Latah County Oral History Collection

Makes me worry.

Grace Wicks: And when did you come to the county in Maine?

Merton Waterman: The last June, 1910.

Grace Wicks: How old were you?

Merton Waterman: I was 14 years old.

Grace Wicks: What did your father do before he came to Moscow? Well, my father.

Merton Waterman: Was a Jack of all trades. He, He was a principally a farmer, but he was the secretary for the Cooperative Creamery and also a secretary for the, Dairy Improvement Association.

Grace Wicks: I see. And he came here to work then for a dairy business? No,

Merton Waterman: The wheel there for 12 years, just north of Chicago. And that's where he did this very well. Prior to that, he had lived in Minnesota and farm grain farming.

Grace Wicks: Yeah, I see.

Merton Waterman: But, my both my grandmother and, one of them and, and the family were fairly proud families and fairly well-to-do mother with four ministers in the family and her mother married father. And they now she came out with an 85 to be with her sister who she had her first child.

Grace Wicks: And where it was that she came to Ringwood, Illinois. I see.

Merton Waterman: When we know now that's just 60 miles north of Chicago and ten miles from the Wisconsin line and about 20 miles from her. And it was, well, anyway, she met five of them and, and they corresponded for three years before they were married. And her uncle, a Baptist minister, married them. And one of the things that they did was they made father promise to go to church with her.

He was a Christian at the time. And, we miles down the road Baptist Church, there were several factors. And one of her uncle was a missionary in Burma for 30 years. But anyway, they father had his farm, paid for hundred and 20 acres at the village. All the land is equivalent. Everything paid for and money in the bank before he ever got married.

And my mother then died in the war in. And that woman I was for my. You know. And I'll never forget that. Well, I never had a mother who had really got married.

Grace Wicks: But you came here then in 1910. And where did you live?

Merton Waterman: Within one week we lived in McBride house. And that was, It was the last day of June. And that was the the week that they had the very 4th of July celebration there. And Mary Everson and, Mrs. Mitchell, the uncle. I can't remember.

Grace Wicks: Don't know.

Merton Waterman: But it was one of the prime movers. And that of course the Davis and lots of practically all of them were in this, 4th of July summer. We had about a three day celebration. Yeah. Two brothers who also had a lot of an awful lot of nice horses for a night in town.

Grace Wicks: you went to school then? Where abouts did you go to school?

Merton Waterman: Well, I was three years behind horses, and at 14, I see. I see through year to year. I was recruited to different group in the Irving school. So I was 17 at the time, my first eighth grade, and I was two. Well, but not all of them. But my being big enough to kid. But I wouldn't go on the primaries.

None of them high school I would took the short course in three years. But the, that I failed the eighth grade examination had taken one of Mr. children, and then he was. It was,

Grace Wicks: Was it Peterson? No.

Merton Waterman: Before Peterson went round the ship, it was Chicago. And I know I it the one before, right? Because it was 1913. I fell and January, so I and I know it again in March. I'm finished And that was the other other boycott got the contract for the paving in my school. So I went to work for Whitehall.

Grace Wicks: That was the paving on Main Street.

Merton Waterman: Well, it was on Third Street that, that third Street. Now, as far as the park.

Grace Wicks: Gormley Park.

Merton Waterman: Government Park. And then I took it to the top of the Park Street and that's as far as the baby went there. And then when we went to the eighth Street on Main, but it went down past the, the railroad track the other way around it and that and all that in Washington Street, in Washington, you know, two or three blocks right there.

Grace Wicks: This was not blacktop. This was real old cement. And it.

Merton Waterman: is what they call the doorway pavement. It was supposed them five inches of a man and a half or on sand. Well, I can show you what I like, where I work from, from that. Or I had to dig for the sewer a lot of places that wasn't three inches, you know, the hardest. Male and John Hall, where they inspect, too, but they just come over.

Grace Wicks: Harvey Smith was working for the city at that time.

Merton Waterman: Horace Mann had been civil engineer from 1909 to 1969.

Grace Wicks: Is that.

Merton Waterman: So? 59 years? He was he was 30 and was still a consultant. And I used to get so mad at Harvey because he insisted on inspecting the sewers were not to let them run. A man for him for four calls. McElroy a nigger this and get this early, maybe before noon and I go a Harvey that yeah I'll be down at 1:00 and we get down about 400.

Well I was 25 to see I had to cover the did I understand what overtime the color of it and I am not very hungry to do anybody wanted to make a personal for and now Harvey worked reasonable he never kicked out salary and so they would never care but he made quite a few mistakes but how he was one of the best, you know, he was always available to you.

Grace Wicks: They always said that he was had all the city maps in his head.

Merton Waterman: That's right. Well, I think he has a few of them.

Grace Wicks: But he knew where the sewers went through. He knew where all the lines were.

Merton Waterman: Right now, they came up here that to collect on to this one from the city hall, and they had a Geiger counter to find the man. All right. And then also a man. They should have been able to find it within two or three feet. He drew a circle about 20 feet in diameter. So this in here somewhere.

Grace Wicks: And so they found it. I it is.

Merton Waterman: One of our stories here. But he went back downtown and got the Geiger counter so you can find that manhole.

Grace Wicks: Well, now tell me about the short course at the university with that be a short course that would be somewhat the equivalent of high school.

Merton Waterman: I was supposed to take the place in high school. The essay was three years and, you know, typically after that was there, he was in school just a year behind me. He took the same thing. There was a dozen fellows that took the same thing and then went on. They had to have one year of refresher, what they call a preparatory course before they could have you arrested them.

Didn't let them get by with three years. But this sort of was only five months. It was it was from from March to April. And a member of October to the middle of five months. And they give you a smattering of English or smattering of chemistry. They gave you the same things they give you on the high school was a lot of sorrow, a lot of start doing and and the mechanics.

So they give you a shot. They give you a lecture show. I'm woodworker.

Grace Wicks: In other words, you got a lot in the short time. Did this help you then when you went to take your civil service exam?

Merton Waterman: Well, I suppose it helped me about the bookkeeping. And I took I took my bookkeeping on the high Christmas. I was a principal of this thing the first year that I was doing that.

Grace Wicks: Is that so? Yes. Well, now the principal of the preparatory school in other.

Merton Waterman: With you on that preparatory school is the same as should they provided for a lot of these dropout you just don't want to get. They aren't professional but they they would go ahead and, you know, in California, they force him to go to night school or if they give that kind of a deal and nice school that could work his way from the lower back if he could work his way through.

And that gave me seven month to earn money. Then my father died in 1912 before I got out of eighth grade and my father before he died. He told one of us that now I'm isn't the type of person to to have an education with a door pusher. And my mother pushed all of us killed on us. Only two of them finished up here.

My sister went.

Grace Wicks: To have degrees.

Merton Waterman: Well.

Grace Wicks: Two people have degrees in your family.

Merton Waterman: Too, and two of my sister in law and one brother. One sister finished the university, but my older sister went from school Tutors who are a hallmark of this Mrs. Johnson that we've read last week. so and so. Never dropped out of school. She got to professional university and she dropped out to take that through. Well, what was.

Grace Wicks: Yes. Well then, how old were you by the time you took this preparatory work?

Merton Waterman: I say I was 18 this summer. The first and I have taken over three years is I went on and liked about two months. I've written 15 probably came 14.

Grace Wicks: So then you you took that preparatory course and did you work with that information for a while or did you get into civil service right away?

Merton Waterman: Well, no, I didn't even I worked for myself and and I'm a really fine and I'm for Ralph Hall the first year. So I finished up here in 16 the same year. Mark Reinhold the the heart of the Forest remembers the man, first of all, Lindley or.

Grace Wicks: Lindley?

Merton Waterman: No.

Grace Wicks: Actually, a leading.

Merton Waterman: Lady, whether it be Larry. Larry was I was in the senior class both the hall it was was then the same class and and I and half was in the same class.

Grace Wicks: Of this preparatory school all of the prepared.

Merton Waterman: No they were in full university.

Grace Wicks: I see.

Merton Waterman: But you see we had a lot of our functions together so we were the, the short course were winter all year. The assemblies, and all year we took the same drill with them. So they got credit on the drill for we had whatever we had to do extra do. So we get in $180 per drill and so we had to buy a ticket.

So they're paid.

Grace Wicks: Now by this drill you mean that is for now for the military. I see. Now, this was before World War One.

Merton Waterman: What a before it was after the war started.

Grace Wicks: Bill said, I see.

Merton Waterman: This war started in 14. We didn't get into it until 1750. You know.

Grace Wicks: Your career went all along. You didn't go anyplace during this World War One.

Merton Waterman: You know, I was rejected.

Grace Wicks: I see.

Merton Waterman: I had a I had a and I started to tell about why we went to Texas. Know the first ten years of my life, lived on a dairy farm and then my husband and and so doctor had already told father says, you want to raise that boy, You got to get into a mild climate and father also had his father's right.

So he sold out the auction sale and we went down just south of Amarillo, three miles south. I don't know. And and how would rather now that three years and a half never got a call. Now the father went down there in the summer of 1930 and Welcome Harvest and they were doing 35 bushel And then, you know well that was a good death.

And so he went down there and my mother and 68 of the land here, my uncle together, there was a partnership deal. And and then the man was 35 miles from Harvard. Well, there was a college and a the school of Turkey. My mother said, I'm not taking my kids out to live 35 miles from town. So before they can get to school without one.

But of course, she couldn't do it with a horse and buggy anyway. So the father bought a.

Unknown Speaker: House from a lawyer and her and.

Merton Waterman: And so we were really hoping grandfather had to drive back and forth through this one. But he never did find this. Just 950 acres. They never put forward the land closer to the house.

Grace Wicks: Well, then did he come up here from Texas?

Merton Waterman: And then we came here from Texas. We took a car both times. We took it we took a car with six horses from regular from Illinois to Texas. Then my uncle bought a bit of a car with some horses. But the amount of time the first year was there, 19 seven and typhoid fever. Her father had typhoid fever in 19 eight.

And while my father was recuperating, typhoid fever. We run the tail of that for very horses at a sale run on Paramount. We not able to get him on. I mean, that's what caused him to have her leg all because of there.

Grace Wicks: Well, now you let's get back to later country. You were here and were finished your college prep training. Then before World War One, you were rejected for the service. And then what happened to your next?

Merton Waterman: Well, I work for Senator Brady. He had the the similar run on process By that time. I said to her, know how Johnson I don't know if you know the Johnson Johnson their own thing. I used to live there I cross-referenced if she married one or Johnson and one of the American Negro married one of the Johnson board.

But there were six of these Johnson boys went through the rest of it. But anyway, he hated the job of shutting down the raging fire. And I went down there.

Grace Wicks: What? Where? Where was that?

Merton Waterman: That was a mountain home.

Grace Wicks: When did you come back to this county then?

Merton Waterman: When I came back, the next year was only down there. One year I came back here about 18. Now, before I went down there, the spring of that, I went down to three quarters of an acre right across to over here, half a block from the Woodworth. Well it was worth Estates in Lowell Place and I made $300 three quarters.

Well what the the whole family worked and that was selling this room but we made $300 on that. Well, Mother said if you can make that much from she calls were taken by a team and you can gotten in a and I found all this land around here. They even found one of the highway down here going forward.

Grace Wicks: And your address right now is what is your address here?

Merton Waterman: five, nine, five worth and.

Grace Wicks: 595 was seeing you from out of around here. What? You farmed all around here.

Merton Waterman: All this vacant land, and that belonged to the island state. I see. And they are living on this corner since 1930.

Grace Wicks: Goody. Now, these are things we like to.

Merton Waterman: All this.

Grace Wicks: Time. Yes. These are things we now are.

Merton Waterman: Showing Charlie Summerfield with her first along.

Grace Wicks: Yes.

Merton Waterman: He moved us them to down here to a house that we had one from. Gosh, I I'm sure you've never heard of. Gosh, my gosh. Yeah. Well, they all get our hole up here and they departments are married. A whole lot of it. He didn't make a partner, but they have. And and one other thing that was very good Faith was down here for this other apartment is now to 18.

And we lived there till 1913. Father died and we had bought this house from all of them. And then they back down. So then we bought this sure place and rode in there. But the middle of July.

Grace Wicks: Through which life on the 7th of July, what year ten.

Merton Waterman: 1910. And see my father.

Grace Wicks: Lucca Yes, of course.

Merton Waterman: And he wasn't able to work it. There was to shop where he intended to work for the San Machine Company because they had this money and finally had to let go. But we knew we couldn't do heavy work. They thought they could run away for that. Of course, they let the Idaho machine make your next run with going full blast down here.

Then they had all the day running to run it with their family. They got tired from running that and not doing that. Turn the thing. And one thing that was the university shops for years was the was one little girl and I was.

Grace Wicks: And why would it be no guy will, Would it be Guy? No.

Merton Waterman: No, no Guy was that was still on the farm at that time. But he came here every few years. That would sell for low price were low prices, you know. I think so. Yeah. See, you know what happened? The guy who got his foot in the. And the first mission had one way or the other, wooden leg. So he, he I guess running his farm came him the shuffle of 30.

Grace Wicks: Did he get to be a judge. I don't know. I see. Well I guess there.

Merton Waterman: Was the judge at that time.

Grace Wicks: Yes. Judge Steel. Well, let's get back to you now. After you. We've just got you and your story now up to after World War One. And then you work for Mr. Brady and then you came back and you gardened and you're because your mother had bought you this team while you extended your gardening, gardening activities. And how long did you go out back?

Merton Waterman: Just three years. And the first year went behind. No, no, no, no. The next year went behind 600 million. We have a different condition now that in 1918 I find this place LEMASTER I started. We're through this now.

Grace Wicks: Where which school?

Merton Waterman: McConnell The McConnell school, remember? But Donald my down school now. Now the school, my little one that I found there. And I and I also had this way around here. Well, let me just more than I can do and I have no help and I just can't make it so but I stayed one more year and one of the miners, we ran for column because mother had just both strapped herself helping me.

And for three years we never that three years. Whenever we got fully caught up with babies, I didn't turn any grocery guns off and stuff. So we.

Grace Wicks: Drove. Did David still groceries in those days? Yeah.

Merton Waterman: The grocery store? Yeah. 700 or so. You see Stratton run that store for a while and then know man, that was the later that we ran until I was in that when we first came around, probably was in the grocery store room and ran it. I had a strong.

Grace Wicks: Well, tell me, after three years of having a pretty hard time and with gardening, what did you do?

Merton Waterman: I worked on a delivery of three JO columns and old columns. Month of union delivery from the farm. That's Harrison's father.

Grace Wicks: Harvey Smith's father?

Merton Waterman: No, Harry, you know, Harry has the Shell station down, and I made.

Grace Wicks: That fellow, you know.

Merton Waterman: Not. That's not there. And, yeah, Cliff, my first move all I remember many people remember when I. When he was on and brought me in, but I wrote him Fred column now I say and harvest part of the time of the work from home I said from a more so but I was out of the picture that you have in the museum and show us this house.

This half down below shows mother's washing on the line and I showed my wagon machine sitting in the street and 26 I just I work for this mother, but I worked for Duckett down here on a day to deliver it in the wintertime. And I didn't.

Grace Wicks: Have one I went to in civil service for a while.

Merton Waterman: Yeah, I was still searching for myself. Now, I had so want to know that until two until after Linda put forward what I how after told me. Well, I was working here as a counselor, helping a mr. Mr. Miller and mine that mine was on the menu of that place. And that's where the the dump is now.

But anyway, he called up. Mother wanted to come talk to him, and he said he needs somebody to take the package wagon. And Christmas had to have extra help. They wanted some. I knew that. I know a lot of I worked three years on the union delivery, so I knew the town. And of course, I've lived here ten years, was here 16 years for that time.

And so I knew the town fairly well. So that's how I got started in the post. And then he said we should take the exam. I told him I don't or I don't want an inside job. Then give me an outside job. I said, I might be interested. I just can't take it inside job. I don't like them and when LAMB Sanders got in, he said, I need a man at the window, a man that can get along with the public and a man, the son of Mrs. the last homer after who to put the he said, Well, is who I was one of them.

So I just couldn't get out. But he promised a good and faithful servant, This is a chance I give you a role. But then that well, the chance came more road.

Grace Wicks: Well, in other words, then you were a rural mail carrier for a while.

Merton Waterman: I t at that time they consolidated their own and and made the 50 mile them, but they split them up in the summer and the winter because they couldn't do it one night. And then so for three years I was a roofer. But at the same time I had to make the primary separation and the post office. I was working on two jobs for the take.

It takes two. It takes about 3 hours of our one month time to make the primary separation from that night train to the round, the midnight train, 3 hours. And if if I didn't have somebody to help me at that time, I had to get the 430 in order to get that up with the time or.

Grace Wicks: 30 in the morning.

Merton Waterman: In order to get it out by the time the carriers got there, because they've got to have their mail in time, they get a list of others and start working on. So I worked on that for 20 years, the primary separation and the other two, well, I even worked on it when I had a stroke. No, Mr. Koch was a good friend of mine, but I didn't get the work for my mail until 8:00.

The other phone call. And he was there at a quarter to seven because we were seven, but he was always there 15. So he was ready and ready to leave. And they did far more time than I started doing it. And of course, Mrs. Long's was a good friend of mine. She was just can't understand why all of you get here at 9:00 and you can't get here then.

Well, I didn't get started on Moore until after nine because it took me an hour to make my my case after I got on it. And I never got on it till after 8:00 because I had to work on the primary separation. I just couldn't understand why I couldn't get the same time.

Grace Wicks: Volume How long did you work as a mail?

Merton Waterman: So the was the assignment for someone who was the only sub and he was on the table. I get so Don and Fowle and now all three of us work nine years just as a substitute before they would approve first one.

Grace Wicks: What would you make at a job like that?

Merton Waterman: Well, there were there were times and all I got was that two hour noon, because nobody said, well.

Grace Wicks: What would it pay.

Merton Waterman: The $0.06 million.

Grace Wicks: And you could live on that. Well, no.

Merton Waterman: But I had a good move to pay Warren.

Grace Wicks: And when did you come to the county then?

Merton Waterman: And then the last day, June 1910.

Grace Wicks: How old were you?

Merton Waterman: I was 14 years old.

Grace Wicks: What did your father do before he came to Moscow?

Merton Waterman: Well, my father was a jack of all trades. He he was a principally a farmer, but he was the secretary for the cooperative Creamery and also a secretary for the Dairy Improvement Association.

Grace Wicks: I see. And he came here to work then for a dairy business? No,

Merton Waterman: The we there for 12 years just north of Chicago, and that's where he did this day. But prior to that, he had lived in Minnesota and farm grain farming.

Grace Wicks: Yeah, I see.

Merton Waterman: But my both my grandmother and, one of them and, and Bixby family were fairly proud families and fairly well-to-do mother with four ministers and then with the family and her mother married father and now she came out with and 85 to be with her sister Ha she had her first child and.

Grace Wicks: That's where it was that she came to.

Merton Waterman: Greenwood, Illinois. I think when we know now, that's just 60 miles north of Chicago and ten miles from the Wisconsin line and about 20 miles from here. And it was run anyway, she met five of them and, and they corresponded for three years before they were married. And her uncle, a Baptist minister, madam. And one of the things that they did was they met for the promise to go to church with her.

She was a Christian at the time, and, you might say down the road, Baptist Church and several factors. And one of her uncle with a missionary in Burma for 30 years. But anyway, their father had his farm, paid for her 320 acres and the villages, all the land is equivalent. Everything paid for money in the bank before I ever got married.

And my mother doing that in the rain. And that morning I was for my, you know, not knowing what she get from. I never heard the 30,000. No, he had really got married.

Grace Wicks: But you came here then in 1910. And where did you live.

Merton Waterman: Within one week? We live in McBride house. And that was it was the last day of June. And see, that was the the week that they had the the 4th of July celebration there and Mary Wilson and, this mission there. Okay.

Grace Wicks: I can't remember their demo.

Merton Waterman: But it was one of the prime movers in that and of course the Davis and that of all the them. Well, and this, 4th of July summer we had about a three day celebration. No two brothers who all alone had a lot of, an awful lot of nice horses that for a 19 year.

Grace Wicks: Old you went to school them where? But did you go to school?

Merton Waterman: Well, was three years behind horses. And at 14 I see. And I say three years. Two years are two different grade in the Irwin school. So I was 17 at the time after eighth grade, and I was two. Well, but not too sensitive about my being bigger than the rest, the kid. But I wouldn't go on the time I was kind of in high school, I took the short course three years, but, that I failed the eighth grade examination to help take one of Mr. Church children.

And then it was kind of. It.

Grace Wicks: Was it Peterson?

Merton Waterman: No. Before Peterson went round the ship, it was Chicago. You know, I heard the one before one because it was 1913. I came anyway, so I wound up and I know the religion and Mark, I'm finished. And that was the other black up got the the contract for the paving. Remarkable. So I went to work for White Coal.

Grace Wicks: That was the paving on Main Street.

Merton Waterman: Well, it was on Third Street that that third Street. Now, as far as the park.

Grace Wicks: Gormley Park.

Merton Waterman: Government Park. And then I took it to the top of the Polk Street and that's as far as the baby went there. And then when we went to estate on Main, but I went down half the railroad track the other way around until about all that year. And so I only did Washington Street in front of Washington. I only two or three blocks right there.

Grace Wicks: But this was not blacktop. This was real old cement.

Merton Waterman: And it was what they call the doorway pavement. It was supposed then five inches of a man and a half a time frame. But I can show you when I when I work from home. Right. Or I had to dig for the sewer a lot of places that were in three or four men, the hardest male and John Hall were the inspectors.

But they just come here.

Grace Wicks: Harvey Smith was working for the city at that time.

Merton Waterman: Horace Mann had been a civil engineer from 1909 to 1969.

Grace Wicks: Is that.

Merton Waterman: So? 39 years He was he was a philander, was good consultant. And I used to get so mad at Harvey because he insisted on in fact, in the Third Man when I made him one of the main reason for her of course macaroni digger this and get this were laid maybe before noon and I got a Harvey that yeah I'll be down there at 1:00 and we get down there about 430.

I was pretty sight to see. I had to cover the ditch. I had to spend what overtime to cover to do. And I remember thinking how to do. Anybody wanted to make it personal, brought home. And now Harvey were reasonable and they were kicked out of salary. And so they were very candid. But he made quite a few mistakes.

But Harry was one of the best. You know, he is always agreeable to you.

Grace Wicks: They always said that he was had all city maps in his head.

Merton Waterman: That's right. Well, I think he has a few of them.

Grace Wicks: But he knew where the sewers ran through. He knew where all the lines were.

Merton Waterman: Right now, they came up here to collect all of this one from the bookies. Hold it up. And they had a Geiger counter to find the manhole him in first to have a map. They should have been able to find it within two or three feet. He drew a circle about 20 feet in diameter. So this in here somewhere.

Grace Wicks: And so they found it, I know is.

Merton Waterman: One of our stories here. But he went back downtown and got the Geiger counter so you can find that manhole.

Grace Wicks: Well, now, tell me about the short course you're at the university with that be a short course that would be somewhat the equivalent of high school.

Merton Waterman: And I was supposed to take the place in high school that if they were three years and, you know, TV came after he was in school just a year behind me, he took the same thing. There was a dozen plumbers, but they took the same thing and then went on. They had to have one year of refresher, what they call prepare atomic course before they could have your in them didn't get mine with three years, but this short course is only five one.

It was it was from from March through the middle of October to the middle of March on and and they give you a smattering of English or smattering of chemistry. They give you the same things they give you in the high school class. A lot of sorrow, a lot of barcoding and and mechanics. So they give you a shop, they give you a lecture show on woodworking.

Grace Wicks: In other words, you got a lot in a short time. Did this help you then when you went to take your civil service exam?

Merton Waterman: Well, I suppose it helped me about the bookkeeping. And I took I took almost everything on the hook. Everything I had was the principal of this thing. The first year that I was doing that.

Grace Wicks: Is that so? Well, now the principal of the Preparatory school.

Merton Waterman: Another word which you're not prepared by school, is the same that should be provided for a lot of these dropout you just don't want to get. They are unprofessional, but they they would go ahead and, you know, in California, they force him to go night school or if they get that kind of a deal and nice, who could work his way from the lower back if he could work his way through.

And that gave me seven months to earn money. Then my father died in 1912 before I got out of eighth grade and my father before him died, he told mother said, Mom, what type of person to to have an education with a door pushing Mother pushed all the other kids on them. There was only two of them finished up here.

My sister went.

Grace Wicks: To have degrees.

Merton Waterman: Well.

Grace Wicks: Two people have degrees in your family.

Merton Waterman: Two and two. And my first one, one brother, one sister finished the university. But my older sister from school, she comes home after this. Mrs. Johnson, that we've had last two years for food and she and so never dropped out of school she to professional university and she dropped out to take that school. Well both of.

Grace Wicks: Years. Well then a how old were you but the time you took this preparatory work.

Merton Waterman: I say I was 18 this summer. The first time I had to take another three years before I went on. I left about two months of then 15. How we came report.

Grace Wicks: So then you, you took that preparatory course and did you work with that information for a while or did you get into civil service right away? Well, no, I.

Merton Waterman: I work for myself and, and I'm a relative. Fine. And and for Ralph Hall, the first time you see, I finished up here in 16 the same year daughter own house the 201st minute was I didn't follow Lindley or Lindley. No.

Grace Wicks: Actually 11.

Merton Waterman: Well, Larry, Larry, Larry. Larry was I was in the senior class. Most of all, it was was in the senior class. And I don't know, half was in the same class.

Grace Wicks: Of this preparatory school of the.

Merton Waterman: No, they were in full university.

Grace Wicks: I see.

Merton Waterman: But you see, we had a lot of our functions together. They we were the the short course were run for all your assemblies and all order. We took the same drill with them so they got credit on the drill for we had put in a we had to do extra do so again in $170 per drill. And so we had to buy a ticket to all their affairs.

Grace Wicks: Now, by this drill, you mean that is for now for the military. And I see now, this was before World War One.

Merton Waterman: What a reform it was. After the war started.

Grace Wicks: Bill said, I see.

Merton Waterman: This war started in 14. We didn't get into it until 17.

Grace Wicks: Your career went along. You didn't go anyplace during this World War One.

Merton Waterman: You know, I was rejected.

Grace Wicks: I see.

Merton Waterman: I had had a and I started to tell about why we went to Texas. The first ten years of my life. I lived on a dairy farm and then my husband and and so doctor had already told father says you ought to raise that boy. You got to get into a milder climate. And then father also had his father as well.

So he sold out auction sale. And we went down just south of Amarillo to miles of, I don't know, in the Panhandle. And within a year and a half, never got a problem. Now parliament down then in the summer of 1930 and watched from harvest and then were getting 35 were from and they were sold on land for $15 an acre.

Well that was a good that. And so he went down there about 968 of the land. He and my uncle together, there was a partnership deal and and then the land was 35 miles from Harvard. Well, it was a college and a good school of hoping. My mother said, I'm not taking my kids out of service for a month, mountain town for 3 hours before they can get to school without one.

And of course, you couldn't do it with a horse and buggy then. And so the father bought a house from a lawyer and Humphrey and William Humphrey, his grandfather, had drive back and forth to this one, but he never did find the first 950 acres. They never put forward the land closer to the house.

Grace Wicks: Well, then, did he come up here from Texas?

Merton Waterman: And then we came here. Interview. We took a car both times. We took a returned a car with six horses from regular from Illinois to Texas. Then my uncle bought a bit of a car with some horses, but one uncle of the first, it was there 19 seven and typhoid fever. Her father had typhoid fever in 19 eight, and while my father was recuperating, typhoid fever may run.

A team of that were very horses at a sale. One of them turned out to be a war. He didn't want a name, and that's what caused him to have to let go eventually, because there you.

Grace Wicks: Well, now you let's get back to Lake County. You were here and we're finished your college prep training. Then before World War One, you were rejected for the service. And then what happened to your next?

Merton Waterman: Well, I work for Senator Brady. He had the the Cimarron in long past. And by that time I said to her know how Johnson I don't know if you know the Johnson family I don't know 15 I used to live there across from Rochester she married of the Johnson and one of the and then they go married won the Johnson war but there were six of these Johnson boys went through the rest of the but anyway he he took the job of shutting down the farm and I went down there, worked for him.

Grace Wicks: Where was that?

Merton Waterman: That was a mountain home.

Grace Wicks: And when did you come back to this county then?

Merton Waterman: When I came back the next year, I was only about one year. I came back here. I go out there to before I went down there, the spring of that, I remember I landed three quarters of an acre right across to over here, half a block from the Woodworth. Well, it was worth straight then Lowell place and I made hundred dollars three quarter acre.

Well was the whole family worked there and that was some investment. But we made $300 on that. Well, Mother said, if you can make that much on 600 donated by a team and you can, we've gotten that far north and around here. We even found one of the highway down here going forward.

Grace Wicks: And your address right now is what is your address here?

Merton Waterman: Five, nine, five worth and.

Grace Wicks: 595. We're seeing you live around here. What you farmed all around here.

Merton Waterman: All this vacant land that belonged to the lone state. I see. And I've lived on this corner since 1930 13.

Grace Wicks: There are things we like to all this time. Yes, these are things we know.

Merton Waterman: So Charlie Summerfield with her hair salon?

Grace Wicks: Yeah.

Merton Waterman: He moved us them down here to our house that we had one from. Gosh, I sure you never heard of. Gosh. Well, gosh, Yeah. Well, they all get our hole up here and they departments are. We didn't have a whole lot of it. He didn't make a pardon, but he had a and, and war everything. And that was pretty good.

Faith was down here for this other department is now to 18 and we lived there till 1913. father died and we had bought this house from all of them. And then they backed out. So then we bought the ship. Sure. And rode in there. But the middle of July.

Grace Wicks: 25, which was.

Merton Waterman: On.

Grace Wicks: The 7th of July, what year.

Merton Waterman: Ten, 1910. And see, my father lived two years.

Grace Wicks: Yes, of course.

Merton Waterman: He wasn't able he worked there to shop where he intended to work for the sizable machine company because he had just one money and finally had the leg and all. But he couldn't do heavy work. They thought they could run away for that. Of course they that the Idaho machine make your next run with going full blast around here then and all the day run into to run it with my father and they got tired of not doing that thing I want to say that was the University of Shropshire.

Yeah. World. There was one little world and I was.

Grace Wicks: And why would it be no? Guy Well, what would it be?

Merton Waterman: Guy No, no, no. Guy walked. I was still on the farm at that time, but he came here every year for the First World War. I think so, yeah. So you know what happened to I was put in the cylinder. The first machine had one layoff. We had a wooden leg, and so he. He, I guess, rented his farm, came him the shovel of poultry.

Grace Wicks: Did he get to be a judge? I don't know. Moved to L.A.. Well, I guess I was.

Merton Waterman: The judge at that.

Grace Wicks: Time. Yes. Judge Steel. Well, let's get back to you now. After you. We've just got you and your story now up to after World War. And then you work for Mr. Brady and then you came back and you gardened and you're because your mother had bought you this team while you extended your gardening, gardening activities. And how long did you go right back?

Merton Waterman: Just three years. And the first year went behind? No, no, no. The next year went behind 600 million. We have a different condition now that in 1918 I find it place. LEMASTER. I saw him where McComb School is now.

Grace Wicks: Where?

Merton Waterman: Which school? McConnell The McCall school.

Grace Wicks: And they were.

Merton Waterman: MacDonald My down school. Now, they're not old school yet, but in one hand, yeah, I found love and I and I also had this land around here where it just more than I can do in the heart health and I just connected so but I said, well one more year I'm one of the mines we ran for column because mother had just a month strapped herself helping me and the for three years we never that three years whenever we got fully caught up with David I did Turner groceries gun stuff and stuff so I drove.

Grace Wicks: Did David still groceries in those days? Yeah, they.

Merton Waterman: Had the grocery store. Yeah, there is an store. She serious? Broughton Run a store for a while and then her name was. And the letter that ran Tilbury was in that I when we first came Van told Reuters and she let her have a store of his own and ran her a around.

Grace Wicks: Well tell me after three years of having a pretty hard time then with gardening, what did you do?

Merton Waterman: I worked on the delivery and she drove home the No column but the union delivery from the smell. That's Harris's father.

Grace Wicks: Harvey Smith's father?

Merton Waterman: No, Harry. You know, Harry has a shell station down, and I made.

Grace Wicks: That felt, well, you.

Merton Waterman: Know, not that I had a and yeah, Cliff, my first love all I remember and many people remember, but I went, he was on and brought me in, but I wasn't Fred Cohn. Well, I'd say and Harris was part of the time. All also work from home. I said, follow me. So but I was out of the picture that you have in the museum and show us this how this half down below shows mothers washing on the line.

I showed my wagon machine something in the street and 26 I just I work for this mother, but I work for Duckett down here on a day to deliver it in the wintertime in London. How long have.

Grace Wicks: Well, weren't you in civil service? For a while.

Merton Waterman: Yeah, I was. I was so social from the first. Now I had so want to know that until it came to after Linda put forward when I How Restless told me I was working here as a counselor helping Mr. Mitchell. How about mine is on the morning of that place. Not for the dump is now. No problem.

But anyway, he called up. Mother wanted me to come talk to him, and he said he needed somebody to take the package wagon and Christmas had to have extra help. They wanted someone who knew the town where a lot of I had worked three years on the union delivery, so I knew the town. And of course I've lived here ten years.

Was here 16 years for that time. And so I knew the town fairly well. So that's how I got started in the post. And he said, I wish you take the exam. I told him I don't or I don't want an inside job. I should give me an outside job. I said, I might be interested. I just can't take it inside job.

I don't like them. When LAMB Sanders got him, he says, I need a man at the window, the man that can get along with the public and a man that's honest and says as the last homer after who? The first. So he said, Well, I was one of them. So I just couldn't get out. But he promised me good faith and says, this is the chance I give you a role.

But then that, well, the chance came more involved.

Grace Wicks: ROSE Well, in other words, then you were a rural mail carrier for a while.

Merton Waterman: I see. At that time they consolidated around and have made the 50 mile walk, but they split them up in the summer and the winter because they couldn't do it one night. And then so for three years I was a roofer, but at the same time I had to make the primary separation. And suppose I was working on two jobs for the take.

It takes two. It takes about 3 hours of a one man firm to make the primary separation from that night train to the round, the midnight train, 3 hours. And if if I didn't have somebody to me at that time, I had to get there 430 in order to get that out of the ten or.

Grace Wicks: 30 in the morning.

Merton Waterman: In order to get it out for the town, the carriers got there because they've got to have their mail and then they get a list of others to start working on. So I worked on that for 20 years, the primary separation and the other two, well, I even worked on it when I had a stroke. No, Mr. Course was a good friend of mine when I didn't get to work for my mail until 8:00.

The other phone call while he was there at a quarter to seven because we me seven, but he was always there 15. So he was and really believe in it for the time that I started doing it. And of course, Mrs. Lawrence was a good friend of mine. She was just can't understand why. get here at 9:00 and you can't get her husband.

Well, I didn't get started on more until after nine because took me an hour to make my case after I got on it. And I never got on till after 8:00 because I had to work on the primary separation. I just couldn't understand why I couldn't get the same time.

Grace Wicks: The Callan did to work as a mail.

Merton Waterman: So the first four the assignment for some of the only son and he was on the pilot radio. So Don and final and my all three of us work nine years, just the first substitute before the Republican.

Grace Wicks: What would you make at a job like that?

Merton Waterman: Well, there were there were times and all I got was that 2 hours, noon, because nobody said, well, what.

Grace Wicks: Would it pay.

Merton Waterman: The 6009?

Grace Wicks: And you could live on that. Well, no.

Merton Waterman: One, I had to give them up.