More men smoked and drank in the 1950s than do here now. However, when I grew up my parents were Christian Mystic Ministers and so they didn't smoke or drink. However, my grandfather smoked not just a pack or two a day of Camels and Marlborough cigarettes but went through over a carton of cigarettes every week. But, he didn't die of lung cancer he died from driving off a cliff with his panel truck driving to his mine in Idaho when he was likely in his 90s. Because he passed away in 1970 I think in the fall.
A wheel bearing froze in his panel truck on a dirt road driving to his gold mining claim near Elk City, Idaho from Seattle and his truck went off into a river there and men diving in the stream for gold running a vacuum underwater rescued him and wanted to take him to the hospital. He told them "NO" he wanted to go to his mining cabin so they took him there. "He didn't believe in Doctors or hospitals so he didn't want to die in a hospital".
So, my Uncle Bob went over to check on him because he had heard about the accident in Seattle where he lived with his wife. He found my grandfather had pushed over a 3 pronged wooden chair onto the floor which had broken the staves and driven one or more into his back somehow. He had been like this for a day or two. So, when Bob took him to the hospital he died within 24 hours of this time.
He was an amazing old man and tough as nails and one of the scariest people I ever met. the 2nd scariest person I have met that was a man was my father who was valedictorian of his High School in 1934.
My Grandfather was born in the 1870s in either 1877 or 1875. He retired during the 1940s from being an Electrical Contractor but both his sons that survived world war II. So, when he passed away in 1970 from the after effects of his wheel bearing freezing in his panel Truck (now you call it a Van) but then it was called a Panel Truck.
A few years earlier a Forest Ranger tried to take away his mining claim and he shot the ranger's hat off with a 30 odd 6 rifle. Since he was an old man from the 1800s when he grew up they decided to let him live there until he died because he was likely over 80 then. A lot of people were still like this from the 1800s then in 1950 and 1960.
A few years before that he had a D-9 caterpillar tractor bulldozer with a drag line and decided to tie his bulldozer to a big boulder and put the drag line out and tied it to a winch on the bulldozer to pull out a stump. Well neither the boulder or the bulldozer line or the winch gave and this lifted the bulldozer off the ground finally and the bulldozer turned upside down on top of my grandfather. You can see how determined and stubborn he could be so this wasn't good and he waited about 3 or 4 days before someone found him under the bulldozer upside down. IN the meantime the diesel and radiator fluid went over him and luckily there wasn't a fire and I think he might have gotten scalded a little too from the radiator. Well, it had collapsed one of his lungs and he got someone to smuggle into the hospital there in Idaho a gun and some cigarettes for him so he smoked the cigarettes to reinflate his lung and then put his cowboy boots on and walked out and anyone who tried to stop him he pointed a gun at and left and drove home to his mining cabin. This was about 1960 about 10 years from when he had his wheel bearing freeze up on his panel truck.
Another time during world war II he was raising either tomatoes or strawberries or both in a Victory Garden in Wenatchee Washington just east of the Cascades and Seattle in Washington. When his berries or tomatoes got ripe during world war II he went and asked for his gas rations to buy gas to bring his Victory Garden to the market to sell them so people had food to eat then. The Gas ration coupon place said "Oh. It's too late because we stopped giving coupons for that last week."
He went out to his truck and got his shotgun and brought it in unloaded and laid it on the table and said "I want my gas coupons now!" So they gave them to him.
People were still like this a lot out of the 1800s even in the 1940s through 1960s still. He was still a Kansas cowboy and a country boy able to "deal with anything" on his own without any help from anyone which was what people were like then. Your word was your bond and if you broke your word then often you didn't survive it. This was just how things were out in the country in the western United States. Often city people didn't understand this and had trouble because of it back then.
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