Joe Taggart
Joe Taggart Video
Joe Taggart standing in his junk yard. As a kid, he let me pick out some stuff to take home - an old book, a cast iron horse and a fossil.
In 1987, a video was made as Joe Taggart talked about the Taggart family and growing up in the hills north of Hay Springs. This is a summary of that tape...
Father and mother was Al and Emma Taggart. They had 10 children - 5 girls and 5 boys. There was also one half-brother from Al Taggart's first marriage - Chris Taggart (Al's first wife was Norma Boomer).
Joe was born February 22, 1904 on the farm 15 miles north of Hay Springs. The home was a small log cabin that, at the time, was home for Al and Emma and the three children - Myrtle, Perry and Joe. The family farmed, raised chickens and tended a garden.
There were plenty of chores to be done while Dad ran the sawmill. Mom was very good with a team of horse, while Myrtle and Addie couldn't handle a team very well at all. Of all the girls, Fan was excellent at handling a team of horses.
Who was the boss around the house? "Mother was! Whatever she said to do, you did it." The kids' jobs included keeping the stove filled with wood and feeding the horses.
A new house was built about two years before the trip to Utah and at the time there was 8 living there. The house was about 30-35 ft square and had a big kitchen and 2 big bedrooms. The house was built by his grand-dad (Milton Taggart). Joe said that he was the best carpenter that he'd ever seen - "Everything had to be just so". Did that rub off on Joe? "No!", he said laughing. When asked if everyone had their own bed, he laughed and said, "No! Sometimes there was 4 or 5 to a bed."
Joe attended a country school that contained, typically, 20-25 children from the surrounding area. The school building had log walls with a sod roof and was approximately 24x14 ft. The blackboards were made of wood and painted black. Chalk was used for writing. The school term last about six months and started in September. When asked whether any of the children fought, Joe said that they did - usually over nothing in particular. When asked whether he ever fought with any of the children, he said that he only fought with his older brother (Perry). The teacher got $40/month at the school. He remembered that his teacher names during those early years were Nessie Rutz and Cora Serboucek. Al Taggart was on the school board at that time.
His mother, Emma, made all the clothes for the children. The cloth was purchased in Hay Springs and the shirts, dresses and overalls were handsewn. Later, a Singer treadle sewing machine was purchased. When asked whether he got any hand-me-downs from his older brother, an emphatic, "No! Didn't want them" was the response. During the summer, the children went barefoot, which led to calluses that were as tough as horse hoofs. Joe related that he once received a derby hat that he lost when it blew off his head and was still airborne when he last saw it.
His mother did all the doctorin' for the family. In particular, when the kids were sick, she would take sage and boil it up until it was thick as syrup - "Tough stuff to take!"
For entertainment, it cost a nickel to see a picture show and he remarked that he had seen Charlie Chaplin movies. In Hay Springs, the picture shows, minstrel shows and dances were held in the city hall. Dances were always popular, especially the barn dances. When asked if he met his first girlfriend at one of these dances, he said that was probably true, but he would not reveal her name.
On the topic of Indians, Joe said that as kids, they were always afraid that they would get scalped by Indians! There were not many Indians in Hay Springs, but lots in Rushville and Gordon - "Rushville was always an Indian town!". At that time, Indians had to have permission to leave the reservation. Many would get jobs during the harvest time picking potatoes. Indians would come to Rushville from Pine Ridge with wagons to haul coal back to the reservation (Rushville was on the railroad, Pine Ridge was not). In later years, large Diamond T trucks were used to haul the coal. Indians did occasionally camp on the Taggart land. One particular Indian family (Goings) camped there frequently and Mrs Goings once presented a pair of moccasins with handsewn beadwork as a gift.
At the time of Joe's childhood, the wildlife in the area consisted of coyotes, raccoons and rabbits. During the migration periods, there would be ducks, geese and quail. Joe did trapping a child, which led to being was bitten by a raccoon. He also said that he had trapped a bobcat once.
Joe didn't think that his father ever used his homestead rights. At that time, you could homestead 160 acres and then, due to the Kincade Act, take another 160 acres. He never did.
First car that Joe saw was in Hay Springs, Nebraska at Woods Brothers. He wasn't sure what it ran on for fuel (there wasn't any gas at that time in Hay Springs), but it had big wheels and was about as fast as a tractor.
Of family heritage, he said that his mother (Emma Carle) was of German descent and that his Dad's mother (Rachel Thompson) was Irish and his Dad's father (Milton Taggart) was Pennsylvania Dutch.
When asked whether any of Joe's family fought in the Civil War, he said the "my grand-dad on Dad's side" fought for the North (Milton Taggart), although he never heard too much from his grandfather about it. He also said that one cousin, Al Brownlow, had fought in World War I.
Why did the Taggarts move to Utah? Joe said, "I don't know. Dad, he was kinda like a gypsy, I think. He'd stay in one place awhile, then he'd get a notion to go somewhere else." In fact, before Joe was born, they moved to Montana where Al worked to "paddle the logs on the lake with "donkey" engines". When asked if his mom was willing to move all these times, he said that "she'd always go!". Before leaving for Utah, the family had a sale and sold out. The 160 acres and 2 year-old house brought $1400. The next morning, May 8, 1915, they loaded the dog and the last of the chickens from the chicken coop and headed out with two canvas-topped wagons. They used a tent (about the size of two wagons) and camped out along the way. They were accompanied on the first leg of the trip (to Colorado) by two cousins of Al Taggart. They would eventually return to Nebraska, once the family was in Fort Collins. The first stop was Alliance, Nebraska where a snow storm piled up snow as tall as the tent that first night. The next stop was Crawford (not exactly a straight course), camping at Fort Robinson. Fort Collins was the goal for the first leg of the trip, meeting two uncles that had previously traveled there. Unfortunately, one of the uncles contracted spotted fever. He was eventually taken to the hospital (Taggarts are reluctant to go to a hospital), but died 10 days later. The Taggart family spent 1 month in the Fort Collins area. Once leaving Colorado for Wyoming, they traveled through the Red Desert region. The local residents would not give them any water for the horses during that time - just enough for the family to drink and for cooking purposes. Apparently, their water had to be hauled to their homes. They crossed the Continental Divide by way of the North Pass and arrived in Utah in September 1915, four months after beginning their journey. The family stayed in Utah for just one year, leaving in the Fall of 1916. Emma and the kids returned to Nebraska on the train. The only time that they got off the train the entire trip (2 days) was to switch from the Burlington to the Northwestern train in Crawford, Nebraska. While on the trip back, Joe told of the Negro porters on the train. He had seen some Negroes in the Chadron area, but hadn't seen very many - "Never been around colored people my entire life". In fact, he said that when he was a child, a colored person was not allowed to stay overnight in Hay Springs or Rushville. They were, however, allowed to stay overnight in Chadron or Alliance. Al had originally intended to drive the teams and wagons home from Utah, but decided to sell it all and take the train as well.
As Joe said, today is a different world compared to when he was a kid. For an example, he said that it took 4 months to travel to Utah by horse and wagon in 1915. When he returned years later by car with his sister, it took 13 hours. When he flew back from Salt Lake City to Rapid City, it took 1 hr, 15 minutes.
At the time of the taping, Joe was still using his outhouse.
