The year: May 1942. The program: scrap metal collection for the war effort. The major players: Bobby and Dick Newman of Umatilla County.
Many tons of scrap iron were collected and shipped from Umatilla County in the 1940s as part of the war effort to supply metals for the manufacture of munitions and other materials. The most precious ton and a half of metal donated to the effort, however, was collected by two brothers from ranchlands in the middle Cold Springs area between Hermiston and Pendleton.
On early May of 1942, J.L. Dunham drove into Pendleton with a load of 3,000 pounds of scrap iron on his truck, accompanied by nephew, 6-year-old Bobby Newman. The youngster, assisted by his 4-year-old brother Dick, had spent two months locating and hauling scrap iron from ditches and gullies on their uncle's farm.
The boys would locate a piece of iron, long abandoned, and then transport it in their wagon to Mr. Dunham's ranch house. And since some of the pieces of iron were rather large — at least for boys their age — the ton and a half of metal represented a huge investment of work and sweat.
An East Oregonian reporter was on hand at Joe Luck's place in Pendleton when Dunham and Newman were helping unload the truck, and found Bobby in a willing, but modest, mood. He happily posed for a photo with some of the scrap he helped collect, but was disappointed that his brother, who couldn't come to town, wasn't in the photo.
"Did you help them?" the reporter asked Dunham.
"Not a bit of it," Dunham replied. "Those kids did it all themselves."
How could the Axis hope to beat that kind of spirit?
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| Six-year-old Bobby Newman of Cold Springs in Umatilla County poses with some of the 3,000 pounds of scrap iron he and his brother, 4-year-old Dick, collected over a period of two months in the spring of 1942 to aid the war effort. (EO file photo) |
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