Memoirs of a Model-T Mechanic
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MEMOIRS OF A MODEL-T MECHANIC The story of George Charles Bernard (1886-1975), Butte County rancher and early-day automobile mechanic in the town of Deadwood, South Dakota. by Harry Edmond Bernard (1918-2006) Copyright © 1987 by Harry E. Bernard All rights reserved Transcribed into Adobe PDF Format 2012 by Jon M. Bernard TO MY GRANDCHILDREN When you are grown up (age sixteen or so) and are highly educated, and know almost everything there is to know about human nature and the complex, amazing world you live in, pick up this book and get acquainted with your Great Grandpa George Charles Bernard. I think you will find him to be very interesting. You will also learn something of your Great Great Grandfather Pierre Ulric Bernard, and just a smidgen about your Great Great Great Grandfather, Ulric Ubald Bernard. Let's hope you will think it's GREAT reading. You'll probably exclaim, "Where did they get those goofy names!" Gramps, 1986 A NOTE FOR OTHERS WHO MAY BE EAVESDROPPING Originally I was certain that this work would fascinate the world. Thus you will note that I wrote it as if all humanity would be storming bookstores for copies. However, after the manuscript was reviewed by a couple of bright but overly honest nephews, I have decided to keep it all in the family. As one nephew put it with utmost tact: "Gee, Baldy, if the reader doesn't come from Deadwood, he may be unable to relate to a lot of your B.S." The other observed, more respectfully: "It ain't commercial, Uncle Harry. Why there's hardly a speck of sex in the whole thing." But family members and friends just might overlook this blunder and be pleased anyway. If you are, reward me by telling me so; if you aren't, pretend you never received a copy -- I can’t stand much more honesty. H.B, 1986 2 BEFORE CRANKING HER UP Perhaps you have heard of Dakota Territory and one of its famed old mining towns, Deadwood. If so, it is a fair bet you have also heard of some of Deadwood's gilt edge characters, like Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Preacher Smith, Poker Alice, Potato Creek Johnny, Seth Bullock, and maybe even Swill Barrel Jimmy. But I'll lay you odds that you've never heard of Frenchy Bernard. Frenchy (or George, as he was mostly called) never made history. If he had been the crack shot who got his skull blown off while playing poker in Saloon No. 10, you'd have heard of him. But he wasn't that lucky. Or let's say he was merely the stinkin' varmint who gunned down Wild Bill. You'd have heard plenty about Frenchy Bernard -- but unfortunately Frenchy had no talent as an assassin. If he had set out from Deadwood Gulch armed only with a King James Bible to preach to Crook City sinners, and end up face down on a pine-scented trail, you'd not only have heard about him but there'd be a monument to him, right near the spot where (as history assumed) a bloody Ind-eye-an gunned him down. But, alas, Frenchy was a Catholic layman, not a Methodist preacher. He never had the dumb luck, like that pint-sized Potato Creek Johnny, to gaze into his gold pan and see the sun glinting off the largest nugget ever washed out of a Black Hills stream. He was never elected town sheriff like Seth Bullock was. Even when he ran for Alderman from Fourth Ward, he lost by a whisker. So, if you've not heard of my Dad, it's because historically he didn't amount to doodely-do. Come to think about it, have you ever run across an automobile repairman in a U.S. History book? He is gone now, but I tape-recorded many of the fascinating yarns he spun in his 80’s, the same yarns you will be "hearing" as you read on. Most of the tapes were made while we played cribbage at the kitchen table. Usually he knew when I started up the recording "contraption", then promptly forgot about it. Had he suspected he was speaking to posterity, he no doubt would have omitted a few episodes and purified his language for the ladies. Well, Dad it's too late for that now. All right, I'll disguise a few names and locations for you just to protect the guilty, but I'm letting the cards lay pretty much as you dropped them. And if I get any complaints I'll forward them you at Oak Ridge Cemetery. Fair enough? Harry Bernard Roulette, PA. 3 PARTS DEPT 1. My Boyhood in Deadwood . 5 2. The Jefferson Years . 19 3. Vermillion, Lead, and Valley Junction . 38 4. The Rancher's Apprentice . 53 5. A Ranch of My Own . 67 6. Model-T Mechanic . 86 7. BERNARD & GERBER . 110 General Automobile Repairing 8. Dusty Destinies . 132 9. Fish and Quips . 143 10. The Sundown Years . 155 11. Road's End . 167 Photos & Other Material ............................................... 4 CHAPTER ONE MY BOYHOOD IN DEADWOOD Sure, Harry, I remember Swill Barrel Jimmy. You don't say! They got him in a book? Well I’ll be damned. I couldn't have been more than six or seven when I knew him. He used to get his grub by rummaging through trash barrels behind restaurants. Sometimes the cooks even set aside choice leftovers for him. He had a shack just a little way above Shea's Hardware. One day I was in his place, Harry, and you should have seen it -- from floor to ceiling it was piled up with shoe boxes and cartons, all containing a bite to eat: crusts of stale bread, half-rotted fruit, dried up cake. There was just enough clear floor space for his bed. And mice! My God, they were all over the place. But he didn't seem to mind the mice; they were his friends. He was a fine-featured old duffer, with a beard and long, delicate fingers -- I remember the fingers so well. One day his shack caught fire and burned plumb to the ground. I wish you could have seen the mice high-tailing it away from there! Our livery barn was close to his place, so after the fire he moved into our hayloft without bothering to ask. But Dad let him stay there until he found a better place, as long as he promised not to smoke. One bitter cold morning Dad went to see if Jimmy was all right and found him asleep, covered with an old quilt. When Dad lifted the quilt to check on him, there he was, naked as a worm, all curled up in old newspapers. He had made a nest for himself just like his mice did. It didn't take long for the do-gooders to take poor Swill Barrel under wing. The ladies decked him out in a swallow-tail coat, a stove-pipe hat and black leather gloves, and he cut quite a figure. No, Harry, I don't know what finally became of him, and I never knew his right name; all I ever heard him called was Swill Barrel Jimmy. 5 My father and mother ran a boarding house in the section of Deadwood that used to be called Elizabethtown, near the livery stable I was just talking about. It was called the “Farmers Home” because it catered mostly to farmers who drove wagons of produce to town. We'd serve them meals, and take care of their horses and oxen. Some of those ox teams hauled freight all the way from Ft. Pierre on the Missouri River, and when the teamsters had gotten rid of their goods and turned the teams over to us, they'd head up town and get powerful drunk. We lived at the rear of the house, separate from the boarding rooms and dining room. Aunt Minnie Rail and a couple other young girls worked for us, cleaning , waiting tables and the like, and believe me those gals were full of the Old Nick. One day when I was just a little shaver, they cornered me in a back room, stripped off my pants and drawers and tied a pretty ribbon on my thing-a-ma-jig. Then they opened the dining room door and trotted me in for all the customers to see. I sure never forgot that! You talk about interesting characters; we boarded a few. One was a French Canadian, a grubby old coot, who was married to two Indian squaws at the same time. They took turns coming to visit him, and by one he had all sons and by the other all daughters. It wasn't unusual in those days to see French Canadians with Indian wives. Do you remember that little history of Jefferson (South Dakota)] that my sister Regina sent us? Well there is an account about your grandfather and grandmother running the Farmers Home, but it is none too accurate. Calls it the "Farmers Hotel" and claims that some of their guests were Wild Bill, Calamity Jane, and the first Catholic bishop of South Dakota. That may be, but I sure don't recall any Wild Bill being there. [ I think I know why, Dad: he was in Boot Hill in 1876, ten years before you were born. ] It was at the Farmers Home that I began my career as a roughneck. It's a wonder I didn't turn out worse than I did, because I was influenced by some pretty crude galoots there.