Oral History Program Joseph LeRoy Wilde Interviewed by James Wilde 04 March 1973 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Joseph LeRoy Wilde Interviewed by James Wilde 04 March 1973 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed Kelley Evans, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Wilde, Joseph LeRoy, an oral history by James Wilde, 04 March 1973, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: This is an interview between Joseph LeRoy Wilde and James L. Wilde in Morgan, Utah. The time is 5 p.m., March 4, 1973. This interview is being conducted for a Weber State College Oral History Project on Utah. The interview in on Grass Creek, Utah. JaW: Mr. Wilde, could you tell us something about the founding of Grass Creek? JoW: Yes. The founding is along about 1891. When it was founded up there, there was a little coal mine. There wasn't even railroads up there at that time, and all the coal that was taken out of Grass Creek had to be taken out with sleighs. I was born in Alma, Wyoming and I was only two years old and Dad came back, William S. Wilde, to Coalville. We lived just over the Chalk Creek Bridge when we came back from Wyoming. He started at Grass Creek as a night watchman for the coal mines and he stayed up there until they finally built a railroad up there and it used to be the Cullen Coal Mines at first. There is a Church mine just a little above that about a mile where he used to work. JaW: Mr. Wilde, could you tell us where the location of Grass Creek is? JoW: The location of Grass Creek is just nine miles east of Coalville and there was a dirt road that went up there. There was houses there and we had a post office up there and a big store. We use to run the store there and we used horse and buggy to get up there. There were no automobiles at that time. JaW: You talked about some of the building that you had, could you tell us the type of buildings and maybe the material that was used to construct the buildings and the location that you had to go for the material? JoW: Yes, we had to go up there for the material, there was all frame houses. There were quite a few of them up there. There were two forks up there, a left hand fork and one was a right 1 hand fork and the coal mine was just across the right, hand fork and that was operated by the Church. JaW: Mr. Wilde, could you give us some indication for the type of buildings that you had, like a church house, a post office, and this sort of stuff? JoW: Yes, there was just frame houses and they were four room houses and they didn't have no electricity. We had to use oil lamps at night. Then they had a church house there and also a school house. The school house is where I completed my education up to Grass Creek. No, there were no saloons back there nor a courthouse, just a storeroom and a store. It was a regular grocery store, you could buy candy or anything; crackers or bread or anything like that you could always buy. It was run by a guy there and he had the post office right inside the store. The people had to go get their mail. I used to carry the mail up to Grass Creek at one time when I was living in Coalville. There were quite a few people up there, mostly Greeks, but all the others were Americans, that is LDS. Dad use to be the Bishop Up there at one time and I was baptized up there at one time by Jacob Jones. Grass Creek was just a small community. There was no more than a 150 people living in there when the railroad was there. We didn't have no peace officers up there, there were no Indians. We were never bothered with Indians. No polygamists up there, and the family size ranged from about four people to about twelve and there was quite a few families. We used to have a tennis ground up there and use to play tennis around on that. JaW: Since it was predominately coal miners there, I'm sure in those days the Union wasn't strong, they had different hours of working, the age limit and all this. Could you tell us something about the working conditions in the coal mine? 2 JoW: Yes, there was working conditions in the coal mine there. There was about fifty people that worked in the coal mine in digging coal. The hours was eight hours a day and the tools we use to use digging coal, the shovel, use to drill holes in the coal and blast it out. I started to work in the coal mine when I was 14 years old. Cars run on a little track and they would bring in about five cars to a trip, and it would make a trip every so often. They would bring it into the mine empty and take the cars back out loaded. They take it out with a horse pulling the cars out. Yes, there was an accident up there. I can remember when there was a guy there that a rock caved in on him and it crushed him right in two. There was a family by the name of Turner and their husband got killed up there. JaW: Mr. Wilde, this is all very interesting and I would like to know something about your supply of food; how you prepared it, what type of food you ate, and how you obtained it there in Grass Creek. JoW: Well, we used to have food up there, just buy the meat and stuff and have cooked vegetables and all that goes to help make up the food. We use to have to go down to Coalville, sometimes we couldn't net it up there at the store in Grass Creek. But we could almost get anything up there in that store that was run by W. Caruth. We use to cook all our food on a coal range. We had all them coal ranges, everybody up there had coal ranges. Even the houses, why there was no bathrooms in the houses, use to have one of these outside toilets, and that’s the way the people had to go in any kind of weather. Use to have some pretty big snow storms up there. JaW: Mr. Wilde, it would be interesting to know the type of transportation that was used in those days in Grass Creek. 3 JoW: Transportation was horse and buggy. You had to have a horse and buggy and pretty near everybody had a horse and buggy. They use to go to Coalville on the weekends to get their groceries. There was no stage coach yet was up there and no railroad passengers to go up there, all had to go up with horse and buggy. When I was carrying the mail up there, I used horse and buggy and people had come into Coalville on the train then I would take them up to Grass Creek, when they wanted to go up to Grass Creek, I would take them up. I had a horse and buggy where I could take two people up there at a time with their stuff. I use to deliver meat from the butcher shop there at Coalville and take people up there. Finally the automobile came in handy and Ted Bowen was the first one to get an automobile up there at Coalville. We used to have horses there and use to ride a horse. I use to have a little bay horse and a saddle and use to come down to Coalville. I would come over the mountains into Chalk Creek there and just a little ways from there would be two miles from the town. We used to travel around on horseback and go back up over that way and its lot quicker than going around by the road. Lot of times, why, a bunch of us boys, we all had horses, we come down to Coalville and had quite a time and have lots of fun down there. JaW: Mr. Wilde, It would be interesting to know now if there was anyone living at that time, living in Grass Creek who had a personal acquaintance with the Prophet Joseph Smith or someone of this caliber within the church or those who came across the plains. Could you give up some idea on this? JoW: Yes, my mother, she came across the plains with a handcart. She pulled a handcart across the plains and they sure had a lot of trouble coming across the plains. They use to run into Indians. When they arrived in Coalville, they went up through Parley’s down into 4 Parley’s Canyon, and came out where the zoo is now, and called "This is the place" where the monument was erected for the Mormons there. I don't know of anybody that knowed Joseph Smith or the Prophet Brigham Young. Never heard none of my parents talk about it. They may of knowed them alright, but they never said much about it. JaW: Since it is a favorite past time of young boys to either hunt or fish maybe you could tell us something about this that you did as a boy living in Grass Creek? JoW: We used to come down to fish in the Weber River just five miles from Grass Creek. There is a lot of hunting up there. I done a lot of hunting up there. There is deer, pheasant and all kind of rabbits and things like that we used to have. We used to go after the great big snow shoe rabbits, they were called. We use to have them hanging on the house and use to have them fixed up all the time to eat. The deer was there and hoy, there used to be a night you could stay there in your home, could hear the coyote a hollering just above our place. The weapon I used to use was a high power 22. Boy, it could sure shoot, and then there was shotguns up there for pheasants. We use to hunt with them quite a bit. The 22 hi power rifle, I use to use for the deer would kill them up there. When I first bought this 22, why the feller up there said, well, he said that will go through a deer, it won't even kill, it won't feel it, just be like piercing it. Well, sure pierced them alright, when they were hit with that they dropped. JaW: Mr. Wilde, it would be interesting to know now the type of entertainment that was carried on in Grass Creek when you was a boy. JoW: Yes, we use to have dances up there. We use to play tennis with the boys and girls and the one who lost was supposed to put on the entertainment, like use to have dances at the school house up there. We sure use to have a lot of fun. They just played by an organ. A 5 guy use to play the organ up there for music and we used to get a long pretty good with that and that was just playing at the dances. There was no picture shows up there. There were no picture shows. On Halloween nights, why we used to go around and I can remember we, and they don't do that much here because they have no outside toilets, but we use to go tip the toilets over. On Thanksgiving days, why we use to have a Thanksgiving dinner just like they do now. Use to have turkey and things and chicken on Christmas, why Santa Clause used to come around and we would always get toys. I can remember when I was a kid, I got a little train just to wind up and set on a little small gauge. Yes, birthdays, why we use to have birthdays up there just like they have here now. They were celebrated up there like they do now but we use to have them. We use to have quite a time up there. The post office, I don't know whether I said about the post office, was in my brothers' home. They took care of the post office right at their home and they had that for quite a while. I use to carry mail up to Grass Creek there with the horse and buggy. JaW: I remember when I was a small boy who lived in Coalville, Utah, and the severe weather we used to have and now it seems like in the 1970's our weather is entirely different. Our seasons are net differentiated; we don't know winter from summer sometimes and spring from fall. Mr. Wilde, just how was the weather then in the early 1900's in Grass Creek? JoW: Well, they was pretty severe. I was always glad when we could see ground again. I know when the snow would fall up there, why it would sure make things hazard for the sleighs that use to come up that would have to come through the snow there and it was pretty bad. I didn't care much for the snow and we use to have to melt snow up there for doing the washing, because there wasn't any springs. The spring that was the closest was 6 about a quarter of a mile from where we used to go down to get our drinking water. Up at part of Grass Creek, why they had to pump there and the people up there could go to that pump and pump the water From there that where they got their water. The snow used to get, around about five feet on the level, more than that up there where the winds would blow and whistle around there. Use to have to wait and shovel our way out to get out and in like they do around here now, it was quite bad up that way. Yes, and we use to make our home made sleighs there in the winter time. Just make it out of planks and nail some scrap iron all on the runners and take them up on the hills and run down on it and boy, there used to be a ditch there at the bottom of the hills and it was about 14 feet deep. I can remember when my brother was up there and a feller named Bob Fattus was up there with him and they came down and they couldn't stop and they run into that ditch and it cut my brothers throat and jimed them up pretty bad on that. But anyway they got better okay, alright. There used to be a bridge go across just back of our house, used to have a Grandpa Arnold used to be over there. He used to have a shotgun and he learned me how to shoot with a shotgun. It was one of these muzzle loaded guns and he load them up for me and he used to call me his six foot boy. We didn't have any skis, the skiing we done was on our sleigh. Then we use to could buy our sleigh you now and when the snow would get crusted it use to get crusted and get just like ice. We use to get upon there and slide down this hill on it and then it would come down to where it was soft and it slick in that and boy, you would slid right off on that snow and go right down and it sure skin you on that. We didn't have no basketball games up there, that is, no place to have it on up there. Just a little place where we use to have our district school. We use to have it up there. We sure did have a lot of snow up there and in the spring of the year when it was 7 melting, running off, boy, it use to come down this creek back of our place there just like a river. I can remember when my brother and I was going there trapping squirrels; we had a big dog, a collie dog. My brother put a plank across this river and he went across it and I started across on it and just as I went to step off it, the plank slipped in and I went down this fall. It was about feet down into the bottom there. My brother never noticed me, that I was behind him, so he just kept on going. The dog it stood on the bank and it barked and barked and barked, and finally, he turned around to see what the dog was barking at. Then he come back, just when he come back the dog jumped in and pulled me out down up from under the falls, and had to walk down then, oh, quite a ways; before we could get out of the bank, it was quite a steep bank. Where there is a spring run water down into that it made like a gutter. We went up there that is how we got out of that. My gosh, they said that if anybody that was born with a veil on, it would never drown and I guess I was born with a veil on cause I didn't drown. The way we would collect this water, we would build a dam across this river and it would make a dam. It would back the water up for quite a bit. When I was eight years old, why I was baptized in this water just where it made the dam. I was confirmed there by Jacob Jones. We sure did have a lot of water in the spring of the year and that is one thing we did have was a lot of water. There was two farms down below us where they used to collect this water and irrigate their farms and raise hay all down there, around through there. A fellow was name of Williams had first one down, then there was a Welch had another one. They use to raise hay down there. The company use to buy hay from them so they could feed it to the horses there up at the mines, delivered up to the mine. That is the way they kept the horses up there. They had a stable boss up there at the mine and horses all kept in that. The stable boss just he had to take care of 8 the horses. Summers were pretty nice to live up there, it was nice and cool between those two mountains, we had a mountain on each side of us and the road just used to go down the bottom of it. It was nice in the summertime, we use to have our horses there and we use to have to let the horses go out. Then when Dad and them had to come to Coalville to do some shopping, we would have to go up into the hills and get the horses and bring them down. We would be gone for oh, three or four hours before we found the horses. Then we had a couple of cows I use to have to milk those. We use to have some nice Jersey cows up there, sure had some nice cream and that. In the fall of the year why we would always look toward to snow starting to fly and when it started it did start. It would start around in the latter part of October, then it continued then until the spring come again. It sure did make it kind of bad up there at that time. It is hard to get out and in up there. Grass Creek was in a narrow valley and it was about five miles long and a mountain on each side and from across mountain to mountain, it wouldn't be any more than about 100 feet from each side to it. People use to come up there to hunt deer and that is where they would pet there deer up in the mountains up there. JaW: Mr. Wilde, since we have pretty well talked about Grass Creek, and with the different types of transportation, food, and general life there; maybe you could go into your own personal family and give us a history on your family and what happened or took place there that I'm sure is very dear to you. JoW: Well, we had five sisters and there was seven boys in our family. We never had any deaths in the family. The outings as a family, we use to go out on picnics, go to church together. Dad use to be a Bishop up there and use to pay his tithing with cash before anything else was taken off for tithing. There was no wedding up there, that time 9 everybody was married. The sickness, we used to have sickness up there. We had small pox when I was a boy up there. The family next to us, they had small pox and we used to have to go together. Then when we fumigated it out, why we would have to set fumigates in the homes and go up to the church house for so long till it was all fumigated, then we would come back. The medicines, why they was just what the doctor prescribed up there. There was no patent medicines up there. Funeral, we had to take them to Coalville to bury them. We had phones up there and when you wanted a doctor you could call the doctor up and the doctor would be Dr. French. He was the family doctor for quite a long time and also the company doctor. The clothing we wore was mostly bib overalls. To work around the house in, and on Sunday why, we had suits of clothes, we used to have a suit to wear then. The food why, we use to have food just like Mother always use to cook and she use to cook the best food. She has given many a hundred dollar away to different people just come there to have dinner and supper with us. There was one time there was some girls there, Junge’s girls, they use to come up there after church and call there and had a big family dinners. We use to have family prayers at nights at homes. The setting at the table why, we had places there where we'd sit just like we do right now. We had our own place to set in and that's where we sat. Yes, we use to have ward teaching there and go home to home. I use to be the President of the Deacons Quorum when I was up there and also I was secretary of the Sunday School up there for a long time. I use to take minutes of the Sunday School. We use to have Mutual at night just like they are having now. When we was there they was talking about drinking tea and one said it was a slow poison. One person said I have been drinking it for 80 years and I think it is a very slow poison. 10 JaW: Mr. Wilde, maybe you would talk to us something about coal mining since this was the principle source of income to the families, some of the things that happened and how you felt about it and so forth. JoW: Yes, we had a coal mine up there, and use to call it Reese’s Mine, and we took the pillars and that out and sure worked up there to get the pillars out. Use to work with 4 of us there and we use to take turns and bring slack down and dump it into the cars, the cars was quite a ways, they would hold pert near a ton of this slack and then when they got loaded, why then take them back out of the mine and bring us another back in, but in the meantime, why we, there rocks start to thundering like thunder, just boy, make a big noise. All at once a big slab dropped right down on this slack pile we had there, and just buried this one man right underneath that. We all blowed our lights out. We lit our lights, again, looked around, we could only see three of us there, and finally I run back upon this big slab and I could hear this voice of this man underneath there, sound like he was a hundred miles away, hollering “Help, help, help!” So we sent word out to the slope to have someone come down and help us get him out. My cousin, Jim Wilde, he came down and he helped us to get, it out. We had to scratch on our hands and knees and set up little props where we'd take and scratch the rock out to hold the dirt or rock from sliding from caving in. So finally we go into him where he could see a light, he says that sure was good. Boy, he sure did take the name of the Lord in vain on that and he said, “Crawl underneath here,” he says, “Why, I can help you lift it off.” My cousin says, “Oh you don't know. Keep still!” He says, “We're getting the best we can. You don't know how big a rock this is on top of you.” 11 JaW: Mr. Wilde, could you tell us something about the boarding house that they had in Grass Creek for the coal miners to stay during the week? JoW: Yes, it was a big long boarding house, run by one of the fellers there that worked at the mine. He worked there at the time there and use to have our breakfast, and our lunch, and our supper and we stayed there and had a little room of ours to sleep in and at one time they had an epidemic up there and one part had the small pox and they to keep him away from that, but I had the small pox so I never caught it again. And I was immune to that so I use to go and wait on the guy that had the small pox, take his pulse and his things what supposed to be taken of it and take his food to him to eat and then when we, at the end of the week, my brother-in-law use to bring an extra horse up for us. We use to ride down home on house back and we go down a little way, down what they called Jan Jose Holler and we go up that place and then come right out at the top of the mine that's above where the Wasatch Mine was and go down Sage Holler and then go right down Sage Holler and we'd come right out just about a hundred yards from where my mother and them use to live and at that time why, we had this horse and when we was coming down Sage Holler, he'd come down there, he was a tough old horse, and he'd run away with me, and come run right down to the house and when it go to the house, he'd run right into the gate, and I fell off and I got up. Yes, they had two boilers there at this mine and they was fired up and used to furnish steam or run an engine. They had an engine right there right at the east side of the boilers there the other two was up in the side, and one time why they got so hot, this one boiler exploded and it just lifted that one boiler right over the engine and set it right down at the other side of it, and Boy, all up that, you could find flues that it had blowed up a quarter of a mile and the steam that was about a half a mile up the track 12 where it was after it blowed up. Well, I guess that's about finish that all off, so I guess that will be it. This is Roy Wilde and I'm 82 years old and I was born on February 23, 1891 in Alma, Wyoming. I'm making this record for my grandson for his tape to the Weber College Utah History Class, 4th of March, 1973. JaW: This concludes the interview on Grass Creek, Summit County, Utah. 13