be right at least half the time without any effort. When the laughter subsided, Ellen would put her arms around me and squeeze me and tell me that she didn’t mean it.

My synopsis follows.

Starting Almost Forty-Two Years of Banking THE AMERICAN TRUST COMPANY 58

Y

ou have read about the morning of October 14, 1930, and the beginning of my banking experience. I want now to ruin one of the most kicked around fables about my new profession. “Banks don’t make mistakes.” Hogwash. It is true we had mechanical bookkeeping machines then but they were not foolproof, and frequently they did not operate, and at times there was no electricity. Many records were kept in pen and ink and figuring was mental. Machine-encoded character recognition was not even dreamed about, nor was electronic impulse guidance. Mistakes were frequent. Whenever the master control did not agree with the total of the individual sheets the cashier was notified and all the employees were alerted. The mistake had to be found right now and corrected. The surest way for a bank to lose customers was to have a depositor equipped with the proof that we couldn’t keep our records straight--and it was an interesting topic of social conversation. Bankers were skilled at finding errors--which also meant that the guilty party was known by all the staff. Obviously, one of the quickest ways for an employee to say a hurried good-bye and leave by the front door never to return was to make many mistakes.

The controlling interest in our bank and the one across the street from us (First National Bank) was held by the Old National Corporation in Spokane. This was not generally known until in 1932 the owners put the two banks together under our roof. I was a teller at times but now even with the increased deposits and business I had only enough seniority with the additional staff to be a bookkeeper again. The Great Depression had started to howl.

March 5, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated President of these United States and in his speech he stated that the money lenders had fled the temples and that the next day he was closing all the commercial banks in the United States and that they would have to furnish facts and figures to get permission to reopen. He did just that. We posted the white paper on our front door and started to accumulate the information that was required for our permission to reopen. We were aware that we would have to secure more capital, we would have to restrict deposits, and we would have to charge customers for services many of which had been for free.

Our manager kept all his staff employed and with salary for the time we were closed. We cleaned out old records and burned them; our basement was a mess but we got it clean; there were supplies and equipment that were worthless and they were destroyed. Banks were looked at for reopening according to importance--large federal reserve cities, minor federal reserve cities, other large cities and finally--country banks--which was our classification. We had the paperwork prepared and packaged but it couldn’t be postmarked prior to a certain date. When the afternoon of that date arrived two other employees and I went to Felts Field in Spokane and put the package on the airmail plane there. We were among the first banks in our grouping to be allowed to reopen.

I would now not have to listen carefully to be sure that someone addressed me as a banker and not as a bastard.

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Our troubles did not diminish after the Banking Holiday. The word “bank” had recently panicked people. They wouldn’t hurry back to counting houses. Dollars were buried in tin cans in backyards or hidden inside houses in strange places. Long time officers and employees decided other businesses were more attractive. We lost an officer and two employees. I was given three advancements in two years but little increase in salary. I didn’t complain--often. I later learned that I was the only member of our staff that during my employment was never given a cut in pay.

For a few years there were only two banks in all of Kootenai County--ours and the Rathdrum State Bank, which was much smaller. Competition is the lifeblood of business--but banking was not especially profitable. I made money away from the bank by keeping simple sets of books for two small stores. I survived.

I became a beneficiary of a business deal in which I played no part. The Idaho First National Bank of Boise bought us from The Old National Corporation of Spokane and we became a branch bank. The day before the purchase our new owners had eight branches--they now had eleven--Lewiston Branch #9, Moscow Branch #10, and Coeur d’Alene Branch #11. The deal was completed July 18, 1936, Ellen and I were married July 19, 1936, and our bank opened as a branch office July 20, 1936.

When I returned to work I learned that I had been given an increase in monthly salary of $5. The reason was not because of ability or seniority. The Idaho First National Bank had no permanent regular teller earning less than $100 per month. That was now my salary.

From here on in when I refer to my bank it will be The Idaho First National Bank or IFNB. I cannot tell you how fortunate I was that I was part of this new ownership.

Branch banking was just starting in Idaho. At that time it could not extend past state boundaries. To obtain new branches it usually required purchasing an existing bank. If a bank had not been in business for at least five years, it could not be branched. If an area was already served by a bank, getting permission to establish a new branch required approval by existing banks or branches--almost impossible. I could list in order what was necessary for permission to branch a bank but it did cost dollars and it did take time.

Branch banks usually had only two officers--a manager and an assistant manager--my immediate goal was to become an assistant manager. I read, I studied, I inquired--and I rated the known competition. Again I was lucky. The IFNB was motivated from top to bottom with the desire to be the largest bank in Idaho and to extend its services to all parts of the state. Over time it did just that. Because it was aggressive I was given advancements that would have been non-existent with The American Trust Company.

My appreciation has been well documented--and honest.

Kellogg Branch #13

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A

fter more than nine years of banking I was now head teller and general ledger bookkeeper. An independent bank would have titled me as assistant cashier.

Ellen continued to bus back and forth to Spokane and the insurance office where she was a secretary. We had just made the final payment on a beaten-up old Ford sedan. Our apartment had more furniture and other things and we had a few more clothes. We existed payday to payday. We owed no money.

It was mid-February, 1940. The IFNB had bought The First State Bank in Kellogg and branched it. My manager asked me to accompany him later that day on a visit to the new branch. There was much snow on the roads and some ice. I thought he might want me to drive his car or just to be with him in case he had car trouble. I agreed to go with him. I telephoned Ellen and gave her the details so she wouldn’t expect me home until late in the evening. My manager was not a good driver but he drove.

Arriving in Kellogg, we examined the new branch and were told about the changes that were planned. Three of our top executives from Boise were present--the executive vicepresident, the auditor, and the cashier. After we had dinner together the executive-vice president wanted to talk with me privately. We went to his room and I learned why I was in Kellogg. I was offered the position of assistant manager of the Kellogg office. My answer was that Ellen was part of my decision making process. I was given a telephone number to call and give my answer the next afternoon. It was a long trip home--and a longer evening at home.

Neither Ellen nor I had ever planned on leaving Coeur d’Alene, which for us was always beautiful, interesting and comfortable. We talked until the wee hours. An officership was difficult to turn down; Ellen would not have to work; further promotions might be forthcoming; there were many side benefits to an officership--additional education, trips, expense accounts, perhaps a bonus; and it was time for me to learn if I could make loans in the daytime and sleep well at night. Ellen said, “You make the decision. If you go to Kellogg I’ll be with you.” I wanted to visit with some local people who had lived in Kellogg and I had some additional questions for the executive vice-president. The next day I made the telephone call, asked the additional questions, and accepted the appointment. I telephoned Ellen. She would notify the owner of the insurance company.

We both knew that Kellogg was not the garden spot of America but business is business-and personal progress is personal progress.

The news about my leaving appeared in our local paper. One evening one of our best friends arrived unannounced and when he had entered our apartment he practically locked the door and stated, “I don’t want you to leave Coeur d’Alene. You’ve kept books for me part time in past years. I want you to go to work for me. I don’t know what your darn bank will pay you but I’ll pay you twice as much.” I told him, “No.” At that time I was afraid to ask Ellen if she thought she had married a guy with little sense.

We moved to Kellogg.

In 1940, the mines were busy and profitable. My new manager--and his wife--were long term local residents--well known and respected. They introduced us to the community

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and we were accepted. As a banker he was thoroughly honest, direct and blunt, conservative and independently wealthy. As my education increased he allowed me more responsibility. Ellen and I were careful socially. We did not usually move in the same strata as the boss. It is not proper to accept steak and scotch whiskey and repay with hamburger in a bun and beer.

In early 1941, Ellen was well on her way to starting a family for us. On March 10, 1941, that hope ended. Tubular pregnancy. Ellen was strong, did not smoke, drank only socially, took good care of herself. The operations were touch and go. When her strength returned she refused to be depressed. We would have no children of our own but, as she said, “We will now have the opportunity to enjoy other people’s children more.”

Pearl Harbor--December 7, 1941. Shortly thereafter I made application for a junior officership in the army and navy. Neither letter brought a reply. I soon found out why.

My draft classification arrived. I was occupying a position in an occupation that was necessary to the war effort. The mines produced lead and much of that was shot by nations that were on our side. I was frozen to my job for the duration of the war--my salary was also frozen.

Much of my interest in banking was the making of loans. That portion practically disappeared. Items now were manufactured for the war effort and not for civilian use--no new cars, electric items, houses, clothes. Something new was added. Banks kept the books for rationed items--took deposits of coupons and tokens and stamps and paid checks drawn for gallons and pounds.

In August, 1944, the government notified me that I was to have a physical examination taken. This I did and a few weeks later I was notified that my draft classification was changed and that I was to report at Wallace early one stipulated morning for transportation to Spokane and induction in the army or navy. The day before I was to report I completed my work at the bank and said my good-byes to the staff. Ellen would move back to Coeur d’Alene where she was promised employment. Our apartment was on the second floor of our building and before I climbed the stairs I checked our mailbox.

I opened a letter from the government. I was not to report for induction. I was more than thirty-five years old, married and living with my wife. I had a new classification. I told Ellen she would not have a war hero for a husband and telephoned my manager. The next morning I was back at the bank, at my desk and at work as usual.

Elsewhere I have written that Kellogg was not the garden spot of America. It wasn’t.

The permanent residents of that community could not be outranked anywhere. They were wonderful. They were from all corners of the world. They differed widely from each other but they were tremendously interesting. Our knowledge of and affection for people increased.

It was midyear 1945. World War Two was winding down. In those days we locked the front door at three o’clock and the customer business was completed for the day. My

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manager informed me that Mr. John A. Schoonover was on the telephone and wanted to talk with me. This sort of request didn’t happen to me often. Mr. Schoonover was President of IFNB, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of directors. I was offered a promotion to assistant manager of one of our biggest branches--Nampa--as of August 1, 1945. He agreed that I should talk it over with Ellen and give him my answer the next day. The change would mean more money for me and a higher ranking in our system. With few exceptions our offices were agriculturally dominant. I would be exposed to an agriculture education. When I talked with Ellen she asked if I wanted to make the move. I told her I did. Her answer, “Let’s go.”

Nampa Branch #6

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L

ate in the morning of August 1, 1945, I was part of a scheduled meeting at our head office that included our president, executive vice-president and comptroller.

Our comptroller hosted a lunch at Nampa that included him, me, and my new manager to whom I was introduced. I will label him from now on as, “R.” He took me to the bank, showed me around it, and I sat down at my desk. Each manager has a manual of operation and authorizations. Lending limits of some managers differs from others. R brought to my desk and handed me his manual. He told me that I could do anything that he could do except one. I knew what he meant. He could fire me--I couldn’t fire him. It was three o’clock--the bank doors were closed. R took me in back of the teller cages; the place was quieted; he had attention; he made a brief announcement. I was the new assistant manager. I was in charge of personnel and detail.

When he was not in the office I had the same authority he had. I would be visiting with each one of them sometime that afternoon. He left the office.

R to me was a special person and I want you to recognize him. He was about five-andone-half feet tall and that was close to the distance around his waist. He smoked cigarettes constantly, he chewed tobacco but you wouldn’t be aware of it, he drank but never to excess, he was an excellent cook, and he had a photographic memory. Many of R’s closest men friends pulled practical jokes on each other and R was adept in those performances and naive when he was a victim. He was employed in a railroad office prior to being a banker and moving to Nampa where he had been for more than thirty years as an agriculture banker. His talent as a banker was widely praised. The Boise Valley and especially the Nampa side of it held no mystery for him. Driving by farmland he could not only tell what had been planted, raised, or harvested but could make an educated guess as to yield, price and profit. If you had cleared a small corner of your property and a pile of rocks had resulted and now had been carried away he noted the absence. He now had an assistant manager who had never spread fertilizer, never milked a cow, never thinned beets, never slopped hogs, never cleared ditch banks, never planted anything with the desire to watch it grow-- an apartment dweller--with not even a green thumb. I mention these things because I want you to understand R’s problem--and it was a gigantic one. Mostly managers are senior credit officers and the lending of money--and getting the loans repaid without difficulty--is of primary importance to operating at a profit. In the beginning I would make only real estate and commercial loans until my knowledge and expertise in other areas was past the kindergarten stage.

When I had found a small apartment--tiny would be a more appropriate adjective--Ellen came to Nampa. If you spread the front page of a newspaper on the floor of our living room you would describe the room as messy. It was, however, close to the bank--within walking distance. Ellen had not learned how to drive a car and she was now taking lessons, making new friends, and playing much bridge. Hardy male golfers played every week of the calendar year in Nampa. I didn’t. We were on fast time and it was light long after suppertime. I played golf frequently and especially on Saturday and Sunday and my handicap lowered.

The months went by. My knowledge curve pointed steadily but gradually upward.

Within limits allowed me by R, I now made any kind of loan. I was reasonably

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intelligent and an above average student. I doubt that I would have ever acquired the special sense that a farmland and cattle banker should have to be tremendously successful. They have an ability to see, or hear, or understand, or feel a danger signal that I don’t believe can be taught. They would realize that something that should follow a proper pattern was missing or out of place. I wouldn’t.

Perhaps I was not an apt pupil but R was a great teacher. He constantly amazed me. I must give you some examples.

One day I had some letters written to delinquent borrowers and I put the copies of the letters on his desk so he would see them. He signaled me and I went to his desk. He didn’t approve of one of the letters, he marked it, his secretary retyped it. The loan was made at $600 and the borrower was to repay at $100 each month, the two payments he had made reduced the balance to $400. He had the balance changed to $500. His reasoning was that the borrower had not returned telephone calls, he knew that he only owed $400, he would be unhappy that the bank hadn’t credited him with $100 he had paid and he would be in promptly to tell us about our error. R was correct and admitted the error and immediately switched the conversation to the repayment of the loan balance.

R, during the growing season, looked through the crop loans we had outstanding. He had a handful of these notes on his desk and he asked his secretary to bring him the checks that had been paid on the checking account of one of the borrowers. When the checks were sent back to be put in the file he looked my way and put on his hat. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m going out and visit that fellow and look around his place. I’ll bet it’s a widow’s ranch.” The next morning I wanted a report. Did he see the man? “No,” but he would be in this morning. You left a note for him? “No.” He had a neighbor almost directly across the highway and R had visited with the neighbor and during the conversation had asked the neighbor what he thought the borrower’s machinery would bring on a forced sale. The borrower was in to see R when we opened for business.

IFNB had brought a location about one-half block from our present bank and we were soon to have a new up-to-date entirely modern attractive office suited to our needs and allowing for growth. We were ecstatic. By any measurement we had been successful.

We had earned a home to be proud of, and we had been given it.

Banking isn’t always “beer and skittles.” I will now furnish you three examples from which you may get the flavor of excitement from mistakes that are dumped on your doorstep.

Before my time in Nampa and for many years thereafter we had accepted annual payments on an escrow that we serviced. The land involved was part of an original homestead and included many acres. The original grantors were deceased. One day by ourselves we found that our record keeping was in error and that in addition we had accepted payments in violation of the terms of the agreement. We notified the buyers and the sellers and both of the parties were annoyed with us and promised to get lawyers

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and sue for damages. We had admitted our guilt. I don’t remember how many times I had read every word of every typewritten item in the escrow file. I read it one more time.

I found an error in the deed that the purchaser would get when he made the final payment. The deed indicated “East of the Boise Meridian” and the property was “West of the Boise Meridian.” The error in the deed was the seller’s fault. The buyer would not get proper title when the debt was paid. We had a meeting with all the interested parties and their lawyers--we and both parties had made mistakes. Our part of the problem was settled for a tiny portion of the costs we expected.

Our mail teller placed a sizable deposit to an incorrect checking account and that fellow decided to spend the money in a hurry. We discovered our error but when the correcting entries were made the wrong holder’s account was overdrawn and we set out to find him.

That wasn’t an easy chore. It took several of us all of three separate nights. He wasn’t exactly a choir boy. As a result of our investigation we uncovered a group of youngsters who were stealing items on and in parked cars and selling them, some people who were buying the stolen items and selling them, two badly mixed up married couples, and a house that couldn’t have passed a moral code--and we located the guilty party. We took our loss finally but after the recoveries we made it wasn’t shattering.

One day R suggested I take an evening ride with him. He drove around a small ranch and asked that I counted the steers that I could see from the car. I was aware that we had a loan to the people who lived there for the purpose of fattening young steers and to be repaid from the sale of the steers about seven months later. We saw only about half as many steers as we had for security for our loan. The next morning we made an official visit and learned the truth. Our borrower was gambling and losing and had sold many of the steers to pay his gambling debts. We sold the rest of the steers and the feed for them and took the biggest loss we had while I was in Nampa. I had asked R what triggered his suspicion. He told me that one morning the man’s father-in-law had stopped to talk with him downtown and had mentioned in the conversation that his daughter’s marriage was on shaky ground because her husband was spending his nights away from the ranch. R had known the daughter all her life, which probably was the reason he was told.

Nampa was good to Ellen and to me. We might have searched a long time and not found the caring friends R and his wife were. Ellen was now an expert automobile driver and she had traveled all the main highways and practically all the other roads in our side of the valley. We played bridge often and I hit or swung at many golf balls. Athletic events interested me and the Boise Valley scheduled many of them. Boise was close by and when activities there interested us we attended them. We did have one handicap that we were in the process of solving. Our tiny apartment restricted us socially. Three couples who moved around with our group had a franchise on a small, rocky, hilly acreage unsuited for farming with a view and a few miles from Nampa. They were going to build residences there, we were invited to join them. We were in the pondering stage and a “yes” or “no” reply was to be given before the end of the month. We did not make the decision--it was made for us.

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It was mid-July, 1949, and the man in charge of the auditing crew for IFNB stopped off briefly at our office to share a secret with me. The IFNB was seriously considering the purchase of the only bank in Bonner County. It was located in Sandpoint. Our auditors would meet in Sandpoint August 1st at one o’clock in the afternoon to completely examine the affairs of the bank because on August 20th we would either purchase or decide not to do it. The reason I was sharing the secret was because if the purchase was made I would be the manager of the new branch. I was to visit with Ellen and to have an answer the next afternoon when I would get a telephone call from Boise.

That evening Ellen and I went out to dinner by ourselves. She became a partner in the secret. I asked for her opinion. She wanted to return to north Idaho and the four seasons.

We had many friends there. Most of her remaining relatives lived in the Coeur d’Alene and Spokane areas. She wanted me to be a manager. Her answer was an unqualified and enthusiastic approval for the move. Then Ellen realized that I had not committed myself.

She wanted to know my thoughts. I agreed that we were walking the same path and my answer would be “yes” if I could get a reasonable guarantee if the purchase was not made.

The next afternoon the president of IFNB telephoned me as I had been promised. If the deal was not made I would be given a comparable promotion with an increase in pay, a title and be at our head office. I accepted the offer with my thanks for being chosen.

My connection with the Nampa branch was broken as of July 31, 1949. I had been the assistant manager there for exactly four years. Ellen and I would be in Sandpoint at the stipulated time and begin another banking adventure.

Sandpoint Branch #19

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ne of the first requirements placed on a new credit officer by bank management is that he should never make a definite commitment unless he has all the pertinent facts. If I had known what the banking situation was in Sandpoint I would not have left Nampa. Coeur d’Alene is only fifty miles from Sandpoint and I had made that trip numerous times. I knew the layout of the town; the appearance of the bank; had fished and picnicked on the lake; had golfed with one of the bank’s officers, and had attended many banking meetings with officials of the bank we were to audit. There were so many facts I did not know.

The Sandpoint bank had been sold the year previous to out-of-town purchasers. They now wanted to sell. There had been a fire, many of the bank’s records including all the credit files had been destroyed along with most of the depositors’ records except for current accounts. The bank was conducting business in a temporary ill-suited location roughly put together. In the basement were safe deposit boxes piled on the floor. There was no vault and the two money safes had problems--one would not close and the delayed time mechanism on the other would not work. Currency and valuable papers were in the safes but the inventory of coins was in sacks on the bare floor. No attempt had been made to repair and remodel the bank’s former location and that would require at least six months. I had traveled from an almost brand new bank office with all the modern equipment and attractive quarters to this mess. There was always the chance that we would not buy Sandpoint’s bank but I had the feeling that regardless of what took place we would own it.

Ellen and I had a room in a nearby hotel. She joined us for dinners and when I took trips by automobile to make judgments about properties she was with me. If you look at a Bonner County map you will realize that we had many miles to cover--Priest River, Old Town, Nordman, the Kootenai County line, Clark Fork, Hope, Samuels--and the bank had customers and borrowers in Bonners Ferry, Thompson Falls, Montana and Spokane.

We were at work at seven-thirty in the morning, lunched, kept busy at the bank until dinner time, returned after dinner for an hour or two or three unless we had to drive somewhere to make a curbstone appraisal of a borrower’s property. The days dragged by and decision time arrived. Buyers and sellers met late into the evening for two nights.

The IFNB would buy. At noon at the close of business August 20, 1949, the deal was completed and Sandpoint Branch #19 opened for business on August 22, 1949, with A. K. Walden as manager. There had been last minute differences of opinion and disagreements but they were settled.

I must now tell you that The Idaho First National Bank people without exception from top to bottom gave me their complete and unqualified assistance in every way. Without that assistance I would not have succeeded--and might not have survived--and certainly would have at times climbed walls. Ellen was of even more value. Home--we had a rented house--was a haven. We did not talk banking. She knew that I had a battle on my hands and she comforted me and kept me from being depressed. I have told you before how lucky I have been--and now you have been told again.

I could tell you stories without number about my first few years of banking in Sandpoint.

I will recount a few. I hired a night watchman who was reported to be a crack shot and

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stationed him by a desk at the top of the stairs leading to the basement. He was equipped with a rifle, a pistol, and a shotgun all primed, loaded, cocked and ready to fire. He scared someone off the back porch once. At a staff meeting I told those in attendance that our bank would keep any promise of any kind that we made to the community or anyone in it. We had not purchased many loans from the sellers for a variety of reasons and when the borrower called at our office and we didn’t have his loan we had a public relation problem of gigantic proportions. The man who had owned the bank had the authority to do whatever he pleased--I had ample limits but I also had directors, an executive committee, a loan supervisor--and stockholders. There were loan promises that had been extended before our purchase about which I had no knowledge and some of them were in writing and I had no copy of the agreement. The local chamber of commerce appointed a group to call on me and explain to me how to run the bank for the benefit of the town. We started files for each borrower and placed in it any credit information that we accumulated and--hopefully--a current financial statement if we could induce our customer to give it to us or let us fill one out for him.

The days went by. We hit rock bottom in deposits and loans and began to grow again. I was fortunate. Sandpoint was proving attractive to people--population increased--new businesses arrived--lumbering was profitable--there was much interest in winter sports.

It was no secret that in my first few months as a manager when folks bought tar I investigated to learn if they were repairing a leaky roof or if they also had gotten a pole and some feathers. I was not an instant success. Socially we were not outcasts-everybody liked Ellen. She became extremely busy in our church, in community concerts, in civic club, in Girl Scouts. Because of Ellen’s popularity the local folks took a little longer view of me. If Ellen thought I was a proper choice for a husband maybe there was something favorable about me that they had not seen at first glance.

The upward turning point for our bank in Sandpoint came when we opened our modern, attractive, well arranged and equipped office in our former bank’s location. The date was March 18, 1950. We had food and entertainment and more than two thousand viewers.

From that day on my banking experience had a rosier glow. Yes--we had problems--and competition--but that is part of any interesting game.

Banking my first years in Sandpoint was never dull. Three times my life was threatened.

One time I was instructed by a customer to pay his overdrafts regardless of size or he would get a gun, come to my office and blow my head off. The overdrafts were not paid and he moved his account to Spokane. Later he returned and became a good customer.

Another time a man I had not met before made a request for a sizable loan and stated that he would kill me if I didn’t make the loan. He added that he wasn’t joking. The loan was denied and he left the bank. The third time arrived when a borrower wouldn’t pay his debt and defied us to sell the security he had pledged for his loan. We legally took title to the security, sold it, and applied the resulting funds to his debt. He telephoned me with the information that he was going to shoot me and was on his way to the bank. To this day I have not seen him.

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Ellen and I made the decision that we might spend my remaining banking days in Sandpoint. It was 1957 and I was fifty years old. We had purchased a home. Ellen was moving upward in all the volunteer groups to which she belonged and was being praised and congratulated for all of her efforts. The IFNB had been generous with me as to title and salary and importance in our organization. I had been chosen to attend and later was graduated from Pacific Coast Banking School. I had been offered an officership at our head office in Boise but had not accepted because I considered myself as a general practicing banker and not a specialist in any loaning department. The Sandpoint area was growing by any standard and my branch was growing with it in deposits and loans and profits.

You should be aware of Ellen’s genius in Girl Scouting. She headed that organization in Bonner County, served on the Inland Empire Council, was given national recognition for the local success and she earned it. One of our most pleasant memories was the early evening during the holiday season when a large group of Girl Scouts in full regalia sang Christmas carols to her in our front yard. She cried--I did too.

I had a vocation that was much fun. The owner of the local radio station asked me to help him broadcast a local high school basketball game. He set up the equipment and did the play by play. I kept the statistics and summarized how the game was won or lost.

From that time one we went wherever Sandpoint High School played basketball and did the game. This volunteer effort was valuable to me and to our bank.

I must inform you that Coeur d’Alene was our home in our opinion. As a matter of fact we had purchased two lots in a cemetery there because one way or another we wanted to return. We would not have been unhappy if my next fifteen years in banking were to be spent in Sandpoint. The IFNB had a definite regulation--at age sixty five you must retire-and the retirement program was ample in dollars for me.

One day without any prior warning I got a telephone call from the president of The Idaho First National Bank, and the world changed.

Coeur d’Alene Branch #11 Revisited

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he president of the IFNB was on the telephone and wanted to talk with me. I learned that there were many managerships involved in changes. Coeur d’Alene’s manager was retiring November 30, 1957, and I had been chosen to take his place.

He indicated that I was as usual expected to visit with Ellen and to return his call with my answer the next day. Ellen’s reply was an instantaneous “yes.” I reported our approval. There would be no conversation until an announcement was given to the media late in September. We would sell our home in Sandpoint--and we did the night the news went public. Ellen had been looking for a home for us to purchase in Coeur d’Alene and we had it bought and were living in it when I assumed my new duties.

Coeur d’Alene had changed in so many ways. I had been gone for seventeen-and-threequarters years. There were more banks, there were more people, there were more businesses. Many prominent former families were near the bottom of the economic ladder and other families that were barely getting by in my memory were financially independent and motivating our city’s affairs.

Our office was in the same location as it had been when it was The American Trust Company and I started my banking career on October 14, 1930. There were changes inside the four walls--more mechanical equipment--better use of space--the basement was fully equipped and used for bookkeeping purposes--but we had only one door in and out-no parking--no drive-in. We were to have a new office but that proved to be about eight-and-one-half years in the future. Another office for us in the eastern part of town was on the drawing board and would be in operation in about five years.

On December 1, 1957, I became manager of the Coeur d’Alene Office #11 of The Idaho First National Bank replacing the former manager who was retiring and who had hired me. It had taken me more than twenty-seven years to climb from an apprentice bookkeeper, part-time custodian, and part-time messenger to the desk of the man who employed me in my journey into banking.

One of the greatest joys in moving around in banking is to arrive at a new appointment and find skilled employees in every position and records complete and properly kept. I was happy with everything except the quarters themselves--but there were promises that would be fulfilled.

No one had to tell me how to get around in Coeur d’Alene--I had sold papers on the downtown streets when I was six years old and had delivered them everywhere for the next ten years. I had to adjust upwards my thinking about prices, and values, and dollars.

I inherited some problems that required attention but they were solved as the days went by. Ellen and I were happy, busy and involved.

I wouldn’t want any reader to believe that my return to home base was a “rose garden” or a “walk in the park.” It wasn’t. I worked in my opinion intelligently, studied constantly, and became involved in our community to the extent that staying home in the evenings was a rarity. Ellen, as always, chose involvements that appealed to her and gave her time and energy to them without any denial. In the years that followed we had a third office in

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Coeur d’Alene and we moved to a brand new, modern, up-to-date facility. The big change in my life, however, was the banking evolution that occurred.

We were considered to be a country bank--in the financial boondocks, but because we were many branches and Boise based we were aware of new ideas in record keeping and the loaning of money. We didn’t change over night but we prepared carefully and when the proper time showed up we were ready. Electronic bookkeeping machines were in use. Accounts were numbered and deposits and checks were machine-encoded so they could be read by the machines and posted and sorted and proved dollarwise. If the machines were mechanically perfect there were no mistakes. Once checking accounts were fully operational all other bank record keeping was automated. In the basement of our office the full day’s business of our Panhandle offices was collected and transmitted to our Boise computer over a telephone line from a disc that resembled a phonograph record. What a change from 1930! And the electronic geniuses warned us, “You haven’t really seen anything yet.”

Record keeping was a sharp enough departure from established habits but lending procedures were moved out of orbit in an even more brisk evolution. We marked accounts so they would be approved for a limited overdraft or an automatic loan approval with a set dollar limit. Later we bought invoices from approved businesses, discounted them for our charge and collected them. What we were really doing was getting in shape for the issuance of credit cards. What a huge difference that has made in bank lending and the underlying basic rule of creating debt. One of the primary rules of lending was that the borrower was at some time to get out of debt. Now, the borrower may be in debt from the cradle to the grave--or more aptly from age twenty-one until death. One of my closest friends using six credit cards pays each statement prior to the deadline, incurs no interest charge, and owes an annual fee on only one of the cards. He has two cards from banks, one from a gasoline company, one from an airline, one from a department store, and one from a hotel chain. Our comptroller once told me that if loans were made losses would always occur; that everyone needed the feeling of being out-of-debt; and that the consumer (or user) always pays credit costs because it is added to the price of goods or services. Do you agree?

The days and years that had seemed so far ahead went by and disappeared. Our bank progressed. Our third office in Coeur d’Alene was now operational and my office was now in a new, modern, attractive, well-located building that we owned and that had all the proper conveniences--luncheon facilities for employees, drive-in teller station, ample parking and many safety and protection features. It was a happy time.

Once I told Ellen that she worked harder as a volunteer than I did for my salary. She grinned and asked if she should tell the president of the IFNB my admission--but I meant what I said. Ellen as a volunteer assisted every program that she thought had merit for our community. She became interested in cancer and climbed the ladder from city, to county, to state responsibilities, was on State of Idaho Board of Directors and in charge of fund raising for the entire state. She taught school for our church and was active in leadership. There were high school reunions and Ellen spearheaded them. At Farragut

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State Park there were national and international conventions of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and Ellen served on numerous committees for all of them. In 1962 Ellen gave up her affiliations with State of Idaho Cancer and started the Cancer Community Charities locally. This group grew to more than seven hundred women who did their own thing for cancer--bowling, bridge, golf, tennis, dancing, gourmet cooking, travel and more--with the funds accumulated not only assisting cancer elsewhere but helping cancer patients locally. Ellen marched to her theory that if other people needed a helping hand that she had not one but two of them.

Banking has brought me many blessings--some of them totally unexpected--and memorable. I must tell you about one of them. Lady Baden-Powell was then the titular head of both the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts worldwide. She attended the conventions at Farragut and in each instance Ellen was her companion and helpmate.

IFNB had a bank at the first Boy Scout World Jamboree and I managed it. Ellen had told Lady B-P where I could be found. One hot, dry, dusty, early afternoon this grand lady walked after luncheon from the commissary to the bank, found me, thanked me for Ellen’s care giving and despite my offer to drive her back to the commissary walked the return route. She was more than eighty years old then and in failing health. What a gal!

In 1973 at her invitation we visited her at Hampton Court Palace outside London and that was a highlight of a European trip for us of more than five weeks.

For years the IFNB had toyed with the idea of having some sort of branch supervision in perhaps three areas of the state that would permit quicker attention to problems than travel from Boise. A decision was reached to try out methods and the Panhandle area was targeted. We are more than four hundred miles by highway to Boise. We then had seven offices in the Panhandle and the furthest one could be reached by automobile easily in one-and-one-half hours from Coeur d’Alene. In 1969 I was promoted to vicepresident and given certain responsibilities and authorities for the seven offices and remained with my own office at the Coeur d’Alene branch. I was sixty-two years old and my retirement was automatic at age sixty-five.

Title: Vice-President

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o--what does a vice-president do serving an area and many branches? He “mends fences” among other duties. Which is an expression meaning that he takes care of public relations--hurt feelings--that result from any number of causes. He represents the bank at any sort of public gathering. He assists managers in loan problems--either the granting of them or the collecting of them. He makes surveys of 73

locations where a branch doesn’t exist but could be located. He is aware of competition within his scope of activity and the dominance or lack of it by his branches. He has a feeling for and an understanding of profitability. He supervises area meetings when changes of procedures are instituted. There is no shortage of opportunities to keep active.

If you examine my schedule you will determine that there are sources of irritation probable among the various managers. If a manager asked me to assist him in any problem there was no difficulty. If an order came from our head office that I should go to a particular branch to do something the respective manager was not always happy to see me. Frequently I called on the branch manager unannounced and that sometimes was not appreciated. The most prevalent complaint was that managers at times felt that my position was just another hurdle for them to jump between their office and the head office. I am certain that our head office learned much about area vice-presidents in the three years of my tenure.

Did I enjoy my final three years--yes. I had few problems. I had served in Coeur d’Alene, Kellogg and Sandpoint. I was older than any of my area managers. They had been told that my duties were an experiment. My retirement was close. I would soon disappear.

There is something unrewarding about spending time in various banking duties where your accomplishments cannot be measured in dollars and profits or the lack of them. If you get a new customer or prevent losing one you know it but does anyone else sing your praise? I learned more the last three years I was banking than in all the other years combined. I was given a good grade by our bank and the official family with whom I worked.

On May 31, 1972, at age sixty-five I was retired. I was the recipient of numerous congratulatory letters. There was a recognition day for me at my office. There was a large dinner hosted by the bank for me and Ellen and many nice speeches honored me. I was given a gold watch which I have never worn because Ellen gave me a watch in 1964 that I continue to wear. When I left my office earlier in the day I took with me my typewriter, my wall clock, and my name plate--which had been given to me. My career had ended. I was retired. I don’t understand why I felt useless and unwanted and aimless--but I did.

And Now -- What?

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oday is May 17, 1994, and I am eighty-seven years old. In pages that follow I will recount to you some memories that remain from my financial experiences and later I may bring you up to date concerning my activities after my years in the counting house. If you put yourself in my place you will have no difficulty in 74

understanding my memories despite the fact that they are not stupendous, earth shattering, or involved with huge sums of dollars.

You should know that I did not cut a wide swath in banking circles. I was a lucky fellow.

The IFNB was aggressive and growing and as it moved upward and onward I was hauled along with it. If you have about forty-two years seniority with your bank it indicates at the least two things--the bank was happy with you--and you were happy with the bank.

As for me--I was treated better than I had ever thought I would be. My getting into banking was practically an accident. Again, I admit that I was lucky.

And I will tell you about a conversation Ellen and I had a few days after I was excused from answering work wake-up alarms. Ellen agreed that we were now both retired-that’s the way she explained it but she was as busy as ever with her volunteering. She had an idea. From this day on we would accept no payment in money for any service or duty we performed for anyone or any group. If expense money was given for our help we would take it but we would be frugal. I agreed. We shook hands. To this date--and it is now more than twenty-two years later--we have lived up to that agreement. Ellen has been gone now about two-and-one-half years and I continue to abide by that promise. It has been a pleasure.

I think it is time for a laugh or two: Bank: A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.

Robert Frost Economist: If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.

George Bernard Shaw Work: I do not like work even when someone else does it.

Mark Twain Success: It is not enough to succeed; others must fail.

Gore Vidal Americans: We don’t know what we want, but we are ready to bite somebody to get it.

Will Rogers And now some memories.

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Clean Cuspidors and Become Educated

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y apprenticeship continued at The American Trust Company. Late one afternoon the vice-president and manager had a message for we three unmarried lowest on the totem pole employees. Our custodian was unwell.

When we had completed our banking duties for the day we were to do the janitor work and get everything spic and span for the next day’s opening.

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In Coeur d’Alene in 1930 there were four black families. Our custodian, his wife and their children were black. He was by any standard used in judging a good man. He was an excellent workman, a splendid family man, a well-behaved citizen. We were fortunate to have him helping us at the bank.

In the 1930’s, the great majority of adult males used tobacco in some form. Men smoked cigarettes, cigars, or a pipe, some chewed plug tobacco, some used snuff. In each of ten strategic places in our lobby was a tall, brass cuspidor. I made several trips taking the cuspidors to the basement. I cleaned them, I washed them, and I placed them on a rack made for that purpose. Early the next morning when they were completely dry I applied brass polish on them, buffed them with cloths, put a little water in the bottom of each, and sat them in their respective places. Our trust officer and personnel supervisor when he arrived to begin his duties for the day would always examine one of the cuspidors to be sure that he could see his reflection at the top. I almost hated myself for thinking that he wanted to start each morning with the opportunity to be critical. But for now the cuspidors were on the rack drying and I was checking them.

There was a slight sound. Someone was coming down the stairs to the basement. I looked. It was our custodian’s wife. She saw me and she noticed the cuspidors on the rack and I will never forget what she said.

“I came down here to clean those cuspidors. That is not a job for a WHITE man.” My remark was that they were clean. She left.

Once in these United States there was a Civil War. The war ended in 1865. I thought one of the problems it solved was equality regardless of color of skin. Perhaps it will take more than sixty-five years for everyone to make that acknowledgment. ********** “Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.”

Honore De Bolzac “That all men are created equal is a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane individual has ever given his assent.”

Aldous Huxley **********

A Loan Request

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he was a little old lady. It was twenty-eight years ago. I was younger then and she was older than I. Until she made her loan request I didn’t know her name. I had seen her a few times. There was a high curb at our corner of the street. She didn’t attack it head on. She moved over it side-saddle. She wasn’t five feet tall and you would classify her as being heavy. She walked with her knees pointed out. She didn’t have an account with us but every month she visited our office to cash her social security 77

check. When she turned away from the teller’s window she was faced in the direction of my desk and if she thought I was watching she would smile and wave. If I saw her smile and wave I would return the wave. I can’t remember smiling.

One day my secretary ushered the lady to my desk. She was seated and so was I. She wanted the bank to loan her some dollars. This was her story.

She was a widow. She had a sister who lived on the other side of Spokane and was also a widow. They made arrangements to get together once each month in Spokane and have lunch and discuss whatever was new in their lives. It was her turn to be hostess for lunch. A husband and wife who were friends would drive her to Spokane in their automobile and bring her home. She thought it was proper for her to pay for the car’s gasoline and that would take about two dollars. She preferred eating at the Crescent Tea Room because the food was good there and it was a pleasant place. If there was time after lunch they could walk inside the store and see the new things that were being displayed and advertised. She would need to borrow nine dollars. She would pay the loan from her next social security check, maybe sooner because she did light housework and babysitting now and then. I told her the bank would make the loan and we went to the note teller’s station where she completed the forms and was given the money.

The days went by as they always do and the lady was at my desk. We had a charge of $2.50 whether the loan earned that much interest or not. The note teller and I agreed to charge her only 35 cents, but our borrower was not to be aware that we had made any concession in her favor. My remark was, “This lady wants to pay her way regardless and she won’t accept any gratuity.” She was now at my desk with the paid note in her hand.

This is what she told me, “Thank you for the loan. I’ve paid it. I didn’t think a big bank like yours would charge me anything for loaning me such a small amount of money.”

She thanked me again and was trudging toward the doors that lead to the street. I hadn’t said anything.

One of my favorite radio sportscasters made predictions about athletic outcomes and when he was incorrect he would announce, “I can’t win them all.” I was a trained interviewer. I made many mistakes. I didn’t win them all.

Unable to Locate Account

I

t was during my second month in a new location. My manager was digging clams and walking Pacific beaches on his vacation. I was in charge of the branch. I knew I would make mistakes but I wanted them to be few and explainable. I could get along without “black marks” on my record.

It was morning. We had just opened for business. A man was standing outside the counter close to my desk. My nameplate was prominently displayed on my desk and the stranger addressed me by name. I went to the counter. He was on one side, I was on the other side. He was a symphony in brown--shined shoes, socks, shirt, tie, suit and hat. He 78

reeked of class. On the counter was his personal check on a Portland, Oregon, bank. He made his speech. He was in town briefly on business and needed some pocket money.

The check was for $500. In 1945, $500 would buy a great many more hamburgers than it would today. I am sure you know that when a bank cashes a check for someone who does not do business with the bank that if the check is not paid the bank loses the money, loses the collection cost, loses whatever follow-up costs may be incurred in trying to obtain reimbursement and whoever approved the transaction is embarrassed. Most banks do not carry insurance for this type of loss.

Yes, I was cautious. I wanted to learn what brought him to our town. He gave me the names of five of our outstanding prominent, wealthy residents. I wanted personal identification. He could telephone any of the names from my desk and verify that he was known by that person. The stranger thought that would be an imposition and he took an embossed leather case from his coat pocket and spread several cards on the counter. He had credit in hotels worldwide; he also could charge for travel on a national airline, he was approved by a national car rental agency; he had credit for automobile service; a well known department store recognized him as a preferred customer. I looked at the cards and he placed them back in the folder and in his pocket. He was becoming irritated and he pushed the $500 check closer to my side of the counter. It was decision time. I told the man in brown that I wanted personal identification or I would not give him money for his check. He was annoyed and wanted to know who had the right to hire or fire me. I told him the name of the president of the IFNB for openers. I was surprised when the man replied, “Do you mean _____? I sat at his table at a meeting two nights ago.” In giving our president’s name he included his middle name which he seldom used but I knew it. The check was on the counter. He looked carefully at me, picked up the check and left the bank.

Within the next hour the man returned but this time he greeted me with, “Come over here, Buster.” He had a billfold in his hand and he thumbed a sheaf of $20 bills. “I didn’t want you to worry about my being out of money. The hotel manager cashed my check.” He was gone.

Several days later the hotel manager was at my desk. The $500 check he had cashed had been returned unpaid with the notation “Unable to Locate Account” and we had charged the hotel’s account for it.

As a favor to our customer I placed a call to the paying bank to get further information.

While the call was being completed I learned that the hotel manager had authority to cash or accept checks only for the amount owed the hotel. If the “brown man’s” check was not paid the hotel manager would have to reimburse the hotel the $500. It was a sad story from Portland. They didn’t know this fellow. They had returned more than $25,000 of his checks. He operated from border to border and coast to coast. There were many legal complaints filed against him. They thought they might catch him earlier in the week in San Francisco but he had boarded an airplane there for Hong Kong. He had arrived there and disappeared. The bank loaned the hotel manager the funds to repay the check and he paid the debt from his salary at the rate of $25 each month.

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This “paper hanger,� which is bank parlance for this type of swindler, to my knowledge has never been apprehended. I suppose I should congratulate myself for not being a loser. I find it difficult to accept any praise. There is no question but that our bank would have been better equipped to take the loss than the elderly, widowed, underpaid hotel manager.

Do I Have to Pay the Loan?

I

f I were to set down in writing all the inaccurate stories I have heard about banks and banking I would be busy for a long time and you, as a reader, would be occupied for hours. There is one experience that I must recount.

We were making many Federal Housing Administration Title One Improvement Loans to borrowers who had a vested interest in real estate and would use all the proceeds for acceptable improvements to the real estate. The requirements were lenient, the monthly repayment time lengthy, the interest cost reasonable. Part of the discount collected on each loan was paid to the government along with a report of the transaction because if the borrower did not fully pay the debt the government would pay it.

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This young couple had one of these loans. She was a college graduate and employed as a private secretary. Her husband had finished a trade school and was a garage mechanic who had the reputation of being the best man in our area for adjusting carburetors on gasoline engines. She had an appointment to see me and was at my desk. She gave me her message. They had made the monthly payments on their loan as promised. It was not necessary for them to continue making payments. The loan was guaranteed by the United States government. When they made the borrowing we had a democratic president. We recently had elected a republican president. Since our entire government had now changed, every debt owed by individuals to the government was canceled. To void her debt all she had to do was put the bank on notice and that was what she was doing. She had heard a rumor.

You could probably guess what I told the young lady. You might have been more quiet when you did it than I was. I don’t want you to be critical and for that reason I must tell you a story that has no connection to a banking operation.

I was employed in a small town. No television then, little radio operation, no everyday local newspaper. One Wednesday evening six local young fellows were sitting around and conversing. One topic lead to another one and they visited about people believing what was told to them. They had an idea, and they pursued it. The next morning they would each confidentially mention to acquaintances that a major razor blade manufacturer would cease business because the company thought it had a prior basic patent on the blades and would prevent other razor blade companies from producing blades until a federal suit was settled. I heard the story a few times that morning. At midday I went to the drug store across the street from the bank and had a sandwich and something to drink at the counter. When I returned to my desk I put the two packages of razor blades that I had just purchased in one of the drawers of my desk. That night you could not buy a razor blade in the town. I had fallen for the gag and I considered myself reasonably intelligent.

A Youngster Purchases New Boots

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t was Monday afternoon in mid-January and the outside temperature was already below zero and it would get to thirty-five degrees below zero during the night ahead.

Our bank faced a street that was on the main north and south highway and plows had piled snow so high that I couldn’t see across the street. One lane of vehicle traffic had to be kept open moving each way. The wind was blowing snow and ice crystals in all directions. The bank had few customers. It was not a day that you would choose to walk or drive. I had been looking outside. My secretary had seated a lad at my desk. He had a story to tell me and I listened.

I judged the young man to be about sixteen years of age. He was taller than I and his shoulders were broader than mine. He was roughly but warmly dressed. He had big 81

hands and big feet. He was a ranch hand and during the winter months earned eight dollars weekly and his keep. Monday was his payday and his day off work. It was about ten miles to town and he had made the trip because he had to get a pair of boots. While watching him I noticed that ice and snow from his boots were forming small pools of water on the floor and that each of his boots had holes in the soles. I couldn’t see plainly enough to make a guess about the socks. He had gone various places in town and found only one pair of boots that would fit him properly and that he wanted to buy. The boots were twenty dollars and he had only five dollars. His request was that the bank would loan him fifteen dollars, which he would repay at one dollar each Monday. I was about to tell him that he was not old enough to borrow depositors’ funds from a national bank-but I didn’t. I did suggest that the store that had the boots would probably let him have them if he promised to pay the store on about the same terms as he wanted to repay the bank. He told me that he had made the store owner that promise and the store owner would take his five dollars, set the boots aside, and when he had paid the entire twenty dollars he would get the boots. I made the loan, the boy got his money but before he left the office he promised that he would return and show me the boots. I noticed when he left that there was an outline about the size of a snuff box on one of his hip pockets and I hoped that he didn’t use the stuff. Less than an our later he was back wearing the new boots which he said didn’t shine as brightly as they did in the store because he had brought with him some grease he had made at the ranch and had greased them. That was what he had in his hip pocket. The old boots he had hung around his neck tied by the laces. He thought he could use some of the sole leather to make roughlocks for the new boots and the upper leather might come in handy later on for patching the new boots. He went out into the weather.

Later that day our note teller was at my desk. She called my attention to the fact that the fifteen dollar loan was illegal. I told her that I knew it was and I turned the note over and put my initials on it. I made my statement, “If that loan gets twenty-four hours delinquent at any time bring it back to my desk and I’ll pay it.” The note teller had her response. “Mr. Walden, if that note gets twenty-four hours delinquent I’ll bring it to you but we will each pay half of it.” The lad made every payment exactly as he had promised.

Relatives -- Taking Stock

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any years ago I played duplicate board contract bridge with the same partner.

If we were the successful bidders and he was to play the hand as soon as my cards were spread he would examine how our cards fit and he would use that time to, as he expressed it, take stock. He would decide what tricks must be lost and how best to proceed with the cards that were left. And so I’m taking stock not of tricks but of relatives.

If you believe as I do that all the people on this earth descend from Noah and his Ark and the Great Flood then all of us are related. It is an interesting thought but impossible to prove. I do, however, have some close relatives. Ellen frequently remarked that the

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Waldens and the Okerstroms--at least our branches of the two families--are vanishing breeds.

My father had two brothers and he was the only one who married. I had two brothers and I was the only one who married. Ellen and I had no children. My sister had two sons and two daughters. She lost one unmarried young son. The other son is married but will have no children. One daughter is married and will have no children. The other daughter has two young sons for whom she has custody although she is divorced. I lost my sister in 1979 and her husband has remarried.

My wife had four brothers and four sisters. Two of her sisters and one of her brothers died at a tender age. Two of the other brothers never married. One brother is married and he and he wife are childless. One of the remaining sisters married, had no children, and is now a widow. The other sister had three children--all daughters--two of them died unmarried and the third daughter is now a widow and she and her husband had no children.

If you have followed me this far you are aware that: On the Walden side I have: A brother-in-law and his second wife A nephew and his wife A niece and her husband A divorced niece and her two young sons An eighty year old brother and the Walden name on our branch of the family ceases to exist.

On the Okerstrom side I have: A widowed sister-in-law A brother-in-law and his wife A widowed niece and the Okerstrom name on our side of the family ceases to exist.

I don’t remember who to give credit for the observation that “the ways of the world are wonderful and strange.�

March 10, 1941

Ellen survives operations for tubular pregnancy.

August 1, 1945

I receive another promotion and am now assistant manager of one of our largest offices--Nampa.

August 22, 1949

The Idaho First National Bank has purchased the former Bonner County National Bank and I am now in Sandpoint and manager of Branch #19.

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April 16, 1952

I lost my mother. Emma Eliza Walton was born October 29, 1882, in Albion, Idaho, and died in Sandpoint, Idaho, April l6, 1952. She was visiting us. Her home was in Kellogg, Idaho.

December 1, 1957

The man who hired me has retired and I have taken his place as manager of our main office in Coeur d’Alene.

July 1, 1969

I am now a vice president and no longer a manager.

I have certain responsibilities for the seven offices (soon to be eight) in the Panhandle District.

May 31, 1972

In our organization retirement was mandatory at age sixty five and my forty-two year experience ended.

Late April and 1973 Ellen and I spent about five weeks in Europe. Two happenings in the mounth of May, highlighted the trip. At her invitation we called on Lady BadenPowell at her Grace and Favor Apartment at Hampton Court Palace near London, England.

Later in Borlange, Sweden, we visited the home where Ellen was born and other places in her family’s history and were entertained and met more than twenty of her relatives.

November 9, 1979

I lost my only sister. Erma Walden Wickberg was born in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, March 17, 1912, and died in Boise, Idaho. Her husband and three of her four children survived.

March 19, 1982

Ellen had her first stroke.

June 19, 1986 March

I lost my older brother--Percey Bertram Walden, Jr. He was born in Walla Walla, Washington, on 31, 1906, and died in Salt Lake City, Utah.

March 12, 1988

Ellen had a much more serious stroke.

September 25, 1991 I lost Ellen at Kootenai Medical Center, in Coeur d’Alene. The physician’s report: “stroke-massive.”

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Gripes

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n every time frame in these United States there are words and expressions that are used so often that most of us wish they were outlawed. At present there are three words and two expressions that set my nerves on edge. You are about to be exposed to them.

Excited.

There’s a snake hunting contest in Oklahoma and I’m excited about it.

My neighbor has purchased a new pair of shoes and I’m excited because I’m going to his house to see them. Dad is going to get gasoline for the car and I’m excited because he wants me to go with him. I’ve almost forgotten what excited really means.

Sale.

When I was growing up a store might have a sale once or twice yearly.

Today when one sale stops another starts. There are “our best sale,” “the boss is away 85

sale,” “manufacturers’ sale,” “buy two get one free sale,” “take another ten percent off sale.” We know that stores have items for sale and we are aware that if sales are not made the store earns no profit. I’m one of this world’s worst shoppers. If I need a replacement pair of socks I know exactly what I want and where to get them. I don’t want a dozen pairs of socks because they are cheaper by the dozen. I eat a banana every morning, I buy seven of them in a bunch. I’m not interested in buying fifty of them to save five cents per pound. I sometimes wonder what an item actually costs a store when the sale price is continually reduced. I asked a lady who owned a ready-to-wear store how she made money when she continually reduced prices and she remarked that “I go back at night and juggle the books.”?

Only.

This automobile is now only $23,642.89. For only $175.21 you can purchase the complete assortment. The payments are only $7.99 each month and you can quit anytime. I rest my case.

At this point in time.

I shudder every time I hear this statement. Someone certainly has access to up-to-date information that isn’t available to the rest of us. At this point in time every citizen of these United States owes our government $16,327.92. Is it possible that some people are given this information. I feel neglected.

The bottom line.

When I studied accounting the bottom line on financial statements showed the same identical figure as a total of assets and liabilities. Maybe the expression refers to a profit and loss statement where the bottom line indicated that for the time involved the business was profitable or lost money. As this group of words is generally used now I infer that the meaning is that the result cannot be changed or if that is the way the game is played the end result cannot be altered. My doctor once asked me if I knew any mortal who had lived forever. I didn’t. He added that death is certain. I suppose that is the bottom line.

Education

S

everal years ago I was asked to make a statement about education for use in obtaining favorable votes in a bond election. In my opinion giving youngsters the best possible opportunity for an education was the least we should do for them. That was my opinion then, is now, and was for many previous years. Yes, I have criticisms. I’m interested in school locations, the buildings, the number of students in a class, the equipment used, the qualifications of those who teach, what is taught, and the salary schedule. I am most disturbed about one small facet of the education wheel. I believe there is a vast difference between being a teacher and being an educator and it doesn’t result from time spent in summer schools, seminars, accumulating degrees or tenure. My time in school consisted of twelve years in the Coeur d’Alene system and two years at the University of Idaho. In that exposure I was fortunate to be taught by five educators.

During the Great Depression one of these educators, a lady who never married and cared in her home for her disabled father, was paid a monthly salary of $86.67. She taught 86

seventh and eighth grade students for years on end. She studied at home. She found it impossible to go elsewhere for summer school. She should have been rewarded for her ability. She wasn’t. I owe her much gratitude. I must tell you about two other educators.

I didn’t at anytime tell my first grade teacher, Miss Pennington, that I appreciated all the things she taught me. She wasn’t in Coeur d’Alene long. When we were dismissed at the end of the school year she stood at the exit door while we marched out. Some members of the class spoke a few words, I didn’t. She touched some of them lightly on a shoulder as she did me. I have never seen her since that day. She was tall, slender, dark haired, her dresses always had a starched white collar and starched white wristlets, she had a kindly look about her eyes as if she wanted to smile but shouldn’t, she was equipped with a three-foot long pencil-thin tapered pointer that she used at the blackboard and when marching along the aisles between the rows of seats. And what was I taught by Miss Pennington? That I was part of a group; that I was to be quiet unless otherwise instructed; that the rules that governed us applied to each one of us in exactly the same way; that learning was interesting and that it would continue the rest of our lives because there was so much of it available; and that every member of her class was just as valuable as any other member of the class. There was no kindergarten then.

She was a jewel.

In seventh grade, I was a smart aleck. One morning a teacher cured me of that problem.

You have read this story before unless you’ve skipped some pages. I wasn’t studying at home and was getting the best grades allowed. This lady thought I might have a good brain and that if I did I should develop it. I made her some promises and each week she selected a book for me to read and obtain from the library. One of the promises was that whenever I got to a word I didn’t know I’d look it up in my dictionary. I remember reading “A Tale of Two Cities.” Before our morning conference I wondered often what question she might ask. Her question was: “If you were alive at that time would you rather have lived in London or Paris?” She also wanted my reasons. I told this lady more than once how much I appreciated her interest in me.

The Golden Years

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wish I knew how “The Golden Years” were so designated and why. When do they begin? They must end with death. I don’t want to be a complainer but there could be a better name for the time in life when energy diminishes and ailments increase.

For me and for Ellen “The Golden Years” began with my retirement at age sixty-five.

Our bank had a mandatory retirement at that age and I had known about it for many years. After I had accepted the customary watch (which I have never worn) I knew that I would not be haunting hiring halls. I could have bought into a business or started one of my own instead. Ellen would continue her voluntary work and I would serve my community as a committeeman. We would travel--and we did often. I would swing on many golf balls. I might be classified as an average golfer--perhaps a hacker. The game furnished me much enjoyment and exercise until I had trouble in both shoulders and had 87

to give up the game. Earlier this year I took my clubs out of the trunk of my car and a few months later gave them away. Are these “Golden Years”?

Ellen became busier than ever. She understood that when she agreed to assist any project she took one foot off the brake and pushed the accelerator to the floor with the other foot.

She had several operations, a broken arm, lost forever the sight of one eye and she decided to be careful. As for me--my doctor one day told me that I was not getting old I was already there and I agreed with him. It was necessary that I reduce my committee memberships to some number less than twenty-four and I did and the eliminations were easily made. If some group gave me no work to do because of my advanced age or as sometimes stated because I had in times past done more than my share I resigned. For some groups I just didn’t attend meetings but continued to pay dues. With age comes conservatism and the desire to avoid taking chances. I didn’t want to be tagged with the label of voting “no” on every motion except adjournment.

As the years marched by Ellen’s health became a serious problem. To her difficulties she gave no quarter and she asked none nor nor did she complain but our trips became fewer and we enjoyed staying home. The day came when we sold our eleven room house on one-third of an acre of ground with a double car garage and moved to a two bedroom apartment.

I’ve forgotten to whom I should give credit for the remark “If I had known that I would live this long I would have taken better care of myself.” When I was in sixth grade my arithmetic book contained a schedule headed “The American Experience Table of Mortality.” My average life span at that time was just under sixty years. Ellen lived past age eighty-seven. I’m now older than that.

Two Wonderful Ladies

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hen age begins to be an outstanding characteristic you are confronted with questions. One of these questions usually is: Who has been of the greatest influence in your life? For me that answer presents no problem. One is a lady I did not choose and the other is a lady that I did choose. I must first tell you some things about my father.

We had nothing when we came to Coeur d’Alene on June 12, 1911. Before he was married and for about ten of those years every venture my father attempted must have been profitable--and there were many of them. Just before honeymooning he sold everything he owned that he didn’t give to relatives. He was searching for some business to get attached to when he and some of his acquaintances decided to become millionaires by buying wheat futures on margin. When Dad decided he had enough, he had lost practically everything and he and my mother, my older brother and I arrived in Coeur 88

d’Alene where Dad hoped to again amass dollars. He didn’t. I don’t know anyone who could have worked any harder--twelve hours each day, six days each week at a beginning wage of ten cents an hour. He planted a garden and fruit trees at our rented home and we raised chickens and traded eggs to a neighbor for milk. For a few years--1913 to 1918-Dad made progress when he first owned and operated a cigar store. Then there was World War One followed by the influenza malady and years later a stock market crash.

He died in 1933 part way through the Great Depression after a three-year battle with inoperable prostate cancer. I could not have chosen a better father. He didn’t talk about the times when he had much money. The future interested him and he worked at getting ahead. Our family was together only at supper time and for Sunday dinner. If there was something around the house that needed being done he did it--not tomorrow, not when he had more time--now. He wasn’t rapid at much of anything but in his own way he could replace broken boards on our back porch, wrap water lines so they wouldn’t freeze, sharpen blades on our lawnmower, or build a sled for his sons. My most cherished memories of my father extended over a period of about five years when I was selling or delivering newspapers and I would wait for him at the cigar store and walk home with him for supper. During those walks I learned about him and I’m sure he found out plenty about me. I never saw him use tobacco in any form; I never heard him swear; I never saw him drink anything alcoholic; he was always clean shaven. He only gave me a whipping once and I earned the punishment and knew it was coming. I slept face down that night and was careful sitting the next day. When I think about it I hurt again. It was the best lesson I ever was taught--when you make a promise keep it, don’t lie about it, and don’t try to hide it. Dad was proud of all four of his children. He had no favorite.

We knew he would do whatever he could to help any of us. We lost him in 1933. There must be an easier way to say good-bye.

Although I have remembrances of my mother prior to our arrival in Coeur d’Alene I prefer to have my first thoughts about her based on our local Third Street rented home.

She is seated in a chair next to a small table in our kitchen. She is shelling walnuts and placing the meats in a huge bowl prior to breaking them to smaller chunks. On the table are silk handkerchiefs, linen napkins, pillow slips, needles and many different colors of silk threads. I was bringing in kindling wood that Dad had cut and placing it next to the wood box. The kitchen stove was hot and on it were four kettles. Two of the kettles contained heated karo syrup. One of the other kettles was for stew and the other for soup. My mother made four different kinds of karo syrup candy and folks came to our house and bought it. She also was gifted in the use of needles and thread and well-to-do ladies paid her for putting initials and designs on items. Winter was almost with us.

Mom rested often. I didn’t know it then but in a few months I would have a baby sister.

Until the very last few years of her life my mother to me was a pretty, young lady. She was much younger than my father and all her children classified her as being lenient and understanding and that my father was more serious and stern. Mom was practically always home and she was in complete charge of our behavior and the difficulties that developed when we didn’t always march to the same music. She listened to us when we plead our case and once she had all the details she gave the decision and we obeyed.

There was no “wait until your father gets home” or “I’ll let you know another time.”

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She loved all her children and we were aware of that fact. Once her sons told her that we believed our sister was her favorite. Mom let us in on a secret. Girls are different. They are not as strong physically as boys and they are more delicate and careful. Boys splash through mud puddles and climb fences. Girls don’t.

Mom gave guidance to all her four children. She didn’t point any one of us in any particular direction. She wanted us to get as much formal education as possible. She had been the oldest child and left home before she finished high school to work as a maid in a private home. She was a brave lady and a wise one.

I wish I had been more appreciative of my mother’s value to me when I was living at home and that I had been more vocal in expressing my thanks to her. The little things that mothers do for the family don’t go unnoticed but the recipient isn’t aware of the effort required. Here is just one item. When I started work in the bank the manager tossed out along with other regulations that male employees were to wear white shirts.

Every weekday morning in my wardrobe was placed a clean, pressed, repaired if needed white shirt. I didn’t realize until after my marriage the labor involved.

My mother was a widow for more than nineteen years. She wanted to live to be three score years and ten. She missed it a few months. The night before she died Mom was thinking and talking to me about her life. She hadn’t reached many goals. She was suddenly tired. That was a new experience for her but she guessed that was a result of using up too much energy when she was young.

Mom is with the angels.

And now Ellen--the gal I chose. If you have read the collection of words I’ve tied together in this writing you have learned enough about my “Best Girl” to realize what she meant to me and to form your opinion of her. I don’t want to be repetitious. I’ll tell you two additional stories about her.

About fifty years ago I called Ellen “Butch” for the first time. She sometimes threw the designation “Shanty Irishman” at me. “Butch,” when used, alerted Ellen to not be irritated and to be diplomatic. When Ellen addressed me as a “Shanty Irishman” it was a notification that I was about to make a social mistake or that I had already made a social error that should be immediately corrected. They were code words. I should tell you about the title “Butch.”

I belonged to a men’s group in Kellogg that had a similar club in Wallace. We were to have a joint party, invite wives, take over a restaurant in Osburn and hold it there. We had waded through drinks and dinner and now there was dancing and more drinks. Ellen and I were in a corner of the room talking when a special male friend joined us. He had devoured his share of booze. He was not drunk, just pleasantly relaxed. In his business he conversed with many rough talking men. When he started to speak to us he used Our Lord’s name in a bad way. Ellen ordered him to stop talking like that. He wanted to know who was going to stop him. Ellen’s response, “I’ll stop you.” He looked at Ellen

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and I didn’t know whether he was astonished or about to laugh. There was a quiet moment and then he answered, “OK--I’ll stop.” He did. When we got home later and were preparing for bed I wanted an answer. “What would you have done if he wouldn’t stop?” Ellen’s statement, “I would have made my right hand into a fist and hit him.” I needed more information. “And, Butch, if he squared off and decided to hit back, what then?” She had that figured out. “You’d have helped me, wouldn’t you? The two of us could have whipped him.” I admitted that I would have helped her--as for winning I made no guess. Goodnight, Butch. We slept.

And now the other story. Home was a haven for Ellen and for me, except when the telephone rang. She didn’t recite volunteer problems to me and I didn’t acquaint her with the mysteries of banking. Ellen had her own car and I was aware that on mid-afternoons each Friday she was busy. I learned about that routine in bits and pieces and not always from Ellen. There was an elderly widow lady who had space in a private home. She had recently completed all the cancer treatments she would get but she was to report each Friday afternoon to the hospital in Spokane so her doctor could take a look at her and run some tests. Early on a Friday morning Ellen was alerted about the problem and that transportation had not been secured. Ellen wasn’t busy that afternoon so she furnished the transportation and was the driver. Returning from the hospital Ellen asked the lady if she would stop somewhere and have something to eat or drink. The lady had difficulty saying anything--her ailment--cancer of the throat. She didn’t want anyone to see her eat because eating was hard work for her. Ellen had time. Was there some place the lady wanted to see? There was Manito Gardens. Ellen drove around the place and parked often so the lady could see the things that appealed to her. She thought it better not to walk. Ellen became attached to the lady and anxious to do things for her. On succeeding Fridays they were at the top of the hill where the tramway was, they looked at Liberty Lake; they came home by way of Blackwell Hill; they examined Coeur d’Alene Lake from Potlatch Hill and from the St. Maries Highway overlooking Moscow Bay; they parked near the intersection of Appleway and US 95 North and watched the lights change and the traffic whiz by. Three months approximately disappeared. As unheralded as Ellen’s Friday afternoon routine started it stopped. The lady had died. Ellen wanted me to understand that what she did was not a chore. “She was a dear lady and I enjoyed everything we did together.” Some folks get a warmer glow from doing good deeds if “who did it?” remains an unsolved mystery. Ellen was one of those people.

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Philosophy

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n Ireland last year our tour spent the first night in Limerick. The next day while heading toward Kilarney we were asked to write a limerick. Here is mine: They say when a fellow grows old He should lose his adventurous mold.

When festivities start He should quickly depart And that’s what I’ve been told.

People indicate those my age should have a philosophy. I do. In one of my pockets everyday is a folded sheet of white paper on which is typewritten the following: From Spain: Naked I was born. Naked I am. I neither gain nor lose. I just break even.

From China: If you keep a green bough in your heart someday the singing bird will arrive.

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From India: My wings will leave no markers in the sky but I’ve certainly enjoyed the flight.

Except for two pages that follow, this concludes my literary effort. My plan is for five copies. One will go to the older of the two McConnell lads (Jordan Dee), one to the Museum of North Idaho, one to North Idaho College library, and one to a very special friend. I impose no restrictions on the friend but the others are not to open the enclosure envelope until my name appears in the obituaries. I’ll keep the fifth copy.

If anything happens to me while I’m still around that in my opinion is worthy of being added to these pages I reserve the right to do it.

And now aloha and good-bye and I leave you with this: May your faith in God sustain you In time of grief and pain, For faith in God that you possess Is never placed in vain.

God’s always standing by your side In moments of despair To strengthen and to comfort you For He does really care.

He’s always there to lend a hand And be your friend and guide, So don’t believe you walk alone For God walks by your side.

(Author unknown) and this: He never said the way would be

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A straight and easy one for me.

He never meant that I would rest When work is what I do the best.

He never planned the best there is For me without my hand in his.

And never once did He ordain I’d taste the joys but not the pain.

He never told me I would find Contentment without peace of mind.

Nor did He issue a decree Compelling time to wait for me.

But He has promised life beyond This fragile earth I walk upon, And through the darkness of the night To be the Way, the Truth, the Light.

(Author unknown)

GOD DOES LOVE YOU!

SHALOM

Amidee Keven (Ace) Walden

July 19, 1994

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