Oral History Program Walter Nelson Interviewed by Norris Robins 02 March 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Walter Nelson Interviewed by Norris Robins 02 March 1971 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: Nelson, Walter, an oral history by Norris Robins, 02 March 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: I am Norris Robins. I’m at the home of W.C. Nelson in Milton, Utah, making an oral interview for Utah History, at Weber State College. W.C. Nelson will be 92 this October, and he has quite a bit of information and experiences of Utah History. The date is March 2, 1971. His son Kenneth Nelson is here too and is going to project any needed things or ideas into this discussion. NR: Mr. Nelson things have really changed from what they were years ago, haven’t they? WN: Yes, they have really changed we are surely living in a changing world and about the only thing we know that is permanent is change, and conditions change, people change, and something I guess are fundamental like life, religion, and faith in God, and especially your own experiences. They have a big true meaning to life. NR: Maybe you can give us a little background about a, ancestry where you originated from, where you were born? WN: My mother was Norwegian and my father was a Dane. My grandfather fought in the war of Allseise Larraine and nearly lost his life, but my own faith and feeling is that his life was spared. KN: Did your parents come across the plains, Dad? WN: Yes, when Mother came I don’t know exactly how but grandfather in 61… And my own life has been full of a lot of experiences and many that really hurt me. KN: How about when you were born? Let’s hear a little bit about that. 1 WN: I realize that when I was born, my mother died and I suffered from her loss when I grew older and other kind friends took care of me. My life was preserved to raise a big family and I am proud of them. KN: Dad, how about when they put you in bed with this woman that died? WN: Well, I was just a baby. KN: I know it but what did she have? WN: Diphtheria. KN: And she was dead, huh? WN: She was dead, yeah. KN: Did they know she was dead? WN: Sure they knew she was dead. KN: Did they figure you were going to die too? WN: I guess they did, I don’t know. Who knows? I don’t. NR: Well I understand that you almost died when you were born and I was wondering what saved your life when everyone said you would die? WN: I think God saved my life. NR: Well how is your home life changed? WN: As a small boy I lived among Scandinavian people. And I learned much about them. I remember singing the words of a few songs I once heard like… Another one was… NR: Is there any way that you can tell us what those songs mean or translate a little bit? 2 WN: Well, I really can but maybe I hadn’t better. But really I grew among sociable people. They were very friendly to each other and they cherished their pioneer’s lives, very much. NR: What sort of entertainment did you have like transportation? How did you get around to see your girlfriend or whatever? WN: Well in the olden days you had to have a horse and buggy. And if you didn’t have a buggy and you didn’t have a horse you couldn’t take your girl for a ride. So I grew up in that sort of atmosphere. Of that great need of transportation. NR: What sort of sports did you engage in? WN: Well as a young boy the first thing I remember is like snowballing and I also like to sleigh ride. We did quite a lot of that in the early times. And of course as I grew older I grew up with the times and I am very happy to know that I took part in so many ways. NR: Did you play any games like baseball, football, or basketball? WN: Baseball was really the big game of my days. I was a fair pitcher, and I will never forget the interest I took in that, and how hard I tried to play ball. KN: Dad, you might tell us about the different baseball diamonds in comparison to today. WN: We, in my day we really didn’t have a definite place to play. And we would play on whatever we could. But later years our conditions have changed very much and in this community where I live we have a very nice diamond for playing ball, or sports of a different kind. And we have really progressed. NR: What kind of jobs did you do? Did you, to make money, did you move away from home or… 3 WN: I really worked with my father. Through the many years I didn’t have any money, I may have a few dollars, but that was all. NR: Mr. Nelson, what did your father do for a living? WN: My father was a farmer. And as quite a young boy I left home in order to make a little money. I went out on the B.Q. Ranch, where I drove oxen. It’s been the memory of my life because my grandfather also drove oxen across the plains, and I was happy that I had that privilege. I was paid a dollar and fifty cents a day for ten hours work and finally mad enough money to supply the needs which I went out there for. KN: Was the oxen mean, Dad? WN: The oxen were pretty well trained and I learned how to handle them. I could make them do most of the things that I wanted them to do. I tried to be kind to them and they really responded to that treatment. NR: Where’s the B.Q. Ranch located? WN: It’s located in Rich County, I think really in Wyoming. But it’s North of Randolph a little. NR: What’s the schooling like around Morgan Valley? WN: I did graduate from the 8th grade in a public school, but I never really followed up college life very much. NR: Did you attend any college at all? WN: Well, I, in a way, I did. For a little time, the U of U, but I did have a physical handicap that was a terrible hindrance to me. NR: What were these handicaps? 4 WN: My poor eyesight, farsightedness, and also I had a chronic appendicitis. It made me awfully sick at times. NR: Didn’t the doctors try to do anything about this appendicitis or did you go to the doctors? WN: The doctor didn’t know what was wrong with me and they, they told me so. And a, I had to decide myself that I believed it appendicitis. That’s true. NR: Well, what did you finally do for the appendicitis? WN: I was operated on. And this was in 1918. I, I’d had quite a family at this time. It was really a big, an uncertain thing to do. A lot of people have died with broken appendix, but mine was not that nature. But I had suffered much from appendicitis. NR: Mr. Nelson, how large a family did you have? I understand it was quite large. WN: A, the number of children my wife and I had was all and through the many years we found it very difficult to really supply the needs of a big family, but I’m happy that things went as well as they did. NR: Did you have to move around a lot with such a big family or did you build a big home and… WN: In 1914, I built a new home and things were always better since that time. NR: How high were the cost of materials you used to build the home? Or did you use lumber cut from the mountains? WN: My home was pretty much made of brick and it was contracted job and a very good job was done, and we live in it still. NR: How did you make your living back then? 5 WN: When I built my home I had no money so I had to mortgage my property, my land and I was able to contract the job and finally was able to pay for the building of my home and buying of some land. It’s always been a blessing that I did it. NR: You were a farmer? WN: I farmed all my life. The only thing I’ve known has been a farmer. My greatest success has been in milking cows and we progressed from the milking by hand to machine milking and I must say that having dairy cows was the greatest blessing that could have come to me with my large family. NR: Did you raise any vegetables like beets or a… WN: We tried to have a few vegetables and also a like potatoes and things like that we buy at the present time in the grocery store. Much of my success was in growing what we consumed and a… KN: Dad, didn’t you say how many loafs of bread mother used to make? WN: My wife she made, she used 50 pounds of flour every week. If I’d had to buy the bread of that day I couldn’t have afforded too. NR: All this flour you used to use, did you grind this flour yourself? Or what did you do or where did you get all this flour? WN: What? NR: All this flour you used to use. The 50 pounds a week, did you grind that yourself or did you… 6 WN: We used to grow the wheat and then get the flour. We had a flour bin full of flour, and that was our way of living. NR: You grew the wheat then? WN: Yes, we grew the wheat. KN: They ground it up in Morgan didn’t they? WN: Same with butter, the same with anything that we could grow. We did, and it was a part of our living, that’s true. NR: You’d just raise anything you could then? To live on? WN: Chickens and eggs, and things like that. NR: Was there any, I’ve heard some tales about the old times that the Gypsy’s around here in Morgan. Did there used to be any gypsy’s here in Morgan? WN: Well a… KN: Indians wasn’t there? WN: As a small boy I remember of some Indian squaw that come to the home where I was and they were asking for bread. As little as I was I went in and crawled under the bed. I’m ashamed. KN: Did they ever have any trouble with ‘em? WN: Oh no, no they didn’t, but they tell me in the early days the Indians reached from Smith Creek to Dalton Creek and they big band that followed each other through the town here. NR: Do you know what kind of Indians they were? Ute Indians or… 7 WN: Washakie an old Indian chief that seemed to belong to this neighborhood and they used to go out into Wyoming to hunt for game. NR: When you were farming how did, when the depression hit how did this hurt your dairy products or a how did it hit you financially? WN: Well, during the Depression I think it more or less affected everybody. The wages were poor, and crops were and really not much money made. And the government helped with what we call the land loan. And I benefited by that. NR: That was Roosevelt? WN: Yeah that was during Roosevelt’s day. NR: In conclusion do you have any final statements or anything you want to say? WN: Well I’d like to say that I really feel in my, deep down in my heart that I haven’t lived in vain. NR: Well it’s getting late. Thank you for the time you’ve given me and a I appreciate the time you’ve spent talking to me about a few of your experiences and do you have anything else to say? WN: Only this. I feel very, very glad to help with a purpose like this one, to tell a little about myself and also to have my voice recorded on some television. 8