Oral History Program Evelyn Barnes Interviewed by Ben Reeves 06 September 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Evelyn Barnes Interviewed by Ben Reeves 06 September 1971 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: Barnes, Evelyn, an oral history by Ben Reeves, 06 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 Evelyn Barnes. The interview was conducted on September 6, 1971, by Ben Reeves, in Roy, Utah. Barnes talks about her life and growing up in Roy, Utah. BR: This is an interview of Evelyn Barnes by Ben Reeves on the sixth of September 1971 at approximately 6:00 p.m. in the evening at her home on the corner of 6000 South 2700 West in Roy, Utah, as part of the Utah Oral History Project. BR: Mrs. Barnes could you tell me a little bit about yourself, who your parents were, perhaps when you were born, and what your background is as living here in Roy. EB: My parents were Orson Field and Margaret Jones. I was born March 29, 1896, here in Roy, even on this ground right here where I am. Their parents were some of the first settlers here. My Grandfather Field was the second one to come to Roy. He came from England and stayed in Hooper from the fall to the spring, and in the spring of 1873 he came here and homesteaded ground and built a log cabin to live in. My father and mother were married in 1893 and they had just a small home at the time and the first child was born, and he was born in October and died in January. When I was born why they were quite worried for fear something would happen again and so they decided that they'd try being the post master and my mother was assistant to my father. He was a post master. This was in 1894. They had lots of ups and downs in taking care of the mail. There was no money in it much just the stamps, the cancellation of stamps was all the money that he received, and the trains going right by here, the Denver and Rio Grande. The section house was just about a block away and he would have to take the 1 mail and put it on the trains and get the mail from the trains the same way and then they— I don't know just how long they kept this post office. I remember his health wasn't too good and he wasn't able to keep going on this, but he was a blacksmith by trade and he did, that time was all farm work here so he would sharpen the plow points and different things like that. A blacksmith had to do a little bit of everything in those days and that was his livelihood and he really worked hard at that kind of work, and then the nursery came in a later. The Davis and Weber counties, it was called the Davis County Nursery I think. It was built right close here and so they had quite a lot of work they'd bring. They had trees they planted and they grafted them and shipped them all over the country. My father told me once that the trees out in Oregon and Washington was from this nursery here. There was a lot of saw points to be put on and I've seen him many times putting those saw points on and shoeing the horses and then they'd have to set the tires on the wagons and the buggies and they'd have to take them off, they'd become loose and he'd hammer and hammer at those tires and shrink them and put them in the forge and many times I've helped use the bellows. I blowed the air and to keep the fire going and then he'd have the tires heated and then he'd have the tires heated and they'd have to shrink them and then they'd put them back on the wheel and have to run water around so they wouldn't set fire to the wooden wheel. It was quite different from anything we see in this day and age and then when the cars came in, he had a 1915 Ford. It was the first car he had and he had an old Reo before that, but they had a new 1915 Ford, and he was always studying things like that and started inventing little things. He invented a little, oh what he called an engine like they had in those days that would run with steam, and he was fixing things like that and so he worked on these 2 cars and became quite a mechanic on fixing up the car when anything went wrong with them, and all this time it was hard work. It was manual labor, there was no other way of making a living, but then it began to build up. There was other people that came in, but it was always farm work. All that we had around here other than the canning factory and we had several of those. Nephi Hardy was the first one to build a canning factory. He built it over on 5600 where that Oregon Short-Line track was because that's the way they shipped their goods in and out. And then my father got quite interested in that, so he obtained what they called a boiler where he got the steam up and then he'd get the water and they'd put the steam hose in and heat the water and scald the tomatoes and we'd peel them and put them in cans and then he'd cook them that way with this boiler that he had. And it was several years he did that and then there was one of my uncles, Oscar T. Jones. He wanted the two of them to go in business and can tomatoes, and that's what they did, and pat up a little factory down on his property. That was down on 3100 in Roy here, and hired quite a few people to work and we'd peel tomatoes and put them in the cans by hand and then we had soddering irons to sodder the tops on the cans. I helped my father do that many times and they had enough soddering irons that they could sodder about five or six cans at one time. Then they'd check for places they'd miss and we'd have to go over it with a regular soddering iron and sodder up the places that might leak and this way they put up many a pack of tomatoes for quite a few years. Then there was other factories came in and my uncle, he went into a larger factory and that was a little bit easier work. They had it just a little easier than in these little factories that they started. But that was one of the industries here at that time. Now I don't know just what else you'd want to know. 3 BR: You mentioned the Davis County Nursery and that was right over here just across the tracks. EB: That's right. BR: Do you remember how long that was in operation? EB: Let's see, I can't tell you for sure. It must have started in about 1913 or 12 or somewhere around that and it was going up till a little while before I was married. Mister, well my uncle, Arthur Jones, and Mr. James R. Piatt took it over as a factory and it was changed into a factory and I imagine that was around 1920. I believe somewhere around then and from then on it's been a factory. It's changed hands with different people. Mr. Varney had it, now Stevens has it. BR: One area I am sure that you can tell me about that not too many could is how did Roy develop culturally or musically? I know you've taught piano most of your life. How did music and things like this get started in Roy? EB: Well they had some different people. It wasn't very many that, during my time, they played the piano or the organ. They had these old style organs at the time and there was one lady that was the Sunday School organist and she was. The Sunday School was organized in the spring of 1876 and then this was about 1911 or 12, along in there, that this Sister LoVina Brown, her name was, and she was the organist. I started a taking lessons I guess when I was about 16 or something like that and there was a teacher came up from Salt Lake and he said if I would continue on and take a course, a correspondence course, from the Utah Conservatory at that time it was called and later it was called the McCuen School of Music and Art, and I understand the last years it's 4 been in with the BYU. But at that time John J. McLellen was the Tabernacle Organist and Anthony C. Lund was the Tabernacle Chorister. So they got out this course which I took and this Mr. Fairbanks said if I'd have about a year's course that I could finish it up in three months because I could take three lessons at a time and that was teaching me how to teach because he said he wasn't going to come up here and teach any more. So I had all this territory around here. There was as far south as Clearfield and Syracuse and Clinton and Hooper and Taylor and West Weber would come into Taylor. They went to school and then I had Riverdale and South Weber and some here in Roy. So I had about 100 students at the time I taught them till I was married and then since I have taught. But there was a few others that had taken some lessons and they went and helped in the ward but I was organist in Sunday school at that time, after LoVina Brown got married and went away. Why that was during 1918 when the First World War was. I can't remember just how long I was in and I was Mutual organist. When I was married I was second counselor in the Mutual, so I've had quite a bit of experience in the church work too. And they used to have an organization called, I can't think, Religion Class, and it was a kind of forerunner of the Primary as I remember. I taught in the Religion Class, too, and we'd have to go over to the school house and get the children and teach them after school Religion Class, and then after that they had the Primary work. So I have worked in about all the organizations at one time or another. I have worked in the Relief Society and I still work in Relief Society and Primary now, but I have found that it was enjoyable work and I have had some of the students that I have taught that have been organists and I have one now that's organist in the Primary. So I felt kind of happy that they could advance enough to carry on by themselves that way. But there's quite a 5 few people from here that was school teachers. Stella Holland and Vivian Holland was school teachers and quite a few others that went to school and got to be school teachers. BR: What type of activities did they have in Roy involving music when you were a young person? Did they have very many? EB: Mutual I think had most of it, but it seemed like once in a while they'd have a party just a get-together and they'd have comical recitations. One of your mother's aunts, Rhoda Hammond Taylor, was a great one to entertain us with wonderful readings that she had. They were really comical readings. We really had good times, but the Mutual would put on a drama. They had one every year and sometimes they'd have two and they had me play the music, I remember, for the different parts in the drama and we'd take that all over. Another one of your mother's uncles, Frank Hammond, he would go with us. He was one of the Mutual officers and he would go with us and sometimes he'd have a part and the different ones would have a part in this. I usually played the piano parts in that, but we'd go to Hooper and take them. We really had an enjoyable time. More than they do now. Well I guess they was on the order of the road show now, but they went from one place to another when they'd get these parts learned. Then they'd go from one ward to another. I think that way they all enjoyed it more or less. But that was about the only thing I can remember we had was these dramas that they'd put on. Well every year they'd put one, sometimes two, they have. They had to make their own entertainment. Before that time my mother told me that they'd have Bon Fire parties. They'd gather the sage and brush off the land they'd the men would plow the ground and then the women would go out and help the children gather all the sage brush and have it in big piles and 6 then they'd have a Bon Fire party at night and I can remember one of my uncles got lost because of this Bon Fire party. My grandmother didn't know that it was that the Bon Fire had already gone and it was getting dark and he was five years old and so when the older children came in he wasn't with them and they were frantic. And there was no houses between here and Kanesville. And he saw a light somehow or another and he thought he was going to the Bon Fire, and he walked all that way to Kanesville and he said he went into a house there and I guess it was a church. Well it must have been a house though because they didn't have a church there then, I don't think. But anyway, these men was sitting around he said and so one of them asked him who he was and he knew my grandfather and at 11 o'clock they brought him home. He was riding one horse and the man was riding another one and mother used to tell us about that and there that was their entertainment these Bon Fires and that was kind of an unusual happening. BR: What type of activities did they have when you were younger for social? Did they have the same type of things for social? Did they have dances and parties and what type of activities did they have? EB: They had house parties; I guess you'd call them, when we were about 12 or 14, along in there. We'd have parties at someone's home and we'd play games and like that and that was about the one of the main things they had it seems like. If it was someone's birthday they'd get up a surprise party on them. They'd be very quiet and wouldn't let the person know and slip into their home and surprise them and they'd do that some now, but that was one of their ways as an entertainment because someone all through the wintertime would be having it at their home or we'd go up this way and then we go over 7 this way and it took in the whole of Roy at that time because the people were scattered. It took in all of Roy up on the highway and all. So there wasn't very many people that had these parties so they kind of helped each other that way as an entertainment, but they used to put on their own entertainment. My mother says when they first came here there was just a few people; the people that were from England they had a Punch and Judy affair that they had in England and they'd make up dough faces and they'd put on a face of dough and things like that just for fun you know, and to make something different. They had to make their own stage costumes they had. They couldn't go out and buy anything they just had to work with what they had on hand. BR: When I talked to Harold a few weeks ago he mentioned that he had your dad's violin. Did he play the violin? EB: No, my dad did though. BR: That's what I meant. EB: He played the dances all around. They'd go to Clinton and him and Joseph Mitchell, he was a father of Mrs. Childs up here, and they'd go together all over around to different places and play for the dances. He always played for the dances. They always played by ear in later years. I don't think that he played the violin too, Rueben Baker. BR: You and Eddie were courting back about the early 1920's. What type of things did you do when you were courting? EB: Oh, about 1922 and 23; we was married in 1923. He, well we, used to go to the resorts. We'd go to Lagoon and two or three times maybe in the summer and the Hermitage. There was street cars that went from Ogden up to the Hermitage. We always rode the 8 street car. We never went in a car much up the canyon; we'd go up that Ogden Canyon because that street car went all the way up there. So we'd go up there and then we'd go to Lagoon and then they had dances. And there was once in a while, the old section house had a large dining room and years back they had dances there. That was one of their entertainments before they got a hall to dance in; they had in the different homes. They'd take up their rag carpets and then they'd have a dance floor. Well over here they didn't have any carpet or anything so the people that lived over there had a dance over there so we'd go over and have a dance over in different places but at that time there was a dance hall or two and the Church had dances in the chapel part because then they didn't have only one big room, you know. The chapel was that west part of that old building and then we always had a children's dance at Christmas time which they don't do at all now, and they'd have some candy and nuts for the children and have, I don't know who it was under the direction of the Primary or the Mutual or who it was under, but it I know that is what they used to do and then that is still kind of carried on for a few years even when we was going together we had this once dance over here because they had a large room and they'd get the neighbors around you know and come have a dance. It was quite a lot of fun. There wasn't so many people. That was the thing. You could invite nearly everybody and there wasn't very many people to come to it. BR: Down the street on the other end of the block was the infirmary or the poor farm. Do you remember how big of an influence did this have on the community? Do you remember of any influences it may have had? EB: What ---------- the people of the-- BR: At the infirmary. 9 EB: Oh, at the infirmary. Well, they had quite a bit. Because there was some that could get out and walk and they'd walk down here and get their mail and mother said it was quite a handful. Some of them were, you know, not too well balanced in their thinking and that, and they'd come to get the mail and they'd sit around for hours at a time waiting for the mail to come and they was kind of a handful in some ways and there was one they called Crazy Chris. I remember mother was so frightened of him. I guess in this day and age it would be due to nervous conditions. They could have cured him in this day and age, but in that day and age they'd bring him out to this county infirmary and he was an able bodied man. He could work and I can remember when he'd get on a rampage and walk way down here and I can remember my mother was so frightened when she'd see him coming because he would do bodily harm if he wasn't kept in tow, like you know and there was some like that. It was quite a struggle, but there was some that was quite nice. One old gentleman was from New York. I can remember my father saying that he had been an engineer and he ended up here I guess he got no folks here and like that, and he was quite an intelligent man and he made what he called jumping jacks. He'd cut them the shape of a man out a head and the body parts out of a piece of wood. Then he'd make arms and then legs and put them together loosely and then he'd add a shingle, a house shingle, and he'd put it on a board and then you could go this way and that and just jump up and down you know. It was a homemade toy but it was of we needs though that was glad and he made us one I remember, and then there was another old fellow later years that liked to come and talk to my father. Well I guess they got pretty lonesome up there you know. It wasn't as nice as it is now because it was smaller and an older building and has all been torn down and they's redone it and 10 everything, but he'd come down and talk and sit all morning long, and mother, she'd get kind of irked you know and she'd maybe be outside around and she went in this day and this old man he knew he shouldn't smoke in the house but he was smoking and it started his coat on fire. So there was some kind of funny, amusing incidents, too. But mother had quite a struggle with the hobos that came along on the trains. There was an awful lot of tramps in those days, as we called them, and they were men traveling on the trains and the trains never failed to stop here and they'd always move to the houses for something to eat and they was regular beggars, it seems like, but some of them were from eastern cities going to California. That seemed to be mostly the ones that came and mother said they had quite a few tricks they'd pull on people to get money, and she said this one came and he was real ornery about it. He said he wanted money and she said she didn't have any money to give him. And so there wasn't anyone around. And my grandfather was out taking care of the horses and she said just as it happened he came in. And so he ordered this man out and then another time there was one came and he had a white cloth on his arm and he said he'd been hurt real bad. That was another trick they'd pull. There was some kind of acid they'd put on their arm and make it look all raw and then they'd take this off and say they couldn't work and beg for money that way. There's a lot of tricks played on people to get their sympathy, you know, that way, but she had quite a lot of trouble with and even after I was married and lived here they'd come that way, too. One time there was three of them got off and they hit three houses along here all at one time. We had there was no police or anybody to protect you; you just had to bear with it. 11 BR: Earlier you were mentioning the growth of canning factories here in the area. There were quite a number around. I know the Star Factory was just down the street here, also. And how were these canning factories? How did they develop? Were they mostly private or were they corporation? EB: No, I think they was more private. Nephi Hardy built the first one in 1899. He and his sons and it was for the purpose of canning tomatoes, as tomatoes thrived well in this section of country. He built it on a quarter section of land then owned by the Oregon and Short-Line Railroad, which he bought a year later. This factory had a capacity of 10, 000 cans a day operated mainly by hand machinery. This factory had been enlarged and is now known as the Rocky Mountain Canning Corporation. And that was in 1936 or before that that this was written. Then the Roy Canning and Stamping Company was started in 1900 by 80 farmers sponsored by the attorney, Mr. Sole and Mr. Sweet of Salt Lake City, Utah. They undertook to make their own cans but on account of so many being defective the company failed and went into the hands of receivers. It afterwards went under the name of the Star Canning Company, managed by William J. Parker. Later it was sold to the Utah Packing Corporation. Now this Star Canning, it doesn't say whether that was managed by Parker. I thought he owned it, but evidently he didn't own that. And then the Davis County Nurseries began to operate at Roy and they built a number of substantial buildings of brick and had a capacity of one million trees a year which were shipped to all states of the west. And then in 1905 was when Orson Field, my father, purchased the 2 1/2 horsepower steam boiler and commenced canning tomatoes and fruit for his own family. One year later he canned a few for the neighbors. The next year, 1907, Oscar T„ Jones joined partnership with him and they built a small 12 factory on the property of Oscar T. Jones. The work was all done by hand. The capacity was about 2000 cans per day. And Joseph Wright and Horace Whittier built a factory on the state highway. Oscar T. Jones later dissolved partnership with his brother, Arthur G. Jones, who was then part owner of the small factory and started out on a larger scale. He took over the Wright-Whittier Factory and had it incorporated under the name Hillcrest Canning Company. He operated it for about five years. Arthur G. Jones took over the Davis County Nursery packing site and moved his machinery from the small factory and commenced operations on a larger scale. Later he sold to the Varney Canning Incorporated, which now is known as the most sanitary factory in the state. That was back in that time. So that is the dates for that. BR: Where were some of these factories located? Hillcrest was that up along the highway. EB: That's the one that was up there, uh huh. BR: That is a furniture store or something now. EB: Yes, it is changed now and they've torn this one down altogether up here and now I guess that one's going down. BR: It is gone. EB: Yes, I think so. So there isn't too much that. But this is quite interesting to me, this is the minutes of the meeting of the school trustees in October 16, 1886 and it was unanimously agreed that Justin T. Grover be hired to teach the school for one term to commence November 1 and that he shall be paid $75 for his services as teacher for set term. Also that Henry Field, that was my grandfather, is hired to haul the coal from for this term for $.75 per ton. It can be hauled from the summit. The summit was up here in 13 Sunset and $1.50 per ton if hauled from Ogden. Justin T. Grover was the secretary and these were the original minutes. So it was quite interesting. Not much pay that they received at that time. Then the first Sunday School was organized in the spring of 1876 by Richard Ballentine, Professor Moench, and William Wright, Sr., with Justin T. Grover superintendent, John Bruce and James Hill as counselors, with David P. Davis as secretary. This meeting was held at the home of Justin T. Grover. The first meetings and amusements were held in a Bowery. The home was right down here and the Bowery was that open field below Ellison’s place. This bowery was erected for the first Fourth of July celebration after the church house was erected, which was built in the year 1908. BR: What were the schools like when you were a young child going to school? EB: Well, they had this little blue school house at the rear and then they built two more brick rooms in the front of the little blue school? Then for the first, second, third, and fourth grade, we went in this room in back and then when we was in the fifth grade we had to go into the front part of the school and they had up to eight grades in those two rooms and I remember the east half had some of the younger ones later they went like they had after they got those two on seemed like about third, fourth was in this one part of it and then the other one was the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth. They had the seventh and eighth together. That was the last year I went to school was that year. I didn't start till I was nine and I got up with the ones who'd started when they were six afterwards. They promoted you then if you could do the work. They promoted you to the next grade in the half term you know, and that's the way I did. I went all one year in the third grade and then the fourth and the fifth and then the next year I started out in the sixth and the 14 seventh and eighth was together. So I really went a little too fast I think sometimes, but that's the way they did it that time. They hurried you along. BR: What type of subjects did they teach, essentially the same as they do today? EB: Well no, there was a lot different I think. I--it was what they call leading and writing and arithmetic. I mean, we had mostly things that we could you know in all the books. We had the times tables. We had to learn all of the times tables and all the measurements and things like that. Different kind of measurements and then the thing that bothered me was the English I had too. They taught English and I never did accomplish that. I guess I didn't go long enough but I failed on English. But that was about the main things that they taught. It seemed like it was something we used in our everyday life. Now days they have so many added that they didn't have at that time. Geography, I don't know if they still teach that or not, but we had a regular geography book and it showed the different lakes and the streams and the rivers and all that, you know. And I remember-and history. We had a history book. They didn't change them as often as they do now, I don't believe. BR: What about the growth of communications? Do you know when the telephones, for example, this type of thing? When did they come into Roy? Do you remember? EB: The telephone? BR: The telephone and so forth. EB: know there was only one or two in a, let's see, seems about 1906 I had a cousin pass away quite suddenly. She was six years old and she was born in 1898. So it would be about 1898. It would be about 1904. The only telephone was the one at the Star 15 Cannery at that time. I remember. And then one or two people, Mrs. Hamblin down there, there's an article in the paper a few years back that she was one of the first that had a telephone. There wasn't very many that had telephones. I remember going with my folks in the dark of the night up to the Star Factory to telephone from there and when this child was terribly ill. Doctor's had to come out from Ogden and they didn't all have cars. They had horses and buggies some of the time. So it was, and electric lights they came in about 1919 we had.^ The first that we had, but they had had them on that other street before that with that I remember around 1919-1920 for they had the electric lights but they didn't have a very much easy time of making a livelihood the first settlers. So many lizards and all kind of, I was thinking here lately. You don't see the toads. You'd get out after dark and you'd just have to watch or you'd be stepping on a toad. They'd be hopping around all the time and as soon as it got dark it seemed like. There was quite few things like that they had to put up with, too. These open ditches, they had and everything was irrigation after they got the canal through but it took time before they got the canal. They had dry land and they had to haul the water from Hooper for the cattle to drink and there just was one well?'''' It was fifty foot deep and they was only enough for the drinking water and what they needed for cooking. And so they had to haul it from the Hooper Spring about three miles away for all the rest of their laundry and their cattle and everything like that. So it really was a hard pull to make a livelihood here it seemed to me. BR: When was the canal put in? EB: Well I had it here somewhere now--if I can find it in a hurry. I had that marked. Some of the ladies had to go and help carry the rocks and they said they'd carry them in their 16 apron and help the men all that they could in cleaning this making this canal. Nine miles of it. It was done with teams with scrappers. Davis and Weber County Canal first called the Central Canal was incorporated early in 1881 and work was started on construction of the canal and flume in the mouth of Weber Canyon early in 1881. The farmers who were to be benefited by the water each had a section of the canal to excavate. Those doing the actual work with teams and scrappers were William E. Baker, Justin T. Grover, Henry Field, Richard Jones, Edward Bell, Reuben Baker, James Hill, John Bruce, Mark Elder, Peter P. Terry, and a few others. Peter P. Terry worked hard to get the water through. Water was turned into the flume and canal June the seventh, 1883. Then in 1884 it was incorporated under the name of Davis and Weber County Canal Company. The canal extended into Davis County and the people of both counties are still using the water obtained from this canal for irrigation purposes at the present time. Before the canal came through the wells had to be dug very deep in order to obtain water but after the canal was built water could be obtained at a depth of 12 to 16 feet. Then it tells how the streets were surveyed and the property owners had to donate the ground in order to make the streets and there are three streets running east and west for the of two miles and four streets including the State Highway running north and south. There's more than that now for a distance of one and a half miles. So then they wanted to get the name. That's how they took the post offices. In order to get a post office they had to have a name and so and it goes on to tell how they got their name. Did you want to hear that? BR: Well I'll tell you, would it be alright if I took a copy of this, if I took it and made a copy? EB: Yes. 17 BR: And brought it back to you. Well then, I'll put it with this other. EB: Yes, I think it would be good because of the dates are here. So you let me have it. Be sure and get it back because I wanted to keep it. BR: You bet, I sure will. EB: We've used it quite a lot of times in different talks that I've had to give and that, and I also have the talk that I gave once in the back here and it tells what my mother's first doll was made of cloth. Her father put eyes in and horse hair for hair. Oranges, apples, and a small amount of candy was what they had for Christmas. So that was their Christmas. And there was no meetings held here. They was all held in Hooper. The settlers went to Hooper for their first Fourth of July. Bob Cox sang to the children before this program for the day. Napoleon was a general, he led ten thousand men, he led them up a big steep hill, and he led them down again, when they were up they were up, and when they were down, they were down, and when they were half way up they were neither up nor down, and mother said they had a lot of fun -with that. Now they use that in Primary, only the Duke of York they call it. So it's come back again and it's. I had to give a talk for their Mutual one time and they told me what to ask and I wrote it down, what Mother told me you know. So there's quite a little bit on that, too. BR: Now you've lived here close to the railroad track most of your life. How great of an influence did the railroads have here on this area of Roy? I know this Oregon Short-Line and Denver and Rio Grande. How much influence did they have? EB: Well, they were a necessary thing, I guess, at the time because that was about the only way we had to travel to Ogden or Salt Lake. They had teams and wagons we could go 18 to Ogden, but it would take all day to go and come and they did have a little bit for a while that you could get a train here on to Denver but always on the Short-Line we'd get a train going to Ogden. Many a time I went that way to take my music lesson. I'd go in on one and come back. They had several trains during the day that we could travel on. So they were really a necessary thing for the--for Roy at that time and people used to travel a lot on the Oregon Short-Line back and forth and to Salt Lake and around like that and of course when they began to get cars there wasn't as many traveled and they didn't have those accommodations at all, but they'd ship everything by train at that time from these factories. So they were necessary. They even built a spur from the D & RG up to the Star Canning Company so they could ship and they'd be shipping back and forth and had a side track here and they'd side track their train and then go in and get these carloads of produce that they was taking on. The can goods that they was to take on. So they did was necessary to the livelihood of Roy here. BR: I've heard a lot of people mention in later years the Bamburger. Did that have much of an influence in the early days or did it more or less pick up when the other started to decline? EB: I think it did have a more pick up after that came through as I remember these other trains went out of service quite a little bit. Although they did till after we was married you could still go on the Oregon Short-Line into Ogden or Salt Lake real easy and it was for several years after 1923 there was still accommodations on the trains but as there became more cars but the Bamburger or the Fourth of July, all holidays was just crowded. People coming from all Ogden to Lagoon and people going from here all along the line people would get in and the cars was just overcrowded and they'd have 19 several cars on you know, because that's where they went for their amusement a lot and then they had the still had the Hermitage. They had dances and it was quite a resort place. It's all gone practically now after the street car didn't go up there, I don't think it lasted too long after that. It was one of the early day amusements. BR: Maybe you could answer this. I've heard and read a little bit about the flu epidemic in 1918, was it? EB: That was a terrible sickness. BR: How--what was it like back in those days when they had this? EB: Well it was hard to get doctors and they didn't seem to know what to do when they did get them. I know people would take it so suddenly when they'd exposed. I can remember one family, they lost three within three days, the father and the married son and the married daughter. BR: That was the Omstead case. EB: And just left three alive and they didn't seem that they could do anything for them. There was a Doctor Tanner, the old doctor from Layton. Some of them had him and they'd say, well he didn't do what he could and they--but they just died like flies it seemed like it was a terrible thing and they'd get their lungs congested and I know my folks had it. My mother especially, she was sick all winter and it left her lungs kind of weak and then the Jones family. My uncle, his family was all down at once. I can remember going down there and your great-grandmother did a lot of going around and helping people. There was a few that didn't have it, I had it but I kept going and taking care of my own, you know, but it was a different flu all right from we've ever had since. But it just took so 20 many people and it seemed to take the ones that you'd think was the strongest and the healthiest people was the ones that it seemed to take. BR: What were the conditions in Roy here like during World War I? What type of effect did World War I have on the community of Roy? EB: Well there were quite a few of the young men went. Some enlisted and some was drafted, but they was an awful lot went. Now, for an example, Bishop Hollans's, he was our first bishop here years before, and at this time he'd been on a mission to California after he got out of being bishop and they put him in as Sunday School Superintendent and he had two young men, Arthur Brown and Jeddy Hammond—he's a relative of yours--his counselors, and it took both of those to war and left him all alone. So that's about the way the situation was. It took so many of the young men that it kind of left them pretty well stranded. But I think what the majority of them must have come back as near as I can remember the ones around here. I know Arthur Brown and Jeddy Hammond did, and most of them. There's a boy or two on this street and they went and they came back all right and so I think most of them came back. I know I had a cousin go, Charles Dalton, and he said they were just dropping all around him. They got in that Argon Forest and they had quite a struggle there, but he was protected and came home; he was one of them that came home. They took nearly the whole battalion he was in but it was quite a sad time. One lady had her husband and her son both gone. She was all alone; she was a plucky person I thought, too. Mrs. Norman and she lived in a small house up where the Food King is now. It was the American Food. Just a little house there and no neighbors, no close neighbors, and she had a horse and buggy that she'd drive and she was a plucky woman. I always admired her for what she must have 21 went through during that time and they both came back so it was spared in the war. They both came home. BR: There were some immigrants that came from England and Holland and so forth that came and settled in this area. Did they have any particular problems getting involved in the community or did they just kind of fit right in? EB: Do you mean after the first-- BR: After the original. EB: After the original ones. Well, I think maybe children were a little bit hard on some of those people, but we were always taught to accept them and you know if they did come from these foreign. There was one family by the name of Feit that lived up the street here and Mrs. Feit's father and mother came to--they belonged to the Church and that's what they came for and they lived neighbors to them and we always got along with the Feit's and went to school with them. One of the girls was my age and I know her now, why I see her at the old folks doing were both now, but we always got along with them and they seemed to fit in all right. I remember one of the boys went on a mission back to Holland and they had quite a large family, these people did, and they stated the first butcher shop here and the only one I guess up until these stores were here now, but they made what they called royal tongue. It was a cold lunch meat, a kind of lunch meat that they made and that was their trademark, like was this royal tongue and then they sold other kind of meats and they had it up here where Billy Layton lives. The house is still there and they had the meat shop in the back. The boys worked at that and the father and they were ambitious people and really tried to make a livelihood you know, and they were Mormons. I remember she died the night I got married, the fifth of 22 September, 1923, and she left word for the daughters to give me some tumblers or glasses for a wedding present, but they was all upset I guess, but I know they told me that that was what she wanted. I used to go up and help her girls sew and she was quite pleased over that. She was a nice little lady and Mr. Feit lived quite a long while but they moved away after she died and now there's not too many of them alive. There's one live in Ogden that one girl and then Garret, he lives out in Nessa guess it's Nampa. He lives in Nampa, Idaho, I think where he lives. I never see him anymore, but I do on old folk’s day the one in, but they seem to get along and then they was a family—two families of Italians that was here and they was section---one was section foreman and the other was a worker on the section and he had a couple of boys and a girl and one boy was in the reform school. He'd done some stealing down in Salt Lake and so he wanted to get him out and he got him and my father let him have a place down below the D & RG track where he could put up a tent and he got his daughter to come from Idaho, she was there with---his wife had died and he had to let the children out I guess. The girl anyway was with some party up there, but after he got this tent they built a frame work all around and then put this tent up over the top and so that's where they lived for several years there and he worked on the railroad and the boy worked in the cannery. He worked in the Star Cannery. People so they managed to get along pretty good. They were Catholics, but they never did join the Church or anything but they lived here quite a little while and then they finally moved back to Salt Lake again. I guess they're all dead now. I know the father and the one boy are dead and I don't know about the other one. They used to come back and see us once in a while, come back to see my mother. Then the other family the child got burned terribly bad. They didn't know if he'd make it 23 and my Aunt Hannah Field and mother went and helped the mother doctor the child, the burns and that you know, and the mother couldn't speak a word of English and it sure was hard to get it over to her what you meant. But the father could speak pretty good, so when the boy got all right and grown up he went into the service and then he was, I don't know, about how old he'd be. But they had this marker out here and had that big celebration. They saw it in the paper down there in Salt Lake so he and Mr. Pellegrino and the boys came up to that and told mother how wonderful she was for helping them with them with that Benny his name was, and that was Benny that come with him and he said this was Benny and that he owed his life to her and my Aunt for the way that they helped to take care of him and that you know so they did appreciate it after all and they were quite different but I don't know whether the mother got so she could talk. I believe she did. I believe we went down once after that to the home, but as I understand they're both dead now so, they were people that lived here, There was different people lived in that section house and they'd come from different places. This one man was Danish. His wife and him and they had the one child and they boarded the men that worked on the railroad right there it was a boarding house as well as a section house, so mother worked. There was no work for young people you know and she went there and worked and helped to take care, helped the lady with the cooking and that for the men on the railroad and she said that this man this Larsen, he took his check and went to town one time and he got--had too much to drink and somebody robbed him and he was gone I believe she said all night--and she said that woman walked the floor all night long, she was so upset and when mother went the next morning to help her with the work why she was really upset and she got sick and whether she was sick to start with, 24 but they used to have typhoid a lot, and I don't know whether that's what she had, but she got down sick and she never spoke to him no more, mother said, and she died and he was left with this child to take care of and he felt so bad she wouldn't even listen to him to tell his side of the story at all. Mother used to tell us that a lot of times it made quite an impression on her mind to know what he went through and finally there was a lady from Kaysville, I think she said, that come and worked there and he finally took her out a little bit and got married and so she took care of the child. Then he moved away and then another would come you see. The section foreman wouldn't stay too long and we had a lot of different ones in that way. And she said this lady was Danish and she couldn't talk too well and so mother tried to tell her that maybe you know she'd listen to him but she said she never would she died and never spoke to him no more. BR: Some of the people I've talked to have said the main center of activity here in Roy was the Church. Now what about those people who weren't members of the Church? How did they fit into the activities? Were they--did they come out and meet with those that were? EB: Well they--some of them did, I think, but I don't think they did too much. It was mostly the ones that belonged to the Church, but I know the nursery over here hired a lot of men from all over the country. One come from-he was-he must have come around through Colorado because I remember he had the song "Where the Silver Colorado Winds Its Way. I've still got it, he gave it to me and he put his name on there I noticed lately and he would go over to these dramas. I think they'd go to the things like that more or less but I don't remember that they went to church. I know these Italian people never did and they didn't go to the Catholics either but they claimed they was Catholics. 25 But they never went to any church and I think mostly that's the way it was. Now, Mrs. Norman she said she was a Christian, she belonged to the Christian Church but I don't think she ever went, but she did come to our Relief Society a few times and she helped a great deal with the Relief Society. She made quilt tops for them and things like that. She was a real neat sewer and that, and she helped a lot, but as a general rule it didn't seem like they went to much unless it was a play or something like that that they went to, but they was another time I'm reminded now of a Greek family that lived over here. It was when the Ouija boards first came out and we had one of them. We got it through a cousin bought it and then she sold it to us and it was a funny thing about that there evil I believe and mother thought they were too, and so but we was kids and you know how you are with new things like that, and these Greeks-- the lady wasn't a Greek. I can't remember what nationality she claimed, but mother used to think she looked like a gypsy. She was real friendly with us because we was about the only people right here close you know, and she didn't have any of her own relatives every day. She never failed to come over to see us and her husband was quite light and he had a couple of brothers that worked for him and one was quite a young fellow. He'd just come over from Greece and he couldn't talk and they'd come from over for the evening you know, and they wanted to hear this Ouija board and it was about this time of the year and the Ouija boards said that they said when will the war quit? (See that was when the war was on). We was all worrying about the war and it spelled out November the tenth and so those fellows they just took that right to heart. They just knew it was going to quit then. And in a few days they'd come over again and it always said November the tenth, and so sure enough the war did quit on November the tenth, but it was the eleventh 26 when we got the word here, and oh, they thought that was quite wonderful and mother said we had more sickness that winter. She says I'm going to take that out and chop it up. She says I know its evil and I think it was because fortune tellers had told this cousin to get it in the first place, but I didn't know till after so we got rid of the Ouija board. Now lately they say they've got them out again, but they're not to be fooled with because I think they're think its evil spirits just like my mother said. They'll tell you one truth to a dozen lies and that's the way that was you know. But these fellows they couldn't get it to work very good, but I can remember coming over and their brother, he was the foreman. Well then they moved to Salt Lake and so then they wanted us to come down there real bad so Harold he could drive the car so he took us down. The road wasn't crowded like it is now and they treated us real nice. They had a new baby at that time. I think they'd not been married too long when they was here, maybe a year or two, and then maybe this was a year or so after they'd moved to Salt Lake. She used to write to me all the time and so we went down anyway and spent the day there and then they got transferred to Pueblo, Colorado, and then while they was there why the man took tuberculosis. Steve, I believe his name was, Steve Messers was the name. And so she wrote and sent us a picture of him in his coffin, the only time I ever seen a dead person in a coffin, and she felt so bad because he died and then it was about a year and the baby died. So she come back and seen us once after that and then that's the last we ever heard of her so I don't know what happened. But there was so many like that living so close here that we got acquainted with you know, but none of them seemed to go to church or be converted or anything like that that I can ever remember. 27 BR: That's all the questions I have. Is there anything else you'd like to add that you haven't thought about? EB: Well I can't think of anything right now. I'm afraid I've told you too much but more than you want I guess, but it is the things that happened as it comes to mind, you know, but you can take this and then copy it off. BR: Okay, I'll get a copy made off of it and then I'll bring it back to you. EB: All right, I want to keep it now. I don't know where I'd get another copy and it has come in quite handy because it really is what they told me and they was in their right mind and everything when they told it to me you know. One didn't think of the other one did and Diney it is in there what she did and they never put it anywhere, but she went out among the sick and your great-grandmother Leddy, she did that a lot too, but Diney went, oh time and again in the middle of the night and everything and it really, I don't know what they've ever give her any credit anyone. BR: Now the Dalton's mentioned that in their book that's one part in it. EB: Did they oh? But theirs was so much about their selves that-- BR: Yes, I've noticed that. EB: They call it the Dalton book so, but what they put in about Uncle Dave we've been real burned up over that, because that wasn't the truth. Uncle Dave was an honest man and he always paid his tithing before anything else and if there was ever any donations he was right there with his money. He was pretty well fixed you know and it really is sad that I know, I don't know if you know Hilda Jones, I guess you don't. BR: I'm somewhat familiar with her. 28 EB: You've heard of her. She's quite an educator now, goes around and that and flies here and there all over, but they say she called Rosella up, the one of them that wrote that, and she told her if she made any more copies to leave Uncle Dave right out. She was really disgusted over it and we've all been upset over that because that was unnecessary they put other stuff in there that was unnecessary to put in. I think, I believe in putting the best of people, the best things they done and poor old Uncle Dave, he had a kind of sad life and they--he didn't drink as much as she said he did either in there. She talked like he was just no account at all, you know, and it really burned us up and I never talked to her since and never see her or anything or I was going to tell her she didn't need to put that in anyway. She could have left that part out, but I don't know, they put a little of this in but they haven't dated nor explained a thing about it because they didn't know anything about it. See their mother was younger than my mother, and my mother would remember more and they hadn't even put down what their mother -would remember it was what they could remember and I don't know, I didn't like it myself what they put in there. But I think I always had a sneaking idea that they'd figured they'd get it in the movies or something and make a big thing out of it. I don't know whether that was it or not, but I've known them all their lives you know. 29