“Tieton From Hatton Road Looking Northeast”
Clarence Author Zimmerman (“Z”)
Clarence Arthur Zimmerman, (shown to the left below at circa age fifty-five) was known by his close childhood friends as simply, “Z”. I had too much respect for him to refer to him by his childhood nickname when I knew him and besides, he would never had tolerated me calling him by that name. He was my friend, but we came and went in this life at times and under conditions that prevented our being best friends. However, in this story of him I will generally refer to him as “Z” or Mr. “Z.” I would have enjoyed having been his best friend.
By the time I first met Mr. “Z” he was married and over a half-century in age living with his wife Marie Inez (Heathman) Zimmerman at 4510 Snow-Mountain Road in Yakima, Washington. The Zimmerman home, built by Mr. “Z” and Marie in 1935 was a beautiful two-storied, full basement English Tudor home shown below. “Z” was very proud of his home in Yakima which he had constructed between Snow-Mountain Road and Summitview Road on roughly a two-acre parcel of land. It was the first home in the area and at the time, the graveled Summitview Road ended at the driveway entrance to the home that entered off Summitview Road. West beyond that point Summitview Road was but a country dirt road in 1935. When first constructed the home was a destination for many in Yakima out for a Sunday afternoon drive of sightseeing.
When I knew them, the Zimmerman’s had two large farm holdings, one a wheat ranch in the area of Almira, Washington and second a cattle ranch along Highway 1 between Calgary and Banff Alberta Canada; on the latter oil was discovered.
In addition, the Zimmerman’s owned a large apartment building in Yakima at the intersection of N. Naches Ave. and Martin Luther King Junior Blvd. The building covered over a quarter of a large city block and contained luxury apartments when originally constructed. Even in the 1950s when I worked for Mr. “Z” in the apartment house residents found the fifteen-foot ceilings and rooms well-trimmed in stained wood rather grand as apartments went in Yakima for the time.
Clarence A. Zimmerman grew up in Everett, Washington born to Peter and Annie (Cannon) Zimmerman. Peter was born in Canada and Annie in England. “Z” appeared to have had two brothers, Henry and Albert and one sister Edna. Research of public records gives Mr. “Z” many different dates of birth including one years before his mother and father were married, but simple calculation of events places Mr. “Z’s” year of birth as 1896.
Peter and his family were written of as being a prosperous family with property in both Everett and Port Angeles, Washington. The family also was said to have investments in mining property. One of the things obviously important to the family that symbolized some wealth was a gold badge two inches by two inches with the likeness of George Washington along with that of an eagle and set with diamonds. It would be of interest if the badge was passed down to survivors.
Clarence Zimmerman in his early years was a football player. Not just an average everyday football player too many of his era, he was one of a kind. Clarence Zimmerman received his nickname, “Z” from his teammates in high school at Everett, Washington. Not only was he a man with a tremendous zest for life and a man focused on his goals, he was as they say, a hell of a football player. He played in the first two decades of the twentieth century when as old timers tell us only men were allowed to play the sport because they generally had to play all the game both on defense and on offense. Old time footballers remind us with every opportunity that the emphasis in “Z’s” day was on the hard hitting of defense.
“Z” won a football scholarship to play at Washington State College after staring in the sport in Everett. He was a tall rawboned man even in his teens standing perhaps six feet two or three with noticeably long legs. He was the kind of guy when you asked his friends if he could run, they would respond with, “How far do you want him to go” giving the illusion he could run for hours without stopping. If asked if “Z” had speed, his friends would point to him and say, “You notice he hasn’t been caught yet!” Some said he had it all when it came to the sport of football; size, speed, endurance, attitude, desire, and that always-present focus on the goal. We who love competitive sports call the latter “heart.”
In his freshman year at what was Washington State College (WSC) in those days Coach Johnny Bender had “Z” playing at guard, but that year 1914 Bender’s team finished 2 and 4 with a 45-0 loss to the “Sun Dodgers” of the University of Washington and Bender’s contract wasn’t renewed. Bender went on to success at Kansas State and the University of Tennessee, but at WSC his many duties had spread him too thin and 1914 was the last of a number of losing seasons for Bender. Plus, Bender was a “T” formation man and the coming rage was the Single-Wing offense made famous by a football legend by the name of Pop Warner.
In 1915, Bender’s replacement was “Lone Star Dietz” who was a “Winger.” With the emphasis now on the single wing formation and speed rather than size, Dietz moved “Z” to the starting right end position in his sophomore year. Asa “Ace” Clark, Captain of the 1915 team thought it the right move saying of Zimmerman, “best athlete on the team and one of the best I ever saw.” Events immediately proved “Ace” Clark’s endorsement correct. In the first two games of the season, wins over Oregon 28-3 and Oregon State 29-0 “Z” intercepted two passes and ran them back for touchdowns. One for seventy yards against the University of Oregon and one for sixty yards against Oregon State and for good measure he ran a seven-yard reverse in the Oregon game for another touchdown.
That first team “Z” started on at WSC in 1915 went undefeated and had only one touchdown and extra point and one field goal scored on them all season. The University of Washington refused to play Washington State in 1915 after four straight years of WSC traveling to Seattle to play the final game of the regular season. The University of Washington also went undefeated that 1915 season however, Washington State received the invitation from the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Committee to play in Rose Bowl game New Year’s Day 1916. Had the University of Washington agreed to play WSC in the fall of 1915 and won they most certainly would have been the team invited.
The Rose Bowl game of January 1, 1916 between Brown University and WSC was a defense delight from the time “Z” made the initial kick off. Zimmerman’s talents on a football field included the kicking game except they had on the team a fellow by the name of Art “Bull” Durham who was an excellent drop kicker. Most modern-day followers of the sport have never seen a “drop kicker” perform in a football game.
The Rose Bowl game of January l, 1916 was a rain-soaked quagmire won by WSC 14-0. The performance of “Z” as the lead blocker on the sweep play and his defense was undeniably a contributing factor to winning the 1916 Rose Bowl game.
Fritz Pollard star halfback on the Brown University team that played in the 1916 Rose Bowl would be the first black man named to Walter Camp’s All-American team. The 1916 Rose Bowl game was the first of the uninterrupted Tournament of Rose games in the twentieth century.
The 1916 season brought two losses to the WSC team and thus they did not repeat for a trip to the 1917 Rose Bowl. In the 1917 league play, WSC may have had the best team “Z” was to play on as they finished the season 6-0-1. It took the First World War to prevent the 1917 team Zimmerman played on from returning to the Rose Bowl on January 1, 1918. College teams were suspending football all across the nation as young men answered the call of the nation to become a part of the war to end all wars. As a result, military service teams were selected to play in the Rose Bowl January 1, 1918.
With the suspension of football at WSC “Lone Star” Dietz left to coach the Marines Mare Island team and “Z” joined the Marines. Come the fall of 1918 Clarence Zimmerman and coach “Lone Star” Dietz found themselves on the marine football field at Mare Island. You might call that fate or coincidence if the team Dietz was coaching as a civilian at Mare Island hadn’t had six more WSC football players from the great team Dietz had the previous year at WSC. Dietz and his team including the seven former WSC football player were invited after a brilliant 1918 military season to be the west’s participant in the January 1, 1919 Rose Bowl game. Their opponent from the east was to be the Great Lakes Navy team to whom they lost 17-0.
Clarence Arthur Zimmerman was able to play for two different teams in two different Tournaments of Roses games. The first on January 1, 1916 for Washington State University and the second for Mare Island Marines on January 1, 1919. He was inducted into the Washington State University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1978.
Clarence Zimmerman was involved with education all of his adult life starting first at Walla Walla and later becoming the Principal of Yakima High School before moving on to be the Superintendent of the newly formed Highland School District 203 in the mid-1940s where he remained until retirement.
I was to meet “Z” in the fall of 1953 when a freshman at Highland High School in Cowiche, Washington. As stated, earlier Clarence Zimmerman was in his mid to late fifties or early sixties at the time and always appeared aloof to students probably because he was always referring to them as “children”; which of course was what we were.
Those children showed little or no respect for the superintendent when he was out of sight indeed some were down right disrespectful. Roy Hallstrom who at the time was a successful teacher of agriculture and other subjects at the high school had as a project for his Future Farmers of America the raising of swine out back of the high school. These pigs were the source of much humor and an absolute magnet for pranksters especially those referred to as “children.” Most boys and girls in attendance at the school who were not students of Roy Hallstrom’s probably didn’t know there was a pig within a country mile unless they found themselves down wind of the pigpen.
Halloween night 1955 some of “Roy’s Boys” decided to transfer title of the football field which at the time was titled “Zimmerman Field” to the pigpen. The sign from the football field was found hanging from the fence of the pigpen in the early morning hours of November 1st and the pigs long gone. Whether the sign ever was reinstalled in its proper place is unknown, but today it is believed few members of the community recall that the football field had once been named after one of the most celebrated sports stars who ever had an affiliation with the school district.
My older brother Fred as a junior in the high school had been hired by Mr. “Z” to be a janitor after school for the purpose of assisting in the cleaning of the old Cowiche School, then the elementary school in the community. In the late fall the school’s new basketball coach, Clarence “Buzz” Sperline took a liking to my brother and asked him to be the school’s basketball team manager. With the approval of Mr. “Z” my brother handed down his janitorial duties to me which I retained until the fall of 1959. Now I was to interface with Mr. “Z” as a full time/part time employee in the school district. The work called for cleaning a portion of the elementary school each night following my school day and then periodically four or eight hours on Saturday depending on what the janitorial needs were.
Because of knowing Mr. “Z” as a result of the janitor job in the school district Mr. “Z” and his wife Marie would call upon me to work at both their home on Summitview Road and at their apartment building pictured below in Yakima. These duties varied from yard work to being Mrs. “Z”’s chauffer.
Over the five years that I was a student janitor (three years in high school, two in junior college) and even my junior and senior years at Washington State University, I had an opportunity to know and measure the character of Clarence Arthur Zimmerman. He was nothing like the students in the schools he over saw thought of him.
In the fall of 1957, I was carrying a full load academically at Yakima Valley Junior College (Now Yakima Valley Community College), at the same time as I was a member of the college’s football team. Those two activities placed heavy demands on my time as I was neither a gifted student nor a gifted college football player. However, even with these activities I worked in the fields and orchards on weekends and after school and football practice whenever I could.
My schedule was such in the fall of 1957 that I found myself going to the Marcus-Whitman Cowiche Elementary school on Thompson Road after dark to perform my janitorial duties. Of course, the lights in the school had to be turned on for me to see to work. Community fathers driving by figured out why the lights were on at night and reasoned that it was a waste of money to have the lights on when the school district could have easily hired someone who could have done the work during daylight hours. Most who complained never realized that the lights were on as well during daylight hours when we worked.
Nevertheless, one day arriving at the school for work I found a message waiting for me to call Mr. “Z” which I promptly did from the phone in the office of the school. The phone dialogue with Mr. “Z” went generally as follows. “Mr. Zimmerman, its Bill, I have a message here for me to call you.” Quietly and deliberately as was his way Mr.”Z” responded with, “Oh, yes Bill, how are your studies going?” I explained my schedule and stated that things seemed to be going fairly well, but I might have to give up football in order to make time for more work both to raise money and to study. He was one to always set priorities and was quick to tell me that mine should be my education.
Soon he got to the point of the phone call with, “Bill are you doing your janitor work at night, is that the reason the lights are always on at night?” I responded with, “Yes, is that a problem because if it is, I will change my schedule so that the work can be done during the daylight hours?” Explaining to him that without the janitorial job I could not remain in school during the winter months when fieldwork was nearly non-existent.
He asked me how long the night work would go on and I explained darkness comes early as we get into the winter so we normally need the lights regardless come November. I asked him, “Do you want me to go to daylight hours; if you do, I will start tomorrow?” “No” he said, “You continue as you are, I will take care of the community fathers.” Working at night was never an issue after that.
Someone once described Mr. “Z” to me as being “tight as the bark on a tree” to which someone standing nearby replied, “Hell, bark on a tree ain’t as tight as Zimmerman.” One of the jobs I remember he had me perform was to enclose all the hot water pipes in the crawl space beneath his apartment house with insulation to prevent the escape of heat from the pipes and causing water heating costs to increase. The builder of the building nor its prior owners had not thought to calculate such savings, but Mr. “Z” had and he found it was worth doing at the dollar an hour labor rate he paid me.
I never knew if Marie, “Z” called her “Mother” in private, ever liked me. She was different from “Z”, there never was a doubt in one’s mind that she felt superior to the hired help whereas sometimes a person working with Mr. “Z” was made to feel like he had recognizable rights. Not so with Mrs. “Z”, I probably over the years transplanted every plant in her gardens save for the full-grown trees and never did she thank me or even say ‘good job’. I knew she liked my work or I would not have been asked back. Clearly, she was “Boss Zimmerman” at the Zimmerman’s home.
The Zimmerman’s always had at least one Cadillac in the garage and on occasion for various reasons I would be asked to drive Marie to take care of errands. In 1956 they had a new Cadillac and imagine my excitement when asked to drive it for her. I never in my life had driven such a machine, to me it was like taking a large ship out on the high seas. I remember on one occasion while looking dead ahead and with no special expression she said to me, “Bill I don’t suppose it would do any good if I were to ask you to slow down!” If she only knew how careful I was being with that car not to go over the speed limit. Employment with the Zimmerman’s and that school job was as I look back one of the major happenings in my life.
Mr. “Z” was correct, we were but children at the time and I probably reflected that lack of experience and understanding being one of four poor children. All was not duty and drudgery when working at the home of the Zimmerman’s. One time while working in the yard I was asked to mow the lawn with the Zimmerman’s power gas lawn mower. While you read this story please keep in mind I had never before used a lawn mower powered by anything but me. For that matter we didn’t have a lawn to mow at my house until I was a junior in high school.
Being of the “Children Race” within a few minutes of use of that power mower I thought I had it mastered, knew just about all there was to know about its operation and how to use it. But after about twenty minutes the machine abruptly stopped and “Z” poked his head out of the rear door to the garage saying, “She’s out of gas here is a can of gas fill her up.” He set a can of gas near the door of the garage and went back inside.
The Zimmerman’s had two lovely patios at the house one outside the dining area on a raised area of the lawn and another at the rear of the garage near where Mr. “Z” had placed the full can of gasoline. That particular patio was made from slate rock and was quiet a handsome piece of work. Unfortunately, for me the window above the sink in the kitchen provided an excellent view from inside the house to oversee activities occurring on that particular patio.
I dragged the lawn mower to the patio near the can of gas. Being sure of myself by then with the machine I poured gasoline without the help of a funnel into its tank. And of course, some of the gasoline spilled onto the rock surface of the patio. Well, all hell erupted, the window was flung full open and Marie was screaming, “Clarence! Clarence! Clarence!” “Z” who soon came running from the garage and immediately saw the dilemma I had created for him; He pulled the mower off to an asphalt area and moved the partially emptied gas can to the drive way. By then Marie had totally thought out the solution to the problem, yelling through the open window, “Fire him, Clarence you fire him right now, my, Clarence fire him!” Mr. “Z” had already rushed into the garage and obtained some sort of solvent and a bunch of rags and was down on his hands and knees with me in an attempt to clean the spill. Marie kept shouting and finally Mr. “Z” calls up to her from his cleaning stance, “Mother, close the window and leave us be we will get it clean, now close the window.” The window was closed with a loud thud, but you could still hear Marie talking to herself as she departed the kitchen area. Mr. “Z” then turned to me and said, “Bill you are going to get me killed, don’t ever put gas in that mower on the lawn or this patio. In fact, I suggest you do it out there behind those trees where Mother can’t see you doing it.” We never fully got the stain out and I don’t think Mrs. “Z” ever really forgave me, but time heals all pains including that pain from the stain on Marie’s slate patio.
In the fall of 1959, I entered Washington State University and out of necessity gave up the janitor job, but I continued to work for the Zimmerman’s from time to time. In fact, I would drive all the way to Yakima on Friday nights from Pullman just to work ten hours Saturday and five hours Sunday somewhere at something I knew. Often, I had no weekend or holiday job planned before arriving home. I would immediately call the Zimmerman’s and ask for work. On one occasion I remember calling and getting Mr. “Z” on the phone. I abruptly asked him if he had any work for me that weekend as soon as I identified myself. He responded by saying, “Well Bill I don’t know let me ask Mother” where upon he did his best to cover the mouthpiece of the phone and shouted to Marie in an adjoining room. “Mother its Bill he wants to know if we have work for him this weekend”, and I could clearly hear her respond, “Tell him no!” Mr. “Z” came back on the line saying, “What time can you get here in the morning, we’ll find something.”
Near the end of the first semester of my senior year at Washington State University, I was too short on funds to pay for the last semester and was looking for sources of funds. It was a Saturday morning and Mr. “Z” had me down in his basement where he had a wood shop helping him cut wood pieces on a table saw among other tasks. At a moment when we were idle, he says to me, “You seem quiet, how is school going is there a problem?” I explained school was fine, but I was struggling to find enough money to finish. He said, “Well you can always drop out and earn enough to go back next year.” I told him yes except I was afraid if I quit, I would never go back to which he responded, “Before you quit you come to me, I’ll give you the money you need to finish!” That coming from a man with the reputation of being tighter than the bark on a tree.
Luckily for me I found a source of a loan elsewhere and finished my senior year. I doubt had I not that I would have ever gone back to Mr. “Z” and reminded him of his offer. Looking back, Mr. “Z” gave me more than a job and friendship he gave me to understand quitting pursuit of one’s goals is a poor option in life.
Written By
W. B. Perdue
(HHS 1957)