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| Willis holding the dog |
After working at the Salt Lake City
office of the Continental Oil Company for four years Dad was given the
opportunity to transfer to Wieser, Idaho and become the district
superintendent. This was an
important promotion for a young man just twenty-six years old, and was the
beginning of a series of promotions and a career with the Continental Oil Co.
that lasted about twenty years. It
ended in Great Falls, Montana during the great depression of 1929 to 1934. In 1933 the economy was so bad that the
company had to shut many of their offices, laying off hundreds of their
employees. After working up to
assistant Division Manager, Dad found himself unemployed at the age of 39. But back to 1920 and Wieser, Idaho.
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| Outside the screen porch |
Wieser
Years
Wieser
is situated on the east bank of the Snake River about one hundred miles
northwest of Boise, Idaho. When we
lived there between 1920 and 1924, it was a thriving little farming
community. We lived in two
different houses in Wieser. The
first one was a little white frame house that faced the west. There was a huge yard to the south of
the house with a hedge around it.
The yard was covered with grass and had several shade trees on it. Our next-door neighbor to the east of
us was Dr Conant. They lived in a
large two story red brick house, and had a little girl about my age. He was a medical doctor.
The
first year that we lived there I became very sick. The doctor thought I had the measles, but I did not break
out in the typical red rash.
Mother called in the Elders to administer to me. Afterwards she put me in a hot
bath. The next day I broke out
from head to toe and looked like a strawberry. I had to stay in a darkened room fro about a week to protect
my eyes.
It
was while living here that I began my school career. I remember well the excitement of the first day of
school. Mother had me all shined
up, and dressed in new clothes. I
remember standing by the old cook stove eating a bowl of oatmeal mush is great
haste so as not to be late. Mother
went with me the first day. On the
second day I was to go by myself.
Mother sent me off, but I was afraid to face the new world all
alone. So, instead of going to
school I sneaked off somewhere in the neighborhood and never did make it to
school. However, once I got used
to the idea of going to school, I enjoyed it very much. I had a very good first grade
teacher. I don’t remember her
name, but I remember that she taught us how to read by the phonics method.
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| Frank, Willis, and Duke |
After
about two years we moved to a bigger and better house on North Main Street in
Wieser. This house had a large
“screened” porch across the front.
It was on this porch that Mother kept her canary birds in the summer
time. It was while living here
that many “firsts” occurred in my life.
It was here that I acquired my first dog, a half-breed bird dog named
Duke. We got him when he was just
a puppy.
I
got my first “B-B” gun, and “accidentally” shot my first mourning dove with
it. This made me feel very sad,
because I loved animals and birds and have always wanted to protect them rather
than destroy them. This is probably
the reason why I have never enjoyed the sport of hunting, and have never done
it, with the exception of shooting prairie dogs near Great Falls, Montana.
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| Willis and BB gun |
It
was a short distance north of our second home in Wieser, that I learned to swim
in a little pond formed by a dam across a large irrigation ditch. I was about seven or eight years old
then. I’m sure Mother was not
aware of this activity, because I do not remember any adults being present.
Another summer activity that was very popular was the
occasional visits to the Sandpits. Mother usually went along with
these excursions and brought along a lunch. All the kids in the
neighborhood went along, and we had great fun sliding down the
steep banks of the pit, covering one another up with the sand (up to
our necks), and building sand castles, etc.
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| The Sandpits Willis buried in sand Frank and a dog |
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| A Little Lady's Man |
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| Swimmin' |
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