Person:Ida Harris (7)

MY LIFE STORY IDA HARRIS ELKINS

My parents are Joseph Hubert Harris and Emma Carline Hadden Harris. What I remember about my grandparents is at the end of my story. My parents were married at Kirtland on 27 May 1908. I was born the 13th of April 1910 at Kirtland, in the Territory of New Mexico. I am the second of nine children, five boys and four girls. My sisters Ada, Beulah and I were born at Kirtland. I must have been about three when we moved to Red Mesa, Colorado, as brother Merle was born March 15, 1914 at Red Mesa.

My parents moved a lot, as Dad would go where he could find work. They didn't stay long on their first move to Red Mesa. After my brother Merle was born, we moved to Monticello, Utah. Dad worked a ranch for the Wood brothers. This was in 1914. The ranch house set on a hill in a thick grove of cedar and pine trees. Dad raised hay. I was only four years old so can't remember too much. I do remember that when our milk cow went dry, we bought milk from our neighbors, the Hancocks, and Mrs. Hancock was blind. They lived about 1/2 mile from us. My sister Ada, 5 years, and I would go every day for the milk. The reason I remember this is that one-day on our way home with the milk, a big stallion came after us with his mouth wide open, big teeth showing. We were close to the fence, we just barely got away from him. After that the Hancocks had to keep him corralled. It was a very frightening experience.

Then one day we were going to town with Dad. He was breaking a young horse to harness and he was acting up. Mom wanted Dad to let us out of the wagon and let us walk down the grade (hill). Dad said everything would be all right, but the young horse got scared and the team started to run. Dad wrapped the reins around his hands to get a better grip on them. At the bottom of the hill, the pin that held the Double-Trees to the tongue broke and let the horses loose from the wagon. The end of the tongue dropped and ran into the ground, the wagon stopped, the horses and Dad kept going. He managed to get his hands loose from the reins before he was dragged to far. The only injury he had was a sprained wrist and bruises. There was a fellow with a load of hay waiting to go up the grade, he turned around and took Dad to the doctor. Mom took us children back to the ranch. My brother Merle was a baby and Mom got quite tired before we got back home. The team ran all the way to the home place in town. Mr. Woods was on his way out to the ranch to find out what had happened and met Dad going in.

Another time this team ran away with the hayrack on the wagon. Dad had just hooked them up, this means fastening the tugs to the Double-Tree. He was not on the wagon when the horses took off. Again they went (like homing pigeons) to the home place in town.

The next summer, 1915, we moved to the lower ranch, down in the valley. We lived in a big "A" frame house. There was lots of sagebrush, but no trees. Dad raised hay (all dry farming). We had to haul all our water from town, for cooking, drinking and washing. Lots of things happened that summer.

Early each morning, my sister Ada and I went to the outhouse (there was no indoor plumbing in those days). One morning there was a Badger under the hayrack, which was set on the root cellar. It hissed at us, and we both went screaming to the house, so frightened we couldn't get the door open. The folks came running to see what was wrong. We told them that a big bear was under the hayrack.

To those who will not know about hayracks and root cellars, I will explain. A hayrack is flat, no sides, with a high rack built up in front and backs. This is lifted on a wagon and used when hauling hay, when not in use it's lifted off. A root cellar has a roof about four feet above the ground. No refrigeration was available in those days, so everyone dug root cellars. It was a big underground room, lined with logs. The roof was made of logs covered with sod and dirt. There were shelves for canned fruit, one corner to bury vegetables, such as carrots, squash, turnips and potatoes, and sometimes apples. These were covered with straw.

Mom's uncle Mye Wilden and family came out to visit and one of their girls fell into a big red ant hill and was stung quite bad.

One day Dad was out hunting sage hens (very good eating). Mom was ironing. I can see her now, standing over the ironing board, big fire in the cook stove to heat the irons and such a hot summer day. This is the day the house caught fire. Mom could smell the smoke and hear the fire, it was between the walls in the big kitchen, dining and living room. She got the ax and tried to chop a hole in the outside wall. After seeing she could not get to the fire, she started carrying things out of the house. We had a big platform hanging by wire from the rafters, with flour and sugar stored on it to keep it away from the mice. Mom carried that out and then Dad's horn (Dad played in the band for dances). She gave my sister Ada a white dishtowel and told her to climb on the haystack and wave it for Dad to see, which he did. He had seen the smoke and thought Mom was burning trash. When he saw Ada waving the cloth, he knew it was the house. He threw down his gun and the sage hens and ran. He was able to cut a hole to the fire. We only had about a dishpan of water so Dad shoveled dirt on the fire to put it out. They figured a mouse had gotten a match and started the fire. I remember I kept crying for Mom to get my new shoes out. The fire being in between the walls where no air could get to it was all that kept it from burning the house down.

That summer when Dad was cutting hay, a terrible lightning and thunderstorm came up. Dad was working close to a fence that divided the hay field from the pasture. The lightning killed a horse in the pasture by the fence, it also knocked down the team that Dad was working. That same bolt of lightning knocked the knife out of Mom's hand. She was slicing bread for dinner. Dad didn't cut any more hay that day. That afternoon, Dad and some men were skinning the hide off the dead horse. We children were watching and as they were skinning the horse, it urinated when they were about half done. I really got upset. I knew that horse was still alive. Dad reassured me that the horse was really dead.

These were carefree, happy days for us children. We were secure in The love our parents had for us. I know life wasn't easy for Mom but she was happy, and always had time to play with us. She delighted in playing jokes on us kids and everyone else. She used to fall down on the floor and play dead and scare us good. We would shake her and cry for her to get up. Then she would laugh because she had scared us.

The territory was pretty wild in those days. We were not too far from town. The main road to town was about 112' from the house. At night the cowboys from neighboring ranches rode by our place on their way into town. They would get drunk and shoot out windows and raise hell in general. Some nights they made camp in trees not far from us and we could hear them whooping it up until almost morning. Mom would hang quilts over the windows so they could not see our light. That fall, when hunting season came, Dad, Uncle Earl and Heb Christenson went hunting. Heb's wife Gussie, his mother Serina and my Grandmother Lee Harris (Dad's mother) came out from town to stay with us while the men were gone. Mom had the quilts over the windows. The women were quite nervous and scared, for fear the cowboys might come to the house. The women were playing some kind of card game and Mom was putting us children to bed. There was a big knothole in the partition wall. Mom put her mouth to the hole and gave a terrible screech. Cards flew everywhere, she about scared those poor women to death. They went to bed and refused to pick up the cards. I can still see my mom picking up those cards, and laughing until she was sick. It's a wonder she didn't cause Serina and Grandma to have a heart attack.

Then one day we heard shooting. It was a Sheriff posse after "Outlaw Red". He said they would never take him alive and they didn't, they shot him. This happened on a hillside not far from the ranch.

Every 24th of July (Pioneer Day) there was a big celebration. It was a lot different then than now. I remember the summer of 1915 they put on a big show in town at the fairgrounds. The Saints crossing the plains. Dad was riding guard when the Indians attacked the wagon train. They shot Dad off his horse (no movie stunt man could fall any better than Dad did). I screamed, those dirty Indians had killed my Dad. Of course it was all make believe, but to a 5-year-old it seemed plenty real. At this time there was still a lot of renegade Indians that people had to watch out for.

That fall we moved into town, and lucky we did. That winter, 1915 1916 was the big snow in Monticello. Snow was up even with the eves of houses, trees froze. Dad had shoveled steps up from the door to the top of the snow. He had to go every day to the ranch to feed cattle, and he cut across country, no fences to bother him. The snow was so hard it would hold up his horse, even teams and sleighs. The cattle kept the snow tramped down around the stock yard. Mom hired a neighbor boy to dig her washtub out, it was buried under the eves of the house. The wind blew the hole full of loose snow during the night. It also blew off the stovepipe. When Dad got up to build a fire in the cook stove, he discovered the pipe was off. He put his shoes on but didn't lace them, all he had to do was walk up onto the snow and right onto the roof. He fixed the pipe, and as he came off the roof, he stepped into the hole where the wash tub had been. He had quite a struggle to get out.

I don't know how Mom stood us all that winter, she being heavy with child, her 5th, the oldest six years old. The oldest was my sister Ada, they didn't send her to school that year. All I can remember is the deep snow, and how dark the house was. My brother Wayne was born the 17th of April 1916, on my birthday.

We didn't move back to the ranch that summer, Dad got a job trapping coyotes for the Government. We moved into two tents that summer and Dad laid a floor and built walls about 4 feet high then framed it and made the roof of tents, then covered the walls with tar paper to keep the wind out. It was here that mom got her first washing machine. It had a wooden tub with gears underneath the tub. It had a lever on the side that you pulled back and forth that turned the gears that turned the paddle that washed the clothes. Sister Ada and I would stand on an apple box and work the lever.

That winter mom was still breast feeding Merle. He was almost two years old. One-day mom was busy fixing dinner and Merle was hanging onto her dress and fussing for her to stop and nurse him. Heb Christenson told Merle to say "tit now ma damn you", and Merle did. Merle was weaned right then, no more "tit" for Merle.

Then Dad bought 2 model "T" Fords and hauled mail. One day Dad called Mom, our neighbor across the street had a phone. It was a box on the wall. Mom let me talk to Dad. When I heard his voice, I thought he was in that little box and I really got scared and cried. I wanted them to get my daddy out of that box. That was my first experience with a phone.

Ada and I started school that winter (1916 1917). We didn't go very long, whooping cough was so bad they closed the schools.

Sometime after the first of the year, Dad must have traded his Model T's for a truck. As I remember, Dad put bows on like they used on covered wagons and stretched canvas over them. The truck broke down in Thompson Park, Co. It was nighttime, there was lots of snow on the ground and below zero. We had picked up a guy that was hitch hiking. He and Dad rolled up in blankets and a bed tarp and slept out on the ground and about froze. Mom and us kids slept in the truck. We had some cold biscuits to eat. When it got daylight, Dad and this guy walked about 5 or 6 miles on to Cherry Creek, to one of Mom's cousins (Roda and Wren Elmer). They brought back a team of horses and pulled the truck to their place. We had a hot meal and then were loaded into a sleigh and taken on to Red Mesa (about 10 or 15 miles from Cherry Creek) to Grandma and Granddad Hadden’s.

I don't know how long we stayed at Red Mesa, we lived with Grandma and Granddad Hadden. I started to school again that Fall, 1917. 1 didn't get to finish the first grade that year either, whooping cough or measles closed the schools again. So I was eight years old when I started the 1st grade for a 3rd time, and I did get to finish.

I spent most of the summer of 1918 with Aunt Cloe Cheney (Mom's sister) while Uncle Frank was overseas during World War 1. Mom's brother, Uncle Alden, and Uncle Frank were overseas together. I remember when they came home. Granddad Hadden went into Durango and met them when their train came in. Granddad had a two-seater buggy, the top had fringe all around it. He had a high stepping pair of horses. We children were in bed when they arrived and Uncle Alden came out where we were sleeping (they had fixed up a room out in the granary for us to sleep), pulled us all out of bed, it was quite exciting.

My brother Lavar was born that spring, 15 March 1918. He was a big fat baby, and when he was about 4 or 5 months old he got pneumonia, and was very sick. Grandma Lee Harris and Uncle Dee Finch, another brother-in-law of Moms, really worked with him to save him. I remember they packed hot ears of corn all around him, to make a steam bath.

We moved to Fruitland, N.M. early in 1919 and I was baptized in a canal there on 19 June 1919 by Sherell Collier. The water was very cold.

We didn't stay in New Mexico very long, we moved back to Red Mesa. My brother Gilbert was born there on 4 September 1920. In 1921 we moved to Salt Lake City. Granddad Hadden had two Model T Fords. He moved us with those. At that time the roads were just dirt and sand, the sand was hub deep. It took us one week to go from Red Mesa, Co. to Salt Lake City, Utah (now it's 1/2 day to get there by car). I remember the first day out, just out of Dove Creek, there was a cloudburst, and the canvas tops of the Model T's didn't turn water. We really got wet, all our bedding was soaked. So we made camp at an old abandoned cabin. We hung all the bedding on a wire fence to dry. A farmer came by in a wagon, and when the horses saw all that bedding, they were frightened and really took off on a run. As far as we could see, the farmer couldn't stop them.

We stayed in Salt Lake about 2 or 3 years. Dad worked for a while at the copper mine in Bingham, Utah. He got hurt real bad and couldn’t work for a long time. The folks had to get help from welfare. One day a lady came to the house and took Mom and us children that were of school age to a store and bought us all new shoes and rubbers. At Christmas time I went with Mom to a place where they gave toys to needy families, I think it was the Salvation Army. I remember I got to pick out the doll I wanted, so I chose one that was almost as big as I was and I had quite a time getting it home. During this time we were living in a duplex. Uncle Earl, Dad's brother, lived in one side and we lived in the other. Grandma Lee Harris was staying with Uncle Earl.

When Dad was able to work again, he didn't go back to the mines, but got a job at the roundhouse cleaning train engines. We moved out close to his work, as he had to walk. We lived quite a distance from the capitol building. My sister Beulah, my girl friend, and I wanted to go to the capitol building, but Mom told us no, it was too far to walk and we would have to walk over the viaduct that went over the railroad tracks and there were lots of bums around there. I believe this was the only time in my life that I disobeyed my mother and father. We went to the capitol building and thought we were having a good time. We went up to the 2nd floor, went into a rest room, and got locked in. We yelled and yelled but could not make anyone hear us. We were plenty scared. We finally got a window open, and after screaming loud enough to make a lady down on the street hear us, she went in and told someone we were locked in. The janitor came and let us out. He said the lock was broke and couldn't be opened from the inside, so he took it off. Believe me we went straight home. We knew because we had disobeyed was why we got locked in. My girl friend had on new shoes and they rubbed blisters on her heels. Then she got blood poisoning and was in the hospital for a while, all because we had disobeyed. We really felt bad. I can't remember what punishment we got, but whatever it was we deserved it.

Us children were sealed to our parents in the Salt Lake Temple in September 1924. We moved right after that, back to Red Mesa, as my sister Verlee was born there on December 26, 1924. The folks bought an acre of ground, close to Grandma Haddens, and built a small frame house on it. My brother John was born there on July 10, 1926.

This is where I spent my teen years. We were all LDS and always went in a group. Summers were spent (after work was finished) horse back riding, picnicking, weenie or marshmallow roasts at night, chicken fries, hiking and camping with our church groups and teachers. There were no theaters but there was a dance at the church once a month. Moms, dads, and all the children plus the grandparents attended. Mothers would put their small children to sleep on a bench.

We had no electricity, no indoor plumbing, pulled water from the well with a rope on a pulley, no refrigerator or ice box. We cooled our milk by hanging it in the well with a rope. Granddad had a big icehouse, filled with sawdust. In the winter the men-folk would go to the river and cut big blocks of ice and put it in the sawdust. We would have ice all summer. We just used it to make ice cream. We made our sauerkraut in big crock jars, dill pickles in big barrels, covering the barrels with a wash tub. Granddad Hadden had a yearling colt we named pickles. Every chance he got he would lift the tub off the barrel with his nose and eat the pickles.

I worked a lot during the summer for Chet and Irene Harris (no relation). I rode over to the store from their place one day, tied my horse to the hitching post, and went right past my Granddad Hadden, did not speak. He had shaved off his mustache and I did not know him. He never shaved it off again. I had never seen him without it.

I look around me today and see all the things we have, all the different kinds of entertainment our young people have and there is so much discontent among them. As a teenager, we had no radios, a few homes had a phonograph, yet we were happy. The young people in the mutual would put on plays. If we went to a movie, we had to go 3o miles in to Durango, so we didn't get to go very often. I remember the first "talkie" we saw was in 1926 or 1927. Granddad Hadden had a flat bed Model T truck and he took all the young people on the Mesa to the talkie movies. I wish I could remember what was showing. We would go on hayrides in summers on a wagon and in winter by sled. Also ice skating on a big pond. Make a big bonfire and sing songs and roast weenies and have a good time.

I started working for Chet and Irene Harris when I was 17. 1 would help Irene during haying time, during roundup time riding after cattle and helping at lambing time. I worked all one summer and took my pay in hay to feed Dad's horses that winter. Dad gave me a beautiful black filly and my cousins were going to break her as soon as the hay was all stacked. I was home alone one day when I saw a one armed Indian named Joe. He was taking my horse, all the other horses were in a pasture up the river. Every time Dad saw old Joe after that he would promise to bring her back, but he never did, and since he had taken her to the reservation we couldn't go get her.

I met George Elkins in the spring of 1928. I had gone with Irene to visit her folks who lived on the Florida (pronounced Flor’eeda) river, above Durango. George was running around with Irene's brothers. I was rather shy and Irene's brothers teased me a lot, and when her sisters told me George Elkins was a worse tease than their brothers, I didn't want anything to do with him. That winter George moved onto the neighboring ranch. Sherman, the fellow he worked for, had just bought it and moved his sheep down there to winter. I was working for Chet and Irene that winter, as Irene was big with child. Chet was sick with the flu most of the winter. That was some winter, lots of snow and lots of sickness. The neighbors were all sick and Irene sent me up to their place to help Mrs. Kennedy do her washing. I went horse back, no saddle as Chet was using it. As I went by the place that Sherman had bought, there was George and Oat Peeler (who later became my brother-in-law) shucking corn that was covered with snow. George hollered "what will you take for your saddle" (wise guy). That night he came over to see me. Irene told me later that when Chet had told him he was coming down to get me to come help, that every night for a week George had come over to see if I was there yet. We went together all that winter. We didn't go out much as horseback was our transportation. Sister Beulah came to stay with me a few days and met Oat.

In March of 1929, George went up to the ranch on the Florida River to take his potato crop, that he had raised the summer before, to market. He was gone almost a week. The night he came back, he asked me to marry him. We set the date for April. There wasn't a house on the place out of Marvel where we were to live on and farm. George and Oat were building a barn, and would build a house after the barn was finished. Weather delayed the work, so we had to set our wedding date in May (the 12th). The house they built is still standing. They built one big room, the cook stove was in the middle and to one side. They made a long table out of pine lumber and two long benches. They built shelves on the wall for a cupboard. We bought a bed and dresser, and that was all the furniture we had.

My folks lived on the La Plata in a little house next to the river. We were married there. We had to cross the La Plata River on a swinging footbridge. I will back up a bit here to before we were married. As I have stated there was a lot of snow and we didn't go out much that winter. We played cards after Chet and Irene went to bed. We would be as quiet as we could, so as not to wake them. George and I, Oat and Beulah were in the kitchen this one night, it was getting late, we all had work to do the next day, Oat didn't want to leave as Beulah was going home the next day. George started off without Oat, and Oat was in a hurry to catch him (they always walked over). There was a table by the back door with all the milk pans and buckets stacked on it. Oat bumped into the table and pans went everywhere, really made a racket. Brought Chet and Irene out of bed to see what was going on (so much for trying to be quiet).

That spring when the frost went out of the ground it was really muddy. On George's birthday, April 4th, he and Oat were hauling hay. Sherman had bought a stack from Chet. George was on the wagon, Oat was pitching the hay to him. It was raining that day also. I was with them, so big show off George kept saying, pitch some more, we can handle it. Well, they really put a load on and when they started to move, the wheels sunk into the ground up to the hubs. The team was big and strong. They broke two sets of double trees before the guys got smart and unloaded half the hay, so they could get the wagon out.

I would love to have had a movie camera for this next little scene. The frost had just gone out of the ground. Chet roped a cow in the corral, she took off running, and Chet held onto the rope. Dug his heels into the muck and went flying through the cow muck, his heels acting as a slide runner, cow muck flying back all over him, still he held on. He was a mess. Irene and I laughed until we were sick.

Chet bought a band of sheep from the Navajo, and they started to lamb in February. What a time. We had Chet sick, Irene big with child. There were so many twins and triplets being born. We had to stay with them day and night. I would take the first half and Irene the 2nd. We would go out every half-hour. When a ewe had her lambs we had to put them in a separate pen, mother and lambs by themselves. So she would take care of them and one would not get separated from her. When lambing was over I had lost so much weight (weight that I couldn't afford to lose) that Irene said George couldn't come over to see me until I had gained 10 lb. I really did eat, drank pure old cream, and gained 10 pounds in one week. Brought my weight back up to 110 pounds (fat for me then).

Well anyway warm weather finally came. That first summer after we were married, I raised a garden, we had young chickens and turkeys, George raised hay. The fellow George worked for (Sherman) paid George $60 a month, our house and all our groceries, which was good wages then. I cooked for the hay hands that summer. I got pregnant two weeks after we were married. Was good I didn't have a lot of morning sickness or other problems, having to cook for hay hands on a wood burning cook stove. Had to carry all our water, in from a spring, a good ways from the house. George built a box around the spring to keep bugs and small animals out of the water. Our garden and outhouse was down the hill and across the spring fed creek, we watered the garden out of the creek. We didn't have a lawn. The house sat in a grove of cedar and pine trees and it was built on cedar pillars. Had to climb 5 or 6 steps up into the house. One morning I was cooking breakfast, George came sneaking back from the field where he had been tending the water on the alfalfa. He had killed a muskrat and threw the nasty thing in by my feet. Scared me so bad I cried. I told him he could cause me to lose the baby doing stunts like that, then he was sorry. He had to help me finish the breakfast.

There was a terrible rain, hail, and windstorm one-day. Lightening and thunder killed a lot of our baby chicks and turkeys, ruined our garden. Was so bad I hid my head under a pillow. George was over at the neighbors helping him cut hay. The neighbors all helped each other during haying time. The storm was so bad that the horses could not face into it as George was coming home.

When we went anywhere it was in the wagon or horseback. I preferred to go horseback, not so rough riding, and my Mom and Grandmother would have fits because I was riding and pregnant. I think riding helped me to have an easy birth. Woody weighed eleven and three quarters pounds, and I was in labor from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.

The fall of 1929, after the hay was all cut and stacked, we moved to Sherman's ranch 10 miles above Durango on the Florida River. Sherman had bought the old Nelson place. Mr. Peeler, Oat's dad, had been running it. He quit and moved to Farmington, NM.

That winter we fed cattle, had to haul hay by sled up on the mesa from the main ranch. I would go with George. He would take his gun and after we got the cattle fed he would go deer hunting. I would tramp through the snow with him until I got tired, then I would stay by a tree and wait for him to come back for me.

Beulah and Oat worked at the sawmill about 5 or 6 miles up the river. On Friday night we would hitch a team to the sled, put hay in the bed, spread out the bed tarp with blankets in it and go to the sawmill to get Beulah and Oat and bring them down to the ranch to spend the weekend with us. Beulah and I would get into the blankets and cover up. George and Oat would set up on the seat and sing crazy songs all the way. We didn't go into town much during the winter. When we did go, we would get a neighbor to do chores, and we would go on Saturday morning. Take hay for the horses, take them down by the livery barn in town, un-harness the team and tie them to the wagon box that we had on the sled runners. We would shop, then get a room at the hotel, and go to a movie. Sunday morning we would get breakfast, then head home.

The house we lived in was huge. The kitchen was a little dingy lean to affair. So we moved the kitchen into one of the big rooms that had been used as a bedroom. We just used three big rooms that winter. Had a big wood burning heater in the front room, and the bedroom opened off the front room, also the room we converted into a kitchen. Also we had a bed in the front room. The barn had a very steep roof, one day George was on the barn roof shoveling off the snow and he slipped and came flying off the roof on his rear end. He didn't have much seat left in his Levi’s. He was lucky he didn't lose some skin.

The 1st of February 1930 1 went down to Red Mesa. Our baby was due the 23rd and as the weather was bad, we were afraid we might get snowed in. When birth time came I was to go to Mom’s, but Verlee and John had whooping cough. So I had to go to Grandma Haddens. (The house was torn down in the mid 1980's). The bed I had to sleep on had a corn shuck mattress. So George borrowed a friend's car and brought the mattress off our bed down to me. Finally our son Woody was born and what a big beautiful baby he was. I spent 19 days in bed before the doctor would let me up to go home. I had a temperature and until it went to normal he kept me in bed. What a long 19 days. My dear Grandmother Hadden & Grandma Lee Harris took care of me. Grandma Lee fixed up a big glass of castor oil in orange juice and made me drink it, and oh how sick it made me.

Finally the time came that I could go home. Our neighbor from up the river let George use his car, a Dodge. We rolled the mattress up and jammed it in the back. We made it fine until we were about a half-mile from home. It is now about the middle of March and the frost is going out of the ground. As the roads were just dirt, and get very muddy, the car got stuck. So George walked on home to the ranch and got the team and pulled us out of the mud.

Spring and Summer of 1930 finally came, Lots of work. What with cleaning ditches and getting spring planting in, seems I always had a bunch to cook for. Then to compound things, I get pregnant in July and I really was sick. My dear parents came up from Red Mesa to help me during haying time. Dad would help out in the field until time to start dinner and supper, then he would come in and help me cook. He did all the bread making. Dad could make biscuits that would melt in your mouth. He would show me and show me and I never made them as good as his.

Later that summer, the 2nd cutting of hay was in the shock and it started raining. As the hay was to wet to stack, we got our (so-called good) neighbor to chore for us and we helped Beulah and Oat move down to Farmington. Our boss, Mr. Sherman, stayed with his sheep up on the mountain and only came down once a month or so. Anyway he happened down when we were gone and our neighbor told him we had just up and left, and that he had to come over and take care of the stock. So when we got back the next day (we had a car now), all our things, clothing, bedding, dishes, all were out in the yard, because this guy told him we had been gone a week. We were fired and this guy had our job. We went down to the Mesa to my folks. George and Oat worked with my dad in the Longhollow Flour mill the rest of the summer.

Then that Fall (1930) we moved back up on the Florida river and George and Oat cut and skidded logs for the Nelson sawmill. Pay was $3.50 per day and we lived in a one-room sawmill shack. We worked there until the mill closed the last of December.

Our baby had been sick for several days. A Mrs. Blackburn, a women that had a big family, said it was just his teeth. But I knew it was more than his teeth. George had hitched a ride into Durango to get Walt Walker who owned the store in Red Mesa to come up to the mill and move us down to Red Mesa. If he didn't get into Durango in time to catch Walker, he would stay in town and catch him the next day. I had been trying to get George to take me into a Doctor with the baby, but he had to listen to Mrs. Blackburn. Well when he didn't come back by late afternoon. I knew he was having to wait till the next day to catch the Walker truck. Woody was really bad, he just lay like he was in a coma. So there was a young fellow in camp that had a car and I got him to take me into town. I went to the hotel and George had a room but he was not there. As we had a sick baby, they gave us a bigger and warmer room and called the Doctor. He came right in to see the baby. He was there when George came back and he was mad at me because I didn't wait. But the Doctor told him another 12 hours and we would not have had a baby. Woody had an intestinal problem that had taken quite a few babies already. I had to stay in town for almost a week. We had to fight to save him. George got Walker to take him to the mill and moved our things out to the folks on the Mesa. That cost us $50 and with the hotel and doctor and medicine, nearly all the money we had saved to see us through the winter was gone. Believe me, after that when I said we had to take a sick baby to the doctor, there was no more waiting. Scared George because we almost lost our baby, just because I could not make anyone believe he was so very sick.

We stayed the winter and spring with my folks, George worked again at the flourmill with dad. In the spring, he went with dad to shear sheep. That was the year he started shearing, 1931. Our son Doyle was barn on April 14, 1931, at a place my parents were renting in Kline, Colorado. He weighed 11 pounds. George and dad were shearing sheep. At the time, we didn't know where they were. Doyle was a week old before George knew he had another son. Doyle was born at Kline but the mailing address was Breen, Colo.

Doyle was 3 months old before Woody started to walk, I had two babies. That summer when shearing was over, George got a job cutting cedar posts over in Longhollow. He got 10 cents per post and by working real hard, he could make $5.00 per day. We lived in a log hut, with a dirt floor, and sod on the roof that leaked when it rained. We spread the big bed tarp over the side of the roof where the bed was to keep it dry. Besides the bed, we had a little wood burning stove, a table and apple boxes for chairs. All our water had to be hauled in to us. I was washing diapers for two babies. I really had to keep an eye on Woody as he was crawling, and just dirt everywhere and lots of little creepy bugs. He would pick up every bug that he could. He bit a stinkbug in two one time. Picked up a bee and got stung. I was glad when the job was over.

About how we managed during the depression years.

We did just fine, didn't have much when the depression started so had nothing to lose. George always managed to find some kind of work. Had plenty to eat, maybe it would be beans and spuds, had milk for the babies and plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. Didn't have much meat. always killed a chicken for Sunday dinner. Stayed with my folks a lot. When we did have to rent, was $5 per month. Our doctor bill for Woody and Doyle when they were born was $25 each, for Stanley it was $25 and Donald was $37. They were all born at home. Alice's doctor bill was $35 and the hospital was $60, $10 per day for a private room and I was there for 6 days.

Fall of 1931, we left Longhollow and moved over on the Florida mesa, and George helped my brother law Bill Eaton harvest their fall crop. I helped my sister Ada cook for the guys. While we were there, Mr. Sherman came and wanted George to come back and work for him. The guy that lied and got our job the summer before wasn't putting out the work that George had done for him. In fact Mr. Sherman begged George to come back. The first cutting of hay was still in the shocks, and the 2nd cutting was ready to cut, the ditches needed cleaned out and every thing was in a mess. George wouldn't go back and we really needed a job.

Well anyway, after the hay was all stacked, we went to Waterflow, NM which is not far from Fruitland, NM George got a job in the hay there, then shucking corn for $1 a day and his dinner. We rented a little house for $5 a month. Stayed there that winter.

In the spring of 1932 before George and Dad went shearing we moved down below the store in Waterflow, it was by a big canal. We rented an old adobe house. the walls were two feet thick, and alive with bed bugs. We burned sulfur, but the walls were so thick that the sulfur couldn't get to them. We had to set the bed legs in cans of coal oil so they couldn't crawl up on the beds, but they would fall from the ceiling. We planted a big garden, even planted peanuts, my first and only time to raise peanuts. The man we rented from had his cows pastured there and he let us have one to milk, so I would have milk for the babies. I was weaning Doyle, and that beast of a cow would go hide at milking time. I was afraid to leave the babies in the house so I would tie Doyle in his highchair out in the yard, and tie Woody to an old plow and go look for the cow. She would be laying down in the high grass.

As soon as school was out, brother Lavar came and stayed with me until George got back from shearing. One night, just after George got home, was a hot night, we had put the babies to bed. We were outside in the yard, when two teenage boys that lived down by the river from us were going by, and one said lets go visit the widow lady, the other said no her husband came home. If they had come across that canal they would have been sorry.

That fall of 1932, we moved to Farmington, NM and George went to work for Phil Shank (the apple king). We lived in a tent during apple picking time. I was pregnant with Stanley and this one-day I was lying down in the tent. Beulah was making apple boxes close by and said she would keep an eye on the kids, Woody 3 years, Doyle and Polly 2 years. Our tent was in an old stack yard, a place where they used to stack their hay. They would haul the apples through there, right past our tent, and when Woody would see the apple wagon coming, he would take Doyle and Polly by their hands and hold on to them until the wagon was past. He was very grown up for a 3-year-old. This one day while I was lying down, I had dozed off, didn't hear the wagon stop right by the tent. Woody woke me to get Polly. I told him Aunt Beulah would get Polly. Then I heard Beulah make a funny noise. Polly was standing behind one of the horses, in front of one of the wheels. If she had reached out and touched the horse, he could have kicked her or took off and run over her. Oat and George were picking apples across the fence, and Paul Macay had stopped the team there to go talk to them. I guess you know, Paul really got a talking to.

After the apples were picked, Phil wanted George to stay and work for him that winter. He built a small two-room house for us. Phil paid us $40 per month, house and milk cow, and a garden spot. George didn't shear sheep the spring of '33. We worked for Phil till the spring of 1934. There is where Stanley was born, 21 April 1933. When Stanley was just a few weeks old, and I was feeding him, I heard Woody and Doyle screaming for me. I ran out to see what was wrong. A little ditch ran by the house and the boys were wading in it. Doyle fell and the water was swift and was taking him under the bridge. Woody holding on to him but couldn't get him out. They never waded in there again.

That summer (1933). Phil Shank made a swimming pool in the creek by the corral. I would put Stanley on a pillow in their little wagon, and take Woody and Doyle to the pool. Phil had bought a horse for his girls and every time they tried to ride her she wouldn't go forward, but back up all over the place. One day while we were there, one of the girls wanted to get the cows up out of the pasture. This crazy horse wouldn't go. So I told them to watch the boys. I got me a whip, got on her, let a yell out of me, came down on her rump with the whip, believe me she took off in forward gear. I whipped her all the way to the Pasture and drove the cows back. She knew the girls were green riders and she got her bluff in. I don't remember if they kept her or not.

Was the spring of 1934 that the kids and I went shearing with George. The first four years he sheared they were getting 5 cents per head plus their meals. That year we sheared out of Durango, we rented a cabin in Durango and George was home at night. Was there that Doyle fell in the cinders in the driveway and took all the skin off his nose. He kept saying "is it beeding momma", he couldn't pronounce his "L"s. So I let him look in the mirror to show him it wasn't "beeding" and when he saw his red nose, then he started crying, and said "by gowey it is beeding", and he really howled.

We went from Durango to Chama, NM we didn't have a tent, just a canvas lean-to that fastened to the car and stretched out to stakes'. which we slept under. Stanley slept with us, and Woody and Doyle in the car. I cooked on a campfire for the boys and I, George got his meals at the cook shack. And every night after the rest of the camp had settled down for the night, the cook would bring food that was left from supper and give to me on orders from the boss.

Doyle had a wild imagination, the tall tales he would tell. His favorite was the rooster that had a wagon with a house on it, and the rooster had a lot of wives and children and traveled all over the country pulling this wagon with the house on it. Doyle was 3 years old. Anyway the boss, Mr. Tracy, would carry Doyle up on his shoulders for hours listening to Doyle's wild stories. When we got back home from shearing my brothers were doing the same thing. We finally had to put a stop to it as Doyle’s stories were getting wilder and wilder. Sure wish I could remember some of them.

That was the spring that Stanley, so many times, came close to almost getting killed, and did get hurt. He was a baby crawling. One time, I had him sitting in an apple box by the campfire, and he tipped the box over and the back of his head fell into the hot coals. He had a hat on, I was right there and grabbed him up and he didn't get burned. The day we finished at Chama, I had the camp all packed and loaded. One tire was low. George was going to move the car forward a little so the valve stem would be where we could get the tire pump on. The clutch on the car would grab and when the car started it would jump forward. As George went to start the car I screamed for him not to. Stanley had crawled in front and was sitting with his back against a front wheel. He would have been crushed

From Chama we went to Las Norris, NM to shear a Government job. The rattlesnakes were so bad they wouldn't let us sleep out. We all had to stay in the big house. I don't remember how many bedrooms, but there was room for all of us. There were four sheep shearers. The Mexicans had always sheared these sheep, and they had Mexicans to do the cooking. And they didn't like it when they hired white guys to do the shearing. So the first night, they gave them boiled potatoes and boiled mutton. The same for breakfast the next morning. George told the foreman that they would not shear if that was the only food they were going to get. The foreman told George there was a storehouse full of all kinds of food, but the Mexicans wouldn't fix it. So George told him I would cook for the white guys, the kids and my board. He didn't consult me first and I was very unhappy about it. Stanley was a baby, and cutting teeth and cross as a little bear. George said he and Pearl Hadden (a cousin of mine) would take care of him and get in all the wood.

It was raining and we were there two weeks before they could start shearing. George got blood poisoning in his hand and couldn't help much. So Pearl was taking care of Stanley this one morning while I was cooking Breakfast. Pearl sat Stanley on a table by a high drain board by the sink. Whoever built that house built it for a very tall woman as the drain board was almost up to my chest. Anyway, Stanley crawled from the table to the drain board, and fell off onto the hard wood floor, landed on the side of his head, knocked him out. He got a concussion, we would bring him too, and he would pass out again. He was a very sick baby all day, was so muddy we could not get out to take him to a doctor. I just kept cold packs on his head and kept him awake as much as possible. Pearl really felt bad as he was reading and not watching him like he should.

At this same place, one evening we were all in the big living room and Stanley was sitting on the floor by the fireplace, and a giant centipede almost got on him. We put it in a bottle with alcohol and kept it for a long time, it was the biggest one I have ever seen.

When we got through shearing that spring, we went back to Farmington, NM and stayed with my folks for a while. They lived on Vine Ave. They had rented a big house with an apple orchard. We bought a milk cow. She wouldn't let me milk her if I had a dress on, so I had to put a pair of my brothers overalls on to milk her. We didn't wear slacks and pant suits then like we do now, in fact they didn't even make slacks for women then. It wasn’t until the late 30s when they started making slacks for women. Before that we had divided skirts to wear when we went horseback riding. I would borrow a pair of overalls from my brothers, and after we were married I wore a pair of George's. I rode a lot in my dress, pantlyloons showing if I was riding where no one could see me.

When I was working for Chet and Irene back before we were married, the sheep got out into the alfalfa field one day and Irene sent me after them. I am riding, hell bent for leather, as the old saying goes, my dress flying, and would you know, 'there across the road in the neighboring field was George plowing. At least he couldn't see the writing on my pantaloons. Mom made our panties out of flour sacks and most of the print would wash out. But three words always stayed, in big blue lettering, which read "Staff of Life". And I swear, Mom always managed to have those letters across the seat of our pants. And I know she did that on purpose. I never had store bought panties until after I was married. The ones Mom made came to just above the knee, and had a ruffle or lace. Thank goodness they only put flour in white sacks. I think it was in the late thirties or early forties that the flour came in pretty flowered sacks. I would make aprons, and Alice's dresses out of the flour sacks.

So much for that, now back to Vine Ave. We hauled our drinking water from a spring, we always kept a waterbag hanging in a tree to keep the water cool. Doyle was 3 years old and he would always say "give me a drink of aqua out of the water-bag". He and Woody both called water "aqua". Stanley called it "oh oh".

The winter of 1934-35 we lived in a small cabin in Farmington, NM One room had a stove, table, bed and two chairs. We made the boy's bed on the floor at the foot of our bed. George worked in the apple shed for Phil Shank again that winter, and to save having to buy gas for the car, he walked the two miles to work every day. He worked for $2 a day and our rent was $5 a month.

In the spring of 1935, when we got through shearing, we left Colorado and went to Montana. George had found out that his half brother Chuck was working on the Ft. Peck dam. Was terrible for me, the first time in my life to be so far away from all my folks. Was two years before I would see them again. When we got to Ft. Peck, we tried all day to find where Chuck lived. The personnel office on the job wouldn't tell us where he lived. We went to the post office, they couldn't tell us, they are not allowed to. And as they were not hiring, George decided we would leave. We stopped at a gas station (this was around 5 P.M.), George asked the owner of the gas station if he knew Chuck Elkins. He said sure, he rents from me. We could see his place from the station. What luck, we had picked the right station. Stanley was years old at this time, we had 3 sons. Chuck and Evelyn had 3 children. Doris, their baby, was a few weeks old. They lived in two small rooms. I can't remember how long we stayed with them, 2 or 3 weeks. George went out on one shearing job there, sheared for 11 cents a head.

We then went to Nezperce, Idaho. Was to meet sister Beulah and family there. We missed them, they had left for Haqerman Valley, Idaho. We stayed at Nezperce for a few weeks with friends, sister Beulah's in laws, the Peelers. George worked harvesting seed spuds.

I'm getting ahead of myself. When we left Ft. Peck, we went to Whitehall, Mont. Rented a cabin from people named Garret, just out of town. George worked in the hay. The people we rented from raised a big garden. We bought vegetables from them. Was really hot that summer. I would have everything ready, and when George came home from work, we headed for the mountains, which were close. Cooked our supper on a campfire. We did this every night all summer. Put an iron grill over the fire, cooked spuds, corn, had fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and green onions. Very little meat, couldn't afford it. The night the big earthquake hit Helena, Montana I was laying on the bed reading by coal-oil lamp (no electricity in the cabin). Whitehall is about ninety miles as the crow flies from Helena. The cabin shook so hard the lamp was sliding off the table. I caught it in time. The boys were in bed sleeping, didn't wake them. George had gone to town to get a sack of coal for the cook stove. My first quake, was scary.

George smoked Velvet tobacco that came in a bright red tin can. The boys loved to play with the empty cans. I heard Stanley making gasping noises outside. I ran to see what was wrong. The little water ditch in front of the cabin had a small pipe as a bridge in the driveway. Stanley was playing in the water with his Velvet can and fell in on his back, where the water went through the pipe. His body acted as a dam, and the water was over his face. He was just 2 years old. I am so thankful I heard him. Also this is the place where George was cutting wood from a dead cottonwood tree in back of the cabin. He was cutting with a double-edged ax. As he was cutting off the side of the log, he was swinging the ax out from the side. As he brought the ax back he felt it hit something, he looked back and #2 son Doyle (4 years) was sailing through the air. He had run around the cabin and up behind his dad at the time he made his swing. The head of the ax caught Doyle just over the ear, about knocked him out. When George came carrying him in, he was as white as a sheet, thought he had killed him. The lord was watching over him, all he had was a small bruise on the fop of the ear.

I talked about going to the mountains to cook every night. One can't do that now. Last time we were there, all was under fence, can't get off the road at all to camp.

Now, back to Nezperce. After the spud harvest, we went to Hagerman Valley, joined Oat and Beulah. George and Oat got a job working for Senator Sanborne of Idaho, cutting trees, hauling hay for his dairy cows and milking for 20 cents an hour. We rented a one-room cabin for $5 a month. We took what cash we had from the spud harvest and bought beans, flour, case of canned milk, sugar, salt, spuds, and a case of dried fruit. With the money George made We bought fresh milk from Sanborne, bought small items, paid rent (the people we rented from was named Pope), bought our coal for the cook stove. We had to make do with the clothes we had, except shoes for the boys as they out grew them. I did a lot of patching in those days.

When sheep shearing started in February, George and Oat quit cheapskate Sanborne and went shearing. We moved to Gooding. Idaho. This was the spring of 1936, and we almost lost Stanley again, he caught pneumonia, was a terrible time. I had to stay at the hospital with Stanley, this was in April and he had just turned three years old. All that saved him was my blood, which they gave instead of medicine. They didn't have the antibiotics then, like now. George was shearing out of Gooding and a gal in the cabin next to ours was taking care of Woody and Doyle, 6 and 5 years old. She wasn't very dependable we found out later. The two little boys got up, went to the landlord to borrow matches to build a fire in the stove so they could cook themselves some breakfast. George had left at 5 A.M. and this gal was to go in to the boys as soon as George left. The landlord went back to the cabin with the boys. They had used the big old sharp knife to cut bacon and were really going to cook breakfast. Thank goodness they couldn't find the matches. This gal ran all over the country with the boys (we found out later), and when we brought Stanley home from the hospital (he was there 14 days), Woody and Doyle had the whooping cough. But the blood I had given Stanley kept him form getting the whooping cough. We moved from the drafty cabin to the Gooding hotel.

The boys and I did not go to Montana that spring. Woody fell and broke his arm. I put pillows in the wagon and took him to the doctor, just 2 blocks away. George went to Montana with another sheerer. I did not hear from him for a month. I had no money left to buy groceries, with three little boys to feed. I went to Walt Bonnie, who ran Walt's poolhall. He tried to find out where George was but couldn't. He gave me money for groceries. Finally I got a letter and some money. George's excuse was it had been raining and they couldn't shear. He could have at least written me a letter. Needless to say I was very unhappy.

Woody had his arm out of the cast just one week when he fell and broke it over again. Was the 4th of July and I had bought the boys water pistols. Next to the hotel was a lot that John Deere used to display their machinery and the boys were playing there. My neighbors and I were sitting out, keeping an eye on them. Woody fell as he stepped up on the sidewalk. I held my breath, he got up, didn't cry, came to me and said I broke my arm again. So in the wagon, on the pillows to the doctor again. While there, George came in. He had been in town for a while. He stopped at a cafe instead of coming on home. I know if he had, we all would have been inside and Woody would not have fallen. His arm was in the cast all summer, it came off just a week before school started.

We had moved to Twin Falls, Idaho and George worked in the harvest and then the sugar factory that Fall and winter, 1936 37. When Oat died in March, 1937, I went to Nezperce with Mom and Dad to the funeral. Oat had worked in the icehouse in Miami, Arizona and would come out of the ice plant freezing into the hot air. He got pneumonia, then tuberculosis. He died of TB.

When I got back, George was sick in bed at the Gooding Hotel. So I got a guy to move me back to Gooding. I don't know how long George was sick, he had pleural pneumonia, and I am pregnant, what a surprise. When George got well, we moved to Kimberly, Idaho, rented a cabin and George worked in the harvest and spud cellars. Then panned gold for a week or so on the Snake River, then he went back to the sugar factory.

Donald was barn in that little cabin on November 20, 1937, all 10 pounds of him. My friend Beulah White came in to help me and take care of the boys. George made just enough money to buy groceries and coal for the stove. The man we rented from let us wait until George started shearing sheep to catch up an our rent.

We all went shearing with George to Montana. Camped in a tent. Donny was 7 months old and took to camping like a pro. One day in between jobs, we were in Great Falls, Montana, parked in front of the barbershop. George and the boys needed haircuts. Next to the barbershop was a little knick knack store owned by Mrs. Wise. Her husband was the barber. I am waiting in the car with the baby, when an elderly gentleman stopped and wanted to take the baby into the store to show him to Mrs. Wise. I said no. I was not about to let a stranger take my baby. The man looked so hurt. I told him I would take the baby in. He thought if Mrs. Wise saw the baby, she would want to have one of her own. She was white and Mr. Wise was black. To make a long story short, we became good friends and always stopped in to see them for several years. They had an old Indian friend that was going to take them to a fortune. The Indian said he knew where a band of outlaws had hid their loot. All of them had been killed. Mrs. Wise said that whatever they found, she would give me a share of it. We exchanged letters for a few years, then one year when we went to Great Falls, they were not there and no one knew what had happened to them. So don't know if they found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or not.

Time marches on and the boys are growing up. From 1938 41, we rented a little house east of Twin Falls from the Arringtons, 3 rooms, no indoor bathroom. Had water and electricity. The fall of '38, my folks all came in on us from Colorado, 16 all told. This included Merle and Lavar's wives, Beulah and her 4 children, and a cousin Melvin Evens. We had tents all over the place. Was a chore cooking for so many, and fixing lunches, they all went to work picking apples and plums. George was working at the sugar factory for 40 cents an hour. We were buying groceries on credit at a little market close by. When the harvest was over they all packed up and left, all went back to Colorado, except Lavar and Bernice. They moved over to Hansen, across the Snake River from Twin Falls. Beulah and children stayed, was going to stay all winter. but after a few weeks, she went back to Colorado. Of course they all left us to pay the big grocery bill. Lavar came over to the little store and asked for credit, and the guy told him no. He said you people all left and didn't help pay our bill. We finally got it paid before we left for shearing in Montana in 1941.

I bought my first washing machine and electric iron in 1938 while we were living there in the Arrington place. Gave $35 for a new washer at Sears, don't remember what the iron cost. The washer had a wringer on the side that I fed the clothes through by hand. What a joy, no more scrub board.

In 1941, George got trench mouth and was a very sick man. He could not eat, I would fix him malts and he kept right on shearing. When we got through shearing, we went to Colorado, and camped out in Dry Basin about 30 miles out of Naturita. Dad Harris was opening a coal George, and mine helped as much as he was able. When school started, we moved to Nucla, Colorado, and George went to work in the coal mine. George and the boys were out in the hills getting a deer and gathering firewood when the news came over the car radio that the Japs had bombed Pearl Harbor.

I should back up a little. That summer while in Dry Basin, we really lived a pioneer life. The guys killed a lot of cottontail rabbits, and tried to get a deer, no luck there. Was 90 miles into Montrose, Colorado. We would go there every two weeks for groceries. The guys went hunting one day, and when night came and they were not back, we figured they were lost. So about 10 P.M. we set a big pile of sagebrush that we had cleared from the area where we were camped on fire and the fire guided them in. The next day, Donald was playing with his little wagon around the ashes, stepped in them and they were still hot. He got a very bad burn. No onions to make a poultice, so I grated potatoes and they really helped. We took him into Montrose to the doctor. His foot healed well, except between his toes. Was still having trouble with them when we moved into Nucla. He could not wear a shoe, my mom made a moccasin out of overall cloth. The medicine the doctor gave us just didn't help. An old man that lived next door gave us a blue ointment that they used in the mines for burns, and it healed the burn real fast.

That winter while in Nucla, George and brother Lavar would go get a deer as everyone in the whole country did. 0f course, there is always someone that has to spoil it for everyone else. A couple of guys were going out spot light hunting, keeping only the hind quarters, and leaving the rest to lay and rot, which the game wardens would find. One day a kid about 10 years old came through town yelling if you have any deer meat, dispose of it, the game wardens are coming. We had one piece of ribs, so I threw it down the outhouse toilet hole. The warning went out from Redvale, Naturita, Uravan, to Nucla, even to the men down in the mine, if they had any deer meat, go home and dispose of it. The workers at Uravan had to have passes to get in and out of town. A lot of them lived there so when the game wardens came, they held them up at the gates, until the workers had time to dispose of their meat. It all went into the river. The only ones that were not warned were the guys that were spot lighting, and they were caught with hindquarters hanging in their back yards. One guy put his meat under his bed, put his wife in bed and said she was sick and it was against the law to search a bedroom if someone is sick abed.

So much for that. When shearing started in February 1942 we went back to Idaho. Rented a cabin near west five points in Twin Falls until school was out. After shearing, we rented a house on Walnut Street in Twin Falls. George got a job in Burns, Oregon, working on an airstrip being built for the Army Air Force. We locked up the house on Walnut and went to Burns with George, was their for a little over a month. Shortly after school started we went back to Twin Falls. With the exception of the hotel in Gooding, Idaho, the house on Walnut was our first place with indoor plumbing. That fall and winter, 1942 43, George worked on an airfield construction job at Wendover, Utah.

In November of '42, we almost lost Woody, burst appendix. Don't know what I would have done if brother Lavar had not been there with me. I was pregnant with Alice. George came home as soon as he got word. Every time something happened to one of the kids, George was away working some place. In Utah shearing when Stanley broke his arm in 1944. I remember that day, was our 15th wedding anniversary and a special delivery came, it was a wristwatch for me from George, my first watch. The deliveryman had just left and Stanley came in with a broken arm. He and Donald were at the little park down the street playing on the teeter-totter, and he fell off. George was in Montana shearing sheep in 1947 when Donald had a burst appendix.

Alice was born May 8, 1943. 1 didn't go to Montana that year. When George came home from shearing, we went up above Ketchem, Idaho. George, Woody, and Doyle cut timber. We camped in a little trailer and an umbrella tent. Camped next to the Wood River a short distance upstream from the Russian John ranger station.

When it was time for school the fall of '43, we went back to Twin Falls and bought a house on "Truck Lane" (4th Avenue west), 3 bedroom, 1 bath, big kitchen, dining room and living room. The house was not wired for an electric stove, so we bought a beautiful coal range. In the living room we had a coal-burning heater. We didn't have a refrigerator. Had a big icebox on the back porch. The iceman delivered ice to us. We only paid $2700 for the house, our payments were $35 a month. George bought an International truck with a beet bed and hauled cull spuds. Then he bought a Ford truck and semi trailer and hauled cinder blocks. We were doing great, truck and trailer paid for, the boys had jobs, Woody and Doyle worked for Western Union, Stanley sold papers, had money in the bank. Then wham, first I had my appendix out when Alice was 6 months old. Then in January 1945, Stanley had his sinuses operated on. And in February, I had a hysterectomy, and no medical insurance.

Then in 1946 the doctors told us we had to take Stanley to a drier climate. So we sold our home, the truck and trailer, and moved to Phoenix Arizona in October 1946. We pulled a good sized trailer loaded with everything we didn't sell. We broke down between Las Vegas, Nevada and Kingman, Arizona, the car blew a head gasket, it was night, so we camped out in the desert. The next morning, Woody and Doyle hitched a ride into Chloride, a little town a few miles off the highway, to get a wrecker to tow us in. War rationing had just ended and most things were in very short supply, but not in Chloride. The mines had closed down in Chloride before the war ended and most of the town moved away. But the town continued to get supplies based an the larger population. So we stocked up on many items while there, things like new tires, coffee, and sugar.

Moving to Phoenix was a big mistake. Didn't help Stanley much, as he was allergic to citrus, and the pollen from the trees made his face swell like a balloon. We bought an acre of land with a small trailer house, a boarded up tent and an outhouse toilet on it. We planned to build a house. George, Woody, and Doyle worked picking oranges, then George got a job in California with Pacific Fruit Express (PFE). I had never been in a low climate and where it was hot. I would get my work done before 9 A.M., and the rest of the day I had to stay quiet, as it was hard for me to breathe. Then when winter came it would freeze at night and get up into the 90s by noon. The kids took it all in stride.

In February of 1947. George came home from California to move us there. We sold the land and doubled our price on it, paid $1000 for the place and sold it for $2000. We kept the trailer and were pulling out of the yard, had stopped to tell our neighbors good-by, and here came a Western Union boy with a telegram from Bert Woody for George to come shear sheep. So we went back to Idaho. That was some trip. The tires on the trailer house were not too good, and we had a load on. Twice we had to leave it and Woody and Doyle with it, and go for tires. The first time out in the desert in Arizona. The second on a mountain in Utah at night when a wheel broke. Had to leave the boys again, really scared me to have to leave them there. I can't remember now how far we had to go, came to a little town and got a Motel room, I and the little kids stayed there. George got a wheel and went back for the boys and trailer. On one steep grade, I don't remember where, we got stuck. The trailer was about more than the car could handle. Woody, Doyle and I had to get out and push, and when we got it started we had to jump into the car while it was moving. I just about didn't make it. I almost fell, if I had, I would of gone under the wheels, really did scare me. I lost 10 pounds on that trip to Idaho.

We rented a space in a trailer park east of Twin Falls. Enrolled the kids in school. Woody and Doyle went back to work for Western Union, they had worked there before we went to Arizona.

We didn't go to Montana with George shearing. That summer, Western Union sent Woody to Santa Cruz, California to Western Union School. He was only 17 years old and not out of high school, was hard to see him go. I can't remember but I think it was 6 months. Then when he finished school he was sent to Cheyenne Wyoming to work in the office there. That spring while George was in Montana, Donald had a burst appendix. He came through the operation just fine, but the doctor said we had to notify George. Thank goodness for brother Lavar he was always there when I needed some one, as George was shearing out in the Centennial Valley in Montana. No phone there, had to contact the Sheriffs Department. The Sheriff in Twin Falls called the Sheriff in Ennis, Montana to get a message to George, that Don had been operated on for burst appendix and was doing okay. The message they gave George was that Donald had died. George had about 18 miles of muddy road to get out to the highway. I guess you know the Sheriff Department in Ennis really got a racking over the coals. In the first place, there was no need to have called him.

When George got through shearing, he got a job at Diamond Lake Junction, Oregon. We pulled the trailer house over there. As school had started, Doyle stayed in Twin with friends until Christmas, then he came home. The Kids had to ride the bus 30 miles to Gilchrist. Was really cold, and lots of snow. We didn't live in the trailer house, rented a cabin. Of morning when the kids went out to catch the school bus, would be 14 below zero.

When shearing time came, we moved to Pasco, Washington, this was the spring of 1948. We rented 10 acres out west of Pasco. Had electricity, no indoor plumbing, had water inside. After George got through shearing he got a job driving truck at the Hanford plant. I planted a big garden, also oats and alfalfa. Doyle helped a lot. Stanley and Don helped weed the garden. Really had a good alfalfa crop. We got a guy to come in and cut it. Doyle and I shocked it as soon as it dried, a guy was coming to bale it, I had it sold. Before we got it baled, a hard wind blew it all out into the sagebrush, we lost it all. I was really sick.

Woody enlisted in the Air Force in 1948. He came home after basic training, was so good having him home. Had been over a year since we had seen him. After his leave he went to Warren A.F.B. in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

In the spring of '49, Doyle graduated from high school and went to Idaho to work on a road construction job between Challis and Salmon City. We went to Montana with George to shear sheep. After shearing, we came back to Jerome, Idaho. My dad had leased the little lunch counter in a bar, 'The Dog House'. Sister Verlee and I helped him. One day I was getting coffee for a customer and a voice says, how about pouring me a cup. It was Woody, a surprise weekend leave from Cheyenne. Was really glad to see him. George is back hauling cinder blocks. I worked a split shift so I could be home when the kids got out of school. Stanley took Alice to school on his bike and picked her up after school. One day between shifts I went home and put a pot of beans on to cook. Took my pad and pen, went into the bathroom, and while on the toilet, I was making out my grocery list. I heard men’s voices in my house, I came out of the bathroom in a hurry, pulling up my jeans. My house was full of smoke, I had put the beans on and turned the wrong burner on, one under a pan of bacon grease. It had caught fire and these two guys were going by and saw the smoke. Was lucky they did, all the damage was from smoke. And would you know, these guys were two that came into the Dog House every day for coffee. They worked for the Telephone Company, they really razed me too.

Still 1949, we are still living in the Clark apartments, got the house cleaned up of the smoke. One evening Donald and some of his friends are playing where they had been told not to, on some trucks parked in a lot near by. He was jumping from one truck to another and fell and broke his arm real bad, broke the tip of the growing bone off in his elbow. They operated and set the piece back on, and prayed it would heal, it did. We had to take the cast off every day and work his arm so it wouldn't get stiff. The poor little guy would scream and cry, it really hurt, and I would cry too. But it had to be done. Then we would soak it in hot water. We put sand in a lard bucket and he had to carry it around. Every day we added a little more sand. The neighbors that lived in the basement apartment thought we were beating him, until we let them know what was going on. Anyway his arm healed just fine.

We were in Montana shearing sheep, I was cooking for the crew, when Woody left for Korea in July of 1950. When we got word that he was going, my nose started to bleed, was more than one hour before we got it stopped. (Woody made it back from Korea okay. Doyle was stationed in southern California. He got leave, met Woody in San Francisco and came home with him. Pat came out from Cheyenne, and they were married in March, 1952". We were living in Kennewick, Washington.)

in 1950 after shearing, we went to Moses Lake, Washington. George and Doyle worked on the Columbia Basin Project, building a big canal. When we got through there we moved back to Pasco. Doyle joined the Air Force in December of 1950. George went to work on the McNary Dam after shearing was over in 1951. The Lincoln’s, George's ex stepmother and her husband Del Lincoln went to Turkey on a job for the Government. They asked us to move into their home and take care of things while they were gone. They gave us power of attorney, and Mary "Mom" Lincoln signed a lot of checks so I could pay their bills. I can't remember how many books of checks she signed, I took them all to the bank rented a safe deposit box, and put in all the checks. Then when I had to write checks, I went to the bank and wrote the checks there. There was quite a few times that Mary wrote checks on the Pasco bank and put the account into the red. Before he left, Del told George he wanted to buy a ranch and put sheep on it, and told George to look around and if he found a place, then we would sell the home in Pasco. Well we looked, we even went into Oregon. But never found anything there. We were lucky we didn't as things started to go bad.

What I am going to write now is without malice, or in anger, but I feel this has to be told. Because to this day we don't know what was said or why. Before they left, Mary told me why she wanted us in there, it would serve no purpose on what her reasons were, so I will keep quite on that.

One day I got a call from the sheriff, to come to his office. He had a letter for me to read, and to bring the power of attorney papers. When I got there, the letter was from Mary, stating that we were not taking care of the place, and was selling everything, that they would have nothing to come home to. He had done some quiet investigating and could find nothing wrong. He asked me if I had recorded the power of attorney, I told him no. He said little lady, you go next door right now and get it recorded. Our friends who were friends of Mary and Del, were also getting letters about all the terrible things we were doing. They would write her, so would Brother Charlie, but it did no good.

Then to cap things, out of the blue, George's Dad comes from Missouri, we didn't know he was coming. Well the news got to Mary real fast and she hated this man so bad, she had eviction papers made out to get him out of her house. She was still writing the sheriff, and one day he told us we should just find us a place and move, and let their place take care of itself.

Then one day, the sheriff called and wanted to know if George's Dad was still with us. I told him yes. He said he had eviction papers to serve on him, he said he had had them for two weeks and didn't want to serve them. But he had a call that if he did not serve the papers he would lose his job. That night, he brought the papers out and gave them to George's Dad, he said he was so angry, he had just buried his dad, and he was the same age as Dad Elkins.

The sheriff was really upset. I wish I could remember his name. Anyway, we had taken his advice and had rented a place, 10 acres, out of Kennewick. Washington, across the Columbia River from Pasco. We were waiting for the people living there to move. There was a little one-room cabin on the place, and an outside toilet, so we moved Dad Elkins over there and took food over to him each day. Just after we moved Dad Elkins out, here comes Adelbert Lincoln, Del and Mary Lincoln's son. He was so upset and mad, he was shaking all over. His mother had wrote him, that if he didn't come to Pasco, they would not have a home or anything left to come home to. Adelbert had been there a week checking things out, and he found out he had been lied to. He had sold his home in Missouri, gave up a good job, all for nothing. He said Aunt Ida, what am I going to do. I told him we had a place rented, just waiting for the people there to get out, and if he wanted to move in with us he was welcome. So he and Betty were with us for two weeks before we moved. I couldn't turn the bank account over to Adelbert, until he had written consent from his mother. When he got that we went to the bank and I had them make sure that every penny was accounted for. I had not spent one penny of their money, which Adelbert had been told I was doing.

(I am happy that Mary and Del came to visit us one year, and Mary asked forgiveness and said she was real sorry.)

Anyway, we moved. I wish I could say that everything was okay after that, but George's half sisters don't want anything to do with him. That is for George to write about.

Was the fall of 1951 that we moved to Kennewick. Dad Elkins bought a milk cow in the spring of '51. 1 planted a big garden, raised 500 little chicks, two pigs, two turkeys, two calves. I bought a dozen laying hens. I kept track of the money I got from eggs I sold and they paid for their feed. We raised rabbits too. I bought 250 little chicks first, I had them on the front porch. After they got big enough to put out, I bought another 250. I never lost a chick, I had a brooder for them. I didn't have a coop to put them out in, so we fixed a run for them and we had a big tent, we rolled the sides up and put roosts in under it. Was so hot we had to put a water hose with a sprinkler on top of the tent, also on the rabbit hutches.

We really had problems with Dad Elkins, "because he had problems". One day George couldn't shear sheep, the wind was really bad that day. But George and his dad worked all day building a fence to keep the cows off the railroad track. The next morning, Dad Elkins got up real early and went out and tore all the fence down. Gee, George was mad. His excuse was he thought that was what George wanted him to do. Another day of building fence. One Saturday Chuck and Evelyn came and wanted us to take a drive with them and to visit some friends. Dad Elkins didn't want to go. Donald wanted to go to a show. So we left Dad Elkins home, took Don to the theater, Alice went with us. (Stanley and Dick, one of Chuck and Evelyn's sons, had joined the air force so they were not at home) When we got home the whole place was flooded. All across the head of my garden was a water pipe run from a weir box at each row of the garden was a plug and as I watered I would take out a plug for each row. Also this pipe came down by the chicken run to water the pasture. Dad Elkins had pulled every plug and then sat there on the back porch, watching it flood. A great number of the young chicks that could not get up on the roost drowned. Then he told us that Donald had done it when Donald was not there. He did a lot of crazy things. One day he turned off the electric fence, then went to the far end of the pasture and hooked a wire so the fence was grounded. The cow and calves got out and were over at the neighbors. I looked and looked for them before I found them. When he decided to go back to Missouri, I didn't stop him. Chuck came and took him to the train. Dad Elkins died in Missouri October 25, 1957, shortly before his 78th birthday. He was born in Big Piney, Missouri on November 17, 1879.

George decided we would move to California the fall of '52. He had been working on the McNary Dam, and he could work on the Auburn Dam. Pat and Woody had gone back to Cheyenne. We had Doyle's car, so we put all the frozen food from the locker in the trunk of Doyle's car and a guy who worked with George drove it and Donald rode with him. We had 100 fryers, the two turkeys, all the cured meat from the two pigs, plus 80 cans of green beans. I don't know how many packages of peas and corn I put in the locker. We lost one package of peas. Brother Lavar had a locker for us when we got here. Walt File was the guy driving Doyle's car. When we got into the valley we told him to go an ahead. We were pulling a trailer and had to go slower. Anyway we were between Lincoln and Roseville when a wheel broke on the trailer, was night, and very dark. Alice and I stayed with the trailer and George went to Roseville to get a wheel. It was really scary out there in the middle of no where. We had a flashlight. Seemed like it took forever for George to get back. Father in heaven was watching over us I know.

George didn't get to work on the Auburn Dam (it's now the year 2000 and it has never been finished). So George went to work for Pacific Fruit Express. We stayed with Lavar and Bernice for a while, until George got his first paycheck from PFE. Then we rented a little house from the Fords. We arrived in Roseville on 1 December 1952. Just before we got here, Lavar took Doyle back to Camp Stoneman, as he was going to Korea. Lavar had brought Doyle and a couple of his buddies over from Camp Stoneman to Roseville for Thanksgiving dinner. We didn't get here in time to see him, and the day he left for Korea, I had a nosebleed real bad. just like I did when Woody left for Korea.

1953. George left for Idaho to shear sheep. Stanley is stationed at Norton AFB in San Bernardino. In June I got a wire and bus fare from Bert Woody to come to Livingston, Montana to cook for the shearers. He had fired the cook he had. Stanley was home on leave for the weekend, with his wrist in a cast. We had to put the cat and dog in a kennel, farmed Donald out with Lavar and Bernice, and Alice and I go to Montana. While we were in Montana, Stanley hitched up there to see us, and when he had to leave to go back to California, we took him out to the highway, and left him to catch a ride back. That was real hard to do, leave him out in the middle of no where. I cried, baby me.

When we got through shearing and came back to Roseville, we rented a house in old Roseville on Roseville Avenue across from the train depot. Late that summer and fall, George went to Brawley, California to tag ewes prior to Lambing. Brother Merle came down from Colorado, Woody and Pat from Cheyenne, Wyoming. Brother Gilbert and family lived in Roseville, brother Lavar lived across the railroad tracks from us. Bernice worked nights at the Telephone Company so the guys all came over almost every night and we played pinochle.

Then one day after school started, a policeman came. I was to appear in court for not sending Donald to school. The Fords, the people we rented from, and Bernice went with me. I had sent Donald to school, but he would go to a drugstore and read comic books all day, the brat. He was told that if he didn't go to school, I would go to jail. He went to school all right until the 20th of November when he turned 16. Then he took off. We didn't know where.

Was a busy time getting the house cleaned. The guys all pitched in, we washed windows, cleaned walls, getting ready for Doyle and Cel's wedding and reception. The brothers were all coming over to Play pinochle. We would play until 1 or 2 in the morning. We were not loud, and just had coffee to drink. One day the little girl next door was outside playing with Alice. And when Alice asked her to come in, she said no, my mama doesn’t know what kind of people you are. I guess I should have gone next door and told her mother that all the guys coming in and out were my sons and brothers. But I didn't, they probably wouldn't have believed me anyway, as I had trouble making people believe I had grown sons, as I didn't look old enough.

Doyle came home from 'Korea in November with two of his buddies. Cel came up from Los Angeles, and they were married on 21 November 1953 at the Catholic Church in Roseville. They then went to Walker AFB in Roswell, NM I can't remember if Woody and Pat went to southern California or back to Cheyenne. Anyway Christmas came, still no word from Donald. Then a few days after Christmas, he called us from Ogden, Utah. He was at Aunt Cloe and Uncle Frank Cheney's place. He wanted us to send him bus fare to come home on, which we didn't have, and we told him he would have to get home the same way he got to Utah. I don't remember when he got home. I know we were glad he was back. When George went shearing the spring of 1954, we went to Colorado and stayed with Mom and Dad Harris while George sheared. We didn't go with him that year. When he got through, we moved out into Bull Canyon, which is about 30 miles out of Naturita. George worked at a Uranium mine as carpenter and maintenance man. We had a little camp trailer, with a two burner stove to cook on, and they asked me to cook for the guys. There was an old rusty wood burning stove out under a cedar tree, which I used. Baked the bread in it, worked pretty well. George built a bunkhouse. Doyle and Cel were transferred to McClellan AFB. near Sacramento, California in August. Pat and Woody are back in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Fall of 1953, we moved into Dry Creek Basin, so Alice could go to school. Donald went for the lack of anything to do, was a repeat of the work he had already done so was quite boring for him. George is still maintenance man for the mine. I got the job of cooking for the school. Had 45 to cook for, that included the two teachers. That was an experience. The kitchen didn't have an outside door. Had a big electric stove, but no water inside, all the water had to be carried in over the stage, and all the dishwater carried out the same way. Donald and some of the other boys carried all the water. All the water had to be hauled from the mountains and put in cisterns. Even had to haul water for the sheep and cattle to drink. All ground water in Dry Creek Basin had arsenic in it. The little house we rented had a pitcher pump inside (we even had a sink) to pump the water from the Cistern. Outside toilet, which is quite miserable to go to when the snow is knee deep and it's below zero.

I cooked for the school until the 9th of November (before I took the job, I told them that I had to go to California when my grandchild was born). The 9th we got two phone calls. First from Woody telling us Christine was born. Then from Doyle about Karen. We had made arrangements with our neighbors, who were our landlord, to take Alice and I to Montrose to catch a bus to California if we had to leave during the week, George just got home on weekends. We made the bus trip fine. Took a taxi when we got to Roseville. Before we got to Doyle and Cel's place, some gal run a stop and clobbered us. Had to get another taxi to come get us, we were not hurt, just shook up some.

George and Donald came to get us at Thanksgiving (1953). The whole time we were there, never saw the sun, High fog. Donald decided he wanted to join the Air Force and not go back to Colorado. He was just 17 and we had to sign for him to join, so we did. On our way home we stayed at a hotel in Ely, Nevada. The next morning George took our suitcases down to the car, didn't lock it as he was going right back out. Alice and I met him at the door, the car was parked around the corner. He could not have been away from the car 2 minutes. When we got home, the suitcase with all of Alice’s and my clothes was gone. We didn't have many to start with, it was all in the suitcase.

The guys at the mine in Bull Canyon where George worked wanted me to come cook for them. This outfit had a nice big kitchen and dining room. We took Alice over to Red Mesa to stay with her grandparents (my folks). At the mine, we worked 10 days, then off 4 days. So every 10 days we went to Red Mesa. We worked there until February of 1955, then George left to go to Idaho to shear sheep. Alice and I stayed at Red Mesa until school is out in May. George came and got us, I cooked for the shearers that year.

I'll back up a little. Before we left Bull Canyon, after lunch was over, I would go out to our little camp trailer and rest. This one day, a guy came walking into camp (we were 30 miles from the nearest town). I had the door locked and didn't open it. He wanted something to eat. I told him to go into the cookhouse and fix himself a sandwich. He did, then he went on up to the mine. As they were not hiring he left. We found out later he was an escaped murderer. Our Father in heaven was watching over me. He could have easily broken the door in on the trailer and killed me.

After shearing, we came back to California. Went to Pittsburg where George got work. Stanley got a medical discharge from the AF and came home. In 1956 when George left to go shearing, we moved to Del Paso Heights, California. Rented a little house. Stanley went to work at McClellan AFB. He took out a GI loan and bought a home on San Ardo Way in North Highlands in 1956. We were the second family on the street, the rest of the houses were not finished. The other family was next door to us. They thought Stanley was my husband. To level the ground to plant a lawn, Stanley made a drag out of heavy timber. Hooked it to the bumper of his car, fixed a rope for me to hold onto, and I stood on the drag for weight. It worked pretty well. I really worked that summer with the lawn and landscaping. Stanley helped when he got home from work. We built a fence in the back. George was away shearing sheep, I didn't go with him that year. We had to buy furniture. Stanley joined the church, met Connie and got married.

When Judy was born in September, Stanley took me down to Doyle and Cel's in La Mirada, California. I was lucky, I was able to be with Doyle and Cel when all three of their girls were born. Karen in November 1954, Judy in September 1956, and Sandy in October 1958.

When George came home from shearing, he got a job in construction as a carpenter. When Stanley and Connie were married in December 1956, we all lived together that winter.

In 1957 1 didn't go with George when he left to go to Idaho to shear. I did go by train to Elko, Nevada and stayed with George while he sheared the Nevada run. How well I remember that trip, my first train ride. The train left out of Roseville, California at night. There had been a big slide on the tracks over Donner, just one track was open, and the one closest to the cliff was open, just room for the train. Just before we went through the snow tunnel, the conductor came and took me up to the observation car dome. It was a bright moonlit night. The snow banks were even with the dome window, and there looking down on the train was a big gray wolf, a pretty sight.

When George got home from shearing, he worked construction until the weather got bad. Then we went to work for Chuck Wolf at his boarding stables. Dad as a stable boy, I cooked and kept house. We went home on weekends, still with Stan and Connie. Alice stayed with them and walked to school.

Connie and Stanley's first child Steven was born the 20th of November 1957.

In 1957 George joined the church. We went to the Temple to be sealed in 1959.

In 1958 we went with George shearing and Alice finished that year of school in Idaho. I cooked for the shearers in Montana that year. When we got through shearing, we went to La Mirada to Doyle and Cel's. George tried to get work at Hughes aircraft Co., but no luck. He got a job at a country club in Buena Park. We bought a mobile home and lived in a trailer park next to the Santa Ana freeway in Buena Park. We never saw the sun until 11 or 12 o'clock. Smog was really bad, I coughed so bad.

In August, Alice and I went by bus back up to North Highlands to get Alice's school clothes, as we just had a camp outfit with us. George told me if I could get him a job, he would pull the mobile home up there. So I contacted the church employment office and got a carpenter job for George. He pulled the mobile home up with the pickup, a big load for it, as the mobile was 41 feet long and 8 feet wide. We let Connie and Stanley have our furniture.

In October, I went down to Doyle and Cel's when Sandy was born.

Donald and Diane were married in February 1959, and he brought Diane out here from Andrews AFB, Maryland. He was on his way to Morocco and Diane was pregnant, a scared little girl, just 15 and 1/2 years old. I didn't go with George shearing in 1959. Cindy was born in August, she is nine months old when Donald comes home from Morocco. The little mobile home had two bedrooms, so Diane had to share a room with Alice. And we had to go through their bedroom to the bath and our bedroom. So we bought a 10-foot wide, biggest one they made at that time. It only had two bedrooms, but had bunk beds and a hall to go to the bath and our bedroom. When Cindy was born, there was room for her crib. We made it just fine. After Cindy was born, Diane went to work. I took care of the baby.

In October 1959, Stanley and Family moved to Davenport, Iowa and Stanley went to the Palmer School of Chiropractic Medicine.

In 1960, when shearing time came, I went with George. Alice stayed with Diane while we were shearing. I cooked for the shearers that year. That was the last year that George sheared. He went to work after shearing, helping to build the church on Walerga Road in North Highlands. After the church was finished, George took the job of custodian of the church. That was in 1962. I got a job baby sitting for a family by the name of Cowserts. They had two girls in school and an 18-month-old boy. I worked there until 1966.

In 1964, we bought the home we live in now. At that time it was the biggest one they were making, 48 feet long and 20 feet wide.

In 1963, Donald and Diane split up. She took the girls, Cindy 4 years and Lisa 3 years. Diane went back to her folks in Canada. Donald is out of the Air Force and driving for Greyhound. In February 1965,Diane called for Donald to come to Canada and get Cindy and bring her to us. So Donald did so. When Diane left here she was pregnant and didn't tell any of us. She had a baby boy, David, in December 1964, When Donald went for Cindy, Diane met him at the bus with Cindy and did not bring the baby, so Donald has never seen his son.

It was a trying time for us all for a few years. Cindy was so insecure and had a chip on her little shoulders, mad at the world, and very sassy. She trusted no one but me. I finally had to really sit her down and talk to her, and told her if she sassed me again, I would slap her. That I loved her, but she was not to talk back to me. It only took one or two times and she got the message. I don't know how bad she had been treated but it was bad.

Donald signed papers for us to adopt Cindy, but we had a time getting Diane to sign. She sent divorce papers for Donald to sign. He took off and did not sign them. Was a year and a half before we found out where he was. Our lawyer said if he did not come and sign, that her lawyer could come here and take Cindy back to Canada, and put her in a foster home. He told us to call the District Attorney, and if Donald had even gotten a traffic ticket, he would know it. So we did and the next day Donald called. He was mad, and wasn't going to tell me where he was. I said fine, the DA knows, I told him what was going on, and he needed to come sign the divorce papers before Diane would sign the adoption papers. So Donald was here the next day, and in a weeks time we had the papers signed and here, what a relief.

Donald had applied for a Class A drivers license so he could drive truck and this is how the DA had found him.

As I have said, Cindy was so insecure and afraid. I think that all stems from what happened when she was 2 years old. Donald brought Diane and Cindy out here to us, from Andrews AFB. Cindy had been sick all winter. This was in March when he brought or sent them on the bus. Cindy was so full of mucus, she could hardly breath. She didn't even have a sweater on, no undershirt, just a little dress and panties. And it was a cold March day. I said she was 2 years, she was 1 and 1/2. She didn't know how to hold a spoon to feed herself. Diane would put her food in a dish and let her eat with her fingers. The first morning she put old dry cereal in a bowl for her to eat. Diane said she made to much mess; all Diane wanted to do was read. So I took over feeding the baby, made hot cereal and scrambled eggs, and taught her how to use a spoon. The little darling was starving. She really did eat. She would not leave my side, she was not only starved for food, but for love. I couldn't get out of her sight, when I went out to hang clothes on the line, she went with me, put her little arms around my leg, and hung on, made it interesting to move.

Her health improved. Then I made the mistake of going off and leaving her. In July, Gilbert and Nonie asked me to go to Colorado with them. I should have taken Cindy with me. When I got back, Diane had gone back to Maryland. Cindy must have thought Grandma had deserted her. So when she came back to me, she was afraid I would leave her again. She would say "Grandma, when I get baptized, then I will really be your little girl", she could hardly wait until she was 8 so she could be baptized. When she was 7, we went to a show the church put on. At the end of the show, this little gray haired Grandma went to sleep in her rocking chair and died. Cindy started crying. When I finally got her to tell me what was wrong, she said "Grandma, when you get gray hair like that, will you leave me?" The gray in my hair was beginning to show, so I used Miss Clairol for years until Cindy was in her teens.

She was 9 years old before we finally got the adoption through. We really had to take a lot of tests, all kinds of blood tests and x-rays, even had to be finger printed. Which was so crazy. Then the welfare kept calling for months, wanting us to sign up for welfare. We kept telling them we didn't need it, they would say we were entitled to it.

It's 1992 now and Cindy is a grown woman, and teaching school. She's not married yet, maybe some day.

Now back to 1960. Alice got married, she graduated that spring and was married in December to Tom Smith. I was mistaken when I said that Alice was married in North Highlands. She was married in Roseville, at her Uncle Lavar Harris' place.

The next few years were pretty much the same old thing. Helping Alice when her children were born, and Connie with hers. When Stan and Connie left for Davenport, they had 1 and 1/2 kids, they came home with 4, and by time they were finished they had 10 children. Alice had 3. When Keith was 5 and Kenny was 3, Alice and Tom were living out of Clemens, Calif. Alice was pregnant with Debbie. Tom was working in Stockton. When Alice had a doctors appointment, she had to come to Sacramento to Kaiser to her doctor. We would go down on Sunday and bring the two boys home with us. Then Monday morning, Alice would take Tom to work and come on up to Sacramento. This way she didn't have to get the boys up so early. This one day on our way home, Keith and Cindy are in the back seat, Keith is 5) and Cindy is S. She was so small for her age, she and Keith were the same size. (you figure this one out) Keith put his arm around Cindy and said in as deep a voice as a 5 year old could, I love you two ways, boy girl way and cousin way. Cindy just kept right on humming a tune.

That same summer, Tom's Uncle Johnny came up from San Diego to visit. He would go outside to smoke, and would throw his cigarette butts on the ground. At the time the big push was on to keep America beautiful, was on TV and the radio every day. Kenny was just 3, he couldn't pronounce his L's. So this one day he got a can, gave it to Uncle John, told him he was "a itter bug, and we must keep merica butiful", and told him he had to put his butts in the can (out of the mouths of babes).

After Debbie was born, they moved to North Highlands. I took care of the kids a lot. Alice went back to school to brush up on some subjects she needed to get a job. They went to Oklahoma for Christmas. George and I house set their dog that was due to have pups, which she did, 8 of them. Alice told me how to dock their tails, that was a job. I got Stanley to come over and help me. All he had to do was hold a puppy for me. He did that okay, but kept his head turned. He couldn't look while I cut. Was my first, thank goodness there were no bleeders.

Was in 1974 that Donald took a lease option to buy the Double Tree boarding stables in Rio Linda. We rented out our mobile home and moved there to take care of it, as Donald was still driving for Greyhound. He and Robin had split up and she went back to New Zealand. Things went just fine, what with the board from the horses and money from the hay we bought and sold. We were able to make payments on the place and pay utilities, and were getting caught up on the bills Don owed. We kept our bank account (George and mine) separate from the Double Tree account. Just had my name on that account, so I was the only one that could write a check on Double Tree. Was good it was set up that way because Donald got married again. She was a tramp. She was not to move in until school was out, then we would move back into our mobile home. That way her kids wouldn't have to change schools. This gal had 3 kids. But she moved in any way.

The house was big, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, large living room, dining room, and large kitchen. Cindy had to share her room with the girl. Donald would be gone for a week at a time with Greyhound. Every night this gal was bar hopping. George and I had the master bedroom with bath. We came home from church one Sunday and all my dishes, groceries, everything in the kitchen was packed in boxes and in the hallway. She was fixing dinner and she set the table for just her bunch. So we bought a Coleman picnic cooler, bought lunch meat, bread, milk and cold cereal, and lived in the bedroom for about a month until school was out. Donald wanted me to leave my name on the bank account and put this gal's (Dee) name on too. I said no way. So the Double Tree account was turned over to Dee.

When we started to move, Dee was really mad when she found out that all the furniture was mine. She had nothing but the stove. Well she lasted two weeks after we moved. When she took over the banking, she never paid one bill. No utilities, no rent, sold the hay and spent all the money so she couldn't buy more. All this happened before Donald knew what was going on. They were given an eviction notice. When she missed one payment, the lease was broken. When she moved, she took all the drapes and rods off the windows, all bathroom fixtures, was going to take the fireplace screen and tools I had bought but Don stopped her from taking these.

Well Donald left her real soon. We were back in our mobile home just two weeks and we moved back to Double Tree. Tom used his GI bill and took over Turley's GI. He was the guy that owned Double Tree. As Alice was working we had to be there to take care of things. We had put so much money into the place when Donald leased it. We didn't know Donald had so many debts, so to get started we had to use some of our money. So when Alice and Tom bought it, we had to pay the closing costs. But we got everything back when we sold it.

We needed to be there with Alice as her and Tom had separated. For a while we did okay. Bought and sold hay, was lots of work. George was still working for the church, was custodian at the American River Institute. It was 1975 when Alice moved to the Double Tree. Keith was just 12 years old and doing a man's work. He would handle those big bales of hay, I don't know how but he did. We all cleaned stalls. On Saturday, once a month, we had a big "Gymkhana" horse show. We made pretty good money, what with entry fees, and the concession stand. We sold hot dogs, hamburgers, coffee and hot chocolate, and soft drinks. Alice did the announcing. I ran the concession stand with the help of two teenagers. Was a lot of work, but fun.

There was an open field across the road from the house. One day Keith and Debbie were riding their horses, and Kenny was riding his bike over there. Debbie didn't have her saddle on the horse. The horse (Fancy) bucked her off. She must have held onto the reins because the horse drug her through the brush and weeds. She was scratched from head to toe, her clothes torn almost off her. Kenny picked her up, Keith came flying in on his horse telling us that Debbie was hurt. Donald was just leaving to go to work at Greyhound. When he saw Kenny carrying her in, he thought she was dead. He ran to them and by the time he got there, Debbie let a scream out of her. The wind had been knocked out of her. Alice and I took her into emergency. She had a knot on both sides of her little head, a slight concussion. Her face and body skinned all over.

This happened on a Thursday. Saturday we had a Gymkhana show and we told Debbie to stay down by the arena so we could keep an eye on her, as she is back on her horse but had her saddle on. She went back up in front of the horse barn, one of her little friends came running in and told me Debbie’s horse had thrown her off. Alice couldn't go, so I turned the cooking over to one of the girls and ran to her. When I got there she was back on the horse, not hurt, just mad. She said "just wait until I'm 5 and I'll, kill that snot". We finally had to get rid of that horse after we moved out here to Trowbridge. Don't know what happened to her, Debbie had started riding her when she was 2 years old, and the horse was also 2.

Alice sold the Double Tree in 1976, and we moved out here, on 6 acres in Trowbridge, Calif. George quit the job at American River Institute and went to work for Deseret Industries. In 1979, we had our 50th wedding anniversary, with a big party and dinner at Stanley and Connie's. I was happy that my Dad was there, he gave us a 50-dollar bill. I bought a toaster, a 4 slice one, and I'm still using it. My Dad died the next year, March 1980. He would have been 90 in July.

On our 60th wedding anniversary in 1989, we had a family reunion at Rawlins Lake, California, camped there for two nights. All our children were there except 2 grandsons and their families, and one grandson law. Counting family and friends, there were 75 there. Really had a great time, took lots of pictures. Was a beautiful place to camp, even if it did rain on us.

1991, Our Children are all Married, except Cindy, our adopted Granddaughter. We got her when she was 5 and 1/2 years old. She is now 31. We have been married 61 years the 12th of May this year, 1991. We have 4 sons, 2 daughters including Cindy, we have 23 grandchildren, 3 step grandchildren, 23 great Grandchildren, 5 stepgreat grandchildren. Our oldest son Joseph Woodford Elkins married Patricia Helen Dunn on 13 March 1953 at Kennewick, Washington. They have two daughters, two sons, and four grandchildren. George Doyle Elkins married Cecelia Virginia Bukauski on 21 November 1953 in Roseville, California. They have three daughters and three grandchildren. Stanley Wayne Elkins married Connie Lou Bland on 26 December 1956 in North Highlands, California. They have five sons, five daughters, and 16 grandchildren. Donald Lee Elkins married Diane Shipley on 7 February 1959 while stationed at Andrews AFB, Maryland. They have two daughters and one son, and are divorced. Donald has not re married. Alice Marie Elkins married Thomas Keith Smith on 23 December, 1961 in Nonth Highlands, California. They had two sons and one daughter and then divorced. Alice married Edward Leon Hunt on 18 August 1977. Ed has three children and five grandchildren.

The past few years have been much the same routine. We do go to Colorado, to Wyoming to Woody and Pat's, and to southern Calif. to Doyle and Cel's on vacation. Which is great. Hope we can go again this year, which is 1992. I am in fairly good health for my age, will be 82 come the 13th of April. George is doing okay too, he will be 87 come April 4th.

My Mom died October 16, 1973 at Red Mesa, of a heart attack. My Dad died March 19, 1980 at Red Mesa, of old age. They're both buried in the Red Mesa cemetery. Out of the nine children, there are just two of us left, brother Wayne and I. He is the brother born on my 6th birthday. Sister Ada died April 16, 1969 in Farmington, NM, of cancer. Brother Lavar died June 15, 1970 at Roseville, California, of lung cancer. Brother Gilbert died September 3, 1975 at Citrus Heights, California, of a heart attack. The past four years hit us hard. Sister Beulah died January 13, 1987 at Aztec, N.M., of emphysema. Brother Merle died February 12, 1988 at Aztec, N.M., of cancer, buried at Cedar Hill Cemetery. Brother John died August 28, 1989 at Mesa, Arizona, of a heart attack, buried at Red Mesa. Sister Verlee died September 1, 1990 at our home in Trowbridge, California, of a heart attack, buried at Kline, Colorado. My beloved George died 11 December 1994 in a car accident while performing his Visiting Teaching duties for the Church. George is buried in Fairview Cemetery, Rio Oso California.

MY FATHER'S PARENTS

My Grandfather, John Smith Harris, Jr., was born March 3. 1853 at San Bernardino, California. He died March 9, 1938 in Mesa, Arizona. My Grandmother, Sarah Alice Lee, was born October 30, 1869 at Harmony Utah. She died July 30, 1931 in Durango, Colorado. They were married February 8, 1889. She was his number 2 wife. I guess number 1 wife was really mean and Grandma's marriage was not a happy one. She had worked all summer raising a field of potatoes. When it came time to harvest them, Granddad came and took them to market. He sold all the potatoes and took the money to his first wife.

So Grandma left him when Dad was a young boy and Dad's brother Earl was a baby. Grandma sent for her brother, Uncle Earnest Lee, to come and get her. It was wintertime, I don't know where she was living then. They were on the reservation some where. Anyway, a wagon wheel broke and Uncle Earn left Grandma and the two babies at an old abandoned cabin. There was a fireplace and wood. He went to get another wagon, don't know how far he had to go. A blizzard came up and it was several days before he could get back to Grandma. Her food ran out. She was breast feeding Uncle Earl. She had some hard bread and would soak it with breast milk and give it to Dad.

Grandma had a hard time as Granddad did not help her. She lived for years on the Navajo reservation at Tuba City, Arizona. My dad and Uncle Earl grew up there. She nursed among the Indians on the reservation.

I think it was after my Mom and Dad got married that Grandmas Lee Harris bought her home in Kirtland, NM I remember when my brother Wayne was a baby, we stayed with Grandma. She had a very pretty china cabinet, with glass doors, and when Wayne got mad and threw a tantrum he would crawl over to the china cabinet and bang his head back against it. So one time when he was banging his head on the cabinet, mom moved him against the wall, and when his head hit the wall it hurt, and he didn't bother the china cabinet anymore.

In later years, she sold her home in Kirtland. She stayed with Uncle Earl part of the time, and Mom and Dad part of the time. She was a very loving Grandma, she was with me when my first baby was born. One thing that always amazed us kids was that Grandma had a beard, just like a man. She had a straight edged razor that she used and a wide leather strap she sharpened her razor on. When she was a young girl, she had what she called heavy fuzz on her face, so she shaved it off, and it grew back in like a man's whiskers. She had to shave every day. She was quite a gal.

We were not around her to much as we got older, She stayed with Uncle Earl most of the time. She died the day Polly was born in 1931. She had been operated on for a tumor and didn't live through the surgery.

I never saw my Granddad Harris. My dad went to see him once, after I was married. He lived in Mesa, Arizona. That is where he is buried. Was just a short time before he died that dad went to see him.

MY MOTHER'S PARENTS

My Grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Hadden, was born February 18, 1864 at Parawan, Utah. He died March 29, 1941. My Grandmother, Eleanor Maria Wilden Hadden, was born January 10, 1869 at Adamsville Utah. She died August 11, 1947. They lived on the Wilden homestead in Red Mesa Colorado which they inherited from Grandma's parents, Charles Turner Wilden, who died in 1911, and Emma Smith Wilden, who died in 1914. They died before Grandma and Granddad Hadden moved to Red Mesa. Before that, G&G Hadden lived in Jackson, New Mexico where Granddad had a cattle ranch. They then moved to Mancos, Colorado where their first three children were born. Mable who died the day she was born, then Mom, then Mamie. Granddad ran a sawmill in Mancos.

They then moved back to Jackson, NM where Granddad had lived before he met Grandma. This is where their next three children were born, Nellie, Alden, and Chloe. They lived in Jackson for 4 or 5 years, then moved back to Mancos where Charlie was born in 1899. They then moved to Kirtland, NM where their last child, Alice Jane, was born in 1902, who died.

It was some time after that that they moved to Red Mesa, Colo., living the rest of their lives there. They lived for years on a ranch west of the church in Red Mesa before moving to the Wilden homestead. I don't know just when they moved to Red Mesa, but I faintly remember visiting my Great Grandma Wilden. I was 4 years old when she died in 1914. Great Granddad Wilden died in 1911.

My earliest memory of Granddad and Grandma Hadden is as a small child. We always had Thanksgiving dinner at their place. The grownups ate first, and us kids were so hungry, it seemed like they would never get through eating. We just knew they would eat up everything, but of Course there was always plenty for us. Granddad Hadden told us how he met Grandma. He was on a cattle drive, taking cattle to the summer range. Granddad was riding point as they came through Red Mesa, and Grandma ran across the road, long black hair flying in the wind, all 5 feet, 100 lb. pounds of her. He said that's my squaw, I'm going to marry her, which he did on December 26, 1884.

Granddad Hadden was a tall 6'4" raw boned man, always had a mustache. Granddad raised cattle and sheep and +armed. He was Uncle Tom to everyone on the Mesa. One time Granddad shaved off his mustache. He was sitting on the porch in front of the general store. I came riding up on my horse, got off, tied the horse to the hitching post and breezed right on by Granddad, I didn't know him. When I came out of the store and he spoke to me, I knew who he was. He never shaved his mustache off again. He could sit in a chair and cross one leg over the other and both feet would be flat on the floor. I dare anyone reading this to try it, I bet you can't.

Grandma Hadden was about 5' tall, A very small lady with long black hair. Grandma was quite a gal. She was "Aunt Nell" to every one on the Mesa. Was mid wife for Dr. Smith and helped deliver hundreds of babies, including three of my brothers and one sister, Verlee. Also my first two babies, Woody and Doyle. Grandma was a clown, she loved to step dance and was good at it. Back in those days everyone went to the dances. We didn't have TV or movies, so Saturday night dances were our entertainment. The highlight of our dances would be when Grandma Hadden would dance a step dance or a jig. She really could dance, sometimes Uncle Dee Finch would dance a jig with her. One Halloween dance, Grandma Hadden came dressed as a scarecrow in one of Granddad's overcoats. She put a broom across her shoulders, then put the coat on with the broom through the sleeves and the coat buttoned over her head. She had Granddad’s shoes on, I don't know how she could lift her feet they were so big. No one knew who she was until the music started and she couldn't keep still and started dancing the jig, and with those big shoes, she was a sight to see.

She was a very special person, always doing for somebody else. Her home was open to all. I remember when the Navajos would come up to the Mesa from the reservation, just walk in and stand tall and straight with their arms folded, say Ugh, and not leave until you gave them flour, beans, and salt. But Grandma always gave some little extra thing, maybe fruit she had canned, or vegetables from her garden.

In my teen years I stayed a lot with Grandma and Granddad Hadden, which I loved. Her hobbies were knitting and quilting. We all got mittens at Christmas. So did her great grandchildren. I can see her now, sitting in her rocking chair in front of the fireplace, either knitting or making quilt blocks, or carding wool for batting for quilts. In the spring when the sheep were being driven to summer range in the mountains, we would go with Grandma and follow the sheep for miles, gathering wool off the sagebrush and barbed wire fences that had brushed off the sheep. Then we would wash it in cold water, then warm. We would put water in the wash tub and stomp the wool in our bare feet. Then Grandma would spread it out in the sun to dry. Then she would card it into fine wool to line her quilts with. We would get enough every spring and fall to make two or three quilts. (I have a set of wool cards and some wool that I got and washed when Dad (George) was shearing small bunches around here.)

During winter months, Grandma would make quilt blocks and knit. In summer she gardened, canned and made soap. She had a big cast iron pot she made soap in, over a fire outside. As their home' was across the road from the church, whenever there was Conference, Grandma always had the visiting Brethren and their wives to dinner. When there was a play being put on at the church, Grandma furnished clothes, dishes, or whatever was needed. When there was a pie social, Grandma would make a pie for me, I had to ride my horse for six miles so I couldn't bring a pie.

She was really a fun person. Very petite, and very English, always dropped her H's. After the noon meal, Granddad would lay back in his rocker, and Grandma would push her plate back and lay her head on her arms on the table and take 40 winks, which would be about 40 minutes. Then they were rested and going again for the day. It was a hard life. No indoor plumbing, all water had to be carried in and out. They burned wood and coal. Washed clothes on the scrub board, rinsed and rung out by hand. It was really a backbreaking job.

I don't know to much about my Mom's life as she was growing up. I know she had to walk and drive the milk cows when her parents moved between Mancos and Jackson. She taught in primary for years starting at the age of 14. She had a little mare called Biscuits. She would hitch her to a one horse buggy or "shay" and take the youncler children too primary in Kirtland. This was when they lived in Jackson. One day on their way to Kirtland to primary, a Model T Ford came by and scared the horse and she ran away. Mom had a hard time getting her stopped. She was really scared. And the buggy didn't turn over like they show for all runaways in the movies.

Ida Harris Headstone