'I've done a lot of things'

MOSES LAKE — Hank Buchmann suspects some people might think the most surprising thing about his father Ed is the fact he's still here.

Ed Buchmann experienced a number of accidents while working as a farmer in the Columbia Basin.

He lost one finger in a hydraulics accident in the 1960s, and cut the tendons off of two more fingers on a beet digger, which were replaced with nylon tendons from his elbow and his arm a year later.

He went through the window of his pickup during a sand storm on the way to Ritzville, requiring more than 100 stitches in his face.

"Even a year after I shaved, I still had slivers of glass coming out of my beard sometimes," he said.

In spite of these events, on Sunday, Ed Buchmann celebrateds his 90th birthday.

He grew up in North Dakota until he was 17, when his family moved to Kalispel, Mont.

Buchmann arrived in Moses Lake on his 21st birthday in 1938. His sister Ella lived in the area, and he rode the freight train from Whitefish, Mont., to Spokane, then caught a tanker truck from Spokane to Ritzville.

"My uncle and I, we walked from Ritzville to Moses Lake on the Number 10 highway all day, and not one car passed us on the highway," Ed remembered. "We did get a ride for 14 miles on a wheat truck."

Ed went to work for a farmer running cattle at night and driving a school bus by day.

"There were only two school buses here at that time," he remembered.

It was just after the Depression, and people were starting to farm the Columbia Basin area.

"I was born and raised on a farm, and that's what was in me, was farming, and that's what I wanted to do," Ed said.

He and his brother bought half a section of ground, about 320 acres, for $2,000.

"Two hundred dollars down, 2 percent interest," Ed said.

When he went into the service, Ed signed the place over to his father.

"I wasn't in there very long, I was in there for Pearl Harbor," he said. "But they needed farmers at the time too, as bad as they needed soldiers. I got to get out."

When he got out, he purchased a quarter-section from a dairy farmer in Alaska through the mail, whom he never met.

"I borrowed the money from a guy in Odessa, paid in cash and then I paid for it the first year after I had a crop on it," Ed said.

Ed was first married in 1942, to Doris Ottmar. They had two children, Hank and Priscilla. He's been married a total of four times, three of which ended in divorce. Wife Linda died in March of breast cancer.

"I had a stroke a year and a half ago, but up until then I was in really good shape," he said. "After my wife died, I think I went downhill."

Things were rough there for a little while after Linda's death, Ed said, but he did say things appeared to be getting a little better.

He started out in Moses Lake farming wheat on a dryland operation. He didn't farm very much while dryland, so he also operated cranes for a steel construction company for nine years.

Ed remained in Moses Lake because it was a good farming community and he had good land.

"When I got here, I think there was only 300 people; there were no houses on the lake at all," Ed said. "Course, I've been here now for about 70 years. I've got a lot of stories to tell, but I can't tell them all. It'd take too long."

He was the first farmer in the Columbia Basin to get test water from the East Low Canal in the fall of 1941.

"They gave me test water to get their ditches cleaned up, a lot of sand out there," Ed said. "My pipes all got full of sand, so I had an awful time."

Ed is also the first person to drill an irrigation well on the east side of the East Low Canal.

"I just had that good land over there, and I didn't get no water from the canal, so I built a well," he said.

Ed borrowed the money from a Ritzville farmer.

"He never was afraid to take a chance, and he was always the first to do it with almost everything he did," Hank said.

When Ed wasn't able to land a contract to grow sugar beets, he "sneaked in" a few acres on his own.

"I guess they knew I'd done it, and they kept an eye on them all summer, so later on, I just plowed them under," Ed said. "They asked me why I did that, because they knew I grew good sugar beets, so they gave me a contract the next year."

During a year Ed had 400 acres of sugar beets, he devised a 12-row planter to allow him to cut the time in half.

Three planes crashed in Ed's field during the 1950s while they were conducting flight tests at Larson Air Force Base.

"One time, I picked the pilot up and took him to the base," Ed recalled. "He came down in his parachute. The other two crashed when I didn't see them. They put big holes in the ground when they hit."

Ed thinks every change to Moses Lake has been for the better.

"I've made a lot of money and I've lost a lot of money," he said. "My banker once told me, 'Ed, I don't know how you do it. One day you're broke and the next day you're back on top again.'"

He cut way down on his operation in 1965, went broke farming potatoes in the early 1970s and nearly went broke again in 1978 when the U&I Sugar Company closed and left Moses Lake.

He always tried to have the best in farming equipment.

"If I had the biggest tractor this year, and they came out with a bigger one the next year, I'd have to buy it," he said.

In addition to wheat, potatoes and sugar beets, Ed also grew or tried to grow peas, beans, soybeans, corn and peanuts during his time farming. He also helped start the Columbia Basin Rodeo, and assisted in building the first rodeo grounds in Moses Lake, rounding up wild horses in the Saddle Mountains.

Ed believes he owned about 2,700 acres of land over the course of the years.

Today, Ed keeps about 9 acres, but he said he doesn't farm on it.

"It's just laying out there; I don't even water it," he said. "I wouldn't farm today, because I don't see how they can make it, with the price of gas and the price of fertilizer."

Upon backing off from farming, Ed worked delivering papers for the Columbia Basin Herald, built cabinets for Wal-Mart for several years and hauled recreational vehicles into the area from the factories where they were built.

His primary interest today is playing pool, which gives him something to do and gets him out of the Moses Lake house.

On turning 90, Ed says he's feeling pretty good about it.

"I've done a lot of things," he said.

"That's what makes him so interesting," Hank Buchmann said. "He's done everything, and it's all been right here. It's been a treat having him for a dad; there's always something interesting."