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- MY LIFE AND TIMES BY DENTON IRL BASSETT
Born - September 24, 1898 - Nolan, South Dakota
Father - James Fremont Bassett (Youngest of 13 children)
Born - May 9, 1859 - Olmstead County, Minnesota
Died - May 22, 1939 - Tacoma, Washington
Mother - Louie Allretta Stipe
Born - October 20, 1872 - James County, Iowa
Died - July 12, 1943 - Tacoma, Washington
I was born in a sod house in Nolan, South Dakota. I had two sisters at
the time - Hazel Dell, born September 2, 1891, and Leah Cornelia, born
February 9, 1896. At that time Pa raised cattle with his father-in-law and
brother-in-law. Then he bought or rented 360 acres and raised wheat. He bought
a thrashing machine. There were too many dry years and he could not make a
living. In the Fall of 1901, he built a small house on a wagon. This was
pulled by four horses and the family moved close to Lake George, Minnesota, a
small place known as Lake John. There was snow on the ground when we arrived.
The house a log cabin, 12' square with a dirt floor. It was, or had been, a
trapper's shack.
Baby Bernie was three weeks old when we left South Dakota and sometime
during the trip to Minnesota, he developed pneumonia and died shortly after we
arrived. He was buried at Lake John.
We moved into an old cook shack in a "Drive Camp" (a place where they
drive logs down the river; logs are dumped on ice in the winter and in the
spring when the ice melts, logs go down the river to the saw mill). Pa then
bought 40 acres one mile from Lake George. He built a log house on one corner
of the land, 20' x 24'. There was one big room upstairs, and a bedroom, pantry
and living room on the ground floor. There was a trap door in the pantry to a
cellar under the house.
He thrashed grain in the fall in South Dakota for other farmers to
earn a living. The grain was bundled by the farmers and then the thrashing
machine would move in. In the winter, he fixed and ran a team engine to run a
saw mill.
Two more children were born while living in the log house - a girl,
Doris, and a boy named Carroll. Neither of the children lived very long. The
people of Lake George cleared ground down near the school house and made a
cemetery. Bernie's coffin was moved from Lake John after the last baby died
and all three were buried in the new cemetery. We lived at Lake George seven
years. Pa dragged some logs off a corner in the woods, plowed and we had a
garden.
Every fall we took the team to Park Rapids, Minnesota to pick up
enough supplies to last a year - flour, sugar, lard, salt, pepper, etc. There
was a small store at Lake George where occasional supplies were purchased. The
rest of the food was grown at home. He shot rabbits in the winter and fished.
He had a fish house out on the ice all winter. He cut a hole in the ice to
fish through and caught pickerel with a short iron spear with a rope on it.
Pa's brother, Henry Walter, was in Seattle with Grant Smith and Company
(contractor) installing sewers in Seattle, Washington. In 1908, Henry wanted
Pa to come to Seattle to run a donkey engine on the sewer jo
Pa sold 40 acres, crated the cook stove and sewing machine. He made
three big packing boxes. Our neighbor, Mr. Miller, hauled all our belongings
to the train depot in Park Rapids. We left by train, stopped in South Dakota
and stayed with Ma's parents for about a week. In Spokane, Washington we
stopped to see Pa's brother, Cash, who lived on a farm. Finally, we arrived in
Seattle. We stayed about a week with cousin Clifford Bassett who was Cash's
son.
We rented a house on Fourth Avenue in Green Lake. It was a mode
house renting for $18.00 a month. This was too much rent so we moved to Weeden
Place. Rent here was only $10.00 a month and had an outside toilet. I started
the fourth grade at Green Lake School.
In the spring of 1909, we moved to 2nd Avenue, $12,00 a month, another
outside toilet. I finished the fourth grade at Green Lake School. During the
Fall of 1909, we moved to Crescent Place, $10.00 (more outside plumbing). We
lived here all winter and I spent the fifth grade at Fairvew Schoo
When school was out the summer of 1909, I carried water on a sewer
job, side branch of the big job Pa worked on, but these smaller jobs were dug
by hand. Then I went to Ravenna, two miles from home to carry water on a
different sewer job.
In the Fall of 1910, we moved to 27th avenue, Ravenna. I started
school at University Heights. Rent here was $12.00 with outside
"Conveniences". The owner wanted the house so we moved, with a wheelbarrow,
two houses down the street, rent being the same, $12.00.
Now, I had a morning paper route. I picked up the P.I. at 4:30 a.m. at
a point where a street car conductor dropped them, made deliveries, went home
and had breakfast, then walked 1 1/2 miles to school.
In the summer of 1911, I worked on a milk wagon delivering bottled milk
for 25 cents a day plus dinner and all the milk I could drin
Pa's construction crew was tunneling through a hill from both sides.
They had to work in quicksand; worked in compressed air. The compressed air
held the walls up. Pa ran the donkey that pulled mud cars out of the tunnel.
The company had a store building that had living quarters they used for an
office. They moved this building down by the main line railroad and put it on
posts on company property. Sometime during this period, Ma and Hazel bought a
piano, Hazel paying for most of it.
The family moved into this building. We didn't have to pay any rent.
had outside plumbing, but we did have electric lights. It was the only place
we lived in Seattle that had electric lights. All the other houses had coal
oil (kerosene) lamps.
In 1911, a Big Ben land agent brought Pa to Buckley to look for
acreage. He bought ten acres a mile and a half from Buckley on what is now
known as the Munday Loss Road.
During the spring of 1912, Pa was sent to Canada as the foreman on a
big rock crusher. They were making railroad ballast. Pa stayed until June,
1913. Then he decided to move to Buckley. Pa, Ma and I took the train to
Buckley. Pa couldn't find the land. We walked down a logging track to Dick
Anderson's house. Dick came back with us to show us where the land was. Since
we'd planned on staying a while to clear brush, we had blankets and cooking
utensils with us, but left it at the railroad station. We returned to t
station in the evening and Ma took the train back to Seattle. We took o
camping supplies to an old cook house that had been used for a logging camp
that had been located by some old railroad tracks. The tracks went across one
corner of ten acres. We cleaned the cook house, stayed a week clearing brush,
then returned to Seattle. Pa bought two cows in Seattle. Pa told the railroad
we wanted a box car. It was set on a siding close to the house and we loaded
the furniture in one end and the two cows in the other end. Pa rode in the box
car to take care of the cows on the move to Buckley. Hazel was worki
Seattle and she stayed there. She had completed a shorthand and typing course
at Wilson's Business College and worked as a secretary for Loman & Hanford.
Ma, Lee and I took the train to Buckley. Northern Pacific set the box car off
on a logging track by the old valley mill site (the mill had burned). We
unloaded the cows, walked them out to the pipeline road and staked them out.
That evening a logging engine moved the box car out and set it close to the
old cook house. Dick Anderson helped move everything from the box car to the
old cook house, all but the piano. They rolled the box car to Ted Larsen's
house and off loaded the piano there because the cook house was too damp. A
logging engine took the box car back to the old valley mill site and Northern
Pacific picked it up. I don't remember what it cost to rent the box ca
Pa wasn't working at an outside job so we cut and burned brush. I had
saved $100.00 from my paper route and hauling water during the summers and
Pa took this. He got a push car, went to the Old Valley Mill and bought some
timbers for a foundation for a house.
He hired a man with a team to go to Enumclaw to buy lumber. We built
a house 10' x 26'. There was no sub-floor. We put the walls up and the roof
on. Leah started high school. Since I had to help build the house, I could not
start school.
In October, Ma left. Pa drank continually and was mean to her. Pa was
in Enumclaw getting lumber, Leah was in school. Ma told us in the morning she
was going to leave. While I was working on the house, she took a suitcase and
either walked to South Prairie or Enumclaw and took the train to Seattle to
her parents' home. They had moved to Kirkland from South Dakota in 1912 and
bought a ten acre farm. Ma went to work for $20.00 a month as housekeeper to
an elderly woman whose son was a doctor and lived with he
Ma and Pa were divorced in 1928. (Paper continues. Total length is
about 30 pages of text).
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Bassett Family Association Database
1898 - 1985 (86 years)
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