Hysterical Journey to Historic Places

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MAN KILLER










My grampa, Glen Oliver, was sitting around up in Aberdeen, WA one day in the spring of 1916. He and his brother, Paul – who we have always affectionately called “Pudge”, were well into a jug of tangle foot whiskey when the topic of world politics came under discussion. The country had just begun mobilization efforts to join our allies in the Great War then being waged in France. In 1916 it was not yet known as the First World War. As the evening wore on both of them had decided to join up the next day. Off they went, right after breakfast, still reeking of riotous good times. The recruiting sergeant took an honest liking to Pudge, but grampa got sent to the discard heap because he had a wife and three young children to support. Like all Olivers, who chose to serve in the military, Paul was a good soldier. By 1918 he was a corporal assigned to regimental headquarters as a courier. Only the most trustworthy of men were accepted to that duty. They carried battlefield communications from one command to the next. The success or failure of combat operations was largely dependent on the ability of couriers to traverse the battlefield and bring in correct reports. Some of the most vicious fighting of that war occurred in the spring of 1918 in the Meuse-Argonne Sector where Pudge was assigned. One day while going merrily about his business Pudge hopped into a shell crater that happened to be occupied by a stranded enemy soldier. Pudge casually looked that fellow in the eye, pulled out his pistol and shot him through the head. It is likely that he used that gun in a similar fashion on several other enemy soldiers. At the end of the war Pudge took his service pistol home with him; he called it the “Man Killer”. By then grampa had moved on to, and then out of, Portland because of an influenza epidemic that had been killing thousands across the country. By 1919 he had settled with his family at Jesse Alberson’s stage stop in the high desert country of southeastern Oregon. Pudge was a bit unsettled by the brutality he had just been part of and gave the Man Killer to grampa as a souvenir. It has been in our family ever since, and we cherish it with a special reverence.




Grampa used that gun during the Prohibition Era to hold off some sassy bootleggers in defense of his young daughter, Evelyn, while Pudge unloaded their supply of illegal whiskey at Alberson. He carried the Man Killer on his hip all through the rough mining camps in Central Idaho during the Great Depression. One day my dad was cleaning the gun and the main spring flew out and was lost in the creek. It was tragic loss but a few days later that spring magically appeared in a sluice box none the worse for wear.




When grampa died on Christmas Day of 1945 the Man Killer came into the possession of my dad. He taught me to shoot with it, and I once took that gun to grade school for show and tell. Over the years Uncle George kept us well stocked with ammo for it, spare barrels, magazines, pouches, and, of course, a few additional springs. George had an affinity for the gun because he had poached his first deer with it. He was washing dishes one day out at Fish Lake and the deer sauntered right into camp. The Man Killer was the only gun within his reach, so that is what he used. They spit roasted a front quarter and ate venison that evening until all that was left was bones and farts. When my cousin Bill was coming of age to shoot, my dad passed the gun along to his brother, Frank. When Frank died in 1989 Bill came into possession of it. Bill plans to pass the Man Killer along one day to a grandson.

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Photos

MANKILLER
Grampa with the Mankiller in Orogrande, ID.