by Donna Swagerty Shreve
At the advanced age of 75 years, I tend to be amazed how precious life is and how lucky I have been. Doing genealogy research has given me insight into how remarkable it is that my ancestors survived so I could be the next generation. I am guessing many of us have had close calls and it hopefully will help us appreciate how lucky we are to be here.
My first recollection of feeling in danger was when I was no more than three years of age. There were several of my parents’ friends standing around waiting for a drawbridge to close again. Various people had gotten out of their cars and were gathered at the end of the bridge. For some reason Dad picked me up and hung me over the opening at the end of the bridge where I was looking down to the water which seemed so far away. Dad was just having what he thought was fun but I panicked and started wriggling and crying. Dad quickly pulled me back and tried his best to calm me down and apologize. I do believe he had to calm down my mother also.
My grandfather Elmer Swagerty told me a tale from his childhood. On one of the trips by the family coming down from Oregon, Elmer had an accident that left a deep scar on his arm for the rest of his life. The family had stopped by the side of the road for lunch. Sampson made it clear to his sons that they were to stay away from the electrical poles along the side of the road. The poles were accessable to young spry teenage boys who were willing to climb them. Sampson knew his sons could be attracted to trouble. Sure enough, Elmer could not resist. He climbed up one of the poles and in the process slipped and his arm came in contact with one of the electrical wires. The shock threw Elmer to the ground and cut his arm through to his upper bone. Elmer was more afraid of his father’s punishment for disobeying him than any damage to his arm. So Elmer said nothing and he swore Wilbur to secrecy. It wasn’t until later that the scar gave away his disobedience. Elmer rarely wore anything but long sleeve shirts. I had to hear the story as I never saw his scar.
Elmer’s sons carried on the attraction to mischief. My father told tales of some Halloween stunts. One that stood out to me was when the Swagerty boys tied up a neighbor kid to a tree and left him. This activity was along with the usual pushing over various outhouses. Once when these same boys were living at the Standish ranch, they decided to have turf war with some kids on the ranch over a row boat. Clem and Darrell told this story at a family wedding on Whidbey Island, Washington. The kids in question belong to various workers who were supervised by Elmer Swagerty, the manager at the ranch. After rocks being thrown to no conclusive winner, Clem got the hair brain idea of getting his father’s shotgun. Elmer had very strict rules about guns and the boys were never to touch his gun unless he was there. In the process of loading the gun or trying to use it, it jammed.
A tragedy was averted but the boys paid a price. When Elmer realized later that his gun had been messed with, the boys had to line up for their punishment. Elmer used his belt and started with the oldest and worked his way down to the youngest culprit. It was a punishment these brothers remembered a good sixty years later.
Clem used his college training as a coach to get a job in the California prison system starting out as the athletic director at San Quentin. Later he went into administration and had been to several prison sites. At one of his prison locations he made enough of an enemy of a prisoner that he was targeted for revenge. Clem was in a severe car crash because his brakes had been partly cut causing the brakes to fail when he had to slow down at a curve. He survived that crash and lived to a ripe old age of 92. Clem’s younger brother Darrell and his wife Nilma were in a severe car crash right after both of their children had been born but were still little. Darrell hit a train at a crossing and lost one of his eyes in the process. They were both in a coma-like state at the scene when they were rescued. Nilma remembers the ambulance personel saying to each other that the guy was beyond help and they should give their attention to her. She was unable to open her eyes or mouth to protest. Clem was involved with providing transport via an airplane to take Darrell from Washington, where the accident happened, back to California where family lived. Darrell was still in a coma when they were placing him onto the plane. As he is on the stretcher he came to long enough to complain that his straps were too tight. He then collapsed back into a coma. Fortunately for all, they both recovered to live much longer and raise those kids.
My father and mother were living at their house on Dwight Way. The house was a triple level, four bedroom, three bath 3200 square foot home that sat on the corner of a small city lot. The backyard was minimal. Still Dad found space for a small garden and workspace by what was once an incinerator. He decided to split some logs to use in the fireplace. He was not careful about his surrounding limited space and raise his axe to start splitting. The axe came up and got caught by a clothes line and ended up hitting him square on his forehead. That blow knocked him out and when he came to he figured out why he was on the ground. The swing of the axe could have done so much more damage as he was using the flat side to hit a wedge. Fortunately he did not use the wedge part with that first swing which would have put the sharp axe end into his forehead. He took down the clothesline and continued his task. I am surprised he shared that tale because it certainly raised concerns among his audience of family.
The youngest Swagerty brother, Jack, did work for the state department as a farm advisor. He went to multiple third world countries and advised on how to best use certain land. Jack used to joke that he knew it was time to leave the country when the bounty on his head got to a large amount. Uncle Darrell was convinced his younger brother Jack worked for the C.I.A. but Jack always answered that if he told him, he would have to kill him. I am sure Jack had some close calls we are not aware of. He also lived into his nineties.
In the next generation, John, my husband, has been a motorcycle rider for almost sixty years. The saying goes that when you ride a “murdercycle” it is not if but when you will crash. There are two kinds of riders: Those that have crashed, and those who are going to crash. John has had his share of close calls but never an all out crash where he left the bike. Much to my relief, he has sold his last motorcycle and gets his two wheel rides on his bicycle. Besides riding a motorcycle, John would aim for a yearly trek up Mt. Shasta with the elevation of 14,179 feet. There is altitude adjustment involved plus putting on crampons to get through the icy slopes. There have been 50 fatalities in recent history and most of those are on the trek down when the climber is tired. John was hiking solo this certain year when he realized he had to abort his climb. Weather conditions play a big part of any climb up the challenging mountain. The conditions were such that John turned around to start his trek down the mountain. There is a certain section where one glissades down snowy troughs. The glissade can be the highlight of the climb, but this was early in the day, BEFORE the snow gets soft. It was so icy that he immediately was on a “runaway train”, and unable to arrest the speed by dragging the ice axe. He had many alternating views of the blue sky and the side of the mountain with rock outcroppings. The mountain slowly began to level off enough to let John gradually slow down and stop, in one piece and miraculously unhurt. The mountain let him off the hook this time with a warning. John had had a previous tumble where his backpack went flying in one direction and he went in the other. After the second fall down the mountain instead of the glissade, John decided his mountain climbing days were over. Whew!
In my sixties, I had cancer. The doctor decided on a very aggressive treatment and gave me 50/50 odds. I wasn’t ready to go yet and was successful with the treatment. That scare did leave me with a “What am I waiting for” attitude and that was when I started traveling and trying new adventures. Our lives are precious and we need to appreciate our existence more often. Hopefully I have some more years to appreciate.
1612 words
8/4/2021
Swagerty-Aldrich Family Web Site 