Bill Arnold started working and living on his own at age 14 and never stopped.
Arnold, who died Nov. 9 at age 89, found jobs everywhere. He was a gandy dancer on the railroad and a powder monkey in road and dam construction.
The streetcar he drove for years in Denver is part of the dining area at the Old Spaghetti Factory, 18th and Lawrence streets.
Arnold had plenty of stories of survival, but never complained about his life of work.
“He considered it all an adventure, not tough times, ” said son David Arnold of Grand Lake.
Arnold was a gandy dancer on a railroad near Winter Park, David Arnold said. The term gandy dancer possibly came from a company in Chicago, the Gandy Manufacturing Co., that made tools for the railroad workers.
Another explanation is that the men were called gandy dancers because of the careful synchronization required as they put the rails on the ties and adjusted them with a tool called a gandy.
As a young man, Arnold helped build Williams Fork Dam in Kremmling. He was a powder monkey, which meant he was lowered by rope into a deep hole blasted through the rock, where he’d set another dynamite charge before being quickly hoisted to the surface.
Arnold also worked in mines, ran a boarding house with his wife, Merle Arnold, delivered newspapers and spent nearly 40 years driving a streetcar.
Arnold was determined his children wouldn’t have to fend for themselves as he had.
He was born Jan. 30, 1917, in New England, N.D. When his parents divorced, he and his brother stayed with their father and their two sisters stayed with their mother.
Arnold and his brother, Bob Arnold, slept in tents at work sites as their father, Virgil Arnold, moved from job to job.
Schools changed often. One year, Bill Arnold went to six different schools. Sometimes their dad would be gone for days at a time and leave the boys on their own, with provisions, said Jan Arnold, Bill Arnold’s daughter-in-law.
When he was 14, Bill Arnold struck out on his own and got a job. A $1-a-day salary was considered good.
He was working on the Williams Fork Dam when he fell in love with Alice Merle Jesmer, who was working in her father’s store. On their first date they saw a movie and shared a box of popcorn.
He talked her into marrying him and they took a train to Steamboat Springs, where they found a justice of the peace. She was 16 and he was 18. The two remained devoted to each other.
“They were inseparable,” Jan Arnold said.
The trip and the license cost $6, she said.
Bill Arnold would remark later in life, “You don’t have to spend $10,000 on a wedding,” David Arnold said.
Bill Arnold was known to “fabricate” his age or work experience in order to get a job, and he became good at it, said daughter Wanda Copley of Lakewood. And nothing scared him.
The Arnolds came to Denver in 1944 and he began his nearly 40-year career with the Denver Tramway Co. At the same time he had a paper route with which all the family helped.
Over the years the Arnolds helped raise six nieces and nephews as well as their own children.
Bill Arnold was a constant learner and one of the subjects he liked was the stock market, in which he did very well, family members said.
In addition to his wife, daughter and son, Arnold is survived by another daughter, Susan Bell of Australia; two other sons, Donald Arnold of Morrison and Dan Arnold of Arvada; 17 grandchildren; 18 great- grandchildren; and two great- great-grandchildren. Daughter Peggy Arnold preceded him in death.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
