Oral History Program Leo Warren Interviewed by William Galeazzi 18 April 1972 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Leo Warren Interviewed by William Galeazzi 18 April 1972 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Warren, Leo, an oral history by William Galeazzi, 18 April 1972, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: This is an interview of Leo Warren by William Galeazzi on 18 April 1972 for the Weber State College oral history program. This Interview is being conducted at Leo Warren's house in Syracuse, Utah, at 8:00 p.m. WG: You were born right here in Syracuse? LW: Yes. WG: In 1895. That was the year before Utah was a state. LW: That is correct— '96. WG: So what was it like living down here when Utah was just barely a state? Do you remember? LW: No. WG: 1910 or something? LW: Well, yes, yes, I know prior to 1910. My first recollection that would be of any consequence would be right around 1905. WG: Were there many people here? LW: No! WG: How much property did your dad have? LW: At that time my dad had acres (Lloyd Blake’s place, there's 18 acres up there), 32 acres in Clearfield. I'll tell you where that was in Clearfield. There's “91” coming along here where the old Safeway used to be, maybe you don't remember that. 1 WG: Yes. LW: Alright, that and down including where the bank is— not the loan offices— Clearfield State Bank and along the railway. But at that time, Bill, and this took place in about 1911 when they changed the railroad. Those cuts where the railroad goes through 300 North and so on, after there it goes through some cuts. Well, that dirt was hauled by "dinky cars". They call them “dinky cars”- they weren’t any longer than ten feet; each one they loaded with a steam shovel. It was no electric deal, it was a steam shovel. It run with coal, goddamn big ole’ bastard. And then where you see the Woods Cross cannery, all that field through there, it used to run right parallel, and I'm gonna tell you (this is new to you) I'm gonna hurry along so you can get all the information I can give you. WG: That's OK, take your time. LW: I'm a pretty good history man, and you'll find out I'm a history man. I like it, I thrive on this. Geography very well and spelling, I haven’t used that so I've lost a lot of that so if you don't lose a thing you will lose it. Well, anyway… and the railroad originally ran from Clearfield right where the bank is right parallel. Not parallel but adjoining with this road goes south there from there to Layton. Just past Layton a little bit on Gentile Street in Layton. It run parallel with the highway all the way. Now that’s news to you. WG: Yeah, I didn't know that. LW: At that time, or there about that time it was known as the Oregon Shortlander, OSL. WG: Is that right? Oregon Shortlander. LW: Yea. That's right. 2 WG: Was property expensive around here at that time? LW: Dad paid $600 for 32 acres. You know, by God you couldn’t buy fourth of an acre for that price now. WG: You couldn’t buy a fourth of an acre for any price. LW: No, that’s right. Just exactly right. Now you asked me something else and I didn’t answer it properly here - your memory’s better than mine. WG: Well, I was going to ask you about how it was to be a farmer down here, was it a good living in the early days? LW: There's always money in farming if you know how to or tried to know it, that's the truth. You know there's people, everybody's looking for somebody to create their job for them. Bill, that’s the worse thing— I'm going to tell you right quick— you can extenuate the time situation. WG: No sweat. LW: My boy called me up about three weeks ago last Friday about 4:20 and I said "Where are you Jim? Are you home?" We knew he would be back there, it's two hours difference there. First, well, second trip me and my wife went to Yellowstone Park once in 1948. I bought a new car and I gave it to my boy as quick as I got back. I drove that damn car, we’s goin' Pacific Northwest. I says "Eva, I'm not doin’ the right thing." After we got through there I says "Eva, I've got to go home.” “Your just home-sick.” “No, it's business.” I’m a man that tends to business. You don't believe that but there's no time like this time. Well, that year was the biggest year I've ever had in tomatoes. WG: 1948? 3 LW: 1948, that was my peak year and my peak year in sugar beets was 1929 and I produced 907 tons of beets - that's a lot of beets with horses. WG: How much was sugar beets and tomatoes worth when you raised so many? LW: Well, that particular year I can't tell you that. Prior to that we got a little more money out of tomatoes. The peak year I got on tomatoes, number 1's, that happened in after 1931 because that's when we graded tomatoes. That was the beginning of the grading, 1931. And for number 1’s we’s getting about $30 a ton and around $20, that was the peak I ever received for them, then we went back a couple of dollars, 20, 8, and 18— see? And that's the basis and I was growin' around about 64 to 68 percent number 1's. WG: Is that extra good? LW: That's pretty damn good. And I'll tell ya I had a man that come here, this cannery claimed I was the best grower. Maybe you think I'm braggin' but they sent a man, tell you who he was; I can remember his name. He's a man out of Chicago. He drove a Buick automobile, I don't remember the model of it, but it was a Buick. He's an intelligent fella. He said I get more tonnage per acre than anyone that grows for this cannery. Well, I wouldn’t know about that. Well, he said I do. That's the reason I'm here. “Your tomatoes are here and it won't be long until they’re ready to go.” We went out. I had the tomatoes right behind here. He said "Why have you got these rows so deep?" “Well,” I said, “I try to make deep furrows as narrow as I can.” “What's your object?” “I like to keep the water down below, I don't want a wide furrow because the vine with the fruit on will drop down into the water. I can water a little later and mature tomatoes that wouldn’t ordinarily mature.” I've made quite a science out of this. The years you knew me I was way over the hill and I was sick. 4 WG: You have always been healthy! LW: No, I was a sick man. You don't know it but I was sick. I was working with grit. WG: You were working me into the ground! LW: Oh hell, you were doing the work and I was sitting on my ass. Well, this Bill Ratabaugh, he was with American Can Company. All this machinery was owned by the American Can Company. They didn't sell them, they had them on lease. They had their own man; he worked out of Ogden. If anything went wrong they took care of their own machines. The cannery never did own them, they just leased them. I'm going to tell you while I'm on tomatoes, we started doing this in 1932. I had a Japanese, the best Japanese I ever had. I used to have share croppers and he was one. He’s dead now. He died about a year ago. WG: Do you think those Japanese are good farmers? LW: Not all of them- but most of them are. They will average way ahead of our American boys. WG: Do they work harder? LW: No, they work with their brains. Their heads are pretty well in the right place. Well, anyway, we would put in our own hot beds. I'd go up here to the mouth of the canyon to get the nice black soil under the oak brush. I pitched that stuff down the hill into the cart, and I had a Jap boy with me. I said you push it to the front, I'll get it as far as I can. God, that would produce tomatoes. I tried to get in a six foot row in the hot bed. If I had more than that I would thin 'em. I wanted a good blue stem. I had an object. When you grow 5 ‘em they don't wilt down. We were planting them the last day of April. Now, you don't see tomatoes go in until the tenth of May. WG: You were planting about this time of the month? LW: Yes, and another thing, when you pour the water in where you plant you cool the ground much more. WG: How did Syracuse get its name? LW: For the salt industry. The railroad used to go down… Well, do you know where you go out to the lake? The lake road? WG: Yes. LW: Go out and observe closely and you can see where the old rail track was built around the salt ponds. I don’t remember the race track but I remember going to that resort. Where Joe Simpson lives was a big pavilion. Later, that was moved up one half mile up the tracks, up there was the first canning factory in Utah. WG: Was it called Woods Cross? LW: No, they called it the Deseret Canning Company. WG: When did they build the school and the church down here? LW: Church was held in two different places. There was one built first— it was a schoolhouse. Do you know where Willard Bambrough lives? WG: No! LW: You go down here half mile south and one mile west and over on the southeast corner was the first schoolhouse in that area. They come from way over from what we called 6 South Hooper to that one. I don't know where the line was; Lower West Point was empty. These people over here on the top of the hill in West Point, they came from Syracuse. They couldn’t live in that damned sand. It wouldn't grow anything. WG: How many people in Syracuse were here when you first started farming here? LW: I can’t answer that, but I would think if you would say 275 people, and I don't think you would lie very far off. But West Point was cut off from us before I started to farm. First they took Clearfield off. Clearfield used to be Syracuse. At this new bank they brought that out. Clearfield is a portion of Syracuse and that's exactly right. And on the depot they called it Syracuse Junction up on a big board on each side of the depot. That's the way they used to put it on. That's new to you. WG: Right up here in Clearfield? LW: Yes, not this depot. That was the old one. Just below the bank- a little farther over. You know where that cleaners used to be there on the west side? Well, just west of that, back of there about 150 feet or more, maybe 200 feet, is where that old depot used to be. WG: That used to be Syracuse. LW: Syracuse, you bet! Then Clinton. There was no Sunset, it was all Clinton. Hell no, it was just the other way. See how things have reversed? Clearfield went out of this first then West Point went out then it remained the lines about the same and then it was all one ward till I don't know when it was all together, that's right. I'll tell ya, I don't know when he went in or when he went out or how long he was in but he was. The bishop of this ward, when Jim went on that mission in 1950, December 12th, 13th. Yeah, he was 7 married on the 12th and left on his mission on the 13th, the damned fool. Yes, he was a damn fool, too! He lost her. WG: That's how you do it, I guess. LW: You bet. You ought to stay home and tend to business. WG: Did you ever raise cows or horses or did you always farm? LW: Not only what I needed of that type thing. I fed cattle, yes, and sheep. I was raised around sheep. WG: When did you get your first tractor? LW: First tractor! In 1946, September. WG: That's about when you got that old truck. LW: That’s it, the same one. WG: That truck out there is about a 1946? LW: That's a 1942, but I got it in 1943. I got it on a priority. I had to pay $165, $5 per month on the damn thing for storage. WG: Were they hard to get? LW: Yes, I got it on a priority then. 8