World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 Record

about Claude Louis Key

Name: Claude Louis Key

City: Not Stated

County: Umatilla

State: Oregon

Birthplace: North Carolina

Birth Date: 12 Sep 1896

Roll: 1852148

DraftBoard: 0

Age:

Occupation:

Nearest Relative:

Height/Build:

Color of Eyes/Hair:

Signature:

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1930 Census Oregon > Umatilla > Precinct 12 > District 17Pg 66A (April 19, 1930 Guill G. Groves)

Image 3 Ancestry.com

Line 22 32 32 Key, Clark L. Head Fm MW 33 M@26yrsNC NC NC Farmer/Wheat Farm

-----------------------------Hazel E. Wife FW 26 M@19yrs OR IL KS None

-----------------------------Lois R. Dau FW2-3/12 S IR NC OR None

-----------------------------Wilma L. Dau FW 8/12 S OR NC OR None

Line 42 36 36 York, Robert D. Head MW 35 M@20yrs OR NC IA Farmer/Wheat Farm

-----------------------------Lois E. Wife FW 38 M@20yrs OH OH OH None

-----------------------------R. Ellen Dau FW 17 S OR OR OH None

-----------------------------L. Merlin Son MW 15 S OR OR OH None

-----------------------------Leonard N. Son MW 5 S OR OR OH None

-------------Mayberry, Oren R. Bro-in-law MW 15 S OR OH OH None

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VALLY HERALD - THURS. NOVEMBER 20, 1980 - PAGE 1 - 3

CLAUDE KEY: M-F's largest industry still bears his name

By Steve Schlesser

Claude Key lives in a ranch house he built 30 years ago near the fork of the Walla Walla River. He came to Umatilla County in 1910 along with his parents and four brothers from Dobson, NC. Now that he is 84, he could boast of accomplishments as long as the river valley he must feel is partly his own. But he doesn't. Rather, he describes himself simply as a farmer.

Being a newcomer to Milton-Freewater myself, I had heard the name, Key, so often, I was curious about what kind of man had left so deep an imprint in the community. On a cold and foggy Sunday afternoon, I drove out along the Walla Walla River Road and managed to find his house because I had been earlier warned of the machinery and farming equipment that would be surrounding it.

He greeted me warmly, showed few signs of the stroke he suffered four or five years ago, and immediately led me out to the yard for a tour of his grounds. In the chill of the late afternoon, I wanted to ask him a few questions about Key Equipment or the Umatilla Canning Company, or how greatly he had prospered as a farmer, but he waved me off and gestured with his left hand to another off his 400 acre "patches." The cold did not seem to bother him.

The day before, I had spoken with his son, Lewis, and his daughter, Wilma. Lewis Key made it clear to me that his father had worked hard almost everyday of his life, and he described his childhood house as a hub of activity, the center of which his father dominated because of his uncanny ability to create or improve machinery.

"He was one of these people who never really worked a day in their lives because he enjoyed what he was doing so much he never considered it work," said Lewis. Key's daughter, Wilma, told me that everyone in the family worked and that a hard day's toil was a way of life, a necessity. I asked if Claude's stroke had impaired his spirit and Lewis replied; "Oh no, I don't think you could ever hurt his spirit, but I think it was the first time he realized that you couldn't cure all sicknesses with Carter's liver pills and deep breathing.

On that Sunday afternoon, walking amongst his beef cattle, Claude pointed out to me several of his combines sitting a field away.

"You know in the old days when I was growing up, men used to do all the work with teams of horses," he said.

"That must have been awfully difficult," I said.

"Oh, it wasn't so bad. The horses got along pretty good."

His father, Sam had come west in 1888. Taking a job in a brick factory in Weston, he wanted to get together enough money to start a farm, but around 1892, shortly after he had married Sarah Badgett, his father died and he and his young wife were forced to return to North Carolina. Their first son, Claude, was born in 1896. In 1910, after spending eight years in Iowa, Sam Key moved his family once again to Umatilla County and to Basket Mt., where Claude and his four brothers were raised.

As we walked near his barn, a light wind kicked up, moving the amber colored leaves hanging on the trees in his orchard, and I could see lights from the farm houses beginning to dot the darkening sky in the east. He wanted to take me into his shop where I had heard he was working on a new invention - I wondered if this was the spot where he had devised those numerous vegetable processing machines that had been partly responsible for making M-F the pea capital of the world. But, ironically, he didn't have the key to his shop and we walked on.

During his boyhood, he worked hard on the farm on Basket Mt., learning how to bring up life from the land. He also learned, from his parents, values such as honesty, decency, and respect and a faith in God that was as deep-rooted as his family's love of the earth. In 1922 he met and married Hazel Wilson. Later, in their house, she told me that Claude would picture in his mind the way a machine should operate and then would go out to his shop to either invent it or made the necessary changes in an old one. She said the times had been tough and that often necessity had been the mother of invention.

As I walked beside Claude, I noticed that his face still held the same bright vitality that must have often crossed it when he was a young man and that his conversation, although not always clear, was lucid and earnest. When we came to the back of a truck, he palmed his weathered hand over the base of a drill bit. When I asked him about its various parts, he explained in great detail how it worked and what forces made it operate. I was amazed he knew so much about a simple machine. He took little notice and walked on at a pace I found spry for a man his age.

For 17 years, he worked as a foreman on the ranch of William Steen, where his wife cooked meals for the harvest crews. He then set out on his own, acquiring wheat land on Lincton Mt., where he went into a farming partnership with his brother, Lloyd. He began tinkering with machinery and eventually made invaluable contributions to the development of pea-loaders, pea swathers, self-dumping pea beds, improved plows, pea duster, grain saving devices for combines, hydraulic hitches, fertilizer applicators, contour chisels and others. He was also experimenting with contour farming, broad-based terraces, trashy fallow, and other soil-conservation practices.

As he was pointing out his large garden, I wanted to ask him about the air cleaner, grader, vine feeder, electric fork, feeder regulator, or pack bed machines, whose creation he was solely, or mostly, responsible for, but his discursive conversation touched upon his barn.

"I didn't like it too close to the road," he said. "So I moved it and put the house in its place."

In 1944, he was one of the founders of the Umatilla Canning Co. and from the beginning made great improvement in the firm's machinery. Out of the many inventions, he brought to the canning company, grew Key Equipment, which started out with $10,000 capital and which 20 years later shipped over one million dollars worth of processing machinery to plants located throughout the world.

He showed me the quality of the top soil in his garden, and I was reminded of some of the awards he had won because of his concern that quality should always be left in the soil. He pointed out his garden equipment, and, when I asked him if he had lately been doing quite a bit of work, he replied:

"Not as much as I used to. I was right-handed so when the stroke paralyzed my right hand I had to get used to cutting down my work."

We circled back around his house. He showed me a new furnace pump he had installed and a fruit dryer he had built. A group of cats flitted about our path as we walked.

His wife later told me that in spite of his stroke her husband still manages to move around well and that when asked to go the Depot to gather with the rest of the senior citizens, Claude refused. He said he wasn't yet old enough.

"We enjoy it here," said Hazel Key. "I wish the children could be closer, but we're still active. We just don't work as hard as we used to."

In our walk, we came to an old steel barrel burning a pile of trash. As Claude spoke about the depression, I warmed my hands over the fire. He said that when land was cheap, he bought much of the property he owns now and that selling Key Equipment and some of his other interest had made it easier for him to pursue his first love, farming. "It's better this way," he said.

We walked along a fence line and across a square patch of open field he said used to be part of his garden. As he spoke, I occasionally interrupted him, asking what he must have thought were naïve questions about the town or its people. But he always smiled cheerfully at me and would patiently answer my questions in long detail.

"Did you know, Mr. Key, you're quite an American success story, I said.

He laughed, kicking through the pile of leaves strewn across the grounds.

"Opportunity was everywhere," he said.

The evening was coming on quickly and he pulled his grey wool hat over his brow. He asked how old I was and, when I told him I was born in 1957, he said:

"That seems like yesterday to me. Why, that was only a year before Lloyd died."

How could anyone feel less than great admiration for a man who had done so much with his life: I thought, as I walked beside him. In the closing hours of the afternoon, we parted warmly. I told him I would try to write a decent story and he thanked me. As I reached out my hand to shake his, he held up his useless right hand with his left so that he could shake the hand I held out to him. When I was in my car, driving back down the Walla Walla River Road, I thought that final gesture was a fitting reflection of the man's will and, ultimately, of his spirit.

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Claude Key

SSN: 540-44-0337

Last Residence: 97862 Milton Freewater, Umatilla, Oregon, United States of America

Born: 12 Aug 1895

Last Benefit: 97862 Milton Freewater, Umatilla, Oregon, United States of America

Died: Mar 1986

State (Year) SSN issued: Oregon (1955 )

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Name 2: Claude L. Key

Date born 2: 12 Aug 1895, NC

Died 2: 11 Mar 1986, Milton-Freewater, Umatilla, OR⁸

Burial: Weston Cemetery, Weston, Umatilla OR^9,10

Census 1: 1900, NC Surry Eldora Dist 106 Pg 57B (see father)

Census 2: 1920, OR Umatilla Pct 12 Dist 150 Pg 65A (see father)

Census 3: 1930, Oregon > Umatilla > Precinct 12 > District 17Pg 66A

1930 Oregon > Umatilla > Precinct 12 > District 17Pg 66A (April 19, 1930 Guill G. Groves)

Image 3 Ancestry.com

Line 22 32 32 Key, Clark L. Head Fm MW 33 M@26yrsNC NC NC Farmer/Wheat Farm

-----------------------------Hazel E. Wife FW 26 M@19yrs OR IL KS None

-----------------------------Lois R. Dau FW2-3/12 S IR NC OR None

-----------------------------Wilma L. Dau FW 8/12 S OR NC OR None

Line 42 36 36 York, Robert D. Head MW 35 M@20yrs OR NC IA Farmer/Wheat Farm

-----------------------------Lois E. Wife FW 38 M@20yrs OH OH OH None

-----------------------------R. Ellen Dau FW 17 S OR OR OH None

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Burial: 03 Nov 2001, Weston Cemetery, OR

Census 1: 1930, Oregon > Umatilla > Precinct 12 > District 17Pg 66A (see husband)

Census 2: 1920, OR Umatilla Pct 12 Dist 150 Pg 63B (see father)

Marriage 1: 20 Dec 1922, Walla Walla , Walla Walla, WA

Marriage 2: 20 Dec 1922, Walla Walla, Walla Walla, Washington

Notice: Dec 1922, Milton Eagle