Anyway, I'm going to start in talking to you about family history before I was born. As you know, the Canfields went to Aldine (Texas) in 1898 and the Rousseaus went to Harris County (Texas) in '98. They farmed about 8 miles north and we was only a mile where Dad built a house.
Q: Grandpa, where did the Canfields come from?
Kansas. And the Rousseaus came from Illinois. I'm not sure just which town Rousseaus was in last --- but I think it was Peoria, Illinois.
Q: That's where your mama's milinary store was?
Yes, that's where it was. But they had lived in Chicago at one time before the fire. They was living there at the time of the fire. Then Grandfather and his brother had a grocery store, or it was a wholesale house. They lost everything and no insurance. They lost everything, so they moved down to Hennepin, Illinois. And they got into a hotel and your Grandmother Rousseau worked -- took care of that and Grandfather helped some and drove a hack and then the trains and would bring the passengers to the hotel.
But they moved about 8 miles from Aldine -- that was towards Humble -- but closer to the church in Aldine, so they went to Aldine church. And Dad got acquainted with them right away. He was very much taken with Aunt Mae who was the youngest living Rousseau girl.
Aunt Mae told me that he'd asked her to marry him, but he never told me that and Mother never did. But Mother did tell me that Dad had wanted Aunt Mae but Aunt Mae said she told him that she thought a lot of him -- that she loved him -- but she didn't want to marry an "old man." She was eighteen and he was THIRTY! (Chuckle)
Well, he liked Mother and he had liked her, of course, when he was going to see Aunt Mae, so he started to date Mother so that he could see Aunt Mae even if she didn't want him. Then he asked Mother after a while -- he asked Mother to marry him and they married on, uh, December 20, 1901.
Q: There in the church in Aldine?
Yes. I think it was at the church, although it could have been at the house. I'm not sure. But they were married by a minister.
But she -- they -- wanted an offspring and she had a miscarriage. And her doctor told her never to try again -- that her health would be impaired.
See, a horse had throwed her and dragged her for about a mile with her foot in the stirrup when she was teaching school. That's why she had quit and gone to the milinary. She couldn't ride horseback anymore. And the doctor told her never to try to have another child. But she wanted one so bad they tried the second time and they got ME! (Chuckle)
Q: Well, I think they did pretty good!
Well, I was always grateful to Mother for having me against the doctor's . . . well, because by the time I went to school they'd told me all that. So I was awful grateful to her and I thought so much of her, how - - things that she would do when she was blind; the sewing, ironing with that old flat iron that she heated on the stove and sometimes she would drop that iron and if Dad or I was there we'd get it up for her but if she was alone she would get a rag and try to get that up so it wouldn't hurt the linoleum and it burned her hand a good many times.
Then of course I got an electric iron for her as soon as I could and insisted she use it. I set it on low and told her if she wanted to try it anytiime to wait till Dad or I was there -- well, Grandmother was there part of the time, too.
Dad was always so good to her. So kind and loving. He'd always give her a kiss before he left and when he just come back. He ALWAYS did. And he was always so patient with her and helping her so much. I really admired him and he never did give me a spanking.
Q: He didn't?
Momma: In those days, that was rare.
He said, "I got so many BEATINGS when I was a kid that I swore I'd never beat a kid of mine." Of course, I got several spats on the rear and I remember that! (Chuckle) "Behave yourself! You know better than that!" Such as that. But he never did spank me. He threatened to, but I loved him so much that I always tried to do what he wanted.
So then I went down to finish school, there to be a pharmacist afterwards if I could. If I didn't get married too soon I would go on and get a master's degree in chemistry to be a chemist -- one of the two things I wanted to do.
Well, I went to school. At the time I went down it was only a two year course to get your pharmacy license. Before the first year was over they changed the laws so that you had to be a pharmaceutical chemist to take the State Boards. Well, that required three years of school. Well, I didn't have enough. And Dad was working there at home with chickens trying to make a living and be with Mother. And that last year he had Grandmother to take care of, too. She was sick in bed the most of the time. But he insisted I just finish school. So I did and I took the State Boards.
I couldn't get work -- I worked and went to school at the same time. Had to write one letter home every week or they really worried about me. The phone bills was so high then, long distance, we didn't feel like either one of us could afford it.
Q: What year was that, Grandpa?
'24 to '27. I graduated in '27.
Q: You graduated from high school in '23, didn't you?
'23, yeah. I worked for one full year. Dad was doing good enough with the chickens that he wouldn't take any board that year. In fact, I never did pay board, but I paid a whole lot more, though, cause I was always buying things for the house for 'em. And, after when I came back, took the State Boards, I couldn't get a job till I got the results and got my license. And it took a little while to do that -- to get the license -- a few weeks. And I took my trunk home with me because I could check it on the baggage on the ticket -- on the train.
And I got home, and I'd only been home a couple days and Dad got a letter from a feed store that he owed $500 -- "I'm cutting your credit off, and will bring suit against you for the bill unless you pay immediately." And, boy, that was an awful hard blow, for me to see that he'd gotten that far in. Cause I knew he'd already owned $2500 on a note for the place that he never -- wasn't able to pay off. So that made three-thousand that he owed and I owed three hundred dollars and I said, "How can I make that up in pharmacy???"
The best offer I ever got was a chain in Portland there -- it was '27 but still the chain stores had hit Portland. And they went into a depression, and especially for a hired pharmacist. The best offer that I had was $60 a month to manage a store in John Day, Oregon, which ws over in central Oregon -- quite a ways from home -- they would have give me a furnished room -- or partially furnished -- a partially furnished room above the drug store but I'da had to eat in a restaurant and I said, "How can I save any money or help you or anything of the kind?" In fact, it'd been a heck of a long time to ever got them out of debt, that's a cinch, let alone any living expenses. So, I said, "Well, I can make around $135 to $150 in the mills." So I went back to the mills.
Q: What kind of mill was it?
Uh, saw mill. Boiler room -- as a fireman. Fireman laborer -- and boy, I sweated many times in there. That place was so hot! They had what they called a "Dutch oven." It was on top of a funrace and it had big round holes in it where the sawdust went in to. And the boiler was right in front of there and those boilers -- the flames would come up in front of there through the tubes. Oh, it would get so hot in there sometimes. And goin' upstairs -- sometimes shoveling the sawdust back -- and it was hotter up there. And then I'd go home and help him. So, I paid that off and ........
Momma: That was during the Depression, I guess......
I paid that off before the Depression came on. And built him a larger chicken house so he could have more chickens and make a little more out of it. And then, of course, then I was living at home -- I couldn't get a job!
Q: What did that have to do with it, Grandpa?
Because I was living at home and there was such a shortage of jobs that they'd give 'em to a married man or a single man that didn't have a home. They said I could get along. I could live there. So, I didn't have any job. In the Depression -- for quite a while -- oh, I'd get a few days in at a time.
I got back on steady at the mill and the mill burned down! It seemed like everything was goin' against me there for years. The folks used to talk about wanting me to get married and I said, "I couldn't have a home of my own!" "Well, bring her here." I said, "Well, she'd have to be very special to do that . . . for all four of us to live . . . there might be another one that'd come along afterwards. I better just stay the way I am for a while."
Q: Did you date or anything, Grandpa?
There for a while I didn't have that much time. I would try to go to a picture show occasionally working on the shift that I could. But a lot of times -- or part of the time -- I'd be on the afternoon shift, or a lot of the time I was on the graveyard shift from 11 to 7 in the morning, and I didn't feel like going anyplace. And I'd get up and help Dad for a while before I went to work. I just didn't feel like it. So girls was just out for a long time.
Then after the War (WWII) came along, I was getting a little serious about Nellie Sherman, but -- and then a girl there in Montesano (WA) that I liked was a widow about 8 years younger than I was -- I liked her pretty well, but she suggested I should get married before I went into the service. I said...I don't know whether she would...but "I would work to put all your allotment into getting to buying a place," and so on and so forth. But she didn't say she'd do it for me, but it was implied that it could be.
And Nellie liked me very well, but when I didn't ask either one of them . . . Nellie got married on the first day of 1944. She said she grabbed the first man she seen. Of course, it was a man that she'd worked with for years and was a widower and she knew him well and I think he probably asked her before that, but that's the way she put it. (Chuckle)
Then afterwards, after the folks died, I did date her sister for a while, but her sister was -- I didn't think that I could live up to her expectations in some ways -- accept her religion as I thought a person should.....
Q: What religion was she?
Assembly of God. That was one reason I didn't get more interested in the next door neighbor. For years there . . . I thought so much of her but she was Catholic. I couldn't accept the Catholic religion. We was awful close there from 1912 on to '23 -- '24 I guess it was when I went down to school. It was quite close . . . although I had another girl. I had a girlfriend that I was dating and going with. I thought that I would marry after I got out of school. We had a pact that we would meet. We would date other people, but we was to meet in five years and see if we still cared for one another. But, she got married before then. It was after I come back from Portland, after school, right then. It hit me awful hard when she did. It just seemed like life was passing me entirely.
I'd take the best that I could though -- takin' care of the folks. After they died, I did date that Bessie Sherman there for a little while -- some -- she'd come up there.... One morning I know I was supposed to work at the post office along in the summer. She said, "I just wondered if you'd like to go to Tacoma with me to see my cousin." And I knew him. He'd lived in Montesano when he was a boy. His mother was widowed, so I knew him. I told her, I said, "Well, I'm supposed to work two hours this morning . . . but as warm as it is I don't have to have any fire in the furnace. I'll just go without permission!" So I just didn't punch in! And I went there. I got bawled out a little bit about it the next day. Anyway, I WENT! I didn't lose my job over it.
But, I never walked out on the job -- only one job I ever walked out of in my life. I walked off of the section without notice at the close of a shift and didn't go back. Well, I did go back and give notice the next morning. There was two different section bosses that I did that with. But I went there -- I took the job with the understanding that if another job come up that paid more that I was going to. I was leaving right away.
Q: At the saw mill?
Yeah, the job at the boiler room -- cause I'd already -- well, I -- first year when I was in high school, I hadn't worked at the boiler room yet but I had a promise of it. And when it come up, why I went there. And second year, after I graduated, I went down -- had a promise of a job at the boiler room and something come up -- it was a different chief engineer though. At that time I was the first. I'd worked under him just a little bit. Then changed while I was there that first summer. And so I went to see him and he said, "Well, I haven't got anything right now but," he said, "it won't be very long till there's one man I'm gonna fire. I've already give him warning if he did anything -- certain things again that I was gonna fire him." He says, "It won't be too long till he does that or something else so I'll be justified in firing him after I warned him."
So I started to work one morning down on the section. I went down there and told them that. I asked that formeman that I'd worked for the year before. He didn't have any opening. They had eight men on a section. He was on Montesano to Aberdine. There was another section foreman that had located there in Montesano that was Montesano to Elna, which was about ten miles -- about the same -- and he had a crew of eight men but he only had seven. And I told him that it was only temporary work. "Well, I'd like to see you stay but go ahead -- I'll give you a job anyway."
And so, I started to work and worked there just a very short time and I was talking to some of the other boys . . . I went past the condenser going home from work . . . that just as soon as something else come up that paid better I sure was leaving that cause I'd already warned the foreman that I was. And darn if he didn't call Dad up on a Sunday. I'd known him for years, too. He called up Dad one Sunday and says, "Tell Maurice to stop and see me as he goes to work."
So, I stopped at that small Carnation condenser and he told me what he could offer and he'd give me $120 a month -- I think I was making $106. He'd give me $120 but he couldn't guarantee more than eight months work a year.
"Well," he said, "if you would, I need a man right today, and if you would, I'd like to have you start in today. When your engineer wants you just let me know and you can go." So, I worked there 3 days and on the afternoon of the third day the engioneer come and said "I want Canfield! I want him at eleven o'clock tonight!"
I told Cleve, "I told you when I come here that I was going when he wanted me." Cleve said, "I know. I don't like it but I have to take it." So that was walking off those jobs. I did give previous notice, though.
And then when I come to -- during the war, or after it started in '41 -- I was working at the Robert Bray shingle mill, and I'd have to go back and forth on the afternoon shift. I didn't have a car and hadn't had one since World War II. And, I felt like I never could afford it with my folks.
Continued............
