Oral History Program David O. Peterson Interviewed by Lynda Sue Carver 8 March 1973 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah David O. Peterson Interviewed by Lynda Sue Carver 8 March 1973 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: Peterson, David, an oral history by Lynda Sue Carver, 8 March 1973, 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 David. O. Peterson. The interview was conducted on March 8, 1972, by Lynda Sue Carver, at the American Legion in Huntsville. Peterson reminisces about teaching at Ogden High School and serving as Dean of Boys. He also discusses other memories and talks about World War I. A poem entitled “The Sheepherder’s Lament” is included. POSTSCRIPT There is a very detailed and lucid description of the history of the Thrashing of wheat. It tells each mechanical development of the thrasher. This information is on the tape for your perusal. POSTSCRIPT 2 The Sheepherder's Lament I've summered in the Tropics with the yellow fever chill. I've keen down with the scurvy. I've had every ache and ill. I have wintered in the Arctic, frostbitten to the bone. I've been in the Chinese dungeon where I spent a year alone. I've been shanghaied on a whaler and stranded on the deep But I never knowed what misery was... til I started herding sheep. The camp boss now is two weeks late, the burro dead three days The dogs are all sore footed but the sheep have got to graze 1 They won't bed down until after dark and they're off before the dawn With their bahing and their blatting...they're scattered and they're gone. I smell their wooly stink all day, I hear them in my sleep Oh, I never knew what misery was until I started herding sheep. My feet are sore, my boots worn out I'm afraid I'll never mend. I got to where a horny toad looks like a long Lost friend. The Spanish Inquisition would have been a whole lot worse If instead of Crucifixion, they'd of had some sheep to nurse. Old Job had lots of patience but he got off pretty cheap. He never knew what misery was for he never did herd sheep. It's nice enough to tell the kids of the big old horny ram The soft-eyed gentle ewe and the wooly little lamb It's nice to have oyuor mutton chops and your woolen clothes to wear But you never stop to govi a thought to the man who put them there. Blessed are the blind and deaf and the cripples who creep! They'll never know what misery is for they never will herd sheep. LC: Tell me about the first school house which you remember in Huntsville. DP: I guess the first school here was conducted in a covered wagon located on the South side of Huntsville down in the river bottoms. A lady by the name of Mrs. Hammond had a few youngsters there and was teaching reading. The next one was built up on the Public Park. 2 It was located on the South side of the park, a little towards the Eastern corner. I personally interviewed three students who attended that school. They were Joseph Smith, Albert H. Garner and S.P. Peterson. As they described the school to me, and as I recall from their description, it was a log house with a dirt floor approximately 12' by 15' in dimension. They had just straight homemade out of plank, benches to sit on and a man by the name of Mac Donald was the instructor and they held forth there until Spring. As I recall, this was in the 1850's. I asked them about tuition and S.P. Peterson said, "yes" he had to pay tuition. He said, "I took one sack of potatoes, one sack of cabbage, one sack of carrots and that was my tuition." At first they tried to have a little bonfire under the rim, building the fire under the frame of it, hoping the smoke would go on the outside and the heat would come on the inside. But that didn't work out very well and they finally got ahold of an old pot belly stove and put it in there. LC: Did somebody donate that? DP: That I don't know. It was in the 1920's when I interviewed these gentlemen and they've long since gone to Joseph. Well, then the next thing, the town's people here had built what was known as the Old Rock Schoolhouse which they used until the latter part of the 19th Century. They built another school in 1902 which was a two story affair with a basement underneath it. That stood there until just a few years ago when this new one was built. LC: Tell me about the Opera House that they had in the old school building. DP: In this old rock house, after they had abandoned it for school purposes, they built an addition on the back of it and put a stage on it. There they had local dramatic functioning’s. They also put a balcony in the back part of it so it would accommodate the 3 people and there again I attended a number of the local performances. They operated there for quite some time. Then after they tore out the balcony, it was used for a roller skating rink for some time. LC: Tell me about other schools in the area. DP: In Middleton, we used to call it Springtown, they conducted school up there. It was a brick house standing up the lane. Then they consolidated the school and they started then what we now call bussing. At that time they hauled them in a covered wagon. It went up and down what is known as the North lane and down the South lane. They brought those youngsters down here to the school in Huntsville. It was a covered wagon and they had a stove in it to keep the youngsters warm. It was nicknamed by the youngsters, "The Dummy". LC: Did the teacher live here in Huntsville? DP: Oh, yes, they all lived here; some of them rented houses and some of them boarded out. LC: What about it being the first free public school? DP: Well, there was a question in my mind and that was why i interviewed those people. I spent some time down at the archives of the Deseret News looking this thing up. I learned there that down in American Fork, they had what they called a free public school—free tuition. But there was always a question in my mind whether these people who had to give produce—if that was tuition. There was no money involved and of course vegetables and produce then were used as the medium of exchange and so it was never settled whether that was a free school or a tuition school. LC: But there wasn't any money paid? It was all produce? DP: It was all produce and no money involved in it. 4 LC: What is the monument on the Huntsville Square? Who is that to? DP: That monument on the Huntsville Square is to a lady, Mrs. Smith. They called her a midwife, and I guess, she delved and attended to and brought more children into the Valley than all the doctors since. LC: Was Huntsville set up on the Platte System? DP: No, the Platte Mines closed. LC: Did you ever visit the old Platte Mines? DP: No, the mines closed before my time. I visited several times to the place where they had been. This was in the 1900's. There was still a store with the old dance hall above it and one or two buildings there, but the industry had long since folded up. LC: What did they mine there? DP: They mined silver and galena. LC: What's galena? DP: Well, that's a metal. LC: Was it a boon town like the buildings indicate? DP: Yes, this is hearsay again, but some of the people I talked to said at one time there were a thousand people up there—miners and the like. It was strictly a hard rock mining town. LC: Tell me about your teaching career. DP: In the fall of 1923 I taught down in Sanpete County, Mt. Pleasant High School down there. LC: What subjects did you teach? DP: I taught American History, Civics, Sociology, Economics, seven classes a day with about 30 students and then I had to run the bookstore in relation to that and be assistant coach. LC: What did you coach? 5 DP: Football and basketball. LC: How long did you teach there? DP: I was there one year then I transferred to the Ogden High School in the fall of 1924. LC: What did you teach in Ogden?' DP: In the Social Science Department. LC: How long did you teach there? DP: From 1924 until I took sick leave in 1952. LC: During that time you were Dean of Boys weren't you? DP: Yes, I was kicked up to the front office in 1942 and the last ten years was Vice-Principal and Dean of Boys. LC: Tell me about getting the first blind student there. DP: Well, as I recall, a teacher from the Blind School by the name of Green brought a little blind girl over and was going to try her out for teaching. She was registered and took one or two classes there, particularly a class in American History. It wasn't very long after they had led her around a couple of times until she could navigate from one classroom to another and she made her grades. A rather interesting thing, they gave her an examination, it happened to be my brother-who was teaching-and of course, she couldn't read it so he handed her the paper and she took it over to the blind school. Mr. Green put the thing in braille. But it was laughable, she came back with her answers all written out in braille and the teacher couldn't read them. But Mr. Green was kind enough to come over and interpret them. After that they sent a boy over there. That was broken through. (This is the first time a blind student attended a public school. It opened the way for the same to 6 take place from this time forward.) It was a wholesome thing for both the school and the youngsters. LC: And the other students learned that blind students could get along and the blind students found out that they could make it. DP: Yes, the other kids accepted them and knew what their problem was and I suppose if they saw one coming up the stairs, they would give them the right-of-way. But they never took a minutes trouble with any of them. LC: So, this girl graduated from Ogden High School? DP: I don't recall whether she did or not. I think not. LC: Do you remember her name? DP: No, I don't. LC: Tell me something about the way that people made their living in Huntsville. DP: The people themselves were largely agricultural. Most of them had three or four to a dozen milk cows and the milkman would come around in the morning and gather up their milk and haul it down to the creamery. They had a big creamery at the forks of the road between Eden and Huntsville. There it was run through a cream separator and they kept the cream and sent the skimmed milk back. LC: To whom? DP: To the ones who had produced it. The milkman made two trips. In the first he came in the morning and gathered the milk and then he brought the skim milk back. The skim milk was used to feed their hogs and most of them had some hogs...and a few chickens and they raised a few cattle. LC: What did they do with the cream? 7 DP: The creamery made it into butter. LC: And then they sold the butter? DP: They sold it to the whole county and to Ogden City. LC: How many people were in Huntsville at the time the Rock School finally got built? DP: Well, it's hearsay with me, but they said at one time about the turn of the Century there should have been between 1000 and 1200 people living here. LC: That's more people than are living here now isn't it? DP: That's about twice what they have now. LC: And all of those people had small farms? DP: Most of them had a little farm. LC: Was Huntsville set up on the Platte System? DP: Yes, it was laid out and I should remember who laid it out, but it was laid out in ten acre squares which included the road and the alley behind. LC: And that was enough for what, a garden? DP: No, it was very unique. The people lived here in a central community but their farms were all located on the outside around the circumference of the town itself. Of course, on their lots, they were divided up into 3/4 acres on which they raised vegetables—potatoes, cabbage and things—which could supply them through the winter. LC: And then they would store those and use them through the winter? DP: Yes, they would pick them and then put them in their root cellars or just cover them with straw and dirt to keep the frost from getting on them. LC: How did Huntsville develop from where this many people lived to its present state? 8 DP: Well, the lots haven't changed in the town itself. They're still 3/4 acre lots but the farms outside have been consolidated into a larger tract. LC: Are the people that are living here in Huntsville now, by and large, the descendants of the people who lived here before? DP: Well there are still a number of them but the old families are dwindling out. LC: Who are some of those? DP: The Wangsgard’s, the Johansen's, the Berlin's, the Renstrom's, the McKay's, James Peterson and his family, and, of course, myself. That's all I can think of now. LC: Have you heard any stories about when Utah became a state? DP: Yes, I've heard Dad telling the story about the man by the name of Francen who was a polygamist. The federal officers came here to pick him up. He was plowing up on his land. Dad rode up there on his horse, traded hats and Francen rode off into the mountains on Dad's horse while Dad plowed Francen's field. When the Federal officers trooped down on him, they discovered they had the wrong man. LC: Did Francen get away? DP: Yes, and I think they gave up chasing him. The Federal government gave the polygamists a chance to choose one wife and to live with her and not to cohabitate with several of them. Now, I understand that they sometimes forgot to stay home. LC: They played around on the side a little, huh? DP: Yes, they were obligated to take care of all their women. LC: Is anybody in your family a polygamist? 9 DP: No. Now you were mentioning about the settlers. There were several of the Pelt family living here. They were early timers. Their old man had five wives. I heard tell that he married two sisters and they all lived in the same house. LC: Do you remember any stories concerning how statehood affected the people of Huntsville? DP: I think the polygamist issue was pretty well settled by that time and they had discontinued it. There hadn't been any fresh marriages, you see. When Utah became a State, before they could be accepted by Congress, if your read the preamble to the Constitution of the State of Utah, polygamous marriage will not be tolerated. This section could not be changed without the consent of the United States Congress. LC: So polygamy was pretty much not practiced by the time Utah became a State. DP: Well, off-hand I can only recall two polygamist families here, but there were probably more. I can remember the old Pelt family. He lived to be a ripe old age. Some of his wives moved off to Grantsville. Of course, that's all hearsay with me. LC: In your lifetime you've seen Huntsville decline in population. What do you attribute that to? DP: More lucrative paychecks in the city and industry. LC: Were the farms prior to the decline in population pretty much self-sufficient? DP: Yes. They grew practically all their foodstuff and many of them had homespun clothing. I was quite a lad before I had a pair of "store bought" stockings. They had been all hand knitted. LC: They raised whatever they made the material out of and spun it themselves? DP: No, usually they would buy it. I saw Mother demonstrate one time though. She went out and sheared the sheep we had, washed the wool and corded the wool, and I still have 10 Mother's cords, spun the wool, and I still have Mother's spinning wheel, and knit the stockings. The children wore the stockings. LC: That's fantastic. Did she make her own clothes, too? DP: No, they had a sewing machine and they sewed some shirts and the like. But when I came along, they'd sell a little hay in town and get a little cash and sell a hog or two or something from the garden and get a little money to buy what we called "store clothes". The store was in Ogden, it was a COOP store on the corner where J.C. Penney's is now. There was the Watson and Tanner which was a forerunner of what is now Tanner Clothing CO. LC: Do you remember your parents paying a tithe and if so, did they pay it in produce or did they pay it in cash? DP: It was electable. Many of them paid their tithing in produce, particularly hay or a calf. Some of them paid a little bit in cash when they had a little to pay. LC: Who was the Bishop when you were growing up? DP: Oh, I can remember J.B. Renstrom, John Hall, Mclntire, Fred Berlin and Marlow Stoker. Joseph L. Peterson was Bishop for a time, too. David 0. McKay's father had what was known as the tithing shed. He had two big barns located on the lot just East of where David 0's house is. There they would deliver their hay. LC: Tell me some of the things you liked about the book you gave me to read by McKay. DP: There was the organization and building of the church, the building of the school houses, and he calls your attention in that book to the grist mill that was located on the North side of town. Incidentally, those old stones are there, down over the hill. I haven't been over 11 there in several years but they were there. They had the saw mill up there in South Pork where Christian Peterson got killed. LC: Tell me about that. DP: You know where the Eagles lodge is? It's beyond that, beyond the mountain canal head gate and the saw mill was built in the watershed right by lower end of the fall in the river. It was operated by a water wheel. They made roof lumber. LC: Were they mechanized? DP: No, they were man operated. They would cut it down and float it down the river and sell it. LC: Tell me about the grist mill. DP: You can still see where the old water way led into it. I under stand they would take their wheat there and grind it up into very coarse flour for mush (cereal). LC: Tell me about some other industries in an around Huntsville. DP: I remember when old Jess Wheeler had an old lumber yard and grist mill and a nice house. He would grind up wheat and I've eaten some of that. Of course, they would haul their wheat to Ogden and have it ground up. They’d take so much wheat to Ogden, have it ground up and take so much flour back. DP: At the Huntsville mill, they'd never take the hull off the wheat. You’d get the hull and the whole works. It was quite a substantial breakfast food. LC: Most of the people would grow their own wheat on their own lots? DP: On their farms and barter around and exchange. Some would grow oats and trade for wheat and some would trade a pig for some wheat. It was a barter economy. LC: So you can remember a barter economy? DP: Oh, yes, a little. 12 LC: Tell me about the stores. DP: They would take their eggs to the store and buy a few groceries with the eggs. Joseph H. Peterson had a store then and a fellow named Johnson. They would sell a few knick-knacks and take the eggs to Ogden and sell them and of course, by the time they got there they would be kind of ripe. LC: They'd exchange the eggs for things they couldn't grow here. DP: Yes, that's right, staple goods, dress goods, clothing, shoes, and the like. LC: What do you remember about the railroads coming to Utah? DP: I was quite a lad when that came. They would ship their sheep out and their hay, too. It did away with the hauling of hay and stuff to Ogden, because they were all loaded on the cars here. LC: Where did the railroad go? DP: It came down through the meadows in the North side of town and ran East and West. The terminal was where the church is now. It was two blocks and they had stockyards. The coal shed was down on that block in a NW direction and it ran straight west. They hauled coal, sheep, cattle, and hay. It was torn up in 1934 when Little Pineview was built. Then in the 1950's they doubled the capacity of Little Pineview. LC: How did that affect the landowners? DP: The government bought the land and they had to leave in 1934. It had a capacity of around 45,000 acre feet. Now the capacity is better than 100,000 acre feet. LC: Did they use Pineview for water for Ogden? DP: No, Ogden was getting their water from Artesian Wells. LC: What was the purpose of building it? 13 DP: For irrigation purposes in the lower valley in North Ogden and Plain City and Slaterville. LC: Did people buy water shares? DP: Yes, and they still supply water for them. LC: How was irrigation handled up here? DP: They would buy water shares. Towncreek had laterals North and South and it irrigates all of this. I think a man named Grow engineered this in the 1860's. He used a spirit level and a 2” by 4". LC: And they still use those ditches today? DP: Yes. LC: Have the irrigation rights passed from families? DP: The irrigation rights go with the property. LC: Tell me about the Opera House. DP: It ceased to be about in the early part of the Twentieth Century. LC: Tell me about your service experience and how the American Legion came to be in Huntsville. DP: It was organized by Congress soon after World War I. LC: Did you serve in WWI? DP: Yes. We tried to organize a post here in 1919 or 1920. We met in the church for a while but it died out. LC: Then what happened? DP: I joined the post in Ogden after WWII. Some of these youngsters organized the present post. LC: What year? 14 DP: Around the late 40's. LC: How many members did they have at that time? DP: I don't know. I maintained a membership in both posts until—they used to meet in Wangsguard’s Service Station for a while and in private houses and then in Kay Wood's basement. Then they met where Vern Stoker lives. I don't know whether they bought it or it was given to them. Then over in Hislop's garage for a year or two until this was built. LC: When was this built? DP: I don't know. Ask Reed. (Reed Carver is commander of Post 129 and is the interviewer's husband.) LC: How long has the Legion been an active organization? DP: It's been quite active since the late 50's or early 60's. LC: When did you transfer your membership up here? DP: When they were meeting over in Kay's store. LC: Can you remember when Kay's store was built? DP: No, I can't remember. It used to be a residence at first. The people who owned the planning mill lived there. LC: Tell me about the planning mill. DP: They'd smooth lumber out. It lasted three or four years. I can't remember the man's name. LC: What other industries can you remember in Huntsville? DP: There were two or three big sawmills up here at the turn of the Century, some on Monte and one which was in Weber Memorial Park. The old steam engine is still sitting up there. LC: At Weber Memorial Park? Where is it? 15 DP: Well, it's to the right of Area A by the caretaker's house. It's near the spring. The old engine still sits there. I was there day before yesterday. It operated for four or five years. LC: Did they bring the lumber off the Mountains? DP: Yes. Pete Olsen owned that. Jim Wangsguard had a lumber mill up on Monte Cristo. He had quite a lumberyard here behind Wangsguard's Store. LC: How long was that in operation? Did they bring the lumber off private property? What happened to those mills? DP: Four or five years. It died out because of competition and the lumber gave out. They were on government land to get the trees up on Monte and it Weber it was from Skull Creek. It was Government land and some of the local boys homesteaded there. Sid Strumbert, Arthur Brunson and a fellow named Larson. LC: Do they still own the land? DP: No, they sold it to Basin Land and Livestock which was then Perry Land and Livestock. They were big sheepmen. LC: Do they still own it? DP: Yes, they're located this way from Deseret Land and Livestock Company. LC: What other industries can you remember? DP: The Valley used to grow a tremendous amount of peas. LC: For their own use? DP: No, for the California Packing Company. They had a pea Viner in back of Allen's place, one near here, one up North lane, one over on the bench and several over in Eden and Liberty. Sometimes they'd thrash peas all night. One time they tried to grow head lettuce here and for a while they grew a lot of sugar beet seed. They had a beet dump on the 16 railroad but the season for growing beets was too short. They would send them out to the sugar factory located out Wilson lane. The California canning factory is still there across the viaduct. They can a lot of beans and tomatoes now. LC: When was this? DP: In the 20's and 30's. It was a diversification of farming. They'd grow peas and hay and grain. They'll have to rotate those every so often. LC: Did they have mechanization? DP: They'd cut them with a mowing machine, vines and all and then run them through a pea vinery. The machine would separate the vines to the cattle in the winter. A wild cherry came in and got in with the vines and they couldn't screen them out. They'd get in the can and ruin the whole works. That's what happened to the pea industry. LC: So now, Huntsville is a commuter town? It's the bedroom of Ogden. DP: There are two or three big dairy outfits operating but most people work in town. There's a half dozen who live off the land. LC: What do you see as the future of Huntsville? DP: It'll be more suburban living. LC: Thanks, Dave. 17