A series of pen sketches describing how some of Medford's well-known citizens climbed the first rung.


"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, August 30, 1921, page 3

"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, August 31, 1921, page 5

"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 1, 1921, page 3

"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 2, 1921, page 11

"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 3, 1921, page 3

"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 5, 1921, page 4

"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 6, 1921, page 4

    The first dollar I ever earned was picking prunes on the Stewart orchard. All the boys in town worked there, and Ralph Woodford rode his little pony and raced the rest of us coming and going from work. We started in at 6 a.m. and quit at 7 p.m. For the first week I devoured most of what I picked. I also gathered in a few nickels now and then washing bottles, and thought then if I ever collected enough of them I would start a drug store of my own.
"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 7, 1921, page 4

"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 8, 1921, page 4

"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 9, 1921, page 4

"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 10, 1921, page 4

"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 12, 1921, page 4

"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 13, 1921, page 4

"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 14, 1921, page 4

"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 15, 1921, page 10

    One Christmas me and my oldest brother, when we were about 10 years old, pestered our father until he gave us a dollar each for Christmas. When we got up, we found a sack of candy and a dollar in our socks, and we went right downtown and proceeded to spend it. About noon we showed up at home, and then came the bluest Christmas I had ever known. I had spent my dollar and had no toys to play with. I managed to get through the day all right, but after that I did not dictate what I was going to get from Santa Claus.
"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 16, 1921, page 4

"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 17, 1921, page 4

"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 19, 1921, page 4

    My first dollar was earned packing water for a contractor, who was plastering a school or a church, I have forgotten which. I had to work harder to get the dollar out of him than I did packing the water.

    The first dollar which I ever earned was back in Iowa. Near the town of Hawarden runs a slow, shallow river named the Big Sioux. We kids would sit all day on the dam and fish for bullheads. Ten pounds would sell for one dollar by peddling them among several customers. The dollar was well earned but would buy most anything a boy wanted in those days.

    I made my first dollar on the Platte River in '59. Another fellow and I found a sore-footed calf together and I sold him my interest in it for two dollars. A chum of mine owned a worthless pepperbox pistol with revolving barrels and I gave him the $2 for it. Upon reaching home my older brother and my mother learned of my purchase of the worthless pistol and told me that a fool and his money were soon separated. This remark made me feel so blue that I took my $2 pistol and threw it in the Platte River.

    I have forgotten whether I earned my first dollar turning an ice cream freezer in a restaurant in Nashville, Iowa, or killing and dressing fat hens for my mother, and selling them to traveling shows. When I worked in the restaurant, I received 25 cents per day, and all I could eat. I worked and ate very hard. Whenever a show came to town, I would decapitate a couple of the fattest hens we had, pick and clean them, and sell them to the actors, who were fond of chickens then as now. If it was a minstrel show, I nearly cleaned out the henhouse.

    I have a dim recollection of when I earned my first dollar, and a dimmer one about when I earned my last one. All I know about my first dollar is that it had something to do with a pitchfork. I am not sure, but I think that one of the neighbors ran out of hired hands, and I was drafted to help him out.

    The first dollar I ever earned was driving a sulky rake over a 100-acre wheat field in Wisconsin, gathering up the wheat. It was a good proposition, and I got all the wheat I raked up. My father gave it to me, also the use of a team and the rake. It was not very hard work, and I got 40 bushels of wheat, which I sold at a good profit. I was about 12 years old.

    The first dollar I ever corralled was for packing wood and water, sweeping out, and doing general work around a schoolhouse in Massachusetts where I was born. I received a dollar a week, and the directors admitted that I was overpaid, and hated like sin to let go of the salary, which was considered wonderful in those days. I always built the fire for the school ma'am, and at noon brought in a fresh drink. The next job I got was waiting table at college.

    I earned my first dollar like Fred Mears--building fires in a schoolhouse. I got six bits a week, but the schoolma'am was good looking. I was 12 years old. I would wade through a Kansas blizzard in my cowhide boots, and build the fire, and then take off my boots and dump the snow out of them. It would get colder than blazes, but I would have the schoolhouse like a bake oven by the time the teacher arrived. The fires were built out of coal and corncobs.

    When I was a boy about 12 years old in the big woods of Minnesota I happened upon my first dollar. I was a barefooted boy, and every night I went out into the timber and drove home the cows. I was going down the road, kicking up the dust, when I found a dollar bill. I picked it up and put it in my pocket, and before I could get home I lost it. I never found it, and I've never felt so bad about anything since. I was a man with whiskers and voting the Democratic ticket before I have a distinct recollection of getting ahold of another one.

    When I was a boy of six the county in which we were living was overrun with ground squirrels, on which there was a bounty of one cent paid for each squirrel, the tail being presented as proof of the deceased. The principal method used for catching them was to drown them out when irrigating; as my two uncles were running water over a large tract of land all that remained for me to do was to provide a short-handled shovel and go to work.
    All through the heat of the summer, and it gets some hot at Fresno, Cal., I worked, with the help of a dog who would run down those that I would miss with the shovel as they came out of the hole. I managed to kill a large number over a period of several months. At one time I made a rather serious mistake, for I had turned the water into what looked to be a very promising hole and in due course of time out walked a very indignant black-striped skunk who seemed to blame me for his recent wetting, and according to his beliefs and inclinations he proceeded to give me a truly good shower of his only means of defense before I had time to get out of the way.
    At the end of the irrigating season I cashed in the tails that I had collected and found that I had 121, which was $1.21. I kept the dollar for a long time before finally spending it.

    The first dollar I ever earned was driving a buck rake in Missouri, when I was about 12 years of age. I was working for a neighbor who ran out of hired men, and he gave me 50 cents a day. A boy did more work than a man but got less pay, because it as considered a bad example. After he got through he had to knock it out of his employer. All I had to do was to get up at four o'clock in the morning, slop the hogs, milk the cows, get in the wood, harness the mules, feed the chickens, and sharpen scythes before breakfast. After breakfast, while waiting for the dew to get off the grass I chopped some wood and washed the breakfast dishes. We worked all day, and as long as we were able to see the haystack. After supper, I did everything I did before breakfast. By stepping around lively I was able to get to bed by midnight. The farmer came out and woke me up at half past three and always wanted to know if I was going to stay in bed till noon. I worked till I had $7.50, and then spent the rest of the winter xxx the half dollars I was xxx

    I earned my first dollar in that awful winter of '81, when we had that terrible snowstorm. I was 16 years old, and had lived on a farm and didn't need the money. The snow fell four feet deep, and the Union Pacific was blocked, so was the Rock Island and Peoria, and everybody, men and boys, got out and shoveled snow so the people could get the Chicago papers. It was awful cold, and we wrapped gunnysacks around our feet and went out into the blizzard and shoveled snow till we had icicles on our eyebrows. The railroad ran through my Pa's backyard, and the engineer of the work train would stop right there so I could get off, after he let me ride in the cab. I liked him very much for doing that, and thought I was a big man.

    The first dollar I ever earned was selling papers and fruit in Los Angeles. We would sell two papers for a nickel that cost a penny, and make a good profit. For selling fruit I got two bits a day, and all I could eat. This early training developed lung power, for my present legal career, and [I] find it invaluable. Both consisted chiefly of yelling.

    The first dollar I ever earned was picking pie cherries in Illinois at a cent per pound. The pounds were large and the cherries small. By getting up at four a.m. a boy could pick 25 pounds a day, and I stayed with it till I had enough to buy a tin-plated watch. I was only 12 years old, and all the kids in town were my competitors.

    The first dollar I ever earned was stripping tobacco for my father back in Missouri. That was 79 years ago, when I was a boy of 10 years. The dollar was applied to a suit of clothes. Us boys did no fooling, and when we got ahold of a dollar we knew how and where we got it. We did not spend our money foolishly, but always spent it for something worthwhile. Our father made us work hard, so we would learn the value of money, and it did us no harm that I can see.

    The first dollar I ever earned was pulling weeds in a garden in Missouri when I was about 10 years old. I had a contract to do it, and it was a long hard job. In those days we had no fancy candy. I bought a dollar's worth of old-fashioned brown sugar, and liked to kill myself overeating.

    I earned my first dollar hoeing turnips on the Isle of Man, in the Orkney Islands, and received ten cents a day. I was eight years old, and all a man received then was a quarter a day if he was exceptionally strong and a hard worker. Four dollars a month was a big salary. Well, I hoped turnips one whole summer, and showed up in the fall broke. I spent my salary foolishly for candy and knickknacks, and my folks had no faith in me, for being such a spendthrift. The wind blows so hard in the Orkneys that if you are not careful it will blow money right out of your inside pocket.

    The first dollar I ever earned was helping to load a Great Lakes ship with copper, and I sure did earn it. After we dumped the ore in the ship we had to go into the hold and level off the cargo. When we got this done, I was so tired I could not climb up the ladder, and the bunch of Swedes I was working with went off and would have left me there if I had not put up an awful yell. This experience came close to breaking me of hard work.

    When I was about the age of mah boy Sonny, I went to work on a farm in Kansas, and got my dollar. In them days they didn't know anything about working eight hours, and I worked 15 to 18 hours a day and even washed the dishes for the hired girl, they was so 'fraid I might not be busy all the time. I fed 75 cows before breakfast. Sunday was a day of rest. I got up at four o'clock in the morning instead of three. I don't know what I did with the dollar, but I ain't got it now.

    The first dollar I ever earned was selling papers on the streets of Chicago when I was a very small boy. I howled in the bitter cold all day and the louder I yelled the fewer I sold. I finally wandered down into the "Loop district" and disposed of my wares at a good price. I bought candy with my profits.

    When I was 14 years old I went to work for a hard-boiled Connecticut farmer, with chin whiskers. All I got out of him was my board and room, but a circus came to town, and he gave me permission to pick blackberries for a neighbor to earn enough to go. I got a dollar from my neighbor, and when I got back my boss said:
    "How much did you get?"
    I told him a dollar. He then took it away from me, and bought himself a new pair of overalls. I was pretty mad about it at the time.

    When I was 11 or 12 years old, I earned my first dollar running all over town looking for a left-handed monkey wrench that a bunch of village barbers wanted. I gave up the search, and a kind old man engaged me to find a No. 12 posthole. I also fell down on this job and lost all faith in mankind when they had me searching for doughnut holes. The miserable wretches after pestering me all afternoon were troubled with their consciences and took up a collection which netted me $1, the first one I ever got ahold of.

    When I was a boy in Ohio I earned my first dollar. I ran away from home to come to Oregon and was going to peddle my way here. I had fifty cents. I bought four pair of nickel socks and some suspenders and started out. I doubled my money on the transaction. I stocked up again and started out anew, but grew homesick in a couple of days, and went back home at Troy, Ohio, to get something to eat, and start right for Oregon. I started out with my Sunday clothes under my arm, and when a mile or two from home took off my everyday clothes and hid them. I was never able to find them again. I was warmly welcomed on my return. I really think that most of the rheumatism I have every winter is nothing but lingering pain from it.

    The first dollar I ever earned was driving a hay derrick for my dad right here in the valley. I remember I got $4.50 together, and went to Roseburg. I spent $3.90 for a baseball mitt, but was still in as bad shape as I had no ball to catch in it. I went back to the hay derrick to eradicate this deficiency.