The Sou'wester
of the Pacific County Historical Society and Museum
Spring 2000, Volume XXXV Number 1
Last modified on July 4th, 2000 / Contact the Museum / Web editing done by Brian Davis at bridavis@gte.net.  Top       Page: Cover 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Back
Sou'wester Banner
Volume XXXV, Number 1                                                                          Spring, 2000
Case Shingle and Lumber Co.
Growing up and working in Pacific County 1902-1941 
Cover Photograph:  The Case Shingle and Lumber Co. mill in Raymond, Washington.
Ned Needham worked for Case off and on for three decades.  PCHS #1998.46.3
A quarterly publication of the Pacific County Historical Society
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The 
     Sou'wester
ISSN #0038-4984 
Copyright, 2000, by the Pacific County Historical Society.  No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the Society's Editorial Board. 

The Sou'wester is a quarterly publication of the Pacific County Historical Society and Museum.  The Pacific County Historical Society is a non-profit organization in South Bend, Washington. 
       1008 Robert Bush Drive 
       P. 0. Box P 
       South Bend, WA 98586-0039 

In addition to the Sou'wester, the Society publishes a monthly newsletter for its members and operates the Pacific County Historical Society Museum in South Bend, Washington. 

Annual membership fees include Society membership and a subscription to the Sou'wester. 
       Single                                        $20 
       Family and foreign memberships $25 
       Corporate                                  $50 
       Contributing                              $50 
       Benefactor                               $100 
 

  • Pacific County Historical Society Board of Directors:
    • Ron Hatfield
    • Louise Hunter
    • Marion Davis
    • Sue Pattillo
  • Pacific County Historical Society Officers:
    • Vincent Shaudys, President
    • Robert Gerwig, Vice President
    • Elizabeth McCollum, Secretary
    • Gerald Porter, Treasurer
  • Sou'wester Editorial Board:
    • Robert Bailey
    • Sue Pattillo
    • Jean Shaudys
    • Arnold Shotwell
The Pacific County Historical Society welcomes contributions of articles and/or photographs relating to Pacific County history and culture.  Although care will be taken in handling all submitted materials, we assume no legal liability or responsibility for loss or damage.  Materials accepted for publication may be edited for grammar, clarity, and/or length.
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The 
     Sou'wester 
Spring Issue, 2000
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Introduction 
     Written during the last years of his life, Edward Needham’s story spans most of the twentieth century and all corners of Pacific County.  While looking for photos to illustrate this issue, I discovered a number of interesting connections to other prominent Pacific County families, as well as the Historical Society’s own heritage. 
     Ned’s mother was Lydia Soule Wentworth.  A story about Mrs. Wentworth appeared in the first Sou’wester issue in 1966.  Lydia was a devoted supporter of the Pacific County Historical Society, which is why we have a number of logging photos in our collection from her days raising a young family on the South Fork of the Naselle River.  The Soule name also reaches back into the 19th century history of Pacific County.  Parts of what is now South Bend was once part of the Soule brothers’ land claim along the Willapa River.  A whole story could be written about Len Wentworth, Lydia’s second husband, but we may have to wait for a member of the Wentworth family to write it.		 Ned Needham, May 14th, 1902 - 1995 
Ned Needham, May 14th, 1902 - 1995
     I regret not having met Ned in person.  My one phone conversation with him was short and to the point.  His family tells me that Ned could be gruff and judgmental.  Kind of what you would expect from a sawyer.  Ned spent much of his life in sawmills making rapid critical decisions about how to turn a log into the best possible lumber.  Ned was also the top student in his high school graduating class.  That was back when a high school education was of considerably more value than it is today.  I think you can sense some of Ned’s character in the story. 
     In this issue we will publish the first half of Ned’s life, from 1902 till about 1941.  The second half will appear in our next issue.  
     I would like to thank all those who helped make it possible to bring you this story and the photos that illustrate it.  Besides the Needham family I would like to thank Dan Forrest and Caroll La Cra of Norton and Eddie Bridges for educating me about tie mills.  I hope we can find more on tie and stud mills to publish here in the future. 
Bruce Weilepp
Museum Director
Pacific County Historical Society
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My Life and Times 
by Ned Needham 

Author’s Note: 
     I never edited or even reread this writing, so if it doesn’t make sense don’t be surprised; blame it on my age and memory.  You can always quit or throw it away.  I don’t know how many times I have repeated myself.  No doubt there are things in here that should have been left out and things that should have been in. 
     One piece of advice: if you have read this, don’t wait until you are as old as I am before you write your own history, for your memory and spelling will not be as good as it was when you were younger.  Of course old age is a good excuse for all your shortcomings. 

Family Background 
     My mother; Lydia M. Soule; was born Dec. 23, 1876.  Her parents and the Wheatons were pioneer families who settled on Mill Creek in the Willapa Valley. 
     The Soules settled on land which is now near the present Camp One.  Her parents separated when she and her sister were very young.  Her Mother then married William Hastings, who was more of a grandfather to me than my real grandfather.  The family moved to Smith Creek where the children grew. 
     My mother worked as a housekeeper for the Egbert family in South Bend.  Egbert was a customs officer for that district. 
     My mother was married at the Egbert home in 1898.  How she met my father I do not know, as he had been a bartender at one time in a South Bend saloon.  He had come to South Bend from Michigan when the railroad came. 
     I know very little about my father, as my mother never talked about him.  I understand my stepfather did not want her to.  He was born in Michigan of a large family; seven boys and one girl.  His parents evidently came from Ireland, either during or after the potato famine.  He died when I was two years old. 
     I don’t know how or when my parents got to Hoquiam, but my brother William was born in Hoquiam on April 11, 1899.  The family was back in South Bend when I was born on May 14, 1902. 
     We lived in Eklund Park on the east side and my father worked as a planning mill setup man in the Simpson Mill across the river on Mailboat Slough.  Then my father was taken sick and went to see a doctor in Ocean Park, California.  He died there in the spring of 1904 before I was two years old. 
     After we came back from burying my father in California, my mother took to working for her brother-in-law cooking in his logging camp.  That’s where she met her second husband; Len Wentworth; my future step-father. 
     That is when the stories began about some things I did, although I cannot remember doing them.  First I was supposed to have taken Len’s hat and stomped it in the mud.  I guess it was so, as years afterwards someone who worked in the same camp at that time told me the same story.  Later they told me that I hit my brother with a horseshoe and would not say I was sorry.  All that I would say was that if he would have run fast enough, he would not have got hit. 
     Len and my mother were married in July 1905.  We lived in a tent with a wood floor and half sides in a logging camp on the South Fork of the Willapa river, near where the golf course is now.  I remember spraining my arm and having it in a sling.  Got it riding a stick horse, and I guess he bucked me off.  It was more painful than when I broke my arm years later.  Also, I remember hitting myself in the head with a wire axe I was playing with.  

Arrival in Naselle 
     When we left there I remember riding in Gamage’s wagon about halfway to Raymond, then I must have went to sleep, as I don’t remember South Bend or the trip across the bay.  The next I remember we were at the Nasel Landing, as it was called then.  We lived for awhile right in Nasel, down a side street or road.  You will notice the spelling of “Nasel” rather than today’s spelling (Naselle); that is the way it was spelled in those days. 
     There was a hotel, a store, a post office, a school, a dock, and a warehouse, but no road or bridge to Deep River, although there was a trail to Knappton.  I don’t know how many people lived there, but not too many in town.  They lived all up and down the river at that time, and a good many of the people were Finnish.  If we had lived there much longer I think I would have learned to talk Finn, as there was a boy about my age in town.  We were together a lot, since the others all went to school.  We were mad because they wouldn’t let us in school, saying we too young. 

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The 1906 motor launch Naselle owned and operated by Ivan Holm. PCHS # 1997.47.1 
The 1906 motor launch Naselle owned and operated by Ivan Holm.  PCHS # 1997.47.1
     My step-father and a man named Tom Miller went hand-logging on the South Fork of the Nasel river about a half-mile out of town.  Hand-logging was just that; they fell trees near the river and rolled or pushed them with jacks until they reached the river. 
     We lived in a rough lumber shack, and that was when my oldest sister was born.  You did not send for a doctor then, as the nearest was in Astoria or South Bend.  First, you sent for Mrs. Holm, or her sister Eunice Smith, or Aunt Euney as she was known.  Another sister, Mrs. Shagnen, did the same work on the north end of the peninsula. 
     Later we had a float house in town; two bedrooms, a living room, a deck for wood, and a rain barrel.  Everyone had a rain barrel.  We were on the south side of the river by the warehouse at first, then moved to the north side to the McCllend ranch.  That house is still there, just below the highway bridge.  The Tom O’Connor’s place above the bridge is still there today. 
     The first time I saw Nasel spelled “Naselle” was on the gasoline launch owned by Ivan Holm and built in 1906.  This was where I took my first of many dunks long before I learned to swim.  George McCllend was swimming in the river, and I was on the bank throwing skunk cabbage seed pods at him when the bank caved in, and I landed the river.  I guess he didn’t want me there, so he threw me back on the bank.  Later that summer I fell in from the float house while playing with a decoy duck.  George’s brother pulled me out that time. 

Early Life on Long Island and Lower Naselle River 
     We moved from upriver down to Long Island, where my step-father and another man went logging with a horse and capstan.  We all lived in float houses.  This is where I learned to row a boat.  I would get in the boat and row with one oar.  My step-father caught me and shoved me out in the middle of the slough and told me that I had to row back.  I guess I must have believed him, because I could row from that time on. 
     It was here that I took another dunking.  I gave the boat a shove and jumped at it.  But it went across the slough, and I went in the slough by myself. 
     Long Island is also where my brother went to school; he was the only pupil.  This was on the east side of the river.  He and the teacher boarded with the same family.  My step-father went over in the rowboat and got him on Friday afternoon and took him back on Sunday.  The school was near the old Sunshine Mill, a mile or two below the present highway bridge. 

Isaiah’s Slough 
     The next move was upriver to another logging camp on Isaiah’s Slough.  That was how they were called then, by those who lived there, and this was where Isaiah Smith had his home.  We had the same neighbor that we had on Long Island, as Ed and Violet Ward lived along side with their float house in a side slough.  We were six or eight feet apart with a walk connecting.  And again, I fell in.  I was coming down the walk with an armload of wood when I went into the drink.  My mother fished me out this time.  Violet Ward fell off the walk between the houses when the tide was out so she landed in the mud.  She could not get out, and my mother had to send for men from camp to get her out. 
     This was where I first went to school.  There were seven of us; three Moshen’s, two Smith’s, and two of us Needhams.  The school was at what was known as Smith’s Island and was one of many one-room schools around the county.  I also believe it was the teacher’s first school. 

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The teacher’s name was Meale Holm, and she was raised within a mile or so of the school. 
     The logging camp was a two-donkey show with a 9’ x 10’ loader and a 10’ x 12’ yarder.  There were no chokers or high leads; all pole roads and ground logging with grapples instead of chokers.  Most logging was done toward water with what could be reached by two donkeys. 
     This was also where my step-father built his first power boat.  It was a mail order job with paper patterns for the planks.  This did not work out, since 20-foot patterns did not hold their shape long.  He had to throw them away and go on his own.
The Cliff Miller logging crew on the lower Naselle River. Ned's step-father, Len Wentworth, is sitting on the log in the center of the photograph. PCHS #4-14-69-1 (42)
The Cliff Miller logging crew on the lower Naselle River.  Ned's step-father, Len Wentworth, is sitting on the log in the center of the photograph.  PCHS #4-14-69-1 (42)
Farther Upriver 
     From here we moved up river again to the boom and rafting ground, where all the logs were brought down river by freshet from splash dams and were held, sorted, and rafted according to brands.  There was a school here, but we did not go to this one. 
     This was near where the Naselle Youth Camp is now located.  In fact, the old Holm house is still there; the first house on the river side of the highway west of the camp.  We were still living in the float house, so we were out by the river on the last side of the holding boom.  This was on the west side.  This was the last place we were to live on the Nasel. 
     The isolation of the river is hard to imagine now.  There were no roads on the lower river and not over four or five power boats on the whole river.  The gas engine was not very reliable in those days.  The people were served by a boat out of South Bend once a week.  I believe they brought the mail, freight, and passengers, if any.  They also did the shopping for you as well.  The lack of transport was why there were one-room schools all up and down the river, some only a couple of miles apart. 
     It was rather a hard life, but when people played they played hard too.  Dances lasted all night.  There were no babysitters, so all the children were brought along, parked on beds when they got sleepy, and sorted in the morning.  Basket socials were a big deal also. 
     All the log towing was done by tugs, and there was quite a fleet of them; the Flora Brown, Agnes, Launel, Myrtle, Queen, and the Defender.  I left the Defender to last as it was the newest and most powerful.  But it did not work out because it had too much power and speed.  When it was pushing the logs, they went out under the tailstick. The loss and salvage almost broke the owner. 
     Someone decided to do something about the isolation on the lower river.  A town was platted a mile or two below the present highway bridge on the west side of the river and above the old Sunshine Mill.  The machinery from the mill had been moved to South Bend years before.  The town started out as Napoleon, then later named Chetlo Harbor.  A dock and a store were built and building lots were sold.  A post office was acquired, but I don’t know how many people lived there. 
     They began building a sawmill over on the straits.  Why I don’t know, as there was no water there at low tide.  The mill was never finished.  When it was almost done it burned and was never rebuilt.  There was a boardwalk from the town over to the mill, a quarter of a mile or so through the woods.  I don’t know how long it took the town to completely die, but by then we were living on the peninsula. 
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Growing Up around Oysterville and Nahcotta 
     We moved from the Nasel in March, 1908, by barge with two cows, a horse, and a flock of chickens to 24-acres between Nahcotta and Oysterville.  Why my folks bought this place I will never know, since there was no way you could make a living of it.  My step-father kept on working in logging camps, fishing, oystering, or doing anything that came up to earn some money.  This was an ideal place to raise a family, if you could figure a way to make a living.  Oysterville at this time had two general stores, two churches, a post office, a blacksmith shop, and a school.  There were twelve or fifteen families in or around the town. 
     A mile to the south of us was a Holland Dutchman and his family with children who were more grown up than us.  They were raising an orphan boy around my age.  He was a hired hand who worked for room, board, and clothes.  The woman was the one I mentioned that you sent for first before a doctor.  They had a rather large ranch with quite a few cattle.  They ran butcher shops in Long Beach and Ocean Park during the summer season.  There was also a boat shop run by their son-in-law.  My step-father Len helped build a boat there.		 Bill and Ned Needham in 1909. PCHS #4-16-69-1 (1) 
Bill and Ned Needham in 1909.  PCHS #4-16-69-1 (1)
     Between their family and where we lived there was a bull-headed Englishman and his family.  He had 11 kids before we left, so there was bound to be some kids our age.  We always wondered if he was a remittance man, as they always seemed to have more money than the rest of us.  His wife was better than a newspaper, because she went to every funeral and knew all the gossip for miles around.  In spite of their money, the kids were poorer fed than the rest of us. 
     Next was a half-mile of tide land that joined our property.  This belonged to the Morgan Oyster Co. and had a fairly decent house for the boss and his family.  A motel like building was built for the single people.  There was a house on a barge with a family living there.  These were all Bay Center Indians and were only there part of the year.  We sold them eggs and milk and got along fine with them.  There were three boys there in our age group. 
     There was prejudice and bigotry toward the Indians in those days, but I never felt it.  I watched them make oyster baskets out of spruce roots.  I watched an older man make a dugout, but he used modern tools.  They had a big canoe us kids wanted to try out, but we never did get the chance.  It was a beautiful job, polished until you could see yourself in it.  Six men with paddles would get in it and take off for Bay Center and outrun almost any powerboat on the bay. 
     The Morgan Oyster Co. had a station which was a house built on piling.  It was about a half-mile out in front of our house.  At that time a couple of men stayed there year-round; more as watchmen than workers; as the big companies were fair game for thieves.  Every powerboat carried a dredge bag, and for some reason it always fell overboard when crossing company oyster beds.  West Coast, now Coast Oyster, had a station about a mile north and out from Oysterville. 

Neighbors 
     We had what was called three lots to the north of us.  They were 200 feet wide and ran back from the bay some 700 feet, depending on how much the bay had washed away.  The first lot belonged to us, the third one to a bachelor who lived there, and the middle one was owned by a family on the north.  He was supposed to be a German sailor who had jumped ship. 
     His wife was a Quinault Indian and they in time had ten children.  He was an ornery man when drinking, beating her up and scaring the kids.  They were never really accepted by the people around that area.  I think I was the only one that even went to their house, and that was not until several years later.  Like the rest, I was afraid of him until I was about fourteen years old, and then I was bigger than he was. 

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Oysterville Street scene, circa 1910. Photo courtesy of the Ken Bale Collection.
Oysterville Street scene, circa 1910.  Photo courtesy of the Ken Bale Collection.
     When we first moved there, we had a horse and he had a wagon, so we traded back and forth.  That arrangement worked out fine until (and this is the proof he was nuts) he was called for jury duty.  He had a milk cow at the time, but apparently no one else in the family could milk it, so they brought the cow up for us to milk with ours.  The cow was rather mean and made a pass at Len; my step-father; in the barn, and he knocked off one of her horns. 
     I don’t remember any trouble when the neighbor got his cow back, but we had his wagon when all this happened.  Later, we were working out in the front where you could not see the barn lot from the house.  Len sent me after a rope that was supposed to be in the wagon, but when I got there, the wagon was gone.  Well, you would have to know Len to know what followed before he went to look; in other words, a dumb kid couldn’t even find a wagon in daylight in a barn lot. 
     We discovered, however, that the neighbor had come by night with his family and hauled their wagon home by hand.  That sort of ended the trade-off deals.  They got a horse, and we got a cart.  Although another problem came up later, us kids never took up the feud, or whatever it was, but kept on being friendly through all of this. 
     Just to show how petty and foolish people can be, a new fence was needed between their lot and our property.  We offered to go halves with them on this, but I guess he was still angry about the cow.  He built his own fence, but on his own land inside the property line.  So when we put up a fence on the line, it left a lane between them a few feet wide.  They had the best of it because they could not see it from their place, but we could.  There was quite a few horses that ran loose on the common area, as it was called then.  They would get stuck in this lane, and we would have to get them out.  I think we finally fenced the end of it so they could not get in. 
     One more incident about this neighbor and then I will move on.  One Christmas morning, here came the three oldest kids on the run scared half to death.  Their father had got drunk and was threatening to kill his wife and set the house on fire, although the younger kids did not seem to be afraid of him.  So, my mother and one of the girls went back to see what was going on. 
     The man was going around with a gun in his pocket, a can of kerosene, and a box of matches, still yelling.  Len got worried about it all and took a gun and went down there, but he did not go in.  The man got tired and finally went to sleep, and the kids went home later that day.  This did not seem to change anything between the families. 

Work and Play 
     The first summer we lived there we hired someone to cut our wood for the winter.  Len was still working in some logging camp, so from then on Bill and I had to cut the wood.  We got a whole quarter (twenty-five cents) a cord.  I was seven years old and Bill was ten, so for years I got the jobs he didn’t want.  I was fifteen before I was able to assert myself and quit taking orders. 
     In addition to our usual work of cutting wood, we had working in the garden, or getting hay in for the winter.  We were not old enough to work for wages for someone else.  We did manage to ship a few sacks of spruce cones from our own place.  The squirrels cut them for us.  I think we got around a dollar a sack for them, and a dollar would buy something in those days. 
     The wood lot was out of sight of the house, so lots of times if the weather and the tides were right we would take off and go swimming.  It was an ideal place for swimming, as you could wade out for hundreds of feet to get water up to your waist.  In the summer when the tides were high in the evening, we would go to the south end of our place, and the kids to the south of us would come, and we would build a fire and play in the water for hours.  When the water came in over all that sand, it was almost too warm to swim in. 
     We were beginning to go parties by then. I think the purpose of the Halloween parties was to keep track of where we were!  We all went to church and Sunday School, since there was nothing else to do.  As we got older, there were Sunday picnics and ball games in the summer. 

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Oysterville school in 1909. Ned Needham is standing directly behind the dog and on the right (without hat). Bill Needham is second from far right. PCHS #2-12-86
Oysterville school in 1909.  Ned Needham is standing directly behind the dog and on the right (without hat).  Bill Needham is second from far right.  PCHS #2-12-86
School 
     I did not go to school the spring that we moved there.  My brother Bill finished out the term, and I started that fall.  It was about a mile and quarter from our place to school. 
     It was a typical country school with twenty or thirty pupils anywhere from five to eighteen years old.  It had one room with a stove in one corner for heat, a woodshed, and two outhouses out back.  The teacher usually had to be the janitor as well.  In the winter the students who had to come the farthest and got the wettest got to sit near the stove until they got dry and warm.  The school was new, but I did not know that then.  It had two cloak rooms where we left our rain clothes and lunches.  The drinking water was a bucket on a stand by the front door with a dipper hanging on a nail.  The water came from the nearest house to the school yard, and there was always a contest to decide who got to go and get it. 
     Schools were much different then.  They started in the morning with a song, or prayer, or both.  Once or twice a week the teacher would read from some book she thought we ought to know.  School ran from nine in the morning till four in the afternoon, with an hour for lunch and two fifteen-minute recesses. 
      I don’t know how we learned, but we did.  There were no classrooms; just two benches and the teacher’s desk in the front of the room.  There was also a big blackboard on each side of the door.  There was a big dictionary on a stand at the back of the room and some reference books in a small bookcase.  These we could use anytime we wanted to. 
     We usually opened school in the morning with the Lord’s Prayer and the pledge to the flag or the song “My Country Tis of Thee.”  The “Star Spangled Banner” was not the national anthem at that time.  Some years, the teacher would read a chapter from some book like Black Beauty, Little Women, or Mrs. Wiggs from the Cabbage Patch.  During the week there were other songs.  They all seemed to come from the same era: “Old Black Joe,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” and “Swannie River.” 

Teachers 
     There were eight grades, and sometimes the teachers were no older than the students.  They could get a third grade teaching certificate as soon as they finished the eighth grade.  I think our teacher that year must have spent a good part of her $40 a month on us kids; she always gave the whole school a small treat at the end of the month.  Of course, she got her board and room along with her pay. 
     School during the 1909-1910 year was rather ho-hum for me as a third grader.  The board had trouble finding a teacher and had to hire a local man.  He had the education but was no teacher.  We still had our grown-up students, and those he could do nothing with.  I remember one time he got in an argument with one of the boys and took after him with a broom.  They ran awhile, then argued awhile, and the boy would just laugh at him. 
     In 1910, we had a teacher from Missouri.  She was well enough educated, but certainly ignorant of anything west of the Rocky Mountains.  The middle grades of school always seemed sort of blah to me.  The interest was in the new kids and the ones leaving.  School was very different in those days from now. 

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I never remember school being shut down on account of weather.  Of course we had wood stoves at home, so we were used to that kind of heat. 
     1911 was surely one of my most remembered years in school.  The teacher knew that Bill and I would have to go somewhere else if we were to continue on in school.  So she talked me into taking the fifth and sixth grades in one year, so we would both be in the same grade.  This was fine until the good weather came in the spring, and all the other kids were outside playing while I was inside studying.  Then I realized the teacher was giving up her time as well as me, which made it a little easier to take. 
     We saw quite a bit of this teacher as we had a boarder she was taken with.  So she came for Sunday dinner often.  He said she was nice, but a hell of a wife for a poor man.  I don’t know why we were always having boarders.  I think Len brought them like stray cats or dogs.  The first one brought us the measles.  The next was courting the neighbor girl and did wind up marrying her.  He used to take me along to see her brothers. 
     I don’t remember much happening at school during 1912.  We had a woman teacher who had two boys in school.  This made things interesting at times. 
     We had a man teacher again in 1913, a young man, and I think it was his first school.  If we did something we were not supposed to do, his answer was, “It’s alright this time, but don’t do it again.”  I don’t believe we ever did, so we never knew what he would have done if we had. 
     The school was getting too large for one teacher, and we were behind in eighth grade.  In fact, the County Superintendent stood up in front of the whole school and told us none of us would pass.  I guess we fooled him; we all made it with the highest average in the county. 
     I should tell about one more incident with the County Superintendent.  One day we were cleaning erasers at noon when we found that if we tossed them just right, they would leave a nice mark on the ceiling.  So who shows up that afternoon but the Superintendent.  So, as school let out, he asked every student that was involved tossing erasers to sign their name on the blackboard as they left.  That didn’t work, because all the kids in the school signed as they went out.  He took it alright and walked with us that were going his way.  He laughed about it and never really tried to find out who really did it. 
Willapa Bay oystermen using long-handled tongs to harvest oysters from low, flat-bottomed boats called bateaus. Photo courtesy of the Wilson family.
Willapa Bay oystermen using long-handled tongs to harvest oysters from low, flat-bottomed boats called "bateaus."  Photo courtesy of the Wilson family.
Oystering 
     At home, we had built a new barn and a thirty-foot oyster powerboat, and Len went into the oyster business for a couple of years, and I ran the boat when I wasn’t in school.  He found some oyster land to lease almost in front of our place.  The state had a native reserve on Long Island and the Nemah that they opened every May.  For so much a bushel, everyone could get all they could, or they could hire it done, but it all had to be hand-tonged.  After culling, the shell had to be put back on the reserve, which is still the case.  Now you have to bid on certain plots.  The big companies fixed things by hiring big crews, so it didn’t take long to end the native business on the bay. 

Boats 
     The last day of the young growth season was something that will never be seen again.  There were more sailboats than powerboats in those days, and the bay was full of sailing plungers.  Where the name “sailing plunger” came from I do not know.  They were built for the oyster trade.  Most of them were around forty feet long with a small cabin that could be lived in after a fashion.  They all had center boards so they could sail fairly close into the wind.  They were all one man boats, but it was all one man could do to handle one. 
     The bateau was another boat made for the trade.  Twenty-eight to thirty feet long and flat bottomed, it would float in six or eight inches of water.  It had side boards a foot or so high, almost the full length of the boat and set in about two feet from the outside edge, which left a walkway for poling it through the water. 

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This was how they were moved around the oyster beds.  They all had a homemade pump and a tow bit in front and a cleat on the back so the powerboats could tow them three or four in a line.  The sailboats rarely had more than one, if that. 
     In poling you began at the front and walked to the back, then walked to the front and did it all over again.  A good bateau would run straight while you were doing this, but some of them would start turning, and you would have to straighten them out again.  Most of them would carry seventy-five to one-hundred bushels of oysters. 
     Len Wentworth had built another boat by 1912 and went fishing for a living.  He also began changing his boat from sail to power. 

Working for Hire 
     In the summer of 1912 I had my first work for hire.  After a long argument with my mother, Bill and I were hired to pick oysters, which were to be moved from the south end of the bay to the north end.  We got one dollar a day and board, which was good money in those days. 
     We had to live at an oyster station on the west side of Long Island.  It must have been at least sixty feet long and twenty-four feet wide.  It had two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room that went across one end.  It also had a culling room and four live bins with no roof over them.  It was anchored in a large slough and never went aground.  It had a piling and plank breakwater on the south and west. 
     Picking was only for three or four hours at low water.  Of course, some other work had to be done also; that was where I got used.  The grass had to be cut before we could pick.  The boss did not like his running back and forth towing a grass cutter, so that was the job I got.  A ten-year-old big shot running a forty-foot powerboat back and forth for hours. 
     We went home on weekends for baths and clean clothes.  I think I bought all my own clothes from then on. 
     In the summer of 1913, I again worked in the oysters.  This time my step-father also worked there and had his boat with him.  By this time I was able to start the engine, so while he was sleeping I would start and stop the engine.  The boat was tied to the float all the time, so I took a friend of mine for a ride.  You would have to know Len to know what happened.  About a mile from home the engine quit.  I knew what to do; throw out the anchor and get to work on the engine.  They could see us from the house, so pretty soon here comes Len.  Of course he had to give me the laugh for not being able to run the boat.  The trouble was it would not start for him either, until he got new batteries. 

Clamming 
     In the spring or 1914, Len decided to go into the razor clam business.  So he went to Portland and bought a team of half-broken horses to haul them with.  It was a small operation that year, and the clams were shipped to Portland to the restaurants. 
     Nothing much happened outside the usual work around home.  We were getting ready to build a new house, since the shoreline of the bay was ready to take the old one.  Len was still fishing on the Nemah with set nets. 
     That summer we quit the Portland market for razor clams and sold to the Bay Center crab fisherman.  The season in those days was nine months, from the first of September to the first of June.  That fall, Bill and I did not go to school, so we were full-time clam diggers.  In that winter, a clam cannery was built in Nahcotta, so we began selling there, which was much easier. 
     In the spring of 1913, Len got ambitious and got another team of horses.  We had about forty diggers and handled about three or four tons of clams a day on good tides.  I drove one team and got nothing for it; only what clams I could dig.  I don’t know how Bill worked it.  I don’t think he ever drove a team.  I always seemed to be the fall guy. 
     On a run of good tides we were putting in twelve to sixteen hours a day.  The teams had to have at least an hour to eat and be brushed every morning before we started.  Sometimes my mother would feed them so I could sleep a little longer.  We would come from the beach, stop at home and eat, feed and water the teams, then hitch up again and drive the miles to the cannery. 
     Since I had the fastest team, I was usually half unloaded when Len got there.  That was quite a job for a twelve-year-old, because you had to lift every box of clams three times; from the wagon to a platform, to another platform, and then again to dump them down the screen.  Each lift was about three feet, and the wet boxes and sand would weigh around one-hundred pounds. 

Wood Cutting 
     That summer we also ran a wood yard in Ocean Park.  We would sell and deliver any amount of wood anyone wanted.  Or, if they had uncut wood, we would move the saw in and cut for so much a cord or per hour, whichever they wanted. 
     We bid and won a twenty-cord job for the Nahcotta school.  We did not have that much wood ourselves, so we had to buy some.  I hauled four-foot wood from Klipsan Beach for several days.  It was a three or four-mile haul. 
     When we began to cut it the first time, we had to move the saw.  I got tangled with the belt, got knocked cold, and broke both bones in my left wrist.  My arm was set before I came to, since there was a doctor in Ocean Park that summer.  I woke up and looked out a window of a house near the school yard.  There were two half-grown bears running around, it took me a while to remember these people were raising the bears.  Well, that took care of my working that summer. 

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A commercial razor clam weighing station near Ocean Park, circa 1925. PCHS #1993.4
A commercial razor clam weighing station near Ocean Park, circa 1925.  PCHS #1993.4
Driving Truck 
     Len sold the team and the wood business and bought a 1910 Reo car and made it into a truck for hauling clams.  What a relief!  We could now get a couple of more hours of sleep, because it took less time than the horses.  Unfortunately this did not do Bill and me much good, since we started high school in Nahcotta that September.  It was just a nice stroll of three miles each way. 
     When we moved into the new house, it made the barn almost a quarter of a mile away.  The house was built with salvaged lumber from the ocean beaches and what we saved from the old house.  About all we had to buy was shingles. 
     In the spring Len wanted to go to Portland, so he decided I should learn to drive.  Well, he started the motor and told me to drive, so I did.  When we got to Oysterville and went around a corner, there was a little bridge.  Half of it was gone, but I made that alright.  When we got out to the beach, there was only one plank on a side.  I got going too fast and looked for the brake, but by that time I didn’t need it as we were off the road.  We unloaded everything off the rig but Len and me.  He then drove out on the beach and made me drive again.  It was all sand roads then, and I don’t know how many times I killed the engine from there to the cannery and back home.  I guess it worked, because I drove everywhere from then on. 
     When clam season ended we took the car and tore it down.  Took everything off that had bolts.  Cleaned it down to bare metal and then painted it. 
     The road had just been put in from Bay Center to Nemah, but it had not been graveled yet.  We ferried the car and a team and wagon from Nahcotta to the Nemah.  It had rained and the road was a sea of mud.  We put 3/4-inch rope on the wheels for chains, but we never lost sight of the team until we reached the Palix River and a gravel road. 

Leaving the Beach 
     Len went to Alaska that fall to run a cannery in Cordova.  I don’t know how much money he was paid, but we never saw much money from him. 
     In September Bill and I went back to school, our second year of high school.  In January we both had pneumonia, so we missed quite a bit of school.  In fact, the rest of the year I did not go if the weather was bad. 
     When school was out, Bill went to Smith Creek to work and lived with his grandparents.  That left me with all the work at home and with a couple of cows to milk.  Along with that, I went to work as the hired man for the Espys.  They had three or four miles of fence to keep up, and I worked in the hay, plowed, and planted. 

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I sometimes had to milk their cows, too.  Don’t ever try to herd cows down a country road with a car—it doesn’t work. 
     By then Len had decided he would not come back to the beach.  So we began crating furniture to ship to Alaska.  Then he changed his mind again and decided we would move to Raymond.  So, that ended nine years at the beach.  It was an ideal place to raise a family, if you could figure out a way to make a living.  There was no industry, and the oystering was about done.  But there was very little crime and no natural dangers, such as swift rivers or rocky places to fall from.  We made our own entertainment.  Most of us went to church and Sunday school, because there wasn’t much else to do.  In the summer there were picnics and ball games.  In the winter there were house parties for young and old.  The people were generous and caring, and family feuds never lasted very long.
More than a dozen Raymond mills were in operation when Ned Needham moved there in 1917. Photo courtesy of the Ken Bale Collection.
More than a dozen Raymond mills were in operation when Ned Needham moved there in 1917.  Photo courtesy of the Ken Bale Collection.
Life in the Big City of Raymond 
     In July, 1917, we sold the cattle but not the place, and loaded the car and the furniture on a scow at Nahcotta that was to be towed to Raymond.  We had to unload the car in South Bend, since there was no place to do it in Raymond.  We had rented a ten-room house in Garden Tracts, got the stuff moved in that same afternoon, lit fumigating candles, and took off for Smith Creek.  Back in those days you had better fumigate, because there were bed bugs, fleas, and lice to contend with. 
     Raymond was quite a change from the beach; from where neighbors might be miles apart to a city or five or six thousand.  At that time there were eight large lumber mills, five shingle mills, and two veneer plants. 
     A strike was called by the I.W.W. for the eight-hour day.  The two veneer plants gave their crews the eight-hour day and kept running.  The other mills were all down, and feelings ran pretty high against the I.W.W., or Wobbley’s, as they were called.  They really did more to improve working conditions than they got credit for.  The strike was lost that fall, and everything went back on ten–hour days, even the veneer plant where I was working.  They did raise our wages twenty-five cents a day.  Then, in March of 1918, the federal government put in the eight-hour day for everyone. 
     Bill continued to work on Smith Creek until school started, then he began school.  He found some work on weekends.  I did not go back to school but kept on working.  In fact, I intended to quit school, since I had to support the family.  Len was still in Alaska, and there was very little gold coming south from him. 
     I was paying forty dollars a month board out of my earnings.  With that and the money from the sale of the cattle, we had to pay rent and live on the rest. 
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     I started at the veneer plant doing anything they found for me to do.  Then later, they put me on upstairs pulling in the lathe; anyone could that.  But the breaker had to be more or less semi-skilled.  My breaker went home for Christmas and never came back, so they put me to breaking.  What a time I had the first few days! 
     There were more women being hired all the time.  I tried to get on the night shift where there were no women, but they would not let me change.  There were nine people on the lathe crew, and six of them were women.  The whole plant was about the same.  The men were mostly all teenage boys or men over the draft age.  In fact, I was not supposed to be working there, as I was only fifteen and not supposed to be working around machinery.  The boss came by one day and asked how old I was.  When I told him, he said if anyone asked I was to tell them I was sixteen, which was legal working age. 
     I worked there until school started the next year, when my mother talked me into going back to school.  It worked out alright, because Len came back in November and went to work in the shipyard, so there was more money for the family.
Raymond High School when Ned Needham graduated in 1920. It was replaced by the new high school (background) and became the elementary school. PCHS #11-18-87(5)
Raymond High School when Ned Needham graduated in 1920.  It was replaced by the new high school (background) and became the elementary school.  PCHS #11-18-87(5)
School 
     Entering school in Raymond was something else.  In my two years at Nahcotta, our largest class was seven.  In Raymond the classes would be twenty-five or thirty.  To me, Raymond was a big city, and this boy from the country was not going to be pushed around by those city slickers!  I did not have trouble with any of the students, but it did not take long to get into trouble with the faculty. 
     Once a week in a science class, we had a two-period class in which the juniors and seniors were together for one period.  The lower grades were in the same building as the high school.  The grades were on the lower floor with the high school on the top floor.  This senior must have come prepared, because he had a wooden spool and a long string.  He leaned out the window and was tapping on the window of the classroom below.  Of course he knew things would happen soon, so he got away from the window.  The teacher knew what was going on and so did Carl and I, but we were still by the window when the Superintendent came in.  He asked Carl and me if we had done it, and of course we said no.  The Superintendent said it must have been one of us. Carl didn’t say anything, so I told him we weren’t the only ones in the room.  The Superintendent said this had to stop.  I said, “go ahead and stop it, but to leave me alone.”  Then it got good. 
     The Superintendent said he didn’t like my tone of voice.  So I informed him I didn’t like his either, which went over real big.  He then went to the teacher and told her this would have to stop, and she told him it would.  But she didn’t tell him I didn’t do it.  A few days later, when we were alone, she razed me about one of those seniors getting me in trouble.  I guess this sort of set the tone for my two years in Raymond. 
     Not much more happened the rest of the year.  The juniors and sophomores, however, raided the seniors and freshman party.  We lifted the ice cream long before the party started and then came back to make them believe we were after it.  There were a few black eyes the next day.  My brother claimed I gave him one.  I remember trying, but I don’t remember hitting him. 
     Monday morning the principal got up in front of the school and said he could have us all in jail for house breaking.  I slid down in my seat and gave him a good loud horse laugh.  It didn’t help to laugh at him in front of the whole student body.  But we knew he couldn’t prove anything, since it all happened in the dark. 
     Then on graduation night, the Junior colors were on top of the flag pole.  I was not in on that and never did know who did it.  The rope was cut and the pole greased.  The Supt. climbed the pole and put the rope back.  The colors were cut up and worn by other classes and teachers.  The girls told us if we would get the colors back from the boys, they would take care of the girls and teachers.  There were some pretty good fights and torn clothes, but we got all our colors back. 
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     My senior year was 1919-1920, after being out two years along the way.  I was still one of the youngest in the class.  I refused to run for any class office, because I thought they should go to someone with four years in the Raymond school.  However, I did get elected as senior class representative to the student council.  I think this was the last year of student body control. 
     I was still having trouble with the faculty.  I got tossed out of chemistry class twice, but I was right each time, so they had to take me back. 
     The class of 1919 left money for a curtain on the stage, and we had promised to see that it was done.  We didn’t think much of the idea, but a promise is a promise.  The Superintendent was after a new high school, which he got in 1925.  He also took some money from the treasurer of the student council.  When we found out about it, we made him give it back.  We did manage to get the new curtains up.  He also tried to get the annual done his way or not at all.  We had to pressure the junior class to go ahead with it, even if we had to take it outside the school.  We won that one too, which did not improve relations. 
     Then when it came time to graduate and choose a valedictorian, the Superintendent wanted someone that was going to make a good impression on the public.  I got tired of arguing about who it was going to be and asked, “Why not the one with the highest grades?”  Me and my big mouth!  He said I was it.  I was sure a couple of the girls had higher grades, or I would have keep my mouth shut!  We kept fighting over it—he wanted to run the whole thing, and I didn’t want him to.  That was when we really tangled.  He called me down to the office where he and the principal were waiting.  In the argument that followed he threatened to throw me out of the office.  I told him to try it if he felt lucky, because the first one who touched me was going to get the best I had!  I guess my bluff worked, because that was the last run-in I had with the Superintendent. 
     I had learned some things by this time.  If you wanted money, you could have it if you were willing to give up everything else.  If you wanted to buck the powers that be, be sure you were right.  If you won an argument or proved someone a liar, you did not improve your popularity. 

Sports and Recreation 
     In my junior year I turned out for baseball and track.  In baseball I pitched with average success.  We didn’t even have a field at school.  Our other pitcher was a slow curve pitcher.  I was a fast ball pitcher with good control.  Track was a joke; mostly inter-class.  There was no training and no field, except for a cow pasture, if we could find one that didn’t have many cows in it.  My best events were long jump and high jump. 
     In my senior year I played basketball.  There were no leagues, and the gyms were dark and all kinds of sizes.  We did get a few games before the flu shut everything down.  The traveling was quite a bit different than the way it is done now.  To go South Bend we went by street car.  Then we had a trip to Ilwaco and Astoria.  We took the street car Friday morning to South Bend, then went by boat to Nahcotta, then by train to Ilwaco.  We played there on Friday night, took the train to Megler on Saturday morning, then went by boat to Astoria to play Saturday night.  There was no boat on Sunday, so we had to wait until Monday to start home, getting back Monday afternoon. 
     Our stay in Astoria was worth telling about.  We were only getting thirty dollars for traveling expenses for each game, so we had to pay part of the expenses ourselves.  While looking for a cheap hotel, the coach wound up in the red light district.  We knew where we were, but he didn’t get wise until he signed us in.  He wanted us to promise not to tell anyone where we stayed when we got home, but it was to good a story to keep still about! 
     Before I get on with my life after school, I will try to list some of the things we did to amuse ourselves both at home and at school.  Baseball was about the only game we played in Raymond.  I never saw one movie until I was fifteen years old and we moved to Raymond.  Maybe that is why I still remember it today.  When we were seven or eight years old, we went to Sunday school and church because it was something to do.  We even went to revival meetings, and sometimes that was quite a show! 
     As we got older, there was swimming with the neighbor kids.  When the tide was right in the evenings, we would meet and build a fire and play in the water for hours.  In the winter it was coasting or sledding.  There was a fair hill at our place.  People would come to coast at night.  We would have a fire to keep warm by.  We only had homemade sleds.  Then a Finn who dug clams for us made a couple of pairs of skis for him and us.  Some winters there were ice skating parties. 
     Then there were dances at homes that lasted all night.  You went home at daylight, milked the cows, and then went to bed.  When they got a hall for dances, things changed.  Whiskey started showing up, so people quit using the halls. 
     In the summer anything was used for an excuse for a picnic where baseball and other games were played.  One difference between then and now was that older people played with us. We did not expect anyone to amuse us, and we were on our own.  Parents were very tolerant of the things we did.  I think kids now miss a great deal by not having to find out for themselves.  We knew everything about the country for miles around, in the dark or daylight, because we had explored it on our own. 
     Finally school was over.  I had thought of college, but the finances at home took care of that.  Work was easy to find and the list of jobs I had held over the years would fill a book.  I always felt I could do any work anyone else could do if given a chance, which pretty well proved out over the years. 

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The Hart-Wood Mill where Ned Needham first worked in 1921. PCHS #6-29-84
The Hart-Wood Mill where Ned Needham first worked in 1921.  PCHS #6-29-84
Working in the Raymond Mills 
     The next years were filled with working and making a living.  My first job in a sawmill was really not in the mill, but hooking on a jitney out in the yard.  That did not last too long because the driver did not like Greeks, and there were lots of them working there.  Every time he saw one in the open he took after him.  They learned to look for that machine before they went anywhere.  The superintendent started to lecture me about it, so I quit. 

Shingle Mill 
     Next I went to work in the shingle mills.  I worked there off and on for the next fifteen years.  Unless you saw it you would not believe some of the things the shingle weavers did.  A sawyer in the morning would say that when he had cut so many thousand he would go home, no matter what time it was!  I have seen a sawyer in a twelve-machine mill stop his machine and call out “let’s go home,” and everyone would leave.  I heard a deck man say that if he had two bits he would quit his job.  Someone dug up the two bits, and he went to the office and quit. 
     The one story that topped them all was about a sawyer who was noted for the poor shingles he cut.  The boss told him to cut them like they were for his own house.  This worked for a while, then he went back to his old ways.  The boss returned and told him to continue to cut them as if they were still for his house.  The sawyer said, “I have enough for my house; these are for the back house.”  If a sawyer came to work, he was hardly ever fired; maybe just sent home to sober up. 
     In September of 1921 two of my classmates were going to start college at Whitman in Walla Walla.  As I had a girlfriend in Moscow, Idaho, I decided to take them to school and go on to Moscow; quite a trip in those days.  There were no surfaced roads after the Dalles, Oregon.  It was mostly sand with deep ruts from there to Walla Walla. 
     When I came back I went to the shingle mills again.  I had an eight-hour job, and Bill loaded all the boxcars and scows for a four-machine mill.  Some days were eighteen or twenty hours, then we would get a break for a couple of days. 

Hart-Wood Lumber Co. 
     In 1921 I took a job with the Hart-Wood Lumber Co., working on the boom.  There were two mills; one on the main Willapa river and one on the South Fork.  All logs to both the mills came in by water.  Me and one other boom man were busy dumping rafts for the two mills, or putting them in the storage boom where the port dock is now.  Sometimes if there were special orders we would have to get logs out of storage.  It was good work in the summer, but not so nice in the winter. 
     I went from that job to the feeding slip at one of the mills, and from there to running the log deck and scaling.  The mill was cutting mostly spruce, with logs running eight to ten feet in diameter.  The mill cut only about three logs an hour, so we had plenty of spare time.  They had a standing order for airplane and ladder stock. 

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     The Hart-Wood Co. was a very fair and good company to work for.  I always got more than the going wage.  This was still in the days of the company towns, although there were not many here.  McCormack and Wallville were near the Lewis Co. line, while Aloha, Corlisle, McCleary, and Cosmopolis were in Grays Harbor.  The company owned the store, the housing, the light plants, the water, and in some cases the heat.  You were never going to get ahead in these places.  The standard joke about McCleary was that it was the town you rode into and walked out of. 
     The Hart-Wood Co. had their own ships; steam schooners as they were called in the lumber trade; and they had four or five of them.  All the lumber companies had their own ships or were connected with some shipping company. 

Larson’s Mill 
     In the spring of 1923, I took a job with Larson and Cox, who had a small sawmill on Smith Creek about five miles out of town.  They cut all three-inch planks for the county’s plank roads, and Raymond had almost all plank streets.  This consisted of most of their market. 
     I was hired as a truck driver, but you had to work at everything, because they did their own logging.  I was a whistle punk, choker setter, chaser, timber faller, pond monkey, and worked on the carriage at times.  It was interesting because the changing kept it from being to monotonous, and it was all in the open air; even the mill had just a roof and open sides.  This was only a summer job, since the truck could not haul in the winter.  The mill shut down in the fall when bad weather came. 
     When winter came I went back to scaling on the log deck at the mill in town.  The sawyer at the mill had told me not to come back for the same money, because they had several men on the job that could not handle it.  My first day on the job I hit the boss up for a raise and got it.  Even when I did repair work I got that same wage, and others got less; I don’t know why.  I always was on repair work, but it was that way all the time, no matter where I worked. 
     The next spring when I went back to Larson’s to drive truck I had to agree to work the carriage too.  One also had to fall timber, work on the pond, and do anything else that was needed.  That was how I ended up sawing.  Larson’s partner was sawing, and I was doing the setting. He had a habit of having to answer nature’s call sometime in the forenoon.  At first I sat and waited for him to come back.  Then I began to set and saw while waiting for him.  After a time or two of this he took my place on the carriage when he came back and left me sawing.  He then hired a setter and sat and watched me for couple of days.  After a while he came to me and told me he was going to town and to go ahead and run things like it was mine. 
     The ladder stock had to be a better grade than the airplane stock.  The long lengths for fruit ladders had to be free of any knots or pitch pockets.  I remember it was cut into seven and one-half  inches by twelve-inch lengths and shipped to California to be manufactured. 
     As soon as Larson’s shut down in the fall of 1924, I went back to my old job at the Hart-Wood Co. for more pay.  The sawyer told me they had tried several men at the job, but none of them could get the log scale to match the mill cut.  Everywhere I worked I seemed to be on repair work whenever the mill was down.  That was fine for the money, but it didn’t leave you much time of your own.  We also didn’t get time and a half for overtime in those days.  They wanted me to work as a dogger on the carriage which I did for awhile when they were short a man, but I didn’t like it.  The owners tried to get me to stay by telling me I could work my way up to sawyer, but I knew better than that. 
     Come spring I went back to Larson’s.  This time I had to agree to ride carriage when the mill was running, which was alright as I was going to be married in a couple of months. 
     The next few years I worked sawing and logging in the summer for Larson’s.  I was really running the outfit.  I couldn’t hire, but I could get someone fired.  It had its headaches; some of the older men did not like taking orders from someone half their age. 

Marriage 
     In 1924 I got married to Juanita Hoyt.  I had said that before I married I was going to have a car and $1000 in the bank.  I didn’t quite make it, but I did have a car and $750 in the bank.  I had made arrangements for someone to take my place for a couple of weeks. 

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Wedding photograph of Ned and Juanita Needham in 1924. Photo courtesy of Needham family. 
Wedding photograph of Ned and Juanita Needham in 1924.  Photo courtesy of Needham family.
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The day before I was to take off, I was laid off because the lumber mills went on strike, which shut us down too.  We got married anyway and took off for Spokane to see some of my wife’s relations, then to Bremerton to see some more. 
     I figured things might be better when we got back, but they were not.  The strike was still on, so my step-father, my brother, my brother-in -law, and myself went peeling cascara bark for a couple of months.  In fact, we peeled nine tons of dry bark.  We could make better than wages without working too hard.  I don’t remember when the strike ended. 
     In 1925 I drove dump truck for awhile on a road job.  I also went back and forth between the sawmill and the shingle mill for several years. 
     In 1926 I took a timber falling job for a timber outfit.  There were eleven sets of fallers; nine were Finnish.  It was a good job, but the timber was old with second growth mix.  We had two saws; a ten-footer and an-eight footer.  The timber ran from sixteen inches in diameter to twelve-foot cedars to nine-foot firs.  In 1928 we bought a place in Raymond (two rooms and a lean-to kitchen) for $850.  Thirty-five years later when we sold it, it was five rooms and a double garage.  All the work I did myself, even digging a full basement by hand.
A Raymond veneer plant peeling veneer from large blocks. PCHS #1993.4
A Raymond veneer plant peeling veneer from large blocks.  PCHS #1993.4
Railroad Tie Mills 
     In 1929 Larson burned out, but he rebuilt.  This was the year the tie mills began to move in, most of them from around Morton in Lewis County.  One of the first tie mills here was owned by Ernest Rhoades, a real estate man in Raymond.  It was set up on the hill northeast of Raymond and could be seen from downtown.  He tried to sub-contract some of orders to Larson’s mill where I was working, but Larson’s did not have the set up for sawing ties.  Another mill was on Olson’s place on Butte Creek.  I was never in that mill.  Chambers had two mills; one on Elk Creek and the other on Rue Creek (the one I ran later). 
     After Larson’s burned out, Harold Dixon and I went bucking veneer blocks for the Butz brothers on Butte Creek.  We had one of the old Vaughn drag saws which could give you gray hair in a hurry.  They were powered by a two-cycle gas engine, and you never knew when it was going to run.  They were bulky and heavy and a match for any two men on rough ground. 
     A short time into our block cutting job, I got word that Chambers wanted to see me.  He wanted me to run his Rue Creek mill under contract for so much a tie.  I was to hire and pay my off-bearers, while the rest of the crew was his.  When he got through telling me what he wanted, I told him what I wanted.  That surprised him some.  I told him that if I had to have something for the mill I didn’t want to have to run him down to get it.  He then fixed credit for me at the two hardware stores.  I found it better to have all these things understood before you took the job rather than afterwards. 
     The mill began operations in September, 1929, and that’s when the crash came.  My sister and her husband lost their jobs in Hoquiam, so I went and got them and put him to work for me.  That didn’t last long, as the bust caught up with us too.  The owner went over to Grays Harbor to look into pulpwood cutting, which was just starting up.  When he came back he said the bread and soup line looked better than cutting pulp. 

The Depression 
     It was not exactly grapes of wrath here, but it wasn’t much better.  The first couple of years there was no unemployment and no welfare payments.  We were not harassed by police the way people in the cities were.  We got by mostly by scratching and clawing and doing anything to make a buck.  Here in the county where you were known, your credit was good.  Some of it was never paid.  I finally paid all of mine; milk, phone, grocery, and gas bills. 
     I got a job in a veneer plant in February, 1930, starting at three dollars a day.  In a few days they raised me to $3.50 a day without me asking about it.  I was beating a mule out of job loading rail cars. 
     That fall I got fired for refusing to do something that wasn’t my work.  Then a few weeks after I was fired, the company sent for me to come back. 

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They had fired the Superintendent that fired me.  I told them I would not take the job and take orders from the mill Superintendent.  They said that was okay and put me in charge of all the shipping; rail and trucks; at much better pay.  I also took orders from the office only.  I was getting in some extra hours, because the phone would often ring and I would have to go back and load a truck in the evening. 
     When I left the veneer plant the banks were failing or closed by the government.  You couldn’t get a check cashed, and there was no money.  The cities started printing their own script.  Raymond and South Bend had what they called oyster money until banks opened again.  We didn’t have any money in the Raymond bank when it failed, but our boy had about $100 in savings.  The bank finally paid off around 80%, but in three or four payments, since there was never much money in the bank at any one time. 
     I guess these times had some good results as it brought people together to help each other and to care.  At first there was no other help, then the “letters” game began; the N.R.A., the C.C.C., and the W.P.A..  I never became involved with any of them, but most of my friends did.  The N.R.A. put more men to work, even me. 
     The C.C.C. did useful work, like building trails and roads, but was mostly for the young men who lived in camps.  The W.P.A. was more or less a joke.  It did things to people’s pride, such as cleaning the same ditch several times a year.  It did keep a good many people fed and housed. 
     There was also a food bank were surplus food was given out once a week.  I never got any, but many did as I remember.  They had rice, beans, and a cheap grade of unbleached flour.  The amazing thing through all of this was that there was very little stealing going on.
Ties stacked at a railroad loading dock in Morton during the 1940s. Photo courtesy of Dan Forrest.
Ties stacked at a railroad loading dock in Morton during the 1940s.  Photo courtesy of Dan Forrest.
Weyerhaeuser Co. 
     The first time I worked for the Weyerhaeuser Co. (that was in 1933) I worked on the lumber stacker.  The government made the company work a man only five days a week and the mills were running six.  The worst part of it was you never knew what day you were going to have off.  The boss would just come along and tell you to stay home tomorrow.  Another thing I did not like was that, when they were short a man on the dry chain, I was their man, and I never liked pulling lumber. 
      By now I had one of the best jobs around.  I was getting twice the going wage.  I had to handle all the shipping, even the paper work for all cars that were shipped.  If I used my own car to take the papers to the depot the company would pay my gas, or if my car was not there, they loaned me a company car.  Sometimes I felt sorry for the office girl.  The railroad would call and ask what cars I wanted put in, and she would have to run me down.  They would not take anyone else’s word.  That’s where my working in the office was a big help.  I saw the orders as they came in and knew what size cars I had to have. 
     It was a good place to work.  When my wife came down with tuberculosis and had to go to a sanitarium, I went in and asked for an advance on my wages.  They just said how much and wrote a check.  I could pay it back at five or ten dollars a month.  Any month I didn’t, I could just tell them.  The bad part was I had just gotten it paid off when my job ended. 

Back to the Tie Mills 
     In 1933, more tie mills began moving in here.  I went to work for one that had three partners from Seattle.  What an outfit; a horse team logger, a tinsmith, and a circulation man. 

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The last was the boss.  He and his wife were both alcoholics.  I don’t know who told them about me.  They were going to make a lot of money.  They had a big crew, not too bad a sawmill, but poor power.  These mills would go to a junk yard and get an old car motor, which was not good power even when you could keep one running. 
     In a short time, this company could not pay their crew.  I don’t know why, but someone was always asking me what I would do if I was in their place.  I told him to get rid of his big crew, at least until he got things running better.  He did, and three of us ran the outfit.  He paid me two weeks wages every week until he caught up. 
     One thing happened that was rather funny.  The boss was the off-bearer at the mill.
The schooner Cascade loading railroad ties at the dock in South Bend. PCHS #8-27-80-6(6)
The schooner Cascade loading railroad ties at the dock in South Bend.  PCHS #8-27-80-6(6)
He lived near the mill and often went home for lunch.  When he came back he was almost falling down drunk.  I didn’t notice until I started the mill up, and then I never cut a tie.  I shut the mill down.  He wanted to know what was the matter.  I told him if he wanted the mill to run to get someone to take his place.  He made quite a fuss, but he didn’t have the money to pay me off, so he got another man to take his place. 

A Business Partnership 
     In 1934, I ended up in a four-way partnership in a tie mill.  Len Wentworth had a gas donkey for logging, Walt Smith was a logger and high climber, and Gam Schooler had a flatbed truck partly paid for.  I had nothing; only experience running a tie mill.  None of the others had ever worked around a tie mill.  I stalled for some time, as I did not have the $125 to buy in.  The bank would put up the money then take it out of the mill earnings when we began operating.  I tried to tell my partners that we would not get rich, but might make a living.  Another drawback to the mill was we had to build two bridges and a thousand feet of road before any money would be coming in. 
     There were few jobs around, so anything was better than nothing.  I knew a partnership was sure to have its ups and downs.  Wentworth was a hard man to get along with and also hard on the crew.  He was clear out of step with the younger generation as he had very little to do with raising his own family; mainly because he was never home very much.  When we were all growing up, Smith was a cocky little guy who always wanted to be a big shot.  He was a good logger and a fair high climber.  Schoolar was one of those men everybody picked on, and he never fought back.  I think my main fault was I was too much of a perfectionist.  But I was always told that one should do the job to the best of one’s ability. 
     It didn’t take long for the trouble to start.  The tie broker cut the price of ties.  I went to all the other mills to try to get them to turn the order down, but they would not.  We turned it down, and in week or so we got the same order for the old price.  Then Smith wanted out of the partnership, so we bought him out. 

Union Trouble 
     In 1936 the sawmills, shingle mills, boommen, and the longshoremen went on strike for a six-hour day and seventy-five cents an hour instead of being paid by the day.  We offered to join the union and, being we were already paying more than that, we gave our crew a six-hour day even though they had not asked for it.  The union then started telling us what we could and could not do.  I could not file saws or oil the mill before start-up time.  We had to pay someone to do it.  We had some hemlock we had to pay for, so we decided to pulp it by running it through the mill.  We could go to the union hall and get all the men we wanted for three dollars a day and no limit on the hours.  The way things worked was strange. 
     The sawmills and the loggers lost the strike.  The shingle mills, boommen, and the longshoremen won.  The shingle mills were the only ones who wanted six-hour days.  The others wanted the overtime.  The longshoremen are still getting their overtime. 
     After the longshoremen won, they decided they were going to load the trucks at the mill.  They thought they were going to load a truck and sit and wait for it to come back from the dock.  Well, I fixed that. 

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I went to all the mills, and we agreed to send all the trucks to one mill; that way they had trucks waiting in line all day.  One day was all it took, and they went back to the docks. 
     While the strike was on, the port dock became blocked with ties, and we had to hold them at the mill.  The broker then would not advance us any money on them.  A new export company had started in Aberdeen.  We drove over to meet the man on the street, and in about twenty minutes we had made a deal.  I asked him when he would pay for the ties.  He said he would pay the next week for all on the dock that were inspected, which he did.  Those at the mill he took my word for, and every week he would pay my tally, less one dollar which was the price for hauling.  He said we could do the hauling if we wanted, and he would pay us the dollar.
A printed card used to advertise the benefits of union membership in the early 1930s. PCHS #1998.62.39
A printed card used to advertise the benefits of union membership in the early 1930s.  PCHS #1998.62.39
     When everything had settled down, the Aberdeen broker again wanted our business.  My partners wanted to split the business between the port dock and Aberdeen, but I said no.  The Aberdeen outfit was good enough to help us out in tough times, so he should get all our business, and he did for as long as we operated. 
     We now began to make some money so that, when something broke, we could afford to buy new instead of patching.  We had a new Holt tractor motor, the best and cheapest power plant around, new lines on the donkey, and a new saw for the mill. 

Back to Odd Jobs 
     In 1937, the mill was down to two partners, me and Len Wentworth.  Smith and Schoolar were gone.  With Smith gone I took on the climbing job.  I would never have picked that as a way to make a living.  I seemed to get pushed into it.  Three or four times someone else was supposed to do it, but instead they talked me into doing it.  I never did top a tree.  I hung guylines and blocks, but I never did feel much at home up there.  Besides, it was hard work!  The small outfits never had much to work with.  You could be anywhere from seventy to eighty feet up with a seventy-five pound block in your lap trying to hook the yoke through one-inch cable eyes. 
     We finished that mill setting in November, 1937.  We looked at two or three pieces of timber, but found nothing that suited us.  Elk season had opened on Grays Harbor and Len went hunting.  I made a trip around the Olympic loop to look for more timber, which we really didn’t need.  The Japanese had moved into China, and that market was gone.  That was the last ties we cut.  I finally moved the mill into my backyard. 
     Jobs were still scarce.  I sawed in a stud mill at the port dock until they ran out of logs.  I hooked behind a cat for a short time.  Then I went to work falling timber on the power lines from Raymond to Chehalis.  That was good work, but the pay was not too good.  We worked clear to the east of Pe Ell, but were always back in Raymond by five o’clock.  This job ended in May when the brush crew had a brush fire get away.  I found some work in the shingle mills, but they were only running three or four days a week.  You couldn’t live very high on that. 
     Stud mills were beginning to start up.  The Olympic Hardwood mill sent word they wanted to see me, but when I found out what they were paying I didn’t go.  I said I wouldn’t saw for less than six dollars a day, and I never did.  When I heard that Case’s was to be another stud mill, I went after the sawing job, but I did not get it at that time. 
     In September of 1941, we sold the tie mill to a logger who was stuck with dirt roads when the rains came.  Plank and rock had become too expensive.  The only way he would buy the mill was if I would go along to run it.  That was fine with me, as he paid me nine dollars a day.  I still could not get away from that seven-day week.  The mill crew, once we had plank enough for the roads, were ready to run by the time the rains came.  We did all new road building and repairing the main roads on Sundays, when the trucks were not running.  Then in December of 1941, the war came and it changed everything. 

Editor’s Note: Ned Needham’s story will be continued in a later issue of the Sou’wester. 

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A Pacific County cascara bark peeling camp, probably similar to the one in which Ned Needham worked for two months near Raymond in 1924. PCHS #4-16-69-1(31)
A Pacific County cascara bark peeling camp, probably similar to the one in which 
Ned Needham worked for two months near Raymond in 1924.  PCHS #4-16-69-1(31)
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The Olympic Hardwood Co. and Machine Shop, circa 1943. Photo donated by Clarence Flesher. PCHS #2000.1.1 
The Olympic Hardwood Co. and Machine Shop, circa 1943. 
Photo donated by Clarence Flesher.  PCHS #2000.1.1
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