My memories of Roger Youderian
by RUSSELL BRANDT
Editor’s note: Russell Brandt came to us with this story about Roger Youderian after reading an article in the Jan. 18, 2006, issue of the News-Argus. Youderian was one of five missionaries killed in Ecuador on Jan. 8, 1956. A new movie about the missionaries, “End of the Spear,” was released in January.
I went to school with Roger. I graduated a year behind him in 1942, but we knew each other all through school. We were both World War II veterans and we came back to Lewistown about the same time. I began to build the Brandt Motel, which is now called the Sunset Motel.
My dad and I were partners when it came to building the motel. We started in 1948 and eventually we came to the point where we put in the rough flooring and I had skill enough to do that. My dad was a barber and he worked all day, so I had the job of the main construction. I didn’t know beans about how to frame, which is putting up the walls, partitions and joints for the roof. I was attempting to do what they call stick framing. When you build a house you lay it all out, cut it all out and then build it so it just fits together. I didn’t know how to do that. Lo and behold, one afternoon I was struggling and Roger came up to me and said, “You have to hire me in order to get this finished because you don’t know how to do it.” So I talked to my dad, because I was building it on a shoestring, and he said you hire him and I’ll pay for him. So we hired him and Roger more or less just took over.
He had been to a carpentry and missionary school in Minnesota. His job was to be a carpenter and missionary and go out to the places like he went, and build community buildings, and places they could use for different functions and get them away from being just wild Indians.
So he was well-schooled in carpentry and he took me through all the stages that I needed to know on those three different stages.
We finished number one the first summer and he went back to school. He came back in the summer of ‘49 and kept going, and the same pattern occurred the next summer until we were finished.
The interesting part to me was about what Roger was like. During the building of the 1950 wing, we had dug a full basement and built forms for the wall in the basement. We had that all completed and we were making the pour on the first section. The pour was in process and it was 10 feet tall by 20 feet wide. We were up to 8 feet and the worst of all sounds happened. That sound is when you’re pouring concrete and hear the wall break and go out. It’s just a hideous sound.
We lost the entire wall. The concrete went down and pushed the foundation wall out. There we were with concrete setting up. I told him we could never get this thing back together but he said we will. He dug into the volumes of setting concrete and with a shovel and almost superman energy, he started putting up the wall.
He took it out, put the wall back in, rebuilt it while the concrete was setting in. We were moving like mad men on his energy and strength. We put the concrete we lost back into the form, kept pouring, finished the wall and you could never tell that it happened.
This was what the man was like. There was nothing that could stop him. A lot of people would throw it away and start over. Not him. That was the type of person he was.
When you look at the Sunset motel today, you can see that Roger Youderian built a big portion of it. I hired him and I paid him, but he showed me how to build it. That was the skill he had.
Also to see it like I see it, Christ was a carpenter, Roger was a carpenter so he was truly following in Jesus Christ’s footsteps. I thought that was quite unique.
It never dawned on me that was the case until I read the story published in the News-Argus on Jan. 18.
Our experience was like God working through Roger to help me because I needed the help. I might have learned eventually but this way I learned rapidly. With his extreme strength when necessity called, I was really taken by him. He was not overly huge but he was sure a strong man.
