Grandpa's Stories: The 20th Century As My Gradfather Lived It

Grandpa’s Stories

The 20th Century As My Grandfather Lived It

Janet McNulty, editor

Copyright © 2014 Janet McNulty

Smashwords Edition

Second Edition

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Introduction

I remember growing up listening to my grandfather’s stories about his life during the war and after. He told a few about the Great Depression and the constant struggle to find work. At the time I never paid much attention to them. I always thought that they were the stories told by an old man as he looked back on his life. Useless tales for someone so young like me.

I spent practically every summer with my grandparents where I was always given a heavy dose of his stories. My grandparents live on a ten acre spread of land in northern California near the Redding and Red Bluff area. That was where I spent most of my summers in between the school year. I remember helping my grandfather feed the cows, pick vegetables from the garden, even weeding that massive garden, and I remember being taught how to drive a clutch in his 1976 Ford Pickup.

Heck, I even drove that thing to my classes when I attended the local Community College there for a few semesters. No air bags, no air conditioning, no radio, no power brakes, and no power steering. Yep, I remember that stupid truck and how I tried to convince him to get rid of it. But he kept that rust bucket because it worked and there was no point in throwing it away. A habit that dates back to the Great Depression—if it works, keep it.

But that was how life was for my grandfather. Growing up in a time when he had nothing, or very little, he learned to fix what was broken and keep what still worked and had value. Unfortunately, I never thought to record any of his stories until now. My grandmother has Alzheimer’s and her stories are buried in a mind that can’t remember anything; and he is in his nineties. During the summer of 2012 my mother decided to visit them for a week and we both agreed that she should record as many of his stories as she could.

In the pages that follow are those recordings. They are the transcripts of the tapes with only minor editing. I deliver them to you raw like this because it is as close to the source as I can get it. This is my grandfather’s life in his own words with just a few fill-ins by me.

The Early Years Before the War

My grandfather was born Vernon Charles Blanke on December 15, 1921 in Pearce, Arizona. His parents lived on a Homestead near the Three Sisters; which are three buttes in Cochise Valley. His family never had much. One of the stories my grandfather tells is of the time when they first got electricity and had a single light bulb in the kitchen. That is where he and his siblings would do their homework.

Childhood Memories 1921-1933?

One of my grandfather’s earliest memories is detailed below. He describes the incident when he learned not to stick his hand under the hoof of the family’s burro, Blackie. He was only two years old at the time which would put this in the year 1923.

Grandpa: I remember another time getting my fingers pinched. Old Blackie was a burro was probably a year old or thereabouts. And mom was… Blackie was tied to the front porch of the house they were living in, to the post there. She was in the shade. And the neighbor come and mom and the neighbor or the visitor was sitting there on the porch right by Blackie, talking… visiting. I’m bored spit less and I got to setting my fingers around Blackie’s hoof down here around the bottom. And Blackie… all horses or burros shift a little bit back and forth. Not much. But it’s enough that her hoof came up off the ground, oh about an eighth of an inch, a quarter of an inch, enough for my finger to slide under her foot. And when she shifted back, I guess I squealed loud enough that you could of heard the—

Anyway, as soon as I squealed, Blackie jerked her foot up. And she just didn’t move it off, she jerked it up. Blackie knew what the squall was about. And so mom examined my finger and told me, Well don’t do that anymore, and petted Blackie. And they went on visiting. And I didn’t do it anymore. Gentle old thing that ever was. (Referring to the burro.)

Here is another childhood memory that my mom asked my grandpa about. He was about one or two years old at the time. It concerns the time he got his hand caught in the pedal of his mother’s sewing machine.

The sewing machines in those days were manually operated. They had a pedal that you worked with your foot; constantly pumping it up and down.

My mom: I remember Grandma (my grandfather’s mother) telling once that you got your hand in the treadle of the sewing machine way back when? Growing up and leaving home.

Grandpa: No.

My mom: I think you were about three or five, somewhere in there. Do you remember getting your hand in the sewing machine treadle while she was busy? Or did you put it through the needle?

Grandpa: No I don’t. It isn’t surprising if I did but… Oh! I know what… She had a Singer sewing machine with the foot treadle. And I was crawling. Yes, this I remember. I was crawling then. I wasn’t up walking good. I could walk, because I walked at ten months old. But very… well you could imagine, very limited walking. So I’m crawling. So that peddle would go up and down and I got my hand under it. Because it went clear to the floor on the one rock. Yeah. I remember that.

In this section my granddad talks a little bit about helping drive cattle when he was eight years old up until the time he left home. He mentions this as he attempts to describe the landscape of where he grew up to my mom.

Grandpa: In the meantime, from the time I was eight years old, I used to get jobs, cowboy jobs, for these ranchers. And so did Ray. I knew every ranch and every piece of property within 30 miles of home. I had worked on them on horseback. Eight years old. People now say, Eight years old? That’s impossible! Bunko! At eight years old I was earning wages. Not very big wages.

And so on. So I knew all that country. And as I rode down that road, it was running through my mind, so let’s see. So I went down and come across and come to the first gate I wanted. Went through it. Rode across that ranch. And I knew that ranch… it was divided from… well you know where the hills were when you were there.

From there to the Chirichahuas was one big ranch divided in three mile squares. And every three mile square, right in the middle of it, was a big tank with two windmills to keep water in it. That was a rich cattle corporation. And so the three mile square, see they’d put cattle in there. And by having it fenced off, ALL the cattle would… because they had thousands of head as you can imagine with a ranch 30 miles wide and 50 miles long. You wanted the cattle where you knew where they were. I knew all of that country.

Leaving Home 1937

At age 15 (1937), my grandfather took his horse, Dandy, and left home. The story goes that he and his father had an argument, one which resulted in actual punches being thrown. My great-grandfather Blanke was a no nonsense kind of man which made him difficult to live with. I like to think that they settled their differences but my grandpa doesn’t talk about his father much.

After leaving home, he wandered about the Arizona area until he made his way to California in 1939 where he met the Hamilton side of my family; and my grandmother. The Hamiltons owned a dairy and he worked for them as a deliveryman. Those were the days when milk was delivered each day in glass bottles. The dairyman would leave the full bottles of milk by the door and pick up the empty containers. He also worked as a truck driver for Drohs Dairy, a competitor to Hamilton Dairy. I think at this same time he also worked on a hay truck. This was during the latter end of the Depression and he worked a lot of odd jobs just to earn a wage.

Grandpa: Now dad had a temper. Most of the time he was the nicest person you could imagine, but every so often he would erupt into a blinding rage. We were never sure what would set him off. One day when I was fifteen Dad had one of his rages and it was directed at me. I had enough and when he came at me I fought back. Then Dad grabbed a grubber (a tool with a hoe on one side and an axe on another) and swung it at me.

I dodged and used a 2x4 to defend myself. Well, we made quite a ruckus and Ray (my granddad’s brother) charged up ready to take on Dad and Frances (my granddad’s sister) came out of the house with a big kettle of boiling water all set to throw it at Dad. Well, Dad looked at the three of us, he was still mad, then he says to me, ‘Get out of here! Leave! If you ever come back I’ll shoot you!’

So I got Dandy, my horse, and saddled him up. Mom handed me some money and a small saddle bag and I left. It was fine with me to go. I was done putting up with Dad’s temper.

As I rode away our dog, who used to go everywhere with me, started down the road with me. I sent him back to the house. He couldn’t go with me this time.

Dandy and I crossed the Cochise Valley heading for the Chirichahua Mountains. Well, after Ray and I found work in Los Molinos that paid enough to send home to mom, she divorced dad and we supported her and the younger kids.

Here my grandfather continues the story of after he left home. He spent about the next year and a half to two years away before going back to his parents’ ranch.

Grandpa: I knew where the gates in and out of every one of these pieces of property was. (The properties near his family’s ranch.) So I took off across them, and headed for the Chirichahua Mountains. And over the Chirichahua, there was two roads went over the mountains. One of them was an automobile road that was well traveled. Well as well traveled as any of the roads were in those days. The other one was one that mostly was horse and wagon road.

When I got to the mountains… now that’s 30 miles of riding, Dandy was getting pretty tired and he had… the reason we had him, is when he was a young horse, a cattleman’s horse, he knew more about cows than 99 out of 100 people did. Anyway, but he had gotten in a barb wire fence, and almost cut his left front foot off. So it was what they call a club foot. And as he walked, why that… If you rode him very long, boy it would be sore because there was a hump in your back all the time. Anyway, but I rode him enough. He was my horse and I did everything with him.

When I got to the Chirichahuas he was hungry and thirsty and I stopped on a crick and I knew where all the cricks were too. That’s another thing people say, A 15 year old kid couldn’t possibly know that much.

Well I had been over them there enough and so I cut over on the side of the road and this little crick come along and we stopped there and there was a log laying down and I put my saddle under it and the saddle blanket, plain old cowboy style like the movies show. And I laid down.

I kept a rope on Dandy. There was lots of grass where I stopped so he could eat and get water. And after a while why he snorted and I called to him and he was stomping around, so I picked up a rock and heaved it in that direction out into the brush. And yelled a few times. So then he went on eating. In about an hour, why—SNORT STOMP—and I quieted him again. And that particular bunch of mountains I knew was full of mountain lions and bear and both of them liked horse meat.

So I laid back down and went to sleep, and Dandy come and he stood with his two front feet against my ribs with his head over me. And he’d (snort snort). I’d pet him and I’d yell. So then he’d stop snorting. Well when it got daylight enough that we could see, so he could see where he was stepping. Because a horse could pretty well sense where to step without seeing it. But anyway, I saddled up and we went over the mountains. And that was only about a 25 mile ride to go over the mountains and come down the other side on the New Mexico side of the mountains there.

I would go along, and here was an old