Family History
By: Stella Draper Lewis
I was born on 7, Oct. 1884, about 100 yards south of hte Harward bridge across the Sevier River on the Loss Creek side of the river, not more than 25 yards from the banks. My father and Grandfather Draper owned and run the first thrashing machine in Aurora, and had to quit work for my arrival. He told the men when he went back that he had to braid my hair which was well 3 inches long, a great difference to what it is in my old age, 67 years, as it is very thin and short, hardly enough to braid. When about 3 years old, because of high waters and a complete burn out, I moved with my family about one half mile farther south. I first attended school on the west side of the river in the first log school house which was used also for Church gatherings and dances, etc. I went to school on east side of river called Loss Creek, in one room of several old dwelling houses not inhabited until the frame school house was built up a mile or more east of the river, where it was in a central place for all farm families.
My teachers were Newman Van Leuven, one of my best and strictest ones, Fanny Candlant, May Foshee, Emma Olsen (who married Dr. West) Mary Whitmore, Emma Christensen, who I considered another of my best teachers, George Casto of Salina who I really did appreciate, and G.N.W. Jones, whom I helped one winter to read and correct all examination papers, and got a great deal of pleasure as well as experience from it. I reached the 8th grade which I took over again the second time as I had no chance to go to high school. George Casto and Mr. Pease taught in the new rock school house on the west side of the river, and mother and I cleaned it ready for janitors. I never did ride to or from school which was more often one and a half miles each way, except to the frame school house the last winter when Emma Christensen taught; it was only about one mile each way.
On Sunday, I with my family walked one and a half miles to Sunday School and home for noon, again to Sacrament Meeting at 2 p.m., and again to Mutual Sunday night, making three trips Sunday all year round, and every day to school until I was out of school. Now I said the year round, but I should of said year after year as when school was out in Spring, we moved up Loss Creek to the Draper ranch where my grandfather Draper lived, and returned again in Fall for school.
I remember well when we were quarantined while my sisters Brina and Mary (Merea) had diphtheria, also when we all had the Scarletina. I was the last one to take it and because we had been in quarantine so long I did not tell my mother I had a sore throat and was sick until the day they house cleaned and fumigated with sulphur on live coals, white washed the house and washed my bedding, etc., and I already was in for scarlet¬ina and catching cold while they were house cleaning. Sure was sick. Father was on the binder cutting grain for custom and I thought every time he left I'd die before he returned. I felt better when he held me or sit close by. I never will forget sister Mary when she had diptheria. They had to swab her throat with a hair brush and how her eyes would burn and bung out and the blood run from her mouth. Sister Brina was older and took the swabing more calm. Four Palmer children died in a few hours of each other with the same disease and one or two of several other families died before they got wise to its seriousness.
I truly loved our summers in the canyon, where we raised most all our hay, vegetables, etc., milked cows, raised chickens and pigs and horses. I remember all our favorite brood mares and the stallion, old Button which we had to keep tied up all the time, but although he was a large horse, father used him as a work horse every day charging the others with him, and when father went freighting, Button was always one of the wheelers. Some of my happiest days were up there and the ground and surroundings will always be sacred to me. Not all were happy days for there were seve¬ral sad deaths along among the ranchers. First was a young married woman, Persns Blood who married George Pierce. She and her baby both died; she never recovered from confinement. Then Jimmie Argworths wife died from miscarriage. Mrs. Wm. Cook lost her baby in winter time while living alone with her children, too young to go to school. All the rest of the ranchers were down in the valley for their children to go to school, and her own husband was at Eureka working in the coal mines. The snow was deep. She kept her baby after it died as long as she dared, hoping someone would come, but she at last dug a little grave on the west side of her house and burried it alone. Some heartache for her. She, after a few years died in the same house from miscarriage. Her mother and brothers were burned out by wicked boys who accepted money from some very undesirable men who coveted their water rights. Then her sister Mrs. Shaw died in her home close by Mrs. Cook.
Next was my grandfather's death which happened while my father was freighting, out to Dolemore, etc. Mother, my sister, Sadie and myself with smaller children were with him alone. He died in the night about 1 o'clock. We had coil lamps. He asked for beat up egg which Mother fixed, and as he raised up to drink it, he gave the dish a toss towards the fire place and fell off the bed dead. We, lifted him back onto the bed and straightened him out when our coil 1amp grew dim. We had to go out of that room and through an open space to another room for coil and because of our sorrow and excitement and fright, we spilled the oil, but put in water to raise the oil already in the lamp up to the wick. Before daybreak, Sadie. and I went and milked and done the chores, and as soon as daylight appeared we took her baby boy (Ralph) a year old, and walked to the nearest ranch three and a half miles below for help, leaving Mother and the little children (5 children) to watch over him until we got back. It was 8th June 1899, just 6 days after his 71st birthday. He was so very straight, well built and handsome, true honest and faithful and always was so sincere and earnest in his blessings and prayers which he never neglected no matter what or who our company was. He was a true example of all the gospel teaches. Coming to I the Valley for his funeral and burrial Wilford Curtis and some others gathered the pink wild roses and completely covered his casket in the head open buggy. We all came down except sister Sadie and her second fiance; Evert Curtis and her two small children. The oldest, (May) was only 2 1/2 years old, and she called him (Grandpa) her Daddy as her own Daddy was dead.
While we were down in the Valley the Bryn Reservoir up on head of Loss Creek Canyon broke and the water came down with such force it took out the great rocks which created the big falls, a very good place to fish for trout as they could not jump up the falls. I have seen the fish try to jump up over them. The flood water covered a good big patch on our field along the banks and took down cows, and flooded some of the ranches below, taking pigs, chickens, machinery and harnesses, etc. At the Blood ranch it covered their crops and did most damage. The flood took out all bridges along the way. It was terrible lonesome without Grandpa. When Fall came my father had to come to the Valley to cut grain with his binder as we depended on that for our grain for flour and feed, etc. for ourselves and for father to freight out to mines for cash. Mother got sick and had I to be under doctors care. Sadie and Evert had, during the summer got married so it was up to myself and sister Merea, two and a half years younger than me to stay and look after the ranch, milk cows, feed pigs and chickens, and tend the garden. One day, Louis Jacobs, a merchant of Salina where we did alot of our trading, and Don Foshee, a farmer of Salina came up fishing. They were very close friends and had been to our house many times every summer--they took our fishing tackle. When it came milking time, they had not yet returned so we went for the milk cows one and a half miles above or up the Little Loss Creek to the pasture gate and met the cows coming. We had closed all the doors, but when we got the Cows milked and started to the house the doors were open. It was getting dark. Mary (Merea) said Grandpa was in the house and was afraid to go to the house, and wanted to climb up a great cedar tree that grew at the barrs or gate, and stay all night. I knew we would both go to sleep and fall out so I took a 12 quart bucket of milk in each hand and although my hair seemed stand up on my head and the shivers ran up and down my spine I walked the house with my sister right at my heels screaming as loud as she could yell. I truly did hate to go into that dark house and light the lamp, and then back a half block and get Mary's 2 buckets of milk, with behind me screaming for her life.
One night we sat on the north door step before lighting the lamp, after our chores were done and a wild animal came right in the back yard and took our pet cat; it sure gave a painful cry and we could hear it crunch our cat's bones as he ate it. We both cried.
Mary and I were both good marksmen with a gun, and in case of need Father had left all guns loaded. His and Grandpa's rifles, shot guns, and a side trigger pistol and a six shooter pistol. We emptied them all at rabbits and squirrels, and then one day a hawk began taking our half grown chickens. We decided to load the side trigger, and put in some powder then paper and then tamped it down; then more powder and more paper and tamped it until we had the barrel full, and then put a ball bullet in the end and put a cap on the cap trigger and tried best to get a shot at that hawk. It sure was a good thing for us the Lord prevented us getting the shot, or one or both of ss would sure been killed. When Father and Mother came and we told them, Father sail Lord was sure on our side, and he taught us how to load the gun correctly as well as the other guns.
The indians came one day and we were dressed in Mother's dresses with pillows for breasts, and bustles, and great big rag dolls. We ran across the creek and hid in the brush till they left. A week after, they came again and laughed at us for being dressed up before, and running to hide. They had seen us but we didn't think they knew where we were told our folks about it after.
The mountain lions were plentiful and gave us many thrilling experiences. One night soon after going to bed a most terrible scream, like a woman, only many times louder, arroused us. We all jumped out of bed and
ran to the door just as she gave another scream, which we recognized as a lion right in our door yard. Father fired a shot and we did not hear any more, but next morning seen where she had sit in the door yard on the grass and her two baby lions had sucked as foam like on cows milk was on the grass just far enough apart for one cub to be on each side. Another time we were pulling bark off of posts while Father and Grandfather trimmed and loaded them on the wagon to sell to Beason Lewis. We had a pet lamb that jumped around over the pile of posts and played with us. After awhile the lamb was gone, we thought to the house, but when we went to dinner, not 3 rods from our posts a lion had killed our pet lamb and did we children cry to see its intra1s cut open. We had a playhouse in the big oak trees close by our house, and one day had company, Uncle David King and family. We children had played there in the playhouse all fore noon, and after dinner we went back, or started back to play and there a lion had a chicken in our playhouse cut out of the oak trees. I never did jump so far nor yell so loud. The men tracked it half a mile and lost it. Many times they were seen at our corral for a chicken. One morning early Father went close to a mile to the head gate for water to irrigate and on his way home met three lions face to face. He turned out around them and kept looking back and said they watched him. He had his shovel over his shoulder. When he got home he was so pale you could see the roots of his black whiskers and Mother and I thought he was sick.
I could tell some snake stories too. We were washing out in under the bowery. I was scrubbing in the first suds and Mother in the second suds. I heard a snake rattle and as we had clothes in piles all around we wanted to wash in their turn, we couldn't see the snake. Well Mother got the shovel and poked a pile or two close to where I stood and there it was. She was so anxious to see that he did not get away she cut his head off with the shovel and it threw blood all over the clothes. Then Mother took 2 pair of scissors and held the clothes with one and cut out chunks with blood on with the other. We sure had alot of holes to patch.
One time while fishing Father was in a bend of the creek, a nice fishing hole; he looked around and a big rattler was behind him. Father jumped into the fish hole to his waist and came out on the other side; got some rocks and went far enough back to kill the snake. We had a small grass patch that was alive with water snakes at a certain time of the summer before time to cut the grass but they all would leave before cutting time. They were all sizes, too many to count before they scampered into hiding.
We children picked hops (a twining plant the ripened cones of which are used in brewing to impart a bitter taste to malt liquors) every August dried and sold them to Louis Jacobs and made good at it. I
No comments:
Post a Comment