Author: Ronald Guenther
Written: October 13th, 2013

We left pop’s family in Idaho. After the school year ended, the whole family headed down to New Mexico, to Pinos Altos, where the map said you had to go in to get the the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine. They arrived about a month before the expedition was to start. Grandpa Sam at the behest of the local ruler of the town, constructed a city park. Pinos Altos was at the time a company town, a mining town, but it was mainly silver and some other minerals. Silver City was close by and that was the area made famous by Billy the Kid, a no-goodnik from Brooklyn called William Bonney, who was later killed by another no-goodnik called Pat Garret. Grandpa Sam after completing high school had studied outdoor landscape architecture. My understanding which may be wrong was that he was apprenticed to a nursery outside Chicago for two years. At any rate, this was the only time that he used his training. Pop always wanted to go there to see if the park was still there, but somehow, he could not emotionally bring himself to go there. I had always hoped that Brother Rich and his family would head over there some day and see if that park were still in existence, but so far, they have not gone. At any rate, by the beginning of July, the expedition was ready and they headed into the hills. Berchion and Noma had to take care of Grandma Alice. She was noticeably failing by this time and so pop had to go. He had just turned twelve. They had to carry all their own things including food and on top of that, pop had to carry a big Dutch Oven. He thought that was a little too much to be expected of him, but grandpa was a hard task master. He was really a hands on father, that means, he had his hands on the seat of the pants of any of the children who crossed him and pop had had that kind of discipline before and so he carried in the Dutch Oven.

I once asked each one of the children what grandpa was like and never got a straight answer. Aunt Berchion just said he was the meanest man who ever lived, which says nothing, really and cannot be true. I asked my own father and he said, grandpa was his father and he loved him, which really also said nothing. When I asked Aunt Noma, she became very thoughtful and just said ” He was a strange fellow, he was a strange fellow.” Once I remarked in the course of a conversation to pop that his father, Grandpa Sam, was in heaven, and pop just blurted out, “No, he ain’t!” So, this is what I was able to find out.

At any rate, the group trooped in. They did find a couple of the landmarks shown on the map, but the map was a fake. As I said before, grandpa had gold fever and he was swindled a number of times when it came to gold. He bequeathed to pop about a bushel basket full of mining stock. Once mom took the stock to a stock broker and asked about it and the stock broker said it was all worthless and the companies, some of which had actually existed and others which had not, were long since bankrupt and so the stock was simply thrown out.

So, anyway, they trooped around and trooped around, fending off flies, picking up poison sumac, avoiding rattle snakes, sweating and being miserable for about a month and then marched back out again. They had nothing to show for the whole venture except frustration. But they also found Grandma to be very, very sick. So, they headed back home to Cheney. It was a horrible time. Her sickness was never diagnosed. The children missed a lot of school, they were out of school more than they were in school. They were frightened. Grandma tried to keep up her normal good spirits, but it was getting more and more difficult. Finally, it was clear that hope was about at any end and so they took her to the hospital in Spokane for treatment. To be continued.

Pinos Altos