Ivan Walter Holm – Trains
My grandfather, Ivan, was born in 1899 in Aspen, Colorado. His father was a miner and had moved from Leadville, CO to Aspen about 1890. The family lived in Oklahoma Flats, along the Roaring Fork River.
The family consisted of Charley, Ivan’s father, Anna, Ivan’s mother and his siblings: Oscar, Alfred, Eileen, Carl, Edwin, Richard, twins Ruth and Rose and Viola.
About 1911 Ivan completed the “Course of Study prescribed for the Grammar Department of the Aspen Public Schools and was admitted to High School. After graduating from high school Ivan went to work in the mines along with his brother, Escal, and father. Escal worked as a machinist and Ivan a common laborer as the ore conveyer man.
The United States entered the Great War on April 6, 1917, and President Woodrow Wilson enacted the Selective Service Act of May 18, 1917 in order to draft men into military service. In 1918 Ivan had to register for the draft at 19 years old. Germany formally surrendered on November 11, 1918, and Ivan was never called up.
In 1920 the family bought a home at 135 West Francis Street. (In today’s market that house is valued at $7.5million). At that time, Charley still worked the mine, as did Escal and Ivan. Charley, was starting to show signs of miner’s consumption. Ivan had higher hopes than spending his life in the mines as his father, so he and his chum Albert Sandstrom decided to head to the big city of Denver.
Ivan got a job working for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. In 1923, he and Albert, “took a notion to go to California”. With $800 in his pocket, Ivan and his friend ‘rode the rails’ making their way to Los Angeles. Once there they sought many jobs. They both applied with Pacific Electric for a job as a streetcar conductor. Ivan was hired but sadly, his friend was not. Ivan started working for Pacific Electric Railroad on 7 July 1923.
While working as a conductor on the street cars in Los Angeles, Ivan noticed a lovely young woman riding his car to and from work every day. He remarked to his buddies that he was going to marry that girl. Ivan and Pauline indeed were married June 27, 1926 at 4:00 p.m. at the home of Pauline’s mother, Grace Royer. The matron of honor was Lulu Snyder of Hollywood and Albert Sandstrom, formerly of Aspen, was the best man. The newlywed couple rented an apartment close to where Ivan checked in and out at work.
Sometime after that the city of Los Angeles decided to tear out the street cars and start using the “more modern buses”. Pacific Electric was owned by Southern Pacific Railroad. After taking many exams, Ivan was qualified to work freight as the railroad’s brakeman, a job he did for 42 years. He made many good friends during this time and had many good stories to tell.
In the United States, the brakeman was a member of a railroad train’s crew responsible for assisting with braking a train when the engineer wanted the train to slow down or stop. A brakeman’s duties also included providing flag protection from following trains if the train were to stop, ensuring that the couplings between cars were properly set, lining switches, and signaling to the train operators while performing switching operations. The brakemen rode in the caboose, the last car in the train, which was built specially to allow a crew member to apply the brakes of the caboose quickly and easily, which would help to slow the train.
On Feb 19, 1931, Ivan and Pauline were blessed with the birth of their only child, Barbara Eileen Holm. She was born at the Bellevue Hospital, Los Angeles. According to Pauline, she had to “get fixed up” in order to get pregnant. At that time they lived at 1031 Monterey Rd, Los Angeles, CA. with Pauline’s mother and Ivan earned $1756.96 for the year.
Ivan and Pauline then rented a small home at 3631 Patio Place in Pasadena, California. At some point the owner of the house approached the Holms with the idea of selling. They took him up on his offer and they purchased the house for $2500. Behind their house was a large retention basin where Ivan had a garden. His garden was situated along the banks of the basin leading up to their yard where he grew tomatoes, squash and a number of other vegetables.
During the Depression, Southern and Pacific needed to reduce wages or manpower. They put it to a vote and it was decided everyone would keep their jobs but with a cut in pay. Ivan said that he could not live with himself if he were to cause another man to lose his livelihood.
During the WWII, Ivan registered for the draft, at the age of 42, but was kept working for the railroad as that was deemed of more importance to the cause than him going to fight. Along with the freight trains hauling goods necessary for the war effort, he was involved in the transportation of many people of Japanese descent to the Field in Los Angeles for internment, a job he was not keen to.
Ivan and Pauline loved to travel, when they could. Ivan bought a camera and the family has many slides from their vacation trips. They made a couple of trips to visit family in Aspen. Together they vacationed in Vancouver and Prince Rupbert, Alaska and San Francisco. They also vacationed in Death Valley and visited Disneyland. In 1959 – they visited the in-laws of their daughter, Barbara Dykstra, in Boston. While on the east coast, they also saw Washington D.C., New York City, Savannah, GA and Kansas City, KS and they even took a trip to see Las Vegas!
On February 2, 1962, Ivan retired on disability as a freight brakeman in the transportation department of the Baldwin Park, California, division. He suffered from the following disabilities: cardiac asthma, emphysema, coronary heart trouble, 2 mashed vertebrae and a hernia.
I remember visiting my grandparents a couple of times as a child. Due to my father’s job in the USAF, we never lived nearby. But, we did visit as much as we could. Grandpa would show me his garden on the slope, the huge avocado tree in their back yard, he would hide things for me to find in the secret compartments of their secretary and he would regale us, my brothers and me, with stories of trains. I only wish I could remember those stories now.
1967 – Ivan died at the Santa Fe Coast Lines Hospital, 610 S. Saint Louis St., Los Angeles, CA. He was buried at Forest Lawn, Glendale.