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According to son Dick, Wallace, the first born of Royce and Mable Wederquist, didn't like his first name (although his mother always addressed him as Wallace) and preferred to be called Swede, Ed, Matt, Pistol and, finally, Woody (as a coon hunting friend tagged him in 1950).
Wally grew up on farms whose main crops were corn, oats, beans and hay. After he and Alma married in 1928 they first settled on a rented farm on Deer Creek, about half a mile east of his parents' farm. He didn't like farming so moved his family to town where he worked as a welder and mechanic for Lyle Kempton who owned the John Deere store. In 1938 they moved to Fort Morgan, Colorado to drill water wells with Bror Algert Holden, who was married to Mable's cousin, Violet Reeves (his brother, Jack, also worked for BA Holden).
In 1940 his parents asked him to return to Iowa to work the farm, which he did; he also drove a route 2x a week, picking up only cream for delivery in nearby Shenandoah. In 1941 he purchased a house in east Randolph, and built a basement using only a slipscoop and pulleys. When Royce and Mable became unable to care for the farm, Wally and Alma traded houses with them.
In 1943 Wallace moved back to Colorado to again work with Al Holden; 6 months later Alma and the kids joined him in Hudson, Colorado, their home through 1953. Wally was a good driller and enjoyed his work. Dick remembers him tasting the sand to determine his closeness to water; most of his wills are still pumping in northeast Colorado and western Nebraska. Two serious drilling accidents in 1948 and 49 severely injured him and caused great depression; he couldn't come to terms with this disability, nor did he receive any compensatory pay.
In 1953 they all moved to Colorado Springs where they had some better years. Alma worked as a clerk for Farmers Insurance, and Woody worked for Wolf Cereal (flour processing) and Gagnon Enterprise (drinking cups). He and his children sang in the First Presbyterian Choir.(He was also a thirty-second degree Mason there). Wally and Alma moved to Arizona in 1960 and established a rock shop in Miami, AZ (they already had one in Bust, Colorado --as in Pikes Peak or Bust!). They resettled in Apache Junction in 1967, their based for scouring the Superstition Mountains; there they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in May, 1978.
Anecdotes from Dick: Woody enjoyed building machines and tools, and once dismantled and reassembled his father's new diesel engine. He rebuilt many horse-drawn implements to fit his dad's John Deere tractor; he even built a cultivator with shields called a "Go Devil" (never registered and often copied).
He was famous for carrying live garter and dead rattlesnakes in his pockets. Hildur recalls many such childhood pranks; he also visited these on wife, Alma (she, unlike Hildur, seemed to learn the trick the first time!). He also took his children coon hunting in Colorado, particularly at night around Niwot, Colorado where he had spent some teenage time with his Uncle Ray. Dick says that with their dogs, Buckhorn Baron, Red and Browny, they'd encounter not only raccoons, but also cougars, badgers, wildcats and skunks.
Woody was also a rock hound who prided himself on identifying rocks while just walking, and his collection included fine agates, petrified wood and many crystals. He loved building the machines to cut and polish the stones.
Linda Lovas Hoeschler first met her Uncle Wally in about 1960 when she went to Colorado Springs for a Girl Scout Roundup. At that time he was operating a roadside stone and gem shop. She remembers him as wry, kind and lots of fun. He gave her an Apache Tears bracelet and necklace which she wore for years.
Jens Aaron
Guttstein
