The New Saddle and Bicycle

 When Douglas was about fourteen and I was about eleven, for a winters project, we ran a trap line and trapped muskrats in the creek.  We had good success with our new venture and caught a lot of muskrats and occasionally we would find a mink in one of the traps.  I don’t think either one of us kept track of how many we caught, but by spring we had a nice pile of pelts.  Every afternoon after school we would walk home along the creek and check our traps.  We would carry what we caught along with us.
 
When we arrived at home, we would skin what we had caught.  We had to be very careful and not cut a hole in the skin with our knives, as that lowered the value of the pelt.  The pelt had to be taken off the animal in one piece.  Then we would take the pelt and stretch it fur side in, down over a heavy wire frame that Dad had made for us.  Dad made us several of these frames, as sometimes we would catch several muskrats.  The skins had to dry for a week or more, then we had a place in the garage where we could store them.

In the spring a peddler came around and bought all the pelts we had.  Daddy supervised the
sale so I’m sure that it was a fair deal, that we got as much money that way as if we had hauled them to town and sold them.  When the deal was complete, we had enough money that Doug could order the saddle that he wanted and I was able to order the bicycle that I was hoping for.

Montgomery Ward’s was the catalogue that we used to do the ordering.  The pages were well worn by the saddles and bicycles.  After the order was made, then came the long wait for the articles to arrive.  About two weeks later our prized possessions arrived with the mail carrier, it was indeed a happy day.  That night we took the saddle to the corral with us when we went to milk.  After the milking was complete, we tied old Speck (a brockle faced milk cow) up to the corral fence and put the saddle on her.  Doug said, “Now I’ll ride old Speck as he got in the saddle”.  He was doing a great job of riding, when all at once Doug and the saddle both left the cow.  We looked at the saddle to see what the problem was, one of the three inch rigging leathers had broken.  The next trip we made to Burley, we took the saddle to Hoggan’s Leather shop and had the saddle repaired.  Doug never did ride old Speck.

My Hawthorne bicycle was red with white trim.  It had a speedometer on it so that I could tell how many miles I had ridden and how fast I was going.  The speedometer was marked in increments up to thirty-five miles per hour.  One day I rode down to the school house and was on my way home, when a brilliant idea hit me.  If I were to ride it up the Grouse Creek mountain, I could really come down fast.  As I started up the mountain, I soon realized that the road was too steep to peddle.  I pushed the bike about a mile and a half up the mountain, then got on the bike and coasted down.  Coming down was much easier than going up.  I really got going fast, in fact, I got going so fast that it broke the speedometer and it never worked again.

As I got older, I have thought about what a stupid thing that was to do.  I could have easily killed myself.  The bike was well used for many years as was Doug’s saddle.  Our trapping adventure that winter gave us enjoyment for many years.

Fun at School

L-R Back: Marilyn Lind, Barbara Baker, Vonda Bird; Front: Dwain Lind (kneeling), Marvel Lind (standing), Noel Nelson (standing), and Doug Lind (kneeling).

When I was in about the third or fourth grade, and Douglas was in sixth or seventh grade, we had been having our lessons as usual.  During the noon hour, about six horses came down the lane by the school house.  Doug was in an adventuresome mode, as he generally was.  I don’t know who made the suggestion that we run the horses into the school yard, but the gate was opened and the horses were run into the school yard.  Doug said, “I’ll get up on the fence in the corner and you crowd the horses into the corner,” which we did.  Doug jumped off of the fence onto the back of one of the horses, I don’t know whether he got hold of the mane or not.  The horse was very startled and started running and bucking.  Doug didn’t stay there very long, but it was very exciting while he was there.  Laurel Hill, the teacher, was a little agitated and made us turn the horses out in the lane again.  I don’t know if any thing was said to the folks or not.

The Old Ford

1919: L-R: John P. Lind, Lynn Clark, Philbert, Oscar & Laurence

On the ranch, in the shed below the road was an old 1916 (?) Ford Touring car, which used to belong to Grandma (Emma) Lind.  I think that it was the one that Uncle Oscar bought and after his death became the property of Grandma.  I don’t know if she ever drove it, but none the less it belonged to her.  Anyway many a happy hour was spent as a young boy as Doug and I pretended to drive the dusty old car.  It had a fold down top on it, four doors and two leather seats, the top was never put down.  I don’t remember if we were ever bank robbers, but we would chase the bank robbers and try to catch them.  Sometimes I would even get to pretend drive and that was very exciting.  We would get to go to many different places on exotic vacations, anyplace that our minds could think of to go.  It was a wonderful old car.

When Oscar was about 16, Dad told the boys they could have the old car if they could get it running.  Oscar and Dwain were the chief mechanics, Doug figured he was as good of help as they could find and Me, I was a good shade tree mechanic, most of my ideas went by unheeded.  After all I was only eight or nine and to older brothers didn’t know much.

The car was pulled out of the shed and work on it started in earnest.  First we got the motor running, because if the motor doesn’t run you can’t go very far.  After the motor was running and bands in the transmission were going, then we decided what to do with the body of the car.  It was decided to strip it down and make it into a pickup type vehicle.  The body was cut off behind the front seat, the back seat and the top were discarded.  A wooden platform was built on the back behind the seat that we could sit or stand on, so now we were ready to try it out.  The tires were no good as they had rotted while sitting in the shed, so the maiden voyage was made on the rims.

One of the interesting things about our “hotrod”, was that it had a Ruxstell gear in the differential.  This was kind of a low speed gear when you pulled on the floor mounted shift lever, giving it a two speed effect, high and low.

After we got tires on our auto, we were able to drive it all over on the roads at the ranch.  Oscar even taught me how to drive it, which I really appreciated.  We took it fishing, coyote hunting and one time we even decided to drive it to Grouse Creek to the 4th of July celebration.  There were about six of us that piled on to it and we were off.  Dwain was the chauffeur for us on that eventful day.  We putted down the road and up the mountain, as we started down the other side everything was going fine.  We came around Lower’s Curve and down to Poison Creek, as we were going down the grade by the creek, it started to pick up speed.  Dwain pushed on the brake and nothing happened, he tried everything he could think of, nothing worked.  We might make it around the gentle curve 1/4 of a mile ahead, but there was no way we could make it around Scott’s curve on ahead and we would go off the grade and down the hill.  The only alternative at this point, was to try and go up over the bank on the left and up the mountain.  Dwain grabbed the Ruxstell gear lever and gave it a hard pull, as he did this, every thing on the car seemed to work.  The sudden jerk almost threw us off, but we had been saved from serious injury or worse.

We went on to Grouse Creek and spent the day visiting with our cousins and friends.  The rest of the day was relatively uneventful.  The trip home was made in good order.

Oscar and Dwain went into the Army in World War II, Dad, felt sorry for a family with several boys in Moulton and gave our car to them.  They got it running and had lots of fun with it.  Us boys were really not very happy campers over the situation, but all turned out well in the end.

The Phonograph Motor

When I was about three years of age, we went to Emerson, Idaho one day to visit Uncle Frank and Aunt Annie Morgan.  Uncle Frank gave us an old phonograph motor.  It was a wonderful thing.  We would put string around all the glass knobs on the kitchen cupboards and then around the phonograph motor, this would turn all the knobs on the cupboard.  This was our factory.  You could wind it up, tip it up on it's side and it would crawl along the floor.  I felt that I was just as able as any one else when it came to running this wonderful machine.  One day, Mother and I were upstairs in the East bedroom.  She was quilting, I was playing with the motor.  I had it turned up on it's side, as one of the big wheels would turn around, there was a hole that would come appear.  As this hole would come around, I would stick my finger in the hole and jerk it out.  I had done it several times, before Mother saw me.  She told me that I had better not do it any more, as it would grab my finger.  I waited and watched and when she wasn't watching, I stuck in my finger again and it grabbed me.  I immediately began to scream and cry and holler.  Mother came running, she couldn't back the motor up, so she left me crying and ran down the stairs, outside to the shop, got a hammer, ran back to her screaming child and proceeded to break the motor to pieces so she could get my finger out.  When the older boys came home from school, they were really upset with me, because I was the one who caused the motor to be broken.  In thinking about the situation, I think that one of the older boys must have showed me how to do this wonderful daring thing.  Nevertheless, I still have the scar to remind me of that wintery day.

Christmas in Lynn

L-R: Philbert holding Virgene, Aunt Julia, Ellen, Aunt Otilia, & Uncle Lawrence

Christmas was always an exciting time in the Lynn Valley.  I don’t remember as much as I probably should, but none the less we always had a good time.  One of the things we liked to do was to go caroling, we would get on a bob-sleigh and go from house to house and sing Christmas Carols.  We enjoyed doing this and the people whose houses we went to seemed to enjoy it also.  When Laurel Hill was teaching we took Dad’s horses and bob-sleigh, sleigh bells were fastened on to the harnesses.  Simon Baker Jr. was driving the horses.  We had quite a caravan, we had a big sheet of iron hooked behind the sleigh, it was about four feet wide and eight feet long, the front of it was curved up so that it would ride over the snow.  We also had some individual sleds tied on behind and we took turns riding on them.  When we got up by the reservoir, Laurel, tipped her little sled over and hit her forehead on the edge of the big metal slide and when her head started to bleed, we were sure she was going to die.  Needless to say, this stopped our fun afternoon.

The ward met in the school to hold church activities so it was kind of hard to remember which activities were church and which were school.  We used to always have a Santa Clause party and Santa would come with presents for the kids.  We would always try to guess who Santa’s helper was, Aunt Julia was always a dead give away because of her thumbnails which were short and squatty.  We didn’t have electricity, so everyone would bring a lantern or a lamp, or both, to light the school.

We had grades one through eight in the school and everyone would help decorate the room.  Mostly it was paper chains that went crosswise from corner to corner, pulled up in the center and a large bell hung in the center.  The chains would also loop from window to window.  The school program would consist mostly of stories or poems given by the children.  Some years we would put on a one act play.

The folks would generally make their last trip to town to get supplies for the winter sometime before Thanksgiving, then we would be snowed in until some time in April when they would plow the snow out of the road.  One year not long before Christmas, Douglas and I had gone upstairs to bed.  There was a knock on the door and Dad went to see who it was, it was Clement Simper, he said that he was going to Burley tomorrow and wondered if Dad needed any thing.  Dad told him that he had a coaster wagon layed away at Western Auto and he wondered if Clement would bring it home for him.  The next night we had gone to bed and there was a knock on the door.  It was Clement with the wagon.  A few days later the road was still open, so Dad and Mother decided they would go to Burley.  Doug and I stayed home, after the folks were gone, we decided we would find the wagon.  We hunted in the basement, in the garage, the granary, the sheds at the corrals and all the small building, but we couldn’t find any wagon.  Christmas morning when we went down stairs to see what Santa had brought, the wagon was under the tree.  Years later, I asked Dad where he had hid the wagon.  He said he knew we would be looking for it, so he had carried it up to some tall sage brush between our place and Uncle Raymond’s and hid it.

As I mentioned, we didn’t have electricity, so when we, Uncle Raymond and us, decorated our Christmas Trees, we put candle holders on them with candles.  We only put about six or so candles on ours, and when we lit the candles, Dad would have a big bucket of water handy, to put out the fire if one started.  Uncle Raymond had a lot more candles on his.  They were the most beautiful sight I had ever seen when they were lit.  We had our tree up from December 15 to January 6.  Santa’s helpers would come again New Year’s Eve and leave candy and nuts again.

Our Pet Deer

Having grown up in Junction Valley on the ranch, we were surrounded by the high mountains with the large reservoir, mountain streams and broad blue skies.  We enjoyed a country lifestyle with our cousins close by.  We had many adventures with wild animals, many varieties of birds, and fishing was a favorite pastime.  We liked to catch the crawdads at the creek and make willow whistles.  We had trap lines in the winter and in the spring we waited for the eggs in the magpie nests to hatch, for the bounty was better on the little birds.  It was a great childhood.

The folks first home was a little three room house near Grandma Lind at the Lind homestead.  The joy of having a pet deer began early in life, probably even with Dad and his brothers and sisters.  When Oscar was only about two years old, he liked to feed the bottle of milk to his pet fawn and walk around holding on to it’s tail.  They were friends.  Mother said that she always knew when Tom Sherry was in the neighborhood, because the hair on the pet deer’s back would stand straight up and then the dog would start barking.  For some reason the deer didn’t like Tom.

I remember us having several pet deer that we loved, one about every year.  Dad would go out riding and find a little spotted fawn laying under the bushes and bring it home. We would feed them on the bottle and they would follow us around and live around in the yard and pastures.  As they grew up they would take off to live in the wild of the hills.

One Sunday in the fall when I was about seven years old, we were on our way home from church at the school house and as we got up by Uncle Alex’s place we spied a buck deer with horns standing in the pasture by the side of the road.  We called for Dad to stop the car so we could get out to see him.  We were sure he was one of our pets.  Dad stopped, but warned us to stay back away from him because he was a wild animal and not one of ours.  But we were sure he was as we all hurried out of the car in our Sunday clothes and started toward him.  He stood still watching us and we were able to walked right up to him and pet him.  He remembered us!  We were so excited to see him all grown up.  We didn’t want to leave, but the folks finally convinced us to go home for dinner.

We always worried that our pet deer would get shot with the wild deer at deer season time.  We had one that we raised that had four prongs on each side of his horns and we wanted to protect him.  When deer season came along that fall, Dad got a big piece of red cotton cloth and tied around his horns so he had a big red bonnet.  It saved his live for that year, at least.

The habit of having a pet deer continued down through Virgene’s teen age years as well.

George Bronson Family Memories

In the Deseret News on November 4, 2010, we ran across the obituary of Mary Lou Bronson Salter Galer.  It included the following paragraph of her birth and younger years: “Mary Lou was born April 30, 1926 at the E. Y. Ranch near Almo, Idaho to George William Bronson and Luella Jones She was the third of seven children.  She grew up in a log cabin and endured many hardships as a child with her family in the mountains of Southern Idaho.  Through this difficulty she learned to be courageous and was loyal to the end.” 

It went on to tell of her accomplishments in life after moving with her family to Salt Lake in 1940.  Our thoughts turned back to the years that the family lived in Moulton, on the north corner of the road next to the school and were our friends.  Dwain, Doug and I reminisced yesterday of those days long ago.  Dwain remembered the day of his baptism at the Lynn Reservoir as he was joined for baptism by cousin Lucille, Mary Lou Bronson and her cousin Patty Lee Updike.  The Bronson family attended church with us at the Junction School.  George was a counselor in the Bishopric with Uncle Laurence as Bishop and Uncle Vance the other counselor.

I recalled the summer that the older Bronson girls decided that the Lind boys needed some “culture” in their lives.  Mother would drive Eldon and I down to the Lynn School.  Mary Lou taught us tumbling, bringing the mattresses from their beds to serve as mats.  Georgie Gay taught us tap dancing.  Doug doesn’t remember the dance lessons, but told of often attending the dances at the Moulton school and recalled that the Bronson girls could really dance.  Sometimes the dances were held at the Junction School.  We talked of the little local group who furnished the music.  The musicians included the Lloyds, George Bronson playing the violin and Chester Bullers who was known as the left handed fiddle player. Mother and Laura Pearl Bronson played the piano with the group.  Their music was great to dance to.  Laura Pearl always said her goal was to play the Tabernacle organ in Salt Lake City some day.

The Bronson Family were all girls and our family was mostly boys and we “ kind’a got paired up”.  VaLois was the oldest then Laura Pearl and Oscar, Mary Lou and Dwain.  Georgie Gay was paired with Doug and I “inherited” Ethel May.  George mentioned to Dad one day about the possibility of the union of the two families in marriage and Dad commented that that should be left up to the kids themselves, and it was.  One son was born on the end of the Bronson family and they named him Simon William Brennon Bronson.  We called him “SWBB” for short.

Mother was the postmistress and had the little post office on our back porch.  George Bronson was the mail carrier.  The mail was delivered three times a week.  George would ride his saddle horse to Oakley to get the mail and return home the first day. The next day he would ride up the valley to Lynn and deliver the mail to Mother, usually arriving “conveniently” just in time for dinner.  In the winter it was a long hard ride in the snow.  He would come into the kitchen and walk across the room and pick up our family hair brush and pull it through his tousled hair.  A thin leather held the wire bristles in place, but they layed down under the pressure of your hand.  Doug told that one winter day we decided that we needed to fix the brush “so it would get his attention.”  We set about to fix it by replacing the thin leather with a heavy piece that would hold the metal bristles erect.  We then waited for George to arrive on his next visit and to do his customary hair brushing.  He picked up the brush and brought it down applying the customary pressure which suddenly brought tears to his eyes.  The next time he used it he put it on his head very gingerly.  It became known as "George’s brush" after that. 

Doug remembered the Bronson family was having trouble with a leaky roof.  So they put a thin layer of cement on the shingles and that fixed the leaking problem.

The Bronson family left Moulton in 1940 and we lost track of them.  I remember Luella Bronson payed us a visit one time with her daughter, Ethel who had married.

Some memories of World War II

I remember coming home from Church on December 7, 1941 and listening to the radio coverage of the attack on Pearl Harbor that morning by the Japanese forces. That event forced the United States to enter World War II.

Life at home went on mostly the same, but we had friends and family who left for military service. Gerald Lind went into the Navy. Keith Nelson married Ila in the Logan Temple just before he was drafted and she lived with her parents while he went into the service. My cousins, Verl Toyn and Rulon Kimber were both killed during the war.

You can imagine the fear and concern my parents felt when Oscar and Dwain were drafted into the Army. Dwain wanted to sign up for the Navy, but Dad said no. Before reporting for duty, Oscar and Dwain attended the Logan Temple with Mother and Dad. They left within a few months of each other. Oscar went to basic training at Fort Ord in California and Dwain went to Fort Hood in Texas. We posted our gold stars in the window and prayed we wouldn’t have to exchange them for black stars. Both ended up serving as cooks, Oscar in Japan and Dwain in Italy.

I remember being lonely and concerned when they left. We waited anxiously for their letters. Doug and I found ourselves busier around the place, especially after Dad got sick. Dad got really sick for a while with Inflamatory Rheumatism. It started out with stiff joints and swelled feet, but got worse and worse. For most of the summer and all winter, Dad couldn’t do much work. He spent a lot of time with his feet propped up in front of the fireplace. Doug was attending Bear River High School in Tremonton and came home as often as possible. Dad gave approval for me to take 8th grade again, so I could be at home and help that winter. We couldn’t have done it without the help of our extended family, friends and neighbors.

In 2001, Brigham Young University requested information from WW II veterans about their wartime experiences. My daughter, Paula, heard about the request and had information sent to Oscar and Dwain. Dwain mailed his information directly to BYU, but Oscar sent his information to Paula for her to forward on. I spoke with Kathryn last week and received permission to post Oscar’s experiences. You can read them by clicking here.