Life Story of FRANK JAQUETTE (Part I - 1920’s - early 1940’s)By Opal Jaquette

Born June 4th, 1922 to Charles Manning Jaquette and Aura Louise Smith Jaquette, fifth and final child born to this union. When Frank was two, all the family but his oldest brother, Fred, made a car trip from Grand Junction, Colorado to the Los Angeles area of California. Fred was left at home to keep the fruit trees sprayed. The family drove an Overland model touring car. It had two seats and likely a heavy cloth top. (This car was given to the war effort, so i never saw it). His dad had attached a wooden rack on one side of the car that held bedding and suitcases while they were moving; he must have attached a couple of legs to it, for it folded down and made a bed when they pulled over to the side of the road to stay overnight. At that time the roads were dirt and just trails (except for near and in the cities). Of course, Frank remembered nothing about this trip.

As a mom, I would have thought that this trip would have been a nightmare for Aura. A two-year-old baby, girls 5 and 10 and a 14 year old boy. His sister, Shirley, the five-year-old, said that her mom didn’t seem to mind. It was a camp out with not even a tent! Shirley, who is 88 now, said that Ed, the 14 year old, would start looking for rab-bits at about 4 PM. They would stop and he would catch one, and they would dress it out for the evening meal!

Shirley also said, that before they got to Aunt Alice and Uncle Ned’s house, her mom heated some water in a pie tin to wash her up a bit and it was so alkaline that it nearly took off her skin. She also mentioned that the older siblings wouldn’t let her sit in the middle when it was her turn, and she blistered her upper legs. They would find a bush for potty stops. I have no idea how long it took to make this trip, I just know that it was a hot trip going, and a hotter trip coming back. The story always ended with “Aunt Alice took a long time before she washed Frank’s little handprints off her back door”.

Frank bought a pair of ferrets. I do not know if he kept them long enough for them to have any kits. He made a little harness for them and

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tied a fish line to it, then he could let the ferret go down a rabbit hole to chase out the rabbit. Well, the string helped to get the ferret back out of the hole. He says, “I don’t think that I ever got a rabbit though”. The ferrets got out one night and killed half of his mother’s chickens. After that, the fer-rets ended up in the zoo in Grand Juntion.

Frank used to like to watch black smiths at work. One showed him how towork hot metal and, also, to temper steel. Another black smith built his shop him-self. He used trusses that he made by forming an arc with stakes driven into the ground and then fitting multiple one by fours around the stakes and nailing each course. He built the arches so that he needed no bracing inside the building. This was the first quonset hut that he had ever seen.

His dad showed him where all the rest rooms were in town. He also cured him of smoking (Frank always told people that “he quit smoking in the fourth grade”). “I was ten years old, and had already graduated from grape roots and dock seeds to cigarettes and cigars. Dad always smoked cigar clippings in his pipe and chewed them, too, if he didn’t have any “Brown Mule”. Well, I was unaware that he knew anything about my smoking, but on Sunday morning, when I was lying on the floor reading the funnies, dad came into the room and said that he had broken his pipe. He looked in the desk, where he kept his spare, and found none there. Looking down at me, he quietly said, “Frank, go get my pipe and clean out that stuff that you have been using in it.” I tried to deny it. But, he said, “Go ahead and go get my pipe. When you get old enough to smoke, I’ll buy you a pipe of your own”. “That experience completely cured me. I quit smoking and never took it up again”. Frank was a “depression” kid, but, because of his paper route, he always had money in his pocket. He ate a lot of candy when he was growing which caused a lot of cavities. When he was fourteen years old, he paid to fill all of those cavities. One year, he helped put a new roof on part of the house. He was brought up on a fruit farm and he was always paid for his work in the harvest. This paid for his school clothes and school supplies.

His dad began buying peony plants. The flowers were sold to florists for Memo-rial Day sales. When he was thirteen, he went with his dad on a car trip to the moun-tain towns of Colorado to let the florists know that they were now selling peonies, and

Frank always told peo-ple that “I

quit smoking in the fourth

grade”

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that they were ready to start taking orders. On the way home, his dad turned the driv-ing over to Frank. This really left an impression on Frank, especially after his dad died about that time the next year. It was likely the first time that Frank realized that his dad had not been well for quite a while. From this small beginning , ‘a large flower business grew many years later’.

In 1929, Frank had $30 in the bank. When the bank’s failed, he had $15 in his account. He never for got this experience. It made him realize how quickly savings could go. He didn’t cease to save, and he had a great fear of borrowing.

In the fall of 1933, his dad, mother, sister, Shirley, and Frank, took a car trip to see the (Hoover) Boulder Dam in Nevada. He often told of the fun he and Shirley had riding in the rumble seat of the car.

I believe all the Jaquette children went all twelve years of school at the old Fruit-vale School which was located at 29 Road and North Avenue on the South side of North Avenue. At the time, it was located on Highway 6. More rooms were added by the Public Works Administration that was instituted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt after his election in 1933.

Frank’s dad did a lot of assay work. Prospectors would come by and want to know what miner-als were in the rocks that they had found. This took many chemicals. Frank did much experimenting with these chemicals before and after the demise of his father.

FRANK’S DAD... His dad passed away, sud-denly, in April of 1934. Frank was finishing his first year of High School. From then on, he

felt that the place was his responsibility. With a paper route and chores, he had no time for after school activities. He had nose bleeds into our early marriage years, so likely could not have competed in sports anyway. Before his father passed away, he started the nursery business (The Fruitvale Nurs-

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THE VIKING Fruitvale 1940

In the fall of 1941, he didn’t attend college, but he got into some program so that he learned to fly single engine airplanes. When the course was almost over, the ‘Powers that be’ decided that he should not be in the program, but, since only he and one other fellow made it through the course work and had soloed, he received his license anyway. One of the highlights of his life was the purchase of a Cessna, 1949 straight tail 172. He enjoyed flying it for many years until he could no longer get a medical.

ery). His dad built an L shaped greenhouse. The bottom of the L was built against the south side of the house. The upper part of the greenhouse went south into the present lawn. They grew bedding plants and ordered in nursery stock (fruit trees; shade trees, and flowering shrubs). The fall of 1940, Frank attended Mesa College. In the spring of l941, Frank delivered all the trees and shrubs that are still doing well on the north side of North Avenue. He budded the weeping mulberry’s. The mother tree, a Tees mulberry, is still doing well in our front yard !

This ends the first part of the Life Story of Frank Jaquette (1920’s - early 1940’s)7

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