My Adventures as a Wanderer
1934
In 1934, Eugene Lincoln Chase submitted the following manuscript to The Open Road for Boys, a boys’ lifestyle magazine that ran from 1919 through to the 1950s. He found it returned to him in a letter from G. S. Ernst dated July 30th, 1934, aged fifteen; “We found your account of your adventures as a wanderer very interesting,” Ernst assured him, “However, it isn’t just suited to our present needs.” This Ernst might be Gertrude S. Ernst (1884–1977), sister of editor-in-chief Clayton Holt Ernst (1886–1945). It and Eugene’s other manuscript, One Man’s Story (1945), represent the first two complete autobiographical materials in the family’s traceable history.
I have never known what to make of the veracity of this account. His father, Arthur Morgan Chase, makes no mention of it in his many genealogical writings, and on submitting information to the Kenosha News to commemorate Eugene’s lieutenant commission in January 1943, instead claiming he worked as a bookkeeper, typist, and riveter; and his many exploits are quite extravagant for a boy of his age. However, the amount of firsthand detail is hard to reject, and Eugene was certainly a wanderer in his later life. The whole manuscript follows, the only changes being minor typographical corrections (such as unknown for unkown). A few non-standard spellings of words have been kept when not transparently manual errors.
My Adventures as a Wanderer
-----------
For reasons unknown to you but too well known to me, I left home one sunny Saturday afternoon. I was fourteen and one-half years old and had but one dollar and seventy-five cents, a few clothes and a bicycle. I rode the bicycle forty miles and by that time I was so saddle sore that I sold it for eight dollars.
You probably have heard the saying, "Go West, Young man! Go West", by John L. B. Soule. I also have heard it and West I wnet. I started from where I had sold my bicycle with nine dollars in my pocket, and Boy, I sure felt rich! My method of travel then was hitch-hiking and I sure made good time that way.
While hitch-hiking through Iowa, I was picked up by two men, and while riding with these fellows I got my first attack of the "bull horrors". This is a condition that will make a fellow want to go miles out of his way to keep off a cop's path.
They pretended to be sheriff and deputy and were talking about capturing a fellow that had stolen a car the night before. Upon arrival at their destination I was ready to disappear from the scene, but the weather was unfavorable so I decided to accept their invitation to stay at their hotel that night, after finding out that they were only a couple of horse buyers!
They paid for my supper and bed that night and my breakfast the next morning and started me out with fifty cents even though I had the comfortable feeling of nine dollars in my right shoe.
I then continued into South Dakota and upon my arrival in Mitchell I learned that the South Dakota annual Corn Festival was in progress. I dilly-dallied around until midnight seeing several side-show attractions which included Al Capone's car.
You probably have read that it is bullet-proof from radiator to gas tank, and is a sixteen cylinder Cadillac with tires that automatically vulcanize when shot into. The body is covered with four thicknesses of Swedish steel, one thickness of which would be enough to withstand bullets.
It has an apparatus under the hood which blows a smoke screen through the exhaust. The bullet-proof windows are an inch and a half thick, and there are bullet-proof wire mesh in the roof and in front of the radiator. It is built on truck springs and is under slung, and goes one hundred and fifty miles an hour in high, but only goes three and a half miles on a gallon of gas.
The capacity of the tank is forty-seven gallons. It has hidden compartments from which machine guns, bombs and pistols can be operated, from hidden loop holes in the bottom of the windows. Its equipment includes a siren to clear the roads.
Resuming my travels, I left Mitchell about midnight and was picked up by a salesman who, after we reached Rapid City, South Dakota, wanted me to pay half of his car expense. This was not possible as I was in financial straits myself. And so we parted, I happy to have gotten so far and he in a stormy mood.
Having long wanted to see the Bad Land and the Black Hills, I now headed that way with a sheep rancher who offered me a sheep herding job. I was badly in need of money and could not turn down such an offer as he made me. The pay was $45.00 per month with board and room in the sheep wagon. It was not a great length of time before I found that the Bad Lands is a God forsaken country which only sheep can endure.
A sheep wagon is built on the order of a covered wagon with a door and one window in the front end. The furniture consists of bunk, cubboard [sic] and atove. The Boss came out to see me once a week bringing groceries. My supply of water came in a large milk can. Sheep herding is an easy job during the summer if you have a good dog. If I hadn't had such a dog it would have been impossible to have stayed on the job as long as I did.
At four o'clock I would start back slowly for the sheep wagon so as to get there about six. Then came my batchelor [sic] supper which usually consisted of flap jacks or mutton. The Boss allowed me one ewe every week and most of it was eaten by the dog.
I would have to chase this ewe about a mile and then take my shepherd's crook to trip it. Then pulling back its neck I would slit its throat and the blood would gush forth. I would put each end of a whipple tree between the tendons of the hind legs and then raise it up above the ground to skin it. It would get cold after skinning before I butchered it. I chose the bacon, hams, ribs and the dog got the rest.
After supper I would let them graze around until about eight o'clock when I would bed them for the night. Bedding sheep means to put them out of the wind behind a snow fence or in a gully so that they may sleep in peace.
Although they slept in peace many nights I did not for the coyotes kept me on the watch. I often sat in front of the little window with a 22 rifle in my arms. I would just about doze off when another coyote would howl. I shot several and collected the bounties from the cattlemen's association. A coyote looks like a dog and the bounty on them is fifty cents a head.
The male sheep are called bucks, the female are called ewes, and the hand fed sheep are called bums. These bums being hand fed from lambs have learned not to fear the rancher or anyone else and for that reason they are kept in a herd to lessen the fear of the other sheep. In order to tell how many sheep there are in a herd there is a black ane for every hundred.
While on this job, I helped brand the sheep. First we took them back to the ranch and corraled them. Then I waded in among them with a bucket of oil paint and then stampt it on the side of the sheep and so on and on until my arm got weary and somebody came in to relieve me. After the branding was through the sheep had to stay in the corrals until daylight in order to let the paint dry.
When the branding season was over, I left my job with forty-five dollars in my pocket. I made up mind to go hunting in the Bad Lands and bought a second hand 22 rifle, a revolver, and five dollars worth of shells. The shooting brought the sheriff from a nearby town and I was arrested and taken to the county seat. But I didn't mind this because I had free board for two weeks before I was released. Upon leaving the jail I headed for the northeastern part of Montana where I got a job herding sheep for $40.00 a month and board.
I had more sheep on this job than I did on the other, and a lot more walking as I had to trail the herd for twenty-one miles for better feeding. It was on this migration that one of the lambs fell over a cliff and although it broke both hind legs, did not utter a sound. Luckily for me it was time for my week's supply of meat. The sheep are inventoried every week and the herder has two dollars deducted from his pay for any that are missing other than the one that is allowed for food.
I left this job after a month and a half of work right after getting a taste of one of those well known Montana blizzards! I didn't know where to go, but after a little thought I decided to go to California.
On my way to Rawlins, Wyoming, I saw Devil's Tower which is a solid piece of granite one mile around at the bottom and siz hundred and eighty feet high. It has an acre of flat surface on top. At Rawlins I changed my method of travel and took to the freights which was faster.
I continued to Reno, Nevada and I wasn't alone for there were as many passengers on the freight trains as there were in the passenger trains. At Reno I went broke and seeing no opportunity there I headed across the mountains into California where I got a job in the mines in Grass Valley for $3.90 per day.
While in Grass Valley I met up with a fellow whom I will call the Dutchman as he really was one. We had the same kind of jobs, mucking, in the same mine, the Idaho-Maryland.
Mucking is a job where you shovel ore into cars which carry it to the surface to be crushed and the gold taken out. The Dutchman being a prize fighter sure was good at this kind of work. When you work in a gold mine you have to have a change of clothes, because when you are through working for the day, you take a shower and put on your other clothes before leaving so that they are sure you are not taking any gold with you. We, the Dutchman and I, stayed on this job for about two weeks and then headed for Southern California.
During this trip south we carried a pack sack and cooked our own meals.
When we got down to Redlands we went to work picking oranges, and boy! if I ate one a day I ate fifty. The Dutchman and I used to have fights with the oranges, and boy! many a black eye each of us had to remember it by.
He taught me how to do a little fighting and we had many stiff bouts.
After we got our pay we put our heads together and decided to go on a prospecting trip up in the mountains. It took all the ready cash we had to get all the tools and the grub we needed. We had to get pork, beans, peas, oatmeal, cornmeal, rice, flour, baking powder, soda, flap jack flour, etc., frying pan, kettle, spoons, knives, plates, cups and pails. As for tools: trowel, shovel, pick, lumber, gold pan, quick silver, chamois skin, rifle, etc. We then headed for Feather River up in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Finding an ideal camping place we had to build a shelter, sluice box, and a water wheel. A sluice box is a long trough with riffles in the bottom to which the gold and heavy materials stick when the water washes through it.
We would throw two or three shovels full of dirt into the sluice box and then wash the water through it with the water wheel. We would take what is left on the riffles and wash it into a tub and at the end of the day, run the quick silver through the substance which is in the wash tub and it would pick up all the gold.
Then we would press the quick silver through the chamois skin and the gold would stay on top. We put our gold into a small bottle and or work was done for the day. We kept this up for fifteen days and came out with $105.00 a piece above expenses.
While in California I also had an experience in the Movies. During the filming of a picture in which Richard Barthelmess had the leading role, I got a job for $5.00 a day playing as an extra in a railroad scene. I was dressed as a sissy, in short pants with lots of ruffles and a large tie. Our lunch came in boxes from the studio, and was it good! Pear, sandwich, cake, Dixie cup! While I was eating mine Richard Barthelmess asked me if I would like his and I told him sure, so I had two lunches. This experience happened at the Santa Fe railraod station in Pasedena.
We left California at the end of four months and headed back East. The only reason I didn't like our trip beack to Reno was because it was too cold in the mountains.
We stayed in Reno about a week spending our money freely, in fact too freely, and then went to a CC Camp in Verdi, Nevada where the Dutchman became a yard boss and I a regular worker for $50.00 per month. The camp started to break up after we had been there about two weeks so I pulled stakes but the Dutchman stayed there.
After some thought I decided to go to Birmingham, Alabama to see some relatives, but before leaving saw something I shall never forget. While waiting for a train in Sparks, Nevada I saw a fellow with the "bull horrors" being chased by a cop. He was so scared of the police that he tried to catch a train that was going a little too fast and had both legs cut off at the ankles. He screamed for help and was rushed to the Reno County Hospital.
My trip to Hays, Kansas was uneventful, but there I changed my method of travel and started hitch-hiking again. A little way outside of Winfield, Kansas, I was picked up by a fellow who puts in stores for the A & P Food Stores Company. He seemed to take a liking to me and he told me that he was going to put in a store at Winfield and asked me if I wanted a job and of course the answer was yes.
It consisted of general work, such as washing windows, sweeping floors, painting and running errands. He paid for most of my meals and gave me forty cents an hour. I worked for him about a week and just before I left he said that if I would settle down he would give me a steady job. He gave me his address and said I should either look him up or write him in about three months for regular employment.
I then traveled on to Birmingham, Alabama where I am visiting with my Uncle and his family at the time of this writing.
Eugene L. Chase
-----------
For reasons unknown to you but too well known to me, I left home one sunny Saturday afternoon. I was fourteen and one-half years old and had but one dollar and seventy-five cents, a few clothes and a bicycle. I rode the bicycle forty miles and by that time I was so saddle sore that I sold it for eight dollars.
You probably have heard the saying, "Go West, Young man! Go West", by John L. B. Soule. I also have heard it and West I wnet. I started from where I had sold my bicycle with nine dollars in my pocket, and Boy, I sure felt rich! My method of travel then was hitch-hiking and I sure made good time that way.
While hitch-hiking through Iowa, I was picked up by two men, and while riding with these fellows I got my first attack of the "bull horrors". This is a condition that will make a fellow want to go miles out of his way to keep off a cop's path.
They pretended to be sheriff and deputy and were talking about capturing a fellow that had stolen a car the night before. Upon arrival at their destination I was ready to disappear from the scene, but the weather was unfavorable so I decided to accept their invitation to stay at their hotel that night, after finding out that they were only a couple of horse buyers!
They paid for my supper and bed that night and my breakfast the next morning and started me out with fifty cents even though I had the comfortable feeling of nine dollars in my right shoe.
I then continued into South Dakota and upon my arrival in Mitchell I learned that the South Dakota annual Corn Festival was in progress. I dilly-dallied around until midnight seeing several side-show attractions which included Al Capone's car.
You probably have read that it is bullet-proof from radiator to gas tank, and is a sixteen cylinder Cadillac with tires that automatically vulcanize when shot into. The body is covered with four thicknesses of Swedish steel, one thickness of which would be enough to withstand bullets.
It has an apparatus under the hood which blows a smoke screen through the exhaust. The bullet-proof windows are an inch and a half thick, and there are bullet-proof wire mesh in the roof and in front of the radiator. It is built on truck springs and is under slung, and goes one hundred and fifty miles an hour in high, but only goes three and a half miles on a gallon of gas.
The capacity of the tank is forty-seven gallons. It has hidden compartments from which machine guns, bombs and pistols can be operated, from hidden loop holes in the bottom of the windows. Its equipment includes a siren to clear the roads.
Resuming my travels, I left Mitchell about midnight and was picked up by a salesman who, after we reached Rapid City, South Dakota, wanted me to pay half of his car expense. This was not possible as I was in financial straits myself. And so we parted, I happy to have gotten so far and he in a stormy mood.
Having long wanted to see the Bad Land and the Black Hills, I now headed that way with a sheep rancher who offered me a sheep herding job. I was badly in need of money and could not turn down such an offer as he made me. The pay was $45.00 per month with board and room in the sheep wagon. It was not a great length of time before I found that the Bad Lands is a God forsaken country which only sheep can endure.
A sheep wagon is built on the order of a covered wagon with a door and one window in the front end. The furniture consists of bunk, cubboard [sic] and atove. The Boss came out to see me once a week bringing groceries. My supply of water came in a large milk can. Sheep herding is an easy job during the summer if you have a good dog. If I hadn't had such a dog it would have been impossible to have stayed on the job as long as I did.
At four o'clock I would start back slowly for the sheep wagon so as to get there about six. Then came my batchelor [sic] supper which usually consisted of flap jacks or mutton. The Boss allowed me one ewe every week and most of it was eaten by the dog.
I would have to chase this ewe about a mile and then take my shepherd's crook to trip it. Then pulling back its neck I would slit its throat and the blood would gush forth. I would put each end of a whipple tree between the tendons of the hind legs and then raise it up above the ground to skin it. It would get cold after skinning before I butchered it. I chose the bacon, hams, ribs and the dog got the rest.
After supper I would let them graze around until about eight o'clock when I would bed them for the night. Bedding sheep means to put them out of the wind behind a snow fence or in a gully so that they may sleep in peace.
Although they slept in peace many nights I did not for the coyotes kept me on the watch. I often sat in front of the little window with a 22 rifle in my arms. I would just about doze off when another coyote would howl. I shot several and collected the bounties from the cattlemen's association. A coyote looks like a dog and the bounty on them is fifty cents a head.
The male sheep are called bucks, the female are called ewes, and the hand fed sheep are called bums. These bums being hand fed from lambs have learned not to fear the rancher or anyone else and for that reason they are kept in a herd to lessen the fear of the other sheep. In order to tell how many sheep there are in a herd there is a black ane for every hundred.
While on this job, I helped brand the sheep. First we took them back to the ranch and corraled them. Then I waded in among them with a bucket of oil paint and then stampt it on the side of the sheep and so on and on until my arm got weary and somebody came in to relieve me. After the branding was through the sheep had to stay in the corrals until daylight in order to let the paint dry.
When the branding season was over, I left my job with forty-five dollars in my pocket. I made up mind to go hunting in the Bad Lands and bought a second hand 22 rifle, a revolver, and five dollars worth of shells. The shooting brought the sheriff from a nearby town and I was arrested and taken to the county seat. But I didn't mind this because I had free board for two weeks before I was released. Upon leaving the jail I headed for the northeastern part of Montana where I got a job herding sheep for $40.00 a month and board.
I had more sheep on this job than I did on the other, and a lot more walking as I had to trail the herd for twenty-one miles for better feeding. It was on this migration that one of the lambs fell over a cliff and although it broke both hind legs, did not utter a sound. Luckily for me it was time for my week's supply of meat. The sheep are inventoried every week and the herder has two dollars deducted from his pay for any that are missing other than the one that is allowed for food.
I left this job after a month and a half of work right after getting a taste of one of those well known Montana blizzards! I didn't know where to go, but after a little thought I decided to go to California.
On my way to Rawlins, Wyoming, I saw Devil's Tower which is a solid piece of granite one mile around at the bottom and siz hundred and eighty feet high. It has an acre of flat surface on top. At Rawlins I changed my method of travel and took to the freights which was faster.
I continued to Reno, Nevada and I wasn't alone for there were as many passengers on the freight trains as there were in the passenger trains. At Reno I went broke and seeing no opportunity there I headed across the mountains into California where I got a job in the mines in Grass Valley for $3.90 per day.
While in Grass Valley I met up with a fellow whom I will call the Dutchman as he really was one. We had the same kind of jobs, mucking, in the same mine, the Idaho-Maryland.
Mucking is a job where you shovel ore into cars which carry it to the surface to be crushed and the gold taken out. The Dutchman being a prize fighter sure was good at this kind of work. When you work in a gold mine you have to have a change of clothes, because when you are through working for the day, you take a shower and put on your other clothes before leaving so that they are sure you are not taking any gold with you. We, the Dutchman and I, stayed on this job for about two weeks and then headed for Southern California.
During this trip south we carried a pack sack and cooked our own meals.
When we got down to Redlands we went to work picking oranges, and boy! if I ate one a day I ate fifty. The Dutchman and I used to have fights with the oranges, and boy! many a black eye each of us had to remember it by.
He taught me how to do a little fighting and we had many stiff bouts.
After we got our pay we put our heads together and decided to go on a prospecting trip up in the mountains. It took all the ready cash we had to get all the tools and the grub we needed. We had to get pork, beans, peas, oatmeal, cornmeal, rice, flour, baking powder, soda, flap jack flour, etc., frying pan, kettle, spoons, knives, plates, cups and pails. As for tools: trowel, shovel, pick, lumber, gold pan, quick silver, chamois skin, rifle, etc. We then headed for Feather River up in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Finding an ideal camping place we had to build a shelter, sluice box, and a water wheel. A sluice box is a long trough with riffles in the bottom to which the gold and heavy materials stick when the water washes through it.
We would throw two or three shovels full of dirt into the sluice box and then wash the water through it with the water wheel. We would take what is left on the riffles and wash it into a tub and at the end of the day, run the quick silver through the substance which is in the wash tub and it would pick up all the gold.
Then we would press the quick silver through the chamois skin and the gold would stay on top. We put our gold into a small bottle and or work was done for the day. We kept this up for fifteen days and came out with $105.00 a piece above expenses.
While in California I also had an experience in the Movies. During the filming of a picture in which Richard Barthelmess had the leading role, I got a job for $5.00 a day playing as an extra in a railroad scene. I was dressed as a sissy, in short pants with lots of ruffles and a large tie. Our lunch came in boxes from the studio, and was it good! Pear, sandwich, cake, Dixie cup! While I was eating mine Richard Barthelmess asked me if I would like his and I told him sure, so I had two lunches. This experience happened at the Santa Fe railraod station in Pasedena.
We left California at the end of four months and headed back East. The only reason I didn't like our trip beack to Reno was because it was too cold in the mountains.
We stayed in Reno about a week spending our money freely, in fact too freely, and then went to a CC Camp in Verdi, Nevada where the Dutchman became a yard boss and I a regular worker for $50.00 per month. The camp started to break up after we had been there about two weeks so I pulled stakes but the Dutchman stayed there.
After some thought I decided to go to Birmingham, Alabama to see some relatives, but before leaving saw something I shall never forget. While waiting for a train in Sparks, Nevada I saw a fellow with the "bull horrors" being chased by a cop. He was so scared of the police that he tried to catch a train that was going a little too fast and had both legs cut off at the ankles. He screamed for help and was rushed to the Reno County Hospital.
My trip to Hays, Kansas was uneventful, but there I changed my method of travel and started hitch-hiking again. A little way outside of Winfield, Kansas, I was picked up by a fellow who puts in stores for the A & P Food Stores Company. He seemed to take a liking to me and he told me that he was going to put in a store at Winfield and asked me if I wanted a job and of course the answer was yes.
It consisted of general work, such as washing windows, sweeping floors, painting and running errands. He paid for most of my meals and gave me forty cents an hour. I worked for him about a week and just before I left he said that if I would settle down he would give me a steady job. He gave me his address and said I should either look him up or write him in about three months for regular employment.
I then traveled on to Birmingham, Alabama where I am visiting with my Uncle and his family at the time of this writing.
Eugene L. Chase