AMERICAN MADE

Before I begin my story I first need to tell you of my origin * My parents were mid-western farm people. My father was born in 1892 in Clarion, Iowa, and my mother in 1894 in Jefferson, Iowa. In 1911 their families emigrated by wagon to Mitchell, South Dakota *in the central part of the state. My parents were married October 1912 in a small cross-roads town named Betts, South Dakota (near Mitchell). They homesteaded and farmed around Mt. Vernon, S.D. until moving to Mitchell in about 1918. During WW I my father was a member of the ‘Home Guard’. For health reasons he did not qualify for regular military service, but opted to serve on the home front. In May 1922,They had a baby girl whom they named Doris Eileen. However she died prematurely one week later. Following the loss of their daughter, my mother was informed by her doctor that she was unable to have any more children. That led to their decision to adopt a baby girl they named Neva Faye *born February 6, 1920 . In 1924 they moved to Rapid City, S. D. in the far western end of the state* “The Gateway to The Black Hills”. On February 8th, 1927, I, Kenneth Eugene Bumpus came along, The child that wasn’t supposed to be! SURPRISE! SURPRISE! Thus began my adventures * Being of a very young age, I don’t remember my birth or the first couple of years following it. I was content to be fed, sleep when I felt like it, have my diaper changed often and get a hug, now and then. My first vague recollection is of swallowing 3 or 4 pennies at about the age of 18 months or 2 years! (I guess, when the market crashed my first thought was to hide my meager savings!) The most vivid memory of that incident was my Mother’s extreme agitation! MY very vivid memory was the awful taste of the castor-oil she forced me to drink to lubricate and expedite the ‘recovery’ of those pennies. *to this day, anything that has even the faintest taste or smell of castor oil or copper, makes me retch! My Dad drove a gas truck for Standard Oil for a couple years, then a delivery truck for Fish & Hunter Lumber Company. I recall going along with him up into the hills on one of his Lumber Company, deliveries . The scenery in the Black Hills is fabulous and I was really enjoying the ride *that is, until I learned his cargo was dynamite for the Homestake Gold Mine in Lead, SD. The Homestake Mine is the largest gold mine in America, and until it’s closing in 2002, was the oldest and deepest, in the western hemisphere reaching 8,000 feet, . Gold was first discovered in the Black Hills in 1874. The land was a part of the Dakota Territory and declared by treaty, to be Sioux Indian Sacred Ground. The gold rush broke that treaty! At the peak of the rush, mining magnate George Hearst purchased a plot of land 50 X 100 feet for $70,000. He developed this property into the richest claim in the Hills and christened it ‘The Homestake Mine’. George was the father of the publisher William Randolph Hearst, who, having no interest in gold mining, took over his father’s publishing business instead and turned it into a multi-million dollar empire. The tale of the discovery of gold is interesting *if true*: It goes* A young cowboy, riding up one of the canyons in the Black Hills, stopped by a small stream to fill his canteen and water his horse. He found some wild grapes along the stream and picked a few in his hat to snack on. When he dipped his hat into the water to rinse out the twigs and leaves and was replacing it on his head, he noted something glittering in the crown. On closer examination IT WAS GOLD! The sand in the bottom of the stream was like a Christmas tree! When the news got out it created ‘The Rush of 1876’ which was almost as great as California’s gold rush of 1849. Since that day, all genuine “Black Hills Gold” jewelry has been designed with grapes and grape leaves in the pattern. ** true or not, it’s one helluva story. After that ‘dynamite run’ was over I made up my mind *no more delivery rides with my Dad unless I knew what was on board. I can guarantee you, every bump in those rough mountain roads had me leaving my fingerprints deeply imbedded in the dashboard! That was not the last ride I made with my Dad on the back roads of the Black Hills, though. But it was the last ‘dynamite run’ for me! Dad made several more dynamite deliveries, mostly to Keystone, South Dakota, for use in blasting out the mountain which was to become ‘Mount Rushmore’. I declined going along on any of those explosive laden runs.