Howard Hirschel remembers dust storm of 1931

Wilson Creek History

The Rev. David H. Crawford compiled and published a history of families in and surrounding Wilson creek titled, "Family Memories of Wilson Creek Area." The book was printed in 1978, which was the 75th anniversary of the town.

David's son, John Crawford, has given permission for those memories to be a part of this column.

Today we backtrack a bit and then continue the story of Howard Robert Hirschel by Howard Hirschel:

I graduated from Wilson Creek high school in the depression year of 1930. There were insufficient funds to send me on to school, so I became involved on the farm. It was the time that tractors were coming into use. I had never liked working with horses. There were just too many chores involved. My father took care of the farm chores, while piloted the tractor.

The year of 1931 was the year that we had land blowing that had never blown before. One windy day we were returning from Hartline and were almost home when we had to go through an area where the dust was so thick that it shorted out the ignition of our car.

We were fortunate to have enough help so that we were able to push the car out of the worst of it. The dust had been so thick that the only way we could tell that we were on the road was by the feel of the gravel under our feet. The car was started and we proceeded on our way.

A little over a mile farther down the road a stranger crawled out of a culvert to flag us down. His car had stopped in a blow area and he had sought the shelter from the storm. We convinced him to go home with us to wait out the storm that we knew would abate by evening.

We returned him to his car before sundown. The dust in his nearly new Ford car was several inches deep. He was a traveling salesman and all his samples were a mess.

We tried to have him let us clean up his car, but he only wanted to get back to Spokane. He had his fill of our God forsaken country and wanted no more of it.

The year of 1935 was eventful for me. My cousin, Marvin Knopp, and I bought a No. 8 I.H.C. Harvester with the idea of earning a little extra money by doing custom harvesting. Believe it or not, we threshed all of the grain that had been cut south of Stratford in about three days. It had been cut and stacked. It was pitched into the machine by hand. It was there that I remarked to him that we should buy ourselves a large tractor and lease the whole area. Most of the land had been abandoned and wasn't being farmed.

He replied, "It might be a good idea, but what would we do for money?"

He was so right.

Dad planned a trip to California that winter, leaving Marvin and me in charge of the ranch. I didn't relish the idea of batching, so I traveled to the Palouse country, where there was someone waiting for me.

We didn't want our marriage notice to come out in the local papers, so we went to Pendleton to get our license, where we intended to be married. However, we found that there was a waiting period of three days before the license could be issued.

We couldn't afford to wait that long, so we journeyed on to Weiser, Idaho where were able to get our license at once. It was there we took our vows that have been kept ever since.

Our secret didn't leak out until I brought Margaret to the Big Bend about a month later, after the folks had gone to California. We were treated to an old fashioned Chivaree.

We agreed to furnish the ingredients for an oyster stew that was to take place in the Wilson Creek Grange Hall. To our surprise we found there had been a plan behind the whole deal. Shortly after the feed was finished many gifts began to appear. This was the way my bride was welcomed to the Wilson Creek area.

Email from Cheryl

Facts from the past gleaned from the Moses Lake Herald, Columbia Basin Herald and The Neppel Record by Cheryl (Driggs) Elkins:

From the Columbia Basin Herald on Jan. 21, 1949:

Dennis note: Apparently this is a story about the Federal Government taking lands which were privately owned and putting it under Federal control. As I understand the situation, the lands were supposed to be returned to the landowners someday, but this did not happen. Please clue me in to the real situation, if my assumption is not correct. Read on.

Wahluke area withdrawal hit by Chamber

The Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce joined this week in protesting action of the Atomic Energy Commission in prohibiting development of 120,000 acres of privately-owned land in the southern end of the Columbia Basin Reclamation Project. The Spokane Chamber of Commerce and trustees of the Washington young Democrats have taken similar stands. The State Columbia Basin Commission and directors of the South Irrigation District, in which the land lies, are expected to do likewise. Directors of the State Reclamation Association have asked their national organization to investigate. Landowners in the area involved, some of whom have conferred with the Bureau of Reclamation officials, may register an organized protest.

More of this story next week.

Cheryl note: Wishing all readers a Merry Christmas from my family to yours.

Columbia Basin history

The Grant County Historical Society has compiled several volumes of Grant County history. The books are available for purchase at the Historical Society Museum gift shop in Ephrata.

I bought the series in 2009 and secured permission to relay some of the history through this column.

Memories of Grant County, compiled from taped interviews by the Grant County Historical Society.

Today we continue the story of Ephrata, by Ed Harvill, recorded on Oct. 11, 1977:

In 1926, what we called the Old Pruitt Place west of town, which had a big barn on it, became for sale and Dad needed more room for stock and more room in general. He was able to buy that and we moved there in the fall of 1926. Now, generally, that farm consisted of the western part of the town on a line maybe from a little beyond D Street to about the cemetery. In fact, the southeast corner of the alfalfa field was directly back of the Standard Oil Station on B Street. The farm was laid out on the section line, whereas the town is laid out by the railroad track, so the streets couldn't run entirely through else they would run into the field.

Also the hill up on the back where the reservoir is was included in the farm, all of Grandview Heights and beyond. So it was quite a large place and it was a tremendous drive, $5,000. But the thing you want to remember is that those $5,000 were hard to come by, especially with 12 percent interest, when you didn't have the money.

Dennis note: Wishing you all a Merry Christmas.

Now, the farm had an orchard on it, again, and it seems that our experience in orchards hasn't been planted many years earlier. It had a lot of oddball varieties of apples. There were some good peaches, apricots and an old crab apple tree. I don't know how many boxes of fruit we sold off those trees, but the rest of them were varieties like Wolf River, Grimes Golden, to name a few. Also some Delicious, but they were the common type, and some old Arkansas Blacks, the only Arkansas Black tree I ever saw.

Those apples could be picked in the fall, put in the basement and maybe by June of the following year you could bite into them. That orchard we kept for several years and really I don't think there was ever a dime made off of it, except for the fruit like peaches and apricots we sold.

Looking at Ray Deycous over here, I am sure he remembers thinning apples out there. Carl and I and Ray would start very religiously to thin, but along about 15 or 20 minutes or maybe two hours, we'd start having an apple fight. That's no reflection against Ray. He had some help, he couldn't fight by himself.

Something I have left out; my first ride in a car at 60 miles an hour. I attended a birthday party at Nat Washington's hours, probably our sixth or seventh. He father had an old Cleveland. So after we had cake he took us out on the highway in that car and we rode 60 miles an hour. That was a real trip with that car with the top down and gravel road and a bunch of screaming kids, but that was really fun.