THE DEPRESSION’S WOOD CUTTERS
Catherine Dunlap, May 22, 2015

For absolutely no good reason today I got to thinking about all the people my day had cutting wood for him during the depression. There were a few locals that included our next-door neighbor Dave Thomas, Merle Martin and Merle, Jr. The others came just looking for some gainful employment with news traveling by word of mouth I assume. The ones I remember were all quite interesting. Jack Taylor and his wife Stella were a flamboyant pair. Jack was a wiry little guy who had played the piano in some club before losing his job. That was happening to so many during the great depression. They lived in a building that was part of the beginning of our house. It became my bedroom. Jack taught me how to play the piano. I may have been 8 years old. He would literally bounce around on the piano bench as he played and it quite fascinated me. Later Miss Peterson, my fifth and sixth grade teacher gave me more professional lessons but Jack taught me the basics for sure.

There was also “Big Jim”. That was all we ever knew of his name I think. He was really big. One time my mom ordered a pair of bib overalls for him from the “Monkey Ward” (Montgomery Ward) catalog. When they came, brother Jim and I both got into one leg and were jumping around. Big Jim caught us and he was very offended. We had to apologize. There was a little shack down at the bottom of the field behind the barn where he lived. We kids would go visit him. He had a cast iron skillet that he cooked in. We swore he never washed it. I didn’t seem to cause him any harm.

Then there were the Morgans. We thought they were like Jack Spratt. “Jack Spratt could eat no fast, his wife could eat no lean – but betwixt the two they licked the platter clean.” He was a skinny little guy and she was very large. They came after Big Jim left I guess because they too lived in that same shack. What we marveled at was their “out house”. They found two logs and cut two vine maple limbs about 4 inches in diameter. They laid the poles about 15 inches apart between the logs, and that was the seat. Neither sanitary, nor comfortable in any way, but they were tough folks. The one privacy was the woods surrounding them.
Another was a man named Becknell who walked by, stayed in our spare bedroom in the house. The police came looking for him one day after he had left. He was wanted for suspicion of murder. He was just eager to make a bit of money so he could get on his way. My Dad did not do background checks.

The final ones I remember was a family group with the surname Walls. Two brothers married sisters and had the sister’s two younger siblings with them. I believe we knew them as Bud and Sis, Ken and Mavis, Faye and Dickee. They all lived in “Our Bedroom” house though Bud and Sis slept in the guest room in our house. They were great kids and looking back I am more amazed at how brave they were. The girl’s parents were dead and they set out from the Dakotas to try to survive. I think the oldest may have been twenty. There were others in the community who were interested in taking the younger siblings, Faye and Dickee, but the sisters were determined to keep the family together. As far as I know they did.

Dave Thomas finally got a job with Dwyer Lumber as the depression was getting less severe. My Dad advanced him $15 to buy a pair of cork boots so he could go to work. He worked at Dwyer until he retired.

I know cutting wood then was a very hard job. They used wood saws and then split with sledge, wedge and axes. Delivered wood brought only about $5 a cord so I am sure the cutters were not making much. They mostly cut 4-foot wood so splitting that was not easy. There were people in town that had “buzz” saws that went from house to house and cut the 4-foot wood into stove wood lengths.

It was a hard life those “good old days”. Dad got started in the wood business during the depression as he tried to survive that devastating time. It is my understanding that he and his cousin Harvey Crook were going to work together. They bought a truck, which Harvey was going to deliver with while my Dad cut the wood from his property. Harvey then concluded he could not do it so Dad did the delivery and hired cutters. They fell trees with crosscut saws and cut rounds with drag saws (see uTube video: Vaughn Drag Saw).
The only ones who worked for my Dad that stayed in the area were the Walls family. They moved to Springdale for a time and then we lost track of them.

When the war started it changed everything. Allan ran the wood truck after he graduated high school until he went to service. Then Jim took over until he left too. When both brothers left it was the end of that era.