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Bill Schwartz Recording 1 of 2
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KATHERINE HAMLETT: Oral history interview with Bill Schwartz in Garden Valley, the 25th of May 1985.
BILL SCHWARTZ: Let’s see. I was going to go through part of this oral history project. Of course, I don’t know what life was like in 1910 to ’17, but I still do remember the interurban, because I think I was about six years old. I remember just before it quit. I remember there was a small child killed right out there by the Dewey Palace, the tracks went right down there. Some kid was run over and killed (inaudible). And the old power company building in Nampa, that was tore down 20-some years ago or something, was the Interurban Depot. That’s where they brought the power in from Swan Falls. And that was what ran the, [00:01:00] what was it called, Boise Valley Traction Company, I think. And that went clear out to the lower dam at one time. In fact, I remember there was a small boy out there. We went out there sometimes on picnics, and there was a floating dance hall out there on the lake with kerosene lanterns, and you had to go back and forth by boat. And I remember seeing that. I mean, I never was out on it, but I can remember that. Yeah, that was quite something. (laughs)
F1: It burned down too.
BILL: Did it burn down? I didn’t know what happened to it.
KATHERINE: It was quite a place.
BILL: And then later on, of course, it was a CCC Camp. They was going to run the interurban clear to Marsing eventually, but they never did get quite that far. Let’s see, then 1917 to ’19, which, of course, I don’t know about. It says, “What was life like [00:02:00] in Nampa during the ’20s?” I was thinking, just like about every place else in the ’20s. Of course, I wasn’t born ’til 1920. It says, “Was Nampa part of the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties?” And I don’t really know. It was part of each, I suppose. I don’t really know. (laughs) I was telling you about the agriculture and farming, and the biggest difference between then and now is the fields were much smaller and much less row crop. And every farm had a flock of chickens, and a herd of milk cows, and a big garden, because most people, that’s how they lived through most of the year was the milk check and the egg money. All the grocery stores took in eggs and gave them credit on groceries, and so that was the main thing they lived on. That says, “Tell me about the nonpartisan [00:03:00] league.” And like I said, of course, I don’t know. The Free Press actually was started by the Progressive Party. And then through the Depression years, they didn’t make any money. And they had a fella that -- I don’t know that it was all his fault that they didn’t. I mean, I don’t know that he was a poor manager, because probably anybody had a bad time. His name was Polk. I can’t think of his first name right now. He was an Englishman, too. He’d come from England. And finally, they reorganized and put Tom LaFond in as manager, and they started making money. Of course, times were getting a little better then, too. And then Mainwaring and Arant had a paper in Baker, and they’d come over and they got two fellas, one of them was old WW Deal. And the other fellow’s name was Poage, and I think he owned the ice and coal company. They were both Methodist ministers, which has nothing to do with it. But they got them to go out and tell these farmers -- see, they hadn’t had any [00:04:00] dividends for years. And they told these farmers they’d give them 10 or 15 cents on the dollar on their stock, just to be nice guys to help them out. Well, when Arant and Mainwaring got enough stock cornered, they threw it in the hands of receivers. But they didn’t get to steal it, because Tom LaFond and two guys -- there was a fellow named Shepherd. In fact, he would have been a relation to Paul Shepherd, he would have been an uncle. Paul’s dad actually was in the composing room. And there was another guy, Maury Russell, who was the reporter, had the desk or something, and had a well to do aunt. And Michener also had a little money, and they put together, and went in and bid on it. And they bid ’em up until they had to pay a decent price. The people that did keep hold of [00:05:00] their stock got more than a dollar worth out of it. And immediately, the Free Press turned around, I think it was the exact the same day or the next day, and bought the Leader-Herald right quick, because these guys are going to try to buy the Leader-Herald. And they combined the two of them, and then Tom LaFond and his group went over to Caldwell and bought the newspaper in Caldwell. What is the name of it?
F1: The Free Press?
KATHERINE: The News Tribune?
F1: Oh.
BILL: The News Tribune. They bought the News Tribune. And then Mainwaring always had big political ambitions to be a big wheel in politics in Oregon. And of course, to be a real wheel would be to have a newspaper in the capital city. He went and he raised all the money he could. He had a newspaper he had started in Ontario that was separate from [00:06:00] the other. Anyway, he sold his share back there, and sold the paper in Ontario, and got enough for a down payment, and bought -- and I can’t remember the name of the paper. It was an evening paper anyway in Ontario.
KATHERINE: Was that the old Capital News?
BILL: No, this was in Salem, Oregon.
KATHERINE: Oh, in Salem.
BILL: And he ran it ’til he died. Well, even after he was there a short time, they built a new building. And the two papers combined their mechanical department and just had their own identity as far as the ownership, but they combined the two. And that’s when he left. That’s when he sold out to Scripp’s League, when he left. That’s when Scripp’s League had come to Nampa. And of course, the Leader-Herald originally was two newspapers. It was two weeklies, the Leader and the Herald. They went together and become the Leader-Herald and was a daily newspaper. [00:07:00] Dad came to Nampa and worked there just before World War One for six weeks, and then he came back after World War Two, and he stayed there for, I think it was 13 years. About that time was just before they had changed management. And there was a fellow, he was the office manager. He and Dad didn’t get along, so they was gonna demote Dad from being head of the commercial department. And so, Dad just quit, and borrowed a little money on his life insurance, and bought a complete little shop that went broke in Ogden, Utah. I’ve got the papers here somewhere and it’s interesting, the prices from Western Newspaper Union, which is now Western Paper. And he started business in the basement of where Kalbus is now, [00:08:00] it was a New York store at that time. And I can’t remember for sure, but he ran it for like, two years or something. In the meantime, Tom LaFond had become manager and they were losing a lot of money in the commercial department. So, they asked Dad if he would come back and lease their commercial department and run it, which he did. And then he re-leased for, oh, quite a number of years, and then he finally bought the Free Press out. He told him that he was either gonna throw up the lease or they could sell, because quite a bit of the equipment things he owned anyway. And that was how he acquired that Whitlock press that’s down there, because it belonged originally to the Nampa Record, of course.
I was trying to think of some of these questions about the Great Depression, [00:09:00] of course I was quite young when it started, but I do remember it said about bank failures. We lived next door to CC Reed, who was the manager of the Idaho First National Bank for practically forever. Earl Reed, who was a lawyer there in Nampa and died a couple years ago, was his son. And I remember how the whole family really went around with their chin hanging on the ground for a few days when Roosevelt had that bank holiday. But he didn’t know whether he was going to have a job or anything else. I can remember there was a lot of places, all the service organizations and all the churches, they’d help people. But I can’t remember that anybody actually starved to death. It was kind of like Madeline [00:10:00] Allie years ago up here said, “You know, looking back, we were raised in abject poverty and wasn’t smart enough to realize it.” (laughs) We was all about the same way and I can’t remember personally. I mean, I’d never gone without a meal or anything I really need. The only thing I can remember was after Dad started business for himself in ’31, he was having a hard time with collections and things. He always bought a few tons of coal at a time. And I remember one time that he’d buy, I had to take my coaster wagon down to Lloyd’s, we just lived a few blocks, and get a 100-pound sack. And he didn’t even have enough to buy a ton. Now that, I do remember.
That reminds me of another story of Windsor Lloyd, he had quite a lot of good stories too. Most of these people, really, did get quite a kick out of stories that really was on them. (laughs) There was a woman that owed him money, she was a widow. She owed him for several [00:11:00] tons of coal, and he couldn’t get any money out of her. And this fella came in and wanted to talk to him and he said “Sure, what is it?” And he said, “Well, I’m going to marry this lady. I’ll promise you, before we get married, that all her bills will be taken care of. But I wish you would send out another ton of coal,” which they did. Well, it was taken care of, alright. Just before they got married, she declared bankruptcy. (laughs) Windsor always got quite a kick out of it. I suppose right at the time he was a little hurt, but he said the guy didn’t lie to him. He said he was going to see to it all her bills were taken care of, and they were. (laughs) Another thing I do remember of the Depression deal was, I don’t know whether you’ve read somewhere about the Bonus Marchers. All the World War One veterans that went back to Washington, DC, and tried to get this bonus. [00:12:00] In fact, if I remember right, MacArthur was the one that was supposed to run them out. He didn’t actually. Anyway, they just rode the rails, the box cars from all over, and there’s a bunch of them that they found when they was coming into Nampa. The American Legion went out and fed ’em while they were there that night. And the hobo jungle of Nampa was a tule patch out by where the present sewer plant is. And I remember going out with Dad, and they took -- I don’t know what they had, big pots of stew or what, and things. But I remember they went out and fed all these guys. They got off of box cars and stayed overnight. That I do remember, and there was quite a bunch of ’em. Another thing, during the Depression years, my dad was, for a good share of it anyway, the service officer for the American Legion. [00:13:00] And I remember there was quite a few people who’d come to the door, and there was quite a few of them he helped. Some of them actually should have been getting disability from the VA that just hadn’t done it, and he worked with the VA and helped different ones. And some of them that were sick and stuff got in the VA hospital and things like that. But like I said, everybody was, kind of, more or less in the same boat.
I’m gonna add, one thing that helped Nampa is they still had a pretty good payroll in the railroad, and the railroad still ran, and that was money coming in. I imagine a few were without a job and had a family. You remember it was a pretty bad time. But personally, I don’t remember. I remember people were [00:14:00] hurting and it was just like the present day. There were some moochers like there are today. I remember it was so bad that Mom and some of them, I think it was American Legion Auxiliary, had taken a bunch of food, of course mostly home-canned stuff, to these people. And I think that a guy was an alcoholic, and the first thing he did was pour all the stuff out of the jars, and take them down to the second-hand store, and sold them for enough to buy some more whiskey, I think. (laughs) So, I mean that isn’t all that much different nowadays than it was in those days. And then another thing is people, unless they were just completely lazy, could go out to those farmers and get practically all the potatoes, or onions, or apples, or anything for free just going out there, because they couldn’t sell them for anything. And anybody could go get them for free. So, there was quite a few things. You did have to go get them, they wouldn’t bring them to you and [00:15:00] give them to you. (laughs) But then, of course, as soon as the New Deal came into effect, the WPA and the PWA, there was quite a few people who went to work on that. There was all kinds of jokes about how they broke the shovel handles from leaning on them too hard and everything like that, but they actually did a lot. I think one of the really interesting things is that swimming pool in Nampa that was built. I think that was WPA, Works Progress Administration.
F2: It’s PWA.
BILL: No, I think it was WP. Well, I can’t remember, but there was a difference between one of ’em and the other. Anyway, old man Hozik was quite a well driller all over and really knew, and they asked him if there was any chance of hitting hot water in that area. And he thought, “Yeah, they probably would have a certain amount of feet.” Well, the federal government I guess had come in and said, “Here’s this [00:16:00] money,” to the City Council. “Let’s get to movin’. Let’s get people hired.” So, they actually built the swimming pool before they drilled the hot water well. (laughs) The well was drilled on some position there was going to be warm water. And of course, the old auditorium at the old high school they kept. I don’t know what they use it for. Don’t they use it for some kind of crafts thing?
KATHERINE: Community, crafts, classes, things.
BILL: It was built with those alphabet agencies, and the auditorium at what used to be Central Junior High, that was built also with some of that money. And the thing that was different about then and the present time, was our tax structure was so much different that the minute a guy could find a job that paid 10 cents [00:17:00] an hour more or five cents an hour more, he went and took it, because it was that much more. Well nowadays, with the way they have things, if you’re on welfare of some kind or something like that, you don’t pay any taxes. So, you’ve got to make a heck of a lot more money working to pay the taxes, a lot more dollars an hour, than you did if you was working off the government. But then, federal taxes amounted to such a little bit that the average guy didn’t even really pay any of that state or federal income tax. And so, just to make jobs come opened up, they would go to work at them. And one of the problems was that prices had been high since before World War One and in the early ’20s, and so many of them had expanded way too fast. They borrowed money and expanded, and then when the Depression come, [00:18:00] they really got hurt a lot. So many of them lost their farms, and then finally there was a moratorium declared on taxes. But of course, the ones that was in the biggest trouble were the ones that expanded too much.
But I think the farmers probably did have a -- of course, that was another thing, talking about farmers in Nampa up until World War Two. Saturday, especially the afternoon and evening, was the big day in Nampa. I mean, you try to get down on Main Street and get your car parked early enough in the day where you can park, because all the farmers came to town and did their trading, and went to the stockyards and stuff, to the auctions. And that was just the time to visit. The stores were all busy Saturday evening, people all visited, and it was [00:19:00] up to World War Two. And of course, the farmers didn’t come to town every day like they do anymore, though they’d come to town on Saturday. That was the time to really see everybody was on Saturday downtown. A little while after World War Two, the Chamber tried to revive it, but you couldn’t. It was kind of like the Nampa Harvest Festival, that its day was passed, which is a shame because that was a given. The Harvest Festival and rodeo was really quite something in Nampa when I was a kid. We really looked forward to that.
What was life like in Nampa during World War Two? How’d the town react to the Second World War? I don’t know how they reacted really, unless you’re talking like people were 100 percent practically behind it. There was two [00:20:00] families in Nampa that I think both came from Germany, were such German sympathizers, they about got tarred and feathered and run out of town. But as a whole, it wasn’t anything like this Vietnam thing. We were in a war, and we were in it to win it. Everybody who backed it 100 percent backed it. And in fact, there was an awful lot of women in Nampa that didn’t really need to work to make a living or anything, but did work over Simplot’s in the potato plant, as they felt they were doing something for the war effort. I mean a lot of them. Of course, some of them could use the money too, but it was more they were doing something.
KATHERINE: What was Nampa’s reaction to the Japanese?
BILL: Well, it was a strange kind of a deal, [00:21:00] because we’d had Japanese. There were not as many as we have now. In fact, I went through school with Japanese kids. And I think all of us had little resentment for them, just because the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor and stuff. But I mean, I can’t really remember. There probably were some, but I didn’t really feel like go getting the gun and shooting one of them or anything. But there was some resentment, naturally, when all that happened. As far as I know, there wasn’t one Japanese person in the Boise Valley area that was ever in any trouble. I mean, they had never done anything to help Japan or anything. There was a family there whose daughter had married a Japanese fella, [00:22:00] and I think they lived in San Francisco. And I think he was thrown in jail, and he was a spy, but he was in San Francisco. I don’t remember what his first name was, we called him Short Fujikawa, that I graduated from high school with. It was one of those in that division over there in Italy that really got shot all to pieces. He had got shot real bad, came back and farmed, and then died from the results of his bad wounds not too many years later. One thing about it, if a Japanese owed you money, there was no question about his credit being good. If he walked into the business, I’m sure everybody just extended them credit. They didn’t have to have a credit reference because they were Japanese, they were going to pay [00:23:00] their bills. And it was a sad thing about the war. I had one here tell me about the POW camps in this area during World War Two. Of course, I was gone to the service for quite a bit of the war, but I do remember there was one out at, it was called Swartz Corner. There was some people whose name was Swartz. They spelled their name with “S-W-A-R-T-Z.” In fact, old Joe Swartz and my dad talked it over one time, and both families came from the same county in southern Illinois, but they never could connect any relationship. In fact, some of my family spelled “S-W.” Some of them changed it during World War [00:24:00] One days to make it less German-like, but everybody whose name is “S-W-A-R-T-Z,” once upon a time was “S-C-H.” In fact, Joe Swartz said his dad was the one that had changed it. It was at the corner of Lake Shore Drive and East Powerline or something, and they had a German PW camp there. It was not right on the corner, it was back down on Swartz’s property where there was guard towers and everything. In fact, all of these that were in that camp practically, so I understood, were 100 percent, gung-ho, non-commission Nazis, young fellas. And they worked around. They’d take them to work in the fields, but they wouldn’t let the farmers have any contact with them at all. But they’d [00:25:00] take them with guards. Elmer Teague lived there really close, and I know he used a lot of them. Elmer, he was about half smart. He’d go out hiding cigarettes, and candy bars, and stuff through the field at night. (laughs) Of course, they really loved to work for Elmer and do a great job. He told about one of these that spoke some English. He talked one day with the guard there, saying that Hitler had told them that they were going to march across North America, but he didn’t tell them they’d be on their hands and knees, which was kind of interesting I thought. (laughs)
F2: Wasn’t there one up by Wilder?
BILL: I’m sure there was one out there, too. I’m sure there was. But I do happen to remember one of the old guard towers still was standing. I mean, it may still be standing. It was just a few years ago out there. [00:26:00]
F2: Right on the corner.
KATHERINE: Right on the corner of where the labor camp is.
BILL: Yeah, I think that’s right. I heard there was one out there. I don’t know what was there. These were mostly young non-coms that happened to be at Nampa. I suppose that’s why they put them this far inland, they figured they wasn’t gonna have much chance of getting out and causing any trouble. (laughs) I don’t think they were badly treated all, but they did make them work in the fields every day, which I’m sure didn’t hurt ’em. As far as how things were like in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, the biggest change that I can think of in Nampa was the change from downtown Nampa being the main thing to the shopping centers. Another thing I was thinking about was doctors. [00:27:00] Every doctor after World War Two had their office in downtown Nampa. You knew every doctor, and of course there weren’t as many by far, but you knew all of the doctors. I’ll bet you the average person in Nampa today wouldn’t know three or four doctors. Maybe the one they went to, or a neighbor or something, and you just don’t know them anymore. But you just knew all of the doctors and the lawyers too, because all the lawyers’ offices were downtown. And so that, I think, is probably one of the biggest changes in the valley in the years, is the change to the shopping centers and decentralization of the professional people.
KATHERINE: Well, speaking of doctors, do you remember the Pest House?
BILL: Yep, I do. It was out [00:28:00] along the railroad on the south side of the tracks. It was somewhere in the area where the highway offices are on First. It’s before you get to where the Western Block is now. Of course, that was all just completely vacant when I was a kid, but I remember the old Pest House back there that they used to quarantine. I mean, I remember we were quarantined for something. I can’t remember what it was. They come and put this red cardboard with it on it and you were quarantined. I can’t remember, it was chickenpox or something. I had all them things, but I don’t think it was smallpox. I had it too, but everything that went around, it seemed, I always managed to get. (laughs) But I do [00:29:00] remember that. Somewhere or another, I have a feeling that a good share of those people who went in the Pest House were oh, like people who lived in rooming houses, and indigents, and stuff. Probably if they had families, they’d just quarantine the house and kept them there, but if you were in a hotel or something, well. You see, downtown Nampa, up above the stores, there was quite a few. Over where the Junior Achievement is now was a [Simbloom?] Hotel. And mostly though, it wasn’t people going through, it was people who lived there practically all the time. That was just the place they lived. A lot of the people lived in a lot of those places. Probably if you lived in a place like that and got sick, or was an indigent going through, or something like that, but I don’t think any of the established families they ever really put out in the Pest House, because they just [00:30:00] quarantine in their house.
KATHERINE: Who took care of you if you were out there?
BILL: Well, I know there was at one time, because old man Lillard was a city health officer. So, I assume that they hired some doctor, probably. They probably hired some women or something to take care of the thing. And I doubt they hired nurses, but they might have or something. But I imagine it was just people to take care of them. I guess I can still remember it, because there really wasn’t anything across from where the City Hall is now. There really wasn’t anything across the street for a long, long ways in there. In fact, right across there was, when I was a kid, where the circuses always were was right over there where they set up when they’d come to town. Another thing that was a [00:31:00] big event in Nampa in the summertime was -- we lived at 14th Avenue South and whatever. What’s the name of the school now? It was the old Nampa Junior High School, then it was Central Junior High. It’s between 14th and 15th, and up between Fifth and Sixth. Anyway, when we first moved on 14th when I was six years old, that was a vacant lot. And every summer, the Nazarenes would have their summer camp meeting in there. And they’d set up a great, big circus tent and have their big revival meeting there for years and years before the junior high school was finally built. I think that junior high school was built in something like ’28. I think it was about that time.
KATHERINE: Do you know when they stopped using the Pest House? [00:32:00]
END OF RECORDING
BILL SCHWARTZ: Let’s see. I was going to go through part of this oral history project. Of course, I don’t know what life was like in 1910 to ’17, but I still do remember the interurban, because I think I was about six years old. I remember just before it quit. I remember there was a small child killed right out there by the Dewey Palace, the tracks went right down there. Some kid was run over and killed (inaudible). And the old power company building in Nampa, that was tore down 20-some years ago or something, was the Interurban Depot. That’s where they brought the power in from Swan Falls. And that was what ran the, [00:01:00] what was it called, Boise Valley Traction Company, I think. And that went clear out to the lower dam at one time. In fact, I remember there was a small boy out there. We went out there sometimes on picnics, and there was a floating dance hall out there on the lake with kerosene lanterns, and you had to go back and forth by boat. And I remember seeing that. I mean, I never was out on it, but I can remember that. Yeah, that was quite something. (laughs)
F1: It burned down too.
BILL: Did it burn down? I didn’t know what happened to it.
KATHERINE: It was quite a place.
BILL: And then later on, of course, it was a CCC Camp. They was going to run the interurban clear to Marsing eventually, but they never did get quite that far. Let’s see, then 1917 to ’19, which, of course, I don’t know about. It says, “What was life like [00:02:00] in Nampa during the ’20s?” I was thinking, just like about every place else in the ’20s. Of course, I wasn’t born ’til 1920. It says, “Was Nampa part of the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties?” And I don’t really know. It was part of each, I suppose. I don’t really know. (laughs) I was telling you about the agriculture and farming, and the biggest difference between then and now is the fields were much smaller and much less row crop. And every farm had a flock of chickens, and a herd of milk cows, and a big garden, because most people, that’s how they lived through most of the year was the milk check and the egg money. All the grocery stores took in eggs and gave them credit on groceries, and so that was the main thing they lived on. That says, “Tell me about the nonpartisan [00:03:00] league.” And like I said, of course, I don’t know. The Free Press actually was started by the Progressive Party. And then through the Depression years, they didn’t make any money. And they had a fella that -- I don’t know that it was all his fault that they didn’t. I mean, I don’t know that he was a poor manager, because probably anybody had a bad time. His name was Polk. I can’t think of his first name right now. He was an Englishman, too. He’d come from England. And finally, they reorganized and put Tom LaFond in as manager, and they started making money. Of course, times were getting a little better then, too. And then Mainwaring and Arant had a paper in Baker, and they’d come over and they got two fellas, one of them was old WW Deal. And the other fellow’s name was Poage, and I think he owned the ice and coal company. They were both Methodist ministers, which has nothing to do with it. But they got them to go out and tell these farmers -- see, they hadn’t had any [00:04:00] dividends for years. And they told these farmers they’d give them 10 or 15 cents on the dollar on their stock, just to be nice guys to help them out. Well, when Arant and Mainwaring got enough stock cornered, they threw it in the hands of receivers. But they didn’t get to steal it, because Tom LaFond and two guys -- there was a fellow named Shepherd. In fact, he would have been a relation to Paul Shepherd, he would have been an uncle. Paul’s dad actually was in the composing room. And there was another guy, Maury Russell, who was the reporter, had the desk or something, and had a well to do aunt. And Michener also had a little money, and they put together, and went in and bid on it. And they bid ’em up until they had to pay a decent price. The people that did keep hold of [00:05:00] their stock got more than a dollar worth out of it. And immediately, the Free Press turned around, I think it was the exact the same day or the next day, and bought the Leader-Herald right quick, because these guys are going to try to buy the Leader-Herald. And they combined the two of them, and then Tom LaFond and his group went over to Caldwell and bought the newspaper in Caldwell. What is the name of it?
F1: The Free Press?
KATHERINE: The News Tribune?
F1: Oh.
BILL: The News Tribune. They bought the News Tribune. And then Mainwaring always had big political ambitions to be a big wheel in politics in Oregon. And of course, to be a real wheel would be to have a newspaper in the capital city. He went and he raised all the money he could. He had a newspaper he had started in Ontario that was separate from [00:06:00] the other. Anyway, he sold his share back there, and sold the paper in Ontario, and got enough for a down payment, and bought -- and I can’t remember the name of the paper. It was an evening paper anyway in Ontario.
KATHERINE: Was that the old Capital News?
BILL: No, this was in Salem, Oregon.
KATHERINE: Oh, in Salem.
BILL: And he ran it ’til he died. Well, even after he was there a short time, they built a new building. And the two papers combined their mechanical department and just had their own identity as far as the ownership, but they combined the two. And that’s when he left. That’s when he sold out to Scripp’s League, when he left. That’s when Scripp’s League had come to Nampa. And of course, the Leader-Herald originally was two newspapers. It was two weeklies, the Leader and the Herald. They went together and become the Leader-Herald and was a daily newspaper. [00:07:00] Dad came to Nampa and worked there just before World War One for six weeks, and then he came back after World War Two, and he stayed there for, I think it was 13 years. About that time was just before they had changed management. And there was a fellow, he was the office manager. He and Dad didn’t get along, so they was gonna demote Dad from being head of the commercial department. And so, Dad just quit, and borrowed a little money on his life insurance, and bought a complete little shop that went broke in Ogden, Utah. I’ve got the papers here somewhere and it’s interesting, the prices from Western Newspaper Union, which is now Western Paper. And he started business in the basement of where Kalbus is now, [00:08:00] it was a New York store at that time. And I can’t remember for sure, but he ran it for like, two years or something. In the meantime, Tom LaFond had become manager and they were losing a lot of money in the commercial department. So, they asked Dad if he would come back and lease their commercial department and run it, which he did. And then he re-leased for, oh, quite a number of years, and then he finally bought the Free Press out. He told him that he was either gonna throw up the lease or they could sell, because quite a bit of the equipment things he owned anyway. And that was how he acquired that Whitlock press that’s down there, because it belonged originally to the Nampa Record, of course.
I was trying to think of some of these questions about the Great Depression, [00:09:00] of course I was quite young when it started, but I do remember it said about bank failures. We lived next door to CC Reed, who was the manager of the Idaho First National Bank for practically forever. Earl Reed, who was a lawyer there in Nampa and died a couple years ago, was his son. And I remember how the whole family really went around with their chin hanging on the ground for a few days when Roosevelt had that bank holiday. But he didn’t know whether he was going to have a job or anything else. I can remember there was a lot of places, all the service organizations and all the churches, they’d help people. But I can’t remember that anybody actually starved to death. It was kind of like Madeline [00:10:00] Allie years ago up here said, “You know, looking back, we were raised in abject poverty and wasn’t smart enough to realize it.” (laughs) We was all about the same way and I can’t remember personally. I mean, I’d never gone without a meal or anything I really need. The only thing I can remember was after Dad started business for himself in ’31, he was having a hard time with collections and things. He always bought a few tons of coal at a time. And I remember one time that he’d buy, I had to take my coaster wagon down to Lloyd’s, we just lived a few blocks, and get a 100-pound sack. And he didn’t even have enough to buy a ton. Now that, I do remember.
That reminds me of another story of Windsor Lloyd, he had quite a lot of good stories too. Most of these people, really, did get quite a kick out of stories that really was on them. (laughs) There was a woman that owed him money, she was a widow. She owed him for several [00:11:00] tons of coal, and he couldn’t get any money out of her. And this fella came in and wanted to talk to him and he said “Sure, what is it?” And he said, “Well, I’m going to marry this lady. I’ll promise you, before we get married, that all her bills will be taken care of. But I wish you would send out another ton of coal,” which they did. Well, it was taken care of, alright. Just before they got married, she declared bankruptcy. (laughs) Windsor always got quite a kick out of it. I suppose right at the time he was a little hurt, but he said the guy didn’t lie to him. He said he was going to see to it all her bills were taken care of, and they were. (laughs) Another thing I do remember of the Depression deal was, I don’t know whether you’ve read somewhere about the Bonus Marchers. All the World War One veterans that went back to Washington, DC, and tried to get this bonus. [00:12:00] In fact, if I remember right, MacArthur was the one that was supposed to run them out. He didn’t actually. Anyway, they just rode the rails, the box cars from all over, and there’s a bunch of them that they found when they was coming into Nampa. The American Legion went out and fed ’em while they were there that night. And the hobo jungle of Nampa was a tule patch out by where the present sewer plant is. And I remember going out with Dad, and they took -- I don’t know what they had, big pots of stew or what, and things. But I remember they went out and fed all these guys. They got off of box cars and stayed overnight. That I do remember, and there was quite a bunch of ’em. Another thing, during the Depression years, my dad was, for a good share of it anyway, the service officer for the American Legion. [00:13:00] And I remember there was quite a few people who’d come to the door, and there was quite a few of them he helped. Some of them actually should have been getting disability from the VA that just hadn’t done it, and he worked with the VA and helped different ones. And some of them that were sick and stuff got in the VA hospital and things like that. But like I said, everybody was, kind of, more or less in the same boat.
I’m gonna add, one thing that helped Nampa is they still had a pretty good payroll in the railroad, and the railroad still ran, and that was money coming in. I imagine a few were without a job and had a family. You remember it was a pretty bad time. But personally, I don’t remember. I remember people were [00:14:00] hurting and it was just like the present day. There were some moochers like there are today. I remember it was so bad that Mom and some of them, I think it was American Legion Auxiliary, had taken a bunch of food, of course mostly home-canned stuff, to these people. And I think that a guy was an alcoholic, and the first thing he did was pour all the stuff out of the jars, and take them down to the second-hand store, and sold them for enough to buy some more whiskey, I think. (laughs) So, I mean that isn’t all that much different nowadays than it was in those days. And then another thing is people, unless they were just completely lazy, could go out to those farmers and get practically all the potatoes, or onions, or apples, or anything for free just going out there, because they couldn’t sell them for anything. And anybody could go get them for free. So, there was quite a few things. You did have to go get them, they wouldn’t bring them to you and [00:15:00] give them to you. (laughs) But then, of course, as soon as the New Deal came into effect, the WPA and the PWA, there was quite a few people who went to work on that. There was all kinds of jokes about how they broke the shovel handles from leaning on them too hard and everything like that, but they actually did a lot. I think one of the really interesting things is that swimming pool in Nampa that was built. I think that was WPA, Works Progress Administration.
F2: It’s PWA.
BILL: No, I think it was WP. Well, I can’t remember, but there was a difference between one of ’em and the other. Anyway, old man Hozik was quite a well driller all over and really knew, and they asked him if there was any chance of hitting hot water in that area. And he thought, “Yeah, they probably would have a certain amount of feet.” Well, the federal government I guess had come in and said, “Here’s this [00:16:00] money,” to the City Council. “Let’s get to movin’. Let’s get people hired.” So, they actually built the swimming pool before they drilled the hot water well. (laughs) The well was drilled on some position there was going to be warm water. And of course, the old auditorium at the old high school they kept. I don’t know what they use it for. Don’t they use it for some kind of crafts thing?
KATHERINE: Community, crafts, classes, things.
BILL: It was built with those alphabet agencies, and the auditorium at what used to be Central Junior High, that was built also with some of that money. And the thing that was different about then and the present time, was our tax structure was so much different that the minute a guy could find a job that paid 10 cents [00:17:00] an hour more or five cents an hour more, he went and took it, because it was that much more. Well nowadays, with the way they have things, if you’re on welfare of some kind or something like that, you don’t pay any taxes. So, you’ve got to make a heck of a lot more money working to pay the taxes, a lot more dollars an hour, than you did if you was working off the government. But then, federal taxes amounted to such a little bit that the average guy didn’t even really pay any of that state or federal income tax. And so, just to make jobs come opened up, they would go to work at them. And one of the problems was that prices had been high since before World War One and in the early ’20s, and so many of them had expanded way too fast. They borrowed money and expanded, and then when the Depression come, [00:18:00] they really got hurt a lot. So many of them lost their farms, and then finally there was a moratorium declared on taxes. But of course, the ones that was in the biggest trouble were the ones that expanded too much.
But I think the farmers probably did have a -- of course, that was another thing, talking about farmers in Nampa up until World War Two. Saturday, especially the afternoon and evening, was the big day in Nampa. I mean, you try to get down on Main Street and get your car parked early enough in the day where you can park, because all the farmers came to town and did their trading, and went to the stockyards and stuff, to the auctions. And that was just the time to visit. The stores were all busy Saturday evening, people all visited, and it was [00:19:00] up to World War Two. And of course, the farmers didn’t come to town every day like they do anymore, though they’d come to town on Saturday. That was the time to really see everybody was on Saturday downtown. A little while after World War Two, the Chamber tried to revive it, but you couldn’t. It was kind of like the Nampa Harvest Festival, that its day was passed, which is a shame because that was a given. The Harvest Festival and rodeo was really quite something in Nampa when I was a kid. We really looked forward to that.
What was life like in Nampa during World War Two? How’d the town react to the Second World War? I don’t know how they reacted really, unless you’re talking like people were 100 percent practically behind it. There was two [00:20:00] families in Nampa that I think both came from Germany, were such German sympathizers, they about got tarred and feathered and run out of town. But as a whole, it wasn’t anything like this Vietnam thing. We were in a war, and we were in it to win it. Everybody who backed it 100 percent backed it. And in fact, there was an awful lot of women in Nampa that didn’t really need to work to make a living or anything, but did work over Simplot’s in the potato plant, as they felt they were doing something for the war effort. I mean a lot of them. Of course, some of them could use the money too, but it was more they were doing something.
KATHERINE: What was Nampa’s reaction to the Japanese?
BILL: Well, it was a strange kind of a deal, [00:21:00] because we’d had Japanese. There were not as many as we have now. In fact, I went through school with Japanese kids. And I think all of us had little resentment for them, just because the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor and stuff. But I mean, I can’t really remember. There probably were some, but I didn’t really feel like go getting the gun and shooting one of them or anything. But there was some resentment, naturally, when all that happened. As far as I know, there wasn’t one Japanese person in the Boise Valley area that was ever in any trouble. I mean, they had never done anything to help Japan or anything. There was a family there whose daughter had married a Japanese fella, [00:22:00] and I think they lived in San Francisco. And I think he was thrown in jail, and he was a spy, but he was in San Francisco. I don’t remember what his first name was, we called him Short Fujikawa, that I graduated from high school with. It was one of those in that division over there in Italy that really got shot all to pieces. He had got shot real bad, came back and farmed, and then died from the results of his bad wounds not too many years later. One thing about it, if a Japanese owed you money, there was no question about his credit being good. If he walked into the business, I’m sure everybody just extended them credit. They didn’t have to have a credit reference because they were Japanese, they were going to pay [00:23:00] their bills. And it was a sad thing about the war. I had one here tell me about the POW camps in this area during World War Two. Of course, I was gone to the service for quite a bit of the war, but I do remember there was one out at, it was called Swartz Corner. There was some people whose name was Swartz. They spelled their name with “S-W-A-R-T-Z.” In fact, old Joe Swartz and my dad talked it over one time, and both families came from the same county in southern Illinois, but they never could connect any relationship. In fact, some of my family spelled “S-W.” Some of them changed it during World War [00:24:00] One days to make it less German-like, but everybody whose name is “S-W-A-R-T-Z,” once upon a time was “S-C-H.” In fact, Joe Swartz said his dad was the one that had changed it. It was at the corner of Lake Shore Drive and East Powerline or something, and they had a German PW camp there. It was not right on the corner, it was back down on Swartz’s property where there was guard towers and everything. In fact, all of these that were in that camp practically, so I understood, were 100 percent, gung-ho, non-commission Nazis, young fellas. And they worked around. They’d take them to work in the fields, but they wouldn’t let the farmers have any contact with them at all. But they’d [00:25:00] take them with guards. Elmer Teague lived there really close, and I know he used a lot of them. Elmer, he was about half smart. He’d go out hiding cigarettes, and candy bars, and stuff through the field at night. (laughs) Of course, they really loved to work for Elmer and do a great job. He told about one of these that spoke some English. He talked one day with the guard there, saying that Hitler had told them that they were going to march across North America, but he didn’t tell them they’d be on their hands and knees, which was kind of interesting I thought. (laughs)
F2: Wasn’t there one up by Wilder?
BILL: I’m sure there was one out there, too. I’m sure there was. But I do happen to remember one of the old guard towers still was standing. I mean, it may still be standing. It was just a few years ago out there. [00:26:00]
F2: Right on the corner.
KATHERINE: Right on the corner of where the labor camp is.
BILL: Yeah, I think that’s right. I heard there was one out there. I don’t know what was there. These were mostly young non-coms that happened to be at Nampa. I suppose that’s why they put them this far inland, they figured they wasn’t gonna have much chance of getting out and causing any trouble. (laughs) I don’t think they were badly treated all, but they did make them work in the fields every day, which I’m sure didn’t hurt ’em. As far as how things were like in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, the biggest change that I can think of in Nampa was the change from downtown Nampa being the main thing to the shopping centers. Another thing I was thinking about was doctors. [00:27:00] Every doctor after World War Two had their office in downtown Nampa. You knew every doctor, and of course there weren’t as many by far, but you knew all of the doctors. I’ll bet you the average person in Nampa today wouldn’t know three or four doctors. Maybe the one they went to, or a neighbor or something, and you just don’t know them anymore. But you just knew all of the doctors and the lawyers too, because all the lawyers’ offices were downtown. And so that, I think, is probably one of the biggest changes in the valley in the years, is the change to the shopping centers and decentralization of the professional people.
KATHERINE: Well, speaking of doctors, do you remember the Pest House?
BILL: Yep, I do. It was out [00:28:00] along the railroad on the south side of the tracks. It was somewhere in the area where the highway offices are on First. It’s before you get to where the Western Block is now. Of course, that was all just completely vacant when I was a kid, but I remember the old Pest House back there that they used to quarantine. I mean, I remember we were quarantined for something. I can’t remember what it was. They come and put this red cardboard with it on it and you were quarantined. I can’t remember, it was chickenpox or something. I had all them things, but I don’t think it was smallpox. I had it too, but everything that went around, it seemed, I always managed to get. (laughs) But I do [00:29:00] remember that. Somewhere or another, I have a feeling that a good share of those people who went in the Pest House were oh, like people who lived in rooming houses, and indigents, and stuff. Probably if they had families, they’d just quarantine the house and kept them there, but if you were in a hotel or something, well. You see, downtown Nampa, up above the stores, there was quite a few. Over where the Junior Achievement is now was a [Simbloom?] Hotel. And mostly though, it wasn’t people going through, it was people who lived there practically all the time. That was just the place they lived. A lot of the people lived in a lot of those places. Probably if you lived in a place like that and got sick, or was an indigent going through, or something like that, but I don’t think any of the established families they ever really put out in the Pest House, because they just [00:30:00] quarantine in their house.
KATHERINE: Who took care of you if you were out there?
BILL: Well, I know there was at one time, because old man Lillard was a city health officer. So, I assume that they hired some doctor, probably. They probably hired some women or something to take care of the thing. And I doubt they hired nurses, but they might have or something. But I imagine it was just people to take care of them. I guess I can still remember it, because there really wasn’t anything across from where the City Hall is now. There really wasn’t anything across the street for a long, long ways in there. In fact, right across there was, when I was a kid, where the circuses always were was right over there where they set up when they’d come to town. Another thing that was a [00:31:00] big event in Nampa in the summertime was -- we lived at 14th Avenue South and whatever. What’s the name of the school now? It was the old Nampa Junior High School, then it was Central Junior High. It’s between 14th and 15th, and up between Fifth and Sixth. Anyway, when we first moved on 14th when I was six years old, that was a vacant lot. And every summer, the Nazarenes would have their summer camp meeting in there. And they’d set up a great, big circus tent and have their big revival meeting there for years and years before the junior high school was finally built. I think that junior high school was built in something like ’28. I think it was about that time.
KATHERINE: Do you know when they stopped using the Pest House? [00:32:00]
END OF RECORDING