Joseph Maurice Tippets
Maurice Tippets was born in Brigham City, Box Elder County, Utah, on 9 January 1883. His parents were Joseph William Tippets and Nellie Ellen Rosenbaum. He was their first child. His home was west of the city by the tracks and train station. He lived in a log house. There were calf pens and a chicken coop on the east side of the house with a garden between the barn and the house.
His father was accidentally shot in the chest while hunting. It was on Sunday, September 30, 1883. He was in serious for quite some time. But he did enjoy playing with his eight-month-old baby, Maurice. His father never did have good health. It was in Nov. of 1883 that his Grandmother Jennette Tippets went to Salt Lake City to start to be a doctor. One reason she wanted the training was to be able to take better care of her son Joey. She was good at caring for the sick.
As a young child, Maurice remembered pulling sugar cane to chew on. He was so small that he had a hard time breaking it off to chew like celery. He was about 3 or 3 ½. He recalls making mud bird nests (mud pies) in the streets with a neighbor Willie Evans. Light at night was from a kerosene lamp with a reflector that hung on the wall. They also had kerosene lanterns to use outside and on the table.
His brothers, William Harrison was born 14 Sept. 1884 and Edgar was born 8 Aug. 1886 in Brigham City.
In the spring of 1887, his family prepared to move to Three Mile near Georgetown in the Bear Lake area in Idaho. His father had homesteaded some land there. They started their journey the 10th of May. Maurice was four years old. They traveled through Emigration Canyon. He told of how the chickens were housed in boxes awaiting the family's move to Georgetown. At night when they camped, they let the chickens out to find some food. One hen could not be caught. Maurice could remember how he chased it. But it had no trouble getting away from a four-year-old kid. He remembers his little brother falling in the creek. The family had two teams and wagons and drove 5 colts, 1 cow and a yearling calf. They had a churn in the wagon. When the cow was milked the milk was churned to make butter. They could put a little salt in it to eat or could drink the milk. It never got too sour to drink. It was a cold and windy time. They arrived the 15th of May. Grandfather Joseph Mahonri and Grandmother Jeannette had gone with them. Other uncles were already there starting to plant crops. His Grandparents returned to Brigham City, but later moved to Georgetown. Maurice had a close relationship with his grandparents.
Log houses were moved into Georgetown from Three Miles. He lived there 2 or 3 years then went back to Three Miles and lived with his grandparents. His grandparents went to Salt Lake City for the dedication of the temple in April of 1893. He stayed there to tend the chores. His grandparents sold the place later to Uncle Walt Tippets when they were old and they moved back to Georgetown. He was about 14 at the time.
He recalls Uncle Harrison cutting his hair and remarking that Papa's hair was getting a bit thin on top. He recalls that he herded cows for Uncle Hans and Chris Sorrensen. He attended school at Georgetown through the eighth grade. He later attended the Fielding Academy. At the time of his father's death there was a debt of about $1000.
At age of about 24, he homesteaded a quarter section and 40 acres on the river and 40 acres about 1/3 mile from the road.
He probated his father's estate through Mr. Gribbet and Mr. Haddock. It was placed it in court and that gave him time to get the debts paid off. Claude and Aaron worked with him to help pay it off. Uncle Harrison helped a lot to care for the younger sisters and brothers. Aunt Emmie was so faithful to help. Brothers and sisters wanted the estate to be sold and the money divided but he had supported the family and paid most of the debts so he didn't do it.
Does not recall who baptized him. He advanced in the Priesthood. When W.W. Richards was the Bishop he stacked the tithing hay; that was turned in for tithing. Worked faithfully. He sang in the choir, along with Marion Clark. They both sang bass and tenor. Sang in Fielding Choir and in Paris Second ward.
He had the first grain binder. W.W. Richards (Bishop) signed the note and Pappy worked and paid for it. Later Richards was made Stake President, of Bear Lake Stake. He used to bind 11 acres a day, 375 acres the first year he paid for the binder twice over. The binder cost $175. And had a five-foot cut. He had a hay bailer which he traveled about the country. It was while he was bailing hay at Sharon at the Wixom farm that he first saw Mama. She helped in the fields and raked the hay. She was the best hay hand her father had. She was wearing a denim dress. Everyone was so poor. Her brothers worked in the canyon, logging. They got paid in beef. The Wixom family had their own bailer once, but didn't have one at this time. They (Maurice and Retta) courted from September or October to the following June 1908. They were married in the Logan Temple. They drove a white top buggy belonging to his father in law. They drove from Georgetown to Dewyville in one day about 70 miles through Emigration Canyon. His parents and her mother went along with them. They had a short honeymoon at Brigham City and rode the train back to Logan. They then took the team back to Georgetown. The same group went back home. A dance and party was held. Maurice hired the Neibaur Family to play for his dance. They charged $ 1.00 for music and likely $.50 for lights.
Mamma was very active in the church in the Sharon Ward. The Sharon Ward gave them a fine clock that lasted thirty years. They got a set of silver from Will Lyons. Sharon Ward gave them a quilt. She won a nice quilt at the Relief Society drawing. He had bedding and furniture on the homestead. The two-room house sat away down near Harrisons’ place in the field. He had lived there about three years before he married. After one or two children were born the house was moved up near the road. He dug a well there. When the twins were born he built a house 26' by 32' with three bedrooms upstairs, two down and a full basement, and a lumber house 20,000 with feet of lumber in it. It was later moved to Bennington. Lorn Ipson bought it. The house had lath and plaster, a very fine house, double floors and ceilings. Reed and Ray were born in the little house. Mildred was the first one born in the fine new house.
He owned the sawmill and moved it to Mill Canyon. He bought the thrasher machine. He ran the sawmill about four years altogether, later sold it to Tom McCammon. Mr. McCammon was seriously hurt when a board he was cutting flew up and buried a corner of it into the front of his head. He died from this injury two years later.
The kids rode a horse drawn sleigh, a fancy sleigh all boarded in with glass doors with hole in for the lines to go through. The sleigh was set on two-inch runners, an extra long tongue and extra long single trees, so that the horses wouldn't kick the single trees. The flat country gave the horses a run into town and often men would run out and try to stop the sleigh for fear the horses were running away.
His brother, Wallace, was killed on furlough. He caught his leg in tracks and accidentally was killed. His wife didn't attend the funeral. Will had died early. Parents died ten years later. Aaron went to war before Wallace. Aaron fought in France. Claud didn't get into the army.
They grew strawberries in Georgetown. Hon Crane, the milkman loved strawberries. Fine man, hauled for the creamery - hauled kids or beef or veal. Herman Grenig (mailman) used to take the older girls to the dance. Nellie and the Minnick boys - he recalled a Minnick boy yodeling for miles. Enjoyed his hospitality at his home. Minnich was a Swiss. Nellie rode on the motorcycle 85 an hour with him. Lane and Ashly boys had the best riding car.
He bought a Chevy 1 ton truck in 1928. He hauled cream and groceries to and from Paris. Sometimes he hauled bananas 5 times a week into Pocatello. He took them daily to Soda Springs, Bankcroft, and Grace. In 1929 bought the Rio truck and went (into Salt Lake) and Kemmerer, Big Piney. Had regular run to Montpelier to Pocatello. He drove almost day and night. He said he got too tired doing this. He got there very early. Claud was running the farm then; he drove the truck four years.
At this time (1932) he had a farm loan from the state of Idaho. He borrowed money to buy school section located near Milt Smith's place, and to run his farm on.
For years he had crop failures - only six successful crops in some thirty years. In 1934 he had a chance to buy sheep, but didn't do it. The bank foreclosed in 1934 (and the family moved to Utah.) He wrote several places and just as they were ready to move. The replies came so Ed Rich, the Stake President, urged them to stay. But they decided to go on to Utah. At first on 37th and Pacific in Riverdale, they stayed one year. In 1935 moved to Kanesville. In 1938 they moved to 29th. The family lived at 1702 Gibson at 1773 Center street. At Gibson the house burned down (1937). Reed went to the Philippines in 1936.
At first they all picked fruit. Even Wayne helped pick fruit. He was about 4 or 6. They worked for Story at North Ogden. Seven or eight picked. Then they worked for Hall in North Ogden.
Kids went to school in Ogden at Lewis school. Thad threw the discus farther than anyone ever had thrown it, but no record was made of it.
They moved to 18th Street in the spring of 1939. Shirtliffs owned it. He paid $100 down and $25 a month at first. Later when the boys worked, payments of $50 or $75 were made. John and Joe (1942) wanted to work at Second Street, but were too young. They were told to go home and get old enough. They did, and got work.
Nellie worked at Union Pacific laundry in 1938. She worked there for 5 or 6 years to help support the family. One night she found herself locked after working most of the night. Mamma took the locks off.
Hunted squirrels, shot 500 shots a day. At a time, the county paid 4 cents bounty for each tail trapped. Poisoned squirrels - sprinkled poisons oats and watched them eat it.
Joseph Maurice Tippets
recorded on Thad’s reel to reel tape around July of 1970.
The first maybe five minutes was broken off when rewinding the tape but I will do my best to write down what Pappy told me on this date.
A few words before I start recording it on paper. I am using a tape well reel to reel recorder owned by Thad Tippets and which I borrowed for this purpose. It took me at least one hour to get five minutes of talking from Pappy but when I did get that five minutes he really opened up when he heard himself and it did not take much encouraging after that to have him open up.
He said in passing, “Oh, what I would have given to have that machine and had my grandmother Alice Jeanette Tippets’ history. It would be priceless.” At that time he took a hundred dollars out of his wallets and told me to go and purchase a recorder for him to have for all of us kids to use and so I did. But this was recorded on Thad’s.
I was born January ninth, eighteen eighty-three in Brigham City, Utah.
I was the oldest one in family, the first born.
Wayne: Tell us the names of your brothers and sisters, would you Pa.
Pappy: Wayne, that is all written down.
Wayne: Yes, Pappy, but we want you to tell us in your own words.
Pappy: Well, there Edgar, Louisey, Fanny, Alice, Ellen, Jeanette, and Ree and the boys were Aaron, Claud, Edgar, Lewis, and Wallace.
Wayne: Did any of them die when they were little?
Pappy: One got killed when he was young. He got run over by a train in Bankcroft. Wallace was killed in the service and another one died of natural causes in California.
Wayne: Do you remember of any interesting things that happened when you were growing up that you would like to tell us about?
Pappy: Well, when I was about three years old we lived in west Brigham City and I would play with one of the Evens boys and we had a great time. When I was three and a half years old, my folks moved over to Bear Lake country through the mountains in a wagon.
We had a bunch of chickens and a cow following behind and we had a barrel churn in the back of the car (he meant wagon). They would milk the cow and they would put the milk right in the churn after they had strained it. Whenever we stopped, there was always butter on top of the churn on top of buttermilk enough for the next meal, for the milk was that rich and very nice.
Wayne: How many kids did your folks have at this time?
Pappy: Well, three I suppose. Now this was when you were three and a half years old, about eighteen eighty-six.
Wayne: What part of Bear Lake did you move to?
Pappy: Georgetown. Three miles south of Georgetown, what they called Three Mile. My mother’s brother was with us and at night the coyotes would bark an awful lot. He got scared and thought those coyotes were going to come and eat him up. I told him if he got scared to jump up and get on top of car. (He means wagon.) This made him scareder than he was but the coyotes never bothered him. The next morning when we got up, we had the chickens in a large box and we caught them all except one and we could not catch it. So we left it there for the coyotes to eat I guess. So that chicken was left somewhere between Mink Creek and Sharon. Kiddingly my dad said, “You better not get lost or leave when we get ready to go, or we might leave you.”
Wayne: I understand your dad got shot with a shotgun when he was younger. Can you please tell us what happened there and how?
Pappy: Well, let me tell you a little bit about my dad. He was a great wrestler and he could throw anybody. One time he was talking to some men working for the railroad and they wanted to have a wrestling match. So this one railroader had never been thrown and so they decided that my dad and him would wrestle. So they did. Someone had a new saw and the one who got the hold on the other one got the saw. My dad showed him that he could be beaten. He did beat the railroader.
Barbara: Tell us how your dad got shot.
Pappy: Well, one Sunday they decided to go duck hunting out southwest of Brigham City. So early that morning they left to go hunting. They got a few ducks and some of them got in before he did and found themselves something to eat. My dad walked up and said, “I am hungry.” He walked to the back of the wagon, reached his gun over to put it in the wagon, and shot him. I don’t remember how many days he lay.
He got shot about an inch and a half from his right nipple. The pellets went through the end gate and his clothing, and into him.
They took him home, and he bled all that time. When they got him home he bled across the tick and across the floor. They got the doctor and he did what he could. A few days later, the doctor stopped in to see him and after the doctor looked him over, he stood there and shook his head for he could not believe it. He said you can consider that some power greater than any one on this earth saved your life, for you had no chance to live.
For he got shot with a twelve-gauge shotgun. The wad from the shell and the shot drove the ribs along with them, and lodged near his back, for it cut his ribs in two. They picked out some of the shot but he had some left in the day he died at the age of forty-nine years old. He was shot when he was twenty. My dad lived for twenty-nine years after he got shot in the chest with a twelve-gauge shotgun. That is a miracle. He had thirteen kids after he got shot for I was only six months old at the time he got shot.
Wayne: Was your dad a farmer? What did he do, or could he do?
Pappy: He used to farm. He would drive a tractor and do things like that, but he could not stoop over for he only had one lung for the shot took one away. And there were a lot of things that he could not do. We had a threshing machine, and he would go and drive the horses on it in the fall.
We had a big strawberry patch for there were about half an acre of strawberries. They would take them into Montpelier. They would make five trips a week into town and sell them. It was a ten-mile trip each way. They owned kind of a store besides him. The grandmother - he would help them out sometimes. Now he was not an able-bodied man and needed help to do everything.
Wayne: Aunts and Chris and Harrison Tippets
Pappy: My grandmother and father all lived in a unit like, and I do not know how many years it was but they finally got separated. But when they got so that they could make it on their own they got out. Now they got along all right.
When I was thirteen we moved into Georgetown and Bishop Richards told us to buy a binder. He thought we could make money out of it. We got along a lot better after that happened.
Wayne: What did you do for entertainment in those days?
Pappy: Well, there were always dances. During Christmas and other holidays there would be a dance ‘most every night, for we made our own entertainment. We would have square dancing and waltz and at least one round dance, and sometimes the two-step. Sometimes they would have more waltzes and later on they would have the quadrille and then it was round dances and many other kinds of dancing. We had more entertainment than they do nowadays.
Wayne: I suppose they had more entertainment in those days than the kids do nowadays.
Pappy: Well yes we had plenty and I cannot understand how kids nowadays get along as well as they do. It was not so much in other towns but usually it was in our hometown that we held for we had only buggy to travel.
Wayne: Did you dance with the same girl every dance or did you exchange partners?
Pappy: Well we might dance with one girl three or four dances and some would want to dance with same one all night, but most mixed, not like it is today for you can dance with the same one entirely the whole time. The biggest part of the girls in Georgetown I taught how to dance, for they wanted to learn and this was better for everyone concerned, for if they could dance they had a better time than standing against the wall.
Wayne: Pappy, can you tell us a little about your mom and dad?
Pappy: Well my mother was born south of Salt Lake and then they moved to Brigham City.
(Here is about ten minutes of interview that I could not make out)
Wayne: Was not the steam thresher about the first one in Bear Lake?
Pappy: Well there was another in Paris, Idaho.
(That I could not make out for I must have held the mike too far away from us for there is a lot of interference and static but will continue where it is more good.)
Pappy: I bought a hay bailer and did a lot and had different ones help me. I had plenty of other things to do and had other farmers run it for me. They did it around Georgetown and I even took it to Grace one time. When I got done over there I went to Sharon and while over there I bailed for Wixoms and there is where I met my wife. It was her dad who I bailed for that time.
Wayne: Did you do anything to entertain your notions towards her?
Pappy: Well we went to different dances around town. I had a covered box on the wagon and slew just like a sheep camp, and we had a little stove in it and we could stay kind of comfortable while we was traveling. Sometimes we would go twenty miles to a dance. We went to Paris, Bloomington, and Georgetown. We would have fun.
Wayne: What was Ma’s maiden name?
Pappy: Her name was Emmeretta Wixom well Hanna Emmaretta Wixom but they all called her Retta for she did not like Hanna Emmaretta and no one ever did call her that. She was always active in church work before we was married and tried the best she could to encourage me to do it too, and also the kids to do what they should in the church. I know she did a mighty swell job of accomplishing all of us to do what was right, for not many people could find fault with my family.
Wayne: Tell us some things interesting or exciting that happened while you was courting Ma, and how did you manage to travel thirty miles from Georgetown to Sharon?
Pappy: Well I had a buggy and a team one of the best teams in the county at that time. I would always stay over night; it was too far to go not to. Most I would stay two or three nights there and we would go to a dance or do other things like that. Louisey and once in a while someone else would go over there with me and then they would go on to Paris to school.
Wayne: Well in other words you was kind of a leader. People followed you around?
Pappy: Well I was the oldest of fourteen kids and I always had someone who wanted to or needed to go places. I never did like to sit around doing nothing.
Wayne: Momma’s folks - did they always welcome you?
Pappy: Well certainly they always welcomed everybody. Many times folks would come over Emigration canyon and most times they would be so crowded sleeping in front room, for they would be so many sleeping there. Many times folks would get stranded four of five miles up the canyon and their horses would give out and everything and they would walk down on snow shows. We would get them warm and then go take them up with our teams and help them down and they would stay there until the next morning and then they would be on their way to their own homes. That is what would happen. The people from all over the valley would stop there, and her folks would be glad to have them and be able to help them, not only with a place to stay but also feed them and help them in all other ways that they might need some help. It made them feel good to do this to anyone regardless who they were.
There were times when your mother would come home from a dance or something at evening and she would hardly find her way to the kitchen for folks sleeping on the floor.
Their house was the last house you passed as you go up Emigration Canyon and the first one you came to as you come out the canyon, and it still stands to this day. It was a nice home and the stable was just barely off the road and there are still trees around it. It was a two-story house.
Wayne: How bought Ma’s folks? Were they farming too?
Pappy: Yes they were. They had some livestock and chickens and some fairly good hay crops. They had a bailer but something went wrong with it that could not be mended and so that is why I did their bailing and then they sold it to Coops and they moved down to Preston but he died before they moved though.
Wayne: Where and when did you propose to Mama?
Pappy: Well we went to a dance. I asked her if she would be mine for time and eternity and she said yes she would and I never had to coax her none at all.
Wayne: Where did you get married?
Pappy: Well we went from Sharon to Brigham City and from there we went back up to Logan. We got married in the Logan temple on the eighth of June. We stayed one or two days longer. We stayed in Logan for two or three days and then we went back over the hill to Bear Lake. We got married in the Logan Temple the seventeenth of June nineteen o eight.
Wayne: Where did you live when you got back to the homestead?
Pappy: Well it was half a mile west of where we finally lived up on the road. My father homesteaded it first and then I homesteaded it also and we lived on the road. When Reed and Ray was born in nineteen fifteen, twelfth of May we needed more living space and that is when we built our new house on the main highway from Montpelier to Georgetown. As soon as we could we moved into our new home and that is where all the rest of the kids was born, except Lewis. He was born in Preston.
I had a new threshing machine and it would make me around seven dollars a day and I did not even run it I hired someone else to run it most of the time. When we had good crops I could thresh twenty-four hundred bushels a day but most of the time around five hundred a day.
When Lucille was a baby we moved out north of Georgetown to a sawmill and we would saw lumber and plane it. Then in the spring we would take the outfit back and would plow with it and in the fall we would thresh with it - a very good machine. This was the first few years after we were married. I drove that outfit for about four years, and then I bought me a gas outfit, but gas got so expensive that I could not use it and just as soon as I got enough horses around I used them again, instead of the machine.
Wayne: How much was gas at the time you had your thresher?
Pappy: Well it was fifteen cents a gallon but then they raised it to thirty-one cents a gallon and made it too expensive to operate.
Wayne: Pappy that is more than gas is today for I sell it now for twenty-four and nine tenths cents a gallon.
Pappy: Yes that is right and that was without any tax on gas at all.
Wayne how did they bring the gas in to you, on wagons or how?
Pappy: No, they brought it in big tankers, and they stored it in those large tanks in Montpelier.
Wayne: Now Montpelier was one of the large railroad stations in the area. Was it not, Pappy?
Pappy: Yes it was Pocatello had some and green River was large.
Wayne: Now Georgetown was just ten miles north of Montpelier where all of us was born was it?
Pappy: It was ten miles from there to our home but twelve miles into Georgetown, two miles further.
Wayne: Now Pappy what did you beyond this time? Did you continue to farm?
Pappy: Well we had a drought there for five years. They raised hardly anything at all. No hay and up around Border it was so bad, the drought, that the farmers had to sell their cattle and other livestock and moved right out of their homes for there was no dry farming successful at all. They depended on their farms to raise the grain on and without any crops they could not raise not only cattle but no chickens nor pigs nor any other for with out crop they was done. They could not make cheese or nothing else with out grain for stock.
Wayne: Now when you could not raise anything on your farm is that when you bought your truck line?
Pappy: We went over to Star Valley to a funeral and it was right the time when I had to put in crops and could not raise anything. It was a failure that year and so I bought the truck in order to make a living, and I run it for one year and then I bought a bigger one in twenty nine.
Wayne: How big a truck did you buy?
Pappy: The first truck was a ton Chevy and the second was a two-ton Rio Simulator in twenty-nine. Then I run it for about four years.
Wayne: Where did you run your truck?
Pappy: Well I run it from Montpelier, Pocatello, Kemmerer, Rexburg, and American Falls. My run was a hundred and thirty-five miles and sometimes I would run it four times a week. I would haul groceries for all the stores at McCammon, Lander, Grace, Lava, Alexander, Soda Springs, Georgetown, Bennington, Paris, St. Charles, Bloomington, Laketown, all those places. I would have to haul any place where I had a load. I was a common carrier, same as the railroad. I hauled out cold stuff, and if they could not pay me for it I would keep it until they would pay me for it. It was mostly groceries, livestock. I would have to haul cattle, hogs to Pocatello, Salt Lake. I would have to haul cream from Montpelier to Salt Lake and also Pocatello.
Wayne: How many thousand miles did you put on the truck?
Pappy: I have no idea at all. Maybe forty thousand miles, but I have got no idea for sure. That was twenty-nine, thirty one, and two.
Wayne: Did you have much trouble with tires on your truck?
Pappy: I did not have trouble, only with tires mainly, for they would only get maybe five thousand miles out of tires. Those tires wore out so fast because they all were dirt roads and because the only nondirt roads was in Pocatello and those tires would cost around ninety dollars apiece, and would wear out fast.
Wayne: Was that venture proved to be profitable?
Pappy: Well we lived. We had to have something else. We did pay for the truck, and it did help, for we had to have a living. When during the drought and could not raise a crop we did have something to live on, for we did make money in hauling cream.
Wayne: I understand that on one of those trips you rolled the truck over. Can you tell me about that?
Pappy: Well while we was going into Pocatello about two miles east of Lava we broke a wheel. When the wheel broke we rolled right over and it cost me over two hundred dollars for the loss of cream, and also some one swiped my cover for the truck cargo for we did not have a body or cover for it just the tarp.
Wayne: Did you get hurt when the truck rolled?
Pappy: Yes, I did get hurt. I got my head cut and it took a chunk out of my scalp.
A feller came along. They had to sew up my ear and my scalp. The doc was going to put me out. I told him, “You cannot put me out, for I have to go to Pocatello tonight.” He said, “No, I cannot do it.” I said, “Yes you can do it. Just go to work and sew it right up.” He said, “I can do it if you can stand it.” I said, “I surely can stand it. Just get to it.” He got me on his table and he got a couple of men to hold me down - one on my head and a couple on my feet and then he sewed me.
Letter from Lucille
March 19, 1959
Dear Papa,
Thede suggested we write a chapter of our life to present to you on your birthday. I started mine on the 7 Dec 1958. Then lay it aside until tonight. I am taking a class called the Genealogy Workshop and one assignment is to write a page of our life. So I am going to write a page of our life what I wrote some three months ago. It was winter then and still is tonight.
As I am child number one I will try and write the first chapter. Surely they won't remember what I do.
The first three of us - Lucile (me), Nellie, and Maurine were born at Georgetown, Idaho, in our great grandmother's home. Her name is Alice Jeanette Tippets. I remember the white house and where it was located. I remember the old-fashioned stove and the oven that swung out instead of down. I remember years later the day the house burned down one day while I was at school.
I remember the day Maurine was born. Nellie and I were taken to Aunt Louisa McCammon's, who lived on the street only around the corner to the south and east.
Our first home was a two-room house on the farm where we lived until about 1916. We moved into a big new home after twin boys arrived and I was going to school at the age of seven years.
The folks bought a player piano when I was about 8 years old. We really enjoyed playing it. Papa would sometimes have us sing as we played the rolls to visitors. We learned to play it by hand. At this time I was staying in town at Grandma's going to school.
I remember some of the verses Papa taught us. "Keep to the right as the law directs, for such is the right of the road. Keep to the right whoever expects successfully to carry life's load." Another was, "There was a man in our town, and wondrous wise was he. He had an ax and with many whacks, he soon cut down a tree. And when he saw the tree was down with all his might and main, he straightway took another ax and cut it up again."
Our favorite song he taught us was "Napoleon." The song Mama taught us was "The Crocodile."
I remember our first car, how we all enjoyed riding in it. Many times I guess, I stayed home, or nearly did, because I was barefooted and my shoes were not always handy. Those days everybody wore an "auto cap". The cars were open and the wind blew through, and the rain came in. They did have storm curtains to put up when it rained through.
He all worked hard on the farm. I learned to milk cows when I was about eight years old and also drove the stacker team. I drove it every summer until I was about twelve when Morgan Wixom, a cousin, eleven, lived with us one summer. That year I drove the bull rake, Morgan the stacker team, and Papa stacked the hay.
I did almost all kinds of farm work but mow hay. Papa always did the mowing. I think he did the drilling, too. My plow furrows were always crooked.
Papa and Mama taught us obedience, honesty, and to be truthful. I always thought of Papa when I read the poem "Dr John Goodfellow, Office Upstairs." Some of the words are, “He taught them to be honest, and he taught them to be true."
One example was when I was a teenager. Papa was called to Pocatello, Idaho to be on a jury. It was in the fall and on the way we stopped to fill the radiator just where there was an apple orchard by the side of the road. The branches hung over the road. I was going to pick some, but Papa said "no." He gave me a quarter and I went and bought some apples.
Papa and Mama took us to Church when we were young as often as possible. Many times we walked, too. Also many times and for a few years we walked to school. Many times when Nellie and I got to school we had frost on our eyebrows. The teachers would let us stand on the furnace to get our feet warm. Those days there were no snowsuits but we wore long stockings and overshoes. I remember we had red jacket and cap sets we wore with our coats.
I remember Nellie’s and my first silk dress, when I was about 9 years old. How proud we were and how we liked to see them blow as we walked to Sunday School and home.
When I was about 12 years old, I started driving a team to school. From then on we took our own team. Each year I wanted a faster team. Soon I was driving the fastest horses Papa owned. We lived two miles from town and we only needed 15 minutes to drive the two miles, unhook our horses, feed them and walk two blocks (from Grandma's where the horses were kept in her barn.)
Papa and Mama always had room for friends or strangers. Many a tramp was given a meal and went on his way. Papa was always breadwinner for two families, his own and his father’s, because his mother and sister lived in his home much of the time after his father's death as quite a young man. There was not very much help rendered Mama either. How I wish now that I had realized how little I did help Mama when her hands were always over burdened, not always by us children, and we always had to be told what to do. As to chores around the house there was plenty to do. Still Mama never complained about the extra work, neither Papa about the extra mouths to feed.
Papa decided he would raise strawberries so he planted two patches. To water them he hooked an electric motor to our pump and pumped water into a pond. That way he had water for our large field of strawberries. We picked as many as 100 quarts of berries at a picking. We used to pick the berries, go in and eat berries for dinner with sugar and good sepa-rated cream and then go out and pick strawberries again.
I remember one lady, Maggie Sharon, came after berries while the folks were gone to Sharon to the Wixom reunion. I was very sick that day but went out and picked her berries. Boy did she take me. She heaped the cups, run them over and really got her money's worth. The berry patch was really a lot of work, to pick, water and weed. The dandelion really got the best of us, as us kids didn't help like we should and Papa was working on the road, as well as his farm of hay and grain to take care of too.
Three years I went to high school at Georgetown and completed my last year at Preston high, staying with Grandma Wixom. I graduated June 1st or about in 1928.
I was married to Ammon Bassett in the Logan Temple on 20 June 1928. It was just 20 years to the week since you, Papa, and Mama were married at the same temple. I was so frightened but glad to have you both go with us and also Grandma too. I remember how hard it was for you to say goodbye to me, when I was to come to Star Valley with Ammon.
We were glad the first time you and Mama came to visit us later the summer while we were living in a sheep camp. You brought Uncle Am and Aunt Alice Black with you and Ammon went up the creek fishing. How pleased he was to see Ammon pull those fish out on a fly.
Many times you and Mama came to visit us. Sometimes for a fishing trip up Cottonwood Lake or Grey’s River or even Snake River. We were all glad to have you come. Sometimes it was to stay awhile or when a new baby came.
Then you moved to Ogden when I had three children. It was harder for all of us to make the journey home then but we were always glad when you could come up and we enjoyed having my brothers or sisters here often as they could. Mama was always taking one of my children home too.
Then came World War II and six of the boys and two sons-in-law were called. Then came the flu and Mama's heart still felt the effects of a siege years ago when we were so small. That over-worked heart and body could not take it any longer. We surely have missed her and your visits together, but are always glad to have you come alone to see us.
Papa, you have been a wonderful father and grandfather. We love you dearly, although I am not much of a hand to show my affection toward anyone. Although I have a great love and appreciation for my parents, children, grandchildren and grandparents, I know I have an honorable family whose name is looked up to in many towns and states.
My aim in life was to have my children grow us as honorable and worthy as my brothers and sisters had. I think that day is here. We have six of our twelve children married with families of their own. We are really proud of them all and are thankful they are so good and thoughtful of us. Now our seventh one Weldon in marriage anyway is coming up. We hope his choice can go right along with the others and we will be happy and hope they will be too.
May you always enjoy good health, and you have lived nobly and taught us to be true, kind, industrious children. May the Lord bless you always and be kind to you. I have done such a little to help ease your burdens but appreciate and honor you for being a kind and understanding father.
With Love
Lucille