"Will" married Daisy Doud on November 21, 1917 in Jennings, Decatur County, Kansas. World War I made Will eligible for the draft. He was a farmer and didn't want to plant crops he wouldn't be able to harvest so he got a job with the Milwaukee Railroad, knowing he could leave it at a moment's notice. That job took them to Melstone, Montana. "Our first home was a railroad boxcar they had put windows in and we had a little camp cook stove which baked the best biscuits you ever ate" Mrs. Donahoo said. Will's sister Grace also lived with her husband in Montana and she loaned them furniture. They didn't have to pay rent. "I was making $25 a week in those days," Will recalled. "It got down to 40 degrees below zero that winter but we had a potbellied stove in the center of the car and we kept it red hot with coal furnished by the railroad." The floor was cold because wind came up through cracks but they put down heavy paper and covered it with a borrowed rug. They carried water in pails to the car and one night, returned to their home to find it had been moved. "When I think back I wonder how we survived," Daisy said. In May of 1918, Will was drafted. He was sent overseas to serve with the field artillery. "We were delayed and it took us 23 days for the crossing," he said. In France he found the farmers still used sickles to harvest grain but the war equipment used for their intensive training was very efficient. While he was overseas, his wife returned to her parents in Kansas because she was expecting their first child. Will was discharged January 17, 1919 without ever having reached the front lines. During World War II their daughter came to Richland to work and was married. When she was expecting her first child, Will came out to be with her. "I was taken by this country and haven't been homesick a day since I arrived" he said. "I left Iowa in a snowstorm and it was cold. When I got here people were working in their gardens and orchards. I had expected it to be like Montana." Will got a job with Dupont and then with General Electric where he worked with a decontamination unit. The U.S. Department of Energy took over the plant and it became known as the Hanford Site. The facility produced Plutonium for the first nuclear explosion near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Will retired in 1960.
"Will" married Daisy Doud on November 21, 1917 in Jennings, Decatur County, Kansas. World War I made Will eligible for the draft. He was a farmer and didn't want to plant crops he wouldn't be able to harvest so he got a job with the Milwaukee Railroad, knowing he could leave it at a moment's notice. That job took them to Melstone, Montana. "Our first home was a railroad boxcar they had put windows in and we had a little camp cook stove which baked the best biscuits you ever ate" Mrs. Donahoo said. Will's sister Grace also lived with her husband in Montana and she loaned them furniture. They didn't have to pay rent. "I was making $25 a week in those days," Will recalled. "It got down to 40 degrees below zero that winter but we had a potbellied stove in the center of the car and we kept it red hot with coal furnished by the railroad." The floor was cold because wind came up through cracks but they put down heavy paper and covered it with a borrowed rug. They carried water in pails to the car and one night, returned to their home to find it had been moved. "When I think back I wonder how we survived," Daisy said. In May of 1918, Will was drafted. He was sent overseas to serve with the field artillery. "We were delayed and it took us 23 days for the crossing," he said. In France he found the farmers still used sickles to harvest grain but the war equipment used for their intensive training was very efficient. While he was overseas, his wife returned to her parents in Kansas because she was expecting their first child. Will was discharged January 17, 1919 without ever having reached the front lines. During World War II their daughter came to Richland to work and was married. When she was expecting her first child, Will came out to be with her. "I was taken by this country and haven't been homesick a day since I arrived" he said. "I left Iowa in a snowstorm and it was cold. When I got here people were working in their gardens and orchards. I had expected it to be like Montana." Will got a job with Dupont and then with General Electric where he worked with a decontamination unit. The U.S. Department of Energy took over the plant and it became known as the Hanford Site. The facility produced Plutonium for the first nuclear explosion near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Will retired in 1960.
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