Our Move to the Chicken Ranch

In June of 1943 my mother, brother, and I moved from Santa Rosa to join my father on the chicken ranch in Petaluma. (Actually it was about six miles outside of Petaluma.) With forty thousand laying hens producing over twenty-two cases of eggs every day it was a relatively large chicken ranch for the day. Today one would have to have a million or so laying hens to be called “relatively large”.

I do not recall much about the time between June and September. In September Jerry and I enrolled in Cinnabar School. Cinnabar was a three-classroom school, only two of which rooms were in use. I do not recall the name of the teacher in charge of the first through third grades. The principal, Miss Anderson, was in charge of the fourth through sixth grades. (Incidentally, Cinnabar is now a theatre, hosting small plays.) The school was a relatively short, two or three-mile walk from the ranch.

Not too long after starting school, all of the students were given a tuberculosis skin test. I tested positive. After several weeks of intensive X-ray and fluoroscopic exams I was “incarcerated” in the Oak Knoll Tuberculosis Sanitarium in Santa Rosa. From October 31, 1943 until May 1, 1944 I was confined to a bed, not allowed to get up and walk ten feet to the bathroom. For six months I had to suffer through bed pans, urinals, and sponge baths.

During this time my attending physician, Dr. Quinn, subjected me to countless X-ray and fluoroscopic exams. I was always transported from my bed in a wheelchair.

My room had originally been a nurse’s room. My roommate was Douglas Atkinson. Doug had suffered from tuberculosis of the bone and was undergoing a series of bone graphs – removing a section of bone from his “good” leg and grafting it into his infected leg. He was in a cast from his chest to his ankles so he could not have walked to the bathroom had they let him.

For those of you too young to remember, WWII was raging during this period. My mother, in her mothering way, sent me news and comic strip clippings on a weekly basis. I don’t think that I ever thanked her enough for her thoughtfulness.

Upon release from the sanitarium I was confined to “house arrest” for six more months. At the time my mother was a part-time librarian at the Petaluma Public Library. (She had graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a degree in library science.) She brought home books and I read them – at the rate of one or two books a day. I do not recall all of the books but I do know that I read all of the works of Zane Grey and Raphael Sabatini.

The only formal schooling I recall from this year-long adventure was studying U.S. geography with a series of maps. I guess it did not stick very well. Now I could not draw a decent map of the United States.

When I have the inspiration to dig further into my history I shall bring you another episode in the life of Robert Niel Beatie.