Oral History Program Albert Kendall Interviewed by Merle Stewart No Date i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Albert Kendall Interviewed by Merle Stewart No Date Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Kendall, Albert, an oral history by Stewart, Merle, No Date, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Albert F. Kendell. The interview was conducted by Merle Stewart in the home of the Mr. Kendell in Uintah, Utah. Mr. Kendell discusses his personal history in Weber County, Utah. MS: This evening we are in the home of Albert F. Kendell of RFD#4 Box 160, Uintah, Utah. Mr. Kendell, you’ve been one of the lifelong residents of Uintah. Maybe you could tell us a little of your background, where you were born, and how long you’ve lived here in Utah. AK: My father, Fredrick Kendell, was born in South Weber just across the river from Uintah. When he was a child they moved over to Uintah and lived in a dugout down near a place we call Cooks Point. From the pictures we have of that home after every child was born, they added another room on to the dugout. Dirt floors, dirt roofs, etc., and that’s what my father lived in. I was born on May 29, 1901, here in Uintah. My home stood where the eastbound railroad now runs. We had to tear the house down and move it by sections. Part of it was left near the place where it stood, and my sister lived in it for some time until it burned down. The other part was moved in front of my uncle Ira Kendell’s place, and we lived in there with the seven of us and my Uncle Frank Burns. Seven in the house that George Garner now lives in. This carried on for quite some time until my uncle moved to Nevada to work on the railroad and took his family. Then my father started to build the home, which I own now, where my son and his family lives. I started to school about 1908. Pearl Bybee was my first teacher in the old brick house across from Orin Bybee’s place. Here I went to school for a couple of years. Then in 1910, May Grix came out here as a young woman. She was my schoolteacher, my 1 Sunday school teacher, Primary teacher, and also my Mutual teacher for quite a number of years. After being here for three or four years, May married Orin Bybee. This is where I had my schooling, where they had a two room school with four grades in each room. I stayed there until I graduated from the eighth grade, and then I started high school. This was during the flu time 1918 influenza epidemic , and I contracted the flu and was laid up at home with it for quite some time. I seemed to be the only one who contracted the flu. But I was kicked out of our home over to my uncle’s because Clara and Etta both had new babies at the same time here in the house, and we didn’t want to expose them to it. So I was sent over to my uncle’s house alone. Then when I was fourteen, I worked in the old canning factory at 10 cents an hour for eight to ten hours a day, putting up peas and tomatoes. One thing that comes to my mind is that of Heber Fernelius, who was the floor worker. He kept track of the ladies who were peeling tomatoes along the assembly line. One time he reached under the assembly line, and he got his arm caught in one of the cog wheels. You never heard such a moaning sound in your life! I was up above him, shooting cans down to the assembly line. We had to stop everything and rush him to the hospital. It didn’t break any bones but it sure did bruise him up awful bad. Another time Parley Kendell got to horsing around, jumping over the boiling cookers, and he fell in and got his leg scalded pretty bad. I worked here for a season or two at 10 cents an hour. We thought we were making pretty good money, and it was big wages for the time, and we thought we were rich. After a while things started going bad. They were losing money, and finally they folded up and moved away. Some canning brothers from Morgan, I can’t remember who they were now, but they bought the place and moved it away. A few people lost money, but most people all 2 they made was some good wages. When I was fifteen or sixteen they were building this eastbound right of way, tearing down Cooks Point with trestles, and “dinky trains” hauled the dirt away. During this time I drove four-head of mules on a wheel scraper for some time. I would have to get up at five o’clock in the morning to harness the mules and get them ready for work. This was the way I started out during summers. Our church activities were centered on the little white chapel that stood on the land now owned by Bishop C. E. Stewart. I can remember, as a child, passing the sacrament when we had one goblet that everyone took a swallow out of. Everyone would think, “I’m not going to drink where everybody else has,” so they would turn it around and drink by the handle, and everybody else did the same thing. When we separated for classes, we drew curtains across the one room lengthwise and crosswise to make four rooms separated by just a curtain. We could always learn more from the teacher on the other side of the curtain than we could from our regular teacher in our room. This was carried on for quite some time. We had an amusement hall just east of the church, where we used to have dances, and wrestling matches, and all kinds of good sports and amusements. Finally this was torn down, and we used part of the lumber to build the west room of the old church, and the upstairs on the west side. MS: Now this amusement hall sat just east of the church? Right close to where our house sits (2110 East 6550 South)? AK: Yes, just east there, right where Bishop Stuart’s house is today. We really had some good old times there, but it seemed we didn’t have any sheriffs back then. We had some people who tried to keep the peace, but sometimes outsiders would come and mingle with our people, and they would get on a big drunk, and then we’d have a lot of 3 fighting. Us kids were always there taking in all of this excitement. Then the old church caught on fire, which was a blessing in disguise, and burned down. We had no place to go, so we went into the schoolhouse, but it wasn’t big enough. So we held classes over at Bishop Stuart’s place, at Ken Stuart’s and May Bybee’s. Finally we outgrew this, so we went over to South Weber to church for a number of years, which was a very good time. We were grateful to South Weber for helping us, and this is when we really got started on our new church on the hill, which was a blessing to us. But the town, or area, has now outgrown this present building. When I was a kid, the Uintah Ward took in from the dam up Weber Canyon on the east, the Weber River on the south, to Burch Creek on the north, clear over to Washington Terrace on the west. That was the Uintah Ward. Now there are six wards in the same territory, which once was taken up by the Uintah Ward. I was in the bishopric close on to nine or ten years with Bishop Alma H. Anderson and Jessie Bybee. We had a close relationship, and it seemed like we did very well. We tried all the time to collect money for the new building, but it seemed like with inflation and money becoming scarce, that people couldn’t pay much. Then the expense of building materials was growing faster than we could collect money. So we didn’t gain much. Finally we got started on it, and we completed it, and we got it paid for in a short time, which we are all grateful for, and we are now holding meetings in it. MS: Albert, the Kendell’s have been a prominent family here in Uintah since its founding in 1850. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about the Kendell clan. AK: Well, as I said, my father and mother came here to Uintah. My mother’s family came from Piedmont, Italy, along with the Bueses, Malan’s, and other families, when they were converted to the LDS Church. 4 MS: Didn’t the Combes come from there? AK: Yes and the Combes. My grandfather, Moses Burns, had two wives. My mother’s family lived in Piedmont, Wyoming, which originated from Piedmont, Italy. They lived there for quite a number of years. On the other side of the family, they lived up on the hill where Ron Wright’s place now is. Finally most of them moved on to Idaho and commenced farming. But my grandfather, Moses Burns, owned all that up there on the hill and on the flat. He once made a prediction that the whole country would be one solid city, sometime in the future. And the way things are building up there on the hill, it looks like his prediction will come true. MS: When did the Kendell’s first settle in this part of the country? AD: In 1854, I believe. MS: And where did they settle? AK: At first they lived over in South Weber, then they moved across the river. We bought part of our place from Henry Penman, who lived up on top of the hill where Doug Stephens now lives. Uncle Tim got part of his from the Wattises and here’s where we started to farm. My uncle’s farm was just west of my dad’s. In 1938 I bought this farm from my dad, who died shortly after. We built this house into an apartment, and I took half of it and Dad took the other. This is when I moved out here from town on 32nd Street with a bunch of cows, and started in the dairy business. I delivered milk in Uintah, Ogden, and went down as far as Kaysville. I had a raw milk route at one time until the pressure from the Health Department and the government got after us and forced us to pasteurize it. So I took my milk into Ogden and had it pasteurized, picked it up there, 5 and delivered it. I delivered milk up until 1962 when I hurt my back. The work got so hard, and the pressures of government regulation got so bad, that I decided to retire to an easier life, if there was one. MS: Now Uncle Albert, I know you weren’t around then, but what did your dad tell you about the Indians that once roamed around through the Uintah area? AK: Well, we had them camping around here quite close, and they would always come here begging food. My dad and mother always fed the Indians because they figured that the Indians would steal if they didn’t feed them, so it was cheaper for them to feed the Indians and be friends with them than to have any trouble with them. Oftentimes the Indians would have things to trade for food, and we would trade. That’s about all I can remember about Indians. Mother would come and gather us all up and take us into the house whenever Indians came around because she was afraid of them. During my younger times, in 1911 or 1912, there were thousands of men out of work, and they used to ride the railroads back and forth, back and forth. We used to count them as kids, these tramps, or hobos as we called them. One time we counted as many as 75 on a freight train. The trains coming down the canyon always would stop here to test their brakes before going into Ogden, and sometimes these tramps would jump off the train and come to our house looking for something to eat. My father used to always have a big pile of wood to the side of the house with an axe or two, and when the tramps came and asked for something to eat, my dad would say yes, if they would cut some wood. Well, some men would willingly do it and do a good job. Some men would break the axe handle intentionally so they wouldn’t have to do it. And other men would just walk off and not stop long enough to get a sandwich. During those times we met all 6 kinds of people. We had no fear of people then. We used to walk up and down the tracks because there were no hard surfaced roads, and we would meet tramps all the time. We never thought of them doing us any harm or hurting people as we walked to school or Mutual. These people never had any Social Security checks like they do now. They just traveled from place to place, and begged something to eat, and then moved on because they couldn’t get no jobs. You talk about unemployment now, but it seems like it was much worse back then because of all the tramps riding the freight trains. MS: Uncle Albert, part of the property you now own was once involved what is locally called the Morrisite War. What do you know about this? AK: The Morrisites were over in South Weber about three or four blocks west of where I now live. They had a big fort there of eight or ten acres. Bus Bowman lived on the south side of the fort. Jennie Firth lived on the east side, and John Ray’s home was on the west. The northwest side was owned by Jennie Firth’s father and was vacant. That’s where we played ball, and they had an old schoolhouse there. I remember the old schoolhouse there. They had two schoolhouses once in South Weber, and that’s where the Morrisites came. Joseph Morris came from England where he was converted, or at least partly converted, until he heard about the Mormon belief in polygamy, and that really converted him. He decided to come to this country and he settled down in South Salt Lake. Then he came up here and started in South Weber. My dad used to tell me that he (Morris) rode a white horse and dressed in white clothes and was waiting for the Savior to come again. Things got pretty rough with him, he got so much power. The book that I read said that at one time Morris had six hundred members in his church. Uncle Tim told me that my grandfathers on both sides, William Kendell and Moses 7 Burns, heard him preach. He was a smart guy and a wonderful orator. That’s what it takes to draw a crowd. They joined up with him for a while. Finally they had their eyes opened. They could see that he was trying to force people into believing that the Savior was coming, and he took all of their property – so they left. Morris had quite a gathering for a while until he got too rough with the people. One man by the name of Jones wanted to pull out. He had given his horses and all of his property to Morris, trying to live the United Order. And they threw him in jail for quite a while. Well, he broke out and crossed the river into my granddad’s field, and my granddad told him to look out because Morris would be looking for him, and he better hide out. Well, he was heading for Salt Lake to report what was happening, and he got as far as Kaysville before Morris caught up with him, and dragged him back and threw him in jail. Jones broke out and crossed the river again. This time Granddad told him that Morris would kill him if he caught him again. Finally Jones got to Salt Lake and reported to Brigham Young and the authorities. They came up and tried to convert him to Mormonism and the right way, but he wouldn’t listen. Well, things got so bad, Morris trying to force people to believe like he did and hurting people, that finally the militia came up to make him quit and disband his religious ideas and let the people go. Morris said that he would not, and that he was going to fight. So they started to fight and started shooting cannons. That is where we get some of these cannon balls we find here when we plow in the fields. Finally the militia did conquer them after a few Morrisites got killed. Some of the Morrisites moved up to Idaho, and the whole organization here was disbanded. However I did hear some Morrisites did carry on and practice their religion in Idaho, but that was the end of it around here. 8 MS: Thank you. That was very enlightening. There are lots of stories and tales that float around here about the Morrisites. Uintah was once a prominent town since the railhead ended here. What did your dad have to say about the boom-days of Uintah? AK: At one time, they claim there was about five thousand people here because this was the end of the railroad before they ever thought of moving into Ogden. They would bring the freight here and unload the freight cars into huge wagons pulled by three or four teams of horses. The wagons would go down that lane by Leonard Kendell’s, cross the river, and then head up that little hollow there in the hill where the Davis County dump is, and head for Salt Lake. This carried on for quite some time until they finished the railroad into Ogden and Salt Lake. But at one time there was five thousand people along the street where the main road is now from the Fox farm on the west to Rulon Dye’s place on the east. There was a little street that ran south down through Ray Whiting’s, and another street that ran south from Leonard Kendell’s. Both of these were lined with houses. There was a few houses still left when I was a kid. There was a large, white two-story house west of Leonard Kendell’s place in those trees, which belonged to Annie Cadence, but it was torn down. There was another large house in the field, where Carl Anderson’s orchard is now. There was a big two-story house where a girl and boy lived, that I went to school with. But that’s all I can remember. Dad said there used to be hotels, honky-tonks, pool halls, and every other kind of rail town buildings. But Uintah was a regular boom town until the railroad moved on and everybody left. Now Uintah is hardly more than a whistling post for the railroad, with just a skeleton of people. When we would have sacrament meeting when I was a kid, we probably had 25 or so to a meeting. Quite a bit different from what it is now. 9 MS: Albert, the landmark of Uintah is the big block letter U on the mountainside. What do you know about the origin of this landmark? AK: I wasn’t out here when they built the U. I was working on the railroad then. But Golden Kilburn was a mighty fine teacher, and he wanted to find something to do with the Boy Scouts. Kilburn was a leader, and he got the idea that the Scouts needed to have something to work for to keep them busy, something that could be an annual project. So he and others concocted the idea of building the huge block letter U. But it turned out to be a larger project than the Scouts could handle, so they asked the town members for help to carry up the mountainside, and to whitewash the U. This project has become an annual event ever since, which all of the people in Uintah look forward to. However this even, like most town celebrations, has become more commercialized because we have to earn more money. Each organization in the church has a booth to raise money to carry on their activities, which is all right and necessary because there are so many in the town that we have to have these different organizations to keep our young people busy and out of trouble. This is one way to do it by having a town party once a year, which lasts all day with U-Day and the lighting of the U. These are necessary to keep our young people on the straight and narrow path. MS: I’ve enjoyed U-Days as long as I’ve been around. Uncle Albert, you’ve been around for a long time and seen many changes. What are some of the biggest changes that you’ve seen in your lifetime? AK: Well, the biggest change is that of electricity. We had to use carbon lights, oil lamps, and often candles. Many times at church you could hardly see the speaker because of the dim twinkling lights. Anyone who has had experience with carbon lamps and oil 10 lamps knows that they are not always dependable. But that has been a great thing in my life to turn a switch and the lights come on. Another things was the water. Of course we were blessed in this part of town with our spring on the hill. The water from the spring wasn’t the best water but we lived through it. But it was a wonderful improvement when we got the town water, and put to all the people who now use it. We still have our spring, and we use it to water the lawns and for our cattle. We like to drink the town water. Another things was the good roads. In the winter times, we kids would have to walk two miles to school on the tracks because the roads were so bad. But hardsurfaced roads were a great blessing. The building of the church and getting more people in here, and getting help from outside people to bring new activities to our town, has been a great asset. MS: Well, Uncle Albert, I’ve certainly appreciated this opportunity that I’ve had this evening to learn about Uintah. You know, I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve really grown to love Uintah for the town that it is, and for the people like you that have made Uintah a special place with special people. So I would like to thank you for this interview. AK: I appreciate this chance to talk to you, Mark. I’ve known your family all my life, and I would like to say one thing about the canning factory. I was going to say this at the first, but I forgot. Mark’s grandmother, Ellen F. Stuart, was the fastest tomato peeler that ever was in the Uintah Canning Factory. She was the fastest of them all, and I’ve known her all my life even when she lived in South Weber. Old Bishop C. A. Fernelius, was the one I got my recommend from to get married in the temple. He was your great-grandfather, C. A. Fernelius. MS: Uncle Albert, thank you. Thank you for this interview. 11