Bill is going to post the written script and audio recording to ancestry.com. (Matt and I have to finish digitalizing the audio cassette first though). If you would like the MP3 format emailed to you, please write me and let me know. You can contact me on Facebook. The audio recording is in good condition, and Grandpa's voice comes in very clear. It is fun to still hear his voice.
James - Working for Martin Spring works and had a chance to go back to the Bait Plant and go to work for $10 a month more on a 48 hour job than I was working on a 60 hour job. We managed to raise the money for the down payment $500 I signed a note for to make the down payment on 1031 house. When we moved down there when Von was a baby, about a year old. We lived there when most of the family was born. We enjoyed things there.
Dennis – Your payments were pretty tight then wasn’t it?
James – Payments was $25 a month.
Dennis – For the house?
James – For the house, and we was renting the upstairs for $25.
Dennis – You lived in the basement?
James – We lived in the basement. When Sants came back from Texas later on, they moved in there with us for about 6 -8 months till I got very disgusted. I built a 12X18 room. They stayed in that for about 6 to 8 months and then they moved.
Dennis – The 12X18 room, where was that at?
James – I built it in the backyard of 1031.
Dennis - Was that the old wood shed?
James – No, they moved the shed with them when they went to McCammon.
Dennis – The 12X18?
James – Yeah, they moved it out there when they went to McCammon and used it for a utilities shed. I built it and bought it and built it for them. It had double bunk beds across the backend of it. They ate and lived in the front of it. Dale and Norma was there. Harold had went down to Treasureton to work and wasn’t there much. They had the two beds in the back of it and lived there.
Dennis – I imagine that was a pretty tight situation. You needed space to live and money was very tight. You needed money for the rent. They probably weren’t able to pay you any rent.
James – They wasn’t working, so he got the chance to lease this shop, this service station out to McCammon and they moved out there and run this service station made a living. They lived there for several years until finally that kinda conked out on them. They moved back into Pocatello. Before they done that they had to move from Idaho down to Texas and Oscar got himself in trouble down there. He met a guy and he was kind of a half alcoholic. These two guys were making money out of babit material. They’d melt it and had a mold and make dollars and half dollars and then they’d go down and trade them off and get good money to trade in places that they thought was skeptical. But they would go to bars and trade, whenever they would get anything it would be over a dollar and under. So they would get six bits change or something in change all the time. They started out and went across into California and come back into Idaho. Then FBI was just about a week behind them trailing them. They got back down into Texas before they got caught and then they turned Oscar lose if he’d get out of the state. He came back to Pocatello and he lived with us for awhile till he got him a job.
Dennis – Didn’t he go to jail for awhile?
James – No, he didn’t get to go to jail as I say they turned him loose. They put his partner in jail, but he didn’t go to jail. They told him if he would get the Hell out of the state, why then they would let him loose cause the other guy was the mastermind and he was just a coal worker and tool for the other man. So that is the way that was. Lou, Grandma Sant, she stayed down in Texas for about 3 to 4 years. Oscar couldn’t go back to Texas so then she finally had Harold come up. He was about 15 years old. He went to work with some friends down in Treasureton on the farm and what not. Then Lou and them came up and stayed with us for awhile. Then they got with Oscar and moved into our basement.
Dennis – I knew them when they lived in the basement at that time.
James – Yeah, that was after you’d had come, but anyway that’s the Sant family end of it. We told about them moving to McCammon and going on their own. We’ll drop that off.
As work went along, I worked at the Fish and Wildlife. In 1939, they started building the gun plant in Pocatello. I decided that I could make more money that they was paying $1.50 for welders and $1.00 for greaser.
Dennis – How long did you work at the Bait Plant?
James – I think about 3 years. I am not sure, bout that. Anyway, I went out and I knew the fellow that worked with Dad in the Unions and he was manager of central labor. He was kind of head labor man at that time locally. He got me a job as a grease monkey, greasing equipment and stuff out there. That was the only job he could get me at that time. Other jobs opened, but he didn’t know my capabilities, and that’s all he could get me. I went to work at the maintenance for MK on swing shift greasing trucks, and tractors, and stuff getting them ready for the next day. Well I worked there for about 3 weeks that way, and one night I got through with my work early and went down. They was starting to fix what we call a cutting ring. They was making a big ring about 40 foot across of special steel and welding a ½ inch water plate to it and 3 inch triangles about every 4 feet.
So I went down and asked the foreman, I says, “Mind if I try that welding?”
He says, “You know anything about welding?”
I says, “Yes, I had a little experience.”
Dennis – These were the plug welds they were having trouble with wasn’t it?
James – No, they was welding a 3 inch triangle every four feet for welding this water plate to this cutting ring. Cutting ring was about a foot deep and special steel sloped off to an edge, so when weight went over it pushed down in the ground. They would push that down about 50 feet. That’s to make the tubes that they finally used to heat the 16 inch barrels on the big gun ships. They built 2 of these rings and pits. He was just starting on the first. They take a drag line and go down inside them and dig the dirt out all around. The rings would settle down and then they’d dig more dirt out. They’d add water plate to it as it went up, half inch water plate. But to get this special cutting ring on the water plate, they had to weld it. They had 3 inch diamond places about every 3 to 4 feet around to fasten the plates to the cutting ring. So he said yes they was having trouble getting welders because all the welders had been shipped to the ship yard.
He says “Yeah, I got a old gentlemen out here just come out a welding school. He's having a heck of a time out there. Go tell him to take 5 and you take his outfit and lets see what you can do.” He was having a bad time. He was using 1/8 rod and half enough heat on it. He was having a heck of a time getting it knit in.
Dennis - Did they have flex on the rods then?
James – Yes, they had flex on the rod then, and so it was #7, Lincoln #7 is what we was using. So I went down and the first thing I did after I tried the first rod and welded about 2 inches and knew what was wrong. I cranked the machine up and went over his weld and straightened it out and went back in and I says fellow, “Do you have any 3/16th rod?”
He says, “What do you want that for?”
I says, “Hell, it'll take you a month on that 1/8th inch rod. Let's get some rod and weld that up", and he gave a handful.
So I went out, and cranked the machine way up hot, sit down there and welded up three of them, bang, bang, bang, with that 3/16th rod. And then it was time for me to get back up to shop.
He came out and looked at me he says, “Where did you learn to weld?” He says, “You ain't gonna be greasing rigs any more. You're gonna come down here and weld on these rings."
So I say, “Well, okay we'll see the boss.” He went with me back up to see the boss. And they talked. They came over to talk to me and found out my past experience, that I could weld with settling, or I could weld with thork. I could do blacksmith work.
This guy says, “Well, we'll see ya tomorrow.” Tomorrow they came down to the house about 12:30, the two of them.
They said, “You're not going down that ring to weld. You're coming in the shop and weld. Help repair frames, breaks, and keep the equipment running. I need somebody that can weld either settling or electric and knows what they're doing. I've got a young lad up there.”
Fact is he was the son of this older man, that just came out of welding school. He says, “That boy can go down and weld that. He can do that alright. But he can't take care of the rest of this work, and so we want you in the shop.”
And so I went to work in the shop the next night, and worked that way about a week. Then they put me on days. I worked that way about 2 months. Then it comes Spring. They moved out on the desert to start building the ramps and the pits for the big guns. He sent me out there to work. None of the other boys would take it.
He told me, “Well, I'll make it right with ya.”
I say, “Well, I will go out this way. I'll go out two weeks, and then we'll change. Then some of these other boys can go out for two weeks.” Well, they never would let me come in. I stayed out there on the site all summer.
Dennis – This was in about 1942?
James – About 1940.
Dennis – The war hadn't started yet, had it?
James – The war was on.
Dennis – It is 1941 then.
James – Yeah. They had that, they was redoing, getting that plant ready to fix the guns so they could take them out there and test them. It was 1940 when I went to work out there. So, the first thing I did out there was go out and weld up the material the legs and stands for batch plant, and all the rest the work. So that after that the gravel and sand segregated in this big tank. Why, they could run the trucks under there, and run out the batches to go put in the cement to pour for what we call the concussion wall, which was about 10 feet wide and about 20 feet high. They had that so when the guns fired why the concussion wouldn't go back down into the office area that they were building for the office and the people to live in. They built 17 houses, and 4 fourplex apartments, plus a warehouse and two big office buildings. That was the first buildings at Central.
Dennis – Some of them old houses are still down there that use them.
James – They're all down there. They use them all for offices. So, I worked there all that summer. Then that winter when we got through, I went back into town and worked for MK. I was the last welder that they had laid off. The last job I done down there at that time at the big gun plant, was built from scratch the big ladder that goes up the end the big gun shop next the highway there. You can see it every time you go by. Goes right up the middle the building clear to the top, and I built that.
And before that, why then I was working for MK and when they made the little gun shop. I was working there. They had the cement columns and they put steel beam across the roof, to pick up the roof. They had steel embedded in the concrete up there and they'd bring these steel beams in. They had a place there and an angle sticking out here, and they would put a couple of bolts in to hold it in place, and then I came in and welded it in place. And I worked on that for quite a while.
The war was on. They was pretty touchy about people working with my ability, so I decided, they was building one of the columns. On these columns they were building they had the wood prims up to pour concrete. Carpenters set them up the night before and didn't anchor them. The carpenter went up there to anchor them, one of them fell off. And he fell down dead, into a bunch of lumber and stuff. Well, that bothered me 'cause I was working right up at the top, two on the top of those tallest cones, and they was about 60 feet off the ground 70. And I was welding on the column, I looked up and there was carpenter on the column ahead of us. Trying to pry the wood columns away from the cement. He reached around there with a crow bar to pull it out. It fell off. He overbalanced and went over backwards and he went on the cement and killed him. It scared me. I got to thinking about it. So I went down and told the boss. I'd seen enough. I wasn't going to work up there any more. So I went to town, and they sent me out to work at the airport.
Dennis – They were building the airport up there for the war then?
James – They were building the airport and grading that up.
Dennis – They used that as a training airbase didn't they?
James – Yeah, they was out there for the military planes. So, the job they gave me there was building up the pressure rollers that they used to crush the gravel with. I would go out there and take a sit down there on those big rollers which was about oh.. 4 feet across. And they wore down, and we was building them up with cast iron rod. I'd take a 36 inch cast iron settling rod and hook it in the middle and burn it down, and turn it over and burn the other side down that's what I did for 8 hours a day at night, while I wasn't using them. The next night I start in where I left off and go on around and just keep on building that roller up cause they'd wear out as fast as I'd build it up.
The job finished up, and the boss out at the gun plant, met me downtown one night and says, “I can't get anybody to fill your job. We've had four guys come out and test out, and that inspector will not pair them. They just can't do the job.” He says, “Will you come back and help me finish this job out? I will give you premium pay.” So I went back out and welded up the rest of the beams up at the top on the little gun plant. And it was when I finished that job was when I welded up the ladder on the big gun plant and finished up the whole job.
Well when that job was done they was just starting the Anderson, well in the mean time, when I was out there working, they was going to induct me in the army. I had already registered an everything for the army. I was to leave the next morning to go down to Utah to enter into the army. The guy came out about 3:00.
He says, “Now you come back here to work in the morning instead of making that train. We've worked awful hard. The local board wouldn't exempt ya, the state board wouldn't exempt ya, but I went to the Washington DC. I knew the head quarters man back there, and they have sent work to delay your induction for 15 days, so it was resumed, and see what was going.”
At the end of that 15 days, they give me another 15 days, and then another 15 days, and then a 30 days, and I continued on that way till all that job at the gun plant was done because they couldn't get another welder to take my place that the inspector wouldn't accept. So we finished that job up.
MK was just starting their work at an Anderson Ranch Dam down at Mountain Home there. I went down there in the shop. They had promised me to have an apartment I own and the family could move down to.
Dennis – In Boise?
James- Well out at Mountain Home, out at Anderson Ranch Dam, that's about 30 miles from Mountain Home. So I went down there, and it was early in the Spring, an they was just opening up the joint. They had a bunch of bunk houses, down there and I was sleeping in one and the bed bugs just sounded like dropping shot on the tin roof at night when they was falling down. Other things didn't go as good as could. I been about 3 weeks away from home, was about half home sick for home, gas truck come in to deliver fuel, and I asked them for a ride. They was coming back to Burley, “Sure you can ride back.” So I packed my suitcase and quit and come home.
Well, then I went to work for Simplot's. He was just starting his plant.
Dennis – What about your military deferment then?
James – Well that time they had given me a year’s deferment and the war was over.
Dennis – So by the time they got the gun plant all finished....
James – Well, by the time they got that and this Anderson Ranch job done, and a few other things why the building part was done. They kept deferring me till we got the welding on the buildings done. Then I went on down there. The welders in the shipyards was starting to return home.
Dennis – Because the war was over then huh?
James – Yeah, the war was getting over pretty much. So any how, I went to work then for Simplot. I worked there on Swing Maintenance for about 3 years. I was ready to take a vacation and Lucille Cooper, she had married by then. She married Alma Morgan. They'd come up, and we'd taken a vacation, Ione and the kids and I. We'd went down and stopped by Lindell Cooper's. Cindy was still alive then, my sister. Visited them. It was hay time, all this cutting spuds for Spring. I stopped and helped them cut spuds for a day. Jack filled my gas tank full of gas. We came on up around through Carey and over on into Mackay.
Dennis – I remember that trip. Cindy lived in an old rock house. While we were there, we went out, and you guys shot rabbits or sage hens.
James – Both
Dennis – We cooked them up and they served them. She had an old piece of glass that fit over the top of a big plate. I guess is “under glass” is steamed, you know. They cooked 'em in there, and they steamed under the glass. And that's where the pheasants under glass comes from. I don't know. But I remember that. That was a delicious dinner. I can remember sitting down eating that dinner.
James – Then we come on up over come up Little Creek. Up there just about where we camp. You know where that Alpha Camp Ground is? Just this side of where we camped for the Fourth of July? Well, there is a road that comes down along the crick there. And right there was where we went in and camped. And that there's where we put up the tent.
Dennis – On Trail Creek
James – On Trail Creek. And that's where we stayed. I took you and Von. Gene was just a baby. We went down fishing.
Dennis – Seems like there was a corral there.
James – No, there was not corral there. It was just along the crick bank. Now, just wait a minute (said to Dennis). We come back and Mother had breakfast ready. And the bedding rolled up to the back of the tent and the sun was on it. It was nice and warm and just comfortable. And that's where you went after you filled up your stomach and went back and says, “Boy this is the life. Just fish and eat and sleep.” That's where that happened. I could put my foot on the place where we was camped. I noticed it when we came back last year.
Dennis – You noticed when we came back through there, huh?
James – I looked for it, and then I recognized the place.
Dennis – It was on Trail Creek there?
James – It was on Trail Creek. That where your saying goes. You can just fish, eat, and sleep. So then I went back home after this trip with the where I went on vacation and Lucille come by. She wanted to go to the park. We had three days left. We went with them. Coming back we had tire trouble and stopped in Driggs. Ione's uncle had a service station he loaned me a tire to come home on. So we got home. I was about four hours.
I should a went to work at 4:00 o' clock. I didn't get up there till 8:00. Me an the night foreman was at odds anyhow, cause he made me stay and work a week longer than I wanted to for my vacation in order to put new blades on what we call the occidulator fan, to take the fumes out the plant and push them in the air. Anyway he says, “You can't go to work until you see the main boss.” I was very good friends with the main boss. I went out the next day and seen him. He says, “You come on back to work, and tell him to go jump in a lake.” So I went out there and worked a week and quit. Me and him didn't get along. So I told him to take it and shove it and quit.
I come to town to work. I had a couple two or three day jobs.
Dennis – Now, you hadn't got into the Union yet had ya?
James – No, Faraday(?) an Aladdin, the sheet metal man. They needed a welder, so they hired me. I went to work for Faraday. Faraday Plumbing and a...
Dennis – Heating
James – No, I can't think of the guys that run the sheet metal outfit. But anyhow they kept me for about 2 years piping and storage tanks, and doing the repair work on furnaces.
Dennis – How did you learn the furnace work?
James – Then I went to night school for about 2 years and worked as a service station man. Heb Worsencroft was the guy that was on the sheet metal. And I was working mainly under him. They come up with a test for the Union. And I took it. Two of the guys Gardener and Baker, no, Gardner and Nelson. Nelson was a foreman for Faraday over steam fitting work. They said I passed okay. But then this other third man on the committee, he was inspector for the city and he'd been teaching lead wiping. And being that I was on call, I didn't make all his classes to lead wiping, so he wouldn't accept my exam. I waited another 6 months and took it again. I passed it. When I went down and wet my lead joint, I made it good an he had to accept it. And that let me in the Union. And that was back, I don't remember the exact date without looking at my card, but then I have been in the Union for 37 years.
So that's how I got in the Plumber's Union, and I worked as a welder for Faraday on this maintenance guy, and then finally on the plumbers and fitters they got wages increased to $2.00 and hour, and then sheet metal was still a $1.50. They gave the work I have been doing to a sheet metal man. I tried to get the Union to stop, they wouldn't do it at all. I says, “You're just afraid you're going to lose your lucrative job.” Because the man at the business agent for the Union was a foreman for Faraday. He done as Faraday told him, to keep his job. So, I got out of the job of servicing oil burners, but they kept me working. They kept me working as steam fitters, setting up boilers, and putting heating in the houses. During that job time, why I came out to the Site, they built those 17 houses along there to use as offices now. I helped put in the boilers and heating system in them one summer. And then I kept with Faraday for quite awhile till he sold his business to Baker and Gardner, and they wanted me to go in partners with them. I wouldn't do it. I stayed and worked for them for three years as a journey man doing all kinds of work.
In the mean time there was some more good work come out at the site. Their work run low, and I wasn't getting only about 2 days a week, so I quit and went out to the Site again. That was the third time I worked out at the site. Since that time I alternated between working for the local plumbing companies. I have worked for Faraday. I worked for B&G. I worked for Green's. I worked for Jillian's, and a there's couple others, C&C. Then a couple others for a short time. Then when work get scarce in Pocatello, or got lucrative out on the Site I would go out there and go to work. I spent more time out on the Site than I did local.
There was a couple of times, I had to leave town to go to work. One time I went down and lived in Astoria, Oregon was about 15 miles from Wanna. Wanna Paper plant, and I worked there for about 8 months, and helped with that. Then we came back, and we worked in Pocatello. Another time I went over to Bend, Oregon and worked for about 3 months. Gene, by that time, had went East to go to work. Him and Bonnie had split up and he had married Marlene in the meantime. He wanted me to come back there and visit with him. MK had a job, and the personal manager was a good friend of mine, so he made arrangements for me to come back there and go to work, and I worked for a month, and stayed with them. Come back.
Another time, work got scarce and they had a boom over, Boeing had a boom. They started building airplane plant. They thought they had a big contract with the government. They started building a lot houses, multiple houses, and town houses. I went down there and worked at a Linwood, Washington. It was about halfway between Everton and Seattle. I was down there for about 6-8 months. Mom came down and stayed awhile. Von come down and stayed. Mom brought Von down. Meantime you'd go on, you'd joined the Navy. The rest of the family was born at that time. Renee was small. Bruce was about 6-7 years old. They'd come down there and stayed at a Linwood with me. We had a house rented down there. I finished that job up.
The guy wanted me that I was working for, the plumbing company, wanted me to stay there. He got a contract from the army, putting the plumbing in about 50 little small houses for the army personal to have for them an their wives. We looked around was gonna buy a house down there, because things didn't look good around Pocatello at that time. I had everything all lined up to buy house. We picked out the house. I come and called Mother. She went down to the bank and got me the money enough here from Pocatello and come down with a check for $5,000 to put down on this new home. We went down to sign the papers. The entryway had a rock entryway to it, and they wanted to charge me extra for that, and the ceilings in the living room and two other rooms was this sparkle splatter stuff, like you are putting on your ceiling. That was to come with the house and they're also to give me, let me plumb another house for the plumbing on it. Well that come extra when we went to sign the papers, so I tore up the contract, and we walked out. And I got home, why there was a call there for me to call Pocatello. I called, and the business agent there said I have a job for ya here if you want to come back. I said I'll be back the day after tomorrow to go to work.
I come back up to Pocatello. I have worked out of Pocatello ever since. But in traveling, I traveled to Wanna Paper Plant, to Linwood on the multiple housing. While we was down to Linwood there was a guy from California, plumber come up, we worked together. Him on one side and me on another on some townhouses, fourplex apartments in them. When went to make the test. Why, his leaked like a sieve and mine held up. The guy wondered why I was taken so long on a job and this other guy was putting in about 15% faster piping. But when they went to test why his sprayed like a lawn sprinkler, and mine held. So he didn't last any longer and that's when this guy kept me. Then he put me out on some jobs, little jobs repairing houses and stuff like that, plumbing in the houses. Seeing that I could do anything he asked me too. That's when he wanted me stay.
Dennis – This was in Pocatello?
James – That was in Glenwood, Washington.
So I come back to Pocatella, and went out to work on the Site. I've worked out there most of the time. Since then I went to work in Bend, Oregon. I was working out there for three months on a big lodge an housing out there on the plumbing on it. I worked a month back in Morris, Illinois. That's about most of the traveling I've done for a long time.
Dennis – Worked in Soda Springs one winter with Von too.
James – Well, that was local as far as I'm concerned. I worked in Soda Springs. Von and another lad was stewards out there and they. Chicago Outfit had the contract. He let it be known, and the Eastern locals that they needed help out here. The people plotted out to do it. He sat in the Union office, and when one of those people would come in, he'd say, “Give that guy a work order for my job.” They loaded that job up better than three men for every man they should have. It was a cost plus job. The more men they got on it, why the more they'd give the company. Men would go out and stand around, especially the welders that had little tents. They'd stand there and maybe make one weld a day or maybe two. If anyone was caught working too much why they got told off. Several of our boys was more guilty than the travelers that came in. Some of them would come out and check in in the morning and drive back to town and get a case of beer and sit out in the car and drink beer and sell it all day. Things like that.
That is what ruined our local contract in Soda Springs. They took movies of all this and got it for evidence. They just kept hiring men, hiring men, and hiring men when they didn't need them. This manager would come to Pocatello sat there in the office, and when a man would come in. They'd say send him out. Instead of staying out on the job. The men would've worked if they kept the men down. They'd have got the work done quicker. That was real hoo doo out there.
They bought six new welders, brought them out and scattered them around. Four of them went to the pipe fitters. Pipe fitters went out there one morning to go to work and they'd taken a big crane, the iron workers had reached over the top of the building, and they had just went out there with a pair of bolt cutters and cut the leads. Picked the welder up, and took it over the builder, and put the iron workers leads on it. Finally they took a machine and a picked up those welders took them all down to the fence and loaded four of them onto a truck. They had six welders down there, brand new ones. They didn't have room on the truck to put them. They hauled those off. The farmers around Soda Springs got 'em. That job just ruined the Union up there.
I was working in the warehouse and I had to send out an order for tools at least once a week enough to man twenty five men, for pipe wrenches, cutters and dyes, tools. They were leaving the job that fast. End of the week they wouldn't have enough tools to work with. I was sending out for a complete set of tools every week. The formers got most of them. Pipe fitters didn't get 'em much. But that is why we lost our work at Soda Springs. But I have worked on construction...
Dennis – There is one incident you haven't got down in here. After you got through working at the Site the first time, you had some money in your pocket, that's when you leased that place.
James – After the first summer out there,
Dennis – This is back in 1944-46
James – We come in. I knew this family, we'd hauled oats when I was working at the Bait plant, and he died. I was trying to think of his name. McKee, he died, and he left his ranch and his wife. His oldest boy was 14, they went out, and they couldn't get things started. I talked them into letting me lease the place on share crop half. He was to furnish the land and the equipment and I was to pay the expenses and have what was left.
We went out there in May. Moved out there. I worked two weeks in the field, getting the crop ready to go. Then it started raining, I never got a piece of equipment back in the field till the middle of June. That made me real late getting the crop in. We had 80 acres over there, another place I should have summer fallen it. Instead of summer fallen it I left it for a volunteer crop. It didn't turn out like it should have done. It didn't hardly make expenses. So when we came in that Fall, that was when, you was just a, no Gene was just a baby, and you and Von was running around not too big. So that Fall when everything was settled. I had to stay there and take care of the stock and feed them for the winter. I had a man do that and my brother Alma was out there with him. And I had to pay him. I come to town and went to work back for Faraday again. It took me three years to get my debts paid off that I ran that summer besides the $3,000 I had to start with.
Dennis – It was a big financial set back, back in those days.
James – Very big set back. And Ione at that time said, “If you ever even think about farming again, you can get you a new wife, cause I am not going back.” So I decided it was better to be with my family than to try farming again. And it was an especially bad year. The McNabb boys had a 1000 acres, they never even cut a kernel of grain off of that year. They was going to cut it with the combines and it started raining. I did get my crop of oats off. And usually that place out there the oat crop run about 90 bushel to the acre. That year I got about 30. I had 20 acres of wheat that I'd made one round around and was ready to cut. We got through thrashing the oats that night. I was going to cut the next morning, and it started raining. I never got to cut that, and 80 acres of barley that I never cut a drop on.
Dennis – Had you been able cut all that and get it in you'd have broke even?
James – I'd have broke even, or made a little money. But that ruined me. So I stayed working for wages the rest of my life. I worked at the (undecipherable) trade. I have got 37 years membership now, and I worked 30 years very active on it.
Dennis – So you were about thirty..., well you are 78 years now. Thirty seven would be. You would be about 37 in your thirties when you started.
James – About that.
Dennis – Now you took an active part in the Union when you belonged to it. You taught the apprenticeship program for a long time.
James – I held every office except the business agent and the president of local union. I was vice president. I was was indentured in the Union in '47. I'd been in... worked through the Union for 3 years before that. So, about '44 when I actually went to work for the Union.
Dennis – That was before the war was over then. You were actually working in 19.. Well, you were working on the gun plant then.
James – In '44. In '44 was when I went to work for Worsencroft.
Dennis – Was that the Union for the gun plant?
James – No, that was the Union for the local contractors. I was working with the machinist union giving them Dobydoos (?) before that when I worked at the gun plant.
Dennis – Okay, that kind of brings the history back to this point of time.
James – That's my working life. Our social life, in about 1948 Redish's took quite an interest in it. He was the bishop of the ward I think about that time. I am not too sure. I have to go back and check my records. They got us interested in church. It wasn't long till we went up to the temple and got our temple marriage. I was quite active in church.
Dennis – I want to go back just a little bit, Dad. Knowing the history of the Hendricks family. The Drisilla family joined the church clear back in 1833. Was one of the first members of the church. They crossed the plains there. Her testimony is an exceptional one. It is in the Red Book that we read. Her son Joseph Smith Hendricks was only 9 years old. As I can recall, they settled in Utah for awhile. They ran a swimming bath house there. Then they went from there to Richmond, they are part of the original family. The Pond family and Hendricks family, which is my wife's family, and my family were both part of the original charters over in Richmond, where they started that community. I always thought that was interesting. But ah, anyway, they were pretty active in the church at that time. Then Joseph Smith Hendricks somehow acquired a team of horses, your grandfather. When the railroad was settling in Utah, they helped build and work on that golden spike railroad mine for the Union Pacific. I don't know how they got his horses, the teams, and the things they had then. But they had quite a large number of horses at that time.
(There is some slight bantering between one another as my dad had some facts wrong and Grandpa corrected him and tried to tell the story, but my dad cut him off. This is the condensed version with the corrected facts).
James – Grandad's brother had got into the contracting business, through the issues I have found, that's W.D. Hendricks (William Dorris Hendricks). He had picked up the contract to build part of the railroad as it come up from Logan up through Swan Valley and up points North.
Dennis - Fact is, in the book Prominent Western Pioneers, there is a picture of William Dorris and Joseph Smith and Juel Josiah, your dad. They are all three in this book, Prominent Western Pioneers. I have seen that book. In fact Dad Hatch has that book over at his house.
James – I have got that, and Von's got a copy of one. We was living in LaGrand when that book was published, and Dad traded a team of horses for it.
Dennis – Well uh Grandpa Hatch has a copy of this and I have seen the pictures of these people in it of Prominent Mormon Pioneers. So your dad, Joseph Smith and William Dorris are in it. I am assuming they played quite a role in the contracting of the railroad, and that's where your dad got his horses from originally.
James – I don't know how he picked up all his horses. Anyway, he worked for his dad when they built the road through Swan Lake. Mother, her mother passed away and she was living with her Aunt, a Wilson, her mother's sister. When she was working, I imagine she was 16-18 years old, and worked in the cook tent.
Dennis – Mary Ellen Kay
James – Mary Ellen Kay, my mother. That's where Dad met her. In the mean time, the church had got Grandpa and his family to move to Marysville to help colonize that with a lot of other people. They moved up to Marysville and homesteaded ground up there. Grandad built a saw mill over at Warm River, Joseph Smith Hendricks. The boys all worked getting poles out and bringing it down to the mill. That was their livelihood.
Meantime, a contract this railroad can finish on out to Butte. They got several segments of that. That's where dad got interested also in grading with horses. He acquired some horses and rented somewhat. They went on up there with Joseph Smith (Hendricks). They finished out the last twenty miles in to Butte, and came home. He also worked on the Marysville canal, and was one of the prime contractors on that. That's how he started in contracting business.
Dennis – Your dad was quite active in the church. I mean Joseph Smith was a member in the church, and they were active in the church. He was a polygamous. He had two wives. Juel Josiah was one of the sons of the second wife.
James – He was the first son of the second wife.
Dennis – In that line there. Anyway, he was fairly active in the church. I know he went on two or three missions.
James – He was on one full two year mission without purse or script, in the Washington area and Oregon.
Dennis – Was this before or after he was married?
James – After he was married. Fact is, it was between the time that Alma was born. He was born in 1901 and the time Myrtle was born in 1906. During that time he had the two year mission. When he came back from that, why they worked on the railroads and this canal. Then he got a chance to go contracting. Down when they built the Milnard Dam, he went down there. He used his teams on that. Meantime Loe acquired a team, and Bill acquired a team and Dad had a few head of horses. They took them down there. While Dad was on his mission, why Loe and Bill traded lumber from a sawmill. They took lumber for their wages, and took it down to Saint Anthony, (Idaho) and sold it. That’s how they helped mother help make a living. And Mother also had the Post Office in Marysville. That’s how they made a living to live on while Dad was on his mission. So, that’s where… When I was born, as soon as mother was able to travel that’s when they took me and went to Twin Falls, there and we lived in a tent that winter and the next winter as I understand it. Then we went from there to LeGrand, Oregon.
Dennis – Your dad was active in the church till about this time. Then there came a period in his life where he wasn’t active in the church.
James – He was active in the church until after mother passed away and he came back to Idaho. He then wasn’t active in the church for a long time.
Dennis – Till just before he died.
James – The last year and a half before he’s died, he got going back to church again.
Dennis – So you kind of grew up active when you were younger probably until you were twelve in the church. Then after your mother passed away, you spent most of your life working as you explained on these tapes. (Unfortunately those tapes are lost).
James – I stayed down with my sister Eda for awhile, and I was active in the church down there. Progressed to be a priest there. Then I came back to Idaho and went to work. I wasn’t active. Oh we went to church occasionally, but I wasn’t active in it until after we were married.
Dennis – You weren’t very active in the church for all this period of time while you was working through Arbon Valley and Martin Spring Works. Then finally got married. Mom’s family too, now they were part of the colonies, Mormon colonies that settled into Treasureton, Id. They were pretty active in the church there. But the traveling and working as a line- man, they’d go to church sometime, and sometimes they wouldn’t. They weren’t very active.
James – He was working as a line-man down in Texas when he met my wife’s mother. He’d been on construction there and was working as a line-man. That’s when he first met her. Then after that job was done they moved to Idaho and raised part of his family here in Idaho. Most of it. Then they got homesick for Texas and went back. That’s when he got in difficult and then they come back to Idaho.
Grandma Sant, Lou Sant’s family was all from Alabama and Texas.
Dennis – He met Grandma Sant in Texas.
James – That’s where they first met. That’s as I understand it.
Dennis – Anyway, you weren’t active in the church for quite a few years, and mom wasn’t really active in the church.
James – No, we weren’t active in the church till Bishop Reddish came by to talk to us. You was about 4 or 5.
Dennis – Just about time you were working at the gun plant.
James – Yeah, about 4 or 5. I was working at the Bait Plant at the time. We had moved there at 1031, and Reddishes was just through the block. You and Von was playing with the Reddish boys. The came over and talked to us, and we got to going to church, and it wasn’t long till had us lined up enough, and we was active enough that we got our temple recommends and went to the temple and was very active in the church from then on.
I spent nearly three years as a scout leader when Von was about 12-14 and you were just coming into it.
Dennis – I have heard a lot of people say you were one of the best scout masters that they ever had in that ward.
James – When I went in there they had run through three scout masters in four months. The boys was gonna run me off too, but they didn’t do it. We had one of the best scout troops two years in a row at camp. I didn’t chase my boys to be Eagle Scouts. I taught them to camp and to take care of things, and that put us way up on the mark. Then the other troops they got to activating and trying to beat our troop. They got theirselves in trouble. There was one time specially. Bishop Foster was bishop at that time, and his son and Von was very friendly. I’d taken them to scout masters’ training course. They emphasized there. They says, “Make everything as real as you can in your demonstrations.” So we come home, and Bill Foster and Von they got their heads together and we was at that time teaching First Aid. Done a pretty good job of it. Mother had cooked a ham and had a ham bone.
Dennis – I thought it was a deer bone.
James – No, it was a ham bone. They broke it. They got some wax, and got some coloring in to look like skin and fastened it to his leg and put a tube. Mother had been to the hospital a time or two. The tube they gave her for a transfer of blood, she had that. They got that and rubber strings and filled the strings full of colored water.
Dennis – Ketchup and water.
James – So anyway they fixed up this deal. We went over and had our regular meeting and went to class work. They had a good time. Bill come running down and says, “Come out quick. Von has broke his leg.” Von had brought a bicycle over and had it laid down. He was laying out there and his bent leg pulled up. The kids came running out and squeezed his arm and this red water came a scooting out. One of the boys…
Dennis – Glenn Keller
James - …took off and went across the street. He called the doctor and got a blanket. We had a doctor and a police down there. We had quite a time. I just sit back and let the boys take care of it. They did everything they suppose to do on First Aid emergency. The bishopric was upstairs in a little room. They came down to see what all the excitement was. They commented on it afterwards. The next meeting we had at the main scout office, they says, “Don’t be quite as realistic.”
Dennis – You got a fine on that too, didn’t ya?
James – No, we didn’t. They let us off with a good blessing, which I was very thankful for. About three later why the Third Ward decided they was going to out do the Sixth Ward. They’re in a deal. They got a doctor an everything down. They had to pay for the hearse and the doctor, and got a dressing from the police. That stopped the rest of the troops from trying to compete with us.
Dennis – Yeah, I can remember that. We had some good hikes that way too, a lot of nice hikes.
James – Three different spring camps, the first two we took first prize in the best camp, keeping the camp the neatest, was up on the fist day and everything else more than anybody else. The second year we got first prize, but it was a narrow decision, and the third year we got second. At that time, that’s when I had to leave the area to go to work, so I had to quit Scouts. That was about the time you started into scouts. Then Von he got a chance, we was near broke, but he had a chance to work his way through, and went for a month of scouting down at Fillmont’s Scout Ranch. He was riding a horse, and the horse ahead of him kicked and hurt his leg pretty bad. They kept him down there all summer. He spent 2 ½ months down there at Fillmont. Then he come back. We was all pretty active in church from then on.
As far as pleasure, our big pleasure was camping with the Coleman’s over the weekend, visiting with them in the wintertime. The Coleman family and you kids got along real well, just like brothers and sisters in most families, or better, just good friendship. That’s the way we spent our summers. So, that was the recreation we had was through church activities and camping. That was the highlights of our life. I guess that’s why all you guys like to camp, and we do too yet.
In our later years, after mother passed away, about 3 ½ years. I went to a funeral of the older Bishoff boy, and Margaret was there.
Dennis – He was the brother of Lorain Bishoff.
James – Yes, she had died a real long time before that. I lived with Bishoff’s. Fred says I was his adopted brother. So anyway, they was as much family as I had for a long time. The other only family I had was after Cindy and Jack moved back from Washington. Why, I lived with them, and that was the only family I had. We lived out on Mink Creek (undecipherable). I was about 12 years old, just after Mother died. Jack Cooper had lost all his holdings in gambling. They went to Washington. They was down there for about 4 or 5 years. Then there was a forest fire down there that wiped out the lumber mills and the lumber work that Jack had been doing. So, Dad asked me to help him. We sent Cindy money enough for her and the three kids. Joe had been born by at time, and he was about 4 or 5 years old with that time. We sent down and brought them up there for a visit. Jack still hadn’t found a good job down there. He was eeking out a living here and there, different meals. So, he decided to come back to Idaho to decide if he couldn’t get something better up here. He leased two or three small places and we formed and I helped him a little bit off and on, on the old Lamp place and two or three others. That’s how they moved back.
Dennis - Now they had the place in Dietrich too
James – Well before they got the place in Dietrich, they spent a couple of winters here in Pocatello. They had a lease at what we call the Lamb place. It was an old dairy and they’d went broke. There was about 30 acres, and he’d lease that, and made a vegetable garden out it. Finally, made part of a living off of that. I remember we planted a lot of onions and that Fall we tried to sell the onions at two bits a sack. I took a team of wagons and hauled them around town and knocked at doors couldn’t sell them at two bits a sack. People didn’t have the money.
Dennis – This is in what year, the thirties?
James – I couldn’t tell you what year, I was in my teens yet. Then he leased another place out at Portneuf. Then he bought a little 17 acre place, and lived there for two winters. I lived out there with him in the winter time, when I wasn’t working in Arbon. Then I worked some at the Bait Plant. That was before I went to work for Martin Spring Works. Lucille and Lin and I were like brothers and sisters. Joe came into the picture, but he wasn’t as active quite as Lin and Lucille and I. I was the older one of the three. There was only about 4 years separating the three of us.
Dennis – Lucille ?
James – Lucille Coooper married Al Morgan. Lindel Cooper was the oldest of Cindy’s, my sister’s kids. There the one’s that come from Oregon up to Idaho when they were born, and then went back in the winter time.
Dennis – Besides having to take care of yourself all these years, from a very young time, you wound up helping to take care of a lot of other people in your life. Besides you had a large family of your own with 6 children, and you took care of Grandma and Grandpa Sant for quite a period of time, they stayed with us.
James – About 3 years off and on.
Dennis – With Grandpa and Grandma Sant, and then we used to have Buster come and stay with us lots of times for two or three years, several years. Then Cindy we bought the house over 1005, that you lived in and still own now, that Von is buying from you. You bought that house, and we moved from there over to that 1005, but for a long time before that you rented it and kept Cindy there at this place 1005 South 3rd.
James – She took in borders there. Uncle Jack died and Lin took over the property down in Dietrich, and they had that little disagreement, and she came back here to Pocatello. I bought that place and was gonna give it to her. She took it in borders. Ione decided we needed more room, and she kinda I think felt a little jealous. Cindy moved out, and she moved over on Hays Street, and stayed there till she passed away.
Dennis – For a long time, though she stayed in that house, for five or six years, and kept borders there.
James – About three year, about four years she took in borders and made her partial living. The payments weren’t too great, and I helped her make them. Fact is, I made most of them. I retaliated for the years that I lived with them.
Dennis – So I was gonna say, you stayed with them, and they helped you when you was young, but then you helped her for a long time later when you was older. You kept Alma for a long time. Then you helped support Grandma Sant over at that place with Hays. You guys rented that place and bought her a television, and helped pay the rent, and what not to help keep her going over there, for Grandma Sant as well, as I remember. You have not only taken care of yourself and raised your family, you sent me on a mission, help me some through school, as I needed it, and the rest of the kids whatever they needed all the way through. That is a pretty big accomplishment for our family.
James – Whenever the kids needed help, why I was there to give it to them. Wasn’t the best at helping as much as they wanted, but it made it so they could make ends meet.
Dennis – Well that kind of brings us up here to date. We are sitting right here at Henry’s Lake waiting for Gene to come in with a load of fish we hope. I think maybe that’s them out there coming now. I am not sure.
James – Did the boys get this boat fixed and go out again.
Dennis – Oh Yeah.
End of Tape
