Legacy of a Name (George Salusso)

A large part of Dad’s drive was a result of his relationship with his father, George. By the time Steve arrived in ’52, George had accumulated heart problems and lost interest in working. Steve’s youngest sister Carol described Papa as being a “great worker, a marginal manager, and a man who sought what he could not achieve.” His wife, Ruth, described him in a poem titled “The Boxer”:

My husband is a boxer----------

Not the fisticuffer kind;

But all his papers, legal things,

And things that he must find.

He averages one box a week,

But when stacks begin to fall,

There comes the question,

Where to put it? Front porch,

Back porch? HALL?

When something is lost, confusion reins,

Each box must then be checked.

And I must keep my wifely charm,

So he won’t feel henpecked!

I love this busy boxer,

Would love to help him with each chore;

But I admit, this boxing bit

Bugs me more and more.

Will the boxes win the victory?

Will they usurp our place?

Oh Papa, what’s the answer?

With this I rest my case.

Earlier in his life, however, George, (or Papa to us), worked a lot, and had a broad network of friends and acquaintances. Like my father, he was born in the time of war and conflict. From a global perspective, WWI was tearing cultures and families apart. More locally, Butte was in the aftermath of the Copper King Feud and suffering from the Great Depression. By 1915, there were more than 2.6 people per square mile in Butte (Montana Legacy), increased from the 30,470 in 1900 (Burlinghame).

The year Papa arrived, the Daly and Rockefeller Amalgamated Copper Mines Company changed its name back to the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. The first of two major hard rock mining disasters occurred that same year; the major catastrophe of the Speculator Fire in 1917, which claimed at least 167 lives, predated the fire in the Pennsylvanian Mine the following year.

Even though by then, WWI was over, Butte remained in turmoil. The North Butte Mining Company suggested that the Spec Fire was the fault of pro-German sympathizers, which caused the first major strike in 39 years. The Spec Fire turned out to be the Kryptonite of Manus Duggan, who gave his life to save numerous other miners. So Steve and George were born under starkly similar circumstances, though 37 years apart.

The Salusso family lived on the homesteaded farm in Bull Run until 1921, when Barney bought a small home in Butchertown in order to be closer to his work. They leased Bull Run Gulch to a Korean family. George began his short school career at the Sherman School. On his way to school every morning, he would deliver milk bottles, tied in a dishtowel, to customers on Daly Street, and then pick them up on the way home. He became the target of neighborhood bullies, so he learned to run, which helped him when he played baseball at noon recess.

In 1926, when George was 11, the Korean family moved out of Bull Run Gulch, adding to the work load of the Salusso family. Barney made George a pair of cross-country skis out of barrel staves to travel during the winter between the ranch in Bull Run, Butchertown, and Walkerville. During the summer, they used a horse and wagon to deliver milk and vegetables into customers in Walkerville and Butte. In 1927, they bought a car, and George had to drive the delivery vehicle to the boarding houses where the miners lived. He made friends easily, and was very gregarious with strangers. In those days, the miners often referred to each other by nicknames alone, so Papa, though he knew many people, rarely knew their real names. He never smoked or drank as a result of seeing the miners in those boarding houses working so hard in such abject conditions and then spending their hard-earned living on liquor and cigarettes. He saw the sickness that resulted from their lifestyle and chose to live his own differently.

He was too busy working to finish high school. He started his first year at Butte High School, but dropped out to continue his dairy and vegetable deliveries. His future wife, Ruth Richards, graduated from Butte High in 1933. They were family friends, and knew each other from gradeschool at Sherman. He took her to the prom at the pavilion at the Columbia Gardens, in the years before the Berkley Pit, and, after a three-year engagement, they married on May 22, 1939.

In 1941, George and Barney purchased a farm in Divide to raise hay for the dairy cows. “They hired a man to irrigate the hay then when the hay was dry then mowed it with the horse mower, ran a rake to put it in rows, then the buck rake with two horses pushed it into the stack” (Richards). George had to be everywhere at once during haying season. When WWII broke out, he and Barney planted 35 acres of potatoes because enough of the right crop planted for the war effort kept the farmers from having to fight overseas. In 1945, Barney and George ordered a $20,000 dairy barn kit from Wisconsin. At that time, it was state-of-the-art to have milking machines in it.

A year later, George inherited the farm when Barney died after having a simple surgery to fix a hernia. The doctors did not know he was a bleeder; they fixed the hernia, but he bled to death. George and his then family of four children moved to a rented house in Walkerville. In 1953, due to a carelessly tossed cigarette, the Walkerville Dairy burned down. In 1955, George left his partnership in the Nash car business and moved the family back to Divide. The Salusso family and Tony Calcaterra, Papa’s only sister’s husband, continued milking cows at Divide and pasturing the dry ones at Bull Run. Shortly thereafter, they stopped delivering door to door, and instead separated the cream and hauled it to the Divide Railroad Station to be shipped to the Dillon Creamery. They sold the remaining cows in 1964 and George took up roofing and construction.

Papa had to have a heart valve replaced in 1976, (one of Dad’s excuses to go to Spokane), and was told by his doctor that he had already had twelve to thirteen minor heart attacks. It seems as though a few times while he was up on ladders or after he had eaten too much food, he would pass out and his face would turn black. The surgery helped some, but his heart continued to bother him.

He was a brilliant salesman, with grand schemes and little or no follow-through. He bought a railcar full of fertilizer spreaders and sold them, and the leftovers he would use or store. Apparently, he did this for many items needed on the farm. He wouldn’t buy one of anything, but a lot of everything and then try to sell the excess. When he demolished buildings, he would bring home the leftovers. To this day, we have the skeletal remains of countless demolition projects from around the southwestern portion of the state.

George was raised “fanatically” (Calcaterra) Catholic, but once on his own, he never took the time to pursue any religion. He married a dedicated Baptist woman, but after their marriage, he never set foot in a church again. My own father and mother brought their family to church, sent us to Bible camps during the summers, and involved us in youth group during high school. Our interest in religion was more a result of the influence of my mom and Ruth, (Richards), than George. He was over-churched, and I guess my Dad felt under-churched, so he worked at intertwining God back into our legacy.

Papa died of a heart attack on Thanksgiving Day in 1985 when he saw his house in Divide on fire. Hunters who saw the flames arrived in time to save a few items of furniture and belongings, but the house burned to the ground. So I never got to know Papa, but I hear that he loved the grandchildren he lived to hold. Dad describes him as having a gentle, loving nature in his later years, though he rarely showed it to his own family in prior times. Salussos are a gregarious, many-talented people who love to meet people and to try new things.