Monday, January 26, 2004
MY DAD (PART EIGHT)
We lived in the trailer for a couple of years. In the worst of winter we would wake up with frost on the inside plywood walls. Dad heated it with a stove that you would normally put in a brooder house and the smell of kerosene was always in the air. I would still be in my bunk when I could hear dad leave for work. As he walked from the trailer to the car I could hear the crunch of each step. I remember feeling sorry for dad because he went to work in the dark and got home in the dark. These many years later I wonder how mom kept her sanity in such small quarters and with so little to make her life easier. She cooked on a kerosene stove. Every time she cooked, she would have to pump up the pressure and then light a match to the burner. Periodically she would have to pump again to keep the pressure up. My dad had built the trailer in such a remarkable way…it was compact and filled every need. We each had a place to put our clothing, the kitchen held the necessary items for feeding a family and we all had a good bed to sleep in. During the day, mom and dad’s bed folded against the wall and there was a bench all along the length of it. A fold-up card table was placed by the bench for one of us and three folding chairs for the rest made it possible to eat our meals comfortably.
Baths were taken in a “wash pan”, and commonly called a “spit bath”. This simple bathing kept us all clean and we children didn’t know any different. It was just the way it was. Dad continued working at the Dodge Street Garage working 12-hours a day for a total of seven years. He earned a dollar a day and felt it was comparable pay for the time….many didn’t make that much.
Uncle Ted was laid off at the U.P.Shops and uncle Emil was out of work. They both got together and decided to contract labor from several plumbers around Omaha. They wanted dad to go in with them and it was a hard decision to make. Dad had steady work and wasn’t much of a gambler. In the end they talked him into it and the three of them bought basic equipment for what they would need and embarked on their own business.
They started out with just a few plumbers but they were all hard-working and delivered on demand. Soon their reputation got word around and more and more plumbers called for their services. They could no longer manage the work by themselves so began picking up workers here and there and put them with a shovel. In those years the ditches were all dug by hand but eventually they were able to buy a large compressor and mounted it on the bed of a truck. They were then able to get through the concrete on city streets without having to break it with sledge hammers and sheer strength.
Uncle Ted was called back to the Shops so dad and uncle Emil stayed with the business. It went well enough that mom and dad bought a modest older home further out of the down-town area. In between jobs dad and some hired help removed the old crumbling plaster off the walls down to the bare slats. Dad had an acquaintance come and re-plaster all the walls and ceilings. We lived in the trailer parked out in the yard until we could move into the house. I can still envision how proud my folks were to have their own home. It just as easily could have been a palace in their eyes. By the time we moved I was in the last few months of the third grade and my brother, Louis, was in the sixth. We went from Central Grade School (across the street from the Joslyn Memorial) to Clifton Hill Grade School near where we lived.
The years were good to the business but as WW11 came along and all the young men were drafted everything became more and more difficult. My mother was inundated with volumes of book-work and dad and uncle Emil were stretched from pillar to post trying to be at all of the job sites when the City Inspectors would come to OK the jobs. Sometimes they would have to dig deeper to have the correct “fall” for the water or sewer lines, if not, they could fill the ditches and go on to the next job. It was always a hassle to get the inspectors when you needed them. Dad hated waiting around and paying men who couldn’t do anything until the inspectors Ok’ed a job. At times dad would run home for supper and then we would go with him to put lanterns out on each open hole around town. The lanterns would have to be filled with kerosene and ready to go each day…..then picked up each morning. As I write this and think back to it all, I am amazed how much of it had to be done by hand. All of these things now would be done in short order without the many steps in-between.
During much of this time my dad worked so hard digging ditches he would spit up blood. He had stomach ulcers and never felt good. Mom had what would now be called a nervous break-down. They only knew one way to get things done and that was to give it your all. At this same time a huge building surge was going on south of Omaha which was called the Belleview addition. Dad and uncle Emil and their crew were responsible for the labor on the complex. By the time they finished that project they were all in bad need of rest and change. On a ledge in the garage I have one old kerosene lantern of dad’s that used to be put on the open ditches. It is rusted and past use. When I stop to look at it I see my mother and dad in the prime of their life following a dream. Soon life as we knew it would change for all of us……..
Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther
Until tomorrow,
Baths were taken in a “wash pan”, and commonly called a “spit bath”. This simple bathing kept us all clean and we children didn’t know any different. It was just the way it was. Dad continued working at the Dodge Street Garage working 12-hours a day for a total of seven years. He earned a dollar a day and felt it was comparable pay for the time….many didn’t make that much.
Uncle Ted was laid off at the U.P.Shops and uncle Emil was out of work. They both got together and decided to contract labor from several plumbers around Omaha. They wanted dad to go in with them and it was a hard decision to make. Dad had steady work and wasn’t much of a gambler. In the end they talked him into it and the three of them bought basic equipment for what they would need and embarked on their own business.
They started out with just a few plumbers but they were all hard-working and delivered on demand. Soon their reputation got word around and more and more plumbers called for their services. They could no longer manage the work by themselves so began picking up workers here and there and put them with a shovel. In those years the ditches were all dug by hand but eventually they were able to buy a large compressor and mounted it on the bed of a truck. They were then able to get through the concrete on city streets without having to break it with sledge hammers and sheer strength.
Uncle Ted was called back to the Shops so dad and uncle Emil stayed with the business. It went well enough that mom and dad bought a modest older home further out of the down-town area. In between jobs dad and some hired help removed the old crumbling plaster off the walls down to the bare slats. Dad had an acquaintance come and re-plaster all the walls and ceilings. We lived in the trailer parked out in the yard until we could move into the house. I can still envision how proud my folks were to have their own home. It just as easily could have been a palace in their eyes. By the time we moved I was in the last few months of the third grade and my brother, Louis, was in the sixth. We went from Central Grade School (across the street from the Joslyn Memorial) to Clifton Hill Grade School near where we lived.
The years were good to the business but as WW11 came along and all the young men were drafted everything became more and more difficult. My mother was inundated with volumes of book-work and dad and uncle Emil were stretched from pillar to post trying to be at all of the job sites when the City Inspectors would come to OK the jobs. Sometimes they would have to dig deeper to have the correct “fall” for the water or sewer lines, if not, they could fill the ditches and go on to the next job. It was always a hassle to get the inspectors when you needed them. Dad hated waiting around and paying men who couldn’t do anything until the inspectors Ok’ed a job. At times dad would run home for supper and then we would go with him to put lanterns out on each open hole around town. The lanterns would have to be filled with kerosene and ready to go each day…..then picked up each morning. As I write this and think back to it all, I am amazed how much of it had to be done by hand. All of these things now would be done in short order without the many steps in-between.
During much of this time my dad worked so hard digging ditches he would spit up blood. He had stomach ulcers and never felt good. Mom had what would now be called a nervous break-down. They only knew one way to get things done and that was to give it your all. At this same time a huge building surge was going on south of Omaha which was called the Belleview addition. Dad and uncle Emil and their crew were responsible for the labor on the complex. By the time they finished that project they were all in bad need of rest and change. On a ledge in the garage I have one old kerosene lantern of dad’s that used to be put on the open ditches. It is rusted and past use. When I stop to look at it I see my mother and dad in the prime of their life following a dream. Soon life as we knew it would change for all of us……..
Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther
Until tomorrow,
