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INTERVIEW WITH HENRY GEYER
Date of Interview: June 26, 2004 in Fort Nelson, British
Columbia
Interviewer Hank Bridgeman
Transcriber: Case Mond
Hank Bridgeman:
We got sound. Perfect
Henry Geyer:
Perfect, eh.
Hank Bridgeman:
Perfect. Okay, so Henry,
we’re gonna start off with... Okay, it’s July 26, right?
Henry Geyer:
Yeah.
Hank Bridgeman:
July 26. So what I need you
to do is, give me your full name on camera and spell your name for me.
That’s how we start it.
Henry Geyer:
Henry F. Geyer G.E.Y.E.R.
Hank Bridgeman:
Good. Now, you were with
what? The 35 Engineers, Company of Engineers?
Henry Geyer:
I was at headquarters and
headquarters company, the 35th.
Hank Bridgeman:
Okay. That looks good. That
looks great actually. A little adjustment here. So, okay, I just got to follow
these questions, so bear with me. The first question here is, where were you
born?
Henry Geyer:
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Hank Bridgeman:
Okay, and eh...
Henry Geyer:
April 3rd, 1920.
Hank Bridgeman:
When did you join with the 35
Engineers?
Henry Geyer:
Well, they drafted me nine days
before Pearl Harbor.
Hank Bridgeman:
Sorry. (interruption:
adjusting microphone) Okay. It says here, what regiment were you with and what
company?
Henry Geyer:
I was in headquarters in
Headquarters Company, at 35 Engineers.
Hank Bridgeman:
How much did you get paid?
What did they pay you back then? (laughs)
Henry Geyer:
(laughs) Oh God. I don’t
know if we got paid or not. You know, we got paid once a month, 50 dollars a
day, I think I’d say, once a month. So, I guess the pay then was about 50
dollars a month, all right. And eh, whenever I was drafted I went down to into
Maryland, and then they sent me to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. And I was at
Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and that’s where I took up my basic
training.
Hank Bridgeman:
Okay. When were you shipped
up north to Canada?
Henry Geyer:
Well...
Hank Bridgeman:
Oh, let me just finish here.
When were you shipped up, and how were you transported, and did you stop along
the way?
Henry Geyer:
What they did, they put us on
a... When they shipped us from Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, it was by train.
And eh, Fort Ord, California, is where we went to. I understand that was
strictly an engineer camp. And when we got there, eh, they couldn’t make
up there mind which outfit was going up to the Alaska Highway or down to the
southern highway that they were building down south. So they gave us all a shot
for Yellow Fever. So then they decided the 35th was coming up the Alaska
Highway, and eh, when we got up here, it was... We got up here, I believe, it
was March 10th. We were one of the first ones. And we unloaded our equipment at
Dawson Creek and then we came up a road that was... they called it a sled
trail. I understand that was for the people that was up here at, eh, at, eh,
Dawson Creek. And we came up to Fort Missou... eh, Leonard Wood. Oh my God,
I...
Henry Geyer:
I’m all fouled up. I hope
you can edit this.
Hank Bridgeman:
Oh it’s all gonna be
edited. Don’t worry about that.
Henry Geyer:
Okay. Anyhow, we came up to Fort
Nelson, all right. And, we actually did it in eight days with all our equipment
and supplies for, I think, 60 days or something like that.
Hank Bridgeman:
I’m just gonna backtrack
a bit. Did you know you were coming up here?
Henry Geyer:
Well, when we left Fort Ord,
California, we knew that we was coming up to build the Alaska Highway. And then
whenever we came and got up here, we unloaded all our equipment and that at
Dawson Creek.
Hank Bridgeman:
What was it like in Dawson
Creek at that time?
Henry Geyer:
It was a small place. Not much.
There wasn’t many buildings down there that I can remember. Of course,
it’s altogether different today.
Hank Bridgeman:
It is.
Henry Geyer:
But eh, you know, I hated this
place. I hated this. After we come up here and learned what we were doing and
eh, running into sub-zero weather. Working at 30 to 40 below. I mean, that took
a lot of guts out of everybody. But, eh, we got through it pretty good. Of
course, the shots that we took for... Yellow Fever shots, that backfired on,
oh, a good part of our outfit.
Hank Bridgeman:
How long, how long were you
here when you got the jaundice? What time of year was it?
Henry Geyer:
In the summer is was whenever it
really hit me. I went down to a 115 pound. I was a skinny character then. But
it eh, they had a hospital built at Fort Nelson that took care of us.
Hank Bridgeman:
How long were you there?
Henry Geyer:
I was there quite a while, until
they... Colonel Stotts, Major Stotts then, eh, got tired of taking me on and he
said to me, he says, “Geyer,” he says, “I don’t give a damn
whether you live or die.” There just so happened to be a civilian camp
right next to the hospital. And eh, I got to know the cooks at night pretty
good. And I was eating pies and everything else, and, of course, I wasn’t
supposed to. So I can’t blame Stotts, because he was just... (laughs) You
know. But I got down to 115 pounds and then I come back up. I was driving the
truck back and forth to Dawson Creek, hauling supplies. There was two of us on
the truck at all times.
Hank Bridgeman:
How old were you then?
Henry Geyer:
Well, I guess I was about 22
then, because I was 21 when I was drafted. And that was in ‘42, so, eh, I
was 22 years old.
Hank Bridgeman:
Just a kid, basically.
Henry Geyer:
Yeah, basically just a kid. And I did all the
things that kept you from growing up, smoking and drinking, you know. It was,
it was pretty rough for a while.
Hank Bridgeman:
What were the people like?
What were the locals, and that... How were you treated by them, and eh, were
they pretty surprised to see you? And did you have much interaction with the
locals.
Henry Geyer:
Actually, the interacting with
the locals... We didn’t, we didn’t see the locals much, you know. Of
course I, I ran into a family at Fort St. John. I think their name was Bush.
Anyhow, this girl was riding a horse, and I asked her if I could ride the
horse. So she got down and let me ride the horse. And then I got to know them
pretty good, going back and forth. A nice family. I don’t know if
they’re still there or not. But eh, that’s about the only people that
I ran into that I had anything to do with, because when we got up to eh, Dawson
Cr... I mean, Fort St. John. We left Fort St. John and came up here to Fort
Nelson. And whenever... There was nobody in between Dawson... eh... St. Johns
and up here that we could associate with.
Henry Geyer:
So we were mostly by
ourselves.
Hank Bridgeman:
When you went back and forth
to Dawson Creek, eh, and along the highway, what would you see at that time?
Would it be bunkers, tents, cabins? What was... Kinda paint me a picture of...
kinda the lay of the land. What was there at that time?
Henry Geyer:
There was very little. Every
once in a while you’d see a cabin somewhere along the road, you know. St.,
eh, St. John was, eh, pretty good at that time. And eh, of course, I mean,
other than the Bushes, I didn’t get to know anybody, you know. And then
eh, the first people you actually ran into after that was at Sikanni, eh, Hill.
When you went down over the hill and crossed, there was a civilian camp was
there. Of course, they treated us pretty good. I used to stop and get a hot
shower every trip.
Hank Bridgeman:
Wow. So, there probably
wasn’t a whole lot of opportunity for that most of the time, eh?
Henry Geyer:
No, very little.
Hank Bridgeman:
So, you basically... Did you
stay in tents, or... Describe me kinda what day-to-day life was like.
Henry Geyer:
Up here, the day-to-day life was
very dull. I mean, you set a... the first tents we got was actually, they were
right on the ground. But then they built flooring and sides for we could put
the tents on. And, other than the cold, it wasn’t too bad. Of course, you
had your bugs, you mosquitos, your... what do you call them, seldom-seen,
you-can’t-see-them, they were in the knot before you could see them. I
hated the place. I actually hated the whole section. I mean, you worked your
butt off and that was about it, because otherwise, that was all there was to
do, you know.
Hank Bridgeman:
Describe... Were you in those
tents in the winter time?
Henry Geyer:
Oh definitely.
Hank Bridgeman:
What was that like? That must
have been pretty brutal.
Henry Geyer:
Well, yeah, well we had little
stoves in the middle of the tent that burnt coal, eh, wood. And we used to chop
the wood. And you had to take your turn on keeping the fire going at night.
Other than that, eh well... I mean, we were all young, and weres able to take
the cold and everything. But we had good, good clothing. That was the best, you
know. I can’t cite the army on any of that. But we had to get the road
through and that’s what we were up here for. Of course we fought fi...
fought a couple of fires, while we was here, you know.
Hank Bridgeman:
Like forest fires?
Henry Geyer:
Oh yeah, yeah. We had our fires
too, you know. Nature takes care of itself. And that’s, that’s what
it was.
Hank Bridgeman:
What was your specific line
of work, on the construction project? Were you skilled... Were you a skilled
professional in one area? Did you run cats, built cordouroy, roads,
surveying... What was your...
Henry Geyer:
Actually, I never, I never did
any of the construction work as far as the tractors and stuff like that. I
drove a truck, most of the time, and then, eh... the fellow that was in the
motor pool office, he went back to the States for OCS, and I was drafted into
the motor pool office because I had taken typing in high school. They found out
that I could type. So then I was drafted into the motor pool office so then
that took me off the road. And then, eh... I actually, if it’s an
accomplishment or what, but I actually typed the record of the 35th Engineers
up here. So... I don’t know how good it was, but I typed it anyhow.
Hank Bridgeman:
Did you enjoy your job?
Henry Geyer:
Like I said before, we were up
here to do a work, whether we enjoyed it or not, you know. I said before that I
hated the place. Well, it was... Hey, I was only 21, 22 years old, you
know.
Henry Geyer:
I was in love with a woman back
in Pittsburgh, and then I get separated and up here. But I finally went back
and got married on a furlough. I wasn’t supposed to get married but I
did.
Hank Bridgeman:
That must have been pretty
tough, you know. Here you are and you are in love, and you get shipped way the
hell up here.
Henry Geyer:
Why do you think I hated the
place? I mean, it’s beautiful country, if that’s what you want, you
know. But it surprised me how beautiful it turned out to be. Like I said, I
hated it. But last year, we came up, after, what, 60-some years. And I flew
in... My wife and I flew in to the Fort Nelson. And when I got out of the plane
and looked around I forgot all about the heartaches that was up here before,
because, it’s beautiful. They made a beautiful... beautiful road. The road
that is up today... I don’t think there’s any better road in the
U.S., that’s a two-lane highway, because it’s beautiful. And the
scenery... It’s heart... I mean it’s beautiful... Look around... The
mountains and everything else. We, we didn’t go very far up. We rented a
car last year when we was up. And we did get almost... Well, we went up to the
hot springs, because while we was up here, and we discovered the hot springs,
we put a floor in at about four feet down, and a tent over top of that. And
then we had a tent alongside of it to get undressed. And we used to come up by
the truck loads and take a bath, after we discovered the hot stuff.
Hank Bridgeman:
So what was that like? Cause
that... So basically it is... The hot springs at that time would have been
kinda in the middle of nowhere, really, eh?
Henry Geyer:
Actually, it was in the middle
of nowhere, because... I mean, up the Liard River and that, you know. And eh,
it was nice though. The springs... There was nothing there except the spring.
It wasn’t like it is today. Today they have a nice area and everything
else. And then you got the cold, warm, and then the hot, you know. But last
year, when it came up... we went up. And I... My wife, the one... My first wife
died after 50 years, and then I married a younger woman and she was a
nurse’s aid for 28 years. And she takes pretty good care of me. But
anyhow...
Hank Bridgeman:
That’s what every man
needs...
Henry Geyer:
(laughs) Definitely. So anyhow,
she told me to be careful because I have heart trouble. After 80, 84 years old,
you’re bound to lose something, so anyhow...
Hank Bridgeman:
You’re doing pretty
good.
Henry Geyer:
I passed out. I was sitting on
the steps in the hot stuff and I passed out. And she called three or four guys
to get me out of there, and then she laid me down, I came to. And then they put
me in a buggy and wheeled me out to the car. And she drove all the ways back,
back here to Fort Nelson, in a bathing suit. And when she was coming around
Muncho Lake, she was afraid of the water and she was driving on the left side
of the road coming down. And I said “You better be careful.” But we
came down, and I had told her, you know, you’re not supposed to...
You’re supposed to stop for... (interruption in the tape) ...and we came
back, I went up to the hospital and had a check-up.
Hank Bridgeman:
Right on.
Henry Geyer:
Thank God, I’m fine.
Hank Bridgeman:
You’re okay.
Hank Bridgeman:
Yeah.
Hank Bridgeman:
Hey, I got here... um...
okay, eh... It says, did you or others have any accidents? What were the
circumstances around those? Do you remember any accidents with people...?
Henry Geyer:
Oh, some of the guys had
accidents, you know, I mean. A couple was killed. But other than that, what
bothered us most was the muskeg.
Henry Geyer:
You’d get caught in it and
then you’d have to wait for a cat to come up and pull you out. I remember
one time when I was stuck. I got out on the hood so I could get air. And I sat
on the hood, and by the time the cat came to pull me out, there was nothing but
mosquitos all over the hood, that I had killed. And those little bugs...
Hank Bridgeman:
those no-see-ums.
Henry Geyer:
I don’t know how people can
stand them.
Hank Bridgeman:
Oh yeah. They drive you...
oh... They get in your head.
Henry Geyer:
Oh yeah, definitely. And then,
we had the nerve to take a walk last year up in the woods, and we ran into the
same thing. Naturally, they’re still here.
Hank Bridgeman:
Oh, they’re still
here.
Henry Geyer:
Yeah.
Hank Bridgeman:
I got here, do you remember
any stories about men who died on the highway. Drownings, Charlie Lake. Do you
remember the explosion in Dawson Creek? Frostbite. Any of those kind of
stories...
Henry Geyer:
Oh, you got frostbite all the
time. But the thing is, the only thing that I’ve ran into is when Martin
got hit with the tree and Major Stotts operated on him and everything else, and
he was doing fine. And then they gets the orders to send him back to the
States. The major didn’t want to do it but he was forced to.
Hank Bridgeman:
I heard that story. I was
quite...
Henry Geyer:
Oh that was terrible. I mean,
the kid was... kid was getting better. And then they ship him back to the
States and he dies in the airplane because of low... you know, it wasn’t a
pressurized cabin. But that’s, that’s things you ran into. But
actually, we didn’t lose too many man. I heard where they had drownings.
And then that truck coming down Sikanni, Sikanni Chief Hill, the road over the
hill, that had the guys on the back. And that was, that was just a little
carelessness on the driver’s part. Because that was a bad, bad road
there.
Hank Bridgeman:
Yeah I can imagine that, I
mean, driving through there now, it’s pretty hairy. Imagine what it was
like back then...
Henry Geyer:
Yeah but, I mean, eh, Sikanni
Chief, they’ve changed that all around. They’ve moved the road up
further and put a new bridge in and everything else. It’s a beautiful
road. It’s a beautiful road.
Hank Bridgeman:
Okay, what do we go there. We
talked about clothes. Clothes were warm. What was the food like? Did you have
canned foods, pancakes and syrups? What did you eat? And how did you spice it
up?
Henry Geyer:
Oh God. It’s amazing that
guys didn’t die from lack of food and stuff like that. We had plenty to
eat, but it wasn’t, eh, it wasn’t the best of... Hey, we were out in
the wilderness. A hot dog was a good meal, you know. But when we first came up,
we brought a lot of meat with us, a lot of pork. We were supposed to build an
ice house, but that went by the board. And we were eating pork for breakfast,
dinner and supper to get rid of it so it wouldn’t go bad. And I hate pork
even today. (laughs)
Hank Bridgeman:
So basically, there were no
treats or anything of any kind?
Henry Geyer:
No actually, you subsisted on
whatever they had and, of course, every once in a while, you could go fishing
and have a fish dinner, but other than that... Hey, I don’t think anybody
died from lack of food. You know.
Hank Bridgeman:
Just wasn’t... You
didn’t have much variety.
Henry Geyer:
It’s not like home cooking.
It sure wasn’t. But I didn’t lose any weight. I mean, I went down to
a 115 pound when I had jaundice but whenever I came back up... When I was
drafted, I weighed a 162 pound. Today, I weigh a 167 pounds, so. It didn’t
kill me and I don’t think it actually killed anybody else.
Hank Bridgeman:
So how many people had the
jaundice at that time.
Henry Geyer:
Oh, about a...
Henry Geyer:
I’d say at least a third to
a half of our company came down to jaundice. And what made me mad about... what
makes me mad today is, it never went on the record. You didn’t get a...
you don’t get nothing for what you had or anything else like that, you
know. But I shouldn’t cry because I’m healthy.
Hank Bridgeman:
Yeah. You know, I mean,
nothing is changed. I mean, that stuff is still going on where the guys that
are going to the Middle East and that, right, they’re getting all kinds of
weird stuff pumped into them. Who knows what that’s doing, you know?
Henry Geyer:
Oh yeah, definitely.
Hank Bridgeman:
Okay, it says here, how tough
was it to plow through the forest and make the road a reality? Did you have
quotas to meet, to build? How much road was kinda happening per day?
Henry Geyer:
Well actually, I don’t
think we were forced to, to make up mileage and stuff like that every day. But
we, we did what we were supposed to do. And eh, hey, you learned to do bridges,
make bridges and everything else... cross rivers, and... We did pretty good.
And, like I say, we weren’t forced into a quota where we had to do this
and do that, but... It was steady work. And as long as you didn’t go out
in the woods to take a shower or something like that, to stay... you know,
you’re wasting time. Nobody actually wasted any time. They were always
working.
Hank Bridgeman:
Always working. Did you, did
you meet any First Nations people? Were there any stories around that?
Henry Geyer:
No actually... the natives, the
natives didn’t bother us in any way, except, I mean, kids, every once in a
while you’d see kids and you give them candy or something like that.
Hank Bridgeman:
Um... It says here, describe
a typical work day. You got up in the morning to kinda when you went to bed at
night...
Henry Geyer:
Well, you don’t even make
a... what you... you throwed your sleeping bag in the corner, eh, left it there
until you used it again. You had a job to do. Everybody had certain things to
do and we did it. And eventually we got through. And like I say, I got drafted
into the motor pool and then I had records to keep and stuff like that. I
wasn’t out on the road. I missed that. You know, you got stuck in the
offices, and the offices was just tents most of the time, you know.
Hank Bridgeman:
What were some of the stories
you heard about some of the other regiments? Did you have a lot of interaction
with other regiments?
Henry Geyer:
No actually, we didn’t. I
mean, me as an individual, no we didn’t. We just more or less knew what we
were supposed to do and eh, we didn’t even hear how far up they were and
anything like that, you know.
Hank Bridgeman:
What did you do to blow off
steam?
Henry Geyer:
(laughs)
Hank Bridgeman:
Did you have any musics or
books, or...? What did you do if you got...
Henry Geyer:
Well, you had... If you had a
reader... If you were a reader, you could get books to read. But we passed the
time mostly B.S.-ing to the other guys and stuff like that. One great thing
was, there was no women around to bother us. (laughs)
Hank Bridgeman:
Yeah, that would be a major
distraction. Did you take pride in what you were doing?
Henry Geyer:
Oh definitely. Everybody takes
pride in what they’re trying to do, anyhow, you know. But like I said
before, I more or less got to hate the place, because it was all the same thing
every day and then you were working... it got there in the winter, where you
were sick... 30 and 40 below zero. And we... you’re were not used to that,
you know. Whenever it got... if you got down towards zero, you was in the
house, you didn’t go out, you know. But we had to do, we had to do, and
that was it, eh. But we had the good... we had good clothing. I can’t cite
that, because... We were well-clothed.
Hank Bridgeman:
Did you make it to Alaska,
like once the highway was...?
Henry Geyer:
No way. No, that’s my...
No, that’s what I always wanted to do, to get up to Alaska, so... I think
the only thing closest that I’m gonna do is maybe take a boat up.
Henry Geyer:
Take a boat trip. Now this is my
second time back, and eh, I think, like I said, I told my son, that eh, maybe
next year, if I’m still living, I’ll take a boat ride, and he says
“Well, I’ll take that too.”
Hank Bridgeman:
That’s a beautiful
trip...
Henry Geyer:
Yeah. So, I’m looking
forward to that.
Hank Bridgeman:
Um, you sort of answered that
already, but it says here, what did you think of the north, the wilderness and
the weather?
Henry Geyer:
The wilderness. We had a couple
forest fires we had to take care off. And eh, other than that... It was country
like, like eh, the forefathers in the United States, they had, eh... when they
went west and that, they had trouble [ ] and that was more or less a
continuation of that. But like I said, it is beautiful country. But I hated the
place. I hated the place, because I couldn’t go anywhere, and you were
stuck and you had, you had your duties to perform. The same thing day in and
day out, you know.
Hank Bridgeman:
Do you have any good
memories, or good experiences from it?
Henry Geyer:
Oh, the fellows that you were
with, I met a lot of good guys, I mean, all over the country. You know,
it’s a shame that we didn’t keep in touch with them afterwards,
because eh, hey, you worked together as a team.
Hank Bridgeman:
So, it’s the
cameraderieship...
Henry Geyer:
Yeah, that’s what...
that’s what we missed, you know. You miss that now. I can’t say I
should miss it. I have a beautiful wife and she takes care of me, and... I wish
she was here to kill some of these flies. (laughs)
Hank Bridgeman:
We’re basically done,
other than I just want to ask you, if there’s anything, anything that you
want to say, you know, experience, anything that we haven’t covered
here.
Henry Geyer:
Well, no, the thing is, people
up here should realize what the guys did when they were opening this area up.
It was tough. We didn’t have any picnic. But, like I said before, I hated
it. I hated it, because of what we had to go through. But the thing is, when
you come back up here now, and see what it... we actually opened it up, so that
they could actually do it, and what is accomplished in the last few years.
It’s beautiful. Anybody that lives up here oughta be proud of it, because
it is a beautiful country.
Hank Bridgeman:
Right on. Good.
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