In the late 1930s, Henry Kaiser started a ship-building business and developed new methods of ship construction that were much more efficient and less costly than previous methods.

After England entered into the Second World War, it began to order merchant ships from Kaiser Shipyards to support its war efforts. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor the United States also had urgent need of merchant ships to move supplies and troops where they were needed. As the war progressed Kaiser Shipyards began building other types of vessels and further refined their methods. In a contest between all US shipyards, one Kaiser facility set a record by completing a merchant ship in 5 days.

During the war, Portland, Oregon became a major ship-building center. Ships were built at the Swan Island dry docks, in St. Johns on the Willamette River, and at a third site on the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington.

To support these facilities, employees were recruited from all over the US and extensive training programs were established. Many of the new laborers were women, as most young men had enlisted, or were drafted, into the Armed Forces. This influx of workers and their families required housing, so Kaiser and/or the US government built hundreds of very basic, small, semi-temporary houses in and around the St. Johns district of Portland.

When my family moved to Portland in 1947 (I think it was in 1947, since I went to kindergarten in Portland), they rented one of these houses on N. Stanford St. near the University of Portland. As I vaguely remember, it was maybe 700 square feet in size, had two bedrooms, a tiny living room, a small kitchen with a wood stove, and a miniscule bathroom next to the living room. I think there were 10 of these houses built in a rectangular cluster with a center community yard and a gravel alley bisecting the rectangle resulting in two “U” shaped groups of five or six. Outside the kitchen there was an approximately 8’ long X 4’ deep X 5’ high wooden “box” with a hinged lid and an access door in the side facing the house. It was for storing firewood for the kitchen stove.

This house was a pretty lousy place to live, but that was all my mom and dad could afford at the time. My dad’s first salary for teaching in Portland was $2,400 per year. Somehow, while we lived there, Dad earned a Master’s in Music Education from the University Of Portland. He was part of the first graduating class offered in this discipline. I remember several of his classmates coming to our house occasionally to practice string quartets. Many of these musicians continued to be lifelong friends and several played in the Portland Symphony along with my dad.

About 1954, whoever owned these “temporary worker’s houses” started telling people they had to move so the structures could be demolished. Mom and dad agreed to purchase a new small house under construction somewhere in northeast Portland. I remember visiting the site before the house was completed, but for reasons I don’t know, the deal fell through. I was not unhappy because I didn’t want to move that far away from my friends and the neighborhood I knew. Soon after that, mom and dad purchased a small house located at 10302 N Oswego Avenue in Portland’s St Johns district. It needed a lot of work, but it was ours.

This second house wasn’t much bigger than the last one when we moved there. This neighborhood was all single family homes of considerably different sizes and ages. There were some larger older ones that may have been farm houses built 20-30 years before, but by the time we arrived almost all the available land in the area had been divided into small lots, and little square “boxes” had been built on them.

Over the next 4 or 5 years my dad totally renovated this house. I don’t remember the order, but his efforts produced a totally new kitchen from the dirt under the floor to the ceiling joists, a partially enclosed and unheated sleeping area ( I can’t really call it a bedroom) for me on the back porch, a finished attic bedroom for Karrie, Kathy, and Ernie, which required him building a stairway, and a new gas furnace mounted in the wall between the kitchen and living room that blew hot air both ways. He also fixed the sagging roof and made the yard presentable. All the while he was teaching in the public school system, playing occasional music jobs in the evenings, and playing in the Portland Symphony. He also sometimes worked during school summer vacations on the longshoreman’s extra board in Aberdeen, and one year drove a fork lift in a pickle factory. He worked very hard to provide a good life for the family.

As part of the new kitchen, my Mother got a new gas stove. It was probably the first nice appliance she ever had. Shortly thereafter she also got a new washer and dryer. I don’t remember seeing anything like it since. It was a front loading unit that combined both washing and drying in one appliance. It had a clear plastic door and I remember dad sitting on the floor in front of it watching the clothes go around and around. In 1955, I think, we got our first television set. It had a black-and-white screen and an antenna on the roof. Every week we watched the Walt Disney show, and of course, all boys my age fell in love with Annette, one of the Mouseketeers.

We lived in that house until one day in 1960 or 1961 when I came home from college and found my grandparents there helping move everything to a new house on N. McKenna Ave. This was somewhat of a surprise to me as they had either forgotten, or didn’t want, to tell me they were moving. I guess it was lucky I came home when I did.

This new house had been owned by the mother of a friend of mine so I had visited there several times. When I heard the house was being put up for sale, I had told my mom, but then forgot all about it. A few weeks later my parents purchased the place, but when I asked why they didn’t tell me they claimed they did and I just didn’t pay any attention. Was that the start of my inattention problems women always complained about? What attention problems?

Anyway I did move there and occupied a bedroom upstairs over the living room until I graduated from college, got married to Patti, and shipped off to my short-lived career in the US Navy.

Ken Kaiyala
2-5-2013