Hard times along the Trinity River

The Trinity River crossing our Papoose Ranch dominated our lives.

Daddy and Mother bought the Papoose property in 1914. It was years later, though, before they moved us onto the ranch.

When Daddy became ill, doctors didn't know what was wrong. He moved us all to Trinity County where he was born and grew up.

Misfortune followed. A bad business partnership, a destructive crippling fire, ill health and large hospital bills ate up their small savings. At the beginning of the 1930s, The Great Depression found them broke.

I was 7 when we moved onto the ranch that lay across the river from the main road between Lewiston and Minersville. Our only access to the road, school, mail and people was a rowboat that my Daddy built.

We were subject to the river's vicissitudes. The Trinity was a young river, which meant its flows varied from gentle and mild to raging and wild, from riffles or smooth in the summer to swift and rough in the winter.

Daddy knew how to row. Mother had been on the Women's Rowing Crew at the University of California, so both were comfortable with the boat and the river. My oldest brother Herb was 10, Barry was 5, I was 7. We took to rowing like ducks take to paddling and swiftly became proficient oarsmen.

Then the dredging company, working its way up the river, wanted to dredge our place. Daddy and Mother didn't want the destruction of having the river and banks dredged, but agreed let them "float through," doing as little damage as possible. They were to pay Daddy a percentage of any gold recovered.

Mother was teaching school away from home. Daddy was in a hospital near Sacramento where the doctors finally diagnosed his illness as severe pernicious anemia. Neither Daddy nor Mother could be on hand to make sure the terms of the agreement were followed. The dredge company used their absence as carte blanche and dredged right through. I remember Daddy complaining that they broke their agreement.

Their digging made a mess of the river and its banks. They also didn't pay Daddy for any of the gold they mined. After the dredge dug past, the river was completely changed. Instead of level, smooth flowing water, shallow riffles, and sloping banks, there were huge deep ponds, a narrow rapidly flowing channel, cut banks and huge rock piles in the center of the river that split the river into two streams, both of which were rough, unsightly and difficult to maneuver past and around. Crossing provided us a daily adventure.