Latah County Oral History Collection

And I know he had an ideal country for that.

Sam Schrager: Sheehan Yeah, I just turned it on.

Ernest Anderson: Now where are we going to start it all? What was it you said?

Sam Schrager: What I thought we'd start with is who is talking about the work that you did when you were a teenager and what that was like?

Ernest Anderson: Well, I started getting when I was pretty young in the summertime, during the summer vacations all through. Well, from the time I was 12, I did. I plowed, you know, with Florida horses, and I'd have to lead the dairy course, you know, and we would put in a fork in it. And by and we had to do all the odds and ends, like carrying water to field lunch to the field, to the men in one particular year.

But I can't remember the year when Clarence, my brother and I shuck so much grain that year before we went home. My golly, I think we put in which outdoor night in June from 9200 acres that we just had to an ant several times got us up at 230 in the morning and gave us breakfast and we went to work and chilly in the morning and we stayed there till uncle came out.

She he got out there about seven to do Bindoon. He'd bring us something to eat and lunch along with him. And then I think my sister brought lunch out about 10:00 and then we after we came home for dinner, we were pooped and we'd put in a day's work at noon, which is hard going in hot weather, just like it is now, maybe warmer.

And we only could handle a bundle at a time, you know, made around shops and that was hard. But we went to bed at night, I'll tell you, you know, we we were tired, so dog tired. But after dinner we get to rest till about 4:00 and we took out coffee and listen in to our go anywhere binding.

And we had lunch out there too, and we had fresh water over there and, and then we worked till 830 at night. That was, I thought, ridiculous. But the finishing of that year was the best, I think, of all we had gone to Moscow on a Saturday and they had virus underwear and shirts and things like that. And so when we went in, my dad came and got it in the car and he said, where?

And he says, You've been too good boys this summer. She says, So she gave us each $0.65 apiece that we don't have any getting fired. We had $1,000,000, but the well, it just goes to show you how good you were for all summer, you know, And but the way she said it, I thought it was kind of funny, too.

You know, we we opened it. We could expect to get $5. We could buy as a good baseball or something like that. You know, And I good had first of around to get our own spending money. There was no spending money coming from home like they do now. Well, if you if you do so much, you earn so much, you That was never it never thought of you know, there was long as you were born at home, you worked not many, but at the age of 15.

Then I quit school. You see, I was just too late. Be And from there on. And when I work pretty steady here and never had a daily or hardly, well I think it's I remember within three years I must have gotten only about got home went home and about three or four times in three years And that was one time at Christmas, that thing one time at Thanksgiving.

And I may have gone home early in the fall to months. And so that's all I you get on the train, you know, at my fun and you come back same day. You wanted to but I stayed two or three days sometimes, that's all. But then all my friends have left town. I don't know how they come to leave so quick, but they didn't.

I never didn't know where they went to find me a lot I found and moved to Spokane and some of my Seattle and their folks left and everything. You know, I don't know what they were looking for. I don't really understand why they got occupations that they gave up and left town entirely. I've heard of the whereabouts of a few and I'm hoping now during Expo in 74, when we go out and stay a week or so with our friends and relatives and at least that long, maybe longer.

And I'm going to see I know a girl that you still living. She's about my age now and she'll know where they all they've all gone to.

Sam Schrager: Who where did you go when you were working out?

Ernest Anderson: And hardly ever my uncle. My uncle was out the Moscow in south of Moscow about three miles.

Sam Schrager: The same guy that you got $0.65 from.

Ernest Anderson: Yeah.

Sam Schrager: She went back and worked for him. Yeah.

Ernest Anderson: I did. Because I didn't want to go any place. I didn't want to go back to school, so I stayed there, got to do what I wanted to do. The thing I designed to do, be able to have four lines and, for six or 8 hours is dry. You know, I was always happy, and we thought about money is always plenty, not good food.

And I never thought about money and wages. I was there and I was doing my job. I kept the lead from the time 1917, no matter who the man was. See and run two or three plows. I pick out the horses and I made him up and telling him which one goes in the lead and which one got by the Wheelers.

And that was all I was doing. Uncle, it makes him so happy to have such a fat on with the slow and that you never work to do it again. And that only makes one Fred you know, and form up because the other one don't compete at the poor way. So he finally turned it over to me and I eventually did all his business in the line.

Like, interesting. When I asked about it for nine different seasons, Farm and the first year was the first year I was there. I we didn't have too long harvest but 35 days. Then mostly we got in 65 to 70 days. That's pretty good pay. That's where you get your best. Mine was in harvest, but in 1921 I think it was nine year.

In 1921 we had a lot of rain coming and going all the time and we went out in the middle of July that year and got the early wheat and stayed there till the middle of November. Then we pulled in and then the grain and wheat was trashed up in that. You get enough feed for hogs and and get enough seed to see it right back and it growing.

You know, part of us already started sprouting there wouldn't hurt at any because you could put it in the ground and it grow and that's the way they did it. And I was here. But everything was going out of it that stopped all that big machines. The yes.

Speaker 3: Was a very large housing foreign.

Ernest Anderson: Cost, $280.

Speaker 3: Up to 80. I had to have it done.

Ernest Anderson: No way. I I'm sure. Yeah, that's the barn and the road here. That big red barn with a tin roof, one $280 it cost for lumber and labor outside of their own labor.

Sam Schrager: When was that built?

Ernest Anderson: About but 19, I'd say around. I think it was built a year later than this in 1916 or 17.

Sam Schrager: Well, the threshing crew that you worked on, they went around to a lot of places and threshing.

Ernest Anderson: Yeah, one place to the other.

Sam Schrager: But it was your uncle's operation.

Ernest Anderson: Yeah, well, there was poor man company gone, Got on the plane. Threshing company?

Yeah.

Sam Schrager: What did you do as roustabout?

Ernest Anderson: You. you had to go to town. Roustabout job was to haul water. We had to barrels and do different to your cart One on four they had to have up around sack pile and the other two they cooked. You really should add water barrel too. What about on one cart for the cooks They washed down there and everything.

A lot of them man washed up with the machine because they had a tank that hauled water to the engine. You know, a lot of washed up there. And then down there that saved me on too much water. That's only 50 gallon of water. And in a bear I was on water three, four or five barrels a day.

And then we had a lot of sacks and stuff on top. Move weighted down. Yeah, kind of old and getting to then you had to bucket it. Sometimes I had to carry it quite a ways and pump and, but they had lots of water where we was but the shore and so on and get to the pump I have to carry it.

And that delayed me. Then I had to go hunting potatoes at the farm. The fellows we we find for furnish potatoes and things like that in the mail. A lot of mail when I drive the farthest average over the team was about 12 miles to Moscow, start off about four in the morning and get into Moscow. Get in.

People were up those days in the morning. Meat shop was opened in the real early. He would be there and cutting meat for the day and for all the orders. And he always knew we were coming. I was coming in and sometimes get in and lock the door, let me in. But just the same I give my order and I'd go to another.

Placing the bait shop was best place in a way. I always had breakfast there with him. He let me have all I wanted their coffee with him. He was a German. He was married to a Swedish woman when I got married in 1923. And he found out about it somehow. I think I saw him. And we think he made a remark that when I got married, he would make me cake.

And I think I left. The day that we got our marriage license, I stopped in and told him I was getting married. And I told him, when you get ready, he did too. So let him get it. That's a lot of fun. So not a marriage.

Sam Schrager: He went around town and you. You picked everything up high, all the back out.

Ernest Anderson: Now, biggest trouble there was to go in lots of places, you know, the man would order this and I have to go to home and get changed clothes and bring out their laundry and. stuff like that, you know. But I did it and I did it rightly, too. I, I was well liked amongst the crew. Sometimes he liked it.

Let me know. All right. Get that. So somebody that growls and I didn't I did what the best I could do for lunch every afternoon. I got I got started pretty bad that day and they used to have me done Jim Dodds, the first time the Dodgers come out with it was like a pick up. But and it's green in what they call them.

I don't know. I think they used them as sort of a grocery wagon or certainly that. But anyway, he came up the hill and games were coming up the hill from one way and he come from behind me and I had a great big coffee pot, you know, big round and holding it in and driving the team in the buggy and all the lunch and stuff and a big great big band just piled up with cookies and sandwiches and stuff like that.

And plenty of coffee. And he, I didn't know I got, I thought of Simon coming in. I was going to duck in me over here in between the two teams he and I got would have got there, but he didn't have any break and he died. He didn't ever expect heartbreak. So he hit the back. He tried to turn to the right, but he could have got away there.

I don't know. He got excited. He was a Dane and he was really excited and let it happened here. Carried my buggy. And just like that. And the wheels crashed. The one wheel crashed when the wheel crashed and he went right over it and went on down to the flat on the other side. Over the other side, you know where I was going down.

He he went down and he got down in the flat. He stopped and he got too excited or he could just stop. But people, those old timers, they could not. It was easy for them to learn everything come to dry and they got excited. It was just they could handle a runaway team better than they could non-mobile. But that was the case there.

I didn't get hurt, except I got scarred pretty bad on my leg. Let it never come off that hot coffee. So then I had to go back and put gas just little ways by Dave Little five from here to the barn. And I took the kitchen back and and get my coffee cup. The women had a big, I don't know, they had a big reservoir along side of the, the stove, the in there, you know, heat that too.

And they let the hot water in it. So it didn't take long to get coffee again now. And it was little bit late, but the men always appreciated. So then I went and the neighbor was thrashing for he he said you're going to have to have a wheel to go in to market tomorrow. I said, Yeah. And he said, I got a no buggy down there and go down, get the wheel and put it out.

But I don't fit now. Obsolete yet the same. So it worked out all right. A little, not quite as big a them, but it was okay. Then I brought the all wheel in to the man. They put in new spokes and it took a week more to make that fix that wheel. That's quite a job, you know, and then put a new tire on it.

I getting pretty bad. But he was so happy that I didn't get hurt. You know, if I had, I had killed me, would have died again. I learned to know I was a very, very nice person. He was a farmer not living too far from theirs out there in Blaine area, but pretty much eased this other way. But pretty great old time.

Sam Schrager: Well, do you do you remember whether or not the crews were much the same from year to year? Did they change a lot?

Ernest Anderson: No. During the years that I wrote about for Uncle, you see these there are a lot of logging. Men went to the woods in the wintertime, and as soon as they got spring camp, they would go down in the southern states and get job in the harvest, you know, and go around, see, And they always hit up their Moscow at about half time or about a week or so before.

And they get out and get a job for working hard, get a job for a farm to shock grain and he getting bored and he get some money. You know, the main thing was to get their board. They would work, you know, for less money than they got nowadays. But they wanted to get out of that woods in the summertime.

They didn't like it. It was so hot and hard getting dangerous and everything. So they had to be there in the wintertime and they were pretty much a follow up from year to year. But there were a lot of them just like them. Some people didn't stick around very long and sometimes some of them stayed. And I've got to get two or three guys.

And if they didn't want to go back to something else right away where they see, they could go into Canada, too, you know, And I right there, and even until the snow came, you know, because it the snow was dry and all you had to do was they bound it then. Now the wind road with the wind roar they don't badly and that lays there and they can't get it right in the fall they'll get frightened spring and that's what they did.

But they had an awful hard time keep the steam engines from freezing up, you know, had to fire at all night and then they'd get windstorm. Who the snow would fly and then they'd have to drain the pipes and quit that different up there. But the most the time they would go somewhere else would go to the woods.

They didn't like it, but they, you know, they liked to travel to see the country, but that's the way they did a lot. And then after they'd have a steak, they'd go someplace and play cards. Do Germany had to go again. They had to do that. Just drove by one hour every night after work, play poker with a ladder.

And if.

Sam Schrager: You had enough strength left after that.

Ernest Anderson: I guess at every game, so many games and that door that would decide they'd go to bed. And I know one fellow didn't have due date before he quit. He didn't have hardly set it to him those last three days. Were you? Well, he said, give me a check for that. He said, so I can have something to back me myself with.

So I did. Bank Leahy One more and his money back that night. He had a good do it for the guys. The minute they gave him, he got his money back and then yeah, it did always work that way, though. He said he was an Irishman and he he used to drive the big wagons, the great big horses eight and 12 he had strung out with do line jerk lines, and he'd have two animal wagons where they were three.

And this back in the south. And here comes down up one night light me and he knew they had across the river some river. I don't remember where. And the horses got all excited, not from a storm, but the lines and the and the animals back tigers and that, they got really riled up and they scared the horses, so they took off and ran away.

Well, he said he stayed with them, he'd been on that road, they moved by road at that time before they went into the train. You know, they in loading up in a train and go taking a long string, you know, like they used to do in. So he said, well, he didn't I didn't know what to do. When they come to cross the river, I knew I wasn't going to hit the bridge.

I had a big span or long string and he said I'd jump, let him go. But he said when they got into the water, it missed the bridge and went down over the bank into the water and they finally got out. But I don't remember how. But he said, I was afraid that, you know, the animals get out, the animals get out.

It would be awfully bad the way I can to a pretty strong animal way. He was still there, but he was a horse trainer. He could talk to any horse after the Animal Week and he'd do just exactly what he wanted to do. He he was never hard on them, but he made he get him to understand he's talking to them.

He said you could in the circus, you could call any noise by name, tell him what to do. And he did it. And it's he was a trainer and I wish I could have been like him.

Sam Schrager: Do you think that that there was much difference between guys like these guys that were just coming through as far as how hard did work is compared to guys, let's say, out on a ridge where they all got together in the neighborhood and worked? Did these guys work a real hard or hard way?

Ernest Anderson: Harvesting was hard. Lots breaking. You talk about clearing land that the hardest work there is because you had to cut the brush with AX. Everything was manual labor, but and break it with many have never had it more than one horse but they'd go together with each had a horse. You get four horses or three or four horses but they had by the neighbors.

And then they'd go over there and plow for them to do the same thing, you know, break land. They didn't break too much. Every year, but enough to get by so they could get to cultivating farm land, grow something no more dumb, or were now not married when they came get married shortly after, were going to get married or some of them came over here, was married in Sweden and brought their families later after they got it, I can tell you a little story.

This is kind of out of this area if you want to hear it in South Dakota, Norwegian are telling me it's set. It was about 20 miles east of Rapid City, and we came in there to that place in 54, pouring down rain you could not see to dry. I never been in a rainstorm like that, but it skied right down on you down there, plowed right out.

You don't have it didn't look. You had 25, 30, 50 feet clearing. You know it get hung. When I went in there and checked the place and paid them and they were very broken in their Norwegian way. You talk. So I wanted to know a little bit of their livelihood, how they come to settle into place and their father was a baker in your country and he went out west to United State.

He set up several bakeries in South Dakota and way back further east east. Now, the place in Minnesota. So it was heard there was land to claim over here at a certain time been staked out. they had to do is claim it. So there was a drive to go and he took the train and it was just a flag station went and staked the land in 6000 acres or so monastic.

So he goes right, send a letter to his wife to sell out and come out here. They bought it, got a farm gene, you know it's going to be Homestead. But in those days, everybody thought about getting a piece of land, get a piece of land, whether with money, but you have something to live on. And that was a main thing.

Get a piece of land and that state, anything opened up. They wanted to go and get them. Well, then when she came the day she came and they stopped and got he she says, well where is the farm. Well he says, I had told you because I afraid you wouldn't come. He said it about three miles north. Street.

Northwest? No, straight north, he said up there. But he said, Do you have a house? No. And everything. But they had baskets full of food and that they took along and no civilization within miles of plains. I would try and go through it. They wouldn't get out, get into any that be there at the flag station and go and he said his mother just cried her eyes out every step he took out there and drug me along.

I knew just a little kid, but today at that time we were there in 54 and they had sold out. Not all that, I guess, but turned the farm over to the boy. They they added more land to it and you got a nice cattle ranch and and he said they both said they wouldn't want to look back to the old days at all.

They but it was interesting to me to learn to know just how hard it really was. But here's where you start with just a scratch. And they did the same thing here. You see, they what.

Sam Schrager: I was just going to ask you to to to tell me some about how they got by here.

Ernest Anderson: Well, the main thing was to go to these sawmills and they had little time in the spring. They would grab a little land or clear a little bit whenever they had a little lay off at the mill, they got a dollar a day and they never took the money home, I think by chance. And the master worked there three or four years for just for lumber.

And then they tried to I know many of them went to the blues country, you know, where that is, my Palouse area and all that. And they would take in harvest and bring home a few dollars if they had 15, $20.

Sam Schrager: But you're saying that that you wound up here because of because grandmother died.

Ernest Anderson: Grandpa died because he had gotten off the farm a few years for that 11 down and then I lived up north of the ridge here and boys were farming down here. But after he died, I then became grandma alone, pretty lonesome. And the the in-law got good headaches. His daughter, the daughter that can do more than they say.

The in-law. By that I mean the boys married and they were an outsider other than their family, which is a thing to do. Why they don't come so concerned about his relatives. They probably have on their own more. So that's pretty much a I was told workshop best. If the daughter is here rather than be the husband that is really say a son.

And we find that to be correct too that her mother all a lot of me ever since I was pretty young I guess we understood it and she was of the opinion it would come and take care of it. Then we bought the farm, say that time and prices weren't too good. And yet this is in 42, 1942 in the rough going.

But I don't and I don't know how we got but I said I'll never buy anything new or do anything that would take the money from you. I mean, if I needed it for that, you're going to have to get your care. So I got a federal loan and took over the debt and put her clear of everything, and I assumed everything else.

But we made it very nicely.

Sam Schrager: When you started down here farming in the Carlson's place? Yeah. Did you use his equipment or did you buy your own?

Ernest Anderson: I bought my own. every time I bought my own.

Sam Schrager: What. What did you. What did you start in like there.

Ernest Anderson: And I 23. Well I started with the all the equipment that I needed, I he had it there and I bought it horses and all I had to feed there in the barn and I had hay and grain about the seed farm and everything. And so I don't have any problem right now. I had to do is get out and get corn, which I did.

I worked for him all summer and I made pretty good wages and that helped to pay a little bit to get me started. So I bartered with them, then work and carries grain and all. Then I went harvesting with my Uncle Ed, for which I made good money. I don't know. I guess Come Home is hard and I know I needed that.

And I told him, I said I would stay here for to harvest, but I said I need to make that extra money. Well, he said, well go, I'll find harvest. So that's the way that worked out. They were happy and I was too, so worked out pretty nice. But there's there's a lot of things that you have to experience, not because I didn't always the direction I wanted to go.

I had to go the direction I could go in supplying our needs. One way or the other. I mean, I can say, well, I need a truck or I need a truck going by it. You have to bide your time as to when you can get to that condition and time in life that you can buy that and go on with it, because there were no such things buying tractors at that time.

I think, though, I don't know what your dose is. We used to hear about the dozers coming in and such like that, that what you call big tractors and used and construction works. And I'll get at Caterpillar's that horses you know we help change the road up here. When I lived down here came up to Ridge I did one of their and drove four horses on a scraper there for a week and we donated.

It wasn't the matter of getting paid. Donated people got along pretty good, but there sometimes some growling get on the out, rest them and get after them. So you get good graces pretty quick because one can do that. Get along with that. You and that was a good thing that they had that feeling because if you didn't help out the other guy, you wouldn't come back and help you.

They were in trouble and they they used to have their own trash machine together. So in one company rig, which they had to live with.

Sam Schrager: On Burt Ridge. Yeah. What kind of what kind of operation did they.

Ernest Anderson: They had a big steam pressure case out there. Yes. It went real good, in fact. great. Trashed everything on the raid.

Sam Schrager: How long does that take about? Do you remember?

Ernest Anderson: I don't recall. I never did think of that. And this law in here. But we always bound our grain because we had more of it down the north end where my dad live. We didn't have too many acres. I think last year, that farm that he lost in a field and they got everything down below earth, right?

And he said, I'm not going to stack it. So we didn't either. Otherwise we would usually have to wait. But there was so many in the north have a whole stack of grain because it in there or some didn't have over 1520 acres to try and it wasn't hard enough to move it with a crew and all that good work got in way it did later on.

It did later on when the younger generation started taking over from the off range of the older ones, we got to take, you know, over doing our work the way we wanted to. We wouldn't do that hard work actually. You get through faster if you get together and all. I mean, and in battle wagons in the field, everybody get out there and pay so much with ration and for the pictures and then you could change hauling It came out.

Just blend it, you know, it's fun to get at 4:00 in the morning at 330 to feed the horses and get ready and go and eat a big breakfast and go to work. We used to like it, like it in your blood. You really you can't wait one year. And I wish each. Come on. They just feel that you had to go enjoyed it because that harvest year for the farmer harvest time for the farmer.

Sam Schrager: So it was really a good time, you know, It was a real hard time for work.

Ernest Anderson: Yeah, a lot of hard work. I like a good I got it down today. We have I woke up at 3:00, we went to bed early. I knew we'd do it and we'll have a 3:00 and then and about four. She woke up. She said, You awake? And I said, Yeah, she already knows family. I guess you can tell that people are sleeping when you wake up.

Well, I said, I'm not going to stay here. I think go and get out of bed for a while. And I did. Why did you close the door and wind it? I said, I'm so warm. I'm just sweat and all that. And just then pair up again, you know? But I had to make covers. I kicked them all and I just laid right there and feel pretty good and I go back to sleep.

I went, Well, Bob, the window, you know, not doors. Everything again came back and then we get start. And what she says now is that in the day there was cool now we get out, have some breakfast and go to work And so we did So I woke up Claire knew 12 noon. I had coffee though in between then I heard the garden and I put a die on plant.

But it, I got my, I got it that loose that the not going to be nice plant potatoes do that tomorrow I going to put them in rows six foot three feet you know square area three feet that works good. Yeah I know she's saying his only thing.

Sam Schrager: Is just those didn't work, I just noticed it myself. Listen, let me ask you about when the depression hit and took. When a depression hit. What? What happened? There was crop prices and your whole layout.

Ernest Anderson: Well, I tell you, everything was on a standstill. I didn't have any money. The banks closed. You know, Roosevelt, when he got any closed the doors. you think? Anyway, money was just about the last thing he thought of. But being used to working together as friends worked together so much. Yeah, I remember that. Well. Well, anyway, being.

Sam Schrager: Used to working together.

Ernest Anderson: Yeah. So we got closer knitted at that time. You know, it changed our work. There was no money exchanged. Time didn't mean anything. I mean, if we could. I worked a week at my room and it was fine, and he'd come back sometime, whether you did it. But you was there a long time that didn't make any difference.

Everything worked out fine Irish to you at all.

Sam Schrager: You think that people got closer during the Depression.

Ernest Anderson: But just as soon as a war hit and money started to be big, more money, you know. You know, I had too bad way to broke. Now, you know, you got to go see your neighbor very seldom. You see more times you see and more tied down danger. Any other time we go to a neighbor's here quite a bit, but is where we didn't because we didn't get out.

It was this ice and snow and that normally we did at that time. That was really rough go. And I tell you that the farmer is a then they knew how to take care of the situation themselves, their piece of land, and they had garden and had all the meat and stuff to eat they could ever think of.

You know, we still put up so much stuff of our own that carried it from, say, we did the poetry in November or December. We had food to carry. I'm glad to meet you that sometimes we had a heck of a time out, eat some of that. We could eat the other, but it wasn't hard to to even then, you know, to get make and give a handout.

Somebody like you, £200 hog and a half a one year to my neighbor and not thinking about it. He said, I maybe I can work it out sometime. I said, whether you do or don't know doesn't make any difference. I said, We have it to give to you if I sold one thing anyway. So I said, it's you'll get more out of it and we all be happy lived together that way.

Otherwise he couldn't get no work. He lived on a 40 acres, but he should have set up something different than mismanagement he worked out, never raised in any home speaker. You can't do that. Not in the Depression time. I know. She rode with me to town one time, was going to try to get £25 to show that she had a heck of a time getting any credit with till I went and told him about it across from me.

And so he gave us credit that he did care that later she went out or got work, but she got lucky to go to a some folks now, the woman and her man and she was poorly and as someone to take care of her and do the housework and the washing and you know, change bed for an and do the cooking.

So she made some money you know could pay off thing because they paid pretty well out of times. People in this 50 to 70 hours. But you know the older people lot they died at home right in hospital those days doctor would kind of see them but and think about going to hospital that it was an operation that might rain down here like I do.

And you never know.

You go to hospital and spend your days. No places. It's going to be a rough going. I'll take all the earnings you made in all your lifetime.

Sam Schrager: The that was a prices for wheat and crops real low all through the Depression.

Ernest Anderson: Yeah, for a long time I don't remember. We sold some wheat. I don't know how many crops we out but it did come up to $0.60. Then we sold it. Then again you see you had some bills to take care of, which it didn't go any place good. I mean, you should get down higher. But what good to that do?

I mean, I, I really didn't know what to make out of it to start with, but I just told my wife we put the car on the block and, well, she said we'll never go anyplace. We'll go as long as the horses can take it. But I said, we can't afford to buy gas. And one thing, I'm not going to write a bill, but it went for two years, probably more two years anyway.

And he she came crying one day and I said, well, I don't know what the situation would be, but I said, I don't know. I going get squeezed a dollar out of a turnip. But I have been thinking about a lot of things. Yeah, to use your credit again. But that's one thing I didn't like to do. But Homer Densmore And try a year on service station, he had one leg and he was a wonderful person.

He set up the first gas station in Troy and I. We all had money and made money way. We certainly patronized him and he made good money, his bad in many ways, made when he died hauling diesel and gas to the loggers logging camps. He was he would be up to, you know, that eventually filled out. But during that time, so I stayed home and I said, you know, how deep in debt can a person get to years?

And he said, What are you thinking of? I says, I'm going to have to try to start driving the car, but it's necessary because my wife is she I'm pretty bad over it. And I says, Martin Right. That you get out a little hard and you go to church on Sundays and the kids start school and and block and everything.

Lender it wintertime we could drive with it came pretty nicely sleigh and he said you to come in and charge in. He said, I'll take it long till the depression won't last forever. And he said, I'll pay all your gas bills. Take of myself. So I did that I think owed him or somewhere around $60 for gas and maybe a couple of times in a battery, probably something like $60.

And last I wound up and maybe I'd paid him in between a little bit. I don't know if I had a dollar, gave it to sold some cream. I bought eight, eight month old cans currently in Jersey Heifers and he want me to take a dozen of them afterwards. Ahead. But he couldn't feed them. He had to have to buy my feed.

I'm not going to do it. I'm going to sell them, cut them down, just take care with what I got, had them. And so I went down and got them. I had plenty of feed and I said down. I said, Well, in a couple of years I'll have some milk drained to go in here and maybe we'll get but 60, $70 a month to buy them.

Butterfat goes up and Butterfat went up and the cows come in fresh milk. Good. He put in a lot of cream. Then I didn't have very good, good separator. So valves, valves store and mostly we used had the Viking which is made in Sweden. Viking separator are stainless steel and he said I could buy it for $5 and make I think it cost me $60.

I'm not sure, but I think so about $60. And they were made in Sweden. I took it, took him up on it and I paid him that way and got cream and pouring out. So that was one way. We got another way. We had a lot of pigs. I cook beans, one whole crop went in. Last year. I lived down here and froze and too many grains.

I didn't know all of them into the warehouse. He said, Ernie, I can't buy them to feed everyone. I said, You and charge me storage if I take them out. No at all. So I'll. I got me a big cattle. I still have the cattle sitting in a thing like this place to put the fire in lid and I'm using that my garbage, my incinerator out here.

Now the lid had cut out on a down. Just got to stop both butter on it. Yeah. It's really good deal. And it held about 15 to 20 gallons of water. I'd put so much beans in there and some grain and what we had to get rid of, you know, not so let it spoil. That's the way we did come by.

You had the best meat in the world, but you didn't got all that milk and beans and grain and everything. There was delicious meat. You could just stick your finger to it, you know? Well, I put them on and five months had a dress on it and 65, 70, 560, £570 from time. These born environment that that's growing fast in it But then I butcher and everything but you want my I butcher I didn't get more about it for $4 for all of the fried.

Yeah. You can't buy a ham it cost you more for half a ham today than I got out of a whole pig. Say that kind of difference today.

Sam Schrager: And a heck of a difference.

Ernest Anderson: So I let that one woman in rows. I said young. She just. I sure wish I could get into where I could get something like that. I says you can if you work for it, you can get there. But I said to farmers today, don't have any pigs. I said, It's all gone. It's gone to a hog, raised the cows and all two are gone.

And somebody raises cows and this way and that way. And the other thing I said on the farm, we used to have everything we did. We had a creamy right here and dry and nice on there doing good business. But then the Muska place up there ruined it. They bought everybody out, got rid of all the smaller farmers.

Adequate. That's the way they did it here. That big concern should never do that. I tried to fight against it, but what good to do that can't do it alone. We couldn't hold it. We shipped cream for a lab. Spokane. I didn't go to finally quit it entirely. I had after we settled down out of the Depression. It took ten years in my life square and everybody from a time depression to start.

We've got to get a little money that's too long. Makes it rough. All that. And in that time, we lost to one of the of beans, the brain drain. We never stayed.

Sam Schrager: Two years the last. And when which years were those.

Ernest Anderson: In the forties, No, the late thirties. And right about that, 1940, 40, 41 was last one, 1441. The last one was years.

Sam Schrager: Were you selling your wheat crop every year during the Depression or were you not.

Ernest Anderson: Now, I didn't start with nobody did.

Sam Schrager: What did you what happened with you started.

Ernest Anderson: I started at home, had a big driveway, one end of the barn, and I went down, cut timber and pulled but underneath and then piled it up. And you know, I never had and I could. You can't, I never had a sack. As you touch with the with my all the sacks I had piled, I couldn't afford to hire anybody and putting a pallet, I got too much against it now and get out just getting that I can't get in enough it that's rough corn so I just put it there, hold it down but put shoes my horses, shirt and shoes and let them on myself all the way around.

the grade and the American grade going I try now is a different road. And what we had for we came up so far and then we went around, came up like this that you can see where the outline of the old road is. That was icy at times. Good. I that I enjoyed making two trips a day to town.

I had good horses and that was like sleigh ride in mind to go out and get a cup of coffee and head for home. I would in the morning I'd get back home and loaded for dinner during the cows out and the water, but a mac and again feed him and come home. I could be ready to milk and had the choice time but six has to get separate six but that was the day.

But I get up early in the morning and get things done. I just can't get up. Anytime I'm going to go somewhere, I do something. I did it, but that's often in quite a few doing same kind of. And then you got little more weight and you eat because it took moisture, better diet and later. So then we got to finding out that they were cheating it on the weight.

So I told Wayne at home I had a scale and I weighed three tacks at a time or four and loaded. And so I said, Well, it seems to me like I'm pretty bad, pretty short today. He to well you me I said your weight short which is thick. So I said, you know, I said I weighed this load.

I said you've been taking from me all the time. And he didn't know what to say then that ended up for him too, you know, and told about, Hey, got it. Cheat you and your already broke by. You don't learn to stand out for yourself. You might as well lay down, die you know get kind of bad has to get for yourself sometimes I that's one thing I got.

Sam Schrager: One place was.

Ernest Anderson: I don't need it goes around.

Sam Schrager: Did did they change your ways.

Ernest Anderson: Well, as far as I know, I knew from the time I weighed first time. And you can run an awful good dairy. Then from there, one low. It's about all you need to really weigh because the facts or so pretty pretty close to the same amount you went very, very much to the valley of five that on that you can come close.

Sam Schrager: To they get honest after that.

Ernest Anderson: Well I didn't have any problem after that. They knew I was watching as far as I know, but I soon quit the first time it went someplace else. But when the clubs came in, I went. I joined in 1929 and I got good weight there. I don't know why they did that. I wasn't the only one to cut it.

Kind of bad. Nobody else that you want to know.

Sam Schrager: I think we should just take a break or stop and press it down. Really hard to get it going. What about the chores that you had to do when in in town? With what? Not having having lost your mother and the extra kind of work that well to do.

Ernest Anderson: Our chores was the first thing to get off school. We got a little lunch or something and some fresh bread and or something. Maybe my sister baked. She never got to go to school, you know, After all, she went to see about 14 to get him. Our chores was to carry the water in. We had a dug well.

We had to pump the water in every night carrying the amount of water we needed, but we never had more than a bucket full of it. Then no entertain the tea kettle will free salad. So it all was empty. It and fire go out. 8:00 We went to bed because by Monday morning we had to get up. But Sunday night we he had made bench.

Then there was a duty was up in between the two tubs like this bar on it and there we fast the ringer on we had two renting tubs. Okay And we had what a dasher wash machine. We had to go by hand, dash back and forth and we'd bring the water in in Sunday evening, but all the water we wanted to and the two tabs carried it together and now we filled the boiler on top this door within about three inches of the top, and we had our kindling all cut, went to bed and we had the alarm clock and the overturn.

It was to get out and build a fire to get out. It was between me and my older sister and mostly because my brother was two years younger. But as he got older, he got to belong to that. That was a big job in a way. You know, it's dangerous to. And then at 6:00 we had that thing boiling real hot.

Female. We didn't have dad that boiling, but we did but they, they wash clothes in boiling water. And this is something I thought was now I know I'm crazy. You don't go set easier a hot water and then a will in guru water set on your clothes you can't get them. White is all about getting no clothes and no really you know lukewarm water at the best.

But you see, you live and learn and we get it out. We had it out on the line at 8:00 in the morning. We the first ones out. Let's go my sister and take them in. We got dry. They would freeze dry in winter under the porch. Him cold. They'd freeze dry, take long sometimes take him in stiff, throw them on to always had a bath on Saturday afternoon.

It was a rotation they used. You got it bath once a week and it was the same. We had one set of clothes we wore to school. Then we had to go into an overall and different shirt where wear clean clothes. I mean, we had our clean clothes on. The only had two shirts. So you see that the way we had to alternate and pull it like that.

But dad, when I, I should get kind of shaggy and we go to school in them and you buys a new one, have to go to church, school or go somewhere else where we want to go. That's where you rotated with. We got a new pair of shoes every year that the oldest, the what would the best shoes to go to school in and the new ones we had use for it go in or go to church and we never missed church never once Sunday school all time we always had I was on the honor roll coming Sunday school.

It never settling We ever missed it any time the school years seldom because we lived in town clothes we didn't have the problem people in the country had coming in.

Sam Schrager: What do you remember from Sunday school? What it was like?

Ernest Anderson: Well, what I can say too much of that. I don't know really how much we learn. I think a lot of times we lived in fear more than anything else. Kids not really understand what they're trying to teach, and they're very strict about a lot of things. Your behavior, for example. And well, for an example, you sit like this, you sit and you look, you're going over there and over here you're looking around all over and you're paying attention.

The teachers, men, some of the were men, mostly men. And I can't remember my first very first years in Sunday school. I really can't. I seem like our life got on it. But everything was memorized, even from time we were small. I know because I every once in a while I'll pop up saying something that we remember a little, and I have some of my Sunday school books and I found one of my brothers and that he got when he started school, Sunday school in 1908.

And that was a book from his teacher for four, being there all the time, you know, And I forgot who gave it to him. But it was a very nice book and I intended to read it, but it was written in English. No, this baffled me. So I called up the neighbor living up here at Clarence Johnson. He's 78 years old now, 76, maybe 77 or eight.

And I said, when in the world, the Swedish Sunday School, because I know 1917, you could not preach Swedish. So school it good. It serves adults, but not young children. And so that's when it quit. Then I never went such projects in Troy anymore then for three years, because I wasn't home, I went to Moscow. I was confirmed the 26 to me in 1917.

I graduated in eighth grade, same year and we graduated. And they confirmed you around 15? They started well, I had gone two years, but I had learned the catechism and all that. I wish I could remember it. I wished I had learned it in English. But that's not to be thought of now. But I have a Swedish catechism now.

I button Sweden. I never did not gain my wife. And maybe later on, as I knew right away where it was, I'd go get it. I know where it is and read you some of it better you and understand it.

Sam Schrager: It can. Can you say more or is there more to say about about learning English in school where you mentioned it.

Ernest Anderson: You had to absolutely talk English when you came they wouldn't accept and you just strictly they had English teachers and and they wouldn't have a Swedish speaking person to school teaching. But they had good order, very strict order. And there were times that I think they were a little bit out of order, little bit too severe, it seemed to me to correct anything was a rule of the whip, you know, like everybody was getting bounced around home and they were all I know if kids would get it.

I knew I had more weapons than I earned for because all God blame for everything. And one thing I had against my sister a long time, she'd always tell that I started something. You know, I'll go, I think is one way getting it back on me somewhere or I don't know that I never hated her really, but I never liked the way she did it.

And nothing was ever said about that After we grew older. Or you never talk about.

Sam Schrager: Why do you think that that this there was so much discipline? I mean, was there more Why was it so much?

Ernest Anderson: I don't know. It was a strict rule. No country I see right now. We were there in Sweden. Those kids are so well behaved and they don't beat them up. They say, no, no, and and they give a reason why you don't want to be like some dolt, some old dummy or something. You want to be polite, you want to not get mad.

It's things like that. They fight or nothing. They never liked it. But the children we met, they loved each other so much. You never seen the like. I thought that was one of the eye openers I hear. And that was one of the things. How did they stay with something? They had something that I had in there when I raised my kids.

I didn't beat my kids around like that. I was pretty sound mind when I said that and I mean it. But, you know, I never tried to have to go through the same thing that I did I wouldn't at it did have to learn and understand what to do and not to do.

Sam Schrager: When you were in school and you spoke better Swedish and in English when you started out I guess is that did did you have a real hard time understanding what was going on in a class?

Ernest Anderson: Well, they get the meanings of everything was a little bit difficulty, I would say so, but we learned fast know you don't get it fast. And because I have no I know Norwegian family came late years and their oldest boy learned so quick and we did too. But I don't know.

Sam Schrager: Would you hear the words and get an English word in Swedish and then understand? No.

Ernest Anderson: No, no. You just learn to read it and you learn spell it. The main thing was learned to read it. Both pronounced very much on it, very much. But you see, after you kids die, you mix and you're asked and you learn it pretty fast. It comes real fast. Got a new fella, Oscar Johnson. He came here when he was I think he was in third or fourth grade in school.

And so in that school time, he came and I said, I say, Yeah, the school board. And the parents thought they should go. He should start in the first grade and go as fast as they could, pay no attention till they get up to where they should be, as they are capable of learning as a man. Don't get in here all the year and next year and all year and third grade and so on.

If they can go in one year up to where they belong was in Sweden why, that's fine. So you get the age limit along with you, you know, and they came along real well. They were intelligent, too. And, you know, they that never left them. You know, they're learning. So we had to hang on to it. That's the way I had to do at home.

You know, I studied a lot after I went to bed, but then led everyone to go and boy, I'd say to fall asleep. My face is couldn't take it any longer. But in the morning at it, just everything was clear. Boy, if you got the will, I don't care to learn or to do something, you learn it, you know, But you got to have the will to do it.

I think so. Very much so. Have the students today take the interest in what they were trying to out of themselves. In a lot of other monkey business. They'd be better people too, I think, be determined. They were terribly determined a lot of the older one. Now, I had a mother teacher, she had several children. Mrs. McComb was her name, but she was so nice.

She was one that was more the lovable type and she would come and help you, whereas you had some of the married teachers who were real cranks the way I felt about them. Anyway. And you were scared? Yeah. You would close up too much and you wouldn't get out of what you should have had to get it from somebody else.

And this happened when one of my children went to school and she was a new teacher and they said he wouldn't get dumbed down, but he was something he couldn't get. So you get over them and he kept information and he did doll it down. He says, you're more intelligent than the rest of them, and I can't give you all my time, everybody.

So much time. Well, even getting any he come home and cry and tell it mother. But he went down so it went I guess for quite a while till my wife, she wrote down, sent a note with him to school. He wouldn't tell me. I don't know why. And She figured it was her problem. She thought I wouldn't do anything about it.

After all the years I've been on school board clerk of the district for years and years, he didn't want to have anything to do with it. So she thought she understood it better because she had gone through school up here and school hours were. It was pretty rough some time. Well, anyway, give it to the teacher and he left for home.

He said, I want you to read it. And so he here afterwards, that evening at school, I guess he, went to the professor in the early the next morning, he called up here, my wife, and talked to her. I went home, I was in the field and he said, I think we got a little misunderstanding here. And he says, I want you to come down tonight after school, let out, come up in the office, and and we'll see what we can do about it.

So I said, no, I took her down. She didn't know what to do, but I said, Well, you started now. You for once you end it. I said, You know everything about it. I haven't heard a thing. So I said, I'm not going to go in there and stir up any problem because I had to write one teacher in my time as a clerk in any country school, and I didn't want to start something else.

So she did. But it worked out all right. And after that, he had no more problem. Not at all. So you see, I mean, if if you if you are neglected and my young daughter says the same thing, if you neglected child when he's down in the first and second grade, he won't get further up the line that he should have because what he's going to get, he's got to get it here and there.

And then as you go step by step and if you don't get it in that those depth lines, you're going to miss up back here. My eighth grade schoolteachers told us he was one of the best teachers and he was a man teacher. He was from Scotland. And he said if they're not learned from one through three, we have to do it all over.

When they get to seventh and eighth grade, we had to go back and I guess he was right. My daughter said the same thing. So it's a lot it's not a mandatory thing so much that you want to put across. It's the love you have for them. And I think there's anything better than to show a child, prove to a child that you really love them and never let them get it.

If they get angry with you, you still be good and don't show it because you in them. I had done the same thing when I taught them school and I found that out in in going to school that I was not getting what I should have gotten had I learned some other way. And they should have been able and capable of giving us that which we needed.

We didn't get from our teachers. We had one teacher. I don't know if I should put it on a recording or not, but he thought I was doing something that I should be one day here. I wasn't doing anything but doing my lesson. But everybody in that room looked at me, you know, and then he began to laugh.

And I guess I started to blush or something and couldn't figure it out. And he came walking down and it was the last period after he says, we had about 15 minutes of training for school, let out and he had papers to correct. And so I just said, do whatever you want to do, you behind on do that.

And that's what I was doing. Now, drawing the map of United States and Britain, all the states, its occupations in it, you know, that we had learn about in you get bored and tired of sleeping in him down behind me. And he reached down in my shoulder and pulled me up, you know, and I would sit in my legs this way and he came up single seat.

It was a double seat, but it was cut metal. And I come right with it because I had seen her do that before to some other kids. For some reason I didn't know. And she was strong and she was hot, very hot tempered. And when I come up, I come under John back in my hair, not intensely. I don't know.

I just run like a spring trapped. And I heard her teeth there and her teeth were in this way like that and can feel a lot of gold and stuff. And I think I broke one tooth. I felt that and wrote that. He never bothered me. After that, you never did ask me why, and I never found out what you came back for.

I had done. But as I think it all right up over here, how did it come in? I don't know. But He he brought it on himself. I didn't bring it on her. So he I felt.

Sam Schrager: When you say that you quit school here in grade and you said before, sort of part of it was the problems with other kids. It wasn't worth it with the with the kids in town. Was that the main reason why you you.

Ernest Anderson: Yeah I tell you, it was I never was happy I couldn't go out and play again because the kids always try to pick fights, you know, But one kid on to you and neither one I was going to fight with them. All high school kids, you know, they like to see two roosters fight that way. They they would like it, you know, like you take two roosters and put them together, especially to bat eight or so and that's the way they.

they enjoyed that old time and the daylight, you know, get kids to fight and then they make one hit the other one. And not only me, but it was all through school, high school. I would do that. Some of them boys will.

Sam Schrager: Do you think you said there is a difference between the city, between the town there and and kids in the country and the country?

Ernest Anderson: Well, the country school, I don't know. They I never went to one, but I was clerk for one for many years. Three different districts as we were. But I don't know we never had any problems. And teachers got along fine country schools where they had eight classes some years and they actually come better educated than the city kids were when it came to final examination.

They took all the highest grades all the time around here and they took out the kids from the country were more intelligent and got better grades and anybody else did. No one in the city of Troy I know, and very few in Moscow that ever out them. I'd be any kid from school out the country going to school in town.

Sam Schrager: Are you telling me about their real early days or when you were?

Ernest Anderson: Well, this is when I was a kid. Yeah, I don't know. No. You see, so many of the years I was learned I wasn't too long before the consolidated to town. Let's see, I was 38 years on Driscoll Ridge, and then after a couple of years, we moved back here. All the license plates. I think I was clerk for about three or four years, and I wanted to then the some of the school district had to give up because we didn't have children enough.

We couldn't have a teacher, not that they couldn't pay tax, but there wasn't justification to have a teacher with three or four children. And so then they had bus to town to try. This was temporary to start with. Then in later years, one too many years I must been in about 40. Yes, 44. My oldest daughter got married and I had quit the year before up here because I wanted to move to town with the kids.

The town, bus them to town rather than to have to like they had done in the past. Either they had to stay in town. I had one girl went through high school. She was in town two years and that was no good for her. So I let it dry, then come home. We had three miles a little better in the car, down and back and forth.

If I needed, I'd have to take her down in the morning and take some of the neighbor with same time going to high school. It was just a high school kid, but we had a quite a time over that. But at the same time I felt it was the thing that we had to do and it would we'd be better for the families, the kids too.

And then they had to stand down or somewhat back and forth. So we finally got a couple my my stay, not my my time to go out. Anyway, three years was the fourth year. I wouldn't go back. And then they come down the following year and then and they begged me, Don't go back. If you don't come back, we'll have to haul our own kids all that time and said that we don't want to do land.

Got down with busy time to Harlan so we got all it was hard to get a school but during the war you know terrible I we found one down to the southern part of the southern part of the state right on Twin Falls. And there I went down and got that. And home a lot of them were still of the car but but thing.

So I said, I'm going to do a little psychology work. And then people on Sunday for school started. I went up the ridge, got all the kids out, and their mother's getting in the bus and give me a ride down. And I got down, treated them all on ice cream cones and things and went home. And the kids were so tickled, you and everything you did.

But the whole thing right there. I drove the bus for about three months. I didn't have a better problem. They were just happy to ride that bus tricycle. So then we got canned, temporarily consolidated, then to have temporary. Then we had an all international bus that had been used for transporting work people from one place to another. You know, we'll haul them back in or out.

What you do, I don't know. But anyway, that new seats in good condition. Got it. I think for 1400 dollars it was well worth it for that. We had plenty of money in this district, so we didn't have any trouble. See, we got railroad tax money to kind of the railroad GoDaddy, so we used nearby. We always had plenty of money so we could play schoolteachers better salaries too.

Sam Schrager: But the but you shut down then the the over and. Yeah. At that time.

Ernest Anderson: Right. Yeah. Right. Shortly after that we, we decided to go in and for good. So everybody went to go but it took maybe a year or so before that legally done. And I think the when we went in then decided to go, then they took all the books and everything they wanted out of the their desks or anything.

And then after it was permanent, they consolidated the district with the it was a consolidated city. Then we built for that. We sold the building and I don't remember where the money went to.

Sam Schrager: Was how many kids were there went in the up to when they started going in and drawing.

Ernest Anderson: On board. I don't remember that here we had we had children that we kept school for several years, but then standing in Aneel got through, they were through hardly any more with and that was a few with home back but often many, many. And we only had one here for a long time. So only one here. But it's here now, it's only one think Hansen's girl?

I think so. Now. Now, Jack Nielsen came on here. It's like there's more.