Chapter 3 Life on a small farm near a small village

There are some things I could write about life on a farm that I doubt even kids that live on a farm today would understand. Things have changed a great deal. I doubt if my kids would understand some of the language even though I tried to bring them up as much as possible taking care of farm animals. Some of the language has changed. Words like neckeyoke, doubletree, clevis, cooper, singletree, spreader strap, ham strap, bellyband, and many other items used daily on the farm.

We used dump rakes, and side delivery rakes, to prepare the hay after it was mowed. The end of the mower tongue was so heavy some times a heavy weight was hung under the seat to lift a little weight from the horse’s neck. Binders cut and tied bundles of grain. This was then hauled to a thresher and put in one at a time on the conveyer belt. Ditchers for keeping ditches free of grass and weeds was made with a long curved metal blade about 5 feet long. It was used to cut weeds and grass growing on the side of the ditch so that the water flow would not be restricted. The Jackson Fork was used to unload hay. Many other tools were used most of which are no longer is use. What took 8 or 10 men working together to do when I grew up is now done with one person. Tractors now have air-conditioned cabs with a radio and a heater for fall and winter use.

Here is a photo of my dad plowing the garden with a team, Pat and Mike hooked to a hand plow with a doubletree. The trees in the background make up the orchard where I kept my pony. It is also the same orchard that I had my bed in a tree as a boy. The house was my Grandfather Morgan’s home.

I had a saddle for my pony and had to tighten the cinch after putting on the saddle blanket and saddle. The bellyband was not pulled on tight. It was just to keep the saddle in place if you were roping, and a cow was pulling out in front of you. A martingale was to keep the saddle in place while pulling from the horn something behind you. It had a wide strap that went from the cinch on either side fitting across the breast. Then a strap went up from the cinch under the horse between the front legs and through the breast strap up to a chinstrap attached to the bridle which kept the horse from throwing her head, and making her easier to control.

Workhorses were usually not for riding. We harnessed them for work first with a collar placed around the neck, using a collar pad to keep it from making the neck sore on some of them. The harness was then placed on the horses back, The hames, which were medal on ours but some older ones were wood, were placed in a groove on the collar. The top of the hames on either side was always left strapped together with a leather strap and called a hame strap. The bottom was pulled together with a hame strap. When Dad pulled his team in a pulling match these hame straps were also wired so that they wouldn’t break. I have seen that happen and the harness is left on the ground with the horse jumping right out of his harness. A bellyband was brought up and buckled just in back of the front legs holding both sides of the harness on. A heavy strap something like the martingale strap went from this bellyband up to the collar and a strap placed around that to hold it up. This then had a looped leather strap about 3 inches wide that went to the neckeyoke which hooked to the end of a wagon tongue with a large ring if you were pulling anything with a tongue. If you had no tongue like when pulling a harrow, or a spring tooth, it was left to hang loose. In the back of the harness there was a cooper strap which went under the tail and buckled in order to keep the harness in place. From just above the tail a strap went down on either side across the horse’s hips and snapped to the belly band and on to the neckeyoke . This served to help stop a wagon if going down hill or just stopping anything with wheels and a tongue.

If we had a heavy load, a break was applied by having a block of wood that you could push against the wheel with a long poll attached to it and going up to the driver. Lines were attached to the harness running through rings some made from metal. Some were celluloid that looked like a plastic in different colors. One line went to the horse’s head on the left side and snapped on to a ring on the bridle. Another strap was hooked to that back behind the shoulders and went across to the other horse if using a team. This was called a spreader strap. One on each horse crossed in the middle sometimes going through a ring to keep the lines straight. Turning a team both to the left or to the right with just two lines. These spreader straps were sometimes decorated with those celluloid rings for beauty. There was also a checker strap which went on both sides of the bridle bit up to the ears then back between the hames where it hooked. This to kept the horse from lowering his head to grab a bunch of grass as you were driving them. The tugs hung from a back strap on each hip when not in use and were taken from there to hook to a doubletree which was held to the wagon with a steal bolt. Or if pulling something else, a clevis was used to attach the doubletree to whatever was to be moved. Dad had bells that were fastened to the harness on the hips in winter before Christmas to make a merry sound.

We used a ‘beet plow’ to loosen the beets then a ‘go devil’ was used to push two rows of beets to the side so we had a place to put the topped beets. This also made a place for the wagon or truck to drive through to pick up the load. A ‘go devil’ was made with wood cut in a triangle and weighted down with dirt. As a small boy I remember how I loved to ride the ‘go devil‘.

It was in 1928 that Grandfather Morgan suddenly died of pneumonia and the farm was divided again. Uncle Jack and Dad paid their siblings for their shares, and Jack took the west part with Grandfather’s house and barn and dad the east part where he had a two-room frame house.

We had a sandy spot in our field that didn’t grow other things very well so Dad planted melons and gave away a lot of them. If we had melons left we picked them before they froze and hauled them to the barnyard. A tunnel was dug out between the haystack and the straw stack and we put them back in there covering the entrance with straw. I remember having watermelon for Christmas that we grew.

We had a pit dug in the ground about three feet deep and about five or six feet in diameter. In there we piled potatoes, carrots, and parsnips. They kept well so they were covered with a thick coat of straw, then dirt piled on that. When we needed something for dinner during the winter, Mom would send one of us kids to the pit to dig out what ever she wanted, then cover it back up. Seldom did my folks ever have to go to the store. Nothing was ever wasted either. If anything was not used by the family, it went out to the chickens or the pigs.

I hated those parsnips, no matter how they were cooked. I remember years later when I was married and we lived on the highway in Phoenix Oregon, I thought one year maybe I was just being a kid and I ought to try a parsnip again. I planted some, and Inga cooked it for me. I still hated it and never wasted my time planting another one.

Even after Dad added on to the house it was very small. On holidays Grandpa and Grandma Whitney, Uncle Platte and Aunt Fern Greene, Uncle Merl, and sometimes more, would come to our house for dinner. No one had a house large enough to seat us all. Food was brought by all, and placed in the kitchen. We were free to help ourselves to whatever we wanted. There was always more than could be eaten. Mom had a poem I always liked because it reminded me of me on these occasions. I don’t know if she or someone else wrote it.

My Stomach

What’s the matter stomach? Haven’t I always been yer friend?

Ain’t I been a partner to you? All my pennies don’t I spend

A getting nice things fer ya? Don’t I give ya lots of cake?

Say stomach what’s the matter, ‘at you had to go and ache?

Say! What’s the matter with ya stomach? I gave ya

All ya wanted, you was hard just like a ball

You couldn’t hold another bite, of puddin‘, yet last night

You ached most awful, stomach, taint treating me just right

I been a friend to you, I have. Why ain’t you a friend of mine?

They gave me caster oil because you made me whine.

I’m feeling fine this morning tho, yes, it’s true

But I’m telling ya stomach ya better ‘preciate the things I do for you.

Dad bought a model T Ford, or it could have been one Uncle Jack bought and Dad paid for it while Jack was on a mission according to Mother. It had only one seat with room enough for Mom and Dad, I remember being stuffed on the back of the seat which was not a very comfortable place to sit, while my sister sat on Mom’s lap. I soon figured out how to change places with her. Whenever we would go some place, I would say to MerLyn, I speak for the window seat, then pretend to out run her to the car. I would always let her win of course.

I remember going with Dad into Weston in that Ford. It had a gravity-fed gas tank just in front of the windshield. Dad would have it in high gear and going full blast–maybe 15 or 20 miles an hour tops. We would always hope to make it up the little hill going into Weston, but never did. Almost at the top we would run out of gas and have to turn around and back up that last block so gas would run into the motor.

One day Dad was going to give Mom driving lessons. She had for years run around doing her church work with a white top buggy and horses. She wrote in her journal that she had 25 families to visit for Relief Society. That Ford had three pedals on the floor, clutch, shift, and brake and two gears ahead and one back. Automatic transmissions wouldn’t be invented for another 20 years. They drove up the road a ways to show her how every thing worked. Then Dad got out and she got behind the wheel. She got it going and when they got close to home Dad said, “Now if you stop in front of the gate I will get out and open it for you“. As they approached Mom must have panicked. She put both feet to the floorboards like she would on the buggy and yelled, “whoa, whoa, dammit whoa, and drove right through the fence. That was the only lesson she ever took. She never learned to drive even when newer cars were easier to handle. She went back to her horses or Dad took her. After he died she depended on friends to take her where she had to go.

My mother served in all the organizations of the ward when I was a kid. Often as the president of Relief Society, or President of the Primary. I remember in Primary when I was still a small boy but old enough to understand what was being said. Mother was meeting with some other sisters and they had arranged to have a doctor come and circumcise a group of boys. I can only imagine that they must have been getting a reduced price for doing the job for several all at once. I knew the day and without saying a word to anyone I disappeared. I don’t remember where I hid out all that day but no one found me until after the deed was done. Mother was not very happy with me, but I took care of my own problems. She had explained to me that sometimes boys were not careful in keeping clean and the skin grew over where it should not. I made sure I was ok and stayed away from the knife.

Work on a farm was dirty work summer and winter alike. We had no bathroom or shower when I grew up. We washed off the dirt out side usually with cold water in a tub before going in to eat dinner at noon. And by night if we were working in the hay or harvesting grain the sweat from our bodies would attract a lot of dirt. Loading bundles of grain or tramping hay or any other job was dirty. In the summer time after chores dad would say it was ok to go swimming. The West Cache canal was only a little more that a mile away and just minutes on a pony. It was a dirty stream and I wonder now why we didn’t all die from swimming in it. But swim we did. We would ride the horse down there sometimes with other kids from the neighborhood and tie up the horse at the fence on the side of the road, calling to the others the last one in is a baby and run across a sandy field taking off our cloths as we went. There was burrs that grew in that sandy soil and sometimes we stepped on one and had to stop to dig out the stickers from our feet. The canal was down over a bank out of site of any car going by and none of us had a swimming suit. We just went in our birthday suit. We would wash off all that dirt that went up our pant legs and stuck to our sweaty legs and go home dirtier that we started I’m sure but it didn’t show so much. Saturday night we heated water and washed clean for the week end.

I remember one time swimming up by the flume that went across the main road with some cousins visiting. We told them to stay away from the flume because the water ran swift and the bottom was slick. One of the Dawson girls got swept in there any way and jumped up and caught a wooden brace going across. The current washed offer her undies and I remember being afraid I was going to be in trouble when helping her out of there in that condition but I don’t think I ever did. When we swam in mixed company we just left on our under ware.

I guess the only other thing I remember about primary was the teachers. Sister Ione Maughan, who was a neighbor to us, I gave her a lot of gray hairs. Sister Koford had gray hair and her voice kind of shook when she talked. I thought she must be long past a hundred when she was my teacher. I remember as a primary boy she had told us about her little boy who had died, and told us how thankful she was that she knew he was in the Celestial Kingdom now, and she thanked the Lord. I remember thinking at the time that wasn’t very nice to be glad your son had died and wondered if my mom was hoping that I would do the same. Later when growing up a bit, I got to know her two other sons who were not living the gospel as they had been taught and thinking that was perhaps why she was glad to have one son in the Celestial Kingdom. She and her husband are the only adults I remember going on a mission from our ward though, I suppose there must have been others.

The first bishop I can remember was Van Taylor. He lived on a dry farm up in Cederville in the summer time but had a home in Weston in the winter. I loved to hear him speak because he always told stories or things that happened on his mission. Maybe he had some influence on me going on a mission. A year or two after the Medford temple opened I was standing in the foyer one day when a lady came up to me and said hello. She said, your from Weston Idaho aren’t you? Yes I told her but I have no clue as to who you are. She said she was Bishop Taylor’s daughter. I don’t remember knowing her even when we were kids. I knew Keith her brother because he played ball with my brother Chuck. Bishop Bastian must have been bishop when I was small, because Bishop Tingy was the Bishop that sent me on a mission.

When I was eight years old the family took the only vacation I can remember. Dad had purchased a Chevrolet in 1936. We went to Yellowstone to camp out for a few days the summer of 1938. I don’t remember Chuck and Sam being with us, they must have stayed behind to do the chores.

Mother wrote a mile by mile account. Even though I was eight, I have no real memory of that trip, except stopping to add water to the radiator while going over the Teton Mountains. That was a rugged climb for a car even a new one. As I grew a little older and got involved with the boy scouts, Dad some times went on camping trips with us and did the cooking.

Dad would have liked to travel more, but with a wife who was ill most of the time when I grew up, and a very small farm, he just stayed home and worked. Once Uncle Merl invited him to go back to Michigan with him where they would pick up two new cars and drive them back here. I suppose one was for Merl and the other for the dealer. He only bought one new car that I know off. Two if we count the Model T. That Michigan trip was the longest trip he ever took that I know of. He did go once to Oregon, to visit Chuck and Jean, but that is all the travel I know of that he did.

Mother traveled more after Dad died, because the kids would take her with them home. Once she even flew to Seattle which was a new experience for her. I don’t think Dad was ever in an airplane unless Uncle Merl took him for a ride in his plane. Mom made several trips to Washington and Oregon to visit kids and grandkids, one of her kids taking her there, then taking her home again.

One time after Dad died, (I think it was the first time any of us got Mom to leave and go home with us), I took her and Christie with me. We went up through Yellowstone Park, then across Montana, and ended up in Renton Washington, where we stopped to visit MerLyn and Dennis, then down to Salem for a visit with Chuck’s family, and home to Medford.

During our drive through Yellowstone, we stopped at a place they called the Grand Canyon, I believe. We got out to look but mother said she was tired so she would stay in the car. I had Lars and Ezra, one on each side when I heard a commotion and looked back to see a bear standing up at the back window where mother was, trying to get in the window. Mother had picked up a sack of home made cookies she brought along and was beating that bear in the head with it. I ran to try to save my mom and the bear got down so the window could be rolled up. It created quite a stir among the tourists near by. It was a funny sight to see–mom beating on that bear with a bag of cookies–but it could have been real bad had that bear been hungry.

Cars were still kind of a new thing when I grew up. There weren’t many roads to drive on even, and most were not paved. We did have a garage in Weston, owned by Ray Hanson, but how much he knew about cars I don’t know. They were much simpler then and easier to work on. There was even a service station at one time, long since gone. I remember it had two pumps, with ten gallon bowls on top. Each gallon was marked on the bowl, so I guess you had to buy in gallons. The gas came from a tank underground but had to be pumped by hand. You just swung the handle back and forth. If someone came and ask for two gallon of gas, you pumped until you had two gallons and then dumped it into his car via a hose similar to what is used today. That was gravity fed also. You would pay the man your 30 cents and be on your way. Farmers who had tractors had tanks of gas delivered to the farm and pumped the gas by hand, or some had the tanks elevated and gravity did the pumping. During the war when gas was rationed we got a little from Uncle Merl when we ran out of stamps to buy it. A lot of other things were rationed and very hard to get. I guess people who lived in cities had a harder time. We raised most of what we needed so food was not a problem but anything for the car was hard to get. They gave out gas stamps in A B C depending on which stamps you got you could drive that much.

Frank Shrives was a neighbor who lived a half-mile or so east of us. He had a farm but also served as county commissioner, whatever they do. He had a new Buick a very nice car I thought. He would go down the road past our place and the motor sounded like it was doing 80, but he would be driving in low or second gear and forget to shift, so he would really rev up that engine. Automatic transmissions had not been made yet.

My mother wrote in the papers she left behind that the poem Nevada Slim was Frank Shrives poem. I don’t know if that meant he used it to perform or if he wrote it. He used to smoke and never went to church much that I remember. So I don’t know when he would have used it. Although he was apparently present at the graduation when I got out of grade school. My mom wrote in her journal that Frank had said he didn’t know Keith had it in him when I gave my talk. Anyway I have always loved that poem and am going to include it in this writing. I still get a little emotional as I read it and can see that horse perform in my minds eye.

Dawn on the rosy skyline-joy in the heart of Slim, as he rose from his campfire breakfast, and called his stallion to him-the long hard drive was over; and tonight-Nevada would be, wed to the prettiest girl in the west- the beautiful Lila Lee. Singing, he saddled his stallion-the horse was speedy and bold; he had won the name of nugget from a coat and a heart of gold.

Slim loved the golden Stallion-whose head it held haughty and high, power breathed from his splendid form, and courage flashed in his eye. And like the horse was Nevada, handsome, hardy and clean with youth that danced in his fearless glance. No finer pair ever was seen. Soon they were galloping swiftly-on a far-flung grassy trail-and Slim met up with a pal of his-who’d been sent for the Bar C mail.

Slim gave him a smiling-howdy, Bill, forget the mail-so you can turn back with me to the big long church, and stand as my best man. Bill Anson, stared at him coldly, then ask-Slim, how could that be-for you’ve been joined to that Spanish girl, you jilted Lila Lee! Nevada made fierce answer! What lie is this you loon? But Bill retorted harshly, “It came through Marty Boone!

To Lila he brought your own letter-and here’s what the first line said don’t think no more of me Lila, for yesterday, I was wed. She fainted! But when they roused her-she wouldn’t cry nor complain she said she was glad you’d showed your hand; That loss of you was her gain. And she’d prove to all-she means it, in the old log church this noon- In bridle she’d worn for you. She’s marrying Marty Boone!

He’s just a devil, that feller-how could you do it Slim, Marty Boone is half fox half wolf, she is far too good for him. Nevada’s eyes were burning- his voice was a steal cold chill. His left hand clinched on his bridle rein-as he made reply to Bill. You’re asking how could I do it? I ask, what’s your friendship worth-that a lying forgery made you think, I’m the meanest man on earth.

That letter was Boone’s own writing, he’s slick as hell with a pen. But when I’m through with Marty Boone-he’ll never forge again. I’ll be there before the preacher” – “You can’t- they wed at noon, Long , long before you can reach that church, she’ll belong to Marty Boone! “You’re wrong, I’m taking a short cut. I’m leaving this long miled trail, I’m heading fer Devils Canyon- I can’t afford to fail.”

You mean your aim in to jump it- where them sheer walls narrow in? Where the injuns named it Wild Horse Hope? -you ain’t got a chance ta win. “Bill , the desperate wild horse crossed it-when them ropers after him swept-reckon my hores and my luck will hold, when I leap where that cayuse leapt.

Paling his friend retorted,” don’t you realize Slim-when that hunted wild horse made that jump, no rider weighted him? Nevada never answered-he whirled his horse to the right. Bill Anson groaned as he watched his pal go racing out of sight. Soon under the speed of Nugget-the dark abyss drew near-grim hope rode high in the heart of Slim, with ne’er a thought of fear.

Like a snare of Satan’s own setting-like the sheer-walled drop into hell the canyon yawned-and it’s icy wind rose up in a savage swell. Jagged rocks in the bottom-and a river’s toss and moan-who knew what horrors lay there, in the depths it called it’s own? But closer came horse and rider-and faster drummed Nuggets speed. Ready to give his last pulse best-it served his masters need.

The edge! From the winds cold moaning, a hundred warnings rang-but with out a single pause of fear, the splendid Stallion sprang. Far out-while a watching vulture, that floated above-alone, looked down, on both with and evil eye-and marked their flesh for his own. As the two left the Canyon lip-in that hazard, with hell below-young Lila Lee rode on, to the church-her face as white as snow.

But out of despair’s dark ashes, she gathered up strength and pride and her head was high, as she rode along, with Marty by her side. Marty Boone! Fox faced-wolf hearted, concealed in his coat a gun-he’d paid to have Slim shot down on the trail, but couldn’t be sure it was done. An hour more-and the beautiful bride at the alter stood with Boone! The white haired preacher opened his book-

The organ, hushed it’s tune. Then-a clatter of hoofs on the church steps in like a whirl wind came, lathered horse, and rider-whose eyes were a narrowed flame! Thundering up to the alter-in the midst of Marty’s , “I do” Slim shouted, forger! Liar I’m here to settle with you. Slim’s gaze then flashed to Lila-”had you no real faith in me? Does nothing in your heart cry out?

That letter’s a forgery? “ oh Slim, my darling-forgive me! But the words were hardly begun-when with the speed of a striking snake – the forger went for his gun! An orange flame from the muzzle and explosions snarling soar- the crash of Slims gun replying while the guests broke wild for the door, above in the ancient rafters smoke curled like hells own breath. While there at the alter

His lies profaned -went Marty Boone to his death! And now by the fireside, peaceful (with Slim and Lila long wed) men tell of the leap that Nugget made – of a snake by the alter dead! Of a lesson learned by beauty-when lies crawl up from the dust-you must stamp them down, with the strong spurred heel-of a deep and shining trust.

Many of those old timers knew a lot more about horses than they did cars. I was using Dad’s team one time and had been to Grandpa’s for some reason. I was in a hurry to get home on a hot day and was really crowding the team. Frank must have been watching me as I came on the road below his farm. When I got almost up to his house, he came out of the field and stopped me and I got a little scolding. “Can’t you see that horse is in trouble he said.” No, I hadn’t seen anything wrong. He was rolling up his sleeve and told me he had Asatoria. I don’t know if that word is spelled right but it was a disease that I had seen kill a horse before. They get it when not in good shape and get over heated. He stuck his arm up his rear and pushed down on the bladder making him dump what looked to me like about 10 gallon of water on the road, then he gave me orders to walk that team the rest of the way home which I did. I would have been in big trouble had he not saved that horse for me.

My mom was another one who the neighbors depended on if one of their cows or a calf got into the new Lucerne field. They would just go crazy eating it until they bloated. When a cow bloats she swells up from the gas created from alfalfa if nothing was done they would usually die. I have often seen animals in a field with all four legs in the air dead from that. Many times some of the neighbors would send someone to fetch Myrtle, when they discovered a bloated animal. She would grab her scissors and off she would go. She knew if an animal needed help or not as soon as she looked at it. If they did she would go right up to the animal and stab them in just the right spot, just in front of the hip bone with her scissors. Gas would spray into the air, and then the green alfalfa would drain out and down the side until it healed over again. It wasn’t pretty to look at or smell. She had been raised on a farm where her dad would buy heifers, breed them and then the girls would break them to milk. When he had a good herd he would sell them to make a payment on his farm and start over with a new herd of heifers. Mom had a lot of practice while growing up, and grandpa had taught those girls a lot about animals and how to care for them.

I grew up in a small Mormon community, but there was some beer drinking that went on. Well only a few people drank. I think everyone in the community were members of the church, but not all were actively engaged in the ward. Emma Deaton and her husband, moved into town. They were not members, and I remember them being a little protective of their daughter, who I took a liking to. Mr. Deaton was a beer distributor. I guess it wasn’t unusual that they would build onto the front of their house, which was across from Rays Garage right on the main highway going through our little town, connecting it to the front sidewalk, making a room for a little beer hall with only a few bar stools. Some of the old dry farmers would spend a lot of the winter months drinking beer, and visiting with others in there.

One of Emma’s customers was Nephi Jensen. He would ride his horse up there and sit and drink beer until Emma thought he’d had enough, then she would ask some of the other guys to take him out and put him on his horse so he could go home. Some times we kids would see Nephi leaning out of the saddle and the horse would turn that way to catch him from falling. If he leaned the other way the horse went that way, and it looked to us like horse and rider was staggering down the road. The horse always delivered Nephi to the front of the house, and stood there until Nephi would fall off. Then it would go to the back to the haystack and have a snack. Nephi’s wife told him many times “if you don’t quit this drinking one of these days you’re going to throw up your insides. One day when he came home and she had helped him up to bed, where he flopped across side ways, with his head hanging down, his wife decided to try to cure him all together. She went to the back and caught a chicken. She cleaned it and put the guts on a news paper. She then placed them on the floor just under his head, so it would be the first thing he would see when he woke up. Hours later she heard him coming down the stairs. Momma Momma he was yelling. He came in the kitchen and said, “you were right Momma, I threw up part of my insides, but with the help of the Lord and a long stick, I got them back down again. Here is a photo of Nephi on his horse.

Years later when I went on my first mission Nephi went to the temple with his wife. I have visited his grave many times over the years when I visit my family there. I remember telling that story once in Sweden while on our last mission over there and a young women thought it was terrible. I think every one else thought it was a good story.

Ray Basset was another colorful character I new as a boy. Mae Tingey the mother to my boyhood friend LaDell and my Bishop Maurice Tingey was his brother. Every one seemed perfectly normal in that family except Ray. I never saw him drive a car but always rode his horse. He didn’t live in Weston, but must have come from Fairview or Preston. I don’t think he ever married. I often saw him go by our place on his horse, usually with the bridle off and hanging on the saddle horn. Ray sitting in the saddle looked like he was asleep and the horse just taking him home. I never saw it run or be spooked by anything. If that had happened Ray didn’t have a line to do anything about it.

As I grew up in Weston I had a lot of girlfriends. My first love was Phillis Maughan our milk hauler’s daughter. We must have been in first grade by then. Another girlfriend was Lola. Lola was really a heart breaker. I think her last name was Jenson but I am not sure now. I was showing off for her attention one day on my horse. All the roads in Weston were dirt but during the depression the WPA had gone through the town and put in cement side walks. These walks went right across the dirt roads. I came around the corner on my horse as fast as she could run hoping that Lola would be looking at what a cowboy I was. When my horse hit that cement walk she slipped and she and rider went down, skidding through the gravel a long ways. Neither had any broken bones but could have easily done us both in.

Bonnie Guy, Betty Campbell, and Renee Campbell were also girls I was sweet on. Betty and Renee I dated some when I got old enough to do so. Bonnie was the daughter of the town cop. They even had a little cement jail house between the grade school and the church, but the only thing I ever remember seeing in there was a fire hose on a two wheel cart pulled by a man. I don’t know if they ever put out a fire using that. The jail disappeared before the church and the school did. I guess from lack of use. It would have been a terrible place to be locked in. The only light was from the two small windows with bars. No heat or any thing in there.

I remember Archie Kofoed-he had a very messy yard and corral which was across the street from his house. I heard people say he was shell shocked in World War 1. I didn’t know what that meant, but always was a bit suspicious of him. He would come into Archie Lotts store and ask for an ice cream cone, then sit and eat it in front of his wife. I was always taught not to eat in front of others unless you had enough to share. I thought he must be a tight wad. I guess I hadn’t learned not to Judge yet, Maybe she had some illness and couldn’t eat it-I don’t know.

I heard about a lot of bad things that happened on Halloween but I didn’t do a lot of it. I don’t think I ever heard of trick or treat until after I was married. Archie Kofoed said he wasn’t going to let any one tip over his out house; he would be waiting for them with a shotgun. So someone on horseback threw a loop around it with him inside and tipped it over on the door. He had to crawl through the hole to get out. This was all hearsay as I wasn’t there to verify it.

Tom Rose ran the grain elevators down by the railroad, and he sold coal there as well. He used to call my dad and say, Burnath I have a load of coal in you better come up and get a load while I have it. Sometimes Dad would say thanks, but I don’t have the money right now. Tom would always say that’s alright just come and get what you need and pay when you can.

One Halloween when he got a car load the train would just spot it on the side track that went to the elevators and leave it until it was empty. They had kind of a jack affair that you could put behind a wheel and by pushing down on the long handle you could move a car load of coal about a couple inches at a time. Working fast it could be moved slowly several feet in not to much time. This is so it could be lined up with the coal bens. One Halloween someone had left that jack out and someone used it to move that train car right across the highway and left it there. A car coming down the hill in the dark would not see it until it was almost there. Now days they would throw you in jail for doing stuff like that.

They always had a Halloween party for kids and adults in our ward. My mother used to dress up like a witch. She looked like a gypsy to me. She would remove her teeth and people didn’t know who she was, then she would go around and tell peoples fortunes. Many wondered who that strange lady was and how she knew so much about them. I remember her grandkids liked to see her take her teeth out and put on a little show for them. She was a good story teller and could make up the biggest whoppers you could imagine.

We lived on a small farm just about 1 and ½ miles from Weston to the east and the Union Pacific railroad ran north and south about half way in between town and our farm. Freight trains coming from the south were often long ones with a lot of cars and there was a slight grade they had to climb after leaving Weston going north. I remember often while thinning beets counting the cars and wondering if it would make it up that hill. Someone got the idea that it would be fun to put some wagon wheel grease on the tracks and see what happened. It was kind of fun to see how that engines wheels would spin when it ran over the grease. No it wasn’t me I just thought it fun to watch it. Here is a photo of one of those trains.

In spite of all Mom and Dad taught me I was still a kid and sometimes didn’t have much sense. One job I had on the farm when I was only 5 or 6 years old was herding our cows along the public roads. We had no pastureland and all the farms were fenced at that time. So every day in the summer I was sent out with the cows to graze along the road, which would save feeding them one meal and keep the hay for winter. It was a boring job, and sometimes I didn’t pay attention to a cow pushing against the fence and let them into someone’s garden. They could do a lot of damage in a few minutes. Sometimes I would lay on the back of my pony looking up in the sky and daydream. That old Indian pony would munch grass along with the cows while I day dreamed and sometimes had cows go through a fence while I was dreaming. I had a lot of adventures that way.

This is a photo of me and Floss my pony.

I was just below the railroad tracks one day when I saw Ivan Thompson’s car turn down the road, and come towards me. I had no idea then nor do I now, why, but I picked up a rock and when sister Thompson went by with her son Berry in the car with her, I threw the rock at him and broke the window in the car. She didn’t stop, but I watched until she got to our house and she did stop. I knew I was to die that day, and kept the cows out much longer than I otherwise would have. Sometimes I took them home too soon and Dad sent me right back out with them. When I finely got home Dad gave me the only real lickin I can remember. I got booted in the rear many times when it was needed, but this time I really got a lickin, and if Mom hadn’t interfered and saved my life, I may not have lived to be an old man. Well when I read what I wrote I think I may have thought it worse than it was at the time. Dad was always fair and I really did deserve a licking but I am sure he wouldn’t have injured me.

There was another thing I did to entertain myself while performing that boring job of herding cows, and I suppose Dad would not have approved, had he known. At the corner where the Linrose road crossed the road going past our farm there was a culvert that carried water to Willy McKay and Clyde Nelson, who in later years had bought Grandpa Morgan’s home. He had land across the road to the south also. Water was not always running in that ditch but where it went down and under the road then come up on the other side there was always water sitting in a little pool on each side of the road. The little frogs somehow found that and were playing there. They would dive as soon as they saw me, and stay under for a long time. One day I took a piece of the long grass, that grew on the bank of the ditch, and chewed off the end leaving me a very small straw, almost like the plastic ones they have now days, only not nearly as large. They were about the size of a needle. I caught one of those frogs and sticking that straw up his hiney, I then blew on the end, so his little belly bulged. I would then let him go. He of course dove in the water, only to pop back up again when he reached the bottom. It seemed to me he looked at me and said, “Oh, are you still here?” as he dove again. Each time popping back up until all the air leaked out.

Maybe that is why I never got what I wanted for Christmas. We were poor but I didn’t know that until I was an adult. I don’t remember feeling poor, but we never got what we wanted for Christmas. We made homemade candy and the kids got to help with that. We made our own ice cream; Mom made cookies and pies. We often had fried bread at night with jam and cold milk. Our two main meals were breakfast and dinner at noon. Supper eaten at night after the chores were done was usually bread and milk. The fried bread and jam was always a treat. And there was fun all winter long. We skied behind the horse running down the road, the skis off to the side over the drifts. Sometimes we hooked a rope to a scoop shovel out of the barn, and rode that down the packed snow on the road, or we used an old tire pulled by the pony, or even the wash tub. We had fun all winter long.

There was always a Christmas tree but in order to make room for that we had to take the stove out of the front room. So we had heat only when the kitchen stove was going and that had to do for the whole house. I don’t believe there was any insulation in the house at all. It was very cold in December. Mom would put bricks and stones in the oven when she was baking. We could wrap them in newspaper and take them to bed with us to put our cold feet on. The Christmas tree was brought in and put on a stand made by Dad, then Mother would mix a batter of Lux soap, making it very thick, we could put that on our hands then run a branch through our hand leaving a white soap that looked like snow. All the kids were permitted to decorate.

We put the balls and stuff on in any which direction and then icicles made from foil was hung. That process got to be tedious so we would just throw a hand full on. After we had made a complete mess of everything Mom would tell us to hurry off to bed, and to sleep, before Santa arrived. Then she would spend most of the rest of the night taking everything off of the tree and doing it over, so it was so beautiful in the morning when we got up. I didn’t know for years how that tree we made a mess of got to be so pretty during the night.

In the morning we had to dress and go to the barn to take care of the animals first. All had to be feed and watered and the cows milked, before we could eat or look for a gift from Santa. I always wanted an electric train but it never was there. After we had taken care of the animals, and opened any gift we had, we ate breakfast. I had one of those mothers that thought you needed food before candy. I have always been convinced that goodies should be eaten first in case you don’t have room.

These things done, we could hear Dad in the yard with the horses harnessed and hooked to the bobsled. We would all pile in, sitting in fresh straw with blankets over us. And in really cold weather, we had heated rocks to keep our feet from freezing. When we arrived at the church there was a children’s dance prepared. Brother Bingley could play a mouth organ attached to his accordion which he played with his hands and tapped a drum with his feet; he was the whole band. There was an old pot bellied stove in the corner that we hugged when we were not dancing. The horses were tied up out side with blankets over them to keep them warm until the return trip.

Dad always put bells on the hips of the horses so you could hear it coming for a long way off. Sometimes he also delivered the school kids in the sleigh. Mart Rassmusson must have been richer because he had a sleigh with a cover over the top and a stove inside for heat. It looked like one of the old sheep camps sheepherders lived in while out with their flocks, except it had runners instead of wheels.

Dad was very particular about his horses and how you treated them. One winter I talked him into letting me take the team and bob sleigh to MIA. It was so nice with the bells he had attached to the harness on their hips in the wintertime. As I came into town all the kids heard the bells and saw who it was and came running to get on board. I had several kids in the sleigh as I approached the middle of town. It was a pretty wide intersection and great for shinning. I slapped those reins and the team took off. Right in the middle of the intersection I turned them and round and round we went, the sleigh sliding and kids yelling. It was a ball. But someone had hauled coal from Archie’s store and dropped a piece that day. It had sunk into the packed snow. Then when the sun went down it had frozen solid. The team was unable to keep the sleigh in the same circle because of the weight, we got closer and closer to that lump of coal. When the back runner hit it, over we went dumping every one on the ground. I got up and could see the team headed homeward. It was slick but I managed to just get hold of the back of the sleigh which had righted itself, and I climbed in. When I got to the front of the sleigh, the team was running for home. The lines were out on the double tree, and the tongue was slick with frost and snow. But I knew if that team came home running hot and sweaty in this weather that I was in big trouble, so I went out on that tongue to retrieve the lines. Had I fallen I would have been dragged all the way home probably, and been dead anyway, so I didn‘t worry about the danger. I made it out and got the lines and was able to slow the team to a walk and walked them all the way so as to cool them off before getting home. I put them in the barn and rubbed them down rather than turning them loose to freeze. I was grateful that I hadn’t damaged that team.

I was in grade school when the war started. The whole country got involved in it. Kids were encouraged to buy war bond stamps instead of candy. I don’t really remember buying a lot of candy anyway. When Marion worked for Mel McKay for a $1.00 a day he had lots of money I thought, and shared his candy with me. But often when I bought anything at the store when going to school it was a can of olives. I could get a can for ten cents. Then with my knife make a hole and drink the juice then eat the olives. I thought that was better than candy. But I remember during the war we had a lot of fun seeing how fast we could fill a stamp book. Each time you had a dime you could buy a stamp and past it in the book. When that was full you could trade it for a war bond worth 25 dollars. I guess it took 12.50 worth of stamps to buy a bond. They were usually worth twice what you paid for them if you kept them long enough.

We also had scrape drives where we took a truck around to farms and they would give us old farm machinery that was just sitting out and rusting anyway. Even tin cans were saved and turned in to make war material to send to our boys. I don’t remember there being any commies or unpatriotic people in those days. Everyone helped in someway but there were some who did all they could do to keep there sons from going off to war. Keeping them in school or claiming a need on the farm. Everyone needed help on the farm but my three older brothers all enlisted. Marion could have stayed home for two years because they let you finish high school before going but he choose to leave in his second year of high school. This photo will show what a load of scrape iron looked like.

Uncle Merl didn’t marry until he was 35. When he and Kathleen Brower married they had a party for them at the old Silver Star School. Everyone in our family was sick with the flu but me. I went to the party. It was kind of boring because there was just old folks there. I went up to Weston to try to get my pal Theo Schvaneveldt, to go with me down to that party, but he was asleep on the porch, and I couldn’t get him up. So I went back myself. Freddy Vabel’s band was playing for the dance. I knew them pretty well because they played in Preston, on Saturday night, and I was always there. I was talking to Freddy, and said, “Why don’t you go get some refreshments. I’ll play a couple tunes for you.” “ Really!” he said, and handed me his trumpet. I sat down and one of the guys said something and the rest flipped a few pages on their music. The guy tapped his foot a few times and they started to play a nice walts. I blasted out My country, Tis of Thee. The band stopped but I played it all the way through. Everyone was clapping and having fun. I got to thinking about that and wondering what my folks were going to say when they heard about it. But Aunt Fern just told Mom that Keith had made a little fun for them at the party.One year Chub Buttars hired me to help in his grain harvest. All I remember of it was the day I took a truckload of wheat to the elevator. I had driven trucks, but didn’t have a lot of experience. I must have had 8 or 10 tons of loose wheat in the truck. I made it just fine to Weston, from up in the hills where his farm was. But I was going too fast when I reached the downgrade into town and couldn’t shift to a lower speed. I didn’t have any experience with double clutching, and was just grinding gears. I got scared and hit the breaks and wheat started to pour over the cab like rain. I let up and tried shifting again. No good. By the time I was to Oscar Campbell’s home at the edge of town, there were trucks on both sides of the highway waiting for their turn to unload. I road that break all the way to the bottom of the hill going between the two lines of trucks spilling wheat as I went over the front. It was a miracle no one was coming from the other direction. I finely got stopped at the rail road station, the brakes completely burned up. I don’t remember getting fired or even chewed out, but it was a very frightening day.Another time, a man in the ward asked Dad if I could help him with his harvest. I think his name was Simmons, but I am not sure. He had a home in town, and one on the dry farm, and wanted me to stay there a couple of weeks. Dad said I could go. I didn’t last long there. We started to work and something broke. It must have been one of these machines where it took two men, one to drive and one to tie sacks, because we were both there. When something broke he swore at me. We broke down several times and each time he would swear at me, as if I had done something wrong. A little rain shower came up in the afternoon. You can’t cut grain after it gets wet because it won’t shell out, and if it rains hard some is lost as it is knocked out of the head. When it rained he swore at me, as if I had anything to do with the weather. I had enough by that time, and just walked off the job, after telling him I was quitting. I had about an 8-mile or more walk home, down a dusty dirt road that came out north of Weston. When I got home Dad ask why I was there, and I explained what had happened. I was sure I would get a lecture about not finishing a job I had started, but Dad was fair and didn’t think I needed to be subjected to profanity all day so I didn’t go back.My brothers were off to war and Sam the oldest wrote to me asking if I could find a home for his Cocker Spaniel dog Kelly. I thought that would be good to have a hunting dog, and he sent him to me. I don’t remember going duck hunting with him, which is what they are bred for, but I did try to get him to hunt pheasants. He was useless, running ahead of me scaring up every bird around all out of range to shoot at. I finely put a long rope on him but that didn’t work either. I was walking along the fence line over in Thompson’s and McKays pasture, and that darn dog was down in the sage brush scaring every bird up for a half mile, too far for me to shoot at. I tried to get him to come back but he was not a well-trained dog, and just ignored me. I finely got so frustrated I shot him. He was so far away that it didn’t do more than make him mad and he went home. We had him hanging around the house for a long time but he was no good to us.I remember going to priesthood meeting in the stake one time and thought it was J Golden Kimball visiting, but he died in 1938 so it wouldn’t have been him. Perhaps it was Elder LaGrand Richards. Anyway the priesthood quorums as well as the Relief Society used to pay monthly dues. I paid them up into the 60s or 70s when that was changed. The Stake President asked the visiting authority if he could say something to the brethren about paying their dues. He had other things to talk about and didn’t want to take time with that so he said to us. “Brethren I don’t think any of you want to be the one shitting on the single tree so pay your dues“, and then he went on with his message. I have often thought that in that group of farmers there was no one present who did not get the message. Anyone who has ever driven a team knows how it is to drive a lazy horse, who lags back letting the other horse pull the load and is always dirtying up the single tree. I have driven such horses and smacked them on the rear more than once, trying to get them to pull their share.Uncle Willie’s house in Logan was soon surrounded by businesses. And when he retired from farming Dad got some of his things. I don’t know any details but an old ugly saddle was one thing, some tools, and a horse that I thought was great. A large black mare that Uncle Willie used as a derrick horse when he hauled hay into his barn, which was also right in town now. He would go out to his farm and load a load of hay then come in and hock that mare to a cable that pulled the Jackson fork up to the barn loft. When the Jackson fork was set Uncle Willie would just yell to her to go. She would pull the hay up to the loft and when he tripped the fork she would back up and get ready for the next one without any one riding her. I was always fascinated by that because of all the hours I had spent sitting on a horse doing the same thing. Dad bought her or maybe Uncle Willie gave her to him. I don’t now. Anyway we got her home but not very long after that she died of brain fever, so I don’t remember actually using her. Uncle George Winn came and took the skin, the meat he took to the fox farm over north of Preston.I remember a time when that radio I put in the barn didn’t work, and I took it in the house to work it over. I got the back off and looked at the tubes and the wires, and things in there I knew nothing about, and was stabbing around with my knife trying to figure out why it didn’t play. I hit a hot wire with my knife and sparks flew, setting my bed spread on fire. But at the same time the radio started to play. Apparently there had been a loose wire that got welded back when I hit it with my knife. I thought I was good enough so I should go into business. I wrote some guy who advertised in a magazine that he could teach you radio repair, but he wrote back and said that I should wait until I was a little older and out of grade school.When I was in my teens a group of us boys went to Yellowstone Park. I remember camping at Fishing Bridge, and some of the guys went swimming, while some of us were trying to cook some dinner. It was getting late and Jolly Lot was still down at the river. When he finally came up instead of trying to cook something like the rest of us did. He just took a can of beans or something and put in the ashes of the fire. He was standing there in a swimming suit trying to keep warm, when that can blew up and sprayed him with its hot contents. He ran to the river and jumped in, but the next morning he was covered with blisters where he had been burned. Some Boy Scout he turned out to be. Even I knew better than to put a can of anything to heat with out punching holes in the top so it wouldn’t blow up. That is the only thing I remember of that trip.

I was about 16 when I took my dad’s car, a Gram Page Cavalier and went to a dance at the old Weston High School. When I came out to leave, instead of backing out to the street, I went through a weed patch and was going to make a turn to go back to the road. There was a broken post out in those weeds that I couldn’t see, just high enough so that it broke both tie rods on the car, and left one wheel going one way, while the other went the other way. Parts were hard to come by because of the war, so we were without a car for some time. In fact I can’t remember ever driving that car again or what we did with it.

One day Dad heard of a 1936 Ford, four door for sale over by Preston some place and called the guy. They made a deal on the phone and Dad gave me a check and sent me to pick up the car. I ran the thing in the ditch once just getting it home. Those old Fords had what they called mechanical breaks that were next to useless. You just pushed as hard as you could and hoped to stop. One night Theo Schvaneveldt and I coming home from a dance ran off the pavement. It had been raining and was slick, I over corrected, shot across the pavement, and into the ditch on the other side. We rolled over all the way and back on to the wheels again, ripping off the top, which was not made of metal, I looked up and seeing stars above, I wasn’t sure of my condition. I looked at Theo and asked, “are you Ok?” “Yes!” “Well we tipped over didn’t we?” “Oh, yes, “he said. “We really tipped over.” After we determined neither of us was hurt, we got out and tried to bend the fenders out off of the tires. Most of the glass was broken. Finally Theo got behind to give a push, I couldn’t quite make it out of there, so I put it in reverse to back up and get a run at it. I knocked Theo down and pinned him with the bumper across his legs with him sitting on the bank behind. He was yelling get off of me, but all I could do for some time was spin the wheels and spray mud all over him. It must have lifted the car a little when it pinned him and I could get no traction. Finally we did get out and went home.

I remember waking in the morning covered with sweat and thinking boy what a nightmare. I met Dad at the back door when I went to do chores. One look at him and I knew that it had not been a nightmare. I can only imagine now how he must have felt. He had little money and a lot of what he had went to doctors and medicine for Mother. Cars were hard to come by because of the war and were just now becoming available again. I like any dumb kid told him not to worry, I would get it fixed. I did take it to McQuan Motors to see about fixing it. They pounded out the fenders and welded where they had split but that was about all they could do. The top on those cars was not metal and would cost a lot more than the car was worth to have it replaced. I stretched a navy hammock Chuck had left home over the top. I did get some glass replaced and we were able to drive it but it looked so bad dad preferred to drive his horses.

I don’t’ remember how long after that we heard of a car in Logan one of the teachers was getting a new car. Dad called the man and ask if his old car was for sale. He said he would sell it to us for the price the dealer was going to give him. At the time there was price controls, a law that you could sell things for only so much new. So most dealers when they got new cars simply drove them for awhile then jacked up the price and sold them as used. It wasn’t very honest but that was what was going on after the war for a time.

We went to Logan to get the car, a 1940 Dodge 4 door. Not really fancy but wonderful compared to what we drove during the war. While getting the paper work done at the court house the lady ask dad what he would do with his old car. He said he didn’t know it was wore out and not much good. She ask if we would be willing to sell it to a man in Smithfield who had no car at all. Dad agreed to go and show it to him. He lived on a farm right along the highway we would take going home. We stopped both cars along the road and walked up to the house which was set back 2 or 3 hundred feet from the road. When the man answered dads knock, he told him why he was there, and the man looked out at the car and said I’ll give you $500 for it. Dad said no I couldn’t do that and I thought oh boy dad is going to go for more, but to my surprise he said, but I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll take $275.00 for it. He whipped out his check book and the deal was soon made and we were on our way home with our new purchase.

I said to dad why didn’t you take the $500 he offered you. Dad just looked at me and ask. Keith how much oil did you put in that car in Logan. I said, 3 quarts. He said the car is wore out and is not worth $500. I have never forgotten the lesson in honesty I learned from him that day. And I have always tried to give people there money’s worth my self.

Dad taught me a lot of wonderful things, but one thing I think stands out, your name and reputation is worth a lot more than any material thing. I remember during the war driving on recapped tires so bad we some times had 4 or 5 flats a week. Once I was in Preston, and had a tire blow out. It could not be fixed, and I had no spare. I went to the Ok tire shop, and ask if they had a tire to fit my car that I could buy. He looked at me, just a kid, and told me he had a tire and how much it would be. I told him I didn’t have the money, but my dad would pay for it. He ask who my dad was and I told him E. B. Morgan, there was no more questions he new dad would take care of it.

After my cousin Toby moved to Preston I wanted to go stay over night. I remember falling off the top bunk. That was a hard landing. We were playing in the snow and I fell down cutting my knee on class hidden under the snow. I got two cuts across the right knee an inch or so long. I still have the scares from that.

I had a hard time sleeping some times because of bad dreams. I had dreams kind of like a soap opera that continued one night after another. Usually it was me on a hay stack with Indians circling on horse back and shooting arrows into the stack with fire attached. Maybe I saw to many movies when I was a kid. These dreams continued even into my teenage years and I was a noisy sleeper. Often waking up wet with sweat. My mother always thought I might be in trouble with some girl and would question me about that. Hey when I dreamed about girls it was no night mare. And the only trouble I ever got into was when some other guy would clip my grass. I just couldn’t understand how a guy as pretty as me could ever lose out to some other guy.

Some of the things dad taught me to do I probably will never have to do. Life for me has been so much easier. Each year he would fatten a bull calf and then we helped to butcher it. We also raised a pig to eat, and I was always in on butchering that as well. There was a hot spring along Bear River not so far from our farm. Maybe ten miles, but dad would take that pig there to butcher it. They had rigged up a barrel and that was filled with the hot water from that spring. The pig after killing it was dipped in that hot water, then we would scrape it with knife or a sharp hoe usually used to hoe beets. The stiff bristles would come off and any dirt along with it. When we finished that pig would be so pink and clean it would shine in the sunshine. This all took place in fall or winter so the steam from the spring was always welcome to me to, it helped me stay warm. We didn’t have freezers so we took the meat home, cut it in quarters, and hung it on the north side of the house, up plenty high so animals couldn’t get to it. Then when needed we just took down and sawed off what we would use for a day or two and hang it again.

I don’t know how old I was when dad taught me to make a whistle. All I needed was a willow, and a pocket knife. You cut the willow on a slant so it looks like a mouth piece on a clarinet. On the top and back from the mouth piece a couple inches you make a chip by cutting down one way then the other to get a piece out. Back a few inches you cut around the stick all the way. Then you take your knife blade in hand and with the body of the knife you tap the bark all the way around gently until the bark comes loose and can be slide off of the wood. You cut a little of the top back to the notch you made and then put the bark back on, you now have a working whistle. Different tones can be made higher or lower by different sizes.

Before 1936 when dad bought a chevy, he traveled mainly by white top buggy or wagon depending on what we were doing. The buggy had springs under the seat but either one was a real rough ride. It was a little better on the dirt roads, but after the county started to put gravel on to keep us out of the mud, it was really bad. The iron tired wheels hit the rocks, and chuck holes, and I used to get a pain in my side. When that happened the only way to get ride of it was to get out and walk.

Once dad ran over a little rabbit in the white top and he would never eat one after that because he said it squealed just like a little kid when he drove over it. We were invited to Sunday dinner after Marion was married and they served rabbit but didn’t tell dad. After dinner he told Evelyn how good dinner was he thought he had eaten chicken. Someone mentioned rabbit, and he had to go outside to get rid of his.

I ask dad once to teach me to play the mouth organ. He and aunt Vera both played it. Maybe others in the family to, I don’t remember. Mother mentioned in her journal Chuck playing to the goats. When I ask Dad how he learned his answer was on a ditch bank. You just practice on a ditch bank until you can play. I did play but like most music I had little talent. I heard Lars Gunnar asking his dad for a mouth organ when they were visiting one time, so I gave him mine for his birthday.

I am not sure if dad taught me or not, but I suppose he must have to make toys to play with. I would take a wooden match and split the end a little with my knife the cut two small pieces of paper and put in the split, bending them over when in the middle, one one way, the other the other way, for a tail fin. Then getting one of mom’s needles I would press the end with the hole in it, carefully into the other end of the match. I now had a dart to throw and it would stick in the walls all over the house and not damage anything.

When old enough to date I entertained my girl friends by taking 4 tooth picks while waiting for our dinner in a restaurant and break them in the middle. I then put them together the broken parts together on the table and with a knife dip a drop of water out of a glass and into the middle of the broken pieces. It would then slowly start to move and form a star. I don’t remember who showed me that.

Another toy I made a lot of was from empty spools of thread that mom was through with. I some times notched around the edges to give more traction. Then taking a rubber band and pushing it through the hole, I put a piece of a match stick through the band and across the hole to hold the band there. A full length match was put on the other end of the band, and that was wound up until tight. I now had a tractor. I could set it down on the table or floor or where ever and it would crawl all over the place as the rubber band unwound.

I bought a Harley Davidson motor bike from a kid in Preston, so I could get around faster to the jobs I had in the fields. I stopped at a gas station where my cousin Tobby Morgan worked to get gas and he wanted to ride it. I told him to be careful because it had a suicide clutch. He hopped on and started up the motor. His foot slipped off the clutch while he was revving the motor. He shot across the driveway and right through a bramble bush. That took the nice windshield off but nothing else seemed broken. Tobby had a few scratches from that bramble bush though.

The only friend I had who road a motor cycle was Reid Eck. He had an Indian Bike. One night before I was leaving on my mission, he and I were in Preston, and had stopped to talk to some girls. I soon lost interest and told him I was going home to do chores. I did too, and didn’t know until later that not long after I left, he decided to catch up to me. Going west out of Preston, the highway at that time was very windy down to the river. He came around a corner on that windy road going too fast and hit a pile of loose hay someone had lost on the side of the road. That sent him sailing out over the bank of the road and tumbling down through a field. He was broken up pretty badly. One leg had to be rebuilt with metal and he was in the hospital most of the time I was on a mission.

I was lucky that didn’t happen to me, or worse. Once I remember out on a highway north of Preston opening it up to see how fast it could go. At a hundred the front tire started to come up off the pavement like I was about to take off. I cut the throttle and came down to a reasonable speed, but have always thought that if the good Lord hadn’t been looking out for me, I might have died young.

Our mailman George Hansen drove a Model A Ford around his paper route every day, same time, same speed, about 15 miles an hour. My uncle Platte had a dog that would see him coming and go to meet him, running along the side and biting at his tire for several hundred feet. One day Uncle Plate was out by the box and told George he was sorry his dog was always biting his tires, but he couldn’t stop him from chasing cars. “Oh,’’ said George. “I can break him of that if you want me to.” “Well if you know how, do it” Uncle Platte told him. The next day George put a piece of burlap inside the wheel cap and put the cap back on to hold it in place leaving a few inches hanging out. When he got to Uncle Platte’s the dog came as usual to meet him and took a bite of that burlap bag, and couldn’t get his teeth out so he lost a few, and stopped chasing George.

I remember well the day it came over the radio that the Japs had bombed Pearl Harbor. My Mother’s Uncle Wells Whitney, my grandfather’s brother, was visiting. I was in my room listening to a little radio when the announcement came on. I went out and told Mom, and Uncle Wells. He turned on the radio and listened for awhile then solemnly said, “We are at war”.

I was 14 when Mother had her second daughter. She had been ill several years and everyone thought she couldn’t make it through that pregnancy, but she did it just fine. I liked spoiling the baby Christie, and used to take her to town on my Harley for an Ice cream cone quite a lot. One day I was going out in the field for something and she tagged along, holding my hand as we walked. She must have been about four. Suddenly as we neared a ditch that Dad had been using, but no water was running now, she dropped my hand and ran for the ditch before I could stop her. She jumped as far as she could and landed in the middle, sinking into the soft mud up over her ankles. Looking down at the mud she said to me. “Hell what I would do isss there was water.”

Before they condemned our church and later tore it down. I, with my friends in the Deacons Quorum passed the sacrament in that old building. It was a rock building using the material the pioneers had available to them. There was a door on either side of the building. The Chapel was up one flight of stairs when you came in and class rooms down stairs. Up in the tower were the bishop and clerk’s offices. It must have taken years to raise the money to build a new church. In those days the local ward had to raise a certain amount before the church in Salt Lake would help. I remember going to the old church as a boy. Then when it was condemned, going to the Opera House for Sacrament meeting and having Priesthood meeting and Sunday School in the grade school.

Each family was given an assessment to raise. I remember Dad talking about how he could raise so much money. My grandfather Sam didn’t go to church, nor did his two boys who were on the farm, but Uncle Merl took Grandmother. She was always there. Grandpa however was a tithe payer and supported the church in every way. I never knew why he did not attend the meetings. I remember one year he gave all the sugar beets in a large field, below the West Cache Canal to the building fund. The bishop was talking in Priesthood meeting about getting those beets out. One of the boys suggested we do it on Sunday instead of coming to church, the bishop’s reply was, “we’ll let them freeze in the ground before we work on the Sabbath.” Everyone left their own harvest and dug those beets. I always had fun when the ward worked together like that.

I was ready to go on a mission by the time the new church was being built. I remember Bishop Tingey giving me a job working on the church before I left. We agreed that I would donate back to the ward half of my wages for the building fund. I am sure other young Priests worked on the same basis. Here is a photo of the new building the only one of the kind in the church today.

Passing the sacrament in our old church was a little different than it is today. They had not invented plastic yet, and I guess they hadn’t made paper cups either, at least I never saw any. The sacrament trays were medal with holes just right for crystal whisky jiggers to fit in. Fill them with water and it was real heavy. Jolly Lott, one of my friends, was assigned the north side. Just as he got to the row a young mother, Sister Williams reached into her blouse and pulled out a breast in full view of any one who may be looking, in preparation to feed her baby. We were taught to carry the tray with our right hand and place the left hand behind our back. Jolly seeing that breast staring him in the face started to giggle and the whisky jiggers kind of rattled. This proved a little disturbing to us all. But it seems that mothers in those days didn’t worry about a baby blanket over the shoulder like they do today.

One of the best memories I have though was a time when we went to Uncle Platte Greene’s to check on our young stock pastured there, and ride the fences to see what needed repair. We rode a little Indian pony Dad had bought from the Black Foot Indians. She had a very bad habit of running away if you dropped the lines for anything. We had to ford the West Cache Canal to get to the west pasture, and about half way across, a tumbleweed, almost submerged in the water, struck her between the legs and under her belly. She dumped us both in the water and took off. We swam to shore and Dad said, “well, we’re all wet so we might as well take off our clothes and hang them up to dry, and go swimming.” We went skinny dipping for an hour or more-the first and only time I remember Dad ever taking me swimming. I look at that canal now and wonder how we survived. It was very dirty water.

One day I was going out to the field with my dog Pete . We had put up a temporary electric fence to keep the cows out of the beets. My dog went ahead of me and when he got to that fence which had electricity running through it, he cocked a leg in the air and cut loose. He yelped as soon as it hit the wire and took off running. I had a good laugh, then I got to the fence and grabbed the top of a post so I could just swing over that electric wire. Half way across the post broke and let me down straddling the wire. I was jumping up and down trying to get off the wire. Each time I came down it hit me again. I still have the scares from the barbed wire where I cut my self up. I don’t remember if my dog laughed or not.

After Uncle Jack died in 1936 Martin Price rented that part of the farm for a couple of years. I always wished Dad would have bought it but having gone through the depression, he was afraid to take on any debt, and take a chance of losing his own part of the farm. I remember harrowing once and it was hot and windy weather. My lips were so chapped that they were bleeding. I licked them to try to keep them moist but that made them worse. Martin came up to the fence that separated our field from his and motioned to me to come over. I don’t remember what he wanted but when he saw my lips he pulled out a package of Bull Durum, from his bib overalls and took out two papers. He gave me one and said to put it on one of my lips and lick it. I did and he gave me the other to put on the other lip and I licked that as told. Now he said just keep that moist enough to stay on and you will be ok. The next day my lips were better. The tobacco in the paper had healed up the sore lips.

I was helping at Uncle Platte Green’s to harvest. At noon we were all on the shady side of the house washing up for dinner. Uncle Platte had been putting shoes on a horse a few days before. When he drove a nail through the hoof, the horse pulled its leg free before he could cut the nail off and bend it over. It ripped the flesh of his leg badly. Jasper Rasmussen asked him how his leg was and he pulled up his pants leg to show him. It looked terrible and was infected. Jasper got right down close to look and spit a mouthful of tobacco juice he was chewing on it. He told him to leave it there and it would heal up. In a day or two it did.

I didn’t always have such good luck with tobacco. Some of us young guys went up to the canyon to cut some Christmas trees. I guess we thought we would make a fortune. I got hold of some tobacco some place and had a plug in my mouth when we started up the side of the hill. I tripped on a root or something and swallowed it when I fell. I tried and tried to get it up but couldn’t. It burned in there for days. I never tried it again.

Years later a lady came into my sewing machine and fabric store chewing. I could see it run down a crack on either side of her mouth. She wanted to see a machine. I demonstrated one with one eye on her, and the other on my fabrics. I was sure she would spit that stuff some place but she was in the store a long time and never did, so she must have been swallowing. I remembered my experience and wondered how she could do it.

Dad did a lot of other things to make fun for me. I must have been about school age when he made a harness for my dog Sandy. In the winter I would put that on him and go out on the road that ran in front of our place. I would hook the dog to my hand sleigh and wait for a car to come along. After it passed I would say, “sic’im, and Sandy would chase the car carrying me on the sleigh. He would run clear to the river sometimes if the car didn’t go too fast. Then I would have to wait for a car going the other way to get home. Sometimes that was a long wait, and if the sun went down behind Big Hill the temperature could drop 20 or 30 degrees in minutes. Many are the times I have come home crying with frostbite. One look at me and mom would grab her dish pan and go scoop up some snow and then rub my hands, feet, ears, anything that was frosted she rubbed the snow on until it was ok. I thought she was the meanest woman alive sometimes, but I never did loose any parts of my body to frostbite.

Mom knew all the eatable plants in the area. We ate a flower that grew in front of the house. I don’t remember the name right now. It may have been Nasturtium. It had pretty blooms, but we ate the leaves on sandwiches like lettuce. We eat dandelions also on sandwiches, or sometimes she cooked them in a frying pan. Burdock roots were also used. water cress in the spring. Mom would send MerLyn out to gather the sugar beets we cut out when thinning. They were used like spinach. Even cat tails that grew in swampy areas were used. I don’t remember how they were prepared. Chock Cherries were made into jam. Boy they were named right. If we tried to eat one of those before it was jam it would choke you. There was much more that Mom knew and used. She lived when times were tough and new how to survive.