When my grandpa was getting up in age around 80, he had a stroke. My dad went over to his house when he was in the hospital and made sure everything was locked up. When he was there, he saw that Grandpa had a load of wood in his pickup that he had cut behind his field.

Dad told me to go over there and unload that wood for him, so I went over. Now I was in high school and in pretty good shape! The wood was cut in 4’ lengths and green oak! I could barely lift some of the pieces to stack them!

When I got home I asked Dad, “How did he load that?”

And then I was looking around and saw 2 bow saws. I also asked Dad, “Where is his chainsaw?”

Dad said, “He never owned one! He cut his wood by hand!” 

When Grandpa got better, he spent time with each of his kids for care!

Winter had come and Grandpa was home and Dad had me stay with him a couple of weeks and we had a pretty good snow storm during this period and he had a long driveway! All I remember is even his snow shovel was heavy (for me). We shared lots of talk in those two weeks and even though I probably wanted to be elsewhere, I did find his stories interesting! One such story was how he got his nick name Muskrat John? 

Grandpa said back in the early 1930’s he was working in a mine near Crosby on an electric shovel, part of a 4 man crew. They were taking a lunch break and he told the crew he was going to go look for muskrats as there was a stream or creek nearby.

Someone said, “John I’ll give you $2 dollars for every muskrat you bring back!” 

Well off he went and came back a short time later with 2 muskrats!!! A couple of guys on the crew were laughing, but not the guy that had to pay him $4 dollars! And that is how he earned the nickname, Muskrat John! 

What the guys didn’t know was that Grandpa had set traps sometime prior to this and kept it to himself! 

Grandpa John was a good hunter and trapper. I remember when I was young, we would go to his house to visit, and he had chickens out behind the barn in a penned area and I was afraid to go near those chickens? As the penned area at times was scattered with these carcasses they had big teeth and large flat tails, and the bones were bleached white!

I know I had to ask my dad, “What are those things?”

He said, “After Grandpa skinned the beaver, he fed them to the chickens!”

Now I was even more fearful of those chickens! You weren’t going to catch me going in that pen, I was sure they had teeth!