Chapter 1.19 - Uncle Walt's Place / Back with Dad

There was an old log cabin there and everything was rundown. They had one old cow, twelve chickens, and we started from scratch planting potatoes and whatnot, worked hard. But that was a happy household. Walt and Clara showed their affection to each other, every day, every way. As the spring went into summer we got a lot of spuds planted Walt and I would each go our various ways and pick up work where we could around the farms in the area. I followed an old-fashioned steam engine thresh machine outfit for quite a while. I got a dollar and a half a day and a noon meal. Sometimes I had to walk a number of miles to the next place where the thresh machine went. I did this until it got so far away that I couldn’t make it in time to be to work in the morning. In the fall of ‘32 after the spuds were harvested—and we must have had 20 or 30 acres of them, harvested almost by hand—Walt couldn’t find a place to sell them and he [said] I just can’t keep you through the winter. As much as I’d like, he [said], but if you can’t find anything else, come be with me. Well anyway, I went back to Kalispell to Grandma and Lilly, she was still in high school then, or just graduated, no she was still in high school. Then I went back up to Dad’s little old one room cabin, did some more land clearing until it got real[ly] cold living in that little old one room shack. And I fished, caught a lot of good fish, shot a few pheasants, but dug out a lot more stumps.

Chatper 1.19 - Uncle Walt's Place / Back with Dad (T1.22)