Bath Time for Grandpa

Edwin did not have an indoor tub until he was 5 or 6 when his father (Lamar) built on to the back of the house.  At his house, the girls got to go first so their hair could be rolled in rags for curlers.  He could remember his dad bringing in the wash tub and they would take baths in the kitchen.  Often they would have to wait for the hot water tank that was attached to the kitchen stove to heat up again.

(1935 Evelyn and Edwin Perkins)

Camping at Big Springs

One time the Perkins family rented a cabin at Big Springs.  The cabin had a screened in porch where Evelyn and one of her friends slept.  Lamar had hung up his fishing gear in the rafters.  The girls woke up and though that there was a man in the rafters.  You can imagine the fuss they made until Lamar came out and turned on the lights.

One morning while they were there, Edwin had slept in and the men went fishing without him.  He went out and found some wild strawberries instead.  He must have picked a gallon of them.  Louise talked to the woman who ran the nearby store and was able to talk her out of five pounds of sugar.  Louise didn’t have any ration stamps for sugar so she may have traded her some Avon products to get the sugar.  She always had her Avon bag with her.

(1946 Evelyn, Lamar, and Louise Perkins)

 

Milk Shakes and Sundaes

When Edwin was in high school he and his parents would go to the Green Lantern drive in for milk shakes.  It was right across from the ISU campus.  At the Green Lantern, they would bring out the shakes to you and put them on trays that hooked to the car window.  His favorite was root beer with an extra shot of root beer.  He later took Denece there and her favorite was the hot fudge sundae.  She never did like a milk shake.

(1951 Edwin Perkins and Denece Argyle)

Chicken Eggs

Rachelle Forschler Mendoza remembers visiting her Great Grandpa Lamar Perkins.  He raised chickens when he was living with Evelyn and Jim in Tyee, Idaho.  They were amazed when they would gather eggs and Aunt Evelyn cracked open one and it had an eyeball in it.  She cooked it anyways and Grandpa ate it with ketchup.  They thought it might have been the embryo beginning to form. Yuck!

(1995 Lamar Perkins)

 

(1995 The Forschler Family)

Working on the Railroad

Lamar Perkins worked for the Oregon Short Line. (O.S.L.)

They called the man who laid the track a gandy dancer because of the rhythm the hammer made on the spike.  It took eight to ten men to lay a mile a day.

Lamar worked as a machinist for the railroad.  He worked at the back house and round house to work on the engines.  During the war years, Lamar worked as an inspector.  He disliked that.

One time Lamar’s lunch pail came up missing.  About twenty years later a foreman said, “Lamar, here’s your lunch pail, what’s it doing on that engine over there.” It still had his name on it and someone else had been using it all that time.

When working at the railroad, the round house was the worst place to work.  It was usually smoky and dirty.  Cold in the winter and hot in the summer.  When he worked up in Ashton, they kept the engines running to keep the tracks clear of snow.  To turn the engine around they had a Y in the track.  It took a lot of room and time.

(1929 Elaine and Lamar Perkins, Ashton, ID)

 

(1929 Lamar Perkins)

 

(1945 Mack's Inn, Idaho, North of Ashton, ID)

Canal Water

Lamar always had a large garden and would water the garden with canal water.  A few days after watering, it was Edwin’s job to carefully check and make sure no morning glory weed got root in the garden. 

The court house used the canal water to water the lawn.  Edwin would go and pick up the minnows off the grass to go fishing.

 

 

(1940 Edwin Perkins)

 

(Pocatello Court House)

 

Selective Memory

Lamar used to tell Evelyn that she had selective memory.  He would ask her about this or that, and she would say “I don’t know.”

 

(1947 Lamar and Evelyn Perkins)

Kids with Kids

Louise and Lamar called Denece and Edwin, the kids with the kids, because they were so young when they first got married and started their family so young.

 

 

(1967 Elaine, Louise, Evelyn, Lamar, and Edwin Perkins)

 

 

(1969 Delbert, D.Ann, Edwin, Denece, Billy Joe, Edwinna, and Darlene Perkins)

 

 

Billy the Goat

When Edwin Perkins was young, his dad did not like dogs, so he had a goat.  Edwin caught the goat wandering around the neighborhood.  It was tame.  It was a white and brown goat that he named Billy.  Some mornings his Dad (Lamar Perkins) would wake him up to get the goat off the roof.  All Edwin would have to do is whistle and that goat would get right down.  He would pull a little cart and would do fine until he got started towards home, then he would run straight home. Max, a little neighbor, liked to tease it.   If Max got close, the goat would bunt him in the seat of his pants.

 

 

(1947 Edwin Perkins)

 

Beans at Hazleton

One year his (Edwin Perkins) Grandpa Frances grew beans out at Hazleton.  Lamar went out and got a truck full of bean vines.  They put a large canvas in the backyard to dry them.  When the vines were dry, they stomped on the vines and then they blew the chaff away with a vacuum.  They stored about fifty pounds of dry beans that year.

 

 

(1940 Edwin Perkins)

 

 

(1940 Frances Marion Perkins and Margaret Ann Southworth Perkins, and unknown)

 

 

(1945 Lamar Perkins)

 

Across the Dance Floor

Lamar Perkins met Louise Banks at a dance in Montpelier, Idaho.  He was on one side of the dance floor and she on the other.  She told a friend she’d like to meet him.  He saw her across the room and told a friend he’d like to meet her.  They were introduced and the rest is history. 

 

(1926 Lamar Perkins)

 

 

(1926 Louise Banks)

Lots of Apples

When Denece was expecting D.Ann (Denece Ann Perkins Butchart) in 1960, Louise and Lamar came out and saw the trees full of apples.  Mom had already done enough applesauce so she (Louise) made 50 apple pies and froze them.

(1960 D.Ann Perkins)

BANKS - PERKINS

Miss Louise Banks of Montpelier and Mr. La Mar Perkins also of this city left Saturday on No 25 for Pocatello where they were united in marriage.  The Bride is one of the popular young ladies of the Montpelier younger set, and the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. C. Banks (William Cornelius and Eliza Ann) of this city.  The groom is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Marion Perkins (Francis Marion and Margaret Ann) of Montpelier; he is employed in the O. S. L. (Oregon Short Line) shops.  The young couple will make their home in Montpelier.

 

 

Newspaper clipping from April 18, 1925

 

 

 

(1926 Louise and Lamar Perkins)

 

An Engagement

Excerpt from newspaper clipping seen below.

 

BANCROFT, Ida - Mr. and Mrs. Delbert K Argyle announce the forthcoming marriage of their daughter, Miss Denece Ann Argyle, to Edwin Perkins, a son of Mr. and Mrs. LaMar Perkins of Pocatello.

The wedding will take place Friday in the Logan LDS Temple.

The bridegroom, now serving with the U.S. Air Force, has been stationed at Denver.

The newlyweds will make their home in Denver following the wedding

 

(1952 Edwin Perkins and Denece Argyle)

Just Swinging Around

Edwin remembers making a rope out of twine in Boys Scouts.  He used it to make a rope swing which hung in the yard.  He and his friends used it until the roped had stretched and the rope was getting thin.  His father Lamar said they could not use it until they had someone test it.  So they waited for his Uncle D. R. Perkins (David Richard Perkins) to come by.  They had him test it.  The swing held him so they got to use it until they got into trouble for swinging so far out into the road that they would frighten the bus driver.

 

 

(1944 Boy Scouts)

 

A Trip to California

Frances Marrion Perkins took his son Lamar, who was five years old, on a trip to Gridley, California in 1910.  They went by wagon and it took three weeks.  They went to Gridley to pick up Agnes Caldwell Southworth (Frances’s mother in law) after the death of her husband, Chester Southworth III.  (Edwin Perkins remembers his father Lamar telling about the this trip.)  

(Abt 1894 Margaret Ann Southworth Perkins and Frances Marion Perkins)

Lamar Perkins Move to Neola

 Lamar moved with his family to Neola, Utah when he was a teenager.  While living there he and his brothers  were driving a wagon and they stopped and picked up some Indians who were tired of walking.  Lamar had learned how to speak their native tongue and when he heard them plotting to kill them so they could steal the wagon and horses Lamar invited them to get off. The family did not stay in Neola because the ground was alkaline and when they put water on the crops the gravel would rise up.  Lamar took Edwin and Evelyn to Neola one time.  He showed them the house and said the only thing that had changed was someone had painted the front door green.

 

(abt. 1926 Lamar Perkins)

Driving Around

In about 1938 when Edwin was 8 or 9 he was going to Montpelier, Idaho with his parents, Lamar Perkins and Louise Banks, his sister Evelyn, his Aunt Ethel, and his grandma Banks (Eliza Ann Tubbs).  They were driving through Georgetown when they came around a corner a horse drawn wagon was blocking the road.  Lamar drove through the wide irrigation ditch.  When the car came up out of the ditch the dust flew.  He remembers shouting "Good Lord, Aunt Ethel get off of me!" because in all the bouncing, she had landed on top of him.

 

(1937 Edwin, Evelyn, Elaine, and William Keith Perkins)

 

    (1938 William Edwin Banks, Eliza Tubbs Banks, and Vern Banks)