Notes for John DUPREL

Notes for John DUPREL

BORN: Fri MARRIED: Tue DIED: Sun, Age at death 80 years 2 months 11 days
SOCIAL SECURITY ACCOUNT NUMBER: 285 22 2180

John Duprel was born 19 January 1906 on the family homestead near Sturgis, South Dakota. He attended grade school at the Meyer School, a one room school house near their home. In his teens John attended vocational school in Rapid City. While there, he enhanched his mechanical ability by acquiring the skills of a machinist and tool and die maker. His father, Andre, felt someone should be trained to operate and repair the new farm machinery and tools. John said he remembered the weary hours walking behind a team of horses and plow in his early years. As the oldest son, he worked hard as a youngster and later as ayoung man helping his father work the land. Through the years their holdings grew to a sizeabe ranch wtih all the sons doing their share.
In 1925 Marjorie Steiber, Twenty years old, came west from Fulton, South Dakota after completing her teachers training at the State Teachers's College in Brookings. She came to Sturgis to teach at the Meyer School and lived at the Duprel home. She taught some of John's younger brothers and sisters. She and John fell in love and married 19 July 1927 in Rapid City. They lived at the farm for a time then moved on to Fredonia, Wisconsin, where John went to work for his uncle, John Gilson, in the Gilson Brother's Foundry. Their first child, Irene, was born there 2 April 1930. In 1934 John left the foundry and became a salesman for W.J. Rawleigh Company. They settled in Dodgeville, Wisconsin where their second child, Ronald was born 4 February 1935. They later lived in Monroe, Wisconsin, where their third child, Roger was born 24 October 1938. In May 1942, John moved his family to Dayton, Ohio, where he joined the World War II effort on the home front as a Machinist/Tool Die maker at the Engineering Division, Propeller Laboratory, Army Air Force Materiel Center, Wright Field. At the same time he also worked a half shift at night at the Univus Lens Company, which made lenses for binoculars, glasses and bombsights for the armed forces. In April 1944, John resigned his job with the War Department, packed up his family and driving a car and pulling a trailer, headed west. They settled south of Seattle where John looked for work. He found a job as caretaker of a nut orchard. They moved there in the fall of 1944 and later bought the twenty acre orchard of 1700 filbert trees.

John designed and built machinery to harvest and process the nuts. He had a job at Northwest Metals in Kent and later at the Boeing Company. During the big freeze of 1955, most of the orchard was lost, which was a devastating blow. John decided to start an egg operation instead, so he cleared the damaged and dead filbert trees and constructed barns and chicken cages while continuing his job at Boeing. He worked mostly swingshift from 3 p.m. to midnight, came home to sleep, got up early and worked the farm before going back to work. John left Boeing in 1957 and worked soley at the egg business. They bought their feed and marketed their eggs through the Western Farmers Co Operative. They raised sheep for a while and in the early days they always had milk cow for milk and cream. Marge worked as hard as John on the farm & in the house. When they had the nut business, the whole family worked at raking and harvesting nuts, drying them in large driers John had designed and built. Roger remembers working all evening getting the nuts ready for maket and being so tired he would fall asleep on the bags of nuts while his mother finished up. When they had the egg business, Marge and the chldren would all help gather eggs and feed. This had to be done every day, and usually took several hours, depending on how many were helping. In the early years, Marge had to spray the eggs with oil before they were picked up by the Western Farmers' truck. Their eggs were shipped to Alaska & the oiling process game them a longer shelf life Every summer they had a large vegetable garden worked by the whole family. It provided fresh vegetables from spring through fall and Marge canned vast amounts of beans, applesauce, pears, rhubarb, jams and jellies. When prices on eggs fell, they got out of the chicken business. John took the chicken barns, raised the roofs on some, removed all the cages and turned them into buildings for car and boat storage, which gave him additional income until his death in 1986. While he ran his storage business, he built up a herd of Charolais cattle. He originally bought five range cows from a farmer in Bellingham which were 7/8 charolais. He bred them to purebred bulls and soon had a beautiful herd of white cattle. The five range cows had been good starters, but they were mean and hard to handle. The meanest he named the long Ranger and she would charge any chance she could. He used to herd them only with a tractor and an electric cattle prod. He finally sold them off, replacing them with his own heifers. When he became ill in 1984, he had sixty-five purebreds, a beautiful heard which was his pride and joy. Marjorie died in 1980 at age 75. She had not been well the last several years of her life. John lived alone for about four years until his health began to fail after developing Lupis and diabetes. he died on Easter Sunday, 30 March 1986 at the age of Eighty.

John had served as Fire Commissioner for the 44th Fire District of King County. He also served on the Washington State Board for Control of Noxious Weeds and on the Egg Producers Board for the Western Farmer's Co op. he was a member of the Washington State Cattleman's Association and the National Charolais Association. One of Irene's fondest memories of her father was his later years when he played Santa Claus at the community club's annual Christmas parties. He even grew a beard which he kept for the remainder of his years. Marjorie was a wife, mother, homemaker and farmer. She put in a full day every day cooking three large, hot meals for John and the children. She was undoubtedly one of the best cooks around. She could turn any leftouver into a tantalizing meal. After lunch each day, she would put on her scarf and boots, go out and pick up eggs or do other farm chores, come back in and prepare a large dinner. She probably had the cleanest house in the neighborhood as well. Both John amd Marjorie were buried at Mountain View Cemetery, Auburn, Wa.

Written by Roger Duprel Bellevue, WA. & Irene Duprel Centralia, WA. (1989)