Lessons with Daddy

 I’ll never forget when Daddy taught me to fry lamb chops and make gravy. When I was twelve Mom spent a week in Utah with my older sister, helping her after the birth of a new baby. Daddy and I “batched it”. Both Mom and I helped Daddy outside, doing chores, milking cows, feeding chickens and gathering the eggs. Mom would leave us, to finish up, while she started supper. So on our first night of “ batching it” Daddy sent me to the house early with instructions to fix supper. Lamb meat being a staple of our diet we planned to eat lamb chops for dinner. I quickly washed up, set the table, peeled potatoes, got frying pans out of the cupboard and had the chops ready to fry when Daddy got to the house. I remember our conversation going something like this.

  “Sister, I don’t smell anything cooking, what have you been doing?” 

 “I have everything ready to cook, but Daddy, I’ve never fried lamb chops or potatoes or made gravy.”  

 “Well little girl, it’s about time you learned.”  Daddy washed up and joined me in the kitchen. 

“Stand by the stove, next to me, so you can watch what I’m doing.”  I loved standing close to Daddy, his familiar smell of cigarettes and farm animals, not offensive to me, but comforting, as I felt safe near him. He was gentle and kind and wasn’t afraid to show affection. He loved all of us girls unconditionally and taught each of us, how to ride a horse, milk a cow, and drive a tractor. Always with a soft voice never yelling at us, he explained, then let us try our hand, then explained again, until he was satisfied that we had learned the lesson.

He put bacon drippings in the fry pans and turned up the heat. He sliced potatoes, with lightning speed, his hand gripping the knife. The potatoes sliced and the grease sizzling, he handed me the bowl of potatoes and said,  “ Now very carefully, so you don’t burn yourself, slide the potatoes into the hot grease.”  I did as I was told, then watched the potatoes cook, while Daddy floured the chops and placed them one by one into the hot grease in the other frying pan. They browned quickly, on one side, and Daddy picked up the fork to turn them. 

“Wait,” I said, “Let me turn them, I need the practice.”   Handing me the fork, he watched as I turned the chops. 

 “That’s my girl, perfect.”  He said. “Now turn the heat to low and cover the chops and let them cook.”  Then with his calloused hand on mine holding the spatula, together we turned the crispy brown potatoes to the other side. Fragrant smells filled the kitchen; I couldn’t believe that I was really learning to cook. But with his help I learned quickly and was sure I could do it myself the next time. “Della, put the chops on a platter and into the warming oven and I will show you how to make gravy.”  He poured out some of the grease, scraped the browned bits off the bottom and edges of the fry pan. “Okay, sprinkle flour into the grease with one hand while stirring with the other. When the flour and grease start to thicken, add milk and keep stirring, adding more milk until you have gravy.”  I did as told and soon we had a fry pan full of delicious milk gravy to cover biscuits, warming in the oven. As we dished up our plates and started to the table to eat, Daddy’s blue eyes twinkled as he said, “Tomorrow night I expect lamb chops cooking when I come in from the barn.” 

 “I’ll bet I can do that,” I said, as he hugged me tightly. 

500 miles of 2 lane roads.

 In October of 1950 Mom and Daddy put the Porterville place up for sale and took a trip into Idaho looking for a farm to buy. They looked at places in Lake Fork, Moscow and St Maries, Idaho, traversing the entire length of Idaho, ending up near the Canadian border. On the return trip they decided to look at the Lake Fork place one last time, and while there put down earnest money until they could sell the property and take care of their affairs in Porterville.

One month later December 3, 1950, four trucks were loaded with machinery, horses, cows and household furniture. A “touring car” carried the rest of the family. The five hundred mile trip from Porterville, Utah to Lake Fork, Idaho took two days. We left Utah in a rainstorm and arrived in Lake Fork in a blinding blizzard. 

The county road, that led to our new house was snow covered, with wind blowing a gale, making it impossible to see the unplowed road. Finally we arrived at the house to find it locked and the key nowhere to be found. I remember standing there in a strange place, in the dark close to the car, wondering what we would do now. I heard Daddy’s voice as he said, “Della come here I have an idea. I will pry up the window with this shovel, and since you are the smallest person here we’ll see if you can crawl through and unlock the door.”  With him boosting me up, I squeezed through the window and found myself standing in a dark, bare room, which I assumed was our new living room. A light flashed in front of me and Daddy said, “here is a flashlight, take it, find the door and open it from the inside.”  Soon everyone found the open door and came into the house, stumbling around in the dark until the electrical box was found and the electricity turned on. 

 I remember Mom and Daddy starting fires in both stoves, the fire snapping and crackling and soon the smell of chili filled the room as it bubbled on the stovetop. My sister and I had already explored the main floor and were very intrigued with the stairway that led up to more bedrooms. Daddy and the other men headed outside to unload the animals, fed them hay, and made sure they could get fresh water. After everyone had their supper of chili and homemade bread with home canned peaches for dessert, mattresses on the floor were quickly made up into beds, and all the weary travelers were soon asleep.

Daddy planned to make a new start in Long Valley, a place he grew to love. He was forty-four years old, strong, healthy and one of the hardest working men I have ever known. He farmed the two hundred acres of tillable land and again contracted out his labor and machinery to neighbors for extra income. He left the milk cows, all but one, in Utah swearing he would never be a slave to them again, but had to eat his words when it became apparent that they afforded the only way to have a small steady income, to supply much needed cash. He brought home bum lambs from a big sheep rancher and started a herd of sheep. He also diversified with a small herd of Angus/Hereford cattle. Pigs and chickens were added to the mix.

Three hundred acres of timberland came in the purchase and would be logged and sold to pay off the mortgage and finally Daddy would own property free and clear. That was his dream. 

The sound of chainsaws echoed high on the hill at the edge of the property in the spring of 1951. Daddy investigated and found a small local timber company (part of a larger timber company) cutting timber on his new property. They claimed to have the timber rights on this property and had moved their machinery into this part of the forest, using an old logging road for access instead of using the road that came passed our house. Daddy immediately sought legal help, but the sound of chainsaws continued. After many heart wrenching months, the case was settled out of court. But what did he have left?  Yes, the cash settlement paid off the lawyers and other bills associated with the court case. But the company harvested and sold the prime timber, leaving the land scared and ravaged.  His dream of owning land, free and clear, again only a dream. Although I saw him bitter and defeated he still struggled on, thinking that more hard work would someday pay off. He somehow kept a positive attitude never losing his faith or sense of humor. 

. Hard work doesn’t always pay off

I was born a year after they moved to Porterville, completing their family. Everyone wanted another boy, and vowed to have nothing to do with me, another girl!  But Mom said that as soon as I started to cry they couldn’t wait to hold me. My older siblings were in their teens when I was born and loved taking care of me. My sister, Mona was six years older than me and was not happy, when I got more than my share of attention from “her” Daddy.  She didn’t like me sitting on his knee at the breakfast table tasting his coffee. Daddy’s coffee was the best. It was a cup almost full of very strong coffee, with two spoonful of sugar added and then filled with thick cream. Mona didn’t like the taste of coffee but would try to inch her way in, so she could sit on Daddy’s lap as well. He would move me to his other knee and say, “Okay Sister come on there is room for you too,” and we would sit, each on a knee, me taking sips of his coffee, until he hugged us and lovingly scooted us off his lap and left for work. 

While in Porterville, two grandsons were added to our family, when Loraine married Steve Smith and Barbara married Worthy Reed…I became an aunt at 3 years of age to George Smith and Alan Reed. Now I had to share my dad, with two little boys.

Daddy borrowed money to buy a combine and a baler and had a good business working for other farmers. The idea was to pay off the new machinery with money earned from these jobs. Money always seemed to be in short supply no matter how hard my parents worked. Always of course the weather played a big part in farming and just when a bumper crop seemed eminent, hail or torrential rain would ruin it. The farm after nine years was overwhelmed with debt and Daddy started talking about moving. 

A new beginning, determination.

  “We didn’t sleep much the rest of the night and were very unsure of what would happen at the meeting, but your Dad didn’t sign any papers or pick up a rake the next day at the meeting, and after the meeting, we hired a lawyer to advise us further. We did get a settlement from the mining company eventually and we were always so thankful to Billy Ball, a man who dared to speak out.

With the settlement from the mine company, bills that had accumulated during the past three years were paid off. Daddy and Mom went in search of a small farm to buy. With the hope that a small farm with a few milk cows would bring in cash for food and clothing. They could raise chickens, sheep, pigs and beef along with a large vegetable garden for most of their food. As Daddy’s health improved a small farm would be doable. The family moved to Porterville, Utah in the spring of 1941.

  

In 1941 the average cost of a new house was $4,075.00, average yearly wages $1,750.00, gasoline 12 cents a gallon and houses rented for $32.00 a month.  Europe was at war and the US soon to follow. December 7th 1941, the United States, after being attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, entered WW ll. More than 2400 American servicemen were killed in that attack. Until that time the US had remained neutral, but now tanks were dispatched to Britain along with food, trucks, guns and ammunition. For the next five years all of America was affected by the war. 

The war touched our family because many of my parent’s nephews served our country overseas. Their daily living changed when the government issued stamps for gas, tires etc. In 1942 the US began to ration some necessities to guarantee that everyone would receive a fair share and to help prevent inflation. The following items were rationed; tires, sugar, gasoline, bicycles, footwear, fuel oil, silk, nylon, coffee, stoves, meat, cheese, butter, canned foods, dried fruits, jam, and many other items. Production of new automobiles and appliances stopped. Books of rationing stamps were issued to each person in a household including babies and children. Ration stamps had an expiration date to prevent hoarding. Automobile racing and sight seeing were banned. Unemployment that had continued through the years of the depression ended with the start of the war as wartime production created millions of new jobs. As the young men were drafted, women stepped into the workforce to replace them. This started the trend as women left traditional roles of homemaker and mother and moved on to a career. 

In 1941 Daddy settled into farming like any other job, working long hours, trying to eke out a living for his family. He plowed a garden spot, amended the soil and he and Mom planted raspberries, strawberries and a vegetable garden. They purchased a few sheep, pigs, chickens and milk cows to supply their food and bought only sugar, flour, paper products and clothing, from the grocery store. They worked side by side. Both of them milked cows while the kids gathered eggs, and fed the animals. Daddy always helped with the supper dishes before he relaxed in the living room after a full day of work.  In their spare time they made the house more livable, again papering and painting. While Daddy worked in the fields, harvesting hay and grain to store for the winter, Mom planted flowers, weeded the vegetable garden, cooked meals, baked bread and persevered fruits, vegetables and meats to fill the cellar for winter.

Grieving and trying to move on

 A couple of years passed, work at the coal mine grew steadier now and a move was under way to form a union for the workers. Mom and Daddy continued to work hard to provide for their family, but they also enjoyed small pleasures, such as listening to the radio on Saturday nights. Daddy’s favorite was the Saturday night boxing matches. As he sat near the radio, listening through the static, the four kids crawled onto his lap to listen with him. Sunday nights they would pop corn on the wood stove, each took a turn shaking the corn popper. On rare occasions Mom would make divinity or fudge so everyone could have a treat.

 

On March 3, 1938, Daddy fell while riding coal down the chute in the coal mine and suffered broken vertebrae in his back. A full body cast kept him immobile for three months and when the doctor removed it, Daddy tried to stand but fell to the floor. The bones set improperly, had not healed. Arrangements were made for him to take the train back to the Mayo Brothers Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Daddy underwent another surgery while there, but was still in great pain when the hospital released him to return home. He started seeing Doctor Heather in Salt Lake City. Dr. Heather preformed another surgery; he removed a four-inch piece of bone from Daddy’s shin and fused it into his back to repair the broken vertebrae. The back injury caused him pain and suffering the rest of his life. But at least he could walk. Over a span of three years from the time of Daddy’s accident, he spent ninety-six days in hospitals underwent three operations and remained unable to work. All this time negotiations continued with the mine company for a settlement. The company said he was “just lazy”.  While Daddy was “laid up” with his back, Mom raised and sold fryers (frying chickens) to the local grocery store, with the help of her children. She also sold eggs and butter, to supplement the meager disability stipend they received. Three years passed before Daddy returned to full time work. 

Mom related the following story to me in 1992.  She and I sitting in the living room of her modest home in Elgin, Oregon, the smell of dinner cooking in the oven. I was fifty years old.  “Della. have I ever told you about the time Billy Ball came to our house in the middle of the night in Diamondville, Wyoming?” “No Mom, I’ve never heard the story. I know you’ve talked about him and know that you and Daddy both had a great deal of respect for him. But why would he come in the middle of the night?” 

 She began talking about her and Daddy’s early life, how he had been injured in the coal mine and how the company “dragged its feet” giving him a settlement. Her voice sounded far away and I sensed that she was back in a time, long before I was born.  “In the middle of the night before your dad was to have a meeting with company officials, we heard someone knocking on our bedroom window” she told me. “Daddy got up and saw Billy Ball, a company official motioning to let him in. Daddy quickly went to unlock the back door and asked him to come inside. We sat, in our nightclothes in the living room, with only a dim light, and listened to Billy.” 

She paused for a moment, remembering. “Billy talked in a hushed voice,” Mom told me. “He looked at your father and said, ‘Joe, you must tell no one about my being here tonight or neither of us will have a job. Tomorrow at the meeting, the company officials will ask you to sign papers so they can proceed with your claim, but if you sign you will get nothing from the company. The papers are worded in such a way that you will sign away all rights to a settlement. Also’ he continued, ‘they will try to get you to take a job, raking and picking up around the mine and they will insist that you start now, giving you a rake and watching what you can do. Do not touch the rake, simply refuse to do any of the things they ask.’  Then Billy looked at both your Dad and I and said,  ‘Do you understand?’” 

“So what did you and Daddy do?”  I asked. “Your Dad wasn’t sure at first. He looked at Billy. ‘Yes, I hear you,’ he told him. ‘But how do I know that you are telling me the truth?  Why would the company try to cheat me out of a settlement that I have every right too?  I can’t work, we will be out on the street and my family will starve.’  Billy shifted in his seat and tried to persuade your father. ‘Joe, you must believe me,’ he said. ‘I have risked my own job by coming here tonight. Why do you think I came here under the cover of darkness?  Please believe what I am telling you or you will have nothing.’

“Then your Dad looked right at me and said, ‘Blanche, what do you think?”’ I sat forward, now on the edge of my seat, waiting to hear what my mother did. “I took a deep breath and said,  ‘Joe, I think we have to do what Billy says. The company has been stringing you along for many months now and I think Billy is telling us the truth.’  Billy breathed a sigh of relief and thanked me. Then he looked at Daddy and said, please listen to your wife. Don’t you see?  I had to come here tonight, because you are a good man and a hard worker and I can’t let the company do this to you and your family.’”  

 “Your Dad looked at me and then at Billy, and then said. ‘You must be telling me the truth to risk your own job. Okay I will do as you say, when I meet with the company officials tomorrow.’”  Mom exhaled a long breath. I wondered how long it had been since she’d told that story.

“What happened next?” I asked.

“Billy stood, shook hands with both of us, and left by the back door. Your dad and I watched from the window and he was quickly swallowed up in the darkness.”  

Hard times, love held them together.

 

Their married life began in Granger, Utah, later moving to, Diamondville, Wyoming. Two little boys George and Joel joined the family. Daddy worked for a ranch that furnished them a  “shack”, to live in. I can see then now, cleaning, plugging holes between the rough boards with old rags, as they tried to block out the ever-present Wyoming wind. In summer dirt sifted through the cracks and in winter, mounds of snow were ever present inside the house. Mom found more rags and plugged more holes. They papered walls with old newspapers to hide the grease and grime of many years, and add light to the small rooms. A milk cow supplied the family with milk, butter and cream, and chickens furnished fresh eggs and occasionally graced the table for a special Sunday dinner. 

Mom in her early 20’s was already an accomplished cook and seamstress. She planted a garden, giving them fresh vegetables for the summers and when Daddy bought her a pressure cooker she worked during the heat of the day, over a wood stove, canning vegetables and meat along with fruit to store for winter. She stitched together warm coats for Loraine and Barbara, out of hand me downs from her family. In the evenings seated close to the stove, under a dim light from the gas lantern, she mended old and worn clothes so they would last another year. After the family moved to Diamondville, Wyoming, in the early 1930’s, Daddy still worked as a ranch hand but also found part time work in the coal mines. He told me he liked working in the coal mines, but only because when under ground the days passed quickly. 

Our country was in the midst of the “great depression”. Daddy worked two jobs to support his growing family. My older sisters have fond memories of growing up in Diamondville, and didn’t notice that their plates were filled first and their parents took small portions. Diamondville was a “rough” town with many different ethnic groups. They learned to be tolerant and love people for who they were, no matter what their nationality. The family dog, “Duke”, half German Shepard and half Great Dane, became their constant companion. They walked to the grocery store for bones for the dog, and then took them home so Mom could make broth out of them before the dog chewed on them, for his dinner. Daddy felt that the children were safer when Duke accompanied them. They walked the railroad tracks together, pulling a wagon, picking up coal that had fallen from the rail cars, as the trains left town. Coal served a duel purpose as it simmered the soup bones and warmed the house at the same time. 

In December 1936 the family anxiously awaited the birth of another baby, Mom was due to deliver any day, when Joel came down with a chest cold, that soon turned into pneumonia. Mona arrived December 14, 1936, and Joel felt well enough to reach out and touch her soft baby face, saying “Isn’t Mona pretty?”  A few days later his breathing became labored and without antibiotics, he died of double pneumonia on December 21, 1936. Mona was one week old and Christmas was four days away. With the help of family and friends the family pushed on, through that long winter. Christmas would always be a difficult time for Daddy, never able to cope with or understand “Baby’s” (as Joel was called) death. He turned to alcohol as it dulled the pain and sorrow of loosing a child. Daddy’s drinking would be the biggest “bone of contention” throughout my parents’ marriage. One that he and Mom never resolved and it affected our lives in many ways. 

Alcoholism was a problem that Daddy shared with his two brothers and later his son George, also became its victim, all heavy drinkers. He stayed away from alcohol most of the time, but he could not have a social drink. One drink led to another, then another; he turned to alcohol in times of high stress, such as years when wheat and cattle prices were low. These things didn't seem so bad, when alcohol took off the edge. When drinking, Daddy bought luxuries for his family, luxuries in the form of a new car, when our old one was still in very good working order. It made some rough times for our family especially for Mom, because she was the one who had to juggle and stretch the dollars, to pay the grocery bill at the end of the month.  I remember some Christmas's, not because of Santa Claus or presents, but because Daddy was drinking and our house was in turmoil. Mom always came down with a migraine headache and stayed in bed. My older sisters and brother took care of the rest of us.  As I grew older I came to understand that he drank at Christmas time to forget the Christmas of 1936, when they lost their little boy, Joel. 

Ready Made Family.

 Moonshine whiskey, cheap and available, accompanied the cowboys on trail rides, roundups, brandings and local dances. At the dances, dressed in clean Levi’s, cowboy shirts with kerchief’s around their neck, moonshine limbered cowboy legs after riding all day and they danced with pretty girls, late into the night. 

I choose to believe that Daddy met a certain girl, Blanche Parkin Fields, at one of those dances in 1929. I know for a fact that he courted her, taking her to dances where they danced to the strains of  “The Tennessee Waltz” and “You are My Sunshine”. Daddy sang along as he held her close. Blanche, recently divorced, and in need of a home, had moved with her two little girls to her parents ranch. On his days off Daddy rode horseback to the Parkin ranch, where he stayed for dinner and then played endless games of cards on cold winter evenings. Daddy found another way to help pass the evenings, he loved children, and spent time playing with Blanche’s two little girls, Loraine, age three, and Barbara only nine months. I can picture him in my mind as after supper he, holding a little girl in each arm, singing them to sleep.

Blanche at age twenty had a slim figure, hazel eyes and dark wavy hair. Daddy fell in love not only with her, but also with her two little girls. I’m not sure who stole his heart first, Blanche or the girls. Loraine and Barbara soon started calling him “Daddy Joe”, and within a year Blanche and Daddy married and he would claim the girls as his own. 

A story told many times, about a visit Blanche and her sisters, Jessie and Peggy made to the sheep camp where Daddy was tending a herd of sheep. They rode horseback to the camp, where Daddy planned to cook dinner for them. A sudden winter storm forced them to spend the night at the sheep camp. As the story goes, they all took their shoes off and crawled into the one bed. Daddy first, next to the canvas wall, then Blanche, Jessie and last Peggy. If one person turned they all had to turn and although Daddy was in bed with three girls, he nearly froze his “back side”, pushed against the canvas wall of the sheep camp. The girls’ father arrived early the next morning to find Daddy out doing chores and the girls fixing breakfast before they started home. 

My parents married on September 3, 1930, one year into the great depression. They stood before a Justice of the Peace, with a borrowed ring and Aunt Jessie and Uncle Truman acted as their witnesses. Blanche held Loraine’s hand, and Daddy held Barbara in his arms, as they exchanged vows. Daddy started to put the ring on Blanche’s finger; Barbara accidentally hit his hand and knocked the ring to the floor. Amid much laughter and scrambling around on hands and knees, everyone looked for the ring before the ceremony could continue. With the last “I do,” Blanche and Daddy shared a kiss, hugged the two little girls and started a life that in the next twelve years would see four more children added to their family:  George, born May 25,1931; Joel, July 5,1934; Mona, December 14,1936; and myself, October 21,1942.