HomeMy Public PortalAboutHays, PatrickRELEASE OF TAPES TO IDAHO BICENTENNIAL COMMISSION'S ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
I. 1---Cji atAA
on this day,
hereby give and grant to the Idaho State Historical. Society and the Idaho
Bicentennial Commission es a donation for such scholarly and educational
purposes as the Idaho Historical. Society and the Idaho Bicentinnial Commissi-)n
shall determine, the tare recordings made today, and all literary rights therein.
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E
RELEASE Or TAnS TO I3?AHO BI ;ENTENNIAL COMMISSION'S OPAL HISTORY PROJECT
1, H ¢1.-
on this day, M1/ S (T7
l
hereby give and grant to the Idaho State Historical Society and the Idaho
Bicentennial Commission as a donation for such scholarly and educational
purposes as the Idaho Historical. Society and the Idaho Bicentennial Commission
shall determine, the tape recordings made today, and all literary rights therein.
(.0i tness)
44�.
Pat Hayes and Ted Burgess
with Joe Bennett
and Doug Jones
May 5, 1976
Page 1
OH 41 9
;Old "Today's date is May 5, 1976, We are conducting an interview between Mr. Pat
Mayes and Mr, Ted Burgess and Mr, Joe Bennett for the purpose of recording
oral history, This conversation is being tape recorded at the Boise -Cascade
offices in McCall. The time now is approximately 1:45."
JOE 140.K. Pat, I want to ask you first tell us how far back you can go with your
grandfather."
PAT "Well, my grandfather lived in Ireland, My grandparents on my mother's side
lived in Scotland. My father was what they called an Inland Revenue Officer
which is the same as an Internal Revenue officer in this country, prior to
World War I."
JOE "When did they come to this country?"
PAT "My father was killed in World War I in the British Army. My oldest brother
came here in 1920 and my mother came later and brought all the rest of the kids
here in 1921. There were five other children."
JOE "All boys?"
PAT "No, there was four boys and two girls,"
JOE "How many of them is still around?"
PAT "There's two boys and two girls. They all live in Idaho.
JOE "You came to McCall, when?"
i'A: "I came to McCall to work in 1936. I had been in the area previously just to
visit. I first went to school at Ustick, Idaho, After leaving there I want to
PAT
JOE
PAT
JOE
TED
JOE
TED
JOE
TED
JOE
TF"'"
Page 2
"work for cattle outfits, sheep outfits for a year or two. Then I went to
Link's Business College. Then I went to work for Boise -Payette Lumber Company
in 1926 in Boise Basin.
they latter dismantled.
Boise -Fayette and their
"You were married after
"Yes"
"Ted, can
That's when they had the old big Barber saw mill that
After that I worked in the logging operations for
contractors till 1936, when I came to McCall."
you came to McCall."
you tell us about your grandparents?"
"Well, I don't believe I can go back quite as far as Pat. My grandparents
and my folks both came from Oklahoma. Dad and mother moved out here in 1916
I believe it was. They moved to Meridian, Idaho. Of course, I was born here
in Idaho and lived here all my life. I've never worked out of state. The
only time I've been out of state you might say was when I was in the service."
"HowW.many were in your family?"
"We had quite a crew. There was ten of us children. We've been real fortunate,
they're all alive but one. I have one sister out of state, the rest of them are
here in Idaho."
"Where do you come in there at:?"
"I'm the third from the oldest. I have two older sisters and then myself. I'm
the: oldest boy."
"Where did you get your schooling?"
"I went to grade school and high school at Meridian. Then I spent a hitch in
the Army during peace time. I come out of the Army and went to work at the
Page 3
TED "dld Ridenbaugh Lumber Yard at Boise at 4th and Main. I got married in 1938.
For a wedding present my boss gave me a two year scholarship at Links Business
College. I worked there in the lumber yard for several years. My father-in-
law was the bookkeeper there. Then the manager, George Kitting, passed away
I guess about '39. My father-in-law then took over as manager and I took over
the bookkeeping there after I went to school. I worked there for several
years and then I went to work for M-K on the railroad division as a welder. I
worked there a couple of years and then Uncle Sam caught me for a couple, three
years in the service. I come back from the service and went to work in Boise
for Yanke Machine Shop and worked there a year. Then I went to work up on
Dry Buck at a little one horse saw mill for Yensen. I worked there a couple
of summers, it was just a summer deal then. I worked there for a couple of years
and then they were starting up a little portable mill in Garden Valley and they
wanted me to go over there. So I went over to Garden Valley and I was there
till '54. I did go to Horseshoe Bend for one summer. I'd kind of put a word
out that I would like a mill right job at some saw mill. One day a fella by
the name of Ralph Paris stopped in, I didn't know him. He said, 'I have a
little saw mill up in McCall I'd like you to come take a look at and see what
you think.' So I come up here and when I seen this country I knew that's
what I wanted. So I come up here in '54 and worked for Paris and Brown at the
saw mill here on Lake Fork. I worked there and it burned down once and we
rebuilt it and it burned down again in the fall of '63. In between Mr. Brown
had bought Paris out. So when it burned down the second time Mr. Brown moved
me here to McCall. Then in the fall of '64 Boise -Cascade bought him out.
J-
Page 4
TED "When they took over they offered me job as foreman, which was the position
I worked in until two years ago when I went to the managing job here, which
I still have. I have three children. Two of them are married and my
daughter, she's in Boise. I have one son, that's the manager of the Elgin mill
over in Oregon for Boise -Cascade,"
JOE "O,lc., then I'll ask Pat more about how he hai done and then I'll have you tell
us somthing about these saw mills. Pat, when did you come up here?"
PAT "I came here in the fall of 1936, prior to that I'd been in th.ts area."
JOE 'Nrhiat did you do when you came up here?"
PAS: "Weill, I spent about half of lay time in the office and half my time in the
woods. I was kind of a jack-of-all-trades when I first came here."
JOE "Were they running; the mill the year round when you came here, Pat?"
PAT "No, they normally operated from somewhere around the 20th of April and they
were often able to operate up to About Christmas time, When tte lake frose
over that was the end of it. There was no way at that time to keep part of
it open."
JOE 'Eat they did log in the winter."
PAT "Yes"
JOE "Were they logging the with horses when you came?"
PAT "Yes"
JOE "They used the big; Hinkley sleigh."
PA' ' *No, the year before I came was when they stopped that. They were logging with
trucks when I came: but still doing all the skidding with horses and part of the
Page 5
PAT "loading was done with horses. They had at that time bought a small loading
crane."
JOE "What kind of trucks did they have, Pat?"
PAT "They had little ton and a half Internationals."
JOE "How much wood did they haul?"
PAT "They loaded them to about three times what they should have. It was a single
axle truck, with a single axle trailer. They'd often times put a 4500 on
them and awiy they'd go. All you had was a vacuum brake for the truck and
a vacuum brake for the trailer."
33 "Was McMurren here when you came?"
PAT "No, he had left the year before."
JOE "Did you know anything about his outfit at all?"
PAT "No, except as I understand it they were the first,, no they weren't the first
ones that trucked logs for Brown. They were the second ones. There was an
outfit from Boise that came in here, a construction outfit. I can't remember
the name of them. But the trucks they used had what they called athey tracks
on the back. You've seen these old arches they used to use."
JOE 'bh yeah"
PAT "Well, these trucks had that on the rear and this constrution company had
formerly used these big, huge dump trucks on a construction jib. They hauled
logs from over in the Rock Flat area to McCall with these same trucks. I can't
think of what the name of that outfit was. They had a big yard on Fairview
Avenue. But they came in here before McMurren. Then McMurren came in with his
4
Page 6
PAT "hard rubber tires. Then the next ones that came to replace them was the
Phillip's brothers."
JOE "Whet kinds of trucks did they have?"
PAT "They had Dodge trucks, ton and a half trucks._ They'd overlord them, too."
.TOE "I remember your brother saying one time, 'Ray Koskie's got a Ford truck can
haul more logs them all the others because he loads just what he can haul and
brings them in.'"
PAT "Well, that was a Ford truck of Brown's. This was just a little, old, dinky,
V-S, I think it had a 300 cubic inch engine in it. It had a short wheel base.
Ray was a good driver. They'd put like 3000, 3500 on this little old Ford and
he'd go back and forth all day. Log hauling was a lot easier then than it is
now. A lot of it was down hill. Like all this area around the lake, you could
come to the lake. Today you couldn't start to do that."
JOE "You were here when they first started hauling out of the South Fork, in '42
wes it."
PAT "No, that road wasn't built until '46, I believe. Then Brown's went up and
built a camp at the Reed ranch,,. The first job we had was in there on Phoebe
Creek. But in the mean time they changed to longer logs."
JOE "From short logs to long logs. What you mean by the short log was the sixteen
foot long log?"
PAT "Sixteen to twenty, well, ten to twenty were short logs. Then of course your
long; log instead of cutting sixteen you cut thirty-two's and then thirty-two's
to forty's."
Page 7
JOE "What kinds of rigs did they use to haul out of the South Fork?"
PAT "Well, at first they used what they called international Hallscots, they had
twelve foot bunks on them. They were really off -highway, they were built for
off -highway use,"
JOE "How many did they haul?"
PAT 'WI, I've seen them come in with nine, ten, eleven thousand, it was unbelieveable
what they'd haul."
,DOE "I've heard they'd even haul as high as eighteen thousand,"
PAT "I don't think they were quite that big. For a period of two or three years
we had to haul over public roads with highway trucks from White Bird to McCall.
Then we started doing it from the South Fork because of the traffic. In the
woods we used off -highway trucks. With sixteen foot bunks on them with a center
stake. Then we had a machine with a boom on it. At the transfer landing
they'd come down the road with two loads, you might say, side by side each
load eight feet wide. They'd unload them as a package. Each half Is load
was a package, that was a highway load. This rig would set the whole load onto
a highway truck and send it off to town and take the next one and set it on the
next truck. The one with the sixteen foot bunks went back into the woods and
brought out some more. They did this for three, four years. It was the only
way they could utilize these big trucks. The law even gave us a bad time
coming in from over here by Little Lake into town with twelve foot bunks."
3Y "When you finally got on the highway what was theload limits on there?"
PAT "We normally had a load of 5000, fifty-five hundred feet on the highway truck,
0
Page 8
PAT "Tbe overall width was eight :feet."
JOE "Hcw was those logs brought down to the trucks, Pat?"
PAT "Well, at that time most of it: was done with ground skidding tractors. They'd
pretty well got away from the horses, '45, '46 was then they got rid of the
last horses."
JOE "Dry you remember when they first started in with the power saws?"
PAT "About that same time."
TED "47, '48, I believe Pat."
PAT "At that time Brown's got a lAttle D-2 Can and generator. You could run two
saes off of tt but not on steep country. You couldn't get around with your
Cat and get your cable run out: long enough. So they finally came out with
gasoline powers saws. The first power saw we bought were Distens. They cost
seven hundred and sixty-five dollars a piece and weighed a hundred and ten
pounds. It took two men to operate it. On steer ground that was a job to handle
a saw that size and fall a tree. It: took two good men to handle it. The things
they've done with them since is unbelieveable. They've become a little old
saw, weighing twenty-five pounds, and the ratio of power to weight has been
greatly improved.
END OF SIDE ONE
JOE "Ted, can you tell us something about some of them first saw mills you worked in?"
TET "Oh, when I started working they was talking about this forty hour week. Like
Pat said, we didn't know what that was. Up at Dry Buck we would just go to
.w.. Y a.. -1^
Page 9
TED "work at daylight till dark because we didn't have no power up there. Every-
thing was run by steam. We didn't have a sight of a light up at that mill so
when dark came we had to quit. I thought that was a pretty good deal because
we couldn't work 24 hours a day. I enjoyed it; it was a small mill, but it was
quite efficient."
JOE "How much timber could you saw there in a day?"
TED IN that mill up there we'd saw about twenty thousand."
JOE "What kind of saws did you have?"
TED "Circle saws."
JO'. "Did you do anything with the lumber there?"
TED "No, it was loaded on trucks and come down the Dry Buck hill and into Boise
where they pranssed it."
JOE "That Box mill was a complete mill, wasn't it?"
TED "No, that was strictly a rough mill, also. It was a circle saw, they were
bigger and things ,° would probably work harder than the others. In that mill
we probably sawed around fifty thousand in just one shift. That was sent to
Boise."
JOE "That Barber mill, Pat what was it like. It was a real modern mill."
PAT "It was a big mill, it was bigger than Emmett. It had three head rigs, besides
the re -saws."
JOE "Explain it to me. What is your head rig?"
PAT "That's where the logs are fed to a deck and then to a carriage and fed directly
to a saw. In athkr words most saw mills,like this one in McCall, have got one
log slip. So one with three head rigs would dmost be the same as three saw
4s°
Page 10
PAT "mills side by side. They'd get terrific production out of a milll.like that.
They closed that down and abandoned what they called the Intermountain Railway
Company. They tore out the railroad track in Moores Creek and Grimes Creek
and quit logging because they thought with the methods of logging they had then
that they could get no more timber. It wasn't but a few years after that they
were hauling timber past the same old saw mill site and hauling it all the way
to Emmett out of that same area. That was because the logging methods had im-
proved that much and they still do. The road construction has helped an awful
lot. They've still got conventional logging, skidding on the ground with
Cats in certain area that previously they thought they couldn't log. Of
course, the helicopter, that's the newest thing. The baron was one thing
and they found out: that the helicopter was better than the balloon."
JOE "Dial you see some of the chutj4 logging and some of the first logging that
Boise -Payette did? Did they arch log?"
PAT "One of my first jobs was greasing the chute: What they would do on-zthese
chutes on the flat: area they'd have to grease them. On the arec.swheee it was
steep, they'd go from one incline to another, they sometimes used what they
called the goose neck which was a little metal thing that was made just like
a goose neck. It was screwed into the chute and it would tear into the log and
hold it back to slow it down.'
JOE "Tell us what t chute was like_."
Pb- "They actually layed ties just like you would do on a railroad track only they
were about five feet wide. Logs were layed out on these ties. They they hewed
them to a 'v' shape and pinned them down. Of course they would match them on
rage 11
PAT "the ends. Then on the curves when there was a danger of logs running out they
put a shear pole on the curve above the log."
JOE "Down on the flat how did they move?"
PAT "With horses."
JOB '"they hooked the horses onto a string of logs?"
PAT "Yes, and whenever they came to a place where they would run, they'd let them
run and another team would pick them up down below. It's surprising what a
team of horses can move and the boss was always emphasizing now don't you be
lazy. When you start that trail of logs you space them. So you got down in
front and you kicked them apart with a peavie so there was a space between
them. Then you go back to the middle and kick apart two or three more.Then
you go back and speak to the team and they start with the first logs and they
pick up the others as they go, but they'd start with the back. These horses
were trained, they didn't run with these things they plodded with them. When
that little extra load came on they just pulled harder and took it away. But
you couldn't move that load from a standing start, you had to space these logs
out."
JOE "Boise -Payette started here in '16. That's according to Mrs. Kerby, that what
she said. She was John Morgan's daughter."
PAT "John Morgan was Boise-Payette's master mechanic at Cabarton. Of course, you
know how that town got the name Cabarton, don't you?"
JO' "Oh yes, from C.A. Barton."
4:
Page 12
z.
FAT 'bl.d C.A. Barton the president of the company."
jOB "Dial you log with the shays at all in the past?"
PAT "Yes, well on the landings, I never did work on the railroad itself. See,
with horse logging; when they skidded down the chutes the logs went right down
to the railroad landing."
JOE "The railroad was built around the foot of the hills and up the draws."
FAT "Yeah, of course they sometimes had a landing as far as the railroad could go up
the, draw. They'd just make a good sized landing. I've seen where 25 million
feet come out to one landing, by the series of chutes that came out of different
draws."
JOE "Then when they got the Cats were you out there?"
PAT "Yes, the first Cats they got were little, dinky, what they called 30,0Gas Cats,
gasoline engines. They replayed the horses pulling on the chutes, that was
the first thing."
JOE "I think of when they tell the stork► that McGregor bought some Fordsons first."
PAT "They couldn't do anything with them. You know what would happen to them? You
put; a load on them and the draft was wrong on them and they would tip over
backwards. They were dangerous and they hurt people. But the little Cats,
they could handle it."
JOE "They were about the first Cats built after Holt sold out to Best. Then they
decided Best wasn't doing what: he should and formed the Caterpillar Tractor
Company."
At
Page 13
PAT "In 1929 for a little while I drove an old five ton Holt, one of the genuine
Bolts. It was made before they merged."
JOE "I worked with the Best Cats and the only way you could turn them was with
the front wheel. It took forty acres to turn one of them around:"
PAT "The next kind they went to from that was a GU -Gas Cat, which is one that was
started with a bar. They thought they really had something then. They used
that for skidding and used them with a dozer to build roads."
JOE "Ted, how did they log there?"
TEE "Well, they was just getting done with horse logging when I got there. There
was two teams skidding when I went up there. The second year there that was
the end of horse logging up in that country."
JOE "Mrs. Kerby mentioned hauling their house logs with a horse truck. I don't
know whether you boys know what a horse truck was."
PAT "Yes, we had some over here. We weren't using them. They had terrific heavy
wheels on them. The axles and the whole thing were made terrifically heavy.
They had double steel tires and they hauled logs around as they would on a
sleigh. They had all kinds of methods of logging."
JOE "Can you remember any other method they used to get the logs in with?"
PAT "Behind the Cat they used what they called a pan. It was a heavy, half ronnd
steel pan that hooked right to the draw bar of the Cat. When they winched
the logs in, which was the theory, it worked fine except when you got up into
too steep of country. The front end of the logs would oame up on this pan and
Page 14
PAT "the whole thing rode without digging in. Just a big, steel pan was all it
war. Then they later come on with the arches. They were better for longer
distance."
JOE "They lifted up the front end."
PAT "They carried the front end. They were mounted on tracks and of course your
witch went right up through the arch in the Cat and lifted the front end."
JOE "They arched them quite a ways."
PAT "That's when they had a little_ longer skidding using the arch. With an arch
you had to maneuver around and you had to more or less have a 3o6d road for
it, not a good road, but a good trail."
"Have you ever seen a dray`"
'AT "Well, that was like what we called a bummer. You just loaded one end, this
bummer was similar to that. They used it behind the Cat in the summer time and
it had a bunk on it. It had ;short tracks on it. They loaded the front end
up on that and dragged the bark end„"
JOE "What kind of horse power did you have to run that, Ted?"
TED "It was steam."
JOE "Do you know what the horse power was?"
TED "Ho, I don't. It was just a regular steam engine. They did have a deisel that
turned the saws but the rest of it was steam. That mill over there,: now that
I've thought about it, how things have changed in the last thirty years that
I've been in the saw mill business. The sawyer set his own rachets, He'd go
through and take a: slab off and come back and tend the lever there and reach
I
T'
Page 15
TED "over there and grab that lever and set his or rachet the way it would go. He
had to turn his own log. He had a table come down and hook on it and the
steam engine there and he hooked that and flipped that over and worked slicker
than a button hole. Then when he went to Garden Valley it was getting a little
more modern there we had a rachet setter. You had a big, long lever there to
set rachet. Of course we had what we called the hook turner. The hook come
up and grab that log and turn it over. The bigger mills like this one was,
they had two men on the carrier, a setter and a dogger. Then the little mill
but here at Lake Fork had a setter on it, a man setting racheta. One day Warren
came out and he said, 'Ted, what do you think of these automatic set workers,
do you think they'd work?' I had read a little about it and never did see one
or know what they looked like. I'm a great hand to try something new and I
said, 'You bet.I think that's the best thing in the world for a saw mill. ' So
we got on the stick and ordered one and the factory come in and put it in.
That took the man off the carriage and that was one of the best things that ev€sr
did happen to a saw mill. It gave the sawyer more freedom, he didn't have to
worry about that man and he cut more lumber."
JOE "That was considered a pretty modern little mill, wasn't it?"
TED "When we rebuilt it it was all modern. We'd done away with our tail sawyer
which was a dirty job."
JOE "What is a tail sawyer?"
TEP "He'd grab the slab and see that they got down the roll case and drop this gate
and that gate."
END OF SIDE TWO
Vt' Z:
Page 16
JOE "Now give us that again."
TED "Well, when we did rebuild out here we went back to the automatic set works and
done away with the tail sawyer. That just turned the sawyer loose there, he
didn't have nobody to worry about except himself. Of course he was pretty
well protected, it did increase your production. Everything that come from
that mill was all rough and we shipped up here to Brown Tie. That was one of
the first things that Boise-Cascade done when they gook over this mill was to
put: in the automatic set work. The second thing they done was do away with
the tail sawyer. Everything here is all pretty much modern and computerized
that all the sawyer had to to is just poke a button. Then like I said, a
while ago another advantage to this automatic set works is where you had a
setter on the carriage the sawyer would give signals. Maybe when that board
fell off on the other end he didn't want it and he told the setter, that way
it 'a already set out. This 'way if he sees he doesn't want it all he'd have
to do is poke a different button and correct the mistakes just like that. Just
one of the best things that ever happened to the saw mill industry."
.IOC "I think it prolaably was. I know it speeded everything up and it made it a lot
safer and a lot better job of sawing it."
TED "Any more in the saw mill those boards are very seldom touched by man till they
get out on the green chain and in your modern mills now man never touches them."
PAT "Another thing that's happened that eliminated what I thought was one of the
toughest jobs in the mill was edging. Now, he sits on a chair and pushes
buttons, he never touches the boards. Before he had to handle all those boards
Page 17
PAT "and set the saws for width."
TED "It's all enclosed now and air conditioned and sound proof. He just sits up
there and pushes a button."
JOE "Tell us about your saws. Your saws are so much different."
TED "Here at McCall we have just the one head rig and it's a double cut, nine foot
double cut."
JOE "What does a double cut mean?"
TED "You can get a board going both ways. You don't lose that time coming back
empty, in other words."
JOB Yotr saws are different. It isn't an old round bust saw."
•
"ED "No, this is a band saw. It's a continous saw."•
"What's the length?"
TED "Fifty-two feet."
JOE "How big a log can you cut?"
TED "I can cut a fifty-five inch, no Problem."
PAT "They cost around a thousand."
TED "Ho, they're around seven hundred. They have gone up. We average a saw a month.
It wears out, well a lot of things enter into that. If you just wore them
out I think we could get by on seven or eight saws a year. But then every
once in a while seems like there's foreign material that comes in in these
logs like horse shoes and insulators and railroad spikes. Sometimes when you
hit one of them that's all there is to that saw."
4
Z,.
Page 18
,AE "Can you tell us something about how you keep those saws in shape, how you
sharpen them?"
TED "We have what we call a head filer. He's one of the key men in the saw mill.
It 's his job to keep those saws in shape. They've got to be perfectly flat
and hammered right and sharpened right, swedged right."
JOE "Can you tell us how he does that?"
TED "Well, it's pretty much so automatic anymore. Of course you still hammer.
He has a bench where he has different gages to see where the saw is kinked a
little bit here and there. He's got to hit it just tight here, just right
there and just so hard. He's got to have the feel of it. Not everybody can
be a filer."
"What are some of the key jobs down at the mill? What are some of the different
Jobs you have?"
TED "We start at what I call the head end of the>:1mill with what would be the slip
feeder. He's the one that pulls the logs out of the pond. They come up to what
we call the bull chain. Then we have a barker operator who cut the logs in
lengths whatever they should be cut. Then they're trasfered over to the barker
and goes through the debarker and takes the bark off. From there on it's auto-
matic till it gets to the saw"
JOE "That barker that's new. You didn't have that in your old mills."
TED "Noy, and it was put in here after the company took over. It's probably been in
here about eight years. Although there were debarkers back in Barber days. Then
they go the sawyer on what we call a deck. The sawyer cuts them up and they go
"PO saz
Poge 19
TED "from there down to the edger man. He takes the slab off the sides and makes
boards out of it. From there to your trimmer. From your trimmer out to the
green chain."
JOE "What does the edger do?"
TED "He takes all the waste off the side of your board. He'll make a board out
of anything you want. We don't make a board any wider than twelve inch except
in pine. We'll go to twenty-three inches if we get a log that big."
JOE "Where do the boards go and the waste, what do you do with the waste?"
TED "It all dumps into a central conveyor and we installed a chipper which chips
it up into fine material and it's blowers pretty close to a quarter of a mile
over into a car and that's all sent to the paper mill."
JOE "Can you take the bark?"
TED "We are allowed one to two percent is all. Now you take like your spruce and
white fir that's premium chips. They make finer paper out of it. You fir
and pine make yout lower grade paper."
JOE "Then those boards go where?"
TED "They go to the green chain where they're pulled into different widths and
into packages. Then they go to the stacker where they put stickers in them
in between each layer."
JOE "Why is that?"
TED "That is because they are getting ready to go to the kiln to dry so your air
will circulate there and all dry. It goes from there to the kilns. ."
JOE "Are they banded there?"
Page 20 •
TED "No, they're not. They go through the kiln then when they come out of the kiln
of course they go the planer where they are manufactured into a finished product.
They're all sorted for grades and lengths." •
JOE "Bow many grades do you have on that stuff?"
TED "Your pine you have a lot more grades than your fir. There's only about four
grades of fir I think any more. Then in pine there's numerous grades there.
We try to run everything so that we can just run it on the planer and into
the car. But anymore it don't seem to work that way. We've got a big dry
shedhere where we keep all our lumber and finer woods under a roof all the
time. Your lower grade if we don't have room for them in the shed they're
stored outside."
JOE "Tell me what's the difference between first grade and fourth grade stuff and
what's a select."
TED "Well, a select is a pretty good piece of lumber, a high priced lumber. That's
where you make your counter tops and probably some of your finer furniture.
Your number four is probably used for sheeting or is going to be covered up
on account of the knots."
JOE "The knots generally set the grade, do they?"
TED "Yes, the knots pretty well set the grade. The size of them and where they're
placed."
JOE "You don't do anything like panel work here."
TED "No, we make a little pattern like tongue and groove."
JOz. "When you first came here, Pat, can you tell us what the mill was like? Did
4'
Page 21
JOE "you work at the mill here when you first come?"
PAT "Well, I was around it and in the woods and in the office. That's when the
old mill was here. It was a double circle mill until April of 1940. They
put a seven foot bend in it. Then the mill burned on July the 16th, 1940."
JOE "Were they cutting ties when you come in?"
PAT "Yeah, that was one of the big items, was ties. Cutting for the Union Pacific
Railroad Company and the company would negotiate a contract every spring for so
many ties."
JOE "How many ties did you run through that mill?"
PA. "One year we had a contract for three hundred thousand pieces, seven by nine
inches by eight foot."
JOE "Did they hack any tiesi while you were here?"
PAT "No, they stopped that just a year or two before f came."
JOE "Those ties, what were they sawed of?"
PAT "Mostly) at that time, pine, spruce, white fir. Except they had to be loaded
and shipped seperately because when they got to the treatment plant each
species took a different treatment."
JOE "How did they scale those things? Do you know how they scaled the hack ties
at all?"
PAT "I think they .just counted them."
JOE "The scaler he just went out and counted them. It didn't make any difference
how wide they was, they had to be just so thick."
PAT "A hewed tie, they had to be so thick and have a certain face."
I
4.
1
Page 22
JOE "But they could be three feet wide if they wanted to."
PAT "I don't think they sawed them quite that wide. Some times they produced that
some tiez in the saw mill. They called them a slab tie. They cut that tie
in the mill and instead of squaring it up they just took it to a tie size
which is seven inches. They just quit that the year I came here."
JOE "Then you also cut what they called switch ties, they were the long ties."
PAT "Yes, they varied from tine to sixteen feet long. As you go into a switch
naturally it takes a wider tie to accomodate the change."
JOE
"That tie cutting kind o f kept the mill going here, didn't it?"
PAT
"There was times the mill probably wouldn't have operated unless it had that
contract because the limber market was depressed."
JOE "D:Ld they haul in the winter at all when your first came here? Did they haul
with the trucks in the wintertime?"
PAT "Yes, they hauled logs."
JO
E "Can you tell us something about that Shlmon River operation a little bit?"
PAT "Not, too much. There was a group from Pocatello originally started it. Two
or three years after they started it burned down. Then they rebuilt it."
JOE "That's the one at Biggins.
PAT "Yes"
END OF SIDE THREE
Page 23
PAT "After they rebuilt they decided they wanted to get out of it and Warren
bought it. I can't remember exactly what year that was. He has done considerable
improvement in the way of modern machinery and things like that."
TED "'Oe's in the process of putting in a small log mill."
JOE "That will saw all the little logs you got there."
TED "Yeah"
JOE "Can you tell us something about how that works?"
TED "No, I really can't tell you too much about it. We have one over in La Grande
that is going real good now. It's all computerized. That log comes in and
drops into the carriage, what they call it, and it goes through here. It goes
through a scanner. A light deal shines on there and that automatically says
how big that log is. It's fed into a computer and that computer feeds back out
what to make out of that log to the saws out here. They are automatically set
and the log goes through and another one drops in. The whole thing is computer-
ized. It's just amazing to watch that thing. You've got a guy in the control
room there as big as this office all completely air conditioned. He just sets
there in case something goes wrong. If things are running right he just sits
there and twiddles his thumbs as the logs go whistling by."
PAT "I don't know how far to go on this at Riggins but as I understand it's chip and
saw. The log goes into the head rig and the side head instead of being saws
they're chippers. They chip the thing square. Then it goes from there into a
series of saws. But the thing it they use the whole thing. In other words,
instead of a slab off the side they chip it off and the chips go in the bin and
r'. oT q;. I
Page 24
PAT "are shipped out. Then it goes from there into. . ."
TED "what they calla quad re-saw. It's four band saws. Each one can be set where-
ever they want it. They all 'work up and down but they can set it to different;_,
thickness' . Then when it comes down you have four boards. If it happened to
be bigger than four boards they take two of the side boards and one off the
side. This center piece might be 4 x 6, 4 x 8."
JOE "They take the bark off them first."
TED "Yes"
JOE "That helps a lot to keep that saw sharpened too, don't it?"
TEL
"Oh yes"
.`DE "What do they do with that bark, do they burnthat?"
"Yeah, I'm sure he does just like we do here. It goes over and it fired up to
make steam for the kilns and to run part of it. We have this small log mill
and they've cut as high as five thousand logs per shift, in eight hours. That
thing goes through there, you can't believe it. I saw it when they started
building it several years ago. They had a lot of trouble with it. They had to
make a lot of changes but, boy, it's working now."
JOE "That way they can utilize a lot of this small stuff."
TED "Oh yeah, all your small stuff. It will cut anything that will make a I x what-
ever." `
PAT "One thing they're doing now, Joe, and they're converting to it in this area is
they''i'e scaling the logs by weight. They haven't done it so far but they're
gonna convert in this area. At St. Anthony several years ago they built a huge
4 1
Page 25
PAT "small log mill there. They couldn't scale the logs fast enough. So what they'd
do is they just feed them into the mill and they'd take about every tenth load
of logs, just at random they'd pick a load out. They weigh that and they
scale it. There's five thousand feet and it weighs so much. So stony feet to
the thousand pound or per hundred pound or whatever. So the rest of them they
just weigh the trucks as they come in. The average weight is an accumulative
thing. In other words they weigh this truck and they figure that averages
so many pounds or so many feet to so many pounds. The next load they add to
that and they keep a running average. They have to, it goes through there
so fast that the best way to do it is by weight. I understand they're going to
have to do it in this area now."
TED "They're putting in a small lot mill here at Cascade. I hope they have it done
by the end of the year. That will take care of all out small logs in this
area."
JOE "Now, like logging, are they coming up with anything that they can log a little
better or quicker?"
TED "To tell you the truth I haven't been out in the woods to see one of these
small log operationg."
JOE "Can you tell us anything about like this molding mill down here where they
stick them together?"
TED "I watched that work the other day and that's the darndest thing you've ever
seen. It sure makes some fine boards. They are just as strong."
Page 26
JOE "Somebody told me they might start making 2 x 4's that way."
TED "Yeah, and they can make them how ever long you want them, a mile long!"
JOE "I know the guy that was working on my house he was putting up some molding and
he was telling me about. I said how much will that cost and he said about eleven
hundred dollars a thousand. So I asked one of Hoff's men one time if
he was telling me the truth and he said it runs about like that."
TED "]: saw some molding down at Horseshoe Bend the other day and I think he told
me it was twenty-four hundred dollars a thousand."
JOE "I suppose it is by now cause we've been out there five or six years now. Why
don't you kilod of sum up, both of you, how the logging was the mills. The
logging first and then the mill work. The difference between what it was then
and what it is now."
PAT "Well, your togging, there's no comparison. When I first worked you lived in
a bunk house. There was no bathing facilities, it was double deck bunks. One
thing it did have was good food. So what you did you washed your clothes in the
creek on Sunday. You worked at that time six ten hour days."
JOE "Yeah, I was working for Boise-Payette when they changed from ten hours to
eight hours."
PAT "Yeah, so the thing gradually over the years improved but loggers are a different
person today than they were then."
JOE "At that time they were mostly single men."
PA' "They were single men who traveled around the country. When the job ran out
here they put the little pack on their back and the little round hat on and
went some where else."
JOE "They had a jrgon all of their own."
ft
Page 27
PAT "Yeah, you could tell when you talked to them. But today the Logger is a crafts-
man just like anybody else. These fellas, not to say they didn't have skill,
but it was a different type of skill. In these days they thought nothing of
it. I can remember Brown Tie and Lumber Company would have a logging camp
a few miles out of town. He would come home on the weekend, there was no
transportation. 'flu had to stay there in camp. Today there is very few logging
camps, as such. They use buses to trasport the men to town and the men
live like human beings. A different person than they were in i:he old days."
JOE "When he gets to town and washee the dirt off you can't tell him from any other
person. But you used to always tell a lumberjack when you saw him."
PAT "Not to say they weren't pretty good men."
JOE "A lot of Irish seems like."
PAT "yes, there was. When I came here I'd say a good fifty percent were Finns
but they gradually scattered."
TED "Well, of course there's been a tremendous amount of change, Instead of doing
it by hand it's mostly automatic anymore. In a very few years it will be
completely automatic. They have them now and like I say a man never touches a
board. From the pond to the dry kilns and the planer and the board never
sees daylight, it's under cover all the time."
JOE "Yeah, I'd like to go through the Potlatch mill. I went through the Potlatch
mill over there at Potlatch in 1914. I=was so impressed with the engine room,
it was so clean. They did railroad logging there and they didn't have any
trucks at that time. In the fall of '16 when they started logging down here
4
Page 28
JOE "I was on a fire on the South Fork with a bunch of loggers. They were all
from back in Michigan, Minnisota, Wisconsin. At night they'd sit around and
talk how they was going to get that timber out of there. They never dreamed
of trucking out. They had to build a railroad, it was the only way they could
get it out."
PAT "Who was superintendent down _here at that time?"
JOE "Cross, he was the first superintendent. He was there two years."
PAT "Then who came behind him?"
JOE "McGregor come in."
PA2 "Yeah, I worked for old McGregor."
. E "Yeah, Cruickshank was walking boss„ I think Camp A was Hike-a-long Higgins
and Camp B was Weeks and Camp C Misner was up there."
PAT "Misner was later superintendent."
JOE "Yeah, he was superintendent when they moved to Meadows."
PAT "Old George Higgins, I knew him quite well."
JOE "Yeah, Hike-a-long we called him and Cruickshank, he as a Novia Scotian."
PAT "Misner was Nova Scotian, too;, Quite a lot of Nova Scotians."
JOE "Yeah, they started logging there and then they shipped them, the logging
company there in Nova Scotia shipped them, to Minnisota. Whidiwas Weyerhauser."
DOUG "Where did the mill used to keep it's horses? Did they use horses?"
PAT "Yes, when I came here they used nothing but horses to transport the lumber
and ties from the,.inill. This was across the stream here. It was one big lumber
yard, there was no dry kilns. What they did, they stickered theilumber out
R ,
Page 29
PAT "there in square piles and let it air dry. Everything was all done by teams
and wagons. They had their own horse barn. They had one here and one up over
the hill by where the Forest Service shop is. That's where they kept their
horses. In camp they always built a barn."
DOUG" "When did they get the first kilns and start drying with kilns?"
PAT "Well, until this mill was built we had no dry kilns."
JOE "They had a planer down at Horseshoe Bend they shipped their lumber down there
for Hoff And Brown."
PAT "Yes, for two or three years there for Hoff and Brown. Hoff sold out to
Brown in 1929. Then Brown from there on he got rid of Horseshoe Bend. Then
all of them were air dried."
DOUG "Were the Wobblies active in Long Valley?"
PAT "I knew two or three card carrying Wobblies. What I mean is they came in there
and got a job and they weren't a bit ashamed, hell, they'd show you the card.
Now there was another one too, there was four L's."
DOUG "The Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen."
PAT "Yeah, the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen."
END OF SIDE FOUR
DOUG "I recently attended conference of historians in Boise and they had several
historians who read papers on the action of Wobblies in the Pacific Northwest
in the logging industry. They were more active in Washington, seems like."
PAT "And in thrthern Idaho they were quite active. But not down in this area."
• e
?
Page 30
DOUG "Would you say that the safety of working in a mill had improved over the years?"
PAT "I can't answer that but I know the safety in the woods has increased terrifically
and the same for the mill I'm sure."
TED "The saw mill for the last several years is just fantastic. Really been
pushing the safety. That's one thing that I am really strict on, safety
above anything. That 's number one as far as I'm concerned. We've really
made lots of progress. We've got a ways to go, yes, to be perfect. Last
year I got an award, the mill here at McCall got an award. Less than half
of the national average. We hope to do better next year. If I could do that
well I'm sure the company will be pleased and I know I will."
JOE "Ted, when I worked at the mill they never thought about it. It was up to
you to stay out of the way."
TED "I'd fire a man faster for being careless than I would for sleeping on the job.
Well, that may not be, but you know what I mean."
PAT "Now, in logging your foreman and superintendent as well as the crew they've
got to wear tin hats, that's the law. Even a truck driver, it doesn't make
any difference. They're instructed in safety, where they are safe and where
they are not. Most of the accidents that do occur, the human element is part
of it, carelessness. Once in a while there is one you just can't explain."
JOE "The last logger I saw that insisted on wearing a little old logger hat was
Art Hansen."
PAT , "We had a terrible time converting our men."
v
Page 31
JOE "He just had that little old black logger hat. He didn't wear a tin hat and
he was the boss:"
PAT "We don't say that the truck driver has to have that hat on all the time that
he's driving but when he gets off that truck and steps on that load of logs,
he better have his hat on."
TED "We won't even unload the trucks down here unless they've got their hard hat on.
If they get off that truck and they don't have their hard hat on they can just
get in that truck and drive off."
PAT "I've seen cases and one man in particular that a snag fell on him over at
the South Fork. They brought him in here unconscious. They took him to
the hospital and he had a mild concussion. They brought his hat into the
office and he got an award or something from the National Safety Council, they
meteasured his head and hat. It was a little smaller than his head, the hat, but
it was flat. Whet I mean is it crushed it one side to the other this way. It
crushed it in on his head. They rolled the snag off of him and in a couple
of days he was out and around. If it hadn't been for that hat he'd be dead."
DOUG "Is there the same availability of timber as in the early days of logging?"
PAT "No, there isn't a lot of timber available. With improved legging methods
there's more of it becomes abailable each year, I'll put it that way. They are
logging in area now with helicopters that you couldn't touch with any other
method. The terrain is too steep that you couldn't get any other equipment on
' it, on the ground itself. That type of logging area is becoming accessable
with the he'icopter. ' It's not as easy to get as it was forty years ago."
J
a
Z._
Page 32
DOUG "I suppose these small log mills you were talking about that enables them to
utilize the timber that they otherwise wouldn't have contidered,"
PAT "For instance, years ago they used to go in and they marked the timber and at
that time they'd say you cut these trees to an eight inch top. Now you have to
bring, in most sales, anything that's got a six inch top that's eight feet
long. Well, a logger, it's kind of hard for him to determine what's six inches
so once in a while we get them that's five inches and eight feet long or four
inches. That's a pretty small piece, you can pidcit up and carry it ."
JOE "When they started logging down here they planned twenty years and they'd have
this all logged out, that was in 1916. I heard old man Cross say we'll finish
here in twenty years."
1A3 "Boise-Cascade is logging out of Gold Fork right now and have been for years.
They quit onetime and pulled the railroad out of there and left it because
they figured they couldn't get it. They couldn't make in on an economical
basis. Some of it is real good logging."
JOE "I had some Boise-Cascade guy ask me if there are as manytrees now as there used
to be when I come in here in the valley. There are more trees now than there
used to be in the valley. You old fellas that have been in the woods and see
these old stumps, how far apart they are. Now they grow so thick they have
to thin them. It's the weather and it's the moisture, moisture is what makes
a tree grow."
DOT" "Row successful have the reseeding programs tended to be? How long does it
take in between the time that you plant a tree and the time that it's ready
to be harvested?"
4
Page 33
in this area is not going on long
'AT "That's hard to say because the replanting
thin I do disagree with is the clear cutting in this area. My
enough. One g
theory would be rather than clear cut an area, cut the good timber out of it
and leave everything else. Then go in and plant the bare areas instead of
tearing everything out."
I had a cousin come out two or three years ago. He worked for the
JOE "Yeah, Lake Fork
Forest Service in 1912. The first thing he wanted to do was go up
where they planted trees. We went up there and I said where did you plant them?
Right up there on that bare hillside."
take these clear cuts you can see from here. Warren Brown told me long
pA�� "You tak spruce
That's a sp
ago, 'I don't think our kids will ever see trees there. ' timber. Spruce
area, I think the thing to do is take out the merchandable
is an unusual tree. If you go in there and selectively cut it and leave a few
big trees for seed trees, well they have no tap roots. All the roots they
on to of the ground. That's fine and my
theory would be to
have are sitting P
thing that's merchandable and leave this stuff that's been there
cut ever Y
t -five years. They have got some areas in here in Thorn Creek that they
twee y
replanted and they were'nt clear cut. They replanted an area that was cut
ivel and they replanted with ponderosa pine and I understand that it's
select Y
growing good."
"What do you consider to be the future of the McCall mill? It seems like
DOUG 'Why Y oing to be running
• there is a perennial rumor about town that the mill is only g
S.
1•
4 4.
Page 34
T3 "four more, years or five more years. I don't know if you are familiar with
that kind of rumor but it seems like I hear that."
"I've been hearing it for twenty years."
BUG "Is there any substance to such rumors?"
know it'll be here another
"Oh, I'm just like you, just rumors. As far as
years. I think I'ai probably in a position to be the first one to know.
twenty
OUG "The latest rumor that I've heard is that somewhere someone said that because
of the lake is classified as a recreational lake that it won't be running in
aboutvfive years. There will be a legal issue."
" ve never had any report or heard anything on the matter. I think if it
I ha years.
did come up it wouldn't work. It's been used historically all these y
to s don't pol&ute the lake in anyway. A little bark comes off the logs
These g
once in a while and might get on someone's beach. But as far as the logs
themselves, the mill
the don't hurt that water. When you're sitting here by
mselves, y
o out
you look at the pond you thin t.hat's quite an area of water. You g
on the lake half a mile and look back and you can't even see. it', it's so
small. . It's only a small part of the lake that's used."
JOE "And if there's any bugs in them the fish eat them." and less
DOUG "Would you say that logging has become progressively
more corporate
private? I realize that gypo loggers still make a living
at logging but in most
businesses nesses it seems like the private individuals are gradually being pushed
out. I was wondering if that's the case in logging."
0
ll aL.
4" 1.:
Page 35
;T "No, I don't see it. I don't think there is anymore trend today than there
years ago to become a company. The time I first went to a logging
was forty y don't
was quite a company operation and of course your contractors. I
c�p�. it did then."
think proportionally the company logs any more today then they
ED "I think as far as
we are concerned we're logging less, I'm sure we are. We
don't have much of a logging operation."
any operation in the woods they don't seem to put out the logs
JOE "You get a com P
as good as small operation."
d fi ure out why. I've seen time and time again where the lumber
PAT "I never coul g ou know they're ply
company had their logging outfit and the first thing Y
out of the logging business."
kin at a skid camp on the east side of the nook one time in the
JOE ,�I was wor g
winter of
'17 or '18. There was a fella there working for the company and
Morrison-Knudson come up there. They were a small outfit at that time. 'fey
n to build some chutes. One or two or the guys that was working
for
were goi g
went out there to build chutes. I went out there one Satur ay
this company ust as fast
Sunday and here was this guy, Louis, boring holes in that chute just
y
The sweat just rolled off of him. I never seen him sweat til
as he could. so fast, Lou?'
he was working for the company. I said, 'How come you're working
He said, 'I'm working for gypo but I am getting more money.
PAT
"Have you taken him to that big tree yet by Donnelly?"
JOE "No"
a
s
4 _ d
Page 36
right there. I think they cut hay in that field there.
nI°}iere:�s an explanation rig
11 around there but they didn't cut that tree because
There are big stumps all � eighteen
there was no way
to handle it. I measured it something like fifteen,
h•a
years, ago and it was
twenty-four feet and' four inches around breast heig
"I hope they leave it over there because I wouldn't want it in here.
END OF S][DE FIVE
AND INTERVIEW
•
RELEASE OF TAPES TO IDAHO BICENTENNIAL COMMISSION'S ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
•
I, on this day, /' 1 0-7
hereby give and grant to the Idaho State Historical Society and the Idaho
Bicentennial. Corrnissioa as a donation for Stich scholarly and educational
purposes as the Idaho Historical Society and the Idaho Bicentinnial Commission
shall determine, the tape recordings made today, and all literary rights therein.
•
• ���h (signed)
tness)
Patrick J. Hays
MCCALL—Rosary for Patrick J.Hayes,
72, McCall, who died Thursday at a McCall
hospital, will be recited at 8 p.m. today at
Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church, •
McCall, by the Rev. Philip Canaban. Mass
will be celebrated at 2 p.m.Saturday at the
church by the Rev.Canaban.Interment will
be in McCall Cemetery,under the direction
of Walker-Heikkila Funeral Home,McCall.
He was born May 8, 1907, at St. Alban,
Scotland. He came to the United States in
1921 and moved to McCall in 1936. He mar-
ried Silvia Paananen in 1939 at Boise. She
died in 1969.He married Pearl Parsons on
Jan.21,1971,at Boise.He was an office man-
ager for Brown Tie and Lumber Company,
McCall, until 1976,and has since been with
Brown Industries.
He was a member of the McCall Rotary
Club, the Chamber of Commerce and Our
Lady of the Lake Catholic Church.
Surviving are his wife of McCall; three
stepsons,Jerry Parsons of Boise,Tom Par-
sons of Meridian and Dave Parsons of Kuna:
a stepdaughter, Vicki Walker of Boise; a
brother, James C. Hayes of Green Valley,
Ariz.;a sister,Eileen Cramblet of Gooding;
and a granddaughter. He was preceded in
death by a daughter,two brothers and a sis-
ter.
Memorials may be made to the Heart
Fund.
' Pallbearers will be Francis Wallace,
Dempsy Eddins,Reed Gillaspie,Don McMa-
han,Don Bevington and Jack McClure.
Honorary pallbearers will be Warren
Brown, Harry Bryson, Pere Shelton, Eddie
Cruzen, George McDowell and Blaine
Morse. .J (y .7 17 7 9
•
Subject: Hayes, Pat --Burgess', Ted
Address:
Date: May 5, 1976
•
Pare
1 Pat's arrival in McCall-1936
Ted's arrival in McCall-1954
Harris and Brown sawmill at Lake Fork
Boise-Cascade bought Brown out in 1964
i Period they operated mill
Skidding with horses
5 Fiat log trucks
A
• 6 Roads
8 First use of skid tractor's-'45-!46
First use of powerEsaws-'47-'48
R
9 Mill work
10 Chutes
11 Railroad logging
12 Early Cats
15 Tail sawyer
18 Head filer
Jobs at the mill
21 Cutting ties
28 Early Superintendents
29 Horse barns at mill yard
"Idobblies"
31 Hord hats-safety equipment
Dr. Susan Bruder Kerr was born in 1908 to parents who had both immigrated from
Germany as young children. On their farm in Wells, Minnesota,their large family of
children learned the skills and responsibilities needed to successfully farm in that
northern climate. Susan contracted polio as a young child, and, even though there was
impairment to one leg, she never felt limited from living a very active life. She worked
on the farm, excelled in school and learned to drive at the age of twelve. The illness did,
however, spark a life-long interest in medicine. She learned about a Dr. Still, who
directed the Des Moine Still College of Medicine and Osteopathy, and it was there that
she studied medicine. After graduating, she followed her older and younger sisters,who
were both registered nurses,to Las Vegas,Nevada,where Susan began her practice
during the hectic period when thousands of workers had come to construct Hoover Dam
in nearby Boulder City. There she met her future husband, William Douglass Kerr, who
had come from Canada to work on that great project.
The couple moved to the McCall area to be near Doug's sister, Scotty Mockwitz. They
settled into a cabin west of Burgdorf in 1933 while Susan awaited her license to practice
medicine in Idaho. In early winter of 1935,their first son, John, was born in the family
cabin,with Dr. Kerr delivering her child alone. He was the first Caucasian born in the
Burgdorf area. Their second son, Tom, was born in Donnelly: Susan, coming from
McCall, had arranged to meet Dr. Ward from Cascade at the halfway point in Donnelly.
During her thirty years of practice, Dr. Kerr treated patients from Lewiston, Council,
Boise and all areas in between. Babies were delivered at the Elk Creek Power Station,
Yellow Pine, Warren, and, of course, Long Valley. Although her office, where Alpine
Insurance is now located, was busy with visits, she made many house calls. Sometimes,
when a referral was needed, she would herself drive patients to the specialists in Boise.
Dr. Kerr kept a traveling obstetrics kit prepared. There were many times when she would
drive to a point where she would be met by the father-to-be and taken by horse-drawn
wagon or sleigh back to the ranch house. Sometimes she would spend the night or, if
continuing care were needed or there were storms, she would stay longer. On occasion,
she would bundle her own children and provisions, and take them with her on these
visits.
Her patients remember a skilled physician of great warmth and calmness,who listened
carefully,took the time for conversation, and was always discrete. She knew her patients
and their families well. Her skill in diagnosing, her great caring, and her ability to return
patients to active working lives was well known. Strong principles and strong will had
been nurtured by her parents, who encouraged all of their children to excel. The
daughters were all educated for professions in medicine, education and business. Dr.
Kerr also loved being with her own boys, having long conversations or planning the
fishing,hunting, and camping trips that they all enjoyed. She loved to garden and to
cook, and enjoyed her community as a member of Eastern Star and as one of the
founders of the Business and Professional Women's Organization. She is still living in
her own home at the age of 95, reflecting on the care given to generations of patients and
her life in Idaho.