Recollections, as Al told them in 1962 to his wife, Tillie.
In 1905 Tom Whitlim went back east and brought the first acetylene torch to Spokane, Washington which he installed in the Sheet Metal Works, which fronted on Indiana Avenue, just west of Division Street. Whitlim lived in Elizabeth Murrison Leeson's boarding house on Montgomery Street. Beths' young son, Albert was eight years old and a student at Garfield Elementary School. Al became fascinated, watching Whitlim work with his torch.
Al remembered when the Union Irons work, the Muzzen Mill and the Washington mill were all on fire at the same time and the powder magazine in the Union Iron Works, about 1905-06.
Then Tom moved to South Howard Street, between First and Second Avenues. That's where Al went to school for four years to learn Acetylene welding. He was about twelve years old when he started to learn, after school and Saturdays and a lot of days when he didn't go to school. When he was about fifteen he quit Tom's shop as he didn't think there was any future in welding.
Al took a job delivering groceries from a store on Broadway Avenue (about the 2100 block), driving a one-horse cart during vacation time. They were living just off Ash, and he walked to work.
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Albert Edward Leeson is the lad on the right, beside men who lived in his mother's rooming house in Spokane, Washington, ca, 1910, courtesy Elizabeth Murison Leeson Roberts' collection.
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Al took a job delivering groceries from a store on Broadway Avenue (about the 2100 block), driving a one-horse cart during vacation time. They were living just off Ash, and he walked to work.
His next job was with Murgatroy's Drug Store, corner of Post and Wall, riding his bicycle to deliver orders for two years. Later he bought a motorcycle.
By this time he'd thrown an inkwell at a teacher, jumped through the window and quit school. Next, Al worked for Postal Telegraph for several weeks, then for Western Union Telegraph for about a month. He was working for Carr's Mercantile when he quit and left for Missoula, Montana, going via the 4th of July Canyon.
Al started out on his motorcycle, sold it near St. Regis for $150. At that time there were only rough wagon roads. In St. Regis he hopped a freight train and went to Missoula riding in a railroad boxcar. He found no work in Missoula, so went on to Butte, Montana.
In 1917, Al went to work at Cosmopolis, Washington, running a gravel train, narrow gauge rails, pulling 14 ¼-yard cars, side dump, putting in fill to construct a highway between South Aberdeen and Cosmopolis. It was swamp with a plank road. They took the planking and built a trestle, dumping the dirt on either side of the trestle until it came even with the top, and then shifting the planks and track over to bring in more dirt to widen the road.
Al's first recollection after that was of Lincoln, Nebraska. There he heard about Tom King, a cattle and horse ranger who needed hands, so he went to work there as a hay-hand and worked for King all summer. Al registered for the draft before he was 21, in Angora, Nebraska, which had a population of less than 100.
From there, Al went to New Castle, Wyoming, and went out on a ranch as cow-puncher on the Brock Ranch for a month, came back to New Castle, stayed there about 4 days. On his last day in New Castle, they signed the Armistice of World War I. Al was 21 years old that October 3rd, 1928.
From New Castle, he went to work for Olson on a wheat ranch, hauling grain with six horse teams with a wagon that hauled 150 sack loads, 150 pounds to a sack, 60 pounds to the bushel, 1410 bushes, 9000 pounds. They drove in long wagon trains of farmers hauling grain to town, 50 miles away, with the wagon team in Brickings, and used rough locks on the back wheels, with soles from old shoes making the contact on the wheel. Worked for Olson half of the winter.
From there, Al went to work on another ranch in the same vicinity, feeding cattle the rest of the winter, but quit when he couldn't see cattle go loco because of insufficient feed.
Al also worked in Mexico, plowing for a contractor and spoke of also having worked in Colexico. During his teenage years he and a chum lived in railroad jungle camps as they road the rails to Mexico. [In January 1954, in route home from his brother-in-law, Richard "Dick" Muench's funeral in Spokane, Washington, Al stopped at daughter, Mona Vanek's home near Noxon, Montana, and told stories for a couple of hours about how difficult and dangerous it was during his teen years for young men living in hobo jungles when they rode the rails south to Mexico.]
Al Bitrick ran the Marvel Welding School, with the only electric welder in Spokane at that time. He started the school sometime in 1920. Al went to work there, learning electric welding, and worked part time for 2 years.
When he was married to Gertrude, Al was a logging truck driver in the St. Maries, Idaho area, and when the highway from Hope, Idaho to Clark's Fork, Idaho was built, he worked on road construction around the Denton curves. He played his banjo-ukelele at dances in Heron, Montana. While working near St. Maries, his hearing was damaged when the operator of the logging donkey let his truck down the mountain too fast, injuring Al's eardrums.
Other jobs Al held included working for the forest service, packing food to men on fire lines, and working for Jewel Freeze, several times. The last time was after he and Ottillie "Tillie" Muench were married (November 29, 1929) and their son, Chester, was born on October 19, 1931.
Al did gravel plant work on road construction jobs for Paul Cunningham. He worked for T. T. McGee, clearing land in 1959, operating caterpillar in the Lolo National Forest in Montana, clearing logs for a month.
During 1939 he constructed the building at 1502 E. Trent Ave., Spokane Washington and opened "Spokane Blacksmith & Welding Works." He sold his business in 1945, and on November 1, 1945 the family moved to The Bull River Ranch, in Bull River, Sanders County, Montana. Al became a rancher, and between then and 1962, he raised hay and cattle and logged.
He worked on several road and logging jobs in Montana, and held jobs with Washington Water Power Company during construction of Cabinet Gorge Dam, near the Idaho-Montana border. Following that, he helped clear land for construction of Noxon Rapids Dam, about fifteen miles upstream, on the Clarks Fork River. When son, Chester, purchased the former Spokane Blacksmith & Welding Works, Al moved to Spokane to assist his son, and died there in 1964. Written by Tillie Leeson
During 1939 he constructed the building at 1502 E. Trent Ave., Spokane Washington and opened "Spokane Blacksmith & Welding Works." He sold his business in 1945, and on November 1, 1945 the family moved to The Bull River Ranch, in Bull River, Sanders County, Montana. Al became a rancher, and between then and 1962, he raised hay and cattle and logged.
He worked on several road and logging jobs in Montana, and held jobs with Washington Water Power Company during construction of Cabinet Gorge Dam, near the Idaho-Montana border. Following that, he helped clear land for construction of Noxon Rapids Dam, about fifteen miles upstream, on the Clarks Fork River. When son, Chester, purchased the former Spokane Blacksmith & Welding Works, Al moved to Spokane to assist his son, and died there in 1964. Written by Tillie Leeson
When Arthur Frank Vanek and Mona Inez Leeson wed on August 31, 1949 they linked the following family trees, [Maternal ~ Muench and Leeson] [Paternal ~ Vanek and Gremaux].
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