Lanes count their blessings
Lanes count their blessings
Lives include time as blimp pilot, riveter, Christmas tree seller
MOSES LAKE — Wally and Pat Lane still marvel over their children.
Even though they arrived in Moses Lake with the intention of farming, the type of land on which they lived made those goals secondary.
"We said, 'We never made any money on the farm, but we raised a million dollar's worth of kids,' which we did," Wally said. "They all know how to work, and they all look back on that as a great time of their life, being raised on a farm."
The parents of a total of nine children, five sons and four daughters, Wally and Pat say they wouldn't give any of their kids up. Two sons still live in the area, and the rest reside in Seattle, Portland and as far away as Denver, with the majority two to three hours away.
"Get me talking about my family, and I'll go on and on," Wally said. "We're so proud of them."
Wally and Pat had only brief college experiences, but wanted their children to become educated and not have to work as hard as their parents. So they devoted most of their lives to encouraging their children to attend school.
They wound up with eight college graduates in their family, with one son following in his father's steps in the carpenter business. Wally noted that later in life, he and Pat were able to set up funds for each grandchild and great-grandchild for education. The Lanes have 25 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren.
Wally was born in Everett, and spent his school years in Montana, where he and Pat were high school sweethearts. The couple ended up in California while Wally was in the Navy during World War II.
"Most of my war was fought in California," Wally recalled.
Wally had been working for Boeing and even had an exemption from the war as a draftsman, but felt the need to serve.
"People now don't understand that the world was endangered of becoming defeated by the axis powers," he said. "People don't understand that we wanted to go to war."
Wally joined a cadet program for flight training while Pat was attending Montana State College. There wasn't room for Wally at boot camp, so the military asked him to pick a place to attend flight school. Wally picked Montana, naturally, where he learned to fly airplanes out of a little field 10 miles from Bozeman, Mont.
Wally used $100 in a poker game and bought Pat an engagement ring — they will have been married 62 years this fall — then was sent to boot camp at St. Mary's College near Oakland, Calif., for three to four months, where he selected what part of the Navy in which he wanted to go.
"I'd see these blimps flying over, and they were huge, they were 250 feet long, almost as long as a football field, and I'd see them flying over on their way out to sea," Wally remembered. "I thought, 'Gosh, that'd be a good way to spend the war.'"
Wally was chosen and sent to Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., where he spent three to four months training. Wally's brother was in the Navy, and his brother's wife was staying nearby, so Pat went to stay with her while Wally was in the flight training school, and worked in the Kaiser shipyard tool section as a "Rosie the Riveter." After several months in the field, Wally was sent to Lakehurst, N.J., for several months and then requested duty at Moffett Field, stopping off in Butte to marry Pat.
"We got on the train and wound up in Mountain View, Calif.," Pat said with a laugh.
Flight training was similar to the blimps seen as advertisements, Wally said, but the blimps which went out to sea often carried eight to ten crew members as they patrolled submarines and ships. The motion of the blimps wasn't for people who tend toward seasickness, Wally said with a laugh, but noted they were easy to learn.
"The long flights would be something like a convoy would assemble in San Francisco Harbor, like 50 or 100 ships, and they would leave at midnight and we would meet them at daylight, and they would have a couple destroyer escorts with them, zigzagging around," Wally said, noting some flights lasted 18 hours.
Before the war was over, Wally was switched over to navigator school, but then the war ended.
"I didn't experience anything bad in the war," he said. "I never saw enemy, never shot at anybody or got shot at or anything. We had near-experiences or weather, but nothing bad. Pretty easy war."
After the war, Wally and Pat stayed in California, building houses for a number of years. As the population increased, Wally put his name in a hat for a drawing for a government farm, and when it came up, he asked Pat if she would go homesteading with him in Moses Lake.
"I had rural attachments in my family, a farm background in my family," Wally said.
The couple had seven children at the time, and Wally was a little familiar with the area, having passed through once or twice.
"We picked up our seven kids, a dump truck and an old Chevy and moved to Washington," Pat recalled with a chuckle. The family arrived in town in February 1953 during a windstorm.
Wally called the experience of living on Irrigation Block 40 and bonding with neighbors something that comes along once in a lifetime.
"We bonded with those people out of common goals," he said. "We were all living in chicken houses and garages, and trying to get money to build houses and we fought for paved roads, school buses, paper delivery, mail delivery. We fought for all those things together."
In Moses Lake, Wally went to work for Alec Law at L&S Construction, at the company later purchased by Pamp Maiers. Wally said he still enjoys a very close relationship with Maiers, a sentiment Maiers reiterates.
"They're very honest, straightforward people," Maiers said. "They've never done wrong to anybody. They've always been very hardworking and dependable people."
Farming always came in second. The Lanes kept horses, cattle, sheep and Pat was a 4-H leader. She also worked as a rural mail carrier.
The land was not one of the better areas for farming, as it was quite rocky.
"We all thought we could whip the rocks, but we had to adapt to it or they'd have whipped us," Wally said, noting the family began raising hay and livestock, getting away from more rural crops.
Wally spent 20 years as a construction superintendent for Maiers, electing to retire at the age of 62 in 1984. He moved on to build houses for the next few years, and raised Christmas trees until he turned 70.
Today, Wally and Pat spend the majority of their time playing bridge and golf. Pat is also a lector and in the choir at church, although Wally noted, "They don't let me sing." The couple's idea of a good vacation these days is climbing in the car and touring around the state.
Often, they travel with two other couples, the Wilsons and the Bohns.
Chuck Wilson, a Lane family friend for at least 20 years, said the couple is wonderful to travel with, and he and his wife have been lots of places with them.
"They've always just been good friends," Wilson said. "They're just nice, friendly, cooperative people. We get along fine."
Ron Bohn called Wally a great storyteller.
"On a road trip, he can sit there and talk for an hour about one of his past experiences," Bohn said. "They're always very interesting."
Bohn noted their dedication to their family.
"They both have done a fantastic job of raising their family," Bohn said. "They both enjoy people in general. They're always fun."
Wally said he and Pat have lived in a very fortunate time of history.
"If you put in the effort and make decent decisions, then things turned out your way," he said. "It seems every generation is better off than the last generation. I don't know how long that can continue, but it's been a factor in my lifetime."
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