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ENLARGE
Frank Lane, 90, who now lives in Douglas County, spent weeks living with his two brothers in a house in the woods when he was a child. He and his brothers were later rescued and put into foster care. He has now written a book about his experiences. Lane is the boy in the black jacket from childhood family pictures.
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ENLARGE
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Frank Lane, 90, who now lives in Douglas County, spent weeks living with his two brothers in a house in the woods when he was a child. He and his brothers were later rescued and put into foster care. He has now written a book about his experiences.
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When Frank Lane was 10 years old, he and his 12-year-old twin brothers were left to fend for themselves on 240 acres of land in Southern California. They stayed on the homestead — living on flour, water and the occasional rabbit or quail — for nearly six months before someone on their school’s board of directors realized that nobody was caring for the boys.
Now, decades later, Lane lives in Green, but the 90-year-old has little trouble recalling his childhood adventures on the homestead. He can remember the good and bad times, both before and after he, Sidney and Francis had been left alone.
Frank was born in 1917 during World War I. He was the youngest of five boys. His father Albert and mother Alma, who married in 1910, had acquired land near Elizabeth Lake, just 20 miles from Lancaster, Calif.
His father built a three-room house with a concrete slab for a front porch. There were acres upon acres of dry land on which the boys could play. Over time, his father fenced pieces of the land and built a chicken house and a small barn where the family’s two horses and goat lived.
Frank, his twin brothers, and his oldest brothers Tommy and Howard all learned to entertain themselves on the land surrounding their small house. Sometimes they would roam through the wooded areas, careful to avoid the mountain lions and bobcats that resided there. Other times they would use cardboard boxes to build covered wagons. And, on occasion, the five boys would taunt each other for entertainment or payback.
“In the house there were no chest of drawers,” Frank said. “We just had boxes to put our socks and shoes in. When we would get mad, we would just kick over the other brothers’ boxes.”
Frank’s oldest brother, Tommy, crafted his own Crystal Set — a simple radio using a long antenna and no electricity — out of a Quaker oats box. Tommy tuned the radio and sometimes the boys would be able to hear the faint sounds of a nearby station.
“That was a big thing,” Frank said. “It was just the start of the radio.”
While Frank was growing up, his father was ailing from tuberculosis, often times coughing hard enough to draw up blood. One day in March of 1924, when Frank was nearly 6 years old, he was playing under the spring sun in the yard with his brothers. He heard the crack of a gun and realized it had come from inside his own house. Frank’s father had shot himself at the age of 52.
Looking back, Frank said he can understand how devastated his mother must have been. At the time, the family survived on Albert’s sales of small-animal furs gathered from a trapline set up on the property. His father also sold honey from beehives he’d set up on his land.
Now, decades later, Lane lives in Green, but the 90-year-old has little trouble recalling his childhood adventures on the homestead. He can remember the good and bad times, both before and after he, Sidney and Francis had been left alone.
Frank was born in 1917 during World War I. He was the youngest of five boys. His father Albert and mother Alma, who married in 1910, had acquired land near Elizabeth Lake, just 20 miles from Lancaster, Calif.
His father built a three-room house with a concrete slab for a front porch. There were acres upon acres of dry land on which the boys could play. Over time, his father fenced pieces of the land and built a chicken house and a small barn where the family’s two horses and goat lived.
Frank, his twin brothers, and his oldest brothers Tommy and Howard all learned to entertain themselves on the land surrounding their small house. Sometimes they would roam through the wooded areas, careful to avoid the mountain lions and bobcats that resided there. Other times they would use cardboard boxes to build covered wagons. And, on occasion, the five boys would taunt each other for entertainment or payback.
“In the house there were no chest of drawers,” Frank said. “We just had boxes to put our socks and shoes in. When we would get mad, we would just kick over the other brothers’ boxes.”
Frank’s oldest brother, Tommy, crafted his own Crystal Set — a simple radio using a long antenna and no electricity — out of a Quaker oats box. Tommy tuned the radio and sometimes the boys would be able to hear the faint sounds of a nearby station.
“That was a big thing,” Frank said. “It was just the start of the radio.”
While Frank was growing up, his father was ailing from tuberculosis, often times coughing hard enough to draw up blood. One day in March of 1924, when Frank was nearly 6 years old, he was playing under the spring sun in the yard with his brothers. He heard the crack of a gun and realized it had come from inside his own house. Frank’s father had shot himself at the age of 52.
Looking back, Frank said he can understand how devastated his mother must have been. At the time, the family survived on Albert’s sales of small-animal furs gathered from a trapline set up on the property. His father also sold honey from beehives he’d set up on his land.
At times, Albert and the boys tried to grow crops whenever a heavy rainfall would soften the soil. The family of seven was living off of about $20 a month when Albert died.
Alma was left to care for the boys, all the while suffering from tuberculosis herself. She was remarried by 1927 to a man who failed to keep up the property or care for the boys.
By the time Alma died, Frank’s brother Tommy had moved out of the house, leaving the other boys behind. After Alma’s death, Frank’s stepfather slaughtered the animals they had and moved out of the house, taking Howard with him and leaving the three youngest boys alone.
In the months that followed, the boys fed themselves and managed to trek 10 miles each direction to the one-room schoolhouse. Their clothes were never clean and they rarely ate anything other than beans wrapped in flour pancakes.
The boys’ shoes and clothes were in such bad shape they had little protection from the winter weather. The soles of their shoes were so worn that they used strips of leather and pieces of wire to hold the shoes on their feet. And since they were alone, the boys rarely cared for their personal hygiene.
“We lived just like Indians,” Frank said. “There was no such thing as taking a bath.”
The boys hid their secret for months until sores broke out on their faces, alerting the school board to their condition.
When school officials found out that the young boys were living alone, they notified the police. Frank, Sidney and Francis were removed from their home and put into the Lark Ellen Home for Boys near Los Angeles. While there, they were taken on trips to the beach and local pools, things they had never experienced before. When word got out about their tough times, the boys became instant celebrities, known as the mountain boys who were found starved.
“On the way to school people would stop us,” Lane said. “They wanted to talk to us and meet ya because we were the starving boys.”
“It was very enlightening,” he added. “A joyful time. You felt like a human being. You weren’t just out alone.”
But the boys’ time in the home was short-lived. After six months, a farmer and his wife became foster parents for young Frank and his brothers. They provided a home for the boys, but in turn made them work on their ranch.
By then Frank was 12 years old and would spend hours milking 20 cows by hand each morning before walking to school. He would come home from school and have a list of chores to complete —collecting chicken eggs, feeding the hogs and washing and ironing his clothes —before he could rest for the night.
During the summer months Frank and his brothers would mow, rake and bale hay. The boys also picked apples and grapes for neighbors, with their wages going to their foster parents.
By the time Frank was 16, and his brothers were 18, they had had enough. They piled into the 1923 Chevrolet that had belonged to their father and headed for Los Angeles. It was the height of the depression and work was scarce, but Sidney and Francis both found jobs with the Works Progress Administration — a relief measure that provided various jobs for the unemployed — while Frank finished high school and worked as a busboy making 23 cents an hour. The three of them lived in a one-room apartment in the poorest district in Los Angeles, paying $10 each month for rent. Frank graduated in 1937 with As and Bs on his report card.
“He wasn’t gonna be able to go through graduation because he didn’t have a gown,” said Lane’s wife, Marrietta. “But the principal said ‘You’re graduating,’ and bought his gown.”
Lane had hopes of going to college, but quickly realized he couldn’t afford to further his education. Instead, he lined up with hundreds of other jobless men, vying for a position at Douglas Aircraft Company, which manufactured airplanes. He was chosen for a position and went to school for two months to learn how to form metal. He was a riveter for the company for three years before joining the Navy. He was never sent overseas during his military service. Lane’s stomach ulcers led to a medical discharge in 1944.
When he left the Navy, Lane found a job as a mail carrier for the post office and met his first wife-to-be, Mary Beth. They had a son, Gary, and Lane adopted his wife’s two children. The couple divorced after eight years of marriage. Following two other failed marriages and his retirement in 1977, Lane came to visit his brothers in Oregon — Tommy was living in Grants Pass and Sidney was in Myrtle Creek — and met Marrietta at a square dance.
After their encounter, Lane moved from San Bernadino, Calif., to Roseburg and married Marrietta in 1979. The couple still lives in Douglas County, and Lane will turn 91 in April. He’s outlived all of his brothers.
Marrietta first heard about her husband’s past after they were married, and she encouraged him to write down his memories. One of Lane’s brothers wrote an unpublished book about the boys’ lives, and Lane compiled his stories into a personal memoir about five years ago.
Lane’s friends and family said he rarely talks about his childhood anymore, but he has little trouble recalling the events — both tragic and delightful — that made up his early years.
Energy and excitement filled his voice as he talked about the fun times he had with his brothers, most of which occurred while he was living in the boys’ home, and turned sullen when he thought back to the times when he struggled to survive.
“People say ‘That can’t be,’” Lane said. “But I lived it. I lived every minute of it.”
• You can reach reporter Marissa Harshman at 957-4202 or by e-mail at mharshman@newsreview.info.
Alma was left to care for the boys, all the while suffering from tuberculosis herself. She was remarried by 1927 to a man who failed to keep up the property or care for the boys.
By the time Alma died, Frank’s brother Tommy had moved out of the house, leaving the other boys behind. After Alma’s death, Frank’s stepfather slaughtered the animals they had and moved out of the house, taking Howard with him and leaving the three youngest boys alone.
In the months that followed, the boys fed themselves and managed to trek 10 miles each direction to the one-room schoolhouse. Their clothes were never clean and they rarely ate anything other than beans wrapped in flour pancakes.
The boys’ shoes and clothes were in such bad shape they had little protection from the winter weather. The soles of their shoes were so worn that they used strips of leather and pieces of wire to hold the shoes on their feet. And since they were alone, the boys rarely cared for their personal hygiene.
“We lived just like Indians,” Frank said. “There was no such thing as taking a bath.”
The boys hid their secret for months until sores broke out on their faces, alerting the school board to their condition.
When school officials found out that the young boys were living alone, they notified the police. Frank, Sidney and Francis were removed from their home and put into the Lark Ellen Home for Boys near Los Angeles. While there, they were taken on trips to the beach and local pools, things they had never experienced before. When word got out about their tough times, the boys became instant celebrities, known as the mountain boys who were found starved.
“On the way to school people would stop us,” Lane said. “They wanted to talk to us and meet ya because we were the starving boys.”
“It was very enlightening,” he added. “A joyful time. You felt like a human being. You weren’t just out alone.”
But the boys’ time in the home was short-lived. After six months, a farmer and his wife became foster parents for young Frank and his brothers. They provided a home for the boys, but in turn made them work on their ranch.
By then Frank was 12 years old and would spend hours milking 20 cows by hand each morning before walking to school. He would come home from school and have a list of chores to complete —collecting chicken eggs, feeding the hogs and washing and ironing his clothes —before he could rest for the night.
During the summer months Frank and his brothers would mow, rake and bale hay. The boys also picked apples and grapes for neighbors, with their wages going to their foster parents.
By the time Frank was 16, and his brothers were 18, they had had enough. They piled into the 1923 Chevrolet that had belonged to their father and headed for Los Angeles. It was the height of the depression and work was scarce, but Sidney and Francis both found jobs with the Works Progress Administration — a relief measure that provided various jobs for the unemployed — while Frank finished high school and worked as a busboy making 23 cents an hour. The three of them lived in a one-room apartment in the poorest district in Los Angeles, paying $10 each month for rent. Frank graduated in 1937 with As and Bs on his report card.
“He wasn’t gonna be able to go through graduation because he didn’t have a gown,” said Lane’s wife, Marrietta. “But the principal said ‘You’re graduating,’ and bought his gown.”
Lane had hopes of going to college, but quickly realized he couldn’t afford to further his education. Instead, he lined up with hundreds of other jobless men, vying for a position at Douglas Aircraft Company, which manufactured airplanes. He was chosen for a position and went to school for two months to learn how to form metal. He was a riveter for the company for three years before joining the Navy. He was never sent overseas during his military service. Lane’s stomach ulcers led to a medical discharge in 1944.
When he left the Navy, Lane found a job as a mail carrier for the post office and met his first wife-to-be, Mary Beth. They had a son, Gary, and Lane adopted his wife’s two children. The couple divorced after eight years of marriage. Following two other failed marriages and his retirement in 1977, Lane came to visit his brothers in Oregon — Tommy was living in Grants Pass and Sidney was in Myrtle Creek — and met Marrietta at a square dance.
After their encounter, Lane moved from San Bernadino, Calif., to Roseburg and married Marrietta in 1979. The couple still lives in Douglas County, and Lane will turn 91 in April. He’s outlived all of his brothers.
Marrietta first heard about her husband’s past after they were married, and she encouraged him to write down his memories. One of Lane’s brothers wrote an unpublished book about the boys’ lives, and Lane compiled his stories into a personal memoir about five years ago.
Lane’s friends and family said he rarely talks about his childhood anymore, but he has little trouble recalling the events — both tragic and delightful — that made up his early years.
Energy and excitement filled his voice as he talked about the fun times he had with his brothers, most of which occurred while he was living in the boys’ home, and turned sullen when he thought back to the times when he struggled to survive.
“People say ‘That can’t be,’” Lane said. “But I lived it. I lived every minute of it.”
• You can reach reporter Marissa Harshman at 957-4202 or by e-mail at mharshman@newsreview.info.
