Oral History Program Martha Field Interviewed by Kay Fackrell 14 October 1976 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Martha Field Interviewed by Kay Fackrell 14 October 1976 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Field, Martha, an oral history by Kay Fackrell, 14 October 1976, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Martha Field. The interview was conducted on October 14, 1976, by Kay Fackrell, in Wyoming. Field discusses her life and growing up in Lyman, Wyoming. KF: I'm Kay Fackrell, arid we're in the home of Mrs. Martha Field in Lyman, Wyoming. I'm going to interview Mrs. Field about her life and her life here in the Bridger Valley. Mrs. Field where were you born? MF: I was born in the little town of Minersville, Beaver County, Utah and my parents decided to move up here to Wyoming and I was eight years old. I was born in Minersville the 25th of March, 1896. When we came to Wyoming, we were... My sister and I attended the grade schools and it was a mile and a half from our home. And in this one room schoolhouse the teacher taught eight grades. There were families of the Eyre's two families of Eyre's and a family of Fields and we Roberts girls and the Fackrell family and a Walker family. Well when we graduated from the eighth grade, we had no high school in the Valley. We had to go out of the Valley to go to high school. So I had a dear aunt that invited me to go to Logan to high school. So after graduating from the eighth grade, I attended high school in Logan for two years. It was the old 3YC College where I went to high school. And they transferred that college to Provo. So I thought a change would be nice and I went to Provo the third year of high school. It was very interesting at Provo. There were so many notable people that would speak to us during our morning period at high school. Very often Joseph F. Smith who was President of the Church and several of the ladies that were in the Relief Society and that, we got to hear. And I was interested in the religious part. I took a Book of Mormon class from a Professor 1 Robinson. Professor Robinson and his wife were dance directors on the Mutual Board. The General Board of the Mutual. And we really did enjoy his class. I took the Book of Mormon under Professor Robinson. When I was through the third year of high school and we could take an examination and if we passed it high enough we could be teachers, we could teach here in Wyoming. And so that is what I did and I received this teacher's certificate. Then I taught school for three years. My father was very good to me. It seemed like I tried to pay him back for the money that he had spent on me when I went to school and instead of paying him back, why after three years of teaching, I decided that I would get married and I was marrying a boy that I had gone to school with, during the eight grades. This was Donald Field. So my father, instead of him accepting anything from me, he had this ranch and he had cattle on it and horses and animals and he gave us for a wedding gift was seven heifers. So my husband, we had the chance of buying 160 acres of ground. It was right close to this place of Ken Fackrell’s. So we bought that and my husband and his father built us a small home there and we lived on this ranch for two, three years. But I discovered that my husband wasn't a rancher. He was more mechanically minded. So we moved to Lyman and he ran a garage there for a few years and then that's where by that time I had a family of five children. Of course they attended the schools here in Lyman. We lived here in Lyman. And so it seemed like I had a lot of opportunities, church-wise, here in Lyman. Although this wasn't the Lyman Ward first. It was called the Owen Ward. We were of the Woodruff Stake. But anyway it was changed from the Owen Ward to the Lyman Ward. We didn't have much of a church, but anyway it was quite a big building. We had church there and all of the church activities in this building until we built the new church. After 2 building the new church, we were really more comfortable and could carry out our duties a lot better than we had before. So anyway my husband became a Bishop and I was President of the Ward Relief Society for two years. Then I was made Stake President of the Relief Society. And I served five years. It seemed to me that we were real busy people. But I had a wonderful mother and she helped me out so much in anytime that I needed the children to be tended while I did religious duties why mother would take care of the children for me. After a few years we had... Our oldest son and our second son were through high school and it was during this period that we had World War II. So our two oldest boys had to go to the service. But in the meantime why my husband and I moved to Salt Lake. He went into business there in Salt Lake with my brother-in-law, Hayward Rollins. We had a glass shop. They both worked in this glass shop. Well the sons went to the service, this was during the World War II. And my husband, it seems like he wanted to have cats and big machinery that he liked to work. So he quit the glass shop and came back to Wyoming to Lyman and was running these cats. He got a job in Pascal, Washington. So we moved to or I went with him to Pascal, Washington. We had a big truck and hauled our biggest cat on this truck and he worked for a Curtis Gravel Company. He worked at this... He was making great big holes in the ground, is what it looked like to me but we learned afterwards that it was for bombs for the war. We had been there about three months and we got word that our second son was missing in action. Well it just made us feel terrible. We couldn't get any other word, but anyway we was at this trailer court We were living in a Trailer court, and we became acquainted with some Mormon Missionaries and this one Mormon Missionary was finishing his mission, and he was already to take the bus and I don't know how he ever 3 got the word that our son was mission, but anyway he did someway and here he came and talked to us and we knew that our oldest son was in action too. But anyway he told us this way. He says "well Brother and Sister Field, he said it’s sad and you feel bad, but he says you have honorable boys that serve in the service. He says and if their lives are taken they have gained their reward. And I have never really been told that, you know. So, I don't know, it just seemed like it was something that stayed with me and of course when we returned home we got word that our other son was killed in action. And we were able to have his body brought back to Lyman, from Cherbourg Peninsula in France. When they brought him back, this being a small cemetery, we had a marker for our second son. He met his death; he was under heavy mortar fire in Italy. So we have his marker down there now. As time went on it wasn't too long until my husband had a heart attack and I was helping cook a banquet for the High Council in the church house. He had taken me to that, so I hadn't been there very long until my daughter and her husband came walking in and I looked at them and I thought well there's something wrong. And we found out that my husband was just working over behind our home and he had a heart attack and passed away. But anyway I'm sure that this advice that we received about our boys helped us to live more worthily so that we may meet them. So I have been a widow now for, it was in December, 1956 when he passed away. 8ut I get a lot of consolation that I'm able to attend my meetings and do those things that need to be. And I'm grateful that I have four daughters and one son living. I have a son living in San Diego and they have a family of seven children. Then I have three daughters here in the Valley and then I have another daughter that lives in Grainger, Utah. So if I can 4 just have health enough that I can live worthily and attend my meetings, I'll be very grateful. KF: How many grandchildren? MF: I have sixteen great-grandchildren, and then I have twenty-five grandchildren. KF: See what you've started? You know you mentioned that your father came from Minersville in Utah. I know that I visited with another gentleman and his parents were from the same area. What brought these people to Wyoming? I mean of all places to move to. MF: Well, I'll tell you, in Minersville they had what they called a field. And the people that lived there in Minersville they'd own so many acres in this field. It wasn't quite enough to really to supply the needs of a family. And that's why so many of them, and they decided to come up here to Wyoming and there was a party of the. I don't know how many. And that's how they come to move up here. That is the real reason. But my father, when he came, why he was a little undecided to stay here in Wyoming or go to Idaho. But anyway he had this chance of buying this ranch. So he stayed in Wyoming. KF: He bought into Wyoming then. From someone else that homesteaded the area? MF: Oh, yes. Some people by the name of Strongs owned the land. So the group that came here came a few years before some of us came. Before my father and the Fields. Of course I don't know your grandparents just what year they did come. I think they were here. Well I know they were here before, I think, these people from Minersville came. KF: It was, I think, the Blackner’s, the Rollins's. Those were the people that came? MF: Yes, and the Eyres. 5 KF: Right. How did you get here? How did you travel? MF: Well, we came on the train to Carter station. Then, I'll never forget, Clinton's father and my mother were brother and sister. Of course they lived just up here a ways and we came there and stayed overnight and went up to this ranch that father bought in a wagon and I thought we'd never get there. It was only six or seven miles. KF: No road? MF: No road. Rocky. KF: What time of year was this? MF: It was the first of April and that very day it was snowing a little bit but not a blizzard. KF: No wonder he about turned around and left. In April you get snow. And your father ranched then? MF: Yes, My father was a rancher. Well father, he had very little education but, you know, he could figure a stack of hay or anything and he could judge cattle a lot better than some that were educated. He was always a kind man to his family. He had a few bad habits, but anyway. KF: As I get into these histories, I find out that a few people did. Your place was by Urie then? Is that right? That's in between here and Ft. Bridger. MF: Well there's a, oh what's her name, there's a widow on that very ranch now. Johnson is her name. Clara Johnson. And I think she still runs that place some way or another. But I think she has someone else run it. She ran it, her and one of her sons. I've been up there a time or two, just rode up, but that's all. 6 KF: What did you do for groceries? When you were eight years old and first got here? MF: We weren't too far from Fort Bridger. There used to be a little town, you know Fort Bridger now, the money they've spent to build up the walls and everything when we first come here, they were all built up, the walls and everything. And there was a store man by the name of Carter that run a store there in Fort Bridger. But there was a little town just this side of Fort Bridger and there was two grocery stores and a bar and people by the name of Daltons and Erickson’s and then there was a Mr. Larsen that run it and a St. George that lived in this upper Ft. Bridger. But all of the upper parts that are left are the Dalquist place and another that place that's left now. KF: About where the vet's hospital is? MF: Yes. KF: That's kind of interesting. They had two Fort 3ridgers then really at one time. MF: Yes, really. A Bridger and a Fort Bridger. The St. George's, they run kind of a rooming house, they had quite a, what we thought was a big house then. And they moved it onto a ranch on this lower bench. And Margaret, what's her name, and her husband, she married a St. George boy and he passed away and then now she's married to, I can't think of his name, but they're on this ranch. KF: Mrs. Field, you said you went to school in a one room schoolhouse with all eight grades. Did you go to school only in the summer or all year around or when did you go to school? MF: Just the winter. KF: The winter? 7 MF: Yes, the winter. KF: Pretty cold? MF: Well, you know, there's so much said about Wyoming cold weather and everything, but I guess I'm a Wyomingite. But anyhow when I went to grade school we'd walk through the snow and that. Then when I taught school, like I told you, I'd go in this kind of a cart buggy thing. And we'd have to make our fire and get the place warmed up before the children came in the morning. KF: About how many hours of school did you have a day? MF: Well, we had, we'd be ready to start at nine and close at four. KF: Oh, you stayed all day just like now? MF: Funny things happen in school life though. I was right close to a family of Overy's and they lived just across the road from the school house. Well their oldest son went to school and he was a little unruly and I'd get after him every so often. I kind of wondered if they liked me, you know. But I found out later that they named one of their daughters after me and so I guess they did. KF: You probably helped the boys. MF: I see Tommy every once in a while. He lives in Greenriver. Of course he's a grandfather now. KF: And what year did you get married? MF: Married the 6th of June, 1917. And then my husband went into the service when our first boy was seven months old. .That was in World War I. He was established in Logan, 8 there at the AC College and I took the baby and I went with him. He had the privileges of staying there as a mechanic. He taught mechanics. 3ut I don't know, when you’re in the service or in the war or anything, you get awfully restless and so he, I came home for a while and he went on to San Francisco and was stationed at the Presidio. He was already to go across when the war ended and I was very happy about that. KF: I guess you were with a young baby at home. MF: And then just... Anyway when Dee was ... Both of our sons after we were married went to World War II. About 20 years or more between the two. And of course now we hope there's never another war. KF: Well your husband came into Lyman and became a Mechanic. MF: He was a... He had an inventive mind. When we were first married, he and his father, they had sort of a shop up there Ken Fackrell owns that all now. He owns the old Field place and Billy was in our ranch. He had improved the home and you know they were fixing the gas one day and it blew up. I went up there. Do you know that just blew the stove, fridges and everything to smithereens? He lost his life. KF: That was your home? MF: That was our home. On the ranch. But it was wonderful that they had these three children and they were in school or else they would have been blown up too. KF: That was quite an ordeal. Well, if he was out in the labor world, I guess kind of during the depression, what was that like? Trying to make a living mechanizing during the depression? MF: You mean my husband? 9 KF: Yes. MF: Well, it wasn't too long after we were married, he bought two cats. When we got to working for this Curtis Gravel Company. And that's when we went on the job up to Pascal, Washington. Then he worked around here, you've heard of the Mosslander ranch. Well he built seventeen dams up there on that ranch. But I think he could have lived a lot longer if he hadn't worked so hard. KF: Put in too many hours? MF: He was though. His father would say "Now son you eat your meals regular and you just stop your work long enough you know to do this." KF: Was his father the same kind of blood? MF: Well, not too much. He was a printer by trade. We used to have a printing office here in Lyman. Lorraine Rollins run it. He's over in the Memorial Hospital and he's ninety some years old. He's there in the rest home. But he used to have Mr. Field, Don's father, come down and help him out because he already was a printer. KF: How long had your husband been in the Valley when you were married? All his life? MF: Well, no. He was two years older than I. I was eight years old and Don, I think was twelve years when he came here. They lived in Nephi, Utah, then Salt Lake for a while. And they wanted to get out where they had more ground. But my! Ranches is valuable as any kind of real-estate now. As higher priced. KF: You know I was reading a history on the Valley and it pointed out the fact that Lyman was a Mormon settlement and Fort Bridger a catholic settlement and Mr. View a Catholic, Presbyterian settlement. What were the accounts for that? 10 MF: Well, it's still that way. They have the Catholic Church... I had a very dear friend that owned this place right across the street from me. Right on the corner and she was a Catholic and this Hoffman boy and his wife bought her place. She wanted... Her home used to be in Kemmerer and she wanted to get back there with her son and family and so Mary sold this place and bought a place in Kemmerer. But this Hoffman boy, they're just a young married couple but I'm sure he'll make good. He's a trimming those trees and fussing around. But of course he works in one of the plants all the time and his wife works. But you know they're just a young couple and they had a pick-up paid for and a car paid for and savings and that bank in Evanston loaned them twenty-five thousand dollars to buy this place and I thought, well I didn't expect them to ever borrow that much money. KF: Speaking of borrowing money, how did someone go about, like your father for example, when he bought the place he had? MF: Well, I think it was similar to what it is now. They have to borrow such big sums of dollars now. KF: Quite a bit more. MF: Yes. Quite a big difference in the way it was then and it is now. I thought I was a rancher. I had to change my living. KF: You didn't cater to the live too much either then? MF: You know those heifers my father gave me, you’re not recording this. Are you? KF: Yes. Tell the story. 11 MF: Anyway these heifers that he gave Don and me for a wedding present. We hadn't been on that ranch hardly two years until we had thirty or forty head of stock and of course I thought that was wonderful. But you just can't change people. He was mechanically minded; always worked with machinery and that. KF: Was there a lot of machinery being used on the farms at this time? On a ranch? MF: No. But his father had bought a, what was it, it was a cat but not.... But anyway the first year that Don was on there he used that and he broke up ninety acres of hay. Ground and Planted. And that's what kept us down here in Lyman. KF: You didn't ever get into the sheep business though? MF: No. KF: Just in the cattle? MF: Yes. KF: You know we could talk a little bit about your high school days, I guess. The eight grade plus days when you went to Logan and then to Provo. Generally what was the day of school like when you went to, let's say, Provo? MF: Well, it was very, very interesting. Like I told you we came in contact with people of our church that otherwise we would never have known about. And then, of course, it took so many studies to get our credits just like any other place. Well I attended summer school all three summers that I taught school. I'd go; I think it was six weeks. And I had a very dear friend, a girl that was right along with me and she taught school out here. We kind of went to these summer schools just to see how it was. The University of Utah one 12 summer and then we went to Logan one summer and to Provo one summer. After all it was quite similar. KF: What were the extracurricular activities? MF: Explain a little bit to me what… KF: Well, did you have a lot of dances? I know, well today, you know every Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights there's ball games and dances and everything else. MF: Oh, yes. We watched some real good basketball games there in college. Of course football wasn't very popular then, I don't think, was it? KF: No, it was probably just coming in. MF: Just coming into style. She and I, if we didn't have anyone to go with, we'd go anyway. See the ballgames. KF: What was the…Most activities in Lyman, I guess, were centered around the church and things like this. Did they have a lot of community get-togethers? MF: Oh, Yes, They still do. We had the Centennial, you know, and every Ward just made, I don't know how many things. Now here comes our Second Ward, our ward. We have the Ward Fair. It used to be that the Relief Society did all the money making and we would… But now it's all under the Bishop. So when our Ward Fair comes, we have, of course we didn't sell too much to this Centennial. We had quilts and everything so that we don't have to work very hard for our Ward Fair. And I think they're going to sell things cheaper than they had it listed for the Centennial. And then like Relief Society today we had our lesson and then we had a dinner once a month and, I don't know, even at my age if I can keep up to what the church affords me, I'll be happy. But this leg 13 of mine, I don't know, it's sure a nuisance. I did it so simple. I fell down. I used to have some trash cans between my neighbor and I. But I didn't have a neighbor then, that close and I fell... Well there was just a small snow drift and I stepped down in this snow drift with this leg and I grabbed a tree. I had these trees and I don't know, I guess I pulled the tendons in my knee and then a little later I had it operated on. That doctor said "many times at your age, you get arthritis," so that's what happened to me and I've been lame ever since. KF: Haven't been dancing much lately then? MF: No, not at all. Of course I think my age is a little against me too. KF: What was the competition like, with your husband around here when he was mechanizing? When he got his cats? Was there quite a few people doing this? MF: Well, he didn't… There was just plenty of work. But he ran a garage for a while. But after he got the cats, he went out on his own. So many ranchers needed little reservoirs to water their stock. Then when he went to Salt Lake to this glass shop, he and my brother-in-law, they went together and he put his cats in with what my brother- in-law did and bought this glass shop. Well it was a real good business. Putting windows and things like that in cars and Don he kind of got home sick to come back to outdoor work. And our brother-in-law, he came back without any contract or anything. And Hayward, someone came in an offered him twenty thousand dollars for this glass shop, mind you. Well we didn't have any written agreement on that at all, so we came back to the cats and Hayward sold that and he went into the racehorse business. And he's in the racehorse business now; his son and him. 14 KF: It's been successful then? MF: Very successful. Anyway, he lost his wife that was my sister. But he's been married a couple of times since then. That's what ended the glass shop for us. KF: Where did you and your husband get married at? MF: In Salt Lake. KF: In Salt Lake? MF: Well, we were married at the courthouse in Salt Lake on the 6th of June. Then we got a recommend and went to the Temple three months after that. That helped us. It seemed like all our lives have been connected religiously as well as otherwise. And I was happy about that. Oh, Don was a little on the rough side. One of his best friends was John Fackrell. And John was a good guy but he went into the darn bar business and didn't end up so well. But that's the way it happens sometimes. KF: Did you go to Salt Lake on the train? MF: Uh-huh. KF: How did you get to Carter? MF: We'd go over there... Anyway the night that we went to Salt Lake, we were married the next day after that. Anyway it was Conference time. But anyway we got on the train at two o’clock and then went on. But that's the way we traveled all the time. When I went to high school, I'd go on the train to these places and back. Someone would meet us at Carter, if they didn't have a car, why they'd be in a buggy and a team of horses. 15 KF: Depended on the weather, I guess? What was train travel like at this time? Pretty rough? MF: Oh, no. It was O.K. KF: The best means of travel there was, I guess at that time? You know out here in almost the middle of nowhere as far as the East and West Coast is concerned, Wyoming is not too much. How were your communications with the larger parts of the United States? MF: You mean now? KF: Well, then. Sack when you first got married. Did you keep in tune pretty much with what was happening? MF: Yes. Of course it's quite different now. I went and visited my son in San Diego a time or two now. Of course I take the plane and you’re about an hour from Salt Lake City to San Diego. But the last time I went down there, when I got back, why we was within fifteen minutes of getting off the plane there in Salt Lake and I looked out of the window and you couldn't see your hand before you. And they had to go to Hill Field to land our plane and they had to send back to Salt Lake to get the steps to the plane to get off the plane and we got on a bus. It took us from Hill Field to…My daughter that lives at, she lives at Grainger, she was there to meet me and she waited and waited but she was still waiting when we got back. KF: So the train may still be the best way to travel, then? MF: Well, it gives you kind of a… You know I love to travel in a car better than any way. You can see so much more than in a plane. I looked out and you could see this mist on the ground and I turned to the lady that I was sitting by and I says "well, all I can see is the, 16 looks like all the clouds are on the ground." And I looked out again and you couldn't see your hand before you. Couldn't see out the window. Of course, the pilot of the plane, I guess he did all right; landed over at Hill Field Air force Base. That made us quite a bit more later after we got all situated around. KF: You know, with your family and I know everybody else besides the Valley they were having families around here. You mentioned in our earlier conversation there was a doctor down in Mt. View? MF: Oh, yes. Carol Lee lives down at Mr. View. Well she really lives at Milburn but that's the ward and everything. She helps in the lunchroom. I think she said they have about 400 kids there in the lunchroom. Then I have a daughter that lives... She married Ted Hickey. She lives up at Robertson. My oldest daughter lives right here in Lyman. Then I have a daughter in Grainger. That's her home but her business is in Kearns. And her husband is kind of developed heart trouble, they’re about to sell out their business and move to California. But they worked so hard and they've got a lovely home and everything. Changes come regardless. KF: Well Mrs. Field, I think we can take a break now. 17