Bill Wheeler leaps high in the air for a rebound while teammate, Jim Clem looks on.
Not often enough does one realize how high Bill Wheeler once leaped. He’s shown here in the Chuck Smith gym 55 years ago during a game his Enumclaw Hornets basketball team lost to Fife.
But Wheels as he later came to be known kept winning the hearts of those who knew him well. Following graduation, Bill’s talents were bigger than his hometown’s needs and first landed at Big Bend C.C. where he was going to learn to fly, then to Ellensburg to further ground his education. At Central Washington College he studied how to become a wild cat, and succeeded wildly. There he gained the nickname Wheels in a story so fantastic that it can only be told over a cold beer as he brings a smile to your face.
A forever friendship was forged when Bill Wheeler (in plaid pants), Bill Kombol, and Keith Hanson took a week-long road trip to Reno, Disneyland, and Big Sur in Eugene Wheeler’s Lincoln Continental Mark IV. This late November 1975 photo by Pauline Kombol at 1737 Franklin Street, Enumclaw, Washington.
After schooling, ranching, and the passage of time, Wheels returned to his home town to mold the life he sought to build. There in the seat of every imaginable piece of heavy mobile equipment, Bill sculpted the earth, buried utilities, excavated customer’s dreams, and thrived. He soon became the second letter of S & W Construction, learning much from his first letter partner, Sam Schaafsma. But a first-rate man demands his own dominion, and it wasn’t long before Wheeler Construction was born.
Bill Wheeler compares Operating Engineer union cards with 99-year-old Cal Bashaw, left (Oct. 24, 2019). The Wheeler and Bashaw families both moved from Alaska to Enumclaw in 1965, after which Bill became good friends with Cal’s son, Wynn.
Requiring further refinement in the finer arts of life, Bill placed a ring on the finger of a fiery, red-haired, Scots-Irish lass of clever tongue and semi-sweet disposition. Children were born and a fine home built. In time the wheeling wild cat was tamed, but how long it took no one has yet stated with certainty. What skills he lacked on the golf links he more than made up for at job sites moving enough dirt with backhoes, bulldozers, graders, and dumptrucks to build a dozen golf courses. At the poker tables, he’s always a threat, but mostly to his own wallet.
Throughout it all, Bill Wheeler has remained as devoted to friends as he is to his adopted hometown of Enumclaw where he arrived in the 7th grade. Legions number the good deeds and generous gifts of time, labor, equipment, and materials that Bill has donated to his community. Of late he’s even found a new girl in his life and spends hours playing handsome prince to a charming Princess Lucy.
So in a Leap of Faith with hopes that others second this emotion, I hereby declare February 29th as International* Bill Wheeler Appreciation Day, to be celebrated once every four years by people just like you and me who appreciate the finest things in life. As for the other 365 days . . . may God bless Bill Eugene Wheeler.
* International due to his mother, Pat Wheeler’s Canadian heritage.
Bill Wheeler enjoying a cup of black coffee and blackberry cobbler at a Jan. 7, 2023 Pokerque with his longtime Enumclaw pals.
Cal Bashaw, 2nd Lieutenant, U.S. Air Force during World War II
The day he graduated from Kent High School, his mom took him to lunch. There she announced, “From now on, you’re on your own.” He spent that night in the basement of Mrs. Shaffer’s home, the mother of the man, Marie Bashaw would soon divorce. The next day, Calvin Frank Bashaw started a journey that ended on Sept. 29, 2021, several months past his 101st birthday.
Cal Bashaw at Kent High School.
Cal Bashaw was born June 19, 1920, in Edmonton, Alberta to a French-Canadian father, Reuben Bashaw (formerly Beauchesne) and Scandinavian mother, Marie Caroline Peterson. He died in Enumclaw, his adopted hometown since 1966. Cal’s early years were spent in Renton at the Sartori School, then Hillman City where he attended Columbia Grade School. Cal was 13 when his father died in 1933. His older brother, Ed had already left home.
When he and his mother moved to Kent in 1935, Cal was a scrawny boy of 15 who barely made the football team, and was quickly ignored as undersized. The following summer, he labored at his uncle’s sawmill on the Frazier River, 60 miles east of Prince George. His job was “dogging the carriage” where he worked 10-hour shifts alongside stout mill hands, ate hearty meals in the mess hall, and slept in the camp barracks. Cal’s summer labors earned him $45, of which $16 purchased his first car, a Model A Ford coupe. Kent’s legendary coach, Claude French took note of the now brawny Bashaw boy and he became starting tackle on the football team.
Cal and his Model A Ford, purchased for $18 with summer wages from working at his uncle’s sawmill on the Frazier River.
A few days after that graduation day lunch, Cal turned 18 and started work at the National Bank of Washington in Kent. Banking was not his calling, so he next labored in a cold storage plant earning enough to start school that fall at Willamette University in Salem. He secured room and board through a job set up by the college and the following summer worked at J.C. Penney in Port Angeles. But in those late years of the Great Depression money was short, so he left college with plans to reenter after earning enough to pay his way.
Next came jobs cleaning and remodeling kitchens, which led to a position with Boyles Bros. Diamond Drilling at the Holden copper and gold mine in Stehekin. Deep underground, he and a partner drilled exploratory holes allowing mine engineers to chart the course of mining. He earned $.75 per hour plus room and board in the remote mining camp located at the upper end of Lake Chelan. As war against Germany and Japan approached, work becoming more plentiful so Cal hired out to Siems Drake to help build a Naval Station in Sitka, Alaska. He learned to run a P & H shovel and became the youngest man to earn his union card in the Operator’s Engineers, Local 302. At $1.75 per hour, Cal was earning so much money he had to open a bank account.
Cal and Varian in Sitka, Alaska, shortly after Cal earned his union card in 1942.
Secure in his potential to support a wife, Cal reached out to the girl he left behind in Washington. Her name was Varian Graham of Kent, and in early 1942, he sent a telegram asking her for her hand in marriage. No response came for Varian had another boyfriend in Seattle. Cal booked passage on a southbound boat to help make up her mind. Varian’s mother advised her 20-year-old daughter, “You can’t get along with him and you can’t get along without him, so give it a try –you can always come home.” They were married on April 12, 1942, Varian’s 21st birthday, and remained so for 58 years until her death on November 10, 2000 at age 79.
After a short honeymoon in San Francisco, the newlyweds moved to Juneau where Varian worked for the territorial treasurer, while Cal operated a shovel for Guy F. Atkinson on the Al-Can Highway. A few months later, Cal received his draft notice so joined the Air Force to become a pilot. He never got through flight training as World War II wound down and Cal was honorably discharged at the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. Back in Washington, Cal began selling heavy construction machinery for Clyde Equipment, then joined Northern Commercial (now NC Machinery) at their Caterpillar department in Anchorage. Now with two children, Jill and Win, Cal turned his attention to building his family a three-bedroom home of his own design, at night and on weekends.
The Bashaw family: Win, Cal, Varian, and Jill in Anchorage, circa 1954.
Cal then took the biggest risk of his still young life – he mortgaged his home to start a business repairing and selling heavy equipment. The family lived frugally, while Cal worked long hours. Bashaw Equipment Company established a consignment sales relationship with Morrison-Knudsen, a civil engineering and construction company based in Boise, Idaho, who had large contracts in Alaska. It was during this period he met Dwight Garrett, an entrepreneurial inventor prowling through Alaska seeking used cranes and shovels to remanufacture into logging equipment back in Enumclaw.
Cal at the Bashaw Equipment Co.’s Anchorage yard during the early 1960s.
Cal’s company prospered and the family moved to a home in a new development on Telequana Drive in Anchorage. Bashaw Artic Machinery was next founded to sell Snow Trac vehicles manufactured in Sweden. On Good Friday, March 27 1964 at 5:36 pm, all hell broke loose as did the Bashaw house. The Great Alaska Earthquake, measuring 9.2 on the Richter scale left their home hanging from a cliff and Cal’s businesses hanging in the balance. The home was condemned but the family was safe. Cal related the family’s experiences through first-hand reports, one of which was published in the Kent News Journal. One of Cal’s maxims came from this experience, “You can never really appreciate a gain until you have suffered a loss.”
A year later, Cal was diagnosed with colon cancer, which previously cursed other members of the Bashaw family. His businesses were sold, and the family moved to Enumclaw in 1966. There he reconnected with Dwight Garrett, the owner of Garrett Tree Farmers, whose articulated skidders revolutionized the logging industry. The two formed a handshake business relationship investing in land, which lasted the rest of Garrett’s remarkable life.
Cal Bashaw in front of one of Dwight Garrett’s Tree Farmers, the skidder that revolutionized logging in the 1960s.
Cal joined Dwight on the Board of Directors at Cascade Security Bank, which Garrett founded in 1964 to compete with First National Bank of Enumclaw, because he didn’t like how the old guard operated the town’s only financial institution. There Cal met a widow, Pauline Kombol with whom he forged a union in 2001, a year after Varian passed away. Their relationship lasted a decade and ended with Pauline’s death in January 2011, the same day Cal attended the funeral of his daughter, Jill Alverson.
Pauline Kombol & Cal at her 80th birthday celebration in Arizona, March 2007.
When Garrett decided that Cascade Security Bank needed a new home, it was Cal whom Dwight selected to choose a new design for the building after the original architect’s plans were found too grandiose and expensive. Cal threw himself into the project and in 1980 had it built for one-third the projected cost of the abandoned design. That building stands at the corner of Griffin and Porter in Enumclaw and since 1996 has been a branch of Green River Community College.
On his deathbed in Aug. 2005, Dwight called Cal into his room asking him to be Executor of his estate, likely the largest the small town of Enumclaw has ever seen. Dwight’s last words to Cal, “You are someone I know I can trust.” Cal was 85 years old and it took him till 2017 to complete the undertaking Garrett assigned. By then Cal was 97, yet still living on his own, driving to the store, and enjoying days out and evenings with friends. One of his great joys of life was eating strawberry shortcake with whipped cream on his birthday, each June 19th when local strawberries ripen.
Cal on his 100th birthday with a giant strawberry short cake, June 19, 2020.
Cal Bashaw completed his assignment on earth in a manner that exemplified his life. Sensing time was growing short, Cal accepted his fate with a Stoic resolve and a cheerful heart. Friends and relatives came to say their final goodbyes, while he remained alert and communicative to the end. In his last days, Cal spoke mostly of thankfulness, of a life well-lived, and for the family and friends he’d served, as they served him at his passing. He left behind a written account of his life from which this obituary was drawn. It’s a detailed story of hard work, dedication, and love of family.
Cal Bashaw departed from this life grateful, content, and fulfilled. He carried no regrets. Nearing death, he held hands with those who visited and thanked each for their kindness, while thanking God for the good life he lived.
Cal, happy, content, and with a smile on his face, days before saying goodbye for the last time.
Cal was preceded in death by his wife, Varian and his beloved daughter, Jill Alverson. He is survived by a son, Win Bashaw of Texas, his faithful son-in-law, Bruce Alverson of Enumclaw; granddaughters, Brynn Dawson (Dean) of Klickitat, Tess Heck (Brian) of Lake Tapps, Kalyn Gustafson (Jake) of Seattle, and Katie Smith of Arizona; great-grandchildren, Hunter Dawson, Beau Dawson, Max Hollern, Olivia Hollern, Elle Gustafson, and Emmett Gustafson.
“Our being in this world is not accidental. We all have a mission to do some special work, and it is work that will honor Him and bless those around us. If we do not find that work and do it, our life is a failure; the true end of living is not realized. We may not learn in a moment; but step-by-step, day by day, as we go on things will be made clearer. Those who do the smallest things well because they are God’s plan, are to be honored far above those who do great things for the world’s praise.” – Nancy Matilda Hembree (1837-1922)
Nancy Matilda (Hembree) Snow (1837-1922)
Thus spoke Pauline’s great-grandmother, Nancy Matilda (Hembree) Snow decades before my Mother was conceived. Pauline Lucile Morris was born to John Henry and Nina Marie, both had the last name Morris. She was as Welsh as one could be. Her father was a coal miner and her mother a school teacher. Both her grandfathers and great-grandfathers worked in the coal industry. Her great-grandmother, Nancy was a pioneer of the 1843 Oregon Trail.
Pauline grew up in the coal mining town of Durham surrounded by an extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins most of whom worked in or around the mines. Her family moved to Enumclaw when she was six, first to a hop farm in Osceola and later a home above Newaukum Creek. At school she made life-long friends many of whom are here today. She edited the school newspaper and annual, graduating from Enumclaw in 1945, just as World War II ended. Her obituary claims she briefly attended the University of Washington. The truth . . . for about 15 minutes.
Pauline Morris, left with Shirley Stergion in front of Enumclaw High School, circa 1944.
After a short stint in Seattle, she landed back home working at the Palmer Coking Coal mine office at Four Corners. There she pumped gas and helped with bookkeeping. In 1950, she and Jack Kombol eloped to California and married. Eventually the couple made their way back to Selleck, where Barry, Jeannie and I first lived, and then to Elk Coal where Dana was born, just a quarter mile from the Durham of Mom’s childhood.
Mom had six life-changing experiences: Barry, Billy, Jeannie and Dana; but two others I’d like to tell you about. Her second baby, a daughter Paula Jean died two days after birth. Mom used to say that after the loss of that baby, she loved the rest of us so very much, so that she would never lose another child. One day years later, Jeannie and I rambunctiously raced around the living room, and Mother’s prized china cup collection crashed to the floor shattering every piece. Despite her initial sadness, Mom decided then and there that she would never value any possession more than the people in her life.
Pauline holding her second son, who 58 years later read this eulogy at her funeral, Sept. 1953.
Our family moved to Enumclaw in 1958. There Pauline joined civic life as a den mother, Camp Fire leader, election-day poll worker, raising money for the March of Dimes, helping elderly aunts, and later caring for her own mother. There she ran the home – baking cookies, canning homemade jam, making pies – always from scratch and never with a recipe or measured ingredients. Menus were traditional and set: Friday – fish or tuna noodle casserole; Saturday – hamburgers; Sunday – fried chicken or pot roast; Monday – meat loaf, and so on. We never had soda pop or potato chips, but did enjoy Kool-aid and homemade frozen popsicles. Each summer we took vacations with the Cerne’s to Grayland and Hoods Canal – I later learned that we stayed at the same Beacon Point cabins where her family vacationed when she was young.
One of the big events of our lives was the family trip to Europe in 1968. Mom researched and found our Welsh and Croatian relatives and planned our journey through ten countries in six weeks. Using her dog-eared copy of Europe on $10 a Day, Mom found cheap pensions and small family-run hotels to fit her tight budget. Jack drove us across Europe in a small station-wagon jammed with six people and 13 suitcases. We played Hearts in the backseat and listened to Radio Luxemburg with Danica stuffed back amongst the luggage.
The Kombol family portrait, 1967.
In later years we spent our summers at Lake Sawyer where Dad built a cabin. During one particularly inebriated summer party, Mom earned the nickname ‘Carrie Nation’ when she raced around the cabin pouring out booze and opening the tap of the keg refrigerator watching cold beer spill to the ground.
In early 1979 Jack was diagnosed with cancer and passed away within 3 weeks. A night before he died, he called me to his bedside and said, “I want you to take care of your mother.” Since the girls were away and Barry was married with a growing family, the primary duty of caring for Mom fell to me. So, I frequented her home where she cooked me delicious dinners. And, made sure I brought my laundry so she could wash it. And, she hemmed my pants and sewed buttons on my shirts; and, always sent me home with casseroles, lentil soup, and blackberry pies. It seemed the more I tried taking care of Mom, the more she took care of me. And who could ever forget the summer Keith Timm Jr. moved in with Mom and me. Then there were two of us . . . “to take care” of Mom.
Pauline and her three siblings, Evan Morris, Betty Falk, and Jack Morris, June 18, 1977.
During the early years after Dad’s death, she kept herself busy on the Enumclaw School Board and as a Director of Cascade Security Bank. But like a caterpillar, she spun her cocoon waiting to find the wings of the butterfly she became. And that she did. I can’t claim credit for pushing her out of the nest – I was too busy “taking care of her.” But off she flew – first to Seattle where she bought a condo and found friends through extension classes and her beloved movie group. More grandchildren were born and off she went to care for them. She enjoyed traveling and over the years took trips to Russia, China, Hungary, Italy and elsewhere. She loved her time in Lincoln City, and eventually spent her winters, first in Palm Springs and later Scottsdale.
Coal Miners’ Daughters: with Loretta Lynn at Sesame Street studios, circa 1983.
Around the turn of the century, a wonderful gentleman entered into Mom’s life. His name was Cal Bashaw. He was a widower born the same year as my Dad. Mom and Cal had known each other from their days as bank directors. Well, I have to admit that Cal and I have radically different styles. When he started to “take care of” Mom; he did things like always helping her with her coat; opening doors; helping with her chair, fixing things around the house, running errands, taking her out to dinner, and always being there to care for her needs. It seemed the more we were around Cal, the more my own lovely wife began pointing out all of Cal’s far-too-many good traits. I started hearing things like, “Why can’t you be more like Cal?” Basically, Cal’s caring manner made my previous efforts to “take care of” Mom look fairly absurd.
Cal Bashaw, Pauline, and grandson Henry, Christmas 2004.
But truly, Mom and Cal had a wonderful ten years together. And if only more people were like Cal, and like Mom, the world would be a far better place.
So, I come to the end, but also the beginning: the beginning of our lives without Pauline, without her sunshine.
Still, her light still shines – a small, bright star to guide me – to guide me through the darkness and back to life. So until that day when my light joins hers, I will rest easily, knowing that Pauline led a good life; a life worth living; a life which blessed those around her; a life of small things done well – done not for the world’s praise; but done through an honored existence, dedicated to her friends and to her family, and lived according to God’s plan.
Pauline Morris, graduation photo – Enumclaw Class of 1945.
And, if she were here today . . . I’ll let you complete the thought.
