TomWilson Biography byJodi Wilson
hotel rooms PortimaroAfter the Crash of 29 and during thestarvation and struggle to survive throughout the country, known as the GreatDepression, Thomas Wilson, Junior was born on April 2, 1937, without a doctor. This was very common because Eureka didnt have many doctors. When they didnt have any the community was attended by Flathead Valleydoctors either part time or in an emergency. Despite the conditions he was born under, Tom grew up to become ahealthy, hard working man who loves to play jokes on his friends and family. (History of the United States pages 538-551)
Tom started working at a young age. During grade school his chores were milking the cows, taking care of thecows and horses, and during the summer he helped his dad cut wood with a crosscut. This was before there werechainsaws. His dad would swamp themwith an ax and then buck them into 8 foot logs and then Tom skidded them with ahorse. It took skill andcooperation to use a cross cut and good sawyer tams were the ones who got thehighest wages. Using horses forskidding was very different than modern logging with high-powered machines. Prize draft horses were usually used because of their sizeand strength. Teamsters took verygood care of their horses. Theyoften worried more about their horses than about their fellow loggers. (The Story of the Tobacco Plains pages 223-233)
Tom got his second car by working for aguy for 3 days and he got $21 and a 1928 Chevy that took three days to getrunning. Part of the time duringthe summer he worked for John Frank Moore. He would help round up the cattle, vaccinate and brand them, and thendrive them for two days from where the state game ranch is now up Sutton. He also herded cows for Burt Row.
When he was 15 years old Tom quit school and went to work for one of hisneighbors, TB Finch. He sawed logsand ran cats and he did that until about 1991 when he had his first backsurgery. He had a hard time for awhile because you had to be 18 to work in the woods so he would work somewherefor three or four months and then his boss would find out he wasnt old enoughand then hed have to go find a job somewhere else. He also went to work for Fred King as a choker setter but when his bossfound out he was barely 17, he loaded Tom in the truck and took him to town. The boss would have gotten in a lot of trouble if something had happenedto Tom and he wasnt even old enough to be there. He also built old woods roads and skid trails in the Libby Dam area andon Gut Creek. He put in fire lineson the Burn and on Stone Hill when it burnt a long time ago. After his first back surgery he went to work driving a logging truck andthen he had to quit that because he had another back surgery in 1996 and hisdoctor told him had had to quit or he would end up in a wheelchair. Now he volunteers a lot at Head Start and he helps out his youngestdaughter Alice Letcher with getting fire wood and this past fall he helped hertear down and build a new deck around her house. In the winter he brings out his pickup with the plow on the front and heplows out peoples driveways and stuff like that. Last summer him and Alice coached a t-ball team that had his fouryoungest grandkids on it. (SecondInterview 12-17-00)
When their parents were gone one dayTom and his brother Robert and his sisters Mary, Mattie, and Julia put ropesaround the necks of a couple of 2 or 3 year old steers and then they hooked themup to an old dump hay rake and took them out through the field until they gotgoing too fast and the tongue of the hay rake bounced up and the steers ranaway. When Tom and one of hisfriends Johnny Beckstrom were in the 6th or 7th grad they were at the school andthey saw their principles Ford convertible parked outside the school. The keys werent in it so they kicked it out of gear and then rolled itbehind some pine trees so that he would think it was stolen. Another time they were helping the janitor at the school and they knewthat the 1st grade teacher would always flop down into her chair after she gother class all seated. So theyadjusted the spring in the chair so that the back of it would tip back like arecliner and when she flopped down in it she tipped back and her feet went up inthe air and she went shooting across the room. So at the end of the day she told them there was something wrong with herchair and she was wondering if they would try to fix it. So they readjusted the spring and the teacher said, Boy you two suredo know a lot about this chair. Butthey wouldnt confess so they didnt get in trouble. One day Tom and another of his friends Keith Williams were in the officerunning out tests on an old menangraph machine and one of their teachers fromChicago came in and was giving them a bad time and telling them that theywerent doing it right so they took him down in the middle of the office anddepantsed him and were going to throw his pants out the window onto the frontlawn but another teacher came in and they had to let him up.
Tom also told all of his grandkids that the reason he only had part ofone finger was that Grandma had eaten it because he didnt bring any grocerieshome, when really hed lost it in a machinery accident.
Another time he was working for BobClarke down by the Reservoir and Tom and Alan Garrison pulled up and picked upDutch Truman and they saw that the cat was parked and that Clarke was working onit. He somehow managed to knock thescrewdriver loose that was through the link of the chain that was holding thefuel tank when he was rummaging around in the hole. So the fuel tank was kind of laying on him and his head was down in thehole so he couldnt see they were standing right in front of him. So Tom said, Alan, it looks like Dutch broke down, we might just aswell go home. And then Clarkestarted screaming and yelling because he thought they didnt see him and thatthey were all going to go home and leave him there for the night. When really they were all standing there trying not to laugh too loud. (First Interview 10-4-00)
But even though he loves to play jokesand is known as a bit of a prankster, he has also been a hardworking man for hisentire life. This fact has been proven by him saying that one of the worstdays of his life was the day he found out he couldnt drive truck any more. He continues to keep himself busy by running Jessica and Alan (his 5 yearold grandchildren who have lived with him and his wife Betty since their daddied in a boating accident along with their uncle, Jim Letcher and their cousin,Bob Blonshine, in April of 1996) to school, practice, plays, and friends housesas well as volunteering his time to drive the Head Start bus and work in theclass room or dress up as Santa Clause. Healso goes to Canada and spends time with his two youngest grandchildren Jose, 5and James, 4. Hes always on therun going somewhere even if its just to go visit friends. Although he is always plotting ways to make a joke or scare some poorunsuspecting person he works hard at whatever he does.
FirstInterview, 10-4-00, Eureka, MT
SecondInterview, 12-17-00, Eureka, MT
ThomasV. DiBacco, Lorna C. Mason, Christian G. Appy, The History of the United States, , Copyright 1991, Boston, MA
DanMcDonald, The Story of the Tobacco Valley Country, published in 1950 byThe Pioneers of the Tobacco Plains Country
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