Good - John Matthrew "Mike"
Source: Waveland Independent newspaper Waveland, Montgomery County, Indiana, 1 March, 1918
John M. GOOD commonly known as "Mike" has migrated "way over to Vancouver, Wash" where he enlisted in the army. The army gets a good, solid man who will always come up smiling.
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Source: Waveland Independent newspaper, Waveland, Montgomery County, Indiana, April 5, 1918
John M. Good, better known as Mike is now near Astoria, Oregon with the 457th ASSC
he writes: "This is some place. I am 16 miles from town and it rains
every day. It has rained every day since I have been here and the people
who live here say that it will rain until about the 1st of July. They
only have about 3 months of nice weather. But it would be a pretty place
if it did not rain so much. The campe is down at the bottom of the
mountains; can look any way and see mountains covered with fir and
spruce pin. A tree here 6,8 & 10' through is a common thing and the
logs run from 50 to 100' long, and some are longer than that. I split
slabs off a tree yesterday that was 10' at the butt and about 10' up the
tree it took a 9' cross cut saw to cut the log off. I did not saw it
but after it was sawed another fellow and I split the cut up in to slbas
for a board walk. I have not seen but one or two boards since I have
been here. I mea n sawed timber. They split every bit of their lumber.
They had some sawed lumber for special work. Our tent has a board floor
but the lumber is split. For the short lumber that I split we did not
use an ax. We used a maul and frow; if you don't know what a frow is,
ask some old man and he can tell you. There is what they call Saddleback
Mountain close here. It looks like it is not over a 1/4 of a mile away
but it is four miles. I have not seen the top of it over two or three
times for the top of it sticks above the clouds. We have poor mail
service here and do not get our mail more than twice a week, and
sometimes not that often. When they brought us out here they brought us
11 miles in autos; then we got on a donkey train and rode about two
miles on that; then we got off and hiked us three miles through the
mountains. Through the mountains the mud was half knee deep. Believe me,
that was some walk up and down the mountain sin that mud. The way we
get supplies, they b ring it up through the mountains on sleds. Two
horses can pull only 600 # and sometimes they stick with that. It takes
four hours for a team to pull that 3 miles so you can that is is pretty
hard to get anything. Money is worthless out here, nothing to spend it
for. They have a supply tent where we can get tobacco and a few things,
but they won't take money; they just charge us for it. You see we are
not working for the government altogether; we are working for a railroad
construction company. We get 45 cents an hour for an 8-hour day and
time and a holf for overtime. The funny part is that a cross-cut saw
filer get 65 cents an hour; what do you think of that?We have to pay $1 a
day for board and work all day in the rain. We have to buy our work
clothes. The government furnishes our underwear, shirts and socks and we
use our uniforms on Sunday. " - typed by kbz
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Source: Waveland Independent newspaper, Waveland, Montgomery County, Indiana, 8 March 1918
On the train, Feb 16, 1918
Dear Mother and folks at home:
I am now on the train going thru Nebraska. I arrived at Chicago all OK. Some place. I and a fellow from Frankfort walked over to the Lake; believe me it is some lake. I could look as far as I could see and could see nothing but water. We arrived at Chicago about 1:30 and didn't leave until 9:40 that night. We took in a show; it was a good one. Then we got supper and got ready to leave. Our car is a steel Pullman, some nice car. I went to bed after we left Chicago and when I awoke the next morning I was in Iowa. I went thru Omaha about 12 noon. I crossed the Missouri River there. This is some nice country. I have seen a lot of nice country already. I guess we will hit the Rocky Mountains tomorrow. They say it takes four engines to pull the train up some of the mountains. Believe me, a fellow don't know what a big country this is until he starts across it. They say the flowers will be in bloom when we get to Washington. We have just not stopped in Central City, Neb. The women of the Christian Church at Frankfort gave us boys a comfort kit apiece, containing a writing tablet, envelopes, needles, pins, safety pins, steel mirror, thimble spool of thread, buttons, pencil, folding drinking cup, soap, pair of scissors, tooth bruth, tooth paste, comb, towel and a can of talcum powder. I am very proud of them. Well, this is Sunday; just had dinner. I sat down in the dining car where there were 3 other men eating one of the men bought me some lettuce. We are allowed 60 cents per meal and that doesn't go very far on a dining car, but still it generally gets us all we want. Well, I went to bed last night in Neb and woke up in Wyo I had just sat down after I got up, and we went thru a tunnel; it was a small one. We hit the Rocky Mts last night. We crossed the Red Dessert this morning. Well, it is about 1 o'clock, I think and I have not seen a tree or a bush since I got up this morning; all I can see is the mountains and there are some big ones, too. Well, I can see sage brush growing up the mountains, it is short and bushy. I see some of it out of the window now; it is tall as hazel brush and looks awful bushy. I don't know what it does look like. There are some awful queery looking things in theWest. I wish you all could see it. I wouldn't take a lot for what I have seen. The houses in Wyo are about 10 to 50 miles apart, except in the towns. I see a bunch of cattle for the first time, lookks like there were about 2 or 300 in the bunch. There are no fences at all except along the railroads and some places not there. The pictures you have seen in the movies of the old west look just like it does out here. The towns are little old one-story shacks, and about every house has one of those big covered wagons with a stove pipe sticking out of the top. I have seen two of the wagons going thru the mountains; looked like they wouldn't get any place, slow as they go. We were on a mountain this morning that was over a mile high. We were scraping the clouds, but the mountain was so big that one could not notice but what he was just in a rough country. We just stopped in one of those little towns, and the first thing you can see is a saloon, hotel and livery barn such as they are. Well, I will tell you about our train. There were 13 coaches with the baggage car but they dropped off two awhile ago, which leaves 11. Our coach is a steel Pullman. The dining car is about the middle of the train. You can get about anything you want on the train. The public roads go thru the fields and around thru the mountains, no fences at all. I wouldn't give a penny an acre for the land I have seen today. If a tree won't grow on it, nothing else would. the ground where there are no rocks is read and sandy, but most of the ground is rocky. We have just started down the mountain. At the top we were 6,995 feet above sea level. We just went thru a tunnel, and they had to turn on the electric lights. I judge it was between 1/4 and 1/2 mile thru it.
They put on 3 more coaches, making 14 now. My coach is the 4th from the engine. I just looked out and we were going between two mountains, the track a sharp curve around one of the mountains and I could see the engine. Some curve, believe me. I just saw 3 hours and one school house, that is the way it is. When you see one or two houses you always see a little 2 x 4 school house. They have to pay a teacher as much to teach 3-4 as they would a big school. Well, this is Monday, my birthday. A week ago today I didn't think I would spend my birthday here.
I am at Portland, Oregon at the Huston Hotel. Will go over to Vancouver in the morning. Say, this is a fine place. I cannot begin to tell you all I have seen; it would take a whole writing tablet to tell you all. We went thru mountains all the way from Wyoming. Went thru about 900 miles of mountains. Thru 100 miles of them today. They were covered with pine trees, some of them about 3' thru and straight as a shingle. They were taller than any trees I ever saw. I wouldn't take $500 for what I have seen. About 85 miles from Portland, clear into the city there were some of the prettiest scenes I have ever saw. I saw several falls pouring off the mountains and they were from 1000 to 2000 feet high. Everything is green here and warm, but the air is different here. I went down across the street in my shirt sleeves, to get some cigarettes and was comfortable and they say it is cool tonight. The people say this is a fine country, Portland is the prettiest city I ever saw. The water is melted snow and runs off Mt. Hood. There is enough snow melts off Mt. Hood to supply Portland, a city of over 300,000. The melted snow makes a small river. They say that the water is healty. I will send you some pictures of the mountains and you can see for youself. I have been in 9 differenet states since I left there: Indiana, Ill, Iowa, Neb; Colorado, Wyo, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. I am well and feeling fine and will write again soon. Yours, JM Good, Vancouver, Wash. - typed by kbz
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Source: Waveland Independent newspaper, Waveland, Montgomery County, Indiana, May 13, 1954
John Matthew GOOD, 59, died at his home near Marshall Tuesday. He had been seriously ill for two weeks. There survive the widow, Mary Glass Good, three sons, one daughter, one brother. Funeral was conducted by the Rev. Herbert Hugo, former pastor of the Waveland Presbyterian Church at the Friends Union Church near Grange Corner, on Thursday afternoon. Burial in Rockville.
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