John Joseph Vandiver settles down in Washington state

John Joseph and Lula Mae Estee Vandiver and their children,

Ada Margaret and John Henry.

From Choestoe, Georgia to Washington state is a long distance, even by today's air miles. In 1895 and the years following, it was a journey of faith to find work and places to live. The stops the John Floyd Edward Vandiver and Rhoda Lucinda Souther Vandiver family made along the way in their move west in 1895 were recounted in the memoirs of their fourth of thirteen children, John Joseph Vandiver. This is the third and last in a series of his memoirs.

In the spring of 1906, John Joseph Vandiver moved to Seattle, Washington. There he went to work in a surveying crew mapping the route for the Oregon and Washington railroad that paralleled the Northern Pacific from Portland to Seattle. That job was completed in November.

Work in Alaska was next on Vandiver's agenda. When he landed in Catalla in March, 1907, the weather was colder than any he had experienced in his life. Seven feet of snow greeted him.

The surveying team worked in all weather conditions and finally finished the work for a terminal and rail line northward to the Copper River. In November of that year, with the Alaska surveying over, he returned to Washington.

Job prospects were still poor. He found work on the survey team for the Tieton Canal and the Ellensburg high line. While he was thus engaged, he decided that he needed more education. He attended night school in Seattle at the YMCA. Finishing high school, he was admitted to the University of Washington in 1910. Simultaneously studying at the University as a "special" student and working for the Reclamation Service on the Tieton Canal as inspector, John Joseph Vandiver was able to complete his engineering studies.

But all was not work for this ambitious man born in Georgia and transplanted in far away Washington state. While a student at the University, John Joseph Vandiver met and courted beautiful Lula May Estee, also a student. She was from East Lynn, Illinois.

They were married May 26, 1914. As newly-weds, they lived near the Tieton Canyon where John Joseph was employed by the Reclamation Service keeping canals and roads operable for construction of the giant Rimrock Dam. When the Reclamation Service wanted to transfer engineer Vandiver to Wyoming, he and his wife decided Washington was for them, and he resigned from his job, moving to Yakima permanently. There he spent most of the remainder of his career as a carpenter, building his own house and those for many others. As he progressed in his ability as a builder, he was able to upgrade the houses he built for his own family, including one for his in-laws, Mr. and Mrs. C. D. Estee, whom he and Lula Mae moved from Illinois to live near them in Yakima.

John Joseph and Lula Mae Estee Vandiver had two children. Ada Margaret Vandiver was born May 23, 1915 in Seattle, Washington. John Henry Vandiver was born August 23, 1916.

From his parents and their beginnings in the mountains of North Georgia, John Joseph Vandiver learned a strong work ethic which guided him all his adult life. He was always able to make a way for himself and his wife and children. Honesty and integrity were distinctive marks of his character. He admits in his memoirs that at times life was "hard sledding." But he persisted, was willing to tackle hard jobs, and finally had a most productive life. Many of the couple's happiest years were spent in a house he built for them on Pleasant Avenue in Yakima Washington. There they could see the towering mountains in the western landscape. No doubt, as he grew older, the mountains of Washington state reminded the aging Vandiver of Choestoe Valley and towering Bald Mountain, the highest peak in Georgia near which he lived from 1878 until he left in 1895 going west.

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published May 17, 2007 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Union County Native John Joseph Vandiver Makes His Way in the West

John Joseph and Lula May Estee Vandiver and children

Ada Margaret and John Henry Yakima, Washington, 1918

The memoirs of John Joseph Vandiver give insights into how hard families who left their familiar homeland of Choestoe, Union County, and moved west had to work in order to make a living. Going west was not an easy landfall for jobs or security.

John Joseph remained in Drake’s Creek, Arkansas from 1895 until 1898 where his father had a farm and John Joseph worked an extra job cutting railroad ties. When he was twenty, he boarded the train in Arkansas to travel to Greeley, Colorado where his older brother, William J. (known as Bill) had moved. The young men worked on the Charles Robinson farm for $20 per month. But when the harvests were in, the jobs were out.

They heard jobs might be available in Laramie, Wyoming. Checking into the Custer Hotel there, they learned that a Mr. Thornton at Rock River sixty miles west of Laramie was looking for ranch hands. The two Vandiver brothers boarded a train westward to Lookout and then walked twelve miles to the Thornton Ranch. They were hired to feed the stock and herd sheep. For about a year they worked on the Thornton and the William Taylor Ranches near Rock Creek.

During the rough winter of 1899, the Vandiver lads worked with the survey crew for the Union Pacific Railroad. Things were not going so well with John Joseph and Bill’s parents down in Arkansas. John Floyd Edward Vandiver and his wife, Rhoda Lucinda Souther, loaded up the family remaining at home and in the spring of 1899 joined the two older boys at Rock Creek. In May of 1900 they relocated to Little Medicine, Wyoming, to the John J. Burnett Ranch.

John Joseph writes of this period: “It was hard going in those times. About all the work available was herding sheep. I spent two winters making railroad ties in southern Wyoming near the Colorado line in three feet of snow. I went on the tie (railroad ties) drive down the Medicine Bow River in the spring of 1902.”

John Joseph’s next move was to Seattle, Washington in June, 1902. There he got what work he could at various labor, among which was in a brick yard, at a sawmill, at a logging camp, driving a meat wagon for a packing house, and working on the Bear Ranch. It was not that he was inept at any of these jobs and was fired only to have to find another. Jobs were scarce. His determination to make his own way always seemed to land him in another job.

His parents followed John Joseph’s lead. In the fall of 1903, J. F. E. and Rhoda Vandiver sold what stock they had at Little Medicine, Wyoming and moved to Okanogan, Washington, where the elder Vandiver paid $800 for a lease on some land that had a log cabin and a school house between Okanogan and Malott at a site called Pleasant Valley. It was a good move, as the children still at home—Sarah, Nell, Hartwell, Calla and Jess—had a place to attend school. Older brother Bill joined them at Pleasant Valley. Bill and John Joseph worked about ten miles from home at the Last Chance Mine during the winter months, cutting firewood for the mine workers, batching in an old log cabin and doing their own cooking. In the summers of 1904 and 1905, they helped their father with the ranch work at Pleasant Valley.

With some earlier experience on a survey team, John Joseph went to Seattle, Washington in the early spring of 1906, where he worked with the Oregon and Washington Survey Crew, working on the line that paralleled the Northern Pacific from Portland to Seattle. That job was finished in the fall. His next employment was surveying for a rail line and terminal at Catalla, Alaska. Seven feet of snow were on the ground when he arrived there in March, 1907. With that job finished, he returned to Yakima, Washington where he got work with the Reclamation Service surveying for canals: the Tieton and Ellensburg.

He decided to further his education. He took a three-month course in the Seattle YMCA School and following that was admitted to the University of Washington in February, 1910. He wrote of the keen competition with younger, better-prepared students. His education helped him to gain better employment with the Reclamation Service where he oversaw various engineering projects in the Tieton Canyon, on Rimrock Dam and elsewhere.

While he was a student at the University, he met and fell in love with Lula Mae Estee of Gibson City, Illinois. They were married in Yakima on May 23, 1914. To them were born two children, Ada Margaret (1915) and John Henry (1916).

When World War I stopped progress on the Reclamation Service dam and canal projects, John Joseph Vandiver started work as a carpenter, with little experience in this field. However, with his determination and willingness to work, he was able to progress and provide for his family.

Sometimes we put an aura on the idea to “go west, young man,” as if the adventure will be laced with success and prosperity. The life story of John Joseph Vandiver and his family who migrated from the Choestoe Valley in 1895 to find their way in Arkansas, Colorado, Wyoming and Washington state shows that it was not an easy road but one requiring hard work, ingenuity and adaptability. These characteristics he had learned early in life as he worked on the farm settled by his grandfather J. John Souther in the shadow of Bald Mountain. They did not disappear in mountain mists but remained as guiding principles throughout Vandiver’s life.

c2005 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Feb. 10, 2005 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.