MY LIFE STORIES BY CALVIN LLOYD SMITH
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 2
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 3 Dedication To Dr. Virginia Lorene Smith, my wife, without whom this book would not exist.
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 4
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 5 Table of Contents My Favorite Toys....................................11 Stories of My Dad ..................................13 The Bend Redmond Place ......................17 Entering the Joys of Service ...................21 Bicycle Tales...........................................25 How I Got My First Jobs .........................29 Palermo and Ridley, California...............31 My First Driver's License ........................35 A Good Friend for a While .....................39 Living At Williams, Oregon.....................43
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 6 Searching For Gold.................................49 My Dream..............................................53 Getting Our Shipment............................61 Building a Bridge ....................................65 A Tanzanian History Lesson ...................69 Cars and More Cars................................77 Resources After Sixty Years....................95 My First Baptism..................................103 Our Best African House........................107 Other Travel Adventures......................115 Canadian Adventures...........................119
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 7 Leaving Africa.......................................129 Eight Years in Singapore.......................135 Restaurants and Food ..........................139 My All-Time Favorite Drink ..................147 Off to Michigan....................................151 Years of International Travel................155 Caring for Elderly Parents ....................161 Remodeling At Rogue River .................169 My Sister Sharon..................................179 A Shocking Local Event.........................185 Darcy Smith Obituary...........................189
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 8 Life Sketch of Darcy..............................193 More About Darcy and Our Plans ........209 Darcy Letter After One Year.................213 Christmas, 2019 ...................................217 To Thailand After Many Years..............221 Back to Thailand Again.........................225 Learning Thai and Shopping.................227 Our Trip to Vietnam.............................235 Thailand Mystery Story ........................249 Our 58th Anniversary...........................255 Just You, Me, and the Angels...............265
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 9 Updates On Calvin ...............................279 Places Virginia and I Have Lived ...........289
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My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 11 My Favorite Toys My first memory of toys is pulling the kettles out of the cupboard and fitting lids until I found the right one for each. Fast forward a few years and I was playing with my erector set, making a crane among other things. I still have the little motor that came with the set. I also remember digging a deep hole with several friends back in College Place, Washington. It was about three feet deep with steps down and niches in the walls for candles. We covered it with boards and dirt. We would crawl down there and sit. And make plans for something or other. Then it rained hard and filled with water and pretty much ended our habitation. In the third grade I was driving our pickup out of the garage. That was a great toy! Unfortunately, one day I caught the bumper of the 1941 Chevy pickup on the center pillar of the garage, but managed to get it unhooked without collapsing the garage. It also did not hurt the bumper because it was made of heavy steel which stuck out several inches on each side of the vehicle. My dad kept that bumper. Why did he keep it? Because my folks never got rid of anything.
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 12 They had plenty of space, and the bumper, along with lots of other flotsam and jetsam sat out in the woods 470 miles south of where the incident happened. I gave it away to the neighbor when I was 79 years old and it was time to clean up and sell the place so we could move to Sequim, Washington
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 13 Stories of My Dad My earliest memory of my dad is when I was a very little child. In a sawmill where he was working, he got his index finger cut off near the end, at an angle. I would tell anyone who listened about his “sore dibadib.” I meant his poor sore finger but couldn’t say that. During the war, living in Albany, Oregon, my dad oversaw the water filtration project at the military base, Camp Adair. Because of his electrical skills, he was not inducted into the military. He was a contract worker for the camp. One day he was down in an empty water tank fixing something when someone accidently turned on the chlorine gas. He managed to get out barely alive, but he suffered the effects for most of his life. He should have gotten compensation, but he didn’t. At that point we probably went to Holly, Oregon and lived with my mother’s parents for a while. That was always our go-to place in any emergency. I especially remember Christmas there, sneaking down in the middle of the night to check on the presents.
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 14 When I was three and a half years old my sister was born in Lebanon, Oregon. I called her “Baby Siso” for quite a while. I remember my dad and his father working on the roof of the house that they built. We didn’t live there very long. When I was about five years old, I made a trip in the ‘37 Chev with my dad and his father to Greeley, Colorado. On the way we stopped in Twin Falls, Idaho where dad was born. We crossed the famous high bridge over the Snake River, then started to turn around to go back over and continue the trip. Suddenly, a Buick came whizzing along and hit our back bumper and bent it way out. At that point it became a sad day! I don’t remember when the bumper got fixed. The whole point of the trip was for my granddad to meet his brother who lived in Colorado so the two of them could negotiate some portion of the inheritance they had lost. Their father had owned a large farm. The brothers developed the property and spent years working there. Meanwhile their mother died, and their father remarried. When their father died, the new wife managed to inherit everything. I remember seeing the house where she lived. I wish we had kept the address so I could have visited the area again. The
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 15 stepmother had better legal skills than they did, and the trip did not result in their favor. My granddad was a very easy-going guy, so he probably didn’t fight too hard to get his share. It seemed like my dad was the only one who drove on that trip. Maybe grandpa was discouraged or depressed by the results. I remember that they bought a big bag of potatoes to take back to Oregon. The man who loaded them into the car had the biggest hands I had ever seen. Within a couple years we were living in Umapine, Oregon. That is where I started the first grade. The old four-story school is still there. My only memory of school was the bully—probably two years older than me—who picked me up by the legs and held me upside down over the toilet. I would come home to an empty house after school, at least for a short time. Both my parents were working in dad’s electrical business in Milton Freewater. One day as I arrived home, I saw to my horror that a huge (to me) bull was in our yard. I was terrified. I ran and got into the house and hunkered down behind a kitchen cabinet. Fortunately, my parents arrived soon thereafter. I was never so happy to see them.
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 16 They soon bought a brand-new house in Milton Freewater and planned to stay there permanently. But because of the second world war, they couldn’t get electrical parts that they needed for their business, so we moved again. They found a well-built chicken house in College Place on a two-and-a-half-acre lot. One and a half acres was planted with super good asparagus. I remember that dad immediately put down a floor and set our beds on that. It wasn’t long before he had added on and built the whole thing into a nice house. A small building for a bakery was another addition beside the house. Amazingly enough, our niece lives within a couple blocks of that house, which is still there, so we get to drive by and look at it every now and then. During the construction of the addition on the house, when I was nine years old, I got to wire in the pump. I had my arm around the pump, putting the 220 wires in place when a carpenter turned on the power. With my arm around the pump, I was totally grounded and got the full charge. I remember a good jolt! Praise the Lord that I survived. Obviously, God had things for me to do.
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 17 The Bend Redmond Place When I was five years old, my folks bought eighty acres close to Peterson Rock Gardens in the country between Bend and Redmond, Oregon. They moved there from Sweet Home, Oregon, where my mother’s family lived, because Dad suffered from sinus and asthma problems. Before we moved, he would sometimes have to get up in the middle of the night and drive across the Cascade Range to Bend where he could breathe. I remember one time when he came back from Bend, my little sister Sharon and I saw him coming and ran down the road to meet him. We jumped on the running board of the ‘37 Chev. He was very emotional and so happy to see us that I still remember his hug as he almost cried. Maybe he was afraid he was going to die. Years later my folks stopped using cow’s milk and all his health problems disappeared. He had no more trouble with sinus or asthma for the rest of his life. Dad built a two-story house with an amazing view of the Three Sisters to the west. I have a clear memory of my mother standing there facing the mountains saying, “We’re going to be right here when Jesus comes.” She was very spiritual, but not a good prophetess, because they moved dozens of times after that. In recent years we went by there
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 18 and found Peterson Rock Gardens considerably the worse for wear. Nearby was the house my dad built, still looking very much the same. We had a trailer that I loved to play in. I would get in the middle and balance it, so the trailer hitch came off the ground. Then I could make it roll a little bit. For a five-yearold that was very exciting. About 70 years later my mom gave the trailer to the neighbors in Rogue River, much to my dismay because I still could have used it. But at least I didn’t have to dispose of that when we were leaving Rogue River. I also had a beloved dog named Pal. The house was about a block from a main road. We had to turn off the main road on to a smaller road to reach the house. Once as we rode by, I was shocked to see a dead dog caught in the fence beside the smaller road. Fortunately, it was not Pal. The war planes during the Second World War flew very low over our house. A P-38 came over low enough that I could see the pilot sitting in the middle section between the propellers. One day a plane landed in our field just before it would have hit our house. I’m sure it was able to take off again, or else my mother would have kept it where I would have had to get rid of it 70 years later. My dad worked as an electrician for a company in Redmond. During that time my dad’s parents moved nearby to Bend. They bought a house on Portland Avenue that needed a lot
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 19 of work. My granddad was a good carpenter, so he was able to fix it up. Years later we also located that house, still looking the same. We had two horses named Bill and Jerry because my mother loved to ride. We also had a large chicken coop with 500 chickens, as well as numerous rabbits. I will always remember the hog’s head on the floor in the back of the ‘37 Chevy. It was there to be taken and made into headcheese. Much of the land was good for growing hay. But in addition, they had a big garden because that was the case everywhere they lived. However, gardens didn’t do too well under those conditions. One of the main reasons they moved away from there was because it could frost any night of the year. From there we moved north, close to College Place, WA.
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My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 21 Entering the Joys of Service Dr. I. R. Hall graduated in the first class from The College of Medical Evangelists which later became Loma Linda University. He met my folks when my dad needed hernia surgery. Afterwards he stayed in touch and sent our family “The Signs of the Times” for ten years. When I was ready for the third grade, my folks sent me to the Walla Walla College church school. Miss Searle was the principal. I’ve forgotten my teacher’s name, but I do remember that she was engaged to be married. Apparently one or the other of these ladies informed a Bible worker that a child in the school was not from an Adventist home. Suddenly one day Marjorie and Gordon Greene showed up at the door and asked if my parents would be interested in Bible studies. Evidently all the magazines had influenced at least my mother. She quickly agreed she was ready to study. All three of us found the lessons to be so interesting that before long we joined Marjorie in giving Bible studies to others. I was just as interested as my parents.
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 22 We ended up giving seven Bible studies each week. In addition, we passed out 70 copies of “The Signs of the Times” each week. I would ride on the running board of the old ‘37 Chev and run from house to house distributing the magazines. One day a dog ran after me and bit the calf of my leg. That hurt like crazy and scared me. From then on, I had a fear of dogs, but I still kept distributing the magazines. One place we studied was an old folks’ home. One old man about 90 years old would see me and always say, “Oh my little boy, my little boy.” He would tell us stories about pioneer days. It was 1948, so the stories could have come from the 1850’s and onward. Unfortunately, I have forgotten all those stories. In April 1948 all three of us were baptized together by Pastor Burke in the Village Church which is now the Drama building at Walla Walla University. I recall that the church had 1300 members. It is still a beautiful building with a wrap-around balcony. It was a delightful event that left me with profound peace. I was nine years old at the time. My dad was immediately made the Home Missionary leader for the church, beginning forty-six years of lay
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 23 leadership in whatever church he was in. For me it was the start of a lifetime of ministry.
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My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 25 Bicycle Tales My first bicycle arrived in College Place when I was nine and in the third grade. I don’t remember anyone teaching me how to ride. Out on the road in front of the house—I remember the prune trees on each side—I remember thinking carefully before I got on the bike. If the bike should begin to fall to the right, I figured that I should turn the wheel to the left, and vice versa. I quickly learned from that fallacy. Immediately I had to pick myself up off the road from a painful fall. Later I had ridden to a friend’s house over the hill on the south side of College Place. Time flew, and it was getting dark when I was riding home. Coming very fast down the hill, all at once I came upon the street to the left at the bottom. I didn’t anticipate how sharp the turn was, and I plunged into a deep ditch. When I pulled the bike out of the ditch, I saw it had a badly bent front wheel so I could not turn it. I had to drag it home. It required some hammering to get out the dents and bends. I remember doing some of that, but probably my dad helped me. I remember those dents in my fender seventy-four years later.
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 26 Four years later when I was thirteen in Medford, Oregon, I decided it was time to make money. I heard about the Presto Fire Extinguisher which was guaranteed for twenty years against failure of any kind. I contacted the company and learned that I would be the only seller south of Portland. They agreed not to sell through any other outlets. I bought an expensive Schwinn bicycle and prepared it for going door to door. I made a locked box to go on top of the back fender. Behind it was a vertical box for my briefcase. Beside the back wheel was my lunch box with a screen vent to keep it air-cooled. I memorized the canvas and was ready to go. “It is guaranteed for twenty years against corrosion, deterioration, or failure of operation in any way.” The business started out well, and I was enjoying my work until I discovered that local stores were selling the same product. The apparatus for door to door selling went into the garage. Along with the fender mentioned in the former story, this had to be disposed of sixty-six years later in 2017 when we were downsizing and moving to Washington State.
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 27 Some of the salesmanship expertise gained on that bicycle I was able to use four years later when I went to west Texas at the age of seventeen to sell religious books.
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My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 29 How I Got My First Jobs My sister and I were playing in the road in front of the house, and right there were seven acres of carrots. I ran over and pulled two carrots. I gave one to Sharon and I ate the other one (unwashed). My mother watched us from the window. When my dad got home, she reported what she had seen. He called me in and told me how wrong it was to steal. Even though there were seven acres of carrots, we still had no right to take any. He said, “I want you to go over and tell Mr. Castoldi that you took two carrots and ask him to forgive you.” I remember knocking on the door and being a little bit scared. But when I talked to Mr. Castoldi, he was very gracious and willing to forgive me. Ever since, I have remembered that lesson from my dad. Half a block away there was another field full of carrots. By now I was about ten years old. The owners hired me and said they would pay ten cents a lug which was a wooden box. I quickly pulled carrots, then yanked off the tops. I was very happy to make $6.80. But did I really pull 68 lugs? I only remember working that one carrot season.
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 30 When we moved to Medford, and I was about twelve years old, Maud and Eli Davis were old, retired schoolteachers who owned a large field where old Highway 99 used to be. Today it is a freeway. The field was filled with yellow star thistles which are spiny aggressive weeds. The Davis’s asked me to clear the field. I did so by using a shovel and cutting them out of the ground. I think I did the whole field by myself. I don’t remember what they paid me, but I’m sure they did pay, because I don’t recall that they didn’t pay me. Except for my entrepreneurial foray into selling fire extinguishers, most of my jobs after that were for my dad who paid me $3.00 an hour to help him with electrical work. He made $4.00 an hour at the time, as a licensed electrician. When I was nineteen, I built my folks a house under my dad’s instruction. He was too busy with electrical jobs to build it himself. Soon thereafter I made more money selling books than working for dad.
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 31 Palermo and Ridley, California When I was about thirteen and in the sixth grade, Dr. Hall invited us to go with them to Palermo, California, to remodel a house they had bought. My little sister Sharon and I transferred to the Ridley church school which was far enough away that someone had to drive us there every day. Sharon excelled at tether ball at the school, but I don’t remember anything I excelled at in school. At home I was always doing carpenter work and using the table saw. Since I was still very short, I had to be extra careful, but I still have all my fingers. What I do remember about school is a cute little blond girl. I loaned her my hat and she appreciated that. Her name is forgotten but I still remember that the hat event meant something to me at the time. The pastor of the Oroville church we attended was known for building furniture the right size for Adam and Eve. One time he told us to close our eyes. He unfolded a huge chair and climbed onto it, then had us open our eyes. We saw that the tall pastor’s feet didn’t even come to the edge of the seat. Very impressive. We
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 32 would never forget how enormous Adam was in comparison to us. Even after so many years, one of the churches in Palermo has a very high narrow steeple. Back then, from my short stature I looked up at that and shuddered to think of the danger that would be involved in working on it. Fortunately, we were never called upon to do any work there. My family of four and Dr. and Mrs. Hall all lived in the same house. Dr. Hall was extremely careful with money and everything else. I remember him carefully scraping out the oatmeal kettle. Not one drop of oatmeal could be wasted. He would get after us if we wasted anything. His wife was a little bit freer. Generally, we got along, but it wasn’t quite as nice as having our own house. We were probably only there for about six months until the construction job was done. Then we left to live in Medford, Oregon. To get there, we loaded all our belongings, which included a lot of heavy canned fruit our mother had made in Palermo, onto the back of a 1936 Ford truck with high walls all the way around and a canvas roof.
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 33 The tailgate at the back extended the loading area, providing just enough space for the family mattresses to sit on edge. The cab was very small with only enough room for our parents. Sharon and I laid on top of the mattress edges with our feet pointing toward the cab. We had about eighteen inches to lie in under the canvas roof and just enough width for our two bodies. We were very happy to be there with our heads out in the cool air. The first hours of the trip passed pleasantly enough and finally we reached the Siskiyu summit. Only an hour remained of our ride. The truck had mechanical brakes, not hydraulic brakes. Possibly my dad waited too long to shift into a lower gear, and when he tried, he could not get it into gear and the truck started speeding up. Frantically struggling, he almost decided to crash into the mountain on the left side, but fortunately at the last moment he managed to get it into gear and stopped. My mother jumped out and put a rock under a wheel. Sharon and I were happily oblivious although I remember the speeding up. After thanking the Lord and catching their breath, the rock was removed, and we proceeded to Medford where we would live for the next two years.
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My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 35 My First Driver's License Most kids wait until they are sixteen to get a driver’s license. I had a unique situation because I lived about six miles from Rogue River Academy on Old Stage Road in Medford, Oregon. There was no school bus to get my sister and me to school. One boy picked us up for a while and took us there, but he had an accident. The road went along the edge of an irrigation stream. He went too fast, lost control, missed the bridge, drove up over the bank of the canal and nose-dived in. None of us got hurt much, but I was playing with my trumpet, and the horn part at the end got bent. I don’t think it ever got fixed. After that our parents would not risk having us ride with him again. I was able to get a permit to drive the ‘37 Chevy a prescribed route, and only with my sister in the car. I was fourteen and very short. I had to look through the steering-wheel to see the road. My parents must have trusted me to drive because I had been driving family vehicles off-road since I was nine. I was the only person south of Portland, Oregon with that special permit at that time. It was clear that other
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 36 kids my age at the school coveted my ability to drive to school. All went well for a while. After a few weeks, as we headed home from school, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw flashing lights. That scared me. I wondered what I had done wrong. I quickly pulled off and stopped, expecting the worst. A nice policeman came up to my window and looked down at me. He smiled and said, “You were doing nothing wrong. I just wanted to check on how you were driving. Just continue. You are doing great.” What a relief! That was the beginning of my official driving experience. I had no way of knowing that I would drive hundreds of thousands of miles back and forth between Oregon and Texas and then on two other continents. My good driving record persisted except for a couple of incidents. When I had my ‘50 Studebaker Champion all polished and ready to go to Texas to sell books at the age of seventeen, I was so proud of that beautiful car. It had been advertised for $495, but when Brother Yost heard that I was going to sell books in Texas he sold it to me for $395. (My wife spent more than 100 times that much for her favorite car.)
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 37 Returning one day from Grants Pass to Williams, a big truck was poking along in front of me on a long gradual turn to the right, just above where we later built a house in Murphy. I started to pass the truck and he moved across the road right in front of me, scratching my car from one end to the other. There happened to be a small driveway off to the left that I shot down, avoiding a worse wreck. The Studebaker lasted me several years and many trips back and forth to Texas, all with the scratch intact. When I was in college, I bought a Volkswagen bug for $1500 out of Houston. One time, taking two girls from school to their home for vacation, we rolled over on an extremely sharp curve in the dead of the night. We were in the middle of nowhere on the border of Texas and New Mexico. Fortunately, nobody was badly hurt. Skates behind the back seat flew up and hit one girl, but without serious injury. As the car rolled over, the righthand door opened up against the front fender and the other girl rolled out without getting hurt. I feel guilty now remembering this. Mrs. Firestone, a literature evangelist in New Mexico somehow heard of our plight, came and picked us up
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 38 and cared for us. I had to borrow a thousand dollars from my dad to get the car repaired. Then I sold it. It was the first and only car sale for the S & A Motor Company of Keene, Texas. That stood for Smith and Appenzeller. My friend and I had decided to go into business together. Later Ronnie Appenzeller was the colporteur director for the world church.
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 39 A Good Friend for a While I met Billy Mathis when his mother and stepfather moved to Medford from New Mexico. He was already in high school, just one grade ahead of me. We became close friends. He liked to study religious books more than I did. His reading habits inspired me to study and pray more. One whole day and into the night we studied at his house. Unfortunately, in only a few weeks he and his family moved back to New Mexico. For the first time in my life, I began to correspond with someone. Billy and I wrote back and forth quite frequently. I enjoyed it. Then at church I met Olive and Melvin Starr and their boys. They were visiting Melvin’s sister who lived in Grants Pass. Before long I learned that they were returning to West Texas and would pass through Albuquerque, New Mexico on their way. By this time Billy was in school in Albuquerque, at Sandia View Academy. The Starr’s graciously invited me to travel with them so I could visit my friend. I had never been away from home before, so this seemed like a great adventure.
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 40 When I graduated from the eighth grade, my parents moved to Williams Valley and really didn’t intend for me to go any further in school. At age fifteen I had just gotten my real driver’s license, and I ended up helping the Starr’s drive, and actually doing the driving much of the time, which I greatly enjoyed. As we were passing through Fairfield, California, I especially remember stopping to buy delicious honeydew melons at a very cheap price. I believe it was ten cents a melon! We arrived at the academy late on Saturday night. I joined Billy in his dorm room to spend the night, but much to my disgust was awaken by a trumpet blasting in the room very early the next morning. It was not Billy, but some other kid who came into his room and began blowing as loudly as he could. Monday morning, I was on the bus headed home. Why? To my shock Billy was a totally different person than I had known before. He was no longer interested in studying anything spiritual. Instead, his every thought concerned girls, or so it seemed to me. I had not yet reached that stage of life. Furthermore, my parents had ingrained in me that the schools were not the right place for me. This visit at the
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 41 school reinforced in my mind the idea that I did not need to continue my education. Within a few hours I felt lonely and disappointed and very homesick. Thus, I caught a ride on the first bus possible. It was a long trip. I arrived in Medford at 2:00 am, and was amazed at how cold it was, but what a joy to see my father drive up and welcome me back. A few years later when I was working in West Texas, I had the opportunity to stop and see Billy and his wife. Then I attended Sandia View Academy for one year. His sister Marilyn was also a student there. I admired her figure. Temporarily I thought maybe I would like to go with her, but the idea passed. She had another boyfriend. I was so shy it would be years before I got a girlfriend.
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My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 43 Living At Williams, Oregon My parents always wanted to live away from people, in the mountains. So, we left Medford and moved to Williams, 20 miles from Grants Pass. 40 acres for $8500 at the base of 7,000-foot Grayback Mountain was the beautiful location for our new home. The house on the land was partially built, but that was no problem for our family. We all took part in ongoing construction work. I built 54 drawers for my mother. Incidentally, I lived in an unfinished bedroom all the years we had that house. We also built a shop and health food store right behind the house. It was 24’ X 40’ with the small health food store at one end. To make room for a large garden, in the wintertime we used our ‘43 Ford tractor to pull over large trees and pull out smaller ones. We would hook a cable up a tree as high as we could reach. Then I would run the tractor full blast and pull the tree over to about 45 degrees. Then I could reach higher to hook the cable again and pull it out to the side and twist it out of the ground. We soon had a big garden space ready for tons of vegetables and the many flowers my mother always grew. She loved to beautifully arrange them and give
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 44 them away. The soil was excellent and rock free. One time Sharon and I were pouring gas into the Ford tractor, and it caught fire. It was amazing, and we praise God, it did not explode. To its dying day there was a black spot on the side of the hood. My electrician father immediately found many opportunities to use his brand new 1955 Chevy pickup. He worked on sawmills, dairy farms, schools, and homes. Since I was now out of school at fourteen years of age, I worked with him in wiring all these locations. It was an exciting experience to take out a huge 750 horsepower steam engine that had a seven-foot pulley. To start the two new 3-phase 250 horsepower electric motors, the wires had to be connected properly or the sawmill would go in reverse. The grand finale of the day’s work was to have all the mill workers standing around watching as we started the new motors. Oh joy! Everything went in the right direction. It was from Williams that we drove many weeks to the huge job of wiring Milo Academy that was being built nineteen miles east of Canyonville, Oregon. It was a quarter of a mile across the campus with several large buildings around a circle. Since this had been an old farm, there was an ancient building we could stay in and
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 45 do our own cooking. I remember that my dad waited too long to finish a container of soy milk. It turned sour, and I will never forget that awful taste. My dad oversaw all the electrical work for the whole campus. I helped him. I enjoyed bending conduit and prided myself in being able to put conduit wherever it needed to go. Because my dad only had a high school education, some of the leadership rightfully could question his ability to estimate the amount of wattage the school would require. When he gave them the figure, they did not believe so much could possibly be needed. So, they paid an engineer to redo the estimate. His figure came out a bit higher than my dad’s. From then on, the leaders told dad, “Just go ahead and do it the way you think it needs to be done.” We took our dog, Smoke, with us to Milo. He loved to run and run and run. He was known to kill deer just by running them to death. Milo Academy did not begin classes until my dad and I were no longer working there. Apparently by then my parents had changed their minds about education. My sister Sharon, four years younger than me, graduated as valedictorian of her class of eighty. One well-known name who attended there with her was Bob Folkenberg.
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 46 Every Friday we drove home to spend the weekend. We attended a small church two miles from the house. Just when we moved there, they built a little school building next to the church. That was where Sharon, my younger sister studied. Some members of that church believed strongly that Jesus would come so soon that there was no need to make proper foundations under their house. Instead, they put the house on pine blocks which of course were not going to last long. But those same people were very generous in helping out when needs arose. The husband had a pickup with a shop built onto it where he could sharpen all kinds of equipment. He would drive through the neighborhood and people would bring out whatever needed sharpening. At this time, I had had as much education as my mother. But my dad had gone to high school, and somehow, I don’t remember how, the idea arose that I should take home study classes. In my unfinished bedroom, and as busy as I was helping my dad, there didn’t seem to be much opportunity to study. I decided to build myself a schoolroom. About three hundred feet behind the house and the same distance from the road I found space with a full
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 47 view of Grayback Mountain. It was great fun to build my 12’ X 12’ little cottage. I built it on skids, put up the 2” X 4”s, added plenty of insulation, then wallboard and two windows, added a couple poles to bring electricity from the house, had plugs on every wall and good lighting. It contributed to a little more study. I finished biology, algebra and Old Testament. Two and a half credits all told. When I was ready to go to Texas to sell books, I offered to sell the room to the neighbors who lived across the road and owned Mighty Mike, the unbeaten champion bull of Pendleton Round Up. They were thrilled to get it and immediately moved it to their land. Unfortunately, they forgot to pay me, so it was my first bad investment.
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My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 49 Searching For Gold When I was sixteen, one of the church members brought an old man to church. As we visited during the fellowship meal the old man said he knew where some gold was in Kentucky. It sounded quite certain. Very quickly the two men made a decision to make the trip in the younger man’s Cadillac, and they asked me to go along. As it turned out, I did most of the driving. After a long trip, my first away from the west coast, we reached Kentucky which seemed very primitive, almost jungle like. People would run and hide when we drove by. Following the old man’s directions, we searched diligently for the horde of buried gold he had heard about. He became exhausted, and no gold turned up. On the way back to Oregon, he told us a story about bandits in New Mexico who buried gold near the Rio Grande River. As we got close to the spot that he thought he could identify, he pulled out his gold- cased pocket watch. Holding it up by its chain, it swung back and forth toward the direction he thought the gold was hidden. We drove around in a big circle and every time we stopped and let the clock swing, it always indicated
My Life Stories by Calvin Lloyd Smith 50 the same spot where he thought the bandits had hidden the gold. When we actually arrived at the place, the watch swung in a circle instead of back and forth. As we were looking at the watch and considering what action to take next, a man with a rifle appeared riding a horse. He said, “The story you have heard is not true and you are not welcome to search here. Leave!” Thus ended our adventure. We hurried back to Williams, Oregon. Much later Virginia and I stumbled onto a movie about buried gold in New Mexico that seemed very much like the old man’s story. I don’t think the gold was found in that plot either. I do have connections with a bit more information about gold. My dad’s father at one point was digging for gold. He gave up when he didn’t find any. Not long afterward, a gold mining company dug one and a half feet beyond where he had stopped and found a large amount of gold. I was born in the Judge Hanna House, one of the first houses to be built in Jacksonville, Oregon. Now it is right across the street from the Britt Music Festival. One of the oldest towns in Oregon, Jacksonville began with the