Holloway

Decedent, in 1932, obtained work near Lost Hills, California as night watchman for an oil company. He was then 63 years *673 of age. lie lived in a small galvanized iron shack in which he built a bed of rough lumber and to which he piped water, constructing a stove of an oil drum using gasoline for fuel. Following an injury in 1933, his wife, then 57, joined him. Current expenses exhausted his entire $100 per month salary and they had no other funds.

Decedent soon became attracted by a nearby area showing outcroppings of gypsum and he obtained a lease of this on a royalty basis. Shoveling by hand, he extracted the gypsum and sold it to nearby farmers as a soil conditioner. Later he •rented a tractor and plow but he retained his position as a night watchman until 1935. His wife supplied him with food and water as he worked under the hot sun. She also took full and complete charge of the loading and weighing, etc., of the gypsum during decedent’s frequent journeys to promote sales and while he worked on other wells, he being absent as long as six weeks. In the evenings, she also materially assisted decedent in the computation of poundages and accounts. Employees who were…