Friday, December 19, 2008

Uncle Johnny and Aunt Evia Richards

Uncle Johnny and Aunt Evia lived on a ranch located on the Price River about fifteen miles up river from what used to be the town of Woodside, called the Elma Marsing Ranch, a cow outfit.

Dad had a nice team of horses called Dick and Tony. We were living at Sunnyside. One day dad loaded us all in the wagon, mama, Dell, Andy, my sister Wanda. I don’t know if Evia was born yet. It is possible, maybe she was the baby of the family, I’m not sure. Also Eph Westwood and his wife Lillian went with us. Mrs. Westwood ‘s people lived on a ranch at Woodside. I think this would be about 1917.

Anyway, dad hooked Dick and Tony to the wagon and we headed for the Marsing Ranch. Not far out from Sunnyside, we left the main road. We dropped down a couple thousand feet into Ice Lander country. We had to go down a real narrow, steep dug way, hardly wide enough for one wagon. I always wondered what they would do if they met another wagon or buggy outfit on the dug way. It was about a half mile long, the steep part, but dad had good brakes on the wagon and no load except the family, plus Mr. and Mrs. Eph Westwood. We made it fine, but it was exciting to us kids.

Later a man, who owned goats named Tony Tangaro, was killed on this dug way. I can’t remember for sure. It seems the neck yoke strap broke. This strap holds the tongue up. Anyway, when the strap broke, the wagon went over the side of the dug way, end over end, killing the man. Later, my step father and John McMahan lost a wagon and a load of hay trying to go down this same dug way. I think now, we all, especially us kids, were breathing much easier when we reached the bottom.

I was about five years old. Us boys would run ahead of the wagon, there were lots of wild rabbits, cotton tails, jack rabbits. You could always see a hawk or two soaring high in the sky. One place, we saw a big long blow snake crossing the wagon road. Dad said, “Leave him alone, he does a lot of good catching rats, mice etc.” I was always afraid of snakes and wasn’t about to monkey with this one. We continued down through Ice Lander. I can remember seeing a number of coyotes at different places along the way. We also saw a lot of wild horses, big beautiful stallions. They were wild and yet, they were brave. They would come to a couple hundred yards of our wagon, head held high, stamping their beautiful legs. They would issue a challenge, a whinny, as if to say. “What are you doing here? This is our territory. Get out.” Then they would take their brood and leave.

At one point along the dim wagon road, a coyote jumped up not too far away, maybe seventy five or a hundred yards away. Dad said, “Whoa, to the team, stay real still everyone, be real quiet.” Dad kept a 30-30 rifle Winchester in a gun scabbard fastened to the side of the wagon seat. He reached down real easy like, pulled the gun out of the scabbard. Everyone was real quiet, mama holding the lines, no sound except the horses Tony and Dick chomping on their bits. It seemed like a long time to me. However, it was just a few seconds. Dad never got up off his seat. He just sat, put one foot up on top the wagon box. The coyote was standing still among a group of prairie dog holes. Everyone waiting, dad aiming and then bang, the coyote dropped. Boy howdy, what do ya know. Boy oh boy! Us three boys over the side of the wagon, running as fast as we could possibly go toward the coyote. Dad jumped off the wagon took after us calling, “Stop, stop, stay away from that coyote. Stop,” But we three boys were so excited, we couldn’t hear dad, straight to the coyote we went. We all got there about the same time. Dell and Andy were ahead of me, being older they could run a little faster, but I was brushing their heels.

They grabbed a hold of that coyote and, about the same time, dad grabbed a hold of Dell and Andrew, actually throwing them away from the coyote. It was a good thing the animal was dead. We boys were so anxious. We certainly would have been bitten badly had the coyote been alive! The coyote with his head down in the mouth of a prairie dog hole, plumb dead. Young as we were, I suppose, we thought whenever anything was shot, it was supposed to be dead. We didn’t know an animal could be wounded and be more dangerous than ever. Then and there, Dad stood us in front of him and gave us a good tongue lashing explaining to us again and again “Never to go up to an animal. No matter what kind, tame or wild, after it had been shot. Always, always make sure the animal is dead.”

Dad loaded the coyote in the back of the wagon and we continued our journey. Us boys kept looking at the coyote. His eyes sort of slanted like, a very long and big nose, and a mouth. I have found out, since I have had experience with coyotes, that a coyote’s teeth are sharper than a dogs. Us kids really did size this coyote up. His bushy tail, very beautiful and pretty.

We finally reached the Marsing Ranch. Uncle Johnny and Aunt Evia were glad to see us. This ranch was very much isolated. Visitors were few and far between, except cowboys passing up and down the river horse back, who seldom saw a woman. So I can imagine, Aunt Evia was glad to see her sister, my mother. We had a great time.

Uncle Johnny had a nice saddle horse. I was quite disappointed because Uncle wouldn’t let me ride the horse alone being too young, just a button and still wet behind the ears. “Wait a little longer, get a little older, and a little experience, then you can ride the horse all alone and all you want.” Uncle did set me on behind him and took me for a couple rides, but I saw Dell and Andrew ride the horse alone, and I figured I could do anything they could do!

Uncle Johnny had a big black dog and I kept trying to make friends with this dog. Uncle and Aunt Evia were newly married and, as yet, didn’t have children, plus they lived way out on a ranch and this dog had never been around people. He was used to being left alone. Mama and Aunt Evia each told me three or four times to leave the dog alone, but being a button, mule like in disposition, stubborn, I’m plumb determined to make friends with that old dog. Finally, that dog got plumb mad and bit me on the arm, that dog was plumb fed up with me. He bit me just below the right elbow leaving a nasty gash. Well, I suppose, I acted like most kids would do, a little bawling, not much. Brother Dell said, “Cowboys don’t bawl.” So I shut up tighter than a bullfrog in the middle of winter! I was one day going to be a cowboy and a good one.

I suggested to Uncle Johnny he ought to shoot the dog and he was about to do it. He said, “I don’t want a dog that bites people when they come around here.” Now this was a real good cow dog and very useful about the ranch. My dad said, “Leave the dog alone. We’ll be gone in a couple days, besides that boy of mine has got to learn to mind. He was told several times to leave that dog alone.” Well, you can bet your bottom dollar I didn’t fool with that dog any more. I remember they poured terpentine on the gash and wrapped my arm in bandages, that made me feel better. At that time, terpentine was considered a very good disinfectant and used by everyone.

This about covers the territory of this trip. We did go down river to the Dickman Tunnel Ranch and on down to Woodside to Lillian Westwood’s people’s ranch. But I do so vividly remember Dad shooting the coyote and being bit by the dog, and Uncle Johnny figuring I am still too young to ride his horse alone.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Old Red and Diamond Drill

We lived on one side of Whitmore Canyon. Dad had built a corral and a nice shed for our milk cow old Red. He also fixed a nice place to keep hay for the cow. In the day time, dad turned old Red, our cow, loose up the canyon to feed. Other people did the same thing. Us three boys, Dell, Andrew, and I, job was to watch and take care of old Red and have her home early evening for milking time.

Above town us kids built a swimming pool in the creek. I was real small, still I did my share. Each kid would bring gunny sacks, the older kids would fill the gunny sacks with dirt and dam off the creek, then we would all pack rocks to brace the sacks and in this way, we had a swimming pool, some places six feet deep. Mama and dad told us boys time and again not to go swimming. They were afraid we might get drowned, but we would go swimming just the same and this is what we were doing instead of watching old Red, our cow.

When it came time to go home, we couldn’t find the cow! Boy howdy, I hope to kiss a grasshopper, we were plumb scared! Especially Dell, as he was the oldest and more accountable than Andy and I were. Just the same, we all three were scared! Dad was a good man, but he was very strict. I sometimes wonder if maybe father wasn’t too strict. Anyway, this is how we learned to swim. And because of swimming, time went by and we lost old Red, our milk cow.

Finally, we gave up looking for the cow and went home. Dad said, “Where is old Red?” “We can’t find her, dad.” Dad exploded! Dell being the oldest got a licking, plus dad sent us back up the canyon in the dark to look for the cow. I don’t believe Andy was with us, just Dell and I and we were real scared and it was dark. Not too long before this happened, some of us kids were up on the mountainside. We had a small fire, it was after dark. Up the canyon, maybe two or three hundred yards, was a mountain lion , a cougar, roaring and squalling, making a lot of noise. Us kids didn’t know it was a lion. People had milk cows just above town, we thought it was a cow bawling. Anyway some men came up, they saw our fire, they asked, “Don’t you boys know that is a lion a roaring.” We said, “No, we thought it was a cow.” One of the men said, “You better get home as fast as you can and we’ll go with you or that lion will eat us all up.” Boy howdy, home we went.

Well, these thoughts were going through my mind and Dell’s as we went up the canyon to look for the cow. Andrew Mortensen had two or three head of saddle horses running up on what we called Jessen Flat and these horses would come down off the mountain to get a drink of water out of the creek in the bottom of the canyon. Dell and I saw them. There was a bay mare called old Fly. She belonged to Mortensen’s and we played with Mort and Lloyd Mortensen all the time. She was gentle. Dell got on first and I got on behind him. Now we didn’t have a rope, no bridle, no nothing to slap her on the side of the neck to make her cross the creek so we could continue on up the canyon to look for old Red. Well, old Fly wouldn’t do what we wanted it to do without a rope and such. She turned to follow the other horses up a real steep bank out of the creek. Dell and I both slid off her back into the water. Now, we were cold, plus soak and wet.

I felt, if we were on that horse, we were safe and didn’t have to worry about lions or anything else. It was real dark. I said, “Dell, we can’t find old Red.” He said, “I know it, but Dad will make us hunt all night to teach us a lesson not to let it happen again.” I said, “Well, let’s go home and talk to mama. So we went home. Dad said, “If I let you stay in the house, will you promise not to lose the cow again?” We replied, “Yes, yes, we promise.” Dad said, “Ok, go out and look in the corral.” We did and to our great surprise, old Red was in the corral and milked. She had come home herself. Dad always gave her a flak of hay and a large pan of brand morning and night. Old Red came home for her special feed. We were a couple of tickled kids.

Boy howdy, another experience, on the opposite side of the canyon and about seventy five yards from where we lived, the creek meandered down through town on this side of the canyon. All the kids in upper and middle town had pooled their efforts. Again, gunnysacks filled with dirt plus rocks and again, another swimming pool in the creek was made. There were always a large group of kids in this pool. Mom and dad didn’t mind letting us boys swim in this pool on account there was always adult people present. The boys wore overalls, legs cut off at the knees and, of course, the girls swim suits completely covered their bodies from knees up.

Just below the swim pool and to the side of the creek, the Utah Fuel Co. had a high power wood pole standing about twenty five or thirty feet high. Down about three feet from the top, there was a six inch cross beam. On each side of the cross beam, were high powered wires carrying power to houses up and down the canyon. In the center of the cross beam was a transformer, I suppose that is what it was, a solid steel black container. I imagine two feet wide and three feet high as near as I can remember. There was a ground wire running down the pole, insulated and fastened to a long, steel rod that was driven into the ground.

Some of the older boys had found out by fastening a small wire to the iron rod and stringing the wire in the water in the bottom of the creek below the swimming pool , little kids too young and not knowing how to swim would go in wading in the shallow water and when they happened to touch one of these wires under the water with their bare feet or legs, boy howdy, I wanna tell ya, you would get a terrible, terrific shock. I, myself, and older boys would wade and get shocked just to dare one another and to find out how it felt.

If my memory is correct, the Van Wagoner boys were the ones who strung the wire in the bottom of the creek in the water. However, no one had any idea how terribly dangerous it really was and, of course, no one’s parents knew about it.

And then one evening old Red, that fine gentle family milk cow of ours, who had been milked, had eaten her hay and pan of brand dad always fed her, left the corral and walked across the canyon, down to the creek to get a drink of water, just the same as she had always done. The pool was full of kids swimming. Some were sitting on the bank. This is what I was doing and I happened to be watching old Red, our cow. Some of the other kids were also watching. Old Red stuck her head down to drink. She no more than touched the water when she fell dead, as quick as if someone had shot her with a high powered rifle. Her front feet were in about six inches of water. Her back feet were out of the water. My brother Dell ran home fast as he could to get my father. In a few minutes a lot of town people had gathered there. There were many angry comments from everyone. It could have been one of their children, and it really was a miracle that it wasn’t one of us instead of the cow.

Everyone said the company should be sued. In a few minutes, company officials came. They said they were sorry it had happened. They didn’t know the kids had done what they did hooking to the ground wire or, I should say ground rod, and stringing wire in the water. The superintendent said they would be glad to pay for the cow and move the transformer if that would make things right. My father said, “No, it’s possible my own boys participated in stretching this wire in the water. Therefore we, as parents, are somewhat to blame. I am only glad it was the cow instead of one of our boys or girls. So I don’t want pay for the cow. If you’ll drag her up the canyon some place, I’ll have my boys go up and burn her up.” To this, the company superintendent agreed.

The next morning, they came with a team of horses. They tied a chain around old Red’s back legs, and they dragged her up above town about a mile into Pasture Canyon a little ways and left her. There was lots of sage brush all around to burn her with. A couple days later, Dad said, “You boys better go up and burn old Red before she begins to smell and stink up the whole country.” So I and my brothers, Mort and Lloyd Mortensen, and a couple of other kids went up to the mouth of Pasture Canyon to burn old Red up. Boy howdy, old Red was all swollen by this time, legs sticking straight in the air. We all went to work piling brush, wood, everything that would burn, we piled on old Red.

When we had a real big pile of brush, eight or ten feet high, all over old Red, we set it on fire. Then we kept piling more brush on her till we had gathered all the loose brush and wood we could find, plus we pulled up all the brush we could and we had a real good fire. But old Red was still there. However, now she was black and she had burst, gone down. Then we began to realize we couldn’t burn old Red up. We had run out of brush and wood to burn, plus we became tired and gave it up.

Pasture Canyon was about two and a half miles long and a tributary that dumped into Whitmore Canyon. On up a little farther in Pasture Canyon from where they had left old Red, the Utah Fuel Co. had what they called a diamond drill, a building built over drilling machinery equipment, etc. Now this drill operated by steam. There was a huge water boiler and, under this water boiler, was an enclosed fire box with a bower fan, a number of valves, gages, etc.

Well, us kids left off burning old Red and went to the diamond drill. When we got there, there was no one about. I think it was Salty Mortenson who suggested we build a fire in the boiler firebox. This we did and soon we had a red hot fire going. None of us knew what the valves, gadgets were for. We turned first this valve and then another valve, monkeying with the boiler. It wasn’t long until the whistle began to blow. We thought this was great! However, this I suppose, was in reality a danger signal of too much steam.

In the meantime, others of us kids were pushing and releasing levers and doing things with the machinery that we shouldn’t have been doing. The results was the drill began to move and to drill, making the building shake. By this time, the whistle was making a terrific, high piercing noise, the blower to the furnace was wide open. Boy howdy! What do we do now? I’ll never forget that whistle, in addition to the noise of the machinery.

We all began to run at the same time, down the canyon we went running down to the bottom of a dry wash. We ran about a quarter of a mile, we stopped, but the whistle kept blowing louder than ever! Then it happened, a great big explosion, sounded like a bomb, a lot of dust, finally all was quiet.

We kept asking each other, “What have we done?” We each knew we had completely destroyed the diamond drill used by the company to core drill down to the earth to see how thick a vein of coal they had, in whatever area they were drilling. We knew that drill cost thousands of dollars. Would our fathers have to pay for it? Worry, worry, our young minds. I was only six or seven years old at the most, the oldest among us wasn’t even eleven years old. We decided to keep our mouths shut and say nothing to no one.

It wasn’t long, however, until the news got around that the diamond drill had blown up! Plus the story got around, us kids had blown the drill up. Dad asked us boys about it. We told him the truth. Dad told the company they shouldn’t have left old Red, the cow, so close to the diamond drill, and that there should have been a watchman at the drill! The company, I think, felt they were partly to blame. They didn’t try or even suggest, at least to my knowledge, they didn’t ask dad to pay one cent. I have often thought about this. Somehow, I think on account of dad being so decent about old Red being electrocuted and not wanting any pay for his cow, the company wrote it off to good experience.

At the time of this writing, I phoned and talked to my brother Andy . I also phoned and talked to Salty Lloyd Mortensen. They both verified what I have written. They both live here in Wellington, Utah. Lloyd said a big fly wheel off the diamond drill, weighing approximately 1500 pounds, is still laying high up on the mountain side where it was blown when the boiler and everything else, I suppose, blew up.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

In the Bud of Life

My first recollection of life began at Sunnyside, Utah, a coal mining town, Carbon County, located in the mouth of Whitmore Canyon. A canyon about ten or twelve miles long running into the Wasatch Mountains. A beautiful range for livestock, deer, etc.

My great love for horses: As a boy, four and five years old, I used to watch cowboys and cattlemen going up into the mountains and also coming out of the mountains into town after supplies, pack horses, pack mules, cowboys riding beautiful horses, wearing chaps, boots and spurs. Boy howdy, how this young bucko longed to be one of them.

I used to see them coming either up or down the canyon, I would run over to the roadside and watched as they passed. The cowboys with their batwing bull hide chaps, big hats, spurs, expert horsemen. They looked so neat as though they were a part of the horse they rode. After they had passed, I would move to the center of the road and watch them as far as I could and they passed from my sight. I would say to myself, “When I grow up, I’m a gonna be a cowboy and a good one.” Some of these cowboys got to know me. Frank Liddell, now living in Wellington, Utah, He is 84 years old and still rides a horse and still runs a little bunch of cattle in Whitmore Canyon. He is as fine a man as I have ever known. His brother, Jim Liddell, now dead, and others, the Burdicks all ran cattle in Whitmore Canyon.

These men got to know me and if they were riding a gentle horse, they would lift me up and set me on behind them on their horse and let me ride a mile or two! Boy howdy! I wanna tell ya this was really something. I could feel the wonderful action of the horse under me. Every once in a while, the cowboy would bust his horse out in a dash of speed to turn a pack animal back into the road. To me this was indeed a great thrill. After I had ridden a mile or two, Frank Liddell or whoever I was riding with, would say, “Cotton boy, your getting a long ways from home. I better let you off.” I always thanked them and home I would go as fast as my legs could take me and into the house to tell mom and dad and especially my brothers, Dell and Andy, I had just ridden a long ways behind a cowboy on a horse.

My father, John Alma Peterson, Uncle Jim and Uncle Dave Peterson worked in the coal mine. My grandfather, James Marinus Peterson, owned a farm below Sunnyside about four and a half miles. His boys, Jim, Dave, and dad each owned eighty acres and grandpa had a hundred and sixty acres of land.

We spent a lot of time at the ranch. I loved this. They had several teams of horses. In those days, no one so much as even dreamed of a tractor. Everything had to be done with horses and young as I was, always at noon and at quitting time in the evening, I would be down in the field where they were either plowing, cutting hay, or maybe breaking up new ground - grubbing sage brush off the land, hauling rocks, etc. I would be there to ride one of the work horses to the feed yard. It was so much fun. We would ride them to the pond to get a drink of water. Sometimes the horses would walk out into the water ten or twelve feet then put their heads down to the water and drink. I thought this was great. Each time the horse would swallow, they would make the water run up hill. The horses’ names were old Bell, old Daisy, old Tony, old Dick, old Bess, and others. They were gentle and this is one of the ways I and my two brothers, Dell and Andrew, in our very young springtime of life, were learning to ride.

I remember one time, Uncle Johnny Richards came to our place. He was riding a beautiful white horse. He was employed as Range Rider for Utah Fuel Co. to keep cattle off the Range Creek where Sunnyside’s drinking water came from. Well, anyway, us kids want to ride Uncle Johnny’s horse. Uncle said to me, “Cotton, you’re just a button, you’re still wet behind the ears. You are way too young to ride that horse. You’ll get hurt!” Boy howdy, I hated this. I wanted to ride that beautiful white horse so bad my teeth ached.

Uncle Johnny did let Dell and I think Andy ride him. Anyway, Dell done something to the horse and he ran under the clothes line. The clothes line caught Dell under the chin, lifting him out of the saddle and dropping him on the ground. Dell got back up on the horse. He rode over to me and lifted his head up and said, “Look, I think I cut my throat! Boy howdy, he had a hole about the size of a quarter. It wasn’t bleeding too much. Oh, there was blood down the front of his shirt. Dell said, “Don’t tell mom and dad because they won’t let me ride uncle’s horse anymore.” Well, we did tell mom and dad and they rushed Dell down to Doctor Dowd’s office and, of course, Dr. Dowd took care of Dell.It’s laughable now when I think about it. Dell wasn’t so much concerned about his throat as he was about dad and mama not letting him ride uncle’s horse again.