Notes:
Carl A. St. Germain, 87, who passed away January 17 in Spokane, Washington was a resident of Deer Park during his boyhood. His parents, George and Ada St. Germain, left Hallegan, Michigan, bound for Spokane Falls in the summer of 1889, but arrived to find the town a rubble of charred timer and smouldering ashes and their promised work gone up in smoke. The couple located on a homestead bear Chattaroy where Carl was born on April 29, 1893. The father, George, a veteran of the lumber industry, readily found work as a millwright while his son and daughter, Bess, enjoyed the bird and animal life that flourished in the timber surrounding their cabin home.
The St. Germains moved to Deer Park when the children reached school age, attracted by the educational advantages, but also by the well-paying job, that of ox-driver in one of the logging camps, for which George St. Germain was cqualified by past experiencec.
Carl also found employment suitable to his six years, that of hustling telegraph reports on the John L. Sullivan-Jake Kilrain fight from the station to a saloon. As the battle lasted 75 rounds this added up to a lot of leg work and generosity on the part of the winning betters.
When the lad finished the third grade, his school principal Prof. Morris Wood resigned to start Deer Park's first newspaper. Presently the boy found himself with a wad of cotton in each hand inking the rollers as the first edition went to press. This venture in journalism left ample time for herding the milk cows of several residents and the gift of a fine pony made this chore very attractive. By way of recreation there were rides on Loon Lake that took boaters sight-seeing to "Harry Tracy's shack", visits to Pine Park Lodge on the Spokane River, community outings and parades, especially on the Fourth of July with Carl a drummer in the band.
The day came when a yuba proved it could out-muscle oxen in the big woods, and though there was no lack of word with the Arcadia orchard development getting underway, George St. Germain moved his family to Post Falls, Idaho, confident a millwright would find plenty to do in the sawmills there. His son found use for the pony helping drive herds of beef cattle from the Spokane stockyards to Coeur d'Alene. The route followed the Appleway and then the present freeway, largely open at that time.
Carl was shortly past his 17th birthday when he loaded a borrowed packhorse with provisions for a gang of woodcutters near Cougar Gulch. His own mount was steady enough but the other missed no opportunity to dislodge its burden. It made heavy going all the way and the extreme heat, the oppressive smell of smoke, plus the irritating substance in the air perhaps caused the misbehavior. The men were grouped in a clearing and food was least of their worries as they shaded their eyes and scanned the sky to the southward. More woods-wise than the youth, they recognized the imminence of a forest fire, the big blaze of 1910 about to surround them and certainly too close to outrun, even for the horseman, though the urge to attempt was hard to dissuade.
Older heads prevailed. The men moved their possibles down to the shore of a surface pond. The blankets were removed from beneath the saddles, thoroughly soaked and placed over the horses which were led to the deepest water. Through all this they both behaved quietly. The men rustled blankets to soak and cover themselves and sat in water up to their shoukders, The flames scorched the timber to the water's edge and flying embers touched off the rood of the crude log shanty which burned like a torch, fanned by the roaring wind that would echo in the mind after recollections of the scene dimmed with the passing of several decades. After three days at that oasis in the seared land packer and woodsmen picked their way through the treacherous debris, taking turns on the horses, eager to reach home and relieve the anxieties there and learn the scope of the worst forest fire to strike the northwest.
Shortly after this, Carl was offered a job with a budding electric company that was installing its first power plant at Post Falls. Older, and presumably wiser heads assured him the project would never work out while there would always be a need for lumber. As a result, he turned to sawmilling and a career that lasted nearly 50 years and found him working, usually as a setter, in mills from Grand Forks, B.C. to Murry, Idaho. During occasional"shut-downs" he turned his hand to wheat hauling, the Yakima Valley apple harvest and for a time he managed an Indian Prairie dairy. During the "depression" cutting logs and rick wood kept him occupied until "things started up again".
For many years he was an employee of the Long Lake Lumber Company. This led to some interesting experiences. With fellow employee, Charlie Ring, he acted as fireman on the steam "tugboat" for a voyage down the river. At the mouth of Curby Canyon they tied on to a raft of logs but before they could get moving, ice formed and stalled the whole operation. Even with so much wood in sight, fuel was a problem, whether to burn their engine supply to keep warm or save it to make a move if the weather eased up. They practiced conservation wisely enough to endure and take the tow to the mill when the ice embargo released them around noon the next day.
In 1924 Carl was married to Ellen Reimers. The couple moved to Spokane when the Nine Mile operation was closed permanently. By way of inifiation to the job in a larger plant something went wrong with the machinery and Carl rode his carriage right out of the building to a drop of several feet. Fearful friends, relatives and in-laws hastened to the hospital to find him sitting up in bed, chafing because he was eager to go back to work and the equipment was not quite ready.
In 1941 Carl determined to try "war" work and journeyed to Susanville, California. He was promptly hired by a construction company engaged in building munitions depots. The first job was pick and shovel maintenance crew. Thereafter his responsibility was to keep the ponderous earth movers in proper running order. He and his family saw a great deal of the storied Southwest before returning to Spokane, where he was hired by a mattress factory. When business there tailed off a good friend of Nine Mile days persuaded him to take another sawmill job in Couer d'Alene. He took on the job as setter on a modernized rig and stayed with it until he was sixty-six. Retirement did not mean an end of timer work, however. He turned to tree farming on his own 7-mile ranch and helping neighbors with similar projects.
He took time to become a regular at Grange Picnics and renewed friendships at annual Deer Park Pioneer picnics and was feted by his family at birthdays and other occasions when Ellen shared the honors, including Golden Wedding Day in 1974. It was said of Carl that he would rather work for nothing than be paid for loafing, so he kept himself occupied and never ceasedto be interested in the activities of his friends and seven children. He is survived by his wife, Ellen (Reimers) St. Germain; Children: Mrs. Gene (Bessie) Anderson, Nine Mile Falls, Mrs. Eugene (Shirley) Rouse, Spokane, Mrs. Don (Margie) Geissinger, Springfield, Oregon, Richard St. Germain, Phoenix, Arizona, George St. Germain, Nine Mile Falls, Arthur St. Germain, Spokane Valley, Lawrence St. Germain, Ford, Washington, 18 grandchildren, several great grandchildren, brother-in-law Henry Reimers and sister-in-law Dotha Brady, both of Spokane. He was a Charter Member of Spring Hill Grange and long time resident of this region.
Funeral services will be Wednesday, January 21, 1981, at 11a.m. at the Alwin Chapel, Hazen and Jaeger Funeral Home, N 1306 Monroe St. Burial Riverside Memorial Park. Rev. Earl Mortlock officiating.
Written by Henry L. Reimers