Patrick's People - Salvaging retirement

After about 77 years, Caruthers Auto Salvage, 702 E. Eighth, is closed.
“We’ve got no more parts to sell,” said Linda Lou Newbery, who has been running the business for several years. “They’re crushing the cars that are left.”

Her parents, the late Oscar and Grace Caruthers, started the business.
“In 1935 they came from Oskaloosa, Iowa, along with Walt and Loretta Krusemark,” Newbery said. “My father had a salvage yard, a bar and a grocery in Iowa, but when the Depression hit he lost all his money when the banks failed. He sold everything and headed for Texas.”

But that plan changed when he came through Pittsburg.

“He liked Pittsburg and the wide streets, and thought the city would grow,” Newbery said.

“McNally’s was here, and Dickey Clay was really going strong then,” added her brother, Dale Caruthers.

So their father decided to go no further, and opened a salvage yard on East Fourth.

“The lot used to be a baseball diamond,” Caruthers said. “A team played here, I think it might have been the Pittsburg Browns.”

For a building, his father moved an old skating rink across the street from the north side of Fourth to the south side.

“The man who moved it was Otis Brooks,” Caruthers said.

“I found the bill for moving it, and it cost $3,500,” his sister added. “Our parents lived in the front part of the old skating rink until they could build a house, which is right next door to the shop.”

Times were hard, and sometimes customers didn’t have the cash to pay for car parts.

“Sometimes Dad would trade for stock,” Newbery said. “Somebody might have a pig or chickens that he could feed his family, so he’d take that. He kind of had a little farm here to keep the animals, until he got too many. Finally he bought a farm for his critters.”

Newbery said that the back lot now has other kinds of critters, and she enjoys seeing deer, possoms and raccoons.

“There used to be quite a hobo jungle back there,” her brother said. “The train would slow down here, and they’d jump on or jump off. There was one who came by for about eight years with a bucket of paint and brushes, wanting to know if we needed any signs painted. I was sorry when he quit coming, because he was really a good sign painter.”

Caruthers started working at the salvage yard when he was 11.

“Dad had a man watch him so he wouldn’t get hurt,” Newbery said.
“I’d sweep the building, clean up the tools,” Caruthers said. “Dad had lots of projects for me to do.”

Their mother kept the books for the business, but did them at home.

“My father wouldn’t let us girls over here because of the bad language and dirty jokes,” Newbery said.

Caruthers went off to Kansas State University, but was only there a year.
“I was almost through my second semester finals, had one more to go, when my mother called,” he said. “Dad was down, so I came home.”

Doctors gave his father, who had kidney cancer, five years to live, and that was how it worked out.

“For about three years he would come over and help me,” Caruthers said. “After that, I’d go over to the house and ask him questions.”

When their father died, their mother took over the yard.

“Then she passed away,” Newbery said. “I started doing the books in 1977.”

She took over more responsibility after her brother suffered strokes.

“With the help of some good men, I kept it going,” Newbery said.

She’s especially grateful to employees Scott Pinckney and Melvin Friend Jr.

“If it weren’t for them, I couldn’t have kept it going,” Newbery said. “Reliable good help is hard to find. We’d really like to thank all our customers who became friends over the years and all the good men who worked for us.”
Their customers span several generations.

“We’d have some we wouldn’t see for a while, then their children would start coming in,” Caruthers said.

“Sometimes they’d call from out-of-town and say their sons were coming here to school and ask us to take care of them,” Newbery said. “So we’d take care of them. College kids are a lot of fun. I don’t think they’re as much into cars as they used to be, but we’ve got one kid who’s got all kinds of things on his truck. He likes to experiment.”

He’ll have to get his parts somewhere else now. Newbery is sorry, but said it’s just time to quit.

“I’m tired,” she said. “I like my recliner. I’d like to go fishing.”