Nelda May Hebdon Baker Interview

              Dr. Radke- Moss Women’s Oral History Collection
Life Experiences of Nelda May Hebdon Baker
By Nelda May Hebdon Baker
February 2 & February 9, 2008
Box 5 Folder 1
Oral Interview conducted by Candice Baker
Transcript copied by Candice Baker Feb 2008
Brigham Young University- Idaho
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February 2, 2008 and February 9, 2008
Residence of Ray and Nelda Baker, Teton, Idaho
Special Note: There are a few places where Nelda's husband, Ray, interjected comments during the interview. His words are prefaced with RB. Also, Nelda mentions several other people throughout the interview. I have added an explanation in brackets [ ] where Nelda's relationship to these people was unclear.
Candice Baker: What is your full name, including your maiden name?
Nelda Baker: My name is Nelda May Hebdon Baker. I’m eighty- four years and nine months old.
CB: When and where were you born?
NB: I was born May the 25th, 1923 at the Woods Livestock Ranch which is about three miles south of Rigby, Idaho and a half a mile from the Bonneville/ Jefferson county line nowadays. My father was working there as the foreman of the ranch. The family lived in a big ranch house and mother did the cooking for about fifteen to twenty men, three meals a day; men that worked on the ranch. So, I was born that day about 12: 30. In my grandmother’s journal she had written [ about it]. They always called my dad T. R. His name was Truman, Truman Ritter Hebdon and mother was Mary Louise Butterworth Hebdon. But anyway, my grandma, which was my mom’s mother said, “ Truman called early this morning, that Louis,” which was her nickname, my mom, “ that Louis was sick and needed me to come.” So she came over to the house. And, of course, mother was in labor and so grandma took over fixin’ the big dinner for the men. She said she’d made a cake and made the dinner and they called the doctor about noon and he came out and I was born about 12: 30, something like that. And that was interesting to read that in grandma’s journal in her own handwriting.
CB: Yeah, I bet it was.
NB: That she was there. And after I was born, why then she had the dishes to clean up and the... first the baby to wash and clean and…
CB: All of this on the same day?
NB: All on the same day.
CB: Oh my goodness.
NB: She was a lovely grandma. What comes next?
CB: So what are your parents’ full names?
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NB: My dad was named Truman Ritter Hebdon and the Ritter was his mother’s maiden name. And mother was Mary Louise Butterworth Hebdon. And dad was born in 1881 and mother in 1888. When we kids would ask her about her birthday, she’d always say, “ May the 23rd, 1888. Three eights." So it’s always been easy for me to remember. She was older than he was. He’d been on his mission. Mother’s father, Isaiah Butterworth, was the first bishop of the Thane Ward in Star Valley, Wyoming, so when he, well I guess he loved her right at first. Anyway, she waited for him. The bishop’s daughter waited for him to come home from his mission and then they were married and she was seventeen.
CB: Wow that seems young by today’s standards.
NB: I should say so.
CB: You said you were born in the Rigby area, did you grow up there?
NB: Yes. After dad’s job at the Wood’s Livestock Ranch he was able to put down payments on a small farm that was a little bit closer into Rigby and it was on this farm that I was raised. And it was eighty acres, but he also rented another eighty and so that was hundred sixty acres that he run and it was an irrigated farm. In those days, that’s… water came down a canal and out in the ditches and then they flood irrigated the land. And it was hard, hard work to get the water on all parts of the land to irrigate the crop. And I went to Rigby to school, rode the school bus every day. And we went all the time because it was horse- drawn, and so in winter time we went just the same as we did in the summer, or in the spring and fall. And I rode on bus number eight. We went from the school and all the buses were lined up, the horses all ready to go. And our neighbor to the south had the contract to drive the school bus, and he didn’t do it himself. His oldest daughter drove the school bus all the time for us.
CB: That’s interesting.
NB: And I don’t know, we weren’t the end of the bus line, but nearly. So when it would go down the road past our house to go down and pick up two other homes, why then we’d start scrambling around. If we hadn’t had family prayer we had to do it in a quick hurry and get our coat and everything on and be out there waiting for the bus to come to pick us up. It was happy times, it really was. We didn’t think we were badly done by. The elementary school was in Rigby. [ We] went there through the fifth grade, and sixth, seventh, and eighth was in the Jr. High building there. And then we always had a graduation from eighth grade to go on into high school.
CB: How many people did you have in your class?
NB: Oh, I’d say there was twenty, twenty- two, something like that. When I was in fourth grade I had the chicken pox, really a bad heavy case of ' em. I was covered everywhere and in those days you had to go and be checked by a doctor to make sure every scab was off, so I was out of school three weeks. 4
CB: Was that painful at all?
NB: Well, the only place I remember ever hurting much was just up here just below my neck. I’ve got a scar there ' cause I kept touching it and broke the blister and it left a scar. And that did hurt for a little while but that was all. But right at first when you get chicken pox you’re all fevered up and just sick. You feel lousy and you break out with them and then you feel better and you have to endure the itching that goes with it, so…
CB: When you were in elementary school, or even in High School or Junior High, did you have any favorite teachers in particular that you liked?
NB: I always liked my fourth grade teacher. She was Ms. Tall, and it’s interesting about her. She was an old maid school teacher, and the grocery store in town was owned by a man called Charlie Broulim, and they fell in love, my old maid school teacher and the grocery man. And [ they] got married and that’s the beginning of the Broulim’s store chain nowadays.
CB: I did not know that. But she was a school teacher?
NB: She was a teacher, uh huh, and a really good one. My first grade teacher was another Ms. Tall, and my, she was a really wonderful teacher, a lot like Ms. Richman would be here at Teton when she was here. Everybody wanted their child to be in Ms. Tall’s first grade because she gave the kids such a good start, and she was kind and gentle and just a special lady. And then when I was in high school in the sophomore and junior year, the teacher, Ms. Casperson, that taught speech, and drama, and English. She was a favorite teacher too. She was really a nice person and she knew that I really liked to be in plays and do things like that and I liked to write plays and short stories. And she always was concerned and helped me with my writing and always gave me an A on my stories. I should have saved some of ' em I guess, but when you’re young you don’t save things.
CB: Did you ever let any of the plays that you wrote... were any of them performed?
NB: No, just something that filled an assignment in English class.
CB: So was English your favorite subject then?
NB: Yeah, English and History. I remember the... in English class too, in the Reader’s Digest there’s a word page where the words and the definition of the words. Every month we had to memorize those and pass a test on them and so my neighbor friend and I always learned them together on the way to school. And day after day she’d give them to me and I’d give them to her and we’d learn the words and the spelling and the definition. So I always had a fascination for words I guess, ' cause it was interesting to me. But as far as math was concerned, that was hard. I didn’t have the right beginning in math I guess, because when I was in second grade, I was reading even before then ' cause my older sister Irma taught me to read during the summer before I started school. And the reason 5
that happened was because she’s ten years older than me. So she was sixteen and went on a special date out to the dance hall that was called Riverside Gardens, and that’s just north of Rigby. Later on they had a swimming pool there too. But she’d gone on a date and I remember standing and watching her get ready for that date. She had a beautiful maroon velvet dress and she was dark. She had dark wavy hair and blue eyes. Just a pretty sixteen year old girl. We watched, me and my little sisters watched, her get ready for her date, but at the dance she was exposed to the smallpox, and so in a week she came down with the smallpox and that’s a bad disease. That’s worse than chicken pox.
CB: What exactly is it?
NB: You’re really terribly ill with high fever and everything and then you break out in these pox, and they’re… each thing is a sore, a big thing on you, and when she broke out and they knew that that was what was the matter. Then the doctor from Rigby came out and we all had to be vaccinated. And it wasn’t like any smallpox vaccination my kids ever had, you know, with the needle and you punch little holes. This was the needle that went right in you and put the vaccine inside of you. And my dad and me were the only one that had a bad reaction. We both had big lumps. Of course it was this arm, big lumps under our arm that was sore as a boil, just really hurt, and all black and blue around where the vaccine had gone in and I think we were sicker because of the vaccination that we needed to be. But anyway, so the house was quarantined. We couldn’t go anywhere. Nobody could come. They’d leave groceries on the front porch.
CB: How long was that for, do you remember?
NB: Two weeks. Two weeks we were quarantined in and so Irma had to stay right in the house in one room, and couldn’t associate with the rest of the family, so during that time there was a window in the bedroom, and I sat down on the grass below the window and she was up in the window and she taught me to read.
CB: That’s an interesting way.
NB: So by the time I was in first grade I could read pretty good. And oh about three months into the second grade, one morning the teacher asked me and Lucille Cummings and Lavar Beck to stay for a little while during the noon hour after we ate our lunch. So we did and she had the principal come in and she just wanted us to read for him, so we all did. It was a most interesting story about earthworms.
CB: You still remember it, huh?
NB: And the next thing I knew, why the teachers had talked to my parents about putting me in the third grade ' cause I could read far beyond second grade and so that’s what happened. I only had about three months second grade, and then the rest of the year… My, that was scary to go into that third grade room. They had to make a place for a desk for me and…
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CB: Did you know many of the other kids in the third grade?
NB: I knew a couple that was our neighbor friends you know, but there I was a whole year younger than they were, but I got along pretty good in everything but the math, and I just never quite could catch up enough to really like it and really figure it out. I had... it was a struggle.
CB: What kind of dress did you wear to school? Did you have any uniforms?
NB: No, we just had plain dresses. During the summer of each year, this special grandma had us come over one at a time, that’s me and my sister Dona. Barbara wasn’t old enough. Barbara’s six years younger than me, and so it was Dona and me, two years apart, and we’d go to my grandma’s house and she’d make us each two new dresses for school. She had no patterns, she just cut ' em out and sewed ' em up and made ' em and were they ever special. Cute. And I remember especially one summer, dad let us take the horse and we rode the horse over to Ucon to grandma’s place, tied the horse up out on the fence so it could eat some grass that’s there and we stayed most of the day and she made us both the new dresses for school. So they were plain and yet special to us ' cause she had made them. So that’s the kind of dresses we wore. But I tell ya, we changed ' em as soon as we got home so they were a clean dress for a whole week. Just wore them to school and then ya had overalls when we got home ' cause we always had chores to do. And we had longs in the winter. We had long stockings and mother made us, they called it a pantywaist and it fit up over your shoulders and around your waist and had garters. You know what a garter?
CB: Not exactly.
NB: About this long and it hooked onto your waist like that and went down and held your stockin' up. That was part of the... I guess that’s kind of a uniform, but everybody had it and so we had to wear dresses all the time.
CB: You said that you changed when you went home, so what kind of responsibilities did you have after school?
NB: Oh boy, I tell you we were all busy. Of course I was older. I was getting up, seventh, eighth grade and all during high school. During high school I had to... it was my job to feed the cows. We always had 12 to 13 cows to milk night and morning ' cause that was part of how we made the living. And by the time I was 14 or 15 I was milking four of ' em in the morning, four at night. But I had to see that they had the mangers full of hay and get up on the hay stack and throw the hay down ' cause the hay not bales, anything like that. It was all stacked in a big stack, really tromped down hard, and it was a hard job to cut that hay so I could dig it out, throw it down in a big pile and then I’d jump down on the pile, and that was a thrill. But before then the main job was we had a wood stove that... wood and coal that mother cooked on and a heater that was coal and wood. During the summer dad and my older brother made several trips up to Island Park with an old decrepit truck and a trailer. And they’d cut down trees and trim ' em out, load 7
' em on that and then bring them back. We had a big pile of logs and so when we’d get home from school we had to... we’d take turns. Sometimes dad would help us. It’s a great cross- cut saw or something, one on each end, and we’d cut it up in blocks about like this and then dad would split it and then we’d have to haul it in. In the back of the house was a thing they called a shanty, and we’d have to stack it in there so mother would have wood close all day to heat the water and everything and that was a main job to do. And also, to carry water from the well and fill the reservoir of the stove. Stoves had a reservoir on the side so there was always warm water. And we had to see that that was always full.
CB: So you didn’t have any indoor plumbing at all?
NB: No indoor plumbing.
CB: How many bathrooms did you have in your house?
NB: None. The bath was a round tub. We’d take turns on Saturday nights so we’d be all clean for Sunday morning church. And we’d have our hair washed and we’d have our bath and get all ready and go to bed so we’d be clean for Sunday morning. And of course we just had a... no washers like we have nowadays, it was for a long time you pulled the handle back and forth to agitate the clothes to clean ' em. And then it was a hand wringer and that was always a lot of my job, was to put the clothes in the wringer and turn the handle and wring ' em out and also to hang ' em out on the line.
CB: Did you have any other sort of modern conveniences? I guess what we’d term modern, like telephones?
NB: Yeah, we always had a telephone in this home south of Rigby, and the phone number was 285J3.
CB: You still remember it? That’s amazing.
NB: And you’d... it was a wall phone and it had a big receiver on it. And anyway you’d turn a little handle like that when you’d put the thing up to your ear and the lady in town would say, “ Number please.” So then you’d give the number and then she’d ring whoever you were calling. Hard to imagine isn’t it?
CB: Yeah.
NB: But we thought that was great and we always had electricity-- electric lights, but they always was right in the middle of the room and hung down with a bulb on the end so we always had electricity, but no running water in the house at all. We carried everything in and carried it out.
CB: Did you use electricity for anything besides lighting?
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NB: Well, later on the washer was run by electricity.
CB: When was that? How old were you?
NB: Oh dear. I guess I must have been eight or nine, something like that. So it was… and it was wonderful when we could have something new like that. But we always had a nice car for the times. Dad always enjoyed having a good car to get us to town and back. And we raised pigs, and we had a nice chicken coop that he built so we had chickens and sold eggs, and that was another job we had to do to gather the eggs. And we’d get big wire baskets full of eggs and they had to be cleaned a lot, you know, take ' em to town to sell ' em. And of course all that milk had to be separated. So we had a separator…
CB: How does that work?
NB: … that separated the cream out of the milk, so you had skim milk and I don’t know hardly how to tell you. You had to turn it by hand too, like this and get it up to speed and then put the milk in a great big thing on top and it’d run through all these discs and out would come the cream in one spout and milk the other spout. So we always had plenty of cream to use and milk. Mother made cottage cheese all the time and had cream, really real whipped cream on stuff. And then in a few years later than that why then dad just sold the whole milk to the Challenge Creamery in Idaho Falls. Maybe you can see Challenge butter now in the stores and it’s the same creamery stuff that we did. The milkman would come in the morning and take about four cans of milk and he’d bring back whey. And whey we’d mix with bran shorts, made luscious pig feed to fatten up those pigs, and he’d get a high price when he sold them. And that was a nightmare in the summers though ' cause we had to haul water to the pigs. So Dona and I were chosen. We had to do this. Little wagon like you have for Kurt ( grandson), and it would hold two of those ten gallon cans full of water and we’d haul it out to the pig pen and then we’d have to lift it up over the fence, dump it in the trough so they could get their drink. Oh dear, it seems really primitive, but I tell ya it kept us busy. And we had to pull weeds to feed the pigs to get some green feed for ' em. So all at the side of the crops in the fields, why we’d pull the weeds and then take ' em to the pig pen. And in the summer we herded the pigs. Dad raised seed peas and they’re an early crop. You get money early in your season so you can go for the rest of the season and so we’d have... they’d ripen just like they do in your garden. Then the thrasher would come and thrash the peas out of the chaff. Chaff would be a big stack of straw stuff. But that was good feed for cows in the winter, that chaff. They liked the pea chaff. But when the thrasher would leave, underneath there’d be a big pile of weed seeds and some peas and so dad would just turn the pigs in there and we had to watch them so they didn’t go elsewhere. And my, if that wasn’t a teeth cracking sound. All those pigs eating hard peas at once. That was a job we had.
CB: So your dad was a farmer, did he do anything else?
NB: Nothing. That took all his time. At one time he traveled a little bit to sell farmers up this direction to grow seed peas. Tried to convince him to do it and I guess a lot of ' em 9
did ' cause it was a good money crop. That’s all I can remember him ever being away, ' cause he always had to be there to change the water, had to be there to do that. Talked about my siblings. My oldest brother was Deward. He was born over in Star Valley at Thane. No he was born at Lincoln just out of Idaho Falls ' cause mother had come down to be with her mother for the birth, so that's where he was born and he’s seventeen years older than me.
CB: That's quite an age difference.
NB: So I mostly remember him. He was married and then had lots of little nieces. He had five daughters in a row and finally got a boy, so that was his family. And then came Wanda, Wanda Louise. And she was born in August, had pneumonia in January and died. She was six months old about and that about broke my mother’s heart. She said it was... we were in such primitive circumstances you know. They didn't have much to do.
It was so hard to hold her during the nights, and the little thing struggling for breath, you know and couldn't breathe and she’d hold her while the little... the life went out of her. The breathing got shallower and shallower ' til it was finally quiet. That was so hard to watch that. Then the next was another little girl and her name was Irma, ten years older than me, and she’s all... we’ve always been close and she was like a second mother almost, I guess. And then the third one was Eldon, and he’s six years older than I was. And he had a struggle to live when he was little. He got they call it Quimsy. I don’t know what you call it nowadays, but he had big abscess in his throat and ears and they just had a midwife doctor and it was so bad the fever and the pain and everything. And let’s see, he must have been about one and a half or two years old. And so this lady doctor came and she said, “ We have to lance it to get rid of all that poison stuff that’s in there-- the infection.” So she proceeded to do that and the scalpel slipped and she made a notch in his jugular vein and the blood just spurted and that was a horrible thing. How do you get the blood stopped? And so my dad was really resourceful. He went and grabbed a handful of flour and just put it right on that and held it ' til the blood coagulated and stopped and saved his life.
CB: Boy, I never would have thought of something like that.
NB: No you’d never think about it, but they just had to do with what they had. And then it wasn’t too long after that that they left Wyoming and moved down to take this job at the ranch, and I don’t know how long they were at the ranch. I was born there, but Dona wasn’t, so they must have been there only a year or a year and a half ' til they moved to the farm where I was raised. But anyway, Eldon was just over six years old and he fell off the horse and had a concussion and he was in a coma for three days and they didn't know if he'd ever live. And that was a horrible thing for him to live through too. And then when he was in his teens he got this nervous, nerve disorder. They called it St. Vida’s dance where he couldn't sit still... like that all the time. And so the doctor prescribed this medicine that would help, but it was so many drops a day for so long a time and unbeknownst to mother, she was givin' him too much until the doctor realized what was happening. So she could have killed him and that was a horrible thing, so he had a hard time living. And then, when he was in his, I don't know, late teens I guess, 10
well not too late ' cause he did go on a mission. He was prone to have appendicitis attacks. Just terrible stomachache and sore side, [ a] lot like Candice got, er... Allison [ granddaughter] got so sick you know. And so they thought he’d get better like you usually do. We'll wait and we'll see and... Dad always told the story of [ how] he was down changing the water in the field at the bottom of the field and all of a sudden something said to him as plain as day, “ Get that boy to the doctor.” And he didn't think too much of it. Went on digging the dirt. Said again, “ Get that boy to the hospital,” so then he realized he's got to do something. He got on his saddle horse and rode up to the house fast as he could, told mother, “ We’ve got to take him to Idaho Falls to the hospital and the doctor.” When he looked at Eldon and what was the matter he says, “ Why did you bring me a dead boy?" So it had ruptured and he was really sick really bad for quite a long time, ' cause it had to drain and get all of that terrible stuff out of him, so there was another time that he almost lost his life. Aand then after Eldon, then it was me, and then after me in two years was Dona. Nowadays she likes to be called Donalue.
CB: Is that her middle name?
NB: Her name was Lou after Louise and my grandma was called Lou. Anyway, and after Dona and six years was Barbara, Barbara Delaine. And she’s been a sweet little sister. She had a hard time getting in this life too. Mother was pregnant with her and she had got a spider bite. Nowadays it would probably have been a brown recluse spider or something, but it really poisoned mother, bit her on her leg and it all had abscesses, great big terrible sores all on her thigh. And she had to be right in bed for two months or longer and she was terribly ill, and being pregnant too. And as the little kid, I was six years old and my aunt from Rexburg came down to help nurse her better, and grandma and my dad were there steady. And there was a time each day when they’d have a big kettle of boiling water on the stove and grandma and dad would have to wring towels out of that boiling hot water and then do like this to cool it down and then put the hot packs on those sores to bring them to a head so they’d drain. And at night, why we’d kneel around her bed and they had to just plead with Heavenly Father to let her live to have this new little baby and to raise the little girls they had now. Irma had to quit school. She was a junior in high school ' cause she had to quit to help out, and they’d put big poultices on her leg of stuff. Well, like prickly pear poultices to bring that stuff out and the doctor would come every other day and he’d lance those big sores and mother said that the pain was so terrific all the time. And she knew she had to survive for this new little baby, but the one night the family was having supper, and of course she was in bed in the bedroom, and mother was really a spiritual lady. She did lots of silent praying. That’s what she was doing and she saw her own father who had been dead for quite a few years come to the door of the bedroom and she raised right up and said, “ I’ll go with you pa.” And he just shook his head no. So she did slowly get better and Barbara was born in May. Mother had been in bed since March. And she made it through and she’d show us that leg just all pitted. Great big holes in her leg, but that was quite an experience.
CB: What things do you remember about your mother? What did she look like?
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NB: She was a beautiful lady. For a long time she dyed her hair and she decided... well it’s a family, genetic thing, this gray hair early thing. My grandma said she had gray hairs when she was seventeen. But mother dyed her hair and she decided not to anymore and that was quite a blow to her pride to go through that pinto stage she said. Part of it one color and part of it another color. But she was a heavier lady, fairly tall and just a sweet personality, good to everybody. She loved everybody. Marvelous cook and she wasn’t fancy. She liked nice things, but we were fairly poor. We didn’t have a whole lot of money, a whole lot of nice things. I can, when I think about it, I can still remember how her hands felt when she’d brush my hair, brush my hair and brush it, and her two sisters always says, " Louis, how do you get those girls' hair so shiny and pretty?" and mother says, " well we just wash ' em in laundry soap" And those days laundry soap was made with pig fat and lye So anyway, that's how she said it that I can still feel. And her favorite soap was Palmolive and she did have beautiful skin. Didn't use much. No makeup and no special creams or anything. That’s mainly what I remember about her, just always there to help and to talk to. And she died just a month after her eightieth birthday. We had open house for her at her little apartment in Rigby and she had a heart attack. She did come up with Barbara when we just had moved in here. And she came up to see the house and had dinner with us and that was to be her bedroom, this little one right here. That's why it's blue, ' cause she loved blue and she went home with Barbara, and in the middle of the night she had this heart attack and passed away. Dad had been gone for seven years.
CB: What do you remember about your father?
NB: Well he was quite strict, and yet his motto was you know, “ you correct ' em and afterwards you show forth more love all the time.” And that was harder on us than the being mad at us for doing something. But he’d always have his arms around us and tell us what we meant to him. And he was a religious man. He’d been on a mission to the central states, put himself on a mission by herding sheep and helping build with his father and brothers, contractor to do the cement stuff in a house. And on his mission he had a lot of adventures that he always talked to us about that we got a kick out of and I have a letter someplace in my things that his bishop in Wyoming had written. The mission president where dad was had written to the bishop that Elder Hebdon was out of money. “ Can you ask people in your ward to contribute?” So he only had six months left to contribute, so he can stay on his mission and I guess they must have raised some money. But anyway, dad had to not proselyte as much and get a job to make some money to keep himself out there some more. Dad had a nice singing voice and he could chord on the piano and he had a guitar. I wish he'd taught us to play the guitar, but he didn’t. We’d just fool around with it you know, when we were growing up. But anyway, the job was in a music store demonstrating the songs that people wanted to... they'd come in and see something. “ Well what does this sound like,” and so it was Elder Hebdon to play and sing it for them. So they'd do it and that's how he made his money and was able to finish his mission. And then, like I said, he came home and the bishop's daughter had waited for him and they were married. They went to the Logan Temple from Star Valley, Wyoming, they and another couple. That took three days. Their wedding date’s the 13th of December, so they went through snow with team and horses and they’d stop along the 12
way at different people’s homes for the night. Quite an adventure for ' em to do that, but we always went to church. That was just... my earliest memories is... I must have been about three standing on the church bench between mother and dad and they're singing the “ Spirit of God like a fire is burning” and I’d look at one and look at the other one and Donalue was just little. They'd have to hold her, but those days we always stood up to sing, so all the Sunday school songs... Sacrament meeting was at 7 o’clock at night, and in the winter we'd go by sleigh and people at two miles up, they knew that Brother Hebdon would be along with the sleigh. You could ride to church if you wanted to, so he’d pick up people all the way along and bring ' em home too. And we'd get cold and we'd get out and run behind to stir up your blood and get warm a little bit. That's happy memories. I always had straight hair and there was a lady in town, Emma Lee was her name, and she was the barber, she cut the kids’ hair. It was never a bowl cut for me, you know, you put the bowl on their head and then you cut around it. Mine, I always had it parted on the side like it is now, but it was straight and just down like that, just straight. And I had my first permanent wave. Got to go to Excelsis beauty school in Idaho Falls . I was eleven and you’re hooked up to a big machine with your hair all in these rods and you're connected to this machine. ' Bout scared me to death. What if I'd have to run outta here and take the machine with me? But I was just thrilled and happy to have curls in my hair ' cause Barbara had a natural curl and always had ringlets and pretty hair. That was another job I got to do, was put her hair in rags. You wrap her hair around... around a rag and then the rag goes on around the hair again and then you tie it at the top. When it's dry you just pull the rag out and there’s a nice ringlet. So that was fun to do. A lot of things I had to help with her. Mother couldn't nurse her, so we had to boil the milk and put some syrup in it to make a formula for her to have a bottle. And just plain tend her. Change her diapers and the whole bit.
CB: Do you remember anything particular what it was like growing up during the Depression? How old were you when that happened?
NB: I was ten I guess. And you know I never realized that times were so hard because we had so many things to do and always had plenty of food and plenty of work to do. And I guess the only inkling was dad could go to town when it was time to haul the hay. He could go to town and get men to help for a dollar a day. They'd come out and work in the hay. They'd get their dinner and a dollar a day and come out and help all the day, and then as many days as it took. The same way when the thrashers would come. They'd, some of them would be there. But dad was really strict. It was hot weather, you know, in June. The first crop of hay you're putting up and that's hot, and so we brought some two or three guys out. You need one on each side to pitch it on and I was old enough to load the wagon, spread it around on the wagon and tromp it down, and then more hay up there. But anyway, this one guy took his shirt off. It was so hot and he was sweaty you know, and when dad came out to get the wagonload of hay he saw that guy and he fired him. He says, " You don’t take your clothes off in front of my daughter" and sent him back to town. And we always had to have be covered, well covered in our swimming suits you know, he was really... and I'm glad. That was fine. We were taught to be modest and respect our bodies just by the way he did and what he said to us. Like I said, we sold eggs and we sold cream up to Rigby and raised pigs to sell. Pigs were an adventure. We 13
had to herd ' em and watch out for ' em all the darn time. But that’s the meat that we had, was pork. And so in the fall when it’d come time to kill the pig, we had to haul water and we heated it in a great big barrel. It had to be quite boiling hot, and so us kids would always hide ourselves to cut out the pig’s screams when it was caught you know and then he'd have to slit its throat, and it’d bleed and everything, but then he'd have a some kind of a little harness that he’d put in its back feet. And then they had to lift it up and put it in that boiling water, slosh it around, slosh it around. And then he'd bring it out on a slab... slab of wood and we all got to help get the hair off the pig. It was all loosened you know, and you just had a scraper. You'd scrape and that pig'd turn out to be really white. Get the hair all off. Then he’d hoist it with this harness up again so it was up higher and then he’d slit it clear from its throat clear down its back legs and that'd all open up and all the entrails would fall out. And that was quite a sight. Just part of the process, but always saved the liver and the heart.
CB: Did your family have any fun traditions that you remember?
NB: Oh, with my mother's family every year we'd have a family reunion. Many, many times it was at Rexburg Porter Park. Mother’s sisters from Seattle would come with their families, and another sister from Montpelier, and of course dear little grandma and her second husband. That’s the only grandpa I ever knew. My grandpa Butterworth was killed in an accident while he was working for this Woods Livestock Ranch out to... it'd be Terreton country out that way where they had a... that's where the railroad came to. And they’d have to meet the train for different things over there. And anyway, he'd haul the load of grain to the train and the train how it’d back up and go forward and all the noises it made and it scared the team of horses. So he was right there. So he reached out to calm ' em down and talk to ' em, and boy, they just gave a leap and knocked him down and he was run over by the team and by that load of grain and all mashed. So they put him on the train in the caboose and took him right to Idaho Falls to the hospital, but he died later ' cause it was just too intensive injuries to save his life. So a couple of years after he died, why it was the influenza epidemic that was killin' so many people, and this old sheep man, a guy that had quite a family and he lived in Ucon, courted my grandma and so she married him, the second husband to help raise his kids and to finish raising hers. So it was, and so he was always Grandpa Byron. And that's the only grandpa I ever knew and he was just part of the family and his kids were special to us too. He’s related to these O. K. stores, the Byrums that run those stores in Rigby and Rexburg. He was the grandpa. So is there another question, or did I answer that one?
CB: No, you did. Who were some of your friends growing up? What kind of things did you do together?
NB: Well there was seven of us girls that were about... that were in the same grade. So we called us the seven SKs, seven silly kids. So we’d go on bicycle trips together on Easter out north of Rigby to the dry bed, that place that's out there, and things like that. And sometimes stay at each others houses overnight and we were just pretty good friends, but the main one I guess was the neighbor across the road from where we lived. And her name was Rose Campbell and she's the one that we always did the reader's 14
digest words together. She’s married a fellow from Rigby and still lives down there, and we, well we didn’t lose track of each other. We just didn’t communicate much since we were married. Saw her a few times at the temple, ' cause they worked in the baptism part, so I'd see her, but... Oh we’d play together when we’d have the thrashers you know, that big straw stack that always came out. We'd move some of that straw in the... and make a playhouse you know, you make the outline and then you make different rooms with the straw and play in that. Her mother was really good to put up with us kids. And then the... we'd play one whole cat from their front porch to the corner of their pasture and you'd hit the ball you know, and try to run back to the corner and back to the porch before they get the ball and that was a fun game. We did that. We ran lots of races together and just in the winter dad’d put up the snow flint fence out in the field, so we had huge drifts. That's so it wouldn't drift in our farmyard. So we had huge drifts and we’d dig in them and make snow caves and we’d run and play on those drifts like... I don't know if kids ever do anything like that, but too... there was a ditch there that had enough water in it and it'd freeze and so it always had ice and we'd run and slide, run and slide on that, on the ice. So we had a good time together and swim in the canal in the summer. Swim after a fashion. I could always...
RB: Snow fence you used to raise ' em up, get so much snow behind ' em and raise ' em up so that it'd just keep drifting. They had drifts there, twenty feet deep behind ' em.
NB: Yeah, big... big high drifts. Nowadays you see a snow fence it’s just there and pretty soon it's covered with snow. But you gotta raise it up and the snow will keep piling up in a big drift. But we did have good neighbors.
RB: Did you ever wonder why I loved her? She sure has been a precious...
NB: Well.
RB: ... precious lady to me.
NB: Ok, what comes next?
CB: Did your family ever go on any vacations at all?
NB: No. We did good to get to the family reunion, and then we always had to leave early because there was cows to be milked and the water to change and we just accepted that and... that's just our life. Lots of our cousins got to do a lot of fun things, but once in awhile we’d go back over to Thane and visit dad’s brother Will that still lived there on the old farm. And that was always neat ' cause he had two sons that were close to our ages and... and they had horses we could ride and it was... But that’s as near as we got and so we watched the Palisades dam bein' built and all those beautiful farms being covered up with water when it... when it was done ' cause that was on the way over to Star Valley.
CB: Did you participate in any activities when you were in high school, outside of school? 15
NB: Well, just the gym classes, and that always turned into field games you know, races to run and softball to play, and...
CB: Did you do that with the boys as well or was it just divided?
NB: No, it was divided and in high school we had seminary, three years of seminary. And that was always interesting to go over and do that.
CB: What were um, some of the fads or fashions in high school that were maybe popular?
NB: Well, if there was any I didn’t really participate. The one thing I remember about Jr. High was this one friend. Her dad was the butcher in the grocery store in town and uptown, and so she invited me to stay overnight one time. Oh that was the best supper ' cause we had steak and that was a special, beef steak was special ' cause we just had pork and chicken. But she was able to buy the book " Gone with the Wind" when it was new and first came out. Yeah, it must have been about three inches thick, a great big book and I envied her, that book. I wanted to read that story so bad. I never did get to borrow her book or anything like that, but I bought my own paperback book after I was married a long time.
CB: Did you enjoy it?
NB: Finally got to read the book. I liked the story, yes, it was good. And of course we got the video of it and the movie. We went to see the movie.
CB: Did you um, did they have any clubs at that time that you might have participated in?
NB: Not until I, not until I got in Ricks and then it was... We had to go to an afternoon tea while they inspected us you know, all the freshman girls.
CB: What was that like?
NB: That was scary and, and you know, they'd interview... they'd talk to you and all that and then make their choices. One was called the Alpha Theta and the other one was the Purple Keys. And the purple key one had the well- off Rexburg girls. Their dads had stores or something you know, but anyway, I didn't get in any of them... either one of those, but as time went on I was always in the choir and in the operettas... the music productions and all of that that they had. And anyway, I was asked... they were forming a new club, Lamba Delta Sigma that was just for plain people. And so I joined that and we had elections and I was elected president of that, and I tell you the next year the Alpha Thetas and the Purple Keys was after me in no time, but that was a fun experience. I’d never been a leader, never did that, but we did some fun things... put on a neat assembly and... 16
CB: What's that? Oh assembly, just an assembly.
NB: Yeah Just a special program that our club did for the student body and that turned out ok and... But I loved the operettas, H. M. S. Pinafore. I was in that... one of the peasant girls. That was a fun thing. We, the girl's chorus... the glee, well it was mixed chorus. We sang at the groundbreaking for the Idaho Falls temple and that was a special thing. So yeah, I guess I participated and was in some of the plays, just walk on parts you know, just... Although, when I was a junior in High School, this speech teacher chose me to be the lead in the school play... three act school play, and so we had practices every night after school for quite awhile. But there was nobody to come pick me up or take me home. I had to walk home after practice.
CB: How far away?
NB: Two and a half miles. It was lots of times in the dark, but I didn’t care. I thought that was a neat experience. Scary, but fun.
CB: Do you remember your first date?
NB: Oh, I can’t. I didn’t date very much Candice, not until grandpa Ray came along. I went a time or two with Donalue’s husband Jack Hart. He had a good friend, Wayne Green was his name. I went with him a time or two ' cause it was double date you know, with Dona and Jack and... Dona was a cheerleader and from Rigby school and her... Jack was the one of the star players on the basketball team at Midway, which was a school further west, so that's how they got together. So they... so his friends were my friends too I guess, but we just went to a movie uptown. Two theaters in Rigby, the Royal Theater and the Gym Theater. Dad would not let us go to a show on Sunday, and that's when all the special movies were.
CB: How much did it cost to go to the movie?
NB: Well then it was about 75 cents, but when we were growing up that was our Family Home Evening on Saturday nights. We’d go to the movie up to Rigby. We'd hurry like heck to get through with all the chores and never did know for sure if we could go. Then pretty soon dad would come in. " Well if we're going to the show you gotta get ready." That was what he always said, and so did we rush and get in there. And I never smell popcorn cooking but what I don’t think of those Saturday nights at the show house where they sold the popcorn. And one exciting thing, they had a drawing every so often. You’d get a ticket you know and then they'd have a big barrel full of tickets and you got a prize if they happened to draw your ticket number out, and by heck they drawed mine one Saturday night. Twenty- five dollars. I had to go up on the stage and receive the money. And so when the show was over I took my family to the Dill Pickle Inn and we all had hamburgers and then went home. I paid for it.
CB: Do you remember any of the movies that you saw? 17
NB: Oh, it was always a cowboy show, " Hopalong Cassidy" or " Tex Ritter," somebody like that. Always a cowboy show and uh... serial, something that went from week to week. And then a main attraction of some kind and I don’t remember those too good, but it was an exciting thing to go to the show, and sometimes... Once in awhile dad would let us take the horse, the saddle horse and we could ride uptown and tie the horse to the billboard across the road from the theater, and we’d go into the show and then come out and ride home. I asked Dona the other day if she remembered that and she couldn't. Well that was such an exciting thing I thought sure she’d remember that. Don't remember Barbara being, but it was, but Dona and I did all stuff together you know, just sisters two years apart. We just did it, but... No, I can’t remember the names of the movies, but it was special. But that was our Family Home Evening, go to the show on Saturday night. And even when my brother was, Eldon,
RB: We were about shopping grain with Dona and Dona going...
NB: Well, anyway when Eldon was in the army that's what he wrote home, that he'll always remember, the shows on Saturday night.
CB: Um, when you were I guess in high school, did you have any ambitions or dreams for the future?
NB: Oh, I always wanted to go to college, wanted to go up to Ricks so I could be a teacher, always had that in the back of my mind. And tuition was seventy- five dollars a semester, so dad took me up before semester started in the September and we talked to the president of the college and got me a job working for one of the... well it was the speech professor Catmull, so I helped him and made some money to help with that, paying for that. And I stayed with my aunt and uncle, mother's sister and her husband and this is where my cousin Leabel comes in. She was their daughter and I lived with them for two years up there. There's on second east, right about where the Maverick is now, was their home. So I walked that street times each day for a whole two years, but I'd usually catch a ride home over the weekend to get my laundry done and stuff like... like that, although I did help Aunt Belle quite a bit with the ironing.
RB: Tell her about our first date.
NB: Well she's coming to that.
CB: Um, what was your favorite part of college life?
NB: Oh the friends I had, some really nice, new people that I'd never ever known before. And that... some of ' em that helped me get registered ' cause that was such a conundrum. I know it's different nowadays, but it seemed like it was hard then, and you had to go check with each teacher to see if you could get in their class and all of that kind of stuff. But just the whole routine I enjoyed, liked it. It was a student body of two- hundred and something was all. So there was... it was friendly and everybody spoke to everybody and 18
that's where I first saw Ray was... He was going to some class and I was going to another. I thought, " My, that’s really a cute boy." He had a pretty green sweater on, but lo and behold, he was on crutches so I just, " Oh, wonder what happened to him?"
CB: So how did you finally meet him?
NB: I... we had to make... do a big research paper for English like you always do, so I was... My paper was on women in aviation, and so I was up in the library, which was the second story up in the Spori building. I went up there to do some research and... some of the notes I’d taken. Had to study always up there too, and so I had to walk in that door and go clear across the study hall to get to the library where the books were that I was gonna use, and here come this guy up to me. I didn’t know what his name was or anything. He just... kinda clicked I guess and he came over and said... passed the time of day I'm sure. I don't think he just blurted out, " do you want to go to the school play with me?" But anyway, we wound up going to the school play and I don’t remember the school play’s name at all nowadays, but he came and got me and we did and I think we had a treat at Evans’s Ice Cream, which was right across the road from Aunt Belle’s and then that was the first date.
CB: How long did you date for?
NB: Well that was in the spring and of course I graduated and that spring and then got the job teaching down to Iona, but I didn’t hear another word from him. I... to return the favor I asked him to go to the Clubs Dance and he said no, so I had to scurry around and find another somebody to take me to it ' cause I had a part on the program. I had to go to the dance. It was a banquet and dance.
RB: I didn't know how to dance.
NB: And so, in July, why he’d called to see if I’d like to go with him to... he had to go meet the camp jack for the sheepherder stuff, wanted to know if I’d go with him up to do that, so I did. And then just several other dates. We went one time with another couple up to Island Park and took a picnic... had a picnic and looked at the scenery. That was fun. So, and then after school started and I was down to Iona teaching, why, the war was on and gas was rationed. Somehow he saved up so he could come every Sunday and pick me up at home there at Rigby and we'd go to Idaho Falls to the movie and sometimes eat and then back, take me back to Iona and then he'd take off up the highway home.
CB: Where was he from?
NB: He lived here at Teton, so he had to come clear back up. And then during the week, why we'd write each other a letter, so that’s how we got to know each other better all the time, was through the letters I think, and just see each other once a week. So, by Christmastime we were engaged, and...
CB: How did he propose to you? 19
NB: He says, " Will you take a ring?" And I, that was... He always kids me about that he had to talk me into it, but he didn’t really. I just hadn't had marriage and all that on my mind. We were just having a good time and... So that was really a surprise, so I couldn’t answer him right that minute. He knew I’d say yes.
CB: What age were you when you got married?
RB: But she didn't...
NB: I didn't what?
RB: Say yes.
NB: Well I didn't, not that same night, but the next time. Uh, I turned twenty in May and we were married in June, so I was just twenty, but see he didn’t turn twenty until October, so he was nineteen and I was twenty when we got married. Went to Salt Lake to the temple, ' cause the Idaho Falls wasn't finished.
RB: The reason we went to Salt Lake was ' cause the Idaho Falls temple wasn't finished.
NB: So anyway.
CB: Tell me about your wedding day. Did you go on a honeymoon?
NB: Well the wedding day... Our appointment to be at the temple wasn’t until five o’clock in the evening ' cause they had a whole lot all during the day, so we just killed that day. I had to press my wedding dress. We stayed with... we were at Ray’s great aunt’s place. It was his mother's aunt in Salt Lake that we were there and I pressed the wedding dress and we just sat around and visited with the relatives down there ' til it was time to go to the temple. We went down a day early ' cause we had to get a license, marriage license in Utah and we stayed in a motel that night. I slept with his mother. He slept with his dad, so that's how that worked out but that was really scary, all... everything different. But we were couple number one in that session, so had a sister in law, DeWard’s wife that was there with us and she knew all the ropes and could help me. I don’t know what happened to Ray. He was there at the right time. And the honeymoon was, I don't know exactly how Ray's parents got back home, but we had the car and we went on down to Utah where... on down in Utah to Salem where DeWard lived and we stayed there a night and slept on the back of a truck. She fixed a nice bed outside there ' cause it was the end of June and really warm weather. And then we went to American Fork, and that's where Irma lived, and so we were there and then we came back on up to Idaho Falls, and the... my family reunion was goin' on In Tautphaus Park in Idaho Falls and so we stopped there and everybody got to meet Ray, and we had a nice picnic.
RB: I don't even remember that.
20
NB: We had a nice picnic dinner and then we came on up to my home in Rigby and I packed all my things and put ' em in the car and came up to Newdale at the ranch where we were, set up our home.
CB: What did your wedding dress look like?
NB: It was made by Eldon’s wife, Fontelle. She was quite a seamstress and she designed it and sewed it and made it for me and it was a silk dress. The skirt was quite... it wasn’t bouffant, but it was a lot of material in it, and the top of my dress was satin, white satin all gathered across the bodice, and it had long sleeves that were full to the elbow and then tight with buttons down.
CB: Do you still have it?
NB: Well I used to, and I’m not sure exactly where it is ' cause we gave away the trunk that it was in. It might be in the bottom of the cedar chest. I just haven’t seen it for a few years. I just need to check it out again.
CB: Um, I guess, kind of going back to when you were in college. You said you went to Ricks College?
NB: Mmm hmm.
CB: What did the campus look like when you attended there?
NB: Well there was the Spori building and then another big building that was the gym and some classrooms in it and a heating plant and that was it. Of course there was some buildings where kids lived. A few lived there, but mostly there was... the kids lived downtown in apartments up above the stores above. I don’t know what the name of the stores are now on the north side of Main Street. You see windows all up there. That was all apartments.
RB: JC Penney's.
NB: Yeah, Penney's was there and there was apartments all along there and on the other side too. And then the dorm was on College Avenue and a lot of my friends lived there. It was a boy’s dorm and a girl’s dorm, so there wasn't a whole lot on the campus. And I walked that every day up to school and then home for lunch and back up and then when school was out.
CB: What was your, um, favorite part of college life or things that you did for fun?
NB: Oh, I just, I really liked the walks because as, when I'd get off of Second East and go down to College Avenue then everybody was walking... all the kids and we’d all, you know, talk and laugh and get to know each other better all the whole year. And the 21
assemblies were really nice. Didn’t have exactly religious ones, but... like they do nowadays, but...
RB: Tell ' em I was going to Ricks too, but I was driving from home every day.
NB: Yeah, that's what he did.
CB: So you were studying to become a teacher, correct?
NB: Yeah, general education.
CB: And you taught elementary school after you graduated?
NB: Yeah, I taught in Iona, Idaho. That’s just east of Idaho Falls, that district. I taught twenty- two sixth graders. I taught ' em, taught everything you know: English, Math, Reading, and the highlight of that year was we read about Robin Hood so we... in class made up a play…. there you go, I’m finally using… and all the kids had their two cents worth and everything and then we chose a cast, and the boys brought in trees for the forest and we had a play and I went upstairs and invited the eighth graders and seventh graders to come and see our play, and that was fantastic. Those kids were so good and it was really fun.
CB: How long did you teach for?
NB: Just that one year.
CB: Did you teach after you got married?
NB: Nope. The school board man up to Newdale came out and talked to me and asked if I’d like to teach in Newdale, but Grandpa [ in reference to her husband] says, " You don't need to. I'm gonna make the living in this family," and that was it. So, so it's ok. I sub... I uh, was a teacher’s aide for about six months when Julie was in second grade and I was teacher’s aide in the first grade and then Grandma Baker got really sick and needed help and so I had to bow out of that and not do it anymore ' cause I needed to help her.
CB: So after you got married, what were some of the surprises you encountered or challenges of starting your life together?
NB: Cooking on a wood stove and no electricity, no phone or anything up there, hauling the water in and out. I was used to it of course from growing up days so it didn't seem a horrible thing, but we went without electricity. We had a gas lantern for the light and it was a challenge to make the bread and get it baked decent in a wood stove oven, to know how hot to have it you know, to make it all turn out right, to bake a cake or anything.
CB: What had you cooked on before?
22
NB: Well I hadn't done much cooking. I didn't do much cooking. Not at aunt Belle’s at all. Just did things like sandwiches and salad or something she’d let me do, but to cook on the stove... and of course that's what we had at home and mother was the cook. So that was, to learn how to do that and to be on my own and do the washing. Had a scrubbin' board, so had to scrub on the board and the hardest part of doing that was wringing them out. Wrists would get so tired, hard, and doing that in the winter was something else.
CB: Ok, go ahead, you were talking about the laundry.
NB: Yeah, built me a nice clothesline, so I’d hang the sheets and his white shirt and stuff out on the clothesline in the winter and they’d freeze stiff as a board. You'd have to bring them in and you'd be surprised how near dry they were. I had a wooden rack that I draped ' em on at night and they was all nice and dry and smelled so good. Fold ' em up and put ' em away. We had a big boiler that we’d have on the stove to heat the water to... to wash with.
RB: Had a reservoir on the side of the stove.
NB: Yeah, to use when you needed warm water to wash your hands or somethin'. And we had a nice bucket on the... we had a washstand that had a enamel basin that we washed our hands in and on the side of that was a bucket with water to drink, so... and we had to walk quite a ways to the outdoor bathroom, outdoor privy we called it. Had to dig through the snow and make a path to get out there. Had a nice well, good well water. That was ok. And in the summer I had to have some flowers and so there was a, kind of a rock formation right out the kitchen door, so Ray put some more dirt on it and around it and I'd plant petunias in there, the seeds. Didn't do plants, you had to plant seeds. So I always had a colorful bed of petunias-- loved ' em, and a postage size lawn ' cause I needed a little bit of green right there.
CB: Where did you live when you first got married?
NB: That was out to the Hog Hollow ranch. The little gray house is still standing out there where we lived for nine years.
CB: What kind of work did your husband do?
NB: He was a farmer, potato farmer, grain farmer, hay, hay, grain, and ran the sheep... herd of sheep for his mother in the winter. That’s what he did, fed the sheep with the hay that he grew. Hauled water to ' em from the well at our place and we were happy as clams it seemed. Just fine.
CB: Did you ever help him on the... with the farm work?
NB: Well as much as I could, I'd help. I’d always ride with him on that great big water tank to water the sheep. We'd go over on a muddy road and then haulin' hay sometimes I’d drive the truck to pick up the bales and we’d always go together to change the water 23
at night. And he’d... I'd carry the shovel and he'd carry whoever was the baby. For Wayne for three years he went with us to do that, and then it was Marsha. I didn’t do any tractor work, so I got out of that, but I always rode the combine when we harvested potatoes, but that was long after we’d moved down to Teton. Wayne had started school and so we wanted him to go to Teton school, so for the first two and a half months, why we had to meet the school bus way up there on the corner and he'd ride the bus down in Teton and I'd meet him when school was out.
CB: Um, when you first got married, how did you see your role in the relationship?
NB: A helpmate.
CB: A helpmate? How did you divide up the responsibilities?
NB: Well, you, like the usual way you know. I did the housework, the cooking and he tended the farm and did all of that part, but being as my math skills weren’t too wonderful I'd ask him please if he'd do the financial part and he has ever since. Been just fine. It’s worked ok, and I guess we got along fine. We didn’t have any big blowups that I can remember.
CB: Did you ever at any time when you were married do any kind of work outside of the home?
NB: No, just... just that one few months as a teacher’s aide. That was all, I didn’t... All my friends were goin' back to work so they'd get a big Social Security thing, but I was content raising a family and doin' all the house things that I enjoy doing, and the garden you know. I’d take care of the garden and flowers.
CB: Um, what was it like uh, during the War?
NB: The second World War was a bad thing. The draft was especially bad you know. They had to have more men all the time ' cause they were fightin' two fronts, Germany as well as Japan. After Japan did that in Pearl Harbor, went to war there and lots of Ray’s cousins were drafted into the army and had to go overseas, but Ray’s mother was a widow and she had to have help on the farm and to run that herd of sheep and so he kept getting deferred. He'd be deferred that he was needed at home. He had to help raise food for the troops I guess you might say, and uh, we'd been married... I was expecting Wayne and he finally... his number came up and he had to go to Pocatello for his physical and uh, he never did have to go ' cause the war ended, but uh, my brother Eldon he'd been on his mission and come home and married a nice girl and they'd had a sweet little baby boy and he was drafted. And that was really hard on dad ' cause he was gettin' older and slower and ne'er he had a... was going to turn the farm over to Eldon to run, but Eldon had to go to basic training back east someplace and he was there for a long time learnin' how to be a soldier and then he got a leave to come home for two weeks before he was shipped overseas. And it was all secret... hush, hush. Had no idea which overseas he had to go to. That turned out to be for the Japanese war, and so it was the first part of April of ' 45 that 24
they finally knew that he was going to Okinawa. You’ve heard that name I’m sure and in those landing boats that had to... full of the soldiers that had to go up and land and then run, run, run to get a foothold on the island. But anyway, he was wounded there. It was a mortar shell that hit and exploded and we heard later that it blew his leg off and so he died the next day from loss of blood. And so it was a horrific thing for my parents. They just couldn't hardly adjust to why he had to be taken like that, but here again my dad’s insight and spirituality part came forth, because during the night of that night when... when Eldon was hurt, well, during the day I guess. Anyway, dad came up out of a sound sleep so he, as he told it, it must have been that night. He came right straight up out of bed in a sound sleep and he said, " Eldon’s been hit." And of course mother, she relied a lot on what he'd say. He says, " Eldon was right there," and he said, " Oh dad, I’m hit." And of course then he died the next day. But they knew beforehand that he wasn’t gonna come home, so he was first buried there and then later on they had an option to bring him home, so they did, they brought him and he’s buried down in the Rigby cemetery and his wife went on to get married again and the new husband raised the little boy. That’s randy, his name. He lives down in Utah. We don’t see very much of him ' cause he just wasn't close to Eldon's family at all ' cause she went on and got the rest of her education and was a drama and speech teacher down to BYU and over the dance part of the curriculum. So that’s... that's how Eldon turned out.
CB: What feelings uh, did you experience when your husband’s draft number was called?
NB: Fear, fear that he’d... that he'd have to go and something might happen to him, he might not come back, and yet you knew that that's what had to happen. Everybody had to do their part, and I was, you know... we were just waiting to hear from the draft board when he'd... when he would have to go after he got his physical, ' cause he passed 1A. Yeah, it was scary. Jack Hart, Dona’s husband went in the navy. He chose to go in the navy when he had to go, so she spent time when he was in San Diego in training, spent time with him there. Of course Barbara was younger. She didn’t have that. But it was really hard on my parents to lose... to lose their son that was gonna to be the farmer, take over the farm. Mother was so bitter. She told us she couldn't even pray for months afterwards. " You don't listen anyway," she said. " Why pray?" And yet that would be her big comfort if she would have, but they got through it ok and remembered the good times when he was on his mission and the good that he did.
CB: What was um, life like back at home during the war? The conditions on the home front I guess...
NB: Well, we were rationed. We could only have one pair of shoes. Gas was rationed. Farmers could get it for their farm work and we'd saved up coupons so we could get enough to take a couple of five gallon cans I think in the back of our car and went up to Yellowstone Park on a little trip, on rationed gas. And what else? Sugar, sugar was rationed… could only have so much. Don't remember quite the details now, but people had to go without things and so many women went to work then building planes and stuff like that. It wasn’t right around here, but you heard of it, you know, going on. And 25
always in the paper the lists of those that had been killed in action in the county papers. Teton lost several. My hometown Rigby lost a lot, just a lot of the young men. Kids that I’d graduated high school with were gone in it, and it was just very somber and all you could do was hope and pray that it'd soon be over with. And after the atomic bomb was dropped then it didn't take long to wind it up. Had to kill lots and lots of people to save a few more in our country.
CB: Do you remember where you were or what you were doing when you heard that the war was over?
NB: Oh dear, I think I was just at home and it seemed like I was repainting the bedroom. It was painted with Kim tone it was called. It was just a flat paint. I was repainting and had the radio on and it said the bomb had been dropped, you know... and then as the days went on they signed the treaty and everything, but it was a good thing to have that done with.
CB: After you were married, uh, how many children did you have?
NB: Well, we didn’t have a baby for a year, didn’t get pregnant for a year, and then we had Wayne. No, we had Cheryl. I forget her, a dear little sweet baby girl. I don’t know what brought on that early labor. She wasn't due until the first of March, and this was the second of January I began to have some pains. And when he took me to the doctor in Rexburg, and of course he examined me and checked me and everything. He said, " well you better stay in town just in case this doesn’t stop." And it was the maternity up close to the college, the maternity home. It was just a... one of those great big houses made into a... well the front room had four or five beds in for the new mothers, had the kitchen and the nurse lady that was the head of it, had a cook. So I had to go there and go to bed with my feet propped up to try and stop the pains and they didn’t stop. And it was about two in the morning when my water broke and so she hurried and got the doctor up there and the baby came, and she was just too early. Her lungs weren’t formed enough, but they put her in a little bassinet thing they had in the kitchen where it was warm and she had to have oxygen and they'd... in those days you couldn’t get up. I needed to get up and be out there and hold her little hand and be with her, but they said, " No, you can’t do that." Course I never was a pusher or I’d have said I’m going to and that’s that. So I didn't see her and she lived until the fifth and then died ' cause she, you know, just... nowadays. She was four pounds. She... nowadays she’d have lived and just went sailin' along no problems, but at that time she didn’t make it. So I had to be in bed in the maternity home when they had her little funeral, and such a beautiful little baby. Ray’s sister Ruth had a beautiful embroidered little dress that she gave us to bury her in. That was hard to lay there and all the mothers, they'd bring the new babies to the mothers to nurse and here I was overflowing with milk and no baby, so when the ten days was up that I had to stay there, I went down to my folk’s for a day or two just to be with somebody, ' cause he was busy with the sheep. And Dona was there. Donalue had just had her new baby and she was three. And I just couldn’t take it anymore, so I had ray come get me and take me home and I was careful for a week, you know, and got better. And then after Cheryl came Wayne, and Wayne R., his middle name was Ray but we just put the R. And then 26
came Marsha, and she’s just Marsha, no middle name. And then came Max, and his middle name was Hebdon, my maiden name, but it's just H. And after him came your dad Philip and we call him Phil, and if we'd had any sense we'd have named him Phil period. And his middle name is Ward after Grandpa Baker, Ray’s dad. But it’s Phil W. and then marc T., and his name was Truman after my dad and then we went five years, but in that five years I had two miscarriages, twin boys was one I was nearly five months pregnant and lost them and really had to have two pints of blood. I really hemorrhaged a lot. It was not a good experience. Still no babies, and then the next year I was pregnant again, and it was another little boy but that was only a four month miscarriage.
RB: Tell them about the Rh factor.
NB: Well, just before your dad was born, there was this worry about the Rh factor in your blood, O- or O+ or AB, and lo and behold I was positive and that was the wrong kind, so with... when Phil was born the doctor said we don’t know enough about this factor to know if it's gonna harm the baby or not, so he says, " I’d advise you not to nurse him because it could come through the mother’s milk." So he just bound me up tight and had to... he went right on the bottle, and he was a bottle baby ' til I weaned him at nine months and he hated milk ever after. Oh dear, but anyway, I still had the Rh factor. Ok, when Julie was born, there it was, the reaction that it was to be worried about. Anyway, Ray had to take that little baby down to Idaho Falls Hospital where they could check that blood every half an hour. She still has scars in her little heels where they do that, to check the blood, and it got clear up to the point where they’d have to replace all her blood and then it started to go down... a miracle. So she made it ok, but the day that she was to come home from the hospital, Ray came really early that morning up to get me. My father had died with a heart attack, so he just took me right down to Rigby to the sad occasion, and he went on and picked up Julie at the hospital down in the Falls and brought her back up. That was a horrendous experience too. We’d been and seen dad and mother on the eleventh and we stopped at Rexburg at the meat market and we bought fish. Dad really loved fish... salmon fish. Took it down and that’s what we fixed for dinner that day. He’d been out and fed the cows and everything but he just didn't feel good, and I visited with him in the bedroom and then before we left that day he gave me a special blessing for the baby to be born and that’s the last I saw of him ' cause then he passed away early in the morning on the 12th of March.
CB: So did you have all of your children in the hospital or the doctor's office?
NB: We had at that maternity home I told ya about... we had Cheryl, Wayne, Marsha, and Max. And then we decided to... to change doctors and went to Ashton to Dr. Kruger, was the doctor up there and they had a nice... He had a nice hospital in Ashton and that’s where your dad was born and Marc and Julie, and where I had to go when I had the miscarriages, ' cause after the miscarriages you have to have a procedure called a D and C to clean out everything and stop the bleeding, so I had that done there too.
CB: So what kind of medical care did you receive before and after?
27
NB: Really good. They had lots of practical nurses up to Ashton hospital, and of course the main lady in the maternity home was ' specially good you know. She could go ahead and do anything, and her name... last name was Baker too, Alice Baker was her name and she was a joker, you know. She could see the fun side of things and cheer you up when you was feeling blue, and I was for that one period. That helped, but really good care. I was sorry when the Ashton hospital had to quit, but Dr. Kruger got killed in a plane crash and he was max's doctor that helped him get better when he was so sick. When he...
RB: His name was Alex Kruger and that's how come Max named his boy... oldest boy Alex.
NB: After the doctor that saved his life. So it was pretty good medical care for the times. And some of the kids had to have their tonsils out... got through that ok. Your dad was only about two, just a little bitty boy when he had to have his out, but he just kept having such terrible sore throats and called it tonsillitis. High fevers, just plain sick. Those days they’d take the culprits out.
CB: Do you remember anything significant or special about when your children were born?
NB: Well, I told you about Cheryl. Um... the year that Marsha was born was a terrible snowstorm. It blizzarded every day for two weeks, and we were really snowed in, but I wasn't expecting her until April so that made no difference. But other ladies here in town that were expecting babies, some of ' em had to be taken on snowmachine out to the hospital and wait for the baby you know, and so that was different that year. But she was born the end of April and it was beautiful and we took Wayne down to my mother's to stay while I was in the maternity home. And then when Max came along, it, hmm, it was January again and cold and snowy and terrible, but my mother came home with us for a couple of days just to be with me. But Max was three weeks old. He caught cold and we didn't get him blessed ' til June because every fast day after that he was not the same sick, but he was under the weather and we just couldn't get him blessed. And then, when your Dad came along, I went up to the maternity hospital, Ashton Hospital, ' cause I'd changed doctors. Dr. Kruger didn't deliver babies anymore, and so we had a Dr. Parkinson in Ashton. And it was a false alarm in about the 4th of May and we went up there and waited and the pain stopped, so I came back home. So on the 12th of May when pains started again, I thought I'm not gonna to go up there and wait again, so I... Grandpa [ in reference to her husband] was up in the field gettin' the grain planted and I waited and waited and finally I decided, " well, I guess I better go get him," and so I did. And he wasn't excited and in a hurry. He didn't know how long I'd been havin' pains. So we to took off up to the hospital, and I tell you that was just nip and tuck when we got there. He was born in ten minutes after we got there. It was like the lady... the nurse said, " He just reached out and shook my hand." So that was special with him. And Marc, I went up, and again, it was a false alarm, but they kept me up there and in a few hours the pains started. They had to go get the doctor. He was out fishing on the Snake River, so they had to go get him so he'd be there. And then with Julie, why things went along pretty normal except the Rh factor. She has reaction to that, and Grandpa [ referring to her 28
husband] had to take her to the hospital in Idaho Falls to get her blood checked every half an hour ' cause with that they... if it got so high, then the antibodies were takin' over and they had to replace all her blood, put in new. But that never quite happened. It began to go down after awhile. And that was the morning that my father passed away, and he took me down to Rigby to their home and went on to Idaho Falls to get her from the hospital, so that was the difference. But in between uh... Marc and Julie I had two miscarriages. One was quite serious. I had... had to have two pints of blood ' cause I'd hemorrhaged so much, and uh... I was in the hospital at Ashton and the blood was drippin' in me and all of a sudden I began to just freeze. I was so cold, I was just shakin, and the doctor happened to be on his rounds and passed by the door and he could see me. I was covered clear up, and yet I was just so cold, and immediately he asked the nurse, " What kind of blood did you... what did you give her?" And she told him what was going on, and he says, " Don't do that again. That must have been a tobacco smoker that we got the blood from and she had a severe reaction to that," so that was exciting too. But that's what I remember about when they were... each one was born.
CB: What do you remember about being a young mother? Any experiences?
NB: Well, I just loved those babies so much. It was just really mostly enjoyable. And when they were born, why this one year... like my mother came up and stayed a couple of days just to help me or... I went down to Rigby to their place and stayed just to get through that first little bit when you began nursing and everything. But you usually had to stay in the hospital. First, with Wayne, it was ten days. With Cheryl, it was ten days, and they wouldn't even let me up with her, but with Wayne, I could get up and wander around a little. And then it... by the time your Dad was born and Marc, you only had to stay four to five days. But you could get up, you know, and shower and do like that, but you... they really watched out for ya. And then when I got home and we were living out on the ranch with Marsha, my... my Grandma came and stayed with me and kept up with washing the diapers and stuff. Told me, " You have to wash a few diapers every day... " hand wash," she said, " and then that keeps you caught up." But we'd always have a big line full of diapers. But that... uh, I'd... I wasn't able to nurse my babies for very long at a time, not like people do now for nine months and sometimes longer. I don't know what the big problem was, but it just wasn't nice rich milk. And with Marsha, she was such a cross baby. I said I found out what it was like to stay up all night with a crying baby. But she was about five months old when I started on the... with her on the bottle with formula and she quieted right down and was just a sweetheart after that. So the milk just wasn't... didn't satisfy. And with your... your Dad, I couldn't nurse at all on account of the Rh factor, and they didn't know if it would go through the milk to the baby. And then the others, Marc and Julie, I only nursed like about three months and then dried up and the milk was gone and I had to put ' em on formula. And so we just... we just mixed up morning milk it was half and half, uh... like 2 oz. of the milk, two oz. of the water, and a little bit of Karo syrup and that was... that was what they drank. And I got so I knew that I didn't have to warm the bottle of milk every time either. It was just fine, just warm... room temperature and it didn't have to be warmer. So, I guess that was about what I remember about Marc. Max was the scariest ' cause he always had this... he'd always get 29
terrible croupy and a bad cough and I'd have to get him through that time after time. Just had a weakness.
CB: Do you remember any specific experiences when your children were growing up or young that come to your mind?
NB: Well, by the time we'd moved downtown in that big house on main street, Max was little and your Dad was... and the other three were born when we lived there. And we lived there, but um... they didn't used to have to vaccinate ' em or give ' em shots like they do now for measles, mumps and all of it. So, Wayne got chickenpox, and he had ' em really bad, but Marsha, when she was a baby, she only had about four on her head. And that was before Marc, Max was born. But downtown they got their good old red measles, German measles they called ' em, and my word that made ' em sick. So I had about four, uh, four kids with ' em all at once. And so instead of goin' to bed I just slept on the floor right by the bed where two of ' em were. And they were just so sick, such high fevers for a day or two. And Grandpa's mother [ in reference to her mother- in- law] came down one day, and she could tell it was really a bad situation with so many sick at once, so she got some horse oats and steeped ' em. You know, you bring ' em to a boil and let ' em boil and then simmer along and that juice you get off the oats, she mixed up a little drink with some honey to make it a little more palatable for ' em, and made ' em drink some of that, each one. And that hot liquid and I don't know what about the horse oats part, but anyway, then they broke out with the measles. You know, just all red, pimply lookin' stuff on ' em. And then they began to get better. So she had some old remedies. She should have been a nurse. She was so smart in old- time things to make your kids better. She... we always had kids with croup, and she had a medicine called calcidine, and I gave my kids that and that broke up the terrible congestion in their throat and chest and they could cough and get that all out and get better. It tasted like iodine and you just put a couple of drops in a teaspoon full of water and fed it to ' em, and that was a good cure.
CB: Um, were you a strict or lenient parent or did you have any philosophies in raising your children?
NB: Ah, sometimes Wayne will tell you I was pretty strict. We lived up to the Hog Hollow Ranch, and he was about three and Stella Cherry lived on up the road, up through the field. And he ran away one day and went up to see Stella and I had told him, " You can usually do something if you'll ask me first. But if I have to find you and go through all that, then that's a different story." But anyway, I found him up there, so I cut me a little switch off the willow bush and all the way back home I just switched his little legs. I didn't beat him, you know, hard or anything. I just switched his legs, and that's a memory he's got of his mother makin' him mind. And then when we lived downtown right on the highway, that was really scary. They had to learn that they stayed away from the road. You don't play near it, or by it, or anything. So I had to be strict that way. I remember the one day I was in the kitchen and all of a sudden I heard the screeching brakes, you know how it sounds... oooohhhh. I thought, Oh my word! Went out there and it was little Julie that had got out close to the road. Somebody had to stop for her, and that... oh, I shook the rest of the day. That was really scary. But she always played 30
over in the church lot, learned to ride her bike over there and that's where they could play was on that cement you know, and roller skate, ' cause we didn't have a terribly big yard. Most of the yard was what the church owns now behind that house... was pasture for a cow. And we had a barn and a chicken coop and all the things of the farm down there, but I don't know, I guess I was strict when I had to be. I tried to be like my parents were, always tell ' em I love ' em and that's why I had to get mad.
CB: What have you found most difficult about raising children?
NB: Oh, worrying about ' em when they'd have to stay late at school or something or they'd miss the activity bus; wondering where they were. Max always played ball-- basketball. He was good at that and when they'd go out to Salmon to play ball and they were late... was late in the night and I'd stand at that front window and watch for him to come home. And that, that's always hard on a mother to wonder what they're doing, where they are. But I guess mostly we just went through it year by year with each one of ' em. It was really hard with Max because he was... when he was twelve, he just began to droop somehow, just wasn't normal, didn't look normal, didn't act normal and his sixth grade teacher said, " He just drives me crazy in class. He'll yawn and stretch and can't quite concentrate and get back to work." So we took him up to Dr. Kruger to see what's goin' on. Found out that he... his thyroid wasn't workin' right. For awhile it'd be overactive and then it would be under- active and so we had to get to the bottom of that and get thyroid medicine to supplement his own. So, from twelve years old ' til the time he was nineteen he suffered through that and it ended up that he had to have the thyroid out. And all to this day, he lives on a thyroid medicine. Synthroid they call it. He takes a pill every day to supplement it. But in the meantime, he'd graduated from high school, and he tried to play ball. He could play a little while, basketball, and then he'd just get so tired he just couldn't go on and the coach knew this, so he'd help out and take him out and let him rest and so on, but he graduated from high school and went down to BYU on a full ride scholarship. He didn't even stop at Ricks College. He had the scholarship down there. And he just had a roommate that had returned from Samoa on a mission and you know, kids in an apartment aren't too careful with hygiene and so Max picked up the germ of... called it Amobiosis, which is parasites in your body, little worms, so that really laid him low as well as with his thyroid. And he tried to stick it out. He had Kay's mother that lived there in Provo. Found a woman that would cook for him. She lived in... he lived in her basement and could go upstairs and she'd have the meals for him so that helped with that. But he... well, and then he got pneumonia and was in the clinic on the college campus and then we decided we just couldn't stand him bein' so far away and bein' so sick, so we went down and brought him home, took him right up to the Ashton Hospital. And he was in the part of the hospital where nobody but nurses could see him ' cause they didn't know exactly what the problem was, and this was when Dr. Kruger diagnosed the parasites that were eatin' him up, hurtin' his liver-- damaged his liver. It was just riddled and so Dr. Kruger treated him. He about lived on buttermilk. But he was in that hospital all that summer. We'd plant potatoes all day and then get cleaned up and go up to spend the evening with him and it was that way all summer that he was in that. And finally Dr. Kruger says, " I don't know exactly what next to do," but he said, " the specialist at the University of Utah hospital, Gastroenterologist, will know exactly 31
what to do to get him better. So, we decided that's where we'd take him and we did. Admitted him to that hospital, and that was a Dr. Freston and he checked all the records that the doctor sent with him from up here. And he said, " He's got to stay here right in the hospital." I said, " Can I be here too?" And he said, " No, I'm sorry." And he just said, " No," and waved his hand goodbye to me so we had to leave him down there and if it was bugs, they killed ' em and finally he got better, but he was so thin and frail. And you know, he just kept on pluggin' along with classes, doin' the best he could. And so, when he got out of school there, he got his first job in Aztec, New Mexico and there he had another bad spell, working for the city as the finance officer. He had another bad spell there and had to be in the hospital for two weeks in Durango, Colorado. And so, we went down and we stayed nearly two weeks. We stayed in his little house that he'd rented in Aztec, drove to Durango every day to be with him and it was surely hard to leave him when we knew we had to get back home and he still wasn't completely well, but he had a good friend. I forget her last name, but her name was Kristine, and she said she'd watch out for him... help him get his meals and see that he ate so that's the way we worked it, and he finally got back to... so he could carry on with his work. And he made a good friend there that worked for the city too, and his name was Martin Celine. I don't know what Max would have done without him and his wife. They were so good to him. But Martin just understood the... They were the only two Mormons that worked for the city, Martin and him. And when they'd have meetings for the... all the people that worked for the city, that room would get blue with cigarette smoke and Martin would sashe over to the window and casually open the window so the smoke would go out. So Max had a fondness for him that's beyond measure and so Alex's middle name is, well his name is Martin Alexander Baker [ Max's son, grandson of Nelda] after both the doctor and about this dear friend. But... Max is on a... he has a doctor that checks his liver function all the time ' cause it was so badly damaged, but you know, your liver can grow itself again, make itself healthier, and that's what his did, but he had to go to California to be on a donor list if he needed a liver transplant. And he hasn't so far. And now to look at him, you wouldn't know anything's the matter ' cause he's so overweight and that was never his style at all. So that was a crisis we got through.
CB: What have you found to be the most rewarding about raising children?
NB: Oh, to see them turn into such fine adults. You know, they all active in the church and do their part as much as they can in the community and just... just good people. It wasn't anything special that we did.... just loved them a lot. And their Dad taught those boys to work. They went every day with him up to the farm. And they built the spud pit together and moved pipe and all of those things, and I just tried to feed ' em good. Keep them as healthy as possible. And Marsha, she often complained about having to do the dishes every night after supper, but she did ' em. It worked okay. She was twelve when Julie was born, so she was my chief babysitter. I don't know what I'd do without any of them. They're all really special people. We're just... were sent special spirits to our home, and that's the way I've always regarded them.
CB: Do you have any specific experiences with any of your children or things you used to do with them that you remember? 32
NB: I tried to get them swimming lessons. Wayne took to it really good. He got so he could really swim in the river. And he had an experience with two of his friends. They went up to Pack Saddle Lake and the one kid got in trouble and yelling for help, so the other two of them, Wayne and Richard Main who was his friend, swam out to him, pushed a log along and saved the kid's life because he was losing it, couldn't... had cramps and couldn't swim anymore. So I was glad he knew how to swim... passed his merit badge in swimming. And Marsha took the lessons too, but I don't know if she ever went swimming very much. I don't know remember her doing it. And the others learned how in the canal, except Julie. I took her down to the college for the... it was a summer course, so many weeks, and that was such a big pool and it was so deep and she just really got frightened of the water, so she never learned to swim. But you can bet your boots she's taken all her kids and they know how to swim. So, and what else did we do fun? Picnics! Easter time! Sometimes we'd take the picnic lunch and go up, just up to the field. One year it was quite windy and we just went down. No water in the canal, and it has a sandy bottom and that's where we made the fire to cook the wienies and down there out of the wind and had a nice picnic. That was a fun time. So we did do things like that, and on a day trip through the Park, just up to Old Faithful, spent a little time and then back home again. But no great big trips except after Julie got grown and was gone and had a vacation. She spent her vacation with us and we went up to Canada and Lake Louise and saw the sights and that was really special. But as far as when they were growing up, just a lot the way Ray and I were raised. There was always something on the farm to do, so you always had that... come. Stay home and do the work.
CB: What dreams did you have for your children?
NB: Just wanted them to do the best they could, and to get a college education as much as they wanted. Their Dad always said, " You can go as far as you want to go. I'll help you. I'll pay the way for you, and so you can get as much education as you want." So, Wayne only lacks one semester of getting his bachelor's degree, but he said he'd have to change his whole... what he wanted to be if he ever went on to finish it so he didn't. But Marsha just did the two years in office stuff down to Ricks and so she's able now, you know, to work like she does. And of course Max got his Master's degree in the finance stuff that he works in and so did Marc, except Marc got his in... to be a high school English teacher and taught for one year in Vernal, Utah. And he just... it just wasn't what he wanted to do. So he didn't. He was married by now and he went to Logan and got his Master's degree in technical writing, and that's what he does at Novell, that computer company, writes the manuals and the pamphlets and special instructions. And all Julie wanted was the office training too, and sewing, the Home Ec stuff. So, she does that, but not out of her home yet. She's just a stay- at- home Mom until her kids get on their way. So they've achieved what I dreamed for them and what I wanted them to do. And mainly do the best you can and be happy, and when the time comes, be married and do your own family.
CB: What were some traditions that you had as a family?
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NB: Boy, I don' remember any special traditions except like I said. At Easter time we'd always have some kind of a picnic thing, and Christmases... Christmas Eve was always a big thing and that carried through ' til they were married and had their own families and everybody would come here on Christmas Eve. For years we had a Santa Clause come and visit with all of them and had a big dinner, a big buffet type dinner. You could get what you wanted to eat, but it was always a big special night. And that was a tradition for a long, long time. And then I don't know exactly how long ago it was that I just couldn't hack it anymore, you know, the worry and all of it, and that wasn't very good. I kind of petered out and didn't do my part anymore, but they seemed to adjust and do alright. One year they came with all their families, all their kids and stayed all night, all of Christmas Eve, all night. Boy, that was a house full of people. The kids were so thrilled and tickled and that would have been something to do every year, but it was just too much. Too much, so we didn't go back to that one again, but we'd always try and have somebody from town. A little lady named Clara Harries that was a widow and she'd been a war bride that means she was an English girl that married a GI from Teton, from the United States. And so after her husband passed away, why she'd...
RB: Jesse Willey.
NB: ... she'd come up. Well, she didn't come and eat. Jesse was just a dear friend. And...
RB: I thought she did once.
NB: ... and Johnny Pratt who was a bachelor and had nowhere to go. He'd come and enjoy Santa Clause. He was such a shy man. And his nephew, Gordon, came a time or two and Jim and Faye came when their oldest girls were little and then they decided they'd do their own family thing on Christmas Eve. So, I guess there was a few things we did over and over... picnics and cookouts on the back lawn and... just to be together somewhere. And some of ' em got far away and didn't ever... didn't happen all the time.
CB: What were the personalities of your children and skills or talents that they had that you tried to help them?
NB: Well, Wayne and Marsha are by far the most outgoing, you know, more talkative.
Marsha says she has to be in her work, has to do that. I think their main trait mostly all the way through, they're quite quiet and reserved, but that comes down through me. My mother was that way and her father was that way. It's just a family trait I guess you might say, and I always said it seemed like I had quiet written in black letters across my forehead, ' cause that's what people always said about me-- quiet. So I think that was their main trait. And yet, when you get them in a crowd or something, they blossom forth. It's just fine, you know. They do okay, and they hold down jobs where they have to project theirselves and be the leader. That's good.
CB: At that time of your life, what interests did you have beyond family?
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NB: Just different callings in the church. I was Relief Society President and two different times I was asked to be Young Women's President. When I taught the Mia Maids I loved that. And in Primary they used to have the eleven year- old girls, were called Firelights. Did they have that when you was there? And I taught them. The most challenging calling was the Guide Patrol which now is Blazers, pre- scouts. While they're in the Blazers, they get their Tenderfoot badge, you know, so you do scouting. I think I was the leader when your dad was that age. And we had to do the five- mile hike so we did. It took us over to Wilford someplace and then we got out and hiked clear through the countryside to the Teton river and up. At the Teton River then they passed the merit badge for the five- mile hike and their fire building stuff. Your dad probably remembers and can tell you about that, but it was quite a fun thing, but I'll tell you, the next day my legs were so sore I couldn't hardly walk because I wasn't used to walking that far. And of course, some of the boys, they are just out and running way far ahead of you. I had to catch up. And then, when I had the Mia Maids, we all had a big bike ride... went up over by Gardner's place and down to the river up that way, and that's where we had the fire and the big picnic and the bike ride and that was a fun thing. So that was my biggest interests I guess, and then going to the temple when we could. We'd get a babysitter and go to the temple with another couple or two and had our temple clothes all made. There was a seamstress in Rexburg that measured us. That was before you could buy your things. You had to make them, sew them. We were always glad when we could go to the temple because it was a special experience. There was a lot of years we didn't even go when we lived up on the ranch. When we got downtown, it just seemed to come easier. We could leave the kids. So I don't know what other... Well, and visiting with family. Like I told you before, the big family reunion with my mother's sisters. I'll probably remember something else afterwards, but right now that's all.
CB: What about associations with neighbors or friends or things like that?
NB: Well, so much of the time we didn't have close neighbors. Up to the ranch, they were quite a ways away. We'd see them, but you know it wasn't anything too special. And I guess downtown there was several couples that would always get together and have a party, like a dinner party. You'd have a nice meal, a nice something to eat and afterwards, play games. And of course the church dances. We'd always go to all the church dances and trade dances. It's a lot different than they do now. It was dancing and not this jumping up and down kind of a thing.
CB: Were there any major moves in your life? I know you said you moved to town.
NB: Yup. We moved from the ranch when Wayne started school and then we lived on Main Street in that big house for sixteen years. That's where we raised the family mostly. Most of them were raised right there. Julie had just turned eight when we made the big move and moved up here. We had this house built in Pocatello and moved up the highway by the moving people with the big truck. We looked and looked for a lot downtown and nobody was selling anything. We couldn't find anywhere that would sell us enough for a lot to put this house on, so Grandpa [ referring to her husband] talked to Uncle Floyd Baker and he says, " Yeah, I've got a piece that I'll sell ya and then it will fill 35
out that farmland better." So that's why we're on this odd- shaped piece of ground and built the house and came up here. We moved up in the April of ' 68 and I was thrilled to death. I never ever dreamed I'd have a new house. I thought maybe we'd remodel the one downtown, but decided not to because we didn't own it. It was Grandma Baker that bought it and had us live there. She was good to us. She bought us a used piano so the girls could have music lessons. Marsha went on with lessons and learned to play so she could play for Relief Society and stuff, but Julie never quite took to it although she took lessons ' til she was a Junior in High School and when that ended I don't think she hardly ever touched the piano again. Maybe she will sometime. When nobody's watching, she'll play... see if she remembers. They say you once learn how you never forget, so I don't know. Your Dad took lessons and he got so he could play quite a few songs-- the Marine's Hymn. He could play that like nobody's business and then he just said he didn't want to do that anymore and that was that. Oh dear, they were cute kids. About loved ' em to pieces. So I guess I was disappointed that they didn't want to go on and learn more music, but they was doing everything else just fine so, you can't bug ' em about it I guess. At least I didn't.
CB: At what points did you feel your children were launched into the world, and how did you feel at those times?
NB: When they were more worldly?
CB: When they left home.
NB: When Wayne kind of left he was sixteen and he got a job with the Forest Service planting little new trees up in Island Park. He felt like his dad could get along without him with Max and Phi you know, that could help with irrigation and the farm work and they were all... could run the tractor and everything and when they got to be twelve they could all do that part of the farming, so he kinda left then. And then, after he graduated from high school he went on his mission and that's a good place for ' em to be and he went to Ireland on his mission. Max wasn't able to go on a mission because of his sickness. The doctor said it just wouldn't be wise for him to be somewhere else and have these bad spells with his thyroid. And then your dad wanted to, decided he'd like to go on a mission, so... and he went to Canada. Then Marc came along and he was called to the Navajo mission in Arizona, Utah, Southern Utah and some New Mexico, so that was, so you know, you... it was a good feeling that they were going to do that and so I didn't have any regrets. Just missed ' em and wanted ' em to do good and enjoy it and learn the gospel so it could be an anchor their whole lives. And uh, after Julie graduated she had a job in Rexburg. Decided she would rather be in a bigger place, but anyway, when she was finishing up at Ricks, the bishop down there asked her if she wouldn't like to go on a mission cause she was old enough, so she battled with that decision and decided yeah she'd do that, so she went to Las Vegas, Nevada. When we took her to the mission home down in Provo you know, you... there's a meeting for parents and the new missionaries in an assembly hall and then the authority in charge says well now the new missionaries go that way and the parents can go the other way and that's it. I'll never forget the look Julie gave me as she got up to leave, you know, and knew that she was going to be away and 36
gone. And she turned around and looked at us and big ol' tears, and of course I couldn't hardly stand to look at her ' cause then I'd cry too, but we all got through it ok and she did good and she met her future husband there and it all worked out wonderful. And when she got home and after she reported her mission she decided she couldn't stay in Teton, so she moved to Salt Lake. Lived down there with a cousin and worked in a bank, big bank on Main Street in Salt Lake and there's where she saw Dee again ' cause he was in Salt Lake and they dated down there. So they all turned out just fine.
CB: Did you find any new interests when your children left home and were all gone?
NB: Oh, nothing special. Still the same church work when I was asked to do something. I was librarian for awhile. That was my most unfavorite job I've ever had. I couldn't attend Relief Society anymore and it was just... the machines were complicated in my mind, you know, the copy machine and all of it. I never was mechanically minded. That's just a... to this day I can't run that record thing over there that plays the CDs and now I blame it ' cause I can't see, but I know very well it's my mind. I can't fathom it. But anyway, the one calling that stands out was just after the ward was divided and Joyce Simmons was put in as the new Relief Society President and uh, she wanted me to be the spiritual living teacher that taught, so I accepted that calling and for four years it was a special series on the Savior and the books were named Come Unto Me, Learn of Me, Teach of Me, and Follow Me. That was the four books I taught out of and that's where I really, really studied you know, and those lessons and grew to love the Savior and knew that this is His Church and that He lives and He guides it all the time and it... been a wonderful testimony to me to do that and to read the Book of Mormon to cement it all together in my head. I've really been blessed.
CB: Tell me about your experiences during the flood.
NB: Oh, that's something. Well, we'd hurried up and that Spring and got the potatoes all planted and the grain planted so we had a day that we could do something that we wanted to do. So, I had a, one of mother's sisters lived in Montpelier and we hadn't seen her for a whole long time, so we decided we'd take that day, the fifth of June and just drive over to Montpelier and see her and visit and see my cousins that lived there. So we headed up the road early that morning and that's the way we went. You go up through Driggs and Victor and up over to Star Valley through the Pine Creek Pass. Well anyway, we got to Star Valley and Thane. That's where my parents had lived for a long time and we wanted to see that again and besides, they had a nice cheese factory there that oh... they made all the best kinds of cheeses in the world ' cause that was how people made their living, milking cows and selling them to the factory, the milk. Well we got to Thane and were gonna stop there at the cheese factory and get some cheese curds to eat along the way. Turned on the car radio and the radio said that the dam, Teton Dam had broke and the countryside was under water. Of course that's our countryside, so he just did a U- ey right out of that and headed right back down the road and got to... up on the hill up above Newdale and we could see the great big cloud of dirt, dust just slowly moving along down here in the area. And of course we listened to the radio all the way along. Sugar City was underwater, all the different places. It was just terrible. The dam had collapsed 37
and so we got to Newdale and I can't remember. Anyway, we were able to get here ok. It was the back roads that the water was comin' on and so we got here and then we just walked down here to the hill where the canal is and that's where you could see the flood-- the big brown water just churning and churning, and cows in it and a house bobbing along and the... and trees, trees galore. And the trees weren't green, weren't with leaves on it. They were all peeled off white and the mud and the dirt and everything, so that was that day, but all night long we could hear helicopters going over and the roar... the roar of the water all night long and most of the next day ' til all of it, big surge, got past. And we were worried ' cause Phil had gone that day to the temple and Valerie had gone with him ' cause they were shoppin' for their rings and so we didn't hear from Phil for three days and he'd gone out around the area and back into St. Anthony. He stayed at Marsha's. And Dennis came out ' cause he went up that way to Tetonia and down this highway, so we were in touch with them that way. So it was a hectic thing and of course we'd had our garden planted and I was out weeding the garden you know, hoeing the garden and Gay Tucker stopped and says, " you're not supposed to be usin' the water. You can't irrigate your garden or anything. You can't do that," so I guess I... I didn't know how she knew that, but anyway I quit what I was doing. And it lasted a long time. We had to go help people. Well, we... I did washing for one family, all the clothes that they... and you had to drape ' em over the line and spray ' em with the hose to try and get the mud and everything out before you put ' em in the washer and then it'd never come out of the seams of your pants and your dresses. That was all sand, all across in the bottom and the same way with sheets and pillowcases. All the hems were full of dirt and that and just caked in there, but we were lucky. So many people lost everything and we were still able to function and get along alright. And we couldn't... we had to go Moody way to get to Rexburg. And Kelly and Lanning had been with a babysitter. Their friend had taken ' em on a picnic that day and they were up in the area of the river and they were on the missing list for that day so that was a terrible worry. Uh, and it just looked like a seashore from Wayne's on down, all that country in there where the big holes are now, why that just looked like the beach, seagulls and the whole bit. And the homes were just, just looked awful, but Teton was pretty much spared ' cause it's up on a bench higher than others. But that was quite a sight to just stand on that hill right over there and watch all those things float by. All they... they were just rushing by, bobbing along, no matter what it was. And one lady said in Rexburg that they were so many people came to help clean out the mud and dirt, and she said they were at their house cleaning stuff and she heard this big noise at the front door, so she went in to open the front door and there stood a great big pig and people had found cows in their upstairs. You just can't imagine the devastation and the different things that had happened just by that one thing. But you know, as we'd go up there while it was... while they were hauling the dirt to build it and everything, the big trucks and the big machinery and all of that, and I'd stand there and look at that and it was just like ants on an anthill, all this moving stuff. And I'd just get this weird feeling. That's not safe. What are you doing that for? That's not safe. So when it did give way, it was because it wasn't the right kind of soil. It just washed right away, washed down... couldn't hold all that water. Now they're talking about rebuilding it. It would help when it's drought times, and I guess it would, but they have to build it different... have to make it different. But that was quite a horrendous day, time, and the weeks that it all went on. We'd have to go help feed the people in the Stake center in Rexburg ' cause it was... they 38
could still use it, and the college would furnish great big vats of soup that they'd haul down there and we'd have the people, and they looked so forlorn and lost when they'd come in to get something to eat... sad. And when President Kimball came up to survey the damage and big meeting at the college he told everybody, " don't let this get you down. You're gonna rebuild and you're gonna build bigger and better," and they did. Bigger, nice new homes and the government helped pay for it. Part of our farm was a mess, so we got compensated for that crop and it wasn't a whole lot, but some people kind of went overboard, counted too many things... things that were worn out and no good anyway and that wasn't honest, but that's them. So it was a horrendous time and your grandpa and I were talking about it the other day the things we've witnessed in our lifetime, that flood and the earthquake up to Yellowstone Park.
CB: Tell me about that.
NB: That was in about ' 57 I guess. Yellowstone's on a caldera that's prone to earthquakes. They have little quakes just about every day all the time. But anyway, that was a hot summer day and in the middle of the night I could hear this... I thought the dog was in the house and it was scrambling under the bed, is what I first thought, and so I got up. No dog, nothing, so I went to the back door and looked out. We had a swing set and the swings were just going back and forth and back and forth and I thought, " my word, maybe that's an earthquake," but there was nothing any worse than that. And sure enough on the radio the next morning about a seven earthquake and the whole side of a mountain had slid down in this lake up there and changed the whole course of the river and everything. And it covered up a campground and there were fifteen or nineteen people camped in that camping ground so now they have that big monument ' cause they never could get ' em out of all that rubble and everything. It's a big monument up there of the names of the people that were lost in that, but I'm not sure if it was the very next day, but we took the kids and we rode up there and we were able to go along pretty good and see all the damage and the whole side of the mountain off. The houses had slid down and were in the lake all submerged halfway. And then we came to a place where the road had just split, you know, the big... so we couldn't go any further. After that day, why they shut it down. Nobody could go up there so we were lucky to be able to see that much of it and that was... so we were able to see that. And then, I'm not sure what year it was that Mount St. Helen's blew it's top and we had ash and everything clear down here and that. And so we knew about that and then the forest fire up to Yellowstone and they called for farmers, any that could spare sprinkler pipe to bring it up so they could get ' em started to save the town of West Yellowstone from burning and that was a sad sight when you went up there and all the burnt trees and just devastation. So we've seen nature's wrath in quite a few different ways with the flood, and the earthquake, and the volcano, and there was something else we thought of, but I can't think now what it was. That was a bad deal, so we've had quite an exciting life haven't we?
CB: Yeah. Um, what about major world events that have happened and your feelings about them, like landing on the moon or the Kennedy assassinations or Vietnam War?
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NB: Oh yeah. Well, never ever dreamed there'd be men landing on the moon, but the President and all of ' em kept pushing and pushing it and it was amazing to be able to watch on the TV. And they got off the lander you know, and stepped down, the first footprints on the moon. And I don't know. I guess I just took for granted that that's just part of the progress of everything. And when Kennedy was assassinated you just couldn't hardly believe such a thing had happened, and that was all watched on TV over and over again and the guy that did it, that was right on TV when they shot him you know. He was trying to get away and they shot him. And then, in another little while his brother was assassinated too-- Bobby Kennedy and you could... and you watched that... watched him fall, but they really told everything in detail about it you know, so it's almost like you were right there. But it's just... it's hard to comprehend somebody with so much hate that they'd actually kill the President of the United States.
CB: What about the Vietnam War? Any feelings about that?
NB: Well, my biggest feeling about that was my nephew had to go. Donalue's boy Mike had to be in that war and so that was always kind of a worry, you know, listening to her and sympathizing with her, and it seemed like such a useless thing you know. What good does it do? We don't need to be there and yet you think of the people they were trying to help and then you have mixed emotions that... I guess it has to be that way. And the part of it that was such a mess was they'd fly, I guess it was helicopters, it must have been, with this Agent Orange to kill the vegetation so they could flush out those... the enemy out of the woods and the swamps and all that's native to that country and that was a bad risk for our soldiers ' cause they'd get that kind of poisoning and it was not good. It made so many problems later, even when they became fathers later why that'd show up in their children with deformities and stuff you know. So I was glad when that one was over and Mike came home, but it was such a horrific war for most of the men that... and he had taken up the habit of drinking alcohol to kinda... so he could sleep nights and so he could stand all of the pressure and all the terrible things that he'd seen. And so he had that habit when he came home to his little family and that was really a hard thing for that family to cope with ' cause he couldn't seem to shake the habit, although he did later after his wife divorced him. They had seven children and she couldn't take his drinking. You can't blame her, so she divorced him and he found another sweet girl that shaped him up a little bit better, but he died of a heart attack out hunting. Just keeled over and died.
CB: What about in the 60s and the Civil Rights movement? Do you remember hearing anything about that?
NB: Just about the marches back east and what we'd see on TV and the bombing of that church house that killed the little girls. That was terrible and it seemed so far away. There was nothing you could do about it, and you felt so sorry for the Negro people because they had been mashed down the whole time and it was time they got some rights. And Martin Luther King was their hero, the way he'd rev ' em up you know. “ You should be able to do just as much as the white people.” But they'd been in slavery so long that they didn't hardly know what to do with freedom when they could have it, couldn't make decisions a lot of ' em. So it was just a sorrowful time and yet a good time for ' em to be 40
free at last and it just still goes on to this day. There's quite a thing against Negroes that hadn't ought to be in the country, still a lot of people are racist and I say you can't be that way. Their blood's just as red as ours, just as American as we are. And they fought bravely in the Second World War, them and the Japanese too. That was a sad time. The Japanese had to be evacuated from the west coast on account of the Pearl Harbor thing, and so they thought every Japanese was an enemy and they weren't really. Just some old men get the idea we want to rule the world so they make all the young men do the fighting. And when they dropped the atomic bomb, I just couldn't comprehend killing that many people in one thing, and well, so many left horribly burned, but they said they had to do it for the good of everybody, kill that many so the rest of the world wouldn't get under the hand of the Japanese. So it's been quite an upset world, but we were protected and we do live in a wonderful place if we can just remember what we're here for and remember the Lord and how our blessings are so many and try to do the best we can and be the best people. There's so many that are inactive and I just grieve for them. What's gonna happen to them? They knew the truth, but they just didn't want to do anything about it and it's a sad thing.
CB: Kind of going back to your, I guess your personal life, when did your husband retire?
NB: Oh was it about 1982.
CB: What are some of the things you've done since you retired, or he retired?
NB: Well for awhile you know, he tried to be part of the farm and everything and then he just gradually turned it over to the boys to do all that part, and he had a lot of sickness. Big major operations that he had to have that affected his health, so we took a lot of day trips, you know, went for big long rides. And a favorite thing to do was just go up to Bozeman, Montana, spend the night and go shopping in their nice big mall and then come back home. That was always fun to look forward to and the same way with Twin Falls. We'd go just down in the day, stay the night and have a nice meal at a cafe and shop in their Blue Lakes Mall ' cause it was stores that we didn't see up here. So the first Wal- Mart we ever saw was when we went back to Missouri for Max's wedding reception back there. That's where Kath is from is Missouri. All the way along the highway something about Wal- Wart all the way along. What is this place? So, when we were there visiting them, why she took us to the big Wal- Mart there and it was a big one and I've never seen so many things in my life, then the next thing we knew they had it in Idaho Falls, so it was, but... I don't know. Other things we did was when Julie lived in Salt Lake why we'd go down and stay there a few days. Always went when her babies were born and helped out for a few days and then came back. Same way with Marsha. She lived down by Preston and I'd, we'd go down there and I don't know how much I helped but I was there to hold the baby when he needed somebody. I can't, and like I said, we went on this nice trip with Julie up to Canada and we went on a couple of really great trips with Ray and Maureen Pocock. Grandpa [ referring to her husband] was a counselor to Ray Pocock when... and he was a bishop and his wife is full cousin to grandpa-- Maureen, and they'd ask us to... they didn't want to go on trips alone, so they'd ask us to go and we did and we 41
had a nice trip where we went over to the coast and clear down the coast and saw all the sights along the ocean and clear down to Tijuana, Mexico and then across in Mexico to... and came out and went to Phoenix ' cause Ray had a meeting there that he had to go to for three days. And that was a sight to see that country in March, all the fields of flowers where they raise flowers to send all over to the florists up in this wintery country, and to pick grapefruits right off the tree. My, they're luscious! And good and things like that, that was completely different to us. And the other trip was to Canada, to fly to San Francisco and from San Francisco on up. So we have had some wonderful trips but just not lately, not for quite a long time now. Once we went, when Max lived in California, we went to see them there and they took us out in the countryside where the orchards were and I know the pears were just ripe, and to pick a ripe fruit right off the tree and eat it and all that juice. But you know, there was just acres of trees and the fruit rotting, you know. It wasn't being used. I thought what a waste. That could be used by so many people if they just could do it somehow, but it never got done that I know about. But I thought when I was eating those pears, I thought, oh I'll remember this all my life, how that tasted and the juice running down my chin.
CB: How many grandchildren do you have?
NB: We have thirty- four.
CB: Do you have any special memories with your grandchildren?
NB: Oh, they're just all so dear and precious and each one's special, has their... Leigh is the oldest grandchild, granddaughter. Uh, Jason is the oldest grandchild, Marsha's boy, and then they just pow, pow, pow, pow, pow all the way along and it's so nice to get the phone calls, " well he's here and he's healthy and the mother's doing fine." Special phone calls each one... mixed emotions. You wish you could be there, but then you know you'll... pretty soon they'll be home and you'll get to see ' em and love ' em and help with ' em. And little Kurt [ Nelda's grandson who has Down Sydrome] is so special. He's just a special spirit isn't he?
CB: Yeah.
NB: And he knows more than you'd ever think if he could communicate it. He'd tell us what for sometimes.
CB: I think that's right.
NB: But, anything special about ' em, just the get- togethers we'd have and when they could come up. Some of ' em come on Sunday nights for awhile, and the special meals and dinners and over to your folks' place. That's just been special the last few years. She's such a good cook, well most all of ' em are. They just... I've got daughter- in- laws that's really precious. They're kind and good people and'd do anything in the world for you. And i always had a great love for my sons, all good to me, and daughters are always 42
special too you know. They're so kind and thoughtful and just think a little bit different than boys do.
CB: Well, just uh, kind of some ending questions about you. What are some of your favorite things?
NB: Well, I always liked to read, the church books, the books about the prophets a