Oral History Program Orlen Francis Fackrell Interviewed by Kay Fackrell 28 October 1976 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Orlen Francis Fackrell Interviewed by Kay Fackrell 28 October 1976 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. 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: Fackrell, Orlen Francis, an oral history by Kay Fackrell, 28 October 1976, 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 Orlen Francis Fackrell. The interview was conducted on October 28, 1976, by Kay Fackrell, in Evanston, Wyoming. Orlen Fackrell discusses his life in Southwestern Wyoming and different experiences he’s had throughout his life. Fackrell’s wife is also present during the interview. KF: I'm Kay Fackrell and I'm in the home of Orlen Francis Fackrell in Evanston, better known as my Uncle Frank. I'm going to interview Uncle Frank about his life in the Bridger Valley. Uncle Frank, where were you born? FF: I was born in Eaton, Utah. In Eaton, Utah, on the 24th of February, 1895 on a little ranch that my father had and was running there in Eaton. That's where he raised his family after he was married. I don't just remember what time he came to this ranch but when I come into the family that's where they were living. I had older, there was older boys than I was. In fact there was one girl older too, but she died and one boy died when they were born, when they were young and they're buried in Eaton, Utah. Then we lived there for... I went one year, I believe, to school before I remember we left there. The ranch was getting small to accommodate or make a living for the family until my father decided that we'd have to find a bigger place, as I understood. So he heard of this country out here in Wyoming through... There was some others went out there before we do. Johnny Walker was out there that left from there that father knew. Father got on a train and went to Carter and he walked from Carter over to Urie. Then he went to look at a ranch. That's the ranch that he finally bought. That Isherwood had. Maylin Isherwood had filed on it. But that was just about a half a mile before you go down what is called now the Walker Lane where Johnny Walker lives. And my father went to talk to 1 this guy and this feller had built a house on it. But he did want to stay there, so my father bought his rights and he relinquished and my father filed on that 160 acres of ground. Filed on it and bought him out. Then he went back to Utah where he had his family. Let's see; there was Jim and Earl and Orson and Joe and John and myself and Eff were the family that we had then. And he came back and he'd bought this place or bargained for it and decided to come to Wyoming. Well the way he came to Wyoming, he gathered up his stuff and team and wagons and he loaded all furniture and everything in the two wagons. And then him and all the older boys. There was me and John. John and me and the younger ones come on the train with my mother after he left. They left and come overland driving the cattle he had and the team and wagons camped on the road. I don't know just exactly how many days it took him to come out with the stock. I don't remember for sure. Well anyway they come out to the ranch with the stock. Then mother come on the train with the rest of us and father met us in Carter with the team and wagon. And that's the way we come over to the Valley. KF: Uncle Frank, do you remember what the cost was of that 160 acres? FF: No, I don't. I don't remember. You see you proved up... Took the ground and proved up on it and he bought him out. Hut I don't remember what he give him. But he bought him out and he filed, dad filed on it. Then when you file on a homestead it costs you so much to file, then after you prove up, I think it's three years, then you pay so much an acre for it. I believe. Now I don't remember what was paid for it. KF: You mentioned that he bought this from an Isherwood? FF: Yes, Isherwood. 2 KF: Was this a common practice? People going out and homesteading and then selling their rights? FF: No. Now some of them, there's some that homesteaded and didn't sell their rights. 3ut this man some way or another wanted to move off of that place. That's the way my father got it. Then what he give him, I don't know. I never did hearsay. If I did, I forgot it. I was too young and had too much other stuff on my mind. KF: So you guys came out on the train and your dad brought the team and most of your things...? FF: Yes, my dad and my brothers, my older brothers. They come out in team and wagons and drove the cattle overland out to the ranch, when they come onto the ranch. KF: Now you were probably pretty fortunate because there was already a house on this homestead? FF: Yes, there was a house on this ranch. KF: What did you have to do when you got there? FF: Well, when we moved in we really had to make the ranch. That's all there was with the stock that dad brought with him. He had cleared some of the ground but not very much of it. The biggest part of it was in sagebrush. It had to be grubbed off. So my father cleared the sagebrush off of that ranch and he planted it with the help he had. And planted grain and alfalfa with it to start with and that's what he raised. He used to raise quite a crop of grain. It got where he raised quite a crop of grain after he got there. Of course at that time there were more people in there and there was some when we went there. The neighbors. There was Walker, the closest neighbors. They were about a half 3 a mile away. And that's about the closest ones there was when we went in there. But dad had to clear this farm off and plant it. We had pretty good water for it. After we had been there, I don't know how long, when we first got there where we first went to school, we walked to school down to a schoolhouse down by the Sy Eardley place. That was two miles east of this place. The school. That's where we walked and I first went to school in the Bridger Valley after we got over there. Then later there was a schoolhouse about a mile west, up in the field, another Isherwood used to own that place. It's the place that Teddy Eyre was on later on. The one that Guy Eyre and family owns today up there. The schoolhouse used to be down there in the corner where Frank Thomas's house is now. And that's where we walked to school, at that schoolhouse when I went to school. KF: Did you go to school pretty much the same time-September through June? FF: Just the same and all winter. Sometimes it was up through there we'd go through the snow and I was just small then, but we all used to always go together. Bob Smith, his dad moved down to the end there by the canal by the place that Clyde Walkers on. And he lived over there and Bob Smith used... We used to get together and walk from there up to school. We only had one teacher that taught all the grades up there. She had quite a bunch of kids there. We had... Liddy Shurtleff was the first teacher I went to out there. She was a woman and she rode from Bridger. Then we had another woman. Nora Guild. They lived up on by where Urie was eventually, but they lived in Bridger and Nora rode a saddle horse from Bridger up there to teach us when we were in school. The things where we used to go out and play, we used to play out in the field and we 4 used to play baseball. That's about all the entertainment I had. About the size. But this teacher taught all the grades. First till the eighth grade in the school. KF: Quite the group of kids? FF: Quite a group of children that she had there. Then later on they moved that schoolhouse up to Urie. Right across the road from the Urie store over there. Later on Bill Gainsel got it and moved it over where Gainsel's live. They eventually put two rooms there at that schoolhouse, where we went to. And that's the school that I got in my life. All the schooling I got was going to that school. And they had the, up until the eighth grade, that's all they had. The eighth grade. I went to the eighth grade there and then after that I went to work. In the meantime, we had the place all cleared off and put it into grain and alfalfa. We put quite a bit of hay. My dad would accumulate… He was a lover of horses. He had accumulated a bunch of mares and they went in together and got a stallion, him and some other men. Purchased a stallion. He was an imported one. I believe they gave $2800.00 for him, if I remember right. That was quite a price in those days. And there were a lot of them bought into him and my dad took care of him and with his mares he went into the horse business. And raised horses. Then he run this horse; took it around to the others and through the country. They took him different places where he would stand this day and that day and my dad took this horse out. He took care of him the biggest part of the time. And finally after so long the others went out of the horse business. They finally wound up that my dad and Hoot Roberts owned the horse. Was the only two that owned the horse? He was a big horse. He weighed about a ton. And he would just sit on his back. When my dad used to ride him his legs would just go over and stick straight out. My dad was a small man. He'd ride him wherever he 5 went, pretty near. He finally got so he would take a horse, but he most generally rode this horse around. But anyway he went into the horse business to a certain extent until he had quite a head of brood mares. With the place and raising the grain there on the place, they cleared the brush off... And how they cleared the brush off the place would be awful slow to the way they clear it off in this day. They built a grubber. And they went and got two green cottonwoods. One bigger one and one smaller one. The big one they put in ahead and the small one behind and they got iron pegs or old buggy exes, whatever they could get and drilled and drove into these logs. The one in front and the one behind was smaller. Then they put a brace between and then handles on the back of this. Then they used a chain on the back and around the front one and they put six head of horses; three on each side to pull it. Two men worked on that grubber behind the horses. That's the way they pulled the brush up. They'd go till it got full, then they'd jump off and dump it and leave a pile of sagebrush then pull it back down again and go on until they grubbed the place. That's the way they grubbed the biggest part of the brush, sagebrush, and planted that ranch until they had the whole ranch cleared of brush until it was planted. We used to raise good crops and he used to raise a lot of grain. Finally when we were kids, we used to either walk or if when we got bigger we used to go a horseback where we went. But anyway my dad finally he bought a thrashing machine, into a thrashing machine. There was two or three in with him and finally he bought it until he owned it himself after. He used to thrash around 2500 or 3000 bushel of grain every year off of that ranch. And he used to run this thrashing machine; there was twelve head of horses on it. He was just small. There were other machines in the Valley at that time. The Uncle Machine and 6 finally the Steamer. Later equipment on those machines. But this one was all horse power and so was the uncle machine. When they run the machine, you had a man for each team on there. That would be six men to run this thrashing machine. You'd go to a man's place... Of course you got your... They boarded you but you had to feed your own horses grain, if you fed them grain. And each man tended his team. After he got through work he'd tend to them and feed them for the night and in the morning he'd get up in the morning and they always tried to start this machine a going at daylight if possible. And they pretty near always kept it going until dark. Then they'd unhitch for noon. Each man had to tend his team. But not into place, the man didn't stand around. Each man had a job to do. They had two men to feed. They fed it by hand and then they had the horsepower. My dad drove the power wagon, the horsepower. You run by a tumbler that set out there from the machine where there's room for them horses to go around, around and around and they step over that tumbling rod all the time and the rod turns the thrashing machine that thrashed the grain. And they thrashed it and they had to have a busheler that busheled the grain and put it in sacks where they want to, to take to the bins and they had a band cover. That was my job, mostly was cutting bands. Then they had the men a pitching one side or two sides, whatever they did onto the table you cut the band and it went through the machine and out. Then the straw carrier was a belt and elevator really with a belt on that the straw went out into the straw pile. Well the straw pile is where they put the kids. 0ut there in the straw to stack the straw up on the straw pile, and they'd always stack the straw out there. It took a bunch of men. They all had a job on there and they charged, I believe it was eight bushel on a hundred, and then it was nine. They took tolled instead of cash. If a man wanted to pay 7 cash all right but they took tolled generally and it was nine bushel on a hundred and each guy got, if they were hired men they got half a bushel on a hundred or a bushel if they had their team and that's the way they paid them out. At the end of the week they'd always have the toll wagon and each man he'd take his toll and take it home at the end of the week of what they'd earned and take their toll home and that was their pay. They mostly got their pay in grain. And they covered the country and stayed, we stayed where- ever the thrasher was. Never went home. We had our beds and we bunked in the straw pile or out in the sheds somewhere. That's where we slept at night. That's where us kids, we were just getting big enough to get around, that's where we used to go out at nights like it is now they're having all these political rallies. Well that was a different in those days. Today... I shouldn't say this I guess. Shut if off a minute and I'll tell you this. KF: OK Uncle Frank, quite a few people out in the Valley did raise grain at this time? FF: Yes, there was a lot of grain raised in the Bridger Valley. KF: I wasn't aware of that. FF: You see to start a place like grubbing it off they'd put alfalfa in generally and maybe they'd sow grain with it. Or maybe they would put grain in. In another grubbing job that I had, this was a little later on, was when your granddad bought this place where Kenneth lives now. I helped grub that place with a grubber. I worked for Jim for $30.00 a month. KF: 30 a month? FF: 30 a month. I worked for him, I stayed right there and helped milk the cows, we grubbed, then we went out after dark at night and burnt brush, after dark. That was nice 8 to work out after dark and... And you planted it up to grain. He had the forty acres up there. That belongs to the place now. He had this 160. He bought it off of BarneyB3artlett and then Jim built that house that was on there but I worked for Jim and helped him grub that place. I irrigated that place the first year it was into grain. KF: The main purpose for planting something was to keep it from blowing away then? FF: Well you have to get it planted and get some grass or something growing in it if you ever expected to make a living out of it. Of course in them days you didn't get a lot of money for what you raised but it didn't cost you so much to raise it either. But Jim used to raise quite a bit of grain until he got planted in hay then he bought more ground till he owned all the ground there is now. I helped him and worked for him out... And that day $30.00 was considered a pretty good wage. Of course I got my board; $30.00 and board. Well I got that and that was pretty good wages and I thought it was pretty good money when I got that. The reason I worked up there, the other boys all went out for their selves now. They were all. Jim got his place, Earl got a place and they all got a place but there was me and John was left on the ranch and we used to help our dad run the ranch then we'd go out haying on the wild hay down through the fields. I used to go down and help Walt Stevens and Newton put up the hay down there. The first time I went down there to hay my brother Jim after he'd married Laura Stevens, he would go down there and help hay and then I went down there and run a hay rig down there, doing the haying. The first time I ever worked out. I went down when him and Laura was there at Stevens’ and I worked and helped put up Newton hay. And the other hay, that's where we made a little extra money. From the ranch, but we still tended the ranch. Then John got married and then after John got married, John bought him a place, my brother 9 John. Then they all had places all outside of Orson. My brother Orson, he never did settle down. He got the idea to chase around the country and that's about all he ever done all his life was chase from one part of the country to the other. He never did settle down. He'd come home sometimes. But all the others settled down. Dave got the place, I had the place that Dave bought and he just got it. 3ought it from my dad, my dad had it. He had it and used it to run horses there and another one down where Raymond lived. He had two places; 160 where he pastured brood mares when he raised the brood mares. I got that place off of my dad and I started to run it. I got married before this time. KF: Yeah, that comes in there. FF: Yeah. That has got to come in there. I got married. During that time, Bingham’s moved into the Valley. They'd been in there about a year. One winter I went to Superior and worked in the coal mines one winter. And I worked in the coal mines and I come home in the spring and that time they'd moved in and then the next summer, Gary Tripp, I went down to help him hay and my wife, Mr. Bingham, her father and Gary Tripp hayed together. That's right down the road about a mile from the home where I lived. Her father and she was helping Mrs. Tripp cook for the hay men. That's how I met my wife. And we put up Gary's hay and during the time that we were there, there were shows and dances and we used to have enough clothes with us that we could go to a dance. I used to take my wife on my saddle horse and put her on in a saddle and I'd get behind and we'd go up to the dances. Then I'd take her back there or else home, whichever place she wanted to go. So that's the first time that I ever took her out on horseback. I'd 10 taken other girls. That's the way we used to take them in that days. When we done our chasing girls, we done it on horseback, the furls a foot. KF: You made sure she could cook first, though huh? FF: She could cook down there, yeah. She helped them cook there and I don't know, we just got together from there until the time that we... It was just before the Worlds War, I used to chase with a bunch, the Eyre’s, well there was Press Stone, and Sob Smith, and Orvil Roberts, that's Martha Roberts’s brother. He was a great pal of mine. And Don Fields and there was several of us that used to chase around together and one night I took my wife and we were out for a ride on a horse and we met this group. They were coming back into Mt. View, and we met them there on the road and they'd stop and was talking to us and they told me that we've enlisted. At that time this trouble in Mexico, that the United States had with Mexico and they thought they were going to war, and they were after volunteers. And they were going to go and volunteer. Bob, and Press, and Harold and I don't know, it wasn't all of them that were going to volunteer and they wanted me to go and volunteer. Well I was just about to go with them and volunteer until they left and then just before we left I was going to see them in the morning. Why my wife, why we'd talked about getting married before, but she said "don't you go with them. Let’s go get married." So I told them I wouldn't go, and so then we got married and I didn't go down to that in Mexico. They went down there but I didn't go. I stayed home and I run my father’s place and worked out up until the time those fellers all come back from the army down there, you know. They left and come home for a while. It wasn't long until the other war was on and they called everybody. Well when they called them in the first of the war and I was right in the 21 years old, ripe and ready for service, 11 so they called me into service, but I'd been married and I'd just got this place and it had some grain in on it down there. I went and talked to the board in here and told them what I had and they says "well go ahead and finish your crop and I don't think you'll have to go. Anyway not until you get your crop taken off." So I went in and put some grain in down in this place and after I got it in, why then I got another notice. A-l and report for duty. And in the meantime my oldest boy was born. And he was just three weeks old when I had to report for duty. And I went into the army. When I went into the army I bought this place off of my dad and I just turned it back to him because I didn't want... If I got killed I didn't want my wife to have this ranch to handle it. So I turned the ranch back to my dad. I didn't have it paid for so she wouldn't have that to worry and I went into the service. I went into the service, she stayed with my folks awhile and then she sent down and stayed with her father. He had left the Valley and moved back to Ogden. She went down to stay with him while I was in the service. KF: Where did you report to? FF: Fort Riley, Kansas, was where we reported in August. If hell's any hotter than Kansas was, it's a pretty hot place. It was down there where we first went down to Kansas in that heat from this western country. When we went there it was, just I don't know, well there were 1800 men in that shipment by the time they all got there. They loaded here at Evanston and they loaded from Montana and they went into Fort Riley, Kansas for boot training for bringing them into the army, you know. We went in there, it was summer and oh it was hot down there. And then they started in by... of course they give you vaccinations as you go in. Inoculations and everything. You had to take it. That's before you ever got a uniform and put you into training. At that time they just started to 12 give it in all in one shot. They'd been giving it in three but they give us all in one shot. But it didn't bother much but some of them I seen keel over when they took the shot. But some of them didn't, but you felt it right now. You could feel it working when they give it to you. It was sort of a funny deal in a way to me. I'd seen them run cattle in a shoot and run them through and vaccinate them and kick them out the end, well it put me in mind of that. We started in this... They were living in tents down there. We started in one end of this tent and the doctor was in there and they started us taking our clothes off. By the time we got to the other end we were naked. We had our clothes on our arm and there was a doctor there with a needle on this side and another one on the other side vaccinating you for small pox and you went out into the sun to dress. It was quite a deal. You felt so weak that in the sun it just about got us. Then at boot camp there at the camp they fed 1800 men at this one kitchen. Well we used to stand to go to mess, you used to have to get your mess kit and get out there and stand in line to go through and get it. There were a lot of times that I went out and sat down in the shade and there was no shade instead of going in and eating while we rested. They used to take us out about five miles to a drilling field and they'd drill us and they'd bring us back for dinner and take us out in the afternoon and drill us out there and bring us back. There was many a man that didn't make it. 3ut they'd say walk, as long as you'd walk, when you fell over they'd pick you up and haul you. But I always made it all at one trip and one trip I didn't think I could walk anymore and I just sat down. They said come on and go and I said "no, I can't walk anymore and I'm not going to walk anymore." So I got a ride the rest of the way but the rest of the time we walked. Of course that was training. And they really trained them fast because that's what they had to do. 13 KF: About how long did the training last? FF: Oh, I was in there, I guess close to a month or better. There was one man died out of our bunch that went in there. While we were in there training, after you got trained and got your shots and everything then you was assigned to a company. Well we were assigned, there were thirteen of us picked out and we were assigned to the Motor Supply Company and we had to go to Kansas City, Missouri and from there we went to Detroit, Michigan. In just a few days we were put in a tent to load out of Kansas to go. Thirteen of us. And the flu came on. They died like flies in there with that flu. They didn't know what to do for it. Well they lost 118 soldiers one night with the flu. KF: That's out of this original 1800? FF: Yeah. Well out of the bunch that was there. There was more in that camp than there was in there, too. That was a big camp. It had a Calvary there too. I tried to get out of that infantry that I was in and I was in with the Medical Corp., see, I tried to get out of that and join the Calvary, but they wouldn't let me. KF: Probably because you knew how to ride! FF: They wouldn't let me change and join after I was in there. But anyway while the flu was on, we was there we had our turn we used to go to help the doctors or else they'd make you trade out to where they buried them that died or else they'd ship them home, one way or the other. And we'd have to go to that. But our doctor, or what do you call him, Major, he was a doctor. We sprayed our throats and everything in the morning and again at night so we could keep from getting the flu. He was a pretty nice fellow. Anyway we had to help there and they were so many of them died then, you just 14 wondered who's turn it was next. 3ut finally we had the dangdest rain storm you ever saw. It rained until there was mud up above your ankles. There was no pavement of nothing there. We were living in tents then. And it was sure a mess in there, but boy did it rain. Well in three days there was no flu. KF: The rain washed it away? FF: Well, I don't know, it cleared the air, I guess. So then they released us and Eddie Bluemel from Lyman was one of the guys they replaced. There was two died out of our thirteen during that time. And Eddie Bluemel was one of them that come back in from Lyman. And he come in and we left there and they shipped us out to Kansas City and from there we went to Detroit. And from there, I wound up, I never did get over. I wound up over on Long Island. After the war, the war ended just as... We were all loaded, with trucks on the boat and everything ready to go and the Armistice was signed. We were sitting there in tents ready to load up when the Armistice was signed. KF: You were fortunate. FF: Then we returned. We didn't have to go. Not turned loose but we went back and went into the Detroit into some barracks that was in there. Then we done a little going here, there and all over and then finally we were assigned to a bunch of ambulances. Medical Corp with ambulance drivers and we... This was on Long Island and when they first started to come back from overseas, we hauled some to the delouser and some of the crippled ones to the hospitals. The ambulances did. I didn't drive an ambulance. I was just in the Medical Corp. We were stationed in an old show building there. That's where we had our office, the doctor's did and that's where we worked out of there until while we were in there. Setting there and hauling them back. We wasn't doing nothing. The 15 lieutenant; I got pretty well acquainted with Lieutenant Bill by being one of the men working in his group. He used to take us out every day and give us, teach us how to band up a broken leg or a gunshot wound or something like that, you know. One day I got a picture from home from my wife and it had a picture of her and my boy and I was showing it to him, you know. His wife was right along where she could go with him and she'd meet him there. Lots of times she'd come out and watch him when he was giving us exercise or one thing or another. He said, "Fackrell," he said, "I'm going to get you out of this army. So you can go home to your family, it's over with now." I said, "well, how you going to do it? It'll be alright." Others had done it. Eddie had got out. Eddie Bluemel. So he says, "you write home and get a letter from your wife signed by two witnesses that she'd staying with her father and living with her father and that she needs you to take care of the family." He said, "And I'll have you out of this army." So I wrote the letter and the letter come. I got a letter signed and I took it and handed it to him. He said, "Alright, I'll have you out of here." I went on about... Taking care... We had hours on and hours off. So one night he said to me, he said, "Fackrell," he said, "you show up in the morning," he said, "I'm going to send you home." He said, "I'll give you your examination," he said, "I'll send the sergeant with you to get your ticket and put you on a train and send you home." So he did. He sent me home. I got out of the army. KF: Not a lot of red tape involved? FF: Not a lot of red tape, because they got me out because I had a wife and a child and the only means of support she had and that day the army didn't pay you much money, you know. It was only $30.00 a month. And then when I went into the army, I signed for insurance. I took $10,000.00 insurance so if I got killed my wife would get that 16 $10,000.00. Then by the time I, everything else that I had to buy, I allowed $15.00 for my wife and they matched it. That's what she drew. And I drew $6.00 every month all the time I was in there. KF: Six dollars a month? FF: Six dollars a month was my wages while I was in there. And I never was broke. I always carried a couple of pennies in my pocket until I got home. I was glad to get out and get home and get back to my family. It was after I got back home for a while then we went into, I went with the coal shoots in Carter is what I done. I worked in the coal shoots in Carter for a while. I guess about three years; something like that. I worked nights the biggest part of the time. Then I got a job and I went down to... I thought I'd like to try to work on a ranch. I went down to the Bosler Ranch in Laramie. How I got that job. My brother Orson was working on this place cooking for these men. And he quit. Of course when he got ready to move, he moved and he told them. So they wrote me a letter and wanted to know if I didn't want to come back. I sort of liked the ranch work so I went down there. I took my wife with me. We had the two oldest boys then. And we moved down to the ranch. It was a big set up. She lost her husband and her brother was there trying to run it. He'd been in the Navy all his life and they had two ranches; one at Rock River and the other down at Bosler. They had an awful lot of cattle and a lot of horses and a lot of ground. So I went on this place where Orson was and my wife cooked and I milked the cows and helped on the ranch. I worked there for at that for quite a while and finally the fire burned the house down we was living in. We built a fire. It was an old house and it burned up in about 30 minutes one morning while I was out milking. So that wound up in the house and they moved me in the bunkhouse. Then this brother of 17 hers, he left and went up to the other ranch and he wanted me to take over this ranch and put up the hay on the ranch. He had a ditch you had to ride. There were several men there. At one time when I was there they had eighteen men, cowboys, they had the cattle down there feeding them and these cowboys worked with the cattle. Of course they moved the cattle by this time and they had a horse pasture where they put all their extra horses in. They was irrigating and putting up the hay. So this Swank, was his name, was her brother, he went up to the other ranch and I took over this ranch and they left one feller there with me that, he thought that maybe he should run it, I don't know. But anyway, I never had no trouble, but he would do things to hinder me all he could until one feller there, h He left. He had a good saddle. It belonged to the company and I had an old one, so I took this saddle and put it on my horse so I'd have it to ride. Saddle my horse and I went in the house and come back out and this guy had taken it off and put it on his horse. Said he was going to have that new saddle. So I decided that I was going to find out who was boss. So I fired him. And I called the woman to the ranch and told her what I'd done. She said, "That’s right. I'll be down with his check this afternoon. You tell him he can go. I'll meet him at the station and pay him off." KF: You found out who was boss? FF: He found out who was boss. So that got rid of him. But anyways, just before haying, I don't know what, it was something else, this guy had funny ideas. I don't like to talk about him. He was a good guy but his idea of irrigating the place, he used to come down once in a while, wasn't like mine was. His idea was going out and putting a big levy and build a pond of water over this and instead of running it over and ditching it 18 over. Of course the crop was coming up good until finally I thought I'd just quit. So I quit and come back to Carter and went to work on the shoots again. KF: What... You know Carter has come up about three or four times so far. What really was in Carter at this time? FF: Just the railroad. KF: Just the railroad stop? FF: That was all, yeah. They had the coal shoots there. All coal burning engines coaled there. We used to hoist, I don't know how many carloads of coal a night. W e used to coal a lot of engines through there. They had 24 hours a day that coal shoot was open. Every train stopped there. Pretty near all the passengers, all the freight trains, they all stopped for coal and water in Carter. You had to hoist this coal up into the top of the shoot and then get out and put it in the engines as they go through. So they could run. Some of them would have to leave their train sometimes, if they was too long, and run in after coal. KF: It was mined somewhere else and shipped to Carter? FF: Oh, yes. It was shipped in carloads over there. We dumped it out of the railroad cars. It came from the mines. You know where Superior and all over it come in and all we done was hoist it up and put it into the trains and keep sand ready for the engines. But we had to be there when ever there was an engine come in. There had to be somebody there to coal it. KF: Did you work right for the Union Pacific or was this a... It was for the U.P.? FF: Yeah. We were working for the Union Pacific. 19 KF: How long did you do that? FF: Well, I was over there about, at the shoots, about three years. Then I went back to the ranch and in the meantime the ranch, we'd all about gone away and then after the war my brother Earl had the ranch. Then from there, I bought the ranch from my dad. And then I moved back onto the ranch with my family. No, I went to Superior into the mines. When we had the two older boys and I stayed in the mines for about six years. And that's when I bought my ranch. I've got the date down. I don't just remember what date it was when I bought the ranch and I moved up to the ranch and took over the ranch with my family. And that's where I raised my family. Was on the ranch there; it was mostly a hay ranch. And I went into the dairy business. And from on the ranch, my kids grew up on the ranch and they were about like I was. They had to go horse back or with the school wagon to get to town and that was three miles to town. So that's where my kids went to school at that time and where they got their education. KF: This town would be Mt. View? FF: Lyman. I was in Mt. View district but I was closer to Lyman than Mt. View. Mt. View made arrangements for my kids to go to Lyman and they'd pay what they was supposed to over to Lyman instead of Mt. View. Mt. View would have had to come a mile and pick up my kids. While I was sitting right on the road. Johnny Walker was in Lyman and be run the school wagon from there. KF: This is when that agreement came about then, isn't it? They still have that agreement between Walkers family that lives along Walker Lane. They go to Lyman but their actually in that district so this agreement must go way back to there? 20 FF: Just from the two districts, that agreement, yeah. We went in it first. Now this is something else I don't want on there... KF: Uncle Frank, I know that Lyman was mostly and LDS community and that Mt. View was not. Your kids were LDS. Did this have something major in your decision to send your kids to the Lyman schools? FF: Well to a certain extent, yes. But the way the district was split, when it was split, my brother had the place and he went with the others and they put my place in that corner into Mt. View and went down and picked up the other and put it into Lyman and put my place in Mt. View district. When I moved there, we had to, in order the school bus went right by my door and my kids would have had to go a mile to have caught the school bus the other way. So they made an agreement with between the two trustees that my kids would go to Lyman and they would pay them the money and my kids would be picked up and taken to Lyman. So that's where my children went to school, was in Lyman. KF: Picked up by a school bus? What kind of school bus? FF: A wagon. It was run by a team back there. Then they started running one by car but it used to run by a team. I had it a year or so myself, and I run it all the time by team until I could run a truck, because in the winter time you had to get out of there with the team. KF: Did you ever run a sled in the winter? FF: Yes. I had a bobsleigh that I just took the front bobs and put a little box on it. I used to take the kids to school in that, with the team on it. That's the only way you could get out in the winter time. When we did get cars, why you couldn't get out there in the winter, 21 but up until... We had it there until, on the ranch, until my kids were grown and then the Second World War came along. That took my boys into that army. The oldest one, Francis and Carl were into the army and Donald and Royal were the ones I had home. And then they took Royal and Donald in and left me alone without anybody there. Royal got married but Donald wasn't married. But Royal went into the service. He was married when he went into the service. He went in, he and Carl and... Carl went on a mission down into Texas and then he was married. Then Carl went into the service. Francis and Carl and Roy were in the service and then they took Donald into the service. That's while I was on the ranch, Royal’s wife stayed there with us for a while, until she had a baby, and she went with him to Texas. Then she came back and she stayed down on the ranch with us. I had a little storehouse fixed out back there. I fixed it so she and the baby would live in it, and she stayed there. But there was only Donald, and then finally Donald did pass an examination, but then they called back again and took him into the army. My youngest boy. Well that was all the help I had. They took him in and I knew that he couldn't stand it. I told them, but they said well he's called, he's got to go. So they took him down to Kansas or somewhere and he stayed in there and took the training. He trained until they were ready to ship him overseas. Then they give him an examination and told him no. We can't ship you overseas; your heart condition. You can stay in the army and be in limited service and you can stay here till the war is over if you want to or we'll turn you loose and let you go home. So he said, "If I can't go with the bunch I've trained with, I want to go home." So they turned him loose and let him come home. So that gave me a little help on the ranch. There at home. He came and helped me on the ranch. Besides the girls, and otherwise the other kids were in the service. 22 They all got home. All back from the service, my boys. Then we continued to go to school and 1 run the ranch there in Urie, what we call Urie. Then I started to work... We were going into the Depression and that was a hard deal on the people. The Depression; it was just hard to make a dollar and make a living most anything. I worked out and everything else. Things went to pieces. I killed pork and hauled them to Rock Springs and sold them for nine cents a pound, dressed. I sold eggs for 12, 13 cents a pound; anyway to make a little money. That's the way I got by. We had a hard time during the Depression. Of course we never got hungry. If you’re on a ranch, you'll never get hungry. I raised about all we could eat, outside of some flour and sugar. We always managed to get that. But we had a tough time through the Depression. But still after the Depression was over, well to tell the truth of it, I bought the ranch from my dad but if anybody else would have had the mortgage on my ranch, I'd have lost it during that Depression. The same as other fellers did that was starting. Soon as the banks got so, you know they couldn't get the money out of them; they sold a lot of them out and got the money out. Well if I'd have been with the bank, they'd probably done the same thing because I hadn't been able to pay my dad anything on that ranch. We were lucky to live. KF: Pretty common story then? FF: Yeah. It was, and to say my dad helped me by... He never said a word. He just went along with me until after and then after times got better, why then, I got so I started and until I could pay my dad back, hake my payments on the ranch and it was pretty tough sledding and you had to do about all your haying alone, practically. We used to hay together; me and my brothers. Earl lived up there, he had that place above me then you had the Guild place leased and then Earl and we used to hay Earl's place, the Guild 23 place there, my place, we'd hay Dave's place. We did that once and we'd go to John and Raymond’s. We all hayed together. We had about 60 days, pretty close to hay in by the time we got through. Well I never had money enough to buy any machinery much, but they had machinery and I had swine horses, so was mostly their machinery. Well when I come up on the ranch, I was working in the mines down there and when we come up, the first year we hayed, we hayed together and Sari said "OK, you can stack," So they put me on the stack. So I stacked all that hay; every year on all them ranches. And that hay, I done all the stacking and this was all horse work. We never had a... We mowed with horses and we bull racked with horses and everything was done with them. None of us had any tractors at that time. It was all with horses. We put up that hay and we put up that hay for several years. We worked together until finally some got machinery and finally we pulled out and I and John. We practically had a crew of our own there. We used us and our kids and Mr. Hooten. We used to hay together. John and Hooten would mow and Mr. Hooten and we'd put my oldest boy and John's oldest boy we would put them on a bull rake. They run the bull rake and I stacked, Carl drove the stacker team. We had a pretty good crew of our own, I and John and Mr. Hooten with us, to put up our hay. Of course we only hayed mine and John's and Mr. Hooten's hay. We only hayed the three then. Dave put up his and Earl put up his. We were separate at that time. Finally I got so I bought me a mowing machine and a rake so I had some machinery of my own. But we hayed together until finally I decided that I'd put mine up myself. So with my kids. I had my girls run rakes and Donald would come home and probably he would run the bull rake for me, cause he couldn't stack, and push it up and we'd mow and I'd mow, get up in the morning and mow when it was daylight until it 24 was time to milk. Then we'd get the cows and milk. While I ate breakfast, Donald would go run the mower. In the daytime we would push and stack and the girls would rake. That's the way we put up our hay. KF: Pretty organized? FF: Yeah, with our family. Well I and John together had a pretty good crew, pretty good hay crew of our own. One summer we got our hay up, I and John, when we were in together, and Duke Fields. You won't remember him. He was an uncle of Joe Fields. He was on the place where Tour is now. He had that ranch and he took sick. They thought he was going to die. Didn't think he would make it. That was after he married Mrs. Rounds. So we got through haying and we were pretty close friends. We used to go to one another’s house once in a while. So after we got through, my brother John said, "Why don't we just take our crew and go down and put up Duke's hay?" He was in bed and his haying wasn't done. So John went up and talked to Duke. So we went up, Duke had some machinery up there and we used it. So we went in with our crew and mowed Dukes hay and put it up. I stacked and the kid’s bull raked and the girls raked and we put up Dukes hay and made good time and got his hay all up. By the time we got through, Duke got up and was up and around and Duke said to us after we got through, he said, "do you know," he said "I never hired a kid in my hay crew." He said, "I wouldn't have them. I'd have a man or I wouldn't have any help." He said, "but the kids done better job, broke best teeth out of that rake than any crewman I've ever had on this ranch." he said. KF: Had them trained and organized. 25 FF: He said the hay got up just as good. And Duke appreciated it. We didn't take a dime for it. We did it to help him out, because he was a good friend of ours. And that man never forgot that. I'm a telling you. W e helped him out and it didn't hurt us any and we had our crew organized till we just made good time. We worked together. We did a lot of things together in our lives. Well at one time, I and Dave and Raymond and John bought a hay baler. That's an instance worth mentioning, I believe. It was one winter, there was only one baler, I think, out that baled. It was a tractor and a self- feeder only a man had to put it under and feed it. You had to wire it and stack the bales. So they couldn't bale it... They had to have hay and they had one bale, I think Len Rollins had it. Not Len but the one that ain’t here now. I'll think of his name after a while. He had the Roberts' place up there and they had a baler but they couldn't get around to it all, so Joe Slade came to us. There was a good man for Bridger Valley, don't think he wasn't. He was good to everybody. He ran the Implement House. He gave a lot of guys credit that the bank wouldn't give credit. And he got his money. He was a good manager. Slade was. I admire him because I got a lot of favors out of him. He come to I and John and Raymond and Dave and he said, "Now there needs to be another baler in here," he said, "I want to sell you guys a baler, a tractor and a hay baler." We said, "We couldn't buy a baler. We ain't got no money to buy it." He said "that's all right. I'll put that baler in here for you." He said, "You can pay me a dollar a ton for every ton of bales until it's paid for." He said, "I'll put it in here if you'll take it." KF: No time involved, just a dollar a ton, huh? FF: No. Until we baled enough hay at a dollar a ton to pay for it. So we bought the baler on that condition; the four of us. Well, when we first got the baler, we just baled as long as 26 we could bale and we took a camp and stayed right with it. They had to bale this hay. 0 n e winter they hauled it away from them balers just as fast as it come out of the end of them. The sheep were snowed in and they had to get it. We just baled about all winter, all the hay that Joe Slade would find hay for us to bale, then we'd go bale it and the sheep men would come and pick it up from the baler. We just kept a baling and both balers were running. They had to of done, those sheep would have starved to death. KF: Did this baler move? FF: No. We moved it. Sometimes we had to put a team on ahead of it to pull it through the snow. KF: But it didn't go down through the... FF: Oh, no. It didn't pick it up. KF: You had to load it and... FF: Oh, yes, it had a tractor, a Fordson tractor that ran it. It hitched on it just like you hitch a trailer on behind a car and we pulled it with the tractor. But when the snow was deep they had to pull the team sometimes to get into the yards and out where we were. That's the way we moved. But after we got there, we set the baler by the stack, then we took the tractor and set it out there out on a pulley and you run the baler by the bale. See. We worked on... We bailed hay for $3.00 a ton when we first got it. Now it cost you 6 or 8 to get it bailed out of the field. But we had to handle that hay. Johnny Noble was the one of our men that used to help us bale out when we was baling. He was a good pitcher. It took two good men to pitch the hay to that baler in a day. And we baled by $3.00 a ton. Of course, we allowed ourselves. It's big money today, not what we made 27 then. According to whom you were with. We made .25 cents a ton apiece. That's what we got out of it. And we paid our helper, whoever we hired to help, 25 cents a ton. Then we bought the ties. Joe Slade used to give us a good deal on the ties. You know, the bale ties that you tie it with. It cost you so much the thousand. In the fall after the second year after he shipped in a load of machinery and wires and stuff he shipped in a lot of baling ties. Well he'd sell so many baling ties and give us a good price on them. Well we'd buy them and then as we baled we'd pay for those bale ties. He went right along with us. Joe Slade did all the time. We tried our best to bale for him whenever he had hay if possible. We didn't want to leave one guy and go to another and if possible we'd get his hay bailed for him. But we baled a lot of other hay. And do you know, believe it or not, in three years we had that baler paid for. KF: That's better than you can do from the bank, now. FF: In three years we had the baler paid for. We got the contract to bale the tie camp company hay up there. And that was quite a job when we hauled it in. And we made pretty good money on that until we paid if off. W Well after we got it paid off, why we got a little more money out of it, because we had paid Joe Slade. KF: Made an extra dollar. FF: Yeah. Well Joe never lost any money, but as I say he was a good man. Look what he done for us. He trusted us. KF: Uncle Frank, I know you talked about Joe Slade at the Lyman Implement, but one thing we haven't mentioned is where did you get your groceries, I know you raised most of them, but you said your sugar and things like that? 28 FF: Well, I used to buy them from the store in Lyman. There were several stores there. But after Proffit started in Urie, I got most of my groceries there; at Proffit's store in Urie. But I used to get it at the Mercantile in Lyman. I did a lot of business there. I used to trade there and then in the fall of the year on the Jews there and kill beef. Sometimes it took two beefs. I found out that running a credit deed you never know how deep in debt you are till the fall of the year you go to pay it. You never realize it. KF: Just about everybody worked on the credit system, then? FF: Yeah. You had to. KF: You kept banks out of it. FF: The same with Joe Slade in the summer time. I used to have to get a little credit there, in the summertime, but I always paid it in the fall when I could. That's what makes his business go and that's the way he got his business. He trusted buys that the bank wouldn't trust. KF: I understand he was real honest? He had kind of a monopoly in the Valley? FF: Oh, boy, he had a business head on him. He'd do business with you. Now to do business, I'd do business with him and Jack Barrier. Five dollars between you, Jack wouldn't make a deal. One year with Joe Slade, I went into buy a mower and a rake. I went into the Implement cause I always got them off of there and of course then I had priced over at Poisons the same deal. And I could have got each implement for $5.00 cheaper in Mt. View than at Lyman. Well Joe wasn't there, so I talked with Jack and I told him what I could do over there and $5.00 is $5.00 to me. I didn't buy it from Jack. So I went home and Joe Slade called me up and he said, "I understand you want to buy 29 a mower and a rake,” and I said, " y e s , I'm going to buy one. But there's $5.00 difference on the machinery, and I talked to Jack and he said it was impossible to go on the mower." Well Joe Slade said, "you come on up in the morning and I'll sell it to you." He sold it to me. He made the difference. I dealt with Joe before, but Jack was... I liked Jack alright but maybe he didn't have the right to go that far, see. But Joe would make a deal about you and Joe made good deals for himself too, where he helped you. Now I'll tell you another thing, some of them think Joe Slade tried to skin them or do something bad, but he never did me. I'll tell you of an incidence that happened with Joe Slade one year. I sold him mv hay on the stump for $6.00 a ton. He mowed it and took it and took care of it. Well after he got it sold he come back to me and told me, he said, "Frank I'm going to pay you a dollar more a ton for that hay." He said, "I got a little more for it than I thought I did, so I'm going to give you a dollar more a ton." Now who would have done that? KF: I don't know. FF: He didn't have to. Jut he come and give me another dollar a ton for that hay. KF: Well he ran the business and then he also did farm himself, then huh? FF: Well not too much farm himself. His son used to farm. He had a farm down there, but Joe never did much farming. Joe Slade started... He was an implement dealer in Lyman years before. Sold buggies and wagons. He just got him a little more and a little more until Joe Slade had a reeling business there. He had those sheep men; he had their business, all of it. He had their grain and pellets and stuff and the cattlemen shipped in cotton cake. Joe Slade had all of that business. 30 KF: He had the automobile sales too? FF: Then the automobile, yes. I bought cars off of Joe Slade. I always got a... I bought cars off of Clinton Bradshaw. Clinton Bradshaw, I could deal with Clinton Bradshaw. He used to work for Joe Slade a lot. I liked Clinton to deal with. I and Clinton are about the same age. I'm just a little bit older than he is. KF: You mentioned you went on a mission. FF: Yes. I went on a mission. That was after the war was over and my hoys come back from the service. They come home, Royal came home and they were all home but Francis. And he signed up and went back over for three years after the war was over. He was over there three years but the others come home and when Royal came home he wanted to lease the place. And I said, “Well, all right, I'll lease you the place. You run it here and I'll lease you the place." I used to work out a little, did work it a lot, you know. They used to work a lot. I worked a lot. I used to work for Joe Slade when he built those buildings and them houses in Lyman. I worked for Kenneth Fair when they remodeled a shop into an apartment house up there. I worked for Lee Walker. He built Kenneth Fair's house. I used to ride from up there and work with him in the winter time. But anyway... Where was I...? KF: Talking about when you were going on your mission. FF: Anyway, when mv boy come home he wanted to take the place, so Clem Eyre was 3ishop and I never thought about a mission. Until, I'd leased the place to Royal. I put Royal on the place. I had cows there, machinery and everything at that time to run it. I put Royal on the place and I was going to work out a little and help him what he could 31 on the place and he was leasing the place. Well Clem Eyre, the Bishop heard about it and he got ahold of me and he said, "I'm going to send you and your wife on a mission. You ain't got no excuse. You can't tell me no. You've got nothing to do." He said, "You got nothing to do." So I didn't know. I thought about it, but my wife said no. She had two girls at home and they were small. And she said I won't go and leave those girls. So I told him and he said, "well you go." I said, "Well I don't like to go alone." Well he said, "You go, you go on a mission." So I said I'd talk to my wife and she said yes you go. So I accepted a year’s mission. So I went on a year’s mission and Royal had the place and went down into Alabama is where I went on my mission. Went into Montgomery and worked out of there and then I worked from there, we had five counties that we walked to in Alabama, for the first few months. Then we got ahold of an old car and we covered five counties there in Alabama. While I'm thinking about Alabama now that's where I first met Mary. KF: Was Alabama. FF: Alabama. Out at Highland Heights, Petrie County, where we used to work there. Her and her husband lived there and raising her family and we stayed at their home and we used to, her husband we used to have a good visit with him. He studied the bible and we used to have some good Bible conversations with Mary's husband. They was there raising their family. And we left there, I left there and then I went from there over to Mississippi for a while. From there I came home. But anyway to go back to Mary, I came home in twenty eight years afterwards we were home. It was after my wife had died she run onto my picture in a bunch of stuff she had seen I was on a mission and she wondered if I was still alive or what. That I'd been a missionary down there. So she 32 dropped me a letter and I got it. It went to Lyman then it was transferred here. It was after I had moved over here. And I got it. KF: You went chasing didn't you? FF: I got her letter and when I got it I was surprised they remembered it. She told me she had lost her husband. So I answered it and we wrote to one another and then she got a chance to come to Salt Lake. She always wanted to go to the Temple. She had gone to Messa Temple and was sealed to her husband. Her son-in-law took her, didn't he, to Messa? But there was a group coming up here to go through the Temple. Now Mary knows a lot of people in Salt Lake that' been down there in that mission. She used to keep the missionaries when she was a widow. They used to come and stay with her until they found a place to stay down at Devoniac, Florida. So this group; there was a man and his wife, his daughter and another woman come to go through the Temple. Well she came with them up to Salt Lake. Well she wrote and told me that she was coming and that she'd be in Salt Lake. So I wrote back and told her I'll meet you in Salt Lake. So I went down there. These people, I didn't know many of them because the ones I knew when I went on a mission were about all gone from down there outside the older ones. But I met them at the airport when they got off the plane and just before she left I called her. That's the first time I ever called you, wasn't it? (Mrs. Fackrell: yes.) We hunted up there and got her address and we hunted her telephone and I called her and asked her to be there. I told her how she could tell who I was. I'd wear a white hat and a western tie. She told me what she was wearing. So we met the plane. When we went to Salt Lake to meet the plane, I was standing there looking out where you can see the plane light and getting off and unloading and I was watching, but there was a group of 33 people in there talking and when they went out they went right up, so I see her get off the plane and when they went they just crowded right around like that around her. They were a meeting that bunch too. There were people that hadn't been down there. So they just surrounded her, I could see her so I just stood back there and looked. I could see her. Then pretty soon she turned and seen me. So then she came over to where I was. And that's the first time we'd seen one another for better than twenty-eight years, for that length of time. And she went with them and then they went to the Temple the next morning and I met them and went through the Temple with them. It was the second trip... Was it after you had your son sealed? She had her son sealed to her, and her husband. I acted as proxy for her husband. And Tingy down here, he acted as her son. And we were sealed for him, then. Then we were together in Salt Lake until... She was coming out to stay with Tingy's for a while, two or three days. So we went through the Temple that morning. And we was coming in the afternoon, so I asked her, "you can ride up with me, if you want to. And I'll stop and show you my house in Evanston and Tingy's can pick you up there." They were coming too. So she come with me and Tingy's come and they picked her up here and took her down here to Woodruff with her. So she stayed with them two days didn't you? Something like that, and I was to go get her Sunday morning and take her to church down here. So I went and got her Sunday morning for church down here then we brought her over here and she met my daughter and she met some people in church and then we got to talking and finally we decided we'd get married. So Monday morning we went up and got our license and got Bishop Kallas and he married us Monday. KF: Never went back to Alabama, then? 34 FF: No. She had her return ticket. But the comical thing was when we went back, we were married here, and I called Royal to come up. Royal was the only kid that would come up, wasn't he? He and Jim come over. He married us here. And I called the others. The people she came in with were looking for her back and this guy, who was that guy who went and got your reservation? War. He was one that went through the Temple; him and his wife the first time. He went in and made the reservations back... To go back. She was to go back down to go back, see. He had the reservations made. So we went back down, and they told her they was having a party. Who told them in the meantime that we were married? Somebody did. And we went down to this party at Browns. That was another man that was... (Mrs. Fackrell: that was in Draper, Utah.) In Draper, Utah. He was a President down there in the mission where she lived at one time. There were three of them. They were one of the guys that met her at the plane and they had a party out there for them going back, they said. But we went down and I took her down there and she told them... There was some way they had heard that we were married. Called Tingy's that we were married up. So we went down there and they had that party for her. Out at Browns before the rest of them went back. But he had her reservation, he had reserved her a ticket to take her back to Florida when she decided to stay. Now I was surprised that she did too and I wanted her to stay because I was a lonesome man. I was, I don't know. I was awful lonesome. And she had her youngest boy that was off on his own. He was out of school and if she went back she would be alone. So we got married anyway and went back down there and they had this party and then they went home and she come back home with me. So it was a wonderful thing for me. It's the best thing that ever happened to me in my life, I believe, because I was... I don't know 35 what I would have done. I was just so lonesome. I had my suitcase packed in my car all the time, I'd go down to my kids and I couldn't stay. I went to St. George one winter, and, let's see, my wife had been dead what about four years. About four years she'd been dead. I couldn't stay, I had to come back, and when I came back it was the same dang thing. Come into this house and nobody in it until, oh it was, I don't know. I'd have done most anything. But anyway I think that there's somebody else had something to do with it besides us. KF: I'm sure there was. FF: It was just arranged legally by a higher power than our own that we should get together. And we've been together ever since. It's intended. I don't believe there is another woman in the world that would leave all of her family, 2,000 miles away and come away from them and stay. And that's what she done. All her family is all down there in Alabama and Florida and she come up here and stayed here. She went back. Her son got killed. And we went down to the funeral. And that was the first time I was ever back there since I was on a mission. It's right in there where I was on my mission, right in the territory where I was on my mission. And the way that country grew... When I was there they were living in little houses, sharecroppers and up on stilts. Now they got beautiful schools, beautiful church, beautiful homes down there. They're all doing fine, those people down there. And you never went amongst a better bunch of people in your life, to be welcomed and acted like one of the community. That's what they were. She was like a long lost sheep. They had a special Relief Society all together for her and had a big feed while we were down there after her son was buried. We had a pretty good time down there. But that was quite an incidence. I believe it was a turning part in my life. I 36 really don't know what I would have done. It was a wonderful thing in my life for her to move here and she mixed right in with the ward here and the community. We had good friends, I and my wife and we still got good friends in this ward and we get along good here. Why when I first moved here from Lyman. I'd been in Lyman so long that I didn't know how I'd do in another community because I'd been active in Lyman. I come over here. The first night, I was here in August and I couldn't find a house. I stayed over at Vera's, my nieces until I rented a house over here on Front Street and when we moved over here and we lived in there until the first of the year then we bought this home and moved over here. Well the first night that I moved into my home, Bishop Smith come over here from the Second Ward and visited with me and talked with me and welcomed us into the ward. I went into the Ward and they put me to work. They had me teaching, what they called a Temple class, for those going through the Temple. I taught that class that winter I was here. I've worked in the ward ever since I've been here in Evanston. Now, I was group Leader of the High Priests here up until about three, four months ago and now I'm just a home teacher in the ward. We get along good in this ward, here and we got good friends here. But as I say I wondered, I'd lived in Lyman so long, how we'd get along here. My wife got along good when we come over here too. KF: People aren’t much different then, are they in this corner? FF: Yeah. Well seems like they just fit in the same way that Mary fit in here. My wife fit in. She worked in the Relief Society. She was their sewing instructor at one time. We've enjoyed life here in Evanston. Of course I miss my friends in Lyman. But now to go back to Lyman, they're all strangers. There's so many strangers in there that I don't know some, only just the old people and. If I go over there I don't chase around. I go down 37 and see Johnny Noble quite often and my sister that lives there and I have other relation there. I stop in and see Veda, but otherwise just the older ones. I went to church over there a time or two and boy they're all a new group. KF: Now there's three wards there, too. FF: The younger ones have grown up until I don't know them. The older ones, some of them are moved away and some of them are gone until I don't know. This is more home to me. There is now because I used to like to go over there. To a celebration and meet all the... but I don't. And my relatives are getting pretty scarce out there too. So we’re getting along fine here in Evanston. We got a lot of good friends here in Evanston. I guess we'll make it. KF: Well, Uncle Frank, let's stop here. That's a good stopping point I believe. Thank you very much. 38