Oral History Program Ara O. Call Interviewed by Mike Cushman 9 September 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Ara O. Call Interviewed by Mike Cushman 9 September 1971 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed Kelley Evans, 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: Call, Ara O., an oral history by Mike Cushman, 9 September 1971, 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 Ara O. Call. The interview was conducted on September 9, 1971, by Mike Cushman, at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. Call discusses his early memories of growing up in the Mormon colonies. He also discusses his polygamist family. MC: First of all, I would like to know when you were born and where you were born. AC: I was born in the Mormon colonies in Mexico, to be specific, in Colonia Dublán. I was born the 21st of August 1909. MC: What are some of the first things you remember about Colonia Dublán? AC: Well, my earliest recollections, some of them, as with kids, they probably have become distorted and little things are major things in your life, but I have some faint recollections about what we in the colonies used to refer, still refer to, as the Exodus. In 1912, when the Mormon Colonists left the colonies there and went to the States, because the revolution, I remember faintly a few things, riding in a railroad boxcar, and I do remember a big jar of cookies that had along, that kids would do, or remember such things like that, and I remember they had some boards nailed across the doors of the boxcar inside so youngsters like me wouldn’t fall out while we were going, and we rode in the boxcar out to see the Juarez, across the road from El Paso, Texas. That’s probably some of the earliest recollections of things. I do remember at one occasion, I guess it was shown later, it was at Guzman, and the train had stopped and one fellow, I believe he was a Durfy, he might have been a Merrill, I’m not sure, Sister Merrill was a Durfy, they were related at least, and he was deaf and left the train and when the whistle blew and all the go, he didn’t hear it and he just about was left, and as a 1 youngster I remember what a traumatic experience to the train leaving and he just about was left and others frantically ran to touch him that the train was going to go and little things like that I remember. But that, I was not very old at the time, of course, three years old is all, about. Now I don’t know what all you want to, me to talk about here, maybe you ask questions and I’ll try and answer them as best I can. MC: When, uh, you came back to the colonies again later though, is that correct? AC: After we left, our family spent a while in Bountiful, Utah, with my father’s mother and my father’s father. Anson Call, an early pioneer of Utah was not living then, I never knew him but I did know his, my grandmother, my father’s mother, Mariah Bowen Call, and we lived with them in Bountiful for a while. I remember a few little incidences there just as kids do, living with Grandma Call. And then we went back to Mexico again shortly afterwards, and were there, and then left again the time of the after Pershing, punitive expedition coming into Mexico. That I remember quite a few rather vivid experiences with Pershing, and when they were in the colonies and Camp Dublán, just out of Dublán a ways. MC: Could you relate some of those? AC: Well yes, I suppose they would be of interest, probably. As youngsters we, most all of us in the neighborhood had our, our own horses or at least access to one in the family, and we rode horseback a great deal. We used to ride into Camp Dublán, which was Pershing’s headquarters, just out of Colonia Dublán. They would let us through, and as kids had quite a few privileges, coming into camp without a permit, one thing or another, and often times we had some buddies among some of the soldiers and there was quite a curiosity to us to be able to ride horseback in the camp and see all the things that they 2 had, one thing or another, and then back home. It was a, the camp was just to the north of Dublán, there was quite a large number of troops there of course. There were some of the solid tired trucks that they had, they brought in their supplies from a highway that was built from Columbus, New Mexico, a distance of about ninety miles in to Dublán. This road was built by the Pershing’s troops and so on, because, as I understand it, they were denied the use of the railroad, Mexican railroad. Mexico was not happy to have foreign troops in their country, quite understandably, so they denied them the use of the railroad from Si La Puerez. The Mexico northwestern railway went through Guzman and then on down to Coralitas, Dublán, and on up to what we called the station, which is now Nuevo Casas Grandes, near Dublán, on up to Pearson, and then on up through, it is somewhat closer to the other Mormon colonies there, and to Madurve on, finally through the mountains and ending up at Chihuahua City, the capital of Chihuahua. The relationship with Pershing, in Mexico, was an interesting one with my father. My father was Anson Bowen Call. He was Bishop of Dublán at that time, in fact, for a good many years afterwards he was either in the bishopric or Bishop, as I recall, for a period of thirty-seven years, so he had quite a tenure of offices as Bishop. During those early days, the Mormon colonists were somewhat, well there’s a very interesting sociological condition that is they were somewhat like a little bit of USA in Mexico. As kids I remember we celebrated the Fourth of July and things of that nature. We had magazines and the like in English. We all spoke English in our home, our schools in English, although around us there were many native Mexicans that we associated with. Generally we had one or two or three or more working for us on our farm, and we learned Spanish. I wouldn’t say as proficiently as a second language, but as a kid even, 3 we had a lot of association with Spanish and learned quite a bit of it. There’s a rather interesting incident that has been recorded, and again, my memory of it I will relate as I remember. Pancho Villa was in contention, of course, for the presidency of Mexico during these revolutionary times, and he had been unsuccessful and retreated north, and I remember when he and the troops were in Dublán, they took over what was the tithing office, or the Bishop’s office. A fine brick building, not a large building, but I do remember that in that building there was a walk-in safe. As a kid I remembered such things, probably was fooled by it, we’d walked in and close the door on us or something, but I remember that at this tithing office also, they had in the back a large platform scale where they could weigh wagon loads of grain or hay or things like that, that the people predominantly agriculturally oriented would off times usually pay their tithing in kind. At this tithing yard, had a large fence around it, it was about a half a city block, they had cows and things that they fed the hay that people paid for tithing, and they had a granary where they stored wheat, corn, oats, and other grains. This part was taken over by Pancho Villa’s headquarters when he was in that area, and I remember going with my father, just as a little youngster, holding on to his hand as he oft times went up. In fact, one time I was picked up and admired by Pancho Villa as a youngster and thrown into the air, kind of, and admired as a little boy. Villa, at this time, was certainly friendly and there was no law breaking, if his soldiers were found stealing or anything, and I know on some occasions they did, why, they were severely punished, but there was law and order, and paid for everything, there was no stealing. But the pay was in Villa money, and later on when he left, that money was worthless. I remember my father had a lot of Villa money, in fact, for many years we had a lot of it. I prize, in fact, just this 4 summer being in Mexico City, the friend there, he gave me a Villa money bill, which I hadn’t seen for many years. I don’t think I’ll sell it for, or get rid of it, I’ve given away hundreds of them to other curious people over the years until I have none myself. But at any rate, Villa had his troops there, they camped on the streets. During those times, the Mexican Revolutionary people, they had, oft times there were a few of the wives of the soldiers would go along with them and acted as cooks and would cook for a little group of the soldiers, and they would divide up over an open campfire and things of that nature. The way they took care of their meals for the army, and it was while they were at this tithing office that, apparently early one morning, one of the Mexican ladies, the story is told at least, made a fire early in the morning and got the fire close to either ammunition or dynamite, but at least there was a terrific explosion. I remember that explosion; it broke windows, most of the windows in the town. It was early morning, just breaking daylight, and everyone wondered what in the world had happened. There were several people killed and many of them wounded. It was, I think, an ammunition dump, pretty much, that blew up. I remember our schoolhouse was just across the street to the south of large building where we went to school, and the next day at school we saw these kids. We watched them carry wounded ones, and some of their dead even, as a result of this explosion, to the train, several blocks away. They carried some of the wounded on stretchers and it was quite a curiosity for us to see that going on as a youngster. I remember afterwards, after Villa and his troops left there, they were routed and went in through the Pulpit Pass, over in Sonora, but after they’d gone, some of us youngsters had a great time having our own rifles, they left a lot of rifles and things and ammunition all over the place, just for the picking up, scattered over maybe a two block 5 radius of this explosion. As kids would be, we each had our own guns and all kinds of ammunition for it. I remember I had a .30-40 rifle that I thought was pretty nice, and we’d target shoot as much as you would with a .22 or something. We had real, live ammunition of course, and me and my brothers, we had quite a cache of ammunition and all in our barn, I remember, and our father saw it and he was a little upset that we’d have so much ammunition, and he made us dig a pit and put, I guess, at least a washtub full of ammunition would be into this pit and bury it. We had had taken great pains to pick these up one at a time and excluding the bent ones of something that wouldn’t fire right and all such things, and we were quite upset that dad would make us just dig a hole and pour water on this and cover it up. Others of us, one time, were having fun with some of the bent ammunition and the like. We made a bonfire near the school, right near this lot where the tithing office was, I remember, had a nice bonfire going and then we had a bucket or so full of ammunition, and we threw it on to the fire and then ran for the ditch and hid while the bullets were going off in every direction. Some of the Federal troops in a joining town, Nuevo Casas Grandes, heard all of the firing, and they thought it was maybe a battle of some kind going on, and they rushed down with their cavalry and found us kids lying in the ditch there, so we wouldn’t get hit with some of these stray bullets. Little incidences like that I do remember, we got a paddling, of course, for doing such a thing, but those were some of the early recollections. At his time I remember Pancho Villa gave my father a shotgun. It was a single gauge, rather long tom, .16 gauge single shot, .16 gauge shotgun that was rather fancily carved. I used it as a youngster a lot for hunting ducks. As a boy, I remember my dad would furnish the ammunition if I’d bring back a duck for each bullet, each shell, 6 and I remember well how I would, if I didn’t have a group of ducks, as they used to come oft times on irrigated alfalfa fields and the like, I could sometimes get four or five with one shot. Then I was lucky, and sometimes got none and I was out the shell of course. I hunted ducks with this gun many times, I think my brother Arnold has the gun in Mexico. Pancho Villa also gave my father a sack of Pinole, I don’t know if you know what Pinole is, it’s parched corn, ground up and mixed with it is crude sugar that is Piloncillo as we call it there, the crude sugar. It’s like brown sugar, somewhat, but they’re ground together and it was sweetened with this. As a kid I remember we enjoyed this a lot, the parched corn, ground to a powder with this unrefined sugar mixed in it was quite a delicacy, and we had a whole, oh it must have been at least a fifty or seventyfive pound bag of it, we used to eat. The Indians who used that and have done it even, they might even yet, this Pinole is a very concentrated food that is dried parched corn, that way they can have a bag of it, survive several days with just a little bag of it with water, they had nothing else. Well, after Villa was routed and went into Sonora, it’s my understanding that he had sealed off what is known as the Pulpit Pass, through the mountains, and if you knew your geography of northern Mexico, the mountain range, at least in these early days there were very few passes where you could get through with a wagon even, and after passing through Pulpit Pass, they had dynamited this pass and sealed it off so that wagons could not get through. He had pretty much had a stalemate as far as the federal troops, and he held all of this northwestern part if Mexico, Sonora and Sinaloa, they would have to come up through the south, as far south as Guadalajara. In this inner room the United States had recognized his opponent, Carranza, and let Mexican troops, 7 Carranza troops come through the United States, at El Paso, along the Southern Pacific Railroad, and what is the railroad now, into Nogales, Arizona, Nogales, Sonora, and troop trains go over the United States and into his rear, the north, and routed him that way. This angered Villa very much. I’m told that he felt that Uncle Sam had no business interfering with such things and I’m inclined a little to agree with him that they should be able to settle their own squabbles as far as revolution. But at any rate, the United States saw fit to intervene enough to give an advantage to his opponents. Because of this action, he retreated east and attacked the border town of Columbus, New Mexico, a raid that I’m sure is documented. We could get the exact dates, but he shot up the town, and killed several American soldiers that were there and retreated into Mexico. I remember well, in the colony in Dublán, when we lived there that we had received word of what had happened. Maybe it would be well to point out that there were no telephones at that time, it was usually telegraph. Of course, no radios, and word often times was slow in coming or came by telegraph that such and such had happened, it’d come from Ciaguades or something. But at any rate, the colonists had received word of this attack and had been told that he was retreating south with a vengeance to kill any gringo that was in the way. I remember well, the tenseness of how the American colonists were gathered together wondering what shall we do. Our report is that Villa and his troops are marching south towards our colony Dublán, he’d raided Columbus, ninety miles, almost due north. Then they had heard word that he had killed two Mexicans because they were working for American ranchers even. The ranchers had gone, but it was that kind of a tenseness. I have heard my father tell, many times, of what happened that night. As a kid I was just a boy, I remember having our bedding at least rolled up and the 8 necessities we needed was all kind of together in a wagon, and wondering what to do. My father tells that as Bishop he called the priesthood together in a council as to what shall we do with this impending crisis coming. Shall we retreat to the south and try and find refuge with the opponents to Villa, the Carranza forces, they had some troops there. Shall we go to the river and try and hide and evade things? Should we go for the mountains, the refuge of the mountains, try to get away? Our passage to the United States was pretty well blocked, Villa’s in between us and the border. The closest place to go would be the Corner Ranch right where the Mexican-American border has a corner that juts down there, part of the Gadsden Purchase, and that was closer than the ninety miles but it was the closest point, even ninety miles even to that point if you were horseback or driving a wagon, it’s several days trip, and what should they do? I remember my father telling that he was inspired, there’s no question, but what came to him, he said “Brethren,” he said, “Go home and go to bed.” And one man, whom I know, known him many years afterwards and all, but it’s reported that he said, “Well that would be a damned fool thing to do.” But at any rate, they did go home, I don’t know that they went to bed, or if they did they didn’t sleep very much, and I know several families gathered together at different locations for protection, and as kids I guess we were put to bed. Early the next morning, the man of the colony went out to see what was happening, and to the north of Dublán, there was very much evidence that a large number of cavalry, that these horses had been there and they’d stopped, you could see, spent a while there, and then, for some reason, they had marched out and made a half circle around the east, avoiding the colony Dublán, and circled it and went on south, avoiding it. I remember there was a US Army canteen that was found in a trek there, 9 and I think part of a bridal or something like that, that was found on the, apparently hundreds of horses, of course, had laid quite a trail. It was quite a mystery for a while, what in the world, what happened. And some years later, my father was told of a Mexican friend that was there in Mexico, said he was among the group of Villa’s soldiers at that time and they came to the colony, and their first intention was to wipe it out. That is though, we’d had a friendly relationship with Villa, not too many months before, and so on, but he was so incest with what had happened about this that he, when he was angered, he was that kind of a man that he would just go to just any end. But the man said that they had a council with his generals and those under him as to what they would do, and they reported that they saw light in all the houses of the Mormones and finally concluded that rather than take the bothers as the Americans were all waiting for them, and it would probably be, it’d take time to mop up the place and wipe it out, that they better just avoid it and march out around it. There, it is, as a youngster, at least I was told, and I’ve heard other versions of this, that there was a prairie fire that is a grass fire out east of Dublán, and the fire was reflected in the panes, the window panes. It looked like there was light there. Whatever it was, my father, many times, had said that it was nothing but the hand of providence that saved the colony Dublán at that time, and from being massacred. Well it was just shortly after this that I remember, as a youngster again, that Brother Nephi Thane, who lived north and west of Dublán somewhat, came rushing in, and that with field glasses he had seen troops coming from the north south, and he wondered if it was a repeat of others coming or what it was and he came to give the warning and alarm. The members didn’t know what it was really. They were apprehensive, not knowing what was happening. Seeing a large number of apparently 10 troops, at least they were organized on horseback. Early the next morning, my father, I heard him tell, went with someone else, and a little, well what we used to call a buckboard, a one seated little light rig, buggy, and General John J. Pershing was there in camp that is just north of Dublán, was still in his sleeping bag and all when they got there early in the morning and greeted them. It made a very memorable march, one of the, in reading about it, it was one of the great cavalry marches of history. Coming from Columbus, New Mexico, in pursuit of the uh, and uh, later on this was known as the Punitive Expedition, the Pershing Punitive Expedition. As I said earlier, their headquarters were established at Camp Dublán. My father and Pershing had a very close relationship over the next years or whatever it was they were there. I remember many times of the soldiers coming to our home, Pershing and some of his staff had Thanksgiving dinner at our home, and on occasion or two he and others came and went to church with my father. There was a relationship that lasted clear until Pershing’s death was established during those times. Pershing was a commander, I guess, of the allied forces in World War I, and this Punitive Expedition was, according to some, probably a kind of a dress rehearsal before entering World War I. I’ve lived in Wisconsin for nineteen years and earlier than that I went to school in Iowa. I’ve talked with some who were in the National Guard, who went into Mexico during this time with Pershing, it was some National Guard people, as I recall, predominately came from the Midwest, Iowa, Wisconsin area. I’d talked to several of them who went, been in to Mexico, this was years ago, of course. But I have at home now, several letters that Pershing had written my father, and carbon copies of letters my father had written to him. One little one I prize highly, it doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to the family, of 11 course, but it is a small sheet, just of type writing across like an eight and a half-eleven sheet, but it’s probably not more than three inches by the eight inches. It’s a pass, typed out, a pass to Camp Dublán. To and then written in Bishop Anson B. Call and Party, and signed by some officer or something, but the interesting thing about this is, my father tells, on one occasion going into camp, he was told as he came into camp that they’d made a regulation that they had to be vaccinated or inoculated. It was some health requirement or something of the like, so probably an orderly was taking him to the hospital in camp to have this taken care of, and when they met General Pershing he says, “Well, Bishop Call, what’s going on here?” He says, “Well, apparently I have to go get inoculated or vaccinated as the case may be.” General Pershing says, “Oh those fools!” He says, “What in the world are they doing here.” He took this pass and wrote on it “Health requirements waived, General John J. Pershing.” And I have that, or it’s signed. That little notation he wrote on, it is what makes it of interest. Well, I don’t know what more you want me to talk about, or say, or what. MC: How many wives did your father have? He was there because he was in polygamy I believe. AC: Yes, yes, the polygamous question is an interesting one. My father had four wives. My mother was the fourth. Although he never had more than two at a time. His first wife was Aunt Thressa, and she outlived the other three wives. The second wife died early, and then he married the third wife and she died also, and then he married my mother. I was raised in a polygamous family that was two families being together in a general house. The first family was pretty well raised. The youngest of the first family was older than my oldest sister Lorna, who was the oldest of my mother’s children. So, the older 12 children were, some of them were at home, but many had married and moved away when I was a youngster. My father, he would spend one week normally, one with one wife and one family, and then one with the other. I grew up on that kind of situation. I wouldn’t say that we never had any quarrels or anything, but as far as family troubles, I think we had less as a polygamous family, or that we had in our family, but it was a very wholesome relationship, very little evidence of jealousy between wives of the families. As the family moods changed, or the, we had only one herd of cows, or cattle, and those who had more children would get more milk, and other less, and as the children were old enough they did the milking, and later on I did the milking, and my brothers, and it was a relationship. It was very unusual but very interesting. My mother passed away, and she had twelve kids, six boys and six girls. My father had twenty-five children in all, with the four wives. My youngest brother… (Whistling over tape.) I don’t know what else you want me to say about it. Not all of those who lived in Mexico were polygamists, but many were. Generally speaking, those who were in polygamy is here in Utah, they made it (inaudible). The federal Government, after they declared polygamy as illegal, as I understand said they would support the wives of the families. That would settle the whole thing. To the rest of my knowledge, none of these families accepted this. (Mumbling). MC: Your father lived in Mexico till his death, had he ever lived in the States? AC: Mt father had lived in the States during these times of revolution, after Pancho Villa’s… He moved and lived in Arizona a while, and then he went back. 13 He was one of the early colonists, one of the colonists who had become a Mexican citizen, in order to hold property under the Mexico Colonization Law. And he felt very grateful of the Mexican government. (Whistling over tape). 14