By Ruth Wood Aldrich, 1984
Clarence’s WWI War Stories
(Page one is missing so the stories pick up on page 2.)
During World War I many men were being sent home from Europe but no one was sent from Siberia. Clarence was in Siberia during World War I.
After the Tzar was killed, the Russians tried to set up a democratic form of government. However, Lenin was allowed to enter by the Germans and set up a Communist government.
Clarence finally ended up helping to keep the Trans Siberian railroad open. He went across Siberia to the Urals. He saw Siberia in winter and summer. He saw how rich and how poor the country was. Some of the places he mentioned seeing were Murmansk Omsk, Lake Bikel, Habarovsh and Ekaterinburg. Ekaterinburg was where the Tzar family was housed, imprisoned and probably killed by the Bolshevist soldiers, which was a grisly story to read about.
Clarence was a sergeant in the 146 Ordinance listed as a truck driver. He was also listed as wounded. His foot was shot up badly and it was saved by a young doctor from John Hopkins Hospital. Clarence had a metal plate in his foot and it always gave him trouble. When he came home, he still had many bits of shrapnel in his scalp and body. The bits would fester and we could pick them out most of the time. One time his tongue swelled and was sore under it. We went to the doctor and the doctor removed a pebble from the area between the tongue and gum. He had a place in the muscle of the leg that gave him trouble for a long time. The doctor wanted to cut it out but Clarence said he would keep it as a keepsake, which he did. It finally capsulated it self off and did not bother him again. He was a nervous wreck for a long time and would awaken in the night screaming and would get up and run outside. Flash backs are common with soldiers and anyone who had been through horrible experiences.
The army from Siberia was called the forgotten army. The war had been over for a year when the boys from the Pacific came home. I will always feel sorry for the American soldier. They are heroes.
The House at Geer and Santa Fe
It was a two-story house with a front room, sitting room, dining room and a kitchen with pantry, and porches down stairs. Upstairs there were three bedrooms, two small storage rooms and bathroom. The house was not plastered but covered with lath with building paper or also called felt paper and paint covered the walls.
There was no electricity and it was heated by a wood stove in the front room and a big wood cook range in the kitchen. The water was heated by running through coils in the burning part of the stove. With a big fire the water in the tank could get very hot and steam would have to be let out.
It was a damp, cold, thick fog on January 6, 1923. Clarence got up and started the fire in the cooking range. He then went to the barn to put in the cows. He found out we were out of water so he climbed up on the windmill to grease it. The wind had not blown much for a few days.
I was awaken by a loud rumbling, banging noise so I ran down the stairs from the bedroom to be greeted by a wall of flames. I slammed the doors shut and ran while grabbing Emily Lou who was nine months old.
I screamed for help and Clarence heard me. Some people passing on Geer Road heard me and they all came to help. We took out the baby bed and put the baby in it. Then we tried to save what ever we could.
I saved my government bond I had just brought from bank that previous day. We dumped things on the baby and luckily we did not hurt her. We did a lot of silly things. I wanted to save the piano, which had come from Iowa. Every one said it was too big and we can’t move it.
The flames were rolling over our heads. I had on only a thin nightly so when Allen Harris, our neighbor, saw us he thought I needed to be wrapped in a blanket. He took Emily Lou and me to his mother.
Mrs. Harris was a large lady and she fixed me up in her clothes. The pants I shall never forget. They were made of muslin with ruffles on the bottoms of the legs. They were the kind that were split in the seat. They came down to my ankles. She cut old undershirts up for nighties and dishtowels for diapers for Emily Lou. Mrs. Biglow came in and began to cry when she saw what a mess we were in. Mrs. Harris said, “For goodness sake! Why are you crying? It is not your fire. I remember that although it was tragic, we still had to laugh at ourselves. It reminds me of the story of the happiest man who didn’t have a coat.
Clarence had his war treasures stored in a little storage room next to the bathroom in a footlocker. He has stored a small bomb and all of a sudden the things exploded and blew off the roof. The next day we found a drawer blown from the bathroom sitting neatly on the back lawn full of towels. I wonder how he got that bomb. We had an empty one down stairs. His was trophies.
We finally got settled into the new house. It was in May that same year. It was a nice summer evening on a Sunday. We had returned from a ride and I was sitting on the front porch rocking Emily Lou to sleep. Emily Lou had whooping cough at this time. Suddenly, I heard Clarence scream and he told me to get into that car and take him to the doctor.
Our little old Maxwell car was sitting in front. I dumped Emily Lou in the seat between us and started for Turlock. I did not realize how desperate the situation was until I looked up at his hand, which he was holding up high. I saw blood pouring down but worse his thumb was hanging by a long piece of skin right in front of me. Every time I slowed he would yell go faster.
We finally arrived at Emanuel Hospital and ran in. We asked for Dr. Collins only to be told they did not accept his patients. His hospital was down town over the bank. We ran back to the car. Clarence drove down town as fast as we could go. He ran stairs and stuck his fist in the desk nurse’s face and said get me a doctor quick! She and the other nurses put him on the operating table and called Dr. Collins. Then Mrs. Adams, the desk nurse, fainted. He lost the thumb, index finger and use of his middle finger. But he learned to do most necessary tasks. Four years later, when I was in the hospital, my door was open.
A lady looked in and asked if I was Mrs. Aldrich. She said, “I don’t suppose you remember me. I am Mrs. Adams and I shall never forget the night your husband stuck his bloody fist in my face and said get a doctor quick.”
Strange as it seems, that after all these years, I should get a squeamish feeling. I actually do feel sick to my stomach. I guess it is what is called a flash back.
How did Clarence happen to shoot himself? Coyotes were common and raided our chicken coops. Clarence has gone up to milk the cows when he saw this coyote with a chicken. He ran after it with his shotgun cocked. As he crossed the irrigation ditch’s little bridge, he caught his toe in a hole and fell putting his hand in front of the gun, which went off. He fore off a strip of his shirt and made a tourniquet. Then he ran to the house which was about one eight of a mile.
It was a tough year and next year wasn’t too easy either. We put all our effort and cash we got from the insurance into changing his dad’s place from a dairy to peaches. 1924 was the first peach crop. On the sub irrigating land, we grew cukes for pickles and harvested them for seed. The seed was in a warehouse in Denair.
Clarence was not happy that he and his father couldn’t come to an agreement for the next year. In fact he insinuated we cheated him. There were many points of disagreement so we decided to buy our own. We bought forty acres on Verduga Road with a $7,500 Cal Vet loan. His dad had moved to San Jose when we first moved on the place. Now he would move back and Elmer and family would take his job on the pear ranch at San Jose. They had lost the ranch in Ripon.
The next year Clarence’s dad rented to the Apolonar Rojas a Mexican hired man. They had a good year. The Mexican bought a new car and all of the kids got new clothes. His wife bought herself a white satin dress. Her sister said, “She looks like a fly in the butter milk.” They lived high for a while. The next year the Wilbur Swagerty family moved on the ranch.
The House Fire
Going back to the year the house burned, three days later the small barn burned. It was set by someone. It was where we kept our wood and coal. We had been bothered all fall by some Negro tramps who camped across the tracks. We noticed one building with little fires in the grass that afternoon and thought it strange.
We were staying in town with my sister that night. Clarence was having a haircut when the fire whistle began to blow. One of our neighbors the Johnsons were passing the place and noticed a tall man standing in the barn and it looked as if something was burning inside. They called the sheriff and he took in the tramp. He was an ex con and had been in Sing Sing and also San Quentin. He never confessed to the fire. The arson board man said he bet the house was set also. That is a horrible thought and I preferred to think the line clothes I had drying over the stove broke and fell on the hot stove. It is only a theory, as we will never know.
The place had another fire. Bees had moved into the top of the silo so Dad Aldrich thought while they were milking he would smoke the bees out. So he filled a pan with sulphur and set it on a board in the top of silo. Well, it wasn’t long until he had a raging fire and away went everything. Our neighbor Mr. Otto Swanson dropped by one day and he was laughing. He said, “Abe smoked out the bee to get honey but he got money.” I don’t know if the insurance paid.
Clarence in the Paper
April 28, 1916 had an article in the local paper. Bloodhounds turned loose on the trail of a fugitive highwayman who had beaten and robbed Clarence Aldrich age 18 a short time earlier. The bloodhounds lead a posse headed by Under Sheriff Loren Davis to a nearby ranch. When the search failed to reveal any one hiding on the ranch, the dogs were started once more and for a second time led the way back to the ranch barn. Again no one was found and the hunt was turned over to officers.
The farm in this story was the Gabriel place. Clarence was walking home after church in the evening. When he came to Service Road on Santa Fe, there was a piece of road equipment there and a man sitting on it. He asked Clarence the way to town. As Clarence turned to point the way, the man struck Clarence over the head with an iron bar. Clarence had the Sunday school collection money on him. That was what the robber got. When Clarence finally got home, he was out of his mind. His folks called the officers who figured out what had happened. The man who had the dogs started the story that there was no robber but that Clarence and Earl Gabriel had gotten into a fight over a girl friend. The man didn’t want the reputation of his dogs sullied so he started that silly story.
The Meatloaf
I was going to be gone for the day so I prepared some food, which would be easy for Clarence to fix for his lunch. I left a note telling him it was in the refrigerator. Before I left, I opened a can of dog food and fed the dog part of it. The remainder I put in a covered dish and placed it in the bottom shelf of the refrigerator.
That night when I returned, he said, “Gee, honey, that was a good lunch, especially the meat loaf.” Meat loaf? I looked in the refrigerator and saw that the dish in which I put the dog food was empty.
I closed the door gently and thought where ignorance is bliss. It would be folly to say anything. Then I said I hope you won’t feel like barking after awhile. That meatloaf was made by Friskies.
The Fly Who Came to Lunch
One day while I was preparing lunch for Clarence, a big blue bottle fly kept buzzing about the room. Each time I tried to swat it, I missed it and it would disappear for a while. When Clarence sat down to the table, I placed before him a plate of fruit salad with a mound of cottage cheese and dressing on top.
All of a sudden, that fly swooped into the room and went kerplunk into the dressing on that salad. I wanted to make another salad for him but he said, “Oh no! It’s O.K. I’ll just put it on the edge of the plate.” Then he securely weighed it down with a glob of cheese.
We proceeded to chat and eat our lunch. When suddenly with horror, I noticed that his plate was empty. He had not only finished his salad but he had eaten that glob with the fly in it.
He turned a bit green when I called his attention to what he had done. Well, it was too late to rescue the fly. We knew if Clarence got sick what the cause would be. I guess it was a healthy fly. Clarence only felt squeamish when he thought of what he had eaten.
A Sunday Ride
One Sunday, Clarence and I were taking a leisure ride through the country when we noticed a little girl selling bouquets of spring flowers in rusty tin cans. In front was a sign, which appeared to say “Flowers 5 cents a bunch”
We began to recall the different ways we had earned money as kids. After we had gone some distant, I said, “If that little girl is there when we go by, I am going to buy some flowers.”
Well, sure enough she was still there. He reached into his pocket to get a nickel, but all he had was a quarter. “Oh heck, he said, “give her a quarter not a nickel.” Now Clarence was always one to think if a little is good, a lot more is better. In short, he liked to do things on a grand scale.
I drove up beside the stand, and held out the quarter to the little girl. I asked for a bouquet of flowers. She looked at that coin and then picked up a bouquet, sat it back, and picked another and set it back down. Several times she did that and I thought she was trying to find the nicest one because we were giving her a quarter instead of a nickel. Finally she handed me the bunch of flowers and took my money. I noticed they were the most wilted bunch on the stand. Just as I started to drive away, I looked at the sign laying on the ground and to my chagrin, I saw that it read “Flowers 50cents.” The zero next to the 5 was so small we did not see it. She was not trying to give us her pretty flowers but what she thought was good enough for the quarter.
When I told Clarence what the sign said, he deflated like a punctured balloon. That night as he sat on the edge of the bed pulling off his socks, he said, “ What are parents thinking to let a kid sell wilted flowers in old rusty cans for fifty cents?” “Did you ever hear of inflation,” I asked. His ego was wounded.
This is a true story. We had a yard full of spring flowers. We stopped to visit Mary Anne who was ill to give her our bought flowers. This was when Randy was a baby.
This is now 1984 and I wonder what the little girl is doing now? I wonder what she would ask for her flowers today.
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