William Wister Haines
1908-1989

Born in 1908 he was 24 years old when he wrote Slim. Until he was 18, William Haines Lives in Des Moines. His father was an engineer who had worked for several utilities. But the Haines family became victims of the Great Depression. Haines was part way through the University of Pennsylvania when funds ran out. At the age of 19, he found work as a lineman and would alternately return to school for a semester or so, then go back to linework.

In 1931, upon receiving his degree in business, instead of joining his older brother at an insurance agency, he continues with line work. Finally he stopped long enough to write and publish several short stories. He returned to line work to support himself, then finally quit to write Slim. The novel was published in 1934 and became a best seller. He married that fall and moved to Hollywood where he wrote the screen play for the movie. It stars Henry Fonda and Pat O'Brian.

Slim stands on its own legs as an outstanding book, it was a big hit with readers who knew nothing of line work. Two short storied of line work, "Remarks None" and "Hot Behind Me" were published in the Atlantic Monthly. His next book about line work, High Tension came out in 1938, and became a best seller. That book is written from the perspective of a line foreman doing catenary work on railroads.

During World War II Haines served 41 months in the Air Force Intelligence, planning bombing raids over Germany. Every appreciative of a good, sharp knife, he mildly regretted planning a raid on the Henkels factory. He was decorated with the Bronze Star and Legion of Merit. He was honorably discharged with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and started writing Command Decision two weeks later.

His 1948 book Command Decision ran as a play on Broadway for a year and a half, was a best selling book and made into a movie. It stars Chuck Gable, Walter Pidgeon and Van Johnson, and can still be seen frequently on late night television. In the 1950s he wrote or collaborated on a number of movie scripts, several starred John Wayne. A later novel, The Winter War about the 1877 winter campaign of the US Army against the Sioux in Montana was awarded the Spur Award of the Western Writers of America.

William Wister Haines was a lineman to the core. All his life, he took great pride in the seven years he spent in this challenging way of making a living. Until they literally fell apart, he had several lineman's leather belts full of tools in our garage to remind him of those years. We looked at the "hooks" with awe and wondered how anyone could climb a pole with them. Any rope in our garage was likely to be made up in exotic knots, known only to lineman. A conversation with his kids about the linework years was addressed with great reverence. He loved the work the men, their loyalty to one another and above all their code to get it done right despite foul weather and ever-present danger.

Haines loved to hunt doves, ducks, geese and upland fowl. He told tales of hunting in his early years in frigid Iowa winters, and shooting ducks while lying in flat boats in the freezing Chesapeake Bay. For some 25 years, every fall he and Mrs. Haines would travel to Saskatchewan and spend at least 6 weeks shooting on the prairies.

Haines lived modestly with no sign of pretension, although he was a well known author and screenwriter. He wrote movies and spent time around the Hollywood movie studios but in the Haines home there was not glitz. He always drove a Ford station wagon, capable of hauling a lot of hunting gear. Within easy reach, below the driver's seat was a large pair of pliers.

Lineman are in a dangerous profession and work everyday knowing their comrade's lives depend on them. Lineman have an unwritten code of trust, one that bound William Wister Haines his whole life. His word was his bond, his opinion of phonies or folks with bluster is well spoken by Red, in Slim.

His choice of friends was eclectic. A hunting companion was the cobbler in our small town. A lifelong friend he served with the war became a Supreme Court Justice. How much of Slim was autobiographical? Was Red a picture of a comrade? It's sad he did not commence keeping a diary until 1932. We will never know.