As Told to His Wife, Ellen Sanders Cardon
I was born March 17, 1868, in the little town of Oxford, Oneida County, Idaho. At my age of seven my parents moved to Arizona with what was called the “George Lake Company”. I remained with my father’s first wife, whom we called “Auntie”, until the following fall, when Emanuel, an older brother who had gone with father and mother to Arizona, (and left them in Lake’s Camp called Obed, a few miles south of Allen’s Camp, now called Joe City, across the Little Colorado), returned, and with the oldest brother Joseph took the family, consisting of Auntie Sarah, Joseph and his wife Selena and one child Verminie, Emanuel and his wife Amelia, whom he married as we came through Salt Lake City, Mary Catherine, and myself.
Our equipment for moving consisted of four yoke of oxen, two wagons driven by Joseph, four spans of mules, and two wagons driven by Emanuel, one single team and wagon driven by the women folks. There was quite a herd of cows and young stock driven by two or three boys employed from other families in the company, and myself.
Emanuel had tried to get a small saddle suitable for me, but was unable to do so. Things of that kind were very scarce in that neighborhood then. The result was I rode from Idaho to Arizona with a surcingle and blanket in lieu of a saddle, which was very comfortable after I became accustomed to it.
My brother Emanuel was always particularly sympathetic with me; no brother could be more kind than he was. I suppose he was tried with me many times as the following incident will illustrate:
As we passed through the little town of Weston, Cache Valley, Utah, at our noon camp the boys who were driving the stock, all of whom were several years older than I, told me that Emanuel had told them that they could ride a choice horse that Emanuel had told me was to be my mount. I felt pretty bad to think that he would do such a thing and determined that I would leave and go back to Oxford, where a man had formerly told me he would like to have me go with him to Montana where he had a ranch. I don’t know that he really meant it, but I thought at the time that he did, so after dinner when we were ready to start, I told Emanuel that I didn’t feel like driving stock that afternoon. He said, “Very well, you don’t need to. You may ride in one of the wagons.”
As I rode in his wagon it was with considerable feeling of sorrow at leaving him, but he had done the unpardonable thing, so I felt that I’d show him what I could do. After riding a short distance with him, I dropped back past the team the women folk were driving to Joseph’s ox team and got into his trail wagon, and when we passed through some brush and willows, I slipped out on the opposite side from him and as soon as they were out of sight and not thinking about the tracks I was making, I went right back along the road. They didn’t notice my being absent until about mid afternoon when Emanuel called back to Joseph and asked if I was in his wagon. When Joseph made a search for me, he found that I was not in his outfit. They immediately stopped, and Emanuel got on a horse and followed the road back. In the meantime I had gone several miles, having made my plans to cover the twenty miles to Oxford by stopping under a bridge at Weston for the night and going on the next day to Oxford. I was surprised a short time before sundown to see Emanuel loom up over me.
I was so full of indignation and so intent on my own plans I hadn’t thought they might overtake me before I could contact Moses Tate, my friend who offered to take me with him. (By the way, Emanuel told me afterwards that he was afraid that Mr. Tate would have done that very thing.) When I saw Emanuel I expected either a good scolding or a spanking, but I got neither. He just asked me why I was going back. I told him that I had gone back because he had given “Liz” to Will Boice to ride. He replied that he had done nothing of the kind, gave me a good hug, told me that the horse he and promised me no one else was to ride, all of which whipped me more than if he had worn a dozen willows out on me. As I think back now of the desire I had to please him as a child and this love I had for him and the patience he had with me, I marvel.
This trip to Arizona was a long tedious one that required about three months. There are some incidents that are outstanding in my memory. One in particular…..
In crossing the Buckskin Mountains there is a very steep hill on the south slope. By this time we had been joined by several other teams and the stock were able to go faster than the ox teams and so went on ahead to get water as all were suffering for it. We were making a night drive, and as we got onto this steep hill and the wagons started ahead while the oxen “set back” to hold the wagon, the queen bolt, the one that holds the tongue, broke. Joseph grabbed the wheel and held the wagon long enough for us to get rocks to block it. We left the wagon right there and took the stock on to water. We were unnerved already by a near fatal accident that occurred when Jonny Boice, about five or six years old, stumbled in the darkness and fell between his father’s two wagons. The mother, seeing him fall, caught him to pull him away from the trail wagon. He tried to crawl under the wagon to avoid the wheel. The result was the loaded wagon passed across his body at the waist. He was pale and limp, but to our relief and joy he came to and soon recovered.
We unhitched all of the oxen and Joseph, one of the Boice boys, and I drove them on to the water that the others had already gone to. It was nearly morning before we got there. I can distinctly feel as I recall it how difficult it was to keep my feet moving as we walked.
It took two or three days to get a queen bolt and get the company all together again. When we got near the Big Colorado, we could see the opposite cliff of the chasm through which it ran. We camped rather early. It looked but a short distance, and we all walked down to see the river, but when we looked down into that deep chasm none of us felt like getting very near the edge. The thing that was surprising to me was the smallness of the stream. I had in mind a large river, and from the heights we were, it looked very small, so small that I thought I could throw a rock, expecting to see it light on the opposite shore or near to it. Imagine my surprise to note that it went out a short distance and then appeared to be coming right back toward me. The group joined in the throwing but only Emanuel’s rocks went far enough that we could see where they lit.
The next day we arrived at Lee’s Ferry. It took us a day to ferry our wagons and stock over in the boat they had there. We then crossed what is called Lee’s Backbone. I’ve heard people say how frightened they were when they went over it, but I was spared that unpleasantness because we went over it in the night. At Moenkopi, Joseph, his family, and “Auntie” remained until spring and cared for the stock. At this place a little girl was born to Joseph and his wife, but it died and was buried there.
Emanuel with his wife, Sister Katie, and I took the mule team and went on. Before sunset we met father and mother, whom Joseph Richards, who was always doing what he could to make others happy, had brought to meet us. In a few days we arrived at Obed. At that time Obed was by far the most comfortably situated of all the settlements, but unfortunately it was swampy and due to malaria had to be abandoned. There was fine building stone and slate there. Father, being a mason and stone cutter, had supervision of the buildings. The village was entirely surrounded by a stone wall about nine or ten feet high with port holes properly arranged to defend themselves against the Indians. The houses were arranged on the inside of the fort. They were made of stone and had slate for floors, while the roofs were made of slabs arranged like shingles so that they were very comfortable.
Before we arrived Father had made plans to go to Woodruff, twenty miles to the south. In a short time he and the older boys went there to build houses. The rest of us remained at Obed for several months. It was here that I first experienced those terrible dust storms that lasted a full day or longer. On one occasion I was herding cows with a man by the name of Doxie. It was blowing so hard we could hardly see the cows at close range. All the shelter we could get under was behind the little ledges of rocks. I remember well when we went to eat our lunch. We certainly got our full share of grit. It didn’t let up all day but continued on when we were taking the cows home, making it a terribly disagreeable job.
When I first went to Woodruff there were no children there near my age, so I felt quite lonesome. Soon a ward organization was formed, and we entered into the United Order system, as practiced in those early days. Our folks had brought provisions sufficient to last two years or more. It, with all our other belongings, was put into a common fund. There were others who were not so fortunate, particularly so in regard to provisions, so it was not long until we were all eating whole wheat ground on coffee mills and the little beer mills that were run by Mexicans in St. Johns.
In the beginning we all ate at the “big table”, the cooking being done by groups of women with a man helper, taking their turns. This did not last long, however, in Woodruff. I well remember when the system stopped. One morning my Father said to the man who had the kitchen in charge, Brother Dean, this graham has not been sifted.” (Really there were some pretty big straws in it.)
Brother Dean replied, “You’ll have to learn to eat what’s put before you.” Father said, “No, I won’t.” He immediately arose from the table. There was some commotion but no more “big table”. It was really funny to a boy looking on who hadn’t enjoyed the big table any of the time.
We remained in Woodruff about two years. It was some time, however, before other boys of my age came there. Here I would like to mention an incident, the effects of which have lasted all through my life. I know it will be impossible to express one’s feelings so that others may have the same. It was here in Woodruff that the first child, a boy, was born to Emanuel and his wife. When he was a month or so old, he became very sick, and noticing a number of persons at their home, a one-roomed building at the fort, I stepped up to the door and saw the baby in convulsions. This affected me very much. I cannot remember when I was first taught to pray. My mother had taught me to ask for the tings that I needed. It was after dark. I immediately went to my bed and asked the Lord to spare the life of the little boy. There came a feeling that I cannot describe, but it brought an assurance to me or a certainty in my mind that he would recover. I went to bed and immediately went to sleep. The next morning when I awoke I felt assured that the child would be well, so I was not surprised when I went to their home to see that he was very much better. This, I think, was my first strong testimony of the efficacy of prayer, which has been strengthened many times since.
During the time we were in Woodruff a high brush and rock dam was put in the river. It had not been in long when a flood came down and took it out. The chasm that was made was much larger than the original channel, so my father and brothers decided to go on to Taylor. While in Woodruff it was my job to herd cows and sheep. I attended school about two months during the time we were there and became very much interested in mathematics, so while I was herding, I would take Ray’s old arithmetic book and learned the multiplication table and could work most of the problems given in that arithmetic which later I completed in study at home.
On moving to Taylor I found that land was to be cleared, ploughed, and fenced, so the first work we did in the winter and spring was to clear the land and plant it. It was not an uncommon thing for boys of my age after working all day piling up sage brush and grease wood to play run-sheep a good share of the night, while we burned brush piles scattered over the fields. We succeeded in getting very good crops the first year and putting in a brush and rock dam and bringing out the water through a canal that was made mainly with pick and shovel. Our work was with oxen as my brother-in-law Joseph Clawson, had the horse and mule teams working on the railroad and freighting out towards Albuquerque, which enabled the rest of us to do the work necessary for raising the crops. I might say in passing that my father’s family formed a company consisting of my father, tow older brothers, and Joseph Clawson. I was chore boy. A boy, I found was understood to never be tired at the close of the day’s work, so he could run errands and do odd jobs in general after work.
Our ox teams were very good. One was a particularly good yoke, large roan Durhams, easy to manage, so they were given to me to drive during that spring and summer in plowing and harrowing. There was no fence law there, so when crops were in, the fields had to be fenced and stock must be herded off until this was completed. We made a pole fence. Emanuel and I got the poles, while father and Joe put the fence up. They would work putting in the fence during the daytime and keep cattle off the green wheat during the night. It took us three days to get a load of poles. We had two teams – Emanuel’s, a double yoke of oxen, and mine, a single. We got them from the vicinity of Pinedale. At that time it was difficult to get enough water for the stock, where now there is quite a settlement. Under these circumstances we raised 600 bushels of wheat, which was all cut with a cradle and bound by hand.
When I was twelve, Emanuel took his family and mother back to Utah on a visit and were gone two years. During that time and until I was 16, I did all the riding for the family. We had quite a number of horses and cattle, and it was necessary for me to follow the round-up when I was away from home for several weeks at a time. At these round-ups and on the freight road, I was thrown in the company of all classes of men, some of them the most profane, vulgar, and immoral as one could imagine. On the other hand, there were some of the cleanest boys in the little town of Taylor that could be found any place, who later developed into good men as the work they are now doing testifies, which condition was largely brought about through the efforts of my brother Joseph, who had always had a great influence on the young people in the communities in which he lived.
Here I should like to relate a testimony that I received which has been the greatest anchor in shaping my life of any one thing that ever happened to me. While we were in the Order at Woodruff, we had owned a ranch at what was called Lone Pine, about twelve miles south of Taylor. While in the Order I had herded sheep at this place but had always herded on the west side of Showlow. I was well acquainted with the range on the west side, but had never been on the east. Two families belonging to the Order lived there, and a number of cows had been taken from Woodruff and located there, among them some of the cows that we had turned into the Order. When the Order broke up, as we received back the same things we had put in as near as could be, these cows were turned back to us. About the same time that Emanuel went back to Utah when I was 12, father decided he wanted to see the cattle as he and not seen them for a year or so, so he sent me to them and instructed me to stay with Bro. John R. Readhead for the night. In the Readhead family there were two boys about my age. On inquiring about the flock, I was after; I came to the conclusion that they didn’t know where they ranged. I think Bro. Readhead felt the responsibility of directing me, and he suggested that I go with his boy Lansing, who was going on the west side of the river to look for some of their cattle and was quite positive that that was what I should do. As I had been trained by my mother to seek the Lord even in simple things, I went out before going to bed and asked the Lord to direct me where to go for my stock. In the night I had a dream that was very impressive. I dreamed that I went to the east, or in the opposite direction from which Bro. Readhead had insisted that I go. I felt timid about telling Bro. Readhead about the dream and that I was going to the east. I knew that I should not have to go far before I could know if the dream was an inspiration or not.
At the breakfast table Lansing told his father that I was not going with him but was going in the opposite direction. His father inquired why. Lansing told him that it was because I had had a dram indicating that the stock was in the other direction. Bro. Readhead replied that I had dreamed because I was worried about finding them and that I’d better not pay any attention to it but rather to do the thing that was sensible. I made no reply to his criticism, but right after breakfast mounted my horse and rode off following the path I had seen in my dream. I hadn’t gone far before I came to country I had not been in before, but it was just as I had seen it in my dream. I had no doubt then that I should find the stock just where I had dreamed they would be. After riding about two miles along a trail I came upon the stock standing and lying just as I had seen them in my dream of the night. I have no language to express the feelings that I had at the time, and I am sure that no one could feel as I did unless they had a similar experience.
When I knelt down to thank the Lord, it was not that I had found the stock but that he had heard my prayer and given me the dream. It was a beautiful morning. The whole world looked beautiful to me, and it is just as fresh to me in my memory as it was the day I saw it. It was there on that occasion that I received a testimony of the divinity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and from that day to this, although I have done things I should not have done, I have never doubted that Joseph Smith was a prophet of the Lord.
In the fall of ’85 my father, Joseph, Emanuel, and myself took about 3000 sheep on shares, but just after we had taken them father and Joseph were advised to go to Mexico by Pres. Joh Taylor on account of their plural families. Emanuel had typhoid fever that fall and so I had the sole care of the sheep. Soon after father and Joseph arrived in Mexico, Joseph wrote me to trade some of the range horses, if possible, for gentle horses to move their families to Mexico. After looking the situation over I came to the conclusion that it would be a nice thing to give him a surprise by breaking enough of the wild horses we had to move them, so during the summer I undertook to do it. While taking charge of the sheep, I put time in breaking horses and gathering the stock. When Joseph came back to move the families, he was happily surprised and appreciative to find teams ready to move them with and the stock gathered ready to go.
It was late in the season of ’86 that he came back, and he was afraid it might snow before we could get over the mountain. I had decided to help him move the families down. We soon got the outfit ready to leave, but just at the time we were ready to start we heard that Geronimo with a band of Apaches had killed some people over near Luna Valley. We had anticipated taking the eastern route running through Springerville, Luna Valley, and that section, but on hearing of his being on the warpath in that section, we decided to take the western route through Ft. Apache, Ft. Thomas, and the San Simon Valley. Just before getting to Ft. Apache, Bro. Stocks, whose son we had hired to assist in driving the stock, had the misfortune to break his wagon down and felt that he could not go on, so his son stayed with him. This left us short-handed in handling the stock, but made it rather difficult for the reason that our team required rather close attention, being young and rather nervous in the first part of the journey. However, they were good teams, good wagons, and we were well armed. Three other families traveling with us were namely: Hawkins, East, and Chas. Whiting. In our trying to miss meeting Geronimo, we made our time and just right to meet him near Ft. Apache. Near Ft. Apache we stopped our teams. Joseph started to walk over to the Fort to get some information and do some business, and as he passed by some small trees an Indian on a horse galloped up to him and asked him where he was going. He also inquired about the horses — if they were good, how we were armed, if we had plenty of good guns and plenty of ammunition. Joseph answered him in the affirmative to all these questions. We felt impressed that he was talking to Geronimo on account of the questions he asked and his general appearance. This was about one o’clock in the afternoon. From the Fort to the top of the mesa southeast of the Fort, it is seven miles, and at the time was called the Seven Mile Hill. The grade was quite steep until the top, and then it became very steep. It was necessary here to hitch all the horses on one wagon to pull up this steep part. It took us until late in the night to get all the wagons up to the first place where we could make camp.
The horses that I had gentled were very nervous, not having been around where Indians were, and everything being strange to them. It was very late that night before all was quieted down. The women and children, having had a hard day, were tired and had gone to bed, expecting Sis East and Sis. Whiting. It was after midnight, about one o’clock, the men and the two sisters were kneeling around the fire in evening prayer when two strange dogs came into the camp. Soon we heard a noise of horses jumping up the back of the dugway a few rods from where we were camped. There was quite a bunch of them, and we saw that they were ridden by Indians. My first thoughts were that our horses might stampede, so I picked up my gun and ran out around them to quiet them. I might say in passing that we carried our fire arms with us all the time, because we felt the danger we were in, so we always had our pistols where we could reach them. After rounding up the horses, getting them all quieted down, I went back to the camp and found it in great commotion. Sis. Whiting was carrying on like a person who had lost her reason. Bro. Whiting was doing all he could to calm her, and I felt quite disgusted with the way she was acting. I will say here that I became better acquainted with Sis. Whiting and found her to be an excellent woman, but always wondered why she had carried on as she did that night, until when working in the Temple in Mesa she was one of the workers there, and I learned that she had been in an Indian massacre when she was a child, and the scene she witnessed was sufficient for her losing control. Sis. East was crying rather loudly, “Isn’t there a man in this crowd brave enough to go to the Fort and tell the officers there of our danger?”
After listening to her, I said, “I’ll go down, but what shall I tell them? Shall I tell them I saw some Indians on the Indian Reservation?” But she urged so much that I started to go. When I first got back from rounding up the horses, I did not see Joseph, but sometime during the excitement he returned, and as I went to pick up my bridle from the opposite side of the wagons, he was by me and said, “You are not going down to the Fort. In the first place, we need you here, and in the second place, you couldn’t get down that road alive. They have not left the road unguarded. This is Geronimo and his bunch. They are right over there now just beyond that little bunch of trees, sixteen of them holding council. You stay here by the wagons and keep close watch, and I will go back near to them and see what they do.”
After a time they rode on, and the camp quieted down. As soon as it was light we broke camp. We were very anxious to get over the mountain as it looked as though it might storm any time. We were able to travel quite fast until we crossed the Black River. We heard nothing about the Indians until late that night when two men came into camp and reported what had been done. It appears that Geronimo had captured some Apache women and had taken them as far as our camp when they turned them loose. These women had returned to Fort Apache. In the meantime Geronimo and his men had held a council near our camp and discussed whether they should attack us there or wait and go over to Turkey Creek some three or four miles from where we were camped and kill the two herders who were taking care of their beef herd. The next morning they intended to kill these two men and then come back and attack us while we were on the road. They had decided to go to Turkey Creek first.
A company of soldiers was sent out to ascertain the correctness of this report. They found the two herders killed and the Indians back on the road following us. They hastened back to the Fort and made the report that the herders were killed and that all of us were probably killed. This report went to our folks in Taylor. On account of our starting early in the morning and traveling as fast as we dared, we were able to cross the Black River before the Indians caught up with us. They did not dare to cross the Black River because it would take them off their trail, and the time they would lose would probably give the soldiers from Fort Thomas and Fort Apache time to catch up with them.
After we left Black river a small company of soldiers passed us going to Ft. Apache and took the report to Apache that we had not been attacked by the Indians. Finding we were all right, the two men came on and joined us. Nothing further was seen of the Indians until we got down to the Gila River at about noon time. It seemed from the way we happened to meet them that they were anxious to attack us, but knowing that we were well armed were rather cautious. From where we were we could see a dust on the road going from Globe to Bowie, which we made out to be a company of freight teams, and ahead of them a dozen or so horses driven by someone whom we learned later was a young boy, Thompson by name, from Globe. The roads joined a short distance from where we were on the river. Our stock became very sore footed going over the mountain so we decided to go on a short distance with the teams and make camp for the night and let the stock come on later. Mesquite bushes were thick along the road and afforded easy means of hiding. The boy with the horses came into the road where they joined between our wagons and our stock. Not far from where the roads came together the Indians captured the boy, took him and the horses up a hollow at one side, killed him with rocks, and took the horses on towards Safford. As they came in the vicinity of Ft. Thomas they came on a ranch. I think it was where the little village of Geronimo is now located. The owner of the ranch and his wife had just come from Ft. Thomas. They shot him through the abdomen. He and his wife were unable to get into the house, but there was a chicken coop nearby. They crawled into that and he was able to stand them off. I suppose they didn’t care to waste much time, it being so near the Post. As they went on that night to Safford, they took some horses out of the corrals and went on toward Mexico.
They were followed by a company of men among them whom were two men by the name of Wright. After they had followed them some distance, they saw the horses and Indians ahead. Being anxious to overtake them, the Wright brothers and Johnny Morris, and possible one other man, rode on ahead of the other men who were following. They had gone some distance when they were ambushed by a part of the Indians. Jonny Morris told me that at the first fire one of the Wright boys fell from his horse and his brother, seeing him fall, jumped off by him. They were both killed. When we got to Ft. Thomas there was a great excitement there. The troops there were Negroes. The women came out to the wagon with tears running down their cheeks, saying, “We thought you were all killed.” We went on to Safford. I remained there about three months to take care of the horses and cattle while Joseph made a trip down to Mexico and back.
We then moved on into Mexico. We located at Colonia Juarez in February ’87. The Mexican officials seemed to be friendly, but the lower class would steal our horses or anything else they could, so it was necessary to herd the horses at night. All the men took turns herding the horses, two men at a time. As my father was too old and Bro. Joseph had a lame ankle, I took their turns in addition to my own. In selecting two to herd together, they put a young man with an old man. I, being the youngest, was put with the oldest, who was old Father Judd, who had sore eyes and couldn’t see after the moon went down. So when I had him for my partner, it will be obvious that on the nights when there was no moon I herded all night. By taking father’s and Joseph’s turn, it put me on night herd every other night. This continued through the spring. I assisted in putting in a brush and rock dam in the river and in taking out the canal with pick and shovel. After the water was on the ground, Joseph’s ankle still being very lame, I did the plowing for the crops. We had no other walking plows. In June after the crops were in at Juarez we put a plow, some seed potatoes, and corn on pack horses and went by means of a trail into the mountains to a valley called Strawberry, where we planted them in an experimental way to see what could be done by raising dry crops there. Apostle Tisdale was in charge of the company. After exploring a number of valleys in the mountains where settlements were later made, we returned to Colonia Juarez, and in a few days i returned to Taylor, taking with us Joseph’s plural wife Nela, who had become ill, and we thought she could be taken better care of in Taylor. About six weeks after we arrived, she died. Joseph returned in the fall. When he returned to Mexico, he took with him a load of fruit trees and berry bushes, which were later planted in Juarez.
Late that fall (this episode occurred during the Woodruff and Taylor days) father took a contract of freighting 6000 pounds of flour from Cooley’s ranch, now Showlow, to Ft. Apache. Joseph Clawson came in with mule teams to haul the freight, and I was sent along to help him. There had been considerable rain and snow in the mountains, and the ground was very soft. Some teams with large high-wheeled wagons drawn by from 16 to 32 mules had gone over a few days ahead of us. These wagons, heavily loaded as they were, would drop deep into the soil over the soft places, so they cut poles and made what was called corduroy roads by cutting them in lengths that would reach across the road and laying them side by side across the road. Many of the worst places were corduroyed in this way. At that time there was only one ranch on the road between Showlow and Ft. Apache. It was a little west of what is now called Coolie’s ranch on the top of the mountain. We got our wagons loaded about noon and started for Ft. Apache. After we got on top of the mesa about five miles south of Coolie’s, we came into the soft road, and it was but a short time until we dropped into the ruts of those large wagons, and our comparatively small wagons were both resting on their axles. Our teams couldn’t move them, and it wasn’t long until they were all down to their axles in the mud. So every sack of flour had to be taken out of the wagons. I couldn’t handle the large sacks of flour, so all I could do was to push them around so that Joseph could get at them. Then it was all we could do to get out one empty wagon at a time with eight horses. We had to take them several rods to find a place solid enough to reload. Clawson carried the flour out and reloaded. We hitched on and went but a short distance and the wagons were down again. When we went out of the road the ground was too soft to hold the wagons up, and when we followed the road, the ruts were so deep that our axles would strike the ground. So we decided to go with just one wagon, but it had to be entirely unloaded before we could get it out. After we had gotten it reloaded we went on a short distance, and it was down again. It was now getting dark, so we decided to wait until the ground had frozen and start out early in the morning. So we unloaded the wagon, got it out, and loaded it up again, and unhitched our teams and went to bed. In the night I awoke and thought it was near morning, so I called to Joseph and told him we’d better get moving. We had no timepiece, and it was earlier then we thought it was. We hitched up and hadn’t gone more than a mile until we were down again. That was the last straw.
Clawson said, “I’m going back and let Willis and some of the other fellows have some of this freight.” He told me I didn’t need to be afraid — nothing would hurt me. It was surely a dark night in the heavy forest. There were two trees that had fallen rather close to each other. He made a fire by each and made a bed between the two, then cautioned me again not to be afraid. After he had gone, I looked out into the dark forest. On every side I could see things that I couldn’t see in the light of daytime, and I felt like I’d be safer in the wagon, even though it was down to the box in the mud, so I began to put the bed on the wagon, and after I started I worked with increasing speed. I didn’t stop to make the bed, just rolled up in the quilts. I was terribly tired and must have gone right to sleep. I woke up about ten o’clock. The sun was shining bright, and things looked quite different. In the afternoon Joseph came back. We hitched up and started on. When we left home, father had tried to get me a pair of shoes but could find no children’s shoes and I was wearing a pair of men’s shoes. We got to Follett’s just as it was getting dark. It was quite cold, and I had father’s coat for an overcoat. I was walking on the opposite side of the team from Clawson when a bunch of dogs came out and one big dog came right for me and knocked me over. Clawson was not long in knocking him off. He couldn’t hurt me much, because I had so many clothes on.
In the evening the Folletts gathered in a room out away from their main building with several men, among them a man about 22 years old who had quite a beard. When he was small he had had some sort of illness that left him with a mind of a little two year old. Clawson and I went into this room. As soon as he saw me, a little boy, he came over to play. He was perfectly harmless, but he didn’t look harmless to me. They paid no attention to him nor me either. I think I would have been considerable larger if it hadn’t been for that evening. Your imaginations can tell why — I never was so scared! I was terribly tired. Joseph stayed on and on and on. I couldn’t go out to the wagon on account of the dogs, so there was nothing for me to do but stay in the house with that terror.
After we had unloaded our flour at Ft. Apache, a man by the name of Adair, who was said to be crazy, rode with us back to Cooley’s ranch. Just before getting off the mesa we caught up with the outfit of the big wagons. It started to snow in the evening, and before morning it had piled up from two to three feet of loose snow. Clawson went to hunt the horses and didn’t get back until afternoon. The men of the big outfit got their horses and hitched them up soon after Clawson had left. They called me over to their fire and told me not to stay around where that man was, because he was crazy and apt to hurt me, and they stayed until afternoon with their teams hitched waiting for Clawson to come. When he did come, they called him over to their fire and told him not to leave me alone with Adair. By that time, I was pretty well worked up about Adair. Joe had not found any of the horses, so he broke trail through the snow, and I followed him over to Scott’s ranch, two or three miles east. When we got there, Joe knocked on the door, and Harrison Scott, a big fellow with an impediment in his speech, came to the door and started to say “come in”, but before he got the “come in” out, he rolled his eyes back in his head, and I thought he was having a fit. That was the last straw. I though the mountains were inhabited with crazy people or perhaps was an outdoor asylum. I have never had any inclination since then to visit a real one.
We remained at Scott’s ranch about a week. By that time we had found about one half of our horses, and in connection with another man rigged up an outfit to get down out of the mountains. The night before we started I had been ill, and I overheard a conversation between Joe and Marion Scott, the owner of the ranch. Scott said, “That boy should have some whisky.” Joe replied, “He won’t take it.” Scott said, “Then pour it down him. He needs it.” So when he brought the whisky, I drank it. The snow was now very deep in places, difficult to get through it. As they came back to the wagon at intervals to get a drink, I would take one when they did. It was pretty hard to take, but I found that it warmed me up, and I began to feel pretty gay. I had no idea how much it would take to make a person drunk, and I drank a sufficient amount to say the least. When they got to Cooley’s, they were both very much concerned. I was conscious of what was going on and after giving them a lecture in frontier fashion, Cooley knew just what to do and did it. He put me by a fire in a warm room and had me swallow some soup. I recovered in due time, and so far as my share of experiences are concerned, that finished the chapter for that trip. I am writing this while in those same mountains on a vacation, and I am reminded of the earlier one solely by contrast.
This was in the summer of ’87, and I immediately went to work and freighted between Holbrook and Ft. Apache, and worked in a farm that I had purchased before going to Mexico. During the winter of ’87 and ’88 I worked on the railroad, first near Albuquerque putting in a spur to a rock quarry, then on another spur down at Needles, Arizona, and later in dragging out piles of spruce logs from the high mountains near Williams, Arizona. These could be gotten out only when snow was on the ground owing to the roughness of the country. After we had worked there a short time, it began to snow and kept snowing until we were completely snowed in. Our provisions got short, so we dug ourselves out. it was necessary for men to take shovels and throw out enough of the snow in a trail so that the horses could get through the first mile or so. We loaded our teams and went back to Holbrook. During the summer of ’88 and the following winter, I freighted and worked the farm, so that by the fall of ’89 enough money was made, as I thought, to take me to school two years. I went to Logan to the BYC. It was not easy for a student to get employment to help finance himself through school. At the end of two years I wanted to go on another year. I had run a delivery wagon for my uncle from the time school closed for the day, and worked in his furniture shop on Saturdays. At the end of the third year the way opened up so that I could continue for another year. I worked on Uncle Paul’s farm during the summer and lived with him that school year and graduated from the BYC in the spring.
I have always been thankful for the privilege I had of going to school and know that it was only through the blessings of the Lord that I was able to do so. In our neighborhood at that time no one was interested in an education, and it was especially hard to get to a school. There was a grad school in Taylor for a few months each year, but about the time I’d get started there was always something that came up that had to be attended to that would take me away from school for a period of time. After a few attempts to attend I became discouraged and resolved that I would wait until I was older and could think of school on my own account and my own means, so when I got older I prayed earnestly to the Lord that he would open up the way that I could get the means to go to school. Money was hard to get; wages were low; and to have hopes of accumulating enough required some faith, so under the circumstances that existed then the amount that I had gotten together was a great manifestation, that the Lord was answering my prayers. I do not wish to go into much detail in this, but will just give an illustration that the Lord not only blessed me in accumulating money but blessed me in other ways that made the money hold out.
When I left Taylor I took with me one good suit of clothes, and while I was there four years, twenty dollars covered all that I bought until the spring that I left school. I bought a suit when I graduated. I marveled at the time how well those clothes held up and did not become shabby. Often persons would mention to me, “You must have a mint of money to enable you to go to school right along.” I think if they had become shabby I would hardly have been able to have remained in school. I realized at the time that the Lord was answering my prayers in that particular instance, and in another source that I hadn’t thought of He had blessed me. Soon after I returned home I went into my sister’s home. She was looking my clothes over and with tears in her eyes, she said, “Louis, these are the same underclothes you took with you.”
Then I realized I hadn’t bought any underclothes while I was at school. I’ve not been able to get clothes that wore that way before or since, and I know that it was through the answers of prayer that I was permitted to go and remain the length of time that I did. In the spring of ’92 at the close of my third year, I received a call from Pres. Woodruff to go on a mission to the Samoan Islands and was to join a number of elders who were leaving San Francisco in a few days. I answered that I would accept the mission, but that I had been away from home three years attending school and that the time of meeting the elders would not give me time to return home and dispose of some property to finance the mission. I received a reply stating that it was their desire that I remain in school until I was through and as soon as circumstances would permit, I could go on a mission. This I did.
I graduated from the BYC in the spring of ’93 and taught my first school in Taylor. I taught four years there. I was called by President Woodruff to go to Mexico and went there in the summer of ’97. We had everything there for a school except finances. I taught there 14 years as a vocation, and for an avocation I built a house and farmed for a living while I taught school. I also did the surveying on the reservoirs and canals for all the colonies, including Dublán, as well as other survey work for various individuals, particularly an irrigation system for Hannas, a large ranch owned by a wealthy syndicate of Jews and Mexicans, on the Hannas River northwest of Dublán.
I’d like to tell a little about our schools in Dublán. The first year there were 125 children. Phebe Tenney and myself comprised the faculty. We had one large adobe room for the higher grades, and just across the street there was an old adobe room built Mexican style with a minimum of windows (and they were placed high) that was used for the lower grades. The first room was also the Church, so that all books had to be put away Friday night and gotten out the following Monday. The second one might have been called a prison with innocent culprits for inmates.
At that time there were no funds, except as the people taxed themselves on their incomes based on their tithing. One year the rate ran as high as 8% of the income. The first years especially, cash was very scarce and salaries of teachers were paid in products the people had. The principal’s salary at that time was rated as $100.00 per month Mexican money. The Mexican peso at that time being valued at 39 cents made the salary worth $39.00 U.S. money, and that taken in trade made it necessary for me to look after other activities for a livelihood.
Between these early years and the closing ones, additional rooms were put onto the Church, which was still used, and various private houses were also pressed into service to house the rapidly increasing enrollment, but before I quit, the Church had been sufficiently enlarged that the school could be housed under the one roof. A foundation and basement room had been made for a commodious, modern school building, but due to the exodus it was never finished. There were now nine teachers and upwards of four hundred and forty-five pupils. The school now was under the Church school system. My salary the last few terms was $1800.00 pesos per term, paid from Church funds. The other teachers were paid by income taxation still, but it was on a cash basis. Salaries of other teachers ranged from 40 to 65 pesos. A term was nine months.
The outstanding teachers who taught the longest in the school were Mrs. Bertha Pratt, Miss Pearl Thurber, and Mrs. Edith Cardon. The summer school sessions were a sort of convention which was held for two weeks mainly in Juarez but also in Dublán and Diaz. They were of great value to the school, particularly in the enthusiasm they engendered and in keeping the schools in touch with what was going on in the world outside. Stake boards did little in my opinion that assisted the schools. It was the local boards that bore the burden. Our curriculum corresponded with the grades in the States.