2. Ole Thorvald Gunderson Sr. was born on 30 Jan 1913 in Kenneth, Rock, Minnesota. He died on 22 Jun 2001 in Seattle, King, Washington. He was buried on 25 Jun 2001 in Tacoma, Pierce, Washington. He married Barbara Patricia Mason on 23 Nov 1939 in Tacoma, Pierce, Washington. [Parents]
Born at home at 11:00 PM, in Kenneth, Rock County, Minnesota on the 30th of January 1913. He was the forth of seven sons born to Abraham Gunderson and Anna Aanenson. His brothers' names were Gunder, John, Edwin, Albert, Howard, and Russell. Howard died at the age of 6 months after contracting the deadly Spanish influenza toward the beginning of World War I. This influenza swept through the United States leaving many grief stricken families in its wake.
Abraham and Anna lived on neighboring farms, which led to becoming acquainted with one another, soon to be followed by a marriage. Abraham had come to the United States as a youth of about 17 or 18 with his brother, Johann, to start a farm in Minnesota. They had left the Iveland, Konsmo Sogn area of southern Norway, near Kristiansand on the coast. It has been said that they rode horses from Iveland down to the coastal city of Mandahl, where they caught a ship going to the United States. Anna on the other hand, was already in Minnesota, having been born in the township of Luverne, the county seat of Rock County, Minnesota.
Abraham's farm was 240 acres in size next to the township of Kenneth. The land had originally been a timber claim, which had been divided into three parcels, the farm, the town and a railroad depot. The town was situated on the northeast corner of the claim and the railroad ran to the north through the town. On the railroad property, were situated three tall grain elevators and a stockyard for holding cattle prior to shipping them to the meat processors. The farming community outside Kenneth and Luverne raised a great quantity of beef and when ready to be shipped, they were usually herded to the stockyard by the farmer, his family and his dogs. The Gunderson family had their own dog to help with this chore, a mixed breed female collie.
The farm was self sufficient, raising among other things cows for milk and cream, beef cattle, pigs and chickens for meat and sale. The chickens were also kept for the eggs they provided. They grew feed corn used to fatten the pigs and cattle. Ten chickens in the flock at a time were allowed to hatch and raise their own chicks. Each of the boys had a certain number of cows to milk according to how old he was. The milk was separated and most of the cream was sold with the remaining cream being made into butter. Near the two story farmhouse Ole was born in, was a garden where they grew most of the vegetable they needed for their meals, with any extra they produced being sold to supplement the family income. As time passed, the house eventually had to be enlarged as the size of the family outgrew the three bedrooms.
Across the field about three quarters of a mile away in the center of the small township, was the small square two story building that served as the school. Grades first through forth occupied the bottom floor and fifth through eighth were on the second floor. At the age of about eleven, Ole's family rented another farm closer to Luverne, which meant transferring to a different school. The school was near the Rock River and had several small water ponds close by also. Also close by was a small mountain where a company operated a rock crusher. In order to get rock to run through the crusher, dynamite charges were set off in the mountain. Neither the teachers nor the students ever knew when the dynamite would be set off, so when the charges were exploded, all ended up in a state of shock. As the crusher didn't operate every day, they never knew when the next earth-shattering explosion would occur. Ole, being fairly intelligent for a youth his age was able to complete both the sixth and seventh grades in one year. The following year, he tested out of the eighth grade and started high school at the age of thirteen. Graduating from high school in 1930, he recalls it being a pleasant time for him and produced some fond memories. One in particular, was the time when in was in a play-acting out the role of a husband with a pretty girl playing his wife. He remembers, what at the time seemed like volumes of words, the hard work it was to memorize his lines for the part.
In the summer of 1930, Ole got his first non-family farm related job working in the Council Oak grocery store. Working behind the counter as a cashier, some of his other duties were to slice cheese and measure bulk items that couldn't be found on the shelves of the store. This was in the era when customers were beginning to be asked to find their own items and then bring them to the front counter for checkout. Up till then, the customer would bring in a list of items they wanted, give it to the proprietor of the store and wait until they were brought to them for purchase. For his efforts, Ole was paid $1.50 per day, which started at 8:00 AM coming to a close at 6:00 PM, weekdays. On Saturday, the store stayed open until midnight and it was closed on Sundays. With the exception of two weeks, he worked the whole summer in the store. The two weeks he had off were spent training in the National Guard. He made more money than when he was working in the store. The state paid him $1.00 per day and the federal government would also pay him a $1.00 per day for a total of $2.00 per day.
After the summer, Ole found work doing handyman chores around the neighborhood to pay for his room and board. That winter, he tried to join the Navy but was rejected because during the physical, it was discovered that he suffered from color blindness. This was the first time he had any indication that there had been a problems with his eyes. After that, he spent the next two or three years working on various farms helping with the threshing of wheat and barley. When those crops were in, he moved on to the potato fields working as a digger. Diggers worked in pairs, each with a half-bushel bag over their shoulder. When their bags were full, the potatoes were dumped in a common area giving credit for one bushel for the pair. They were paid three cents per bushel, but not until the complete field was dug and all of the potatoes were collected. The variety of potato that was grown in the area was usually the one called a Cobbler, which was a good baking potato. The fields came in many different sizes, anywhere from seven acres to 150 acres. Between jobs, the workers would camp in the woods or next to the train tracks. Sleeping in their cars and cooking over campfires, they were always looking for ways to save their money. They found that they could almost always have meat for their meals. At that time liver was a very inexpensive cut of meat, being only ten cents a pound, so at that price there was always plenty of meat for their meals.
In about l934, Ole Joined a Civilian Conservation Corps and reported to a camp that was 600 miles north of his home. It was next to the Canadian border of Minnesota and the only time he could return home was at Christmas time or New Years. Ole joined the camp's medic station. Working as a medic aide to the doctor. This was his first full-time job. He also served as an orderly for the officer's barracks where he cleaned and made up beds. He also served meals in the mess hall.
After serving as an orderly for a while, he became mess steward for the camp. With this promotion, he became responsible for planning and purchasing the food for all the meals for the camp. At times, he would have to buy enough to supply the camp for three months as the Minnesota winters could reach minus 55 ºF, making it impossible avoid the bad snow storms later in the winter season when transporting these foods would have become impossible. Moose and deer would often be seen near the camp as well as brown bear. They were all looking for food from the camp garbage pit. None of the animals were dangerous and were easily scared away.
Ole took a US Forest Service employment exam and passing that; he was offered a job as a “Junior Assistant to Technician.” This job was to pay about $85.00 per month, which was a quite an increase from the $30.00 he received from the CCC. He would keep $5.00 for himself and sent $25.00 home. After passing his exam with Forest Service, Ole went home to wait for further instructions from the Forest Service. He soon received a telegram from the Forest Service assigning him to an US Army run camp in the Chippewa National Forrest, which was next to the Deer River.
In starting his new Forest Service job Ole worked with other men to establish park areas in this forestland. The first job was planting young trees in special areas marked out. There were two methods of planting these seedlings. One way was scooping out sod in squares of dirt and planting each square with a seedling tree. The rows of squares were lined up in rows. The other way, which was faster, was digging long furrows and dropping the young tree along these trenches. In this second method as many as one thousand young trees could be planted which was about twice the number planted in the squares of dirt. The trees planted in this new parkland were mostly white pines and a Norwegian variety.
With the number of small lakes in this forestland, portages had to be made for entering and leaving these lakes by canoes. Trails also had to be made to portage over the lakes. Canoes were packed on the backs of hikers through this forest. Even by the Forest Service men, so the trails to the lakes and the portages on the lakes were very vital.
Each approach to the water’s edge was made by the piling stones on top each other until there was only about a foot of water over them. A canoe could easily slide over them like at a dock. The lakes were numerous, so many so that some were only about a half block apart.
In 1937 when Ole was 24, he left the Forest Service job to take a trip to Kelso, Washington, where his two brothers, Gunder and Albert were living in an apartment there. He had made a long bus trip with many stopovers-from Fargo, North Dakota, on the Greyhound Bus Line to Kelso. He had used up his last $85 Day check for the journey and was expecting another pay check from the Forest Service yet to arrive in the mails. He got shelter and meals from the Salvation Army until his check arrived from the last Forest Service job.
In Spokane, Ole was walking down the street trying to get a job, he finally realized that he was going broke. He searched his pockets and finally found a one-dollar bill. Immediately he felt wealthy. Also his $85.00 paycheck from the Forest Service job was finally mailed to the Salvation Army a place where he picked it up. He had stayed at the Salvation Army shelter until the arrival of his check.After staying with Albert for a while at the Poor Form and doing work there, 01e returned to Spokane to look for work again. In Spokane Ole heard President Franklin Roosevelt make one of his famous speeches from the back platform of the train, which he was traveling on when going through Spokane, Washington. The main thing that Ole remembered about the President's speech was, "You people are cutting too many trees out here." Again Ole couldn't get a job in Spokane so he again returned to Kelso where he got a job with a dairy former milking 15 cows mornings and evenings. He also butchered a hog for this farmer. He stayed at this farm only six months because this farmer traded his farm for a much larger dairy farm, which had its own milking crew. So this left Ole with-out a job again. Ole finally landed a new job in Castle Rock, this time also milking cows as well as digging out stump land.
Finally a friend of Ole's came down to Castle Rock from Tacoma to visit Ole for a short while, and he brought along his girl friend Patsy. Ole became acquainted with her on this visit to Castle Rock. Then in the spring of 1938 Ole visited his friend in Tacoma and told him that he was going to give him competition on the friendship of Patsy. Ole's boy friend was working on a Swiss-type of farm and soon found a job for Ole on another farm nearby Tacoma. Every Saturday night Ole and his friend took Patsy to the movies. Ole didn't own a car so they all went in Ole's friend's car. One time Patsy and her girl friend rode their bicycles out to where Ole was working which was a ten-mile journey. They were so worn out that Ole’s boss took them both back home.
At the latest farm job where Ole worked in Tacoma, there were 36 cows to milk each morning and evening. In the early mornings while milking, Ole would look up into the sky and watch the sun rise over the too of Mt. Rainier. This mountain was formerly called Mt. Tacoma in the very early days of Tacoma's history.
Finally Ole's friend had to leave Tacoma and all his friends and go back to Minnesota to be with his mother. This gave Ole the opportunity to get to know Patsy better. After more than a year of going together, they decided to get married. The wedding occurred on Thanksgiving Day of November 23, 1939. This was the time in history when President Franklin Roosevelt moved the date of Thanksgiving back one week earlier to give more time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Patsy's real name was Barbara Patricia Mason. She was Irish-English-from father's side of her family and Scotch-English from her mother's side of her family. Ole Gunderson was pure Norwegian from both Norwegian parents. At marriage Barbara Mason was 18 and Ole 26.
Ole Gunderson and Barbara Patricia Mason became parents to five children, two girls and three sons. They were: Jean Patricia and Wendy, their daughters. Ole Thorvald, Jr., Robin Lance, and Norman Mason, their sons.
Before Ole was married he had taken a Civil Service job as a hospital attendant with an appointment at The American Lake Veterans Hospital in Tacoma.
When first married Ole and Barbara lived in a small cabin near this hospital. Ole began his family two years later and then bought a new house for $3000.00, in the year 194I, which was further away from the hospital in an area called Lakewood, which was a suburb of Tacoma.
While married Ole changed his job to the Tacoma Shipyards, and in 1943 he was drafted into the Army from the shipyard job. His daughter Jean 3 was born while Ole was still in the Army in 1945. The other three younger children were born when Ole was out of the Army, and first child son before ha was drafted.
When Ole was first out of the Army in February 1946, he took a civil service exam for the position of letter carrier for the United States Post office in Tacoma, Washington. He passed the exam. He started out on a probation type of postal job until a permanent appointment could be obtained. His first job consisted of carrying postal parcels and packages to various postal boxes for picking up by other curriers. Ole bought an Army Jeep for his delivery work and the Post Office paid him for his Jeep deliveries at 75 cents and hour, this was over and above his monthly salary. He had paid $316.00 for his Jeep and had earned $75.00 above his salary for one Christmas month's work. About 1946 Ole became a permanent letter carrier. He was called a Utility Carrier and had to know five different routes each five-day week that he delivered his mail. This job was called a T-6 Letter Carrier.
In 1955 Ole moved his family from Lakewood. He left his new home there and bought another home on a 3 acres farm in another suburb of Tacoma called Parkland. Ole's T-6 Letter Carrier job continued for 30 years until his retirement from it at age 65. Ole remained with the Army Reserve until age 60. Ole sold his farm in Parkland in 1976 and lived in Seattle for two years. He then had a house built in Ocean Shores and moved there in June 1978.
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At this point if you would indulge me for a few more moments, I would like to on behalf of the family, express a sincere thank you to you all for being here to help us celebrate the life of our father.And I personally would like to publicly thank my brothers and sisters for their devoted service and attention to Mom and Dad's needs and tell them how much I love them for all that they have done in the past to make the life of our mother and father so much happier and easier.It would be hard, indeed if not impossible to single out anyone of them, for each of them has contributed so much more than I, I am humbled in their presence. I do think though that Jean should and must receive a special thanks and a hug for her efforts.Thank you once again.
3. Barbara Patricia Mason was born on 14 May 1921 in Luverne, Rock, Minnesota. She died on 4 Oct 1989 in Aberdeen, Grays Harbor, Washington. She was buried on 10 Oct 1989 in Tacoma, Pierce, Washington. [Parents]