Oral History Program Laura Annie Brown Interviewed by Andrea Hess 23 May 1981 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Laura Annie Brown Interviewed by Andrea Hess 23 May 1981 Copyright © 2012 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. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Brown, Laura Annie, an oral history by Andrea Hess, 23 May 1981, 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 Laura Annie Brown. The interview was conducted on May 23, 1981, by Andrea B. Hess, in Brigham City Community hospital. Brown discusses her life history and family experiences she’s had. AB: Okay, Grandma, I just want you to tell me about your parents first, okay? LB: What about them? AB: They were both from England, right? LB: Yes. AB: When did they come here? LB: Oh, I can't figure just how many years ago it's been. AB: Were you born here? LB: Yes. AB: In America? LB: Yes. There were three children born in England, my older brother and my sister and my younger, her youngest brother because he was her younger brother then, there was just three that they brought with them and then they had let's see, Clara, and I, there was three born here and three born there. AB: And then when you got here did you come to Brigham City? Just directly to Brigham City? 1 LB: No, my father and mother stayed in Salt Lake and my father worked for the stores around there in Salt Lake. He didn't have any job when he got here until conference time in April; Bishop Wright from Brigham City met him down there and persuaded him to come to Brigham and work. He wanted him to come establish a business of his own here in Brigham. He wanted him to mend shoes, but my father had never mended a shoe, not repaired it, he had made or helped make boots and saddlery for the artillery or the army and he says, "Well if you'll just come to Brigham," he says, "I'll give you all the work you can do repairing older shoes," and he says "well that's against me, I don't know a thing about doing it." But he persuaded him to come to Brigham. So they moved to Brigham and he had a little store of his own uptown. He sold hats, cowboy’s hats and saddles, bridles and things like that and then he got a few ladies shoes, new shoes to sell and this man, the Bishop from Brigham that had persuaded him to come to Brigham, talked him into trying to mend some of these old shoes. He had a sewing machine and they were unsewn in lots of places so he said if you could just sew them up to start out and that was the beginning. He got so that he did a lot of repair work and then he made new shoes as well, for crippled people, anyone, oh, from all over Idaho and far away they'd come or they'd send the pattern of their foot or something for him to follow and he used to make shoes. I remember there was one boy out to Corinne that was what they called club-footed, one foot over the other I guess, I don't know if you've ever seen one or not, but he had clubbed-feet and he was walking around with some pieces of overalling that his mother had kind of made a, like a house slipper for him. He had to go every place with those on and he couldn't walk very well, couldn't step on anything hard or it hurt his feet, so he come into the shop, my father's place and when 2 my father saw his shoes and his feet, he says, "Oh," he says, "I'll be happy if I could make something in leather for you instead of cloth." He said, "Will you let me try to make something to fit your feet?" And he said, "I won't charge you a cent for it." He says, "I just want that .experience." And so the boy was tickled to death. He says, "Oh yes, you can any time." So he came in and my father took a pattern of his footlet, they were kind of round like a horses hoof or something, and so he didn't have much trouble making a leather with a sole on it see for a foot like that. So he made this boy's shoes and that's the first he'd ever worn and he was about oh, I'd have to just guess at it, but he was a big boy, he was maybe 17 or 18 years old then. And he'd gone with cloth shoes that long. So my father made these and that was his beginning. It wasn't many years before he was making new shoes for people and sending them to Boise, Idaho and all over. And then there was a lady here in town that had one leg shorter than the other one and she passed by his store when she'd go to town, up and down, up and down and so one day he was standing outside as he passed and he called her in to ask her why she didn't have a piece of..., make..., put a higher heel on that shoe "Because," she says, "nobody can do it or I'd be happy to have it." He said, "You come here, have you got time right now I'll put that shoe on the stand and put some leather on there and then build it up and trim it off the best I can to make it better for you." And so he did that and she come into the store until he died, and had him fix an extra heel on the shoe for her. Now I can't think of any other things but I know that they have sent them all over. Cripples used to send to him and have him make their shoes for them, but he was just working in this farming place in England and he had it made but he joined the church 3 and left it all over there and come here and started from the bottom again. He made well. I don't know if there was anything else that you wanted me to say. AB: When you came, did he build that house, the two-story white house that you lived in? Did he build that? LB: He helped, but he didn't lay the, the adobes. He had a man lay the adobes and then he helped with the carpenter work and a little of that kind of thing. AB: Were you born in that house? LB: Oh, let me see. My brother was the first one born here, and they lived in a log cabin then, they called it Kelly's, it belonged to the, President Kelly, President of his stake. And they lived in there and that's where my brother was born. The older than I, see they brought three children from England and then this first one that was born here was another boy and he was born, he used to say in Kelly's old log cabin he was born, and then my sister and I must have been both born in the adobe house because that's where they finally built and moved from Kelly's. We wasn't born at Kelly's so it must have been in the adobe house. AB: Where was the log cabin? LB: The log cabin was in; well it was right across the street east of the playgrounds. Now they don't have playgrounds there now, but it was about a block east of the courthouse, maybe a little farther. They have an army building there now where this was. But we used to have parades and shows on the fourth of July. I remember my sister and I were both horseback riding in this parade and I went over there to that big square and had a regular show over there after the parade. I was glad I didn't have to ride that horse any 4 farther though because it was really foxy. It had me beat. And I've rode a lot of horses but that one just pranced every time the band would play; you know it was walking on its hind legs and me hanging on. And I said as soon as we got to the square well I'm through with the horse business, I want to get out and watch the show. But my sister that's there at the same time rode a little white horse that a store in Brigham used to pass, take the papers all over town for the people, like the Box Elder News or the Journal, you know, and she'd ride that little white horse around to deliver those papers so that's the horse that my sister rode. And she just rode to beat the band and they had these cowboys and Indians chasing her around that parade ground, or around the flat there, the square there where they had the show, and she just went a tearing around there. I loved to ride horses. I used to ride horse back all the time and enjoy it. There was about five girls I knew in Brigham that their parents had horses and who'd get together and go for a ride. Then my friend Melinda Wright, Bishop Wright's daughter, she had a pony of her own so she didn't have to worry about it. She could go anytime and I'd have to get a horse and then there was a girl up the street from where I lived that got a horse and we three used to go a lot. I've gone to dances and been in all kinds of shows and parades like that and finally we had operettas, we didn't have anything in those days you know, for enjoyment and pleasure for the people and so they'd put on an operetta for the whole stake of Brigham City would do that and I remember our choir leader in the Tabernacle, Mr. Madsen and his wife took part in one of them. That was the Mikado. That was a real good one too and it's still good. And we'd go up to the, well, over the J.C. Penney’s store, I forget what club they had up there, but whatever club it was they would go up there every Sunday and we'd study the part and we'd sing. The 5 singing that had to be done in the operetta and we'd practice that and then we'd have it all ready to go, you know, when they'd start the operetta. We had to learn, we had to just make our own fun and we had a good time, it was really enjoyable. One of the girls would say let's go for a ride tonight after work and we would but my mother wasn't very well. She had heart trouble, and I had to do most of the housework. I'd do the housework, made the beds, I mixed bread at night, let it raise up in the pan overnight and put it in the pans in the morning and I'd almost have to put it in the oven for her but she could take care of it after that and then I'd go up to the shop and work for my dad all day and I guess she got a little better again so that I could go and ride horseback and do those things. We had a good time, a lot of good years. AB: Dad said something about your picking cherries and stuff when you were little. LB: I picked fruit all the time when it was on. I'd get up at 4 o'clock in the morning and a friend of mine, another girl'd call for me and then we'd cut through the hollow and go over to the back of the mountain and pick raspberries and strawberries. When they were gone we'd work for people, we had a list of names where we had to work all summer, so when we'd finish with one place we'd go to another one. This was the fruit that came on then and then the cherries. I used to pick cherries for Nudsen's and we'd have to go down over the track, the Oregon Shortline railroad track. Floyd, that's one of Nudsen's boys, would pick us up in his pickup truck. We'd sit on the floor of the truck. I used to always sit back of the seat where the lines come back and I don't know for why, but I just had them close by me. I thought well if we had a runaway, I'll get hold of the lines and not let them go flying. And so I sat there all the time and we'd go up, we'd walk up the, take our lunches and walk up to the courthouse and sit on that cement railing 6 that was there and wait for Floyd to come and pick us up. Then we'd go down, clear to the depot on Farr Street, turn north around the old cannery and out on the road that we go out to the cherry orchard and we'd stay out there and pick cherries all day long. And we'd come home. And one time we met Floyd up to the courthouse. He had a young team that was quite spry and he'd always drive fast down Farr Street to the depot. So we got in there and I always sat right back of his seat where he'd put the long lines back and I was closer up to him anyhow, I didn't like to be right to the end of the truck. And one day the horses started to running quite fast to what they had done and I kept looking and looking and I thought I wonder what's the matter, I can't see anything that's disturbing those horses and then as I looked and I saw that one of the single trees had broken or come loose or something and that hard iron or wood was a hitting that horse on the leg and that's what was making it run and then that made the other one run and they both, see we'd had a runaway right to the depot. By the time we got to the depot there wasn't many kids left in that cart. The hats was a flying, the lunches were flying all over the road and kids flying out and falling out and myself and another girl, a little older girl was left in the truck with me when we crossed that track. But I thought; well, now when we get to the track, I don't know what's going to happen to Floyd on that, up on that high seat. And it just bounced that thing up and he fell on the ground. Well, I had the lines in my hands, sitting down on the floor of that little pickup truck, driving those horses when they were wilder than sin. We went down around the cannery, the Brigham City cannery and went back on a road to the orchard and this girl that was with me was lots older than I and she was crying, "Oh Father in Heaven, help us. Father in Heaven help us." And I says, "Vivian, I've got to tell you something. Listen to me." I says, "When 7 we get down here to the orchard, if these horses don't turn into the orchard, while they'll go right on north, along the railroad tracks. But there's a place down there, they'll follow the road," I've never been on it but that's what they've told me. 'They follow the road and then cross the track and go up a little hill to get up onto the other high part into the orchards," that’s where they was going, into a lot of orchards. Well, anyway, as we was driving down there she was crying and screaming and I calmed her down as best I could and I says, "Now listen, you watch and see if the horses don't go in the orchard and we go on down to where they cross the railroad track, I'm going to jump out of this rig when we go up that hill. And I've got to jump out over the front wheel, so you get down on your hands and knees, get back where you can put your feet, and hang your feet down and when we come up that hill you start running as fast as you can, but you're clinging to the wagon. You haven't got off of the wagon; you've got your feet down on the ground..." And so she says she would and that's what she did and she got off just perfect but I was the one that took the blow. Oh dear, I had my foot in a sling for a long time. I don't know whether I broke my ankle or put it out of place, but that's what happened. And that's just one episode that we had. We used to have a lot of different things like that happen and we stayed there, laid on the ground, sit on the ground after it had dumped me out and waited and waited. She comes up to where I was and I said "I don't know what I'm going to do. I can't walk home and while we was sitting there talking we saw a buggy come on the same road that we came on and it was the sheriff, Little white, Joseph H. Littlewhite. He came up; he was looking for this to happen. He come up, he found out that the kids on Farr Street had been picked up and their tin buckets and hats and so somebody told them to follow where the truck had gone and when we 8 got up the hill and when he come there he says, "Well," he says, "I had a hunch that there'd be someone up here that needed a ride home," and I says, "Oh I'm sure glad you come. I don't know how I'd ever got home because I've hurt my ankle; put it out of place or something." So he brought me home and that's the end of that scene. But I had a lot of things like that happen. We just, I don't know, it seemed like all the time there was something new, something different, changes, taking care of fruit and then I finally, after all the fruit that we picked, we'd go and pick cherries and sit in the cherry trees nearly all day long on one limb, one big limb loaded with cherries. I mean the one heavy limb and then the other branches out where I could reach. But we picked cherries down in Perry and Willard and down to Nudsen's and everywhere that we could get a job. We had jobs lined up to pick fruit somewhere all the season until peaches come, and when peaches come we wrapped peaches up to Fishburn's and over to Horsley's. And there was a son of the oldest Horsley, I don't know what his name was, but he was in my class in school and he sat right close to me and oh he was a fast wrapper. We'd have the box of peaches in the middle of us or at the side of us and a box right in front of us that was empty and we'd grab a piece of paper and a peach at the same time and slam them together and wrap them and put them in this box. Just as fast as we could go. And that boy, he was just a little runt, he could do it faster than any of us and I used to just stand and watch him. I said, "Oh, if I could wrap peaches like that I'd be worth something." But he died, I'll never forget, he was in my class in the school, the Central school, well he died with something, I don't know what was wrong with him, but this teacher that we had was from back east. She was, her name was Miss Kanale, when Willie died and they had his funeral, I asked her if she'd excuse me from school so I 9 could go to his funeral. And she said "We can't do that dear." She says, "I can't excuse anybody from school. I'm not in that position. You'll have to go to the board of education or something." I said, "Well then I can't go." Well then the afternoon during the time of the funeral, she put a big bouquet of flowers in a vase on his desk and I've remembered that to this day. I don't know, it kind of hurt me because I couldn't go to his funeral and you know, to just sit and look at those flowers, you know, it wasn't very interesting. But we kept busy; I just was working all the time. Now I don't know what to tell you, only that we was in operettas, used to go up to where the Penney’s store is now and the Commercial Club had their rooms up above that and we'd go up there on Sunday and they'd give us the books or the songs for the operettas and we'd sit up there, they'd have a teacher to teach us the songs and we'd learn them long before they had the operetta. And we used to, oh, we used to just love those operettas because Victor Madsen was our Tabernacle Choir leader and him and his wife both were in things like that you know and took part. They were taking one of the leading parts and I used to just love to get in that because I liked to see their act. Oh there's something, it seems like nowadays people, young people think it's so dead, there's nothing to do, there's no place to go. Well we didn't have anything that they've got now, but we had a lot of fun and we had a good time and we went to church all the time. Programs that they'd have, we'd be on them and take part in operettas and shows that they put on. It was real interesting. I enjoyed it and I know the others did. I sure did. We was in the old opera house and then they built a new theater across the street that's tore down now again. We went over there I was there for those plays, but I can't think of anything else to tell you. 10 AB: Did, was Central School where it is now? LB: Yes. It's always been there as long as I can remember. AB: When you went, was it all like in, was everybody in the same class or...? LB: No, there was three stories. There was a basement; my sister went down in the basement. She had a teacher from back east; they didn't have teachers from here. She had a little red bib that had a cup of tea every day for dinner and Tara says that she'd sit there and if she didn't have that tea she couldn't teach. She was just done for. And then the other one that I had was a tall dark-complected girl, Miss Kanale, her name was, and she'd come from back east. And they didn't like the Mormon people. And I guess they didn't like us very well either. I don't know, but I never was mistreated or... disliked her, I liked her alright, but I can remember one thing up there where we were, we was up on the second story I think and we could see the main street, part of it, just crossing the road from looking out the window and there was a big circus in town and we heard the band coming up Main Street and oh, we all got excited. We got on the lookout and we asked her if we could go outside and watch the parade that they had. It had elephants and a lot of things that we'd never seen before. "No, no, I should say not. We couldn't do that." And we just had to sit there and listen to the music and not get up in our seats or anything. But there was two or three of the boys that says, "Oh, to heck with that." They slipped up when she wasn't watching and they'd stand up there and look out of the windows and I know that she got so mad at the sheriff's boy, Joseph Littlewhite's boy Clinton, no, what was his name, it wasn't Clinton, anyway, he stood up in his seat and was looking out of the window. And she said, "Clint, sit down, sit down." But he didn't sit, he didn't hear her, he was listening to the band. And she threw, she 11 was writing on the blackboard, she was clear across the room to the other side, right by the door where the teachers would go out and in, and she took her eraser that she was rubbing on the blackboard and threw it at him and instead of hitting him it hit the blackboard, made a big print on the blackboard and fell on the floor. And then the kids all busted out laughing and she had the whole class to contend with then and down the street the elephants paraded. We got to see a little of them, but not much. But where I sat I couldn't see anything, I had to stay in my seat, I was right next to her desk and if I hadn't I'd have sure got it. So I just listened to what I could hear through the windows the music. But in them days there was things that, oh, you don't see nowadays. It's different, there's such a lot of difference in everything. Then we'd go skating, my brothers would go skating out on this little lake out here and I didn't know how to skate and I just wanted to be with them and going for the fun and so I agreed with them and so I said now I'll get me some skates and you show me how to skate and I went out there and they tried to teach me how to skate and I'd fall down and get wet and get tired and they says, "We're not taking you any more, this is the last time." I said, "Well I'll try and do better next time." "Well you don't get a chance next time." So I tried to learn how to skate but oh it was hard. They had to make a fire just at the edge of the lake to keep us warm. Oh, you would get so cold your feet would be freezing. But still I'd have to go, go out there and try it. And that was fun. That's the things that we'd have for fun see. And they had dances all the time, had a big dance hall there on Main Street where that clothing store is now. And we'd have a dance there every Saturday night and I couldn't miss that for anything. They had an orchestra, a man that knew how to play a violin and he taught two or three of his sons and I don't remember whether he had any of the other 12 people in Brigham play or not, but it was a good orchestra and we'd go up there and dance every Saturday night and I would never miss it. I believe if I'd have had to go alone I'd have gone. Oh I loved to dance. And I've been active and exercised a lot like that all my life. I don't know why I suffer with my legs now like I do. I guess maybe I'm better off them, I don't know. But they say that's the thing to do, exercise and so that's what I did. The dance was wonderful and we had a good time there. AB: Well, like how did you keep food fresh and stuff like that? LB: In cellars, they dug outside cellars that were real cold down in under the ground. What we didn't have at my time, when my parents come here, they had some other arrangement, now what was it, I can't remember, we had, oh they had a basement in their house and they'd have to put food down in the basement I guess, that's the only thing I can remember. I don't know what they did other than that. But we had cows and we had the cows milked and we had to take care of that milk and it was always good. I remember the Hasbro's, a neighbor down over the bridge, had two little girls that liked to walk up and visit with me and they'd come up and sit in a big rocking chair and watch an old television set that I had. Oh they were so interested in that and they would stay a long time and I never cooked dinner. See I'd wait until they came home at night for supper and cook supper, and so I used to make homemade bread all the time. Never fail, I mixed bread until my husband died and then I says this is the last, I'm not going to make bread any more. And I would take a slice of the loaf of the bread and dip it in the cream off of the milk and then sprinkle sugar on it and give a piece to each of those girls and they'd sit, each have a rocking chair to sit and watch these, like the television is now, I don't remember what it was, had something there that they could watch. Anyhow 13 they was watching it and was the best kids. I never even had to look to see if they'd spill anything on the floor. They were so careful. I'd give them a napkin and they never spilled a thing. They just liked to sit and just liked to come up and talk to me and I enjoyed it because I didn't have anybody much living around there you know, there's no company only down over the creek. These people, you know, why they'd come. But that big creek that's there now yet now they've taken the water and they've put it in the reservoir in________ but that creek was roaring with water in the springtime, you know, when it melts. And I remember there was just a plank, a board, a wide board, I don't know how wide it was but it wasn't a foot wide, over that creek and there was no one.: for me to play with when I was a little girl around the neighborhood. There was no children. Only this one boy that lived down over that one creek and I nearly frightened my mother to death. She'd miss me; sometimes I'd say "how if you can't find me and I'm not here I'm down to Freddie's." I went down to Freddie Hillman's and I'd play with him and Mrs. Hillman was tickled to death about that. She'd fix a lunch for us behind them, they had a big range stove that sit out a ways from the wall and she'd make the table under there at the back so we were secluded from where anybody could see on us and a chair to sit by and she'd give us a dinner there. And I worked with her, I kept working for her and after about, I played with Freddie for a long time and she had a daughter that, they had a horse and buggy, a white horse and she'd hook it up and drive to town and she says, "Laura would you like to go to town with me?" Oh boy I'll say I would. So I'd ride uptown with her and ride back and when I came back then I'd help clean up the house and work in the house and when it come springtime, she says, "Now you've got to come and help me house clean." I says, "Oh, I don't know anything about 14 housecleaning and I wouldn't be able to suit you." And she says, "Listen, I've just seen enough of you to know that you can work because you do most of it up to your own home. Your mother's sick all the time." And so I used to do a lot for her like that and help her too. They had a lot of flowers. Her husband was half blind. He couldn't see but he just loved the flowers. I remember there was some tulips planted and were growing and my dad was down there and dad's color blind. He don't know one color from the other, so Mr. Hillman come out there and was looking at his plants but he'd gone blind, he couldn't see. He said, "What color?" Dad says, "Here's a beautiful flower right here." He says, "What is it? What's the name of it?" Oh no, he says, "What color is it?" And dad didn't know colors at all. Like I say, he was color blind and then the man says, "What color is it?" Dad says, "It's black." He says, "Black, a black tulip?" He says, "I've never seen one yet." He says, "Oh, that's a prize." He says, "I'm glad you told me that. I'll maybe can get a lot of money out of that." It wasn't black at all. He couldn't see the colors either. Well, he could see, but he didn't know what the colors were. He couldn't tell, like I said he was color blind. There's one boy in the family, in the whole family of one of the, I don't know, was it a granddaughter or daughter, right now I can't think, but one of her children were color blind, like that. He never tells anybody or nobody would know if it, only his mother. Then when I got a little older I used to sing in the Tabernacle Choir, oh I sang in the ward choir and then we met this Madsen that used to take part in these plays, operettas, on the street and he never said our names or wait a minute girls, he says, "Girlsies," it was always girlsies, and Tallie Lund and I was walking down the street and he called "Girlsies, girlsies, wait a minute, wait a minute, I want to talk to you." So we waited and he come and he says "I've been trying to catch you two for 15 weeks now but I never could get close enough to grab you or I'd have had you," he says, "I want you to come and sing in the Tabernacle Choir." He was the chorister. And I says, "Well, you can count me out. I can't sing at all. I haven't got a tune in me." And Tallie says, 'Oh she's kidding you, she can sing. She sings in the ward choir." But she says, "The Tabernacle choir, don't know about." Well he wanted, Tallie used to sing with a few girls. They'd sing everywhere, she had a beautiful voice. He said, "I want you to come to sing soprano and I want Laura to sing alto." And I said, "Oh Victor, I can't even sing, let alone alto." He says, "Well you won't be there long, I'll guarantee that you can sing alto when you get in that choir." And I said, "Well if you promise me that I'll sure come." So I went and he said, "I'm going to sit you between Sedena Madsen and Hattie Nichols. Now there's two good alto singers. And I'll guarantee that if you sit in between those two women you'll be singing alto before very long." And I did. And I sang alto after that all the time. Never did sing soprano. I sang in the choir until Victor died and then they got another chorister and he died and oh, first, no really the first man that I, the first chorister that they had up there was Segrid Lee, an older man and he died and then they started with Victor and these others, that were younger. There was Cliff Watkins, I think he was, I'm not sure, but I think he was a chorister too. But it was always...we'd walk up to the tabernacle to go to the choir practice, just take it, every Thursday night during the winter time, we'd find a lot of Thursday nights that were bitter cold and if it'd rain or if it'd snow and we'd meet up with that kind of thing to come home. We'd go up there and it was okay, but by the time we'd practice for an hour or as long as it took there, we'd come home quite late some nights and it was just terrible weather. We'd just freeze but we never quit the choir. We just stuck with it anyhow because there was a lot 16 of times that were good and the Sundays that we'd have to go up there and sing. But when we were kids my father and mother joined the church in the old country and coming out here they was to church every Sunday and so was I, the rest of the family. They seen to it that we got there. And so we had to walk up to the tabernacle from our place and you know how far that is. I'd get so tired I just couldn't hardly stand it before I got there, but I kept on until it got easy. It wasn't anything at all to walk up there. And then having, like I say, we used to have the shows, and there was always something, some kind of entertainment for the people. Nowadays if they had to do that, they'd think it was really something. It'd be too hard, they couldn't do it. What else... AB: Tell me about, did anything, with your brothers and sisters, did anything, any special things or holidays. Did they have Peach Days down here? LB: I don't think so, not for a long time, but like I say, I used to go out to the lake with my brothers, -skating and I used to ride horseback. And the first time, I'll never forget how, the first time I took a ride on my brother’s prize horse that he used to ride. He got a big kick out of it, but I didn't. I asked him if I could go for a ride on the horse, I wanted to learn how to ride because there was several other girls in Brigham that were riding, their parents had horses, you know, and they were riding and wanted me to get one and come with them and he says, "Well you can't just go with them the first time you ride because you wouldn't go very far. You'd be tuckered out, you wouldn't be able to walk when you got off the horse'.' And I said, "Well then I won't do that." But there was a girl that was operator in the telephone company and she was about the age of my sister, my older sister, and she said she was going to ask my older sister to ride with her but she couldn't get her for some reason, I don't, she'd gone away someplace, but my older 17 sister never did ride a horse. But anyway, my brother said he'd put me on the horse and he'd saddle*it up and bridle it and get it all ready and then I could get on the horse and go and go with her, she went to collect telephone bills. And I says "Do you have to go very far?" "Oh no "she says, "It’s not hardly at all." Well, I went with her and we went clear down to Perry and Willard and I'd never rode a horse before and my brother had put the saddle and everything, fixed it for me, and so I wouldn't have any trouble. I didn't have any trouble there but it took a long, it took us all day to collect those bills. Well by the time we got home my brother was in the house with the door wide open. We had a, this tall building part for part of it and then we had this lean-to on it and he was laying down on the couch on the lean-to when I come back and I thought, "Oh, I'm not going to call him until I get off the horse and then I'll let him take the horse to the corral and give it some hay. Well I stopped the horse and he heard me say "Whoa" and I don't know whether he could tell that I was having a hard time or not, but I could not get my..., I drove all day and hadn't even tried to get off the horse so I was just stuck. I couldn't get my leg up over that saddle to...oh. I sit there and I tried, and I tried and I tried and the horse wanted to go to the barn and I wanted it to stay and I had two to fight then, myself and the horse too and I tried and tried again and I just couldn't make it. I got so discouraged and I thought well, I wonder where my brother is. He said he'd be here to help me when I got back. I called and called and called his name and he just layed in the house on the couch there laughing. He knew very well what was happening. And I says "Bill, if you don't come out here and help me I'll never do another thing for you." And I was just a scolding him, you know, every way. He didn't come. He just had me on that horse as long as he could, as he wanted to, I guess and then finally he come 18 dragging out of the house and I says, "I knew you was in there but you wouldn't come help me for anything, would you?" And he says "Yes," he says, "I'll come help you." So he come out and he helped me but oh, that was rough. I says, "I'm never going to ride a horse again." And I just kept riding until I got so I just loved it. AB: How would you celebrate Christmas? LB: Well, we always had a Christmas tree. I don't ever remember not having a Christmas tree and we'd decorate it. We could all have the privilege of putting on what we wanted you know, and fixing what we wanted and we'd have the Christmas tree in the corner in the front room and it was really fun. My mother was a good cook when she was able to do it. And at this time when we had, when we were younger and had a Christmas tree she was pretty good then. She had heart trouble but she was getting around and doing anyhow. And she'd make plum puddings, that's a, I don't know why they call them plum puddings; it's something like they make now. It's boiled pudding. She used to tie it up in a cloth and boil it in the cloth in the water you know, and then she'd take it out of the cloth. But she left it in, I don't know if she left it in the cloth until she had it to put on the table, but there was one thing that I never did forget that she did. She never was a woman to have liquor in her house at all but she always had a little bottle of brandy there and that's all she used it for was that Christmas pudding and she'd ah, the kids just enjoyed it because when we'd just break our neck to bring it into the table after she fixed it and she'd pour some of this on the cake and then set it alight, you know how that'll burn with a blue flame? Well she'd do that and then we'd carry it into the table and we thought that was just wonderful. Oh we all got a big kick out of that. And it was such good pudding. She was a good cook. Mother could cook anything. She worked in a 19 restaurant when she was young and learned how to make all kinds of things imaginable. I don't think she'd have been able to if it wasn't for that because her mother died when she was real young and she was with her grandfather and she had to go out to work as soon as she could and she didn't get the privilege of learning how to do all the things in the house like that. AB: Where did they live in England? Your mom and dad... LB: Oh, I'm afraid I can't tell you that. My dad went on a mission there and I've heard him talk of the places where he was so much that I can't, now Lester, I don't know if that's one of the places where he was on his mission or if it's where he lived. But his mother lived there and he went back on a mission to England after they come here and he went to see his brother and I don't know for sure just exactly whether it, if it was Lester or just what it was. But she was quite old when he went back but she never did get over him coming and bringing his family to Utah, you know when she wanted him over there. And she just thought he had joined the worst church on earth. She didn't like it at all. Now I could tell you something but I don't want it on this tape that happened while he was over there. I'll tell you when we get through with the tape, if you don't tell anybody else. AB: Alright, well what religion was she? LB: The mother? AB: Uh-huh. LB: Oh, I don't know what religion she belonged to but she'd been in that religion for many years, you know, she'd got used to it and thought that was the only thing and that he was going right to the dogs when he joined the church and came out here but when he 20 went on a mission she felt a little bit better about it. She got to see him again and talk to him and he told her a lot about what had happened you know since he come here to Utah and she felt better about it but she still was very bitter against the Mormons. Nothing in the world would ever change that I don't think. Well it didn't. She stayed with her own religion and when she died she was the same as she'd always been. AB: Well, you went to Box Elder High School? Or... LB: I went to school; first of all I went to school in an adobe building that was right next to our church. In the same lot but it was just a little bit away from where our church is now. And this was an adobe house. It was a schoolhouse first of all and then when we didn't have schoolhouses any more, they used it for church and for classrooms and stuff you know. So they had that... AB: Okay, tell us some more about the things you'd do for holidays and birthdays and.... LB: Well, you wanted to know about Christmas trees, the boys would go to the canyon where they knew there were Christmas trees and they'd cut them down and bring them for us and we'd decorate them and instead of having candles like we have on them now, they were regular candles like you burn, you know, only small. Then we bought some little holders that would pinch onto the limb to hold the candle but that was very dangerous. A lot of people was burned to death. Children, you know, that wouldn't leave them alone. If they'd leave them alone they were alright, but they'd go and monkey with them and move the candle or tip it or something and start that tree a burning. And so we never did that. We never had any trouble like that, but we always had a pretty Christmas tree. The boys would go and pick it out themselves and bring it home and then we'd all have a hand in it to decorate it. Whatever we wanted to put on it we could put on. And it 21 looked pretty good. There were times and I thought, well that's just beautiful. We've done a good job. Now what else was it? AB: Presents. LB: The what? AB: Would you make all of your presents? For Christmas? LB: Well, they did have a few in the store, different things, you know like stationery and things like that and I don't remember whether we had too much candy. We had nuts, I remember having nuts, but I don't remember having too much candy until we got making our own. We used to make honey candy and make candy, there was something else, I can't remember right now what it was. But we had candy and nuts and oranges, always had oranges, bananas and we had things that we'd save that we thought was pretty to hang on the tree for Christmas. And we'd decorate it and we thought it was beautiful. I remember, this was later days, when Melba and Evelyn first came to live with me, we always had a Christmas tree and we had it in the corner in the dining room instead of the big front room and they went upstairs to sleep up in the upstairs and Christmas morning they hadn't seen the tree. And we'd decorated it, E.K. and I did it the day before, the night before when they'd gone to bed and when they come down in the morning I'll never forget those two girls. They opened the door and they just stood there and looked at that tree. They just, oh, they were so amazed. I know they'd seen Christmas tree down there in the park before but it was just something different, you know and they really were surprised and liked it. But Milton was just a baby when they come to live with me. And I have always wondered why I married a man that had been married before. Course his wife died and their aunt Sarah was taking care of these two 22 little girls and after, before their aunt Sarah died they brought them up to us and wanted to let them visit with us. We told them we'd like to have them live with us you know, so they brought them up and my sister's daughter was there visiting with grandpa and grandma and my husband and I and when they come I cooked dinner for them and so they came and ate dinner and stayed until oh, like 2:00 in the afternoon they wanted to go and get some cherries so they went and E.K. went with them and found some cherries, but while they was gone it surprised me because they went out to the car and Lorraine, my sister from Logan's daughter was there. She was on the lawn on a quilt and was talking to them, you know, and they were quite interested in her and so they just stayed. They didn't even get up to say good-bye to their aunt and uncle and I thought oh dear, that'll be terrible if they find out they've gone and they think that they just didn't tell them. But they did, so I says, "Girls, your Aunt Sarah and your Uncle Hans are leaving. Don't you want to go out and say good-bye to them?" And so they jumped up and run out there and said good-bye to them and came right back and sat down. They didn't act like they cared at all that they didn't go back to American Fork. And they never did go back. They only brought their coats and a doll and I think a couple of dresses and that's all. We had to go back, take them back and get some more, but from then on and at the time they brought them they stayed right with me and they've been with me ever since. AB: Well tell me about how you met grandpa. LB: I met him at a dance hall at the Academy of Music that we liked to dance in so well. This Christensen orchestra, you know, they had the Rage Could Reel every time that there was a dance before the other dancing and we'd always try to make it to that but we 23 were there one night and there was these two boys, two fellows standing over in the corner there and someone was talking to them that I knew and I says "I wonder who they are. They're having a hard time getting acquainted or something," I, another guy from Brigham was talking to them and then one of my girlfriends come to me and she says, "Hey, there's a couple of guys over there. I don't know if you see them standing there talking to so and so..." I can't remember who it was, but I says, "Yes, I saw them standing there but I don't know where they're gone now." She says "well, I found out that they wanted to meet you and your girlfriend." And I says, "Well, I haven't heard anything about it or seen anything about it." But pretty soon somebody brought those two over and made them acquainted with us. So grandpa, no he's not your grandpa, my husband anyhow...asked me for the next dance AB: Yea he is. . . LB: And ah, my head's so mixed up I can't remember nothing. And the other girl that was with me met the other one and the other fellow was a red-head. Just a kind of a tall, lean complected fellow so he met the girl that I was with that night and she lived way down on the other end of Brigham. I lived in the north end and she lived in the south end. And my husband had his big truck...great big truck that he used to drive--just sand and gravel and stuff, you know, with it, it was parked behind the Booth Hotel. That's where he was staying. And we danced with them at that time and then we just forgot them and went on dancing with others and I didn't think any more about them at all until the last dance come and here come your, or here come E.K. and asked me if I, if I'd dance the last dance with him and go home with him. I says, “well I'm not accustomed to doing things like this." I says, "I never just meet a person and let them go home with 24 me, “but I says, "What's Willa Dean going to do?" That's the Nudsen girl that lived way down on the other end. He says, "Well, she says that this other boy that was with him could take her home and we'd all go home together." And I says, "Oh, I don't know about that." I said, "Let's get together and talk it over." So he called his other kid and I called the girl together and I said, "Willa Dean, did you say that you wanted to go home with these two boys? We just met them tonight?" And I said, "I don't believe in that. I want to know them a little better before I go home with them." And she said, "Oh, it'll be fun Laura:" She says, "They've got a truck and we can ride home in that truck." And I thought it was a pick-up or one of those trucks they used to have with the wide sides, you know, and she said, "Oh I just think that'd be fun." She says, "Oh," she kept coaxing me, "...come on, come on, let's go home with them." And I said "Well I don't know. I just, I don't know. I don't think, I don't care much for either one of them. I don't want to go home with them." "Oh..." she kept a coaxing me. She said, "Just for the fun of it, just to ride in that truck." And I said, "Well, that's not much fun to me." Well, anyhow, she talked and talked until finally I gave in and we walked up from the Academy of Music, that was north on Main Street, up to the Booth Hotel and as we walked along she kept on saying, "What kind of a truck is it you've got?" And E.K. would say "You'll find out when we get there." He' says "Don't get excited. Don't worry about it, you'll find out when you see it. And you'll remember it for a long time." Well, when we got up there, low and behold it was a great big gravel truck like, you know, like they haul sand and cement and all that stuff in, that's what he was doing, hauling gravel. And it was back of the hotel and he says, "That reminds me I let the water out of the motor” or engine or whatever they put it in and he says "I've got to put water in it before we can travel, so I'll 25 have to go back there. You go over in the hotel and I'll go back and get the truck in line and then when I get it fixed I'll drive around the front of the hotel and you come out and get in." And that's what we did. Well it turned out that we just sat in the seat. We girls sat in the middle and they sat on the outside and I thought, well, Willa Dean coaxed us to take her home first. And I don't know who she wanted to go home with. We just figured that we were going home with these two and it didn't matter which, you know, which we were with which, but we wasn't with them at all. We just sort of sit in the seat and rode with them, but when she got out to go to the house, it was E.K's truck so he was driving the truck and I was sitting next to him as it happened, so this fellow got out and helped her out, took her up to the house and he said, "Now you don't need to pick me up." He says, "I'll walk back to the hotel." So E.K. says "Okay," he just turned the truck around and brought me home. There was ice all over the ground where we stopped out in front of our house and then in those days there was a little saying that you was sitting, ah, sitting pretty. You were sitting pretty and he'd been saying this, sitting pretty and that's sitting pretty and oh I wished he'd cut that out, I'm sick of that. So when he got out of the truck to help me out he got out on the side that was facing the street and I was on the other side so he walked all around the truck to get over to where he could help me down off the truck. I couldn't get down myself it was so darn high, and there was ice around the front of the truck where he went and he slipped and fell right on his face. And I looked out of the truck and I says, "Now who's sitting pretty?" He got to laughing about it and I laughed. I got out and he took me to the door and said goodnight and that was it. AB: Then when did you see him again? 26 LB: I don't remember how long it was after that but he was working here in town, hauling gravel and sand and cement. Now I worked uptown and Willa Dean worked at the courthouse. And this one night we hadn't seen them at all since then. Well, she came out of the courthouse and asked me if I'd walk back over to the reminder office to get some cards or something and I told her I would. So we walked up from the hotel, there was a crossing there, crossing the street and as we was walking across the street I says, "Oh, here comes that big truck. I bet a dollar those guys are in there." And we got right square in the middle of the road about the same time the truck got there and it was grandpa, or not your grandpa, yes it was your... AB: Yea, it was my grandpa... LB: And I can't think the right things... anyway he stopped and he had coveralls on and before he could say scat he was big and fat and that's why I didn't like him. This big fat guy. And before he could say scat he had those coveralls off and rolled up and stuck behind the seat so he wouldn't get us dirty sitting by us because he knew we had to go home and he'd take us home. So that's what he did. He was going to take us home, take her home and then take me home but she says "where do you go with the gravel? Where do you get the gravel and where do you take it?" And she had to see all about it and he says "Well all you have to do is sit in this truck and I'll show you." So he took us up to the sand pit where he got the gravel and sand and there was quite a slope up the hill to get to it so we went up there and loaded the truck with the gravel and then we turned and come down the hill again and coming down the hill, you know how they'll pop, backfire, whatever they call it, I don't know, but anyway it was a popping all the way down that hill and Willa Dean was a laughing she just giggled her head off and was 27 laughing about it and we got to laughing and had quite a good time, fun, and then we went, I forget where we had to deliver the gravel. We went up the sand pit to get it and we delivered it out west here somewhere and I said "Oh boy, I should be home. I've got to go home, mother's expecting me." I had to do something that night and he says, "Well, I'll get you home in just a few minutes." He says, "I'll take Willa Dean, we'll take Willa Dean back home or down to her home and then I'll take you home." So that's what we did. And it was quite a while after that, I didn't see him for quite a while after that. But it just finally, we finally got together just alone together and then he had a car and he tore that car all down and made it, what they called a bug. They have kind of a little, kind of a smart looking little "bug" without a top on it or anything. He made one of them and that's what he'd taken me out in, that bug. That's all I'm going to tell you about. AB: When you and grandpa were first married, what did he do for a living? LB: Well he, like I say, he, the truck he had in Brigham, he worked with trucks. He used to do trucking and then when we got married I had told him I couldn’t go back up. He was up in Alexander, Idaho. They were building a big dam up there, and he had to go down through a field a long ways and over the river to where they put the gravel in them I think they was getting there and sending it to Alexander. It was, they were building the Alexander dam then and he’d be down there. Then when he'd get through with the work down there he'd just cut up through the fields to come up to the house where I was. I was in a little farm house with a girl, lived there alone her and her husband and her husband would go out and work on his farm, he had a big dry farm there, and he'd go out and work on the dry farm. She said she had driven six head of horses lots of times and it was interesting I got a letter from her the other day from Georgetown, Idaho and 28 she's in a crippled up condition too. But that's where he went was back to that dam. And they didn't have any place for me anyway. So he had to find some place to move his trailer in order for me to come up there but I told him "I said I'd take care. I had promised to take care of my sister when she had her baby." Which I did and he let me do that because I never expected anything like this and when he went back up there then when I got where I could come I got on the train and went to, now I can't think of the place. But as far as I could go on the train I got on and he was there to meet me with the car and he took me down the road quite a ways towards Georgetown from where the train was and then we cut through sage brush to, I don't know how far, quite a ways and got down to her, to the farm where he was. He was staying with them and what they did, she gave up her bedroom to us and they slept on a couch that they had there that would unfold in the dining room and then she had a kitchen and she's a wonderful cook and she just used to feed us, oh if I had just one of her dinners, I'm so sick of this hospital, it'd be wonderful. And we stayed there for, oh , until the job was over. I can't remember how long it was. But we stayed there and then we went from there over to Georgetown. That's south on the way to Montpelier, Idaho and he got a job there on a road so we had to have a place to stay then. We drove around and I said, "Oh, I know a girl that lives here." That was Melinda Wright, Bishop Wright's daughter in Brigham, had a cousin up there and she used to come over and play with us lots of times and I wondered where she lived. So I told him that I used to know this girl and maybe she could tell us where we could get a place to stay so we went down to her place and she lived on the corner, and she was a sister to the man that was married and lived over here where there was a bigger house. And she says, "I don't have a thing Laura, if I did I'd sure let you have 29 it." But she says, "You can go over to Siles..." That was Silas Wright, she says, "You go over to Silas Wright and ask him if he's got any place that you can go into or you can live with them." When we got there he says, "I don't know a place in town that you could rent." But he says, "I'll tell you what I'll do," he says, "We have one room," it was kind of a square house and they had a room on the northwest corner that they just kept to raise little chickens in and they never used it at all for anything else. They'd scrubbed it and the floor was scrubbed white, the boards. And when we went in there he says, "Oh, I'd give anything to have a place to rent to you but I haven't got a thing." And so we was kind of discouraged and his wife says, "Well," she says, "Now we have got one room in that house that we don't use. Do you have any furniture?" "No," we didn't have a thing. We didn't have a stove, we didn't have a table or anything to sit on or anything. So Silas, he was a real good fellow, jolly, nice guy, and he was in the Stake Presidency of the church. He said, "I'll tell you what, I'll take your husband and we'll go all over this little place of Georgetown and ask people that I know if they've got a chair that they don't use or a small table that they don't use or a cupboard of any kind and the things that's necessary for you. Just that you'll have to use while you're here. Then when you go you can hand them all back again." So they got in the truck and went and gosh, it don't seem like they was gone an hour and they came back with that loaded clear up...you never saw such a lot of furniture. A stove and a chairs and table. A lot of things I really didn't need. But we fixed it up and I bought some material to make curtains and stuff to separate the food from the table and we were there until that job was done. It was a road job there. When we got through with that we took all the things back and moved on to Montpelier and we lived there for a while...no we didn't live there. He just 30 got a bright idea that he'd take fruit up there and rent this building that was empty and sell fruit. See because he could haul it from Brigham back and forth and load that place and get somebody there to take care of it and sell it and I'd go with him back and forth and fix some lunch for us and we'd stop in the canyon to eat and we'd stop "In the canyon and sleep on the ground or anywhere and one night it started to rain. It was just about like this here and I said "What on earth will we do? We haven't got a place to stay, there's no place along the road because we were going through the canyon..." He says, "Well I remember a little house up in there somewhere and I think it's right on the road where we go into Montpelier." And he says, "If we can find that," he says, "maybe when the lightning flashes and I can see the house, we might find it, but otherwise I don't know how we will." But we wound up, went farther up the canyon, it's just under, the steep grade that we had to go up, the road that went up the steep grade and I says, "Oh let's stop. Stop right here, we can't go up that grade with that rain. It's running right off the road and we'll slip right off the road and go over into the creek." And he said, "Well that's a good idea," he says, "I think we'd better stop." So he just stopped and drove off the road just a little ways and the lights of the car shone on a little tiny cabin about as big as a chicken coop, no it wasn't as big as a chicken coop. It was just a little bit bigger than these outside places, you know. Oh we got that in sight anyhow. He says, 'you sit here in the car, don't get out" he says, "sit here until it stops raining." Oh it was lightning, ooh, everywhere outside I wanted to just black it out and I was scared to death of lightning. I didn't, I didn't dare sit there long in the dark when it was storming like that and he got in the cabin, it was just a little, oh a little square thing. If we measured it off straight then just this much here was bigger than that was. It was 31 about..., oh there was a little place in the corner and it was boarded, it was up high. There was rats and mice in there. And when we got in there I says, "Oh, I know where I'm going to be all night. Just fighting these rats and mice I could never go to sleep." He says, "Well boy I'm going to sleep. I'm laying right down on this floor and I'm going to sleep and you'd better do the same." I said, "Well you sleep and I'll guard to see that nothing comes to hurt you." And he did, he laid down and went to sleep, sound asleep but I never slept a wink. I just shut the door and watched for mice and rats and everything like that and I got so tired I couldn't hardly stand it. I thought well if it was a little bit lighter I'd go out and sit in the car and sleep but I 'didn't do that because it was so pitch black dark I couldn't find it. And I didn't have a flashlight or anything so we stuck it out in there all night long. And there were corn cobs. They'd been in there eating I guess, maybe cooked them a bonfire or something, whoever was there last and they had left corncobs, what's left of them when they take the corn off, all over the floor in there and that's what was harboring these mice and stuff, so I started picking them up and throwing them out and I had a big pile of them out there and then I thought if I just had a broom to sweep this out. I hate to see him lay on the floor with those mice and rats coming in to eat here. But nothing hurt him like that. And so, like I say, I thought I'd go out and sit in the truck, but I didn't. I stayed in there and I don't know how I stood it, there wasn't a chair to sit on or nothing. AB: Did you get your fruit delivered? LB: Well that was out in the car, it was covered, and everything was okay out there, yeah. The next morning, it stopped raining during the night and just before morning when it was dark, I couldn't see what it was, but I could hear people talking and walking and 32 they was coming down that dirt way and they had to pass right by the cabin just as close as can be and so, ...and they got right down by the cabin and it was still dark and they went right on. I didn't know how far they, probably walked clear to the bottom of the canyon road and this was, it was just wet. I remember the next morning I just was scared to death to go up that hill. It was so slippery. I was afraid we'd slide right off on the canyon road. But we got up there alright and we sold our fruit. And we went over, it was just noon and somehow I always used to fix a lunch when we'd leave Brigham to have either that night or the next morning or part one time and part the other and so we had the, I'd already... .no we waited until we got to Montpelier and we drove off into the some kind of a field where they had horses and cows you know in the pasture there and we drove into a gate there and shut the gate and we had to all, arrange his a, he'd got a better truck then, a little bit bigger one with wire sides and he wanted to get the cases up in one place so it was away from the fruit so he could get off it and we got that arranged and fixed there in that place and stayed there that next night and then we drove over to Montpelier and then there was one big store there that used to buy every bit of fruit that we had left. so we didn't have any hard time at all to get rid of the rest of it. We took it up there and we used to...I used to know the man's name but I can't remember it now. But anyway we'd get groceries for the fruit that we could use to make our lunch and that day, when it rained so hard that time, we went up there and he didn't talk to us then. He was so nice and he said "Well, I've got a store right across the street empty that I rent." He says, "Why don't you haul your fruit up here, don't stop and sell it along the road. Bring it up here, put it in that store, rent the store, put it in there and hire someone to sell it . You could be hauling it back and forth 33 and that's all you'd need to do. Take care of the accounts and see that everything's sold and done up right..." And I said, "That sounds like it'd be a good idea," so that's what we did. But we used to have some left over and we'd especially drive over to Silas and Ira that we'd stayed with and oh they were tickled to death to get some fruit, just what was left over. And they were nice people. Real nice, he was in the Stake Presidency and he was related to Melinda the girl that I used to...Bishop Wright's daughter. So I knew him, I felt like I knew him all my life. And another cousin of hers that lived on the corner there too so I didn't feel quite so lost in Georgetown as I did in Montpelier. In Montpelier, I didn't know anybody there. But he got that store and sold fruit there for a long time. And then, I don't know, something happened and he got, he decided he'd go down to the market, in Salt Lake, you know, they had the big market there where they had fruit. He'd take it down there. All he'd, well, there's two places. He'd take it there and somewhere else, I can't remember where that other place was, but one was right down quite a ways out and they had all kinds of fruit there. But they sell it, it wasn't nothing so they'd just buy it just like that and we'd get done and we'd have to go back up home, round up the fruit, tell them we were coming in the morning to get it or get it that night and get ready to go back again to go to Montpelier but we quit going up there entirely and we didn't go up any more. Then after that we got another road job, I don't remember where that was, where he went, but we could kind of, it was closer to Brigham so we got settled out in mothers house, that big adobe house and lived there and then when, oh you'd said something about Nolton...when Noel was born we lived there, I know I remember and I ha…my brother build a big brick house right on the corner, yea it was right on the corner of the adobe house and my brother built it and he and his wife lived in it. His wife was 34 real good. She was good with sickness and taking care of sick people as well as everything. She could do anything. She was a girl from Ogden, but they had lived in Brigham, that's where my brother met her and so she says, “Laura," they didn't have hospitals or places where women had a baby, so she says, "Laura, if you want to come here and have your baby, I'll take care of you. You can have any doctor that you want_____________________ and the baby can be born here and you can have it taken care of." And then she says, "When that's over with why you can go back to your own, an apartment that I have with mother and dad." And we did that for a long time and I don't remember how long we lived there but anyhow it got to a point where we bought this place that we're living on now. It was just a piece of ground. He had an idea he wanted to get some chickens, have a lot of chickens on that piece of property and we built some big coops there, and they're still there. That's what he did but they may be coming down now. AB: Well was dad born in Harrison's house, or your brother's house? LB: He was born in my brother's house, right on the corner, that red brick house. I'll tell you who lives there now. AB: Harrisons. LB: Harrisons, the eye doctor. Well, I don't know, he don't doctor, but he had his eyes doctored. AB: And he was, dad was born in that house? LB: That's where he was born. And when he was born his hair was about that long, black as coal and my brother's wife, she says, "Oh, I've got to do something with this baby's hair. 35 I don't care whether you care or whether he cares. I've got to cut it. I can't have this long hair." I says, "Do what you want with it, I don't care." So she trimmed it straight across so it wasn't so long, but it was black as coal. And my girlfriend that lived across the street, she was married and her and her mother, her mother lived right next door, so they had a kitchen at the back where he was born, in the kitchen. And the next room had sliding doors on it, it was their dining room and they were parlors, something like mine, lengthwise this way and...1 forgot what I was telling you now... AB: About when dad was born... LB: Oh, so Esther put him in a nice little baby bed, just a little bassinet thing, you know, in between the sliding doors and the kitchen and I wasn't there. Oh yes I was too, I was still in bed, had to lay in bed 14 days. And she said, well, she told Esther, she called on the phone, she says, "I'm coming over to see Laura and that baby. I've heard so much about him. I can't wait to see him." And so her and her mother came over and when they opened the front door and came over and took a look in the bassinet, Callie just screamed out, "Oh my God, that's the best looking baby I've ever seen in my whole life." I could hear her in the bedroom and I thought, Oh dear, now the whole town knows that I've got a beautiful baby. But she never got over that. She says, "Such a beautiful baby!'' It just is impossible. I don't think you or E.K. could have a baby that good looking." And I says, "Well it's nothing to do with me. I didn't do anything, it's his dad." But now, he had to, we went to the canyon a lot then, you know, for sports and to take a dinner and go up there and eat. And we went up there one time and he had, he used to wear sharks.. I don't know what they called them, pants that kind of bloused a little around the knee and they were tight around the leg.... 36 AB: Knickers... LB: And they'd wear long boots or something with them and I can't remember what they'd call them, but he had this suit on and he was standing right there by the creek. Somebody was taking a picture at the time but this picture, somebody had that at my place before I came down here but I can't think where in the world it was. I have some pictures that Milton took of my dad from here that Mr. Wright had sent down here to me. A picture of dad when he was on his mission and maybe that's where...maybe that's where I saw this picture. It was him taking in the canyon that day he was up there and he looks just exactly like his dad. You couldn't tell the difference. AB: It was grandpa? LB: You couldn't tell whether it was Milton or... AB: Up in the canyon? LB: It was grandpa. AB: Grandpa. LB: Grandpa that was up in the canyon but you couldn't tell the difference between him and Milton right now. It looked just like him. But I don't think that he looked that much like him only at that time. I don't know if it was when he was younger or first married, or if he got older and looked different then. But everybody, ever since that baby was born, have raved about his good looks and good looking hair. And after that it was about conference time, Salt Lake Conference time, you know, and we was watching the conference, sitting there watching that and when it was over with and there was no more conference, I was laying down, at least about 3:00 when, from 3 to 5, two hours 37 the doctor treated me for this osteosclerosis I've got in my back. Didn't have, when my leg broke, that's what caused that. And we were sitting there and Milton says, or Evelyn says something about a girl that she'd seen that, oh there's some flowers for the lady and she... AB: You were talking about when Evelyn and Dean came up... LB: Oh yes... AB: For conference… LB: And listened to conference. And after conference they were just talking and Evelyn said that she'd seen a girl in Salt Lake somewhere, that was talking to her, she was a goodlooking girl and she asked about Milton, where he was and what happened after school days, you know, she was telling that and Milton couldn't place her at all. He says, "I can't remember that girls name, I can't remember how she looks or anything." She says, "Well you've got your class books, haven't you?" And he says, "I've got them somewhere here in the house but I don't know where they are now." And I said "Well I can tell you right where they are. I can tell you where they are if you want them." So I told him and they went and got the three class books and I don't know what happened to the other one, whether he got another one or not, but there was only the three and they opened this book and saw these names and the girls name was in there so when Milton saw that he still couldn't remember. He said, "I don't remember that girl at all." Because she had told Milton, or told Evelyn that she went to high school with him, she knew him and she says "Gosh he was a good-looking fellow." She says "All the girls was crazy about him and wanted to go with him but he had a steady girl then, but when he went to the Lincoln School down here as just a kid, he was only just, oh, a boy about 38 10 years old I guess, there was four girls, oh not every night, but it seemed to me like every night. They'd come from school a little later than school. They'd come over in that big ditch, you know, that goes across it and stand over there and call Milton and we could hear them and one time when he had his leg broken and was laying there with that light on he says, "Those girls are over there calling me. They'll be over here in a few minutes, I'm going to the basement." And I says, "No you're not, you're going to stay here and keep that lamp on your leg or you're going to have trouble." He says, "Well then you're going to have to go over there and tell them that I'm not home because I don't want them over here." And that's been hounding him to death all the time. And he'd sneak somewhere, then one day when he got better they come and was calling "Milton" and I thought they'd come over to the house but I don't know, I think they did once or twice but he says, "Oh, there they are again." He says, "I'm going to go out the back door and go around through the hall." That's when there was nothing back there, this house next door was just a hay field, and it had cows over there and he says, "I'll cut through the back down to Hall's, I'll go over to Hall's and don't tell them where I am." He'd go down there all the time and play with Jeff and Dennis and then they had the, the big garden, vegetables and stuff and they'd take them in an express wagon all the time and sell them and Milt used to go with them. They treated each other just like brothers and sometimes they'd cuss him up one side and down the other and he'd cuss them back. And they enjoyed each other, they just thought the world of each other. And they took that, they took vegetables all over town and sold them and he'd come back home and give the money to his dad. But he wasn't much for girls. He just hated to have a girl 39 chase him. He said "I don't want nothing to do with them." Except for your mother. Have you heard her story about meeting him? AB: I think I have... LB: I shouldn't tell you, but it was on that order. He'd been in the army and he come back...well he was in the Air Corp but he didn't fly over. He was called back to Bridgekin, Texas and it nearly broke his heart. He didn't know what was the matter. He had graduated and then he got a letter that said he had to come back to Bridgekin, Texas. He says, "I wonder what's the matter." He says "You got the wings, I got the wings, all those that got the wings had them." And he said, "I got released to come home and he had the exercises in and everything. Not what in the world do they want me back there again?" It was the worst place in the world because it was so dry there. There's no water down there anywhere. And I says, "Well the only thing you can do is to wait for your notice to do what you have to do." That's before he had to fly. On one morning early though there was a notice from the railroad, a telegram said Milton Brown on it. A guy brought it down to the door so on Sunday morning and of course everyone was in bed and so I went to the door and got the note and told him I'd give it to him and so I took it to the bedroom door and I said, "Milton, I've got a note for you from the railroad. Do you want to come out and get it or should I open the door and give it to you?" He says, "Well, I just jumped out of bed," he says, "I'm not dressed so just hand it to me through the door." So I give it to him and there was not a sound. Him and that boy had just talked a little bit about it but there was nothing said that was jolly or lively or happy that he was, all he was waiting for was his orders to go back to...oh where was it... AB: Bridgekin... 40 LB: North Carolina, South Carolina, some place, to get with his crew to fly over. He'd gone to the schools all over the United States and the last place he went to was Big Springs, Texas and that's where he graduated from. So now he was ready to fly over. And he couldn't wait for that time. But it just seemed like he wasn't to go because he didn't get no orders then to come back to where he was to meet with the crew until after he'd been home for 2 or 3 days and then he got that and apparently he had to come and meet with the crew and fly over and he was tickled to death. Oh he was happy. And he got up to the, or went to the state where he was supposed to go to and the war was over. It ended right there. And was he mad! Oh, that was another disappointment. He had two disappointments. But he got a beautiful overcoat to wear and that's in my basement and I'll never forget how he was, I, if it'd been me I'd have worn it anyhow. But there's a fellow here in town and he's a drunkard and he's a no-good, hasn't made anything of himself at all. But just jealous of other boys, you know, and I think he was about* the same age as Milton, he didn't graduate from high school, he didn't do this or that, you know, like Milton had gone in the Air Corp. He just puttered around drinking and so he went up to the Idle Eye with, I think it was your mother, I don't know, some girl he had, it might have been Phyllis Seederhall, he went with her, but anyway he went in and they had had the ice cream or whatever they was going to have____________ got and just was going to go out the door when this fellow came up to him and insulted him right in front of his girl and the people that was standing there and Milton was so embarrassed, he says, "I felt like knocking him down right there." But he says, "I knew better than that so I didn't do it." He says, “we just went walking out and paid no attention to him." I says, "Well that was the best thing you could do, that was the only thing you could do." 41 But from that day to this, he's never... that was Clay Harper and I don't think you know him. He's still very different I think. His mother was sick and home where she was living and I says, "Now just to compare her son and mine. He just went there and lived, had her waiting on him and he was drinking and carousing around and worrying her to death." And I says, "I don't think... if I'd have been..." oh then he took the overcoat off and hung it in the basement in the coat place down there and it's still there. He never wore it after that. He just felt so embarrassed about him insulting him right in front of people you know in town there but he never said a word to him, he just took off the overcoat so he didn't have that to storm about every time he'd see him. I says, "You know what I'd have done if that'd been me?" He says, "I don't know.” And I says, "I'd have worn that and I'd have made it a point to…..” 42