The camp was very unfamiliar to us, but very soon we began to get used to our new home. We were in a different state and very far away from our home. We went there to work. We began to receive all the equipment we needed, such as picks, shovels, etc. They put us in a truck with about 12 men in each one. We had to cut down dead trees, pick up leaves from the ground and work on the roads inside of the park. When we weren’t working, we had lots of time to do anything we wanted. Sometimes we went to the mountains. There we saw lakes, and sometimes we saw animals.

One day when we went into a cave on a glacier. We looked up and saw many icicles hanging down about four feet long. It was very cold in the cave but it was so beautiful. That was just one of many glaciers in the park.

We worked five days a week. Saturdays and Sundays we had off. Every day we stopped our work at 4 pm and every two weeks we had dancing. They brought many girls by buses. We worked hard but also had good times by the end of the week.

One day I was going from the barracks to the kitchen when a grizzly bear was coming out of the bushes. I tried to scare him but he started to walk toward me instead. I didn't wait one second. I ran as fast as I could toward the barracks which wasn’t too far and in two seconds I ran into the closest one. I called it a "close call." We were about 30 miles from the province of Alberta, Canada. We used to go to a town named Cardston and rent horses for a ride from the Indians called the Black Foot. Pay days came once a month. We got $30.00 a month. They gave us $8.00 in silver coins. Our family received $22.00. In those days that was a lot of money. The depression was still going on and since nobody made a good salary, everything was very cheap. Imagine cars like Fords, Buicks and other brands about $400, compared to today's prices.

In those six months I spent in Montana, I learned a few things and made a lot of friends. From where we stood, we could see a high mountain called St. Mary’s. Looking up you saw what looked like a woman laying down on her back and looking up to the sky. In another mountain, there is a lake they say is about 200 feet deep.

How I Lost My Finger

It must have been the year 1937, I’m not too sure, but I started to work in a restaurant and after a month, I was preparing some ground meat for hamburgers. Before I started, my boss told me that I should use a carrot to push the meat into the machine. I did as he said, but the carrot went too far, enough to get my right pointer finger in the blades. I pulled my hand out but not before one third of my index finger was caught in the blades. From there I had to go to the hospital. They had to operate on my index finger. I stayed about two weeks. Meanwhile, the Ringling Brothers Circus was in New York. I left my room for a checkup.

One of the trapeze men had an accident when he fell down and broke his leg and also his arm. He was going to be sent to the same hospital that I was.

My room was for two people so it had two beds. While I was away getting checked on, some men came to do something on one of the beds. They put some poles on the headboard and in the back. I figured that they did something so the wounded man could get on and off the bed. Well, when I returned from my checkup, I went back to my room. I was surprised when my bed was the one they fixed by mistake. For a second I was a little scared because I was wondering what they were going to do with me next!

When I was discharged from the hospital, my older brother changed my bandages for months until my finger began to heal. He was always there for me.

About two years later, my brother-in-law helped me to get a job as an elevator operator. I was working there until I got married. Two months after that I was drafted into the Army.