I don't know if Elden was an orphan or an abandoned baby. At any rate he was adopted by an older couple who, I'm sure, did their best to raise him.

His companions were not the ones we would recommend as being good influences. He told me of a time when he and his buddies would steal milk from the front porch of a distant neighbor. Said neighbor tired of losing his milk so he poured out some milk and filled the void with urine.

The boys each drank from the bottle without saying a word to the others. When I heard that story, I concluded that here was someone with a whole different philosophy than anything I could understand. In time Elden became a steal to order thief. You want a blue Chevrolet, he'd steal you a blue Chevrolet.

One time a man hired Elden to steal a stamp collection from a friend of the man. Elden was in the victim's house and he had a gun. The man came home and was heading for the room where Elden was when he turned and went into another room. Elden, at least, had the sense to get out of there.

I'm sure that if the man had come through that door Elden would have been a murderer and would still be in prison.

In some subsequent crime Elden was finally caught and put in jail. He said he was breaking rocks. (I didn't know they actually did that). He looked around and was at least smart enough to realize all these other fellows had plans for what they'd do when they got out of jail. But they were all in jail.

At this point a good lawyer got hold of him. He said, "Elden, I'll help you get out of here. But, if I ever hear of your being in trouble again, I'll help to put you away".

Elden eventually became the foreman for the man who built furniture for me. When that man, Elmer Benner, left for California, Elden went along. On a service call back to our area on something that had been done before I took over the Seattle business, Elden told me that he didn't like it down there. He said he could set up a shop for me for just $5000. I borrowed the money from my dad. After a number of more $5000's we had a shop and were in business.

Within a few years we had finished some nice restaurants. The most outstanding being the Windjammer restaurant in Shilshole area of Seattle. It was judged one of the two best restaurant interiors of the year for the U.S. It had a very intricate detail that Elden was able to create from the drawing furnished by the architect. Elden had been living in a room at our shop, going home weekends. At the grand opening of the Windjammer restaurant he announced he was getting married and going back to Portland.

I had to immediately hire a new foreman. One of my employees recommended a little Scotsman, Sidney. Sidney and his wife came out to our home. He made a good impression. Also, he said while still in England he had taken care of all the furniture for Lord Hume, who was a prime minister of England.

This was as good a recommendation as I could imagine, so I hired him. Shortly after this we were given the contract to build the fixed furniture for the Kahala Hilton in Honolulu. Right at that time we were building the furniture for a very expensive yacht. Sidney did the upholstering. When I saw the workmanship I knew I'd made a mistake.

When Elden left he said if I ever needed him to give him a call. I called and as it turned out he wasn't doing well in Portland. He was glad to come back and retake his job. Sidney didn't want a job as an upholsterer.

It was just as we were finishing the furniture for the Kahala Hilton that we had the flood in the shop that I told about in another story. He saved our neck on the occasion as we didn't lose a single piece of furniture. By the way, the Kahala Hilton was for many years considered to be the fanciest hotel in the world.

This time we went from 1963 when we did the Kahala until 1974. In the meantime we had bought our own building and had included a nice room for Elden with a built in bed, a shower and his own shaving sink.

Unfortunately, his wife was in Portland and Elden pulled a Clinton, except he was trying to service three nineteen year old girls. This was very tiring to a fifty something year old man. Work and discipline suffered. We decided that separation was the only solution.

We now hired a Kraut for a foreman. Karl had worked for us at one time and we knew him to be a hard worker and meticulous in his habits. There was absolutely no possibility of any hanky panky. Unfortunately, after four years of his services Karl was injured in an auto accident and was not able to carry on.

Again, I called Elden and suggested that he bring his wife up and return to his job. Elden had opened his own shop in Portland and wasn't doing as well as he was as my foreman.

This time, with his wife Flo there to keep him on the straight and narrow, he remained our foreman until we sold the business. A story goes by much faster when nothing juicy is going on. The sum total of the story being that I trusted Elden implicitly to work for me and the trust was not misplaced.