Category Archives: Bio

From a letter written by Wanda Gotchy

On June 5, 1999

I used to ride up and down (well, down) the hills of Tacoma when we lived there. Also roller-skated. I was only eleven. We had to clamp the skates on our shoes then. I still have the key. You may have seen it hanging in my kitchen.

I was twenty-five when you were born. Well, just short of it. My Mom was thirty-two. Plus, you were number one and I was number four. Plus it was two years after the depression started when the country went broke. People lost all their money and lots of them back east were jumping out of tall buildings. My dad had our farm auctioned off and everything on it, but our very personal things. It must have been very humiliating for him. In fact, when I was in second grade the doctor that delivered me took dad to court and sued him for the money owed for delivering me. Can you imagine what a beating I took at school? My father the deadbeat. I may not be paid for yet. I suppose the doctor is dead now so no chance I’ll be repossessed, I suppose.  

We loaded everything in our old truck, we called “heller-t-lerrup”. Brother and Jim drove it all the way to Idaho. That meant up the one side of the Rockies and down the other. No brakes to speak of except the emergency. So Ken drove and Jim worked the brake. They must have had quite a trip. The rest of us went in our car.

We rented a house there. It had three rooms, no running water and of course, no bathroom. We four kids had one room. I was eight, Jim twelve and Sis eighteen, and brother nineteen. I didn’t realize then the problems my sister had to go through, as then no sanitary napkins. Just rags that had to be washed out and reused. I think rich people had them, napkins that is. Of course Mom probably did the washing.

Shortly after we got to Oregon Sis went away to college to achieve her life-long dream to become a teacher. She worked her complete way through by living and working for a family. One of her duties was watching their daughter, whom she shared a bed with. A wet bed usually. I think she worked as much as she could for the school to take care of her tuition. Then Pearl Harbor and Dad moved us to Tacoma to work in the shipyard, welding. First time in our lives he had a steady check, and we had a home with running water, a toilet and three bedrooms, one for the girls, one for the boys (Ken was soon drafted), and one for the folks. (The best one of course) Actually, one for the girl (me). It was a tiny one under the eaves about as big as your washroom, with a slanting roof. But it was mine, all mine. The boys had a nice big one, as did Mom and Dad. Theirs was in front with a view of THE MOUNTAIN. Short-lived bliss. Some old guy bought the house and we moved to Salishan. It was brand new then. It wasn’t as wonderful as the other one, but certainly better than we had lived in before. Everyone there were people the same as us, shipped in from all over the states. My best friend across the street was from North Dakota. The kids that were natives here treated us like dirt. Then I found an ace in the hole. I was standing out on the street with a bunch of those girls who were having nothing to do with me, when Jim (good looking Jim) drove up and picked me up to take me home. The next day I was very popular; my turn behind the wheel. Well, not really.

A lot of us Salishan kids got tired of our treatment, so we would take a city bus to the bridge, walk across and take a school bus to Fife. We were never snubbed there. Very happy days. Especially when you think it was where I started to be courted by this big, awkward, but very persistent guy. Let’s see, oh yes, his name was Clarence. I was only a freshman and he was a senior. He went to college and I enjoyed high school. He came around a few times, always on Annual (the book) signing day. He always signed with little messages. I started going steady with someone in my class, but Clarence caused him to dump me. I borrowed enough money from my sister to go to college one year. I think I still owe her. I got a job as a receptionist in a doctor’s office. Made me know I would never become a nurse. Clarence and I were married during this time. His mother did everything she could think of to keep us from it, including going to my mother and telling her what a terrible husband he would make. She wanted him to marry a rich girl he had met in Ellensburg. She refused to come to our wedding if it was in a church, so Mom did everything she could to make a nice wedding for us at home there in Fife. Of course, it wasn’t big enough to have any of my friends. She (his mother) did come but Clarence had to jerk her up out of her seat to get a kiss from her. She never accepted me even when she could see how happy Clarence was. We had been married five years using not protection and given up any idea of having children. We were thinking and inquiring about some five-year old twin girls, and wham, I turned up pregnant. The next, as they say, is history. I forgot to mention that between marriage and childbirth was sixteen months in Korea. We both wrote every day. I missed him a lot of course, but I had the letters and the knowledge he would be coming home.

John Raymond Leffler was born on 3 March 1897 in Polk County Nebraska, near the town of Osceola. His father’s name was Alvin Leffler (Alvin Leffler collected clocks) and his mother’s maiden name was Ida Ann Lewis. (When Ida was older she had arthritis so bad that every finger curled up)  He had an older brother, Edward, a younger brother, Charles, and a younger sister, Mabel. Charles and John were nicknamed “Mutt and Jeff”, after characters in a popular cartoon strip. The family moved to Colorado in 1908 and homesteaded on a farm near Hereford. Every summer the family used to go back to Nebraska in a covered wagon to harvest corn.

When John was a boy he constructed a homemade bicycle using a wooden frame and cultivator wheels. There were no brakes or steering and the rider laid across the frame headfirst. For the trial run he started at the top of a hill in the pasture where some draft animals were grazing. The ride ended between the hind legs of one of the animals and John remembers “coming to” the next day.  He didn’t say whether he ever rode the bicycle again. In another incident he was climbing a tree and fell, catching his ankle in the fork of a branch. He hung upside down until discovered by his brother Mutt some hours later. Yet another time his foot went down into a narrow post hole, trapping him until help arrived.

Regular school attendance was difficult because of farm work. At school, John was forced to learn to write with his right hand. Naturally left-handed, he writes with his right hand to this day. He completed school through the eighth grade. It took two years to finish the eighth grade because of farm work.

Before marrying his eventual bride, Lora Curtis, she went to a dance with another boy who had a carriage. Later in the evening when her date became intoxicated, John had to rescue her. Another time the couple went to a dance in the next county and became stranded when the car broke down. They were unable to return home until the next day and spent the night in a farmhouse.

Lora’s parents did not approve of John, so the couple were married secretly on December 24^th, 1917. Lora returned to her parents’ home after the ceremony. They found out by reading the marriage announcement in the newspaper, and only then allowed the two to live together. (My mom said that Grandma’s mother was a “little dictator”)

John enlisted in the army in 1917 and served in Denver. He never saw service overseas. Lora lived in Denver with him.

After the war the two settled on a farm near Hereford, where their four children were born. They raised beans, corn, barley, wheat and rye.  The farm was not profitable so he sold it and auctioned off the farm equipment. The family left on May 18^th, 1939, with a truck full of possessions, four children and $300.

When my mom was 2 years old her dad ran her over with a car. He came home from somewhere, parked the car and left it. My mom (Wanda) sat in front of the car, playing with rocks. Her dad came back to put the car in the barn and ran over her. Mom witnessed it from the window. I think he just knocked her over with the car and then drove over the top of her. She wasn’t hurt.

They stayed with Lora’s parents in Caldwell, Idaho for a few weeks and then moved to Ontario, Oregon. John ran a garage which he rented in Cairo Junction. He repaired farm equipment, welded and did some blacksmithing. The garage was not profitable because he would do work whether the customer could pay or not and often never collected.

John left Oregon after WW II broke out and came to Tacoma. He opened a gas station and/or garage in Nalley Valley. The family lived in a house on G Street, but moved to Salishan some time during the war. He soon gave up on the station and got a job as a welder at the shipyard. After the war he ran another garage in Salishan for a time and then got a job with the Tacoma Public Schools. He bought a two acre farm in Fife and at various times raised beans and rabbits. He worked with Ken at the shipyards and later, after school was out, Lora, Jim and Wanda joined them in Tacoma.  Lora also worked in the shipyards during the war. He was laid off from the shipyards after the war was over. That’s when he bought the gas station (in Nalley Valley?) which he later sold, then bought a garage in the area of Portland and/or Puyallup Avenue. He did mechanical work but did too much work on credit and went broke. He was forced to retire from Tacoma Public Schools when he was 65. He didn’t want to retire and was unhappy about it.

After retiring from the school system, John worked as a contract carpenter, building garages and remodeling. He has built or helped to build a house for each of his four children. He was a charter member of the South Lakeshore Christian Church, and had a large part in the construction of both the original church building and a later classroom building. He remodeled an old house which was donated to the church and moved onto the property, for use as a parsonage. When the minister chose to live in another house nearby, John and Lora moved into the house and he acted as a caretaker and handyman for several years without pay.

John Raymond Leffler passed from this life on January 9, 1993. He was 95 years young. John will be remembered by many at SLCC for his dedicated service, for his sense of humor, love, hugs at the door, and even his stubbornness. He was a “jack of all trades” and left his footprints on the church grounds and in many people’s hearts. May we who are left, carry on in the legacy of John Raymond Leffler. “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord…they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.” (Rev. 14:13)