A Passion For Gold: An Autobiography

2. The Early Years, 1911–1939

Chapter 2 The Early Years 1911–1939 Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing. —abraham lincoln, advice to a young attorney The Palouse country in southeastern Washington State is known for deep, rich soil that produces abundant crops. The undulating grasslands called the Palouse Hills were sculpted about ten thousand years ago during the Wisconsin glacial age when loess, soil carried by the wind from the outwash of glaciers, covered parts of the Pacific Northwest . Much later, a section of that fertile land was homesteaded by my grandparents, the Hillary Jackson Boozers. My mother, Rebecca Evangeline (Eva) Boozer, was born in 1885 of German, Swiss, and English stock in New Burnside, Kentucky, and went west in 1887 with her parents on the transcontinental railroad. The family name probably had originally been Bueser. My father, Halcot Everett Roberts, mainly Welsh, was born in 1883 in Rosalia, Washington. His parents had come west by covered wagon. Both families settled in Washington Territory, which became Washington State in 1889, and raised wheat. The steep hills required combined harvesters, drawn by teams of twenty-four to thirty-two horses, to mow and thresh the wheat, then leave it in trails of two-bushel bags. My dad worked on his parents’ wheat farm as a boy, plowing, seeding , and harvesting wheat, loading wagons with two-bushel sacks of grain—each of which weighed about 120 pounds. But he decided not to become a farmer himself. About 1906 he entered the Washington State College School of Pharmacy. In 1908 he felt ready to get married. The Early Years, 1911–1939 13 Fig. 2.1. The Boozer Ranch, near Rosalia, Washington, 1975. Courtesy of M. A. Bowman. Fig. 2.2. Combined harvester drawn by thirty-two horses, Boozer Ranch, ca. 1915. Courtesy of M. A. Bowman. Fig. 2.3. Author’s parents, Halcot E. and Eva B. Roberts, ca. 1915. Fig. 2.4. Author at age four, Rosalia, Washington. He didn’t have to look far for a wife; he and Eva Boozer had grown up together and gone to school in Rosalia, a town where everybody knew everybody. After graduating he purchased a drugstore in Rosalia. My sister Margaret was born in 1909, and I came along in 1911, followed by Louise in 1914 and Fred in 1916. Dad wasn’t really a scientist, but he would have made a good one. He discussed with me, my brother, and sisters every new scientific discovery that he read about in the newspaper. While we might not have understood all of them, such things broadened our horizons. I remember vividly Dad’s explanation of the “Heaviside layer” and how it moved upward at night, extending the range of radio stations, and down in the daytime, shortening their range. I had been born into the right family at the right time. Mother went to Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, where she studied music. During the summer wheat harvest she cooked for the harvest crew, and the reputation of her pies and cakes was known for miles around. Besides being an excellent cook, Mother was also a great practical joker. One April first, she mixed cotton into the pancake batter. We kids chewed and chewed—until we guessed the reason for the new pancake formula. Then we all had a good laugh. We lived in Rosalia until 1920 when Dad’s health began to fail. The long hours in the drugstore had begun to wear on him. So we moved to Wenatchee, where Dad went into business selling Edison phonographs . At this time the Edison was by all odds the best, and Dad did quite well until the advent of radio in the early 1920s sent the phonograph business into a tailspin. Dad fought the growing popularity of radio for four years, but when his shop inventory was destroyed in a fire, he began to look for a new vocation. He didn’t want to go back to being a pharmacist. When Dad traveled to the towns in the Okanogan Valley to sell phonographs, he would sometimes take me along. One time when our fortunes were especially low, I accompanied him on one of his selling trips. While staying at Oroville, near the Canadian border, we wandered out onto a bridge over the Okanogan River to watch some men spearing salmon. Dad noticed that one...