Wolfe is Pioneer of the Year

WAITSBURG - "I've always been intrigued by trains. In fact, I would jump the train that ran behind the store and ride it to Dayton so often the crew got to know me and would invite me to ride up front with them," said Wade Wolfe, recalling memories of his childhood in Huntsville.

Born and raised in Hunts­ville and a graduate of Waits­burg High, Wolfe is the as Pioneer of the Year honoree at this year's Fall Festival.

The twists and turns of life have resulted in Wolfe living in all four corners of the U.S. And yet Wade and Rosalie, his wife of 66 years, now reside just outside Col­lege Place. In fact, Wade still finds occasion to drive through the streets of Hunts­ville and re-imagine the bustling burg he once called home. He is also a regular at the annual Waitsburg alumni banquets, representing the class of '41.

Wade Wolfe was born January 20, 1923 to Wade Wolfe, Sr. and Edith Cor­bett. His father had moved to Huntsville from Texas to attend the United Brethren Seminary, built in 1879 -- a cornerstone of the Hunts­ville community. His moth­er's family, originally from Canada, owned the Corbett Flour Mill, which was sold in 1960. A sawmill was later constructed on the site.

Wolfe attended elementa­ry school in the same Hunts­ville school building where his father attended seminary. By that time it had been re­duced to one-story, painted white, and converted to a public school. He recalls a community of several hun­dred people, and businesses that included an apple pack­ing house, dairy, flour mill, sawmill and railway station, along with four churches.

Wolfe's father owned and operated the General Store, called the Wade H. Wolfe General Merchandise Store, which included a Chev­ron gas station. Attached to the store was the post of­fice where Wolfe's mother worked as postmistress for 32 years. Wolfe lived be­hind the store with his par­ents; two brothers, Don and Richard; and four sisters, Winifred, Betty, Margaret (Wade's twin) and Ruth.

Besides jumping rides on the aforementioned Union Pacific trains that ran along the track behind the store, Wolfe recalls keeping busy with good old-fashioned, hard work. "We had some land where we kept animals and I would milk three or four cows and take care of the pigs and chickens. In the summer I would work at the apple orchard," said Wolfe.

Wolfe attended high school in Waitsburg where he played football and bas­ketball for the Cardinals. He recalls that Frank Larkin would load three to five Huntsville teens in his se­dan each morning and drive them to school in Waitsburg. Wolfe would often end up riding his bike in and out be­cause sports practices didn't coincide with the private shuttle service.

Wolfe graduated high school in 1941 and went to work for Boeing, in Se­attle. He assembled gun turrets for Boeing for six months prior to enlisting in the Army Air Force. "They were drafting thousands of young men into the infantry at that time," said Wolfe. "My brother was already a radio operator in the Army Air Force and I decided I'd rather be there than in the infantry, so I enrolled."

In the Army Air Force, Wolfe became an engine and aircraft mechanic for the B-29, the largest aircraft in the world at that time. He completed basic train­ing, returned to Boeing for additional training and was then stationed in Florida for two years. At Elgin Field, a proving ground for aircraft, Wolfe was a crew mem­ber under Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, best known as the pilot that flew the "Enola Gay" and dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945.

Wolfe was a crew mem­ber with Tibbets for the "La­dybird", a B-29 named after two Women's Auxiliary Service Pilots (WASPS), who delivered planes from the factory to the air base, during WWII. "Many of the pilots were having trouble flying the planes because they were so big and so new," said Wolfe. "Tibbets trained the women to fly the plains, and then we would tour the different air bases to train pilots. Tibbets would say, 'If these women can fly them, why can't you?'"

From Florida, Wolfe was transferred to Fairbanks, Alaska where he tested the B-29s in extreme cold weather conditions, some­times as low as sixty degrees below zero. The planes functioned perfectly, though it was sometimes necessary to heat the engine with por­table heaters prior to starting them. Wolfe said his time in Alaska was "chilly," espe­cially in contrast to Florida.

Upon his discharge from the service, Wolfe returned to Huntsville where he met his wife whose family lived in the "Johnson House", now owned by Bill and Vicky Beckmeyer. The fam­ily invited him over for din­ner and he met Rosalie who was attending the University of Washington, majoring in Art and Music. Nine months later the couple was married in Seattle. They will cel­ebrate their 67th anniversary this January.

The couple then moved to Walla Walla County where Wolfe attended Walla Walla College and graduated with a Masters in Education and second Masters in Industrial Technology. After gradua­tion, Wolfe was "anxious to be employed" and accepted a position at a VA hospital in the Bronx, New York, teaching manual arts to the veterans.

Wolfe said he found the experience "rather hectic" and "didn't know who to trust." He was relieved six months later, to recieve a call from Walla Walla Col­lege asking him to return to teach woodworking and technical drawing. Wolfe returned to Walla Walla College, where he was "glad to get back". He taught there for ten years and even developed an innovative Construction of Plastics class, using sheet plastic, a relatively new material at the time.

Wolfe later moved to Sacramento, Calif. where he taught for seven years at Santa Rosa High School. His last work in Calif. was in finish carpentry.

The Wolfe's eventually returned to the College Place area where they still had family. The Wolfe's daughter, Missela, currently lives in College Place along with their grandson who recently graduated from Lincoln High and will be at­tending Eastern Washington University in the fall.

Having experienced the U.S. from Florida to Alaska to New York to California, Wolfe enjoys "home" best and is honored to be se­lected as Pioneer of the Year for this year's Fall Festival.