Helen Beaubier
Interview Transcript



Helen ---
I've never talked into one of these [the microphone]

Interviewer ---
Ignore it, it doesn't exist okay. Interview with Helen Beaubier on April 11, 2004. Like I said Aunt Helen, just ignore that that exists and it goes away okay, 'cause actually I'm talking into it too.

Helen ---
Oh okay

Interviewer ---
Okay, the standard question, there's two standard ones. Number one: Where were you on December 7, 1941?

Helen ---
I was working the circuit board in Newport on the telephone.

Interviewer ---
And how did you hear about the, about the attack?

Helen ---
You know, I can't remember how I heard that, but I know I had, I called out to the farm and told them but I don't know why and how I heard that.

Interviewer ---
Did it, did it might [have] come over the switchboard?

Helen ---
Well it must have, must have gotten it from another operator or something, I don't remember.

Interviewer ---
Okay, the second standard question. How do you feel about the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, should we have done it or should we have not, and then why?

Helen ---
I think we should've, I think we should've and stop that miserable war and they started it and we finished it.

Interviewer ---
It's okay, if you two [Bob and Norma Rednour] want to interject that's fine, it just makes my transcribing exciting, it's not bad, if you want to say something, that's fine, okay. You already kinda said it, but where did you work?

Helen ---
Well, I was working at the telephone office

Norma Rednour ---
Were you not out on the farm that night?

Helen ---
No, I was workin'

Norma ---
Because all the cousins and everybody was there

Helen ---
I was workin'

Norma ---
That musta been when you called us and we heard about it

Helen ---
Oh Sunday morning and Ernie and Bob was at, Bob came in, Bob came in the office and Ernie said to him, "The season is closed on the Japs until we get up there," or something like that [laughs]. But we were living in Metaline Falls at that time.

Interviewer ---
And what were your wages while you were at the telephone office, do you remember?

Helen ---
When I started out I got eighteen cents an hour every three months I got a quarter of a cent raise. I worked two hours a day and lived in an apartment with two other girls and got along just fine.

Interviewer ---
Okay, I'm going to quit taking notes too. Where was your apartment?

Helen ---
My?

Interviewer ---
Where was your apartment at?

Helen ---
Oh, when I was living with Helen and Joyce we were above um...

Norma ---
Levitt's house?

Helen ---
Huh?

Norma ---
Levitt's house?

Helen ---
Uh uh, no, no we were above the a garage I think, wasn't there a garage on that side of the street, let's see...

Bob Beaubier ---

Ford garage?

Helen ---
No, but down the way, it wasn't...

Bob Beaubier ---

Langordon's...didn't he have some apartments upstairs?

Helen ---
Grimaldred had

Bob Beaubier ---

Above the theater I think

Helen ---
Well Norma and I lived above the theater but didn't Carolyn? It was a big old rickety building.

Interviewer ---
That's okay

Helen ---
I can't remember the name of it

Interviewer ---
Were you, you were working at the telephone office in Newport?

Helen ---
Uh huh

Interviewer ---
Okay

Bob Beaubier ---

At the old Northern Hotel?

Helen ---
No, it was down the street from there

Interviewer ---
I want to say the Shell, but I don't think that's right either

Helen ---
No

Interviewer ---
I have a picture of Newport, I'll look, I'll pick it out

Helen ---
Okay, it's an old, it was an old kind of a red building

Bob Beaubier ---

Well that was the...

Helen ---
Gee whiz, what was it?

Bob Beaubier ---
[unintelligible] theater was red

Helen ---
That was where Norma and I lived, that's where we lived, Norma and I lived there when you and I got married...

Interviewer ---
That's okay, not a problem

Helen ---
...which was before I ever knew you, when Helen and Joyce and I lived together.

Bob Rednour ---
Up the barbershop?

Norma ---
Bob said the barbershop

Bob Beaubier ---
Oh across from the barbershop was the hotel

Helen ---
Well the Northern Hotel, this wasn't the hotel

Bob Rednour ---
There were apartments above there

Bob Beaubier ---
Well that was the hotel, that was in the Northern Hotel

Helen ---
We weren't in the Northern Hotel, yeah we weren't there

Norma ---
I was thinking you lived in Levitt's place when you went upstairs and you lived in that one, that one section.

Helen ---
We had two rooms, we lived in two rooms

Interviewer ---
Okay, what um I'll ask you differently here, when and how did you meet your husband Bob?

Helen ---
Over the, over the telephone [laughs]

Interviewer ---
Really?

Helen ---
Yep, we talked all the time. I used to call a boy I was going with on the lookout and I had to, I had to go to Bob [laugh] he was working at the CC Camp and so I went, you know went through him to get up to where Walt was, and talked to Walt, and he'd listen and then he after while he wouldn't connect Walt and me. [laughs] And he asked me one time oh we were at a dance and he asked me if he picked a gallon of huckleberries if I'd make him a pie and I said sure, so I did and sent it to him in the mail, that's it, a huckleberry pie.

Interviewer ---
A huckleberry pie in the mail?

Helen ---
Yep, and he said it was good [laugh]

Interviewer ---
Now where was he?

Helen ---
He was at the CC Camp down at Usk

Interviewer ---
Okay

Helen ---
Workin for the Forest Service

Interviewer ---
Okay, so he was working at the Veterans Camp right?

Helen ---
Uh huh

Interviewer ---
Okay, all right, um that's interesting, I thought he was up on a lookout

Helen ---
Uh uh well he wasn't in a lookout then, uh uh, I always wished he did.

Interviewer ---
Why?

Helen ---
I would liked to have gone up and seen him up there at the north end of Priest Lake and he talks about how pretty it was when the moon shone down the length of the lake and everything and I just thought it'd been fun to go in there, course we weren't married at the time, I couldn'ta stayed overnight.

Interviewer ---
Yeah

Helen ---
[laugh] and not in those days I couldn't

Interviewer ---
Oh yeah

Helen ---
Oh no

Interviewer ---
When did you get married?

Helen ---
In November 1941 15th, after fire season we had to wait 'til fire season was over before we could get married.

Interviewer ---
Of course

Helen ---
Yep, it was a rainy day [laugh] yep

Interviewer ---
So what was it like having to go through the war, basically you're a war bride, I mean this was two weeks, three weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor

Helen ---
It was, it was a sad, sad day. Really it was a sad day.

Interviewer ---
So it was hard for him to, hard to have him go in and enlist?

Helen ---
Yeah, terrible, uh huh and I was very pregnant with, with Rick and I think that's one thing that made it hard for Bob to leave was the fact that I was pregnant.

Interviewer ---
So you spent the war then, 'cause he was gone and he was gone for what they call The Duration

Helen ---
Yeah

Interviewer ---
What was it like having to raise a young son and you know do all that?

Helen ---
It was, it was good as far as Rick and I were concerned, um but it was hard for Bob when he got home. I know it was hard for Bob to, to adjust to the fact you know that we now had a little two year old kid and my interest was, had been totally Rick for two years for it was, it was not easy.

Interviewer ---
All right, kinda move ahead a little. It's okay Grandma, it's okay [being offered something to drink], you'd be amazed at the stuff I can edit out now, I have the machinery to do it. Um, what was it like having to live through the rationing system?

Helen ---
Well you just accepted it, it was not easy. I mean you didn't get shoes every time you turned around. I mean you had to wait and I was lucky because Rick didn't have to have shoes for awhile and so I had two shoe stamps and that was neat [laugh] and um and the meat stamps were, you know we didn't have, we didn't have a lot of meat or sugar or coffee, yeah 'cause it was alright after I had Rick because I had the two you know, it was easier to me than it was then for people who were single and I used to buy cigarettes for my friends 'cause our cigarettes were rationed.

Interviewer ---
What was the hardest thing to live without?

Helen ---
Bob [clasps his hand and laughs]

Interviewer ---
Okay, as far as, all right okay [more laughing in the background] But as far as the rationing went too, you know, yeah

Helen ---
Gas didn't bother me because we didn't have a car, uh I really don't know it wasn't that bad, it wasn't that bad, it was kind of a pain in the neck to have to

Bob Beaubier ---
It was an inconvenience more than a hardship

Helen ---
Yeah it was an inconvenience and it was a pain in the neck to have to give stamps every time you wanted to buy something you know and those goofy little tokens that they had, you had to spend those tokens.

Norma ---
A lot of chicken and rabbit

Bob Rednour ---
Ugh [laugh]

Interviewer ---
Okay, um here's a silly question

Helen ---
I'll give you a silly answer [laugh]

Interviewer ---
You probably will. Grandma [Norma] knows what I'm going to ask too. Did you ever paint your legs?

Helen ---
Paint my legs?

Interviewer ---
To, to make up for the hosiery ration

Helen ---
Yeah, yes I did

Interviewer ---
Tell me about that

Helen ---
Wasn't easy and at the time you had seams up the back of your legs you know the stockings all had seams up the back and you had to paint that line on there and it was hard to get that straight.

Norma ---
Bow-legged or knock-kneed

Helen ---
Yeah, knock-kneed

Interviewer ---
How often did you do that, or did you just deal with the rayon ones that...

Helen ---
I think I just did it when I wanted to get really duded up [laugh]

Interviewer ---
Okay

Helen ---
I didn't do it all the time, sure

Interviewer ---
Did you work at the switchboard in Newport the entire, the entire war other than the time other than the time when you...or did you only work until Rick was born?

Helen ---
I only worked until after Bob and I were married for three or four weeks I think wasn't it?

Bob Beaubier ---
Yeah, well no it was a little longer than that

Helen ---
Maybe a couple months maybe after we were married then I didn't work anymore

Interviewer ---
Okay you lived off his um his pension?

Helen ---
Yeah because I was, you know I had Rick not too long after

Interviewer ---
When was Rick born?

Helen ---
In '44, well it's quite a while isn't it? When did you go in the service?

Bob Beaubier ---
'42

Helen ---
Yeah, that's so, it wasn't too long. Rick was born the 2nd of February in '44

Interviewer ---
What was this area like during the war?

Helen ---
It was neat

Interviewer ---
Describe it to me. Describe what it was, describe what the, I call it "The Pend Oreille Valley" was like, describe this area.

Helen ---
Well it was very beautiful like it is now, I think, I think it still is beautiful. Um didn't see too much of it during the war because you didn't have a car, couldn't go anyplace.

Interviewer ---
What did you do instead to get around?

Helen ---
Walked

Interviewer ---
Walked everywhere you went?

Helen ---
Yeah we did, yeah had a, had a wooden buggy for Rick, well it wasn't a wooden buggy but it'd had a wooden cross things like this [making an X with her arms] with the wheels and then a kind of, wasn't cloth it was kind of an oilcloth or somethin' that I pushed him in, carried the groceries in [laugh].

Interviewer ---
Where did you live in Newport after the two of you got married?

Helen ---
We had a little house next door to his mother's. You know, do you know where Hupp's lived on the corner across from the Assembly of God church?

Interviewer ---
Okay, okay

Norma ---
The old one

Helen ---
Huh?

Norma ---
The old one

Helen ---
The old one yeah

Interviewer ---
Yeah I think I know where that's at

Helen ---
And then Bob's mother lived next door to Hupp's lived just across the street from the church. Mother lived next door and then we lived in a little three room house at the back of that lot and that's where we lived until after Bob came home from the service 'cause then we moved down to his grandmother's house and lived there while he was working at Metaline Falls.

Interviewer ---
And what was Metaline Falls like?

Helen ---
Metaline Falls was neat a neat place to live, a fun place to live, we had lots of fun up there that was, that was you mean the first time we lived there?

Interviewer ---
Yeah the first time you lived up there

Helen ---
Yeah, we lived up at the mine which was about what, five miles out of town

Bob Beaubier ---
Yeah it was up on the hill

Helen ---
Yeah, up on the hill by the mine, and there was a little community of probably eight or ten families that lived up there.

Bob Beaubier ---
There wasn't that many there was about six

Helen ---
Margaret and Ernie [her sister and brother-in-law] yeah, somewhere in that vicinity

Bob Beaubier ---
There were all company houses

Helen ---
Yeah

Interviewer ---
I don't know if I asked this with Bob's interview or not, what, when you were up there um kind of give me a time frame so I kind of have an idea.

Helen ---
Right after we were married.

Interviewer ---
Right after you were married?

Helen ---
We, we, he was at the mine

Bob Beaubier ---
I was workin up there when we got married

Helen ---
When we got married and we moved down to Newport in May and then went up to Naples

Interviewer ---
Okay, okay that gives me a really good time frame then

Helen ---
And then we had a, we had a little two-room cabin at Naples that time when we lived there then before he went in the service. Then when he came back from the service we went back up to Naples and lived in a tent that whole summer.

Interviewer ---
Oh gosh!

Helen ---
We had Rick that summer

Interviewer ---
Lived in a tent with a two year old?

Helen ---
yep

Interviewer ---
You're brave

Helen ---
It was a

Bob Beaubier ---
It was a, they had built at fourteen by sixteen floor

Helen ---
Frame

Bob Beaubier ---
And side wall, screened an then the tent over top of the fly over the top of that and the pack rats would get between the tent and the fly [laughing] and slide down and they'd make a big racket [laughing]

Helen ---
We had a, and they had, they'd turn the mules loose up there so we had an electric fence around our little [laugh] domain, and Rick could almost swing on the electric fence and never get a shock.

Bob Beaubier ---
He did, he'd go down there and swing on it [laugh]

Helen ---
And never get a shock he was two years old, we were so healthy that winter after we came back here after being outside all summer long [laugh] that was a, that was a neat summer, we went there in May and didn't come home until, didn't go back to Newport 'til in October, the end of October, it was getting a bit chilly by then.

Interviewer ---
Oh yeah, um being that you were in Newport Aunt Helen, you can answer this one. What do you remember of the Germans and Italians that they brought into Newport, what do you remember of those folks?

Helen ---
You know there were, there were a few kids who, who were in the Conscience Objector camps and they came over to Newport and came to church and didn't have anything to do with Italian or anybody else, it was just those kids.

Norma ---
But there were, there were the Italians and Germans or whatever they were that came into the drugstore when I was working.

Helen ---
Hmm, see I didn't work in the drugstore so...

Interviewer ---
Where were these Conscience Objector camps?

Helen ---
Well they had them in Montana I think that's where these kids came from, over in Montana

Norma ---
I don't know but I invited 'em for dinner and Margaret was about ready to take my head off.

Helen ---
Really? I didn't know that [laugh] and you fed 'em lunch.

Bob Beaubier ---
I don't remember the internees being around Newport

Helen ---
I don't either

Interviewer ---
Yeah there's, yeah there's uh more than one person's told me about that and there was an article even in The Miner that they were bringing 'em that they were bringing them down to...

Bob Beaubier ---
Well

Helen ---
Just to mingle?

Interviewer ---
To mingle, to come and spend money

Helen ---
Hmm

Bob Beaubier ---
Well it musta been after, maybe it was after I went in the...

Helen ---
Might have been after you went in '45

Interviewer ---
I could go and look on my papers back there and it was '43 or '44 or '45

Bob Beaubier ---
Well yeah

Interviewer ---
You were gone by then

Norma ---
It was '44

Helen ---
But it was mostly those COs that I remember

Interviewer ---
See Aunt Dory mentioned the CO camp up by Priest Lake or Priest River and I had never heard of it

Bob Rednour ---
I never did either

Helen ---
I never did either

Norma ---
I don't remember one

Helen ---
I don't either

Bob Rednour ---
There was these one's over here at, don't think there were any conscience objectors around close

Bob Beaubier ---
In that old CCC camp?

Bob Rednour ---
Yeah those were the regular German prisoners they brought 'em in here about late '44 or early '45

Bob Beaubier ---
Yeah well see I was gone because

Bob Rednour ---
They had 'em

Helen ---
And I don't remember them. I didn't have any truck with them [laugh]

Bob Rednour ---
There was a lot of good guys in 'em though

Helen ---
Oh sure there were, of course there were

Bob Rednour ---
You know different places and...

Bob Beaubier ---
I know yeah they well they just like

Helen ---
Just like the Japanese and they just picked up

Bob Beaubier ---
When they took Kubota outta Metaline Falls you know

Helen ---
Yeah that was

Bob Beaubier ---
Mr. Metaline Falls

Helen ---
Yeah

Interviewer ---
Okay, hold on, stop for a second, a big question for me. All right, what about the Kubotas? I mean obviously they were two Japanese families, the one in Newport and the ones in Metaline Falls

Helen ---
They were related, they were related, they were brothers, weren't they?

Bob Beaubier ---
Yeah the one in Newport had the laundry or the dry cleaning shop and the one in Metaline Falls had the hardware store, old "hifty two hifty"

Helen ---
Yeah [laugh] every time

Bob Beaubier ---
Everything was $52.50 [laugh] he couldn't say fifty, he'd say hifty

Helen ---
Yeah [laugh] but nice families both of them

Bob Beaubier ---
Oh they was

Helen ---
Really fine families, but they picked 'em up

Bob Beaubier ---
And you'd go in that store you couldn't find anything yourself but you want something you told...

Helen ---
George

Bob Beaubier ---
George what you wanted and he knew right where it was and he could find it

Helen ---
Yeah

Bob Beaubier ---
And he had it

Interviewer ---
Now where they sent to an internment camp?

Helen ---
I think they were.

Bob Rednour ---
The one at Metaline Falls, the people got together and so they didn't have to go to the camps

Norma ---
They petitioned and he didn't have to go

Bob Rednour ---
The whole town practically got behind him and helped keep him and...

Helen ---
But what about the?

Norma ---
I don't know about the ones in Newport

Interviewer ---
The Newport ones, see they went through school because Faith...

Helen ---
Kathy

Interviewer ---
...McClenny (Clark) said she graduated with one of them

Helen ---
There was a Francis Kubota that was, he worked for Peterson upstairs and it almost seems to me he had to go to camp, but maybe he didn't I don't know, I can't remember for sure

Interviewer ---
One of them went into the Army, Francis [actually George] but it was the Metaline Falls Francis [actually George] that went into the Army, but nothing else was said about the Newport side other than George, George was picked up but brought back

Bob Beaubier ---
I don't think

Helen ---
They probably didn't go

Bob Rednour ---
Well one reason they sent 'em was because the local people they were afraid they'd get up in arms and harm 'em and that's why they picked up a lot of 'em in different areas but like Metaline Falls, the whole area got behind 'em and said they had done nothing wrong and they're wonderful neighbors

Norma ---
And they had quite a family up there

Bob Beaubier ---
I don't remember how big the family was

Helen ---
I don't either

Bob Beaubier ---
There was a bunch of 'em

Helen ---
I don't remember how many were in the family in Newport

Norma ---
Four or five of 'em at least up there, I don't remember how many there were. Dory graduated with one of 'em the Kubota girls I think

Interviewer ---
Yes she did, Faith, Faith Kubota

Helen ---
Yeah Faith Kubota Dory [Schwab], she was in Dory's class

Interviewer ---
Faith McClenny told me

Helen ---
I think she was in Dory's class

Norma ---
Yeah she was in Dory's class

Interviewer ---
Same class as Aunt Dory, okay. Jeez we're getting down to the end. What do you remember most about the war years?

Norma ---
Learning how to play bridge [laugh]

Helen ---
What?

Norma ---
Learning how to play bridge

Helen ---
Yeah I learned how to play bridge. That wasn't such a big highlight. I don't know, I had, I had, I ran around a lot for a long time with three other girls and we'd get together every Saturday night and just have a good time, we'd play card and they all three smoked. I almost learned to smoke during that time, I did I almost learned to smoke and I decided if either Bob's mother or my mother came over to my house and found me smokin' they'd would both just have a an absolute conniption fit, so I quit. I thought this is dumb 'cause I'd go out in the alley and smoke.

Interviewer ---
What was your best moment?

Helen ---
That isn't, that isn't the thing I remember the most

Interviewer ---
Okay, so I didn't know if you were done or not Aunt Helen. So okay, let's continue, what else, what else do you remember the most?

Helen ---
Well course you always looked forward to letters from the guys and I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed my little boy, he was the sweetest little guy and he was the love of the town everybody, everybody liked him. We used to go to the butcher shop and Swan Larson gave him wieners and you know he just, everybody liked him. Howard Kimmel just thought he was the funniest little guy and it was, he was really special.

Norma ---
The family spoiled him

Interviewer ---
I am not surprised knowing the family as I do. What else?

Helen ---
Um let's see, what else. It was hard, hard going without nylon stockings and I remembered when we heard after the war was over and we heard that Penny's had, had nylon stockings and I, I ran outta the house and was gonna run down to the store and get nylons and I got a pair and they were thick and they wouldn't stay up, they were terrible [laugh] they were they were just awful those first nylons that came.

Norma ---
They were rayon

Helen ---
No, well we had rayon ones but we had some nylon ones too, they were terrible, oh gosh I can't think of anything that really stands out that much Kris

Interviewer ---
Okay, that's all right, we'll move on to the next one. What was your best moment?

Helen ---
My best moment was when Bob came home

Interviewer ---
I knew that was coming

Helen ---
Oh man that was a grand day! And I hadn't cleaned the house and I thought, "Oh my gosh!" Bob's mother was over at my house and I, we saw him walking across the yard and oh tsk it was really, really something! [touched, grabbing Bob's hand] I didn't think that [chuckle holding his hand]

Interviewer ---
I just, something just popped in my head

Helen ---
Okay

Interviewer ---
Do you remember the troop trains that came through Newport?

Helen ---
Some yeah, yeah and 'cause no, Uncle Bob, Uncle Dick [Norma's first husband] worked on the trains

Interviewer ---
Now you guys were married but I'm going to ask this anyway, did you ever go down and meet the trains other than to go down and say hi to Dick? But did you ever go down and meet and greet the fellas on the train?

Helen ---
I never did, only when Dick was down there

Interviewer ---
Did Aunt Dory? I don't know if she'd ever tell, I don't think she'd ever tell me if she did

Helen ---
Oh I think she would

Norma ---
No she never did

Helen ---
But I don't think she ever did

Norma ---
No I think it was Margaret and you and I am um Sanders

Helen ---
Lou

Norma ---
Lou Sanders and he'd get off the train and we'd give him hugs and kisses and he'd get back on the train to whence he'd come

Helen ---
Yeah

Interviewer ---
Okay, what was your longest day?

Helen ---
The longest day?

Interviewer ---
The longest day

Helen ---
Oh gosh, waitin' for him I suppose, although we didn't expect him the day came 'cause I would have had the house cleaned if he'd, if I thought he was coming that day. The longest day was probably the one I was waiting when I was waitin' for Rick to be born. Gosh that was an awful long day and then I woke up in the middle of the night and Dory and I walked over to the hospital 'cause she was staying with me and she walked down with me down to the hospital [chuckle] but it was only a block and a half but it was in the middle of the night.

Interviewer ---
The middle of the night?

Helen ---
Yeah

Interviewer ---
Who were your best friends? You already mentioned that you ran around with three other girls.

Helen ---
Yeah

Interviewer ---
What were their names?

Helen ---
Doris Broughton Johnson, May Martin, Evelyn Shell and we got together every...

Norma ---
May Les Martin?

Helen ---
Yeah but we got together every Saturday night and they all drank beer, I didn't drink beer but they all liked beer and I didn't

Interviewer ---
What do you remember about when the war was over, V-E and V-J Day?

Helen ---
The what?

Interviewer ---
What do you remember the most, what do you remember about V-E and V-J Days, when the war was over?

Helen ---
Well of course when they bombed Japan we were just tickled that it was over, just so happy that it was over and then when we heard that the well the war in Europe was over first wasn't it?

Interviewer ---
Right

Helen ---
We, it was really exciting

Interviewer ---
You were living in Newport?

Helen ---
Uh huh next to Bob's mother

Interviewer ---
Were there ever any celebrations in Newport at all that you remember?

Helen ---
I don't remember if there were or not

Interviewer ---
According to the paper there wasn't

Helen ---
I don't think there were I can't think of anything that was

Norma ---
I was in Spokane and there was there

Helen ---
I'm sure there were in there. I don't think there was anything in Newport

Interviewer ---
What do you miss about that time?

Helen ---
What do I miss about that time?

Interviewer ---
What do you miss about that time, is there anything you miss about that time?

Helen ---
Well like I say, it wasn't all bad times. It was, there were a lot of happy times during the war too

Interviewer ---
Such as?

Helen ---
Oh gosh, I can't think of anything that was specifically, but it was not all bad

Interviewer ---
Okay, and last but not least, what have you done since the war ended? What did you do after the war?

Helen ---
Oh we went back up to Naples, which we told you about already

Interviewer ---
Right

Helen ---
And from then we did a lot of moving around with the Forest Service ended up in lots of different places. Yeah we moved a lot, Logan and McCall and Lolo

Bob Beaubier ---
Four times

Interviewer ---
How many times did you move?

Helen ---
I think if I remember right, I counted 'em all up if I counted all the moves that we made, like when we moved from Newport up to Metaline Falls that was the first time and then we moved back, then we moved and I think I counted about twenty-two or twenty-three times.

Interviewer ---
Wow, quite a few

Helen ---
Lots and after you lived in a place, a Ranger Station or someplace after you lived there for three or four years you just thought, "Oh time to move on," and usually you did. We stayed a little longer in the first time in McCall we were there for six years, six and a half years and we were in at Lolo for about five years and we were only up at Four Pine for three years, three and a half.

Bob Beaubier ---
Superior for two

Helen ---
What?

Bob Beaubier ---
Superior

Helen ---
Superior yeah

Interviewer ---
Regular roustabouts

Helen ---
Yeah it was just a way of life in the Forest Service

Interviewer ---
Is there anything I missed that you want to share?

Helen ---
I don't think so, I think you done a pretty good job

Interviewer ---
Did I hit it all?

Helen ---
I think you did.



Copyright © 2004 by Kristen Cornelis