Herman was the fifth of
eight children born to George and Nellie Helmandollar. He was born September
25, 1910 at the homestead, northwest of Oxford, Idaho.
Herman attended elementary school in Oxford, where Harold B.
Lee, the future president of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, taught
school. My father told me that the kids used to play tricks on Mr. Lee, like
putting horse apples in his saddle bags. Dad, behind my mother’s back, said
that Mr. Lee was the dumbest man he ever met. The reason he said it discreetly
was that Mr. Lee was my Grandfather Carlson’s ersatz step-brother. You see,
when Grandpa Carlson’s parents died all of the kids were adopted out and the
Lee family took Grandpa Carlson as one of their own and raised him. |
| Herman age 4, 1914 |
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| Homestead Claim for George Helmandollar |
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| Oxford School House |
Dad attended his freshman year of high school
in Clifton, Idaho. By that time, Grandma Nellie had moved to Oxford proper. She
and George had purchased the Oxford Hotel which she ran as a boarding house for
the school teachers in Oxford and Clifton. He moved to Lewiston, Utah and lived with his
brother, Floyd, and his wife Iretta (Aunt Rete). At the time, there was an
electric trolley railway between Preston, Idaho and Salt Lake City, Utah. Herman
road the trolley to and from Richmond where he attended high school his
sophomore and junior year at North Cache.
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| Back: George T., Nellie Boice, Viola, Mary Front right to left: Arnold, Herman, Roy, Ralph circa 1921 |
Grandpa George road the trolley one day to Lewiston and found
that Herman had stopped going to school and was thinning beets to earn some
money. Grandpa George ordered Dad to move back home and Herman never went back
to school again.
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| Bamberger Electric Railroad |
Over the next couple of years, he herded sheep on Oxford Peak. By this time, in 1928, Herman’s brother-in-law, Louis Ames (married to Viola Helmandollar) had obtained a contract with the U.S. Postal Service and hired Dad to carry the mail from Oxford to Lago, Idaho, about 35 miles through Cottonwood and over Cleveland Divide between Grace, Idaho and Thatcher. It was not really a road so much as an old wagon trail, and in winter, Dad would have to use a sleigh and horse team to deliver the mail. In the summer, he would drive a Chevy truck sans roof. Uncle Louis and Aunt Viola lived in Bear Lake at that time. Dad told me that he always carried a loaded rifle beside him just in case of robbers.
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| Herman, Arnold, & Ralph |
In
1933, Herman met Wilma Carlson. She was working at the grocery store in Oxford
owned by Wm. and Nellie Gambles, Wilma’s maternal aunt. Wilma’s Aunt Susie (Aunt
Suz) ran a millinery on one side of the store which Wilma also helped run.
Herman and his older brother, Arnold, were avid baseball
players for the Oxford team. Wilma frequently told an anecdote of the boys
finding a box of old hats in Aunt Suz’s attic. Herman and Arnold doled out the
women’s feathery floppy hats to their baseball team to wear as part of their uniforms.
According to Wilma, the opposing teams would laugh so hard
at the Oxford team wearing women’s hats that they would always lose the game. I
doubt that telling of the story was true but it was fun to think about the Oxford
boys running the bases, feathers flying.
While Wilma lived in Swan Lake, a scant 5 miles away, she
spent most of her time at seventeen years old in Oxford with her aunts to
supervise. Apparently, Aunt Nellie and Aunt Suz were not chaperoning Wilma well
enough because Wilma and Herman fell in love and were married the next year on
March 21, 1934.
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| Herman & Wilma 1934 |
The newlyweds lived
with Herman’s parents at the hotel for the next few months.
In 1934 the ‘new’
highway (Hwy 90-91) was completed through Inkom, Idaho. Idaho Portland Cement
Plant had been built in Inkom in 1928 because of its mountain of lime and
silica. Herman’s brother Arnold moved to Inkom to work at the cement plant and
soon he got Herman a job there as well. Wilma and Herman and their first child,
Ronald, moved to Inkom and lived in a one-room trailer on the old C.A. Skeem place
close to the cement plant. Ronnie slept in a dresser drawer as there was no
room for a crib.
Edward
Webb was one of the first settlers in Inkom in 1902. He latter became the LDS
Bishop of the Inkom Church. Mr. Webb had been Herman and Wilma’s landlord. He
offered a homesite to the newly weds just up Rapid Creek Road from the Hiway Inn.
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| Idaho Portland Cement Plant 1938 |
As an aside, the
Hiway Inn was a local hotspot in the county. Pocatello was dry on Sundays, so
the elite would drive to Inkom for dinner, dancing, and cocktails.
On their plot of land, Herman built their new house. Using a
horse pulled scraper, he dug the basement and built the home, a garage, a large
barn with an upper hay loft, a corral, a chicken coop, and rabbit hutches.
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| Herman & Joyce 1941 |
Their next child, Joyce, was born in 1939.
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| Herman & Joyce 1939 |
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| Pocatello Shops 1937 |
Herman loved watching television and had one of the first TV
sets in town. He originally installed an antenna atop Red Rabbit Hill and ran ribbon
cable down the steep embankment and across the road to the house. Many a
Saturday and Sunday, neighbors came to the house to watch Lawrence Welk, Ed Sullivan,
Bonanza, and Gunsmoke. Dad was not a church-goer, as such. He worked Swing Shift most of the time so he could take care of his other chores and odd jobs during the day. It also kept him from having to participate in church activities.
Their their child Laura Sue was born in 1946.
Wilma had asked that their new house be painted pink, and Herman
obliged. It became known as the pink house by the extended family. Herman was
an excellent carpenter and worked around the area building sheds and fences,
mostly for ‘Doc’ Newton, who lived about a mile up Rapid Creek Road. In those
days, that was still part of the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. In fact, the steel
survey marker is located at the northeast corner fence post at Herman and Wilma’s
new house they built in 1964 after Interstate 15 cut off most of the pasture
and garden. This beige brick home is now owned by Herman’s grandson, Jeff Wright,
and wife, Toni.
Their their child Laura Sue was born in 1946.
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| Ron, Joyce, and Sue, 1948 |
Throughout his life
Herman was an excellent horseman, breeding, raising, and breaking horses. He
was also a consummate reader of western novels and had stacks of Zane Grey and
Louis L’Amour paperbacks.
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| Herman and his new colt |
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| Herman & Kim 1955 |
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