Hardy Veterans Took Chance On Land Lottery After WWII
by Jeremy Meyer, Yakima Herald-Republic
May 27,1997Fifty years ago, the U.S. government opened up 1700 acres of irrigated farm lands in the Yakima Valley as homesteads for veterans of WWII.
Twenty eight homesteads on the Roza Irrigation District were made available, and 1248 veterans applied to the lottery. "The land is rich and suitable for a variety of crops when irrigated," said the Secretary of the Interior.
Homesteads were also offered to veterans throughout California and Idaho. The only stipulation to eligibility was that an individual served at least ninety days during the war, had at least three thousand dollars in liquid capital or assets and had farming experience.
Cost to the homesteader was only the government fee and irrigation construction charges. Also, on the Roza Canal, each homesteader had to pay for the water, which at the time was $2 per acre foot of water. Now it hovers around $60.
Each unit had between 40 and 100 acres of land - most of it covered with sagebrush. At the time, it didn't look very hospitable, said Frances Sonner, who was a clerk with the district as a teenager.
"They were real pioneers," said Sonner, now sixty eight and still living in Sunnyside. "They didn't have a thing to work with. They worked really hard. This was new land. I was super proud of them."
Homesteaders eventually cultivated the land, growing mint, alfalfa, fruits and vegetables. Today, most of the farms have been parceled off, and many of the homesteaders are now dead. Still, memories remain for those who spent their time on the homesteads.
Barbara Skinner, 75, still lives on the land she and her husband, Carl Skinner, moved to in the spring of 1948. Today, she owns less than two acres out of the 120 acres the couple homesteaded.
She lives with her son, David, in the modest house Carl built in the late 1940s. He died in 1988 after suffering a stroke. Before Carl took it, 22 fellow veterans passed over the steep, sandy, sagebrush-covered land at the end of Wilson Highway five miles east of Sunnyside.
Correction: After 22 fellow veterans had rejected the remaining unit east of Prosser, Carl also declined the offer. However, he accepted another unit east of Sunnyside which had just become available again when someone backed out.He had earned his credit, serving thirty months in the Army Air Force as a radio operator. His youthful days growing up on his parents' farm in Central Utah taught him how to make the Earth produce. "He figured he could make a go of it," Barbara Skinner said.They drove for seven days with a trailer and flatbed truck from central Utah to the sage-covered hills near Grandview. Once there, Carl Skinner quickly went to work on the land. With help from the precious irrigation water and his farming know-how, Carl turned the dry land into a thriving farm. The 120 acres went on the produce beans, potatoes, alfalfa, wheat, asparagus, hogs, apples and pears.
But Barbara Skinner will never forget those first few years, however. She often finds herself sitting on the porch that her son built, and hearkening back to those days when the couple and their 18-month old daughter lived in an 18-foot trailer on this dry, barren land. The small family scraped out a living with the bare necessities.
After a year of occupancy on their land, the Seattle Times sent a reporter to their farm to write about the hardy homesteaders of the Roza.
"Like all Roza farms, they have electricity, but little else. An icebox and washing machine sit outside the crowded trailer and they haul their water in 10-gallon milk cans by truck."
At that point, Skinner told the reporter he estimated he had sunk about $3900 of his savings into the farm.
Barbara Skinner culled her own memories, read the Seattle Times article and sifted through letters she wrote to her parents in Dover, Delaware. She wrote a fascinating and detailed story of those early times on their homestead. She titles it "The Sandpile."