Pawnee City
At the Christmas holidays in 1924 I was permitted to take Jean home with me for vacation. That was my last sojourn in Pawnee City. I proudly showed her off to the members of the congregation. Mother had picked a cute girl for me, thinking I would fall for her but Jean beat her to it.
My three summers at Pawnee City were interesting. The first summer I had a job soon after I got home with the American Paving Corporation which were under contract to pave the previously unpaved streets. The first week I sweat it out on the concrete spreading crew following the mixer. Then the boss took pity on me and gave me the job of tallying the number of “jennys” of dirt an Irishman subcontractor moved. He was paid by the scoopfull and the boss suspected him of cheating. Dr. Myford Anderson, Sr. told me I could safely sit on the north side of the street but if I sat on the bank of the south side the jiggers would get me. I thought that was unscientific and they were putting me on. He turned out to be right and the jiggers buried themselves in my skin under my belt and sock-tops raising huge welts.
In my new job I was classified as a staff employee and thus was not sent home when it rained. It was the only time I can recall it rained during the three summers I was in Pawnee City. It was payday and the crew wanted to play poker in the construction shanty. I was not then aware of the devotion to poker of construction workers and consented to join the game. You must realize that we had received our pay in the morning. I earned $0.25 an hour for 12 hours a day for six days a week amounting to $18.00 a week. We were paid in silver coin as was the custom in the West at that time. The game went smoothly until near quitting time with the experienced players letting me win off and on until the last half hour. I ended the afternoon having to go home and explain to mother why I had no money to give her to keep for me toward my next year’s educational expenses. You can imagine my mother’s distress.
At the end of the construction job about a dozen of us were asked to drive trucks loaded with equipment to the American Paving Corporation Headquarters in Omaha. We stayed overnight at Council Bluffs, Iowa. We returned home on the Burlington Railroad via Lincoln where we had a layover. One of the boys and I went to an amusement park where he persuaded me to ride with him in the front seat of the roller coaster. It was a thrilling ride over water and he enjoyed it immensely. Years later he became a member of the exclusive Caterpillar Club to which you automatically become a member when you are forced to bail out. He bailed out of his mail-carrying plane over the desert and was rescued only after several days. Mother sent me a clipping about it.
Dad’s Model-T needed a new paint job so I mixed lye (sodium hydroxide) in a crock, attached a sponge a paddle, smeared the lye on the car and hosed it off. The car came out as new metal and took a beautiful paint job but my fingernails curled back.
Another summer Wherrys gave me a job. Arthur H. Wherry and his brother D. E. Wherry owned the bank, Ford Distributorship, furniture and undertaking businesses. Fords were shipped without the bodies, wheels, radiators, windshields, etc. attached to the chassis. We unloaded at the railway station and took them to a storeroom for assembly. I learned more about Fords A roadster sold for $230.00 and a touring car for $265.00. Wherrys had Ford garages at Pawnee City, Humboldt and Tecumsa. “You could have any color you wanted as long as it was black”, Henry Ford proclaimed. He was introducing the assembly line and the $5.00 a day wage was putting America on wheels.
Kenneth Wherry, son of D. E. Wherry managed the Pawnee City garage., married the druggist’s daughter and later entered politics. When I was in Washington, D. C. during World War II he was the Republican Party Whip. I went to see him but he didn’t have much time as I was no longer a constituent of his.
Nebraska is dry and sometimes hot winds would wither the corn before the ears were formed and we would have to borrow money for seed and the bank would sometimes take the farms but let the farmers remain on the farm as crop sharers. Wherrys’ bank had acquired about eight farms through mortgage foreclosures. They kindly let the farmers stay in their homes and sharecrop while they improved the farms. Rolland Wherry and I were employed to help a three man carpenter crew build new hay barns and corn cribs. The first Monday A. H. took us out to a place called Burchard, the birthplace of Harold Lloyd, a radio comedian. We were to get our meals at the farmhouse and bunk in the abandoned post office. I did not know I was supposed to take along a cot so the first night I removed the hanging from one hinge of the front door with its cross battens and placed the door across a couple of carpenters horses for a bed. The next day A. H. brought me a cot. The meals were wonderful.
When we completed a barn we painted it red with white trimming which made a very attractive appearance. The turtle back extended out from the roof and supported the track for the hay fork. We couldn’t reach the underside from a ladder leaning against the barn so we would hook the top rung over the track end and I would mount the ladder while someone would hold the bottom from swinging above the ground.
One reason the farmers had financial troubles was that they had to sell the corn right after harvest when the price was at the low point. Wherrys did not have to do this. They could afford to store the corn and hold it for better prices. An enclosure of wire fencing would be filled with husked ears and placed right on the earth. The dry climate prevented the corn from spoiling. One time Rolland and I were given trucks to haul shelled corn from the storage area to the elevator at Liberty, Nebraska, a distance from the farm of about eight miles. One day when I pulled into the grain elevator my load was missing. The tailgate had not been securely fastened and I found corn strewn all the way back to the corn sheller. I wasn’t supposed to fasten the tailgate but I should have realized my load was getting lighter but the Wherrys did not fire me. Maybe that was an advantage of being the preachers son.
Summers and Holidays
Everett Wherry, son of L. E. Wherry, had married a Washington County, Pa. girl. She died during childbirth and they asked me to drive one of the funeral cars. The mother is buried in the same section of the Washington Cemetery as is our cemetery lot.
Wilhellmina Humm, a fellow German student and member of Pawnee City congregation was married in our church to the Rev. Russell Duggan, a member of the 1920 Monmouth College class. Since Russell had no friends in Nebraska and he did know me from returning to Monmouth to see Willhemina, I was asked to be an usher at the wedding. It was my second experience with a full-dress suit.
Another summer I worked for Hub Morrison. He was a “Big Eight” as were Everett, Tom and Holland Wherry and Ir. Byford Anderson, Jr. Hub had a square mile 640 acres about 8 miles West of Pawnee City. I drove a two mule team hitched to a three row corn cultivator. We only made about six round trips a morning. The mules wouldn’t start another round after twelve noon or at quitting time. One day they stopped and I could not get them to budge. Here we found there was a gopher hole. Mules never broke their legs in gopher holes as did many horses. They were too smart. At noon we would let them go to the watering trough by themselves before feeding them their oats. One day they refused to drink and when I took them out after lunch I thought would give them another chance. They drank deeply, then turned and looked at me and galloped off into the pasture. I tried to catch them but when I would get close they would bray and gallop off getting their harness more and more tangled. Finally Hub came home from town in his pick-up truck, saddled a pinto pony and went out and lassoed the mules. I did not enjoy the joke the mules pulled on me.
We got covered with black soil plowing corn. The soil was said to be several feet deep and to have been deposited many years past by the prevailing westerly winds when the Hooky Mountains were formed by volcanic action. Corn was planted in Eastern Nebraska year after year without rotation of crops. The corn grew so high that you had to ride a horse or wagon to pick the ears. Prairie grass grew higher than the horses backs. When we were at the house for lunch Hub and I would pump tubs of water and leave them on the lawn all afternoon. After dark we would wash the black dust off in the warm water. I was always wary of Hub’s wife coming out but she never did. While we were washing we would hear coyotes yapping down by the Turkey Creek followed by the long howl of the timber wolf.
The country one-room schools had cyclone cellars just outside their front doors and the teachers held regular cyclone drills just as we hold fire drills in the East. Only one cyclone struck while I was in Nebraska. It hit about twenty miles South at Mission Creek, Kansas. We drove down to Mission Creek to see the damage. I could not believe my eyes. Feathers from chickens were actually driven through barn doors and a rail was sticking out of a live tree. It seems that the high velocity of flying objects in a cyclone causes them to penetrate objects that otherwise would have broken the feather quills and rails.
In 1924 when I took Jean along to Pawnee City for the Christmas holidays, Dad met us at Table Rock. It was so cold the outside of the train was covered with ice formed from the steam flowing from the double header locomotives. The radiator froze even when covered with a blanket. Mother was disturbed when I let Jean see me going to the bathroom without a shirt.
I unintentionally pulled a fast one, one vacation when Rolland Wherry and I returned to college together via the Burlington Railroad to Kansas City and the Sante Fe to Galesburg, Illinois. Holland met an aunt during the stopover in Kansas City and I went across the street to a cafe. Suddenly I looked up at the clock and realized it was departure time. I jumped off the counter stool and rushed to catch the train which was moving. The porter on the last step called “hurry boy! and reached down pulling me to the platform. When I moved forward to my seat Holland said, “Where were you?” It was then that I realized that I had left the cafe without paying for my lunch. I am sure the owner thought it had been intentional.
The Arthur H. Wherry family were my father’s staunch supporters and we were frequent guests. Daughter Evelyn graduated from Monmouth about 1925 while Rolland transferred to medical school after two years at Monmouth. He later became a physician in Pekin, Illinois.
Dad’s Illness
Dad stayed at the Pawnee City Church for twelve years when he resigned because of eczema, carbuncles, boils, etc. He had gone to Mayos Clinic and they though he might be allergic to something. Finally he and Mother spent the winter in New Orleans where it was thought the humid atmosphere in contrast with the dry atmosphere of Nebraska might be beneficial. The climate change did not improve his physical condition so he resigned and came East to live with Grandmother who needed someone as she was then 85 years of age.
I never could understand how the Mayo Clinic could have missed Dad’s real trouble. Shortly after his return to Pennsylvania, Uncle Clark had him hospitalized for tests. They promptly found he was diabetic and he was able to conquer it with insulin shots which he learned to administer himself. He preached nearly every Sabbath at neighboring churches with vacant pulpits and served several years as State Supply pastor at the Cross Roads United Presbyterian Church. He died of cancer in September 1949 following a long thirteen weeks of suffering.
