The Family of
WEBB LONG LUMPKIN and BEULAH MAE ELLEDGE

Webb Long Lumpkin and Beulah Mae Elledge were married July 30, 1903 in Manassa, Conejos County, Colorado. Eight children were born to Webb and Beulah between the years of 1904 and 1919 - they were Beulah, Lorena, Roy, Eva, Grace, Ada, Violet, and Leonard.
Webb and Beulah lived in Colorado less than two years after their marriage and then moved to the Uintah Basin of Utah where they homesteaded 160 acres of ranch land at Antelope near the town of Myton. Webb was one of the first 13 homesteaders in the area between Myton and Duchesne. This ranch was their home for about 20 years -- the older children grew to adulthood on the ranch and the younger ones remembered it as the home where they were born and lived together as a whole family. They grazed about 200 beef cattle on forest land up in the mountains during the summer, cared for twelve milk cows, four sheep, three pigs, six horses, and about thirty chickens, and had two alfalfa fields, a fruit orchard, and large garden area. In the Fall they would sell most of the cattle and purchase a new herd in the Spring. Webb also worked for pay when he could -- he worked to build the Dick Gray Mountain ditch and the Strawberry Reservoir.
The purchase of young cattle from Texas for resale after fattening them was a profitable venture for Webb, but was ultimately the cause of a financial disaster. He mortgaged the ranch in about 1920 to raise money for purchasing cattle. The buyer in Texas, upon whom he depended, bought a sorry lot of older cattle for him. Some of the cattle died on the trail and the remainder were in such poor shape when they arrived in Utah that they never did gain weight satisfactorily. Webb sustained a large financial loss from this last cattle purchase and was unable to recover from it. The bank also had extreme difficulties about this time -- the Treasurer ran away with a large amount of money, and the President committed suicide. In about 1923 the ranch was foreclosed on by the bank, and the family, essentially penniless, moved to Salt Lake CitY to start life anew.
In Salt Lake City Webb and the older children struggled to provide an income for the family and to regain their financial equilibrium while the younger children attended school. An absolute catastrophe struck when Webb died suddenly on October 15, 1925 at the age of fifty-four. Webb's death resulted in another financial disaster, and in the loss of direction and leadership for the family. The mother, Beulah, was in only fair health and was unable to fully handle the situation.
The family lived in dire circumstances in Salt Lake City for another five years after Webb's death. Beulah, Lorena, and Roy worked full time and contributed from their wages to the family, while Eva, Grace, and Ada went to school during the day and tended children and kept house for pay during the evenings. They often didn't have enough food to eat, and went without other necessities. In about 1926 Roy joined the Navy; Beulah Mary moved to California in 1928, and Grace got married in 1929. Lorena and Eva joined Beulah Mary in California, and in about 1930 Beulah Mae (with the rest of her unmarried children) also moved to the Los Angeles area.
The children of Webb and Beulah, except for Eva, all got married and, excepting Roy, had children of their own. Eva died in 1937 without having been married and Roy was killed in 1943 without having any children. Beulah Mae Elledge died January 6, 1944.
The vital statistics for the Webb Long Lumpkin family are as follows: 
                          When         Where          First            When
   Name                   Born         Born          Marriage          Died   

LUMPKIN, Webb Long     11 Aug 1871   Ft. Dodge      Beulah Mae     15 Oct 1925
                                     Webster Co.    ELLEDGE
                                     Iowa           30 Jul 1903

ELLEDGE, Beulah Mae    30 Nov 1881   Ouray          Webb Long       6 Jan 1944
                                     Ouray Co.      LUMPKIN
                                     Colorado       30 Jul 1903

LUMPKIN, Beulah Mary    3 May 1904   LaJara         Homer
                                     Conejos Co.    SHANKS
                                     Colorado       3 May 1928

LUMPKIN, Lorena Dare   24 Nov 1905   Vernal         Joseph Hugh    23 Aug 1963
                                     Uintah Co.     MILES
                                     Utah           7 Sep 1926

LUMPKIN, Roy Wilson    l5 Sep 1907   Myton          Margaret Mary  23 Aug 1943
                                     Duchesne Co.   SCHWALBENBERG
                                     Utah           7 Mar 1938

LUMPKIN, Eva Cora      25 Feb 1910   Myton           Not            8 Feb 1937
                                     Duchesne Co.   Married
                                     Utah

LUMPKIN, Grace Allene  12 Feb 1912   Antelope Dist  Robert LaMar   25 Mar 2004
                                     Duchesne Co.   BRAY
                                     Utah           19 Aug 1929

LUMPKIN, Ada Webbie    27 Apr 1914   Myton          Charles        28 Jan 1967
                                     Duchesne Co.   Emison
                                     Utah           CARY

LUMPKIN, Violet Ethel  13 Apr 1916   Myton          Rudell
                                     Duchesne Co.   CROSS
                                     Utah

LUMPKIN, Leonard Ray   15 Feb 1919   Antelope Dist  Nelda Ellen
                                     Duchesne Co.   ROBER
                                     Utah           26 Jun 1941

GRACE ALLENE LUMPKIN BRAY
(based on a taped interview with Grace, by her son Eldon)

GRACE was born February 12, 1912 in Antelope (now Bridgeland), Utah in the Uintah Basin eight miles from Myton. Her father, Webb Long Lumpkin, was one of the first thirteen settlers between Myton and Duchesne. Grace was born in the family home with a midwife (Mary Wall) in attendance; the midwife turned in the birth certificate at either Vernal or Duchesne, from which it was forwarded to Salt Lake City. Grace was the fifth of eight children born to Webb and Beulah Mae Elledge Lumpkin. The children, in order of birth, were Beulah Mary, Lorena Dare, Roy Wilson, Eva Cora, Grace Allene, Ada Webbie, Violet Ethel, and Leonard Ray.
The ranch at Antelope was 160 acres in size of which approximately half was irrigated cropland with the other half, above the irrigation ditches, being used for pasture. The crops which they grew included an orchard of apples, cherries, pears, and plums (the peach trees winter-killed); most of the orchard was in apples. Two alfalfa fields and a garden area in which they grew potatoes, corn, melons and other table vegetables comprised the remainder of the irrigated area. The unirrigated area contained sagebrush, rabbitbrush, greasewood, and native grasses. Livestock consisted of approximately twelve milk cows, 200 beef cattle, four sheep, three pigs, six horses, and 30 chickens.
The beef cattle were grazed on forest land in the mountains above the ranch during the summer; most of them were sold in the Fall and additional ones were purchased in the Spring. Some of the cattle which Webb bought were driven up from Texas, and had long horns. The first bunch of cattle which Webb bought were in good shape and after fattening were sold to the army for a profit, but the second bunch were old and some died on the trail from Texas and the remainder never did gain weight satisfactorily -- this second purchase resulted in a financial loss due to which Webb lost the ranch. Webb purchased the cattle in Texas through a buyer upon whose judgement Webb depended. The cattle belonged to Webb before they ever started on the trail, so that Webb bore the entire loss. The money was borrowed from the bank in Myton, with the ranch as collateral. The bank foreclosed on the ranch after the bank president committed suicide and the treasurer ran away with a large amount of money. After losing the ranch Beulah, Lorena, Eva and Webb went to Salt Lake City in the buggy, leaving the rest of the family at Antelope temporarily. Webb got a job in Salt Lake dredging the lake, leveling the ground for one of the salt companies. Later he got a steady job with the D&RGW Railroad while Beulah went to work as a telephone operator at the Highland Exchange. Lorena took up a business course at LDS Business College to become a stenographer and Eva attended West Junior High School.

Back at the ranch, the buggy was returned and auctioned off. (The family cried over that.) The team of horses and the wagon were used to haul the furniture from the ranch house down to the winter house at Myton (the family lived in Myton during the school year) and the ranch no longer belonged to the Lumpkin family. About six months later (August 1925) Beulah came back via the train and stage (horse drawn) and took Grace, Violet, and Leonard back to Salt Lake. Ada was left in Myton with her mother. Roy and his friend Richard Birch ran away from home in Myton to be with Webb in Salt Lake before Beulah came back for Grace and the others. The police picked Roy and Richard up and held them in jail in Salt Lake until Webb came to pick up Roy; Richard was turned loose because nobody would come to pick him up (his mother and dad were both dead).
One time, while the family was living at Myton, both Webb and Beulah went to Myton to shop and visit. Shortly after they had left three wagons of Indians came to the ranch. Roy went out to see what they wanted; the Indians pulled their guns and said "We want cherries." The Indians started into the cherry orchard, and the bucks would hold the women up into the trees to pick the cherries. All the Lumpkin kids were there, and stayed in the house and watched the Indians through the window. When the Indians had filled their aprons and bonnets full of cherries they left. Webb was a deputy over the Indians and when he got back from town he went down to the Indians' homes and gave them orders that if they ever did that again he would send them back to Fort Duchesne. Webb got paid for the stolen cherries by going to Fort Duchesne authorities.
Another time while the children were alone, two or three young Indian bucks on horses came to the ranch to flirt with Beulah and Lorena; they left after the girls told them "No, and to go back to where they lived".

Webb and the older children lived in Salt Lake for three years before the remainder of the family joined them. The family first moved onto the ranch in about 1903, so they lived on the ranch a total of about 22 years. Before that they lived in Vernal. Beulah may have been born in Vernal; Beulah was eight years older than Grace, and so was born in 1904.
Webb was laid off the railroad when they had a recession in about 1923. He went to work for Sam Ferre running a still, and became very sick under mysterious circumstances. He died about 1 1/2 blocks from the house while trying to return home.
When Webb was about 21 or 22 years old he and two other men went to Skagway, Alaska to join the Klondike gold rush. First they went into another area and didn't find anything, so they went to Dawson Creek and staked claims there. Webb became rich from gold mining at Dawson Creek and then returned to Ouray (?), Colorado where he and a partner owned an ore-buying station. His partner under-weighed the ore purchases without Webb's knowledge and pocketed the excess returns. A lawsuit resulted, and Webb had to pay a large fine which left him with barely enough money to homestead the ranch at Antelope. Webb and Beulah were married about the same time as the lawsuit at Ouray, which was about 1902. They lived in Vernal about one year prior to homesteading the ranch at Antelope.

"We used to go to elementary school at both towns. We had the ranch in Bridgeland and a home in Myton. In the winter we usually (everyone except Webb) would move to Myton. Webb and a hired man would live on the ranch and keep the stock all fed. It was a cattle ranch. There were a few winters when we all stayed on the ranch, and we used to take the buggy and horse to the little grade school which was up on a hill about 6 miles from the ranch. Once in a while when we moved down to Myton, my older sisters used to drive the team and buggy from Myton to the ranch until they got all the crops in. It was 10 miles from Myton to the ranch. In Myton there was a grade school and the Myton Academy -- it wasn't a high school. The Presbyterian Church started it - this Minister started it, and everyone for many many years, no matter where they went in Utah, they felt as if they had almost a college education by the time they got through it."

Grace lived on the ranch until about 1924 when she moved to Salt Lake City.

"There were only a few things that weren't on the mortgage and I remember all the people coming there to bid. There was an old gray mare called "Bell", and the wagon and household furniture that weren't on the mortgage. The regular team of horses and the buggy were owed to the bank and had to be returned from Salt Lake. Ada became very ill and they never could figure out what it was - she was unconscious and had a high temperature, plus she was paralyzed from her hips down for a long time. Finally, when she came through it, mother shipped all the furniture and came on to Salt Lake. They were living in an apartment house between 4th and 5th South on West Temple. It was very crowded - just three little rooms, and when the three of them arrived, some of them had to sleep on the floor."
"Then they got the house on 833 South Jefferson Street and it was a 6-room home, but they didn't have enough furniture then. Christmas time came -- we got there about November and my Dad had to do all the shopping for Christmas, and we didn't get much of the choices we had written Santa Claus for. My mother arrived about in March. My sister Ada had recovered, but we always thought that was the cause of her eyesight being so bad off -- she had keritaconis and it showed up just a little while after she came -- her eyes became bulgy. She got it in December, but it could have been something like tick fever. She had such a high temperature, and the neighbor lady came over and helped put cold packs on her night and day, and finally she was able to come out of it - very slow - gradually the paralysis left."
"After we came to Salt Lake, my sister Beulah worked in the telephone office at the highland Exchange on 9th East between 8th and 9th South, and my sister Lorena she was a secretary - she took a course at the LDS Business College and she worked for N. N. Long Real Estate - it's still there today on State Street between 7th and 8th South. And my brother Roy, he was working at a shoe repair shop mostly - well, he learned a trade too. My sister Eva - well, the rest of us did babysitting and housework. And October 15, 1925 my Dad passed away -- he had a stroke on 9th South and about 1st West, and they said he was dead before he hit the sidewalk. He was 55."
"My mother was 22 and my Dad was 32 when they got married -- he was ten years older. And then they started their family. My mother lived in Durango, Colorado, and my Dad was selling bibles and books in New Mexico and Colorado and he came to the house selling books and they met -- that's what Aunt Beth Elledge told me -- and then they were married. They came to Vernal and my Dad was one of the first seventeen or twenty-seven who went into the Uintah Basin to homestead it -- I think it was 1905 or 1906. They would all stay together and build one cabin and then go on to build another and then have their wives come to stay in the cabins they built. One day they were out getting wood -- it must have been in the fall -- and they didn't have doors on the cabin and my mother was there with two of her children - that would have been Beulah and Lorena or maybe Roy, but these Indians came to the cabin and they came in and just frightened my mother -- she was just paralyzed with fright -- stayed huddled in the corner with one baby. This one Indian came over -- she had a bright-colored shawl on the baby and he proceeded to take the shawl. He wanted it, and my mother was hanging onto the baby as he was pulling it, and he gave it a tug at the very last and she dropped the baby. They told me they didn't think the baby would live, but he or she finally came out of it and seemed to be alright."
"They took all the food -- gathered up the sacks that my mother had flour in, and put it all together like mulligan -- the vegetables and things that he could get -- and he went back out there -- there had been two in the other group -- and this one Indian must have been the Chief -- he stayed right on the horse all the time, and just as this Indian with the food started to get on his horse why he stopped him and talked and pointed back to the cabin so this Indian came back with the sack and came into the kitchen and they had a round table so he poured out little rations of the oatmeal and flour and carrots, potatoes and onions and left it in little heaps around the table and apparently this Indian chief told him that they would starve and he should leave some food for them. He went back out and got on the horse and they disappeared. When the men came back, they found the family wasn't harmed; they lived in the mouth of the canyon, and that was the road they used to go up to get the wood. So they all came through their property to go on up the canyon, so ours was the first cabin the men came to as they came down the canyon with the wood."
"They moved to Vernal before Lorena was born - she was 9 years older. They were married in Manassa, Colorado, and then Beulah was born in LaJara, Colorado. Then they moved to Vernal in 1904 or 1905. By the time Roy was born they had moved to the ranch, and on the letter I have in there I think it was 1906 when they moved to the ranch. Roy was born September 15, 1907. My Dad said he had ordered the windows and the cabin would soon be ready."
"We were able to raise fruit trees on our ground, where other areas weren't suitable for it. My Dad worked on the ditches that were brought through there -- there was what was called "Dick Gray Mountain" -- that was the low one, and he went out to the Strawberry Reservoir and worked there a long time until they brought in steam motors I guess. They did away with most of the horses and scrapers and then he came back. Then they put in another -- they called it the "Nolan Ditch" and it was higher - it was supposed to reach the benches. Some way or another it carried water for a while, and then later they didn't have water in it for years when we went back. It wasn't suitable on those benches -- they had it on the north side of the river. But the "Dick Gray Mountain" ditch that my Dad worked on -- it's still in use."
"When Webb first came to Salt Lake he worked as the inspector of the trains for the D&RGW railroad in Salt Lake City. He was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa -- that is where their family came from. They came to Denver, Colorado after that and his Dad ran this lumber company. He got down with very serious arthritis and the clerk that he had -- now his sons must not have been old enough to help with the business -- and the one that was the clerk and the one that was the bookkeeper both pocketed all the money and didn't pay any of the bills and by the time my grandfather was well enough to get on his feet and take care of the business, why they ran away and left him where he had to sell the whole thing -- he even had to sell the home they lived in, in order to clear the indebtedness. They had taken all the money for themselves and left, and never paid a thing."
"The doctors told him he'd never be strong enough after that to do much work, so he went to visit his cousin -- I guess in North Dakota -- and they told him, "let's try the run for the Cherokee Strip". It was open at that time, so he made the run and was successful in obtaining a homestead. I once had pictures of -- they put some kind of a little shed up and they moved there. I believe -- I had two aunts -- Aunt Lula and Aunt Cora -- Cora was older. Aunt Cora got married before they moved there, and afterwards Aunt Lula -- she was the baby of the family -- she got married and left them. Apparently the sons -- too many of them didn't go with them. Of course Uncle Harry did -- he was the baby of the family. So my Dad went into Alaska and he sent money home to his brother Ed -- in the letter my grandfather said "Of all the sons I have, the one that is the brightest and most intelligent and should have an education is Harry". So they all pooled their money together and he went to the college and took that -- was supposed to be a lawyer, but later was an insurance agent in New York City."
"When my Dad went to Alaska I guess he must have been in his 20's, and he returned in about 1900 to the United States. His mother was ill with diabetes and he returned especially to help out on that, and then he went out as a salesman and also to sell real estate, and was a salesman for this company that sold books and everything too. But he was one who had enough education in those days to do all of the bookkeeping and writing and things -- there were very few people who could in those years, and so everywhere he went he was appointed in some kind of office. He was on the town board and schoolboard when they lived in Myton and Antelope. My father joined the Odd Fellows Lodge, and then I can't recall what else -- he had quite a few offices besides that, because he could write and keep records."

Grace joined the LDS Church after she was married. She was married in 1929 and joined the Church in about 1932 -- she joined in Salt Lake. None of her brothers and sisters joined -- only her mother. She joined before Grace did -- she joined in Salt Lake City, and then after she went to California she worked in the Church - attended all the time.

"The rest of our family was down in California by then, before my mother went down. After my Dad died, why my sister Beulah, she wanted to go down to California -- she transferred through the Telephone Office and had a job when she went down there. And after she went down there, my sister Lorena got married. But her husband got laid off the railroad because he was -- repaired the big motors in Salt Lake and one of them there had been the wrong bolt put on -- the wrong part of some kind -- and it broke down. They blamed him, and they laid him off until they investigated. Afterward they found out it was the repair shop in Denver, Colorado -- had substituted something that would break. They jumped on Joe about this breakdown -- they told him he should have known better than to substitute that type of a bolt. You knew it would break -- wouldn't stand up to it. It hurt his feelings, and when they called him back after they found out it was the other workers who had done it, why he said "If it happens again, they'll blame me again and fire me -- I'm not gonna take that. It wasn't fair at all -- they didn't give me any hearing. They just give me days." I don't think they even wanted to pay him for the days he was laid off or anything -- they just said "It wasn't your fault -- come on back." That was the only apology he got. So he went down to California and left my sister Lorena with us. She had three stepchildren -- Joe had three children by his first wife, and she had deserted the children. Then Lorena and Joe had one child of their own plus the other three. There was Josephine and Cecil and Lloyd. Lloyd passed away -- he was neglected apparently so much that he had a bad heart. My sister Lorena did everything she could to see that he had rest and good care, but the heart condition was something he had all his life until he passed away when he was about 26. And then they had Marie and Darlene and then Norman - they had three children of their own."
"So Lorena stayed with us until Joe got work down there. He went down and lived with his Uncle George in the Los Angeles area. He went to work at the steel plant down there, and later on he went in business of his own -- in a service station where he repaired all the cars, and he sold gasoline. That's where he stayed -- well, he did have a wrecking yard and then they rezoned it so that he had to sell that. Then he went back to the service station. Through World War II Lorena ran the service station, and then Joe and Homer went into this machine shop -- milling machine -- they bought the machinery and ran this milling machine, manufacturing parts for airplanes and got their essential income that way. Then after the war they came back and ran the service station."

Grace was 12 years of age when she moved to Salt Lake -- she had been going to school in Myton up to that time. In Salt Lake she started school in the Grant School for awhile, and after they moved to Jefferson Street she went to Jefferson School. Then she went to South Junior High School, and then to West High School. She met LaMar when she was 17, and then she got married in August when she was still 17. She had one more year of school to go to graduation, but she didn't go finish it.
She met LaMar at a carnival at the location where Sears is now at. Ada and Grace went over to that -- her brother Leonard usually went over to help with different things -- he was just a little kid, but they hired him to do things.

"We went out to Bountiful to see LaMar's sister, and then - well, LaMar wanted us to get married. We'd seen each other before that, but we hadn't gone out together. So then we went out to Bountiful, and Wanda and Leonard made arrangements for the wedding ceremony. And my sister Ada, she came back home and we stayed at Wanda and Leonard's. Wanda and Leonard and their family, they came and stayed with LaMar's mother in Salt Lake while LaMar and Grace had their honeymoon in Wanda and Leonard's home. Then they came back and Grace and LaMar went to stay at LaMar's mother's house at 638 South 6th East. Then LaMar got work at various times and we purchased a home at 437 West 5th North. We were paying for that, although we didn't have any steady work or anything -- through Anderson Real Estate. Mr. Anderson found work that LaMar could do, and applied it toward payments on the house. We had an FHA loan. Just about that time LaMar found work at Utah Copper. We just had a little Model T Ford that wouldn't make it up the hill unless we drove backwards. Anyway, we rented up there on the Terraces and stayed up there until 1952 when we moved down to Copperton."
"From the time I met LaMar until I married him, it was only a couple of months. Ada used to decide where we were going -- she used to boss us around. We went swimming at Municipal in a group, and another time we went to a show in Salt Lake. There was a dance hall, but we didn't dance -- we used to go around the grounds. We were just two little kids -- we got married on August 19, 1929. Garland was born while we were still living with LaMar's mother, and LaMar was working on the B&G (Bingham & Garfield) Railroad. He used to drive back and forth -- but we didn't have a car of our own -- and he decided that instead of looking for rides somewhere else he quit. Then he worked for a feed company driving a truck and delivering. I think this feed company, the fellow decided to do his own work and do without a truck driver, things got so bad. Then he worked for Utah Light & Traction, and the fellow who was his boss was laid off too. The other make-work jobs had all run out -- the depression had hit really hard by that time. Just every way he turned, they all phased out and it was really rugged." - he'd get work in some areas He decided he wasn't going to pay the Bamberger to ride out to Bountiful to do their work out there and pay his own fare, so he quit there. if one job didn't phase out we were very fortunate and
"The man from the Real Estate Company, he helped us out as much as he could, but then he could see that he was going broke so he put this FHA loan through. We told him when we moved out, not to rent the house to this Barter family because they had rented next door. The landlady, she would go the day that he was paid at the railroad, and she would have to go back five or six times -- he just wouldn't pay the rent. We didn't want him in our place because we couldn't see how we would get the rent out of him. But sure enough, when we left, they rented it to this Barter. He went ahead and plugged into this high power line (Utah Oil power line) that went on the West side of the house, and it caught fire and burned the bedroom up.
Then Anderson wrote to us, since we had all the papers just ready to sign -- and he said "Would you please sign these papers so we can put the loan through?" But our next door neighbor, she wrote and told us what was going on -- that the house was burned. On the loan there was supposed to be an extra $1000 or $400 to put a better base on it -- the base on it was cement -- it wasn't very fixed. The loan included that, but I don't know if we'd talked things over if it would have included repairing the bedroom or not. Anyway, the whole structure at the top was burnt through -- so we just dropped it. It seemed like LaMar didn't want the responsibility of collecting or something, but I was all for keeping it and renting it out. The railroad people wanted a place to keep their cars when they came to work, and our back yard was so long that I wanted LaMar to put garages in. Some of the neighbors did that and they did pretty well, but we waited too long. The others saw the opportunity and built their own garages."

Grace was just 18 at this time when Garland was born and when Eldon was born she was in her 20's.
As far as injuries were concerned Eldon had that skull fracture from rollerskating at the school grounds and the contractor had taken the fence down and as you rollerskated you would grab hold of the bars at the top -- the pipe that held the chainlink fencing and somehow you missed it and you tumbled right into the road with your head -- a 12-foot drop. And then Garland, he had quite a serious head injury too when he was swinging there on our clothes lines between the houses - they had these pipes that was bent - he used to jump off the front steps and swing back and forth so many times and whirl in mid air and turn around in midair and reverse the way he would swing and he missed it - missed the bars and hit right square on his head and his was a concussion. He couldn't eat a thing for about 5 days. We took him to the doctor and he was so sick at the stomach and he had this great big lump - that's when my brother Leonard was there. We had left the children with Edith Leatherwood and Rex used to come over. and Edith was tap dancing and Rex would take and instead of switching the radio off, he would pull the plug out of the wall - well, he shortcircuited the wiring and blew every one of the fuses in the house and Leonard was away to a show or looking for work or something and when he got home and Edith and Rex was still there and he told them they could go home but he got a look at Garland and he was worried - he started putting packs on his head and everything. And then we got home about 1 o'clock - I can't remember where we were at - and the house was dark and Leonard said there was no use trying to turn the lights on because all the fuses have been blown. We made our way upstairs and pulled the blinds up and as we were coming up, he said Garland has been injured and got a lump on his head and it looks real bad so we pulled the blinds up and looked at him and he had a lump as big as an egg - it was huge - on his head and we talked to him and he could answer quite well but he was too sick to stand up. So we put packs on his head and the next day we took him to the doctor. That's what they said -- that his eyes weren't dilated so he didn't have a skull fracture. They didn't take X-rays or anything - just said to have him lay down and be quiet and keep cold packs and I think they said give him aspirins for pain. About the third day I was very alarmed - he couldn't hold anything down and we went down and they said No, there's nothing to do - it's just a concussion - you'll just have to - just listless - no food. I never was too satisfied with what they did for him. That lump, every time he was ill, would just swell right up again. Since then I've heard of a lot of fractures that just didn't show. He had pain - a lot of headaches from it.
We lived up in Copperfield from 1935 when Eldon was a year old to 1952 - they moved to Copperton in August 1952. I think it was April or March of 1935 when they moved up to Copperfield from Salt Lake. They stayed right in the same dwelling in Copperfield. Grace went to California for a while when LaMar wouldn't work - he just kept quitting jobs and everything and we were staying with LaMar's sister and they would leave all day long and leave the children and everything and their food, they would cook cereal in the morning - mush and they would have canned milk. Then at night they would have five potatoes and a jar of fruit and that was all and all night long she would stay away with her stomach burning from that greasy potato and then LaMar's sister kept telling her, well, I'm not talking through my hat - LaMar's got to get out of here and we just can't keep extras and she'd just keep telling me that Lamar had
-- End of Tape #1, Side A -- Beginning of Tape 1, Side B --
Wanda would keep telling her that she had to get out and she would leave all the responsibilities to us and if there was a crumb - Garland was able to bust the bread and crackers - and some of the crumbs would be on the floor and Wanda would bring some of her friends home and if the house didn't look right up - real clean - if she'd see these crumbs on the floor she'd say - oh, she's doggone lazy - I left this house just spotless last night! and she was so grouchy and there I was doing all her work and I was sick half the night from the food I was eating and so l said to LaMar, if you're home here you can take care of Garland and the children and I'll go to work. I'll go downtown and see if I can't find a waitress job or something. and Leonard got the car ready - he went to work about 9 o'clock in the morning and I got my clothes on ready to leave and LaMar -- the bed and told Leonard to leave and wouldn't even let me get out of the house. There I was starving and getting kicked around and I couldn't stand it so my sister Beulah sent me a ticket so with that, LaMar said "Well, you're not leaving with the baby and that's that! so he was screaming and yelling at me and Wanda was complaining and yelling at us and I was doing all the work. So I figured, well that's one less mouth to feed if I leave so I left. So then LaMar's sister got tired of taking care of LaMar and the baby so then my mother took care of Garland. and he was in a lot of pain from the diet just the same as I was.
Grace's mother was living on 10th South and 1st West. She did live there on Jefferson Street all those years until about a year after we were married and then she moved down on 10th South and 1st West. So anyway my sister Violet was taking care of the baby and my mother and LaMar's mother lived just a half block away and his stepdad and LaMar stayed with them. But in the meantime my mother said Garland was crying with pain at night from his stomach and malnutrition and everything so I was working at housework down there and I got permission to leave and I just got a ticket and came back up and my sister Violet and Garland - I didn't even let LaMar know I was in town. I just took Garland and got on the bus and Violet - got enough money together and away we went. Got down there and Garland was so sick I had to take him to the doctor and there wasn't nothing but improper diet. He'd been fed --- food and all that and he was just too little to assimilate it and then he'd had a real bad cold. I lived with Beulah and Homer and took care of Garland then and then I was out looking for work when LaMar came. I was going to make arrangements - Beulah worked night -I was going to make arrangements - I got work - see, I'd worked days. If Beulah couldn't take care of the baby then I'd get a babysitter. and Homer, he was working two days 24-hours as a fireman and then 24 hours off. so some of the time I'd take Garland and go over to Lorena's and stay when Homer was home. But I was making arrangements then to get things out but LaMar came down then and talked me into going back home. He promised that if he got a job he would stick to it and wouldn't quit like he'd been doing. So then he came back up to stay with his grandmother and grandfather in Murray until LaMar got working. We rented a little apartment on 4th South and 2nd East - it was named the Evelyn Miller or something apartment. There were two ladies who were running it. They were old maids. We got homes then and three-fourths of the time we had LaMar's mother and stepdad would live with us. It was awful consolidated you know - we had two bedrooms. We'd stay in one bedroom and they'd stay in the other. But we would get by with it - they would help on groceries but on cash and that LaMar had to pay cash for the rent and that. I guess it was hard times for everyone. We felt like we were fortunate then to get groceries (?) there in Bingham. This was Jackson, the stepfather. and when we lived on 5th North they were having a lot of problems and she'd come stay with us - be there one week and then they'd split up and he'd come back to Bingham and she'd go out doing housework or stay with her mother and dad and then the next week they'd ask if they couldn't come stay with us again and so then they decided they would have an apartment by themselves and see if that wouldn't work better and one night LaMar's mother had worked real hard scrubbing the house and she took her rings off - her engagement ring and her diamond - well, I guess all she had was a wedding ring. Her fingers would swell up and get sore and Jackson got out of bed and took the ring that she had setting there and went up town and tried to sell it at one of these places and went and played panguini all night and she was sick over that because that was their wedding ring and so when she was passing away that was her deathbed request that she be buried in another wedding ring. So she was buried in a wedding ring but that was a very pitiful thing. She would have been 50 years of age - that isn't very old. and here she was married and divorced five times - every one ended up in a divorce. She had five husbands. The last one ended up in a divorce too. She divorced him when he took her wedding ring and hocked it to get in the panguini game. She was married to Clealon Bray to start with and then there was Earl Tucker -
I think he was the one who said he didn't want her to bring LaMar home. They broke up over that. and then Baylor, I never did understand too much over that -- well, I understand if he got drunk he was awfully mean and one time he had beaten up on her and Uncle Bill went in and threw him out of the house and that ended it. Uncle Bill Glenn. See, they had purchased all these houses - they built one house for themselves, Grandpa Glenn had and then they built another for LaMar's mother and then theY built another house for Aunt Nora - they were all up there in Freeman. When one back door was like this and then the front door kind of L-shaped over to the house they lived in and then the other house was built a little farther up - they were all practically on the same lot. They divided it into three lots later. They all pitched in - Uncle Bill and After LaMar's mother was separated then LaMar's Aunt Elma moved in and claimed the house and she never paid for it - she never paid LaMar's mother for it. and then she turned around and gave the home to their daughter and they had quite a set-to. The rooms needed fixing. Aunt Elma said they could live in the house if the kept it up and they maintained that they gave them the house - Bob and Aunt Elma. They said if that's the way you want to look at it then you pay for the roof because it needs a roof and you pay the roofing company. Finally everyone got Bob aside and said "Now that isn't right - your mother-in-law is a widow now and here you are trying to take her home away from her plus have her pay all these bills". But they were determined that she was going to pay for all the things that they ordered. They were just a young couple. And then all the siding inside, they had the most expensive they could find put in the front room and then they wanted Aunt Elma to pay for all of it. This was the house of Baylor's. Uncle Bill, he came in and just threw him right out. Tucker, he was a blacksmith and he was real strong - I don't know whether Baylor was or not. When she married Allen Jackson - he was a gambler and everything and he was a boarder at her house and she said "If you'll save up so much, if you won't gamble I'll marry you". and he did - he didn't gamble or anything and everything was going real smooth and then she gave up the house with the boarders and everything and they moved to Salt Lake. She thought with all that money it would go a lot farther than it did - they made a downpayment on a house on 6th East and 2nd South and it did seem like everything needed fixing on the older house and they had an extra door and he was trying to remodel that - he was getting up and trying to remodel and paint and then work all night up on Kennecott. I still think one of the problems was that Eller and Esther's little boy Jackie passed away up here in Bingham and LaMar's mother decided that they were going to have the funeral there at that house and he was extremely believed in ghosts and all that and that when he gambled there was a little spirit sitting on his shoulder - he believed in those things - he was kind of wierd that way and being haunted. They had the mortuary bring the body to the house and Jackson and LaMar's mother worked hard to get it fixed up nice but then it just spoiled the house for him to know that there was a dead baby in the house and it changed him altogether - he didn't even care whether he came home, he didn't care anything about it from that time on -- it just seemed like it took every bit of happiness in that house away from him and they lived together there for quite a while after they had the funeral for the baby and then they buried him up at the Bingham cemetery. Looking back, it seemed like it was all uncared for - there was a mortuary and things like that right there on South Temple but it seemed like that was one thing that the other little things kind of nagged at him and they moved back up here to Copperton and LaMar's mother was always thinking of taking care of Donna, Wanda's daughter, she had St. Vitus Dance. And as they went to put the linoleum down she had some bee-bees and she was nervous and as they were rolling at one end she spilled the BB's and they tried to clean them all up but they ruined the linoleum - they all came right through - some things like that were all uncalled for - why was LaMar's mother trying to take care of a granddaughter when she was moving. They lived here in Copperton - down where DeCols do now - that was Jackson. They used to get their groceries from the Bingham Merc - they delivered and it was quite nice for her. After the funeral in their home it just seemed like they moved from houses here and there and stayed with us but they still just couldn't make a go of it.
Terry Mann was the fourth husband - no relation to Leonard Mann - and he wasn't religious or anything but three-fourths of the time he would bring somebody else home and LaMar's mother would have to make big meals -- meat and that -- and it was running the grocery bill up and they couldn't make ends meet with all of them to feed and then him bringing extras to feed. I can't remember what the grocery bill was at the Panhellenic but he just left - he couldn't pay for all his bills and he just left and with that LaMar's brother Liston got a job on Utah Copper and he supported himself and helped his mother and LaMar. Wanda got married when she was 16 and LaMar's mother was only 15 when she got married - I think three-fourths of them was just getting married way too young. and I was too young too \-looking back today. LaMar would have been 21 in just a few days but that isn't always saying they're ready for responsibility.
The fifth husband was Allen Jackson. She married Clealon Bray and Tucker and Baylor and Mann and then Allen Jackson. When she died she was living with us most of the time until she got down with the malignancy and was operated on and then she said she couldn't come up to our house - she knew she was going to pass away - she said she wanted to live until past February. in December when they found out it was malignant they told her she couldn't live 60 days. She'd taken out an insurance that required I full year enforcement and then she got $750 out of it - it may have been March - she lived until May. She said she'd undergo the surgery in order to live but she said I won't put no hope on it. The cancer was in her female organs - she was hemorrhaging so badly that she couldn't live more than 30 daYs. So she underwent her surgery in January and they said it was doubtful that they go it all - it was right against the bladder and they figured it was in the tissues of the bladder but if they gave it X-ray treatments there was a chance they could kill the cancer cells. They suggested that she take the ten treatments and her cousin Jenny Gudmundson lived there on 2nd West and between 4th and 5th South and Jenny told her she could come live with her and of course she asked for a divorce and LaMar and Liston paid so much on that and then they paid for the treatments and then they paid for the taxi fare for Jenny Gudmundson to take her back and forth and she took six of the treatments and she was so sick she couldn't stand it and she decided then to go out to her dad and mother's in Murray because that was all on one floor. She said I'd come to stay with you but I can't have you waiting on me because the bathroom's upstairs and I'd have to stay downstairs so that was the only reason she didn't come and stay with us. She lived then from about March until MaY and she'd have Doctor Cornwall give her hypo shots for pain when she woke up. I'd suggest anyone else that way that they have a hypo because they do in the hospital and with my sister Lorena down there it would have helped out if they'd have just called the doctor in or showed someone how to give them hypos and it would have been a blessing for her to have had them because LaMar's mother was so weak - almost 12 hours. She died May 23, 1937 - she was 49; she would have been 50 July 25, 1937.
Beginning of Grace Bray Tape #2 Sept. 2, 1985
Mother and Dad came to Vernal and then my Dad went into the Uintah Basin with a group of men to settle it. They went on farther - I think Duchesne was there but I don't know if Myton was or not. Anyway, he wrote a letter to my mother - the date and everything was on it - he said as soon as we get the cabin put up I'll send for you and kiss the kiddies for me. I have it in there.
Your Dad lived there on the ranch for 22 years and I know you had a couple of cattle drives and you raised a garden but beyond that I really don't know much about what he did, what happened in that length of time. Did he hunt? Yes, the men used to go hunting mostly for rabbits and they would butcher a steer or a bull right there when they came back from the cattle drive and it would be almost still warm when mother would cook it up for them - that was their main big meal - mother cooking when they reached the ranch.
Did he work up herding the cattle during the summer for a big part of the year? They just put them up in the range up where they'd stay in the Spring and in the Fall they just brought them all down to our ranch in the corrals and then they'd divide them up - they had brands on them and then each one would cut their own out and drive them on down the lane to their own homes and keep them there through the winter or else sell them. I can't recall whether he hunted deer or not.
You moved to Salt Lake, Mom, and where did You meet Pop at? I saw him first with a group and then later why someone in the group with me said they knew them and they introduced him to me and I just decided to go with him and we went over to the carnival that was on a lot there about a block away. Later on we went swimming with Elsie Bodmer at the Wasatch Plunge and LaMar was there too so then we talked again and later we decided to go together out to Bountiful to see Wanda and Leonard and they decided we should get married so that's what happened. At the time it was just hard to make - mother was always just hysterical when I got home - pacing the floor and screaming and everything like that if we didn't get home on time - 10 o'clock. and she would scold us and just really wade in on us if we were iust a minute late. and so after staying out a little too long I knew I was in for it so we got married. Leonard and Wanda made all the arrangements and they got the Justice of the Peace and I don't know what all and we were married out there. We knew each other for maybe 6 months -- not too long - just off and on. We lived in a little apartment on 2nd East and 4th South and we had just one room and a double bed and we had just a few dishes and things - a little cupboard, and I can't remember the stove. I guess it was gas. Wanda and Leonard would come in from Bountiful with their three kids and leave them for Grace and LaMar to tend while they went out to party - they'd come back and sleep on the floor - it was linoleum. We didn't have much to eat or anything then. That was during the depression.
Violet, did you hear Mom's experience with the stove? We had a 2-story house with a stove downstairs and a chimney that went up right through the wall in her bedroom and there was a hole up there that was covered with a metal rim and it was right above her bed. Pop used to work night shift and Mom would sleep in. Gar and I would get up early in the morning and run down and build the fire and get ready to go to school. Pop showed us one time how to get the fire going quick by using coal oil. We went down there to build the fire one morning and poured in the coal oil -- Garland was responsible - he was older than me. All it did though was just sit there and smoke so we added some more. All of a sudden anyhow, this thing exploded and Mom was in bed up there and there was this big explosion and it knocked out the plug in the chimney above her bed and all the soot came pouring out and floated down onto her bed and all around her while she was laying in bed. She made Garland stay home from school to clean up. It was when Grace had a bad appendix and she couldn't hardly get around.
A thing that happened to Violet was when they had an old cabin - it had been a dance hall- where they let them stay at Badger, California in the mountains. They moved out of the cabin and then her mother came to visit - she was up in her 70's and wasn't very well - so they walked down there - snow and everything - you had to walk down to it. Ray said "Well, I'm gonna start a fire in the stove that had been loaned to us - a cook stove - so he couldn't find any kerosene - only gasoline. And you know what, I was standing there - I didn't know he was using it and it started following him and he was running and it was following him. I grabbed a rug and smothered it out - there happened to be a rug there. He had the container filled with gas and it was dripping out as he ran and I threw the rug down on the fire and I got it down off of him with the rug. They said never to use gasoline and that's what he did. he learned a lesson right there. and his mother was there watching this and she didn't know what to do. Then I went around and smothered it everywhere else after I had stopped it from getting up on him.
Roy was 4 years older than Grace and they had one horse and they were supposed to go and get the cattle out of the alfalfa. We drove the cattle out and the horse rolled in this water in the canal. They had both been riding the horse and the horse deliberately put his head down and rolled to get them off. Grace was under the water going down the stream and Roy got out of the canal and ran along the side of it until he came even with her and pulled her out. It was just like a dream - the sun was shining and she was under that water and she was just about out. Roy made sure she was breathing and then he went over and caught the horse and beat it up with a willow. Then he climbed on it and had Grace get on the back of it. It could have been that she had kicked the horse in the flanks a little bit putting her feet up and made the horse go wild. There was a fence there and Roy had Grace climb up on the fence and get back on the horse. But that was a close one because Grace wouldn't have moved - she was out - just kind of paralyzed or dazed - so she was sure that Roy saved her life.
Did anybody ever get hurt up there? Yes- Roy built a pair of stilts and Eva decided she was going to try them out and she went into the irrigation ditch. We could look out in the field and see her - she was higher than the ditch with the water in it and somehow or other she lost her balance and fell and broke her arm. She broke her leg in Salt Lake. They took Eva down to the doctor and she came back with this big cast on and my dad said "No more of them stilts!" and he burned them - broke them up and put them in the stove. Eva was in so much pain and mother and dad took her down to Myton in the buggy. The other time I mentioned was when the Indians coming as soon as my parents left for Myton. I already told that one.
Did your dad work elsewhere up there? They put in canals - the men -- I guess they took their own camping equipment and things and stayed. They put in the ditches for irrigation. I think it was just for themselves. They took a team of horses - there was the Nolan Ditch and it was higher and they never did get water to it. But the Dick Gray Mountain ditch - the canal that went right past our place - they came from above Duchesne there somewhere and they put that one in. He was gone for a long time. They stayed together - I think there were about 14 men - they would stay together and go up in the mountains and get their logs and they would come back and after they had enough for one then they'd go get enough for another - but they stayed together.
Did the Indians ever kill anyone? Well, if they did our parents didn't let us in on that. I know my Dad had a gun on the wall in the kitchen where he hung his rack. It was a no-no for us to even look at it or anything else. But I know he would come in and get the gun and go back out - lots of times there was some of the cattle that were injured and never would walk again and they just went out and done away with it. Usually there was someone else to help drag the carcass away.
When You and Pop were first married you had a pretty tough time then? Oh yes we did. It seemed like there was no work and LaMar would get a few odd jobs and then some of the relatives - Aunt Nora and Uncle Milton Smith out in Centerville, they'd have us come out and stay and then LaMar would help Uncle Milton with some of the things - irrigation or something like that and then Aunt Elma and Uncle Jim were up in Copperfield and we came up to see them and usually they'd insist - they'd pay LaMar a little bit of money to come back later and do something around the place but they were extremely kind and good to us. But we came up one time just before Garland was born and Aunt Elma told me to go right back to Salt Lake as fast as we could get there - she was afraid I was going to have the baby right there - but he didn't come until about three days later. She was so upset that I was in the car riding - but they all liked to help us as much as they could - that was one good thing about all the relatives. I never had any relatives in the area - I'd never been raised where relatives would help relatives.
What did you think when Pop finally got the job with Utah Copper - was it a big relief? Oh, that was - that was just another world to us. We just had a little Model-T Ford; Uncle Hugh had given him the car and LaMar had fixed the back e a little truck where the trunk was at and the car just barely made it up on the Terrace Heights road when we moved up in Copperfield. We didn't think we'd make it. It wasn't too long after that when he got another car because it took so long for the car to even make it up the hill.
So you lived up on Terrace heights from 1935 to 1952. Yes -- that was our home for 17 Years. What did you think when you moved down to Copperton? Well, Afton went out the back. I put a quilt out there for her so she wouldn't be underfoot when we were putting things away and it was getting time for her nap and I said "Afton, come in now - time for your nap" and she said "I'll come in and take my nap if you won't move the lawn". Finally, I figured it out -- we'd take her to the park and she'd go to sleep on the lawn and we d take her back to Copperfield and she'd wake up where there was no lawn. That kind of brought tears to our eyes because she just didn't have the security of having a lawn where we lived. I liked it in Ccpperton -- the place and the town and everything so I'm glad we were able to purchase it and live here.
It doesn't seem like it could be 33 years that you've lived in the same house. Afton was 3 years old when, we moved to Copperton - she essentially grew up there. When she was in Copperfield some older girls were walking with her and they took her walking along the road and she was busy talking with them and behind the set of the 3-room homes some of the road had caved in and she just walked along and fell right down the back of it - her poor little nose fell down in the dirt - she was choking and coughing and crying with pain. I didn't blame the other girls because I'd told Afton to be careful about that and she was old enough to watch - but that was one mishap that was very painful for her.
You didn't get out of the canyon that often when You lived up there. No - LaMar only had a few days a week to work and we didn't hardly have enough money to come to the valley to see anyone. When he went to work up there it wasn't fulltime, but we managed - it was work and we were happy to be in a company house. I think it was pretty close to a year before the work picked up much - 1936 or so. Another experience up in Copperfield was when Eldon came flying past the window. Another one was when Aunt Bertha - she and Liston lived on the terrace below us - they came up to see us and they started down and Bertha was ahead of Liston and she wasn't hanging onto the railing, and she lost her footing and she bounced all the way down them steps and she had bruises all over her and all Liston did was laugh. Poor Bertha she went home as best she could. They were the steps between the terraces over there below the garages by the 3-room houses.
Now, when your Dad died you were just beginning to get on top financially weren't; you? Yes - after being in Salt Lake that's true. But when my mother died why we all went to the funeral and my brother-in-law's daughter, went in and took all of our family pictures - that is Josephine Miles - I've forgotten her married name now - and I've written and sent money and everything and they're both sick, both her husband. She took all of our family pictures. We were all on the back of this big white horse we had - all of us girls - there were six; of us on that horse - and it was such a lovely picture and I kept asking the others if they had it and they all said no - and I finally found out what had happened. As soon as we went to the funeral Josephine went in and took every one of them. She was a foster daughter - stepdaughter of my sister Lorena - I sent a Christmas card and sent money to have copies made and I found out that her husband was real sick - was bedfast - and she had a heart attack and was bedfast. She always. said "My family is my stepmother Lorena - I don't want a thing to do with my own mother - she was about 3 years old when her mother got up and packed her suitcase and left with another man -- left them all in bed -- the neighbors -- the little tots got up and were running around outside with no clothes on and finally one neighbor went over and talked to them and took them in where it was warmer and found their clothes and dressed them and stayed with them until they could get hold of their dad -- he was working for the railroad in Salt Lake City -- so he came home -- there wasn't a note or anything -- she just deserted.
What happened when your dad died? You were just getting on top financially? Yes. Beulah was working for the telephone company at the Highland Exchange - pretty close to Liberty Park. She would work nights there and then -- Josephine said "My mother is my step mother - not my own mother - and later, after they moved to California, her mother got in touch with her and wanted her to come live with her and Josephine said "No - you didn't stay and raise me - I'm still going to consider Lorena my mother".
Now, your family was living in Salt Lake, your Dad was still alive, Beulah was working for the telephone company. When your Dad died, what kind of situation were you in at that point? We had very little income except what Beulah would bring home and she couldn't support all of us so we went - so the church helped us out for a while - the Mormon Church with groceries and that.
But you weren't Mormons? Well, we started to go to the Mormon Church and I think my sister Violet joined it (no).
What about your Uncle Harry - did he help at that point too? It was later that he sent money every month - my Dad had put him through law school and he was going to pay back the debt that he figured he owed for that. And he sent all of his wife's - his wife had passed away - he sent all of her clothing - my mother could wear them. Harry never did get married again after his wife had passed away. He died with diabetes - just about all my Dad's family except my Dad died of diabetes. Harry worked and lived in New York and he sent pictures of when they were in Florida on vacation. Then later he came out to the West coast and my mother was the only one that met him at the airport - she went down there and said he looked so much like our Dad that she knew right away who he was. She had never seen him before. They visited and they went to see Aunt Cora - she was living then - that was his sister.
How old was Harry when he died? I don't know. Audrey was his daughter - and she never married. They sent all the clothes that his wife had to mother - there was a fur coat in it. We were living on lst West and about l0th South and Mr. Jensen was the landlord and his daughter decided to rummage through the clothing mother'd moved there and she found that fur coat and she wore it - put it on and wouldn't give it back and she wore it out. Mother looked good in it but she didn't want to wear it everywhere. But Jensen 's daughter thought she looked good in it so she just took it .
How long did everyone keep living in Salt Lake after your Dad died? I got married in 1929 -- I guess I went down, to California in 1931. For a while. Then Your Dad came down and stayed with Wilson and Aunt Alice and then we came back to Utah LaMar stayed in California maybe one month . Grace was down there about three months -- this was after Garland was born. LaMar was trying to spend all of his money on himself and I stayed home and had to go buy groceries he wouldn't bring his check home so I was having that problem so I thought I'd teach him a lesson and leave. And then my sister Violet took care of Garland down at my mother's home. LaMar came down to California and got Grace and they came back up and he promised he would bring his check home when he went to work. So he went to work for a while at the U.S. Underground and he stayed up there and I stayed with his parents - his mother and his stepdad in Salt Lake on 8th East - 638 South 8th East.
Beulah transferred down to California with the telephone company after my Dad died. She was living on Leeward Avenue in an apartment house and when we went down there we would stay in the apartment house with them -- she was living -- Homer was working nights. She got married after she moved down there. Homer was working for the Los Angeles County Fire Department and he would be gone two days and two nights and then he'd come home two days and two rights. He cooked when he was on duty and then he'd come home and start cooking. Usually stew because he had so many men to feed on the fire department so that's what he'd cook when he got home too.
Beulah went down to California and everyone else stayed in Salt Lake. Then Lorena and Joe went down. Ada and Eva hitchhiked. Mother didn't have any food in the house. They'd been out picking fruit out at Bountiful and they decided that wasn't enough to feed all of them so they decided that they would go on down to Beulah's in California. At least they were working and mother was having a hard time keeping any of them. They hitchhiked - they finally made it. Usually the truck drivers would take them down. Eva had kind of poor health from that time on. I don't know exactly what caused it - I think she was in the rain and got all wet and stayed that way but she was never very well after that. After they got down there they got work. Eva worked at a boarding house - was keeping house there and that way her meals were provided for her and once in a while this woman - she had never married and she was trying to raise her sister's child and she wanted Eva to live with her so she'd be a companion to her niece and then help around the boarding house. Once in a while she'd get permission for some of us to come and stay overnight with her and we had to sleep in a single bed - the two of us, we kind of overcrowded her but she never did complain. Eva was very good natured. She got meningitis and died though -- right young. Leonard and Mother came together to California - got bus tickets and they both came down. Most of Mother's furniture was left there at Jensens and quite a bit later Eva came back and found some truck driver who would take a load of furniture down and her as a passenger so that's the way she went back down with Mother's furniture.
Do you think your Dad would have made it if he hadn't died when he did? The Depression was just getting started wasn't it? The people who gave him the poison -- they admitted it later - they were sorry they killed him. We thought that was what happened. Even to his car. He had a little car and he was delivering from the freight depot - had a little job. They decided they wanted the job plus they wanted the car so they gave him some poison and they paid the police to keep quiet about what he died of.
We lived in Copperfield from 1935 to 1952 - 17 years and you've lived in Copperton 33 years. I've been a lot happier in Copperton. It was so difficult in Copperfield having to go up and down through the tunnel. They had three turnouts to pass one another and the gas was so bad from the fumes inside and if the light would change before we got through there was room for just three cars in the turnouts and so we had to back up until we found one of those turnouts or we had to back all the way out to Copperfield. Grace had a hard time getting away from the house in Copperfield. LaMar worked nights most of the time and needed his rest during the daytime. Payday was twice a month - we'd go down to get our groceries and come back in a taxi. LaMar worked nightshift so much mostly because he didn't have enough seniority for a daytime job in the train department. If he wanted to go days he'd have had to go back on the track department. Garland was born in Salt Lake, Eldon was born in Salt Lake, and then the family moved up to Copperfield a year after Eldon was born and then you had Larry - he was born
My Dad was harnessing the team that he had on the buggy and he was busy going around the horses and Violet and I were sitting on the grainery steps and all of a sudden Violet ran as hard as she could over to see my Dad and this one horse - her name was Fanny - and she was kind of a mean horse - she liked to take an opportune time to kick us if we got behind her and then also the biting - we hadn't noticed that too much. But Violet's head was right close to where her mouth was at and she grabbed Violet by the hair right on top of her head and was lifting her up and she was screaming and my Dad grabbed her and he just took the -- in his hand and he just smacked that sideways with his hand right above the nostrils of the horse and she dropped Violet. Dad held her enough that she didn't fall right down flat - but oh, it was painful. Violet was only a toddler about 3 years old. I wonder if she remembers that - she has left. It's too bad. She was going down to her daughter's and then back to Yuma. They might have her move her camper truck though - go down and get it.
After my father died then my mother worked at the Newhouse Hotel 4:00a to 10:00 she prepared some of the salads and things like that - they liked her salads and then the dishwashing was done by Violet and my mother. She was having a tough time keeping the family together. My brother Roy, he joined the Navy and he was gone. Then Beulah was working at the telephone company - she left, however, and went to California and met her husband Homer Shanks and was married down there. And Lorena, she married Joe Miles - he was working for the D&RG Railroad in Salt Lake City - they lived there in Salt Lake City for quite a while - he had three children of his own and we used to go babysit for them a lot.
What did you enjoy the most about Copperfield? Wel1, it was mostly that LaMar had a job - he had been without work for so long when we lived in the Salt Lake City area. Then there were shows once a week - they'd call them company shows - the Utah Copper Company provided free shows down in the Princess Theater in Bingham. There was a showhouse in Copperfield but we had to pay for it. LaMar was hired to go to work for Utah Copper even though the depression was still on just as soon as they even hired any. Liston had worked for them all through the years and he was able to notify us when there was an opening and so
Did LaMar do any prizefighting after you were married? No. I can't remember too many fights there in Bingham in the Gemmell Club after we moved up there - they didn't seem to have many. I never did see him in any fights. Some of the best times we had - I guess were after we got a car and were able to go down to the valley and shop and see our relatives. We'd take our children and go down there and visit. It was quite hard on us at first. LaMar was only working so many days at week at the Utah Copper - he wasn't working fulltime - he only worked about four days a week - it was the same with everybody. Later, when it did go back fulltime, it seemed like a new way of living - we were able to get more-groceries and clothing and that. We shopped at the Lendaris Grocery Store most of the time and they had some clothing - especially work clothes for the men and I think there was some for children and adults too. They used to deliver the groceries from Bingham up to Copperfield.
How did you get the mail? There used to be that guy on a horse -- Stillman, I think it was. He would come on a horse with a saddlebag full of mail and then go on to the other areas - there was Telegraph and the U.S. - there was a long town at the top of the canyon. I used to go hunting and fishing with LaMar - I usually didn't fish - I just went along, the children liked the outing and I was watching them and then the hunting, we would usually just put some bedding in the car to sleep on - both the front seat and the back seat and then later on we got a tent. We had our sleeping bags and a lot more comfortable things - a gas camp stove - we had a lot of extra things and we could enjoy ourselves more. I remember the time Pop got that big deer over in Middle Canyon and we all went over to help drag it down the mountain. He usually depended on you and Garland to help him drag them down.
You lived in Copperfield almost 17 years. You used to like to play cards - there was another couple that liked to play cards and then we usually had one refreshment of some kind. Nick and Sarah Golish - I sure miss them. Sarah passed away but I think Nick is still living - he has a new wife.
You used to play with Bert and Agnes Ivie - played 500 on the cards. We usually went to their house because their children were younger - they would put them to bed but someone had to be there if they called out for a little help in the night.
You lived in Copperfield when you lost Larry. He was 2 years old. He was born when you lived in Copperfield. One of the best things about Copperfield for Garland and I was that we could always go hunting. There were no restrictions as long as you stayed away from the residential area.
Do you remember when the stove blew up? Yes. I had appendicitis and LaMar didn't want me to undergo the surgery because it was going to cost a lot of money and I was trying so hard to get by with all that pain and finally it all caught up with me - I would sleep long hours to even regain any strength so you and Garland had to do a lot of things on your own. of a sudden there was a big boom. I was upstairs in bed and - I would usually fix the lunch at night and I went back to bed. There was a place for a chimney upstairs and the bed was right by it and all the soot came flying out of there - and the seal too. I sure had a hard time cleaning it up.
I remember you saying you were washing dishes when I jumped out of the bathroom window and you saw me go flying by . You jumped down in the back and then went up the hillside. We used to have George Kubota - he used to like to come down and sometimes he would stay for meals. George had a lot of kind ways and was considerate; it was too bad that he died. He was strangled when a fanbelt caught him around the neck when he was building in one room of their house and lost his balance.
What else happened that was exciting in Copperfield? Well, Helen Palmer had diabetes and she wouldn't stay with her diet and every so often she'd go into a coma and they'd send an ambulance up and a lot of the people would pitch in and put hot water bottles to keep circulation in her legs and they'd bundle her up and take her to the hospital.
What did you think when you moved down here to Copperton? Oh, I thought it was wonderful. Afton was outside on a blanket and I let her play there and so it was time for her to go to bed and I called out the back window for her and she answer and finally I got aggravated and called again and she said "I will if You don't move the lawn" and I finally realized that other times when we took her to the park and let her go to sleep on the blanket why she always woke up back in Copperfield and that's why she thought we had moved the lawn.
You never did grow a lawn in Copperfield, did you? No, there was just a little tiny space only about 4 feet by 6 feet and we had to share that with the next door neighbor. We had vines over the windows - over the porches - they grew from that small amount of soil there. Paydays were twice a month so we would go down and get our groceries in Bingham. Before we had a car we would call down and have them deliver. When we went up to Copperfield we had a little Model A Ford and in the back of it your Dad had sort of opened it where the trunk was at and had fixed it up like a little truck. That car had a hard time making it up onto the terraces - it didn't have much power. The first thing Your Dad did when the checks started coming in was to buy a new car. He didn't want to go chugging around in that old one anymore.
But you did go a fair number of years without any car and you had to have the Lendaris deliver Your groceries. And you didn't have a telephone either for a long while - Alice Ivie had the telephone and we had to borrow hers. You didn't have television in those days either - you just had radio and phonographs. we had records and that. They used to spend quite a bit of time making fudge and other candies.
In 1952 they moved down to Copperton - in August. They have lived there 33 Years (in 1985). It seems like fewer odd-ball things happen down in Copperton as compared to Copperfield. Up there in Jap Camp LaMar and Lloyd Miller used to go play cards on paydays and they went over there and somehow the Puerto Ricans decided they were cheating and they got their knives out and attacked LaMar and Lloyd. Lloyd got cut quite badly on the temple and some of the Japanese took him to the bath house to stop the bleeding and to get him away from the Puerto Ricans. When they notified Grace and Arvella Miller they went up there and Lloyd was stretched out on the table with blood everywhere and Arvella became so angry that she tried to attack the Puerto Ricans so the Japanese moved Grace and Arvella out of the building. Then the ambulance came and they started putting compresses on him and stopping the bleeding while they loaded Lloyd in the ambulance and were driving away. Lloyd really had a hard time - he had a big knife wound on his temple. Arvella just went hysterical. Some of the men who were down on the road by the school came up to help. Arvella called Lloyd's Uncle Stan Jacques to go to the hospital with Lloyd. Stan made arrangements for the blood transfusion. Arvella's children were too young to help.
After moving down to Copperton did any exciting things happen? It's more difficult to see what is happening down in Copperton. Ernie and Elva Nix lived next door to the East, Harv and Inez Goff lived in the next house to the West. Directly across the street was Ted and Gladys Scroggin. Miley and Lola Anderson lived next to Scroggins. Evan Miller moved in later directly behind them. Verl Peterson has been there a long while though. Prior to the company selling the homes to the occupants it used to be that when people retired or quit they would move out.
They were able to purchase their homes in about 1955 or so. The house only cost about $3,000. Grace and LaMar had always rented except for the house on 437 West 5th North in Salt Lake but it was just too hard to drive back and forth to work in Bingham.
When they rented the house in Copperton the company had a crew of men who did the painting and wallpapering. They had a one-armed paperhanger and he was really a tremendous worker - Arville Warner. He had been in World War I and broken his wrist and it never healed. He could put the wallpaper on that arm and take the stump where his hand was cut off and manage to hold the paper while he took his other hand and brushed the rolls of wallpaper on the walls - on the ceiling. It was amazing what he could do. He didn't seem to think that was any problem. It didn't disable him. He just used that arm like there was a whole hand there even though there was no hand at all. Some people remodeled their homes just as soon as they bought them. Grace liked the breakfast nook. Just a few people have left the breakfast nook in. Phoebe and Eldon Johnson have their grandchildren come up and they put them in the breakfast nook to color pictures and they leave them in there for their meals - they just get the biggest kick out of that breakfast nook.
Pop died April 25, 1980. The circumstances were that he just started hemorrhaging from his stomach and I called the doctor. He didn't spit up blood. He went to the bathroom to urinate and he called me in and there was a lot of blood so I called the doctor and they were kind of on alert in case they said if it continues call us and we'll take him to the hospital. So I called them and they took him in but they would stop the hemorrhaging and it would break loose again - his lower colon and everything was gone. I think it was prostate. They stopped the bleeding and they came out and told me we stopped the bleeding for the third time and if he starts hemorrhaging again we can't save him - his heart is too bad. And that did happen and they called me in and he was just dying - that's all there was to it. It was in an area where they couldn't remove all of it if they operated. They could just stop the hemorrhaging by searing it and then hopefully he would be alright. He just didn't listen to what the doctors told him concerning his diet.
He started bleeding again in the night and they couldn't stop it? That's right. He essentially bled to death? Well, I was there - I went to stay with him. It was dark where they were all sleeping and he fell - he was trying to make his way to the bathroom - he knew that things were happening, that this hemorrhaging was happening and he just fell right in the middle of the floor. It was so hard to gee him -- there was a night nurse there. At that time I was out in the hall - there was a little area where I could rest.
They called Grace in and the doctor told her that if it breaks loose the third time we can't save him and it did. Was he in pain at all? No. He was unconscious. I don't know if there was any pain when these things happened? I think it was just the moisture of the blood that he could feel. They stopped it the third time and then they said his heart was just too weak and the loss of blood was too great to save his life.
Well then, You've been alone here for five years. How often do you see Afton? Quite often. There isn't exactly a set time - she usually calls me up and asks me to come down.
I (Eldon) don't get to see you too often and Garland sees you even less than I do. You have visited Eldon a few times when he lived in other places - you came up to Montana - You and Homer and Beulah when we were on Savage Lake - sat there in the front room and looked over the lake and Homer and Pop sat and drank beer. You visited us in Mackay, Idaho - Eldon had to work and you went to the Craters of the Moon. You visited us in Spokane - I remember the amazing thing that I couldn't believe was that Pop went out with me one time when I had to go up the mountain up Rock Creek so he went with me and after him living in Bingham all this while with steep mountains and when we went driving up that mountain he was scared and nervous - thought we would roll down the side - it really shook him up.
Then we had the milking contest - Pop and Ernie. Ernie beat him - an 8-Year-old kid. He didn't like that - I wrote that poem about him.
What would you like to do now - what would You enjoy the most? Just going out visiting with people - things like that.
You have been working quite a bit on your genealogy haven't you? Yes but I don't have it all straightened out.
Well, when we get those mice out of the basement and get things straightened out I can put things back downstairs it will help. One day I propped the back door open to let some smoke out and I think that is how the mice got in - when I had that propped open. And my cat went out here to the front where the coal chute opening is at and caught two mice right alongside the house in the leaves and then he went in the back yard of the house next door there were some leaves and the next thing, I knew he had taken his paw and pulled another mouse out of there - they were just running all over the yard. That cat is pretty sharp when it comes to mice.
Have You ever seen so many mice before as in that basement room? I don't think so. That was terrible. and one time there was a hole in the bricks in the front just as we went down the steps and the mice were getting in there. Your Dad went ahead and got some plaster and plastered that closed. But where the bricks stop and the stucco starts, there could be a lot of openings there - and that might be where they're coming in. The coal chute is solid and around the porch I haven't seen any holes. I haven't checked where Your Dad was going to clean that unfinished room in the basement and he put that plaster - I forgot to look at that. It may be that they're getting in there.
Do you think you're rid of the mice now? For a while I think. I haven't gone down there to listen. That was terrible - go down there. Garland gave me a set of mouse traps to help me out. I would go down and keep them set and I thought I was keeping up with them. I thought I was keeping up with them by going down and emptying the mouse traps and resetting them but apparently there were too many of them. The one mousetrap broke - I think I only had three at first.
I think you had either 12 or 16 mousetraps. Now - Yes - I think it was Garland who bought them. At the time I had that eye detachment. I wasn't supposed to lean over. I would take a little chair and sit down on it and keep my head up reach out and put the mousetrap down. I wasn't supposed to lean over and put them on the floor.
What would you like to do now? I don't do much reading. I only watch television a little bit - one or two plays a day. Sometimes I stay up for the 10 o'clock news. Well, this neck is lowered the boom on me - it's still extremely sore - kind of a knot in my neck here and makes it hard to drive - I use the mirror. I used to do a little walking. I had a set time and I would go out and walk around the block and a few things like that but I haven't been doing that lately. I guess it was this diabetes and I didn't know what it was making me ill and physically I just wasn't strong enough to hardly do anything.
You have cut down on sugar. Yes - he said just fruit is all the sugar I can have. I believe my feet are better but I haven't been taking anything for it - just cutting back on sugar.
When was the last time Pop went deer hunting? (Eldon) I can remember when he went hunting over at Barney's Canyon and knocked down this great big buck. It never moved and when he went over to get it the deer jumped up and took off and he never did get it. I think that was the last time unless he went with a group that could do the lifting. Then he had the operations too and that weakened him enough that he couldn't undertake things like that. I (Eldon) can remember the time I turned 16 and got that 4-point and Liston mounted the horns. Then over Butterfield he said he saw the two bucks fighting and he shot the little one and let the big one go. And then there was the time over in the Big Rocks when the deer were really scarce - they were supposed to be a lot of deer but we couldn't find anything. Then finally he shot this little teeny buck - its horns were only about 4 inches long and we accused him of shooting a doe that turned out to have little tiny horns.
I remember the time when we went rabbit hunting - he had a shotgun and I had a .22 and we went up this little\par canyon up toward Evanston up past Coalville - it had these great big sagebrushes about 7 feet high in the bottom of this little gully so I got up on the sidehill with the .22 where I could shoot further and Pop got in the bottom where he could shoot close up with the shotgun and the rabbits kept hopping up ahead of him and he couldn't see them and so I'd shoot with the .22 and I'd guide him and he'd go over and pick it up and then we'd keep going and I'd get another one and guide him to it. This went on for five or six rabbits and Pop was getting mighty frustrated. Finally he saw one rabbit himself and shot at it with that shotgun and there was a long line between him and the rabbit of branches and twigs from the sagebrush that fell to the ground. I think he got the rabbit but the main thing I can remember is all that sagebrush falling - all the limbs falling off the sagebrush. He was pretty desperate by then. End of Tape #3, Side A Oct. 20, 1985 -- Beginning of Tape #3, Side B Oct. 20, I985
Some of the occurrences were pretty scary too when he went hunting. I used to walk up on the hillside and wear some clothing so nobody would shoot me. I used to do quite a bit of walking to help kick them out but I never did shoot any.
What did you think of him poaching deer up there in Copperfield? I didn't like it!
You did have meat to eat. Yes - of course on that I guess we didn't have too much work and it was helpful that way. I was always trying to be strict on things like that and he was always trying to get away with it - poaching deer. and it was hard work too to bring them back down. Yes- especially since he had to wait until after dark. Oh, it's a good thing you two have been honest since then because that - of course that was kind of a necessity at the time - we didn't have enough of an income to eat and the meat was three-fourths of our diet after he'd get a deer. He never did go hunting alone - he always had a buddy with him - Nick Golish, Bert Ivie. Yes - Bert lives over in these apartments - I guess he still does. He married a second time and they didn't make a go of it so he's a bachelor.
Agnes died? Yes. Or did she? They got divorced and she was taking care of her mother - Mrs. Barnett -- about a year ago I was talking to her. Agnes got an apartment in that high-rise apartment house back of the City and County Building and then her mother got sick and so she came up here in Copperton and lived for a while. All the others are married, see, and they couldn't leave their families and stay with her at night so Agnes was staying with her mother - I don't know if over here or in the hospital - no, not over here - their son Bud, and Betty live there. Mrs. Barnett was in the rest home so that's where she'd go. The others couldn't leave their families at night so Agnes filled in and did that. I thought that was nice because Agnes' mother was another woman - she left and deserted Agnes and then he remarried and the second wife raised Agnes. She's a half-sister to all of them over here but she sure did pitch in and help her mother.
Well, what would You like to do most Mom, what would You like to do now? Oh, I just like to go out car riding - just driving around. Also, for meals sometimes 1 just stop and get a hotdog or hamburger is usually the best for me - something like that instead of preparing big steak dinners or things like that.
(End Tape 3, Side B -- (Beginning of Tape #4, Side A Nov. 11. 1986)
Today is November 11, 1986 and we are in Copperton in Grace Bray's house.
Some of those papers in the other room indicate that Webb and Your Mom moved from the Uinta Basin to Salt Lake in 1924 and he died in 1925, so he was in Salt Lake only one year before he died? Correct. So at that point you had lost everything up in Myton - the Ranch and the whole shooting match and so then you moved - Your Dad and Beulah came down to Salt Lake and lived in a tent. And Lorena - Dad, Beulah, and Lorena - the three of them. They tried to get jobs while Your mother and the other kids were still up in Myton. How long did they live in the tent? I don't know because when I came my Dad had rented a house on Jefferson Street - 833 Jefferson Street -- no, we lived in an apartment house on 5th South and West Temple and we had to sleep on the floor because it was only a two-room and that is where we stayed until the furniture came and then my Dad got the house on Jefferson Street and moved it in there. We lived on Jefferson Street until we were all grown -- let's see, after I was married my mother moved to 1st West and 10th South - it was an apartment house and Mr. Jensen owned it.
She moved there after Grace was married - after 1929. So you lived on Jefferson Street until you were married and you were renting all that while? Yes.
After you were married, how long was it until your mother moved to California? I imagine a year - a year after. Just before you were married, who all was living at home? Ada and Leonard and Violet. I think RoY went into the Navy after that - Roy was living there too. There was Roy and Lorena and Beulah - the whole family.
I thought Beulah was in California? No, she didn't go until later. Now, Your Dad came down and he got a job where? At the D&RG Railroad. I can't recall how long he worked there - there was a strike and they wouldn't let them go through the picket lines and they were beating up on all the workers who wanted to go through. So it was getting quite terrific in regard to gangs of them beating - taking just one person out and beating him up and I believe my Dad took one beating and then he quit.
Then what did he do? I don't recall. He was working for the Ferre family. That was in 1925 that he died.
1925 - and when did you get married? 1929.
So you were there for four years after Your Dad passed away before You got married. Right.
So you were born in 1912 so You were 13 when Your Dad died and then you lived without a Dad from age 13 to 17. Yes - right.
So what did Your family do for a living? Well, my mother was working and also Eva was working for the Newhouse Hotel. Mother was just a dishwasher and Eva was helping prepare the meals. But one time it was after hours and all of them had gone home - my Mother was there and they wanted some kind of a snack sent up to their room and my mother hurriedly fixed up something and sent it up and she got a lot of compliments out of it - the salad and then she had added some cheese and lunch meat to it. It was too bad at the time that the salad maker was there - the regular one - that mother didn't get that job. She was still just a dishwasher.
During those four years essentially your mother, Eva, and Beulah - all were working? Yes. Beulah was working as a telephone operator at the Highland Exchange.
How did you get along financially? It was very hard. We babysit, us younger ones would. Some of us would stay in the homes through the week and come home weekends. We would go to school and then come home and take care of the children and help with all of the chores in the evening - that would be Ada and I.
So your Dad died in 1925 and that meant that when he died Beulah was 21, Lorena was 20, Roy was 18, Eva was 15, Grace was 13, Ada was ll, Violet was 9, and Leonard was 6. So Beulah was out of school, Lorena was also, Roy was just about out of school. Yes, Roy decided not to go to school and he took a job helping at Shurtliff Shoe Repair.
But Eva was 15 going on 16 so what did she do? She was working at the Newhouse Hotel evenings too and going to school during the day. I think it was the West High School. So you was 13 and you went to school during the day and tended kids at night and came home for the weekends. And Ada did the same and she was only 11. Yes - Ada stayed right there at the Pattersons I think was the name of the family - close to where the South High School used to be.
Grace worked for Hoopers - James A. Hooper - and he was over the sheep industry here in Utah and they had two children - they had a boy and a girl. I was the official babysitter when they wanted to go out in the evenings. I was there - I stayed right there with the family and I came home on weekends. So Violet and Leonard - let's see, Violet was 7 so she would have been going to school - that's all she did was go to school and Leonard, he was just ready to start school - yes, he entered kindergarten at the Grant School.
Well, with all of you doing what you could You still had a tight time financially? We did. It wasn't much pay on the jobs that we took - they were the only ones we could qualify for.
Did you have enough to eat and so-forth? No. we had to be careful - whatever the older ones would prepare why they then we would eat we would share we would try to divide it up. In the one instance was when I remember Beulah and Lorena they went into the kitchen and they said "Have we got enough milk? Have we got enough flour? Have we got enough sugar? Oh, a little bit. Have we got some vanilla?" and they were going to make lumpy dick. and oh, did we eat that down. It was just kind of a pudding - it was made on the top of the stove and it was - water and milk and then when it came to a boil you were supposed to stir in the flour - well, the flour was whipped into a paste and added to it and it was supposed to be stirred until it started to boil and then they could just stir it occasionally and then they put in a lot of vanilla and sweetened it with sugar. And they saved enough milk so they could put over it like cereal - and lots of time that's all the breakfast we had.
Let's see now - Your mother was 44 years old and had eight kids when your Dad died. and your Dad when he died he was 54. He was in good health up to that point? Yes.
Up on the ranch what standard of living did you have? Well, we would all just get out and do what we could. The older ones would milk the cows and the littler ones we would help carry the buckets in or bring them out -- we had little chores like that to do. We had a cellar. I remember helping plant the potatoes with our Dad - or when we harvested them he'd plow them and we'd go along and pick up the potatoes - I was on that crew.
Did you always have enough to eat? No - lots of times we didn't have very much and like I said my older sisters had to improvise even to see that there was food on the table.
When you were on the ranch? Well, on the ranch there was plenty. We had a cellar and potatoes and carrots down there. In the Fall when they rounded up the cattle on the range they would bring them down to our place and divide them up and each knew their own brand and their own cattle and in the meantime Mother and Beulah and Lorena would fix up a big dinner for them and they would all come in and eat and of course we were the ones that did a lot of the helping on that - peeling the potatoes and things like that - but there was a set way of living and then suddenly when we lost the ranch due to Dad's mortgaging it to get some more cattle and when they came from Texas - from Texas up - a lot of them died on the trail and they were so poor they couldn't even stand up - the ones that did arrive were so poor they couldn't even be used for beef and Dad and Mother mortgaged the property for it at the Myton bank and the Treasurer ran away with all the money and the Banker committed suicide -- they didn't have a thing.
Your Dad wasn't the only one that was hurt at that time though? Apparently not - there were others but I don't know how many - it was a little vague to me - maybe Beulah would remember.
So everybody was working and You had a tough time getting along and you did this from the time when You were 13 until you were 17 then? Yes -- it seemed like if there was one less in the family it helped out on the others.
So you got married when You were 17 1/2. Did you think that was going to help the family? No - LaMar insisted -- we fell in love and that was it. We didn't have any supervision in regard to the future then. LaMar's mother was a widow and didn't have hardly any income. I'm not sure whether LaMar's brother Liston was able to work on the track gang up here at Utah Copper or not.
(Eldon) I think Liston was working at that time. Well, LaMar said he worked at the time but I don't know - they were laid off.
What do you think would have happened if your Dad hadn't died? Well, I think we would have owned a home and had a lot happier life. It was such a tremendous difference in regard to what we had on the ranch and things to do there in order to provide our living. As to being in Salt Lake City and no income and none of us having much of an education. My sister Lorena was sent to LDS Business College; my Dad insisted that she go there as a stenographer and she had a good job at N. M. Long Real Estate Company as a stenographer. Beulah just had training as a telephone operator.
And Roy with the shoemaking? Yes. And do you think Your Dad would have - he was always doing his best to find work? Yes - he had a hard time finding work - it was the depression years and a lot of companies was folding up and he went to the D&RG Railroad and was working there in the Foundry. I guess years back when he was a young man he had training in a foundry.
Did any of Your Dad or Mother's family try to help you? Yes. Uncle Harry - that's my Dad's brother - after my Dad passed away - he would send a check for about $30 a month to help us out.
Nobody on Your mother's side? No. They were in California. She was the eldest one in her family and the rest of them were married and taking care of their families - they were in a recession where they didn't have much either.
Now, what did your mother do? She never did remarry. No - she never did.
She lived for 19 Years after your Dad passed away. Well, she was -- at first she did have a job at the Newhouse Hotel in Salt Lake City. I don't think she ever did find work after she went down to California - my Sister Beulah insisted that she come down there and she would help her. So they had a little - I guess a 3-room, maybe 4-room house on Arizona Avenue in the Los Angeles area.
Did she ever think of getting remarried? I don't know. She was going with Mr. Boyles and then she went with - a tall man that lived on Kensington Drive. But Mr. Boyles, he was from Bingham and he had a couple of sons - and he would get vegetables and go out close to the airport there in Salt Lake where there was a lot of traffic and they had a little fruit stand. So he'd have some of my older sisters go out to help sell the vegetables. He seemed to want to include all of us as a family and yet my mother just didn't want to remarry and so she never did remarry again.
Do you think she should have? Yes I do. I think it would have gone smoother. We would have had more supervision and - you know how it is - there would have been one more in the family that could see to it that things went a little smoother.
Well let's see then - Roy joined the Navy - when was this? I don't know - Mother had to sign the papers - I don't know whether he was 19 or 17.
Well, he was 18 when your Dad passed away. It wasn't too long after my Dad passed away that Roy joined the Navy. He'd have been in the Navy from about like 1926 or so - so he was in the Navy 17 years when he was killed. Yes - when his ship went down. Of course they all say - everyone says someday he'll show up - he's just shipwrecked and out on an island somewhere. They all liked to make us hope - but there wasn't any hope.
So he was 31 Years old when he got married - so he'd been in the Navy for 12 years before he got married. He'd only been married for 5 years when he got killed. It seemed like once he went away he never came back. Of course when Mother moved to Los Angeles we got to see him - we went down to Long Beach when his ship was in and we went down to see him on his ship. I did have pictures - probably some of the rest of the family have them.
How often did you see Margaret? I never saw Margaret at all. Even now I have never met Margaret. She wanted to come and visit but all of a sudden your Dad just cancelled it. That's too bad - she wrote a real pretty letter to me. Yes - she seems to be very nice and everything. I had looked forward to it but everytime when LaMar could he just simply ranted and raved and threw a fit - he didn't want her to come.
Okay - so that left Leonard - that left you growing up for 4 Years without a Dad before you got married. Yes - it seemed like the older ones always expected us younger ones to stay home and do the work while they went out and earned their wages which was the thing that did happen but there wasn't any consistent - a kindness - if we did some work around the house or something, to give us a little money that they had earned or something you know - it just felt like we were some slaves - we were supposed to do it and - kick us in the face if we even asked for a nickel or a dime for our own.
Okay - so when your Dad died Ada was 11 and she - what did she do? At that time that eye problem - keritatoma set in - and she couldn't see very good. It was more pronounced after she got into her teens is when it seemed to start. But she was extremely nervous - and always - she would overdo physically and then be all in. She just didn't seem to have a good feeling of doing some work setting down and resting a little while and enjoying the work she had done - she just didn't seem to do that. She was always "I'll do it - I'll do it" and get up and fly around and then be all in and have to go to bed.
She moved to California with her mother? Yes. She married Charlie down there in California. How old was she - do you know? She was in her 20's but I don't know just how old. She was somewhere close to 16 when she moved to California - she wasn't out of school yet.
So Violet then was 14 and Leonard was only 11 when they moved to California. Yes.
So Leonard essentially grew up in California for the most part. When the war started in 1941 then Leonard was just 22 Years old. So what did he do - was he drafted in the Army? Yes, I believe he was. He was drafted.
(End of Tape #4, Side A) Beginning of Tape #4, Side B)
So you don't know whether your mother found work down in California or not after she moved there? No - I can't recall any work that she did.
What do you think you'd have done if your Dad had not died - what would you have liked to have done? Well, I guess I'd have taken a course in business of some kind - that's what my sister Lorena did. and then Eva she would have liked to have taken something up but later on she went to the Frank Williams Trade School in California - took up painting and things like that. What do you think Beulah would have done? I don't really know. Her husband would have just worked and she would have been a housekeeper I think rather than worked.
And Lorena, you say your Dad did insist that she go to LDS Business College. How long did she work as a secretary? Well, she worked for quite a while - I know she had a job at N. N. Long Real Estate - she was keeping books and things for them.
What would Roy have done? I don't know. He seemed to like electronics - in fact, he had his bed all wired up and he was going with several girl friends and he had us come in and see his work and we'd touch the wires and get a shock - he was an electrician of a sort all on his own.
Do you think he'd have joined the Navy if his Dad had still been alive? I don't think so - I think my Dad would have put him through some kind of schooling like he did Violet. Beulah didn't want to go - she was working at the telephone - Highland Exchange.
Eva was going into commercial art or something like that? Yes. She took that up in California. The family she was doing housework for gave her the hours off to attend Frank Winkins Trade School.
Do you think she'd have done the same thing if your Dad were alive - is that what she wanted to do? Yes - I think so.
You'd like to have gone into business? Yes - I enjoyed those sort of things.
What about Ada? Well, I don't know. Her eyesight went - keritatomis - and that's where she didn't have enough to eat - it was more or less where young people just don't eat too much and what she would do - she had a job - in a restaurant or something and anything they gave her to eat she would save it and bring it home and give it to my mother and go without eating herself.
And you think the disease was caused by not eating enough? Yes - that's what they said it was -- caused by malnutrition.
How about Violet? Violet was small and it seems like she was kind of small and not able - she does a lot of things but she just doesn't like to do heavy things you know.
Do you think she would like to have become a musician? Yes - she played the violin and - someone in the Bishopric in the 4th Ward said she could be a good violinist so he paid for her violin lessons and in the course - it was through a school of some kind - they supplied the violin too with the course and she was very good at it but she has that arthritis that is very crippling.
Okay - now Leonard, what would he have liked to do? I really don't know. He was just too small - I can't recall that he cared for too much about things. It seems like he wasn't really active about work.
He was only 10 years old though when you got married. He's a fireman now at the Los Angeles Fire Department and he could get around and do things good.
Did the LDS Church ever help you any at all? None of you ever joined the LDS Church? No - not when we lived in Salt Lake. They would come around and tell us that if we'd attend Church and things like that they would help us but they wouldn't help us if we weren't Church members and we were raised in the Presbyterian Church.
And the Presbyterian Church wouldn't help you? No - we just attended that at first and then we started going to the Mormon Church.
You did start going - Your mother too? don't think so - she just never did feel too good - her health wasn't - she just didn't participate that way. Just us kids did.
How do you think you would have made out if you were members of the Church? I don't really know - offhand I can't think - I'm sure it would have gone smoother for us.
(Eldon) imagine there must have been other families in the same situation or at least in tough situations who were members of the Church. Yes - but they still had their Dad as a general rule and he could take some work and also be able to help in the Ward. But it seemed like we were just destitute after our Dad passed away. There wasn't - Then my brother just up and joined the Navy and he was gone.
Did he send anything home to help? Yes - he signed some of his paycheck to mother but it was only about $20 a month - something like that. It was a little bit but it wasn't too much.
It must have helped though. Yes - it put food on the table anyway.
Did you take any pictures when you were up on the ranch? Yes but I think they've all been destroyed.
You lived on the ranch until you was 12 years old. You moved to the ranch in 1905? My parents did.
So they were on the ranch for 19 years? That was essentially the life of you kids until you moved to Salt Lake. Did your Dad have any money when he started the ranch? Yes - I'm quite sure he did. It was the Indian reservation that was opened to settlement so the men who wanted to homestead all went to Vernal - brought their families and what possessions they had and were staying there when the land between Myton and Duchesne was opened to settlement. So the men came in groups and they would go up and cut the timber and build a cabin and then that man would send for his wife and then they'd go on to the next one and continue in groups. They never were singly left out alone for the Indian raids. So Mother and Beulah and Lorena and I think Roy too was there and so Dad sent for Mother and the three children and I guess that he went over and got them - then I think all they had was a wagon.
You think anyhow that everyone might have led quite different lives if your Dad had lived? Yes.
And your Dad didn't really have a trade that was easily applicable in Salt Lake? Yes he did -- he was an iron molder.
But he wasn't working for the D&RG when he died though? No - everything cut back. He did work for them and had that job when we first came to Salt Lake and then he was laid off. Everything was in a depression. And then he didn't really believe in joining a union so the men wanted him to belong to it - when he was going through the lines to work why they took him out west of Salt Lake and beat him up and told him if he went on that job again they would kill him. So there were a lot of threats that way. He did give up the job in fear for his life - I guess they meant it. They - the union men- felt like they were taking a job away from them. So he took a good beating.
My two sisters - Lorena and Beulah were with him and they lived in a tent west of Salt Lake on someone's ground where they could get water and things like that. That's how they camped out - and of course the buggy - that's what they sent back to the ranch when they were selling everything at the ranch. I remember the man brought the buggy back in time for them to auction the buggy off. So we went down and lived in Myton and it wasn't long until Beulah came and made arrangements to take us to Vernal, I think it was, and then we got on the train and came on to Salt Lake.
Do you think Your Dad would have made out alright if he'd have lived? I believe he would. I think he'd have been able to find work somewhere else except then the unions were coming in and everyone was blacklisted if they went through the picket line and my Dad had been in Alaska and things like that and he believed they could break the unions by walking through the pickets. And of course being backwoods, being from Myton.
Now there's a Miner's Certificate in there for Harry Lumpkin. Did Your Dad go up alone or did Harry go with him or what? can't recall on that - maybe my sisters would have remembered but he could have been - I never thought of that.
Was it Alaska or was it the Yukon? It was the Yukon. I (Eldon) think they went to Alaska and then traveled over into Canada to the Yukon. I (Grace) think so. They told me there is a plaque up there for the ones that had settled it and Larry and Mary said that my Dad's name wasn't on it but the townspeople said they couldn't remember all their names. so then I said "Well, my Dad was one of them."
He made money up there? Yes - he came out quite rich with the gold mine they were working in - the vein would widen out and they'd get quite a bit and then it would narrow down and then it just kept a going and finally after my Dad had left from there they said they found a pocket of gold under a glacier. They iust kept mining - following it until - so my Dad didn't stay with it long enough to make themselves very rich - just took their money to keep all their living expenses up plus what equipment they had to have.
Now, they were married in Manassa, Colorado. Beulah, your mother was born in Ouray. They were married in Manassa and Beulah, your sister, was born in LaJara. So do you have any idea how that all happened? No I don't. Maybe Beulah can remember - it's too bad Lorena isn't living. LaJara is 100 miles or more away from Ouray and what they were doing in Manassa 1 just don't know. I don't know who lived over there in Manassa. Maybe Beulah's parents were in Manassa and that's where they got married and Manassa and LaJara are pretty close together and that's where your sister Beulah was born. Yes - I guess through the years anything that I'd have been told about that has left me - I was too young to recall what they said. I don't know whether Beulah would remember and that's the only one that's left that was older unless it was retold to Leonard.
What do you think Pop would like to have done? In what way? Well, if he'd have had any choices of where he worked and what he did and so-forth. When he was growing up he was so turned off by school and at odds with the world that as far as an education is concerned he just never would have taken the opportunity even if he had it. Yes - I believe that was it. I think that he was small and they just kind of pushed him to the side even if he came up and inquired if he could help. Now Liston, he was quite steady and his stepdad Terry Mann found him smoking and he set him down and made him smoke until he got sick. I don't know if the pipe smoking or cigarettes - and put wood in the stove and made it real hot and he cured him of it but then LaMar was 2 years younger and he wasn't old enough to get in the gangs and later on I guess that's the only thing he did do when he had the money was to smoke and drink both.
Well, do you think he ended up with about as good a job as he could have hoped for? Oh yes - yes 1 do. I think that no matter what, he tried to work in Salt Lake it was usually digging ditches and things like that and then when they said they were hiring up here - Liston would tell us - and Bertha too -so LaMar came up and hired out and I think he stayed with Liston and Bertha until his first check came and then he rented a house up in Copperfield and we moved up. But we were buying a house on 5th North - 437 West 5th North and we had an FHA contract on it and LaMar just would not make another payment - we just lost it. Bingham was for him.
This was the one that burned down? No - it didn't burn down.
Well, it's impossible to say what Pop would have done if he'd have been raised with a father. That's true - his potentials and that - because Liston came out better because he was old enough to do some chores and things like that and LaMar, he wasn't old enough to set down and do things after his Dad left him.
But if you look at what Clealon's other kids did - the second family, being raised by him, was there really that much difference? I don't think so. I don't believe they've -- As far as I know it was kind of hit and miss. Clealon was so ill from working in the mills that his heart went and there's a picture of him just very very feeble and ill due to the work he'd done at the Geneva Steel Plant.
Did you and Pop ever talk about what you dreamed about or wanted to accomplish or was it just a matter of living day to day? Mostly living day by day and if there was anything that required schooling or anything like that it wasn't for your Dad - he didn't want to tie himself down to anything like that. And I don't think he went past the 6th grade - he just didn't have any education at all.
After you were married he just had no goals in life at all? Right except just find a job and just take his money - most of it for himself - at first he was that way and then later on he got so that he would - that's why we have this house now.
(Eldon) Well, he did at the end there he was pretty well determined to get the house paid for and I think he was trying to get you set up. Yes - right. I guess he knew that there was something else wrong with him that wasn't getting any better.
(Eldon) Well, he got a new car, he had the freezer stocked with food and he had the house paid for and that's about all he could do for you wasn't it? I think it was - as far as - apparently he must have known he was failing and he did try there at the last, I must say that. But his suffering was getting too bad and like I say, I was glad I learned how to drive the car. After he had this treatment up at Doctor Palmer's office why he was driving home - LaMar would always insist that he drive - and he was going back and forth and slowing up and everything on account of the pain and the shock - they almost put him completely out - being mentally alert - so the policeman came along and was following this wobbly car that was swinging back and forth on the road and I said to LaMar "Pull over to the side here and get out and come on this side and I'll slide over. So he did and then the policeman followed us for about 8 or 9 miles and I was very particular when I turned west to signal a good 20 feet - I could see that manual that I had studied to get my driver's license and I did everything just so. So the policeman just stopped right there - he didn't follow us and we didn't have any others stop us on the way home. But that was all it was - the shots for his malignancy.
I (Eldon) couldn't see that Pop did anything except work and go down to the beerjoint and hunt and fish. Yes - that was all he seemed to want. He didn't want any extra schooling or anything.
He didn't seem to like to build things but when he got down here (Copperton) he really went at it in the garden didn't he? Oh, yes - there was a good garden out there and everything and like that mailbox - he would see something but he had to hastily do it and he didn't have the tools really to fit it. Now if it was his brother Liston he'd have had that all measured and all the edges just so but anyway it's practical and it's usable.
Well it did seem like it was a different life when he moved down here to Copperton. There was no sense trying to garden or anything up there in Copperfield. No - LaMar planted a little garden in the back of the house - 4 feet or maybe 6 feet and he had it - or one of you boys had planted it and Mrs Ivie next door, she came to look at the back of her house - she had all kinds of flowers and things planted and she took all the rocks off her side and threw on our side - ruined our whole garden. And the same out front - we had to share that little area there and we tried to plant that and I think you had something coming up real good and we were proud of it and she went out there and walked on it I think - she just got down off her porch there and walked all over it - there wasn't anything left - she wanted the whole area.
I think she led a pretty tough life too. Yes - she was from Iceland or Greenland - they were from a different area - they had so many hardships that she I guess - the little bit that she could do for her family I guess she felt that she was justified.
Well, how did you enjoy living in Copperfield? I liked it for the secure of having a home and that because we had lived in Salt Lake City in rentals and then we did purchase the one home and were paying on it through the FHA. It was a matter of the employment that your Dad got - where he got work up in Bingham again, he always talked about Bingham - he liked it and everything. When he got work there he didn't care about anything - he wouldn't make a payment or anything on the house on 5th North.
Since you moved down to Copperton have you enjoyed it more than Copperfield? Oh yes - it has been a lot more secure - we were able to purchase the house in Copperton. Yes - this is your home rather than just a rented area and it's level and you've got decent streets and a garden area and a lawn and a bigger house - iust about everything is better down here. It is and the advantages are here - of course the schools, I think they still say they're going to make this back into a Bingham High School. Since it wasn't a high school they took all that beautiful shop machinery out and a lot of the lodges up here had donated them to the Bingham High School. It just helped all of the students on woodworking and everything - they had the latest things. Now they'll just have to start again and I don't know - there's no lodges like there used to be to help them out. It still won't be as good --the machinery and things that they are able to put in.
Mom, is there anything that we've missed talking about? Well, we should mention something about your skull fracture. Do you have headaches or anything now? No. I did have a picture the other day of where the fence had been taken off - that ought to be in your history?
(End of Tape 4, Side B, Nov. 11, 1986 -- Beginning of Tape 5, Side A, Nov . 11, 1986)
When Your Dad died, what did your mother, what did you kids feel? Oh, we were very sick and upset and my oldest brother Roy, he wanted to take over - he didn't want any of us to have hardly anything - we'd go do housework for other people and bring home our money but it seemed like what he earned he didn't want to bring home. He was girl crazy and finally dipped into the company funds and he came home to my mother and told her that the only way out was for her to sign the papers for him to go into the Navy. So she signed them and he left - actually I guess that was putting him on his own more than he ever would have been in the Salt Lake area.
What did your mother do when your Dad died? How did you hear that he died? The police came to the house and they told Mother what had happened to him and she was just in shock. She couldn't control her crying or anything.
So she was in a rented house with no income, her husband passed away, and seven kids - there were eight children. She went into shock essentially? Yes. She was going through the change of life and unable to cope with much, so anyway my sister Eva and Mother worked at the Newhouse Hotel in the kitchen and then.
So Beulah was working for the telephone company. What did your mother say or do - did she just cry? Yes - and would weep even at night, we'd hear her crying. For how long? I don't know - I was babysitting, getting jobs babysitting and I'd come home late lots of times - people would bring me home and that was about all the jobs we could get.
Did she essentially cry for years? No. After Beulah sent a ticket and made arrangements for her to move down to Los Angeles.
You were in Salt Lake for four years before You were married. During those 4 years how long did it take before she went to work? I think it was about 2 years after. She didn't work for a long time - wasn't able to work. Just physically and mentally both? Yes - that was it. Did she talk about your Dad all the time after? No - it didn't seem to be that - she was just weak or something in planning something or not enough money for food - that was about it. She just gave up more or less. She didn't want to do any housework, she didn't want to do anything.
I (Eldon) really did want to get an idea of how everybody took it, what effect it had on the family, what your mother and dad's goals were. What did they intend to do here in Salt Lake? Well, my Dad just planned to get a job and after he rented the house and he got a little car and the family that gave him that poison in the drink that killed him, why they took the car - we weren't even aware that my Dad had one - they were just determined that everything was theirs too. In the long run, my brother Roy was dipping into the funds in the Shurtliff Repair Shop - the Broadway Repair Shop - he was up in Wyoming then and he came home and told my mother she'd have to sign the papers for him to go in the Navy or else he had to go to jail for taking the funds from the company. It was very serious if he tried to stay home so I think that made a big difference where he wasn't on his own just doing what he pleased. The navy seemed to help him a lot.
Do you think your Dad would have been better off to have moved to Salt Lake right from the beginning rather than moved on to the ranch? No, I think, he was qualified as an welder - he had that as his trade but in those days there weren't too many jobs I don't think but things like that were the opposite from when he was up in Alaska - if there were unions coming in trying to organize, they were all up in arms about it and run them out of town and so he thought when he was here in Salt Lake City that's the way it would be - he didn't have to join a union because he did the work - and that's , well later on he lost his job and later on these people took advantage of him and they had this woman give him poison and that was it.
What kind of house did you have? You were living on Jefferson Street - did you have furniture? Not much - no, we had a dining room table we brought from the ranch and we had a coal stove and then there was a heater - I can remember a big round heater that we put in the dining room - there was a chimney there - I think it just burned wood. And in the parlor by the bedrooms that side of the house there was a fireplace. Mother and Dad as a wedding present they had been given a red rug - I can remember that - so Mother had never used it so she just brought it when we came to Salt Lake and she put that down in the parlor so we had a floor covering and we had the fireplace and in the evening sometimes when we had company mY Dad would go in and make a fire and we'd all stay in there and get good and warm and go to bed. But the house is still there. I think it is still original on the outside - yellow brick. The address is 833 South Jefferson Street - Jefferson Street is between West Temple and First West. How many bedrooms were there in the house? There were three bedrooms and we usually had a bed in the parlor too. Roy had the one bedroom - he just had a single cot - he was the one who kept wiring the bed up with electricity and running the bill up. Our Dad had passed away, there wasn't anyone to boss him away. Mother was trying to keep the bills going and I don't think he realized that he should have been more considerate. It was just a time when he was just so wild about girls and my girlfriend Pearl, she was a little older than I am, Pearl Patterson, she came over and she said she thought she really loved Roy but since he had left she married this Ernie Fox. She never was too happy with her marriage - this was the ones who lived up in Ogden. Yes, and then she got mad about something - I guess her husband was trying to make love to me and it made her mad and oh boy, she just flew off the handle over nothing - well, they were drinking, well, she was just bawling me out and I said "This is goodbye" and LaMar and I left. But she saved it up and would be drinking and take everything out on me.
Well, that must have been just about devastating to the family when your Dad passed away. It was - it well, just being able to eat and clothe yourself as a family, it was out - we just had to almost starve ourselves. And poor little Ada, she went to work for the Patterson family - just housework You know, dishwashing and things like that for them - she went to school and then she'd come home weekends and she'd bring all her money home and Mrs. Patterson was giving her money to buy her lunch at school and that's what caused her eyes to be so bad. She was taking the money and bringing it home to mother and telling her it was what she'd been paid so instead of getting the good care that mother thought she was having, why she thought they were packing her a lunch. She had the one meal, the dinner with them. The breakfast, I don't think they had much for breakfast.
Well, you didn't have much furniture, you had three bedrooms. If Roy had one bedroom to himself, and there were seven of you in the other bedroom? Well, some of us slept in the parlor. Mother and Dad were in the first bedroom, then Roy had the other one, then there was still another that we used for storage --it was so cold, we couldn't heat it or anything - so it just had sacks of things we'd brought - they weren't boxes, they were sacks of things. But it sure was a miserable life and I guess everyone thought it was better to leave than to try to stay and bring home the small amount of wages to feed the family.
If there'd have been someone who was over everything it would have been a lot happier, you know, out of your wages can you pay so much of your earnings, and so on. Your mother just wasn't able to do that - to take charge of the family? No - that's right - she just gave up - she didn't hardly discipline us or anything. It was up to my older sisters Beulah and Lorena; Beulah - Lorena wasn't very strong either.
But Beulah was? yes - Beulah was big and a lot larger than I am and then she had - I can't remember what size shoes - she had a heck of a time wearing shoes because she couldn't get her size.
But she couldn't really control Roy? No. Roy went - Shurtliff Shoe Repair put him in charge of their shop in Wyoming and that was a big mistake. He had a room in a hotel or somewhere and then all the girls came in and they'd party - so he just ruined the company's business and his future too. So he could see he was in a real bad spot - they were going to press charges. I can remember him coming home and whispering, telling Mother that she had to sign it, that that was the only way out. Just overheard it. He had figured it out that was the only way and he wanted to do it - go into the Navy.
Did your getting married have anything to do with your Mother going to California? No.
She'd have gone to California whether you'd have gotten married or not? Yes. Beulah sent for her - she just didn't have the money to go down. She'd been wanting to go down for a while? Yes - her health just wasn't good - she couldn't get through the change in life without realizing I guess that she had that malignancy then.
Well, now, she didn't die until 1944 and that was 15 years after she moved to California. Well, she still didn't seem to get through the change of life right. After she moved to California she still had the other kids with her.
She moved to California in 1929 did you say? Eva was 19, Ada was 15, Violet was 13, and Leonard was 10 when they moved to California. So how did she make out in California? Well, they rented a little house and she shipped what furniture she had and they seemed to be - well, Eva for example got a job at a boarding house and she got her meals all furnished and that helped and without realizing it she was bringing all her money home to mother and she was almost going without herself in regard to clothes and finally then Beulah took over and got it straightened out so that Eva wasn't just going without. Then Eva took up the Christian Science religion and she believed that it was mind over matter and that if she got into any pain she was just supposed to say a prayer and she'd be better. Her teeth - she was always cleaning her teeth with linen, whatever you call it, and her breath was just terrible and then it ended up she fell in love with this fellow and he was a hunchback and lived in a trailer and I don't know the rest of it but she died. She never did get married.
Did anybody get married too fast just to get away from home? I don't know - I know it was Beulah leaving just to get away from home, from the responsibility of having to raise us, and I guess Lorena too. Everything seemed to -- working and bringing your money home and things like that but for me it was where Mother would scold and get after me for everything and I'd bring my money home from babysitting or something but she just wouldn't - she scold and beat us about everything and there she was living with this man and not getting married and that was the big thing. Naturally, Your Dad was much - if he could persuade anyone to do what he wanted, to get married and that, that was what he wanted but then we loved one another.
She never did get married even though she should have? Yes, that's right.
The guy she was with, he never did help out that much with the family? No. Some of them would help but they gave up because Mother was going through the change of life and she just was too miserable. It was a very pathetic cancer set in and she couldn't be saved.
Now, this was in Salt Lake that this happened, that she had the boy friend? Yes. Boy friends I guess. That's all I can remember. Of course Mr. Boyles helped. He had a stand and he had a couple of sons and he really wanted to marry my mother but she didn't want to get married again so they had a fruit stand, maybe he was selling candy bars, he had it on the airport road and he had Eva, I think, go out and help and things like that - he really wanted to help her but it was just too late for mother.
Your mother just didn't take charge of her life - just floated. It sounds like she blamed other people. It was wrong for us to do anything but it was right for her - she just didn't even care to straighten herself up.
As far as your Dad and Roy were concerned though, Roy was 18 when Your Dad died. Did your Dad discipline Roy and raise him and give him work and so-forth? Oh, yes - he would. He'd take and have him bring the coal in and chop the wood and so-forth and things were just going so smooth, with Dad living and the money coming in and we were young and just attended school but after that Roy just got out of hand. He went up there to Wyoming and was on his own and thought he was a bigshot and all the girls needed him - he ran more business out than he brought in I think, practically broke the company.
Do you have any pictures of Roy? I don't think I do.
Was he pretty responsible in the Navy? Yes, apparently he was. He had training on the gyroscope and they got all the food on a ship to sail and they found that the gyroscope wasn't working and they sent for a man from New York who was a gyroscope specialist and he came and was supposed to fix it and then he left and after he left it just went haywire - it wouldn't even point North or anything else and so they said "What will we do? We had the specialist come and he couldn't fix it." So they said well, how about Lumpkin? He's good at figuring things out so they got Roy and had someone take it over to the garage where he was living and he sat up I think it was three nights and three days without sleep and all of a sudden he was so tired and he started to going to bed with Margaret - he was living with Margaret - and he suddenly yelled "I know what it is! I know what it is! Three drops of water!!" and what it was, when they packaged the gyroscope, they put three drops of water in to keep it floating so it wouldn't be damaged but when it was set in the ship they were supposed to drain that out and they'd forgotten to drain it out. This specialist had fixed it, he thought, and it was pointing North and everything and then this water came to the top of the fluid after he'd left and they were iust devastated - the Navy didn't know what to do, the one that was over the crew so they had Roy fix it and they sent a recommendation that he be sent to school - at least he had the knowledge to fix things. But then he was on that destroyer and four miles out of New York harbor a German sub sank it and he wasn't among the survivors.
All of you pretty well went hungry sometimes? Oh, we did. I think that's where our eyesight was so bad and then Mother wouldn't allow us to have anything to study by, only a 35-watt globe and it hung from the ceiling like this and it didn't come down too close to the table and we'd sit there and it was on the north side of the building and then the house next to us was just that far away and it was just as high so the windows on the north side didn't throw any light in and it was miserable and then naturally coming home after going to school there wasn't enough light to study. How did you kids do in school then? Oh, I guess we all did pretty good. Eva would have been an artist I guess - she took up a trade there at Frank Williams School and she painted some tapestries and things like that and we foolishly let - she had loaned it out - she belonged to an artist group - and she loaned it to them to hang in their club house and so they said for us to come and see it and we didn't ask for it but we should have. We could have kept it for a keepsake and another artist could have put one up but we didn't - we were young and didn't think too much about it. We were upset too and probably would have cried every time we saw it but this little one I have Eva made. But it wasn't the real beautiful thing that she made later.
(end of recording on Tape 5, Side A, Nov. 11, 1986)

Information from
Robert Eldon Bray
INTERNET Adaptation
by Sandra Shuler Bray