Arnold, Terrell

              Eric Walz History 300 Collection
Terrell Arnold – Growing up in
Rexburg Idaho
By Terrell Arnold
May 3, 2005
Box 8 Folder 2
Oral Interview conducted by Maren Miyasaki
Transcript copied by Jessica Rhodes January 2006
Brigham Young University – Idaho
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MM: Okay. This is Maren Miyasaki, and I’m interviewing Terrell Arnold who is the
museum curator, and his wife is Margaret Arnold on May 3, 2005. Let me first ask where
did your ancestors originally come from?
TA: Where was I, where was I born? Well, I was born on College Avenue, Rexburg
Idaho in a house in 1925, February 28. Oh, I went to school, started at first grade in
school at the old, what they call the old Washington school, which was the old rock
building. It was torn down after the flood. My first few years were at that, at College
Avenue. One the events of my life was that they were building the Fourth Ward Church,
and a man who was in charge of the demolitions went up to see why it hadn’t gone off,
and it blew up in his face and killed him. And I remember them carrying him by my
house. The blood was dripping through the, through the stretcher onto the pavement in
this big old, at that time the blood wasn’t very big, but it seemed like to me they were
very large. And anyway, it was quite an impression on me that was about my first
recollection in life. I, like I said I started school when I was six in 19, I guess that would
be 1931. And then we lost that home. It was during the Depression years, and we had to
move west of town to my grandfather’s house, and move in with him. And he had a large
dairy herd and cows, and farm chores, and so we had to milk the cow in the morning and
one at night. And at least one was assigned to me, and then we rode a sleigh from there in
the winter up to school. And I lived there in the second grade, and then when I was in the
third grade we moved out South of Rexburg, what they call now Fifth West, and again we
had cows and chickens and pigs. We had a tent, and that house in particular didn’t have
any inside plumbing. Let’s see it did, I’m not even sure it had electricity. Anyway, that
was the farm life for me, and again I rode a bus in thanks to the guy who ran the school
bus. He had a kind of like sheep cab we, pulled by horses. And he used to bring us into
school in the summer, early in the spring time we’d load that, it had wheels on it. In the
winter it had a sleigh. Anyway that was you know, but during the same time my father
had a dry farm, what they called a dry farm up by Felt, Idaho. To relate you might know
where the Church, they have a place up there where they have summer recreation for
Ricks College people. It used to be called Ricks College. I’m not sure just what that was
invested in. But anyway, they, we had a, we had our own farm up there, and I used to go
up there in the summer, and we’d kind of worked on the dry farm. At that time we had
horses, and we had to pull, they pulled everything by horses. I felt sorry for those little
horses because they had to go out and really plod through that ground. But we did that
almost every summer. We’d be, live in Rexburg, and then we’d move up and live up
there in the summer. My brother Dean and I rode a horse to school in Felt. It was five
miles in, five miles out, and it wasn’t too bad because it was in the fall, and there wasn’t
any snow on the ground. But it was monotonous, especially for I was, been six or seven
and he’d been ten, eleven, or twelve years old, and we’d rode this big old horse, but it
was a fun time. We used to, my mother would cook, she would fix sandwiches, well what
I call scramble eggs sandwiches, which I love, and then she would put that in a bucket, a
little bucket we’d call a honey bucket. And we’d put that in the saddle, and I would put
oats for the horse in the other saddle bag, and they would, they all had a big barn there for
horses, all the kids would come in with horses. We had a barn there, and we’d put the
horses in there, then we would go to school, and then in the afternoon we would, we
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would get on the horse, and come back home. It quite, well monotonous. You get some
other things.
MM: Yes, tell me about your family. How many siblings did you have, brothers, and
sisters?
TA: I had six brothers and four brothers and pardon me, three brothers and two sisters. So
there was six in the family.
MM: Were your parents both from Idaho?
TA: Yeah, yeah they were. They were both born in what they call, when I was born just
west of Rexburg here, and my dad was born here, but Cedar Point, which was a
homestead up in 1982, somewhere in that area.
MM: Okay. What are some traditions you remember like maybe for holidays or going to
church, or some, anything like that.
TA: Well Church was kind of a, wasn’t all that you know. I really wasn’t, my, my dad,
even though both my grandparents were bishops we, we kind of fell, we didn’t fall away
from the Church, but we didn’t be very active. We thought we were going up to the farm
we, in the winter we would go somewhat active, but it seemed like that was the way they
did it. And so I really didn’t go to Church too much until I came home from service years
later.
MM: Okay. We talked a little bit about going to school. What else do you remember
about going to school?
TA: Well, I loved my teacher that I had up in Felt, but the teachers that I had down in
Rexburg I wasn’t that thrilled with. They were probably; I think the teacher up in Felt
was a little bit easy on me. And we, we were, we had four grades in one room, first,
second, third, and each row was first, second, third and fourth, and then in the other room
was, let’s see fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth. And so it was kind of a cozy situation. I
had, I loved my teacher, I think her name was Mrs. Neely, and then when we came down
to Rexburg. Of course they never did, they didn’t, they just had like one grade instead of
having one, two, three, four in that one room like I was used to up there. Why they had
all like the fourth grade and the fifth grade in probably the same as everybody else. But I,
I probably wasn’t very; I didn’t think I was a very good student because I was lazy. I
always thought that, all these, my thing was if you weren’t smart, you weren’t smart you
see. I didn’t, I didn’t ever catch on that you had to study to become somewhat smart, but
anyway that was my philosophy, which I think was my downfall because I, later on in
high school I did athletics, but I was pretty lazy. And anyway, I had to, it was kind of
struggle to get to play ball. You know it wasn’t, they learned to not let you play ball if
you didn’t get your grades up. But I graduated from Washington junior high, and then I
graduated from Madison high school. I participated in sports. I liked football and
basketball, and did track. I wasn’t crazy about track, but, but anyway I, it was something
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I could do, and I enjoyed it. And then, a lot of things are happening up on the farm
though. And I, my fondest memories were, up on the dry farm. Me and my friends we
used to have a special swimming hole up there, and we used to go, well they call it skinny
dipping because we just, it was just one of those things. We didn’t even own swimming
suits and didn’t really have to, so we could because we were kind of out you know away
from everything. But we used to go up there on horses to this one swimming hole, and
after we swam for a while we would get on the horses and play hide- and- go- seek in
what’s got to be pretty rough way, but anyway it was fun. That was one of the things
we’d do. One time I, where we lived was the deep, what they called Badger Canyon back
there. If you go up, you know where Canyon Creek is up here, but it’s a deep gorge. It’s
about 300 feet down in these canyons, and we lived right next to that and my cousin and
my brother and I got an old wheel and we wheeled it. We pushed it off that so we would
go down the canyon, and it didn’t go all the way, so we went down to see if it would. To
make sure it was dead, and when we got down there, there was a, the winters up there are
quite severe. And the snow had blown over the, kind of a narrower place on the Creek,
and it had made a natural bridge. We could walk over I mean just terrible fierce water. It
just, it was scary to swim. Anyway, we went across that. My cousin went first and then
my brother, and then me because we thought well the bridge won’t break if we all go
single, and then our dog, and after we got over there then we were scared to go back. So
we walked up the canyon where, where it was flatter.
MM: Uh- hum.
TA: Where everything was spread out, so the water wasn’t so deep and fierce, and we
decided that we would, that we would take all our clothes off so they wouldn’t get wet.
And I was to carry all the clothes and they would get on each side and they would go
across. And out in the middle I fell down and about half the clothes went down the creek,
and we didn’t have anything on. Well, we got out on the other side my cousin Buster
Smith was there on his horse, and said, “ Your mother has really been worried about you
people, you guys. And she says you better get home because she not feeling I don’t
know.” When we got home my mother I could say has never beat us, but this time she
did. She didn’t beat us, but she got a willow, and she gave us enough licks that we better,
that we knew that we never better do it again, that particular type of thing. So anyway,
that was a kind of experience, and then we used to swim the horses in the Teton River up
there. The Teton River went on back on one side of my, our farm, and Badger Creek went
on the other like this. So that land was in between it so, and we had about, we usually had
about a dozen horses, work horses and one saddle horse that, that we used to use. Then
course we used them and then they would use them. We’d use to skedaddle on the Teton
River and swim with them. It was a lot of fun.
MM: Is that?
TA: That was just some of the things that we did up there.
MM: Uh- hum.
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TA: Down in Rexburg I suppose I did about like most people, but one of the things that
used to be fun was when we lived up on the farm we had to come down to Rexburg for
the Fourth of July. We’d [ go] up to a town called Driggs, and we really looked forward to
that celebration. They’d have a parade and rode and everything. And incidentally we used
to get a quarter, twenty- five cents, and that would do us almost the whole day. It didn’t
take much money in those days.
MM: Sure. So did you ever, I know that you went into the military, did you ever go to
college at all?
TA: When I graduated from high school I got a letter from Utah State in Logan for a
scholarship to play football, and naturally I was interested. I mean anybody would be, so
I got on the bus, and went down there. That was in September I think it was. And when I
got there was all these football players from, most of them from Utah, Laramie, and we
played football and practiced and then World War II was going. And anyway, it just
seemed like we were just marking time till we went into the service. I finally quit, and
came back, and went into the Marine corp. So that was in 1943, and we went of course to
the usual thing, what they call boot camp you know. It lasted like seven weeks, and you
learn how to use a rifle, march, and do all those kind of things. Now, I, I kind of enjoyed
it because I was in pretty good physical condition. I, I enjoyed that part, and what they
did was they, they kind of find out what your interests are and what you do best. Anyway,
I had, I became what they call a tanker, and then I became a mechanic and a driver in the
marine corp. And we trained in that. We, we trained in a place called Jack’s Farm. It was
just an old farm, kind of with a cow barn was the mess hall, and the chicken coop was the
PX, and the farm house was the company headquarters, and I guess I mentioned that the
cow barn was our mess hall. And then we’d train, and drive tanks, and shoot and bomb,
and do all that kind of stuff. Did that until May of ’ 44, and we really got into what they
call a depot, a placement depot to go over seas. That’s were they got all the different, all
the infantry men, and tankers, and people, and artillery men, and they all came there
together, and they got what they called a Liberty ship. And they sailed out of San Diego
and this was May of, May 31 of 1944. And at that time they weren’t quite so worried
about next to the coast. We were headed to Hawaii, and they had a bigger dirigible
airship over us, and that followed us about one whole day to make sure there were no
submarines to shoot or to, you know bomb the ship or anything. So anyway, that, that’s
all we had there. And then a terrible thing happened to me. I got sick. I can’t remember, it
was either seasickness or just the smell of fuel oil and the food on the ship, but I vomited
all over the guy that was in front of me. This, he turned around, and I think he would
have killed [ me] if he hadn’t felt sorry for me because I couldn’t help it. It was a terrible
thing. I felt really bad about it. That was my first experience on a ship.
MM: Oh!
TA: Well anyway, as we came toward Hawaii and one of the things that was always
amusing to me was that flying fish. I don’t know whether you have ever heard of them,
but they actually fly out, and off the ship, and they had. They, they got phosphorous on
them you know, and they, they sparkle, they shine, and you see them shine. And when I
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gotten over there it was kind of interesting because I had never seen them, and I thought,
that was one thing that I always remember. Anyway, we got to Hawaii, and we pulled in
what they called Pearl Harbor, which had been the one that they had bombed, and the
ships were still, still in the harbor, it was still sank. And we stayed there for two or three
days. And we got to go swimming on Waikiki beach, and these were the days when there
weren’t any hotels, maybe three. Then well, this was a little liberty then we sailed and
went down to the island of Maui. And then we were, well we were taken up into higher
camp where it was, kind of had pine trees, and it kind of reminded me of up in Island
Park so I enjoyed that. And we trained there for, I don’t know about ten days I guess and
then we then we’d been aboard ship again, and then we went back to Pearl Harbor for, I
think overnight, and then we sailed for what we called the War Room. We, we sailed the
landed we went down west of Hawaii, and we went to an island called Eniwetok. After,
Eniwetok was one that they blew up after, after the war. They, they went and off a few
atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs and I think just blew it out of the water. I don’t think it
exists anymore, but I’m not sure. Well anyway, we went there and then got off the ship.
Well no, it took 22 days, 22 days we were going to Hawaii to that, and at Eniwetok we
got off, we got to go swimming. And we hadn’t been in very long, but a dang shark came
along, there was long tooth shark, so they make us get out of the water. But I remember
that shark. It didn’t seem like it was very big or dangerous or anyway. Nobody argued
with it. We then went to a place called Saipan, which we pulled into the harbor between
Saipan and Tapotchau, Claymu, and the battle was going, dive bombers bombing those
islands. And we were, one of the things that I had to remember, and this is it. Billions [ of]
supplies came of the VIN Body. See, the Japanese and the Americans had taken that, but
Japanese has told you that they didn’t pick them up and bury right away. So all these
dead, these flies off of their bodies came there in the ship, swarmed them. Anyway, that’s
one thing I remembered because, and then that night they called us all outside, and they
assigned us to different, ah, different outfits to go to. And Little got his name on what
they called Tinian, and I think it was the 24th of July, if I remember. Anyway, we landed
and I had a good friend from Menan, named Grey Hardy I’d met. I played foot or played
basketball against him a year or two before. Anyway, he, he was killed on Tinian, and
they, we were what they called the 18th Marines. They were a, combat engineers. And the
things that they did was blow up bunkers and carry flame throwers and things like that.
And so we were all, my first thing that I run into that I realized that it was the near
Sinavera cliffs. Deadly soldiers they, they had a flamethrower, and he was burnt like a
crisp, and he was on his knees, and he was on his knees ready to throw a hand grenades
like this, and so they had caught him just at that time, and hit him with a flame thrower.
And the next thing we went, and we went, been through a cemetery, an American
cemetery. And they had a grave, and the station people that brung a whole truckload of
dead marines. And they just stacked on, just all piled on their dead. And it all jiggled like
that, jiggled at all just, they were, they were just been killed that day, this big truckload.
Anyway, they were taking these men off, and they roll them up in a poncho, kind of like
a raincoat, take one of the dog tags, and put it in their mouth, and then one up on a
marker up above. Then they just cover them over, a bulldozer, and just fill the whole
grave in, see. Anyway, that was, that was king of a bad experience you know because you
don’t; you know that’s one thing that you don’t expect. You, you keep thinking well it’s
not going to happen to me. Well anyway, we finally went up to the other end of the island
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where they been doing that just to kind of get the trucks rolling you might say, and well I
better skip this next part because it was kind of embarrassing. But anyway, I friend of
mine shot a Jap, a Japanese had, he was in a cave and he had tied a little personnel bomb
to a belt, and what they would do was whirl it right around their head like that, and they
could throw it like a slingshot a long way. Well, anyway, my friend shot him, and he, he
had a battle flag on, and then a friendship flag, and it was just, we were all such young
gung hung, you know we thought we were big, we were big marines now. You know I
was 20 years old, and we, we could, you know we can do all these stuff. We can kill
them. Well anyway, that happened and Boyd, my friend Boyd had, we called him the Jap
killer after that. And he never, he never got quite over killing that Japanese though. It
bothered him. You know he was just, I’m sure he was a good, good young American by
that gone, come from home religious, and first time he’d ever done anything like that.
None of us had. Anyway, that was one of the things that happened, and, and we, when I
got word that my friend Hardy had been killed, and my other good friend Hanson from
Rigby. He was a kind of a nut, he, he used to make up jingles when we were on the ship,
going over, just about anything. One of them I remember. He used to sing little fly upon
the wall you ain’t got no hair at all. I don’t know why I remember that. It wasn’t
anything, but he’d make up things like that and then we’d laugh at it. We thought that
was, I guess we were just trying to ease the pain, and we after Tinian we secured, and
then we went back, and back to where, the island of Saipan. We went on some kind of a
barge, I think as I remember. But we in more than other things, we just you know bunk in
a pup tent you know. I don’t know if you probably know what a pup tent is, two people
in, and it rained everyday. It just seemed like everyday, it was a month there we could
only, and then we got; we went into the 18th Marine crew we got transferred to what they
call the Second Tank Battalion. That was what we were trained in was tanks. We weren’t
trained to do the other, but we trained as tankers. So anyway we were assigned, and then
they had their own kind of training camp. Do you want me to go on, this is too much?
MM: No, go ahead.
TA: Well, because I can change it to after the War if you want me too.
MM: No, go ahead.
TA: Anyway, we about this time too, they had a lot of Japanese. A lot of them lived in
caves there at Saipan. And they were going out, and surprising marines, and some of
them would blow up a bomb, and just a lot of things. And so they pull up the deputy and
made a whole sweep of the island. We just got into one big line and went around along to
all the caves, and we got out several Japanese soldiers gave up. See there, there quite
traumatic, I’m sure you read that. Anyway, then we, we kind of got a lot of them in, in,
in- they were put in prison camps or killed. Well, that was one, that was that time, and
then shortly after that I got what they called Dengue fever. It’s spelled D- e- n- g- u- e, I
think, and it’s like Malaria. And you get it like Malaria, it’s caused by mosquitoes, and
you get, you feel just like you, like you got the flu. Your temperature goes way up, and
you just feel miserable. When your fever got up that high, I was sent in the division
hospital for three weeks. And while I was there they just had cots in a big tent, we
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weren’t put in place for long. But you get this fever you get all kinds of dreams. Anyway,
you read, you just stare, and the guy next to me was ranting and raving. He was going
through all kinds of things. The reason we he had Malaria. And he just kept screaming
and ranting, and finally I think during the night his fever broke so he could go to sleep.
But the next morning his fever [ broke], and the Foreman came in, and he said, “ How you
feeling Latham?” And I guess he said, “ I could feel better.” But anyway after he left I
said, “ Latham, you ever live in Rexburg, Idaho?” He said, “ Yes, I used to live there.” But
he used to be with my brother. He’d been in our house, I even played. Anyway, they
shipped him home; he got to go home in a couple days later. When he got home to go
home, I says, “ No, I’m not just feeling too good, can’t I just go back in the company. I
think I’d feel just as good.” So they let me go back. We were there in Saipan, kind of an
interesting place. It had a lot of, they kind of just taken over. They had navy there, and
they had air force, and marines and just a little of everything. We started getting, we fixed
up a place, and had a nice; we fixed up a show house, in a hill, and even dug seats for us
you know like an amphitheater. But the one thing was the Japanese started bombings
there, and it got to be a real pain because we wanted to watch the show, and the guys
wouldn’t go. When the air raid siren, siren would go off they’d cuss and complain. They
often make us go; they insisted we’d go to the area. Anyway, we’d go back to our tents,
and these big chunks of shrapnel in there and the shelling see from the bombs would
cover the area. The last one we had New Years Eve 1944. We just barely come back; I
guess we figured you know that it was not worth it or something. Anyway, we were there
was kind of a routine, and food got somewhat better although it was all canned and
dehydrated. But I did, I just it’s funny I was just telling my wife and daughter about, I got
on mess duty, and I was peeling potatoes.
MM: Uh- hum.
TA: It was Jack Simplot, you know he’s the big Simplot brother. You know they had,
they had all the dehydrated potatoes, and that’s how I got to find he was getting into the
potato business from Idaho. I told these guys look at that, here’s a guy from my home
state, got a potato king. But I just remember that while we were. In the summer time we,
well it was, what it was winter for them. It was I think the last day we had I told you New
Years Eve ’ 44 because it was January, February so we just had routine training, and we
cleaned tanks, and machine guns, and gunnery. We’d call some air raids we could invade
town, and then I’m just trying to think. I’m trying to think what happened. Anyway, we
were somewhere all and then they called us together, and said we were going to invade
an island where there were three of the most poisonous snakes in the world. And I mean I
was just petrified, I hate snakes. But they didn’t tell us where it was or when. They just
said we were going to be trained in snake bite kits. Oh boy. It was along in March we
boarded what they call LSTs, Landing Fighting Ship Tanks. We had, I think three tanks,
and they were called the [ landing] fighting ship medium, and what they are they are light
as a ship, they’re like a bathtub, coning panel power is over here and they have those
doors that open like that see. The plan is to sit in the bottom here and then when you get
ready to land they open these doors up, and you can just you know just go right out on the
land. Well anyway, we were on one of those, and I was still seasick. I was always
seasick, never did get over that was nasty when I think about 22 days. But we went to
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Okinawa and we, one tank we were sleeping in one of the tanks, and we had no chains,
and that tank broke loose. It had, chained them down you see, but the rocking of the ship
it started going back and forth across the ship like this. And what we had to do was get a
lot of big timbers, and what they call fenders, and we drop them in behind them when it
roll to one side we drop it under here. Combing it was a terrible mess, one of the worst
nights I think I ever spent. We finally got it cornered there, and then we pushed it into the
corner, and everything. But you know anyway, we finally though got to Okinawa. And,
in the mean time we’d moved our cots up to these doors in up in the, in the, in between
these door, but we just couldn’t, it was about that when we opened it up just this tiny
bottom. Anyway, I woke up about, oh just five o’clock in the morning and I cold hear
gun fire, and I just looked up in this pressure bowl anywhere just as this sky was covered
with we just thought the navy was having practice, and this kamikaze plane was coming
at us, and he, he either missed or he was, he was after the other LST on the bigger ship,
and he hit that one, and killed a lot of marines. Had he hit us he would have probably
blown us right out because we were smaller, but anyway that’s what happened. That feel
and then we went out that morning it was Easter Sunday, beautiful day. Pretty blue sky,
we’d laid down the smoke screen so it didn’t, and we had a got hauling a little while and
headed for the beach. We thought we were going to land and they came along. See, well,
where were we? We had gone in toward the beach, and we just thought it you know, it’s
like this it. We’d be doing our thing, but anyway we turned around and came back. We
turned right around and went back to the ship, you know we’re talking about 20,000 men.
We were all in these and we had made up what they call a fake, and we had drawn the
Japanese you know into the lower part of Okinawa. That was the plan anyway. Well
anyway, well anyway the other division kept the land from a distance; well they just kept
us on the ship in what they call the China Sea, which is probably northwest of Okinawa.
And we could see all the aircraft carriers in the battle wagons in one line apparently all
over here, I don’t know what they were doing they had keep the Japanese kind of bait the
navy out and different things see but to keep them from getting to the troops. Well
anyway, they finally decided that they going to use them, but it was too dangerous to
have all that. They could have sunk one ship and killed more marines than they probably
did on the island. And they took us all the way back to Saipan, and we thought well, let’s
see , we were kind of disappointed that we didn’t get to land, and relieved because we felt
well, at least we, I’m alive. And we used to get back in routine then [ they] decided [ they]
need us to go back. And when they called up what they called the eighth marine, they
called that team eight. And it was about a third of the division, and again we loaded up on
[ one] of the LSTs and away we went again. And then we, this time we got into a big
typhoon. It was, the navy lost a lot of ships in that. Well, we finally got to Okinawa, and
got off, and we thought well now we’re here again. And then we rode some what they
call an LSD, Loading Ship Dock, and then we invaded another island what was called
Aguni- shima. And we went in there, and they had, a lot of Japanese soldiers had left, and
they had all these little horses, cute little horses, real horses. And the men would well
have them to carry their pack, and it was kind of funny to see them working in the mines.
Well anyway, that was kind of, kind of a fun place to be. It lasted about, we thought this
would nice if we could stay there. Anyway, they called and finally took us back out, and
then we were there for, it was about the fourteenth of June to thirties of June in the
combat area. And I had some, I got a parachute, one of the marines was bringing supplies
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by parachutes. The Japs had him pinned down, and I had one of those down in the
Museum, well anyway after that was over we went back to Saipan, and then when I got
kind of active in the Church. I went, I went to a, they had sent out a bulletin that invited
me to a 24th of July party down on the beach, and so I made arrangement. I was the only
man [ in] a battalion of 500 that was Mormon, everybody else was, so anyway I went
down there, and met all my friends from Rexburg here and Rigby. I had a good time.
There was a chapel there, and things were, it was really nice. The War still wasn’t over,
and they got together, and we built a church there. And, and I was just sitting in my tent
and talking about wondering when we’d ever going to get home, I’d been over there over
a year.
MM: Uh- hum.
TA: And they dropped the atomic, the first atomic bomb, and of course they, they
dropped the second one, and then they, and they, Japan surrendered. So you can imagine
how happy we all were. We thought we all be going home. They held one meeting in that
church house, and we all went. I still got the program. L. Tom Perry you know he was the
chorister, but he was a nobody. I mean that is, I mean he’s like me. He wasn’t anybody
then. Anyway, that was found out we were going to go to Nagasaki as on, as, as
occupation troops, which we did. And that took quite a few days, but we finally landed in
what they call the Nagasaki harbor, and we were there until, from then until my birthday
the 28th of February 1946, and sailed for home. I come home, and well you know I was a
GI [ solider] like everybody else who’s home. They’re glad to be home. It was in March.
And my folks lived right up here by Gambols, you don’t probably know up there. Where
do you live now? You don’t live in live in the ward do you?
MM: I live on Birch over by the hospital.
TA: Well anyway, I was happy to be home, and I got on the GI bill started working for
Flamms down here. And Margaret, my wife came in there one day to buy some paint.
She told you that story did she?
MM: She didn’t tell me that one, she said how she met you.
TA: Anyway, see I don’t remember too much about, but anyway her brother came in the
next time to buy the paint. I said, “ Why don’t you send your little sister?” Anyway, I met
his sister and we got married. Worked at Flamms for a while then I finally went to work
for the army, and I just, different things had come up you know. We had Vicky, our
daughter, who is married and Terry, and then Patricia she lives in Archer, Terry lives in,
in Utah, and Vicky lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. And then there’s Kent and then Jackie
our other two, and that’s our family. And of course we lived across the street here on this
big building here. We had a little house over there when the first three were born, and
then we bought this around the fifties, and the other kids where born here, and we lived
here, we bought it around ’ 51. I can’t even, 56 almost 60 years and still do. And that, as
far as my life is I’ve always enjoyed I rather, I still have a little piece of ground up where
my dad, where I used to ride the horse to school, and we’d go up there any chance we get.
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I haven’t been up this year, but it’s a fun place to go. It’s, it’s right on that same creek
that I used to play on. It’s not very elaborate. It’s like some of these of these big, this
stream right here. And, and then of course I’m kind of the curator or director of the
museum. It’s starting on the fifth year now. We haven’t done anything else. We went to
New York once and then up to Hawaii, I sold insurance or I did, I did sell insurance, and
we won a couple trips, one to Denver, Colorado, and one to Hawaii, or at least we had
some good times out there. But other than that, I, church wise, I should go back, and at
Saipan I had no priesthood until, anyway, I’m not sure that L. Tom Perry, but another
man of Tolman, he was just living in Rigby area got a hold of me, wrote home, and got
permission you know from bishopric to ordain me a teacher I think it was. So that was
my first priesthood until, anyway, I’m not sure that L. Tom Perry being, being an apostle
today I would have felt that it was a possibility he did or could have well been another. I
lost the certificate in the flood. But that was a what got me started in the Church, and then
when I came home, and I got with Margaret, and of course she help and tell me, and you
know one thing lead to another so we just been our- I’ve never been a bishop, but I‘ ve
been in a bishopric up on campus. And that’s just about it.
MM: Okay, what other jobs did you have? You sold insurance and did you have anything
else? I know you got out of the army when you were, around the Korean War did you
ever go back and work for the army or anything?
TA: Well, I was, I worked for the army, yeah. I went in the National Guard. In fact I had,
I had another six years with them, and then I went on active duty with them. I went to a
school. That’s when Margaret and I lived back in New York. I was at Minneapolis, and
did what you call a sergeant major course at HG. It’s just an individual that you were a
sergeant, but you took care of all the paperwork, and payrolls, and everything, and I did
that. And my office was over here where the courthouse is; I mean it’s at the courthouse.
That building is gone, what now is it?
MM: For them?
TA: So I worked for about five years, then I got into insurance for about five years, and
then I go over there, and then the rest has been when I got into printing, and my kids, then
sometimes right now I go over and Margaret goes down everyday.
MM: Uh- hum.
TA: So mostly my career full or working. One of the most dear, wonderful time I ever
had in my life was I had a job at Yellowstone Park when I was 16. It was what you
called, what’s from, it was in a store, and I worked, we worked over at Hamilton’s store.
And it was one of the happiest times of my life. I loved that, I always wanted to go back,
but the War came along, and it just never got back up there.
MM: Why did you enjoy it so much?
TA: Huh?
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MM: Why did you enjoy it so much?
TA: Oh, just first way, time away from home, it was mostly, and the food was good, and
I got 50 dollars a month, which was a lot of money in those days. For the, it was just
before World War II by the way.
MM: Okay.
TA: It was that summer, and the lake, I went down, I used to go down and help the guy
clean the boats. I got to use the boats for nothing, and then I would swim, I loved to swim
in the, and I don’t know if you ever been to West bend. They had a geyser that comes up
from the ground there, and the mix with the cold and the hot water together, beautiful
swimming hole, you can just swim right in there, right next to the geyser see because of
the cold and the hot. I don’t think they let them do that anymore, and then we used to
have our own, as shower. We’d go down, in the middle of Laser Lake, and where
everybody else was, and then the geyser water would come down on the ground, and over
the cliffs, and just doing, just the right shower. That, that’s one thing, you can see why I
liked it. I really did.
MM: This is kind of going back, but I’m going to ask you about some historical events.
What do you remember about the Great Depression? You were probably young but…
TA: Oh, well you know those years in the farm when I was talking to you, that, that’s
probably when I said about getting, getting a quarter to go.
MM: Uh- hum.
TA: Depression years were, but, I, I guess maybe I was, let’s see born in ’ 25, see in ’ 35 I
was ten. And that was when it hit the hardest, long in the ’ 30s. I don’t remember, we
always had it seemed like plenty of food because we had our own garden, and everything
like that. I have, it was not much money. It just was, it was things just were pretty tight
for, and I don’t think my parents ever really let me know it that bad you know. We knew
it was there, but I think everybody, everybody is the same. I think that’s one reason why
it didn’t affect us you know, yeah. And it didn’t get better until about 1940, I think my,
and you know I just kind of think about what time about ’ 36, ’ 34 in there when World
War II started to come by, and between ’ 41 and’ 7 it kind of got better, and it was better.
MM: Okay. What about the Teton Dam flood? What do you remember about that?
TA: Well, of course we were in this house, and we were out I was just doing yard work
on a Saturday, and heard it on the radio I think like everybody. And of course you know
the first I’ll have, even if it comes in it won’t be that deep or we’ve had water come in,
you know up to your knees out here, and that kind of thing. I think about not too far long
before that the creek you know the spring had overflowed. But anyway, I finally decided
I guess that it was true, and we didn’t do anything, but, and when you know Jackie and
13
Kent, that’s my two youngest. They were just teenagers, and Jud Squire over here, and
the three of them went up to the dam. They went up over here, and we didn’t know they’d
gone up there. They came back here, if you know we had our print shop down in the
basement. And they got a load of paper, and come up and laid it on this floor, and the
water got up to well about here. In fact, I’ve got a line inside of a cabinet there I think it
is just this high in here so it didn’t do any good for them to bring it. And like everybody
else we went up on the hill and kind of watched it go by. In fact, you, you could just go
up here a little ways, and you’d be out of it. It’s kind of crazy to look and see it happen,
and there were fires being started, and animals running back and forth, and people, and
fire. And I don’t know it was kind of hard to believe, and yet we had to believe it. Kent
and I walked in here, and the water was still up to about my waist. And we walked from
that end of the clock where there wasn’t any water down to here, and looked in. and
looked down in the basement here, and of course it was a mess. The police was right
behind us, made us get out. They were kind of gruff about it. They what they were afraid
of was the gas pockets.
MM: Oh.
TA: And you know somebody’s line broke, and there was an explosion, so anyway he
made us get out, and we left. And then that night after the water had pretty well receded I
came back here, and stayed by myself in the bedroom upstairs.
MM: Uh- hum.
TA: So I went up there, and slept here when excuse [ me], and they went up I think to the
College dorms. Excuse me anyway, I looked out that window. They, about 12 o’clock at
night it was a old bull or cow come wandering down the street. All muddy, just crusted in
mud and like. Boy that, what the heck happened you know like. He probably didn’t
understand what was going on, like that. Anyway, that was the one thing I do, and then
I’m into photography, and I’ve had a lot of negatives you know the way we used to keep
them.
MM: Uh- hum.
TA: They were all soaking wet. They been down in the basement, and I took them
upstairs and laid every one of them out like this so they’d dry. A lot of them still had grit,
and, but you could get a picture off them you know.
MM: Well, that’s good.
TA: That’s one of the things I did. Then the next day I, we just started cleaning like
everybody else you know getting all the carpets out, and scrub for the wash, turn the
wash everything down. It was such a mess.
MM: I bet.
14
TA: But that’s the way, we just kind of everyone up and stayed in, that furthest one up, I
can’t even remember the name now.
MM: The Aspen apartments up the hill.
TA: Huh. I don’t think they call it that now, but clear up there was nice older one up here,
straight up on this road, that. I can’t remember, anyway we stayed there for I don’t know
13 weeks while we got things in, close to Red Cross and the Church all the people came,
and helped us clean up you know, and a lot help they. But I don’t remember, my friend
Frank Thompson lived here, his two Honda cars were through my front, and took out the,
there’s some things that stick out from the porch, and he took them. Anyway, the flood
also laid those stones out across the road just as if somebody had set them out there so
you could stop, but then he, one of those cars he found pretty quick, but the other one I
don’t think he found for two or three weeks.
MM: Really?
TA: It was clear out in the country.
MM: Wow. Are there any other events that really have affected Rexburg that you can
think of?
TA: About Rexburg?
MM: Uh- hum.
TA: Well, I’ve always had, I’ve always been kind of civic minded I’ve served as the
president of the Chamber of Commerce. In fact, I was president of the Chamber of
Commerce when they voted to have the, to put the dam in. I don’t know if that’s good or
bad.
MM: You don’t want to admit that so much.
TA: Yes, my legacy is that we lost the passenger service in the train, train service, and
voted for the Teton dam, so, good enough. And, I’ve just done some things after doing
the Chamber of Commerce I just and historical society. I went to Ricks College long
enough to get my name on the roll. That’s about all.
MM: So, what are, what are some businesses that you think are influential?
TA: What’s that?
MM: What are some businesses that you think were influential around here? I know
Ricks has been, Ricks and BYU- Idaho is a big one. Is there any others that you can think
of?
15
TA: I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying?
MM: What do you think had really affected the town like business wise? I know Rick’s
College had made a lot of growth come in.
TA: Oh, I see what you mean. Well, of course when they were going to move the
College, you’ve probably heard that story, and I didn’t feel good about it. Not too many
people had. I worked for that, well incidentally I worked out to the Site. I guess I should
back up. I worked for General Electric Company, which is a pretty big company, and I
was in what they called HP, House Physics. And it was our job to go, in other words if
they had a reactor or they did dome atomic energy experiments, it was our job we had to
go in and measure the radiation to make sure that the guys didn’t get too much, and there
were men, and that was our job. I did that for five years out there, and it was kind of a
fun, I mean not fun, but I really enjoyed it because I, I wasn’t, I didn’t go to college to
learn that, and the guys that I associated with, that were out there we had a kind of a knit,
there was about ten of us, and that’s all we did was measure radiation. Really, we kind of
had our own little deal. And we’d go out, we had, we were trying to build an atomic
airplane.
MM: Really?
TA: That’s what they were trying to do, and they had all this experiment, they had the
engine running, and they were, they had, they’d built a big hanger, and they were going
to have a big airstrip out here. The hanger’s still there. That hanger had got cement over,
deep, big, big thickness like that for the radiation. See, what they do is, wheel the air, the
engine in there, and the airplane would be hooked to it, and then they would take it over
here, and, and it would fly, it would have flown from out here. But what happened in
1961 the Russians shot Sputnick up, the first orbiting capsule, and it killed our program.
See, they were going to have an airplane that would go up in space a week, maybe a
month with atomic energy, see. And that’s what they were trying to achieve, and they did
that, but they were never got it in, so they cancelled it.
MM: Okay.
TA: Lost the money that went into that thing. Then when they cancelled it I was still
working for them, and a lot of guys were leaving. Someone got laid off. There was 500
employees out there, and some of them were leaving to go on to bigger things. Well,
anyway I stayed on, and there was a, well actually you probably heard about the SL1
[ Stationary Low- Power Reactor- 1 in 1961], that, that blew up, see, and killed three guys
out on the Site. But you see nobody ever talks about that, see that’s the only, that’s about
the only the people that have ever been killed in that atomic energy field. Well, these
three men were working out there that night, and they’re not sure just what happened,
whether one of them pulled it off, but anyway it blew up. And pinned this one guy up into
the, no, I think it pinned two of them up in to top of the reactor, and the radiation was all
over the place, and then it was a mess. And this it, I think that was about the worst
tragedy that ever been happened in, in the atomic energy program. Well anyway, they
16
really lost a lot of work without the contract to clean it up, but the one thing that I didn’t
all this. They got a guy, that guy was, they had to get a crane to get him out you see. They
had to wear protective clothes, they couldn’t because they all exposed to the radiation. So
they put a piece of his coverall in what they call a lead pig, and you know that’s solid
lead, and put it in the back of a car, and I drove the car, and them. Well, I had no idea
who the other people were, but some were just the guards. And we drove as fast as we
could I think it was a chemical processing plant out there, and that’s where they took all
the radiation to, and I for a years dose of radiation. Anyway, that was the one mention,
and I quit not too long after that. It was, let’s see it was in, the only thing was that
summer I was doing it, and I quit on October 15. So that was one incident, although that
as a learning experience for me after. I really enjoyed it. I hated the bus ride. It’s terrible.
MM: Must be pretty long from here, I know a lot of people from Idaho Falls go out and
work there, and it’s, it’s pretty long for them too.
TA: Well, yeah, and you know it’s just so long you couldn’t. I used to, luckily I used to
read a lot of scriptures. I haven’t been that good, that while, since I did it, and sleep you
know, but some guys they like to play cards. Anyway, just distance. Margaret used to say
when she see, knew the bus was about to get here she lock the kids so that, because I was
so ornery. I’d yell at them. Other than that I don’t, I’ve done anything else.
MM: So, how do you think Rexburg has changed over the years?
TA: There’s been a lot of changes, especially the last four. Well, thinking I know did I
mention, we mentioned about the college going to Idaho Falls didn’t we?
MM: Uh- hum.
TA: About them wanting to move it down there. At the same time that’s when I was
working at the Site.
MM: Uh- hum.
TA: And those Idaho Falls people were really smart already with me. They just gave me
a bad time about losing that College. They were so sure they were going to get it. And it
got to you know how it is when your company keeps needling you about that. But, I’m a
booster of Rexburg, and, and Margaret’s family lives here, her dad taught up at the
college, and I just, I just, just born. We were both born on College Avenue you know.
We’ve always been kind of proud of that. But we couldn’t get much from much more
Rexburg than us you know. Of course she grew up across the street, and we watched by
being in business ourselves we wanted that, so we could have a piece of the pie so to
speak. And it, the University just had some traffic problems kind of come with it. It it’s
pretty hard, you can tell out on the road. It used to be you could get out on a road with ten
other people, and you were all right, and now you get on a road with a hundred or two
hundred of the same, going the same direction. It gets pretty tiresome.
17
MM: Yeah.
TA: But I’ve always, we’ve always been big fans of Rexburg. Yeah, I can’t think of
anything else.
MM: Okay. I think that’s probably about it.