Oral History Program Janae McCormick and Elaine Bingham Interviewed by Lorrie Rands & Brian Whitney 24 June 2015 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Janae McCormick Elaine Bingham Interviewed by Lorrie Rands & Brian Whitney 24 June 2015 Copyright © 2015 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii 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. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Utah Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum honors men and women whose lives exemplify the independence and resilience of the people who settled Utah, and includes artists, champions, entertainers, musicians, ranchers, writers, and those persons, past and present, who have promoted the Western way of life. Each year, the inductees are interviewed about their lives and experiences living the Western way of life. ____________________________________ 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 This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: McCormick, Janae and Elaine Bingham, an oral history by Lorrie Rands & Brian Whitney, 24 June 2015, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Elaine Bingham and Janae McCormick June 24, 2015 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Janae McCormick and Elaine Bingham, conducted June 24, 2015 by Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney. McCormick and Bingham discuss their father, Bud Favero. BW: Today is June 24, 2015 we’re in the Waterstradt Room of the Stewart Library interviewing Janae McCormick and Elaine Bingham regarding their father Bud Favero, recent inductee into the Cowboy Museum. The time is a little after 9 a.m. and recording this interview is Lorrie Rands and Brian Whitney. How are you all today? JM: Great. EB: Fine, thank you. BW: Excellent. Thanks for coming to Weber State University. I’ll go ahead and let you lead the charge. LR: Alright, again thank you for agreeing to be here, we appreciate it. Let’s just start out with something simple. Let’s start with your dad’s full name and when and where he was born. EB: It’s Lorenzo Bud Favero and he doesn’t like Lorenzo. He goes by Bud. JM: He was born in Weber County. EB: Weber County, he was born August 15, 1920. LR: He was born in Weber County, where in Weber County? JM: Taylor is what it was called then. LR: Okay no wonder you said Weber County. I don’t know where Taylor is. Where is Taylor within Weber County? 2 EB: Do you know where West Haven is? LR: Yes. EB: Okay it’s just west of that. LR: Alright and was he born to a large family or small family? JM: A very large family. EB: Large family. JM: He had thirteen brothers and one sister. LR: Oh that poor girl. JM: Currently there’s 720 descendants in that family. EB: We just had our family reunion Saturday. BW: Wow, that’s a lot of Christmas cards. JM: Yes we did just have our family reunion Saturday and it was… EB: With her in charge. JM: We had about 250 people there. LR: That’s fantastic, so where did he fall within those fourteen? JM: He was third wasn’t he? EB: No he was fourth. JM: Fourth? Okay. There was two that passed away when they were just young and actually the sister is right in the middle. So he was fourth? EB: I believe so. BW: All from the same mother? JM: Yes. BW: Oh that poor woman. 3 EB: They worked on a farm. JM: Yes they were farm boys from the beginning. A lot of them grew up to be doctors and all, but dad stayed in the farm. He had a business man’s farm, it wasn’t like a big farm, but we were around the farm. EB: It was mainly horses, no cows. JM: Yes dad just had horses. LR: So that was more of a ranch? EB: Yes, dad’s was. LR: So what he grew up on was it a farm or was it… EB: A dairy farm. JM: Yes, he grew up on a dairy farm. BW: What’s the family background? JM: Grandpa came from Italy and he always told us it was from the blonde side of Italy because none of us are dark. So he came from Italy and grandma came… EB: Howell, Utah. LR: So his father immigrated to the United States? JM: Right. LR: He met his wife here, okay. JM: She is how many years younger than grandpa? EB: She’s twelve years younger. JM: Twelve years younger than grandpa, but grandpa lived to be 100 and grandma was 98. EB: 98. 4 JM: That’s what I was thinking, 98. Our longevity is very long. BW: What brought his father out from Italy, do you know? JM: I’m not real sure because the family came and the family kind of split up. They were of course Catholic when they were in Italy. I can’t remember how many brothers and sisters grandpa had, but half of the family was converted to LDS and the other half were Catholic. It’s interesting because two of the brothers, two of the cousins, migrated there in Taylor and so half of the people in Taylor, the Faveros are still Catholic and the other half are LDS. EB: We didn’t know a lot of the other family because you didn’t… JM: They’re all, you know they’re all very friendly… BW: Okay so it’s not hostile. EB: No, no. JM: No, no. LR: Oh that’s good. JM: They all farm, I mean these two cousins. Uncle Gus and grandpa, they farmed. I know the kids very well, Gus’s kids. EB: Grandpa wouldn’t let the kids learn Italian. “When you’re in the U.S. you speak American, you do not speak Italian.” So none of them learned Italian. JM: Oh they know a few words. They know the cuss words. EB: They only thing we know from dad is the swearing. JM: Always at the end of the blessing, what would he say? Amen, what would he say? EB: I can’t remember. 5 JM: He’d always have some little saying after we’d say the prayer over the food. LR: So dairy farm, your father grew up milking cows. JM: Hauling hay. LR: He never got tired of that? JM: Well he did get tired of the milking cow bit because he expanded out and went more to the horses and did work for other folks there in the community because grandpa didn’t have enough for just them, with that many boys and that. So he used to work for Sam Hadley right? Doing farm work, I mean all of the boys worked outside of there. Then dad become interested in becoming a business man and also later on had gas stations. So when we were growing up dad had two gas stations. EB: Two on Harrison, one was by the McKay Dee Hospital and the other one was, I think it’s where Baskin Robbins is right now. BW: Just across the street. JM: He worked for the oil company which was… EB: Utoko. JM: Utoko, then he became interested in being his own boss and taking care of his own gas stations. By that time we all had horses dad made sure. We traveled to Colorado and bought them in Durango. The four girls, our little brother didn’t have the horse, but the four girls, we all had horses. EB: From the Shallowbargers. JM: Yes from the shallowbargers back there. My two older sisters they had sorrows and Elaine and I had buckskins. Dad put us in all these quarterhorse shows, they 6 don’t have anymore, but we were called the matched pairs. It was really fun wasn’t it? EB: Yes we went to a lot of shows. BW: What do the matched pairs mean? JM: That means you have two buckskins which are a light color with black mane and tail. EB: You dressed alike. JM: You dressed alike and everything you did had to be the same. EB: You walk, trot together. JM: You walk, trot, gallop, everything the same. BW: So it’s choreographed together? EB: The judge would be in the middle, it’s like a quarter horse show. I don’t know if you’ve been to a quarter horse show. BW: I haven’t. EB: Okay you walk… JM: Trot. EB: There’s a judge in the middle and he’ll tell you walk your horses. Then you walk and trot. Then you go into a gallop, you have to be together and be on the right lead and go around. You just go around in an arena in a circle. JM: You’re against several other people. LR: That sounds time consuming. JM: It was, but dad was always interested in anything that kept the family together. We did tons of family things. Dad was in the posse. 7 EB: Weber County Posse. JM: For several years until he was in his eighties and became ill. We went on several overnight mountain trips, over weeks. We’d go up to the Uintah’s and spend time up there. We kind of raced, dad did flat track races. Do you know what that is? That’s where the horses just run down the track. EB: Like the Kentucky Derby. BW: Gotcha, I’m a Seattle boy so you have to clarify all this stuff to me. JM: Oh okay, then we had chariot racing. You know what chariot racing is? LR: Yes. JM: Well it used to be when we had a lot of snow it was cutter races and they had sleighs. We used to do that in Huntsville. Then when it became not so much snow, we went to chariots. My oldest sister Vicky and I had a team and dad had a team. Dad always drove them until he got older and then my little brother Buddy drove them. Our little brother was a jockey and just a great kid. Excuse me, he was in an accident where a semi hit him and he’s in a wheelchair. EB: He’s like a… JM: He’s like a vegetable, it just is very, very sad. Dad always knew that he was just going to be better didn’t he? EB: Yes. JM: But he never. BW: Can we back up to your father’s childhood and education? Talk a little bit about how he was educated. JM: He was actually the president of Weber High School when he did graduate. 8 LR: What elementary school did he go to? Did he go to an elementary school? JM: Taylor. EB: The school is still there. JM: Yes it is. It’s just a little ways from the church, but the school is still there. LR: So he went to Taylor Elementary. Did he go to a two year junior high? JM: You know I don’t know. He must have, I don’t even know where the junior high school was. I know he went to Weber High School. So obviously he went, he was president of the school. LR: So he had this desire to when he was younger to be outgoing? JM: Very leadership. EB: He was the Weber County Commissioner. JM: He was captain of the posse for how many years. EB: Four years. JM: He was president of the Cutter Racing Association. BW: When you say posse I think of a publishing group. EB: No a sheriff posse. JM: Are you familiar? LR: Well I was going to have you explain that when we got to that, to that point of, what we’re trying to do is go in a chronological order. JM: Chronological order? Sorry. LR: No what you’re doing is fine. That’s why we’re bringing you back. Where are we? BW: Secondary education. LR: After he graduated did he try to go to a university? 9 EB: No, he just went working. I mean because that’s how he was brought up, a hard worker. You work to support your family. BW: Do you know about when he graduated high school? 1940’s or… EB: I have no idea. JM: I guess you could figure it out. He played baseball, didn’t he play baseball? EB: I thought he played basketball. JM: I don’t remember. LR: So he grew up during the depression, did he ever talk about that? How difficult it was? JM: No we just always got told that he had to walk to school and that it was quite a few miles away from the house. Actually mother and dad just lived down the street from where dad was raised. There’s only a field between mother’s and dad’s house and grandma and grandpa’s house. So in the winters he used to tell us how hard it was because grandma and grandpa didn’t have the ability to take all the kids to school and that. So he had to walk and you get the same stories from the hard times they had and what they had to save. They only had a pair of shoes a piece. It was very difficult in those times especially with that many children. BW: So we’ve left high school and go into the working world. LR: Was he drafted or did he manage to stay? JM: He was not drafted and I can’t remember why. EB: I don’t think he was able to. 10 JM: I can’t remember what was wrong with him, but his older brother served, Uncle Jim. Dad didn’t and I can’t remember why. EB: I think it was something like, did he get kicked by a horse? I don’t know. JM: So he was not in the Army. LR: What did he do then, after he graduated from high school? EB: Worked. JM: Worked on farms. After a while he went and worked for a gas company. EB: Gas station. JM: No first Utoko. EB: That’s the gas company. JM: Then he drove a gas truck for a while and then that moved him into buying and owning his own gas stations. It was a, oh my goodness what do you call it? When you buy, have a gas station that, what do you call it? EB: Franchise. JM: Franchise and it changed from Utoko to America. Did it stay America? EB: No, it changed too. JM: So it was several different names, but anyway he started one on 25th and Harrison right by the hospital, then he opened another one which was called College Service. He had his brother that was just younger than him, Uncle Carl, ran that. Then he actually had one more. EB: When he had his station on Harrison he had a lot of the doctors come to him and a lot of their kids would work for him. I don’t know if you remember Dr. Rich, Horner Rich? 11 LR: Yes, I know who he is. EB: He was a great friend of mom and dad’s and his son worked for dad. JM: The reason his son worked for dad was because Homer couldn’t control him and told dad that he wanted him to learn how to work. Dad was real hard lined, when he wants something done he wants it done. EB: He wants it done to perfection. JM: Yes and he was real authoritative. I mean you followed the rules in the house. Dad was a very stern father which I appreciate, because from that we’ve learned to be very dedicated workers and to be thorough in what we do. I’ve always said, “Without my dad and mother teaching us the things that we know we wouldn’t become the adults we are today.” Dad was always a very proud man. Like I said we followed the rules didn’t we Lanie? EB: Yes he would tell us that if we got in trouble at school you get in trouble at home. Your teacher’s always right and that’s the way we were brought up. LR: So when did he meet your mother? JM: He met mother just out of high school, he met mother and she lived uptown. They started a courtship and mother was not a farm girl, so he introduced her to the farm because she lived in town all her life just below Harrison. EB: Polk. JM: Polk Street. She had three sisters, she was not a farm girl, but anyway he introduced her to the farm. Mother was just a sweet, sweet person and is a sweet person bless her heart. They courted for two years and then they married. They met at a dance. 12 EB: Something like that. LR: So did he start these gas stations before he married or… EB: No I think he worked there. JM: Yes he worked there so he started them after. He was driving truck actually when he met mother. He was driving the Utoko, Utoko whatever it was. EB: Utoko gas is where he worked. LR: Gotcha, so he was part of the Weber County Sheriff’s Posse for what I have here is fifty two years. When did he start that and can you explain what that is for those of us who don’t know? EB: When did he start? JM: It was actually started before dad joined it. Dr. Keith Stratford… EB: Rulen Wood. JM: Rulen Wood was Dr. Stratford’s father-in-law, do you remember Dr. Keith Stratford? LR: I don’t know that name. JM: Okay well they inducted dad. You had to have a sponsor at that time. EB: To be able to join. JM: Right and they sponsored dad. What the Weber County Sheriff Mounted Posse is it’s a group of members and their wives. It’s a very family… EB: Oriented. JM: It was a very family oriented organization and they rode horses and did drills at the rodeos for Pioneer Days, rode in the parades and they did rescue. They did you know they were available to go out and rescue people when they were lost 13 and they did a lot of that. It was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming right? They went up there and they did like a fake hanging and they did pony express. EB: The Pony Express started in Sacramento and ride to here. JM: Dad participated in all that and took a very leadership role in the posse and he was captain… EB: Numerous times. JM: Numerous times, I can’t remember how many. LR: Six. JM: Okay there you go he was captain six times. The reason I say it’s a very family oriented thing is that was when we would pack up all of our horses and take a trailer and tents and generators and we’d stay up in the Uinta’s for a week. EB: Two weeks and everyday we’d get the horses all… JM: Saddled up. EB: Saddled up and go for a ride. JM: You’d go for a ride to a lake and then you’d go fishing. Some of those rides were on solid rock, they were pretty tough, but dad took a horse for all of us and we all went. BW: What an experience and memory. JM: Yes and we would travel whenever dad would ride in rodeos. EB: When the posse practiced their drills it’d always be Thursday. We would always go there with him because after the drills the horses would be sweated up so we, the kids, all fought to get on the horses after the drill. JM: Just to cool them out. 14 EB: So we would just walk them around while the men ate their dinner. JM: There’s a kitchen at the Posse house and the wives, especially my mom, she was like the head cook for everything. She flipped more hamburgers than you would have if you worked in a hamburger place. They would always have hamburgers and salad or ice cream or something for everybody that was there. So that’s why it was such a family oriented organization. LR: So you mentioned the riding in rodeos. Would he do that just for the posse or was he involved in some other way? JM: He was involved in the Ogden Pioneer Days. Dad was the chairman for a year, or two years, I can’t remember. He was always in the organization helping with it and bringing it forward. He was actually the one who signed the PRCA for Cotton Rosser, Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Cotton Rosser was the stock contractor and he was instrumental in bringing him here and he was here for several years, Cotton was, but dad developed a great friendship with him. He and mother were grand marshals of the parade one year and I can’t remember what year that was. BW: Very active in local community. JM: Absolutely, he was also instrumental in the Weber County Fairground and the Weber County Library. The Weber County Library, dad’s name is on it just as you walk in there because as the county commissioner he was instrumental in getting that developed and the Weber County Fairgrounds. Dad was… EB: He was the one that started. 15 JM: They actually had, I don’t know if you remember or not. There was a huge cattle drive at the Bicentennial. Was it the Bicentennial? EB: I think so but they would have it, when the Weber County Fair first started up they would have a cattle drive. JM: At the opening of the fair they would drive the cattle down a racetrack. There were several people that participated in that, but dad was the instrumental part of getting that started. LR: Would they end at the stockyards? JM: No. EB: No it ended at the fairgrounds. LR: Oh at the fairgrounds. The only one I know is the Golden Spike Arena. EB: Right. LR: Is that the one? EB: Right. LR: Did he help with that, with the creation of that building as well? JM: With the whole fairgrounds. EB: There was nothing there. We had nothing to go too. IF you remember the old Golden Spike, they’re tearing it down now. JM: The stockyards. LR: Okay the stockyards, yes. EB: That’s all we had and he wanted something for Weber County people to go too. So it was his dream that they had something like that. 16 JM: Dad was on the fair board and he was an instrumental part on the fair board to get all of that going. LR: So he’s the one that kind of generated this idea of where to have it that was separate from the stockyards? EB: Right. LR: A place that was just for the fair. He was the driving force behind that? JM: For the fair and for the racetrack. I think the ball diamonds came later, but dad was mainly just in the horse part. EB: He wanted Weber County to have a place to go. LR: That makes sense. BW: This was all while he was county commissioner? JM: No the library was the county commissioner part. EB: The fair was after. JM: There was a big fair board and dad was on that fair board. So when he was on that fair board witha group of people. LR: Okay you talked about the bicentennial and this cattle drive that was for the opening of the fair for the bicentennial. I had a question. EB: It will come to you. LR: It will. Do you? BW: Sure, but it’s a question about him being county commissioner. Is that an appointment or… JM: No. EB: No he ran for it. 17 JM: He ran for county commissioner. BW: How long did he serve? EB: Two years. BW: What motivated him to do that? EB: I don’t know, but let me tell you politics is not. JM: Yeah we were… EB: I would’ve never run for something. BW: He sounds like a pretty straight up guy. How would he want to get involved, tangle with those people? EB: Well he was really good friends with Maurice Richards. JM: He and Maurice were commissioners together, and that was when he and Maurice did the library. Dad took a lot of flak as county commissioner basically because he was such a straight up person. It was just a horrible two years of our lives. EB: That’s why I say I will never get involved with politics. JM: He worked as the commissioner while running his gas stations, it just was really, really hard on him. He’s a strong guy. BW: You mentioned earlier, you said Homer couldn’t handle him. Who was Homer? JM: Homer Rich. EB: Homer Rich. JM: Dr. Rich. 18 BW: Okay, great. I just want to make sure I make the connection there. Now you’d also mentioned he grew up LDS. Did he ever serve a mission for the LDS church? EB: No. JM: No. LR: So the bicentennial cattle drive, he created that? EB: Yes. JM: That was his baby. LR: So did he work on that commission? EB: It was a board. LR: Right. EB: He was on the board. JM: He was on the fair board and so he took the cattle drive. He rode right down with them and rode his horse and slept outside every night. It took them, I can’t remember how many days. There were tons of articles in the newspaper about that huge cattle drive. LR: What happened to the cattle afterwards? Were they just sold? EB: I think they belonged to other individuals. JM: They were long horn steers. It was really cool to watch them… EB: He just wanted to make it unique and let the people remember how it used to be. LR: So did they actually come down to the heart of Ogden? 19 JM: Yes they came right down the canyon and they had police escort them and stop traffic. They started at a certain date so that they would be there at the opening of the fair. LR: Wow, I’m trying to envision these cattle walking down. EB: There was a little controversy because dad said it was for men only and women got up in arms so they joined the drive. JM: They said that dad was prejudice. I mean he’s four got girls, he’s prejudice against women? Give me a break. We worked our butts off when we were at home. EB: We hauled hay. BW: I’m sure you wish he was? EB: Yes. JM: We hauled hay, we picked tomatoes, and we worked horses because my little brother was too young to work the horses. So it was my sisters and I’s responsibility to work the racehorses and feed. EB: I can remember coming home from school, changing your clothes, getting on the horses bareback and we had a… JM: Great big arena in the back. EB: And run them as hard as you can around the arena so many times and then you’d walk them for a long time. JM: That was the process of training the horses. You have to get them in shape and that. Boy I’ll tell you we were all participating in that weren’t we? I mean if we were going to ride them, we were in Junior Posse. My mother was the head of 20 our Junior Posse and so all of us were in the Junior Posses. You know what the Junior Posse’s are? LR: Well your father helped create that did he not? JM: Yes. EB: Yes. LR: Okay so no I don’t so if you could go ahead and explain that? JM: Each county has a group of kids… EB: Well each town actually because Plain City, Roy… JM: Hooper, North Ogden, Pleasant View. They all had their own and mother was our Junior Posse leader and we were the Flying W Junior Posse. Then the jamboree, are you familiar with the jamboree? EB: It’s before the rodeo. LR: Okay. JM: They have a jamboree and it’s all these kids… EB: Junior Posse. JM: Junior Posse jamboree, and it’s all these kids and all their leaders that go there and compete in barrel racing, pole bending, water race, keyhole all these different events and then they add up all the points to identify high point club. EB: You win a trophy. JM: Then you win trophies so… EB: Dad wanted this to get the kids in the community and keep them involved. JM: On horses and that’s still going on today. I mean they still have junior posse’s today. 21 LR: What is, you mentioned keyhole. JM: You make a keyhole so it’s straight up like this and around like that and then… EB: You ride your horse as fast as you can, stop, turn and run back out JM: They make it with that white chalk or flour. EB: You stop and you turn your horse and run out and if you stand on the line, step on a line you get deducted so many points. LR: Oh wow. JM: So you have to have a pretty good horse that’s not afraid of the white line and that can spin in that circle and go back out. BW: Can we, tell me what the sheriff’s, the Weber County Sheriff’s horse sale was. JM: Oh he was in charge of that too. EB: Yes he was. JM: That was every Friday night, they would have a horse sale. BW: It was like an auction? No? JM: Yes, but you have an auctioneer, and folks bring their horses to sell them at the horse sale and before the horse sale they would have a tack sale. So they’d bring saddles, blankets, whips, bridles, spurs, whatever they want and then they’d auction off, what was his name that was the auctioneer? EB: Benny Tanaka. JM: Benny Tanaka and he was from Tooele, no Tremonton. EB: Tremonton. 22 JM: So they’d bring all the tack there and then anybody in Weber County that wanted to sell their horse, or the surrounding area, they’d bring them there then they’d run through the auction. That was every Friday night huh? BW: Wow. EB: Because he was also the brand inspector. LR: And what is that? EB: He worked for the State of Utah and you had to have a brand or you had to have a registration for your horse to sell it. LR: Okay. JM: After so long dad sold the gas stations and then he worked at… EB: He worked at Job core. JM: Job core for a little while in the auto mechanics organization and then he was the brand inspector for the state and he was that until he was eighty years old. He didn’t retire until he was eighty. BW: So he had a lot of down time so what did he do with… JM: He didn’t have a lot of down time. BW: That’s my point. LR: I think it’s the exact opposite he had no down time. BW: I was being sarcastic. EB: I know, but in between this dad got leukemia. JM: He had Hairy Cell’s leukemia. EB: But I would take him down to Huntsman Center, he would get a treatment and come back and go right to work. He would go inspect cows. 23 JM: That are going to the killer. EB: That are going to be transported or anything, he would have to inspect them. After coming back from the Huntsman Center he would go do that and he’d be inspecting them and throwing up. BW: From the chemo I’m sure. JM: Then he and mother, they would travel around to all the places to do brand inspections. Mother, bless her little heart, when I take her for rides she says, “Oh your dad and I used to go there. I remember when we used to go there and brand the cows.” You know she’s ninety, she’s going to be ninety three this year. LR: Wow. BW: What a life. JM: He had such a terrific life he was very respected, they either loved dad and respected him or they hated him. Right Lannie? For us, we were always very proud of being Faveros and very proud of the legend that my dad left because he was a very proud man. Even though some people didn’t agree with what he did, dad was a very honest upfront man and it didn’t matter whether you agreed with him or not. What dad said in our language was the way it was. I’ll just tell you a little experience that happened to me. We were up in Pocatello and we were racing horses and dad and I were in the stall and this guy he was mad at dad for, I can’t even remember. EB: He swore in front of us and some other ladies. JM: Oh he swore in front of us and dad didn’t like that because you respect women. EB: And he didn’t like that kind of language. 24 JM: He didn’t and the guy had been drinking a little bit and so he come back and started a fight with my dad and he actually broke his… EB: He broke his collarbone. BW: Who broke who’s collarbone? JM: The guy broke dad’s collarbone and I was just screaming at the top of my voice and I was cussing and telling that guy to leave my dad alone. I just remember that experience so well. EB: Because we would go to Pocatello… JM: To race the horses. EB: To race horses and also the World Championship would be up in Pocatello, Idaho. JM: The World Championship. BW: Okay. EB: It’s down here in Weber County now because there’s a contract and you have to bid for the contract so it was mainly up in Pocatello when we were growing up. JM: Dad said, I mean he never got mad at me for cussing and screaming at that guy but he says, “So you didn’t like that guy hurting your dad huh?” No, I did not. LR: So it sounds like your father, even though he had his businesses, he always wanted to be involved somehow with the community. EB: Yes. JM: He always was. LR: Okay and was there one part of it he enjoyed more than the other? JM: The horse part. 25 LR: Oh it’s anything with horses? JM: Yes it didn’t matter, I mean thoroughbred, quarter horse. He did the quarter horse show at the fairgrounds a lot as well. It was at the old stockyards. EB: I don’t know if you know about the high school rodeo. LR: A little bit. EB: Okay when I was in 12th grade I was the secretary and we needed help because it was not known as it is today and we were just starting up. I said, “Dad we need help.” So he stepped in to help us. It was at the old stockyards, he helped us get a producer, he brought in gentlemen that knew about rodeo and he helped the kids. He helped us get it started and so he always helped the kids. LR: Yeah that makes sense. EB: High School Rodeo was just the beginning. So he was instrumental at helping us get producers and saying this is the way it was. JM: Sponsors. EB: Sponsors and everything and we would go to the school district. JM: They didn’t want to sponsor, they didn’t want that as an extracurricular activity. They didn’t want to be known for that. It’s like hockey, it’s independent from their scholastic, their extracurricular. They can go in like the Fremont name. They can go in that but what they’re known as is the Spikers, the Spikers Rodeo Club. LR: Okay. EB: So anyway he helped that and he helped us get money for that and after we got the money the school district came on and wanted us to give them the money and we didn’t give it to them because we said we’d keep it for the next year. 26 LR: Right. EB: But he was helping the kids and that was his whole theory. JM: His whole goal was to be instrumental in the county, to be in the horse industry and keep it growing in Weber County, keep the kids in Weber County involved and he kept us involved in everything. He made sure that we were there and he instilled that in us. Mother would make all of our clothes that we would ride in and dad made sure that we had the horses, made sure we had the equipment. As we got older, my oldest sister actually started driving us to some of the rodeos that we participated in because the three older sisters used to go to rodeos and barrel race. We barrel raced at several rodeos. LR: Okay, did your dad ever participate in the rodeos? JM: No. EB: No. BW: He was a behind the scenes guy. JM: Right and he had some great contacts there. Did some great things. LR: We’re talking about horses and where did his love of horses come from? JM: I guess it’s just the farm growing up. Grandpa had work horses and that’s what they did. EB: He also had a horse named Bimbo. JM: Yeah, Kimbo. EB: Bimbo. JM: Bimbo, yeah that’s right he did. LR: Great name for a horse. 27 EB: A black horse. LR: And is that something he passed on to you guys, this love of horses?’ JM: Oh absolutely, I’m still probably out of the five of us I’m still riding. We have twelve acres and horses and an arena and we ride. EB: Our kids do. JM: Our kids ride, I went on a cattle drive what two weeks with her sons up in Idaho. EB: My son. JM: I’m working on a little barrel horse for my little granddaughter to ride when she gets in high school. BW: Is anybody involved with rodeo? JM: The kids team rope, dad’s grandkids team rope. Our kids team rope and I got a little granddaughter that is in the junior rodeos. She goat ties, barrel races and pole bends and she’s just learning how to breakaway rope. EB: And I have a granddaughter in Idaho who shows cows. In fact she won the event last year. JM: Yes she does really good and I have a little granddaughter, the same little granddaughter and she’s shown pigs. Then we have a little niece that lives in Idaho and both of her kids ride and barrel race and show animals don’t they? Both of Brandi’s kids. BW: So it seems like he was involved with and he got the kids involved with every possible organization that there was available. I don’t see 4-H on the list though. EB: Oh he did 4-H. JM: My mother was a 4-H leader. 28 BW: Okay it just didn’t make any sense. They can only do so many words. EB: We did 4-H. JM: Yes, we did 4-H. I have a little granddaughter that did 4-H for two years, but mother was a leader of a 4-H club. So dad wasn’t into 4-H but mother brought 4- H to the forefront to us girls. Our little brother was a jockey. He rode racehorses and as dad got older he drove dad’s team, he drove dad’s chariot team. That was kind of a really fun thing because he brought the grandkids into that and I have several videos of dad. He won best looking team one year but all the kids, all the grandkids would go to the races. Then the grandkids would all be there and they’d al be hooking up the horses and hooking up the teams to the chariot, putting on all their blinders and all their tack. EB: And cleaning stalls. JM: Cleaning the stalls, it was really fun because it wasn’t just dad and us kids anymore it was dad and the grandkids and they were all involved in it. So that was really fun. EB: I have four boys and they all cleaned the stalls. He would pay them twenty cents a stall. LR: So it sounds like he not only made it a part of his immediate family he continued that with your children and just made it: this is what we do together. JM: It is. EB: Right. JM: Yes, it is. That’s the work ethics that dad instilled in us and we passed it on to our generation as well and still the kids they’re working on the farm. I know Laney’s 29 little kids all work on the farm. My little grandkids, I got a little granddaughter last night that her dad bought four steers and she’s on a big grey horse herding the steers. When we went on this cattle drive Elaine’s little granddaughter she went and my granddaughter they both went with us up on the mountains and herded steers. Herded cattle into a different pasture. EB: And she’s ten. JM: She’s ten and mine’s five. EB: Was Hannah there? JM: No Hannah wasn’t there, just Quindy. EB: My grandkids up in Idaho I mean three years old they’re driving truck while their dad hauls hay. JM: I got one grandson that he traveled with dad. My daughter worked and Bren went with dad everywhere branding cattle. He farms, he’s a fireman and he works for Riverdale City. Dad instilled a thing in him that is unbelievable and that kid works his little tail off constantly and he even acts like dad sometimes. Anyway he has farming and cattle and he just is a great farm kid. He rode with dad for years and years around branding cattle when he was just three and four years old. LR: So how old were you guys when he put you on a horse? JM: Three. EB: Three. LR: Okay. EB: We had this old horse, her name was Lady and she was an old white horse. I could remember him putting every one of us… 30 JM: Every one of us on it. EB: I was, I would sit at the front. JM: No Buddy did. EB: No I did, Buddy sat behind me. JM: Okay. EB: We would all get on her and ride. JM: She was an old white mare. We were bareback and we were just stacked on there. EB: He made us learn bareback before we could learn saddle. BW: Was that to have better control? EB: To learn how to move with the horse. BW: Move with the horse, okay. EB: I can remember going out and getting the bridle, put it on and pull her up to the fence. Climb up on the fence and then jump on her. BW: At about what age? EB: Probably around three or four. JM: Everybody wasn’t out to the barn all the time so you had to figure out how to get on. EB: She was an old, old mare. JM: She would never hurt you. She was just a good old mare and as we learned and got better, that’s when we went to Colorado and dad got us all a horse and we were all responsible for our own. 31 BW: It sounds to me like the biggest drives for your dad was connecting the community and his children to this ranch and western lifestyle. JM: Exactly, that was his goal. That was kind of what his interest was and clear to the end when dad was very sick, if you wanted to know if there was something wrong with the horse or there was something that you needed and you couldn’t figure it out you could always go to dad and ask him. Right until he died he could always tell you, “Well maybe you ought to try this or maybe you ought to try that.” He wasn’t too afraid to tell you that you were a dumb shit and you needed to try this or you needed to do that was he? EB: No. BW: That’s great, I love it. LR: I do too. BW: Your mom you said wasn’t a farm girl. EB: No. BW: But it seems like she took to this lifestyle. JM: She absolutely did. EB: She worked her tail off. JM: She was a very instrumental part in the Weber County Sheriff’s mounted posse. She fried hamburgers for them for everything. She fried hamburgers at the cutter races. EB: So did we. JM: Not me, I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that at all. I didn’t like taking money. I didn’t like doing anything in there. 32 EB: Getting greasy. JM: She cooked hamburgers and then she cooked hamburgers for the horse sale, she cooked hamburgers for the fair. She loved it. Mother, she did ride a little bit. When we would go on trail rides she did ride a little bit, but not much. In fact her horse was Elaine’s horse. LR: Oh okay. So she had really never learned to ride? JM: No. LR: So she was just more behind the scenes helping you guys. JM: Mother was a fantastic seamstress. She made all of our western clothes. EB: She made all of our clothes. JM: Yes she made all of our clothes. I competed in Miss Rodeo Ogden contests and mother made all of my suits and all of my clothes that I wore. So she was a fantastic seamstress and she was the whole body of the family. I mean she was a beautician. She had a beauty shop in the basement and she did that until she was 80 didn’t she? She was just the backbone of our family. LR: It sounds like your father found the perfect partner for this. JM: Yes he did. EB: Yes. JM: Yes he did, she’s just the sweetest lady. BW: It was a ranch that you grew up on with how many, what was the acreage on it? EB: I think it’s only two and a half acres. BW: Okay large enough that it had some horses though. That was where you said? EB: Taylor. 33 BW: In Taylor, really close to where he grew up right? JM: Right next door to where he grew up. EB: See grandpa has quite a few acres and so… JM: He sold the ground to dad. BW: I see. EB: Right and so today the acreage is still there and his dad’s brother is. Well he was doing it, now his son is doing the farming. LR: Okay so the farm is still active that your father grew up on? JM: Oh yes. EB: Still has cows. JM: They don’t milk cows anymore. They still have the milk barn there but they don’t milk cows anymore. EB: They raise cows and sell them. JM: Dad and mother moved their house from up on Harrison. They had a nice brick home and they moved it out there. It used to just be dirt roads and everything out there but they moved there. BW: Was that when you were still kids? JM: Yes we were little because we lived in the old Taylor house from there we moved over to the house that she lives in right now. LR: I was asking to see if you had anymore questions. BW: I don’t. LR: Okay well I’ll finish then. One thing and you kind of talked about it just a little bit but I want you to expand on it. What do you think your father’s legacy is? 34 EB: Family. LR: Okay and within the Ogden community what is your father’s legacy? What do you think he’s left? JM: I think he’s left a legacy of horsemanship, family. When you look at everything that he did: the library, the fairgrounds, the junior posse’s, it’s a legacy of family and horses and keeping your family involved with everything that’s taking place in your life and keeping the family together. I think that’s dad’s biggest legacy. I know it’s his biggest legacy, that he’s instilled in us and that he’s instilled in many of his friends. Honesty and a good day’s work, I really feel that that’s what dad’s legacy is. I just miss him so much. A lot of times I think about him and I have several videos of him of the kids at the cutter races… EB: Oh that reminds me, when they were doing the chariot races down in Lehi and they were interviewing him for one of the channels I recorded it and they were asking him about what he would do the rest of his life or how long he was going to be doing horse stuff and he said until the day he died. LR: And he did that because he stayed with horses. JM: He did that. It didn’t matter which kids were there to ask him questions, but they all went to grandpa. Grandpa would know this or grandpa will know that so I just think his legacy is family and keeping it together. If it meant you stayed together with horses then that’s what you did because that’s what we always did. LR: Thank you. You guys, this has been awesome I appreciate your time.