Virginia and Gene got married December 13, 1958. At the rehearsal, Dad boomed out a loud warning to Gene when he stumbled going up to the altar: "Watch that first step. It's a sonofabitch." Mom cringed, everyone else laughed including Reverend Hunter. A little over nine months later, on August 18, 1959, two things happened. An earthquake registering 7.3 on the Richter scale, the largest recorded earthquake in the history of Montana, caused an 80 million ton landslide that dammed the Madison River. The landslide traveled down the south flank of Sheep Mountain, at an estimated 100 miles per hour (160 km/h), killing and permanently entombing 28 people who were camping along the shores of Hebgen Lake and downstream along the Madison River. Upstream the faulting caused by the earthquake forced the waters of Hebgen Lake to shift violently, crest over Hebgen Dam, causing cracks and erosion.
Four hundred miles away, in Miles City, Virginia gave birth to her oldest child while the delivery table and the gurneys rolled back and forth in the hospital hallway. The following summer, Donna and David stayed with Virginia and Gene at the Hersch farm where Gene was working. They lived in that same 45 foot trailer house that was home in Salt Lake City. Mom and Dad had given it to them as a wedding present.
Gene parked the trailer on one side of an irrigation ditch; on the other side stood the main farmhouse. A narrow wooden bridge spanned the ditch. David and Donna went back and forth over the bridge, sometimes to play with the younger Hersch children, sometimes to help out with chores like using the hand crank cream separator, collecting the eggs from the nests in the chicken coup or riding one of the horses to bring in the cows. On one trip over the bridge, David was startled from his daydream by a baby rattle sound. A diamond back rattlesnake coiled in the center of the bridge a couple yards away. He turned and ran back toward the trailer, and had nightmares for the next several nights.
Terry got married to Perrylee in Salt Lake City. The family drove down for the occasion and returned through Yellowstone Park. There was still enough snow on Monida Pass for Donna, David and Pat to have a snowball fight. On the drive through the park, the family started counting wildlife and tallied a phenomenal 48 bears, a large number even in those days when bears were not automatically trapped and removed to areas away from the main tourist routes. Pat also occasionally fed the bears through the no draft until one deftly re-opened it after she had closed, sending an adrenaline rush through the entire car. David preferred the companionship and better manners of the chipmunks.
Pat got married to Ed, but not before he was vetted, in a sense, by David. Ed was headed for the Navy and was unusually proud of his peak physical condition coming out of boot camp. To demonstrate, Ed would tighten his abs and challenge the little boy named David to hit him as hard as he could. After several of these challenges, which David found very impressive, Ed came over to the house and was watching the TV, lying on the floor alongside the couch where David was sitting with his cowboy boots on. No doubt inspired by something Gorgeous George once did, David stood up and jumped off the couch onto Ed’s stomach without warning. Eventually, Ed started breathing again. Roughly 50 years later, after not having seen each other for 40 of those years, Ed and David met again at the wedding of Pat and Ed’s daughter. The first thing Ed said, “Do you remember that time you jumped on my stomach with your cowboy boots on?” Yes, he remembered.
Pat and Ed got married on October 31, 1959, then moved to Groton, Connecticut, the homeport for Ed’s submarine assignment. Ed probably found submarine life less dangerous than hanging around the Holzworth household. Fewer surprises in any event.
Shortly after the move from Salt Lake City, Dad bid a contract for a section of the Trans-Canada highway near Creston, British Columbia, about 40 miles due north of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. When that job was finished, the company started on another project much further north at Kamloops. Because of the distance, he was away from home for many weeks at a time. Dad had a pre-arranged signal to let Mom know that he arrived at various points along the way when driving back and forth. He would place a person-to-person collect to Mom from Uncle Dudley. The operator always told the receiving party where the call came from so a decision could be made whether or not pt the charges. If something important needed to discussed, Dad would call back right away once he was sure that Mom was home.
The calls became more frequent during the fall of 1959. About this time, Mom also
told David a story about an older boy that lived across the alley who was a very good student and had graduated at the top of his class from high school. That boy had gone to college at some place called Yale with a scholarship that paid for everything. In a very low key and matter of fact way, Mom had sown a seed in preparation for what she must have known then was about to happen. The house and much of the contents were sold. Half way through the school year, Mom, Dad, Donna and David moved to Missoula, Montana and lived in a small rented apartment at 301 Broadway. The change in circumstances was dramatic and upsetting, even though Donna and David were told that it was a temporary move so we could be closer to where Dad was working.
Gradually, Donna first and then David, they began to realize that something had gone wrong with Dad’s business.
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