History:

He grew up in a house in Entiat, Washington, that had no running water and just a wood stove for heat. "I had to carry water when I was a kid, and I hated wash days," he once recalled.

The children hauled wood for the stove five or six miles by horse or sled. They had two sets of clothes. They put on a clean set when they took their bath on a Saturday night and wore those until they took another bath the following week.

The family had a garden, cows, chickens, and pigs, and so needed to buy little food, other than flour, sugar, and salt.

When Auvil was 22, he, his father, and his two younger brothers bought 150 acres of land at Orondo to develop an orchard and formed the Auvil Fruit Company. They paid $3,000 down and had a debt of $8,000, on which they paid interest of eight percent.

They planted 22 acres initially, with 100 trees per acre. They worked for other people until the trees came into production, and built a house at the orchard in 1931.

"We didn't put down one dime for that house," Auvil once disclosed. "We had it on credit. If we've had to put down the money, we wouldn't have had a house."

That was at the start of the Depression. His wages as a foreman dropped from 60 cents an hour to 20 cents an hour, making it difficult to pay bills. During the winter of 1931-32 he and his brothers lived on nothing but beans, apple sauce, milk, and bread.

The first summer after the house was built, Auvil worked with a road construction crew at Orondo, and they fed workers breakfast, dinner, and supper at the house. "We boarded about 20 people at $1 a day, and hired a cook, and made money on it," he recalled.

In 1934, about the time the orchard started to come into production, Auvil married Lillie Brandt, a school teacher at Withrow. He still worked out for part of the year and ran warehouses from about 1934 until 1947, when the Auvils built their own warehouse.

From 1932 to 1938 they struggled to get along, but never got discouraged. "We never felt sorry for ourselves," he said.

Auvil said his family probably fared a little better than average during the depression because they worked a little harder and had a new farm, but they didn't live better than average.

"We saved our money to plant more orchard," he explained. "Our farm laborers probably lived higher than we did. They spent all their money and we didn't. They had cars. We didn't buy a new car until about 1955."

The Auvils added to the orchard in about 1935 and by 1940 had about 40 acres. By the 1990s, Auvil Fruit Company had more than 1,000 acres.

Auvil said life was simpler in the old days. "You didn't have as many choices. You struggled to get enough to eat and wear, and that was it. When you got it you were happy. My father told me when I was young, 'When people have food, clothing, and shelter, they have all the ingredients of happiness.' The rest is window dressing."