Crannell & Beyond
Crannell & Beyond
Many of the books for sale at the Historical Society bookstore are big volumes covering big historical topics. Other more modest volumes deal with more limited or personal subjects. An example of the latter is Crannell and Beyond by Weston D. Walch.
Basically this is a memoir which also provides insight into a small Humboldt community. Walch's story begins with his birth in 1928 and portrays life in a lumber company town. We vividly see evening card games among the grown ups, family gatherings around the radio to hear President Roosevelt, elk wandering into the garden, and the air filled with the trill of train whistles. He takes us inside the snug company-built houses, the Saturday night dances, the baseball games, picnics and company stores. And we see a boyhood playing in the woods, swimming in Little River and the joy of the first family car. Then came the excitement of the 1938 filming of "Valley of the Giants" right around home.
As boy grows into man, we glimpse life during the war years, high school sports, and family joys and tragedies. We learn about many aspects of the lumber business that Walsh inevitably grew into, and though the town of Crannell gradually came to an end, he moves into the international timber industry, taking him and his family to adventures in Asia, South America and elsewhere around the U.S.
This compelling book connects us to one life but also to important threads that wind through all of Humboldt.
