Andrew Anderson Nelson

              Voices From the Past
Early School Teaching
By Andrew Anderson Nelson
November 20, 1970
Tape # 23
Oral Tape by Harold Forbush
Transcribed by Louis Clements September 2002
Andrew Anderson Nelson of Rexburg being interviewed on November 20, 1970, by Harold S. Forbush regarding his experiences as an early teacher in the area.
Forbush- It’s my opportunity this evening of the 15th of January, 1971, to be in the home of Brother Andrew Anderson Nelson of Rexburg that we might chat with him concerning his experiences as a teacher and other experiences he has enjoyed and had here in the Upper Snake River Valley. Brother Nelson, of course in an interview of his nature, the questions are asked and you are asked to make a response to them. We start out by asking you to state your full name and the date and place where you were born.
AN- My name is Andrew Anderson Nelson born the 16th of August, at Smithfield, Utah.
HF- And what year?
AN- 1889.
HF- What has been your whole lifetime occupation, as it were?
AN- It has been very varied. I think probably I have been engaged in two occupations, that of farming and that of teaching school.
HF- And your present residence is, of course, here at Rexburg and your address is what?
AN- 211 West 3rd South.
HF- Now Brother Nelson will you kindly state the name of your father and give us a brief sketch of his background, the nation of origin and possibly the time that his people immigrated into America.
AN- My father’s name is David William Nelson. He was born in Farmington, Utah. But his parents came from Ireland. Just when they came, I don’t know, but he was born at Farmington.
HF- Now I imagine his folks came from Ireland in answer to the call of Zion, as it were?
AN- I am not sure they were converts. They came and settled first in Missouri. In Missouri they had one child, they had some born before in Ireland. They probably came to Utah sometime in the ‘ 50’ s, I am not sure. I could not tell you definitely just when they came.
HF- Now will you state your mother’s full name and a little sketch of her background?
AN- My mother’s name was Elmora May Anderson. That’s her maiden name. She was born in Smithfield, Utah. Her father was the son of an immigrant from Norway. Her mother was from Scotland. They met after they came to Utah.
HF- In the community of Cache Valley where your mother and father met, I presume, and married they were induced or given facts and circumstances ( which) encouraged them to find their way up here into the Upper Snake River Valley. Do you remember or are you familiar with the story, the tradition as told to you as young children as to what brought them up here?
AN- Well, I am perfectly well acquainted with all the history of the family. My father came up here, but he didn’t like the country so he went right back. He came down with the flu in ’ 91 and died when I was little, a year old. So my mother was a widow, and she never remarried. What brought me up here was the effect of our condition. She moved to a town in southern Utah, Frisco. It was a mining town. She got a job there from her brother- in- law who was running a boarding house for the mining company. She took her family, which included three boys, myself included. We stayed there for a year or so. Under the conditions there she decided to send the two older ones up to their grandfather here at Rexburg. That’s Andrew A. Anderson, he settled in Rexburg in ’ 84.
HF- Andrew A. Anderson.
AN- Yes.
HF- Out in which community? Right here in Rexburg?
AN- In Rexburg, he came right to Rexburg. He settled and bought a town lot just north of where the Washington School building is. In fact he owned the ground that the Washington School building stands on at the present time. There’s were I lived. He lived in a log house with a dirt roof. I spent my early years there. I went to school not at the Washington building because it wasn’t built. I was out of the grade school when it was built. I went to school in what later became the 2nd Ward Church. At that time it wasn’t the 2nd Ward Church. The 2nd Ward Church was where Bishop Peterson now lives just south of the park there, the Porter Park. That’s where I went to church. That’s where I was confirmed after baptism.
HF- Let’s see now. Did the school children and the church, the old Latter- Saint people, use the same structure for church and school.
AN- No. When I came here the 2nd Ward Church then was just partially what it later became. It was a brick building but it was not so large. They built on the back part later, but it was the school that I first attended. I attended there one year. They had separated the classes with curtains in the building. I remember it wasn’t exactly quiet. It was noisy, and we could hear the other classes. I was in the beginners or first grade in that building. The next year, when I went to school, they had built that summer a two story frame building on the corner that is now occupied by the junior high school.
HF- The building that you went to has been removed I suppose?
AN- Oh, yes. The building I went to had two stories, four rooms on each story. I went to school there until I graduated from eighth grade.
HF- Now let’s see you commenced your schooling, what year would this be?
AN- I commenced my schooling in about ninety- seven.
HF- That would have made you…
AN- I was eight years old when I began.
HF- Now this is exactly what I’m interested in. Can you recall who your first teacher was in the public schools?
AN- It was an Osburn girl. I think it was either Nancy or Jane Osburn. In fact both of them taught me at different times through the grades.
HF- Do you recall other school teachers at that time or just a little bit later? Maybe there would be more than the one teacher in the school?
AN- Oh, yes. As I passed up there was a Mr. Weldrum that was my teacher. He was my next teacher after the ladies got through with me. I was in the fifth grade at that time.
HF- What was his first name?
AN- I don’t remember that.
HF- Did he later go on over to Sugar City?
AN- No, he stayed in Rexburg for years. He was the man that had the first grocery store in Rexburg. He ran that for a few years and then he moved away somewhere. I don’t know what ever became of him. Another teacher was a Mr. Brown. He was my teacher in the sixth grade, and he promoted me to the eighth grade. But the next year my teacher was a Harding, Jacob Harding. He kept me in the seventh grade. The next year his brother, Daniel, taught. It was under him that I graduated from the eighth grade.
HF- Now Brother Nelson, at the time, as I understand it, Ricks College or the Academy had commenced to teach youngsters and take care of the seventh or eighth or ninth grade or something like this. Maybe by 1903 or ’ 04 or ’ 05 or something like this, isn’t this correct? Do you know how the public schools, as they were available, and the Academy tied in there someway?
AN- I know all about that. My aunt taught there in what they call the beginning of the Ricks College. It was a building where the pump stands, the old pump site. HF- Well, this is right. This is way back though. I mean we’re talking now, what you’re going to comment about is in 1888 or ’ 90 along in there when that got started. Isn’t this what you’re going to say?
AN- Well, at that time I wasn’t here. My aunt taught just a grade school. Jacob Spori, I think, was the first teacher there, but he had trouble with the children. In those days you had children that were 20 years old going to school. They were rather insubordinate. They were bred in this wild country up here, and they had a spirit of freedom and independence he couldn’t handle. So he left. The school continued. It was also used as a church building. I remember going there to hear President Lorenzo Snow at a conference in Rexburg. They had two schools here. The one was at that building there, that was the First Ward school building, and the other one was the Second Ward down here. So I remember very clearly directly after I was baptized attending the church there.
HF- Isn’t this wonderful. Well now your aunt, what was her name?
AN- Sarah Ann Anderson Barnes.
HF- I see. I’ve surely heard of her, of course. She was a marvelous woman.
AN- She was quite an energetic woman.
HF- Now she would have been your mother’s sister?
AN- That’s right.
HF- Now Brother Nelson, I understand that where the Second/ Fifth Ward is today there was a school.
AN- That is correct.
HF- This took care of students up to what, about the fifth or sixth or something like that grade at the time?
AN- I didn’t know how many grades were in there. But I think it probably included them all for this end of town. However, I wouldn’t be sure.
HF- The school which you attended was over where now the present location of the junior high is.
AN- Yes, a two story frame building.
HF- At Ricks College, once they completed their building up there, the administrative building at Ricks College, and this was in 1903, they offered the eighth grade to students and there up on at that time. Is this your understanding?
AN- No.
HF- What comments you would you have along that line?
AN- I would say that that’s a little too early for the college up there. I think that administration building was built in 1904, and they held their first class in the fall of 1904 there.
HF- I see.
AN- They had high school, however, in what used to be the ZCMI store. They had two years of high school there. I remember attending that school as a visitor, not in attendance. I wasn’t old enough then, but I went to their programs. They had two years of high school there in that building. That’s nonexistent now, it’s been torn down. It was directly across from the present court house, south across the street. It used to be a store. The store was discontinued, and then it was turned into this high school. It ran there for two or three years as a high school. I remember Dr. Call and his sister went there to that school. I remember when he graduated from second year. That next year my brother, my older brother D. W., also attended that school at the ZCMI building. The fall of 1904 we began school at the rock building which was built that summer. I know I traveled over that hill a good many times, and there was nothing on it but sage brush and lava rock.
HF- For quite a few years this was the only building, I suppose, up there?
AN- Yes, I think probably they didn’t build another building until about 1914 or ’ 15, somewhere along in there. I was down farming at that time. I remember coming up and helping on the building, the second building that they had to the west. I helped put a floor on one of the upper rooms.
HF- Now you graduated from this elementary school with this teacher you mentioned in about what year?
AN- I graduated from the elementary school there in the spring of 1904 under Daniel Harding.
HF- He was the principal of the school?
AN- Yes.
HF- Then where did you pursue your education?
AN- Well, I missed one year. I should have gone to school but I got in a condition, so I couldn’t go for a while. I skipped a year. I began school at Ricks in 1905.
HF- And you graduated from Ricks, what year?
AN- 1909, spring of 1909.
HF- And what status, would that be secondary, or what level would that have been?
AN- Well, I think it was merely a high school then. I would judge it that way, anyhow. I’m not sure just how they rated it but it was called an academy, Ricks Academy then. But I don’t think there’s any college work. I took one college subject while I was there, however.
HF- Who taught that?
AN- A gentleman by the name of Spears.
HF- Now Ezra Dalby was the principal at that time, was he not?
AN- He was.
HF- A wonderful man.
AN- Good man.
HF- Can you call to mind some of the other instructors at the college or at the academy at that time?
AN- Well, over the four years, there were a number of them. There was a fellow by the name of Hale that taught the prep, preparatory department. They had a preparatory department which was used for the purpose of taking on all those that didn’t want to go to the grades. They were older ones and they went to this preparatory school in order to enter the high school work. I just think it was on the status of an eighth grade. A gentleman by the name of Hale taught that department. Arthur Porter was also a teacher at that time.
HF- Now this would be Arthur Porter Jr.?
AN- This would be the one that’s died, Arthur Porter Jr. He was teaching there. Oliver Dalby, a brother to Ezra, taught there. A Miss Powers taught there. I just don’t happen to recall all the names, I remember them, but I don’t remember their names. There was a fellow, Lowell, who taught me English one year. Then there was another fellow, I don’t happen to remember his name, from Stanford University, that taught.
HF- Well, this is real fine. Now in those years, where did you, as I presume a 2nd Warder, attend church?
AN- At the 2nd Ward Church.
HF- And that was located where Bishop, that is H. Lester Peterson, now lives? AN- No.
HF- No? Which Peterson did you have reference to?
AN- That building was discarded. I attended church at a log meeting house there on Bishop Peterson’s lot, not in the home that he is in now. It was behind.
HF- Now let us determine which Bishop Peterson.
AN- Lester.
HF- H. Lester Peterson?
AN- Yes. When they stopped the school. You see they built this new building for the school where the Junior High is. As soon as they built that they moved the whole school over to that building. It became the school for the whole town. Before that they had school in the 2nd Ward Church building, it was called a church building then. They had school in the Ricks Academy building, the 1st Ward Church up there by the east side of town, up there by the old pump house. The pump house wasn’t there then. They put that in later, of course. Just as soon as they let that school building vacant they went right over there and began holding church. That ended the church in this old building. Bishop Steiner was the Bishop for a long while there. I don’t know just how long they had had it. They must have had that meeting house there for at least 12 years. That’s where they held the church, and that’s where I went to church when I first came to Rexburg.
HF- Now this would be the 2nd Ward, wouldn’t it?
AN- That would be the 2nd Ward but not the 2nd Ward Church building as…
HF- Right, I can appreciate that.
AN- It was the 2nd Ward, and the 1st Ward Church was the Ricks College…
HF- They only had the two wards at that time.
AN- Yea, they had two wards.
HF- The 2nd Ward embraced everything to the west, and the 1st Ward that which was pretty much to the east.
AN- Yes, that’s correct. It’s mostly what is east of what is now Center Street too. That was about the center back then.
HF- Where did you finish your work in college?
AN- I didn’t go to anywhere but to Ricks. I only got one subject in college up there and that was Algebra.
HF- At that point was when you commenced to teach, then?
AN- Yes, after I graduated. I never took another course. We were only a class of seven from 1905- 1909, just a seven student class. The older six took normal work, and I took what they called high school work which was to lead to college. But I never went to college.
HF- I see. Could you give me the names of some of those fellow graduates with you in 1909?
AN- Yes, there was just one other boy and that was Fayette Stevens. He late taught in the University of Utah. He became pretty well acquainted there at Salt Lake. Then there was Annie Spori or Mrs. Kerr. Then there was Helen McCallister, I don’t know her maiden name. Then there was Vera Kerr and Bertha Bood and Alberta Beaser. That makes seven, doesn’t it, besides myself.
HF- Isn’t that something? A few of those are still living aren’t they, maybe most of them?
AN- I haven’t heard of the deaths of any except one and that’s Alberta Beaser. She married a Staker, and they lived in Idaho Falls. Both of them are dead now. He was going to school up here to Ricks at the same time she was and they got married. I don’t know Helen McCallister’s name nor Vera Kerr’s name after they were married. But Bertha Bood married a Schwicker. She lives down here in Cedar Point District. She is still alive, I think, but she must be getting pretty well decrepit because she couldn’t attend the class reunion last year.
HF- The class reunion of 1969, I guess.
AN- There were just two of us there. That was Annie Kerr and myself. I didn’t stay until they finished. I came home, I had to come home. My wife was in a condition where she couldn’t stay. So I didn’t get in on the group.
HF- Now Brother Nelson, having taught much of your life, what encouraged you to go into teaching?
AN- I was working with my brother on the farm. He had rented a farm, and I was helping him that summer. He had been teaching at Archer, but he was going to go to the school at Logan, the state school there at Logan. They needed a teacher over there. The trustees came over one day and asked me if I would teach. I told them that I hadn’t intended to teach. Well, they said, will you teach for us? Well, I said, I don’t have the credentials. Well, he said, can you get them? I said, oh yes, I can get them. All I have to do is just go and take an examination. Well, they said, if you will take the examination we’ll give you the job. So I asked them how much they would pay, and they said $ 60 a month. Well, $ 60 a month doesn’t look very good now, but it was fairly good wages at that time. So I accepted the job and then I went up to St. Anthony. This ( Archer) was at the time Fremont County. The county seat was at St. Anthony. A lady by the name of Harriet C. Wood was superintendent of schools. So I went to St. Anthony in August and took the examination that they gave. I passed and I got what they called a second grade certificate which was good for three years.
HF- What year would this have been?
AN- This was in 1909, the summer of 1909.
HF- In other words, you have graduated in 1909 in the spring.
AN- Yes. So I didn’t know anything about teaching. The fact they wanted to try me and wanted me to take the job, I did the best I could.
HF- Very good. Now let’s see Brother Nelson, a quick calculation shows that you were a young man of about 20.
AN- Correct.
HF- So in Archer was your first teaching job. Which school district was that, this is number? They had what they called a common school districts and they went by numbers. Would they have been organized by that time?
AN- No.
HF- How large an area did it cover?
AN- There were two schools in that district, one at Sunnydell and one at Archer and one at Lyman.
HF- And you taught at the one at Archer?
AN- At Archer.
HF- Were you the only teacher there?
AN- That is correct. It was a one room building. It was a rock building and it had been used for school there for some time, I suppose. In the fall of 1909 I went there and enrolled the children as they came. I had about 70, a little over 70, about 72 children, varying in age from beginners to eighth graders.
HF- In age wise that would have been from six to oh…
AN- Sixteen. HF- And they were all in the same room.
AN- That is correct.
HF- Boy that would be difficult, wouldn’t it?
AN- Is was a nice job.
HF- And how many did you say you had?
AN- I had enrollment of about 72, as I remember. They weren’t all there every day but that was my enrollment.
HF- Did you live right at the school? Was there a little house of facility there for you to take care of your own private needs?
AN- No, I lived about almost two miles from the school. A lady by the name of Mrs. Young. She was a widow. The school teachers had been boarding at her place to help her support her. I boarded there and walked back and forth.
HF- Now Archer was quite a fine settlement in those days, wasn’t it? It had been rather early settled and I imagine there were quite a few people in the area.
AN- Yes.
HF- It wasn’t sparsely settled as much, was it, it was pretty well settled?
AN- It was pretty well settled at that time.
HF- Do you call to mind the chairman of the school board, for example, the man who came to you and encouraged you to take…?
AN- I think his name was George Briggs. He had a son by the name of George Briggs, too, but it was the father. He, I think was bishop at that time.
HF- Well, that’s interesting, because I think this is right. There was George Briggs that was bishop of Archer, the first bishop of Archer.
AN- I may be that the second one was bishop too but not then.
HF- Now one comment, I’d like to have you give your impression of your recollection and describe this Harriet Wood, who was the superintendent of schools of all of Fremont County. I’ve heard quite a lot of wonderful things about this woman, and she must have been a quite a fine character. Would you like to comment about her?
AN- As far as I know her, she was a very energetic woman. She had a large territory to cover. Fremont County included Teton County, Madison County, and Jefferson County, perhaps not all of Jefferson Count but a great deal of it. She would travel by team, by horse, over the entire area visiting schools. I remember particularly the time that I was teaching there at Archer. When I had a graduating exercise for my eighth grade, I asked her if she would come and speak at the exercise. I had a sort of a program. She said she would. The night she came it was rather rough. She had to travel a long ways too; from St. Anthony to Archer was over twenty miles. The roads didn’t run straight. They ran around the sections at that time, and so it was farther than the present time, you see. Now the roads run straight. So I think it was easily 25 miles that she made the trip with a horse and buggy. She got there a little late, not much, we had just started and she got there and she spoke. And I appreciated it very much her attendance there at the program. She was very nice and kind. She gave me quite a compliment, and I felt pretty good about her visit.
HF- Well that’s really wonderful. Where did you next go to teach?
AN- I taught next at Cedar Point.
HF- Now that would be in the Menan area?
AN- It happened that I had bought a farm in the meantime. The farm was close to the school that is relatively close. So I applied there for the job, and I got it. But it wasn’t as principal. There was a man by the name of Jenkins who was principal. I took the four lower grades.
HF- Now would that be out in the Menan area?
AN- No, that’s at the Cedar Point area. That’s just about two miles south of the junction where the Lyman leaves off the Highway 191.
HF- Two miles north?
AN- South.
HF- Two miles south. I see.
AN- On the Lyman road.
HF- Down there where the church is, pretty close down in that area.
AN- Well no, there is no church there. The building still stands, I believe. It’s owned by Clifford Riley. He bought it, I think, after they discarded it. I taught there the last year that it operated. I taught there for several years. I taught there in 1910. Then I didn’t want to teach there anymore, and I didn’t teach there until they came after me in 1915. The day school started they came after me because the teacher that they hired hadn’t showed up. I hesitated about taking the job away from the other teacher, and I told them so, that I didn’t like to do that. But they said they wouldn’t give him the anyhow, if he did come, because he hadn’t showed up. So I took it. Then I taught for several years there.
HF- And your farm was located fairly close to this?
AN- About a mile and a half or maybe two miles away.
HF- In the meantime you had married, I take it. You had a wife and a family growing.
AN- No, I hadn’t got married. In ’ 16, ’ 17, and ’ 18 I taught school there at Cedar Point. The second year they gave me the job as principal. The first year my brother was there, and I taught in one in the other rooms, they had three rooms. The next year that I taught, he quit. He went down to Burton to teach.
HF- Now did students come from, let us say, Independence, Thorton and places like that to this school?
AN- No, they had school at Independence and they had school at Lyman. Just the area around Cedar Point. Our students came from maybe within a mile south of the school house and about a mile north. Westward it extended about a mile, and eastward it extended to the hill. We had an enrollment there a little over 100 at that time, about 110 or 120. It varied. In the several years, the most that I had at one time was 125.
HF- After you had had one year of teaching experiences at Archer and the three years at Cedar Point, had you developed a type of procedure, methodology of instructing in the classroom when you would have several different classes in the same room? What type of procedure would you follow in bringing order and discipline and getting across the teaching message to the students?
AN- Do you want me to take one school at a time or do you want me to just take it generally?
HF- Just generally.
AN- Well, I found out soon that I couldn’t teach eight grades separately. I had to combine them. I did so as much as possible. In fact, I found that I could combine three grades successfully and still get by. There wasn’t too much of a difference at that time. When I was first year at Cedar Point, I only had four grades. That was too easy. I just made my plans according to the four grades. That was easy. I just made my plans accordingly. One year I took into my room some beginners. She was having trouble with four of the children. They were too old to be in that room. They were old enough to be in the other and she didn’t know what to do with them. She said she couldn’t teach them anything because they were too old, they didn’t know how to take even the first grade. So I took them in my room. That gave me four grades. I was successful with it because I had been used to four divisions anyhow. So I just used that same method. As far as discipline is concerned, I don’t know how that happened, but I never had any trouble with discipline at all.
HF- Now would the primary object be to teach these students of varying ages the three “ R’s,” reading, writing, and arithmetic? Fundamentally was that the goal in mind?
AN- That was the fundamental, yes. However, we taught other things besides that.
HF- It was essential even then to encourage and teach a youngster how to read. I guess you used the phonetic system quite a good deal, did you not?
AN- Personally, I did. At that time phonetics were used quite a bit. A little later they went out, they stopped phonetics. They began to teach them by phrase and by words. They would use these placards for beginners. Of course, in the older grades above the beginners we used different methods than that. However, I found out that phonetics was valuable even in the upper grades and I used phonetics wherever it was necessary.
HF- Now Brother Nelson, as time went along, where else have you taught in the Upper Snake River Valley?
AN- I taught at Hibbard. I taught at Herbert. I taught at Canyon Creek.
HF- When you say Canyon Creek, is that the same as Clementsville?
AN- No, that’s where I taught last, at Clementsville.
HF- Now those last named ones, Hibbard, Canyon Creek, Clementsville and so on, you lived right at the school in those cases, did you not?
AN- Not in the case of Hibbard. I was on a farm then. It happened this way when I taught at Hibbard. They had a teacher there, a lady teacher, for the second department. It was flu year and she died. They came after me at the middle of the year to finish the term. So I finished the term from the farm.
HF- So as I get the impression, in so many instances, you primarily were concerned about operating your farm and when the school districts got into a real tough pinch and so on, they came to you to help them, to bail them out.
AN- Well, I suppose I was just handy is all. Because I was handy and was easy to get, they came to me. I think that’s probably the only reason they came. When they came after me at Cedar Point the second time my certificate had run out. I didn’t have any, and I told them so. Well, they said, we’ll take you on and you can get one. So I did. The country superintendent wouldn’t let me take the first grade without taking the others. So I took examinations for third grade and again and for second grade and again in first grade. I got these three certificates in one year. If I had had them all together it would have entitled me to nine years of teaching. I don’t know which certificate I taught on. My last certificate was for the first grade was good for five years.
HF- When did you cease teaching? You mentioned that the last place you taught was up at Clementsville. When would that have been?
AN- I am not sure. I think it was 1948.
HF- By that time I imagine they discontinued that school, didn’t they?
AN- No, my wife taught there until 1950. Then they ran it one year later.
HF- And then the consolidation had taken over, I suppose, the reorganization of the school districts.
AN- Well, that was in Teton County, Clementsville was. So I think the reason they didn’t run it was because some of the children were getting of high school age, and they decided to move to Rexburg. There weren’t enough there to keep the school going.
HF- You lived right at the school, didn’t you?
AN- Yes, I lived there with my children.
HF- Did you both and your wife teach together? Were there some years when you would teach together?
AN- Yes, in a way yes.
HF- I mean both of you employed as teachers.
AN- No, one of us had the contract and would teach for part of the year. For instance my wife would teach the first month or two while I was down here with the children working in the fields. We went out and topped sugar beets. Then when we got through, I went up and finished the season. But the last two years she was there entirely.
HF- Now Brother Nelson, as we come to the conclusion of this interview, would you kindly state when you were married and to whom and something about your family? I imagine that we have 15 minutes or such a matter left. Anything you would like to tell me about your marriage, who it was you married and something about your good wife’s background, if you would like, and then the names of your children.
AN- Well, I got married in May 1924. I married a Dutch girl. Her parents were converts to the church, and they immigrated about 1900. They lived in Ogden, Utah, for a while and then they moved to southern Idaho and got a farm there. She was seven years old when she came from Holland. I didn’t meet her, however, until 1922, I think it was. She taught school for a long while in Jefferson County before she came here. Then she came to Rexburg and taught school in Rexburg for a few years. That’s how I happened to meet her. My brother was teaching in the school at the time. I was farming at that time. I was a bachelor. He kept bothering me and wondering about me getting married. He finally induced me to come up and meet this girl. So I did. It led to marriage on the 23rd of May 1924. I was still on the farm and we lived on the farm. She gave birth to most of the children on the farm, nine of them. After we came from to town we had two more children, two girls. That was the end of the family. When we came to town was when we began teaching at the outlying districts. I taught at Herbert and different places like, Woods Cross. My wife taught at Woods Cross for four years.
HF- Now this Woods Cross, where?
AN- That’s up on the bench area. I think the school house still stands. It’s about a mile south of Rexburg and two or three miles east and they used to call it Hawthorne. That was the common name for it.
HF- As we complete the tape can you recall any events or impressions that you had of the area? Any little experiences or episodes that took place prior to 1900.
AN- When I came to Rexburg they had three saloons and two livery stables. I suppose you know all about that, but I was particularly struck with the drunks on the street. I remember one time going up town and there was a drunk on the street, and he was singing. He had a broom stick in his hand, and he was rubbing it across his arm pretending to play a violin or something. He was singing away and wobbling down the street. That rather impressed me quite a bit.
HF- Now you would have been what, eight or nine years of age?
AN- I was nine or ten.
HF- But this was prior to 1900?
AN- Oh yeah.
HF- Can you describe the type of street that he was walking down?
AN- It was a board sidewalk. They had board sidewalks on the south side of Main Street. On the north side they had a short boardwalk too but it didn’t amount to much.
HF- On the south side were there three or four blocks of board sidewalk running east and west?
AN- On the south side, about two blocks.
HF- But a shorter amount of sidewalk on the north side?
AN- Yeah, there was a short distance, maybe a half a block.
HF- Now, of course, you recall the little log house where a Mrs. Ricks lived, which is the location now of the courthouse. That was one of the first buildings erected in Rexburg. This was a log house at the side of the present day courthouse. Perhaps you don’t recall that?
AN- I don’t.
HF- But you recall the store across the street?
AN- Yes.
HF- The ZCMI store.
AN- I went to that many times.
HF- That was operated by a Mr. John T. Smellie.
AN- I believe it was, yes.
HF- Now on down the street and where the site of the Idaho Bank of Commerce ( Key Bank) is, there was a store down there.
AN- Yes.
HF- Operated by Flamm’s.
AN- Henry Flamm.
HF- Flamm and Company. Could you describe the impressions of that store and any other comments you might like to make?
AN- It operated long after the ZCMI quit. They had a general store there, groceries, clothing and, of course, in those days they had clerks and counters along the side. You didn’t go behind the counters, and you didn’t go and help yourself. You asked the clerk what you wanted. I went there one particular time and there was a lady, a girl. She was a Squire girl, a sister to Andy and Woody. She used to be a clerk there. I remember her and going to her. I sometimes had to wait quite a while before I got waited on. My brother sent me up there for different reasons so I would stand there and stand there and finally when she got through, she’d ask me what I wanted. I’d tell her and she would tell me how patient I was. The store, at that time, didn’t include what it did a little later. A little later it was a more extensive store and they had an undertaking department and a furniture department.
( Editors note- The tape ran out at this point.)