Beatrice Ivy Turner (b.1910)

Grand-mother of Keith M. Chandler

Written By Herself
Written in 1977 to Celebrate Her 50th Wedding Anniversary

[Editors Note; Beatrice Ivy Turner Chandler was known as Ivy throughout her life, she was born 13 August 1910 and died on 1 June 1996. Aged 85 years nine months and nineteen days. See also History of her Husband William Thomas Chandler on page 9]

Before I start my story, I must give a little family history. Ivan Vane Turner, my dad, was born in Onsborrow Kentucky in 1882 to George Washington Turner and Georgeann Yates Turner1. He was the oldest of six kids2. His folks were converts to the Mormon Church. Before that, they were Masons. Grandma belonged to the Eastern Star ladies organization of the Masons. When dad was fourteen years old, they left their home in Kentucky and came to Utah were they went to the temple to be sealed for time and all eternity, on 15 Sep 1898.

The fourteen years Dad [Ivan] spent on the Ohio River, he learned to excel in boating. He could go anywhere in a rowboat, also an excellent swimmer and fisherman. The rest of dad’s early life was spent in Murray. They lived at 601 Vine Street, Murray. His [Fathers (George)] profession was a Steam Engineer.

My mother Harriot Elva Potter Turner, was born in Dover3, Utah. She was the seventh child4 in a family of thirteen born to Wallace Edwin and Harriot Susan Kempton Potter5.

My father and mother were married on 6 Jan 1904 in Salt Lake City. They were early pioneers to the Uintah Basin about 1906 or 1907. I can see why they wanted to move here as it is a Beautiful place, with the mountains and streams, many places to fish and hunt. In all our traveling around, I have never found a place I liked better for a year around climate and things to do. None of dad’s folks [George Turner and Georgeann Yates] could never understand why he wanted to come here, but at this time most of mother’s folks [Wallace Potter and Harriot Kempton] moved here. My Dad and George Potter [Harriot’s older brother] came together the first time by team and wagon and brought their first load of belongs. The trip one way took about ten days. The next trip they brought their families.

Dad’s first homestead was about where the Ballard6 Church house stands nowa then North to the hill, but he was getting out wood and posts north of LaPoint in the Deep Creek7 area. And, he found a place he liked better. So he gave up the place he had and re‑filed on Deep Creek. Dad moved his family to Deep Creek when I was very small. Here we lived for about twelve years in a three room log house with a dirt roof. They now had three kids, having buried a boy just older than meb, just before I was bornc, in this humble home, five more children were born, making a total of nine‑five girls and four boys in this order: Bernice [Pronounced Burnis], Harlan, [Jessie] Arnold [(died)], Ivy, Wanothel, Hurley, Wilbur, Earnest, Vera8. We had a happy home but a busy one. One of my earliest memories is of threading green beans on a string to hang up and dry.

I was not quite three when I moved there and I remember so well getting lost in a cornfield. Seemed like to me it was hours, but mother said that it was probably twenty to thirty minutes as I wouldn’t stay in one row long enough for Bernice to find me.

My mother was a good homemaker and our log cabin was a happy home. Mother played the organ and we had one in our home. She would play and we all helped her sing, mostly church songs, as she was very religious. One song she sang a lot and there were tears in her eyes lots of the time, was “Oh Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight.” Later I realized, this was because my brother Harlan ran away so much. Even from early childhood.

Mother was very talented as all the Potters were. Some of her talents were music, art, homemaking, and sewing. She had taken a correspondence course in sewing early in life so she could make anything. One time Dad’s folks had sent a box of clothing to make over, and mother made her a dress out of a serge overcoat, trimmed it in brown satin. She wore it to a dance. Everyone was bragging about her new dress. Dad told them she made it our of an overcoat. He said he was just bragging about what she could do, but mom was real mad at him. She didn’t want people to know she made it. I am sure they must of had their quarrels, but we kids never heard them. There was lots of love in our cabin. One time when Grandma [Harriot Susan] Potter was staying with us, we had a bad storm and the house leaked. She was getting after Dad and he told her, Well, mother, when it’s raining I can’t fix it. After it quits, it don’t need fixing.” After the scolding he got, needless to say, we fixed the roof.

I have a dearly beloved sister Wanothel or Wanda as we called her. It fell her lot early in life to help mother in the home and tend the newest baby at the time, and from earliest memories I have, I did the outside chores: feeding chickens, bringing in the wood, carrying water, anything a small child could do. I learned to milk when I was seven years, but we always found some time play. We had two play houses. One was the hop house, it was about a twelve by twelve woven wire over top and all. In early spring this would be completely covered with hops. The hop house had two purposes—play house, and mom gathered the hops. We always had a hop pillow. This we used if we had ear ache or head ache. We warmed the hop pillow to put us to sleep. As a play house it was great; but our best play house was down by the creek in the willows. Here we made our furniture out of rocks, boards, or anything we could find. Any cans or bottle lids, everything was taken to the play house. We always had a few things sent from Aunt Ivy’s that her daughter Wandaquin had got tired of (dolls & dishes). Many happy hours were spent here. We could always do our washing in the creek.

Dad worked in the mines off and on all his life. Many is the time we got very little for Christmas, but they were happy times. We would go with Dad to the hills for a tree, decorate it with popcorn threaded on a string, rose berries that we gathered along the creek—also on a string, colored chains made at school, fancy cookies, and whatever else we could find. We always got some candy and nuts and whatever the folks could make for us. Dad always made the boys new sleds and tops he could whittle out of wood. Mother made clothes for everyone, and doll clothes from the scraps. One time we got cradle for our doll made from a shoe box. The lid made the rockers. Always happiness and love for one another.

One time when Earnie was about three years old (He was always a chatter box. I think he must of been born talking), we couldn’t get him and Wilbur to sleep, so Vern Sheffer, Bernice’s husband, dressed up with some wool for whiskers and a stocking cap and looked through the window. When Earnie saw him he said, “Oh Santa, am I glad to see you. Go up to the hay stack and feed your reindeers. Mom has some milk and cookies for you. We will be a sleep in a minute.” And I don’t think either of them moved the rest of the night or said another word. But, we couldn’t convince him that Christmas was only one night, so Dad put a horse manure biscuit in his stocking. Was he excited. Said Santa brought him a horse, but he got away.

Some years we spent Christmas with the folks in Bennett with Amasa, Arnold and George Potter. These are special times and memories. As I have said, Amasa played the fiddle, George the harmonica, Arnold would find something he could beat or drum on. Everyone would sing or dance or just listen, then the grownups would play cards a lot.

Sometimes we spent Christmas with the Labrum’s, Jess and Bell and family, as they had a bigger house than we did. We always played games or cards here. Sluff, Rummy, and Hi‑Five were most popular. When I was about ten, the folks sent in the catalog and got me a new bridle. I was the happiest kid on earth right then. Some of the other things we got were over boots, leggings, and wool socks; also mittens and caps. Whatever they could afford, but they were happy times for me.

As far back as I can remember, I have loved the out of doors and rode my horse. Before I was very big, I would herd the cows, go to the neighbors to borrow, and visit with my best friend, Mable Johnson. There wasn’t too many girls my age. Mable lived on the head of the creek. Ella Smith lived way down the creek. Me in the middle. I was a little older, but we three were always the best friends all through school. I still consider Mable one of my best friends.

One of my earliest memories was going with my brother Harlan behind him on a horse to the sheep camp for bum lambs. I couldn’t of been more than four then. We knew every trail, every spring, every hill & hollow for miles around; and we always stayed for dinner at the camp—fried mutton, sour dough biscuits, and gravy. To this day, I like all three. We usually hit all the herds around two or three times a week. We never got a lamb every day, but usually, sometimes two or three. We had lots die, but usually raised anywhere from thirty to fifty. We had one Holstein cow that always gave three or four gallons of milk at a milking, all through the summer while feed was good. My sister Wanda never cared much for the horses or out of doors like I did. She would only ride a horse if necessary to get where she wanted to go, but me, I was just like a mountain sheep. I covered the hills after cows or horses, always bare feet in summer, on a horse if I could catch one, but by the time I was five or six, you couldn’t of lost my any where on Deep Creek.

Dad did lots of tracking and from the time Harlan and I were quite small, he would let us go along on our pony bare back. He had a pair of hounds called them Punch and Judy. They were both big, but Judy was a greyhound and she could run down a coyote easy. Punch was a real big dog and slower, but would kill anything. Put them after a coyote and follow Judy’s baying, and cut corners, pretty soon we catch up, then Punch would kill it. He used to trap all kinds of animals. Caught several black bear, coyotes, lots of bobcats, badgers, muskrats, and a few beaver, lions, and weasels, anything to make a dollar. I loved to do anything out of doors. With the stock, I always broke all the little colts to lead, the big ones too. If I could get a rope on them and get the other end over a snubbing post, they stayed tied up until I could handle them.

I don’t think I ever talked back to my Mom or Dad in my life, and I loved them both so much. Dad whipped me twice. Both times I needed it. One time in May, mother was in Vernal9 with the smaller kids (just before Wilbur was born) at Grandma Potter’s, and Dad started after the horses. He said I don’t want you and Harlan playing in or around the creek, still snow in the canyons. I was seven or eight at the time. Well, he wasn’t gone long and came to look for us—found us playing in the creek. He had a rope in his hand and he gave us a good one that we needed. The other time we were playing after school till dark. He warned us several times then we got it with the razor strap.

One day during the war, Winter of 1917 or 1918, everyone had the flue. Most of our family had it at once, but Wanda and I were the last ones to get it. We really had our hands full for a week taking care of the sick and doing the chores. She was six and I was eight. Mother stayed up and around until Bernice got to feeling better, but Dad was the first one down and the last one up. For two or three weeks, he was bed fast, ate very little food, but would drink current juice and apricot juice. One day, Alf Johnson come from the head of the creek six or seven miles with team and wagon to break a road from the coal mine about two miles into our place; had all his horses leading behind the wagon to brake the road. We had a bad storm with eighteen inches or two feet of new snow and we hadn’t been out for a week or more. He also bought a fifth of whiskey. Now days the Doctors say that won’t help, but from then on Dad started to improve. Mother fixed him a hot toddy every night and he would sleep instead of raving all night.

I have always felt like he saved my Dad’s life. I have always been thankful for the things the Johnson’s did for us. Many is the times that they led a string of horses down the creek to break the trail about two and a half miles so we could go up the creek instead of around by the Government coal mine. This they did spring and fall. Made it a couple of miles closer to school. I might add here that Mable, his grand daughter was my very best friend all my life. I used to ride my pony up there every time I got a chance. Mable ‘s mother, Cloe, would always fix me something nice. Sometimes, I would ride down the creek to see Ella Smith. I think I was the oldest of the three but we grew up together, Ella has been dead many years now. I grew up chasing the horses if Dad needed one, and handling the cows. Dad always had a few to look after for folks and friends in Bennett. These took more care as they never stayed with the milk cows; but I got a few extra dollars. By now I knew every spring and stream and the face of the mountain, where the feed was best at different times of the year, where the horses and cows were most apt to be. We always went bare footed in Summer, but they would take us to town in the fall to buy our winter shoes—usually split leather, boys lace up above the ankle. These were both for warmth and wear.

Mothers three brothers still lived around. Uncle Amasa and Arnold still at Bennett, George and Abby had moved to Neola. About this time Uncle Arnold and Aunt Hazel moved in with us for one winter. They built a lean‑to on our house for a bedroom and we all ate together well. They moved some fruit and vegetables into our cellar. I went to the cellar most of the time and I opened a bottle of Aunt Hazel’s sweet pickles. I had ate most of it when Bernice caught me and told Mom. Well, I had to get the bottle, take it back, and tell her what I had done. I must of been eight or nine then, and it was a hard thing to do. I cried and coaxed Mom, but she said take the bottle to her. I finally did. She said, “Oh, that’s all right. Just ask me or bring a bottle up for dinner.”

Amasa and Arnold played for lots of dance at the old schoolhouse—Amasa on the fiddle. The Taylor’s played the guitar—just anybody they could find to play. Everybody went, kids and all, always had pot‑luck lunch and a very good time.

Dad used to tell me I would chase my pony ten miles to get to ride her two. He was right about the miles we covered as whoever went to look for the horses might cover from Johnson’s to the top of Little Mountain, then if the hobbles were broke, chase them home. So we grew up fast on foot like the Indians. Speaking of Indians, we saw quite a few usually in early spring or fall. One time Mom and Dad and the smaller kids were in Vernal to be gone a few days and three big fat Indians come up to our gate, the trail that went down creek, and just sat there. Bernice and Harlan both started on me to go let them through before it got night. Finally they won. I go out with hair in braids, bib overalls on. One of them said, “Are you a boy?” I said yes. They sure did laugh. This broke the ice. They wanted something to eat, so I pulled them some turnips. They went on down the trail.

Wanda had a real bad scare; she was about nine. She had been sent to the neighbors to borrow something from the Perry’s on the south about two miles. On the way home, she heard a noise in the brush. She said it sounded like someone screaming. She wanted to go see, but the folks had always told us never to go into the brush for anything so she ran on home. Dad said it was probably a lion sure enough. Perry’s killed one the next few days along the creek.

It’s a wonder that some of us wasn’t seriously hurt as we were thrown from horses every few days. Horse jumps sideways, off we go. If it bucks you off again, then ever so many times you just fall off. Never anything worse than skinned elbows and knees. Another thing I learned to do real young was to fish. Harlan and I started to fish in the creek for suckers with a lasso made of a piece of screen wire tied on the end of a stick. We would spend hours getting one out, getting the lasso behind the gills then jerk, land him on the bank. As we got older, we tagged along behind my Dad to help carry his fish. Was nothing for him to catch a flour sack full in a day. He was the best fisherman I ever saw. I don’t think to my knowledge he was every beaten. All his relatives tried for years to beat him. As us kids got older, he would cut a willow pole and tie a line and fly on it for us. He never used anything but flies. Guess that’s why I love fly fishing.

All my life I have spent time with Harlan, looking after him, as he ran away when he was real young. He would go to the neighbors and stay all night, but if I was with him I could get him home at night. When he was gone, either Bernice or me had to go look for him. Usually me on my pony. Most of the time I kept it either staked or hobbled, but she was constantly getting loose. So It become mine and Harlan’s job to herd the cows, round‑up the horses, do the milking and other chores—by now we had several cows.

One thing I forgot to mention so far was that I owe my life to my sister Bernice and brother Harlan. As the cows had been turned out to get a drink, they didn’t come back. So, Mom bundled Harlan and me up in leggings over boots, everything to keep warm, and sends us after them—three cows and a calf. Well, they had decided to go down the creek to Perry’s about two miles, so foolish kids, we take their trail and follow them in fifteen or twenty inches of loose snow. We were wet and cold when we got there. They dried us off, getting us ready to go home. About this time Bernice come after us. Start the cows home, us following. About half way I get cold and tired. I kept falling down. Bernice keeps butting me with her foot, making me get up and go on. I remember crying and saying, “let me lay down and rest; I am not cold any more.” The next thing I remember was mother putting my feet and hands in cold water and me screaming, “It hurts”—to draw out the frost. Bernice and Harlan had taken turns carrying me on their backs which was quite a job as I was past eight then. I never forgot the pain of getting them thawed out. My feet were froze, so when they put them in water, ice froze on my feet. Then Mom rubbed them with Watkins Liniment several times a day, but it was two weeks or more before I could walk on them. They were red, swollen and sore.

We had many hardships in those days, but learned to cope with them. I often wonder what courage it took for Mother to let us leave for school in snow, but guess she thought there was safety in numbers, and that we would look after each other. One of the first things we were taught was how to find things to burn, to build a fire in all kinds of weather.

Many the times we stopped and built a fire and we very seldom left without a pocket full of matches.

With all the work we had to do, we found lots of time to play.

Seems like Harlan and I were always wet from playing in the creek. Sometimes Wanda was with us. Or we were going rabbit hunting with a flipper and a barb wire to twist them out after they ran down a hole. Mother was always glad when we brought home rabbits as it helped with meals. Many times Mother spanked us and scolded us for leaving our assigned jobs to do things we wanted to do. This I still do—what I want to first—the rest when it has to be done.

Some of the other things we did that was fun at the time, was taking the entrails out of a rabbit and rolling it in a ball of the mud, then roasting it in the fire for several hours. Then break the mud ball. The hair and hide will stick to the mud. The meat comes out clean and very good. Also corn thrown in a fire with the shucks on is very delicious, also onions and potatoes.

We had a spring about a mile from our house; about half way up a hill. It was Dad and Mom’s dream to build a new house at the foot of the hill and pipe water in for pressure. We had a big garden planted here and when Harlan and I were sent here to weed it, we always found something to cook for dinner in the fire. Many of a Sunday picnic was shared with all the family watering or weeding the garden, or just having fun. We never seemed to worry about what we would do. We made our own entertainment. Of course, there were parties and dances most every week and everyone went, brought a pot‑luck lunch, and fun times for everyone.

One time when I was about nine, we had a real bad winter and all the cows had to eat after February was what Dad would carry home from the mine, where the guys that come after coal would feed their horses and leave the scraps. This he brought home from work in a sack so we had to quit milking her. Well, about May, Harlan and I made our first trip to the sheep camp and came home with two bum lambs. Dad says “We can’t buy milk for no lambs. So after crying a while I took my lambs to the coral and milked the old cow, got about a half cup, it looked just like water, and fed the lambs. Next morning one was dead, but we milked the cow again. Milked her three or four times that day and fed the lamb each time I got a few more squirts. By the time the herds quit lambing, Harlan and I had thirty lambs and enough milk for the family besides. Now the feed was good and it was late fall before she had her calf. So if you have enough determination and stay with it long enough, you can finally get milk.

Another thing that stands out in my mind was the good times we had with the Arnold boys. There were four of them. They lived about one and a half miles to the north of us on Crow Creek. They were the first family I remember on this place. Wilbur and Bill were older, but Manford (or Kay), and Kimble were our age. Me being a tom‑boy, Harlan and I mixed right in. We went by their place to school. One day we gathered pine cones before they were ripe, put them in my stocking cap, got pine gum on two braids as big as your wrist. Well, my head was washed in coal oil, turpentine, then just combed and pulled out. Dad would never let us get our hair cut.

Another thing, every day for a month before Easter, all the Easter eggs were hidden by Easter time about a bushel basket full. To color eggs in them days, we used onion skins, rabbit brush, cedar bows, and beet juice. For years after, the Arnold’s left the creek, I couldn’t eat eggs. Ate too many every Easter until I got sick.

Another day, we played hookie from school and spent the day throwing rocks carried from the hill at a badger caught in one of Harlan’s traps. Needless to say, we spent the next Sunday carrying the rocks out of the hay field. Lots more work than carrying them down. Another job Harlan and I took on about this time was going to the store for groceries once a week on our ponies. At first Harlan always went with me. We always rode Indian style, no saddles, but Harlan could never go alone as he never got back the same day and sometimes I would have to go find him. Sometimes Wanda went with us. Bud Mullins was the store keeper then. It was around twenty-five miles round trip.

We would carry a seamless sack with the necessary things that Mother would need for a week in each end of the sack. Threw it over the pony’s neck. Then a fifty pound sack of flour on top of that. Bud Mullins would load me up then give me a can of coal oil to carry in my hand. The trips we had the oil were the hardest ones to make, but we always found time to visit with Ella Smith either going or coming; so, I was always in the dark getting home. When I got close to home, I could always hear Mom calling me. I can see now how she must of worried about me. With a little effort, I could of made it before dark. During these years, I spent more and more time on my pony either hunting cows or horses or going to town for groceries. By now I am doing the milking alone and most of the things Dad don’t have time for.

All the schooling we got up to now, we had to walk up by Johnson’s two and a half or three miles up the creek, or four or five miles around by the government coal mine. So we didn’t go to regular in the winter time. Never if there was a storm on. We always had to walk as we never raised enough hay to feed the horses. They had to winter like the deer on a sunny side hill and eat brush and weeds. We never had one die, but they always come out in the spring real poor. All this time the school had been up by Johnson’s, ten or more miles from the kids on the lower end—the Smith’s, Justice’s, the Guy Long family, and later on Parish’s, so they built a new school house—one room, one teacher—half way. Less than a mile west of the government coal mine.

Now we were one of the nearest ones to school. We did, a time or two, get up to twenty or twenty five kids, but most of the time around fifteen. I have a picture of the whole school, fourteen kids. Five of them were Turner’s That’s the last year Bernice and Harlan went to school. Bernice went to Salt Lake, Harlan just quit.

My Mother was never very well and most of the time Bernice stayed in the house to help Mother; and Wanda tended the smaller kids a lot. But Harlan and I helped Dad in the field, but Harlan got worse to run away as he got older, so more and more I helped Dad in the field. By now I could do most any kind of farm work. It was did in those days with a team. But I harrowed, mowed or raked hay, or planted whatever was to be done. Every year or two Dad would trade off the lambs we raised for cows or horses or whatever he needed the worst, and buy new. We were milking ten or more cows and had a small cream check. Dad was still working in the coal mine part time. Us three older kids did the milking.

A scary time, bad experience—about this time, Mother and I and all the younger kids went to Vernal to spend a week with Grandma Potter. I did the driving—took a full day to get there. Well, we picked apples and apricots and plums, were bringing them home to can and we had got nearly home when one of our old slow work horses went loco and ran away. Just after we passed Johnson’s, they left the road and ran into a big gulch. The horse that was running away jumped, the other slid down the bank, the wagon tongue stuck in the ground, the back wheels stayed on top of the bank. I jumped out; Mother went out to the bottom of the gulch with the horses. I managed to drag her free before I went for help. Also, got the rest of the kids out of the wagon. Mom was knocked out; was still out when I got back with help. She was months getting over it, if she ever did. The horse that went crazy had to be killed as he would take spells after that and just run for half a day at a time. Seems like we had more time to visit then than we do now. After we started to milk more cows we could never all leave at once for overnight as Dad never was a good milker. His hands had to many calluses. Would pinch the cows tits and they would kick him.

About this time, my sister Bernice met Vern Sheffer who was working in the mine for Dad. They met at a dance. Well, they started going together. At this time, there were dances at the school house once or twice a month. Also parties around the community. At this time, Vern would come to see Bernice on a big Chestnut Sorrel passing [sp?] horse. All that first summer, Mom would send me and Harlan along with them to the dances on our pony as a chaperon; but by fall they were so serious and Bernice was only Sixteen, so the folks sent Bernice to Salt Lake to go to school. But she went to work at the Murray Laundry instead. After two years, she come home and married Vern anyway. They moved into a two room log house on Vern’s homestead on Mosby Creek. Vern still worked for Dad at the mine. Here they lived until Mother died in 1928. Then they lived on our place on the creek for a year or two; then we lost the place and they moved back onto their homestead.

I will never forget the first time [I remember] Grandma [Georgeann] and Grandpa [George] Turner came from Murray to see us. They come in Uncle Earnest new Model A Ford. There was Earn, Odie, Grandma and Grandpa Turner, and Florn Brown, my cousin. Well, they stayed two weeks and we fished and hunted sage hens most every day. We had borrowed all the saddles we could form the neighbors, also a few horses to have enough to go around. Grandpa never went unless we took the wagon, as by then he was getting quite crippled up.

One morning before day light, we were getting ready to go. Everyone had picked their horses the night before. Dad was always playing tricks on them. We had one horse that had been tin canned. This is tying a string of cans to a horses tail to scare them away from your place. Naturally she was afraid of anything that rattled so Dad ties the tin cups and coffee pot behind the saddle. This was Earns horse. So we had a rodeo before we left. We took the wagon and went over to White Rocks and the Uintah River so Grandpa could go along. Grandma and Mom and the small kids stayed at home; also Bernice, as she never liked the outdoors or fishing like I did. Usually Grandma and Grandpa stayed home with mother as Grandma was afraid of bad roads with either car or wagon, Uncle Earnest said she walked half way. Every time they come to a narrow dugway, she would holler “LET ME OUT.” That’s why it took them two days to get here in a new Ford. I think it was a Model A. Grandpa and all the boys loved to fish, but she never went along.

The next year, we had this group plus Aunt Polly and Uncle Gerold Brady. Also Aunt Ivy Brown, a widow. She was my name sake. Her son Florn, Earn, Odie, Grandma and Grandpa Turner in two cars. In them days it took two days to get to our place from Salt Lake. The first night they stayed at Heber. Come on in the next day.

Dad would never let Wanda or me have our hair cut, and we had so much—two braids as big as your wrist and below our waist. The first thing Aunt Polly done was grab the scissors and cut it off. We felt pretty naked for a while.

We never saw to much of Dad’s folks for it was so far away and the roads were so bad, but after this whenever they could all get vacation at once, they would come out.

One time when all of Dad’s folks were there from Salt Lake, we took everyone on horses and in the wagon up to Dry Fork River fishing. Grandma was afraid of bad places. This was the only time her and her two girls, Ivy and Polly, ever went. We went up past Mosby Creek, up the face of the mountain past Lighting Springs to the end of the road and made camp. Had a couple of tents that they had brought. We spent three or four days up there. Some of us had to go down each night to do chores, but fun times for me. The ladies and Grandpa stayed in camp as it was a mile down steep hills to the river. Well, in them days, we salted our fish to cure them in a box. Needless to say, we had lots of boxes of cured fish when we come home. The ones we brought home fresh, Dad would put a layer of fish and a layer of leaves. These would keep several days; kept as cool as possible, wrapped in a wet blanket. As I said, this was the only trip Polly, Ivy, and Grandma ever went on with us. They enjoyed the scenery, but to much hassle for them.

I always rode a little pony with not enough shoulders to keep a saddle on. Well, Earn insisted on riding her with a saddle. We were going to White Rocks Canyon. we got to the Canal coming out of the canyon, the pony put her heard down to drink. Earn and saddle went down onto her neck and into the creek. Earns feet stuck in the stirrups, his hands on the bottom, his head above water. Well by the time I got him loose, we were both soaked. The rest stood on the bank and split with laughter. Earn was sure mad at them—would’ve let a man drown.

Uncle Gerold Brady, Dad’s youngest sister’s husband had a good car and him, Earn and Odie Turner, and Florn Brown come out quite often for quite a few years to go rabbit hunting and go fishing; and they loved to hunt sage chickens. The first time they brought home a bunch of sage hens, my cousin Florn said Aunt Elva “If I can have the gizzards I will clean them all.” Mom just laughed and when he got started to cleaning them he found out their gizzard is just like the crow—no meat on it. He was sure one surprised guy.

Another experience we had with Dad’s folks. They had all gone fishing with the wagon and tents and taken Grandpa. I was left home to catch up on my cow herding and Uncle Royal Potter had got in the night before, and Harlan stayed home too. In the afternoon we had a cloud burst up near the spring and above it where our main garden was planted. Well, it was a ten foot wall of water down the draw, one‑half mile south of our house. Aunt Ivy had been in a flood in Bountiful in the spring. When she heard the rocks hitting together and the noise, we had to leave the house and cross the creek that went by on a foot plank and go up on the hill on the other side. Needless to say, we really got wet. Harlan and Royal come home. They had been up on little mountain side where the cloud burst was. Pretty soon they are down at the house looking for cigarettes or bull durum. Polly and Ivy are screaming at them to get over here before they get washed away, but it took them (Royal and Harlan) more than an hour to talk Polly and Ivy back home. But a few days later when Dad took them up to the garden and there were tons of rocks and sand covering the bottom of the garden, some rocks two or three feet across, they felt like they had a right to be scared.

After this, Harlan ran away more often and I spent more time looking for him at the neighbors. As far as LaPoint and Bennett. I always felt like part of Harlan’s trouble was the way Dad treated him. All my life Dad never thought that I could do no wrong or there wasn’t anything that I couldn’t do. So for this reason, I put forth more effort to please him; and he picked at Harlan who was slower and compared him to me which I think was unfair to him. And he quit even trying to do things. When I tried to talk to Harlan he would say, “Well I can’t do it right anyway.”

About this time, he ran away and went to Salt Lake to live with Grandma. He left on my pony; road her to Heber. By then she was so sore footed he sold her and hitch‑hiked on. In a year and a half later the pony came home. Needless to say the time he was on the road and I couldn’t locate him, Mother nearly lost her mind worrying about him. When he got there, Grandma called Burton’s, the only phone on the creek, and Tom brought us word he was in Salt Lake. Harlan and I were awfully close and I missed him the year and half he was in Salt Lake. All my life I had looked after him.

The scaredest I ever was, I believe—one time (I am thirteen now) my Dad sends me to take Mother to White Rocks to the doctor. It was just before Vera was born. In the wagon had Wilbur and Earnest with us. By the time Mother got in to see the doctor, it was late afternoon. We started home—come to the forks in the road, Mother said take the right. I said no mom, the left. She was so positive that I gave in; couldn’t defy my Mom. After dark we end up at the end of a wood road. I get the horses headed back, got about a mile, Mom says stop the wagon lets rest a while. We had a little hay in the wagon box so Mom and the two little boys lay down. We had a couple of quilts; this is the first of November; and I built several big fires as I knew Dad would be looking for us. He had went to White Rocks and back home not realizing that it was me building the fires until he got home and we weren’t there. At the time, our fires were five or six miles north of Tridell—they could see the lights in the homes. About midnight Mom asked me if I could find my way to Tridell on one of the horses. I was so frightened. It was no problem me getting out for help or getting back to her, but leaving her. She said I’ll tell you if its necessary. Dad found us at daylight on his second trip, and Vera was born that night after we got home.

Mother was never very well. She used to pass out for no reason she knew of. And no doctor ever told her what caused it. She never knew when she would have a spell. She might be in the yard or garden or in the house. She would be limber as a dish rag. Many the time I have run from our place to the Little Walter coal mine four or five miles and Mother would still be out when we got back on foot. Have known her to be out for twenty four hours. She would tell us that some times when she was out that she could hear us crying, but she couldn’t move or say anything. The Doctor never did know for sure what caused her to do this. Not to often, but sometimes, two or three times during the summer. The doctor just said “Put a wet towel on her head and keep her warm.” She did have some medicine she took, but I don’t remember what for; but she hadn’t had a spell for several years before she died. For this reason Dad always had one of the kids old enough to go for help with her at all times.

When I was fourteen, we moved to the Little Walter coal mine. Dad had bought half interest in it and Mother and Wanda and I were going to run the boarding house. There was anywhere from six to twelve men working depending on the demand for coal. By now, Wanda and I were getting to be young ladies, but if we had a date to take us home, the boyfriend tied his horse behind Dad’s wagon and rode with us. And Dad was always pulling some trick on the boyfriend. One time a guy asked Dad if he could take me home. Dad said if you are man enough to crank my truck. Well he spun the crank for half a dozen times, then Dad says “Vern you try it,” and then he turned the key on this time and it starts right up. Well, after kidding him a while I was allowed to ride home on his horse with him. This was the summer I was sixteen. Most of Mom’s brothers and sisters now have moved away five of them with their families had moved to Anderson and Redding California, most of them had sold out and gone into other kind of work.

Grandma Potter was getting ready to move to Park City with Millie and Cliff. Mom’s one sister Aunt Chrystol and Charley Lewis have lived in Vernal all their lives, both of them are school teachers.

While we were living on the creek, we had a branch Sunday School in the summer time and one day the Bishop come to see Dad and wanted him to be Superintendent of the Sunday School and have it the year around. Dad said no. He couldn’t do it because he smoked. He couldn’t set up front and have people know that. The Bishop said, “Ivan, you work in the timber a lot cutting posts and poles. If you break the reach or tongue of your wagon, do you unhook and go to town to get a new one?” “No,” Dad says, “I just find the best stick I can find, whittle it down and use it.” Bishop Morell says “In the Church that’s what we do. We go into a community and choose what we think is the best we can find. We give him the job, and the priesthood and responsibility will whittle him down and make him fit for the job. We know you have a testimony of the gospel. We think you can do it. You are honest and fair, always as good as your work. Just try it for a while.” Day says, “No, I will quit smoking first,” which he never did.

After Dad bought the mine, he rented the place on the creek to our school teacher, brought three or four horses to the mine and also the cows, but sold the cows after a year. Our neighbor, Jess Labrum, wanted six of the best ones; would give him $10 a head more if he could pick them. Well, the first cow he picked, I had named kicky. She was to have her calf in a couple of weeks. One of the best cows. Dad told him he couldn’t milk her—that no man could. Only I had milked her for several years. Then we proceeded to tell him why. About three years before, I was milking ten head by myself so Dad decided to help me. He choose this cow. She would run over a three gallon bucket night and morning, but she was nervous anyway; and Dad’s hands were so calloused and cracked that he pinched her tits and she kicked him. Dad had an awful temper so her beat her. This goes on for over a week. The only way he could milk her was to tie her so she couldn’t kick, then she would stand and beller. So Dad gave up and turned her out. The calf had frozen so after the first day her bag hurt so bad, I started working with her, just kindness. Finally I got her milked out. After that, I had no more trouble with her, but she was afraid of men. But Jess said, “If Ivy can milk her he could”. But a few weeks later he told Dad you were right. He had made her a nurse cow. Had four calves on her. This is another case of kindness. I handled both the cows and horses with kindness.

Well, a friend of Dad’s bought the rest of them in Bennett10, so me and my pony take five cows and a bull to Bennett. I spent several days with Amasa and Aunt Maggie. While there, I went to my first big dance. I went with a crowd of six. My date was Wayne Snow. This was a really a thrill for a girl like me and my first real date. I wasn’t quite sixteen then. We went to Victory Park Dance Hall.

Wanda and I become much closer now that we were at the mine and doing the same kind of work. We were happy there and Mom and Dad seemed real happy too. Dad had talked her into moving, but she said it wasn’t to be permanent. She still wanted the dream house by the spring. The work wasn’t too hard compared with what I had been doing. Usually from six to nine men besides the family, Wanda and I had lots more time to read or do what she wanted to. I still had two horses at the time, so I rode a lot just for fun. We brought hay from ranches for them. Well, before we realized it, three years had gone by. I am now seventeen, Wanda fifteen.

Well about this time, Jim Rasmussen asked Dad if I could go to Randlett and stay with his wife Bessie and help his boys do the chores—mostly the milking. My folks talked it over and decided I could go, but before I left, Mother had another real long talk with me about the facts of life and boys I might meet, and what to expect from them. Mother was a good teacher. All our life we lived by the ten commandments: Thou shalt not steal, shall not lie, shall not commit adultery, love one another, keep the Sabbath day holy, all these and many more were taught to us regular. Now she tells me I am leaving home so young, and that I must never drink or men will take advantage of you. I was young for those days, mainly in experience as I had been sheltered so close. But she ended her lecture by saying always act like a lady and you will be treated like one. Never be ashamed of the standard you have set to live by. I can testify this is true. For the next two years, I went out with dozens of boys, but was always treated like a lady. My mother had never drank any liquor in her life and never been around drinking. Right after they were married, Dad come home drunk. He was so sick she thought he had been poisoned. She was holding his head with a wet towel, but he got no better. So she ran down the block get Grandma [Georgeann?]. The minute she opened the door, Gram said the darn fool is drunk—end of sympathy.

Grandma said that when Dad [Ivan] first started thinking he should be big enough to get drunk, it was Christmas time. He was going with Mom [Harriot]. He had a date. Well Gram told him to bring his bottles home, not to make a fool of himself in town. As he come through Murray that night, he stopped two or three places to have a beer. Each place gave him a fifth of whiskey. He brought it home, told Gram to fix him a drink while he got ready to go. Well he had two or three stout drinks and passed out. Grandma put him to bed. He slept in his new suit until the next evening, gets up and says, “What did you give me? My head feels awful.” “I only mixed what you told me to,” Gram says. He started to get ready for the dance. Gram says, the dance was last night. She says it was a good lesson for him. It must of been as I never saw my Dad drunk in my life. He did drink a little after Mom died in later years, but not while he was raising his family. It’s a wonder we didn’t drive him to drinking.
Randlett

Well, Mother helps me pack my few clothes in a sack. She also made me two new dresses. I get on my pony, still no saddle. I had just turned seventeen then, when I started for Randlett.11 I had never been further south than the China man’s store east of Ft. Duchesne12. Had my favorite dog and horse. She had a colt. I gave the colt to the Rasmussen boys. Well, I fitted right in at Bessie’s. She said I was the girl she never had.

She worked in the M.I.A. She knew all the kids both girls and boys. The first M.I.A. night she said this is my new daughter. Make her welcome so she will stay. This they did. There were probably twenty or more girls and boys around my age at M.I.A. I was immediately absorbed into all activities in the ward. I never lacked for an escort no matter where I was going.

I worked hard. Here they had three boys. The oldest about thirteen and we milked twelve or fifteen cows all winter besides the feeding. Also chickens and pigs to take care of. And they gave me $1.50 a week and board and room.

I got along good, but missed my folks so much, I made two or three trips home by October. About the first of October I brought Wanda down with me. We were both going to school—the 9th grade. She stayed with Ella and Robert Moore, [Ella is] Bills sister.

Bill drove mail for Moses Moore Robert’s Dad and they furnished him with a car. This gave him an added attraction. Then too, he was four years older than me and that also made him more attractive to me.

The very first time he asked me to go anywhere with him, Iva was coming home for Thanksgiving for a few days and Bill was supposed to pick her up in Roosevelt13. I had come up to the store, was just starting home, when he stopped and asked me to go for a ride with him after Iva. I said “Yes,” and got in. We went first up to Wing’s store. He needed a pair of gloves and he bought me a pair too. They were red with green and black stripes around and around, made of wool yarn. When he got into the car he dug his out to drive and said here, put these on to keep your hands warm. When we picked Iva up and went back to the car, Iva got in next to Bill and he said to her let Ivy in first. You ride on the outside. I don’t think that from that day Iva ever liked me very well, but from then on I started going with Bill.

I was running around with Bud Aulmiller. Bessie liked him better. She never liked Bill very well. She said later that it was because Bill was older. Jess Jensen was five years older than Bill and he ran around then with Vera Knight. Bill was going with Arelda Jobe, but they had quarreled. There was a special show in Roosevelt The Robe, I think. The school bus was going to take everyone that wanted to go, but I got there to the Randlett store just in time to see it leave. About that time, Bill come along with Mildred Knight as his date. I had saw Bill a few times but Millie was real active in M.I.A. She said lets stop and take Ivy. This they did; so my first time out with Bill was by accident. After the show, he took Millie and I to the drug store for ice cream. He turned to me and said what would you like. Well dumb me I didn’t know what they served there; but Millie come to my aid said, I’ll have a banana split; so I’d have one too. Well he took Millie home first, brought me back to Randlett, and we made a date for a week away—our first real date.

Well gossip had it that Bill was practically married to Arelda Jobe and I was going out with Bud Aulmiller and William S. Merill at the time, so it was a month or so before we started to go steady. Then too Bessie didn’t like Bill. Main reason he wasn’t LDS and to old for me, she said. My sister, Wanda, ran with a younger crowd at this time, but we both rode our horses home for Thanksgiving weekend. Mother didn’t feel to good and Dad had hired a women to help her with the work, Dorothy Brant. So we went back to Randlett.

Bill and Jess ran around together. Jess with Vera Knight and I started going with Bill quite a bit to dances and parties. Well, one night he told me if I would drop my boy friends he would drop his girl friends. Just before Christmas we started going steady. Wanda caught a ride home two days before Christmas. I didn’t go as I had a date with Bill on Christmas Eve at Leota and one Christmas night at Randlett.

I felt real bad when I got home to Bessie’s after the dance. And when they came in, I was crying. So Jim took me home early the next morning. But I felt so bad when I got home to think I had missed Christmas with my folks. Mom was so sweet. She said don’t feel bad. It is right that you should go out and have fun at your age. What kind of a fellow is he. I tried to tell her. She said, just remember to always be a good girl. I didn’t realize then that I had spent my last Christmas with my Mother.

We had never been to Church much as we were part of Tridell, ten miles by team and wagon. In good weather they had Church in the school house at Deep Creek, but Mother was a good teacher; very religious. She taught us from Church works, The ten Commandments: Honor they father and mother; Love one another; Honor the Sabbath day to keep it holy; Thou shalt not commit adultery. We always had blessing on our food. These teachings and many more were always part of our daily life. These teachings had helped me keep from doing some of the things other kids did. Then she taught us that the veil was so thin that people that had passed away could see what we were doing and greave for us, but could not help us.

I often thought of this when I was asked to have a drink or smoke, or come up against temptation. When dating I often felt myself saying to myself, what would Mom have me do. Then I could hear her saying act like a lady and be treated like one. No truer words were ever spoken. The young girls now days don’t want to look like a lady and most of them don’t act like one either.
Mother ‑ The Sadist Time in My Life

Jim Rasmussen come home one weekend and said my Mom was real sick and bed fast. The next day, me and my pony started for the Little Walter coal mine and home. I got an awful shock when I got home and one of the first things she told me when I got home was that she wasn’t going to get well, and that Dad was going to take us kids to the temple and have us sealed to him and her. Well, we all cried and tried to talk her out of this. Told her she had been sick before, but she said not this bad. Then she would say be good girls, help your dad, and remember what I have told you, and always act like a lady when out with boys.

That night she was worse. She was not rational. She would talk about her family and sing Church songs, talk about the ten Commandments, The Articles of Faith, all about religion. I sat up with her the first two nights, then Wanda come home too.

The next day I went to Roosevelt for the doctor. He did not help her at all, so I went to Tridell for the Elders. When they got there, as soon as they lay their hands on her head to anoint her, she would quiet down and by the time they finished with the sealing and the blessing, she would be OK, and stay that way for many hours. These next three weeks gave me quite a testimony of the gospel. To see this happen over a period of three weeks. Every couple of days we would go get the Elders she could be singing and not know any of us for hours, maybe 24, but by the time the Elders left, she would be OK again. Then we could talk to her and visit sometimes up to fifteen or twenty hours; then she would drift back again. We had the doctor three or four times during this three weeks, but nothing seemed to help her. The doctor told Dad she was pregnant. Mom said she wasn’t. After nine kids she should know, but she hadn’t had a period in months.

Nothing anyone did seemed to help and after three weeks, she passed away.d The day before she died, she told me while she was awake that she had been for a walk with her Dad into the most beautiful garden; that he was coming back for her soon. The next day she was gone from us.

Well, most of Mom’s brothers and sisters that were anywhere in Utah came to the services. Arnold, Amasa, and George with their families were in Anderson and Redding California. Dad’s were still in Murray. They all came. I can’t remember to much about that time. Seems like I was in a daze. I remember Grandma Potter holding me close and saying why couldn’t it of been her instead of Mom. That she was old and worn out, but Grandma lived another twenty years or more after that. I know most of the folks were there and friends by the dozens. I remember Bill didn’t come, and I was real disappointed with him. I remember Jim and Bessie Rasmussen were there.

We had the services in Tridell, as we were a part of the Tridell ward. I think this was the saddest day of my life. Also end of our happy home, as a home isn’t happy without a Mother. My sister, Bernice, had two little boys by now. Dad lived seventeen years after Mother died, but his life was shattered and he never forgot my mother. And raising the family was nearly too much for him. Also, the farm on the creek could never be home again for him. The cabin by the spring would never be built. My Dad got old nearly overnight losing Mother and leaving him with seven kids at home, two of them teenage girls. Vera only four was nearly more than he could take.

Well, in them days, you made your own casket. The neighbors came in and made her clothes. Also, the casket. They lined it with cotton bats, white satin and lace. When it was finished it was real beautiful. We buried her in Tridell e. We were never left alone for the next two or three weeks, but nothing seemed to help much. Things didn’t go to well. Dad had promised Mother he would go to the temple years before. Now he blamed his self. Said she didn’t put up enough fight. Well, he threw his Bull Durum away. In less than a month he was sick and looked like an old man.

We took him to Doctor Franks in Vernal. He told him his first responsibility was to the family he had left. He gave him some medicine, told him to get a sack of Bull durum, and go ahead and raise his family; that he could fulfill his promise to Mother when he got his kids grew up. Well in the few weeks since Mother died, his hair which was black and waving had started to turn gray, and he began to look old. I have been around death quite a bit, but never have I saw anyone suffer and as lost as my Dad was. He couldn’t sleep and didn’t try much. He would sit up most of the nights and drink tea. And this really took his health away. He worked long hours, ate very little and worried about his family. We that were close to him watched this change take place. So I was real glad when he started to talk about going to California among Mom’s folks. I realized later that this was a bad thing to do as it brought back to many memories.
Planning A Trip

About this time, he started to talk about going to California, to pay the Potter’s a visit. Uncle Amasa lived at Bennett all the years we lived on the creek and he was a horse trader, also broke horses. He would buy a balky horse then fight with it until he made a pulling horse out of it. Then trade it for two balky ones. He was to our place two or three times a month over the years as he cut posts and hauled wood from the creek so we were real close. Then several years they lived at the mine and worked for Dad.

One time when we lived at the mine, I was just getting ready to go to the creek to get five barrels of water when Amasa drove in. He said, “take my team and wagon. Save going after yours.” So I did. He didn’t tell me he was driving a balky horse. It was one and half miles to the stream; got there OK, filled up, got half‑way back before they balked. I was nearly two hours getting home. Tried to ride him, to lead him, to beat him. This is the kind of things he did for a living; but he and Dad were the best of friends. Also Dad and Arnold. They all loved fishing. Spent many days together so when he talked about leaving that’s where he would go.

Dad had an old Model T truck with a low speed rear end. Fifteen to twenty five miles was the best it would do. This we started to get ready to go.

During the next few months I didn’t see much of Bill. He came up one time on his horse. A time or two with Jess Jensen and Vera Knight, so when I left in June I felt pretty bad. Didn’t really know how things stood between us. I decided it was more on my side, the love, than Bill’s. Well, Dad leased the place to Bernice and Vern Sheffer and he had borrowed $500, on it to make the trip—they were going to pay it back, and turned his half of the coal mine to his partner, Clarence Jensen. Visit all the folks in the Basin. George Justice was working for Dad at the time and he asked him to go along so in June, we packed up what food and clothing we had, bedding and camping equipment. Dad and George and seven kids. Well, the next twenty-five days were quite an experience. We made it to the other side of Heber the first day and camped on a stream. Had fish for supper and went on into Murray the next day. We spent a couple of weeks in Murray with his folks.

This was an exciting time for us. Since Mother passed away, Wanda and I had been closer together and I knew that I needed to be a buffer between her and Dad as they both had fire hot tempers.

Well, Odie, Dad’s brother, was about twenty-two at the time, and Florn Brown, my cousin, a little older than me. They really took us around. Odie was always the center of the group. No matter where we were he knew everyone. Out at Salt Air, Lagoon, the Old Blue Bird Dance Hall in Salt Lake, also the show, our first show time. They really gave us the works. This was our first trip to the city. It was hard to believe the things that went on in the city.

From this time on, Odie held a special place in my heart.
California

Up until now, every time I went any place in a car I got car sick, but after nine days on the road to California, in the back of a truck, I never got car sick since.

We left Murray, went out past Wendover, Lovelock, Reno that route. It was worn out gravel then and a hot 110 or 115 degrees in the shade but no shade. So hot if you patched a tire with a cold patch, all you could try then, the patch would melt off. And we couldn’t keep a spare. So when we would have a flat, Dad would have to push his tire to town and back while all us kids sat under the truck. This went on day after day until Dad decided to drive at night while it was cool. Thought maybe he could keep the tires on it but couldn’t keep the lights going so decided to drive by the light of the moon. Decided to camp about midnight. Dad was going to get some sticks to make a fire to make some tea. First sage bush he got close to had a rattler in it. “George, I think there is a snake in every bush, drive on.”

The next day, Dad stopped and picked up enough wood to make tea when we camped. So that night when we camped, we camped in a sand flat. Just got the fire going good when the scorpions started to crawl out of the sand. “Drive on George.”

After that, we either camped by a town or stayed in the truck. One morning we had got within about fifty or sixty miles from Reno, had a blow out. Dad had to walk to town, after he had been gone a while, it was so hot I told George to take the old tire off and fill it full of old clothes and rags and see how far we could go on it. He said “It won’t work.” “Well if you don’t do it, I will.”, so we did. We started slowly down the road, me sitting over the tire, watching it. “Hold it George, It’s smoking.” He stopped it with the brake up and filled it full of water. “Drive on George.” By the time we met Dad coming back, we had used two ten gallon cans of water but we were nearly to Reno. Was Dad glad to see us coming. When they took the tire off, the rags were just like paste. Well after nine days of these kinds of things, we got to Redding California. We had quite a reunion with Aunts, Uncles, and cousins.

For a while we lived with Uncle Arnold and Aunt Hazel, as they had a farm with cows, chickens, and a small orchard. Since Mother died, Wanda and I have become real close. I loved her dearly and I thought that I should keep her with me as much as possible because things that the other kids did were a temptation to her. Drinking and smoking and worse. These things were never a temptation to me and I thought if I kept her with me, Dad would have to blame both of us for the things we did and I could be a bumper between them. When they were having a battle, if I stepped in he never slapped me. But by then I was crying and she would be yelling back at him. If I stepped between them he would always cool down. He had a real hot temper. So did Wanda and they always clashed. He would never let us wear anklets or bobby socks in them days. It never bothered me but when she got away from the house, she always put them on. We were to wear long stockings and a garter belt when we dressed up. Dad was always showing up and catching her. Then sparks would fly.

These next few months were fun times for Wanda and I. Everyone accepted us and made us welcome. We all went to work picking fruit. This was hard work but we were all used to working hard. Wanda and I went to work for one of the wealthiest families in the community. They had a big orchard and owned their own packing house. They also had a big family. Both girls and boys about our age. Their oldest boy, Lee Grisson, was twenty-two. They had all the things money could buy. Fancy house and several cars.

Well, we started work, picking peaches at eight cents a box. Well, the field boss watched us awful close. “Only pick the straw colored ones. These are for packing. The next crew will get the ripe ones for drying.” Well, after the first day, the boss’ son, Lee, started stopping at our trees to help us. He drove the truck to pick up the full boxes and leave us empty ones. Lee would hurry like the devil then stop and pick peaches for us for fifteen or twenty minutes out of every trip he made. With this extra help, we could just about keep up. Uncle Royal’s ex‑wife could pick one‑hundred boxes each day. More if she really hurried.

When we arrived in California, Lee was going with my cousin Laura Potter, or so I was told later. From the time I met him, he never went with anyone else. He tried to get me to go with him. He had a brand new Chevy Coupe with a rumble seat. He would pick Wanda and me up and take us home from work as it was two or three miles to Uncle Arnold’s place. Lee worked for his Dad on the place. His trade was a mechanic. His logic was, “Why work if you don’t have to?” Working for his Dad, his time was his own. He could come or go as he pleased and he always had lots of money. Well, I wasn’t engaged to Bill, and hadn’t saw him for several months when I left Utah, but I thought that I loved him and I didn’t want to hurt Lee, so I told him when he started asking me to go out that I was engaged to Bill. “Well, where is your ring? If you were my girl, you would have a diamond. Bill, he is in Utah. He can’t expect you not to go anywhere.” So after a few days, he won out. Wanda and I went to the show with him. All the time we were in California, I very seldom went without taking Wanda, so after a few times he brought his buddy along for Wanda’s date. Uncle Arnold told Dad that he saw Lee out with Royal’s ex‑wife so Dad didn’t want me to go out with him. Well, that’s the only time I ever lied to Dad in my life. But it didn’t take long for him to find out. George Justice told him. I think that was the maddest that Dad ever got at me because I lied. But after a while I won him over. After a lecture on the does and don’ts of life, he gave his unwilling consent to go out with Lee but he set a curfew. Lee was six feet tall, black hair and brown eyes. He was twenty-two and at this young age, he had really been around. He thought there was nothing that money could not buy, until he met me. I had been taught different standards in life. I lived by a different set of rules.

I always took Wanda with me everywhere I went. She started going with Lee’s, buddy Benny. There were always two or three couples or maybe two carloads went together. Laura Potter, my cousin, was always along with her newest boyfriend, at the time Cliff Cox.

For the next eight months we went everywhere together. Out to dinner and a show. Every show that came to Redding, Anderson, or Chico. To two green kids from the hills, who had never saw a show until a few months ago, it was a great time. We went to every fair, both county and state, for miles around. To roller-skating or just stayed home with the crowd and played cards. This we did quite a lot, as the house Dad had rented was an old house, but had a big front room. We could even dance at home as several played the harmonica or just we would just play the phonograph. We went to every carnival we heard about. Into Sacramento for special events. It was about as far away as Salt Lake is from the Basin. Lee was a pitcher for the ball team. He later pitched for the Boston Red Socks, so we had enough stuffed toys, dolls and junk from the carnivals to fill a room. We would all take turns throwing but he never missed. Finally, the manager would have to stop him. Sometimes it would take the cops to make him stop.

Dad went with us lots of times to the fairs; both county and state. He finally learned to like Lee. Anyway, he quit fussing about him, but we never quite got in on time and Dad always waited up for us. The later we were, the madder he got. I tried to be a bumper between Dad and Wanda, she always yelled back at him and got in trouble. She never learned. Lee was the only guy I ever went with that never ran out of money. I wonder since, how much the four of us spent on those carnivals. They always had a girl on a high-diving board. You threw the ball through a six-inch hole, trip the catch, dunk the girl. He would stay at this until he would nearly drown the girls. Lee always treated me like a lady. He was a perfect gentleman. When the four of us went out to dinner, he always picked up the ticket. Also, for most of the other places we went, all four of us. And I think that I might have married him if things had of worked out different.

In the spring, Lee was trying to get me to marry him. I liked the money and good times, but fate stepped in and my Grandfather Turner died in Murray so within two days we were ready to come home on the train. Uncle George took Dad and the kids, Wanda and I went with Lee in his car to Sacramento to catch the train. He tried to get me not to go, but to marry him. I told him I couldn’t leave Dad at a time like this and it was the last time I ever saw him. I am sure my life would have been different if I had married Lee and if Grandpa’s death hadn’t come when it did.

Just one more thing about lee. I want to say here. It bothered my conscience for years and that was the nasty letter I sent Lee after I met Bill again. And what caused me to do it. I didn’t know that Laura Potter held a grudge against me about Lee until eight years later when Bill and I were in Oregon with four kids.

After I had been back in Salt Lake about two months I got a letter from Laura saying that our old crowd thought that I had changed Lee but that she had been out with him several times the past week and that she had saw him several times with Royal’s ex‑wife a lot lately. This hurt me but made me mad too, and I wrote Lee a real nasty letter and told him what Laura said and that he needn’t write me any more because Bill was back in my life. And I still loved Bill and I sent his ring back. I got one more letter from Lee just before I married Bill. He said he was the one that took the chance. He thought he could win but I proved to him that money couldn’t buy everything. But Laura had lied about him and that if I every needed anything, I knew where he lived. But the nasty letter I wrote has always bothered me. I could have let him down more like a lady should, as Lee was always a perfect gentleman where I was concerned. He treated me like a lady. Right then I didn’t feel like one.

We buried Grandpaf the first of January and we all stayed there with Grandma Turner. Here is where our city relations got even with us for the tricks we played on them. Like telling them the sage chickens in the field were our turkeys until they told Dad he sure had a big flock of turkeys. Dad said there was not a turkey on the place. Then we told them we had a pony that had been bucked in the rodeos and never learned to let a man ride her. We were always putting one of them on her and then laughing when they got dumped off. Now Odie got even by telling his friends, “Well, we have had the girls tied down by the track to get used to the trains and traffic.” Then he would say, the girls were, “here for a month before a man got shoes on them.” Or he would say, “You don’t need a phone. Just put your head out of the windows, they can hear you.” Then he would tell my date, “A good thing you didn’t get here early. Man just got her shoes on her.” But Uncle Odie always took us with his crowd to Salt Air, or Lagoon. He always saw that we had money for rides, also partners for dancing. We used to go to the old Blue Bird dancing in Salt Lake. Odie was always the center of the crowd and he always showed us a good time. But he never got over joking with us and telling his crowd that we were his nieces from the sticks. But Uncle Odie was always my favorite Uncle. He always had a spot in my heart.

In the Spring, Dad came back to the Basin. He brought Hurley, Wilbur, Earnest, Vera, and Harlan home with him. Traded his part of the mine to Jensen for forty acres in Tridell with a four‑room house on it. But Hurley was awful young to take over the managing and cooking for a family of six people. She was only twelve years old then and Vera was five. Wanda and I stayed in Salt Lake with Grandma but I realized later that it was a selfish thing for me to do, as I know now that things would have been different if I had come home with the family. As Hurley was like Wanda, very hot tempered, and she needed a buffer to keep the tempers down. But we got used to the good times we were having in the city. Wanda was not sixteen and I was eighteen. We had, both of us, found jobs we didn’t want to leave. But Dad wouldn’t stay in the city. I went to work in a broom factory making brooms for $4.50 a week. Wanda was doing house work for people. We paid Grandma $1.50 a week for room and board.

Well when I got back to Salt Lake, I got to thinking about Bill. I hadn’t written to him in months or heard from him so I wrote him. He wrote back and said that a group of them from the stake M.I.A., were coming to Salt Lake some time in March to dance at Salt Air in a dance festival. It would be groups from all over and he would like to stop and see me. Then when I saw Bill again, I was so thankful that I had not married Lee Grisson as I knew that I still loved Bill. It was the new car, the money, and the places he took me. The lovely home his parents had and all the glitter that went with it. It was all things that I had never had so far in my life that fascinated me.

I didn’t see Bill again until spring when he came to Salt Lake and went to work in the cannery.

The six months that Wanda and I stayed with Grandma, we followed two continued shows each week. For four or five months and only missed three issues. We saw every show that came to Murray. If we didn’t have a date, we went by ourselves.

Every Saturday Grandma Turner would take Wanda and I out to dinner and a show. We always ate at the New York Cafe on Broadway and went to the old Pantages Theater. They always had a vaudeville between the acts. Grandma enjoyed these trips to Salt Lake on the street car as much as we did. We just gave her an excuse to go. We always went in time to do a little shopping too. Grandma always paid for these good time Saturdays.

One time I will never forget they had a Spanish dancer between acts. She had a snake wrapped around her waist and up around her hair. Well that was the end of that show for us. Grandma said “Let’s get out of here. That darn snake might get away.” She was deathly afraid of snakes or mice. One day she was getting ready to go and a mouse was inside her dress. It started to run down inside her dress. She grabbed the mouse through her dress, got the scissors and cut around her hand. When she dropped the mouse on the floor, it was dead.

Grandma was a kind and generous person. She always kept sweet rolls and fried pies for us on hand for us to eat. Grandma raised six kids of her own. Also two orphan boys just younger than Dad. They were five or seven when she took them. Florn and Wandaquin Brown that were early teenagers when her daughter Ivy died. Then Earnest’s wife ran away with his boss and left her four to raise the youngest, eighteen months old. The four were the age of my four oldest kids. Grandma was in her middle sixties to sixty-five when she took on these kids. She told me that every night when she prayed, she would ask God to let her live long enough to see Earn’s kids through school. This she did with the help of Uncle Odie. As Earn died with cancer of the lungs a few years after his wife left him.

Grandma worked hard. She had two or three acres of ground. Some fruit trees of all kinds. She raised her own vegetables. Always had a lovely garden and until the day she died, she did her own canning of fruit and all kinds of garden stuff to help with their living and to take care of Earn’s kids. About the time the youngest of the four started high school, she fell and broke her hip. This made it real hard for her as it never healed proper and she must work from a wheel chair now. But she still did her canning with the girls help. I went there one time and found her canning peaches with the girls help but she tightened every lid.



SHARING



Come share the joys of Life with me

For all of our tomorrow.

And if sad days we sometimes see

Then we can share our sorrows.

The sun will shine and make days bright

If we can be together,

Our lives will be a sheer delight

No matter what the weather.

Come join me on this joyous way

And hear the steady beat;

Of music in our hearts each day

That makes our lives complete.


Bill Chandler

The rest of my story will be about my life will Bill. It has been a happy one and a busy life. He has always been good to me. We have done lots of traveling all our married life. We have both worked hard but hard work never hurt anyone. All our life we have taken lots of time out to play also to take care of our church work.

Bill come back to Salt Lake in early spring and went to work in the cannery, and we went every where in Salt Lake and saw a lot of each other for the next three or four months. We got married right after my nineteenth birthday, the 17th of August 1929. There were several who went with us when we were married in the City and County building by a Justice of the Peace. Iva Newman, Bill’s sister and Uncle Earnest Turner, Dad’s brother signed for us.

We moved into an upstairs apartment on State Street. Here we spent our honeymoon. This was just when the Great Depression was getting started good. Jobs and groceries were hard to come by. Bill’s Dad, Elbert Morton Chandler, was trying to get Bill to come home and help him make a living for us all, by working getting out posts and wood. So when the cannery closed down in the fall we come home, back to the Basin.

We came back around the first of October, we moved in with Bill’s folks on Grandpa’s homestead south of Pelican Lake. They had three big rooms. There was a bedroom fifteen by twenty, a living room twenty by thirty, and the kitchen twenty by thirty on one end with a coal cook stove in it. A big pot bellied wood stove in the bedroom. Grandpa and Grandma had their bed in the living room. They put a partition in the west end of the kitchen to make a bed room for us. Here we spent the first year of our married life.

Bill had filed on a homestead south of his Dad’s place. These places were below Pelican Lake, which was dry then. We had to build a house the first year on our homestead. Bill and his Dad and brothers got out pine logs for our house. It was as good or better than most. It wasn’t cottonwood. It had two big rooms, kitchen and bedroom. The kitchen had a floor but the bedroom didn’t, as we couldn’t afford it at first. Later Bill went to the mountains, and got out the logs. He had them sawed, and worked out the saw mill to pay for the floor. There was an old shack on the homestead when Bill filed on it. It was made of lumber. This Bill tore down and used the lumber for the roof. There was also enough lumber for one floor.

These next six years were hard years, and we moved six or eight times. We did everything we could to make ends meet, but we never went to bed hungry. Maybe not the best variety, but plenty. We lived off the land in those days. At one time when we had two kids we got $3 a month from the County or State to buy staple groceries, plus a cured ham. We bottled everything we could get hold of. We dried things and stored things in the root cellar. If you have the right kind of cellar, most things like potatoes, carrots, onions, squash, cabbage, beets, and turnips will keep all winter.

We could always get apricots and apples in Vernal. We could pick on shares, they would give you some for picking them. This was team and wagon days. It would take three or four days to go for fruit. Then we would bottle all the jars we had full, dry the rest. Apples would keep all winter in a root cellar.

This was a report written in 1965 by Jim Chandler of Ouray14 Valley. This is where Bill and Ivy spent the first six years of their married life in and around Leota15 and fifty years in Ouray Valley.
History of Ouray Valley

My grandfather E.M. Chandler came to Ouray Valley in 1917. At that time the valley was open for people to file on homesteads. Under this act one person could file on 160 acres of land. And he must cultivate, irrigate, and build a house on it. Then after five years you could prove upon it, and it was yours.

During this time my grandparents, (Elbert and Mamie Chandler) were very active in community activities, as they played for all the dances. As Grandpa played the banjo and Grandma played the piano and my uncle Robert Moore played the saxophone. Also my dad, Bill Chandler played the sax.

One of the first thing they did was to build a canal from White Rocks River. The canal was sixty miles long. This took lots of hard work as it was built with a team and scraper. Everyone worked on it. This pioneer life was a very hard one. My grandparents, along with all that lived in the valley hauled water from the Duchesne River for the house use and for stock, but in spite of this, at one time there was a thriving little town at Leota. With a store, a school house, also a church house, and a post office, and a good sized ward was established.

But then the drought and the depression starved people out. During the thirties, the people had to leave to keep from starving and the town disappeared. Only a few families were able to survive. Among them was my grandfather.

After the depression years all the people were in the north end of the valley and the Avalon16 ward was organized. During this time, the people had dug wells for use in their homes, and for stock. This helped living conditions. Also, the Rural Electric put the power to our valley. This was one of the greatest improvements.

I think our roads were next in importance as it was nearly impossible to get to Roosevelt or Vernal in spring of the year.

One time the school bus was stuck in a mud hole for nearly a week, and it was nothing to get a car stuck for a week or more at a time.

Then over the years the telephone was added. Also the water system has been improved and they built two lakes up in the mountains, Cliff Lake and White Rocks. This gave us some summer water for grain crops. These lakes are also ideal trout fishing and over the space of time we built Pelican Lake here in the valley. It is stocked with Black Bass and Blue Gill. This lake is open to fishing the year around.

My grandparents met the hardships, and made a living for twelve children, and lived to see most of these improvements accomplished.
The Beginning of Our Life in Ouray Valley

After one winter with Bill’s folks, we built our homestead house and moved in when Tomg was a baby. My dad gave us twelve Rhode Island Red Chickens and we had two milk goats. During this time I didn’t like to stay alone, so Grandpa Chandler always sent one of the girls to stay with me when Bill went to the mountains to cut posts of make fence with his dad. This first winter on our homestead, Bill worked out two cows, traded posts for them to a guy in Heber. They have a post camp up in the cedars this side of Fruitland. One cow was a white face. The other was a roan durm. They both turned out to be good cows.

The next five years I really learned a lot of things from Bill’s mom and dad. How to make all kinds of quilts and rugs. We washed the wool, pulled it, then corded it to make bats for our quilts. We never threw any scraps away. We made crazy patch quilts. Sewed the small pieces on squares of paper to keep them from scratching. We always saved the good parts of all clothing for patching of quilts or rugs. then they taught me how to store and can all kinds of things. We made sour kraut, by the barrel, dill pickles by the barrel, too, and also corned beef. We also learned how to cure the pork to keep it. After the pork was cured, it was always stored in the wheat bin to keep from molding. We also made cottage cheese, yellow cheese and yogurt. So people can live off the land if they have to. And live good. But it takes cooperation form the whole family. Everyone has so much to do.

After I joined the family, quite a few things changed. As Grandma and the girls used to saw wood with a two man rip saw and split it everyday. This I changed. The men could saw as much in one hour as Mom and the rest of us could saw in all day. Also the splitting. So Bill started talking Elbert and Orvel into sawing and splitting wood before breakfast every day. I can say Bill never allowed me to cut wood in our married life. Then too, if Elbert or Orvel came by the wood pile and didn’t bring an armload, I would tell them off. Pretty soon the wood box was always full. Everyone worked hard.

At this time we were hauling water from the Duchesne River for our garden and I planted trees every spring and every fall the goats ate all the bark and limbs. I have always hated goats. They ate the clothes off the line, ate your hat if you laid it down. Years later, when Mort and Tom were small, Bernice, my sis, gave them two little billy goats. They made harnesses for them and worked them on their wagons. One time we went to town, they bunted the door open and spent the day on my bed. Ate up a new house coat my sis Wanda gave me—all but the zipper. Last of goats.
Bill’s Folks

Grandpa Chandler was a real entertainer. He played all kinds of instruments, but his favorite was the banjo. He could really make it talk. They were a happy family. Nearly every night he would play and get one of the kids to chord for him on the piano. He would sing and play. Grandma played the piano real good too, and Bill and Robert Moore, Ella’s husband, played the saxophone. The girls all would sing.

Bill’s folks really made me one to the family and I loved them all Hazel and Irma were both in Salt Lake Muriel and Willie Stevens lived in Randlett. They owned one of those big brick buildings that had been a dormitory for the Indian girls to live in and go to school. Ella and Robert Moore were living in there with his folks. Robert drove the mail. That left eight kids still home, Bill and I and Mom and Dad Chandler. With all this big family, they always set a good table. Most people think Jack Rabbits aren’t good eating, but Mom Chandler could make the best hot Tamale out of ground Jack Rabbit that you could ever eat. Also real good in chili. We made mince meat out of them too. They aren’t bad baked with dressing. Usually fried the cotton tails. Then too, Grandpa Chandler always had a heavy fish line with five or six hooks on it thrown out into the middle of the Duchesne River. That someone checked everyday. We ate lots of fish—any kind we caught. Carp and hump‑backs are really good baked in catsup or tomato sauce.

We always had milk and butter, cottage cheese. Then too, we made our own yellow cheese. Dad Chandler made us a press for it. When we come home from Salt Lake, the Chandler family really make me welcome, but I was expecting Tom and they treated me like they thought I would break. They didn’t want me to do anything. They had quite a bunch of horses and someone had to take them to Duchesne River to water each day. Well one day the girls were fussing about who would have to take them. So I took them Grandpa and Gram really had a fit when I got back. Pa said I would keep on till I lost my baby. So I asked Doctor Miller. She said I could ride all I wanted to if I was used to riding. Wouldn’t hurt me unless I got bucked off. So now I could take them and I was back doing something I loved to do. Riding a horse again. She said as long as it didn’t hurt me to ride, go ahead.

I was happy living around Bill’s folks as they were always good to me. I was just another girl in the family. I loved Mom and Dad Chandler, as I had no mother now. I adopted Bill’s mom and she taught me many things about canning and gardening and about life in general. They would both tell me their problems. I was the only one at that time that would say what I thought to him. If I thought he was wrong I told him so. One time the boys saw Dad Chandler was breaking a horse. The horse got stubborn and threw herself and wouldn’t get up. They were beating her. I said I am going out and stop them. Mom says you better not interfere. Grandpa will send you back to the house and tell you to mind your own business. But out I go. I tell them the horse doesn’t know what she is being beat for—to let her alone. Him and I have a short argument. I win. They turn the horse loose. The next day she was better. They finish breaking her. Mom says I never would believe it. We had been married six months then.

Dad Chandler’s homestead house was built next to a ridge, so the back was about four feet in the ground. This made it quite warm. But in those days the winters were real cold—anywhere from 30 to ‑50. Anyone really had to dress to keep warm. Orval, Bill’s brother, was about fifteen when we got married and I remember the first Christmas. Ella and family were there. And I believe Muriel and Willie Stevens and family were there. They had cooked a big dinner and it was so cold that day. Mom said come and eat. It’s so cold probably need coats. So Orval gets up, puts on a sheep skin coat and a pair of sheep skin mittens on, his stocking cap, come to the table. Everyone laughed until we could hardly eat. Grandpa finally said either leave the table or quiet down. Was half hour before anyone could get back to the table to eat.

Another time that same year, the next spring I believe. There was a scare about Rabies. Everyone was worried about the skunks, and coyotes, and one day Elbert and Orval caught a coyote about as big as a collie dog. Brought it home. Pushed it in the living room door, and watched. Someone saw it and yelled. There it stood with it’s tongue sticking out panting, while we were all trying to get on the table. We heard Elbert laugh. They had a wire on it’s back legs.

Most of this first winter with Bill’s folks, the guys spent getting out posts and making fence for Ron Smith, West of where the lodge is now in Deep Creek Canyon to keep their sheep off the road. The Smith’s owned all the mountains this side of Strawberry and at that time, over to the lodge on Current Creek.

In the spring, we started building on our own homestead, so we could get moved to ourself as it was always crowded with Bill’s folks. When we moved onto our own homestead, we had a dozen chickens my dad gave us, and two milk goats. sometimes we never had much variety, but we never went hungry. One day I rode my horse to Leota store about two and a half miles. Took four dozen eggs, got twelve cents a dozen for them. It was winter time and frosted my ears through my stocking cap. They were sore for a couple of weeks. Bill hauled wood in the winter time, $3 a load, and still got out posts. When we proved up on our homestead, we borrowed our first money, $25, from N.J. Meagher. Bill paid it back with 100 posts. All our life if we really had to borrow money, N.J. never turned us down. He was a really true friend. I always liked to go into the bank, as no matter how busy N.J. was, he always said, “Wait a minute, I want to talk to you”. He would call me over to his desk and we would visit and talk about the valley and the water problems. Several times when he was in the valley, he stopped by our old place to visit with me, as Bill was never home when he come.

The Chandler’s were the main music for all the dances, as they were the only ones that would play for nothing, or a few dollars, when they passed the hat around. But with the others, Reese Timothy and the Smith’s, they knew they had to pay a set amount. So Chandler’s played most times. Other music in the Leota ward was Leona Jorgenson’s sister. They lived about one and a half miles south of where the little store is now. Her name was Connie Smith. She played the accordion with other help when the Chandler’s couldn’t be there. But as they had a camp up in the cedars above Duchesne17, once or twice a month the guys would come home over the weekend to play for dances at the town of Leota. There were thirty or more families in the ward then. Mom and Dad Chandler were responsible for most of the entertainment for both Randlett and Leota.

Grandma played the piano, Pa played the banjo, Bill and Robert played the saxophone. Mostly Floyd or Ted Bryant played the guitar. Then for a variety, Pa played the violin, the juice harp, mandolin, or harmonica. He could play anything that made music. When they played for dances in those days, they would pass the hat around. Everyone would divide it. About midnight, they would pass the hat again to get them to play another hour or two. Usually got as much money the second time around as they did the first time. One or two dollars a night a piece. Always had pot‑luck lunch. Everyone always went.

At this time, there were quite a few families out on Willow Creek, also Hill Creek. They had a one room school house on both places, and the Chandler’s used to go to those places several times during a summer to play for dances. They would take their piano on a wagon. It would take part of a day out, play all night, then back the next day. Pa and Mom, Bill and Robert Moore. Same wages, pass the hat, but anything to make a dime in those days.

I want to put in here that I stayed with Muriel and Willie Stevens for a couple of weeks when each of my first four kids were born, in the old brick building. They had a store and run the post office too. Bill would haul wood from the Green River with team and wagon to pay them. We were living on the homestead now and it was one day to the river for wood, the next day take it to town, Randlett. Five loads for two weeks logging. He got $3 a load for it. Bill would have to walk behind the wagon to keep from freezing, as it got to be forty five below the winter Elva was born. I remember we had an old car with disk wheels and that Bill had put up ice for the Episcopalian preacher Mr. Howes that year. That’s another thing Bill and his folks did, was put up ice. Everyone had an ice house. Would have blocks of ice sawed with a hand saw, two by two foot square, and anywhere from ten inches to twenty inches thick. They packed snow between the blocks and covered with sawdust or gilsonite. It would keep all summer. They put up ice for lots of people. If you had anything that had to be kept cold, bury it in the ice house. We would put up enough to take a block out every day with extras for ice cream. Mom had a five gallon freezer. They made lots of ice cream and sherbet in them days.

Well, back to when Elva was born. I woke Bill up at eleven p.m. and it was forty below weather. We were living on our homestead then. And Bill couldn’t start the car. He took an old dish pan full of hot coals out of the stove and it took him until five a.m. to get enough fire under it to start. He was really worried. But it took me forty eight hours to have Tom, so I figured we had plenty of time. Dropped Tom off at Mom’s. Got to Muriel’s she said, “It’s supposed to be another month yet, I don’t have your room fixed or cleaned”. They put me to bed in her bed, sent someone to call Doctor Miles. She come and gave me a shot. Said they were false pains. By night they had me upstairs. Called the Doctor again. She, Elva, was born early the next morning, about thirty hours. But she was full time. Fat as a little pig. When she was eleven days old, we took her home in the wagon, with hot rocks under the quilts to keep us warm. By now we had a floor in both rooms and a wood heater in the bedroom. She got along fine.

The Leota ward then was thirty or forty families. A church house, a post office, run by Frank Roberts, and a store owned by E.D. Lewis. We had a half holiday every Saturday afternoon. Everyone turned out to play ball, The men had one of the best teams in the basin. Bill played short stop and backed up third base. Very seldom did they play a game that he didn’t make at least one home run. Then too, until Bill was 50 years old, he was never beat in a foot race, at these half holidays. They played games, run races, had tug‑of‑wars, sack races, all kinds of things. Bill’s mom never missed a ball game, very few practices. Her and Ella was the main cheering section. The same ones that were at the half holidays, attended church on Sunday.

E.D. Lewis was the team manager on our half holiday. They played every Saturday one game at Leota and one away. Every other Saturday they went to another ward in the basin and played their team. Leota was very seldom beat. Cal Jorgenson was the catcher and main ram rodder. For such a few people to choose from, we had an awful good ball club. They went through one season and only lost one game. Another season they never lost any. Some of the outstanding players that I remember was: Harry Larson-pitcher, Lewellyn Jenkins-left handed pitcher, Bill Chandler, Hef Kimball, Max Jenkins, Clifford MCKenna, Floyd and Ted Bryant, and Aaron Larson. Cal Jorgensen took the his school bus and E.D. Lewis his big truck. They took anyone that wanted to go, usually most of the town. The biggest game they played was played at Fort Duchesne against the Indians at the U.B.I.C.. The Indians were supposed to be one of the best teams in the basin. Well they were pretty good players. Leota was a little shaky when they started to play, but the players from the dust bowl, as they were called, beat them 8 to 0. Quite a glory for Leota. Another sport that people turned out for was ice skating in the winter.

The U.B.I.C., Uintah Basin Industrial Convention was held at Fort Duchesne each year for three days during the early part of August. It had activities for everyone, both Indian and white. There were classes pertaining to farming, homemaking, socials, and sports. People drove their team and wagon and pitched their tents all around the army parade grounds. The Indians camped on the river. There was something going on all the time from the Bugle in the morning. Band music to eat by. There were classes, baseball games, horse shoe pitching, pulling horses, tug‑of‑wars between wards and always dancing. Also dancing lessons.

As I look back now, I remember Grandpa Elbert always stayed home from U.B.I.C. and did the cores. Mom and all the rest of us went. We camped in tents the full three days. We all went in the wagon with bedding garb and kids. The road come down the east side of the river, then dirt, and poor. It rained the morning we left to come home and we got the wagon stuck in those blue clay hills. Unloaded all the people and we all pushed. I never forgot how muddy we got, but we really enjoyed those times visiting with old friends. When we would see childhood friends that you hadn’t seen since last U.B.I.C. as these were team and wagon days.

Now we had two or three dry years. Practically no crops. Grandpa had gone to Green River to raise a garden and this spring Bill leased the Lyman place across the Duchesne River. It had a four room house with sheds and graineries, underground cellar. My sister Bernice and her husband Vern Sheffer are still living on Deep Creek, but the drought had hit them too. Mostly the creek had gone dry. So, they moved into half of the Lyman house. They now have four little boys. There was lots of hay, quite a big farm. Well, Bernice and family had a few cows, by now we have a few cows, Bill and Vern start farming. We now have a small cream check. But butter fat was ten or eleven cents a pound. We both have chickens. Eggs is ten cents a dozen, but we raise beautiful gardens. We get along fine.

We still come to the half holiday at Leota. Now its team and wagon from over there. It’s all day Saturday, but fun. Bernice and I bottle and dry everything and pick wild currents and blueberries for jellies. We also made a barrel of sauerkraut and a barrel of dill pickles, so we live good for two or three years. Then, Lyman’s wanted it back. While living there, I had one real frightening experience. Hazel, Bill’s sister has been in Alaska for two or three years as a missionary for the Episcopal Church. She is home now for a few weeks. It is spring, and high water time for the Duchesne River.

Grandpa Chandler and family are living here in the valley on the old place we leased when she left. It belonged to a Rogers in New York. This end of the Valley still has some high water. They had hay on most of the place, and Bill had been swimming his horse across to help his dad hay. He rode a big black long legged horse named Nig. Well, one morning he gets up and says you and the kids can go with me this morning and visit with Hazel. The river is down now, we will take the wagon.

When we get to the river I am really scarred. It has dropped about a foot, but is still a raging torrent. I pick the kids up off the bottom of the wagon, put them on the seat, Tom between me and Bill, and hold Elva as she is tinyh; about one and a half years old. It’s a good thing I did, as the water got about six inches in the wagon bed. Scared, but safe across.

Spent the day with Bill’s folks and visited with Hazel. Got back that night. It had raised about eighteen inches. And muddy with trash and sticks floating down. I was so scarred. Bill said we could never make it in the wagon, so he unhooked the horses off the wagon, left the harnesses on them, put me and Tom on Nig. He was used to swimming the river real often. He said, “Put your feet through the tugs, your arms around Tom, and hold onto the harness, whatever you do, don’t turn loose, he will take you across, I will lead him”. He got on Bailey with Elva and started across. We were facing up steam across the riffle to get home and the trash frightened Bailey. He tried to turn back. Bill yelled “Kick old Nig, get on across”. So, I did, but when his feet didn’t hit bottom, I thought we were gone, but made it fine. Needless to say, next time I went around the road by the bridge, it was fifteen or twenty miles that way. That was the only time I ever swam it, but Bill continued to swim it whenever it was necessary.

That same year he tried to swim it with the mowing machine. Him riding one of the horses. The horses got scarred and turned down stream fighting each other. Bill held their heads apart, but it was a quarter of a mile before he could get them out on the bank. Then they landed on the same side of the river that he went in on. Well, the mower went around by the bridge too. I think now if the mower would have caught on a snag, both horses and Bill would probably of drowned. He took lots of chances, dangerous one, in them days.

Another experience with the river and high water, years later, after Tom and Leah were married. We had the Abbot place across the river. Tom and Bill were running it. We had a real nice bay horse and we had got Tom a new saddle when he graduated from high school. And Tom was swimming this horse across the river to change the water each day. One day he got within about twenty or thirty feet of the other side, when his horse lunges and comes over backward and goes under. Tom slides off and grabs a stirrup, but the horse goes down again and he has to turn loose his stirrup. Tom was washed down stream. The horse never come up again. This could have been a real tragedy, but Tom didn’t fight the raging river. He just fought to stay on top and float down stream. He was a good swimmer, but he knew he could never make it across current to the bank. A quarter of a mile down stream the current he was in hit the bank and he made it out. He was pretty sick for a half hour or so. Then he went down stream looking for his horse. A mile or more down he found the horse caught on some drift wood by a tree that had caved in. He got out to him, cut his new saddle off him, got the saddle out. Evidently, the horse either had a cramp or a heart attack. He had been swimming the river for a couple of weeks then, but this stopped too.

Another experience we had while living across from the river, Bill and I and the two kids were going to the Randlett store. Had to cross an Indians place. He was real mean when drinking, old Ben Werrow. He stopped us with a gun, said he was going to kill us. He was drunk. He said he never liked Pa, but had never got a chance to kill him. Stella, Bill’s younger sister, was with us too. We nearly died of a heart attack. Bill just kept talking to him. That’s one time I couldn’t say a word. Stella was in tears, but he finally let us go. Never fired a shot, but said “Never let me catch you on my place again”. I went for most of the groceries on horseback, for both families, needless to say, I went way around his place after that.

They were a happy two years with my sister. Vern joined the ball club as an extra pitcher. This he loved, but he didn’t think it was necessary for the whole family to go, so he rode his horse and Bill brought the rest of us in the wagon, Bernice and I, kids and all. Bernice was always a poor housekeeper—worse than me, if possible, so she loved being with me. I did sewing and mending for their family too, as I had a Singer machine. They (Vern and Bernice) lived in half of the house, but we usually ate together, one big happy family. Well, not quite. I used to argue with Vern about the way he treated his family. He didn’t think they needed anything, just Vern. But as a whole, we got along fine. I made an effort not to quarrel with him. Bill made it understood that Vern helped with the milking and chores instead of Bernice. Up until then she did all the milking.

In them days meat in the summer time is hard to come by as it won’t keep. The nursery rhyme that says four and twenty black birds baked in a pie are pretty good. Vern Sheffer went out one day, there were hundreds of red‑winged black birds in one tree. He took the double barreled shot gun, got fifty two birds with both barrels. Well, he cleaned them, just saved the breasts, two bites on each breast. I cooked them, made meat pies with potatoes, onions, and vegetables and crust on top. It was delicious.

Another time Bill and Vern went down on the river, found a still for making whiskey with a barrel of corn savings. They drained the water off it, took the wagon and brought the corn home for the chicken feed. They didn’t let it dry long enough before they started to feed it to the chickens. Got the chickens drunk. Got their two black giant roosters drunk. They put on quite a circus. We all nearly died laughing at them.

Another thing that was unusual was Vern hit one of his cows with a pole end and broke a front leg. The blood made him sick. He went to the house. Well, Bill and I and Bernice threw the cow and splinted her front leg. She got all right, was a little crooked though. She was one of their best milk cows, couldn’t afford to loose her. Went right on milking her, did keep her in the pen though. Bernice’s two little boys carried her water and feed.

After two years, Lyman’s want their place back, so we move back into the valley on the Howard Stevens place. That’s where Jess Jensen lives now. Bernice and Vern Sheffer have five boys now, and move to Tridell, up to the north end by the canal by the murky place. W.P.A. is now in swing and head of families can make a few dollars each month there. The drought is still on and we are now about a mile from Bill’s folks again.

These were hard times, but we were happy. We did things together. Whole families would get together with friends on Sunday afternoon, after church, and have a picnic lunch, play ball, pitch horse shoes, or jump rope with the kids. Then too everyone played jacks, both boys and girls.

They also learned to dance real young as everyone took their kids with them to dances. If they got sleepy, put them on a quilt in the corner or on a bench.

I must of picked up mother’s knack of sewing, as I could make most anything. Made all our clothes for both boys and girls. We never threw away any scrap, no matter how small. We made all kinds of quilt. We also sheared the sheep, washed the wool, corded it, made the bats for the quilts. We also made several different kinds of throw rugs for the floors.

These last two or three years have been real hard to make ends meet. We moved around so much, can’t keep it straight for sure what time we were at which place. But, it do remember two Summers on the old place that we hauled water from the Duchesne River to raise a garden. [We] would take five barrels on a wagon, drive out into the middle and fill the barrels. We made a trip every other day. Sometimes every day if it was real hot. This water hauling was my and Grandma’s and the girl’s job. The men were busy with other things, but the water hauling was a pretty steady job. We would put a two quart or a gallon can by each plant that is like tomatoes, squash of all kinds, egg plant. These cans have quite a large hole or several holes and are buried about half way in the ground so it puts the water down by the roots. These cans were filled every day or two, depending on the weather, heat, and wind. The carrots, beets and other things that were planted in rows were planted real close to the furrow, on both sides of it. Then the water was poured in the row and run between the vegetables. We raised enough vegetables to eat and for canning like this. The potatoes and corn would make do with only what little bit of water they got in the spring. Would have to plant twice as much as normal, as corn would only get two or three feet high and have one small ear by the ground. The potatoes would be small, mostly cook them with jackets on them, boiled.

At this time too Grandpa, Bill’s dad, had a couple of cows and fifteen or twenty milk goats. They would live and give a gallon of milk where a cow would starve to death.

During this time, we made all kinds of cheese. Would save the milk, put it in the ice house for a couple of days, until we would get enough to make yellow cheese. This we made and pressed. Got so we could make pretty good cheese. Used cheese coloring and rennet tablets. Grandpa had made us a cheese press.

When we butchered a cow we saved everything, but the belly. Saved the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the tongue, the brains, and the sweet breads. Plus all the tallow was rendered out to be used for frying meat and cooking, pretty heavy but beats nothing. Then too, Grandma and me spent all one day, this is the only time I figured out time was wasted. Spent a day peeling the meat from between the two layers of stomach to make pickled tripe. Took all day to peel this thin layer of meat, enough to make two quarts, then it wasn’t too good—was tough.

Another thing that happened that I thought was interesting was Grandpa E.M. caught a twenty-seven lb. white fish on one of this throw lines, he had caught an eleven inch bony tail. The white fish swallowed the bony tail. Then they had the big one tied up. They had just got it pulled out on the bank, and the bony tail pulled out of him and turned it loose. Orval was with his dad that day and fell on the fish and held it until Grandpa could get a good hold on his gills. There used to be lots of white fish in the rivers then, but they have all died off. They were real good eating.

Another thing we always had plenty of was honey. Would go to the river and find a big dead cottonwood tree. The bees would clean out the rotten wood, fill the space with honeycomb. Would cut the tree down, take the honey. Get anywhere from a tub full to three or four tub fulls out of one tree, depending on the size of the tree. They always saved the bees, put the queen in a bee box with some of the brood and honeycomb and she will call the workers in. This way we finally got bees of our own.

Another thing we did about this time. Dad E. M. Chandler, Bill, and Robert and Ella Moore took Robert’s old truck, went to Grand Junction, Colorado after peaches. Got to a place, they had ten acres. No sale for them, they told them they could have all they wanted of them, so they bought five gallon honey cans and canned them in the field as they were too ripe to haul home. They sorted and brought a truckload home, both canned and fresh, so we had peaches for several years. Things like this and the Chandler’s great love for hunting is why the Chandler’s always had plenty to eat.

We moved into the Howard Stevens place, that’s the place that Jess and Viola Jensen have now. We moved there in the fall of 1933, was there about a year. That winter, Morton was born. We didn’t think that we could save him, he was born with the cord around his neck. Was real blue for over a week, then he got yellow jaundice at about three weeks old. Turned yellow, even his eyes were yellow. He was always tall and real thin as a baby and little boy, and I really worried a lot about him. Took him to the doctor more than any of the other kids. He was always bothered with liver trouble, inherited from Bill’s dad I think. In the spring the Stevens was back and we moved across the road to Wallace Jensen’s place. Here we stayed about a year. All this time my Dad and the kids are living in Tridell. I made it up to see them three or four times a year. But was team and wagon time. Took most of the day to get there, so [I] would stay three or four days when I went. During these years my little brother, twelve years old had died with a mastoid eari. He was in the hospital at Vernal for six weeks before he died, but in those days they didn’t know how to treat it. Then they didn’t have the medicine that they have now.

Then Dad had blood poison in his foot and I went up and stayed a couple of weeks until he was on the improvement list.

About this time, Hurley had trouble at home with Dad and ran away to Salt Lake and went to work at sixteen years old. Dad always managed to raise a good garden. Worked a little on W.P.A. and managed like the rest of us. Willis and Ardell Hackford lived close to him and Ardell helped what she could with Earnest and Vera. That’s all he has home now. Bernice and Vern have spent several winters with him since they left us on the Lyman place.

Now the drought is in full swing. Most of the Leota town have dried up and moved away. The new church house burned. The store and post office are gone. Most of the families left. The stock is starving. No feed for the cows, so the government come in, bought all the cows for $17 a head. Killed and buried them. We could keep all we wanted to eat, but they would see that you killed them. Grandma and the rest of us bottled all the bottles we had. Grandpa made a barrel of corned beef and lots of jerky. We all gave up the farm and moved to Randlett. Bill and I lived in two big rooms upstairs at Muriel’s and Willie Stevens. Grandma and Grandpa Chandler moved into the other government building across the square. It was the boys housing unit for the Indians, now they (the Indians) are at White Rocks. Now Bill is working in the gilsonitej mine. This I hated as when they come up out of the mine, they were black as nigger’s. As far down his throat as you could see was black. I was so afraid his lungs would fill up. It would take thirty minutes with lava soap to get it off, but never got it out of the pores of your skin. The sheets and pillow cases get black too.

This winter Beatrice was born, November 9, 1935. Most all of the people now have left Leota also the valley. Only a few stuck it out, the Wall’s, the Jarman’s the MCMullin’s, a few others, but most have given up and left.

Now the Chandler’s are all living at Randlett. Grandpa makes a little playing for dances. Then too about this time, they got started doing building for the Indians, little log shacks. They put up ice, built a little fence. The Chandler’s still do a lot of hunting rabbits, pheasants, anything else they could find. They always had plenty to eat. It’s been so long ago, I can’t remember if Bill worked in the mines in the winter Beak was born or helped his dad with odd jobs. They built a fence for Preacher Howes that winter. Seems like he only worked there in the mines for a few months before I talked him out of it.

Grandma Chandler loved to play cards, any kind. We got together now and played cards lots of evenings. Played canasta, rummy, pinochle, sluff, or any kind, just cards. She was lots of fun to be around. And Grandpa still played the banjo most every evening. They were a musical family.

In the summer I hear through the grape vine that my sister Hurley that left home a year and half ago was in Murray and was going hungry and her little boy, the same age as Bea, was about to starve. That she was married to George White and he was too lazy to work even on W.P.A., so I took my baby Bea, left the others with Bill and Grandma, went to look for her. She was to proud to go to Grandma Turner’s in Murray for help. Also, Wanda was married to Owen Hanson. Then he worked for the railroad, but she never went to her either. Well, it took me a week to find her. She was living in an old sheep wagon down by the Murray dump. I found her about 11 a.m. Could hear her trying to make George get up. She was cussing him because he wouldn’t get up to go to work that morning. About that time I yelled, “Is anybody home?” Well rumor was true. All they had in the place to eat was a half dozen dried up oranges. Well, after reading George the riot act and telling him if he couldn’t get out of bed and even try to find something for his family never to show up at my house as I was taking them home with me. We gathered up what few clothes they had, and took them to Wanda’s. Wanda felt real bad to think that Hurley never come to her for help. Well, the next day we saw George again. She told him she was leaving him and to never show up at our place.

I had gone to Salt Lake with Mildred Night on the cream truck. The next day, she would be in again, so I bring Hurley and Glen home with me. I felt so sorry for poor little Glen. He was the same age as Bea and she was crawling all over and he couldn’t even sit up alone. She stayed with us for three or four months upstairs at Muriel’s. Then one day, George showed up. He had a job at Moon Lake and had got an old car that run pretty good. Also, he had rented a house a block from Dad in Tridell. Well, he come two or three nights a week until she went back to him. By now we have an old car, so I see them and Dad quite often that summer. Well, Dad felt bad about her leaving home and was awful good to her. He saw that she had eggs and milk and garden vegetables to eat.

For the next few years they lived there and did fine. When Glen got old enough to talk and walk, he would come over to Dad’s every day. Dad would take him to gather the eggs. Any cracked ones we eat them. Then he would scramble some. Well, Glen goes to the coop one day, gets two eggs, gets just inside the door, hits his eggs together and says, “Here Grandpa, two cracked eggs. Cook them”. I think he was born talking. He remained me of Uncle Odie still yet.

I still see Glen and family once in a while. He lives in Salt Lake. Has a lovely wife and family. They come out some times on their vacation. His mother, Hurley, died when he was eight years old with cancer. She was in the hospital for months before she died. Her and George had separated, she was engaged to Johnny Barns. He and his dad and two brothers drove taxies. It took all the bunch of them could make to keep her in a private hospital. They didn’t want her in the county one. But, the family had to furnish someone to sit up with her nights, so I went to L.A.. Took Earnie, he was a baby. I stayed six weeks. Sit up with her every night. Dad tended Earnie. I was nursing him and I would be gone ten or twelve hours. Dad said he never cried, but he wouldn’t have told me if he had.

That was the hardest six weeks I ever went through. I never saw such suffering in my life. One hates to think of death, but when you see what I did in those six weeks, it is quite a relief to know she won’t have to suffer that kind of pain any more. I hope she has some happiness where she is at, she didn’t have much in this life.

The next two years were really fun times for us. We would make good gypsy’s. The depression here was in full swing. Everything burned up or blew away. No snow in winter, just cold. No rain in summer, just hot breeze. Bill wanted to go some place else. I said OK with me if we go to the coast where Mother’s folks live. So we sold everything we owned, horses, harnesses, saddles, bridles, what furniture we had, everything but our clothes and kids and a camp outfit. With the old car we had, we made a down payment on a new Chevy. A new one then cost $800. We now have four kids Tom-Six, Elva-four, Mort-two, Bea-eight months. We put our camp equipment, bedding and clothes in the truck. Took the kids, headed for Redding, California. Took the same route I had been over in 1928 with Dad, but the trip was somewhat different. Little better road, new car. We didn’t have any trouble. Landed at Uncle George Potter’s the next day. Not much money left. They really made us feel welcome. They were all glad to see us. Uncle George and Abby’s kids were all married but two, and they all lived close, within twenty or thirty miles of each other. Had quite a reunion. All kids come home the next day to see us. Then too, they were having a Fireman’s Ball the night after we got there. Blocked off a bridge and danced on it. Took a good part of what little bit of money we had left for a ticket. But everyone insisted we go, so we did. Had lots of fun; danced all night. Good thing we both liked to dance. These were dancing Potter’s. The Potter’s were all musical. Different ones spelled off the music. They knew every one, as they had been there for years.

I forgot to mention on the way to California, we were going through Nevada and we come to an army of crickets. After we saw this sight, it was lots easier to see how the crickets took the crops of the early Mormon settlers in Utah.

This army of crickets that we come to was about one and a half miles wide, and they never left one green thing. The leaves and bark off the brush, a dust bowl after they went through. There were hundred of people trying to stop or turn them. They were plowing furrows with tractors across their path, pouring gas in each furrow, then as the crickets filled up the furrow they would light the gas. These furrows were a hundred or so yards apart. This was in 1936. In this day and age, they would just spray them by plane. They were crossing the road when we went by and they were an inch or more thick, mashed on the road. The people were trying to get them stopped before they got to the next town, which was ten or fifteen miles away. It was quite an unusual sight to see.

This same day we were going along about forty five or fifty miles an hour, that was fast in those days, when a rim and tire passed us up. It was really traveling. We had a two wheel trailer we were pulling. About this time Bill pulls over, he had a flat. But it was our tire and rim that just passed us up. He had to walk a half mile to get it. It went straight down the road to a bend. The rim was separated from the wheel, the bolts had broke.

Uncle George got Bill a job with a friend of his who owned a farm on Cottonwood Creek. Paid $35 a month, cash. Furnished us a house, milk and eggs. Bill’s boss drove a produce truck. Delivering to the big cities and he brought home sacks of two‑day‑old bread and lots of rolls and doughnuts. We managed fine, even though we were paying $30 a month for car payments.

My cousins, Wanda and Ray Giles, Winnie and Leo Reynolds, Cliff and Vera Potter, Bill and I were together at one place or another nearly every weekend, playing cards or monopoly, or going dancing. Then as fall come on they spent their time spearing salmon out of the Sacramento River. Got some as big as fifty or sixty pounds. These were filleted, salted and smoked—just like a side of bacon. Their spears were made out of a pitch fork with either one or two of the tongs left on with a sharp thing that fit over the end, four or five inches long, with a hole in the middle, a wire through the hole. One had to throw the pole hard enough to put the tong clear through the fish, then it would come off and turn sideways in the fish. Then you had him tied to you, as there was a rope on the end of the pole tied to your wrist. The ones that did the most fishing were Bill and Ray Giles. We had more fun when we got together than a bunch of monkeys. The guys would go fishing. We would bed all the kids down and play cards or just visit. Next day, take care of fish. When dried it would keep, could be stored. Many of the steaks that we cut, that one round off a fish, filled a big skillet. Nothing could beat these red salmon steaks. These good times hold a special place in my memories.

Wanda and Ray Giles had a boy two years older than Tom. They, the two boys, go down on Cottonwood Creek one day. They spear two salmon about twelve pounds each. They had watched enough to know how it was done. While the salmon are spawning you can catch them with any kind of snag hooks they are so thick. They were two proud boys. These were the biggest ones they had caught.

For the month or six weeks that the salmon were running Bill, Ray Giles, and Winnie’s husband Leo Reynolds really spent a lot of time on the river. We all used to go part time and have a picnic or winnie roast, but most often a red salmon fry. It’s delicious anytime, but best cooked on a camp fire. I have never tasted any red salmon like what they used to get there in the Sacramento River.

Now both Wanda and Ray Giles have passed away. Ray died of a heart attack six or eight years ago. Wanda died of Hodgkin’s disease, it’s a form of cancer, four or five years ago. We were going to L.A. to spend a few months with folks there and went through Reno down through Redding. Spent a week with Wanda and Aunt Abby. She was living with her. I was always glad we went that year, as Abby died in the spring and Wanda got sick. They said it wasn’t a killing disease, but by fall she was gone. She left a family of wonderful kids. Laray is just like her mom, always welcome.

Had a real bad scare while we were living on the farm on Cottonwood Creek. It snowed about a foot, it never snows there as a rule. Then started to rain.

Needless to say, we had floods. The farm we were on was about a mile from where Cottonwood Creek dumped into the Sacramento River. Well, the river was so high that the creek couldn’t run in, so it started backing up. The creek was in a swell not too far from our house. The creek was so big I was scared. Before it got dark I tried to get Bill to go up to Uncle George’s on the hill. About the time I got him convinced the boss came over. He said that they had been there twenty five years and had never had water up around our house. So Bill stayed.

We went to bed, but I was too nervous to sleep. Was laying there reading. Sounded like the water was getting closer. Well, I stood it until about eleven o’clock. Got up to look. This is wet country in the winter and our house is built up on three foot posts. When I opened the screen door to look out, the screen hit the water. Run to the back door; same thing. There was a forty‑acre orchard behind the house. The water was up to the first limbs, three or four feet, and a pile of muddy foam by each tree. I run in the bedroom to wake Bill, he was really scared too. I thought I would die of fright. The boss’ house was on a knoll about hundred yards away. We had a clothes line stretched from our house across a swell over to a tree on high ground. Four little kids, and I can’t swim at all. Bill says if it gets into the house I will take the kids one at a time, hold onto the clothes line, take them to high ground. It didn’t raise any more. Needless to say, we got no sleep that night. About four in the morning it starts to go down. As soon as it had gone down enough to get through on a mule my cousin, Cliff Potter, come riding one mule and leading one. Well, me and the kids went with him up to Uncle George’s and Aunt Abby’s. There we stayed until it dried up. Every time it started to rain after that we headed for Uncle George’s.

Uncle Amasa and Aunt Maggie Potter live there close too. Aunt Millie and Uncle Cliff Daniels lived at Redding. Grandma Potter lives around among her kids from one to another. Now she is just like a little kid. Play hop scotch on the walks, jump the rope, also run away if they didn’t watch her. Uncle Royal and his wife lived in Red Bluff.

Uncle Arnold had lost his wife a few years before and two of his kids with typhoid fever. So, he had moved on to Empire, Oregon. Laura and Glenn Perkins had gone up there to Oregon in the winter a few months after we got to California, and Glenn went to work in a saw mill, making pretty good money.

We got along fine and had lots of fun. The few months that Bill’s job lasted. But, around Thanksgiving time he was out of a job. We moved in with Wanda and Ray Giles. They were my favorite. We were about the same age, liked lots of the same things. Ray and Bill did odd jobs around for a while. We got behind on our car payment, so we traded it for a one and a half ton truck straight across. The truck was paid for, but a few years older.

Then Leo found a job, if Bill would help him with his truck. Tearing down an old smelter. There were big cast iron pots four inches thick and four or five feet across. They had to blow them up with dynamite. Would put a stick on the side, put mud over it, blow them up. Then haul it to town. The smelter was up in the timber by a big river.

We bought a big tent, or George gave it to us. Leo and Winnie had a tent too. Pitched them by the river in the big timber. They had tree kids, we had four kids. Their oldest one was a girl—a little older than Tom. Winnie played the accordion in the evening. We all sang. We had a ball up there.

We were told before we left to go up that there were rattlers in that part of the mountains. So, for a while, we were real careful, but never saw a snake. Had been up there two or three months or more. They were making pretty good money, and we had been up there all summer. Got up one morning, Winnie and I took all the kids for a walk up the mountain. Then we heard a shot. Hurried back to camp to see what had happened.

There sat a big black nigger by our camp with a big mountain rattler, three or four feet long. He had shot it in a bush beside the kids swing. He said where you find one, there is usually two. So he thought he had better stay and tell us. Well, I have always been terrified of snakes, so while Winnie gets dinner I am throwing sticks and rocks, looking for snakes. Well, when the guys come to dinner I was determined to go back down to Winnie’s and Leo’s place immediately. But Bill and Leo convinced me we could stay one more night and go down tomorrow when they got their load ready.

When it gets dark I am flashing the light around, looking for snakes. Next morning, we keep the kids real close to camp. Can’t do anything. When we get dinner ready Winnie says, “While I finish up, you take the kids, go call the men to dinner”. We go two by two behind each other, past an old office. Lots of books and junk around. Our little dog, Brownie, was over there messing around. I heard this noise, but didn’t know what it was. Bill says, “Just a minute, we will be down”. We are going back the same way. Get by the old office, there is a rattler. Reaches clear across the road, his head up about a foot on one end, his rattles up about a foot on the other end. He is about fifteen or twenty feet from us, with Brownie right behind him. I am petrified. I just stand and scream. I hear Leo holler, “A snake!” Here they come on the run, each with a 2x4. By then, the snake had got under a piece of tin, his old tail a singing! They kicked the tin over, the coil of the snake was nearly as big as a tub. I don’t remember now, but he had twelve or fourteen rattles. That did it. We went back to Leo’s place after dinner.

We left one tent up there for the guys to finish the job. Working back and forth from Leo’s place they never saw another snake.

Laura Perkins writes her folks that there is work in the timber up in Oregon.

Well, I think we had one of the first campers ever made. We build one on the back of that one and a half ton truck out of plywood about six feet high with a window on each side that could open inside. Took the window out of the cab back, made what they call a boot now. As our kids would be riding back there, we had bunk beds full size across the front, one on the floor, the other just above the cab to look out. This would sleep our family of six. We were getting ready to go to Oregon. Loaded our camp outfit and tent. We were going to Coos River out of North Bend to a logging camp. If we didn’t find work, we would go to Uncle Arnold Potter at Empire until we did find something to do.

We landed on Coos River at the logging camp with about $6. There was quite a tent community there. We pick a spot between two huge trees and pitch our tent next to a pond full of water. They have it full of logs, as they unload the logs into this pond, float them down the river to the saw mill on the ocean shore.

Bill went to see the boss about noon. He said they didn’t need anyone then, but might in a day or two if Bill had any experience. Well, Bill stayed there at the unloading dock. Helped each truck that come in unload. They have guys they call river rats, that work in the “Splash Pond” with cant hooks to get the logs all turned the right way. Bill, being real nimble, he gets a hook to help them. By night, the boss is convinced he is an experienced hand, and he had never saw a log that big until we landed there. That is, since he was a kid around ten at Klamath Falls, Oregon. Some of these logs, they cut would make a load on a truck. They would get two and three cuts forty feet long from one tree.

That night, the boss told him to come to work the next morning. This was great news, as they had a commissary there, that’s like a country store. Carry anything needed in the logging camp. They take it out of your wages, anything you buy. This was the middle of April and Tom’s first year in school. By now, he had been in four schools all ready, but there is a school bus goes by to take the kids to North Bend to school. But as I remember, we didn’t start him until fall. Well, needless to say, when he started the next fall, he was a little behind, so he took the first grade over again.

Well, the pay was real good for them days. $1 an hour and they worked all the day light hours. They were on the mountain by day light. Pay started when they left camp.

Bill bought another tent, ten by twelve. We pitched them end to end and put a floor in them and boarded up the sides three feet. Made a pretty good home. Small one the kitchen. The big one was sixteen by sixteen It was living room and bedroom. Here again our home was better than average, as I built cupboards, tables, and chairs. We also had an outdoor fireplace with a grill on it to cook on, if it wasn’t raining, which was very seldom it rained that summer, as the drought had stretched to there.

We still had quite a few folks living within a fifteen or twenty mile area. Uncle Arnold Potter at Empire, his daughter Ivy and Chance Willmot at North Bend, George’s girl Ida and Less Desmond at North Bend. We visited back and forth on weekends, played cards and partied.

This winter was the only time I ever got drunk in my life. Was at Laura and Glen’s. Laura was always drunk, and making a play for all the guys. Never saw her husband Glen really drunk. I always thought he had to stay sober to get her home and to bed. Bill drank some, had done ever since I knew him, at parties and dances. I have thought since it was a poor place to take him around the Potter’s, most of them were drinkers at that time. They would get to drinking and acting like fools, was always calling me a party pooper.

Well, this night I got mad and took a drink out of some guy’s glass. Well, everyone was drinking something different, and instead of fixing a drink of my own, every guy that offered me a drink, I took a few swallows. Pretty soon I was so deathly sick, thought I would die, and wished I could. One of the guys held my head under a faucet until he nearly drowned me, but didn’t help. We all stayed at Glen and Laura’s that night. All the relatives—three families of us. Next morning every one was too sick to get up, including me. But there were eleven little kids all crying because they were hungry. I said to myself, “You damn fool, get up and feed your kids!” I got up, my head felt as big as a barrel and every bit of it hurt, but finally got all the kids fed. Then took a drink of water, rushed to the bathroom to heave up my shoe strings again. Well, it was sprinkling outside, so I decided to walk over to North Bend, a little over a mile in the rain. But it didn’t help much.

Was afternoon before Bill felt like going back to camp. Well, this was my first and last drunk. I decided right then and there that I couldn’t stand the after effects. Never another day like that.

Another thing that happened that first summer in the logging camp was a fire. They had stopped for dinner, had left a steam engine running while they ate. A spark come through the screen on the exhaust, started a fire. All grabbed a shovel, get it about out when a whirl wind hit it and carried it right up a ridge. Everything was dry as powder and it really spread.

This was a real big logging company. They had thousands of logs piled up in what they called cold decks. They had over a hundred regular workers, but by night, they had four or five hundred fire fighters. They had eight or ten big cats out on the mountain in an area where they now couldn’t save them so they put them all in a draw but one. Used it to bury the rest. Well it was seventy two hours before Bill got back to camp.

It burned up thousands of acres of timber all their cold deck piles. Most of the equipment on the mountain. The next day a fellow came to camp, told everyone to pack up and be ready to pull out. The fire was one and a half miles from our camp, had to keep throwing water on the tents to keep them from catching fire as hot sparks were falling on them. Well, I had never been by a fire before so wasn’t to worried, but some of the old hands took their families and left. By the next morning, both roads were closed. But luck was with us as it didn’t come into the river bottom. They managed a fire trail down a ridge that it didn’t jump.

The third day Bill come in and said the main fire had passed us by, we were safe. But it did millions of dollars of damages. These days with the fire on three sides of us were about the hottest days we ever spent. All the kids in camp played along the river bank and carried water to throw on the tents. Also, on any dry sots of grass. Talk about fireworks! It was like the Fourth of July, especially when a tree a hundred and fifty feet tall fell. The sparks really would fly. At night the fire was quite a sight, needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep in camp until the fire was under control.

Had one quite bad accident in our camp town. A little four‑year old girl was frying slices of potatoes on an outside fireplace. Caught the back of her dress on fire. Burned her back from shoulder to knees, one solid blister. We heard her screaming. My other neighbor and I got there in time to help smother it out. Alta Smith had a good car, she said “Wrap her in a blanket, let’s get her to a doctor”. The mother said, “No, go tell the boss to send word on the next truck after my husband”. This we did, but knew it would take hours to get him in. It did—three hours. But she wouldn’t change her mind and let us take her to town. But three or four days later she was back. The girl had to lay on her stomach. If she moved the cracks would drip blood, the worst thing I ever saw. Don’t know how they got her out of the hospital. We wondered if they ever took her in. A few days later her dad got fired, so don’t know how she got along. It takes all kinds to make this world. Now I would of wrapped her in a blanket and started out on foot if [there was] no other way, to get to the doctor. The mother waited seven or eight hours before starting down with her. Some people don’t seem to care about their kids. She was that kind.

We had lots of good times here on Coos River. The fishing was great and we made lots of friends in camp. Here again we played cards, mainly the ladies as the guys were working all the daylight hours, so they were ready for bed early. Another thing we picked and canned lots of wild blackberries. By now we have a pressure cooker and a tin can sealer, so we are canning fish too.

I guess that the years I lived in the valley near Bill’s mom who made me food conscious, so I still can and dry and store anything I can get my hands on.

About the middle of December Bill asks his boss if he could come home to Utah for Christmas. He has been with them eight of nine months now, and he tells him, “Yes, But try and be back by the first of the year.” Well, we come home in our home made camper. Got here and things were worse in the basin, if that is possible. Folks all still living at Randlett. All doing anything they can to make ends meet. While we were home Robert Moore and Orval, Bill’s brother, made a trip to Oregon to look for work, but they wasn’t as good as Bill had been, couldn’t make anybody believe that they had worked in the Timber. By now, my Dad [Ivan] and Vera are alone. Earnie, my youngest brother, had joined the C.E.E. camp, a government created job for teenage boys. Some jobs were digging canals by hand, making roads with pick and shovel, cleaning up the forests, anything to keep them busy. They were fed and clothed, paid a small wage for spending money.

Dad decides to go back with us and spend some time with Uncle Arnold Potter, his favorite brother‑in‑law. Dad and him had been close until Arnold moved to the coast, a couple of years before Mom died. Well, Dad had one milk cow, we butchered her, put most of her in tin cans and took it back with us. Give the bony parts to Bernice.

Hurley and George White and Glen are now in Salt Lake again. We stopped by to see them. George was working. We left right after Christmas, as the road over the coast range is closed around the first of the year. Then it’s clear around by the Columbus River. So when we got to Redman, they said it was closed over the mountain, that they had about a foot of snow, that they had cleared their half to the top of the mountain, but they weren’t going to clean the other side till spring. Bill tells them he has got to get over for his job, and if it’s cleaned to the top of the mountain he can make it. The road boss tells him he is taking quite a chance. My dad tells them we got everything with us to stay till spring plenty of food, so they let us go on. We didn’t have to much trouble. A little where we hit any up hills. Took us all day to get down the other side. Well it was quite an experience, but it was a beautiful drive.

Well we took dad straight to Uncle Arnold’s. Him and dad go out and pick up his crab nets. Arnold cooks a pressure kettle full of fresh crab. When my dad took the shell of and saw the entrails inside, he said, “it looks like a fresh cow pile”. That was his first and last fresh crab. Was quite a reunion for Dad and Arnold.

Things went along fine for a while after we got back to Oregon. Then towards Spring the Unions moved in an called a strike in all the Timber work. No more long hours without overtime. Well, depression had hit the coast. Hundreds, no, thousands were out of work. After a week most of them were going hungry. Well, bread lines formed. You would go and stand in line for hours. Would take all day. The government was issuing a little sack for groceries to each head of families, a small sack of rice, beans, corn meal, a few cans of beef to last a family of six or eight for a week. Well, it would last part of the week if you were careful.

Well, the next two months were the worst I ever put in. There was stealing and robberies every night. It didn’t effect us too much as we had all this stuff we had canned, like meat and dried fish, and blackberries by the case.

Now Dad and Vera are with us and we rent a house on the hill above North Bend. Well, I used to go with Gennie Coats and stand in line for my government allotment and give it to her. Well, both sacks wouldn’t last the week. If I had been using them, they would have. But she was from a rich family in the east. Her folks disowned her when she married George Coats, because he drank and she didn’t know how to manage. This was the first time George had been out of work very long in the twelve years they had been married. Well, we had known them ever since we went to the coast. He worked in the timber too. We were over there playing cards one night and their baby, LeRoy, eighteen months old, crying in the bedroom. Finally Dad says, “What’s the matter with Gerry, is he sick?” Gennie says, “No, Ivan he is hungry. Had to put them to bed tonight without any supper”.

Well Dad gets up, walks the block and a half home and brings her a box full of our groceries. When we leave Dad says, “Well Ivy, when ours are gone, maybe we will get some more.” Gennie and George’s boy eleven years old was in juvenile court three times in the six weeks they were without work or pay, for stealing pop bottles and beer bottles out of people’s garages. Judge ask him “What did you do with the money?” “Bought a loaf of bread to take home to my little brothers and sisters.” [The Judge let him go.] Gennie called her folks for help, hoping they had forgiven her, but they hadn’t. They told her they would send her and the kids tickets to come on home, but otherwise no help. She said, “No thanks, we will starve first”. When one like her has always had everything she needed, it’s hard to try and manage. Now us, we had always been short on worldly goods, but lots of happiness in our family.

About this time, we heard there was work in Klamath Falls, Oregon, so we loaded up again and go there. Bill had lived there when he was small and wanted to go back anyway. Well, we got there, a hundred jobs with five hundred in line for them. Well, we camped on the river. Dad caught a mess of fish while we decided what to do. Didn’t have enough money to get back to North Bend, but had to, as we were waiting for our unemployment checks to come. Was to be $25 a week. We had four or five coming now, if they ever got to us.

Well, I went to the county commissioners, told them our hard luck story. Told them they would either have to keep us or send us back. So they filled our gas tank and gave us orders on the county for three more fill up’s to get us home and a $25 order for groceries. So we bought a hundred pounds of flour, sugar, salt and all the things we need to add to our supply of groceries. I never saw so many people going hungry. Many of our friends put their kids to bed with just a boiled potato for supper and was glad to get it.

During the next month, we fished a lot and Dad spent a lot of time down on the docks where the fishing boats come in. They got to know him and were always giving him fish, anything that was bruised or rejected from commerce selling, so he had lots to give away. Then Dad got to know one of the county commissioners and talked him into giving him and Bill a job cleaning up bricks out of an old house they were tearing down. Didn’t make much, but kept us and several of Dad’s best friends in stable groceries.

One trip I will never forget was a trip up the Coos River fishing. Took our camp outfit, but money was scarce and Dad wouldn’t buy a license. Said he didn’t feel too good and wasn’t going to fish. We should have known better. We get up there and Dad starts out following Bill, but every time Bill missed a big one, Day would say, “Give me that pole Bill for a minute”. He would catch that one, then go on fishing. Pretty soon he would remember it was Bill’s pole, he would give it back and say, “I am give right out”. Needless to say, by the time we started to go home we had several limits cashed away. Are going home around a dugway, Dad looks down, a huge redwood had fallen across the river. Dad says, “Bill let’s fish that one more hole. Only fifty yards.” Bill says, “You go fish it, I’ll wait for you”. Dad gets down there, takes him quite a while to climb upon that huge tree, just gets started to fishing, hears a car coming. He runs to the end of the tree, jumps off, lays the pole down and sets down. Sure enough, it’s a warden. He checks Bill’s license and fish, then he spies Dad down by the river. Down we all go. He says to Dad, “Let’s see your license.” “I am not fishing today.” “How come you’re all wet? Your son‑in‑law is dry.” “He has boots in the car.” “How come he is up on the road, you down here?” “He went up to check the kids.” “Them your tracks that jumped off that log?” Dad says, “Yes. Any law against me jumping off that log?” He gets out his book, but don’t write anything in it yet. He says, “I still say if you weren’t fishing, you wouldn’t be wet to the waist.” So up the hill we all go to check the boots. He finally puts his book away. Says,”I know you were fishing, but I didn’t see you.” Dad just out talked him. As he drives away, Dad says, “That’s a relief. I was expecting Elva May to say any minute, ‘Grandpa’s fish are in the grub box.” Needless to say, next time we went, Dad had a license. We were luckier that a lot of our friends, as we could always drop over to Uncle Arnold’s for any kind of off shore salt water fish, such as crabs. Also oysters and clams there for digging. Then, we knew how to make a meal out of what we had. Never in my life did I live where I could run to the store or send a kid.

We had one other scare that comes to mind. Tom, Elva, Mort, Perky and Pat Perkins went picking black berries. Started at our back door. About two miles out to the road on the other side. Well, they were gone for hours. We started hunting them in the late afternoon. We finally drive around on the other side. Here are five badly torn, scratched, tired, and hungry kids coming home around the road. Everyone had said not a chance in a hundred that they could make it out on the other side. Ask Tom, he said, “When we went in, we were facing the sun, so when we got mixed up, I knew if we went toward the sun we would come out on the road coming home.”

Well, about this time, everyone got their unemployment checks. Got the first six all at once. It was $25 a week for six weeks ‑‑ $150 in one envelope. Well, I was ready to come back to the farm. I told Bill, “I am going home one way or another.” After about a week, he decided we better come home, so we loaded everything we were taking in the camper. But, with Dad and Vera, had to have one bed outside. Tom and Dad slept outside. If it was stormy, we pitched a tent. We left lots of good friends, happy times, and one of the most beautiful spots to live I was ever in. The timber, the flowers, ferns, the ocean, the fishing. We left some very good friends. Some family and lots of happy memories. I left a few sad memories, but won’t dwell on them.

We come over the mountains to Eugene. Went north from there on, what is now Interstate 5. Got up in a beautiful valley. Saw a sign “Olive Pickers Wanted”. So we stopped. The whole bunch of us made about $7 in two days. From the ground looking up the trees are loaded, green olives. But get up the ladder and couldn’t see anything but leaves. So after two days, Bill tells the boss, “We got to have our money for food and move on.” So we get it. Get up into the hop center around Salem, sign says “Hops 8 cents a pound”. Dad says, “Bill, we should be able to do pretty good picking hops”. Well, they gave us baskets about three feet high and eighteen inches across. Well, by now, you got about four or five pounds in it and are still pushing it down. We had three baskets and all the kids and Vera helping. The best we could so was a couple of dollars a day. We stayed three or four days, then moved on again. We saw a lot of beautiful country on this trip and got lots of new experience. But now we decided we better get for home, and get the kids in school. We go around Portland and head up the Columbia River Drive. This is a beautiful drive.

We got up the Columbus River Falls. There was an Indian camp there, catching fish and drying them for the whole tribe. They had two or three platforms built on each side of the falls with two or three Indians on each platform with huge dip nets about three feet across with about eight or ten foot handle with a rope on the handle. They would dip down on the falls, get the fish trying to go up. Catching salmon going up the river to spawn. The size, anywhere up to 50 or 60 pounds. They had a cable car across the river to bring them across from the other side. They had dozens of tents. Rows and rows of them with wires stretched across them to hang the fish on to dry. It took two or three weeks for them to get enough fish to do their tribe. I don’t have any idea how many pounds of fish they would have dried. Then they were allowed to sell all they could catch for one week. This would be tribe money for the fish.

Well, Dad and Bill hunted up the officer in charge, tried to buy one or two, but he said we would have to wait two more days before the Indians would be allowed to sell any. We got part way back to our outfit when a half‑breed stopped Bill and told him to go to his camp on the edge of the tents and he would bring us a fish in thirty minutes. He sold us a red salmon that would weigh around 45 pounds for a dollar and gave us two steel‑head trout close to ten pounds. Well we canned 47 cans of salmon. The can size like beans and peas you buy. We ate the two steel‑head that day and the next.

Dad was really worried about Bill getting the fish. Said the law would be after us for having hot fish. Dad kept looking back for miles, but no cops. Well, we pulled off by the side of the road under some trees, was a small camp spot to eat dinner. Just got everyone around a quilt eating, when a car with two cops in it pulled off and stopped near us. Dad says, “I told you Bill”. I thought for a minute he was right, but they had stopped to eat too.

Well, we stopped early that night and canned them, as we carried cooker and canner also cans along with us.

I have just touched a few of the things that happened in this two years. Would probably get boring to go into anymore detail. While we were hop‑picking, Beatrice had an abscess under her arm. Couldn’t wear anything, only one of the boy’s shirts for a week. Took her to the doctor’s to get it lanced.

Another time, Tom was having a sword fight with one of his buddies, using broom handles and broke his thumb. But, as a general rule, things were pretty good.
Home

Well, we decided it’s time to get started for home, as it is now the first week in September and time for school. Must get the kids home to Randlett. Don’t have any trouble getting home.

Did stop at Grandma Turner’s for a few days. She now has her son Earnest’s four kids, as his wife Dorothy had run away with Earn’s boss. They are managing pretty good and Earn and Odie are both working at Kennecott Copper, part‑time anyway. Grandma has a wonderful garden spot and several different kinds of fruit trees. She does her own canning of vegetables and fruit.

When we get back to the valley, Bill’s folks are living on the old place where our kids grew up. Things are a little better, but not much. Vera, my sister, stayed with us. Dad went to LaPoint for a while, around Willie and Ardell Hackford. Roxie and Vera were going to Alterra High School. Clifford going to Fort Duchesne school.

The first fall we got home, the horses all had sleeping sickness, or brain fever. Old Topsy used to fall in the pond if you let her go for a drink and someone would jump in and hold her head up until someone could get something to pull her out.

Now there is only Grandpa and Grandma [E.M. and Mammie] and Roxie and Clifford at home. Elbert, Stella, Blanche and Grace had got married. Then Bill and I and Vera and our four kids at home now.

It become necessary for me to go back to working out in the field, driving a team to plow or disk or plant, as crops all had to be planted before school was out. Now we have three in school—Tom, Elva, and Mortl. Also Roxie, Clifford, and Vera and Bill working there. Mom, Dad and me had Beatrice [? does she mean her child Bea, as she is the youngest now?] to take care of.

This first summer back home, we took our truck and went up White Rocks Canyon to fish and camp. Grandpa stayed home again to do chores. We took Willis and Ardell Hackford, and their four kids and Clifton Hackford, my Dad and Vera, Grandma, Roxie, and Clifford. Bill and I and our four kids and Moses or Junior Moore.

Sharon and Clifton Hackford and Tom and Clifford rode the horses from here to above the last ranch. The rest of us with bedding and food come in the truck. When we got to the end of the road, the boys were there waiting with the horses. We packed tents, bedding and food on them. Then everyone else walked. We also had Pearl, Grace’s little girl. Well, the guys and horses went off and left the women and kids. Well, we had walked about a mile. We’re all tired, we’re walking along a trail beside the mountain when in the road were two big bulls. Frightening. Well we weren’t very tired because before we stopped to rest we were way up the mountain going around the bulls and we never dropped a thing any one was carrying. Needless to say, we finally made it to camp to find the tents all pitched, shelters all made, camp things all laid out and part of the guys gone fishing. Well, that first night it rained and before the boys drug their beds into the tents, they got pretty damp. So all the next day, the ladies dried bedding. But, we stayed the week and had lots of fun. Me and Mom Chandler made doughnuts one day. Also, stew in the dutch oven several times. And we brought home lots of salted fish.

Later that same fall, Willis and Ardell lost their youngest boy. The doctor said it was from eating a bad water melon. As far back as I can remember, my folks were real close to Willis and Ardell Hackford, and Bill and I have had lots of good times with them. They were really true friends to us.

We in the Avalon community are now building a church house and everyone puts in all the time helping they can. I spend a lot of time this next two winters taking a hot dish to the men to eat with their sandwiches and helping what I can when they got to the painting stage. I spent all one winter every day helping paint it. I would walk up, me and Beatrice. There was someone there every day, but different crews. Only me and Genecice Jarman went every day. So the church boss, Mr. Bagley, that came out to check on us an tell us what to do put me in charge of the mixing of the paint and bossing the painters, because I was there most every day and still brought a hot dish for lunch. Then the Elders decided it was too much for me and began to assign different ladies to bring the hot soup or whatever. I kept going every day.

The next summer we take two weeks to move Dad and Vera to Baldwin Park, California. Hurley and George White now live there. They have a big place with lots of nice chicken coops on it. Dad wants to go into the chicken business, so again we take our big truck. We have taken the homemade camper off of it, so we put sheep wagon bows over the top and buy a new canvas for it. Again we take the same twenty people we took fishing and load up and leave for California. We had two bad scares on the way down. We went through Zion’s Canyon through the tunnels. They had a check station to check your lights just before we went into it. When we got into the tunnel, the kids all started yelling turn on your lights. Just around the first bend, there was a turn out and a hole cut to look down the canyon, but our big long truck couldn’t get off the road. Here we are in the road, when here comes a bus barreling through. He just got stopped about a foot from us. Jumps out and starts cussing Bill for not having his lights one. Bill says, “no lights”. “In that case, I will stay here with mine on until you get it fixed”. This he did. We were all pretty shook up.

Camped that night in southern Utah and the first thing Dad does is kill a rattlesnake, so we spent an uneasy night. The next day, we had another close call, there was a cow standing in the road on the left hand side. A car coming about 80 mph towards us. A small raise in the ground kept him from seeing the cow. He only had a very short distance to decide what to do, and he cut across in front of us. Missed us by inches and was a quarter of a mile out in the desert before he got stopped. If Bill hadn’t been going so slow, he would have hit us square. I shut my eyes and yelled, so did the other ladies. But we made it on to Hurley’s. Then the next day, with the canvas rolled up on the sides we picked up Hurley and Glenn and Amy Bower and her kids an went down to the Ocean. We were quite a novelty to California. They thought the circus was coming. But that was the first any of the bunch had seen the Ocean. And everyone went swimming in it, but Mom. Was quite a sight. Some of us only waded, but we all got wet. In those days you could pick up lots of big shells on the beach, now you can’t find anything.

Well, Dad [Ivan] raised him five hundred laying hens. He had plenty of chicken coops. He did all right with them. In a couple of years Vera got married to Kenny Weidner. Dad stayed on with his chickens. It wasn’t long until Willis and Ardell moved down with Dad. They later bought the place, and Dad moved in with Ken and Vera. By now, Dad’s not too well. Has got heart trouble. Had to sell his chickens, too much lifting. He come up and spent a summer or two with us, but the high altitude bothered him quite bad.

Dad never gave up trying to get us to move to L.A., but my experience in Oregon with the strike in the logging camp was all the working for wages I wanted.

Dad gradually got worse and every time he had to go to the hospital, they would call me. Dad is asking for you. In the next two years, I made ever so many trips to California. Sometimes I would catch a ride with someone on vacation and sometimes I would go by bus.

Then in the fall, before he died, we went down and stayed all winter. Elbert did our chores. Dad was so sure if he could get us down there we would stay, but the kids didn’t like it and we let Tom come home on the bus to help Elbert with the chores. Tom as about fourteen then. Bill went to work for Consolidated Rock Crusher. I worked in the fall, packing dates. Then I got a job in an aircraft factory using a rivet gun.

We moved in with Vera and Dad. They had a real big two story house in Corona and Vera’s husband, Kenny, was in the service and Vera had two little girls. She worked nights in a cafe. Earnie was about nine months old. Vera tended them days, I took care of them nights. Dad was real bad all winter. He was to be operated on and we were hurrying to get there in time for it. Just barely made it. Went in the next day, and they said they would operate the next morning at eight a.m. to remove one lung, as he had cancer of the lung. They shaved him, got him all ready. I was the only one allowed in with him that morning. I thought it was probably something they had given him, but when the specialist got there, he said “How do you feel, Ivan?” When Dad spoke, he said, “Put him back in bed.” Then they called us all in and told us it was too late. The gruff voice meant that it had spread to his voice box and he wouldn’t operate. Said he knew Dad real well and he knew Dad would rather be dead than hang on for another year or so and not be able to talk. Well Dad felt like the doctor, so no operation.

They kept him in the hospital for a couple of months, then said, “Take him home if you want to, that’s where he wants to be”. So we did. He was in a lot of pain and was never rational at night and I spent most of my nights with my head on Dad’s bed and sitting on a stool, as he smoked if he woke up rational, so someone had to stay with him. Then too, it was a problem to keep him in bed when he got restless. It’s a very hard thing to watch one you love so much die by just wasting away. I watched my Dad die with cancer, watched my sister Hurley die that way too. When I look back now, I think my mother died with cancer too. Then Uncle Odie, Dad’s youngest brother, was with us for four months just before he died with cancer of the lung and throat. His older brother Earn died with cancer too. That’s five out of one family. Dad used to tell my kids “When you are tempted to start smoking, just remember what your old Grandpa suffered, and don’t start smoking”. It worries me as most of my kids smoke. The specialist told me that you didn’t inherit cancer, but you inherit the weakness that caused it. But none of them believe me.

We made a rush trip home to Salt Lake in the spring because my sister Wanda’s husband, Owen Hansen, was killed; got hit by a train while at work. He was putting in overtime on Sunday. Dad said, “You will have to go back Ivy, to be with her, as she has no one else.” He said “I’ll be all right.” Well, it wasn’t too long after we left until he was back in the hospital, as Vera couldn’t take care of him alone, but Wanda moved down in the summer to Pasadena and I kept the road hot all summer, running back and forth. I don’t think that Wanda every forgave Dad for the trouble they had when she was young until she came to California that summer. She told me later that she went in everyday and spent hours talking to him. She told me she didn’t know how much he meant to her until then. But every time he would get worse, he would say “Call Ivy, ask her to come down again”.

I never had any trouble with my Dad when I was growing up. And I never talked back to him or argued with him. I loved him too much to quarrel with him.
Dad

The winter before Dad died, we spent the winter with him. He was in and out of the hospital. When he was at home, I spent most of my nights by his bed, as most of the night he wasn’t rational and he would rave and talk about his not keeping his promise to mother to have the kids sealed to them. This had bothered him ever since she had died. That’s what aged Dad so fast. He was a young man of 45 with black wavy hair when she passed away, but in a couple of years, he was an old man with gray hair. Now he knows he is about to die and according to our and his belief, he would see her again, if his temple work is done. Then he would say, “I don’t know how I will face her after not keeping my word and doing it myself. But better to have you do it than not to get it did”. I made ever so many trips to L.A. that next summer. Everyone we knew told everyone else that I would like to ride to L.A.. I made several trips with Young’s, Bert and Bill.

But I wasn’t there when he passed away.m But, he had also made us promise to bring him home and put him beside my mother. So, Willis and Ardell Hackford brought him home on the train to Murray. He was in the mortuary there for twenty four hours, as Grandma was in a wheel chair and couldn’t come to the Basin. But the rest all come. We held services in Tridell. Buried him beside his loving wife Elva Potter Turnern. It was hard to bury my father, but not as sad as seeing my young mother laid to rest at forty one years old. As now, he has all his family grown up. Vera is married to Kenneth Werdner and has two little girls and she was the youngest.
The Old Home Place

Well, the next few years just coasted along. Grandma [Mammie] and Clifford moved to Randlett and Roxie got married. Grandpa [E.M.] went to Southern Utah, prospecting for Uranium. He just had the place leased. We traded him our tent, camp stove and camping equipment for what few things he had left, which was mostly a bunch of horses. He had two cows left. He butchered one of them, sold the other. Years later we bought the place from a Rogers in New York. Borrowed the money from N.J. Maugher, that’s the old place where we raised our family. Times were hard the next few years. We built a cistern for drinking water. Dug a couple of wells to help with the garden. Built a bigger pond for stock watering. The drought had gotten a little better, but many’s the time we planted forty or eighty acres of grain and watched it burn up or blow away. We all worked hard to make a living and until Tom got old enough to drive a team, I did. Helped plow and plant and harvest what little we could grow. We got a few cows, pigs and chickens all these helped us live and raise our family. Then we had two more boys when we come home from Oregon: Earnieo in ‘44, Jimp in ‘48. After Earnie was born, I had what they called milk lag. It’s a blood clot, and I was in bed for three months. This didn’t help. At this time, Tom was fourteen, Elva was twelve, Mort was ten and Bea was eight. They managed pretty good job with the house. By canning time, I was up and around, able to help some and do the bossing. Bill and the boys helped, too.

While the kids were growing up, we usually took our truck or Jess took his and we took the kids to Roosevelt Saturday afternoon. Took our kids and all their friends to the afternoon show, while we did what little shopping we had to do. This continued all through their teens. One time we sure got a scare when Jim was about three. Bea and Veda Wall used to take him with them. We didn’t realize that Jim’s eyes were so bad he couldn’t see the show and he used to run around a lot. When the show was over, one time they couldn’t find Jim. He had gone out the back door and left. The girls all come out a crying and the search was on. It was poppy day in town. We ask a guy selling poppies if he saw a little lost boy. He said “Yes, we saw him. But he wasn’t lost. He talked to us quite some time ago. We gave him a poppy.” Well, Bea and Veda found him five blocks west of town throwing rocks through a fence at some chickens. That ended his shows for quite some time.

Then too, we all used to go to the Duchesne River Sunday afternoon, so all the kids could go swimming. Well, Carol Jensen and Elva had just learned to swim and they were racing across the swimming hole. One got ahead, the other grabbed her foot, they both went down. They popped up and down like a jack in a box. At first they were laughing, pulling each other down. But they nearly drowned before the boys realized they were in trouble and pulled them out.

We had the Chandler kids, the Jensen’s the Wall’s, the Wahlquist’s and the MCMullin’s and the Harris boys for most of the places we took them. In the winter, they used to hitch the team on the bob sled and go sleigh riding. They would put straw, the hot rocks wrapped in gunny sacks on the bottom, then some quilts. This made it so they could play in the snow or slide behind the sled. Then get in and get warm. So they always come home wet from head to toe. I don’t know how they stayed well.

Speaking of sledding, when they were all going to Leota by bus, we had about a foot of snow on the ground, we had a blizzard. Wind and snow started about noon. Drifted so fast that the bus never left the school. Mrs. Cooper was one teacher, they had two then. They were fixing to keep them all night. Bill gets the harness on his team, on the big sled, when here comes Harold Dudley with his team. They put four horses on the sled and went to Leota and brought the kids all home that lived here in the valley. It took them six or seven hours to get through, some of the drifts, the horses could hardly make it.

Another thing the kids did was ice skating—that’s more winter fun. Another thing they did was pull each other with a rope on a sled behind the saddle horses.

Ever since Bill and I have been married, seems like we have had someone living with us off and on. When we first moved onto the old place, after we come back from Oregon, we had my Dad and my sister live with us for a while. Then we moved him to California. This is in 1939 and 1940. Then Robert Moore got out of work. Jobs were hard to come by and pay was small. He went south to look for work. On the farm we always had plenty of milk, butter and eggs. Also, chickens and pork. So Ella, his sister and her four kids moved in for several months. But she always carried her share of work and was good to be around. We never had any trouble. Only Elva and Bob fought but Ella was one that I hated to see leave. But they ended up in California and did fine from then on. Then when Grace and Mort were first married, they lived in for a few months. Then Grace and Mort and Roxie and Marvin drifted to California and went into the clothing business. They did fine, too. Then we lived across the Duchesne River for two or three years and my sister Bernice and Vern lived with us for about one and a half years. She was one that could do less and expect more than anyone I ever had around. Then Bill helped Earnie move a house down from LaPoint and rebuild it over on the sand wash. They lived here for quite a few years. Then over the years, our kids have lived with us at different times. Sometimes months and sometimes a year or more. We have always loved to have the kids come home, but one hates to see them out of work. But there is always plenty of work on the farm and plenty to eat, but the pay is always poor. While Roy was in the army and over seas, Elva lived at home. She had Craigq then. When Roy got out of the service he was here too for one summer. Bill had just bought a new wire tie hay bailer, it was a hand tie. One guy sat on each side and each tied a wire as the bail went through. Roy said he never ate so much dust. Then he helped Bill put up hay across the river on the Abbot place and ate mosquitoes, they were really thick. He said every time he opened his mouth he got it full of mosquitoes. Roy was fun to have around, and no matter what I fixed to eat he always flattered me about my cooking. Made one feel good anyway.

Then our place has always been a place where all Bill’s folks and mine could come on vacation and go fishing and hunting. So we have always had lots of company. This we enjoy too. Most of them help out with groceries while here.

Then my brother, Harlan, lived with me for about ten years before he died. Him and Helen and Annie lived with us off and on over the years. Annie has always been like my own kid to me. Harlan’s wife, Helenr, had diphtheria and it left her real deaf and real bad eyesight too. So it made it real hard for her to take care of Annie, so she never got much care. Mainly, Harlan took care of her, and I had to run back and forth to take them to the doctor. Mainly, Harlan, as he had high blood pressure most of his life and developed a heart condition in early life too. When Annie was real small we built them a pine log house down by the pond at the old place. Here they lived for about four years. Then Helen’s dad convinced them we should pay Harlan for anything he did around the place. They paid no rent and we kept them in milk, eggs and we had a garden and I could look after them. The garden Harlan helped me with but he, Mr. Woodruff, talked them into moving from here. Annie had a hard life. She learned to do for herself real young. We went and helped her what I could, as she was always asking to come and stay with us as my girls and her got along so good. Well, Helen got the idea that I was trying to take Ann away from them, so she always made a fuss every time she come down. But Harlan still let her come a lot over the years. She stayed and went to school with our kids several winters, but Helen never really liked this. Well, I could see why as Ann was all she had, but I thought that Ann needed our family. We all loved her and she was just one of our girls. She has always been a part of our family.

We didn’t see much of her after she married Bryan as he was a twenty year man in the service but we saw them a few times over the years. Now she is back with our family as they live at Randlett and I see them as much or more than I do my own kids. We are proud of her and Bryan and their family as I am happy that they live close to us. When she was staying with us we would take her home every week or two to spend the weekend with them. I realize this was hard on them and hard on Ann, but she grew up to be one of the sweetest people I know and I love her like my own daughters.

We built a new home in 1946 or 1947 on the old place. It was a real nice home and big after what we were use to with three bedrooms, a den and a fireplace. Altogether, we had eight rooms. We was only use to three big rooms. Bill and I and the kids built it. In them days we sawed the boards by hand, also mixed the cement by hand. Took us two years to build it and make a living too. When we moved into it we had the power in the valley. At this time, my sister Bernice had been in Hurricane, Utah for six or eight years and she had developed kidney trouble and was real sick. One time when she had just got out of the hospital, I went to Hurricane and spent six weeks with her. Left the kids with Bill. This was summer time and was real hot. But she was never well again.

Another time during the war when it was hard to get tires or car parts we went to Hurricane to spend Christmas with them. Dad and Vera were coming up from Los Angeles but we did have trouble going down. Left here after the school program about eleven p.m. Was about a foot of snow here and real cold but our car was in pretty good shape. This was the Christmas before Earnie was born.

Well, we got to the old rock service station that use to be at the head of Daniels Canyon and Bill says I got a flat. Its about two a.m. We coast into the station and it is closed. You could see they had a pot bellied heater, it was red hot. Bill tried to get him to let him in to fix the flats, two of them, both nails. One tire had two nails. He wouldn’t open up. It was so cold Bill was about to freeze, so I get out and hammer on the door and tell him I am going to set the place on fire if he don’t let us in. So he gets up and lets us in, but he was sure mad about it. Several years later the place did burn down but we never stopped there again.

But those flats started our trouble. We had seven flats before we got there, mostly nails. Had one at Cedar City, had the service station fix it. It was the night before Christmas. The guys were drinking and partying and he put air in it to find the hole and blew up the inner tube. It took them two hours to find another tube. We were about twenty two hours getting to Hurricane. I sure hated to start back but never had a bit of trouble coming home. We stayed ten days. All our married life, if we wanted to go some place, we would get the neighbor kids to do our chores. They usually do them for the cream check and the eggs.

Right after we got our new house built, Bernice and her family moved into our old house. Some of the boys were married then, they came too. Here Bernice lived until she dieds two or three years later. I was always glad that she was there so I could help her and look after her when she was sick. I think she was happy there with me. I know I loved having her, but it is hard to see your loved ones suffer like she did. Just die by inches over a period of years.

Grandma Chandler is now spending her winters with the ones in California and her summers with us so we built a shell camper on our pickup truck, take all our kids and Bea’s girlfriend, Veda Wall, to California for Christmas. Mort takes Bill Harris, his friend. Well, we stop at Stella’s and Darwin’s in Price18 to spend the night and they want to go so we load up them and their five kids. The four grownups ride in the cab. We stayed ten days. When we got back to Price, Stella and Darwin were digging a basement under their house but didn’t have it blocked up yet, so they found their water heater frozen and broken and washed away one side of the wall and the house had caved in on that side. So they moved to California. Been there ever since and doing fine.

Grandma Chandler always loved pheasant. And one time just a few months before Ruth, Elbert’s wife, died with cancer mom was staying with them. She saw Mort one day and said “You know Mort, I still love pheasant.” Well, Elbert was game warden then. Sunday morning they had all gone to church. Mort takes his four/ten and kills three big roosters. Slips them into Elbert’s kitchen, lays them on his table feathers and all. When Elbert got home he was quite upset. “Who would do this to me?” Mom said she never said a word, just cleaned them and cooked them. My kids all loved grandma. She loved to play cards. She would help the kids finish their work so they could play cards with her. Any kind, rummy, pinochle, canasta, or sluff or high five. That’s some of the games she taught the kids. They sometimes played poker.
The Family

By this time the older kids are married. Tom married Leah Pickupt, Elva married Roy MCKeeu, Mort married Carolyn Rossv. Bea was working at Sweet’s Candy Company in Salt Lake.

When Bill and I decided to drive to Alaska, Bea quit her job to go with us. There was Bill and I, Bea, Earnie and Jim. Jim was about eight or nine years old. We had a brand new Chevy car so we gathered up a camp outfit, we took a butane hot plate, we took a small butane bottle, a quilt and a sheet for each of us, also an air mattress. Fold the sheet inside your quilt, lay it on the air mattress, you got a good bed. We also took our groceries: Canned chicken and fish, canned soups of all kinds, also tomatoes canned and fresh, also vegetables canned and fresh and eggs. So all we had to buy on the road was bread and milk or anything extra we wanted. Elva and Roy are now living in Idaho. We go to there and spend a few days with them. The first night we drive to Glacier Park on the Canada border. Even that far north the sun didn’t go down until ten thirty. When we got to Edmonton, Canada, that’s the first big shopping center we had ever saw. It was like the Cottonwood Mall in Salt Lake now.

At Dawson Creek, that’s where the road forks, go any direction from there. The only road north was the Alaskan highway sixteen hundred miles to Alaska. The road was built by the government for a transport road for trucks and equipment and was it crooked and worn out—pot holes and really rough. It was one long day’s drive from Dawson to White Horse. This is on the Yukon River. They had a big river boat docked there. This is where the river boats use to come up to here from the ocean. There was some places along the way where they had tracks to pull the boats around the places that they couldn’t go up the river. They used horses for this job. From here on the Fairbanks, Alaska, it is wilderness—just like a jungle but no big timber, nothing big enough to even make good poles and water and lakes everywhere. Water in both bar pits. The only place you could get off the road was on manmade camp grounds. Rivers and lakes. Natural lakes—some of them eight miles long. You had to fill up at everywhere there was gas and carry a five gallon gas can with you to make it to the next gas. Very few places that anyone could buy groceries and not a living thing—bird or animal—for at least a thousand miles. The reason for this was it was to far to migrate and too much snow and cold to stay there. Most of this sixteen hundred miles of road was through Canada and they had the best and most well kept campgrounds anywhere we have ever been. They furnished wood and at least one screened in building that people could put their sleeping bags in if they want to be in out of the mosquitoes.

This was their youth program and there were two young people who would bring you wood and water as soon as you stopped. Everything was so well kept and clean. We bought fishing licenses in each Provence so we could stop and fish. They were only a dollar then. All the lakes and streams had fish in them so we had fish anytime we wanted it. I can’t remember for sure but it seems like it took us five or six days to drive it—long days and nights.

We were gone from home a little over a month. Grandma Chandler [Mammie] had flew up to be there when we were there. Hazel, Bill’s sister, lived at Fairbanks. Orval also lived there too. He was a carpenter at Ladd Army Air Base. We were there two weeks and saw everything of interest in two or three hundred miles. The only way back was back down the Alaskan Highway. For probably a hundred miles or more we went down the top of a mountain, going due north and between two of the biggest rivers in the United States. One was the Yukon, I can’t remember the name of the other. Not a drop of either river at that time was used for anything but to look at and to fish in. About half way in we stopped to camp. The mosquitoes were so big and so thick that we couldn’t cook dinner. That’s the only time we traveled all night.

When we got to Alaska, we hadn’t been there an hour when Mom and Hazel got us into a card game. We played for an hour or two, then Hazel said “We’s better break it off and let these guys get to sleep”. I glanced out the window and said, “The sun is way up yet.” She says, “Look at the clock”. It was eleven p.m. I asked “How do you sleep when the sun is still up?” “Well, you pull the blinds down and go to bed.” We were there the middle of July. The sun went out of sight for about an hour, but never got at all dark. Bill took some pictures at twelve midnight without any flash. Hazel said, “By the end of July the sun would only be gone from the sky thirty minutes, then in the winter they never see the sun for months.” She said for three months it never gets light. We are always so glad, even when it gets so it is light a few hours a day. Then too the season is so short.

They had a beautiful garden, most everything they started in their green house. Lots of things won’t grow there because the ground is frozen the year around at a depth of three feet. Then too, there is no bees and they have to pollinate everything by hand. Pick a squash bloom, dust the others with it. T

his goes on with everything. Hazel took the state fair with a fifty pound cabbage. They plant their tomatoes from their green house by a wire fence. Tie them up to it to keep them off the cold ground. Then too, they put bright tin on the north side. Also tied to the fence. This reflects the sun back on them, helps them get ripe quicker.

When we come out to Dawson Creek on the way home, where the roads fork, we went west to the coast. Down the Hart Highway to the Fraizer River. I think this drive at that time, about 1956, down this river was the most unusual I have ever saw. The road was built down the river canyon on trussels out over the water as the sides were to rugged to make roads at that time. It was really beautiful. We went into Seattle, Washington, down into Oregon, across the bridle and up the Columbia River. Drive another beautiful river, then down through Idaho. Took the Snake River back to Roy and Elva’s. Was gone a little over a month from there. I forgot to mention that when we were coming out on our way home, about five or six hundred miles from Fair Banks, we stopped at the last store for hundreds of miles to stock up in a few things. They told us that they had a terrible storm about a hundred miles ahead and had washed out a hundred and fifty miles of road down a canyon. Took out bridges, road and everything and the state said it would take four or five days to get through at all. They had started two big cats at each end and they were just bull dozing holes full, breaking banks down so the traffic cold go through. So we just pulled off on a river and went fishing for four days. Then drove down to see how it was doing and there were four or five hundred cars lined up for miles waiting to get across. Most of them didn’t have bedding, food or anything for such an emergency. Well, it took them four days before traffic started through. Then it took about a full day to cover that hundred and fifty miles of terrible canyon. Again, we pulled out of line and camped. We let all that traffic get out of the way before we went through. We heard on the radio that there was between four and five hundred cars on each side of the washout. Those that were pulling trailer houses sure got the back end tore out coming through that awful road. Was just a cat trail.
The Fire and Beatrice’s Marriage

This is a good place to tell about our house burning. The first home we built burned down the first of January 1958. It was about eleven years old. I was up at the school house helping get things ready for a ward reunion, when I come out to go home, I could see some smoke but I wasn’t too worried at first, as Mort and Carolyn and Keith (Carolyn was expecting [Kim]) also Annie [Harlan and Helen’s daughter] and her three little girls were living with us at the time. Bill, Earnie and Jim were watching TV. Mort and Carolyn were still working outside. He come in to tell Bill there was smoke coming out from under the eves of the house. It had started in the attic. Annie’s three babies were in the bedroom asleep. They got them out first. Got the piano out and Bea’s new case of silver service and Bill’s guns—part of them. The Dudley’s got there right behind me, and Ron and Mort got the deep freeze off the porch. Don’t know how they ever did it, excitement I guess.

We didn’t save hardly anything out of the house. One gets so excited. We had hinged copper shingles on it. If we could of got our heads to work, we could of cut a hole in the roof with an ax and let the smoke go up as the pressure in the attic blew the sheet rock off the ceiling in the hall and smoke boiled into the house. Probably ten or fifteen minutes before there was any blaze in the house. One don’t think until it’s too late.

Two days after the fire Beatrice called. She was working in Idaho. Said she was coming home May 3rd to be marriedw at home. Well, the neighbors were real good. Also the church. They brought us new sheets and blankets, clothes for everyone. Jessie and LaRue [Pickup] took Annie and the girls for a few days. We went to Tom’s until we could get into Bert Stoddard’s basement across from where Willard lives now. Well, it’s the Barrit place now. Carolyn moved out to her folks and Mort started right in hauling off the ashes and appliances. Quite a job, getting the junk out of the basement. And as soon as we got our insurance we started to rebuild. By then, Mort had gone to Salt Lake to work.

I guess that’s about the hardest we ever worked. As by May we had it finished. Made a quick trip to Los Angeles after carpet. Got it from Bill Stevens, below wholesale prices. We also brought Roy and Elva and family back for the wedding.

We rebuilt on the same basement and Bill and I did most of the work. But this time, we did have a electric saw. But we were younger then. Then we sold that house in 1967 and built this one. I liked the house plan better in the old home, but am quite happy with this one.
Fishing and Hunting Trips

I can’t remember dates on times these trips were taken, but the first time Bill and I went Elk hunting we went to Hill Creek, way out. Made camp. The next morning we were out on the mountain before daylight. Well, we were new at this and we followed a fresh trail for about a mile and caught up with some white face cows. Well, then we started down a big long ridge. I always tell people we run this elk down. Bill was on top of the ridge, I was about a hundred yards down on the side, in the timber, when I saw a herd ahead of me. I yelled to Bill to make it down to the point. He puts the whip to his horse and makes it ahead of the elk. He hollers at me to see where I am at. When I answer, he shoots and hits it low in the back, but not enough to kill it. He tells me “Tie your horse up and follow him down the hill.” This I did. When the elk started to run down that hill, he never stopped for nothing. He would hit quakie’s four or five inches through and snap them right off. Well, we trailed him about a mile straight down to the bottom of the mountain. He crossed over and started up the other side. Well, Bill kneeled down and shot two more times. The elk went into a little bunch of quakie’s in a small draw. Bill says, “You stay here and watch him, if he comes out holler and tell me which way he is headed.” Well, he never come out. Pretty soon Bill called me over. You will never believe this, but that elk had fallen where the bank was quite steep and he had one front leg on the upper side of a tree and a horn stuck in the ground down side of the leg. He was just hung there. But dead, of course. When Bill gutted him out the entails fell fifteen or twenty feet down the draw. Then Bill goes and gets the horses. But when we try to get him out of there we have to quarter him up, tie a rope to one hind quarter, with couple of half hitches around a tree as far up as the rope will reach. Then he cut the quarter loose. Then he lifts. I take up the slack. That’s the way we got that whole thing up to where we could load it on the horses. We unloaded it about the same way. Put a half on each horse, but the horses had a hard time to keep their from feet on the ground as the meat would swing to the back. I thought he was sure going to lose a horse down the hill, but finally made it to the top about sundown. Had killed it at 10:00 a.m. By now I am so tired, I don’t think that I can make it to camp, which is two or three miles, so Bill puts a rain coat on top of the meat on the biggest horse, leads him up to a dead tree, says “Climb on.” Well, when I got up on top of that meat I told Bill, “Now I know what it’s like to ride on top of a camel!”

Well, we have killed lots of elk since, but that was the biggest one we ever got dressed out. Between four and five hundred pounds.
Deer Hunt

Another time we went deer hunting out in Greens Canyon, that’s east of Hill Creek. We rode our horses two or three miles from camp and Bill shoots a two‑point. After he shoots we see a big one go into the timber. Well, for years he tells me you can’t drive a deer any where. Well I proved him wrong. I ask him if he cares if I go look for the big one when he dresses this one out. He says, “No, but its miles from here by now”. But I get on my pinto horse and made a big swing out into the cedars, about a half mile and hit the draw he is in a mile or more down stream. I am coming up the trail. There are little draws coming into the main one and I come up to one of these and about fifty yards across the draw is a big four‑point laying under a tree. I jump off and shoot, missed of course, so I take off up the trail on a dead run. Bill hears us coming, picks up his gun. That buck is about forty feet, coming right at him. He shoots him right into the chest, right through the heart. When I come around the bend right behind the deer I said, “Don’t tell me I can’t drive a deer to you any more.” This is only one of the many dozens of deer stories I could relate. I will put down a few of the most outstanding.



Deer hunting close to home while Harlan, my brother, was still living with us we decided to go down south of the old place. Between the Duchesne River and the Green River on opening morning. Bill and I load our horses. Harlan won’t ride anymore. Well, we go down the west side of the hill until the road is real close to the river and there is a big four‑point buck standing on the skyline. So we unload our horses. The draw forks up there about a quarter of a mile. The deer is on the middle ridge. Bill tells me to get on my pinto horse and go back to where the pipeline comes across and get behind it. Well, I just get to where he sent me and I hear him shoot, so I pile off my horse. Just then he comes over the hill. I shoot an break a front leg. It turns and goes back down the draw past Bill. I hear him shoot two times, so I get on my horse and gallop down where he is. I said, “Did you get him?” He said, “We got all three.” They had two right close together, but when he went to cut the third ones throat it was gone. It had rolled to the bottom of the hill and looked like he was flopping one leg. I asked him if I could go look for it while they dressed those two out, he said yes but it is probably ten miles from here. Well, it was about two miles to the Indian drift fence, four foot high. Well, I head for the drift fence. There is a trail around it, and I am going down it on a trot looking for him. When my horse spots him out in the timber about fifty feet away. He is really going on a run, so I kick my horse, he keeps up with my horse on a gallop. I think if I can beat him to the next clearing I might get him. Something looked queer about him. All I could see was that big set of horns. When he comes out into the clearing I start and break a front leg. I can see now what looks wrong, both back legs were shot off at the hock joint. My horse runs away. I follow him into the brush, get another shot at him. About that time here comes Bill, leading my horse. I tell him I got him, no use of me going after a good deer as I had a heck of a time getting this one with both back legs off at the half way mark. We had all three filled up, all four‑points, and all big. They dressed out 205-210 or 215.

That was my last deer hunt with my brother as he went to Washington in the spring to spend the summer with Annie. He stayed until just before Christmas. Died in Salt Lake on Christmas day. We had gone to California to spend Christmas with the kids, I talked to him as we went through. He said he would come out after the holidays, and take care of his rabbits and help Earnie and Joan do the chores. We got to California one day when Tom called to tell us what happened, so we flew home to take care of his services. Flew back the next week. I really missed Harlan, as I had looked after him all his life, and for the last ten years he had lived with us. Him and me had fished every stream and lake in the Basin. He would buy the gas, and we would go some where two or three times a week. Well I had lost the best fishing partner I ever had. He would help me with the yard and garden so I would have time to take him fishing. These are special memories to me.

I don’t think that Bill has missed a deer hunt since we come back from Oregon. Tom either, since he got old enough. Most of the guys in the community all went the same place, and they all took horses to the Book Cliff mountains. Two guys would take all the horses, ride one, tie the rest to each others tails and lead them. It took two days to get out there. Bill usually was one to ride out. Elbert took his and Bill’s camp. He would leave the same day, stop and pitch their tent at the half way place, camp there and get on out the next day. Never until the last few years did they ever come back without their deer. I have always loved to fish and hunt, or just camp out, but didn’t start going much until I got my family big enough to take care of their selves and do chores.

But even when I stayed home to do chores, I used to take my pinto horse, she could carry me all day and still jump out from under me if she got spooked. This she did once in a while, but I have never got hurt falling off a horse, or not anything but my feelings. Bill hunted with his old 44.40x for years. Then he got a new 270 and I took the 44. The next day after they left Jim and I used to go up the wash or down on the river. We would see lots of deer, but could never get off in time to hit one. But Jim was like me, loved to ride a horse, and we had fun.
Deer Hunting with Jim

When Jim was about twelve years old, him and I were home choring. We went up the sand wash, north of the valley. I had the old .44, he had the .22. We saw lots of deer, but couldn’t get close enough to kill one. I got separated from Jim and Bruce. They come home, they had got a two‑point. I rode out on one of those sand rock ledge points, got off Patches, set down to watch for the boys, and a big four‑point come out from under the ledge about ten feet from me. Well, I got so excited I fired and missed. Then I didn’t pull the lever clear down and got an empty shell caught in the gun. Couldn’t get it out, and the deer ran across the little draw and stopped under another ledge rock. Well, thirty minutes later he sneaked up the hill with me still trying to get the shell out. Next day we went to Duchesne River, got down there in the tamarack, could see the deer while on horse back, but when we got off couldn’t see them. Jim held my horse while I tried to hit one. When the gun went off he turned her loose. The horse jumped, left me setting in the tamarack.

Well, this is two of the many trips I took. Another time I rode Patches up to the head of a draw and twelve deer were just coming up. They split and went both ways around me. Mort had chased deer on Patches so much, that she took after them and I had a ride of my life for one mile. I lost my hat, as she jumped sage brush. Nearly lost me and the gun several times.

Morton is like me when it comes to stock, especially horses. Both him and Jim love horses. When Mort was growing up he rode his horse every day, winter and summer. If he didn’t have something to do on his horse, he rode it for fun. We had one little black mare that two or three people had taken for a month or two to break, and she just got meaner. They would bring her back. She bucked into a place where the water was running, and fell with Bill and rolled him in the mud. He turned her loose. No one tried to ride her for a year or two, then Mort about twelve years old caught her up. I was scared stiff. Afraid he would get hurt, but in a few months she was broke, and broke good. In a year or two anyone could ride her. She turned out to be one of the best horses we ever had.

All the neighbors used to tell me that Mort, also Jim was going to get killed. They went on a dead run everywhere they went. I used to tell them I did the same thing all my life. Been thrown or fell off hundred of times over the years. I never got hurt. The years before Bill talked me into selling my Pinto horse, she left me in the trail two or three times. Then I was pushing sixty years old. Never worried to much about the boys on horses.

Stan Nebecker told me once when we had that five hundred head of old ewes, and I was herding them and fixing fence, that if he saw someone going on a horse on the run he knew without asking it was Ivy. I still love to ride and I am sixty nine years old.
My Lyon Chase

One time when all the kids had married and left home, Mort, Jim, and Earnie and their families were living in Salt Lake. I stayed home and Bill and Tom had gone to the Book Cliff hunting. I take my pinto horse and go down in those blue clay hills five or six miles north of our old place hunting. I had Bill’s old 44 with me. I see a dust going around Austin Wardle’s west fence, right next to the hills. I think it is a deer. Well, I didn’t know a horse could run down a mountain lyon, but they can. When I caught up with it, it was a lyon. At first my horse was real frightened of him. He was out in a shale scale flat. Well, I stayed south and west of him, and chased him back and forth across those flats all afternoon. He was trying to go back to the hills on the Duchesne River and I stayed in his road. He got so tired that when I stopped to let my horse rest a few minutes, he would lay down. Just like a dog that tired with its tongue hanging out. We used to live down there below Pelican Lake. That flat is six or eight miles long. I kept him in that flat west of the road all afternoon, until sundown. I kept thinking someone would show up to shoot him. I had plenty of good close shots, but that morning I had forgot to bring a long rope for my horse. She was gun shy and I was afraid she would jerk the rains out of my hand and leave me down there with that lyon if I missed him. I drove him up to Jess Jensen’s south fence. When I got home the kids had got in from Salt Lake. But couldn’t find him. When Bill got home he said he was worth $100. If I had known that I would still be after him.

One More Deer Story

I Will Relate, and That’s All



This happened years ago when I was still staying home to do chores. Bill had been to the Book Cliffs with the crowd of men. He got home, we had two days of the season left. I tell him I am going down south of the old place, same area that I saw the Lyon a few years before, does he want to go along. We saddle up our horses. By now I have a new 243. I still have it, a very good gun. We get down next to the big draw. I am on top of the hill. Bill is going around the hill near the bottom covering the small draws to scare one up to me. Well, I ride out to the edge to look down to see where he is and he is following the biggest deer we had ever saw. The horns looked like elk horns, they were so big. But Bill hadn’t saw him yet. There was a saddle in the mountain about a quarter of a mile ahead of the big deer. I make up my mind if I can make it to the saddle first I can turn him and he will go back past Bill and he will get him. Well, I kick my horse, go on a dead run for the saddle. Well, me and the deer both make it to the saddle at the same time. Both on a dead run. The horse and the deer both stop. I go over my horses head land right beside the deer. We are both down. I come up on my hands and knees. The deer is getting up too. I could of reached out and touched him, but he turned back down the hill past Bill. That’s about as scared as I have ever been, but the deer was scared too and turned back when he got up. Bill emptied the old 44 at him and never touches him. I stood and watched him shoot and I never fired a shot. Bill has always been a dead shot, and every time he fired I would look for him to fall. Bill hadn’t shot the old 44 for ten years, and he was used to the 270 and its real fast gun. But he was out of shells for it and took the 44. The hill was steep and blue clay. The deer was jumping thirty or forty feet at a jump. And he couldn’t lead him far enough to get him. He looks up at me and says, “Why didn’t you shoot, there goes your jeep from Ziniks Sporting Goods.” [note; Ziniks sporting goods store had a “Big Buck” contest each year for the Deer Hunt, and would give away a vehicle to the winner, based on points and spread]

Well, we have had fifty years of these kind of things happening. I have only related the ones that I have been evolved in. Then only a few. Roy used to say, “I am going to stay close to mom, she always sees all the big ones.” Then if he did, you would hear me yell, “There he goes Roy, shoot him.”
Another Trip Bill and I Went On

The ditch company were trying to get some one to go back in the toollies, to White Rocks Lake and Cliff Lake to take the drift wood out of the spill way. Bill told them he and I would go. We took two horses in the pickup truck, one saddle bag, one piece of new canvas ten by twenty feet. Folded it for a saddle blanket. Took our double sleeping bag, tied it behind my saddle. Took enough food to last us a week in the saddle bags. It has a pocket on each side. We took tea, sugar, rice, hot cake flour, eggs, packed the eggs in a can and poured the rice over them. Small cans of tomato sauce. Small cans of milk, and a few potatoes and macaroni. I think that’s about all. Had to go to the end of the road and ride back in sixteen miles. We stopped at Grant’s store and Grant wanted to know how many pack horses we were taking. Bill told him “none.” He said, “How long you plan on staying?” “One week” Bill says. Grant said, “You can’t make it, you’ll be back before that.” But we got up there, stretched our canvas over a pole between two trees quite close to the ground, made our bed under that. Of course we had fishing poles. I carried them in my hand. So we had fish to eat. And after the week we had food left.

We were to turn more water in the ditch, and had to go back in ten days so we hide our food we had left under a piece of tin so we could use it when we went back in. Also left our skillet and coffee pot. I forgot to mention, the first night we were there it rained hard most all night. Just about day light I poke Bill and say, “Move over, the water is running under the air mattress on my side”. He says, “Well don’t feel bad.” It’s a good thing we are on air mattresses as I think we are floating.
Another Trip To The Lakes

We used to have a jeep, short wheel base. You could get back to the lakes in it. We bought it when the company was building the lakes, as Bill worked for them with a chain saw cutting trees out of the lake bed. Me and Jim and Bill stayed up there two and a half months then. We still had the jeep. Bill was to take Grant Brough to help him, and I went along. They were to close the head gate in the lake and move some big drift wood out of the spill way. Well, we took our tent this time and camp outfit. We got up there just before sun down. Pitched our tent, made camp.

This was the first week in October and it started to snow just a little bit. The guys said it isn’t going to snow much. You can tell from the sky. So we go to bed. In the middle of the night the tent fell down on us. There was a least a foot of snow, and the wind was blowing a gale. Well, we got the tent back up and build a fire. Went back to sleep. Pretty soon Grant says, “Bill I believe it’s getting light.” So we get up cook breakfast. Still darker than pitch out there, no one had a watch. We set around a while and went back to bed, probably another hour any way before day light. Bill says, “Let’s get up and get out of here. We’ll shut the head gate, to hell with the drift wood”.

We have never had any trouble with the jeep, but this morning it won’t start. Raise the hood, it is drifted snow inside. Bill drains the oil, heats it on the stove, and takes the battery in to get it warmed up. Bill had taken an extra battery. Took it inside to get every thing warmed up. Still no start. Run the batteries both down. Grant said, “Now what will we do?” Bill jacked up one wheel. Wound the lariat rope we had around the tire. I got in it to hold the clutch down if it started. Him and Grant would run with the rope. It would sound like it was started. I push the clutch in. They both fall in the snow. We work at this, it seems for hours. Pretty soon Bill says, “Do you think that you can walk out of here?” I said, “I can if you can.” But Grant says he can’t. So, we start cranking again with the wheel. A few more times and it starts. Well, we hurry and throw the camp in and start out. Well, the snow had covered the big rocks and we had an awful time getting out. Took us all day. But never let it stop or kill the motor till we got home and found out the coil had burned out. Had to have a new one before it ever run any more. But when we got back to Grant Pickup’s store he said, “If you hadn’t got back today, we would of sent some one after you.”
Hunting With Tom

For the last eight or ten years we have went with Tom. Sometimes Dick Williams, his buddy is along, but always Tom. One year we hunt elk with Tom from Bear River to Goslin Mountain, north of Dutch John. The season opened ten days earlier on Bear River and I think we went up every road that went into the high mountains from Bear River to Goslin Mountain before we found a herd. Got two bulls, took us three weekends and one full week.

We go with Tom every year both deer hunting and elk hunting. Some times Mort can make it up from Los Angeles and sometimes Earnie goes along. Last year we had Bryan Wickham, that’s Harlan’s son‑in‑law, Annie’s husband. Had his two boys along. Earnie and boys were there last year. Keithy and Susan, Mort and Virginia, also Chrisz, Tom’s boy. Rodaa Toms other boy was in the Navy. Had about fifteen in our camp deer hunting. We went way out on the head of Bitter Creek, next to the Colorado line. We have had a lot of good trips with Tom and the other boys. As I said before we love to go hunting and camping. Sometimes the last few years we don’t always get one, but love to go anyway. Earnie loves to hunt too, and if it’s at all possible he goes along. He has quit several jobs to go.

Years ago, before Robert Moore died, we were all out in the Book Cliffs, down south canyon. Had about twenty in camp that year. Bill and I, Elbert, Tom, Morton, Robert and Ella, Bill and Marge Stevens, his boss and his wife, Clifford Chandler, Grace and Morton Wardle, and my brother Earnie. We were camped on a stream by a high mountain. Two deer come down to get a drink. Well, about ten or twelve guns started to bang away. Sounded like an army. They didn’t see them until they started back up the mountain. They never got either of them. That’s one of the trips I really remember. We had such a good time picnic‑ing and visiting when they weren’t hunting.

One night around the campfire they got to talking about shells and guns. Robert Moore had a shell that he brought home from the service, about six inches long. It had been fired, and he had made a lead for it out of wood. “Did you ever see one like this?” he said. Some one said let me see it. Robert reached it to him and let it slip into the fire. Well, he sure cleared camp, down over the bank and behind rocks, until someone looked back and saw Ella standing there just laughing.

Another time when Grace and Morton [Wardle] come up, Mort forget his hunting shoes and it was before he got his gun. The first night it snowed four or five inches. Here is Mort, dress shoes, silk socks. Well Bill digs into a grub box, and gets him a pair of woolen socks. Takes him hunting with the old 44. They get up a buck, Mort starts to shoot down one side up the other. The 44 held eighteen shells. He emptied the gun and added some more before he got it. Bill was standing up on a rock yelling, “Hit him Wardle.” Mort would shoot then run to get a better shot and fall down. Shoot from laying down. Finally the deer went down. When they dressed him out he had eleven holes in it before he got a killing shot. Later Mort said he was so tired and Bill kept yelling at him. He said he didn’t know whether to shoot at the deer or turn and take a shot at Bill so he would shut up.
Wyoming Hunting

About twelve years ago we went to Wyoming to help our daughter, Beatrice, and Melvin Davis build onto a four room house that they had bought. We build on to it an made a three bedroom home out of it with a lovely big living room with a rock fireplace. While we were there we decided to go hunting with them. Bill bought a deer license, and you hunt deer and elk at the same time over there. Melvin had a sort wheel base jeep and we had a ball. Got four deer and Melvin had three elk permits. One cow and two bulls. Well we filled up. That got us started and we saw all of the Shoshoni Forest from the back of Melvin’s jeep.

The next year we saw all the Big Horn Forest from the same jeep. It was so much fun to be around Melvin. One time we were about twenty miles north of Mitesto and we had all gone different places to drive them out to some one. Well, there was about six inches of snow and chilly. Well I get up on a ridge and start me a little fire. Pretty soon here comes Melvin, he said, “I am freezing, and can’t get a fire to burn.” We are standing around the fire and here comes Bea, madder than heck. “Why didn’t you shoot them elk I drove by you?” Melvin said they didn’t come this way. Well about 50 yards away was their tracks. Melvin says, “Well I was visiting with mom, hadn’t saw her since this morning.” About that time we hear bang, bang, bang. Well they had gone by Bill. Well this got us started an was the beginning of several years of hunting with Bea and Melvin. Some of the happiest times of our lives was spent with them.
Iowa Back by Oklahoma A Hitch Hike Trip

One time we decided to go to Iowa to see my sister Vera and Kennie, at Washington Iowa. I wrote and told her we were going to Wyoming for a week or two and after Thanksgiving we were coming to Iowa. Well, Ken drove truck for North America Van Lines and Moving Company.

She had gone to Los Angeles to see my other sister Wanda and Joe. The kids got the letter and called her. She called me at Bea’s and said Kenny was loaded to Rapid City, South Dakota, and they would meet us at Bea’s and drive down together.

Well, the day before Thanksgiving here they are. Well, we go rabbit hunting Thanksgiving afternoon. Hunting is great over there. Next day we are on our way. Snowing just a little, wind a blowing. We have a small camper on our truck, and we sleep in it, also do our cooking there too. Well, we spend a cold night in Rapid City. Vera and I have been driving our truck, Bill was riding with Kenny. The next morning we are getting ready to leave. I come up with, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could load our truck in Kens and all ride together.” No one says a word, but about two miles out of Rapid City Kenny starts to back off into the bar pit. Vera drives up beside him and says, “What’s the matter.” Kenny says, “We are loading Bill’s truck into the trailer.” He has a 60 foot trailer. We just get the tail gate down here comes the cops. He said, “What do you think you are doing?” Kenny tells him, “I am loading this truck into my outfit.” They say, “You can’t do that.” Ken says, “My license says I can haul any thing I want to, and I have a license for South Dakota.” By then we have three or four cops, someone had turned in a wreck. Kenny paid no attention to them, and went right on loading it. They did a lot of squawking, but finally decided to let him go.

Well from there to Iowa we hitch hiked in Kens van. Well, Ken is allowed to take an extra driver if he wants to, and Vera and I rode in the sleeper right behind the two seats. Ken says, “If I say close the drapes, you pull the cord and don’t make a sound if I get stopped.” I told him, “If you get stopped one of us is sure to sneeze.” He said, “You hadn’t better!” Well, we stayed in Washington, Iowa, for ten days. Crossed the Mississippi, and went over to Nauvoo. Also down to the Cartage Jail, where Joseph and Hyrum Smith was killed. Saw all the places of interest while there. Saw the Corn Palace in South Dakota. I forgot to mention we went through the Black Hills. That’s one interesting place with so many things to see.

Well, when we left there, we went down trough Missouri, through the Ozarks. Some beautiful sights there. We saw the Lake of the Ozarks, and the Bagnell Dam. The dam is only 148 feet from bedrock to highway, and it backs water up until it has 1300 miles of shore line and covers 95 square miles. When you get down in that country you can see why they have so much flooding. It’s so flat, no place for the water to go. Then we went on down to Oklahoma to see Uncle Tom Murphy, Grandma Chandler’s [Mary May Murphy] brother. Stayed there four or five days. They took us up to Pawnee, Oklahoma, where Bill was born. Showed us Grandpa Bailey Chandler’s home. It still stands. A nice two‑story frame house in a grove of trees.

We also saw where E.M. and Mamie Chandler lived before they left Oklahoma. Then we come home through the corner of Texas, through the pan handle in Oklahoma, into Colorado. Then we came up into the mountains in Colorado to the Royal Gorge at Canyon City, the highest bridge in the world. It’s 1053 feet above the Arkansas River. It’s a swinging bridge and goes up and down as you cross it with a car. Gives you quite a thrill, but is a beautiful place, and I brought some awful pretty rocks from there for my rock garden.

That’s another thing we have always picked up rocks. We have some quite unusual ones. We also have our home here rocked up, on the outside, with native rocks. I love it, as we have a spring here that keeps our yard green, even on the driest years. And we have a beautiful view from here, looks down over the valley, also Pelican Lake. I could just set and watch it for hours if I had time, but it takes me longer to do what has to be done now. Of course, I still do what I like to do first, and what has to be did comes second. So my yard always looks better than my house. But I try to keep it pretty straight, at least so we can find the bed at night. Sometimes when I get my sewing scattered around my bedroom it’s a problem, but Bill never complains.
Church and Our Part In It

When I married Bill he didn’t belong to the L.D.S. Church, but was baptizedbb the summer after Mort was born. All the time the kids were growing up, we went to church with them. We were all active in the old Avalon Ward. Some of the jobs Bill held was President of the Young Mens Mutual, also Superintendent of the Sunday School. Both these jobs he held for years. He was secretary of the Elder’s Quorum, and Ward[/Home] teacher. We as a family attended all the church organizations.

I was counselor in the Primary, also the Relief Society. Also President of the Relief Society for a while. I also taught the four and five year old’s in Sunday School for years. Taught the Guide class in Primary for years. Also was secretary of the Young Ladies M.I.A. for years. Also a visiting teacher for forty five years.

We tried hard to teach the kids what was right or wrong. Somewhere along the line over the years I failed them. I try to think back now and figure out what I did wrong. I have a testimony of the gospel, but failed to instill it in most of my kids. I tried so hard to make our home a happy home. I have thought since, that maybe I was to insistent that they be in church all the time, but they all went without any fuss. But, as they left home they quit going. We haven’t been active in the church since they moved our ward to Ballard. Not that we have anything against the Ballard Ward, but it’s a long way to go, and we have just got in a rut. Then too Bill can’t hear any more, so that don’t help.

Part of our kids married out of the church. This I can’t understand with Beatrice anyway. She was chorister in Sunday School, Sacrament meeting, also M.I.A. for four or five years. She had a perfect record in all the church organization. Then married out of the church. She took part in all activities in the ward and church, so I feel that some where we must of failed her. She was also Dance instructor.

I miss not going to church now. I am going to get started to going again.

Bill just said I can tell you why she married out of the church, and I guess he is right. He said Melvin was a wonderful guy, and he wasn’t L.D.S. I agree with him. There was only one Melvin. He was one swell guy and fun to be around. He used to tell me, “When you get old mom, you are going to stay with me. If me and Bea had you for a boss to tell us what to do we could do it. I could wheel you around in a wheel chair and you could say, “Mel put that rock there and this one over here”. Melvin lacked confidence in himself. He was afraid to tackle jobs. Afraid he couldn’t finish them. But we all loved him, and have lots of special trips, also hunting and fishing, that bring happy memories of him. Many good times.
Hunting Trips To Remember

For the last six or eight years anyway we have went with Tom and Earnie, when Earnie can make it, both deer hunting and elk hunting.. Earnie has quit several jobs to go hunting. It’s real nice to go with Tom, especially as I am getting older, as he gets up and gets breakfast, then calls us to come and eat. He has a nice camper and we have really enjoyed these trips with the boys. Once in a while Mort makes it up. I guess as long as I am able to get around I will go along. I love the mountains, either hunting or fishing.

One time when we were all together out on MCCook Ridge. Well I guess that time we had been all over. Mort and his boss, Paul Gardner, were along. We didn’t do too good. Paul didn’t get any shooting, so when we got back to home here I asked Paul if he wanted to go with me and Tom at daylight the next morning up on the hill. He said “Sure!” We left just at break of day. Went out past George Brough’s old place, turned down towards Green River, out in those rocky red hills. Well, the first thing we saw was a coyote. They get out and start shooting. Was long shots, and he gets away. Then we saw three deer. Paul couldn’t hit them. We drove down to a deep draw, and they saw a mountain lyon. They shoot at him. Long shots too and he makes it to some ledge rock and lose him. Well, Paul got some shooting and had a ball. He said, “What are we doing out in the Book Cliffs, why didn’t we stay home?” Then Paul Gardner stayed around for another week and duck hunted. When he would get several down in the lake he would strip down to his shorts and swim out and get them. Then he picked them and saved the feathers for me. Cleaned them all and froze them. When he got ready to go I said, “Take your ducks.” He said, “I don’t want them, I took pictures of them to prove I got them, you can have the ducks.” When he got ready to go he said he never had so much fun. He had never been around anyone before that could have so much fun with so little. When we went to California he took us deep sea fishing on a charter boat. We got six or eight that were five or six pounds each. I am not sure what they were, but were sure good eating. We went out about fifteen miles, saw lots of whales. Some huge ones with tail fins eight or ten feet across.

Bill and I have worked hard all of our fifty years of married life, and so have all our kids. They were always good to help at home. We taught them how to do everything that there was to do around the house, both girls and boys. We also taught the girls how to do things around the farm. They both learned to milk and do chores. They all helped in the garden and yard. One never realizes how much work there is to keeping up a yard and garden until one has it to do by their self. I am afraid that next year part of mine will have to go back to weeds. The last few years it gets harder to keep up every year. We still like to run around and go sight‑seeing, and when we are gone a few days its nearly impossible to catch up.

I have made a special effort to keep the weeds down this year, as we expect to have so many people here in August for our Golden Wedding. We expect all the kids, most of the grand kids, and brothers and sisters on both sides of the family. Also cousins on my side of the family. Most of my Aunts and Uncles have passed away, but Mother’s youngest sister from California may be here, that’s Aunt Millie.

All the kids and most of the Grand kids were here for a week last year, and we spent most of the time fishing and camping.

Most of my mothers folks when they left the basin went to Northern California. Now the kids have spread to Oregon and Washington. Well, they have a Potter reunion most every year. My mother was a Potter, and we were awful close to each other until her folks left for the coast. About 1975 they had their Potter reunion about forty miles out of Bend, Oregon, on the DeSutes River at the Cow Camp Park. Bill and I took our camper and went. We stayed there four days, sure had a wonderful visit with all. It was a good reunion. Most beautiful.

Then Bill’s sister [Hazel] and husband had just moved from Alaska that early spring to Squim, Washington. That’s out on what is called the Island. You have to take a ferry across from Seattle, and we decided to drive on up there and see her. So we did spent three or four days with her. Ella, his other sister, was there too at the time. We had a real good visit with them. They live close to Port Angeles. It’s mainly a fishing port, and Hazel’s boy went over there and got a big bunch of big fresh shrimp. He come home, made a batter out of beer and other things, then deep fried them. He was asking each one how many they could eat. Come to me, I said “About a dozen.” So the first one he took out of the deep fry he brought to me, and said, “If you are going to eat a dozen you better get started.” I love shrimp so I think I made that dozen pretty small. As it turned out Hazel died late that fall, we were so glad that we had spent those few days with her. We were just gone twelve days on that trip.
One More Trip With Bea and Mel

In all the times that we have been to California, Bill and I have never been to Disneyland. The kids have been several times over the years. But in 1976 Melvin and Bea, their two kids, some friends of theirs, Rod and Della, and there two boys come by and took us to Los Angeles. I had been having trouble with my feet and legs for several months, but when we get down there Elva and all of them insist that we go with them. We get down there, I am limping around, and here comes Bea and Elva with a wheelchair. But it turned out to be for the best, as we never had to stand in line for any of the things. They would say will the lady in the wheelchair please come this way. All of your party come with you. Well, there was 20 of us all together. One attendant said, “Are all these people with you?” I said, “Yes, kids and grand kids.” So she said, “Glad to have you with us.”

Well we went on everything on the Caribbean Cruise, we just filled one boat. We had taken Lynn and Todd with us. We all had so much fun, we didn’t know what we were missing. Glad they insisted on us going. Then we went to the Wax Museum. We had never been there either.

Then I stayed a few days with my sister Wanda. We were down there a week, then come home through Zion Canyon, as the others had not been through.

Had a lovely trip, no trouble anywhere. We all had campers, so we stopped anywhere we wanted to. Bea and Melvin and Rod and Della had one night out on the town in Las Vegas on our way down. My niece Elva Basiel lives in Las Vegas, and my sister Vera was there with her at the time. So, Bill and I took the kids out to Elva’s. Bill and the kids went to bed, but Vera, Elva, and me stayed up all night and talked. Went on into Los Angeles the next day. Vera and Elva flew down the next day and stayed at a hotel in Seal Beach. My sister from Leisure World and me went down to spend the day with them. Elva, Vera, Wanda, and me. We had a lovely day. Then Elva took us to a swanky place to eat. The first thing they brought us was frozen forks to eat salad with. I said “WHAT” so she repeated it, so I took one. The other three really got a laugh out of it, but Elva said, “Don’t feel bad.” In all the fancy places that she had eaten in all her travels and in Vegas she had only been served frozen forks once before. that was one of the special days I spent with my two sisters Vera and Wanda. We had a lovely day together.

In 1977 they had the Potter reunion at North Bend, Oregon, and we went over to Bea and Melvin’s and they went with us. We had spent one and a half years there in 1937 and 1938, so we thought we would like to go back for a visit. This was really a fun trip, as we had Bea and Melvin and Terry then. As I said before Melvin was fun to be with. We were right on the beach there and one of the highlights of the trip was a deep sea fishing trip for salmon. My cousin Laura’s son‑in‑law was a pilot on a fishing boat and they had made reservations for all that wanted to go, had him engaged for two days. Some of them went out twice. The boat was only equipped for eight passengers and all together there were nine salmon caught. I caught two, one twelve and a half pounds and one six. Melvin caught one, eight pounds. Terry caught a big one, but never got it in. The captain said it was probably a small shark, as it bit his steel line in two. Then just as we were leaving Terry caught another one, but never did get it landed either. But we had a ball. We were out about twelve or fifteen miles, and it was quite a calm day.

Then one day we went down the beach with dune buggies, everyone that wanted to. Then one day we had an auction. Everyone brought a white elephant to be sold, and food you never saw the like of. The money from the auction went to buy the dinner, or help with it. Then each night they all got together and had a dance.

While on this trip we spent a day at Crater Lake, Oregon. And spend a few days fishing on the DeChotes River. So you see we fish every where we go.

Again I am glad we took this trip with Melvin and Bea, which was one of the many we had gone on with them. This was the last one with Melvin, as he passed away December 11cc this same year. When Bea called and said Melvin had died of a heart attack, we went over and stayed until the first week in January. There is really nothing we could do for her, it just takes time. Melvin would be a hard guy to replace, and they were such a close family. Bea has two kids: Cindy and Terrydd.

We are so glad that Earnie lives here in the valley close to us. His two boys, Lynn and Toddee, are here every day to see if we need any help or just to see how we are. Then Earnie and Joanff are they are there if we need them. That’s good to know.
My Sis Wanda

This same year my sister, Wanda, passed away in Octobergg. Joe hadn’t called as he didn’t realize how bad she was. He said that they were both looking forward to us coming down to spend the winter. They had both talked to me a little over a month before, and I told Bill she really sounded good. Her voice seemed stronger and I told them we would probably see them for Thanksgiving that year and all get together. So, it was quite a shock when they call to say that she had passed away. Joe said she had just woke up, and didn’t feel to good. So Joe goes to help her to the bathroom. But they never made it. He felt her go limp, and caught her. She was gone. I am so glad that she went that way, as she had plenty of suffering the last ten years. Well, there were nine of us kids, now there is three of us: Vera, Earnie and me.

As I look back now, I will never forget the good times that Bill and I have had with Wanda and Joe. The many places of interest that they have taken us to, and the many nice places they have taken us out to dinner. I have many good memories of my sister and the many things she has given me over the years that has brought happiness to me.

One time when Joe and Wanda come up to spend a couple of weeks with us we took them up to Crouse Res, on the mountain, fishing. We took the camper and let them sleep in it. They really had a good time. We caught some big fish, like one and a half pound and some two and a half pound, as Ivan Sheffer [Bernice boy] had his boat up there. It was something new for them, as they never went camping. This was their first time. As when they went places, even if it was trips to Mexico. They would go to inland cities, Acapulco, and spend a week or two and go to Arizona for a week or ten days. But they always stayed at a motel or a resort. Sometimes to big Bear Lake. She had lots of expensive Indian jewelry, and things that come from Mexico inland. She liked city sights and museums, but she also loved the beach. We used to spend hours walking the beach. For years they lived one and a half blocks from the beach. Went to it every day.
My Sister Crystal Wanothel (Wanda) ‑ Joe Stienfeldt

Over the years we have been in California for some winter months. It’s been ten or twelve years since we started this. One reason for going was so I could spend some time with my sister, as Wanda hadn’t been well for ten or fifteen years before she passed away. All this time Joe was working for pest control, and he made fabulous money. He done some jobs on the side, then he got his license and worked for his self. He used to take Bill with him and they would be gone a couple of hours and come home with two or three hundred dollars. After Wanda had that first major operation, Joe never allowed her to do anything. We always ate out when staying with them. I insisted on cooking breakfast. I made ever so many trips to Los Angeles in the summer over the years to help Wands. Not that Joe couldn’t afford a nurse, but because she wanted me. I would make her get up in the morning, have Joe take us with him or over to Elva’s. Get her tired enough so she could sleep nights. Some of the times I went down for a week or ten days, was when her incision tore out after four days. Then when she fell and broke her ankle. Also when Joe had his wreck and trouble. Many other times for things I won’t mention here. But when Joe would call and Bill would find me crying at night, he would say you better go down for a week.

Bill has always been good to me. Bill knew that when I went down, Wanda would be much better in a week. The winters we spent in L.A.. Wanda would be fine by spring. One thing I must say about Joe, he did everything in his power to make Wanda happy. He would take her anywhere she wanted to go. He loved her dearly. He couldn’t stand to see her suffer. It was nothing for him to call a doctor in the middle of the night and insist on him coming out to see her. Sometimes the doctor would try to squeeze out by saying it will cost. Joe would cut in and say, “I didn’t ask how much, I said come out.” They come.

I sometimes think that I worked a hardship on Bill, leaving him to manage his work and take care of the kids too. When I look back now. I spent six weeks in Hurricane with Bernice, nursing her. Then ever so many trips to L.A. when Dad was so bad. Another six weeks setting up nights with Hurley, before she died. Then ever so many trips to Leisure World at Seal Beach to Wanda and Joe’s.

Then I made one or two to Idaho, Gallis, when my brother Earnie lived there. One time Leona called and wanted me to come up and talk to Earnie, as he was drinking. Bill said I can’t go right now, but you take the two little boys and go up with Ira and Ester Wilson to Lava Hot Springs. Then go on up on the bus. This I did. The next morning Ester brought me down to catch the bus, and I just missed it. So, me and the little boys waited five hours for the next bus. I asked the station lady if we should stand outside with our suit case. She said no, they always stop here. But he was late so he goes on by. Well, she gets on the phone. There is another one coming. We catch it, but find out that it only goes to Blackfoot. I have Earnie and Jim, one suitcase, and a bed role. The agent says where are you going to stay tonight. I say right here. I bought a ticket to Idaho Falls, not my fault he didn’t stop. Well, he gets on the phone, pretty soon here is a bus to take us to Idaho Falls. One ticket one half fare. That’s all that’s on the bus. Earnie meets the bus, no Ivy. Well, when I get there I call a taxi. When I walk in he says how did you get here. Well I tell him about a special bus.
Fishing

Well I haven’t talked much about fishing. But this is something that I have did all my life. I remember going with dad when I was a kid with a line and fly and a willow pole, as dad loved to fish. He always found time to go quite a bit in the summer. One thing we needed the fish for food, but that’s really only an excuse. It’s like hunting deer because you need the meat. But the expense of going and the time one takes off would buy twice that much meat. People that go fishing and hunting go because they love it.

Every where that Bill and I have gone in our traveling around the U.S. or Canada we have fished. The kids are always coming home to take us fishing, but some of the best fishing we have had and the most fun, have been times that we have went to Weaver Reservoir on the head of Hill Creek and Towovie Reservoir., also on Hill Creek. We used to go the Weaver Reservoir fly fishing on the upper end where the water had backed up in the sage brush or catching from a one and a half pounds to three pound fish in that brush on a fly. Probably hook 40 or 50 to get your limit in a bag.

The best trips we took there were with the kids, mainly Elva and Roy, or Bea and Melvin, also Mort and Carolyn. We have sure had some fun trips out there. Go out and camp for a few days. Then too at that time we still had Harlan with us.

One time I especially remember was when Roy and Elva come up on vacation, and brought their neighbors Mary and Bob Growell and family, and we had Uncle Odie and Harlan. We went out an camped three or four days. Did we have a ball, but could of been a real tragedy. We were going on a trail around a ledge about ten or fifteen feet from the water. There was a creek in the ledge, but we had stepped across it for years. Five or six of us had already passed it, when Elva looks back and said, “Where is Dad?” Well the ledge had broken off. Bill had fell into 30 or 40 feet of water. Well, he could swim and only lost his new glasses, but me and some of the others can’t swim.

Another time when we were fishing the upper end of the Lake across to the main channel, he stepped into a beaver hole as big around as his body. He put his arms out to catch him, but had to have help to get out. Mort was with us that time.

Another real nice trip we took was to Weaver Reservoir Aunt Polly and Uncle Gerold Brady come out for my birthday, and Elva and Roy and family were there. They had brought Orval and Norma Ganes and family with them from California and they wanted to have a surprise party for me. Bill took Aunt Polly and Gerold and Uncle Odie and me to Weaver Res, and we stayed all night. Got home the next day about 5 p.m., to find Orval and Roy with two borrowed barbecues getting ready to fry hamburgers. By now Morton and Carolyn and family with a few extras were there. I said, “What the heck are you guys doing?” Orval says, “Getting ready to feed this bunch.” Elbert and Sadie come first and he said I come down to say Hi to Roy and Elva. Didn’t expect this crew. Roy says, the more the merrier, stick around. I didn’t get surprised until someone sowed up that wasn’t a relative. In the next twenty or thirty minutes there were twenty or thirty couples there, and the food and homemade root‑beer and a big birthday cake. Elva said you got home thirty minutes to early. There’s a chair set down. We thought we would have supper ready.

At Weaver reservoir we had all filled our licenses with two and three pound trout, cut throats. Odie and I caught our limit on flies in the upper end, Gerold caught his and Bills off the dam an minnows. It’s a beautiful place can sit under pines on the east side and catch your limit, and we saw several big elk and lots of deer.

The next night all the relatives stayed but Elbert and Sadie. Around twenty five or thirty, and Elva had cooked a pressure cooker full of spaghetti, also corn, cucumbers, and tomatoes. We lined them up at the front door kids first gave them a plate and cup filled it as they went through the kitchen. Aunt Polly wanted to know if she could get in with the kids. She said the line was so long she was afraid they were going to run out. That night we had beds and sleeping bags all over the place, but Mort and Carolyn, Elva and Roy, and Orval and Norma stayed up and played cards all night. By the time we got up about six they had got to the giggling stage. Aunt Polly never forgot that trip as long as she lived. She said how come Gerold and me got a bedroom all to ourselves when she had to wind her way between sleeping kids everywhere.

Another time we were out there with Elva and Roy, Roy and me were fishing down the stream, I said, you know Roy I would like to stay out here once until I got tired of fishing. He laughed and said, I can see you now coming down the bank with a cane in about twenty years. So I was always the last one off the stream to go home.

One of the first long trips we took with Melvin and Beatrice and their two kids and Bill and I went to Washington to go Salmon fishing. We went to Lillie and Jerry Dougless. Some friends of Bea and Mel’s. We went down the Columbia river across the bridge at Portland, they lived about sixty miles into Washington at Kelso. But we were about two weeks to late into the year. The Salmon had moved up the river. Was just a few Salmon and some steel head trout. We fished hard for what we got about two salmon eight or fifteen pounds and two or three steel head trout. We canned the fish before we started home. But we had a lot of fun and saw a lot of new country. Stayed one night near the snow line at mount Rainier, Washington. This was one of the Prettiest drives we ever took. It was steep and crossed the mountain then back down to Yakima then back down to Spokane. Then back down to Lewiston Idaho and on home. It was a fun trip. We all went in our truck and camper. The one we had then would sleep six so we managed real well.

Another trip Bill and I took elk hunting up past paradise park. We drove the truck to there with two horses. We unloaded the horses put everything we needed on them, We had a sixteen by twenty ft of canvas we used for a tent. This we folded and used it for a saddle blanket, we had a double sleeping bag, we rolled it up and tied it behind my saddle, then we had a pair of saddle bags we packed our food in and we had a small fishing pole in one of them. Well we went north from paradise, this put us high near the timber line. Where Dry Fork river heads. It was just a small stream. Well it hailed four inches about noon and it was cold. We decided to camp here on the stream near a meadow. Bill staked the horses built a big fire, then he went scouting around. I went fishing. Found a big hole where the stream tumbled down a steep rocky place, at the bottom a big hole. I climbed up on a big rock and caught six nice fish. All at once the rock tipped, I went into the water and was it cold!! Lost my fish, but finally rescued two for supper. Got back to the fire just at sundown no dry clothes. Good thing we had this place all to our selves. I had to strip down and dry them over the fire. And we never did see any Elk. Came back down on the east side of white rocks river up above red pine canyon we saw eight head. Bills gun jammed and I couldn’t hit them. Never got a thing. That’s normal for me.

I can hit a target every time but when I see an elk or a deer I can’t hit it. Have killed quite a few deer over the years, hit an elk once through the lungs but it was just before dark and we lost him. It would take another notebook to write down all the special good times we have had over the years. Tommy an his boys, and his buddy Dick Williams and his boys, have come out several times each summer to go fishing, but haven’t saw much of him this summer as he is building him a new house. Have gone a few times with Earnie and family an a few times with just Bill and I and the boys. But I still love to wade in the river to fish. An with a fly pole. I don’t suppose I will do to much more fishing as it is getting harder for me to get around in the rocks and wade without falling down. But I have always did that.

Last time we were up on the Uintah, I started across with a stick, Lynn says here Gram hold on to me I never fall down. So we get right in the middle and I slip off a rock an fall down and pull Lynn too. Setting down it’s about up to our necks. But if I can’t fish the streams with flies I don’t suppose I will do much more fishing, as I don’t care much for worm fishing. I like to use spinners in a lake. But the past few years Tom has been trying to get me interested in trolling from a boat. I am not to crazy about it either, not enough action. But I do love to boat ride.

One time we took Vera and Ken, Elbert and Sadie up to cart creek before they closed the stream and fished all day. Each of us had a gunny sack we were fly fishing, we put them in the sack in the creek. If we caught a big one we took out a smaller one. By night we had our limit of big ones. The next day Kenny was supposed to leave, he said let’s leave here at daylight and go back fishing for a couple of hours. So the four of us went again. They weren’t biting as good, we stayed all day, Kenny kept telling Vera just one more fish. We got home at dark a day later.

Barryhh and Elva still come up on their vacation and stay two weeks or a month. Some of Elva’s kids with their small families come too, and we go fishing and camping. Elva is as bad as me for fly fishing and we still have a ball. Barry has never done much stream fishing, he would rather fish the lakes, but we are trying to make a fly fisherman out of him. He loves the mountains and likes to camp out. Now they have a nice truck and a nice camper, its eleven or twelve foot, really nice.
Longest Fishing Trip

The longest fishing trip I ever went on was in 1957 for two and a half months when the Ouray valley started to build their first reservoir in the Uintah mountains. That was at Whiterocks lake and Cliff Lake. Bill took the job of cutting the timber out of the place where the water would be stored. We bought a short wheel based Army Jeep, that was the only way we could get in or out. We loaded up our tent and grub box and sleeping bags and moved to the mountain. Morton and Carolyn were living with us at the time, and we left Earnie to help Mort chore and took Jim who was about eight. We came down every couple of weeks for groceries and to see how things were going at home.

Just before dad got done Morton and Carolyn moved out, left Earnie to chore alone. I came home to help him. Me and Jim had fished all the lakes within four or five miles of Whiterocks, there were five or six of them. We fished someplace everyday. We gave our extra fish to the cook shack.

We moved to Cliff Lake and started there. We were up there about two and a half months.

While we were at Whiterocks we were fishing the lakes one morning, Jim had waded out about fifty yards on a sand bar and climbed up on a big rock. He caught a fish about a foot long, jumped of the rock and got tangled up in the line. The fish went around his legs and he lost it so he climbed back on the rock and started over. The next one was about fifteen inches long. He jumped off the rock and this time he put his pole over his shoulder and started for the bank rewinding his reel all the way. The water was about fifteen inches deep and he would fall every little ways, get up and go on. I was to far away to help him, but he landed it anyway. Dad took his picture with it he was one proud boy. He wasn’t quite nine years old yet. Another interesting thing that happened there was a young surveyor working there waded out to the same rock before dark one night, stayed there until after dark. He couldn’t remember which way the sand bar went to the bank and he couldn’t swim. He was about half a mile from camp and he stared to yell for help. Everyone from camp ran to help him. Young Ronnie Phillips was the first one to him. Everyone expected to be fishing him out of water over his head instead of him sitting on a rock, well he couldn’t live it down, any time anyone saw him they would yell help. So after two or three weeks he quit and left. Ronnie Phillips fished with Jim and me and one day he caught a seven or eight pound one on a fly and a bubble with water in it. We caught a lot of fish up to three or four pounds. It was a fun summer. Some days we went with Bill to cut trees, that’s were we found the tree root that we made the clock on the fireplace out of. Jim is to have it as he was along.
Chandler and Moore Reunion

A few years ago we were going on vacation for the winter we went to spend it with our kids Earnie lives here in the valley. So we went to Wyoming spent a month in Worland with Beatrice, Melvin & kids. Then we went to Salt Lake an spend a week with Tom and Leah an family then on to Los Angeles California where we spent two months with Elva and Barry Dean an Jim, Morton Chandler. also my sister Wanda an Joe Stienfeldt while in California we attended a Chandler reunion at the home of Bob Moore in Pasadena California, sponsored by the four kids of Robert and Ella Moore. Ella was the honored guest. Bob barbecued a 500 lb. of prime beef whole in his back yard, Ella has four kids Marie, Junior or (Moses) the twins Bob & Bert.

They all helped with the reunion. The beef was on a spit that they all helped turn. Bob is married to a Hawaiian girl they have eight girls and one boy, these children are real talented, they put on a Hawaiian show with dancing and singing, was really outstanding four of Bills sisters were there. Ella Moore, Stella an Darwin Neilson. Grace Wardle an Blanch Halloway with all of their children an grand kids. Beatrice flew down from Worland that made four of Bill and Ivy’s kids there, with, all the grand kids that lived close, many friends and relatives from both sides of the family attended. There was a total of nearly two hundred in attendance.

We are expecting Barry and Elva in the next day or two, as this August 17 will be our Golden Wedding Day. We expect all the kids, most of the grand kids, our brothers and sisters on both sides of the family. My sister Vera called from Iowa, and said they would be here with some of their kids. Some of the Sheffer boys and their families will also be here.

This will be fifty years of married life. We have had a full and happy life. We have always taken time out to do some of the things we want to do, and see some of the country while we were young enough to enjoy it. We have also taken time for our church work. I think to make a marriage work one must learn to GIVE AND TAKE. Also, everyone needs a balanced life with some of all three of these; WORK, PLAY, AND CHURCH.

As our fifty years come to a close. I want to add here that I don’t want to leave the impression that we never had any disagreements or trouble. We did, as I think everyone does. I think that most marriage problems can be talked over or settled if both parties try, but it can’t be one sided, both have to learn to give as well as take. The main thing is to bring out into the open and talk it over. Most misunderstandings can be cleared up if talked about. If both wait for the other to make the first move it can get bigger and bigger. I think that everyone should learn these three words “I AM SORRY”. Learn to use them, But it takes both of you not just one.

Over the years we have had as many problems in our marriage as most anyone, and we have had financial troubles too. Bill worked as a pumper for Dekalb for five years or more. I took over the irrigating and what ever I could do, he did the rest on days off or after work. If things got to bad I would work a few months for Hormstrom’s motel or cafe in the kitchen. I always found I had to much to do at home to work to many months at a time. I never had to look for work after I once worked for Hormstrom’s. Bill and I had both done anything we could to make ends meet, but it seems like we always managed somehow.

I say hard work never hurt anyone, of course there are exceptions to this rule, like one’s health or back trouble or heart trouble. One can still work hard at something different.

I think in this day and age people can live were ever they want, and still find work they like if they aren’t afraid to get out and look. Now days the young married people expect to have as much as their parents have. They forgot that their parents have worked for years to get what they have. I think that everyone should try to get out of debt. I am afraid that hard times are coming. I don’t know what this generation that has always had everything they wanted will do when we have another depression. It will mean from riches to rags from plenty to nothing.
Golden Wedding Anniversary19

Our Golden Wedding Anniversary turned out pretty good. Elva came up about the 5 of August to help me clean the house and yard. Bea came over about the 10 of August. Between the three of us we really shined the shack and yard.

We were having an Open House on Friday August 17, and a family reunion on Saturday August 18. The reunion was a huge success both days. We didn’t have to many that was not relatives on either day. Tom brought his big grill and we served sourdough hotcakes both Friday and Saturday to over eighty seven people day. For dinner we served grilled burgers, corn on the cob, tomatoes, cukes, cabbage slaw, and a few salads thrown together.

We had Bill’s seven sisters and one brother, and some of their kids and grand kids. My brother Earnie and my sister Vera and their families and family members from California, Iowa, Idaho, Nevada, and as far away as the Caribbean Islands came to the reunion. There was about ninety five relatives here for Friday, we have a real good time. ten or twelve went home Friday night. On Sunday and Monday my family cleaned up the mess, then went fishing. We fished up Uintah canyon for two days, then we went to Towovie on Hill Creek and caught sixteen big ones, one and a half to two pounds, then filled up with ten inch ones. We then went to Jones Hole and took Vera and Ken before they left. They have a ball there.

On Friday August 17 and Saturday August 18 in the evening Marvin Wardle entertained everyone with his singing and guitar playing. We roasted winnie’s. There was a total of a hundred and thirty eight on Friday for the Anniversary. We were quite happy with the reunion. Elva and Joe came from the Caribbean Islands she was the farthest away. My brother Earnie Turner and his daughter Sybil and her husband Cleo and there family came from Idaho. This takes care of all the brothers and sisters. All of our six kids and all of the twenty one grand kids but three, and all eight great grand kids. There were nieces and nephews and cousins to make up the eighty seven we fed two meals to.

We were a little worried about how it would go over. But was real pleased with the results. We saw some folks we hadn’t seen for years. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and we had a really lovely time. All the kids helped to make it a success. And a good place to end my story.



Additional Notes added By Herself

Written After the main book was completed and inserted in as loose sheets
My Old Home Place on Deep Creek

When Morton was up in the spring of 79 we went up on Deep Creek to see the place where the Johnson’s hayfield sunk. It was half mile long and five or six hundred feet wide in places and twelve to fifty feet deep. It’s quite a site, the sides are straight up and down it looks like it had been sliced. There are Islands in the middle sliced around to. On the way back we took over to my old home place, I hadn’t been back for fifty years. I had been back to Deep Creek but not my old home place. Well, the old house is still there, at least part of it. Two rooms were sawed logs, they are still there. The frame part is gone. The thing that shocked me was the creek. The creek bed was from fifty to a hundred fifty feet across, full of willows, birch, hops, currents, choke cherry bushes and gooseberry bushes. After a rain mom would send us out with a three gallon bucket to gather mushrooms to can. The mushrooms grew along the creek where the cows would shade up under the willows. Now, as far as I could see anyway not a green thing, only sagebrush. The farm land was green looks like picture grass but I could not believe the shrubs had died. I had thought that wild roses and willows never died out. the hills don’t look as big to me as they did then, but if I had tried to climb them they would have been twice as high I’m sure.
Morton and Virginia

Morton and Virginiaii have been up several times the past year. We love to have them come anytime they can. We expect them any day now. Virginia is a really nice and sociable person, she seems to fit in pretty good. She likes to go fishing and hunting and camping. Morton still likes the farm. When he was here at Easter time he did leveling with the tractor. And he always rides the horses. I think as long as he lives he’ll love the horses, I guess he and Jim inherited that love of horses from me. I still love to ride. I have loved horses all my life and spent lots of time on them. Forty-five years ago I used to go Relief Society teach and take Tom behind me and Elva in front and make the rounds to see four or five families. That’s quite a ride in this country. I also used to ride my horse to Relief Society every Tuesday. Most of the other ladies either walked or came in a wagon. I would put Tom up behind the saddle, put Elva on the wagon, climb on and ride by and pick up Elva. Sometimes I had two behind the saddle, but I never had any trouble.

When one lives in the country you learn to do what is necessary to get by. I have never been afraid of horses or afraid for my kids to ride them. But the ground must be getting harder or bones softer as now a days some one is always getting bones broken, if I had a nickel for all the time I have been thrown off a horse. I would have enough to go on another long trip, never hurt anything but my feelings.
Craig MCKee / Kevin Wickham

Craig is Elva’s oldest boy and we are quite proud of him he is a Volkswagen mechanic and Volkswagen has what they call a Bug‑in, the year Craig entered, it was the eighteenth year that they had the contest, as it was called a Bug‑in 18, its a one man engine pulling contest, sponsored by Yuko International. Each man entering is given a new VW sedan, he must remove the engine drag it ten foot and over a line an back to the car reinstalling it, then start the VW backing it across the same line. Norm Batchelder won Bug‑in 17 by doing this in a mere eleven minutes and four seconds, at Bug‑in 18 there were several ready to challenge Norm. The results was that Craig MCKee a new comer to the event, had a unbelievable clocking of seven minutes seven seconds Craig MCKee efforts was truly phenomenal, this is a world record for this event. Craig we are proud of you.

We have another champion in the family my brother Harlan’s grandson Kevin Wickham hold the state record for weight lifting in the 155 lbs class, dead lift 505 squat 374 an press 266, total of 1145 lbs also first place in the total of three lifts, we are proud of you Kevin. Kevin is the son of Bryan an Annie Wickham or Randlett Annie will be remembered as Annie Turner.
Elk Trip 1979

We are all ready planning and looking forward to going elk hunting this fall, with Tom and any of the other boys who can make it. Probably Chris, and maybe Dick Williams. Dad bought a three wheel bike this past spring, he is planning on taking it hunting this fall, he thinks it will save us some steps. He has worked on it all summer putting it together. He has only got to get the license now. Never can tell about fishing or hunting. Don’t know if we will get anything or not, but it is always fun to try. Then we love to camp out, and being in the mountains they are very lovely this time of year.

I haven’t put in anything about Barry Dean. The first time Elva brought him up here we really gave him a workout. We took Bills truck and a camp outfit and started for Jolly’s corner to fish and spend the night. Elva and Barry, Cort and me. We got to Fort Duchesne and Barry says it would be awful to be this close to flaming gorge dam and not see it so we decided to go there. We went down that old dirt road above the bridge on cart creek. Barry didn’t think we would ever get out, and we nearly didn’t. Then we came back on top of the mountain and camped on the head of cart creek. We pitched our tent, Cort and Barry are not used to the mountains and didn’t know if they liked our camp spot or not.

The next morning, early, I get up and go down to a beaver pond, an catch four nice fish about a foot long then after breakfast we all head down. Never get another fish we pack up come back to Vernal, we stop at a grocery store get some ice an a few things, when we left home no one took a purse as we didn’t intend going to town. Then Cort starts to complaining he didn’t get to Jolly’s corner an didn’t catch any fish. So we decide to go from Vernal to LaPoint an on to Jolly’s corner. We get about a half mile from Jolly’s corner and Barry says we are out of gas. It was full when we left an no one had thought to put any more in. I said just as well be out of gas at the corner as here so we went fishing.

It rained, Cort and I fished in the rain Elva and Barry set in the car, It finally let up and we start home, still registering out of gas. So we pull over to hilltop, gas is about twenty nine cents then. We had all looked through our pockets and the jockey box and came up with fifty seven cents, Barry says put in a gallon of gas. I say make it fifty seven cents worth I about embarrassed Barry to death. Never again would he go anywhere without his wallet. He’d rather have it wet than go through that, but I thought it was quite a fun trip.
Family Breakups

After twenty years our family circle began to break up, three of the kids got divorces [Elva, Morton, Earnie, and Jim], and we have a new set of in‑laws. During this period Elva worked real long and hard hours to make a living for her family. Mort moved to California and Jim went on a work strike for a while. Several years before Roy and Elva separated Bill and I started to go to California during the real cold weather here. At this time Bill had two sisters and one brother in L.A., and I had my sister Wanda, they all lived in the same area.

We have always spent most of our time with Elva or my sister, but now my sister has passed away and Elva and Barry have moved to San Pedro, it makes it a little more difficult to stay with Elva and visit with the rest of the family, especially since Bill is older and he doesn’t like to drive in the traffic in L.A.. Ever since we got hit a few years ago he doesn’t like to drive down there.
Additional Editors Notes

In 1981/2/3?? Ivy was admitted to Holy Cross hospital in Salt Lake for an operation to remove a brain tumor. Her only complaint was she got dizzy standing up. The Doctors believed they could take part of the tumor and come back later for the remainder. When the operation was preformed the tumor, although it was not malignant, it was so soft it fell apart necessitating a complete removal. The resulting shock to the nervous system was similar to a stroke. She lost the ability to speak and walk. Though many long months of effort, she again regained the ability to speak and then to walk. During this trying time her husband Bill continued to be not only a great support but much of her motivation and inspiration until his death in March of 1991.
Obituary and Funeral Services

Obituary from Vernal Express June 5, 1996

Ivy Turner Chandler, age 85, of Avalon, died June 1, 1996 in the Uintah Care Center. She was born Aug. 13, 1910 in Deep Creek, Uintah Co., to Ivan Vane and Henrietta [Harriot] Elva Potter Turner. She married William T. Chandler August 17, 1929. Their marriage was later solemnized in the Salt Lake LDS Temple in 1946. He died March 4, 1991.

Ivy loved to fly fish, hunt and ride horses. She was an especially good camp cook and enjoyed outings into the mountains with her family as often as possible. She was active in the LDS church and served in many teaching and leadership positions.

She is survived by sons and daughters, Thomas Chandler of Sandy, Elva MCKee of Randlett, Beatrice Davis of Worland, Wyoming, and Earnie Chandler of Ibapah; 20 grandchildren, many great grandchildren, and 5 great-great-grandchildren; sisters, Vera Weidner of Vernal, and Earnest Turner of Idaho.

She was preceded in death by sons, Jim [James] and Martin [Morton].

Funeral services will be held Wednesday June 5, 1996 at 11:00 a.m. at the Randlett LDS church where friends may call one hour prior to the services. Burial will be at Avalon Cemetery under the direction of Hullinger-Oplin Mortuary, in Roosevelt.

Funeral Service; Family Prayer- Reed Bailey; Musical Selection- Reed and Carolyn Bailey; Opening Prayer- Willard Wall; Obituary- President Jarman; Speaker- Leo Jorgensen; Speaker- Rod Chandler; Musical Selection- Marvin Wardle; Closing Prayer- LaRue Pickup; Pallbearers- Lynn Chandler, Todd Chandler, Craig MCKee, Court MCKee, Chris Chandler, Eric Vanamen; Honorary Pallbearers- Bob Taylor, Darrell Jenkins; Dedication of Grave- Keith Chandler; Burial Avalon Cemeteryjj

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a: Approx. 8 Miles West of Roosevelt along U.S. 40

b: Jessie Arnold Born 9 Aug 1907 died 28 Aug 1909

c: Given the name of Beatrice Ivy Turner but always called only Ivy, born 13 August 1910 in Salt Lake city, Salt Lake, Utah

d: She died 15 Feb 1928 in Deep Creek, Uintah, Utah

e: Harriot Elva Potter Turner Born 25 Jan 1886, died 15 Feb 1928 in Deep Creek, Uintah, Utah.  She was Buried on 19 Feb 1928, outside of Tridell in a cemetery on the hill.  Her gravestone simply reads; Mother H. Elva Potter Turner Jan. 25,1886 - Feb. 15,1928.

f: George Washington Turner Born 29 Jan 1861 in Kentucky, died 30 Dec 1928 in Murray, Salt Lake, Utah Buried 3 Jan 1929 in Murray, Salt Lake, Utah

g:  William Thomas Chandler Jr. born 22 May 1930 at Randlett, Uintah, Utah; always called Tom rather than any Jr. version of his father.

h: Elva May born 28 Jan 1932 in Randlett, Uintah, Utah

i: George Wilbur Turner Born 20 Jun 1918, died 25 Oct 1930; [editors note; although this was a shock and concern, it was something striking to William Thomas (Tom) Chandler Jr. who I remember often talking of him and this event]

j: Gilsonite; this particular asphaltum is not known to exist in any other areas of the world.

k: Beatrice Ivy born 8 Nov 1935 in Randlett, Uintah, Utah

l: Ivan Morton born 13 Jan 1934 in Randlett, Uintah, Utah

m: Died 29 Oct 1945 in Los Angels California

n: See note on burial for Harriot

o: Earnest Edwin born 25 Mar 1944 in Randlett, Uintah, Utah

p: James Bailey born 13 Oct 1948 in Randlett, Uintah, Utah

q: Craig M^CKee born 16 Dec 1951 in Roosevelt, Duchesne, Utah

r: Helen Woodruff his wife was a  descendant [Granddaughter?] of Wilford Woodruff president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints

s: Died on 2 Aug 1949

t: Tom Married Leah Mae Pickup 6 Dec 1950 in Salt Lake Temple, Salt Lake, Utah

u: Elva Married Roy Claude M^CKee 30 Mar 1951 in Elko, Elko, Nevada

v: Morton Married Carolyn Ray Ross 15 Oct 1955

w: Bea Married Melvin Davis 3 May 1958

x: He had found the gun on the book cliffs while working, it was old then.  He soaked if for a week to remove the rust, reworked it and used it.

y: Keith Chandler son of Morton and Carolyn, born 9 Aug 1956 in Salt Lake city, Salt Lake, Utah married Susan

z: Chris Alton born 3 Jun 1959 in Roosevelt, Duchesne, Utah

aa: Rodney Thomas born 25 Oct 1955 in Roosevelt, Duchesne, Utah

bb: Baptized 2 Sep 1939

cc: 11 Dec 1977 Worland, Wyoming

dd: Cindy Lee Davis 22 Feb 1959 in Riverton, Wyoming; Terry Lynn Davis 3 Jan 1961 in Worland Wyoming

ee: Lynn born 7 Jun 1964 in Roosevelt, Duchesne, Utah; Todd born 30 May 1968 in Roosevelt, Duchesne, Utah

ff: Earnie Married Joan M^CKowen 13 May 1963 in Randlett, Uintah, Utah

gg: 17 Oct 1977 at Seal Beach, Orange, California

hh: Elva Married Barry Dean 3 Jul 1975

ii: Morton Married Virginia ?

jj: Family records and copies of certificates in possession of editor.

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1; George Washington Turner born 29 Jan 1861 of Hudson, Kentucky, and Georgeann Yates born 29 May 1860 at Hartford, Ohio, Kentucky.  Married 11 Sep 1880 in Salt Lake city, Salt Lake, Utah Ancestral File of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, George AFN# C4K2‑XH

2; Children of George and Georgeann Turner, in order, are; Ivan Vane 18 Jun 1882 AFN 3822‑MD; Ivy May 19 Apr 1884; John Harlan 12 Oct 1886; Earnest Quinn 9 Aug 1895; Polly May 21 Mar 1898; Othel Walter; 21 Oct 1902

3; Dover, Sanpete, Utah; on the west side of the Sevier river opposite Fayette (near Gunnison and Manti).  Named after Dover England hometown of several of Dover’s settlers.  Homesteads originally established in 1877.  By 1890 the land had become alkaline due to improper irrigation methods so the village declined.  During 1930 a drought struck simultaneously with an epidemic, forcing abandonment of Dover, which then became a ghost town.  Utah Place Names; John W. VanCott

4; Children of Wallace Edwin Potter and Harriot Susan Kempton, in order, are; Elizabeth Rosetta 29 Dec 1872; Wallace Edwin Jr. 21 Aug 1874; John William 19 Sep 1876; George Jerome 18 Jan 1879; Amasa 23 Aug 1882; Harriot Elva 25 Jan 1886 AFN 3822‑NK; Arnold 16 Aug 1887; Welcome Elwin 12 Mar 1890; Crystal Dean 9 Jun 1892; Ann Craven 27 Jan 1894; James Reed or Reese 20 Jul 1896; Amelia Ivy (Millie) 30 Jul 1898; Royal Elmer 29 May 1900

5; Wallace Edwin Potter; born 14 Apr 1850 Mill Creek, Salt Lake, Utah, and Harriot Susan Kempton born 21 Mar 1856 Salt Lake city, Salt Lake, Utah.  Married 21 Aug 1871 in Salt Lake city, Salt Lake, Utah Ancestral File of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Wallace AFN# 1JNP‑FB

6; Ballard; a small community west of Bottle Hollow.  It was originally called Wilson for President Woodrow Wilson, then the name was changed to Ballard for a Mormon church Apostle.  Utah Place Names; John W. VanCott

7; Deep Creek; Although this label for this creek seems to have been not noted on most maps (probably due to the multiple places called Deep Creek) it is a very long creek that flows generally North South.  On the South it joins the Uintah River just north of Fort Duchesne.  On the north it goes past the canyon called Mosby.  This area here called Deep Creek refers to a rather large area  described as twelve miles north of LaPoint, and is dominated by this drainage.

8; All Children of Ivan and Harriot Turner; in order, are; Bernice Elva, 17 Nov 1904; John Harlan 7 Feb 1906; Jessie Arnold 9 Aug 1907 died 28 Aug 1909; Beatrice Ivy 13 Aug 1910; Crystal Wanothel 7 Dec 1912; Harriot Hurley 1 Jan 1916; George Wilbur 20 Jun 1918; Earnest Edwin 4 Nov 1920; Vera Levorn 5 Nov 1923: Ancestral file of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints AFN of Ivy is #3822‑FC

9; Vernal; in the heart of Ashley Valley, it was settled in 1876, although trappers and mountain men previously explored the region and the Ute Indians had inhabited the area even earlier.  Vernal has had various names, such as Ashley for the valley where the settlement is located (General William H. Ashley led the early trappers into the valley).  Jericho was another early name used to compare the walls of the early local fort and the walls of ancient Jericho.  Vernal was also known as the Bench for its location, and Hatchtown for the several Hatch families who settled in the area.  In the late 1800's the town name was finally formalized as Vernal, which refers to a beautiful spring-like green oasis covered with grasses and numerous trees.  Utah Place Names John W. VanCott

10; Bennett; Located 6½ miles south of Whiterocks and 5 Miles northeast of Roosevelt.  It was one of the many town sites laid out shortly after the Uintah Basin was opened to homesteading in 1905..  The site was officially laid out in 1914 but had been settled earlier by John B. Bennett, before James Jones filed for a town site which he wanted to name Cunela.  He was not successful.  Utah Place Names, John C VanCott.

11; Randlett; First settled in 1902 abandoned and resettled in 1905.  Colonel James Randlett was the local Indian agent and commanding officer at nearby Fort Duchesne.  Indians and whites both considered him to be a good officer who tried to help the Indians.  His name was given to the settlement after it was previously called Leland for a short time.  Utah Place Names John W. VanCott

12; Fort Duchesne; Near the Uintah river, originally a fur trading post prior to 1841.  In August 1961, the fort was established under President Lincoln.  In 1886 two troops of black men from the ninth calvary moved in.  They served the fort for twelve years.  The fort was abandoned in 1912, then re‑established as the headquarters of the Uintah Reservation.  Utah Place Names John W. VanCott

13; Roosevelt; The settlement was called Dry Gulch before the area was platted in 1905-6.  At this time it was renamed for U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.  Utah Place Names John W. VanCott

14; Ouray; a small Ute Indian community near the junction of the Duchesne and Green rivers.  The community was named for Chief Ouray, who was born in 1820.  He was chief when the White River Utes were brought to the Uintah Basin Reservation from Colorado.  He spoke both Spanish and English and was friendly to the whites.  His wife was Chepeta, and important person in her own right since she was a great help to her people.  Ouray is the second oldest settlement in the Uintah Basin.  Utah Place Names John W. VanCott

15; Leota; was an outgrowth of Randlett.  The early Leota ranch was established in 1904 by R.S. Collett and others.  The name was that of a local Indian girl given by Mrs. Annie M Hacking an early resident.  Utah Place Names John W. VanCott

16; Avalon refers to the Avalon L.D.S. ward which had an elementary school next door.  It’s area lies east of Randlett and North West of Ouray and Pelican Lake.

17; Duchesne; Settled in 1904 when the Uintah basin was opened to white settlers.  The name Duchesne was the first name requested for the community, but was refused because of conflict with nearby Fort Duchesne.  In 1905 the town was named Dora for the daughter of A.M. Murdock who owned the first store there.  Subsequently the name changed to Theodore in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt.  When a nearby town took the name of Roosevelt in 1915, the original request for Duchesne was accepted.  Utah Place Names John W. VanCott

18; Price; a focal point of the coal industry in Utah.  In 1869 William Price explored the region and named the Price River.  The settlement was named after the river it is located on.  Utah Place Names John W. VanCott

19; Children of William Thomas Chandler and Beatrice Ivy  Turner, in order, are; William Thomas Jr., 22 May 1930 AFN 3822‑BT; Elva May 28 Jan 1932; Ivan Morton 13 Jan 1934; Beatrice Ivy 8 Nov 1935; Earnest Edwin 25 Mar 1944; James Bailey 13 Oct 1948