My father, Clyde had many jobs as a young man. Working in the field harvesting crops in Walla Walla (onions) and outside Portland picking strawberries when he was a teenager. He worked with his father and brother hanging wallpaper and worked in a gas station for a while and then joined the army when world war II broke out. In the war he was an auto mechanic and when he returned to the states he was a truck driver. He later learned to weld in the shipyards in Portland, along with both his parents and his brothers Ernie and Firman. He later moved to Benton City with his new wife, Mary Theresa Muffenbier and their two kids, Edward and Angela. He spent the rest of his working life as a welder and pipefitter until retirement. He never worked for any Hanford Contractors but worked for small contractors (JP Head Mechanical and Thompson Mechanical) through Local Union 598, Plumbers and Steamfitters. He was always a union man and a Democrat.
My Mother, Theresa, worked in the strawberry field as a young girl and later worked for White Stag, a clothing manufacturer. She went to work in the shipyards during the war. After marrying Clyde she stayed home and was a full time homemaker, as were most of her friends in those years. Late in life she got a job in a hotel as a maid when Dad had retired. That lasted about three days. She didn't like making all those beds!
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