Latah County Oral History Collection

Sam Schrager: This conversation with George W McKeever took place at his home in Kendrick on August 4th, 1976. The interviewer was Sam Schrager.

George Mckeever: Here, here's the original.

Sam Schrager: that's it. Yes. boy. That is quite.

George Mckeever: Picture sound to me. Yeah. This was in the spring. The reason for the big flood. Now, this is what caused the flood of the town. That wreck is what caused this. This crane load of steel was coming down from Spokane to build the railroad from Aril up to Greenville in the middle of the winter. Looking out into the snow in the river, icy.

George Mckeever: And it was too much wheat for the football in general. And that got away from it. And you piled up right up here on the other end of Main Street and the track was on a kind of a dike. You seemed to make great. Even the track was on that. Back in October, the nightcap tore up the track and the water came through.

George Mckeever: And that's what happened. I guess the picture can be taken just a short time after that break. The records in 1990 and you and I are right in this. I was here with a neighbor, Steve Williams and this house man that on the river stable. His home was right out here over my yard and over the is. You can see over there.

George Mckeever: The river was from one bank over here at the other. If you take a magnifying glass, you can see somebody is right here with stock gauge where where they loaded the cabinet ship out of here on, you know, cattle cars coming in on the railroad in this well here and a white shirt on that with the sleeves rolled up you can actually see it.

Sam Schrager: We see was the did the flood last for long? Was the town flooded for.

George Mckeever: Four or five men down come the water melted and we show you what it is. Then the Pacific sent on a record and you can see the better on this from year to year. The record. Here's where the wreck is in the great camera and the trains. And I never did see them. An outfit like that with dairy.

George Mckeever: Do you know that these big engines?

Sam Schrager: Yeah, Yeah.

George Mckeever: The permanent engine out in the tender amount in the steel up here and buried in the rocket from that wreck. Railroad steel. You bet. And here's the thing. And usually when they're really used as a record in the boom and you can see the snow on the ground north here in New Jersey up.

Sam Schrager: You know, whether anyone was killed in that six rounders.

George Mckeever: Got my right of the people that taking out of the paper. Six guys were killed in that wreck.

Sam Schrager: Was the damage of four from the flooding to the town very extensive and one whatever did much to the houses and it looks like.

George Mckeever: There you take a look. It was a mess. Everything was underwater. Water. Yeah, we had a lot more. Do you? I know, but what.

Sam Schrager: About that fire I'd like to know.

George Mckeever: About now.

Sam Schrager: What happened in that fire?

George Mckeever: You get the picture? Sure. Rounded up with this picture there. She's got a better one. The one that doesn't show this. This was water soaked. And then you don't know the town very well. But Randy's grandmother got a cook and started here, and that was the restaurant she cooked in the back here. This lady now is in the which is the nursing home on the left hand side as you go up through the Genesee are the must go.

Sam Schrager: Or the left hand side of paradise.

George Mckeever: When she's in there now.

Sam Schrager: What's her name.

George Mckeever: Frida Bramer. Grandma. You know Rocco's grandmother, she had a beef here and she cooked in the back and served the people here on plank people, you know, families style went in three down. The next guy, they passed the meat in the potatoes and gravy in the vegetables to bits of you. And I have eaten in that same right believe it or not, after the town burned down, this has taken the truck.

George Mckeever: The after the big fire was out of here, my dad worked in the hardware store and I picture someplace in here.

George Mckeever: But that was it was at the store right here. So then I hope it burned up. If you've been knocked down here, right here is where they can recreate areas across the way. And these this hardware store that used to the farmers used to when their crops were ready to be harvested, they used binders, you know, and a binder is where they kept the green in the in bundles and they put them in trucks and then they hauled in the into a stationary threshing machine.

George Mckeever: You know, in fact, from the from the stationary machine. Here's my dad. Here's a picture of my dad of the binders. You can see the make of the carload. And they hold them over here by the bay. And then these looking for the farmers and all at home and not roadways, you know, but anyways, on the platform and that's a picture my dad take them and I have a three month old call about that.

Sam Schrager: It's lovely window window where you can have a little.

George Mckeever: Pain. Right. This was the hardware store where my dad worked. This doesn't know the name of courier and a little confectionary store here. And over here was Billy Wilder. We had the meat market here. You went through a way. Go way back.

Sam Schrager: whiz.

George Mckeever: I showed you all this in L.A..

Sam Schrager: You know, I'm getting in the show wall to me.

George Mckeever: I had to get so we could go back to the pictures of I had in the hardware store. Ramsey, Walker and Sinclair owned the hardware store here and went across the street where Frank Abrams Hardware store is now. And they had they got a service stadium and then they hold him back for things, building material to start building the town up.

George Mckeever: And that's the hardware store. Yeah. I mean, some these years.

Sam Schrager: How did they think that that fire started, did.

George Mckeever: They not, you know, did they Every hotel had a bar in it mainly stay inside after Shavings, some guy dropped a match and there wasn't a bit of water. Not one drop of water in town if I could stop it in my building. Craig was never away from it. The Germans, I know that out of this very much water in the creek.

George Mckeever: So they knew how.

Sam Schrager: I understand that, that when they rebuilt the town, that that they were really careful to put in the double walls and between the buildings. Is that true?

George Mckeever: We have a fire district here. I mean, two blocks that you can build anything that isn't fireproof, Right. I don't know anything about a double wall.

Sam Schrager: Because this town has been well preserved from fire since.

George Mckeever: Then. Right. We've never had one since in 19 four.

Sam Schrager: Where many of those buildings are burned down, wood building.

George Mckeever: They were all.

Sam Schrager: Framed. They were all.

George Mckeever: Framed. And think about every building and every business building had a saloon front. I don't.

Sam Schrager: Know. But I noticed these here were brick. These.

George Mckeever: That was, you know, the first fire.

Sam Schrager: So. So they had already built that.

George Mckeever: And they had built this was this was back in 1904.

Sam Schrager: I thought this was in 97. See this says on their.

George Mckeever: You're so right. You know, I get a little confused. But that is actually the the way the town was in 1900 and what it would save for.

Sam Schrager: I think that's the reason we live here. And you live like this name.

George Mckeever: Right here for the theater. Is that in the state there was not even the put down. I mean, that used to be the interstate bank and. Right.

Sam Schrager: And I still think now, but it wasn't at that time. You're right. But the old government hardware burned.

George Mckeever: Down a few years back when that when and where was kid Flynn have little bits of devils. And when we got old enough to start school in this picture here, Dad bought a little place out in the country. 80 acres to get us kids out of town. He wants out there. And we were asking around. Okay, so my dad on the money.

George Mckeever: Yes. Folks came from Kansas City and his mother was coming out to visit this. And we lived out here two miles from town. And we had a had you know, what the heck is lighter than the wagon? Two seater. You've seen them in Bonanza or something maybe. And we brought that hat downtown. They had the tires reset, metal tires lightened up and we took the horses home and the train was supposed to get in from Spokane about 115 or 1:00.

George Mckeever: And my mother and my sister, my brother and I, we had the thing with the harness on them because they had was down here in the blacksmith shop. And just as we got ready to leave home, we looked at them over this way south and my Lord, you never saw such a column of smoke. This is the mount burning up.

George Mckeever: Let's hurry and get down if we can. If we can save our hat. We had to have something to take Grandmother and her trunk out to our place. We never got down. We just got here and it was all gone. We watched it. We couldn't even come downtown. I mean, Business Park was completely burned up. And right here, this is the dream man who had many teams of horses, do a lot of traveling men's trunks.

George Mckeever: You know how they were salesmen used to come through.

Sam Schrager: The drummer's.

George Mckeever: Drummer's. He had an enormous barn right here, and my loft was full of hay and men. And the fire at home and abroad. You adhered for ten miles. And when we got to town, we went up on that road right there. You can see right on the skyline. If you turn around and look there you see the fence up there.

George Mckeever: We stood up there and watch this Burn down. Burn up.

Sam Schrager: Could you see the townspeople.

George Mckeever: When they run down like ants? Yeah, but they were by that time, they were all up on the hill. Million them up on what we call the Schoolhouse Hill to get out of the fire. No fire protection. They had one hose and they turned the faucet on and water just dropped off like this, you know, drop at a time.

George Mckeever: They had no way of stopping. But, you know, it was Roseland. They had had a contest and shavings and this kind of a pipe or a cigar or cigaret and slipped down. And it was and it had a place that built around this house instead of building a fence with the boards on fencepost, you set the boards up this place and nobody could look.

George Mckeever: Yeah, I don't think you write down and show you where you.

Sam Schrager: Live in a high fence.

George Mckeever: I thinks. Right. And some boards were short, some were down. You never cut them off. It was like.

Sam Schrager: And to me, his whole living from selling the.

George Mckeever: yes, you betcha. And then pick up swell, you know, I mean garbage in those days and down across the railroad tracks, he had a big pad, so he raised pigs and he sold pigs and he sold vegetables. He could grow vegetables right out there on the blacktop. I do believe.

Sam Schrager: Did you know anything about him as a person?

George Mckeever: No. I was too small. I was too small. I don't think I ever knew Gene Chinamen neighbor after I was 18 years old. I don't think I think by that time he died miserably back to China.

Sam Schrager: Is that when I got here in Shipped in back? Yes. This fellow at the same hotel that he cook there for many years.

George Mckeever: I can't answer that question either. All we know is that you like to hear those rocks downtown on that day.

George Mckeever: And I suppose in those days you remember when Pierce was opened up a marble slipped gold mines up there in the juice boxes, and they had a million Chinamen up in there, you know, where the white men had been, and they'd go back in and run the tailings through there, you know, and made a living for a Chinaman.

George Mckeever: And so they knew this hole fell on. I think that's where the election to bang it.

Sam Schrager: Gene having the geese. Somebody told me there was some geese raised by China in this area.

George Mckeever: I you know, I won't say yes and I won't say no, but I'll bet he did. Eggs. He thought eggs. He had a little too little pushcart. Yeah. And then there was these carrots and radishes and everything out of a garden, you know, the spinach and anything you could raise in the house by foot, by and prospecting all over town,

Sam Schrager: You can tell. Door to door.

George Mckeever: Yes, Door to door. You bet. Right.

Sam Schrager: You know, if he did, he probably rent the land that he that he was.

George Mckeever: You know, I don't think anybody owned that land very. Was he just in squatted. Yeah. And I know later years they didn't move him, he moved there, they said somebody says that's my land and you get off and you went on down the street from there. But where he and his garden in when I first knew already Chinaman way he had this lovely garden in the creek bed used to be right here until he heard it over here, you know.

George Mckeever: So I went down there and he had underground irrigation so he could in the end it was good soil down there and he did raise some.

Sam Schrager: Creek was running under the ground where he was.

George Mckeever: You can't go out. my gosh. Let's say 30 years ago we had a water shortage in Kent Creek and they stopped us from sprinkling our lawns. I got a guy to go out in my backyard in the building and dig a well out there. And he went down 13 feet from there was the river right there. And then eventually they got two Big Artesian wells and they had plenty of water and we didn't use that.

George Mckeever: We talked about for irrigation purposes to spring from our lawns. I feel I can take you out there and show you where and then you get more water. Yet I run a pipeline. This used to be a creek and they had a six inch soil pipe from your room over to the creek underneath the warehouse and the railroad track down maybe 15 feet.

George Mckeever: I run the pipe and you have pipe through that darn thing over to the creek. And I might want that over here. Yeah, I did. You didn't have to fix them. And they got to do artesian. Well, when you went down there, Big ten inch hole and just came up like a big umbrella point. I happened to be right there when he broke through into this vein or whatever it was.

George Mckeever: I was on the city council at that time. I was on the City council 16 years one in a row, and at the same time I was on the school board 14 years and at the same time, so I had the kind of busy in those days I had to go to a meet man near the. It seemed to me like every night a week.

Sam Schrager: Was that in the thirties or forties or.

George Mckeever: Paul was born in 1926. The oldest girl who lives in San Diego, Chloe, was born in this house in 19. She's 3046. When you can.

Sam Schrager: Put that, there would have been.

George Mckeever: About 1930. She was born in this house and my gosh, six kids who I think was their eighth grade and her high school diplomas, I think got diplomas up here in this very school. And any other one man had ever done. I was on the darn thing for so many years in a row. And at the same time, Mayor, that day and the government came through here to build their dikes at the creek back in its No.

George Mckeever: Yeah they took that picture with him the government the engineers and and eventually it came back with a half a dozen copies and I mean they went to giving them away I suppose.

Sam Schrager: So when you got out of school and you start practicing right away.

George Mckeever: Right here.

Sam Schrager: Was this place.

George Mckeever: Open up at night. This place that was an empty building where the creamy had gone broke. And in the same summer that I came back from school and I had my office at bank of the drugstore this empty have an office, said Leon. And he came down and through some conniving, he bought this building and they moved out all the creamery equipment and he had his office unanimity and he was killed in an automobile recall.

George Mckeever: McCall another. And he came in and rented it from his widow, Dr. Moorehead. And then Dr. Field came in. Then Dr. Sealy came. No, Sealy was the first one after field. I bought the field and I've had my office in the things now. And with that the.

George Mckeever: Brother.

George Mckeever: I was the in the Chloe was born the youngest girl 30 something and spending that long maybe a little bit longer a year or two. I do I don't remember.

Sam Schrager: Well let me ask you a little about about some of the way you practiced dentistry in those days. Now, what were some of the ways it was different from the way a dentist would treat me today?

George Mckeever: No different. The only difference from 50 years ago and today is the position you're in when you're having dental work done. And in those days and in my office, they still do. I have a statute and if you want to speak, you can do it. You don't nowadays appear to stand right beside it, even with a suction tube.

George Mckeever: And she takes care of that in every the work. The materials are a little different. We used to have the old black rubber plates, dentures, and now we have the acrylic, you know, and the the silver fillings, the gold, the goldberg, the bridgework, all the same.

Sam Schrager: What about the equipment that you use, the drills and that and then.

George Mckeever: We have the front burner first treadle machine, like an old fashioned sewing machine. And I had one of those when I first came. And then as soon as I could, I signed a bunch of notes to the dental supply company. That thing. And every month one came due and then I got my electric engine and a good motor driven chair and the whole thing X-ray and everything like that.

George Mckeever: And that's still, you know, it's still that way in many years ago, those notes, you know, one month right after another. And I had taken care of before, too long. And after that, my.

Sam Schrager: You know, there's the old the reputation of the old dentist, some of the early dentistry around around in the country. When I was Pioneer Country, they didn't have a dentist, Right. They had the veterinarian or something to do that.

George Mckeever: I know they. And you're the blacksmith right up the belt chair between here in Moscow. I mean, you're in Troy. There's an old gentleman up there by the name of Blackburn, and he made his own faucets in his own Farge to pull teeth. When I first came, he came in here and visited with me and he had a marked down how many teeth he'd ever put.

George Mckeever: And he never told me how much you got out them. But, you know, we got a dollar from inspection in the first days.

Sam Schrager: And this guy was a blacksmith and.

George Mckeever: This guy was a blacksmith, and he made his own faucets on the porch after looking at the to go out the shop and make something to collect collectors. Well.

Sam Schrager: Yeah, I understand that. I have heard to Dr. Palmer, who is the veterinarian for Potlatch and Bovill, was also announced to me he did that as a sideline use for people's teeth besides working on that organ. And in fact, he was he was even there M.D. when they lost their their medical doctor.

George Mckeever: But, you know, that's strange. And I've been here for 80 years and I never heard the name Palmer mentioned Doctor Witty.

Sam Schrager: Witty, sure, I heard him.

George Mckeever: And he was the dentist in Baltimore. Then when I first came back after I graduated, after World War One, no, Ricky was the dentist. And there wasn't a filthier place in the country than that. The chickens and the dogs and everything just walked right through his office and made their deposits and pardon. And then there was a Dr. Kenneth Hoyt, who was a veterinarian from Potlatch, and he and I, he lived in the area at that time and he belonged to Masonic Lodge and I did was a master here for so many years.

George Mckeever: It knocked down. But we went on, went on and went up and he would come down and one time I'd take my car and he'd leave the theater and the next time we'd just jump in his car and go to him. And we went together all the way through the shrine. When he finally moved to Lewiston and died with a heart attack.

George Mckeever: And that's been many years ago. But Dr. White can wait. He and I went all the way up to the Masonic Lodge and to the shrine.

Sam Schrager: And let me ask you just a little bit about the Masons in those days. Was it strong? A strong group was very popular right now.

George Mckeever: And it's this is putting it pretty brutal, I think. But I'm going to be honest with you, In those days, they seemed to choose the cream of the crop. By what I mean, they didn't take every time they can, Harry. And it's got to that right here in this town. Now, we have masons in this town that should not be Masons, but they did it for them.

George Mckeever: The initiation fee and the annual dues.

Sam Schrager: In those days, it was an honor to be chosen, right?

George Mckeever: You bet it was. You never you never asked to become a mason. You were asked right? In those days, I think a week I thought it was at that time, because the druggist came to me after I'd been here for a couple of years and talked to me about it and asking me if I'd be interested, you know, and if I was.

George Mckeever: He had made me an application. I didn't tell him yes or no for several or had a week or two or maybe longer. And I finally told I said, Yes, fine, can't you do it? So he wrote me in an application and that's all it most of last steady in a lot of work. I went through all of the degrees here and finally got to be elected to these different degrees, you know, and then went on through the 30 seconds and then the shrine.

George Mckeever: And after that.

Sam Schrager: Was there a lot of interaction or, you know, getting together among the different the different lodges are for here. Same because I know that I've noticed that there are so many of these small towns have old Masonic lodge is.

George Mckeever: Right events.

Sam Schrager: With it was there and interchange among the different towns.

George Mckeever: They would be visit back and forth yet we did right go to Genesee, go to Moscow and most of the closest ones here. Deering had a large dairy from the largest. The Bovill and dairy bought the largest one at once, and we were the whole gang of us to go up there, you know, and, you know, and then they'd come down here.

Sam Schrager: How much social activity was went along with being Mason.

George Mckeever: At that time. Quite a bit, yes. Parties, parties, dances and private dances and card parties. Yes. We had a nice time. Feeds the archer. Your feed was a good and the crab feed was another good one, you know. yes. We had we had a lot of fun, but it's different now.

Sam Schrager: And would you say that it would be good for the many of the leading citizens of the of the towns?

George Mckeever: They went, businessmen, bankers, editors, storekeepers. Yeah. You know, you could go out here and be the city maintenance man digging ditches. You know, it's up there now. I'm not saying this one is, but that's what I mean with choppers. So you're not saying anything against them? They're men. But in the early days, they didn't have those kind of people in the Masonic Lodge in our town.

George Mckeever: We all even had our own a business or like a banker, you know, he didn't own the bank, but it may empty him.

Sam Schrager: Then what about what about farmers or.

George Mckeever: Yes, we had some real good wealthy farmers in there still do it.

Sam Schrager: Was that the main your main social activity here? That wasn't the main thing that you know. Did you deal.

George Mckeever: With some odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias and they were several different groups.

Sam Schrager: You know you belong to those. No, I.

George Mckeever: Don't. No, no, I didn't.

Sam Schrager: You just belonged.

George Mckeever: I just belong to the Masons. I didn't ever belong to the icons. And that now you see, we have the Grange, we have, and the Masons go along with the Eastern Star. We have a lovely building up here, lovely furnished. It's just real nice for a small town. You'd be amazed to go in it. But now we have.

George Mckeever: We own the building and map and Sonic lands, the Eastern Star and the Grange all together. And if you go up the street to the grocery store, the guy was just in here and look across the street. You don't see the sign up there, the Masonic Square. It covers the Eastern Star with the star and then the green gym.

George Mckeever: And then I can't tell you about the green gym on me. It's because I'm not a grange, but they all meet in the same one going center's down and we all I've seen one.

Sam Schrager: I've seen the building. I've looked at that. Yes, several times. Do you think that that had a that had a lot to do with with who you would who your close friends would be, which social group you belong to, which organization you belong to, or did it overlap?

George Mckeever: Yeah, it overlapped. Really? It did? Yes. You bet.

Sam Schrager: You see, I really was trying to get a feeling. For what? For what the social life was like. And in. In the town, baseball was big.

George Mckeever: that was it. You'd been in red. You had a team. You ever had a team? Everybody had a team. And was it half brother and fight?

Sam Schrager: I've heard those kindred Giulietta games were really some really something.

George Mckeever: You and crowds. You have no idea. You don't know where they came from. You must crawl out from under every rock in the country. There's an old old man. I fell on that picture. I don't even I know a few of them.

Unknown Speaker: But not all of them.

George Mckeever: And I don't have a masonic lodge. The kind of picture they.

Sam Schrager: Were, the more kindred and Julianna evenly matched in baseball.

George Mckeever: you bet you. We had some great meetings and a lot of fights throughout. You had big 4th of July celebrations and big parades. And you think in those days we met before the fire in 1904, they have a big wagon on this planet food stamp store here. And maybe they'd have six white horses on this Harley, this one, and maybe them a above it in front of him.

George Mckeever: Black horses, you know, I'll show you a picture that I didn't know too much because that was back before the fire. Look at this. Six horse license.

George Mckeever: In the little book of banjo here and over here is the old two story. Same Elmo Bell for Nickels ran on it.

Sam Schrager: Is that the same Elmo? Was the hotel in town.

George Mckeever: The only one there? Yes.

Sam Schrager: A good hotel.

George Mckeever: For those days. Indeed, it was right down the dining room bar I to have my. Okay, now think of these clubs. You don't have rings in Manhattan.

Sam Schrager: Speaking of bars in the in the twenties, in the moonshine days, was it was that a very exciting kind of a time that would people, you know, get, get moonshine and that sort of thing? It was very much a danger in that or no.

George Mckeever: Nobody ever got shot. They just tried to keep ahead of the old gumshoe, you know, the revenues. And it's been a lot of guys, a lot of this town for selling booze.

Sam Schrager: But, you know, I was here about Summerfield and, Summerfield. Jordan Moody.

George Mckeever: Right? Yeah, right.

Sam Schrager: Moody was Moody used to go out and especially in the Lumberjack Country and act like, you know, lumberjack. Sure. And buys and.

George Mckeever: Bloom right under your bed. Throw them in the jug. I could tell you one very good story about a moonshine.

George Mckeever: And I think, you know.

Sam Schrager: We just don't use any name. Don't use any.

George Mckeever: When did we have real tough times? What was a year? 19 when the banks went broke? 2929 I had a patient company. One of them person, Morris inches, and I knew what he did. He lived way back in the brush and he made the dye and stuff and handled it $5 a gallon is what he got for it.

George Mckeever: And he made good moonshine, corn liquor, and he was to take and pay me. As soon as he sold this mixed batch, the revenue was got him. His wife came in here, one in Brandy in this room one day and you include everybody left. And I said, I'm gonna say her first name a better not and I can I don't I was going to say his first name you know my husband's got that stuff out there in the hills and we've got a WPA force.

George Mckeever: The guy is working on the road between here and there, and they know if I come down down here with that and stuff in there, they don't know what I've got under the hay. And this old wagon with two horses on it. And you do something for me. I said, What do you want me to do, Dick? You can come meet me way up there in the brush.

George Mckeever: And I did. And one of the night money for the work I did, they had this stuff on. So I went up there and I met this lady and everybody was waving at me. When I went past this WPA crew, you know, where I was?

Sam Schrager: The WPA.

George Mckeever: Right? Never happened with the pick and challenge. It would be, you know, machinery. I had to do it all by hand. You know, I went out there and I got 13 gallon jugs and put it in the trunk of my car. And I come back down through there. And about maybe the time she got there and about 2 hours later, you know, coming to get her groceries in the bed was all flat, no hay piled up.

George Mckeever: And so she'd say, all right, nobody talked about it. I brought my stuff down running my car in the garage. And that night they knew their customers. And that night, the next morning, it was all gone. And I got my money.

Sam Schrager: Yeah, that's a good story.

George Mckeever: That is a doctor.

George Mckeever: Yes. And he is dead. And his wife is over the hill and she's still and I see her in town occasionally where she once in a while she will mention that to them. But my gosh, the roads are terrible. You know, I remember that I could even get my car back through. There wasn't a big one or a very husky.

George Mckeever: It was a Jewett You couldn't remember back that far.

Sam Schrager: I've seen the pictures.

George Mckeever: And I do know her outfit.

Sam Schrager: Just that curiosity. You were there from the South?

George Mckeever: No. Ordinary right here. Yeah.

Sam Schrager: Because, you know, a lot of a lot of people who were really outstanding moonshiners, you know.

George Mckeever: The hills back in Kentucky and back here in the Ozarks, because I've we've made a trip down through there one time up in the sticks where they were. It's really rustic, you know, We got right into it back there. The old you've seen pictures of these three year old, tall, skinny guys. You know, they're funny cartoons and they're the men were sitting on the porch barefoot.

George Mckeever: And if it's taken up on the railing around the women out in the garden, home of great big man's eyes, how are we going, man? No clothesline. The clothes mean After wash, they were hanging on the bushes around drains and and hunting dogs all over the place. And I was going by real slow. So we didn't get the full view of that whole situation.

George Mckeever: And one of those dogs, they had enough. They had 20 of them come dogs and they all dropped in across the road right in front of me. And I stopped, started going down, turn right round the back run my, I, I tell you brother, I'd give it full steam ahead. I never stopped. I didn't want those little lads to get that old squirrel gun out and take a pop at me back in the Ozarks.

George Mckeever: My folks, I came from Macon, Missouri, Kansas City Lee Summit, and we've been back met on our way down to New Orleans. We've been all the around the United States on that trip. My old school got out of the university, my youngest girl got out of high school and that was their graduation place. And that's nice. We went all the way down the east and west Coast around the whole beaten up in the Missouri, then to see our folks and then back down to New Orleans and over into Florida, East Coast to New York and Boston, and then back to Chicago home and a little boat to remember them.

Sam Schrager: Did you have to give credit a lot in those days when it was.

George Mckeever: Kind of rough? I have taken in everything. When I first started to work, money was mighty scarce. You beat potatoes and meat and what have you vegetables, chickens, fryers. Bringing in a dozen neighbors. I bet my car another graduate to have a butcher in the mess up in the garage. All four of us wouldn't work, you know. Really?

George Mckeever: And Paula and Chloe and myself and chopped the heads off. We had hot water with communism. By the time they got them, they were be kind of interesting. But in the deep freeze, you know that thing, it doesn't fires at the time. Good. Chicken's not the kind you buy it at least head on wire cages and the meat is all flabby.

George Mckeever: These were chickens that run in the barnyard and had a very different flavor to them. And this was chickens we buy in the supermarkets today because they just sit on those wire cages. You know, you get that they butcher.

Sam Schrager: Did you find that you could trust almost everybody?

George Mckeever: No problem. Once in a while it went into a stinker. But it might be one year, it might be two years and it might be five years. But it's not like today, you know, now that they bankruptcy or do anything under the sun, not so much recently, but a few years ago, that was a big way to get them to the end and take bankruptcy and butcher your man.

Sam Schrager: Did you notice a big change when the depression hit, in a way, and people's ability to pay for their work?

George Mckeever: Nobody had any money. I think when the banks went broke and Roosevelt shut him up and then they rushed up for it, and I think they had $3.45 in my pocket. And that was all a little bit, and the bank couldn't catch it. And we left. We just as good as we ever did. That's what you can do in a in a farming community.

George Mckeever: You can do that in the big city right? When I first got out of dental college, we said, okay, we'll go back, I'll stay five years. And then really, you know how many years it's been.

Sam Schrager: She said she'll stay five years, she.

George Mckeever: Says five years. And then moving out of the small town. And that's God's truth, right?

Sam Schrager: Did she change your mind? Sure she did. Yeah.

George Mckeever: She didn't. In the big city, all that all her life, except when she came down here, out on that ranch in in cash up, you know, around the Roberts farm. And every time you got to Spokane, see that house over there next, the old Roberts ranch. And that's where she'd spent some vacation time out there. You know.

Sam Schrager: She felt that small town life was nothing good.

George Mckeever: Mostly to man, Right. Get your feet on the ground. You go out and dig around in the yard. It'll kill me to go to a city where I didn't have a yard. In the last few years. We've got In heaven's name are we going to do when I can take care of these few lads I've got in my farm and I don't have you going to do it cooped up in some town by a 12 bedroom or go to some retirement home.

Sam Schrager: That's this is a beautiful place to be. Retired just as well.

George Mckeever: Yes. When we get a little older and a little decrepit and not able to do our charge, you know, get out in the yard or mow the lawn, it's pretty hard to get somebody to come and help you. I have this one lad across the street who is in him to work for me. But the other kids, they've all got money, they've got cars, who wants to go out?

George Mckeever: And all year long they can make $20 a day or $30 a day or whatever. They make working for a farmer or hauling grain trucks or working in the woods. You know what? They get a day working in the woods, fantastically sick and $7 an hour. You know who wants to that? Who wants them all along? Yeah, Yeah.

George Mckeever: Not bashful here. We have I think we have fishing. We have big game hunting. I used to go every fall, get my out. And my dear, he also getting steeper now and they used to be and I haven't gone hunting for a long time but I still go fishing with my buddy Grandstand and we go back up to Loch.

George Mckeever: So I haven't been at the lotto for three years because of rumors. Me She doesn't. She can't jack me down.

Sam Schrager: We talked to to her grandfather when he was still living in river.

George Mckeever: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Schrager: You know, one thing I want to ask you about, about is about oral hygiene. In those days, but I'm wondering, guys, how it is, how people took care of their teeth.

George Mckeever: Do you know what they did in those days? They never had the money to buy as many cakes and pies and cookies as they do now. They didn't have the sugar content in their food. They had better huskier teeth. They had more roughage to to make a difference, whether they brush their teeth or not. But the food that they ate because their bread kept their teeth clean.

George Mckeever: Right. Became wasn't as prevalent as it is now.

Sam Schrager: It's funny, I would have guessed it would have been worse. Things like that.

George Mckeever: It was the, you know, the cost of grain of food that we ate.

Sam Schrager: Right. Did they brush.

George Mckeever: Now? Very seldom. Very seldom. And now they've all got to do it, you know, give them a blast and all this. But they never did before. When I first started in 57 years ago.

Sam Schrager: That's really something I imagined that the teeth would be a lot worse because they wouldn't be, you know, using it to produce toothpaste and all that stuff.

George Mckeever: No, no, you're just the farmers. They never they eat. They raised what they eat and that the didn't have the soft fruits that we have to be prepared breakfast cereals think I look in the grocery store is it that many many different kinds of cereals for the kids you know for me and all the vitamins are part of them and all that stuff is gone after they've gone through this process of making them, you know.

Sam Schrager: You know, I hear over and over again people, especially those that live out in the country, say, I never saw a doctor. You know, until I was 30. My mother never saw a doctor that was 80 and broke her arm. And and it makes me wonder, where were people Were people reluctant to come to you?

George Mckeever: They were healthier when they got sick. They were really sick. And they died young. But if they had a ruptured appendix, he had a rise in him. Remember that we're a rising, not a swelling. You'd have a tumor, a ruptured appendix or something. Kicked the bucket. He was dead. And that was all of us to the very least.

George Mckeever: Now, the good national Spokane and most of Moscow were you aware of? There's a clinic and they get good care, You know, now they don't. We don't have a difference in the way the people live in those days than they do today.

Sam Schrager: What about teeth? Would they would they let their teeth go a lot longer if they had a problem than they would today?

George Mckeever: The main thing was if anybody ever didn't let a tooth decay and that went along fine enough that was extracted, there was no bridgework done that came along after we had Roosevelt Johns. Not different than it was then, but still the methods are the same.

Sam Schrager: Did you have No one came that primitive.

George Mckeever: That any something funny about that? We bought our heels looking in little glass bottles. I took a little pills in a bottle and then we had distilled water. We had a little porcelain container that would hold maybe two cc's of water, distilled water. And we did that over an alcohol flame. Drop your one pill in or if you want it, four cc's drop into pills and you a major down and over again.

George Mckeever: And then something happened, you know, type of syringe and you're ready to inject. It took longer to get ready than it does not for a person to. Come in, sit down, have a do then that extracted more out and gone right again, when this new system came out where they made the little cartridges and you open your search engine, shut that thing in there and you were ready for business.

George Mckeever: I had the little glass and cartridges. We found them by and by them. Sealed in wood is like again of coffee or something you read to see if you can hear the air, you know, come in or go out, whatever it does. And there you've got a 50. And again, it's sterile solution.

George Mckeever: And.

George Mckeever: You can just put it in your hypodermic needle in there and you're in business.

Sam Schrager: Where people are more affected or less affected by pain in those days.

George Mckeever: Effort by far, I think in the deep out of a person many times no. Again, anesthetics are and that was it. Don't you get rid of that needle, Just pull it down to. Yeah, that's a fact. What about the women? That's what I'm talking about. This one woman I had in mind, she lived right down across the bridge here.

George Mckeever: I better not talk about this. Actually, the house. The house is still there. But she lived. And in the air. Anything. Even the three big saloons here in town, there is a picture of flood now that you know, that is a new story out about that. The company. Can you see a White House right there? Yeah. Now that's where the lady was.

George Mckeever: And I had in mind that I told you about Pull them out. Well, imagine that every 120 67i can remember. It's a different level and I pulled the hole down from there. But that house where she lived there. Now we back in the early days, I don't remember. The thing about that is God's truth. It's history. The red light district was right in that house and when we had the flood of them kids to go down and watch the business man get in the boat and go across to that place and there's the house.

George Mckeever: And that's where lived. And that house still stands, right? You know that.

Sam Schrager: But every town, every town of any size had one.

George Mckeever: I know, but I'm showing you where this man was.

Sam Schrager: That's really something.

George Mckeever: Yes, sir. A businessman, member, whoever. And they get on a rowboat to go, right?

Sam Schrager: Yes, that's what someone had to have all their teeth pulled at once, like that lady, that being that she'd been living with pretty decayed either or.

George Mckeever: Some of them. Their diet possibly wasn't as good as it should have been, and then the gums would go out on them. So a lot of them had private eye, so they would police. And then it was much different in those days after you removed items, gone home and come back in six months and they went around this way with no teeth for that long amount of all shrink out of shape.

George Mckeever: And then you had to put in a plate, see a couple of them right from the benches or put in, took them forever to get used to them. And now you know we put the last to put the plate lady bottle racks.

Sam Schrager: What kind of what were the dentures like then.

George Mckeever: black rubber. I actually get the idea. We have to denture material, whatever you might bring the teeth out and just to show people what it was like, you know, then they got something a little better. This is thinner, lighter and a better grade of rubber. And that's what the ears would be had to be.

Sam Schrager: Could people would most people aware?

George Mckeever: Yes, they were. Very seldom do you ever find somebody that would that wouldn't.

Sam Schrager: Show.

George Mckeever: That somebody.

Sam Schrager: What about let me ask you a little bit about style. And in those days, I mean, you looked at a lot of people's faces and and, you know, like when I look at these pictures, I see all these old men and I have beards, a lot of facial hair and that was completely out of style. Right. What what do you think?

Sam Schrager: Why the difference? I've often wondered why that period. What was it? Was this I mean, people must have felt comfortable with wearing them. There.

George Mckeever: Here, here, here. Here's a picture taken right after flood. And if you know the town at all, here's where the Methodist church is up there now. And Bobby Burns and his photographer's office there in the bottom and you can see here where he displayed his work and he lived up topside. And here is the debris still in Main Street.

George Mckeever: You can see the dirt and the logs and bark. And one another. And here of them, several of them, I don't know, but they got back horses in every turn. Every one of them got a mustache. So that was the style in those days in the time you got away from my dad wore a mustache when he was when we were little kids and everybody cut it off and he never grew another one after that.

George Mckeever: I think it's just weird. And what would you call it? Dyeing changes. People have different ideas, you see, for beards now.

Sam Schrager: And coming back.

George Mckeever: Yes. And we are all a little different. I wouldn't be caught dead with anything on. No, I wouldn't. I had a kidney taken out last fall and I got hurt in an African safari. I got bruised pretty bad and really got a knee hurt. But that's beside the point. But I had I lost a kidney up and going to the hospital last October, and I just couldn't wait.

George Mckeever: I was there. Let me come to an end so I could get my face shaved but terrible. I save every day of my life. Then these holidays that don't make a bit of difference. Every day I shave and I about went nuts up here for those three or four days after surgery before I had to wobble out of my life that bit and get across the room.

George Mckeever: The band. So you see, we're all different.

Sam Schrager: Than I was. I'm always struck by that. All that I was here.

George Mckeever: Yes.

Sam Schrager: I did. And it was. And then the long dresses and the women. Yeah, the way. The way that they.

George Mckeever: Get round here in personal history, you know, this is my mother's family. And how much of this picture was taken in March the 16th, 1901. Very good year again, when you see some of the audience, here's my own father seeing.

Sam Schrager: You.

George Mckeever: Year. I was crazy back in the big family show, the mother had five brothers and one sister. So you see that she was a Quaker, not a Quaker, a friend, which is not said like Mennonites or what have you. When a friend was a nice fellow from Quaker, I remember the branch of the Quaker trade. Me always take apple pie for breakfast first thing in the morning and that is apple pie before you read cereal.

George Mckeever: Her harmony from whatever it is they every my mother's father was a carpenter, a cabinetmaker.

Sam Schrager: 1853.

George Mckeever: Other other stock I was down here we have a 400 year it and then that total.

Sam Schrager: 200 total.

George Mckeever: For now he worked and over years his daily labor for that year he got 266 hours and since he worked 113 days amounting to 60, 60, up to 35, then they bought a Cadillac now and the eyes of the world in the house and the heifer calf and then his daily wage over here, you need $508. And sometimes they set you.

George Mckeever: I'm going to show you an envelope that I'll bet you you might have. But I know the postmaster here. Glad to get this away from me. This is a letter addressed to my grandma in Frankfort Post office, Union County, Ohio. The guy says he paid $0.03, so they did or not. Then after you get through. Right the letter, he followed that up to make the envelope.

George Mckeever: And I want to show you how he addressed his parents. And here's the date, the third month, the 15th dates in 1852. Respected relation said, Hi Dad, I am mother and brother, whatever. You don't like to open them up and too much. But I wondered how I wondered how the the here's wishing friends.

Sam Schrager: We meet your well-wishing friends.

George Mckeever: But every new year I don't know nothing about my new granddad. I know and respect and relation. And of course after your actual disagreement, anybody had a fit. It's as if he wanted to get it away from me. And I said, You go to my brother, I'm going to go have a bicycle. And then I had another one of my this guy's brother was a sharpshooter in the Civil War.

George Mckeever: And that letter was that I think history is. Knock it down to read that letter and I give it to my oldest daughter when she was your last I'm sorry, President Adams and here's another old timer, and it's pretty badly worn out. 1855.

George Mckeever: But look at the handwriting in the family. So.

Sam Schrager: Yes, yes. You can still just make it out.

George Mckeever: Pretty word in that diary that this whole sharpshooter used was just as plain as that yearbook. Beautiful writing. They don't do it anymore. No, I got a grandson. I can't read his damn writing. Absolutely. And he's 23 years old, and I just graduated forever. So when I went to school, we had been Syrian or something. I don't know, but.

George Mckeever: But that's how we practiced that and rubbed up and down on our every day. We had round exercises in writing when I was in school. I can picture I showed you, you know, classes, you know.

Sam Schrager: You know one, one thing I have heard had heard that that you had a lot of Indian patients.

George Mckeever: when I first came, I could really speak Nefertiti. My dad was a fluent speaker and with the language because he worked in a hardware store in Northern Indian from Aleppo and all down in there would come up here for their training and so he could talk to them about it rather than really jabbing. And I had hundreds of Indian patients.

Sam Schrager: Because of, you.

George Mckeever: Know, because I was close to them. And but now public health service and it's all free and you and I paid for it. And they got a wonderful lab. And a lot of us in lab way down there on the reservation, you know.

Sam Schrager: But in the twenties, there were a lot of many of them came up to me.

George Mckeever: I had hundreds of them happy Indians out here, you know.

Sam Schrager: What were what were they like that all Indians.

George Mckeever: Women, all worst of the women, the men both all were moccasins. You bet. You don't see it anymore. You know how you see an old squire with moccasins on? But these younger generations, the guys, they are just like these hippies now, whatever you want to call them, dress right up to snuff, you know?

Sam Schrager: Do they speak English?

George Mckeever: yes. Yeah. And I never had a problem because I to them that I have nothing to you, but hey, what's this in Percy? And they tell me every time I come in here for this morning I'd read them in this person. If it was the afternoon, you'd read them a little different, you know, perhaps clouds in the afternoon.

George Mckeever: Good afternoon. And that's me way. Good morning. So I had forgotten that ever since you came in down here. Who is our Indian? And it's all right. It's a good deal. And when we got it, they never paid me. They bought the requisition from the agency, and I fill in the bill. Examined. Six months later, I got my check from Denver, Colorado.

George Mckeever: Yeah.

Sam Schrager: Did they come? Only for real essential work?

George Mckeever: they the when I first started 50 years ago, then the older people, then you know what I mean? But they're my, my older patients that 50 years ago you know, then they would not only needed fetching or even dentures, but the younger people and just making their partial plates and I'd have you say rejuvenate but now they are you would not me.

Sam Schrager: I know that one thing that I wondered about about them and then I like to find more out more about is that in a lot of places they really weren't welcome. You take like in Lewiston and other places they couldn't even go in.

George Mckeever: A lot of work. And I never put that that the dog going. In the end the door was open. If they wanted to come to me, fine, I began and treated them just the same as him. I would treat them my person, no hankie panky about it at all. The bill was the same for those folks as it was for anybody else.

George Mckeever: Although I sent my bill in, the agency, they always went to the agency and brought this requisition sheet with them. And once in a while I'd get in a hurry. And the girl she was a pretty union gal, She would call me on the phone and send them Bill and Tony's in trouble. Take care of it. My mom made me the requisition, you know, He was a beautiful lady girl, younger, just like letter.

George Mckeever: Some of those guys went next year.

Sam Schrager: Well, I was thinking of the way the Indians acted on their part. Did they? Did they? You have the feeling that they were. I mean, the idea that they really kind of cut off white people to some extent, at least I do. Now, I wonder if they were outgoing and friendly or rather reserved when you.

George Mckeever: Have down to me, I wanted to speak for myself, but to me they were just as friendly and just like you and I talk. They'd all gone to school down there and that way they had good teachers. People, Some of them don't I had the Haskell University graduates here. I'm down here to Berkeley. That would be the order train, you know, real kind of speak better English than I ever could.

George Mckeever: Yes, because my life gives me hell yet because I don't use proper English for give up some of these lumberjacks and a lot of it rubs off on you. Sure. And I grew from a little bit dingy burns my ears from Vietnam. Yeah. That's not she's pretty strict on English, and I wasn't very good ever in English, even in high school or anything.

George Mckeever: The hell with it. It didn't. That was a small part to me and still is if I can help somebody. But I am under extreme something. I mean, that's good enough, but not so thoroughly. It's got to be just. He reads aloud, man. I'm telling you, she out of this world.

Sam Schrager: What about the Ku Klux Klan in the twenties? They were active in most of the towns around here.

George Mckeever: Never have I ever seen a white nightgown ever in my life in this town.

Sam Schrager: Or no meetings, no crosses broken off.

George Mckeever: The spring is not here. Maybe somebody south maybe lost in Moscow. Yep. So? I don't know. It's out. Matthew. Now, maybe they haven't, but I never know if.

Sam Schrager: There was a short life in the twenties where I think most of these towns did.

George Mckeever: And I never knew of one here in Connecticut ever was. I never did. Sometimes people have told me they had pocket cards, you know, like a credit card or something, that you did belong to a briefcase. But I never saw one. And I was never asked and I never went to any of their meetings. Nothing and stupid.

Sam Schrager: I I'm trying to out what they were doing because it didn't seem like there weren't hardly any reason that I could figure why that would be.

George Mckeever: When we found the picture. The birth of a nation and people aren't quite there. So there for 4 hours. And that's how it was started when those fellas scared the pants off those little nigger boys with these white sheets. And that was all in fun. But they took a hold and from there it grew. But never around here, not to my knowledge.

George Mckeever: All I did was work and work in my garden and go to Masonic Lodge, the school board meetings and city council.

Sam Schrager: You know, there was no I heard there was one fellow that got arrested for moonshine and now it was here. Well, I heard a professional man around here, and I heard first he was a doctor. That's what they said. He was a vet for retired.

George Mckeever: That he. You're talking about my old buddy. He was a paper hanger. He was a painter. He had gone to school, do years at that school back in Kansas City or someplace back there and run out of money. And then he came west. And I can take you out here and show you where he had his house at home.

George Mckeever: And he had his office in there. And two of them in an old paneling bag, you know, And he did massive veterinary work. And one time he'd come by and he said, Come go with me. I'm with you. Don't want me talk about floating horse's teeth. I said, What do you mean, Van? What do you mean by floating horse's teeth?

George Mckeever: They had a big old file on it. Handle, iron handle long, and they'd wear a horse, would wear a tooth filled with a sharp point on it, and would either cut their cheek or their tongue. And it was great eating in the farmers economy in the city. But then Bradley in the force, the mouth open. He took me with me in one day and he says to get him back in and feel that.

George Mckeever: But my back, that fine, that horse's mouth and that thing was just like a needle. Now he says, I'll go to work. And he took that with both hands and it just was just like an overdraft. It depressed that old man without him, just like going crazy, you know. And don't that hurt little to get on my show You the nerve in that horse is to fall down that far.

George Mckeever: It was no pain to that. You don't see that horse? Never better than I was, man. As a prisoner of pain. Get that old stuff then, were You bet he lived right here is and got off on the wrong track. We took Freddie in our house and he did everything under the sun. I guess they had moonshine and that the drugs.

George Mckeever: But I knew when you left and got in the Chinaman in the majestic coffee, and he was a trigger happy. And we go with him. It's inbred boundaries. Please let us see what we can do for him. I kept beer all summer and even bought man or runabout car that was in pretty good shape and got him in.

George Mckeever: I look out in the Forest Service and from there you never did get the drugs. He finally committed suicide in Greenville. Yeah, I went to his funeral, you know, and work.

Sam Schrager: What happened? How did you. How did you get caught?

George Mckeever: You mean the father knocking liquor?

Sam Schrager: Yeah.

George Mckeever: Come to town, get pretty drunk and talk too much. I believe he's drunk every day in his life. The the old gentleman, you know, the veterinary, the two year veterinary man. He should have gone another year to school and graduated at that time. And I started the year sooner than I did. I would have graduated in three years.

George Mckeever: I was one of the first of the class that only had to go four years. And now you've got six. So they might be different, you know.

Sam Schrager: So you think the fact that he didn't graduate now, that meant he couldn't really practice, he couldn't be a regular vet.

George Mckeever: Did not have. I think, license. You know what he did? We call it bushwhacking outside the law. But he did a lot of work here. And he saved a lot of horses and a lot of cows. A lot of animals. You met him. He was he knew got the best minority drug every billy goat every day. And his boyfriend, too.

Sam Schrager: We didn't have a we didn't have a wife there.

George Mckeever: I never knew her. She was dead.

Sam Schrager: He had children, a boy and a girl. So there wasn't any anything at all.

George Mckeever: The boy that I know now, they live pretty crude.

Sam Schrager: I've heard that that that half. So that was a problem back then, too. And it wasn't, you know, there really was that going on.

George Mckeever: Right.

Sam Schrager: Where would somebody get started on something like that? I was going, Well.

George Mckeever: I know that be a hard question for me to answer. How would that kid get from here to the no car and get in with somebody that was a happy end? And then he got introduced to the Chinaman's in the just took a still in business but it's a different group of people running and they're afraid that that boy right up in that bedroom up there and he shot my wife and set up with him a half a night talking to him and doing business.

George Mckeever: And he was such a good kid and likable kid in work like the devil, you know.

Sam Schrager: I guess I read that you could almost like you could get a legal prescription in the in drugstores for something that was like it was, you know, addictive in some way or other before it was outlawed. That's what I before it was made.

George Mckeever: A legal lady 75 years ago, my mother had a bottle of wine in the kitchen up in the air, which for the dishes were closet and I we get some green apples or something I think, and got the bellyache, she would count them out and a lot of them come from opium and you could buy in the drugstore here just like you go buy a dozen eggs and you can't have so many drops of that in a tablespoon full of water.

George Mckeever: And we drank and sure, it was a narcotic. It's tough to believe in that would run out and clean. That wasn't enough. But that bottle was up in the cupboard for a hundred years. It seems to me like until we move up until it was outlawed. Madam.

Sam Schrager: Did you ever hear about cyanide and Frank Robinson? The sort of thing you.

George Mckeever: See is old, rather big, or what was the name of that automobile?

Sam Schrager: I heard it was a battery, But I'm not.

George Mckeever: I'm not. No, no, no. He had the exhaust pipes sticking out. And, you know, I'm not laid back. yes. I knew the old, you know, man, that's like, damn, you know, I have two people working for him. He had money coming in from all over the world when I was on university in when that was going on, the kids would go downtown and we stayed in a This is good for you.

George Mckeever: So now poor we were. It was pitiful. And about 37 of us guys got together and we rented the house and hired a cook. And the cook had two daughters. We paid them on the house rent and we paid her. We took care of our own rooms and we brought a laundry home for that. And the most I ever paid was $12 a month for Barton Room.

George Mckeever: And that's when all the Robertson was going around with that fancy sport automobile of the, you know, the real bad down the outside of the car, you know but more than that looked to me like chrome chrome properly and yeah, so ransom was our man Robertson made up there much was named after right.

Sam Schrager: He donated that right.

George Mckeever: To your back.

Sam Schrager: Did you ever have any idea about about the sincerity, his sincerity, whether he really believed in what he was. That's a general impression.

George Mckeever: Hackford This guy from India kind of fell in love with this jump that he was writing, not I said, Jump, Maybe I'm wrong. You've got a check for $30,000. And this kid in school from this one Indian prince from India. Yeah, that was common knowledge up there when I was like.

Sam Schrager: Yeah, I had heard something about that. Yeah, I've read, I read some of his stuff not too long ago trying to understand better what I.

George Mckeever: Never any of it. I don't get junk and I took it back because I don't know. It might be just you remember when.

Sam Schrager: He was quite involved, he got quite a tiff with, with the editor of the the publisher of the Moscow paper.

George Mckeever: The Star, the.

Sam Schrager: Daily, the star of the.

George Mckeever: Idea.

Sam Schrager: That was old Lanphier, I guess Lanphier was at least he Robinson said that it was lanphier behind it, which, you know, they tried to get Gordon Right. And at the trial, you know, I read I went back and read the old papers over that right that time. Interesting. interesting.

George Mckeever: And we never knew what skipping school. We weren't. I worked in the camera app up there for a research professor at the university over an old Laurel Hall, and I quit school. I'd go over there at night and work, and I'd be brought more money home the next spring, when I had my one year in then and what I took to school.

George Mckeever: Because.

George Mckeever: In every building had to be in the first of the month. And then when he got the bills on him, he called. I mean, here's what we paid out, you know, all so much. And we gave him $5 a month for keeping the books.

Sam Schrager: You know what that sounds like, you know, to go to school with.

George Mckeever: Right? But with what we call it, just a co-op and they had these co-op clubs that they had the university or did a few years ago, maybe not now.

Sam Schrager: You call it a co-op then?

George Mckeever: No, we just call it our humble house. We didn't have to call the co-op. We know that the co-op name wasn't even in existence, probably. I don't know. We didn't call it that. I had my oldest daughter graduated up here and the youngest when Vietnam from Boise, us, and she just called me to tell me that she was eating lunch with one of her old school friends up here in Nashville.

George Mckeever: But girls graduate from the University of Idaho. You know, many years ago it was girls 15. The youngest was 46.

Sam Schrager: Did you did you mind not being in a fraternity when you were there?

George Mckeever: I couldn't I couldn't afford it if I did. So I never thought of it that out of the canvasing house that comes up in front as people the down from that building and the guys would be out there beating on a banjo or something other, It must be a pretty good life. And that's about all we ever said.

George Mckeever: They have enough money to live in a deal like that and be able to pay for them. Paper your barn.

Sam Schrager: Well, that's what it was. And it was pretty much the wealthy, well-to-do kids that were in.

George Mckeever: Had to be had to be because we didn't have any money. Nobody had any money in our place. Yeah. What do you.

Sam Schrager: Write when you think about it the way you most families were in those days? Do you think that most of them were poor, poor, same, and kindred in the. Yes.

George Mckeever: Early days, right? You're darn right they were. They made a living and they had worked for $50 a month here in that hardware store and $50 a month and a heck of a lot longer. Now, then several hundred dollars would go, we better get some of these old newspapers and read ends. But the price of different articles where, you know, like when in Belongs came here and started the store in 1900 and once in a while Marvin went down about how much it cost when he started first in the store.

George Mckeever: You know, absolutely pitiful eggs, maybe just a few cents a dozen and we understand it would be for breakfast. all my life cook cereal we never heard of post and all this, all a bunch of crap. You know, they now we bought it in a £10 like a plastic a £10 sack and we always had cereal for breakfast or.

George Mckeever: And making them eggs, ham and eggs or sausage and eggs and mother was from the south and we always all my life we had biscuits every morning. Right. Had biscuits remaining. Mother can have a batch of biscuits on the table in 30 minutes. I'll bet that if you can.

Sam Schrager: 3 minutes from hitting it from.

George Mckeever: Start right in and.

Sam Schrager: It would still tell me how you do it. I'd like to know.

George Mckeever: Every morning after for a lifetime. I'm a youngster. Back in the summit, Missouri. And then I have been back there on the old home place, and it was sold to this unity. I don't know whether you've ever heard of it or not. The headquarters for Unity is on my mother's ranch out of Kansas City. No, in the world over Unity Village.

George Mckeever: Then that's all it is. Is Missouri. And that's on my envelopes. So it's known the world over, you know, And they have ministers from every denomination. Catholics expect anything you might want to call. They go there for steady periods, seminars. So it's got to be a pretty broad.

Sam Schrager: Broad.

George Mckeever: What.

Sam Schrager: You need faith.

George Mckeever: Right? Yes.

Sam Schrager: When when you talk about your mother, that you do you feel that women worked very hard.

George Mckeever: My mother beat that slave. You bet. Women, I have talked about it many times. What did she do? How did you spend the day? As Kit came into town, after we got big enough, came into town two miles to school. I did mother do that. Paid them early. He had to be at work at 7:00 here in town.

George Mckeever: Walk into my house after breakfast. What did mother do during the day? She had chickens to feed. She had her chores or bread to make pies and cakes and stuff like that. And she had old we had red carpets. Now, day after day after day, she would spend tearing pieces of material into strips that weighed and then sewn together.

George Mckeever: When those kids come home from school would wrap them in balls and the balls would be almost the size of a basketball. And there was no lady here in town that had a weaving machine. Would you go in and weaver with the shovels? And I've watched her and she would make a carpet out of those values that mother would So in with us kids would roll them up and be balls.

George Mckeever: So every room was covered, but it was red carpet and we thought we were something. Nobody else had red carpets. But that's one thing Mother did spend her time during the day. It became home. Home for school at those times. That was 9:00 in the morning let out of 12. We went back to school, had one, and we were out of four and we got the hell out of there and went on to get our George.

George Mckeever: Then we had constant help in feeding them and can't shut for dogs can help the cows and take care of the horses in one area. Even out there were two miles from here.

Sam Schrager: Would your mother have been working the whole day?

George Mckeever: Busy in the house, doing her daughter, baking bread and making butter, making preserves, canning fruit. She was a businessman preparing in the Amazon. She never had she never read. I had one magazine in my life to read at home when we were kids use companion. It came once a month and we had to Spokesman-Review twice a week. And that was all the reading we had.

George Mckeever: We had no libraries, we had no library books, we had no novels to read.

Sam Schrager: And it was it was important enough to your family to live out of town for you. For you. He just kept going up.

George Mckeever: To keep us kids out from under them with a rag muffins here in town, at their dance, in the saloons, beer, drinking beer. They didn't want that. He had a bottle of whiskey up in the cupboard, a pint of whiskey. And that was their year after year after year. If you had a cold, he had a hot tub in that bed.

George Mckeever: Nobody ever drank any liquor in our family. Never.

Sam Schrager: So that was the main reason he wanted it away from the barn, for instance, in the town.

George Mckeever: Correct. And keep us busy that aloof and around and fighting get me in trouble.

Sam Schrager: So he kept some stock and he had far more to do.

George Mckeever: Right. We had in the summer and in the summer vacations, we had wood burning stoves and at Christmas time my dad would hire some men that got and he would fall down pine trees enormous. They had an eight foot sign across Arkansas and power. Not any of these chainsaws never heard them. They would follow half a dozen trees maybe in the Christmas vacation.

George Mckeever: Harry and I would cut those in the 16 inch lengths and split them and rip them up. And then next summer we'd done it. They were dried and seasoned and we'd hollow into the woodshed, down 14 cards. Maybe that would let us in the cook stove and the heating stove in the living room for the whole crowd here.

George Mckeever: We never had time to get in trouble. Every other Saturday we got to go fishing and that was great.

Sam Schrager: Is that even then you were you were working most of the time when you weren't in school when you were a kid.

George Mckeever: Darn right we worked. You bet everybody worked.

Sam Schrager: But I mean, now the difference, the relative work to play, you know, I mean I mean, how much of your time was work? How much we mostly worked?

George Mckeever: You tell me what they had the two boys and a younger sister could do for play. What would be do? Two guys couldn't do anything, could they? Can you tell me a name number? Take at noon, stand up with a sheet of the house and paint number. Paint with a jackknife? Yeah. We didn't have marbles. We're too poor to have marbles.

George Mckeever: Yes, but I never had marbles when we were kids. No, we were busy. We cut them with the more we had a rake. May be 2 hours this and the hillside was problems steep. We couldn't use a wagon. We had a quite a long sled, but we did not mean an enormous load on that sled down there. And, you know, because it was great.

George Mckeever: And after we'd been over that much grass, you know, and get pretty slick was all ponies and and got pretty fast keeping enemies. No break just go to the hill. Yeah right. Inspection up in the barn at a old three. Come and help us one time but of hay and we had a quite large barn with a driveway through the center and he, he would stay on the sled and eat, stay up to me on a landing and then I'd put it on up to my brother in law back in the corners and that old Swede run the picture me one time.

George Mckeever: Right. There's a scar yet you run it in here and it came out here and you just pull it right over and tore it up. And I screamed and they yelled and the blood was run down. And I jumped from where that landing was down on a heavy load. Where in the hell you think you're going? I'm going to house.

George Mckeever: You hurt. Let me see. And he took a big job back out of his mouth and slapped her on there, which run in my pocket and got an old red bandanna handkerchief. You wrap it around and tighter, get the hell back up there. And I went back to work and that landed on This is a gotcha. You back.

George Mckeever: You can see that things are very you know, it's these darn roses but you can see by the sky right there yet. Can you.

Sam Schrager: See it? Yes, you.

George Mckeever: Can. Okay.

George Mckeever: Maybe stab me. Johnny Carson was a guy, his name, and he came out to help us kids. A nice bit of hair that was too high for us, you know, to get me a couple of matches and bed and somebody come out. I don't suppose he got more than a dollar a day. I worked for $0.35 a day from a neighbor manning onions, although onions, seeds and weaken the damn things.

George Mckeever: And then I helped them harvest them and put them in sacks. The got $0.35 a day. You put that in your pipe and smoke it, Right.

Sam Schrager: Did that money go to you?

George Mckeever: That was my limit. You bet, guys. Now, or did that make.

George Mckeever: A.

George Mckeever: Little King Midas himself? Yeah. Yeah, it was my money was very much either because, you know, we had to do our own work, but when he needed help, I helped him. I'm on my hands and knees. I got my back a drink, and those great big long rolls, we had to thin those damn onions, you know, they come up little green nails, thin them and home and hold them all and make it to be down in and help him harvest them.

George Mckeever: For God's sakes, $0.35 a day. And I tell these kids today, you're crazy. You never did that. No suggestion that.

Sam Schrager: Then.

George Mckeever: And I can take you out, show you the field and be where we worked because your place is right up there. And just two miles from here.

Sam Schrager: When you were thinking about becoming a dentist, did was the were you did you feel that or. No, that there was a pretty good living in it to be a dentist or a doctor or was it.

George Mckeever: Like that ever? I don't think that ever entered into my head yet. The back in those days you had to figure to know what you wanted to do and then go ahead with it. And I don't think the money angle every entered my noggin at all. Not for one minute, no.

Sam Schrager: How was it for doctors and dentists the early days in these small towns? Was it a good living for them?

George Mckeever: I think better than average. You'd be amazed at how much people that didn't know your money would bring you in. Chickens bring you in ham, bacon, sausage, eggs. Give it to you because I'd been good to them and let them pay you when they could pay. You know, in those days we didn't have much money. Yes, it was a better than average.

George Mckeever: You know, we work like the devil to have been busy.

Sam Schrager: Did you work a full day every day?

George Mckeever: I always my first patient was 8:00 every day in the week, Saturday. I never took a day off. Never did I ever take a day off until from 1923 up to 19. And this sickness or something. I never took a day off in my life. Or a vacation. No, until my girls graduated there. Wilson from the university. And then we had our first vacation.

George Mckeever: We went in every state in the union, and that was really something in those days.

Sam Schrager: Your first patient was an eight. What was your last.

George Mckeever: Time for me to get in? BE My we called it supper because it's in the farming country and they ate supper. It's dinner, you know, And if I was through with a patient, I had some lab work to do. I didn't until dinner was ready or supper. Yeah. And after that I went out and bought in the yard and bought a half of it one night and dragged 600 feet of hogs around.

George Mckeever: Why did the other half And the next night and the next night I mode and start all over again muttering after dark. You might say, Now it's out. You push a button and it's all underground and no problem.

Sam Schrager: When you think about, say, some of the other businessmen in town in those years, was there a lot of turnover in the businesses? No.

George Mckeever: No. They stayed right next door until they died of old age and their son took over. Right. The blacksmith. He did the same thing in the assembly over.

Sam Schrager: Was there in Alexander store in this town.

George Mckeever: Yeah.

Sam Schrager: I saw an Alexander building here, though not exact.

George Mckeever: I'll take it back. Fred Beckwith? Yes, Alexander, you're right. But there was also an Alexander and Juliet.

Sam Schrager: They were different.

George Mckeever: Same family. Same family. Right.

Sam Schrager: Jewish. Alexander and Juliet was. Was Jewish. Yes. I read.

George Mckeever: You ever hear of Evan Adams in Madison?

Sam Schrager: Yes.

George Mckeever: No. BONANOS and his wife was an Alexander and quite a heavy lady. And she came to me one day when they were still my wife was sick for three years. Just about last year, she had gotten pregnant and she was in Spokane a long time up there, and her mother came help helping kids. And Mrs. Adams came to me when I was five years old.

George Mckeever: She says, Listen, you send them to school, I want her. And so much time for when she have to. Yeah, 90 miles from here in Gainesville telling me I had asthma I could get. That lady was coming from Cambria right now and, she's one of the few that's on my list. Boston. Sometimes I think I had more patients from Boston in those days in Dennistoun there ever had in their offices, ever.

George Mckeever: You know, more patients.

Sam Schrager: You know, speaking of the bluest and that it makes me think of that FOSTER Doctor.

George Mckeever: FOSTER Yeah, yeah. The old chiropractor. The old. he wasn't. It was he kind of broke after ban.

Sam Schrager: I heard he was both. Could he have been both?

George Mckeever: You know.

Sam Schrager: Some people say chiropractor Some people say.

George Mckeever: Oscar Yeah, but there is a little difference.

Sam Schrager: Some people just call him a rubber dog.

George Mckeever: What do they have? you know what I'm trying to tell you? They don't believe in medical literature. That's the word I'm afraid to think. Yes, Doctor was, that more, I think than anything else. He took half a million cancers off of people, or at least he claimed they were cancers. And he was. We naturopath, you know. Yes, you bet.

George Mckeever: And his sons had offices in Barton in Clarkston.

Sam Schrager: Did you know anything about that one, whether he did what he claimed or what kind of set up he had?

George Mckeever: You know, in those days it's been a good many years ago that if he said something, you either believed or you didn't believe it. I don't know what to believe, but he had a heck of a business going down in Geneva. You know, he an enormous write down, but he didn't want to come in group of patients or whatever.

George Mckeever: And in this room we went down there and they moved in and they stayed there until. They were well and then go back on either that or died. I never knew the old gentleman. I was too young, but I knew he had boys that lived over and had offices in Carson back. I mean, the one that got hurt in the Navy would be jammed up and Steele got a bum hip from the darn thing.

George Mckeever: And I go to, you know, Doctor Mary Scott, you know, must go right across from the Moscow Public Library just down this way.

Sam Schrager: From I know where the.

George Mckeever: House.

Sam Schrager: Is.

George Mckeever: I believe twice a week, year after year after year, I go, that lady. Right. And I think that's one reason why I'm 80 years old and can still do a good day's work if I want to do. Yeah. I read in the Reader's Digest one time there was an article there that told about that. If anybody who ever didn't make name was what is occupation was that he he would take a chiropractic treatment every so often he would be much better physically, even if he didn't keep your name read that keeps your joints from getting stiff on you.

George Mckeever: And I don't know if you've been able to do Dr. Scott. We've known if he's one year older than I am and we've been on some overseas trips we've had to go and she's produced Kokomo gown. I'm one of the old schools. She doesn't but even taking a million X-rays every day only come in with the pain. In your judgment can she came out of that pain is without the X-ray and she'll give you that adjustment without the help of an X-ray.

George Mckeever: And I know my gosh would go anyplace else. First thing we do is I believe his name is Mackintosh. At one time. We have to keep pursuing Kennedy and make him solid. Is and I believe Mackintosh was the I think Mackintosh as they were after one of those papers. And he's the one who stayed. And then Ralph never and Ralph never sold out.

George Mckeever: And McCreery is an, you know, Parker And they sold out to know with the old man McCurry died and Bill Maher and his wife died of cancer both of them of cancer. And this little guy from Genesee is here now. Yeah, that would take you back to 1900 and fire times. Sure, I can still see those old presses.

George Mckeever: They had it. They had burned up when cooled off, when they had kids around around. You know.

Sam Schrager: It doesn't seem to me like the best living small little town being a.

George Mckeever: Printer.

Sam Schrager: Paper.

George Mckeever: That was mucky and make money hand over fist. They get so many jobs out of town, job work and got Scott just it was you couldn't believe my own little man McCurry would draw in the air handbills and pretty I don't know what that press was around back there all the time.

Sam Schrager: The blacks, they'd keep that press running all the time. YOUNGER Well, you got that weekly paper then?

George Mckeever: yes, true. You bet. Yeah.

Sam Schrager: Well, I wanted to ask you about. About why it is that most of the people who, once they came from here, became doctors, dentists or professional people like lawyers, wouldn't leave. You have much money wisely. It's because I can't find them. They're all gone. You know.

George Mckeever: The most notable one that came from Kendrick and Rubin, I kept him when. He went to high school here. We lived up in a school and a two story house, and they saw a farmers came in and asked us to take his body in and. Sure. And it wasn't just the accommodating. We didn't have busses. It was too far for him to walk.

George Mckeever: He's one of the world's most noted cameramen today, right, Duane Eagle, maybe you remember the name. He stayed with us in high school. And every time Dwight comes to Kentucky, spends a half a day with us in here.

Sam Schrager: Yeah, you. You decided to stay, not go someplace else. Why? Why was.

George Mckeever: That? I just like the ground, and I liked the people, and it was like my class, my style. I don't know. I'm going to kill me to go to a big city and. And have an office. I don't like that up, up and down on a ventilator. Have to take your car out and drive 20 miles down to your office.

George Mckeever: No, I never did appeal to the my girl who was a medical pathologist in San Diego. She gets up and goes to work late in traffic Pauline's coming in, Pauline, to go one morning and night. No, If not for me, then kill me off. And nothing planned. We got had a murder. Find out here. My garden, my flowers, fishing for my last two or three years beginning.

George Mckeever: How can there You know how they were. My patients bring in me and their steak and I don't have to go.

Sam Schrager: Yeah. Did you ever serve some? Think about going someplace else.

George Mckeever: It never entered my heart once and never know. I had a guy here the other day. He wanted to lease my office. He says, You going to quit? I've have quit. And when they got ten or 12 patients, that's all. And he wanted to lease my office here. Nobody in. My house. Not been doing this. A step down, five rooms up there.

George Mckeever: Couldn't take a look at anything. It comes up and to help you get established and that was his name Richard George. You ever hear the name? His wife teaches at the university? He wanted to get an apartment. Let him try. He'd come down here one day a week and go home. And that's nice, District man. I don't think he'd make a living there.

George Mckeever: Just one day a week. You got to be on the job every day in the week and nearly every day in the week, you know? So. So I've had five different guys come here and their wives won't live in a small town. You say six companies started by George, Richard George. And he was here about two weeks ago and nothing there in the office space.

George Mckeever: And I was telling you, bounce back to the drugstore. He's got five bedrooms up there and he's going to have an M.D. in there. This he wanted to play that up. Now.

Sam Schrager: What do you think of that rivalry between him and you? Yeah, listen, a real rivalry.

George Mckeever: It really was 40 years ago. Ran hot. You're darn right I've seen more damn bites of these baseball games. You could check. I've seen you just back to the nursing home up there just a few days ago. She gets a mad from Gillette to throw a rock right through this guy's windshield. He's got her, you know, he rationed her, you know, about the healthiest and the cheapest.

George Mckeever: I just a few days ago, up in the in the morning.

Sam Schrager: The two towns are so close together. Which first of all, town do you know? How come? No. Tell me why.

George Mckeever: All right. It wasn't the guy that started. Kendrick was the first engineer on the railroad train that came down here. That was his last name, Kendrick. He the first train in the Kendrick. So they call it the down payment. It wasn't that name at first. They didn't change it for him. Juliana was established and the guy that established Juliet had two daughters, Juliet, and ever in the name of the town after those two girls, he said, they get me these old.

George Mckeever: I won't mention the names because some of them are still here. They their parents took up all the laps, never got to sell them at an enormous price, you know? And the guy that came up here to start this town, to hell with you. You come up here and start down on his own. And he did. And that's.

George Mckeever: How can we get started?

Sam Schrager: These lots were we're we're running.

George Mckeever: Right into Juliana right there, right in the main drag. You know, he tried to do an exorbitant prices. Guy wouldn't be here with you. I'm up the creek. You're not out of town. My only did in my first house. Bill and I can show you right here. The first house in this town was built up. Watch over their homes.

George Mckeever: I had a lovely home and probably many years ago.

Sam Schrager: Who was now the Hammond? Was that Kirby that started that He.

George Mckeever: And his wife know his daughter, Miss married Louis Harris, who was our early director. Louis Harris. Mrs. Louis Harris was Mrs. Lulu Kirby. Mr. Kirby Yeah.

Sam Schrager: And he started he's the one that started.

George Mckeever: It and even had that little log cabin there of where about once lived. And across the street, he built the house that Marvin Long lives in. Now, that's when we really got historical.

Sam Schrager: Yes, it's historical. Right site. It's beautiful. I heard there was a woman who was a bartender or saloon keeper, and either Julianna can't or can't remember her name, but I heard about that.

George Mckeever: You mean in the early days or now?

Sam Schrager: Early days. now it's nothing unusual.

George Mckeever: Then we some big government up the street right now. The antelope in his own home, run by a girl. You know, a lady patient of mine. I never heard of a woman being in any of this. We had three big saloons here. I could remember the old Monogram saloon. The guy got knocked down. He got on his horse.

George Mckeever: We had these old wooden sidewalks and the old mentor's pro gallop right on that might have ran out of town, you know.

Sam Schrager: On.

George Mckeever: Sidewalks. I don't sidewalk. You bet.

Sam Schrager: I think Candy.

George Mckeever: Bar, you know our mill here is the old wooden sidewalk right here. And that guy here's what not to move here. That was his own home. And he had his office right on the right, on the right on the sidewalk. And that guarantees Rudy's at about 100 miles an hour. You know, little kids. We thought it was cause we jumped off and got out of the road, drove in a bad mood, and he rode his horse right at that time of.

George Mckeever: Did you ride on out of town? Did you use.

Sam Schrager: To see Indians in town when you were a kid?

George Mckeever: always, always. And they went to every fall. And then Huckleberry, they'd come through here with a half a dozen Indian ponies loose following the hack, and they had.

George Mckeever: Whips.

George Mckeever: Stick him out in the back of the pack on those horses, and they actually crowded the whips out of their horses that made them keep up with the rain. Hundreds and my people through here. And that's from a bad learned to talk to these people, sold them their equipment. They go back at New York in their fishing huckleberry right in the fall like a big game.

George Mckeever: I mean he knew there was a well, that was my gosh, I'm standing beside my dad and Pete Brown, madam, when he was working in the story, you know?

Sam Schrager: Would you be scared of them? No, If you were scared of or you know, some people were on the farms.

George Mckeever: Nappanee in Indiana, all your life.

Unknown Speaker: No, we never were.

George Mckeever: See the date on a little girl? 35 old as you are.

Unknown Speaker: A little bit more a little bit older.

Sam Schrager: Eclipses in 1835.

George Mckeever: They had him those days I guess.

Sam Schrager: I'm surprised I thought they must be.

George Mckeever: Much more reasonable.

Sam Schrager: Tableau since they started the Moon program was that is that.

George Mckeever: Well we had two banks became a state bank and the farmers bank and the community bank was on pretty shaky ground in the state. I make all of them up and then the farmer bank took them up to come over and they were backed by a bunch of pretty wealthy farmers up here. The guy that had the main part of it was a man by the name of Meyer, and he did not believe in a millionaire over, and he owned the most stock in that of any drop over did with Irmgard up there on the hill.

George Mckeever: He had to very much what would you call the holdings? He didn't have enough to pay these bank to pay the internal revenue people made or sell on the bank. And that's how the poor security got in the country.

Sam Schrager: He had so many holdings that she couldn't she couldn't save it.

George Mckeever: She had to sell something to get the money to pay them what you call inheritance tax or whatever. Yes, she absolutely had to sell the bank to get money to pay the government.

Sam Schrager: He was out wealthy.

George Mckeever: Going with that.

Sam Schrager: Where did he make his money from?

George Mckeever: 2000 acres of farmland. The country.

Sam Schrager: Do you know how he he ever got hold of so much land that the only person I've heard of the like that was Vollmer.

George Mckeever: Vollmer. He had the farmers bank before the farmers brought about. Look at that front page, 1949.

Sam Schrager: What about this guy? Did he how did he get his land?

George Mckeever: How is that on tell you. I don't know what you want to do with this stuff.

Sam Schrager: Go.