Blount's Bluff: A Family's Farm Empire In The American West As Told By Its Founder's Son.

Poppa's death came to us unexpectedly, fortunately, he had been grooming me to take over for him. He knew he was failing and, maybe secretly, he knew he had little time left. He left us with a tidy profit from last year, $2,916,000 after all the expenses were paid. Uncle Joe has promised to help me and Uncle Jeff Redfeather said that he would stay on as Financial Advisor until I got my feet on the floor. His Grandson, Kelly and Carley's little boy, Tobias, went to Normal School to study accounting and has been understudying Jeff for the last three years. Uncle Jeff says the boy is ready to take over. I guess, ready or not, so am I.

The spring bloom was magnificent, we could smell the peach blossoms all the way over to The Ranch House. The olives were a sea of white flowers and the rains hit just right for plowing. We set out 52,000 acres of wheat, rice, corn and milo. The milo was a new strain we are trying; it is used in animal feed and is supposed to have a greater food content than corn. Caleb Vance stopped by to make sure we had planted his rice for Anchor Steam Beer, he told me that his daddy, Jules, had also passed. He had been a fine man and as honest as the day was long. Caleb was delighted when I told him that we had upped the rice acreage this year, he reminded me that they would buy it all from us. There was no way we were going to sell to anyone else, even the hands called it the Anchor Field!

Uncle Jimmy suffered a slight stroke shortly after Poppa passed, he is turning more and more of his business over to his sons, Willie and Joe. They are hot-shot salesmen, they have the tractor business sewed up all over the northern part of the state.

It was turning out to be a hot year, the grains headed up early and, almost before we were ready, the rice field dried out and was ready for harvesting. It was not quite a record crop, but Caleb was delighted and stood over the grain screw as it filled their rail cars, cackling like an old broody hen. He wouldn't even allow us a little "hold back", they took it all.

We harvested the milo for our own feed, Kelly is sure the feedlot gained more total weight this year. We are milking over 500 cows and have 2,200 feeder calves in the feedlot. The bidding got ferocious, seems the Army was buying up beeves to feed their soldiers. Acme Meats and Ralston Brothers bid the price up to new heights! Rainbow Mills had the highest bid for the winter wheat and they ordered 60 grain cars from the railroad to haul it away.

We were getting a little hard pressed for hands and I posted a notice in both stores, Redding and Marysville that Blount Farms was hiring. We got the usual run of drifters and no-goods looking for an easy job with high pay, but a young fellow, about my age showed up one day, John Feist. He was clean cut and tall as a bean pole. I invited him in my little office and sat him down.

He said, "Mr. Blount, sir, I needs this job, I gots me two boys to feed and my wife run off to the big city with some no count salesman an' we ain't seed her since." I asked him how old his boys were and he replied, "Toby be 8 an' Josiah be 12, sir." He continued, "I wants them be in school, sir. I wants them to be bettern' me with book learnin'." I asked him if he had any experience and he told me that he had been on a farm down in the San Joaquin Valley until his Daddy lost the farm.

I said, "Well, all we have is the bunkhouse for you and your boys, but they are separate rooms, if they can handle that, we have a job for you. Blount House School is right here for all the children of the ranch."

John Feist sat there, with a stunned look on his face and tears in his eyes, "Bless you, Mr. Blount, we was at the end of our string. My money be gone and my boys got no place to stay."

A bit alarmed, I asked, "Where are your boys right now?"

He replied, "We's bin campin' down at Shady Creek."

I said, "Get your horse, we will go get them right now."

He looked shamefaced and said, "I done sold my horse the other day so's I could buy us food, sir."

I leaned out the door and hollered at one of the hands, "Will, go hitch up Poppa's surrey right away, I gotta go!" I turned to John and asked, "How long has it been since you and your boys ate a good meal?"

He replied, "Sir, it be weeks, sir."

I grabbed his hand and we went out the door, Will had the surrey drawn up and I told him to tell Cook that there would be four more for lunch in the chow hall. I told John to jump in the surrey and we headed off to Shady Creek as fast as those two high-steppers would go!

Those boys were a mess, their clothing was more patches than cloth, they had no shoes and were skinny as fence rails! They were both clean and polite, but I could see how hungry they were. I got them back to the Farm and we all went into the chow hall. We went through the serving line, John was surprised that I was going to eat with them and all the hands in the chow hall.

I said, "If it's not good enough for me, it isn't good enough for our hands!"

Cook served us roast pork, green beans, mashed potatoes and he pointed to a huge, double chocolate walnut cake for dessert. The boys' eyes got huge, "Kin usin's get some of that after we eats our dinner?"

Cook looked at the two skinny boys and said, "Yup, two pieces iffin ya want."

All the hands stopped as John stood beside his two boys and said Grace, "Lord, bless us this food, and bless this man what gived me this job. Amen Lord." John Feist was to remain with us the rest of his life and his boys, also.

Two more men came, looking for work. They were brothers, Aldon and Roger Snake. They were both Mono Indians and the hands were a little uneasy with them in the bunkhouse, but they were hard workers and had a knack with handling the cattle. It wasn't long before the color of their skin was forgotten and they became part of the bunkhouse society. They never went into town nor did they ever drink anything alcoholic,.Aldon told me one time that their Daddy was an alcoholic and they weren't taking any chances. Roger was so good, by that fall we made him the feedlot foreman, a job he would keep for his lifetime. Under the Snake Brothers, the feedlot never failed to show a profit.

That fall, officers from the Army Procurement Corps came back, wanting to buy beeves and would pay a premium if the hides were prime. They bought 1,500 head of feeder beeves and they had their own rail cars to carry them off. Their Major, Robert Bingham, was impressed with the way Aldon and Roger Snake handled the cattle and asked if there were any more brothers around.

Aldon laughed, "No sir, but we gots a bunch of sisters?"

Major Bingham chuckled, "Only if I can make soldiers out of them!"

We sold the remainder of the feeder beeves to the Ralston Brothers down in Stockton and Manteca. The summer wheat was a near record crop and almost had no place to store the corn. We had hardly gotten the grains shipped when we had to start ordering refrigerator cars for the fresh fruit. California Canners took the whole supply of plums and apricots at their new cannery down in Antioch. The peaches, of course, went straight to the Fruit Exchange in Chicago. Blount Peaches were a premium commodity there, and were usually sold before the cars ever got to Chicago!

Before he died, Poppa had wanted Blount House to be refurbished. The county wanted us to tear it down, but Poppa wouldn't hear of it. As soon as the spring rush was over, Uncle Joe and I went to Redding and we hired a contractor to completely redo the Home and modernize it with indoor plumbing, central heat and electric lights. They did a beautiful job and I hired them to redo the Ranch House.

Ella Marie and I had near given up ever having a child. I came home after a long spell with Uncle Jeff, going over the books. Aunt Maggie was sitting in the parlor, grinning like a cat and my Ella Marie was nowhere in sight. I looked at her, with a question on my face.

Aunt Maggie said, "Ella Marie be upstairs resting."

I replied, "Resting?"

Aunt Maggie giggled, "Yeah, resting, Making a baby for you is hard work!"

I screamed, "BABY!" I went racing upstairs.

My Ella Marie was laying on the bed with a sweet smile on her face, "We are gonna have a baby!" She asked, "Do you want a boy or a girl baby?"

I held her and said, "I don't care, just so you and the baby are healthy, what difference does it make?" Oh my, I was in a happy daze.

I know that Dr. Morse, from Marysville, came by and said something about a Christmas-Time Baby, but it all went over my head. His next statement near put me on the roof, "I think I hear TWO HEARTBEATS!"

I remember exactly nothing about the remainder of the evening, only that I was supposed to go with Uncle Jeff to Marysville to go over the bank's book the next day. Uncle Jeff postponed the trip to the bank until the next week, he said that I was too fuzzy to go anywhere! I guess he was right, the next morning, I sat at the table, holding a cold cup of coffee repeating the word, "Babies," over and over.

We finished buying out the Redding Bank, we had held it's paper for several years and we just finished what we should have done in the first place. The bank management was shoddy and they didn't seem to understand fiscal management. When we went over the books, they didn't even have sufficient reserve to cover the loans outstanding! We put the bank on a firm financial foundation and hired proper management. The first quarterly reports showed a profit margin of 8%, even after paying out the bad loans. When Redding folks found out they could withdraw money any time they wished it, deposits rose.

We enlarged the Redding Store and built a completely separate building for clothes, shoes and wearing apparel. We hire Miss Emmylou Fontaine to run the Women's Apparel Department. She had retired as a school teacher and knew everybody in town. It seemed to make a whole lot of sense to have a woman sell women's clothing to women. We hung a sign outside, "BLOUNT EMPORIUM" and business was brisk from day one.

As Christmas crept closer, my nerves got worse, while Ella Marie sat with a beautiful smile on her face and her hand wrapped protectively around our babies.

Everyone was trying to guess when my babies were to be born, I even heard that there was a betting pool out in the bunkhouse! Ella Marie and I had suffered through the hot summer with morning sickness, crying spats and grumps that come with pregnancies. With the cooler fall weather, she picked up and looked radiantly beautiful. She hated the motorcar, but she would light up in delight if I had the surrey hitched up to the high-steppers. We would go riding all over our end of the county, sometimes even as far as Redding. I knew all our neighbors, but My Ella Marie knew their wives and even their children, we would go riding by and she would wave to them and call them all by name.

As her time drew near, she insisted on cleaning the bedroom and bathroom, even if it had been cleaned the day before. She had towels and sheets standing by, water basins and pitchers, aprons and cleaning supplies. Our bedroom was beginning to look like a hospital room. Every morning, she checked the telephone to make sure it was working and that the hot water boiler had been heated that morning.

Two days before Christmas, she shot upright in bed and screamed, "CALL THE DOCTOR, IT'S TIME!"

I stumbled down the stairs, clad only in my nightshirt and frantically cranked the telephone, until Miss Ruby answered it groggily. She plugged in to Dr. Morse's line, I could hear her cranking his phone until he answered. I knew she was listening in, but I talked to Dr. Morse anyway. He said he would be right out and we hung up.

About an hour later we heard his little Ford T Model putt putting into our yard. As usual, it backfired when he shut it down, if anyone on the Farm was still sleeping, they then knew that Dr. Morse had arrived! The women had crowded into the kitchen and Uncle Joe and Uncle Tim were holding my hands in the parlor. Aunt Maggie was upstairs with Dr. Morse and My Ella Marie.

A little before 9 am, we heard Ella Marie scream and then it was quiet. I started to rise, worried, but Uncle Tim and Uncle Joe grabbed me and held me tight. It seemed like hours, then I heard a baby cry and a second baby cry. Aunt Maggie was standing at the top of the stairs, holding two little bundles and calling me to come up. My Ella Marie was propped up in bed and Aunt Maggie was handing me two little bundles, a boy AND a girl! We named the boy, Isaac Steven and the girl, Marie Jarla. Isaac had sandy brown hair and Marie was a deep red. I called it "roan" and Ella Marie promptly corrected me, roan was a horse!

I was the daddy of twins, I was in a daze. I have no idea what I did that day, nor any memory of it. The hands got together and bought us matching cribs and John Fiest hand carved two little carrying boards for the babies. The aunts and uncles were outrageous, they must have cleaned out the baby departments in both stores! The cousins were a steady source of baby-sitters, I swear, those babies had all their cousins tuned in to their every wish, like they had one of those new fangled radio things we saw advertised in "Boy's Journal".

Uncle Jeff and I finally did get to Marysville for the followup balancing of the books for the end of the year. We were only a week late!

As the year ended, all the newspapers were full of stories about war in Europe. I wondered what kind of world I had brought my babies into. Mr. Wilson seemed to be doing everything he could to keep us out of the war, but all the newspapers were predicting we would be in it soon. As 1913 opened, it seemed like everyone in Europe was shaking swords and guns at each other.

Uncle Jeff closed out the books for the year and after all the bills were paid and the hold back put in the bank, he declared a profit for 1912 of $3,687,200. The hands and foremen were all grinning as we passed out the bonus'. John Feist was flabbergasted, he never imagined that he would get a full year's bonus, but we decided that he and the two Snake brothers had pulled more than their own share, so it was only right. He came to me the next morning, wanting to pay for the horse that he was using. I told him that he had earned that horse, use that money for something for his boys.

A week later, both boys had good work boots and new jeans. His older boy, Josiah, came to me and shyly asked, "Mr. Blount, sir, I's 13 now, there be work here for me?"

I took the boy's hand and we walked out on the porch, "Son, if you want to work, yes there is work here for you, but I will allow you to work only a half day. You must go to school in the mornings and you must have your Poppa's permission."

He came back, dragging John by the hand. After we talked about it, I agreed that Josiah could work afternoons in the dairy, as long as his grades in school were satisfactory. I told him we would pay him $20 a week for half days in the dairy, plus all day Saturday.

That boy was a marvel, I never saw anyone so anxious to shovel out milking stalls! He is tall, like his daddy, and was all feet and hands when he first started. He soon learned the ways of a milking barn and made it a point to be on hand when the cows were let in for the evening milking. He was as good as any man at stripping. Josiah was going to be a first class hand as soon as he got his full growth.

The cheese business was booming, Blount Cheddar was a hot item. We took to wrapping it in glassine and putting it in a little paperboard box. The first load we sent by packet steamer down to San Francisco and a little market at a place called Fisherman's Wharf, bought the entire load! We shipped once a week after that and that little market sold our entire production.

Summer came around again and the fruit trees were burdened with a heavy crop. The milo last year had been so successful, we doubled the acreage and hoped to have some of the feed grain to sell. We have 70,000 acres in grains this year and I agreed with Uncle Joe, we needed some more harvesters. International Harvester had a new, self-propelled harvester out, Uncle Jimmie had pictures of them in his new catalogue and Willie and Joe were right there with their order books and pencils to take our order! We ended up buying three new combines, they were a harvester and a thresher all in one machine, stalks came spitting out one side and clean grain flowed out a chute on the other. The hands were sure happy to see the end of steam threshers!

Just before harvest, our neighbor, Julia Ambrose, and her young son came over to see me. I knew their farm was heavily mortgaged, but John Ambrose made all the payments on time. Julia and John, Jr. were in tears. Seems John, Sr. had a heart attack and was going to be laid up for a long period of time. Julia wanted me to take over their farm. John, Sr. wasn't ever going to be strong enough to do the work again and their son was only 14.

I asked John, Jr. if he wanted to be a farmer like his Daddy and he replied, "No sir, I want to go to that new medical school down at the University and become a Doctor."

I told Julia that we would take over the farm and pay off the mortgage against it. However, under no circumstances would we take her home, she was to consider it theirs, free and clear. There was just no way I was going to put friends and neighbors out on the street! That added another 20,000 acres of farmland and a small dairy to our holdings.

The Ambrose dairy was a goat operation and Aunt Maggie thought it had possibilities as a cheese making business. She suggested that we put Young Josiah Fiest in charge for a while and see what he did with it. My Aunt Maggie must be a fortuneteller or something, that young man took the reins of that dairy and, after several "stinky" mistakes, had more orders for cheese than he could fulfill from restaurants in San Francisco!

I had no choice but to get him some more help and allow him to work full days. He promised to keep up his studies at night and he certainly did, his grades showed us that. His Daddy was so proud of that boy, his buttons were near to bursting! He sold his cheese as Ambrose Farm Cheese and even called one variety, Ambrosia! We gave him full authority over the dairy and cheese making, it was a decision we never regretted.

The Ambrose Farm had been planted all in summer wheat and we were hard-pressed to harvest our own and Ambrose Farm wheat, most days the hands on the harvesters came back by lantern light! I told Willie and Joe to order us two more International Harvester Combines for next year.

I again placed notices in both stores that we were looking to hire more hands. We got a few of the usual "no-goods", but two young brothers interested me greatly. They were both graduates of Blount House. They had lived with us when their parents disappeared and Poppa took them in off the streets, Billy and Joel Tankersly. They were 19 and 22 and were anxious to come back home. I had known those two when we were all children and was sure they would do us a good job. I was not mistaken! We now had 43 hands, not including Josiah and his three hands up at Ambrose Dairy.

I got talked into purchasing a Ford T Model, something they were calling it a "pickup". It was a small truck that could haul light loads and was good for running errands around the farm. I liked my surrey and high-steppers, but the idea of just stepping into the little pickup and going interested me greatly. It had a recent development on it - a Kettering Electric Self Starter. All I had to do is push a button and a battery started the engine. No more sore arms from getting hit by a backlash from the crank!

After all the harvests were in and the fruit shipped, we had a little time to relax. I put the hands to painting the barns and sheds and had a telephone line run to Ambrose Dairy. I didn't much like the idea of Josiah and his crew up there and no way to call if there was any trouble.

Christmas rolled around, the first for my little babies. They were too young to realize just what was happening, but they surely did love all that colorful paper and the pretty Christmas Tree. Ella Marie had ordered some colored electric lights to go on the tree in place of candles, from some company called General Electric. They were right pretty and a whole site safer than those candles! It had gotten so I hardly looked at the newspaper anymore, it was nothing but doom and gloom about the problems in Europe. They were convinced that war would break out most any minute. Uncle Jeff closed the books on 1913 with a profit of $4,010,500!

TBC

Watch for the next episode as young Steven Blount guides his Family and himself through the harrows of World War 1.