Title | Stoker, Lettie Hammon_OH10_055 |
Creator | Weber State University, Stewart Library: Oral History Program |
Contributors | Stoker, Lettie Hammon, Interviewee; Reeves, Ben, Interviewer; Sadler, Richard, Professor; Gallagher, Stacie, Technician |
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. |
Biographical/Historical Note | The following is an oral history interview with Lettie Hammon Stoker. The interviewwas conducted on August 9, 1971, by Ben Reeves, in Roy, Utah. Stoker discusses thesettlement and development of the Hooper, Roy, and West Weber areas, including LDSChurch organization and functions, LDS immigration, agriculture, water supply, socialand cultural activities, transportation, electric lighting, and the poorhouse, the originalcemetery, and early county politics and elections. Stokers daughter Jane participatesbriefly. |
Subject | Mormon Church; Canning and preserving; Mormon pioneers; Politics and government |
Digital Publisher | Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, USA |
Date | 1971 |
Date Digital | 2015 |
Temporal Coverage | 1971 |
Medium | Oral History |
Spatial Coverage | Park City (Utah) |
Type | Text |
Conversion Specifications | Original copy scanned using AABBYY Fine Reader 10 for optical character recognition. Digitally reformatted using Adobe Acrobat Xl Pro. |
Language | eng |
Rights | Materials may be used for non-profit and educational purposes, please credit University Archives, Stewart Library; Weber State University. |
Source | Stoker, Lettie Hammon_OH10_055; Weber State University, Stewart Library, University Archives |
OCR Text | Show Oral History Program Lettie Hammon Stoker Interviewed by Ben Reeves 8 August 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Lettie Hammon Stoker Interviewed by Ben Reeves 8 August 1971 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed 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: Stoker, Lettie Hammon, an oral history by Ben Reeves, 8 August 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Lettie Hammon Stoker. The interview was conducted on August 9, 1971, by Ben Reeves, in Roy, Utah. Stoker discusses the settlement and development of the Hooper, Roy, and West Weber areas, including LDS Church organization and functions, LDS immigration, agriculture, water supply, social and cultural activities, transportation, electric lighting, and the poorhouse, the original cemetery, and early county politics and elections. Stoker’s daughter Jane participates briefly. BR: Mrs. Stoker, can you give me some of your background, such as when you were born and, perhaps, your family? LS: I thought I had something here I might start out with. I was born in South Hooper, March 13, 1883, and I was the eighth child of Levi Hammon and Martha Jane Belnap, both residents of South Hooper. We lived in Hooper until I was 12 years old, then I moved to Roy in 1894. At that time it was still South Hooper Ward, and continued to be South Hooper Ward for a number of years. The people that came from England joined the Church and moved to Hooper, took up dry-land farming in this farming country up here. They put in grain and some of them built houses up here ...before they had water. They hauled their water and took their cattle to drink at the Hooper Springs. There was a good many years before they could have water. They finally built a canal – the Central Canal, it was called, built along the hills from Weber Canyon to Roy, and it was dug by hand. They had horses and scrapers, and they shoveled it out. It was on a sandy hill. They had a water right, but it only lasted until about June. Then the people here raised dry-farm. A few of them had berries, and they could 1 water up until June. Then Hooper had the water right. Then the water was turned off, and people that planted orchards and planted things around their homes had to haul water, and pour water around the trees to keep them going. My brother and I used to go over to a pond or well about two miles from our home. We took a wagon with us that had five barrels in it, 50-gallon barrels. He or I would dip the water up with the bucket, and the other one would pour it in the barrels. Then we’d put gunny-sacks over the top of them and put a hoop on them to keep the water from splashing out. Then we went up and poured it around our trees and down the rows of our little garden that we had, to keep it growing, and that was our job. We were about 12 or 13 years old. He was a year and a half younger than I was. And we went along with that until after I was a grown up lady. About 1900 they got the East Canyon Dam completed, and we had water from then on. We stored our water, and then Roy began to flourish. When Roy began to flourish, people would flock in here and build homes. Roy made a great stride. That was really as much as I remember. I used to ride a horse all over the prairie. My father was a great horseman. He had a number of stallions that were purebreds, and he was a breeder of purebred stock and brought many horses into the country that were full-bloods. And he had champion horses as long as he lived. I have lived here ever since. I am now in my 88th year, and I have lived here since I was 12 years old. I’ve been a citizen of Roy. I have seen the school built. In 1889, they bought the park and county farm here, on which they built what we used to call the poorhouse, where they had the people who were poor. On the hill they had a big reservoir dug that they stored water in, in the summer time. And they had it piped down to their place so they 2 could have toilets and things in their hospital. I’ve lived to see that building built, and I’ve lived to see it, which is now the Weber County Hospital. I’ve seen it, from the foundation of the first hospital until now. They still have the same farm as they had at the time. On the north end of that farm, the county had a cemetery which is now farmed over and plowed under, but there are a number of graves up there. That was the first cemetery in Roy. I think it should be fenced off and segregated as a cemetery! But it’s never been done, and I’ve been tempted many times to have a petition put that the commissioners of Weber County convey that it is a cemetery. We had our ward organized. At first we belonged to the South Hooper Ward, and then we were organized into a ward, and it was called the Kanesville Ward. We were a branch of the Kanesville Ward. And then we finally got a ward of our own, and from then until now, we’ve had three stakes in this town of Roy. And the railroad – the mail used to go from Hooper. From the Oregon Short Line, the mail carrier came from Hooper, and he took the mail up to the Oregon Short Line track and got his mail. And then we got our mail from Hooper. And then we got a post office in Roy through the efforts of a man by the name of Peebles. He had a son who’d died, and he had got a petition up for Roy to have a post office. And he sent his boy’s name in, which was Roy. So that is how Roy got his name. And the station where we got our mail was called Hooper because Hooper got its mail there, and then they delivered the mail to Roy. But after a while it was petitioned that Roy come into its own name and have the name of Roy. BR: When you were about six or seven years old, Utah became a state. Do you remember any 3 of the activities, the celebration, or anything that took place at that time? LS: I can remember when Utah became a state, yes, and how thrilled we were to be a state. We were held off from being a state because we were Mormons and because of polygamy. And our Church leaders put down polygamy – wouldn’t allow any polygamy – and they observed it. But it was a long time to convert the world that we were human beings. We were driven from Missouri out here, and our people all crossed the plains. We were run into the desert, and how people survived it is a surprise to me. How they ever lived through the things that my grandparents went through; both the Belnap side and the Hammon side came here to Hooper and moved to Roy. They didn’t have anything, only what they could bring in the wagon box, and I don’t know how they ever survived it. My father’s family came here to herd for John Hooper’s herd-house, and they lived there and herded his cattle. They came here and lived when my father was a boy. I don’t know just what time they came here. I’d have to look up to see what time it was, but it was in the early 1870s or 1860s, I’d say, because Father and Mother were married in 1870 and it was before that time. So they must have come between 1860 and 1870. BR: What type of activities did they have? I mean, did you have activities in Hooper and Roy, or did you have to go elsewhere? LS: Yes, we had drama in our schools. We put on school plays. We had drama in our Church, and we put on Church plays. And they had a drama association, and they put on two or three a year. They had a brass band down in Hooper, and had a number of people in it. They used to go from ward to ward and play. We had lots of amusements. We used to have, oh, I’d say six or eight or ten dramas during the winter. Everybody turned out and went to them, and we had lots of dancing. Nearly every ward had a dance every week, for 4 a long time it was for one ward, and then it was divided and we had a lot of wards. Kaysville and West Point – West Point used to be Roy, but now it’s West Point – but Hooper and everything was all consolidated, and Kanesville and West Ogden, and all those places. We had a racetrack over at West Ogden where they had races and things. In the early days when I was a child, I went there, and they had grandstands built where you could go and see races, and all during the summer time they had horse races and things like that. They had a race track, and it was beautifully built, and there were many, many, many races. But that was finally put off. Jed Parker, a man from South Hooper, built a canning factory down in West Point, which was a point of Roy at that time. When we got water up here, he moved his canning factory to Roy, and we had what they called the Star Canning Factory. It became one of the best and most well-known canning factories for tomatoes in the world. We raised lots of tomatoes, and they were canned, and they were always gotten rid of. They were worldwide known as the Star Canning Factory. Then there were other factories. There were individual factories gotten up. The Hardy’s had a factory, the Joneses had a factory. I remember Wright-Whittier’s had a factory here. It became a factory country with thousands of cans and cases of tomatoes that were grown and raised in Roy... There have been a lot of changes. We’ve all kinds of wards now that Roy has become a city. When I moved here, you could ride a horse anywhere between here and Ogden or Salt Lake or anyplace without a fence or anything. But today we have our streets, we have our city, we have our sewers. We have everything that modern comfort could have us 5 have. We have the lights. The lights came to Roy when the county infirmary was built here, which was the county poorhouse at that time. And the lights came down the street to the poor farm, and four or five farmers that were close around paid $250 to get lit up with electric lights. My husband bought a washer-machine, and I had the first washer-machine in Roy. At that time people outside Roy, to the county infirmary and up the street to the highway had lights, and the rest of Roy didn’t have lights until about 1915. But I enjoyed having them, and I was thoroughly thrilled when I got the lights. And I’ve done many washings for people that was sick and never thought a thing of it. RB: Back in 1900 when you and your husband were courting and dating, more or less getting ready to get married, what type of things did you do? LS: Well, we used to go to Ogden. We used to go to Salt Lake, and go to shows, and we used to go on the train a lot. You could go to Ogden and back for 25 cents. There was a train that left here in the early evening and came home at midnight. It gave us an opportunity to go on the train to Ogden and back, if we wanted to. We took lots of buggy rides. Everybody had buggy rides. Everybody had sleighs. We used to have horses and have sleigh rides. Every boy had a buggy, and he came and visited his sweetheart and took her for a buggy ride. We went from one town to another to different things that the towns had. We went to dances. We went to everything. Clinton was quite a place to have dances. They had musicians there that played, and I went to dances from Roy to Clinton most of the time. A lot of the time I went to Hooper, but mostly I went to Clinton. They had a dance every week. We had no dance-hall here. We 6 didn’t even have a church house. We were a long time without a church house. We held our church in the schoolhouse. Then they built a bigger schoolhouse, and we still kept in the schoolhouse. We didn’t have a church house until 1910. Around 1910 we built a church house in Roy. Then we began to have a few dances in the church house. But before that time, we didn’t have any dances in Roy because they didn’t have a place big enough for us to dance. Once in a while, we had a dance in the schoolhouse, but the schoolhouse didn’t approve of it, and we didn’t have many of them there. BR: What type of schools did they have when you were a child? LS: Well, we always had pretty good schools. I’ll say that we really had good schools. We had a lot of teachers that taught school, and we had some of the best. They used to teach us penmanship, and most of the people could write nice, which they don’t do today. They depend on typewriters and things until people are poor hands at writing, I’d say, today. But in our day everyone had to take penmanship, and you had to practice. We had books that showed you how to write, and you had to copy so much writing every day. That was one year’s study, and that was a good study... That existed until the early part of my family... I had one teacher that was a most beautiful penman. He could draw anything on earth on the board with a pen; that was beautiful! And I went down to Salt Lake City and was in the Capitol building down there. I was looking at some birds that were up on the wall high. I got a chair and stood up on a table where I could see it. I said, “I’ll bet that is Jonas Irva’s!” When I got up there, it was drawn by my old schoolteacher. But I have never seen anyone who could write like he could. 7 BR: Your father, according to the book by the Daltons, was the first county commissioner elected from Roy. What type of campaign did he have? Was it similar to what we have today? LS: Well, I don’t remember. I think my father was the first county commissioner from Roy. In about 1896, or 1897, or 1898, he was elected on the Democratic ticket for county commissioner... And John C. Childs was on the legislature from Roy, sometime along in there. And Jed Hammon was on the – D. J. Hammon – was on the legislature from Roy. Martin Brown was a county commissioner from Roy. My brother Ammasee Hammon was a commissioner from Roy. But I can’t tell you just exactly the dates of them... I think that Ammasee was along in about 1930, and I don’t know when Arth Brown his father was. They were the first people from here. Jed Hammon was a Republican. My father was a Democrat. John Childs was a Republican. I have been a judge of elections a lot, and my husband was road supervisor here for a number of years and built a lot of these roads around through here. He built the road from Nye’s Corner over there to West Ogden, or over in that vicinity that goes along Nye’s Hill over there. That used to be in the Roy District. I think that C. J. Garner was road supervisor here, too. They were both Republicans. But I don’t know who else was... BR: Well, how did they run their campaigns when they ran for county commissioner? Did they have a lot of pictures or did they more or less just speak. LS: Well, we used to have judges-of-election. It was just the same order as it is now. We used to go to the schoolhouse. We were appointed. They had the style as we have today, only it was smaller. Of course now there are a lot of precincts and things, but we took care of it. 8 Sometimes I have counted ballots until two and three and four o’clock in the morning. It would take us that long to count up our ballots and things. But as the town got larger, it was cut up. The last time I was in, I counted ballots up here in Roy – that was before they divided Roy into more than one precinct – and we didn’t get away until five o’clock in the morning... They were long hours, and we only got paid for a day’s work. It wasn’t very much, but we didn’t get paid by the hour like we do now. I’ve done everything there was to do. I’ve went around and taken the census, and my husband used to be assessor here in Roy. He would go and assess people. He went from house to house. At that time they assessed your furniture and your farm implements and everything. I don’t know how they do now because they’ve never been here and assessed my belongings, but they used to assess everything you had. If you had a new wagon, they charged you higher than they did if it was an old rattletrap. They had a certain thing to charge people for, and that’s the way you paid your taxes. They taxed everything in your house. They came in and looked through your house and seen what furniture you had and marked it down. We never paid any attention. We were used to having it done. It never made any difference to you. We had one of the first automobiles in Roy. We began to get the old cars in here, and we got in a car and drove the thing. We never had anyone teach us. We went and bought us a car, and we got in it and ran around whether we knew how or not. We just got in the car and went. They used to have old roads that had old ruts worn down. When you got in the tracks, you couldn’t get out of them. But you didn’t have to pass many cars because there weren’t many on the road. It was really funny. 9 When we bought our first car, we went to town in the wagon – Herman and his dad and I went to town in the wagon. When we got over there, we went and bought a car. And the fellow drove us up the street with it – that is, he let Dad drive it up the street. He drove it up through Ogden, and we got up there and he turned around in the road, and it’s a wonder we didn’t get our necks broke, but we didn’t. We got up there and he drove up the street and decided he wanted to turn around, and just turned around in the road – I think on about two wheels! We came back downtown and Herman and I got in the car, and Herman drove it home. He’d never had hold of a car before. We got home and took the whole family in it and drove over to West Weber to see my sister and back. Never thought of getting killed. But you learned how to drive! Just got in it and if ran all right, all right, and if it didn’t, it was all right. We bought our first car in 1919. We took a trip to Yellowstone Park, and we didn’t have much experience in driving. I don’t know how we ever got along. Since I’ve got older and learned all about cars and things, I’ve wondered how we ever did get along with a car! We didn’t know beans about it. BR: Back in some of the political elections, about the time you got married, it used to cause some problems over the Church’s influence in the elections. One of the prime examples was when B. H. Roberts was kept from being a member of Congress. Do you remember anything about this? LS: Well, yes, but he had three wives, and he was still living with them. They wouldn’t let him in Congress because of him having three wives. Of course there were no laws in Utah to prohibit him from having three wives. The Mormons came out here, and the Mormons made their own laws. There was no law against it. It wasn’t like it is today. He wouldn’t 10 throw his wives out of the house, and they wouldn’t let him go to Congress. He didn’t go to Congress, but he was elected three or four times. But they would never let him go. They barred him from Congress, and the people in Utah got up in arms. We used to have quite a time. They didn’t marry anymore in polygamy, but when they had their wives, they lived with them, and they kept them, and didn’t throw them out. You can’t blame them. My grandfather Belnap had two wives, and he lived with them. He had a barn, and half of it belonged to one family and half of it to another. He had a barn there, and he had a house there, and he had a house there see interviewer’s diagram . Half of that barn and the stock in it belonged to that family, part to this. Half of the farm belonged to that family, part to this. My mother’s family was the first family. And I didn’t ever dare to call her brother that was over here a half-brother. He was her brother. She wanted me to know it. She didn’t say, “He’s my half-brother.” If I said he was her half-brother, I got heck for it. Now, that’s how close they lived. When my grandfather came to see my mother, he brought both wives with him, and they visited my mother. When she went to see her mother, she went to see Aunt Harriet. That was the way things went. Her name wasn’t Harriet, it was – BR: Henrietta. LS: It was Henrietta. Harriet was my husband’s stepmother that he had. But they were just as congenial as if they had been only the one wife. I’ve lived where there were dozens of people who had two wives, and I’ve played with both sets of kids. If they were at the first wife’s and they wanted a piece of bread and butter, they could go in and get it; or if they were at the second wife’s, they could go and get that from them. They lived in harmony. 11 As far as I could see, there was not any difference in polygamy than there is in one wife today. Every man that I ever knew that had two wives treated both wives alike. I think that the Church made it a rule that if a first wife objected to a man having two wives, he couldn’t have two wives. That’s my understanding of it. So I think that the women gave their consent to a second wife. I don’t know whether my mother would never give Dad a second wife, or whether he ever wanted one. I never knew. If he did, I never knew of it. BR: You mentioned before that there were immigrants that came in from England and other countries. Did they have any problems becoming involved in the community? LS: Well, yes. They had problems, a bit. I’ll tell you, they had what they called the Emigration Fund – BR: Perpetual Emigration Fund. LS: – the Church did. It was like fast offerings or something. Everybody paid into it until they accumulated a lot of money. Then, when anybody joined the Church, they would borrow that money. Now, the Church didn’t give it to them; you might hear that they did, but they didn’t. If you got money off of them, you had to pay it back into this Emigration Fund. Finally they passed laws and that until we had to pay out enough that the Church quit doing it. But they taxed them for this Emigration Fund. They made it hard, so that they had to quit having it. They tried to do that to throw us out of having people come in, I think. I’ll tell you, we had the law against us from the beginning. The United States government was sure against the Mormons. Our parents, who put all their things in a wagon and were driven out of Missouri and that, I don’t know how they ever took it. The way that they were going, or what they were going into, was more than what I can understand. They must 12 have had a tremendous – well, what would you call it – testimony of this Church. They never for once doubted it. I don’t know whether I could load up what I’ve got and take off and not know where I was going, or whether I couldn’t. I don’t think I’m big enough to pull out of my house and leave everything in it and go. Now that’d be quite a thing. But there was hundreds of them did it. And it’s our United States which did it. I’ve read the history of Colonel Thomas L. Kane and he was a wonderful man for the Mormons. When he had that old Mormon Battalion and knew what kind of men and women – there were women that went with their husbands and did washings and that for the army – that crossed the land and went to San Diego, and did things that – well, I’ll tell you, it took a lot of courage. Yes, sir! It took a lot of courage. I have a lot of the Daughters of the Pioneers’ Histories, and they have the biographies of women that have written their life histories in them. I’ve read a lot of them, and I’m telling you, there are some pathetic things in them! Women crossed the plains, had their babies, had no doctors, had nothing — had their babies in the wagon box and crossed the plains. They had pretty good nerve. When they crossed the river on the ice at Missouri there, I think there were nine of 10 babies born that night. Crossed the river on the ice. And the babies didn’t die, but you wonder why. BR: You mention the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers. Now you were one of the members of the first organization of that here in Roy, weren’t you? LS: Yes. BR: Where was that organized? LS: Well, I think that was organized in December in – when? It was in December... I just can’t 13 tell you when it was organized. It was organized before I ever went to Burley. It must have been about 1916 when it was organized here. I was the first county president in Burley, Idaho. They put me as president out there, and I organized about 15 or 20 different wards into the Daughters of the Pioneers... I was the second president in the Roy Company… I was put in during 1917. I’ve been on the board in that, and I’ve been on everything. I’ve been everything in that from the parliamentarian president, and everything else. I’m now a Daughter of the Pioneers. There’s about 7-8,000 of them and my number is 176... I’m in the first thousand. No, I’m not – I’m 765 is my number. BR: Your husband, Mr. Stoker, and his brother, Lorenzo, donated the land for the first cemetery here in Roy. Could you tell me how that came about, and a little bit about it? LS: Well, they just sold it to the ward. The ward bought five acres off of them and then it’s been turned to the city. It belonged to the Church. The Church paid for it and then, when I don’t know, it was here some time ago, that the Church turned it over to the State. It didn’t cost the State anything, but the State takes care of it. The Church doesn’t have to keep the upkeep on it. So they just turned it to the State and then the State has to take care of it... Well, it’s probably the city’s now, but ... the Church paid us $500. They paid us $100 an acre for it, and there was one rod of land that was left for a roadway up there. Of course, it belongs to the city now, but the ward paid for one acre of it for a road up to that place. ...I don’t know what the confab was, but there was a confab over that. They were going to turn it into a playground. I heard of it, so I just wrote them a letter and sent it up there. I told them that was bought and paid for. It wasn’t a donation. And it wasn’t donated for that. It 14 wasn’t sold for public recreation, it was sold for a cemetery. If they couldn’t find any deed for it – the records of the Weber County Church was burned when the Eccles Building burned, and our records were all lost. I said, “That’s where it is. But if you want to go to the county, you’ll find that there’s a deed and my name’s on the deed.” I’ve never heard no more about it. I sat down and wrote a letter and mailed it to the mayor of Roy. I’ve never heard another word about it. But I told him it was no gift, and it didn’t belong to the city. It was paid for! And it was! Ren’s folks and us had it. How it came to be there, Polly had a baby die in Preston, Idaho. They moved the body from up there. There was only a few graves in it the cemetery , so she went and got her baby and brought it home, brought it down here to Roy. There was no place to bury it, so they took it up there and buried it in that corner lot until they decided where they Roy had a burial ground. That’s why Roy’s got a burying ground today. They finally turned it into a cemetery. At that time the place all belonged to both of us and we all four signed the deed to it and sold it to the Church. JS: I can remember when I was a little girl when there were only about three graves up there. That old white stone with the “Hammon” on it, that’s got the book on top of it was Aunt LaDema’s, and us kids used to go up there swimming and go read that book every time we went there. Now, I can’t even tell you what’s on it. LS: Should think if she’s read it enough, she would, wouldn’t she? BR: Yes. I’ve just got one more question. What do you feel, now that you’ve lived 87 years and going on 88? You’re in your 88th year, and what do you feel is the heritage that you, yourself, have left for your grandchildren and great-grandchildren? 15 LS: I don’t know what kind of a heritage it’d be. I’ve tried to keep it clear. I’ve never been a criminal. Is that what you mean? BR: That’s kind of what I had in mind. LS: I’d want them all to keep an education; get the best education they can. Get out of life what you can. I don’t believe in carousing around and all that kind of thing. I think that a person should keep their body clean. They should be mentally awake, and know what good and evil are, and to teach their children – educate them to the best of your ability. But virtue means everything. And to keep yourself spotless from the sins of the world so you can go back to your Heavenly Father with a clear conscience is the best thing there is on earth. BR: Yes, that’s what I wanted. Anything else? LS: I don’t think that the good acts that you can do will ever worry you. It’ll be the bad ones. And be careful of the little things. Don’t ever say anything idle that you don’t think about. And if somebody gives you heck, take it and smile about it. When they get through telling it, thank them, and that will be it. If you want to ship anyone, you want to listen to them; and when they get through, tell them thanks. But you can hold your head up and do that. That’s the truth! I’ve tried it. Nine times out of 10 they’ll come and tell you they are sorry... But if you get mad, you both get mad, then hell’s a-popping. I never mistreated a child, I don’t care whose child they was. If they got into anything that I thought they hadn’t ought to, I’d talk to them, but I’ve never got after them or bawled them out or anything. I’d say, “Well, don’t do that. That’s naughty.” Or something. Nine times out of 10 a child will turn around. There is once in a while a child defends, but very seldom. The best thing on this 16 earth’s holding your own head up. And if you ever see anybody down, try to help them. Because there’s none of us perfect and everybody makes mistakes. I’ve made thousands of them. I’ve made more mistakes than anything else. But that’s the way you learn. If you never made any mistakes you wouldn’t learn anything. I’ve got a trial now. I’ve had a trial. But I look at it in another way. Now, you take Thelma a daughter . She’s a step ahead of me now. Never in her life has she been able to step ahead of me, but now she’s ahead of me... Her life’s over and she’s that much ahead of me. I’ve got to go through what she’s gone through. She’s been a wonderful mother, she’s been a wonderful daughter, and she’s been a wonderful citizen. What have I got to worry about? She’s been wonderful to her family, she’s been wonderful to her husband. I ain’t got anything to be sorry about. She’s just one step ahead of me. It’s been 29 years since she’s seen her father. I believe she’s over there visiting with him. If she ain’t, it’s okay anyhow. And if she is, it’s joy to her. And I don’t think I should grieve, mourn of her being gone. She’s lived her life. She’s had lots of ups and downs. She’s had sorrow, she’s had pleasure. Everybody has to do it. I’ve got – let’s see, there’s – I’ve got 12 brothers and sisters here. I’ve got a lot over there. I’ve got two – I’ve got three children over there now. I’ve got two babies, and I’ve got Thelma. And I don’t think when I go over there that I’m going to find my babies. You hear people say, “Well, you’ll go over there and raise them up.” I don’t believe that. I believe that your spirit is growing over there, and it’s grown up. My children have been dead for years and years. They’re up in their fifties. Well, how are they going to be little tiny babies for me to rise? As I look at it, we go on to perfection. They’ll be grown-up men when I get over there. Don’t you think they will? 17 BR: Yes. LS: I don’t think for a minute I’ll be badly fooled if they are. 18 Selected Bibliography Arrington, Leonard J. Great Basin Kingdom (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1958.) Greenwell, Betsy Robeana H. Levi Hammon and Polly Chapman Bybee, Early Pioneers (Kaysville, Utah: Inland Printing Company, 1964.) Hunter, Milton R. Beneath Ben Lomond’s Peak (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press) Hardy, Rose and Draayer, Ida. Roy, Utah: Our Hometown (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1968.) Reeves, Ben. Oral History Interview with Joseph Anderson. (Utah Oral History Project, Weber State University Library, Ogden, Utah.) Reeves, Ben. Oral History Interview with Jane Venable (Utah Oral History Project, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah.) 19 |
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