Jack Haines

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Biography

The 1940 US Census lists Jack and Agnes Haines as living in Tracyton, Kitsap County, WA.

John Launer Lupton Haines was born in Republic, Washington on April 1, 1902. His two older sisters were 10 and 11 years old at the time. His parents, Alvin and Maggie (Launer) Haines had come to Okanogan County, Washington by covered wagon in 1900 to take up a homestead in Aeneus Valley. Little Johnny was a very loved, happy little boy growing up there on the ranch and attending the Rupert School on the other side of the valley. He mentioned the time the house caught fire. The chimney came apart. He threw snowballs at the fire to put it out. His mother gathered snow and brought it in. He said church was held in the schoolhouse. He said they had Sunday school in the schoolhouse, church also, and his uncle Oliver was the preacher; but he also said church was not important, just a place to meet and get together with the neighbors.

In 1917-18, during the first World War the family moved to Bremerton where Alvin worked at the Navy Yard. According to the 1920 census, Alvin and Maggie were living at Bremerton Ward 3, Kitsap County, Washington with their son Jack, who was 17 years old. Jack started work as a machinists helper there at the Navy Yard, and after six or seven months, he applied and was accepted into a four-year machinist apprenticeship program. He later told me that he had wanted to join the Navy, but his mother talked him out of it.

After he put in his time at the Navy Yard, he went to Raymond and worked for Pete Thompson. Pete owned Pacific Grinding and Machine. Jack’s folks (Alvin & Maggie) went to Pacific County first and rented a house on “Snoose Hill” (Eklund Park) right across the street from the Michaelson’s. Agnes Michaelson and Anna Hansen were walking down the hill to catch the streetcar into town one day when Jack came by in his new 1923 Essex and stopped to give them a lift. Shortly before he died, my father answered my question about how he met my mother with “I stopped to give her and Anna Hansen a ride to town.” I asked him what he did then, and he said, “I kept her.” “She was a pretty good-looking gal.”

After that Agnes, who was very beautiful and quite popular, never would see any of the local boys that she had grown up with. My grandmother told me years later, that when some young man would come to the door to visit her, she would run upstairs and hide, telling her mother to say that she was not at home. But when my father came to the door, Grandma would call up to her, saying you can come down now Agnes, its Jack. They drove to the neighboring city, Raymond, and eloped on October 8, 1924. Years later, Aagot, who was like a sister to Agnes, said she went home and cried when my Grandma told her that Agnes and Jack had eloped.

The following is excerpted from an Aug, 1988 personal interview with Jack when he was 86 years old and living in a mobile home park just north of Corvallis, Oregon.

“The folks left the girls with their old folks in Oregon and took a wagon train to Aeneas. Lucille and Irene came later with Grandma and Aunt Anna when they came and filed for a homestead. (Lucille's son, Bob Rose, said later that his mother and Irene traveled to Wenatchee by train, and then to Okanogan by horse and wagon).

They lived in a tent the first winter, part of it anyway. The homestead was about 20 miles from Tonasket. If you took off from Tonasket, there was no Tonasket then. . . . but where you head towards Republic or Aeneus. . . the farm was on the road there in Aeneus Valley. . . 160 acre homestead. . . I think he took up an additional 160 acres later. It was about 25 miles by the shortest road from where we lived to republic. By the main road it was about 35 miles. The short road was pretty rough going, up over the hill (probably the Cape Labelle road). It was five miles to the Post Office at Anglin, a little country store, and about 10 miles the other way to the Post Office at Aeneus. They had some groceries, but we didn’t buy much there. Too expensive. Somebody usually went to town about once in two months to bring back a whole load of groceries. We had our own meat and vegetables. We salted and kegged the meat in the summertime, and made bacon and stuff like that. In the winter we just hung it out and let it freeze.

At first, the folks had to go to Wauconda for the mail, but later they got a Post Office at Anglin, and then another one at Leece, and we got mail delivered. They made a stage run from Aeneus to Leece. Leece was about half way on the road around to Republic, about six miles from home. On the other side, it was about five or six miles to Aeneus. There were two Post Offices way out there in the country. The stage ran three times a week, so we had to put up mailboxes. Later they ran the stage every day.

We had one neighbor about 3/4 mile, maybe half to 3/4 on their line right across the valley. We were on one side of the valley, and they were on the other. To drive there, we had to go a mile and a half because the road went down and around. They didn't want roads out through the middle of the field. There was a rocky ridge there, too, and a couple little lakes in between. It was kind of a primitive life. I enjoyed it. I liked to go to town, but when I got there I was always anxious to come back.

Ralph Sneed married my cousin Lilly Haines. Lilly's dad was, Oliver, a preacher. He later bought a sawmill which he moved around to six or seven different places over the years. Oliver was Dad's brother. They had another brother, Edward, in Forest Grove, Oregon. I think he was a banker. (He was part owner of The Haines and Bailey Bank and also an Oregon State Senator) Then they had a sister, Anna. She came to Aeneus Valley with her mother, and took up a homestead on Mt. Anne. They were up on the side of the mountain, just about at the timberline. My folks came out first in a covered wagon and took up a homestead. In the next year or two, Aunt Anna and Grandma came. Then Ollie came out and took one right next to Anna and Grandma. Then, when I was probably about 7 or 8 years old, Uncle Ad (Adam Launer) came out and took up a homestead next to us. He was married, but not working at it. He had two daughters that also came out. Jan was about my age. They were all pretty religious. (The Launers had been circuit riders in Illinois, and the Haines's were descended from 260 years of unbroken quaker heritage.) My dad didn't use tobacco, didn't drink whiskey, didn't drink beer, and he knew the bible by heart - learned it at home.

Our house was in the valley where the creek came down. There were rock cliffs all around. A big flatland broke out right there at the house from a hundred feet to 2 or 3 hundred yards wide . . . big flat . . . miles in all directions, right on the edge of the timber. It was a big house, about 20 by 30, and two stories high. There was an upstairs that never did get all finished, kind of a junk room up there. The house was made out of hand-hewn logs, and the roof was of hand made tamarack shakes that were debarked and driven in with a fro. Dad went to Republic or Wauconda and bought doors, windows, and casings for them. The raft was all tamarack poles, and the walls were tamarack logs faced on the inside and outside, but still round where they were laid together, and then dobbed up with mud. In later years, we built a front porch, and had lumber for that. There was no fireplace, I always wanted a fireplace, neighbors all had fireplaces. We didn't. There was no brick, had to go hunt flat rocks and put them together with mortar if you wanted a fireplace. The house was heated with a big old kind of a stove that was about half way between being a modern stove and an old-fashioned barrel stove. Later they got a kitchen range.

Right back of the house was a great big woodshed. I say great big because it looked big to me. It was never finished . . . just had a roof on it . . . we piled wood in there. We got the years wood in the wintertime . . . nothing else to do then. little Johnny, HE WORKED when we did that.

The barn was about seventy-five to a hundred yards from the house. It was big, had stalls for twelve horses and a couple of walkways. It had two wings coming out and down this way, but they stacked the hay on the other side, over that was a big high shed, open all around. That was the hay shed. Opposite the hay shed was the corral. The barn was hay on one side and logs on the other three. The barn was probably 25 by 50, I'm not sure. Well, if the barn was 50 feet wide, the hay shed must have been 50 feet long, and probably 30 feet wide. It was built out of fir logs, the rest was tamarack. Dad cut the trees and hewed the logs. He was helped by Frank, who lived with them at the time, Frank Hinrich. He was my buddy when I was a kid. I used to go over to Frank's place and help him around the farm, or hunt groundhogs. He didn't live too far, but there was two lakes in the way, so I couldn't go straight to get there. I had to go around one lake and then the other to get to his place. Frank put in crops, then worked out someplace because that was the only way to get money. He didn't have much livestock, a team and a saddle horse. I don't remember if he had a cow. Frank's real name was Julius, Julius Hinrich. He liked my older sister. He probably would have married her, but he died.

We had about 40 head of horses, raised them to sell, from colts up to full grown, most of them unbroke. Had about 50 head of cattle, dealt in horses and cattle both. They fed out in the field all winter. We'd load a wagon up with hay, go out in the field and throw it off while driving. Had a big circle out there, all the stock would go out there and eat, horses and cattle both. I had pictures of it. A guy moved in one year, a photographer, took pictures of it all. His name was Ness.

The creek came down right half way between the house and the barn . . . had a board to get across the creek. It was a creek only in the spring when the snow was running off for a while, and then it dried up. We had to pack water from a long way up the creek. The Old Man went up the creek and dug a hole up there. We didn't get water out of the creek, it was more like a well. Every so often the water would go down, and we'd have to dig it deeper. It was  about ten feet deep at the last. He built it up and covered it over the top. There was no road to the well, just a trail. Nearly a quarter mile I had to carry drinking water. Dad made a yoke to go over my shoulders. I carried two water buckets first, I was pretty young. . .later two five gallon cans centered and balanced. They bought coal oil in five gallon cans. He'd cut the top off and put a handle in the middle to carry it. He'd take some handle, like a shovel handle, cut so it just fit in there. . .set it down just inside the can, and drive a nail in each end, and hooked it up to balance on the ends of the yoke with a stop, a notch. Couldn't fill the cans because of the handle set down in the can . . . I could carry ten gallons, probably only about four to four and a half in each can when I got back to the house. I'd lose it beyond that because with the handle down in the can, I couldn't fill them clear full. That was just house water.

For wash water we went to the lake, hauled water in two 50 gallon whiskey barrels on a wagon or a sled or whatever. We'd back the wagon right back into where the water came up to where we could stand by the barrels and dip buckets of water to fill them. Then we had a canvas to put over each barrel, and a hook big enough to go down on each side to lock the canvas in place. We'd get back with about 100 gallons of water. We'd do that about once a week or so. In winter time we melted snow. Drinking water always had to be carried from the spring. Many of the people used lake water for drinking too. We was "fussy" I guess.

We had other buildings on the farm, a barn, and a cellar which we later turned into a hog pen. The original cellar was out by the barn, quite a ways from the house. It was logs laid-up, high on the front then stepped down. . .cut logs off in steps and boarded up the back. It was built above ground out of logs with the bark still on. The cellar built later wasn't too far from the house, about 100 feet. It was made out of big flat rocks. There wasn't much in it, stuff always froze every winter. It had three doors, that were just big enough to walk in and out. Inside was hundreds of fruit jars on shelves, and bins on the ground for potatoes and vegetables. It had a dirt roof. It was a separate building, about 15 by 20. We could stand up in it.

We put up ice in the wintertime when the ice on the lake was two feet thick. We cut it into two-foot squares and stored it in a little log icehouse that we had back there. We used sawdust in the icehouse for insulation. There was a mill someplace in Wauconda where they got the sawdust.

Garden time. . .hoeing the garden, haying. I shocked hay out in the field when it was 120 degrees. The garden was big. I had to wear a hoe out on that damn garden. We had a cultivator that took most of the work out of it. Hooked it up with one horse and go between the rows. . .just drug it between the rows. The cultivator prongs didn't go around. It was built narrow enough to go between two rows without digging the plants out. It had a little shovel here, two here, three here, probably about four would be wide enough. You built the garden to fit your cultivator.

Quite a bit of the time, the Old Man worked out, and then I was the head farmer. He had a half-interest in a threshing outfit. In late summer and fall him and his partner was out over the country running the threshing rig. They cruised miles around the country to thresh farmer's grain. So when the Old Man was gone, little Johnny went to work. I had to take care of the place. Mama could do as well as I could, and my two big sisters. Either of them was just as good as a Mama to me. I loved Irene, she baby-sat with me, Lucille was crankier, but Irene never was. She loved little Johnny. When I wasn't doing chores, I found lots to do. I used to play with a bow and arrow quite a bit. The old man made me my first bow, so I knew how to do it. Killed quite a few groundhogs, grouse, and a lot of birds with a bow an arrow. At one time I had a whole quart jar of rattlesnake rattles. I used to find them laying around the place. I got my first saddle horse when I was five, had a helluva time to put the saddle on. The saddle weighed more than I did.

I learned to milk the cow when I was about six or seven. Later, about 1910, the folks bought a cream separator, then I would feed the calves. Before that, when we milked the cows, we'd leave one or two teats and let the calves finish it up.

The back part of the place wasn't fenced. We turned out the milk cows. They would be sometimes a mile and a half from home, and I'd have to go round them up and drive them in. Sometimes on horseback and sometimes I'd walk. I had a saddle horse pertnear all the time, but I didn't mind walking. I usually had a pretty good idea where to go to find them, because they'd get to working in a territory and they'd keep working back. They wouldn't be far away from where they were yesterday.

The old man got me a 22 when I was about five years-old. He started me out with a box of shells, fifty bullets. In the beginning I had to bring in five or six dead animals that I killed to show him. I'd shoot anything that was alive, bring them in to show to him, then I'd throw them to the hogs. The hogs learned to like them. I had to keep shooting more animals to get more shells, finally it got up so high I couldn't keep up anymore. Then I'd have to work for a box of shells. Seems like I worked up to fifteen, and never got beyond that. The reason for that, it wasn't me so much, but the groundhogs would sit right at the head of the hole. Wouldn't make any difference how dead you killed them, they'd go down the hole. You couldn't get em, so I couldn't bring em in. Mostly groundhogs. We couldn't raise anything on the place without killing the groundhogs. They'd go around the edge of the field and dig their den, a hole to live in. Pretty soon there was a big space all around the hole that was all eat off. I also had four dozen steel traps that I made the rounds of every day to take the groundhogs out of. I'd feed them to the hogs, and pretty soon the hogs got full and wouldn't eat any more. I lived in Okanogan then, it was a different life, it wasn't too bad, a pioneer life.

There was lot's of grouse and lot's of ducks too. I killed lot's of ducks later. At that stage I didn't shoot the Old Man's shotgun, it was pretty rough. But later though, I learned to shoot the shotgun. I used to go down to the lake and kill ducks.

I think I was about ten or eleven when I killed my first deer. That was a big day in the world. I went back and got a saddle horse to bring it in. I had a little trouble loading it on the horse, but I finally got it on there.

We always had two or three dogs. The dogs paid their way. They would help when we drove the stock anywhere, and they were hell on groundhogs. We always had cats, too.

The schoolhouse was back up against the hill on one side of the valley, and our ranch was back up against the other side. It wasn't too far from the folks' place, on the flatland of the valley, just across the valley and up a little, about three-quarters of a mile from the house. There were two lakes in between, and I walked around one lake to school. Didn't have to, could have gone straight. But we had a trail from the house and barn down to the lake to lead all the livestock down there to water twice a day, in the morning and at night, and we would walk down that trail to get to school.

The schoolhouse was made out of logs. Had casings made of boards around the windows and doors. It was about 20 by 50, one room big enough to handle forty kids. Never had that many, seems like only about twenty to twenty-five. The roof was shakes, and the desks were home made, about so wide, long enough for two kids on each side, like a table. The benches were nailed to the floor, couldn't move them. We used tablets and a slate, no fountain pens. It had a great big pot-bellied stove. I liked school for the company, was always anxious for school to start and anxious for it to quit, too. (This was the Rubert School, the first in the valley. Jack's mother, Maggie Haines, and his uncle, Adam Launer, were among the first teachers there.)

We didn't see many people, not many neighbors. Homesteads were 160 acres, and they didn't always run together. Seems like they had maybe a mile between. There was the Edwards' right across the creek from us. They had twelve kids. And about a quarter mile from their place, up by the log school house where I went to school were the Ruberts. Some of the kids, the Sneeds, rode horseback seven miles to go to school. I think they were the farthest. There was more, they all rode horseback. It looked like a stockyard out there where they picketed out their horses around the schoolyard.

My sisters went there in the beginning, but there was no high school in the valley, so they boarded with a family in Republic and went to high school there. I went to Omak to high school, and I boarded with a family named Johnson and another family I can't remember the name of. After that I went to Bremerton where the Old Man was working in the Navy Yard.

This was during World War I, and you could get a job there. I worked as a helper for a while, and then applied for apprenticeship. I served four years as an apprentice machinist, and lived with the folks for a while, then boarded out when they left Bremerton. I played football at the Navy yard for six years, and loved it. I mostly played end on the Navy Yard Apprentice team, but I could play any position where they needed someone. I didn't miss many practices, so I knew most positions. We played some Junior Colleges.”

Jack belonged to the Machinists Union, and worked at several machine shops, among which were the Navy Yard in Bremerton where he had served his apprenticeship, Pacific Grinding and Machine in Raymond, Rayonier in Hoquiam in 1937, and in the 1940s, during World War II, at Lamb Grays Harbor in Hoquiam. In 1950, he moved his family to Philomath, Oregon, where he purchased in partnership with Glen Layton, an established machine shop, from the widow of Roy Layton, Glen’s father, and Jack’s previous employer. He had worked for Roy at his GILMORE GAS STATION in Elma, Washington in 1931-2. The H&L Machine Works and the duplex in which the owners and their families lived, was located on the highway between Corvallis and Philomath, Oregon. They lived there until some years after Agnes died in 1974, when Jack sold the business and moved to a mobile home in a park north of Corvallis. He lived there the rest of his life, dying in January, 1989, at age 86.

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Jack Haines, 86, a former Grays Harbor resident, died Sunday at a" nursing home here. ' He was .born April 1, 1902, at. Republic, Wash. . He lived for- many years on Grays Harbor, working as a machinist. In 1924,:he married Agnes Michaelson in Raymond. He moved to Philomath, Ore., in 1950 where he owned and operated the Haines & Layton Machine Works for several years. ,L~ Mt~. he sold_the bUl>j!!e~s~h~ 'rcontinued to operate machinist . shops In" Philomath for several more years. He retired in the late 1960’s. His wife.died in 1974 and he moved to Corvallis in 1981. Haines was an avid outdoorsman, enjoying hunting and fishing. He was also a past member of the machinist union. Survivors include two daughters, Donna Daly of Hoquiam and Nada Rhodes of Corvallis; fifteen grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren. A son, Ted Haines, died in 1974. A memorial service will be announced at a later date. Private burial will be at Menlo Cemetery at Menlo. Arrangements are by DeMossDurdan Garden Chapel, 815 N. W. Buchanan Ave., Corvallis, 91330. ,

In a little book by Jim DeSautel, titled “Chips” and Slivers 30 Years of Logging Recollections, pub;ished in Philomath, Oregon by the Randle Publishing Company in 1980, on pages 58 and 59 is the following:

EVEN STEPHEN

Jack Haines lent a boat to a “friend.” The boat became lost in the shuffle and Jack’ed spent several years in trying to get it back or at least be reimbursed for the value of it. No dice. Fred Knudson was in the same predicament over a television set he’d lent to the same sort of “friend.” Jack and Fred were commiserating over this one day, when all of a sudden a bright expression crossed Haines’ face. He said to Fred, “Say Knudson, I’ll tell ya what I’ll do --- I’ll trade you MY boat for YOUR television set!” Fred, quick as a flash, came back, “It’s a deal!” They solemnly shook hands over this nebulous swap. A good laugh can sometimes be had about nothing. 

DESPOTISM?

Jack Haines tells this on an ex-professor and now timber owner. This manipulator of things put his son-in-law into partners with a mill owner as an officer in the company, although he’d no previous sawmill experience. I don’t know who or what the professor had caught the mill owner sleeping with. This despot, Jack claims, said he’d make an industrialist out of his son-in-law if it took every dollar he had. Every dollar of the mill owners, that is.

Sources

• Personal interview and knowledge of Jack's daughter, Donna Haines Daly.