Loman “Red” Blankenship

Interview HighlightsInterviewed May 10, 2000Crewport History Project Loman "Red" Blankenship migrated to Washington State with his parents, five brothers and four sisters in March,1945, from their home in the Missouri Ozarks. Red was born in Missouri in 1931. The Blankenships' first residence in Washington was at the farm labor camp in Walla Walla, where they stayed one year before moving to the Crewport Farm Labor Camp in the Yakima Valley. In the Walla Walla area the Blankenships worked mostly in the onion harvest. Once at Crewport, Red remembers the variety of his family’s farm work grew. They worked harvesting asparagus, potatoes, sugar beets, rutabagas, and hops. Like many other families devastated by the Great Depression of the early 1930's, the Blankenships were in extreme poverty when they arrived at their new home at Crewport. Red recalls that back in Missouri, his father earned only $1.00 per day when he could find work. He commented, "You know back [in Missouri] I suppose Dad was making a dollar a day, if ... [he] could find work. But out here, my goodness, you could pick potatoes for ten cents a sack, one hunndred sacks would be ten dollars; that's a lot of money to an old poor boy. But everyone who came out here, especially from Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri, we was all poor. That is why we came out here, because you know we were just poor." Like others interviewed for the Crewport History Project Red has many fond memories of the years and times he and his family spent at Crewport. One reason was that the whole family was able to work regularly in the agricultural harvests and get inexpensive housing. But the other main reason, according to Red, was that Crewport was a tight-knit community where conflicts were minimal. Red made this point in his own words, "You kind had the feeling of a community in Crewport ... if you got there early enough, why you would get a home ... then if you didn't get there on time everything was taken up. They had what you call grain bins. ... then if you didn't live in one of those you lived in the tents ... that's how we lived, you know. We got acquainted with a lot of people, and we shared a lot in common." Red and his sisters and brothers have lived comfortable lives since they moved out of Crewport. Today, Red and his wife own and operate a sixty eight acre recreation business complex in the Yakima Canyon that caters to fishermen, some of it with frontage on the Yakima River.

Loman “Red” Blankenship, Narrator

START OF INTERVIEW:

Dan: Every person that I’ve talked to, who used to live there, had really fond memories of Crewport and I thought that would make a good story.

Red: Yeah, it was a fun time and it was a changing of a different culture too. We came back here from the Ozarks, you know Missouri. And everyone that was out here, we had the same thing in common…You know, all of us was poor and came out here to pick potatoes, work on the farms and it was a good time.

Dan: Tell us a little about your background.

Red: In Missouri?

Dan: Where was your birthplace?

Red: Manus, Missouri. And it was, way down there in the hills. In fact I was probably 12 years old before I ever seen a freight train, or a bicycle. I think I ate my first ice cream cone Then. The reason why that happened was that I broke my arm. They had to take me to get it set.

Dan: Is that right!

Red: I remember having to borrow a pair of shoes from the neighbor.

Dan: To go to town?

Red: To go to town …we lived 30 miles from the place we went to. Lived in Missouri that was where they had to take me. But my goodness you know it’s just a hop, jump and a skip, now days. But then, it could of been a thousand miles, you know. Cause we had no transportation just horses and a wagon. We also had to borrow somebody with a car to take me. So that’s the way it was; we was way down there..

Dan: Were you born at home?

Red: Yeah, all of us were born at home.

Dan: What year was that?

Red: I was born in 1931. We came to Washington in March of 45. We came to Walla-Walla and we went to that labor camp there. We lived there for probably around a year. Every fall we would go back home. We would ride the train back home, and then the following year [in ] March is usually when things opened up, and we would all get on the train. Finally they started marrying off [his brothers and sisters]. We came to Walla-Walla and we heard of another labor camp in Granger; so this is where we ended up.

We was there from about ‘46 to ‘50 somewhere in there. And it was probably one of the most comfortable times in my life you know, as a kid. We lived in a two-bedroom cabin. We was six boys and four girls. There was like, say two of the oldest brothers. My sisters weren’t there. So that would be eight of us, and mom and dad, in a two-room cabin with a wood stove, but it was comfortable (laugh).

Dan: So how did you sleep, how did you sleep in the cabin…Mom and dad have one room and kids have another?

Red: Well they just had one bed, the rest of the beds we shoved in there. It’s a far cry from now

a days; but it was a good time and a lot of fond memories.

You know back [in Missouri] I suppose Dad was making a dollar a day, if you could find work. But out here, my goodness you could pick potatoes for ten cents a sack, 100 sacks would be ten dollars; that’s a

lot of money to an old poor boy. But everyone who came out here, especially from Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri, we was all poor. This is why we came out here, because you know we were just poor.

Dan: What is one of your remembrances of one of the trips out here?

Red: During the war, we were coming out here, on a coal burner train and I remember getting soot all over us you know. It was during the war and the soldiers had priority on the seats and so, actually being a boy we had to stand, … I was thirteen or fourteen years old…I had to stand up. I probably stood up most of the way, from back there to out here. And we landed in Walla-Walla.

But a lot of the people back there, came out here in trucks. Just an old farm truck with cardboard nailed inside of it, to keep the wind off them. With what little furniture they had and the whole family would ride in back of the old truck. Which was usually how they’d come out here. Yeah, it was typical … kind a like “The Grapes of Wrath”. Did you ever see “The Grapes of Wrath?”

Dan: Oh yeah.

Red: That was very typical of how it was when we came out here.

Dan: When you came from Walla-Walla then to Crewport. … You were twelve, thirteen years old maybe fourteen?

Red: Probably fourteen.

Dan: What was one of the remembrances, images, when you came to this place? What was one of the images that you remember seeing or feelings you had, when you walked into the camp?

Red: You kind of had the felling of community in Crewport. … if you got there early enough why you would get a home. … then if you didn’t get there on time everything was taken up. They had what you called grain bins. They actually looked like grain bins, and then if you didn’t live in one of those you lived in tents. You know, that’s it [points to photo of the tents] had lumber up about four feet and the rest of it was tents [canvas], probably just typical military tents… that’s how we lived, you know? We got acquainted with a lot of people, and we shared a lot in common.

Dan: Did you go to school while you were there, … did you go to school?

Red: Yeah. I didn’t go to school much, because back there it seems like as when you got old enough to work, you worked.

Yeah., Like I said, as long as you could work you know, all the kids worked. Dad got all the money … and that was it. Just about everybody would do that. Their children would work for their parents, and all the money would go into the dad’s pocket book. I guess he

would pay off bills with it or save it.

Tomas: Was there different kinds of people in Crewport at that time, different races?

Red: Yeah. There was a few Hispanics and a few Indians, but it seems like there was mostly hillbillies. Until later on, near the ‘50's, 49 and 50. It seems like then, a lot of Hispanic’s began to filter into the camp. We had an unemployment office there … and a post office,

and a grocery store, and a community hall. And we had a sheriff there, a security guard.

Dan: Who served as sheriff?

Red: Parker, Johnny’s Dad.

Dan: Harvey Parker?

Red: Johnny Parker’s Dad.

Dan: Tell me about one of the dances. What were the dances, like did they announce them some how?

Red: Well, yeah. They would just get together, somebody would wanna have a party … and they’d get some of those old local people with bands. But usually we had a fight. People would drink, and just about every time we had a get-together, there would be a fight. People would get all whiskeyed up, but it was a good time. Naturally we’d look forward to any entertainment …Granger was our closest town.

Dan: So did you go to Granger for the dances or did you have dances right there in Crewport?

Red: No, I didn’t hang around Granger much. It seems like I stayed at Crewport quite a bit. I worked; and naturally us boys would go fishing on weekends you know.

Dan: Down on the Yakima there?

Red: Down on the Yakima? Yeah, right on the other side of Granger. We’d fish in the river there.

But we usually got out here early in the year, in March. It was right on the borderline of … right before the work really started .., Pickings [were] pretty slim until work started. Asparagus was one of the first crops out here. And we’d work probably up until beet harvest … [the] beet harvest probably [was] your last harvest that came off. Then [it] was time to leave. … so a lot of people left in the winter time, a lot of people. And the people that stayed, why they lived in the homes there. They had what you called homes; and people looked upon them as kind a being as a aristocrat, aristocratic people.

If you lived down there in the tents, why you kind a felt a little below them … [of] Course that was just a feeling you had yourself. We had a shower house…

Dan: How long have you been here?

Red: I’ve been here, ten years, and my wife inherited it [the Fly Shop at Yakima Canyon)].

…The river became [a] catching release in 1990, and so we thought we’s [sic] put shuttle service … We notice a lot of fishing showing up and we started out with a shuttle service. Then later on the guys called us in to handling a few flies, so that they wouldn’t have to go to town. That grew into about twelve to fourteen hundred dozens a year. …

then we’ve got a boat rental and a campground, and an R.V. and mobile home park.

It’s just kind of “Mom and Dad” operation, just the two of us runs it.

Dan: And you are able to put up with dealing with the public and all that kind of stuff?

Red: Yeah! Yeah! I kind of like the public…

And my wife, she’s very good at the knowledge of the river and the flies. She’s the one who sells flies …she’s a registered nurse. We’ve been here ten years, and she’s doing good.

Dan: So she ties her own flies?

Red: I tie one pattern and that’s “Red Jack Milestone.” It’s our own creation. ... we’ve bought a lot from the internet, which seems to be a pretty good deal … Like I say, we’ll go

through twelve to fourteen hundred dozen…

Dan: Never guessed doing this for a profession?

Red: Yeah. Neither my wife or I knew one fly from the other when we came here. We didn’t know a wet fly from a dry fly. But we got videos and books. We talked to everyone; we still talk to everyone. Fly fishing, when it comes on the river, we find out what’s working and were pretty well informed of what fly to use. That’s a big help to the fishermen. …Mostly the people from Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, Spokane, and Vancouver… mostly the cities. We get very little local trade here….

The guides are pretty spendy [expensive]. It’ll cost you probably about $275 a day, to hire a guide. But we take care of about twenty miles of the river here, and were right in the middle from one end to the

other, from this point. North we go ten miles and then we go eight miles South of us, so were right in the middle of it. And they can work any combination they want to fish. It’s worked out good for us. It’s kind of like farming, you know. Some years you make it, and some years you just sort-a break-keep [break even]. But it’s a good life; it’s a good life.

Dan: Good!

Red: We’ve got sixty eight acres.

Dan: On this side of the highway or the other or both side?

Red: Well, both sides, we got twenty seven across the river and a pie shaped acreage over here. I don’t think very many acres.

Dan: Growing up there [in Crewport] … you must of done some horsing around or something. Do you remember some kind of horsing around that you did with your [buddies] or remember some of your [buddies] doing?

Red: Oh yeah. Yeah we, I got in a lot of trouble, just small stuff you know …

just we’ve never got in any trouble like with the police, .. [we had] Just internal problems there at the labor camp. Actually there [were]some families that didn’t get along, and we’d scrap occasionally. I never was a scrapper, myself. They’d be a few scraps going on.

I remember when my dad first caught me smoking, yes. We had a community shower. So I was taking a shower … I was in there smoking a cigarette … back then we never smoked in front of our parents until they caught us, and then we could smoke in front of

them. But we kept it a secret as long as we could. So I was taking a shower, smoking a cigarette there. Finally my dad walked in. He didn’t say nothing … so that night around [the] supper table, why Dad took out a brand new [pack of] chesterfield cigarettes, peeled the top of it, took one himself and flipped me the pack … so then on, I smoked in front of Dad. But the kids didn’t get into a lot of trouble, …

Dan: But horsing around, you must of had something, all kids do, some how?

Red: Oh yeah. I can’t think of anything dramatic, you know, with my horsing around. Horsing around, probably things you wouldn’t want to talk about. You know kids gotta experiment, and that’s how you learn. At that age you experiment a lot, you learn a lot, but we had a good time.

Tomas: Do you remember any other recreation [activities]you had there, besides the dances?

Red: Oh, we had the baseball, we’d play baseball. I don’t know or don’t remember the other sports that we had, no doubt there were. The old timers liked to play horseshoes, and so we played horseshoes a lot. And we visited a lot, you know. Like I say, we was all Southerners and our cultures was near the same. The culture was almost identical, because we all liked cornbread and beans, and fried potatoes, you know…

And talking about sports, we boxed a lot. We’d put on the boxing gloves, and get out and duke it out.

Tomas: Did ya’ll go to work at the same places, pretty much?

Red: Well yeah. Sometimes we’d work together and sometimes we wouldn’t. It all depends on how many people the farmer needed, you see ; … that determined that.

Tomas: You pretty much had a group that pretty much worked together?

Red: … like it was [in] thinning beets … perhaps the family would all work together. But sometimes the farmer would only need one person or two persons, and we pretty well did it that way.

Tomas: Do you remember how you guys got out there, to the job site?

Red: The farmers usually supplied the...[transportation]

Tomas: They’d come pick everybody up?

Red: Yeah. Cause we never had a car when we was there … if somebody had a car, that was working on the same job, why we would ride with them … and if wasn’t an awful long way, why we’d walk. We walked quite a bit. We was used of that down in Kansas and Missouri, cause Dad never had a car during that time at all out here . And so we didn’t miss it cause we didn’t have one; wasn’t no big deal.

Tomas: What kind of heat did you have?

Red: Wood heat, yeah.

Tomas: For cooking?

Red: Yeah. We had a wood-cooking stove…

Tomas: And so you had to carry wood?

Red: Yeah. Usually they had one place where they’d bring wood in and dump it. And then the whole camp would go to that one particular spot and carry the wood.

Dan: So the wood was provided for you?

Red: Yeah, as far as I know, it was provided. Yeah, and I know it was slab wood from the saw-mill, you know. And it was sawed up in chunks that a fit in the stove, you know. They would have it split.

Tomas: Did you have water … there?

Red: Water? Yeah! Water was in the cabins and in the grain bins, but not in the tents, we had to carry the water in the tents. Yeah, but it was a busy little place there in the early ‘40's.

Tomas: Did somebody take care of the camp, cut the lawn and all that?

Red: Yeah. We had the manager of the campground,. of Crewport; was a guy by the name…what was his name?

Dan: Peterson?

Red: Guy Peterson, yeah. Then when Guy was over, the maintenance and everything was done by Fred Fayla.

Dan: How do you spell that?

Red: Fayla? I really don’t know how you spell Fayla. We also had the Pumpkin Center there, that we would walk to there quite a bit. It’s probably about two or three miles from camp.

Angela: And what was Pumpkin Center?

Tomas: It used to be a grocery store, gas station.

Red: Yeah…

Dan: What were your relations, do you remember anything of how people related to the camp management themselves? You know how people communicated or had some kind of relationship with the camp managers. What are some of the memories you have of the camp managers and the management of the camp?

Red: Well, it seems like the management and the people that lived there had a pretty good relation. Of course, no doubt, probably favoritism was shown, maybe in some areas, you know. The camp was ran [sic] good as far as I know. I don’t remember any bad management. But like I say, everyone was [there] … to make money; wealth to feed, to eat.

Tomas: Did ya’ll go to any other labor camps, besides Crewport?

Red: No. Just Walla Walla and Crewport. There was another labor camp in Yakima. We went to that one first, but decided to go back to Crewport.

Tomas: The Ahtanum?

Red: Yeah, Ahtanum!

Angela: How long did you stay in Walla Walla?

Red: About a year.

Angela: About a year, then you moved to Crewport?

Red: Yeah.

Dan: And that was about in ‘43'?

Red: Yeah. In Walla Walla they raised a lot of onions and it was different, you know. In Crewport it was asparagus and sugar beets, rutabagas, hops. Hops, we always looked forward to working in the hops in the fall, and then after that we would go back. Of course we didn’t make too many trips back east, cause the kids was getting older. I know that I stayed out here with my older sister and then I got married. That’s just about what everybody did.

Angela: Were you married in Crewport?

Red: No, it was after I left Crewport.

Tomas: When did you leave Crewport, do you remember?

Red: Probably ‘49, as far as I remember ’49.

Tomas: You moved into Crewport in 1945?

Red: Yeah, it was either ‘45 or ‘46.

Tomas: So you were there for about three or four years?

Red: Yeah, about three or four years. And of course not in the wintertime, you know. It was just during the summer…And so we lived in the tents, the grain bins, and then the cabins. And then later on, the folks got a home there, at the rich part of Crewport.

Tomas: The nice part!

Dan: That was after you left, then?

Red: Yeah.

Tomas: Oh, your parents stayed there and you left?

Red: Yeah, they stayed there after I left home. I don’t know exactly how many years they lived

there, but they had a house.

Dan: So that’s what Leroy remembers [Leroy Blankenship is Red’s younger brother]?

Red: That’s … probably the bulk of his remembrances, … living in the homes there.

Dan: So how much older are you than Leroy?

Red: About seven years.

Dan: Okay …so he was quite a bit younger than you?

Red: Yeah. Yeah he was just a little tod [toddler].

Tomas: So how many were in your family when you first arrived to Crewport?

Red: There was ten of us, six boys and four girls; and the oldest brother was in the army, was in the air corp, when we first came here. My oldest sister lived with us, part of the time; but she got marrried early. She lived in Zillah; she ended up moving to Zillah, she and her

husband.

Dan: Now when you go shopping for clothes or anything like that, where would you go?

Red: Probably Toppenish, at Penny’s. We would go to Toppenish and that was probably the only

place that I remember shopping at, is at Toppenish and especially at Penny’s. We’d go to

Toppenish quite a bit. Sometimes we would walk and sometimes we is get a ride;

sometimes we’d hitchhike.

Tomas: All the way to Toppenish?

Red: Yeah, all the way to Toppenish.

Tomas: That’s quite a ways from Crewport.

Red: But those was the good days. We didn’t worry a lot, we didn’t have a lot to worry about …

Tomas: Did you go to the movies or anything in Toppenish?

Red: Not often, I think occasionally we’d have a movie at Crewport, as far as I remember and that was always a treat to us.

Tomas: Do you remember any of the movies you seen at Crewport?

Red: No, not really ...There is no doubt, old movies...Old black and whites probably had a lot to do with pilgrims, and cowboys and Indians.

Tomas: Did you guys have a TV by any chance, out there?

Red: No, we didn’t have a TV until in the early ‘50’s.

Dan: They didn’t come around until I was born.

Tomas: Did you remember what kind of toys they had around there, or what kind of games they played?

Red: Oh, um, red wagons was pretty popular … another treat was listening to the grand ole opera on Saturday night.

Tomas: On the radio?

Red: Yeah, especially the Southern people. They enjoyed the Grand Ole Oprey and that was pretty good entertainment Saturday evenings. Oh goodness, it would last till about ten o’clock. Then I think Ernest Stubbs would come on for another couple of hours, and that was our entertainment, good entertainment.

Dan: So how’d you set up to listen to [the] Grand Ole Oprey on Saturday nights?

Red: Just, we’d go to the person who had a radio that was friends of the family, and we’d just gather there and listen to it. Not everybody had a radio, so of course, probably during that time before they left there, they probably had a radio…

Angela: Did your parents settle here in Washington or did they move back?

Red: Yeah, just about everybody came out and settled out here someplace … a lot of them settled around Granger, a lot of them are out in Sunnyside and Grandview. It just seems like most of the people settled in the Valley where there’s lots of work.

Dan: So again your memory of the tower?

Red: Of climbing it? I mean, like I never did climb it … I suppose we got in trouble if we did. But I had one friend that did; … it was Ernie Allen. [he was from] Another family that lived in the homes there; a friend of our family’s. But you know, you made some life-long friends there, growing up there …and it’s really a treat to run into them. You run into one of them occasionally, and you start reminiscing right away. One thing l like about the reunion is an awful lot of reminiscing.

Tomas: So did you get married after you left Crewport? Is that basically why you left?

Red: Yeah, I got married in 1950, so it was soon after that.

Tomas: …did you leave to find another job or do you remember why you left Crewport?

Red: Well no; the family went back East and I stayed with my sister in Zillah. They lived in Cherry Orchard, and my brother-in-law he worked with a man by the name of Walsh, Basil Walsh. He worked on the orchard there, and so I began to work and stay the winters out here. I lived with my sister in Zillah until I got married.

Tomas: What was the difference in environment as far as the weather and all that here, to back home from where you came from?

Red: It’s a lot more humid back there, yeah a lot more muggy.

Tomas: You didn’t get as much snow as we do here?

Red: No, but I tell you this, climate in this country here, can’t be beaten.

END OF INTERVIEW

Loman “Red” Blankenship

Interviewed May 10, 2000Crewport History ProjectYakima Valley Community Yakima, Washington

Credits and Interview Identification Data

Narrator: Loman “Red” Blankenship

Place of Interview: At his home “Red’s Fly Shop.” in the Yakima Canyon

Date: 5/10/2000

Interviewers:

Dan Groves

Tomas Escobar

Angela Ornelas

Recorded on VHS videotape,

audio dubbed to audiocassette tape located at Yakima Valley Community College.

Transcribed by: Angela Ornelas

Edited for Publication: by Mario C. Compean