College Degree and No Job
In September 1936 I returned to Young carrying my B. A. Degree and anxious to find a job. I really wanted to teach but was willing to do anything that would pay a wage.
After two whole days at home I went to Globe and applied for a job at Standard Stations. (now Chevron) This job would entail servicing automobiles, primarily pumping gasoline. Mean while I needed money for food so I went to the Gila County Courthouse and signed up with WPA. (Works Progress Administration) This was a Federal program created to provide jobs for the unemployed. They had a big project going at Roosevelt Dam and needed immediate help. They would give me a job if I would get to Roosevelt right away. I told them I would get there some way and took the employment notice.
I had seen a guy from Young on the streets in Globe and I knew he had a car so I chased him down. I suppose I twisted his arm a bit but somehow I got him to the WPA Office and got him signed up for work. So, in his car, we took off for Roosevelt. We had no money but we did have a job and enough gasoline to take us to work.
The project at the Dam involved raising the level of the lake by fifteen feet. The contractor was Peters Construction of San Francisco. They were ninety days behind on the project and were being penalized for it. In order to speed up the work each employee was allowed to work two eight hour shifts if he wanted to do so. That was just made to order for me, two jobs in one.
My "Driver" and I arrived at the site and began looking for a place to camp. Just above the dam beside the highway was a wide spot where two young men from Wilcox were camped. They invited us to share the spot with them so we spread out our bed and then went to the General Store at Roosevelt to try to arrange for some groceries. The store was owned by Thad Frazier, a friend of my father's. I explained to Mr. Frazier that we were going to work the next morning but needed to get something to eat that night. He flatly refused to extend credit of any kind so we were forced to return to camp hungry. When we arrived at camp the Wilcox guys were just beginning to eat supper and I just walked over to their fire and said, " Men we are hungry and broke and that dam guy at the store will not let us have anything on a credit. We go to work in the morning and we will pay you back as soon as we get paid." Those boys were only too glad to share with us and I became close friends with them.
The fellow who had driven me to Roosevelt found the work there too difficult for him and he quit after working for two days. I am sure he found the streets of Globe much more to his liking.
My first assignment was pushing a wheel borrow filled with sand up a ramp and dumping it into the hopper of guniting mixer. The sand weighed four hundred twenty seven pounds and I was able to last until noon but I knew I would never last through the afternoon. So after lunch I walked all the way to the other end of the dam and was assigned a job scaling down cliffs. I went over the edge of a cliff using a safety belt tied to a pipe above and I used a pneumatic hammer to chip all the loose rocks off the cliff face. I became very familiar with the roof of the power house some two hundred feet below me. I learned not to watch when I dropped a chipping tool. The sight just reminded me how high I was and made me dizzy.
On the second shift I helped set the steel plates that sealed the new spillway gates that were to raise the level of the lake. It was back breaking work but it was just wonderful to go from no job to two jobs. I feel compelled to point out that from September 1936 to July 1976, a period of forty years, I was never without a job and occasionally I had at least two. I do not suppose that is a record but it would be virtually impossible to do that today.
The Peters Construction people knew that if Standard Stations offered me a job that I would leave even though they offered me a permanent job. I did not want to make a career of construction work so when Standard Stations offered me a job I left Peters and went to Phoenix to be trained for "pumping gas."
After two weeks of training I was assigned to work at a large station in Tucson. I did vacation relief at both Tucson and Nogales but found that I really did not like service station work so I kept calling the University about a teaching job.
Just before Christmas I got an interview with Mr. Rukin Jelkes regarding a tutoring position in his home which was a large horse ranch in the Rincon Mountains east of Tucson. This was part of the Jelkes family who had made millions through the development of Oleomargarine. They had a nine year old son who was caught between a doting mother and an insensitive father. Since I was sick of pumping gasoline I took the tutoring job. They were to pay $150 per month plus board, room, laundry and the use of a car. I had barely reached the ranch when they got an emergency telephone call to go to Georgia where Mrs. Jelkes mother was seriously ill. I was to stay at the ranch until they returned after Christmas. The family had hardly driven away from the ranch when I got a call from the University informing me that the Superintendent of Schools from Nogales wanted to interview me for a teaching job. I went for the interview, was offered a job teaching a fifth grade, I accepted and sent my resignation to the Jelkes family in Georgia. I never heard from them again.