Person:William Lesh (1)

William Albert Lesh was born September 9th, 1868 at Table Rock, Pawnee Co. Nebraska. His parents were Isaac Newton and Elizabeth Baldwin Lesh. When William was 7 years old, he moved with his family to Steamboat Rock, Iowa and settled on a 140 acre farm in section 29 in Clay township. William went through grade school at Steamboat rock and then to high school at Eldora, a distance of about five miles, walking most of the time. When the river was frozen over he would skate to school. After William finished school he helped for a time on his parent's farm.

In his early twenties he went to Yakima, Washington, where his brother Daniel lived. William farmed a year at Yakima then returned to Iowa and took schooling to learn to be a telegraph operator, then took a job with a railroad company at Marshalltown, Iowa. On November 17, 1896, he married Gertrude Ansell. She was born October 24,1877 at Eldora Iowa, the daughter of Enoch and Sarah Jane Van Note Ansell. Gertrude had known William all of her life as they had lived on joining farms.

In 1898 William left his railroad job and moved his family to Perth, North Dakota where he filed a homestead. He built a house of railroad ties and prarie sod and moved in. He then went to school and got a permit to teach grade school. For the next few years he worked on his farm in summer and taught school during the winters.

The spring of 1901 in North Dakota was quite dry, William had plowed his field and had seed bought for planting. His neighbors told him it would be foolish to plant in the dust. William told them if the seed was lift in the sack he knew it would not come up, but if it was planted and a rain came it would probably make a crop. Shortly after the seeding was done, he was at school and the sky became black and the rain came down in torrents Soon the the rain slacked up and he could see another black cloud coming, he let school out early and told the kids to hurry home for it looked like the rain was going to get worse. He waited awhile but the rain didn't slack up, so he took off his good shoes so as not to ruin them and walked the four miles home in the rain barefooted and happy. The grain and flax came up and looked beautiful.

The railroad company was advertising their land for sale and people coming, looking for land to buy, so William and Gertrude put their farm on the market and it soon sold with the crop, machinery and live stock. Their neighbors asked them why they were leaving. They said you are the ones that were doing well. They told them that they were tired of the cold winters and hot summers and a friend had written them telling about the mild winters and good soil along the Snake river in Idaho.

William Lesh loaded their household goods in a freight car on the railroad and sent it to Payette, Idaho. They rode the passenger train to Payette and arrived ahead of the freight car. They had planned to look at the country around Payette for a place to settle and if they didn't like what they found there, they would go on to Yakima, Washington.

William rented a horse and buggy and drove around the country looking for suitable land to buy. He found 40 acres about eight miles north of Payette that he liked so he bought it. The man they bought from, let them move into a cabin on his place until they could build a house on their land. They planted about thirty acres of apples, ten acres of peaches and grew melons and other small crops between the trees until the trees were producing and shaded the ground too much for small crops.

In 1911 William and Gertrude built a large two story house to make room for their growing family, by then they had eight children. In 1913 they bought their first Ford car, their oldest boy was then sixteen and learned to drive, William didn't care to drive a car, he would rather walk or drive a team of horses.Sometimes when the Lesh family were going to town in the car, William would walk to town on the railroad track and reach town almost as soon as the family.

William A. Lesh liked to walk better than most men, Early one morning, in the winter, about 1920, he left Cornucopia Oregon and walked home, a distance of about 75 miles, most of the way was on the railroad with snow up to the top of the rails, and arrived home the same day before his family had gone to bed. one time he left Galice, Oregon (near Grants Pass) and hiked on a trail along the Rogue River to Agness, Oregon, he started in the mid-afternoon and spent the night in an old cabin and reached Agness in time to catch the mail boat before it started its return trip down the river to Gold Beach. Shortly after coming to Idaho, William bought a nice young black filly for $25., soon afterwards he was able to buy a perfect mate for her for $35., then he bought a new buggy and harness.

One day he was in town with his nice team and buggy and a man wanted to buy the horses. William told him they were not for sale. The man said he would 'shore like to have that span of mares' so just put a price on them. William thought he would discourage the fellow and said he would have to get $400. for them. The fellow pulled out the money and bought the horses. William wished he had asked more for he hated to lose that nice team. The farm work team was used with the nice new harness and buggy after that. One time while he was riding in a buggy with two neighbor men along the hill road, a young coyote ran across the road ahead of them, and headed for the hill. William asked one of the men to hold the lines while he ran and caught the coyote. The men started laughing and making fun of him for thinking he could run down a coyote. There was a large ditch up on the hillside and William ran up and got into the ditch and ran to where he thought the coyote would come up over the ditch bank. The men hollering and laughing, distracted the attention of the coyote and it came over the bank, looking back. William jumped on it with both feet, killing it. William said you should have seen the expression on those fellows' faces when I came out of that ditch with that dead coyote.