Woodrow Franklin Harper

Today we are gathered to pay tribute to the partiarch of our family, Woodrow Franklin Harper, named after President Woodrow Wilson, twenty-eighth president of the United States from 1912-1920. He was born January 13th, 1916, in Saint Louis Park, Minnesota, the sixth son of Charles and Josephine (Erickson) Harper, who had a penchant for unusual names. His older brothers were Harlow, Les, Tunis (Perry), John, and Rollin. Rollin died as a young boy (not uncommon in those days), but all the others survived into adulthood. We don’t know much about his early childhood, except for the stories he liked to tell. In his first year of school in kindergarten, he contracted an ear infection, and since this was before the days of pennicillan, he was out of school for many weeks, and had to repeat kindegarten the next year. However, he later skipped second grade and was back on track again. When he was nine years old, his father Charles died unexpectedly and his mother was left to raise the six boys alone. She had some life insurance proceeds and bought a new house, which I was never certain if it had indoor plumbing or not. This was a significant issue where the tempurature would frequently fall to twenty or more degrees below zero with windchills of fifty below. In 1929, your great-grandmother Josephine remarried a man who worked for the railroad and my Dad and he took a trip by rail to Evergreen, Washington for two weeks after Labor Day, 1929. It was Dad’s first trip out of the state, and first trip out West, and he loved it.

Back in school, he studied hard and the next spring, June of 1930, the three of them (Josephine and the new husband and Dad) all took a train trip to California to visit Dad’s brothers in California. He absolutely fell in love with California (although, after living in Minnesota, I think anything would look great). Back in Saint Louis Park, a small suburb of Minneapolis, Dad lived as the Great Depresion began to take a toll on everyone. Suddenly, in the spring on 1934, just before Dad was to graduate from high school, his mother Josephine died of cancer and now Dad was all alone with his step-father. He returned to school, grief-striken, and graduated as school valedictorian. Immediately afterwards, his step-father gave him $50 and a rail pass to California. Unfortunately, he never did find out what happened to his mother’s estate or anything else. He de-trained in Martinez, CA, at his brother Les’s home, who was selling insurance. After some discussion, it was decided Dad would join the Civilian Conservation Core, or the three C’s: CCC.

The CCC was part of a popular depression-era program for young men aged 18-24 providing unskilled manual labor in conservation tasks. The unions were very afraid of competition in job training and existing jobs, so they were put to work on building trails, bridges, etc. Dad learned how to become a carpenter and do other construction and electrical work, building bridges throughout Northern California. Three million young men participated in the program.  Many things you see today were built by the CCC, including the Houston City Hall, etc. They lived in camps, of which there were eventually about fifteen hundred of them, scattered across the US. They were run military like, with battalions, barracks, mess halls, etc. They built everything themselves. Only eleven per cent were high school graduates. Dad absolutely loved his time in the CCC, and it was a time of which we can be most proud of him. They received thirty dollars a month, a virtual fortune back then, of which twenty-five dollars was mailed home and five dollars of which was free to spend as they wish. Dad signed up for four consecutive six-month terms, and then went home to Martinez, CA, where his brother Les had banked all of his twenty-five dollar checks.

Dad searched for work in the summer of 1936 to no avail. The Great Depression was still going on and jobs were just plain scarce. He started at the University but after a year or so his savings ran out, so he signed up for another session in the CCC. By this time, there were war rumblings in Europe, and Dad decided he wanted to be an Army aviator, so he signed up. While the paper work was being processed, he was involved in a bad car accident in which he lost many teeth and badly fractured his arm, so badly that they had to install a metal bar which was never removed. Several others in the accident were killed, but he was riding in the rumble seat which probably saved him. He was in the hospital for months in San Francisco, and when he got out, the military rejected him for his injuries. He did receive a small settlement for the car accident injuries, so he reapplied for and got accepted to UC Berkeley, and started in again on a degree in chemical engineering. After one semester, he switched to metalurgy, and continued to go to school and live in a fraternity on the Berkely campus.  While at the fraternity, he lived for a time on a screened in porch, with no heat.  It doesn't get really cold in Berkeley but the fog rolls in almost every summer evening and it rains a lot in the winter.

He purchased a used model T Ford for fifty dollars. John liked Grandpa's stories - such as how he  had to drive it up some hills backwards so gas could reach the engine. And I remember how after every picture I took with him, he'd say "Great, we're preserved."

Around the fall of 1942 (I believe), he met your Grandmother Margaret Turner because Grandma's roommate's boy friend had a school project of setting up a dating service. Grandma signed up and so did Grandpa and a romance was born! Later that year they got engaged and Dad drive down with Grandma to the family farm.  His future brother-in-laws - Uncle Jim and Uncle David had set up a few tests for Dad to pass before they would approve the marriage - a long horseback ride, a hunting trip, and turning the ice cream until it was ready to eat.  Dad managed to pass the tests and on June 6th, 1943, Dad graduated from college in the morning and got married in the afternoon. Later that year they went for an automobile honeymoon in British Columbia, Canada, quite the thing then. Dad had trouble finding work in his field, and took some classes for a master’s degree in nuclear physics, which I don’t think he completed. All the jobs in metallurgy were in Minnesota, ironically, and he did not want to go back there. He worked in Emeryville CA doing some sort of war work, and in 1946, he went to work for PG&E, where he worked for thirty-two years until his retirement in 1978.

In 1948 I was born, and we were living in Albany, California, near Berkeley, at 711 Johnson Street, in a small, two-bedroom house near the Southern Pacific railroad track mainline. Grandma Harper had worked a few years doing accounting and bookkeeping-type jobs before I was born, but from then on, my Mom was a stay-at-home housewife (as were most women back then). In 1951, Patti was born, and we needed a bigger place to live. We bought a new home in El Cerrito and moved there in 1952. It was unlandscaped, and on a very steep hill, so Dad spent the next several years building retaining walls and pouring concrete until it became roller-skate heaven. We also dug out and finished the basement, including a table tennis game, a substantial workbench, and my model railroad. We all spent many wonderful summer days and evenings in the basement.

My Dad bought a thirty-five millimeter camera, and started taking Kodachrome color slides. He wasn’t the greatest photographer, but he got the job done, consdiering the state-of-the-art at he time (separate light-meters, etc.). We would often have slide shows which were endured by friend and family alike.

During this time my Dad always worked and was never un-employed, as a senior meterman for PG&E. Remembering how it was when they grew up in the Great Depression, having a steady job was very important. We were never rich, and never had more than one car, but we always had food on the table and never wanted for anything really important. Before Dad got home from work, eveyrhting had to be picked up and put away. Dad ran the house like clockwork, with dinner at the stroke of six and strict rules about table manners, with all sorts of penalties (mostly five or ten-minute trips to the room) for such things as chewing with your mouth open or elbows on the table. If you were really bad, you were sent to your room to bed with no dinner. You had to eat all your food before leaving the table, as there were starving kids in China. We practiced endlessly for the day when we would go to a real restaurant to eat out, but I don’t ever remember doing so. We visited relatives for the holidays, which consisted of big meals and long nights of poker, drinking, and cigarettes. Both Mom and Dad smoked, but Dad quit in 1956 and Mom finally quit in 1966.

We decorated for Christmas, and had a live tree until they came out with aluminum Christmas trees, which I hated. Mom and Dad could never understand how all these rubber bands ended up in the Christmas tree.  Christmas was always very special with candles and many Christmas cards.

In the early 1960s, Dad got interested in Hi-Fi, and purchased several Heathkits and painstakingly assembled an FM receiver, amplifier, and speakers. It was marvelous, and the best thing I had ever heard.

Dad’s brothers lived nearby: Uncle Perry (Tunis) lived in San Rafael, CA, and Uncle Les still lived in the same house in Martinez, CA. My Uncle Harlow lived in Los Vegas, NV, and my Uncle Johnny was in the Army with a career job.

We took marvelous car vacations every summer, three or fours weeks at a time, camping all the way, and visiting national parks, World’s fairs, or sometimes mooching off relatives. We almost always started off at four in the morning to “beat the heat”. We stopped from time-to-time at A and W Root Beer and purchased four root beers for a nickle each. Of course, Patti and I did not always share the back seat so well, but we did survive. I dislike long driving trips to this day, but I have fond memories of the places we visited. Dad drove most of the time, and scared the dickens out of us passing on two-lane roads sometimes. We watched for significant odometer readings, like 22222. We tried to guess how many miles in a dead-straight road before a turn. We kept a sharp lookout for the “old road”, and stopped at almost every historical marker. We played games like looking for license plates from all forty-eight states or signs starting with every letter of the alphabet.  We got stuck on “Q”, and Dad said that if we didn’t find one by the time we got to Minneapolis, he would drive by the “Quiet, Hospital Zone”. We didn’t and he did.  Dad built a pantry out of plywood which fit in the trunk of our car, and later we bought a tent-trailer. To store it, he built a dolly which we rolled down the side of the house and into the basement. Later, then purchased a small trailer, and later on they purchased an Air-Stream trailer, the ultimate in portable accomodations, pulled by an Oldsmobile 4-4-2 (a huge engined car that went buggle, buggle, buggle) and later a more practical pick-up truck. They subscribe to Air Stream magazine and called their contraption a “rig”. They traveled all over the US and Canada in it, and after they retired, the trips grew longer.

When I was in junior high school, Dad started getting involved in the Masons. He joined a lodge in Richmond and eventually worked his way up to being master of the lodge.

Upon retirement, they sold their home in El Cerrito and bought a double-wide mobile home in Yountville, CA, near Napa. Now most people would consider this a step backwards, but Mom and Dad thought they have moved to San Simeon, the Hearst mansion near Santa Barbara on the California coast. He added a shed which served as his tool center and work bench, and puttered around on various projects, etc. They travled the world and also took trips in their “rig”. They made many friends in their mobile home park (you didn’t dare call it a “trailer”).

At this time, the grandkids started coming. Neil remembers Grandma and Grandpa taking him to his first ever major-league baseball game in Oakland, and seeing Jose Conseco hitting a grand-slam! He taught him to play checkers and showed no mercy…Neil never beat him. Games were big, and they taught him Parchessi, Dominos, and Sorry. And you didn’t interupt him while he was watching Wall Street Week! They picked blackberries together for hours, and the pie was delicious! Everyday meant a six-block trip to the post office to pick up the mail…including a huge phone book that almost did Neil in!

In 2003, everyone came to Houston for their sixtieth wedding anniversery celebration, including going to an Astros game. Very few make it to sixty years these days.   

Eventually, Mom grew tired of cooking and wanted to move to a retirement home in Napa, so they moved to the “Redwood” and lived there until Mom died two years ago. Dad decided it was time, after she passed away, to move to Albuquerque, so he did. Even though it was a huge effort with no car, he purchased and sent birthday and Christmas cards to everyone.  In Albuquerque, Dad was dependent for the most part on Patti's family to take him where he needed to go but he almost always went to WalMart on Saturday morning with his friends at Paloma Landing. He took a trip earlier this year down to Carlsbad, NM with Patti's family and hiked down to the bottom.   On the way home, it snowed and riding in a warm car, he enjoyed watching the fields go by covered with snow.  Dad played bridge as often as he could at Paloma Landing and loved coming over to Patti's for birthday celebrations and to watch basketball or football games.  He traveled extensively around New Mexico his first summer in Albuquerque, from an Alpaca Ranch to an Indian Pueblo to Las Vegas, NM to adopt a dog to Amber's first art show with her class at UNM.  He would get tired but was ready to go again the following weekend.  At least, until September 2010.