Green: Outdoor explorations created fond memories

(Last week Robert Green told us about his experiences growing up in the Clark Fork area. This week, he tells about some of his jobs, the depression, his time in the service, and meeting his wife. Here are excerpts of Bob’s story in his own words with some editing due to space limitations.)

“I went to school through the eighth grade and part of the ninth and then I quit and went to work. I worked the summer of 1929 and 1930 on a section gang for the railroad. In October 1930 and 1931, I was hired on a road construction project up Big Lightning Creek, east of Clark Fork.

“This job was with the U.S. Forest Service and I worked there again from 1932 to 1936. I was instrumental in putting out what could have been a very bad fire and as a result, I was offered any fire lookout station in the area that I wanted.

“During the summer of 1932, I was on Trout Peak, 1934 on Bernard Peak, and 1935 on Antelope, overlooking the Clark Fork Valley. It was lonely work for a young man to be all alone every summer without any social contact.

“During these years our country was going through the Great Depression so I was lucky to have jobs to be able to make enough money to supply our needs and pay the taxes. My father continued to farm as long as his health would let him and my folks were able to sell garden produce and cream, butter, eggs and meat.

“In the winter, I usually bagged a deer or elk for our meat. I also live-trapped marten and sold them to Jim Campbell for breeding stock. I hiked on my snowshoes over the mountains every other day to check the trap lines and I enjoyed these days immensely.

“One winter I fished through the ice on the lake for whitefish to sell commercially. All these activities helped to let us live comfortably through the depression while ever so many folks had to take welfare. We always felt very lucky.

“I continued to work at various jobs until finally I was told that I would probably be drafted soon. So, I went to Spokane and signed up with the Navy Seabees, and was called into service in October 1943. I was shipped to Virginia, where I was in training until July 1944.

“I then came home on leave for two weeks. This is when I meant my future wife, Lois Clark. She lived with her family down Spring Creek Road from where my sister Grace lived, and where her father worked for Fish and Game. I asked her and her brother, Leslie, to go fishing with me up to Porcupine Lake as well as Grace’s husband Hugh. We had a wonderful day and caught a nice bunch of fish. It was about a three-hour hike up over Middle Ridge and then a steep walk down to the lake.

“Lois and I corresponded when I went back to the Seabees and until I came home in October 1945. I shipped out in the largest convoy to cross the Atlantic (500 ships). We landed at Glasgow, Scotland, and went by train to Plymouth, England. I was stationed at Ivy Bridge and from there I went to the U. S. Naval Base at Exeter, England. I worked as a truck driver and heavy equipment operator while overseas.

“When the war ended we were again shipped across the Atlantic and I arrived back home in October 1945. After I was discharged from the service, I came back home and started civilian life again.

“Lois and I went together for the next couple of months to get acquainted by doing things together, rather than just writing letters. I asked her to marry me on Valentine’s Day, 1946. We set the date for April 11 — her 21st birthday. We had a beautiful sunny day, we took her mother and my mother with us and went to Thompson Falls, and a minister in the church there married us.

“Big weddings were not in favor at that time, mostly because of the shortages of everything during the war and the need to save any money you could so you would be able to set up a household. Many things were still rationed and you had to put your name on a list to buy many things. We started out living with my mother so we had much of what we needed until we could acquire more of the necessities of life.

“We needed to buy a refrigerator for one thing so we signed up for one and waited until our name came up. You had to take whatever brand came in and ours happened to be a Frigidaire. It was a good one and lasted us for many years, about 32 to be exact.”