Retired fishery and fish hatchery employees oral history project

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TWENTIETH ANNUAL RETIREES ROUNDUP

AT HOME OF HARLAN AND HELEN JOHNSON

VARIOUS SPEAKERS

HARLAN AND HELEN JOHNSON:

Welcome to the twentieth annual Retirees Roundup. This is September 10, 1992. Every

year since I retired in 1972 we have had a gathering of retired Fishery and Fish Hatchery

employees of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This is the twentieth, and it’s going to

be the last one. Most of those who attend these roundups are former employees at the

Hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest. All of our parties had been held here at our

residence. This is our home, in Cook, Washington in the Columbia River Gorge. We have

no set agenda for these parties. We just sit or stand around and talk, laugh, drink, eat, and

tell stories about the good old days, and maybe some lies about our grandchildren, and

children. This twentieth Roundup will be the last one that we shall sponsor. And we

hope that some of the more recent retirees will take over where we have left off, and

continue the tradition. We expect to have over sixty people here today. As I said before,

there’s no formal agenda. We will have a group picture at 4 o’clock and dinner at 5 or

5:30. Now we’ll go to the other side of the house and take some pictures of the Columbia

River.

From the deck on the south side of our house, there, is the Columbia River. That

is were the Salmon came up, or went down, that most of the people that are here today

worked with. The mountain on the other side, the highest mountain, is Mount Defiance.

There is a tower on top. [Someone else is taking a video recording as this person speaks.]

Across the road, there is actually a road between us, and that wind blown tree. That’s

my favorite tree. It shows which direction the wind usually comes from. It comes from

the right, or the west and blows towards the east. It has bent or broken off the branches

off of the west side of that Douglas Fur tree. Today, the wind is coming from the east,

what little there is. On the flagpole, the upper flag is a special flag. It is an American flag

that once flew over the Nation’s Capital in Washington, D. C. Of course it only flew for

a few seconds. They put them up and then take them down and then you can but them

from your Congressman. Below that is a flag that is almost obscured now. It is the flag

of the old U. S. Bureau of Fisheries. That was the agency, before the U. S. Fish and

Wildlife Service. This is the way that they flew the flags at the fish hatcheries in the early

days. They would have Old Glory at the top, and they’d have the Bureau of Fisheries

flag beneath it. Maybe later on today the wind will blow a little more and it will show the

Bureau flag.

We are Harlan and Helen Johnson. I first worked for the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries

in 1930, at the Northville, Michigan Fish Hatchery. During the next eight years I worked

at a number of hatcheries mostly in the Rocky Mountains area. I ended up in 1938 at the

Carson Hatchery. Which is not far from here, in Carson, Washington. Then, I decided

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that there must be something better in life, so I resigned and enrolled in the School of

Fisheries at the University of Washington. I graduated in 1942 just in time to be inducted

into the Army as a buck private. While I was going to the University, I worked the

summers in Yellowstone Park. There, I met Helen Tuttle. She was a schoolmarm from

Wisconsin. She came to the Park to visit her brother Ned Tuttle, who happened to be my

boss at that time. Helen and I were married in Baltimore, Maryland in 1943 while I was

in the Army. After World War II was over, I was discharged from the Army and went to

work as a Fishery Biologist for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I worked at the

Mountlake Lab in Seattle, at Coleman National Fish Hatchery in California, and a small

hatchery at Durena Dam, Oregon. I finally ended up here on the Columbia River as a Fish

Hatchery Biologist for the Salmon hatcheries on the lower Columbia. I retired in 1972.

We have lived here in this house, which is about a mile from the Little White Salmon

Hatchery, ever since I retired.

We have done a small amount of traveling. Mostly visits to friends and family.

But most of my time had been spent puttering around the house and the garden and the

yard. I have fishponds and a tree farm. There has been lots of time as a couch potato,

watching TV.

These roundups as we call them, these gatherings of the retired people have

usually been the highlights of our year. We are sorry that we have to discontinue them.

When our children left the nest, and Helen retired from teaching, she took some art

lessons. And she became, I think, a very proficient painter. On the wall behind us is her

painting that I like the best. This is a view of the Columbia River and mountains of

Oregon as taken from the deck on the south side of our house. Now it is Helen’s turn to

say a few words about our life.

HELEN JOHNSON:

A few of the highlights of my life are; I was born into the Charles and Charlotte

Tuttle family. I was one of five sisters, and had five brothers. I taught for eight years in

the Salk County public schools in Wisconsin. We have three children; Donna, a Sales

Rep. for greeting cards, Larry is Doctor, and Carol is a teacher. Carol has our only two

granddaughters, Erin and Jill. My Dad, brother Charles and Uncle Harv Tuttle were

Carpenters. So they had a part in constructing Hatcheries in Yellowstone Park, Tyie and

the Little White. For the past twenty years, you retirees have joined us for the roundups.

They have been a great highlight in our lives. Thank you.

BOBBY AND DOREEN COMBS:

My name is Bobby Combs, this is my wife Doreen, and next Tuesday we will be

celebrating our forty-seventh wedding anniversary. I first started to work for the Fish

and Wildlife Service in October of 1950 at the Convict Creek Experiment Station up in

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High Sierra, California. It is about thirty-five miles north of Bishop. The program down

there was fishery research on high mountain lakes in the High Sierra, setting the basic

productivity of those lakes through age and growth studies of the fish and the various

organisms. And also, a comparison of the survival of Trout under various stream

conditions, and the thermal characteristics of some of the various high mountain lakes.

In November of 1953, I transferred to the Salmon Cultural Laboratory in Entiat,

Washington. Our program there was developing better diets for hatchery rearing of

Salmon. That was the primary program. We also worked on better rearing facilities and

various others; the survival of Salmon eggs under different temperature regimes and so

forth. In 1961, we transferred the entire Laboratory down to Longview, Washington at

what was previously the Abernathy Fish Hatchery. It became the Salmon Cultural

Laboratory, there. The program continued about the same, except for a different race of

Salmon. Chinook Salmon. We also began studies in the middle 1960’s in Fishery water

re-use facilities for fish rearing. We continued that for all of the time that I was there.

My boss, and Project Leader and Director of the Laboratory was Roger Burroughs. He

retired in May of 1971. And that fall, the Laboratories transferred from the Division of

Fishery Research, to Fish Hatcheries. We became known as the Salmon Cultural

Development Center, and I was named the Director. Our work continued under what was

essentially the same program under different supervision at the highest level. I continued

at that job until I retired in January of 1978 after a total of thirty years of Federal service.

There were thirty-three months of military service. I was in the Navy. By the time I got

out, I had served as a pilot on an aircraft carrier. My wife was in the WAVES. We were

married soon after I got out of the military. And even though a lot of people think we

met in the military, we had known each other since childhood. So this was not just a

military wedding. One of the real highlights of our federal experience was when I was

assigned to a job at the United Nations; the food and agricultural organization of the

United Nations to serve a short time assignment in the nation of Hungary. I was to

primarily help the research station there develop a water re-use system for their fish

hatchery research. This was a tremendous experience in 1976 when it was still very much

a Communist country. Since retirement we have moved to Asotin, Washington. We

enjoy traveling and we are very active in Church and Gideons International and some

other volunteer work. I think that’s all, thank you.

ELMO AND NANCY BARNEY

My name is Elmo Barney. This is my wife Nancy. We now live on an island in south

Puget Sound, out of Shelton, Washington. We started in the U. S. Fish and Wildlife

Service in April of 1952 at Creston, Montana. After four and a half years at Creston,

they transferred us to California. We did River Basin Studies of streams for two years.

Then they transferred us to upstate New York to the Fish Nutrition Center. After a year

there, they transferred us to the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Disease Lab in Seattle,

Washington. From there they transferred us to Coleman National Fish Hatchery, near

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Redding, California where we spent eight years doing studies on fish nutrition and fish

diseases. Then after that time, why, we transfer up onto the Columbia River and

managed to the Spring Creek Hatchery for seventeen years until I retired. Then we

proceeded to be offered a job in Alaska where we lived on an Indian island, and I managed

their Salmon hatchery for two and a half years. After that, we toured Alaska for about

two and a half more years. We lived in a fifth wheel trailer in the cold and rain, and

everything else, but we thoroughly enjoyed it all. [Addressing his wife] Is there

something you wanted to add? Oh! We were married in 1945. In fact, tomorrow is our

forty-seventh wedding anniversary. So, we are like the Combs, in that way. Most of us

believe, apparently, in long-term marriages. I think that’s about it, do you have

something to say?

NANCY BARNEY:

Well, I guess you’ve been retired for a total of about five years, and we’re having a lot of

fun. We’ve done a lot of traveling, and built a new house. For the first time in our

married life, we built a new house, and it’s been fun. So, there is life after retirement.

ELMO BARNEY:

Right! We live two hundred feet from salt water.

BRUCE AND PAULINE CANNADAY

Hello, I’m Bruce Cannaday and this is my wife Pauline. We have been in fisheries for

what seems like most of our lives. In 1939 I went to work for the old Bureau of Fisheries

at Leadville, Colorado. We were there for two and a half years. We moved then to the

State of Washington, to Carson. We spent a year there, and then it was on to California

for almost six years. From there we went back to Carson. From there we went to New

York for a year, and then back out to Carson where we spent about six or seven more

years. And then I was transferred from there to the Portland Regional office. I spent

most of the rest of my career there, except for almost a year in Washington, D. C. For all

practical purposes, I never really worked anywhere except in the Bureau of Fisheries and

the Fish and Wildlife Service for thirty-two years. I retired in 1971 at the age of 58. We

have spent our retirement years in the Portland, Oregon area.

PAULINE CANNADAY:

I recall at Carson that you were concerned about the fish, and the Salmon, and how they

were getting over the dam and what should be done about it, and about the polluted rivers.

In those days, everyone was very concerned about the extent of the Salmon life.

BRUCE CANNADAY:

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Since retirement we have spent most of the time traveling. We have done quite a load of

traveling since 1971, our year of retirement. In fact, in October we plan to go to India,

where we have not been. I play golf. We both play Bridge. We have numerous friends,

including the Johnsons where we are now. We have one child, Michael, who is in

Portland, Oregon. He is an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Oregon. He

married a girl from Texas and they have one child who is now twenty. She is going to

college at Lynnfield, in Oregon. That ought to be it.

ALICE AND ALFRED GASTINOFF

We are Alfred and Alice Gastinoff. We met in Cosine. We were married there in 1928. I

don’t remember when you joined the Fish and Wildlife.

ALFRED GASTINOFF:

In 1924.

ALICE GASTINOFF:

But anyway, we have one daughter. She lives in California and has three children. So we

have three grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. We lived in Washington,

California and Oregon through different transfers. We lived a couple of times in

Leavenworth. We moved from Leavenworth in 1963, and transferred down on to the

Columbia, down at Salmon. We retired in 1966 and moved to Poulsbo and we have been

there ever since. Our life is busy. Alfred is busy a lot of volunteer work. He drove the

van for senior citizen hot meals for ten years. We have done quite a bit of other volunteer

work. That seemed to take up quite a little of our time. And we are active in our Church.

Alfred sang in the Choir for twenty-two years. We haven’t traveled very much. We did

get to Norway once. And we had a nice cruise to Alaska. We enjoyed that. Other than

that we have lived a pretty quiet life. We are able to take care of our yard and be busy.

Bye-Bye.

AL AND PAULINE CAMMRICK

Hi folks, my name is Al Cammrick and this is my wife Pauline. I will soon be ninety.

She is eight-four. We’ve enjoyed many years in the federal Fishery service. I started in

as an Apprentice at the Deburgy [sic?], Washington Station on the first day of February

1919. From there I transferred to the Baker Lake, Washington station, from thence on to

[sounds like] Usbay, Alaska where I served one year and they was returned to Baker

Lake to take charge of that Station. I remained there until late December of 1928, when I

was transferred back to Alaska at “Usbay”. Before I left, Pauline and I were married in

Seattle and took off on our honeymoon to Alaska. We lived there for five years and came

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back to the States. I was put in charge of Fish Cultural Activities on the Columbia River.

That was in the fall of 1933. And in the fall of 1937 I was transferred to the Regional

office in Seattle as an Assistant to the Regional Director. We remained there until the

office was abolished and transferred to Portland where I was named the Regional

Supervisor of Fish Culture. I remained in that position until 1944 when I was promoted

to Assistant Regional Director for Region 1. While in the Portland office, where I served

for twenty years, I held various other positions. Principally, I was named to head the

River Basin Studies group in the Region. After that, with the inauguration of the

Columbia River Fishery Development Program I was named Regional Fishery

Management Coordinator. In that capacity, I directed and managed the Columbia River

program from 1949 until my retirement from the Service in 1960. After retirement, I was

appointed Executive Director of the Pacific Marine Fisheries Commission. This was a

tri-state commission dealing with anadromous and oceanic fisheries off the coasts of

Washington, Oregon and California. I retired from that after two years, as soon as they

could fine a suitable replacement. Since then we have traveled extensively. I think that

we have covered… we’ve made seven trips to Alaska. We have been in all of the

Canadian Provinces and Territories including Newfoundland. We have been in all of the

continuous forty-eight States and at present we are living in a retirement community at

Keyser, Oregon where we are enjoying our retirement to the fullest. [Addressing Mrs.

Cammrick] Is there anything you care to say?

PAULINE CAMMRICK:

I think that completes it.

DAN McDOUGALL:

Hi, my name is Dan McDougall and this is my wife Charlotte. I started at Woolard

National Fish Hatchery in Iberia in 1953. I worked at Woolard for twenty-three years

and transferred to Gosey National Fish Hatchery in September of 1974. I retired from

there in August of 1983. After I retired we moved to Port Angeles, Washington. We just

mess around, doing a little fishing and crabbing, and being plain lazy. Thank you!

JOHN AND EVANGELINE THOMPSON

I am John Thompson and this is my wife Evangeline. I entered the Service in 1930 at

Leadville, Colorado for the Bureau of Fisheries. I worked at [sounds like] Craig, Colorado

Spawning Station, Eagle Nest, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, New York, and Alabama. I

retired after thirty-seven years of Service. I had Military service in the Navy during

World War I. I moved to Las Vegas. I enjoyed going to professional golf tournaments at

Las Vegas. I was the Quartermaster of the “21-28th” in Las Vegas. We were all veterans

of World War I. My hobbies are golf and building ship models. My oldest son, John, is

in charge of Boeing in Denver, Colorado. My daughter Diana is a Nurse in Lacrosse,

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Wisconsin. And the youngest son, Kenneth is in San Francisco, California. Also, my

present age is 94.

EVANGELINE THOMPSON:

Ninety-four, that’s something isn’t it? We met in 1930 when John entered in the Bureau

of Fisheries in 1930 in Leadville, Colorado. His Superintendent brought him to points of

interest in Leadville, Colorado. One of the points of interest was my father’s saloon. I

was a waitress in my father’s saloon. So that’s how we met. He came in 1930, and we

married in 1932. We had our three children. We’ve put in sixty years. And it was really

a beautiful life with the Fisheries, the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries. We really enjoyed it. We

have really enjoyed being with Harlan and Helen Johnson with the Retirees, they are

wonderful people to enjoy with. Thank you.

GERALD TITCHNALL:

My name is Gerald Titchnall. My wife is Theresa Titchnall. Unfortunately she’s not

here today because she is down at Bonneville dam counting fish. The year I stated with

the Fish and Wildlife Service was 1956, after four years with the Air Force. I started at

the Leavenworth Hatchery and I was there for seven years. I transferred down here to

Little While Salmon as a Fish Hatchery Lead Man. I worked at the Lead Man job for

about seven years. I then transferred into the Maintenance Department and worked

another twenty-five years or so. I retired after thirty-seven years. I moved a house up to

[sounds like] Milay in 1968 and I still live in that same house. It was a government house

and I bought another government house and got it rented out. Since I retired from active

Fish and Wildlife Service, I went into selling Real Estate. I sold Real Estate successfully

for a couple of years. I bought the business, and now I am the owner/broker, and I am

“broker” ever since! That’s about it.

AUDREY COX (MRS HARRY COX):

I am Audrey Cox, Harry “Benny” Cox’s wife. He was born in Mexico, Missouri on

October 20, 1910. He passed away on October 20, nineteen and ninety. He had worked

at different hatcheries, and at Quilcene. But he first started out at the Census Bureau in

Washington, D. C. He then got transferred to the Fisheries and his first station was at

White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia. Then, he was on Car #7. He worked at Las Vegas,

Nevada Hatchery. He helped close it. He worked at Quilcene, Washington, Bird’s View,

Washington and Carson, and Underwood hatcheries, and many more. He retired in 1967

and we moved to White Salmon, Washington.

PAUL and MURIEL ZIMMER

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My name is Paul Zimmer. My wife Muriel is on my right. We were married in 1940,

back in New York State. In that year, we left New York and came to Oregon. First we

went to Seattle to the Research Laboratory there. Then I got involved in Stream Surveys,

and it seems to me at the time we walked about one hundred and seventy-five thousand

miles on all of the streams in Oregon and Washington. We were headed into the Columbia

River. After that, I got involved in the Grand Coulee Fish Salvage Program, which was

taking care of the fish runs that had normally gone above the Grand Coulee Dam. There

are no fish sliders at Grand Coulee Dam. Then I got involved in the Portland office on the

River Basins Study reports. I was working later on with Al Cammrick and some of the

other fellows. We became deeply involved in the Columbia Fish Hatchery Program. At

about that time, I retired in 1970. My wife may have a couple of comments to make.

MURIEL ZIMMER:

No, I think you’ve just about covered everything. It seemed like we moved a lot at first.

PAUL ZIMMER:

We have two daughters and five grandsons. Two of them are six-foot, seven and a half

inches tall, almost as tall as Scott! [Scott seems to be the person who is making the video

recording.]

MARVIN AND BARBARA SMITH

My name is Marvin Smith, and this is my wife Barbara. She was a Smith before I married

her. My first Fishery employment was back in 1940. I went to work at Yellowstone

Park. I worked up there two years for the FWS. Then, I went to work after the War for

the State of Washington Department of Fish and Game. I worked with them until 1952

when I came to FWS. I have been with FWS for thirty-two years working in Atlanta,

Georgia and in Portland, [Oregon]. I had four years of military duty in the Navy. I

retired in 1979. We live in Portland, Oregon in Happy Valley. Our activities now, are I

am on the Planning Commission in Happy Valley. I do a lot of gardening and I hunt and

fish. My wife is with the City Council of Happy Valley. We have five children. Three

of them live around in different parts of the country; Washington, D. C., Las Vegas and

Salt Lake City. Do you want to say anything?

BARBARA SMITH:

I just want them to know how long that you have known Harlan and Helen [Johnson].

MARVIN SMITH:

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Well, I met Harlan for the first time up at Yellowstone Park when I first went to work

there. I have known him for many, many years. I think that’s about all.

RUSS AND BOBBIE VERGON [?}

Hi, my name is Russ Vergon and this is my wife Bobbie. Let’s see, when did I start? I

started in 1959, after six months Alaska. I got a job in the Hatcheries. I started at

Leavenworth, under Al Gastinoff. From there, I hit most of the Hatcheries, Carson, Little

White, Spring Creek, Kalispell, Entiat for eleven years. From there I went to Quilcene for

another eleven years. And I finally retired after thirty-four years I think it was. [To

Mrs. Vergon] And you worked for Harlan…?

BOBBIE VERGON:

I worked for Harlan in the early sixties marking fish at Leavenworth Fish Hatchery.

RUSS VERGON

Now we are both retired. She is retired from teaching. And we live in Leavenworth.

That’s enough I guess. Bye.

CHUCK AND EVELYN WOODS

I am Chuck Woods, and this is my wife Evelyn. We started with Fish and Wildlife in

1951 at Delf Creek, Oregon. Then we moved to Leavenworth, Washington for four

months and shoveled more snow there than we ever hoped to see again. We moved balmy

Entiat, Washington and stayed for five years. Then there was five years at Carson,

Washington, where we also had our only child, Brad Woods. We were two years at “the

end of the world”, which is Winthrop, Washington. Brad was ready to start Kindergarten

and we stayed for fifteen years at Yakima Fish Greens, in Yakima, Washington. In 1980,

retirement came about. We have been in Yakima ever since. We dig Razor Clams, fish,

and travel. See you later!

MRS. EDWARD M. TUTTLE AND SON, MERRIT TUTTLE

I am primarily talking about my Dad, Edward M. Tuttle who was with the U. S. Fish and

Wildlife Service. He started his career in the late 1930’s. He went on to be the Chief, or

Superintendent of the Hatchery at Yellowstone National Park. He was Superintendent of

the Leavenworth, Entiat, and Winthrop hatcheries.

MRS. TUTTLE:

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After a few winter details including Quilcene and Duckabush[?], Washington he was

promoted to Fish Culturist, and assigned to Birdsfield [?], Washington. In 1940 he was

promoted to Foreman and later Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park Fisheries

Station. In November of 1942, he left Yellowstone to put in thirty months of active duty

with the U. S. Coast Guard as Chief, which was shortly changed to Ensign. He was

assigned as C.O. [Commanding Officer] of the Waldport, Oregon Beach Patrol Station.

The War was over, so back to the States. He was Lieutenant J.G. at that time, and retired

from the Coast Guard in 1967 as Commander. In November of 1945, he reported back to

Yellowstone and on to Bozeman, Montana for a month, then to Leavenworth,

Washington as Supervisor of the Grand Coulee Fishery Project. In 1950 we was

promoted to Assistant Regional Supervisor of Hatcheries in Portland, and later he was

Regional Supervisor of all national hatcheries in Region 1. He served until his retirement

in December of 1966. Ed was born in Baraboo, Wisconsin September 29, 1908. He

passed away on March 10, 1980 after a long bout with cancer. One son, Merritt survives

and is employed with the National Marine Fisheries in Portland, Oregon.

MERRIT TUTTLE:

I might add that he had a lot of influence over my career from the standpoint that he was

what you’d call a “people person”. He was very well liked by his people. He did

everything that he could to help his people in achieving their goals and of course the

Service’s goals along the way. I think that this was very important in setting the stage for

a good example for a son. Thank you.

JOHN AND HELEN PARVIN

My name is John Parvin, and this is my wife Helen. We first started working for the Fish

and Wildlife Service when it was not the FWS, but the Bureau of Fisheries. Our first

appointment was at Spearfish, South Dakota where the present Booth Museum is. We

spent a little time there and then we moved to the west coast again. We went to Carson,

and from there we went over to Delft Creek, and from Delft Creek to Leavenworth. From

Leavenworth to Entiat, and from Entiat to Coleman. And from Coleman up to Eagle

Creek. From Eagle Creek to Lamar, Pennsylvania and then from Lamar, Pennsylvania we

were transferred to Devorshack Complex and retired from there. My total years of

federal service was thirty-seven. I retired from the FWS July 31, 1975 and I have been

retired even since. I certainly had my share of retirement funds. Our residence was in

several places. After I retired I did consulting work, and was Consultant to Burnt Hill

Salmon Ranch in southern Oregon, and we developed that. Then I went to New Zealand

as a Consultant for an Aquaculture firm there. From there we came home and lived

happily ever after. Now you do your stuff. [To Mrs. Parvin] How many kids, and

grandkids, and great-grandkids?

HELEN PARVIN:

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We have four children; Rose who is now 54, Claude who is 52, Lawrence who is now 45,

and Stuart who is now 42. We have eighteen grandchildren and all but about six of those

are married. So that makes a great many grandchildren and grandchildren-in-law. We have

twenty-seven great-grandchildren. That’s about all. [The Parvins together] Good-bye.

CLIFF AND LORNA DICKINSON [?]

My name is Cliff Dickinson, and this is my wife Lorna. The first work for Fisheries was

in 1940 at Leavenworth, Washington. The places that I have worked was here, at the

Little White Salmon Station for eight years during the 1950’s. I was transferred back to

Leavenworth, Washington and spent the next seventeen years there before retiring in

1976. After retirement we continue to live in Leavenworth. My wife has worked in Real

Estate and Insurance was Clerk at a Motel there. I golf four days a week, and do a little

fishing and hunting and some gardening. We are very happy and have really enjoyed our

years of retirement. Good-bye!

BILL AND MARY WALSDORF

I started at Spring Creek in 1961. Clyde Adams and Mr. Brock, Herb Brock were there.

After Spring Creek I had a short session at Helena, Montana. That was a year later?

MARY WALSDORF:

I don’t know, I wasn’t there then.

BILL WALSDORF:

A little while after that, we got married. That’s why she wasn’t there. I went to

Leetown, back to Little White for two years. Oh well, to sum it up, it was Quilcene

twice, Spring Creek. I worked with Harlan [Johnson] and Enir[?] Wolf, and Gib Taylor in

the Disease Lab down here for a while. So I got to know Harlan pretty well for a couple

of years. I started in 1961 and retired in 1987. There was four years of military service

so it’s a total of about thirty-two years so that was enough. I retired up at Leavenworth

where I had spent the last ten years. We are still living there. We are both selling Real

Estate. We didn’t think that we could have the lifestyle that we wanted on our

retirement, so we are both selling Real Estate. This is the first time that I have gotten

back here. We are usually busy for this session. I retired five years ago. We have two

children.

MARY WALSDORF:

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We have two children. Susan is twenty-eight and lives in Denver. And Peter is twenty-six

and lives in Everett. No grandchildren, no married children.

BILL WALSDORF:

We are about ready for our second retirement so we can get out of everything. We’re

done.

JACK AND JEAN MANNING:

Our names are Jack and Jean Manning. We first worked for the FWS, or I did, up at

Leavenworth in 1950, I believe it was. I’ve been to Spring Creek, Winthrop, Entiat and

Little White, Spearfish, South Dakota. Most all of the hatcheries in the State of

Washington. We had thirty-five years of service including military, hatchery and Forest

Service. I retired two years ago in June of 1990. We live here in Underwood, just about

six miles from where Harlan is here. We mainly do a little traveling and chase our

grandchildren around, watching them play basketball and football and baseball. We keep

busy that way. That’s about all we’ve got. Good-Bye!

ALBERT STRUNK:

I am Albert Strunk and I had worked at Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery for

approximately twenty-seven and one half years. The total of military and government

service about thirty-one and one half years. Down here at Underwood for twenty-seven

years. My wife’s name is Alice. We live in White Salmon. We have five daughters, all

grown up and away. I have eleven grandchildren. My activities are quite extensive. I am

involved in Church and Senior Services, Meals on Wheels, American Legion, and Veterans

of Foreign Wars. You can almost name it, and I do it. I’d like to mention one article here

that might be interesting to some of the people who are going to hear this. When Mr. and

Mrs. Elmo Barney came to Spring Creek Hatchery as Manager and wife, Mrs. Barney

called me up one time, and asked if the nuts where they lived were good to eat. Of

course, we had Hazelnuts in back of the housing. And I said, “Yeah, you just take the

husk off and go ahead and they are great. Get down to the nut part, to the kernel and

they’re great”. So she eventually went out and got a few, and she said, “Those were the

bitterest things”! I asked here what she had gotten them off of. She told me that she had

gotten them off of the flowering trees in back of her house. I said, “Those are Dogwood

trees, you got the flowering seeds off of them”. O.K., great, thank you very much and

good-bye!

GIB AND SALLY TAYLOR:

My name is Gib Taylor and this is my wife Sally. I started working at Leetown

Hatchery in 1961 under “Swamp” Walker. I did a short stint then, at the National

13

Aquarium before leaving for the Western Fish Disease Lab in Seattle under Dr. Rucker. It

was a nine month long course at the Seattle Lab. Then I moved down to Little White

under Harlan Johnson, who is the host here today. I was there until 1968, when I moved

to Leavenworth as the District Biologist there. Then in 1973 we moved to Longview. I

was on the staff there at Abernathy Salmon Cultural Development Center. In 1979 we

moved to Olympia, where I served as Director of the Olympia Fish Health Lab. We

retired up there after some thirty years of service. We are living in Olympia right now.

We have one child, Tom. He is working in Seattle. He is twenty-five. We’ve been doing

quite a bit of traveling and remodeling of houses, and doing a little consulting work. I

guess that’s about it. Good-bye.

DICK AND WILLA BEGAVE [?]:

Hi, I am Dick Begave and this is my wife, Willa. We went to work for the FWS in 1957

at the Entiat Fishery Research Center under Roger Burroughs and Bobby Combs. In

1959, I left the Service and went to the University of Oregon Med School as a

Biochemist. Then it was back to work for FWS under Harlan Johnson at Little White.

From Little White we moved to Montana. Kalispell, Montana where I set up a Lab. I

served as the Hatchery Biologist for the FWS with the State of Montana as my territory.

We moved from Kalispell to Bozeman. We moved the Lab. And from Bozeman, I moved

to the Eagle Creek National Fish Hatchery where I took that over as Manager. I stayed

there for ten years, from 1967 to 1977, when I moved up to Boise, Idaho in the Area

Office. I retired from there in October of 1980. So we’ve been retired for a long time.

Back when times were good, and I went to work for Harlan, we knew him then not as

Harlan, but at “Red” Johnson. His wife will be glad to hear this. But now we’re retired.

We retired in Boise. I did odd jobs. I worked for Hewlett-Packard and the Super-C

stations. I took over maintenance job there and did maintenance for Hewlett-Packard. I

finally gave it all up and moved to Madras where we were closer to the kids in Portland,

and our cabin down at the beach, at Long Beach, Washington. We’ve been in the house

now almost two years. It will be two years in October. I am still remodeling. It’s done

to the point where we can take visitors. The guest room is all finished so come and see us

when you get a chance! Bye-Bye!

ROBERT R. AND HARRIET RUCKER:

Here we are at Red Johnson’s annual get together. I am Robert R. Rucker. Friendly

people call me “Bob”. My wife is Harriet Ruth Rucker. You can call her “Harriet”. My

introduction to the Fisheries was in 1937 when I went to the Spokane Station where

Harlan Johnson was running the joint. He gave me a truck, and I moved Hollingsworth’s

home, all of his home goods to Bear Creek, Utah Station. There, with the truck, I picked

up “Cookies”, Blanden Cook’s home goodies and took him to Bozeman, Montana. Then

I took the truck on into Yellowstone Park, where I spent my first summer in

Yellowstone. I spent also the next summer at Yellowstone Park. I think everybody

14

should have that experience. It’s just wonderful. My work on the Columbia was with

the Salmon, first, relocating the Salmon runs when Grand Coulee Dam was finished.

Because there were many dead fish around, I became very interested in why the fish

should die. So I went into the area of Fish Pathology. I remember, first we had a very

peculiar looking bug at Yellowstone. It turned out to be Columnuris [sic?]. It was the

first time I was able to culture it by varying the medium. The next bug that we ran into of

great import was the bacterial kidney disease. It’s a gram-positive bug. One time I was

going up the Columbia River and I stopped at the Bonneville Hatchery and cultured or

looked at kidney smears from ten of the Salmon there, and it was gram-positive bug, and I

thought, ‘what a funny looking kidney disease?’ This turned out to be tuberculosis of

fish. I should mention that [sounds like] ferunculosis was a dreaded disease in the 1930’s.

That’s just the time that the sulfonamides came along. We first tried Sulfanilamide and it

didn’t do any good, but then the other sulfonamides that we used knocked out

Ferunculosis so it was never a dreaded disease again. We had another disease called Salt

Water Ferunculosis. I mean, it looked like Ferunculosis. It was a hatchery in the State of

Washington with the State Game Department. I went down to look at it. The organism

there was not the typical Ferunculosis organism. I couldn’t get it to grow on anything

until I put a little salt in the media. Then it grew beautifully. It turned out to be similar

to Cholera in man. There are many other diseases that we described. And I think my

tombstone will read, “The Red-mouth from Idaho”, or that area, which has my name after

it, [A Latin name, sounds like] “Rosinia Ruckeri” in the books. So that will be my swan

song. Is it time to say good-bye? Good-bye!

ARDEN AND SYLVIA TRANDAHL:

I am Arden Trandahl. My wife’s name is Sylvia. I was first employed by the U. S. Fish

and Wildlife Service in Yankton, South Dakota in 1960. In 1961 we transferred to New

London, Minnesota at the New London National Fish Hatchery. In 1962 we went to the

Marion, Alabama Warm Water Fishery School. We spent a year in Alabama and then we

went to Senecaville, Ohio. That was the Seneca National Fish Hatchery. We were there

from 1963 to 1968. Then we transferred to Davenport, Iowa. From there, in 1969, I

transferred in to the Regional Office in Minneapolis. I spent from 1969 to 1976 in

Minneapolis. Minneapolis was Region 3. In 1976 I transferred in to Washington, D. C.,

to the Division of Fish Hatcheries to the position of Chief of the Branch of Technology.

From Washington, D. C., in 1978, we transferred to the Spearfish Fisheries Complex in

Spearfish, South Dakota. I was the Director of the Fisheries Complex from 1978 to 1983.

We went through a purge of facilities within the system. At that time we had three

facilities, the Spearfish Hatchery, the McDinney Hatchery and the Ranch A Hatchery in

the Complex. We closed two of those in 1983. Then I took an early retirement from the

FWS. I went to work for the City of Spearfish. We stayed at the little Spearfish

Hatchery. In 1989 the FWS became “re-interested” in the facility and wanted to develop

it into a Fisheries history facility. So I went back to the FWS in April of 1989. Today is

September 10th of 1992, and I am still with them. My intent is to stay with the Service

15

until I get the Complex rebuilt. I am talking about the Spearfish history site. It was

renamed, the D. C. Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery. For the last three years we

have received $3.2 million dollars since I have been back, to develop a National Fisheries

history repository. As of today, we are totally funded to build the facility and we’re

approaching our final drawings. By late fall of 1992 which is this year, we should be

under construction of the new site. We are an interesting family in the Fish Hatchery

business because over the years, and the different places that we have been at, we’ve had

nine children. Our kids have been born all over the country. They are Hatchery kids,

which is kind of unusual, I think, that a family with such a large amount of kids would

move around the country like that. It’s been a really good life for them. I am really

pleased that I was able to come out to Harlan’s last hurrah here today. Thank you and

good-bye.

JIM AND EILEEN JOHNSON:

I would like to introduce myself. I am Jim Johnson and this is my wife Ilene. We’ve

been married almost fifty years. Next May, it will be. I started my career in the Fisheries

at Little White Salmon Hatchery in 1953. The Manager then was Denny Cox, and the

crew consisted of Charlie Rangham, Cliff Dickinson, Syd Cammal, Leonard Thompson,

Murray Amos, Bob Carlson and Edna Woods was the Office Manager. Amos and

Carlson later went into the Branch of Biology and worked in the Mountlake office in

Seattle. In October if 1955 I left the Hatchery Division and went into the Branch of

Biology. I worked at Bonneville Dam. The work there consisted of engineering research

in regard to fish passage problems. We worked on the most efficient design for a ladder

for the fish to get over the many dams on the Columbia River. Some of our work resulted

in the design that went into Ice Harbor Dam, and John Day Dam. I stayed there until

July of 1970. Then I transferred to, well, I didn’t transfer, but I was moved to

Manchester, Washington. The work there consisted of proving the feasibility of raising

Salmon in a salt-water confinement, or net pens. This worked out to be a successful

procedure because there are several commercial outfits now that are raising Salmon in net

pens in the Puget Sound area. I retired from the Service in February of 1983 after thirty-four

years. Thank you and goodbye.

MARION AND CLYDE KELLY:

I am Marion Kelly, and this is my husband Clyde. I went to work on February 18, 1957

at the Little While Salmon Hatchery, as a Secretary. And I worked for thirty years at

Little While Salmon Hatchery, never anyplace else. I retired on January 3, 1987. I live at

Carson, that’s were I’ve lived all of my life. We motor home and travel around. That’s

basically what we do. We do work on our house too. That’s it! Good-bye!

EDITH ADAMS (MRS. CLYDE D. ADAMS):

16

I am Edith Adams, my husband died on June 3, [1992]. He started to work for the FWS,

which back then was the US Bureau of Fisheries in 1921 in the State of Vermont. Then

they sent him over to Maine to work a while, and then New Hampshire. He also spent

parts of two summers in Yellowstone National Park, and one summer at Glacier Park. As

the years went by he had a chance to go to Rogue River in the State of Oregon. So he

took that chance, and moved out to Oregon. He managed a Hatchery there, then a few

miles away where they built a new one, and he managed that one. Then, later in 1938, he

was moved to [sounds like] Klikimus Hatchery. Then when that hatchery was turned

over to the State. They moved him up to the Columbia River, to Spring Creek where he

managed that for twenty-two and one half years. That would be back in 1940 to 1962.

He retired and we moved out in January of 1963. We traveled. Our travel trailer was our

home for four and a half years. We traveled all over the United States and practically all

over Canada. Then after we settled down in Mountain View, California, we made our

first trip abroad to London and Italy and some of the Greek Islands. That was a cruise.

My youngest son Donald Adams is living. His brother, who got killed over seventeen

years ago, was Delmar. I’d like to tell this about my husband. He was a very modest

man. And when he had thirty-eight years in, for the FWS the Fisheries in the State of

Washington made him the first Fish Farmer because they admired his work so much in

raising fish. Then, in 1962, six months before he retired, the U. S. Government gave him a

Meritorious Award for his outstanding work among the Salmon here on the Columbia

River. I have always been very proud of that work that he did. I think I was more proud

of it than he was, because he was so modest. Good-bye!

DON AND MARY CARENS

Hi, I am Don Carens and my wife of over fifty years, Mary. I worked the FWS for

thirty-one years. I went to work in 1942 as a Laboratory Assistant in Seattle, on the

Mount Lake Boulevard Lab, under Dr. Rucker. I saw him just a few minutes ago, and he

said that he had forgot about my working for him. I worked for him twice. Right before

World War II and right after. The first Hatchery work was at Leavenworth, Washington,

under Joe Cammerick. He was one of the real old-time bosses. He spoke to you

sometimes at a distance of two hundred feet, and you knew who it was. Now they say

that you’re not supposed to have bosses, but you were never in doubt about how you

stood in the scheme of things. I started there at Leavenworth, and then I went the Armed

Services in 1942. I was out of the Armed Services in 1946 and went back to the Lab in

Seattle a short duration. Then I went back to Leavenworth. I worked there at that

illustrious career for ….

MARY CARENS:

Well, you went to Carson then.

DON CARENS:

17

Well, yeah. We went from Leavenworth to Carson. That was after I told them they’d

have to give me a raise, or we’d have to go to work somewhere else, because the wages

weren’t very high at that time. They forgot about wartime inflation between 1942 and

1946. It was hard to ignore when you didn’t have enough money to buy the kids milk

and stuff. So we finally went down to Wind River and Carson. We were there, and back

to Leavenworth. In 1952 we went back to Courtland, New York I guess.

MARY CARENS:

No, in 1952 we went back to Leavenworth and we were there less than a year when we

went back to Carson. We were in Carson for about five or six months, and we went to

Courtland.

DON CARENS:

Oh, O.K. It’s kind of hard to keep up. We were three time losers at Leavenworth. We

retired from Carson. So we were at Carson three times, and Leavenworth three times.

There were nine years in Willard. I was Hatchery Manager there. It was adjacent to the

Western Fish Nutrition Laboratory. I had a chance to do some dietary work there. I tried

to get enough money to put a new roof on the Hatchery and they said, “Well, we don’t

have money for that”. I said, “How about if I save enough money, and I take the

savings?” They said, “Sure, if you can do that”. By golly, I found out that the Oregon

Moist Pellet had two limiting amino acids by just reading an analysis of the ingredients

and also, they were a little short on the energy portion. It was dried whey and something

else, just about as illustrious to straighten up the amino acid pattern. Anyway, it was

quite a bit more efficient, and I saved, in the first year of getting this diet made, over

sixty-five hundred dollars, and I put a new roof on the Hatchery. They didn’t think that I

could do it, but I did it. I went back to Courtland, New York for further training, which

was through Cornell in 1958 and 1959. I came back to Willard. While I was back east, I

talked to Bill Hagan a Personnel man. He said that he had a real good job for me. I asked

him where it was at, and he said, “Willard, Washington”. I said, “Boy, that’s no plum”!

He told me that they felt that I could do really well there because the three previous

Managers had trouble. One just plain moved out. And the next two died of heart failure

out on the job in their forties!

MARY CARENS:

He could be next!

DON CARENS:

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I went there and served nine years, and rather enjoyed it. I enjoyed the challenge. I went

back to Carson and retired there to Chehalis.

MARY CARENS:

In December of 1971.

DON CARENS:

We’d better quit. There’s lots more but we don’t have time.

MARY CARENS:

We live in Stillwater Estates now, in Centralia, Washington.

KIRK AND ANN PRESLEY

Hi, I am Kirk Presley and this is my wife Ann. My experience with Fish Hatcheries is

that I started at Willard and I retired from Willard, so I didn’t have much running around.

I started in 1960 and retired on January 3, 1987. I worked for the Army Finance Center

in St. Louis for about a year before we moved to the west coast. My wife worked for

Fisheries also, and I will let her tell about that.

ANN PRESLEY:

I worked for twenty years, marking fish. Harlon was my first boss. I worked for him

until he retired. In 1984, I think it was when I retired.

KIRK PRESLEY:

Since retirement, I don’t really have any hobbies as of yet. I am trying to develop a

woodworking shop to kind of get into that a little bit. Most of the time we just garden

and mow the lawn and take care of the house and stuff.

ANN PRESLEY:

We travel and see our kids. We have one son who lives in Portland, and one who lives in

Las Vegas, and one that is still at home. We spend time with our grandkids.

KIRK PRESLEY:

Of which we have five, four boys and one girl. We still live here. We retired to the

Milary area, and don’t have any plans to go anywhere else do we?

19

ANN PRESLEY:

Yes. That’s a debatable point! Good-bye!

DON AND PAT ZERJEK (?):

Hello, I am Don Zerjek and this is my wife Pat. I started in the FWS in April of 1957

after getting out of the Navy. I served at Winthrop, Washington then Coleman at

Anderson, California. I went back to Spearfish in the first class at Spearfish. I then when

back to Anderson to Coleman, and then to Carson as the Assistant Manager. In 1974 I

was selected for a position in Berlin, New Hampshire, and that was an experience. We

went from Berlin, to Nashua, New Hampshire. I became a Hatchery Manager there.

After a year there I was selected for a position in the Boston office. Very shortly, I

discovered that I didn’t belong there. So I put in for Carson National Fish Hatchery here

in Washington State. I was selected for that Manager ship and retired there after ten

years as the Manager in March of 1989. In the meantime, we bought a house is

Stevenson, Washington and that is where we now live. Since I retired why, I have been

hunting and fishing and working a little bit, here and there. I am trying to keep the house

up. My wife has been traveling all over the world on cruise ships. She really likes to do

that. She just recently got me on a cruise ship. We just got back a couple of days ago.

We’ve got four children; two sons and two daughters and three grandchildren, two boys

and a girl. They all live here in the State of Washington, so we can see them once in a

while. That’s about it.

JACK AND ELAINE KINCHLOE [?]:

My name is Jack Kinchloe. My wife is Elaine Kinchloe. I first came to work for the

FWS at Eagle Creek National Fish Hatchery in 1959, as a trainee. I spent a little over a

year there in my probationary period. I then went to Portland and Leetown training

schools, in reverse order. From there I went to Seattle, Washington. I worked out of the

Regional office doing fish disease work, primarily in the states of Washington, Idaho,

Montana and California. From Leavenworth I moved to Washington, D. C. I worked in

the Division of Fish Hatcheries most of that time. I spent two years as the liaison to

Columbia River Fisheries programs and the National Marine Fisheries Service. From

there I went to Portland, Oregon working for the old Division of Ecological Services as a

Supervisor. After that period of approximately eight years, I made a big change and went

into wildlife refuges and managed the Lower Columbia Wildlife Refuge Complex for the

next eight years until my retirement. Presently, I just play. I try never to do any work

unless it’s absolutely essential. My wife is working as a travel agent, so she does a lot of

traveling around the world. And occasionally, I go with her. I spend most of time fishing

and hunting, anything that’s fun. In fact, I am leaving tomorrow morning at 6:45 for

Alaska to go Silver fishing.

20

[Party going on. Many happy voices can be heard. Crowd is being set up for group

picture. The following are comments made by unidentified male voices].

Now, somebody listen for that thing to click! One, two, three…

O.K., I think that’s got it! [Crowd cheers]

He’s sixty-five years old! [Incredulous]

HARLAN JOHNSON: Now, everybody wave good-bye to the video camera!

[Tape ends]