From Book 5
The next morning, Toby went to the Western Union office and sent a telegram to the railroad office in Sacramento; his request came back almost immediately with a ticket number and departure time.
When he returned to Blount Farm, he spotted several hands riding picket, looking like they were herding cows, but they had rifles across their laps and the cows never went any further than the rose garden or the feedlot.
He stepped into the house and spotted his father, "You got guards out already?"
John replied, yeah, how many of them did you see?"
Toby said, "I saw four over by the feedlot, one at the rose garden and one sitting just inside the equipment barn."
John laughed, "Damn, Boy, you missed two!"
Chapter -1- INTRIGUE
Josiah and Toby escorted Uncle Kelly to Blount's Landing and got him aboard the Company Packet, The William Blount. The weather was cold and windy, so Uncle Kelly was covered up in a heavy overcoat and a hat pulled down over his head.
Josiah and Toby both boarded with him and, when they sat down, Kelly saw the young men were armed, both were wearing pistols and they had rifles inside their overcoats.
He smiled at his two Great Nephews, for that is how he thought of them, and said, "Not taking any chances, huh?"
Josiah replied, "No sir, Uncle Kelly, we will board the train with you and go as far as Reno, then we will get off and take the next train back. Poppa Steven already called the stationmaster and he is holding our tickets."
The packet made moderate speed and arrived in Sacramento two hours before train departure time. Josiah took Uncle Kelly to the Senator Hotel for breakfast and Toby went to the rail station to check on people seen hanging around and to collect all their tickets and boarding passes.
He was waiting curbside as the cab delivered his brother and Kelly Blount.
They walked straight to the waiting train and boarded. Toby sat in the private compartment with Uncle Kelly and Josiah wandered the length of the car until the train started moving. They did not spot anything out of the ordinary and the two brothers got off the train in Reno.
That night, they caught the overnight train to Sacramento and were back home late the next day.
Uncle Kelly telephoned from Chicago that all was well and again when he arrived in Washington, DC.
There, State Department Security escorted him to the White House, where he gave his report. The President did not take kindly to his report, telling him he was wrong and asked him for his resignation.
Kelly Blount was astounded, he knew that other reports had been sent from Germany and that the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, had been telling the President of the danger.
It was a much disturbed Kelly Blount who telephoned me, asking if he could come home. Josiah and Toby were at the Railroad Station in Sacramento to collect Uncle Kelly and bring him home to Blount Farm, a saddened and broken man.
We put him to work right away, his knowledge of world leaders and business conditions made him ideal in developing our foreign grain sales. There was a profitable market in barley and oat sales in Europe, as spring arrived, we planted every acre we owned, we had 107,000 acres under cultivation.
We were taking a chance and had to dip a bit into the reserves to purchase the seed, but it was to prove very profitable. When we started cutting the winter wheat, buyers came in droves, England was begging for grain and President Lebrun of France sent a personal envoy to me personally, asking that we help the people of France. At his request, we filled two ships with wheat from Le Chevalier du France, Steven Blount! They paid in gold and I replaced what we had drawn from our reserves.
Some months later, we received letters and pictures from children in France, showing awful food lines and starving children. We could not but send another ship with corn and red wheat and asked that any payment be distributed to the children in need.
Those pictures will haunt me for the rest of my life!
Uncle Kelly was beginning to take over our foreign sales, we had not previously sold much overseas, but the business climate seemed to indicate that was a good market for us.
Along with Uncle Kelly, I refused to consider orders from Japan or Germany, but we were soon shipping to countries in both Asia and Europe. England and France were our biggest customers, Spain wanted to buy on credit and we felt insecure in dealing with them.
In September, I called a special Family meeting, there were two old family farms up for sale, Old Mrs. Blodgett was selling their place, her only son, Neal, was a doctor and not interested in farming. Calvin King had never married and was getting too old to farm any longer, between the two farms; we could increase our acreage by 35,000 acres.
Tobias reported that we had the cash and nobody objected, so I made the decision to purchase the land. There was a nice house on the Blodgett property and Josiah and Tillie were expanding their Family again, they had adopted two boys, Jacob and Jonathon. They were identical twins who had been left at Blount House and their parents could not be located.
Gretel announced that they were expecting and, I guess I got into the excitement, I reported that Ella Marie and I were going through the paperwork to adopt a boy and girl, they were siblings and they, also, had been abandoned at Blount House.
Uncle Kelly was sitting there, tears were in his eyes. He said he was remembering his own early childhood. It did not surprise me to see him headed for Blount House after the meeting was over.
We agreed that Josiah and Tillie could live in the Blodgett house, in the back of my mind, I was reserving the King house for Uncle Kelly and his brood!
I was not disappointed, two weeks later, Uncle Kelly came to supper with two twin boys and a very red face. He had been up to Redding and had our attorney draw up papers making the two boys Blounts.
We closed out 1934 with a reasonable profit; Tobias reported profits of $12,475,200 after all funds we had taken from the emergency reserve were replaced.
We took possession of the two new properties and surveyed our equipment needs to farm the additional 35,000 acres. We decided upon two new harvesters, a new shucker and two more silos. Some of the tractors were getting worn and we worried about breakdowns during harvest, so three new Caterpillar Tractors were also placed on order. As always, we needed trucks, we ordered 8 additional Dodge Flatbed Trucks and 10 Ford 100 Pickup trucks.
Josiah latched onto a new pickup truck, it was bright red and you could see him coming down the road miles before he ever got there!
Because of our recent troubles, he had a gun rack installed behind the seat and began carrying a rifle and a pistol with him. He talked Toby into doing the same thing, it was something I worried about, but later events proved the boys right!
As spring arrived, we began planting, it was 1935 and the terrible recession was still with us, but we could see things improving. The CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) had rebuilt the road and enlarged Blount's Landing. We now had a small crane to lift heavy loads onto the packets.
We planted 40,000 acres of corn this year and 50,000 acres of red wheat, lesser amounts of oats and barley and 15,000 acres of rice for Anchor Beer. Almost as an afterthought, we set out 5,000 acres of peach saplings, since all through the recent financial troubles, demands for fresh peaches remained high.
I had Josiah and Toby post notices at the local Safe Foods stores that we were hiring, it seemed like the whole world beat a path to my office!
I hired 18 new hands and two mechanics, I knew of several hands that were ready for the Retirement House, they were fighting it, but it was painful to see them on cold mornings trying to keep up with the younger hands.
Finally, I put my foot down and took them over to Retirement House myself. They were surprised at the homelike atmosphere and the private rooms.
Jake Tolliver said, "Iffa Ida knowed it were this nice, Ida retired last year!"
Late in the summer, Uncle Kelly called and said that someone had fired a shot through his parlor window; he had the boys and himself down in the cellar.
I hollered for Josiah, he was in the office with John, going through some papers.
He collected Toby and the two brothers headed down the road in Josiah's truck. He handed Toby the rifle and he put the pistol in his lap. There was a car parked on the county road, not far from Uncle Kelly's place. Josiah put a shot through the front tire and both boys went looking for the driver.
They found two men crouched near the gate to Uncle Kelly's house, Josiah shouted at them and they stood up, one brought a rifle to bear and Toby dropped him with a single shot!
The other man dropped his pistol and tried to run, but he was no match for Josiah Fiest!
One man was dead and the other was in the firm gripe of Josiah, so Toby went into the house and retrieved Uncle Kelly and the boys.
Toby sat in the bed of the truck, his rifle against the neck of the surviving attacker. Uncle Kelly and the boys crowded into the cab with Josiah and they all came back to the house.
We tried speaking to the man, but he refused to speak English and muttered in what Uncle Kelly said was German. I asked Ella Marie to go get Gretel. When Toby's wife got there, she started speaking German to him; he muttered something back and she hauled off clobbered him across the face. She was livid in anger, she told us the man had called her a pig whore and that she would be a slave of the victorious Nazi Army!
I had to hold Toby, he would have killed the man, John was holding Josiah. He was so angry; he cracked the butt plate of his pistol! I called Sheriff Jacob, better he come and get this man before he was murdered by angry Fiests!
The man was kept in Marysville Jail until officials from the FBI came around and collected him.
We did give the other man a decent burial, although Gretel Fiest said he should just be dumped in garbage bin!
There were several more incidents and finally, Dale Proctor, our US Congressman, demanded that the Federal Government declare the German Charge d'Affairs in San Francisco "persona non grata" and told to leave the country.
Chapter -2- RUMBLINGS
The crops came in huge, we knew we were in trouble when all the silos, including the new ones, were full and we still had red wheat and corn to harvest!
We rented silo space from the Co-op and made quick repairs to the old silos on the Blodgett parcel, that wasn't near enough. Manteca Beef loaned us the use of two of their silos and we ordered up 70 rail cars to screw the wheat directly into the gondolas.
The railroad ran special trains, to transport our grain to the customers, we didn't have any grain ruined by rain, but it was a near thing!
We are now the dominate grain producer in the upstate, as soon as we had finished shipping, the railroad came and increased our car holding capacity and promised to station a locomotive in Antioch during harvest to serve our siding.
We ran both shuckers for six weeks before they caught up, we were never so glad to hear their whining scream shut off!
About the only easy part of the whole harvest was the rice, Caleb Vance and his crew handled everything, we didn't even have to call for a locomotive. As soon as harvest was over, Oskar Heinz and his machinists started rebuilding machinery.
There were the usual blown pistons and broken cleat pins, but he told me, "Herr Stefon, yust tractors ist worked over, yust need new vons, bigger!"
All our tractors were D-3s except the pan buster which is a D-12. Willie researched our needs and recommended we buy D-6's, so we authorized him to purchase six D-6 Caterpillar Tractors.
1936 was upon us, Tobias reported our profits for the year were $17,475,300. We voted to engage a security firm, after the incident at Uncle Kelly's, we were all concerned and more than a little nervous.
We hired Robertson Security Service; they proposed to have 4 men on patrol during the nights and two men during the day. There would be another 4 men available on call in Marysville and a man assigned to each packet whenever it left Blount's Landing.
We also voted to continue our support for Marysville Hospital and Blount House. There were still eighteen children living at Blount House and they would soon be young teens. Mrs. Gamble ran the house for us and we were sure that, should a parent show up at this late date, their survival was questionable.
We also agreed to continue supplying seed to the Co-op farmers at cost and to help them with plowing. It was a good trade off, we were able to use their two silos and we plow their fields. They had become good neighbors and friends.
Chapter -3- PREWAR BOOM
1937 was a busy year, we were all aware that a war in Europe was coming, Germany had invaded Poland, and all the small countries had already been gobbled up.
Italy had moved into Africa and signed a peace agreement with Germany. We saw pictures of stiff-legged German soldiers marching on their own people, and there was a lot of saber waving between Germany and France.
Russia was a big unknown; there were occasional horror stories of those unfortunate people and their strange new form of government.
After our run-in with the German agents, it didn't seem so very far away anymore and Japan was gobbling up China and Manchuria, just like Uncle Kelly warned us.
There was no way I could serve again, but I worried about our young men, Toby and Josiah were just at the right age, even though they had families with young children. Even Isaac was in danger of being drafted.
If they drafted many of our hands, we would, indeed, be in dire trouble.
The winter wheat came in strong and heavy, by early March; the heads were already beginning to size up. The hands started to limber up the field machinery; it looked like another big year in the offing. The peach trees were budding out; even the new plantings had a few buds on them.
Josiah is already scrambling, trying to line up sufficient silo space to take another heavy crop.
By April we were plowing, the rice went in first and then we would start on the red wheat. We are trying a new hybrid strain of the red wheat; it is supposed to be more rust resistant. As soon as the red wheat is in, we will start immediately on planting corn. We ordered up 20,000 feeder beeves and 9,000 feeder swine, so we are going to need every bit of corn and oats we can plant.
John had been out in the fields, lending a hand to the crops supervisor and Josiah was called to bring him home, fast!
He didn't look good when Josiah brought him in the house, Ella Marie had two hands carry him upstairs and she put him to bed. Josiah and Toby started pacing the floor, so I went and called Dr. Falcon and he and a new young intern are on their way out to the house.
I got the two brothers to sit down and I tried to calm them down, Toby was near hysteria and Josiah was not far behind him.
The two doctors ran upstairs and I forced Toby and Josiah to wait in the parlor with me, the doctors did not need an audience.
Dr. Falcon came down by himself; he motioned me to come in the parlor also as he held both Josiah's and Toby's hands.
He said, "Now boys, don't panic, your Daddy has had a heart attack."
I grabbed Josiah; he was shaking like a leaf and looked about to lose it and Toby had tears running down his face, I managed to put my arm over his shoulders while I held on to Josiah.
Dr. Falcon continued, "It is a mild attack and I don't think there is any permanent damage to his heart. But, you are going to have to make him slow down, you know he was hurt terribly in the last war and, if he keeps this up, we are going to lose him."
Ella Marie came down the stairs and Dr. Falcon handed her a bottle of pills, "John is to take one of these pills twice a day and I want him flat on his back for the next two weeks."
The intern came down and reported that John was asleep now.
Dr. Falcon said, "That is the best thing for him right now."
Turning to the brothers, Dr, Falcon said,"Boys, you must make sure that John gets lots of rest and NO MORE HARD LABOR!"
There was a knock on the door, Able McKensie stood there, "Please, Mr. Steven, how is Mr. John?" Able was the gang foreman and all the hands were standing behind him.
I stepped out on the porch and told them what Dr. Falcon had told us.
Able spoke for the hands, "Mr. Steven, sir, tell Mr. John we's prayin' fer him."
I thought to myself, "Indeed, we are all praying for you, John Fiest!"
It was a somber group that gathered for supper that evening, the young children sensed something wrong and were quiet.
Isaac Steven and Marie Jarla are 17 now and well aware of what was going on, Isaac asked me, "Is Uncle John going to be ok?"
I replied, "He is going to have to slow down; he can't be running around like he has been."
Isaac replied, "Poppa, let me be your assistant, I am 17 and can do all the running that Uncle John has been doing. He can tell me the things I don't know yet."
Isaac had been understudying Felix Grote out in the Fruit Warehouse, Josiah looked at me and nodded his head yes, he agreed.
So it was that my son became my assistant. It was a wondrous move, Isaac proved to have a solid head on his shoulders. He kept me up to date on everything and he got the previous day's production reports together before breakfast each day!
We finished the planting and sent a tractor and plow over to the co-op to plow up their fields. Isaac was over there and Beef Marlow reminded him that they were holding two silos for us. Isaac told him that it looked like we were going to need them.
We harvested the winter wheat and filled 60 rail cars. The excess was stored in one of the silos, while the cars were headed to Stockton and Rainbow Mills.
Their small mill in Redding had a fire and was not ready for operation yet, so the Stockton Mill was working overtime to keep up.
Caleb Vance stopped by to check on his rice, I was shocked, suddenly, he looked old. He had his son with him, Garner was 16 and Caleb was showing him the operation. I looked at myself in the mirror and was horrified, when had I acquired all those gray hairs?
John recovered from his heart attack and obeyed Dr. Falcon's orders about slowing down.
It was a big shock, in late June; Aunt Maggie failed to come down for breakfast. Ella Marie and Marie Jarla found her in her bed; she had passed during the night.
Now it was only Uncle Tim and Uncle Kelly left of Poppa Isaac's generation.
We held her funeral and buried her next to her beloved brother, Poppa Isaac. Her two girls were married and they came with their children to stay for a while, but their lives were in Sacramento now, so they had to return.
Uncle Tim goes out to her grave every day to tell her of all that is going on, he seems very frail and I worry that he will be next.
We planted barley where the winter wheat had been, it was going to be tight to get enough weight on all those feeder beeves and swine.
Gretel's younger brother, Gustav was now Foreman over the dairies and feeder animals, I think next meeting I will ask for ideas on how to combine the three dairies, that poor boy is spending all his time running between the three locations. I noticed that he was having the vegetable tops collected at the Co-op and was feeding them to the dairy cows.
When I asked him, he said, "They give them to me free and the greens make the butter nice and yellow."
We were getting premium prices for our butter, so, I guess the boy is right!
The new hybrid red wheat was a success, we had no rust or blight and the heads were full and heavy.
They were right about the new tractors, those new D-6's dropped at least 25% off the time needed for harvest, they went through the rice like a heavy wind and the wheat was only marginally slower. Had it not been for the new trucks, we would have had to stop the harvest while hauling got caught up!
I guess we are going to have to do something about those shuckers, the women are complaining about the around the clock shrieking and the two shuckers struggle to keep up with the corn harvest.
I will set Willie to researching new equipment.
Gustav's predictions paid off, the beeves brought record prices and the bidding was something fierce. Manteca Beef bought most of them, but a new company from Fresno, Valley Slaughter, bought up about a quarter of the beeves and all of the swine.
As we closed out 1937, Tobias reported profits of $20,197,100.
When we distributed the Foremen Bonus', poor Gustav nearly fainted when he saw much he had received.
The hands were mighty pleased also. Isaac never expected to get a Foreman's Bonus; he just sat down and stared at me.
The paperwork was approved and Ella Marie and I were awarded custody of Billy and Naomi Workman. They are 11 and 7 years old, the order allows us to adopt the two children after a year goes by. Ella Marie and I have already decided that we will do so as soon as the year is completed.
Billy follows Isaac around and tells everyone about his Big Brother Isaac. Little Naomi found Marie's cache of dollies and is having a glorious time; she sometimes is even able to get her big sister to play dollies with her.
Isaac came to me wanting permission to upgrade our telephone system. I thought for a moment, remembering how Poppa Isaac had handled a similar situation.
I looked at him and asked, "What is your name?" He looked at me like I had horns and a tail and replied, "Isaac, of course."
I said, "No, your full name?"
He stamped his foot in impatience and said, "Isaac Steven Bloun......... Alright, Poppa, I will take care of it."
Two days later, two workmen from PT&T (Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Company) were installing lines for a switchboard and internal telephone lines throughout Blount Farms.
He hired Roberta Collins to be our telephone operator. Roberta lived with her parents at the Co-op and her father, Hank Collins brought her to work each day. She was a pretty girl, bright red hair and freckles on her face, she always had a jaunty "Hello" for all of us, but I observed she was a lioness to those who tried to telephone us selling magazines and corsets! She was expert in tracking one of us down for important telephone calls and for one emergency, when John stumbled and fell down the stairs; she rallied the "troops"!
I did notice Isaac watching her and thinking, "The boy is 17........."
We entered 1938 with 65,000 acres planted to winter wheat and we were shipping parts of last year's crops nearly every week.
The railroad finally gave up trying to station a locomotive in Antioch and built a small facility in Redding to store the locomotive until needed. They kept several mechanics there and a rail maintenance crew, both crews were kept busy all year long.
Our own mechanics were working full-time maintaining our farm machinery, Sterling Manufacturing developed a new Husker-Shucker combination machine and Oskar Heinz recommended we buy four of them. If they work like they claim, it will be a happy improvement and, maybe, the women will not be complaining about that infernal racket!
Spring seemed to come early, we were planting rice in early April and we barely had time to plant the red wheat before the winter wheat needed harvesting.
We had built two new silos over the winter, bringing our total up to 10.
Surely, that will be sufficient?
By the time the barley, oats and corn were planted, we had just under 115,000 acres under cultivation.
This would be the first year the new peach acreage would have any appreciable production, the blooms had set well; summer would tell how heavy a crop we get.
The news tells of terrible atrocities in China and Manchuria, whole cities of people shot dead.
I fear for Isaac and boys his age, I just know a terrible war is coming.
Government buyers bid heavy on the winter wheat, had we not pre-sold some of the crop to Rainbow Mills, they might have been shut out of the market.
There has been some name-calling in Redding, again those with German-sounding names are the targets of local hoodlums and would be thugs.
Oskar asked me if his young nephew and family could come to live in his house, I asked him if the young man needed a job.
Oskar replied, "Manfred iist ban electrician, he works goot."
I said, "Oskar, tell him to come see me, I am sure there is work here and he would be safe at Blount Farms."
Young Manfred Heinz came to see me, he was a big man, blond and fair complexion, I asked, "Would you be able to maintain the lighting and wiring here at Blount Farms and also help maintain the electric parts to our machinery?"
The young man replied, "Mr. Blount, sir, to get my family and twin boys away from Redding, I will do anything, even shovel the dairy to get them to a safe place!"
I thought to myself, "It is starting again!"
We hired Manfred Heinz and when he arrived, we discovered that his wife had run off with another man, leaving him with twin boys, 12 years old. They were friendly boys, always willing to run an errand or help unload a vehicle. I don't believe I ever saw them without a happy smile on their faces.
After we harvested the rice, we had a short rest spell until the red wheat was ready, it was a quiet afternoon and I was going through the mail. Isaac slipped into my office and closed the door, "Errra ahh Poppa...."
I was ready for this conversation; I surely did not need glasses to see my son drooling over Roberta Collins, the telephone operator.
I sat down and smiled at him, "Roberta, huh?"
Isaac's eyes nearly popped out of his head, before he could say anything, I said, "Son, I got eyes and you got IT bad!"
He replied, "Oh God, Poppa, does Mamma know too?"
I told him that we both knew and were happy for him, now all he has to do is talk to Hank Collins, her Daddy!
He ran by the telephone switchboard and gave a kiss to Roberta as he flew by, I saw him out in the yard, talking Josiah out of his truck, before flying down the road towards Shady Creek!
Ella Marie walked into my office, "Was that Isaac I saw fly by in Josiah's truck?"
I replied, "Yep, headed to Shady Creek."
She sat down on the chair and sniffed, "He is only 17."
I smiled and replied, "So were we, and he is almost 18 now." I guess women don't look at young love like us men, I held her as she cried about her baby.
That afternoon, Hank Collins stopped by to see me, Isaac was in the other room, mooning at Roberta.
We both laughed at the two young puppies and then Hank got serious, "Mr. Steven, sir, you know I can't give them much."
I held up my hand, "Hank, you are giving him something far more precious than things; you are giving him a wonderful girl, Roberta."
He asked, "Could Constance and me come up and talk to you and Miss Ella Marie?"
I told him that anytime would be just fine.
John came back on the job, we all watched him like a hawk making certain that he didn't try to do too much. He was sorting out the mail when I heard him yelp and begin to curse. I went out to the parlor, where he had the mail spread out on the table.
He was so angry that his face was a mottled red. I made him sit down and he handed me the offending mail. It was ugly, printed in crude letters was "GERMANS DIE GERMAN LOVERS DIE BURNING IS TOO GOOD FOR YOU" I looked at the postmark, it had been mailed in Redding.
I called the Robertson Security supervisor and he said he would be right over. The supervisor, Paul Moore, looked at the offensive mail and said, "Let me take this, I will have my boss look at it and let you know if he thinks it is a danger to you folks."
Evidently, the man he was speaking of was John Robertson himself because he came to see me the next day. I offered him some coffee and we talked, he said, "There is a bunch of troublemakers up in Redding, I am going to send this to the FBI and let them take a look at it. In the mean time, we will increase our patrols around Blount Farms."
Two days later, Constance Williams, the Principal at Blount's Bluff Elementary School called me, they had gotten a terrible letter threatening to burn the school down if the Heinz boys were not withdrawn from going to school with "Decent Americans"!
Manny Heinz was well liked by all the hands, our crews were all up in arms, ready to do battle.
I called Robertson Security and told them I wanted two men stationed at the school whenever teachers or children were present.
Josiah said that he or Toby would take the boys to school every day and bring them back home. When Josiah would take them in the morning, his rifle was prominently displayed in the back window of the truck. In the afternoon, Toby would stand beside the truck with his hand on his pistol.
Like all cowards, the letter writers never made a showing; they just contented themselves with writing letters to scare folks.
We finished up the year, for the first time in several years; we finally had sufficient silo space to store the crops. We did store some of the feed grains down at the Co-op but only to keep them separated.
Tobias reported a profit of $22,300,000 for the year.
Just before Christmas, we lost Uncle Jeff, he passed in his sleep. Tobias and Aunt Carly were devastated. Uncle Jeff had been doing poorly for several years, his arthritis had curled up his hands something fierce and he was in a lot of pain.
We buried him the day after Christmas in the Blount Family Cemetery.
TBC
The story will continue in ATTACK, The Family Blount takes the safety of its folk and townspeople seriously. They are digging their way clear of the ravages of the Great Depression and draw strength from each other as they realize another war will be taking their young men from them. They help their neighbors as they are attacked and terrorized because of the sound of their last names.