Old Missoula

Don Wold Stories – Top o’Deep Gold and Clark Gable

Donald P. Wold

August 25, 1917 – April 19, 2015

Born in Evansville, Wisconsin

Resided in Missoula, Mt.

Don Wold, 97, of Missoula, passed away Sunday, April 19, 2015, of natural causes. He passed quietly at St. Patrick Hospital surrounded by loving family.

Born Aug. 25, 1917, to Paul and Ellen Wold in Evansville, Wisconsin, Don was moved to Missoula as a young child to be raised by an aunt and uncle due to the premature death of his mother.

He attended primary schools in Missoula, then attended college at Montana State University in Bozeman, graduating with a degree in agriculture.

His education was interrupted in 1942 when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He served as machine gunner on B-17s flying 50 missions over the European front before his honorable discharge Sept. 7, 1945. Upon his return, Don resumed his education at Bozeman, where he served as president of Pi Kappa Alpha.

After graduating he returned to Missoula to work for the Montana Dairy Breeder Association until 1954, when he went to work for M&S Ready Mix. There he remained until retirement. During these years, Don designed concrete and supervised its construction for various Missoula structures, including many University of Montana buildings. One of his proudest achievements was the engineering of a permanent “M” from concrete, which continues to be a beloved Missoula icon gazing over our city from Mount Sentinel.

Don enjoyed panning for gold with family and friends during his free time. He had great stories to tell from his life, including meeting Clark Gable when he was working his way through college as a bellhop at the Palace Hotel in Missoula and surviving on hunting and fishing while working and living at Rock Creek for a summer job. He was a sought-after dance partner throughout his life, attending Senior Citizen dances well into his 90s.

Don married Bonnie Carter after college. They had one son, Kenneth Wold-Fitzgerald.

His second marriage was April 6, 1949, to Bette Francis Fous. Together they raised and supported their children’s every endeavor.

Don was proceeded in death by his wife, Bette; and sisters, Marge Pette of Wisconsin and Marian Cooney of Minnesota.

His survivors include sons, Kenneth (Mary) Fitzgerald of Kalispell, Robert (Mary) Duncan of Hillsboro, Oregon, Allen (Andrea) Wold of Missoula and Brett (Vanessa) Wold of Florence; and one daughter, Paula (Les) Duncan-Graham of Greater Manchester, England. Don was very rich in grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who will all miss him.

The family will not hold a public service, but if you wish to honor his memory, please send a donation to Partners in Home Care, which helped him and his family greatly at the end of his life.

The above obituary appeared on the website for the Loveland Funeral Chapel in La Grande, Or.

 

Visiting with Don Wold was a treat for me as he had a long history with Missoula. As the obituary states he had some great stories. He was raised a block away from where I grew up – though about 3 decades before I came along. He could recall many things about the area that would probably be considered unusual for most local people. Two of his more interesting topics are mentioned in the obituary above – meeting Clark Gable and gold mining.

He mentioned to me that he knew an old man in Missoula who was a placer miner and still kept raw gold stashed away somewhere in his house. I don’t think he was talking about himself, but if he mentioned this man’s name, I don’t recall it. Don did some placer mining himself, especially in the Blackfoot area. One area he mentioned was Top o’ Deep, which has a long and fascinating story in W. Montana’s gold mining history. I believe one of Don’s friends was John Toole who wrote about Top o’ Deep days when he was a youngster. Don mentioned that he also had found gold in the Top o’ Deep area. If he had a gold claim in the Blackfoot, he didn’t mention it.

While the Clark Gable visit to Missoula hasn’t been chronicled in recent times, Don’s recollection of it is supported by a couple of Missoulian articles that appeared after Gable’s visit in 1937. Below is one of these articles:

 

Bewhiskered Clark Gable Tells Of Plans for Hunting Bear Soon On Western Montana Dude Ranch

By James W. Faulds.

“This is the best meal that I ever had in Missoula.”

That is what Clark Gable, idol of the films, said in the Grill café at an early hour this morning following his arrival here from Hollywood.

“That’s a story,” the film star said. “In fact it is the first meal I ever had in Missoula. The first and only other time I was ever in Missoula was in March, 1921 – and it was cold.

“I had been in Butte with a show which was not very good and with a show manager who seemed to get away with the box office receipts.

“I was left stranded in Butte without a buck, and when I say a buck, I do not mean an Indian ‘buck,’ for such a character would have known how to raise the price of a meal.

“I wanted to get back out in the far west where I knew my way around and where I knew somebody. You must remember I was just a kid 22 years old, and I was dirty and hungry.

“I saw a sign on the station when the freight train brought me into Missoula on the way ‘back home.’ It pulled me way out in the west yards.

“If the train had stopped in front of the best cafe in Missoula or the lousiest souphouse I could not have eaten. I did not have a thin dime, let alone the ‘buck’ I mentioned.

“I was three weeks making the trip from Butte to Portland, grabbing rides on freight trains. There are two towns that I remember well. At Spokane I was kicked off the train, when I was too hungry to resist. Again at Pasco, when I was getting closer to home and to people who knew me, I was not only thrown off, but the seat of my pants was dusted thoroughly by the big, tough brakeman who elevated me out of the side-door pullman.

“That was a long and hard trip and I was the hungriest kid on the Pacific coast when I finally got back to where I belonged.”

Gable arrived in Missoula shortly before midnight with C. B. Jennings of the Jennings outing ranch at Glacier Park station, about 90 miles northeast of Kalispell. Jennings met Gable at Pocatello, Idaho. From there they went to the Sun river valley in Idaho, and pulled into Missoula late Thursday night.

They arrived here wearing whiskers which they had carried since Tuesday night. Gable has a permit to hunt bear in Montana and hopes to secure a good specimen during his stay.

Unannounced, they appeared at the Palace hotel and then went out to get dinner. “I was just as hungry when I pulled in here with Mr. Jennings on this trip and got a good steak and French-fried potatoes as I was 16 years ago with an appetite and nothing to eat,” Gable said.

Mr. Gable’s first Missoula guest for dinner was Chief of police Harry Smith who had wandered into the café to tell the California man that Missoula did not allow all-night parking. Chief Smith, Mr. Jennings and Mr. Gable occupied the café box for an hour as the actor got his “first fill in Missoula.”

The first Missoula girt to greet Mr. Gable was Miss Marion Benish, who was invited to dine with the party. Miss Benish, with friends, was leaving the cafe when an acquaintance presented her to the film hero.

Mr. Gable and Mr. Jennings left Los Angeles Tuesday night. They are at the Palace hotel and expect to leave between 8 and 9 o’clock this morning for the Jennings ranch.

 

The above article appeared in The Daily Missoulian on July 9, 1937.

 

In an article the following day Gable, while being mobbed by admirers and signing autographs, stated that he had arrived too late for bear hunting in Montana, and that he would hunt wildlife using a camera. Apparently, he also liked to fish. He stated he would come back in the fall to hunt with Spencer Tracy and Jack Conway.