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.

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.

Strength Of The Lind Brothers Remembered

1917: Back L-R: Herman & Raymond; Front L-R: Oscar & Philbert

In 1966, Junelle and I and our family moved to Heyburn, Idaho, where we became acquainted with Elmer Heiner.  He was raised in Oakley, Idaho and was well acquainted with the John Peter Lind family of Lynn, Utah.  He was about the same age as my father, Philbert and Uncle Raymond.

I was visiting with Elmer one day and the topic of the conversation became centered around the strength of the Lind Brothers.  He was telling me how strong they were.  He said that on occasion, he would haul grain from Lynn to Oakley with horses and wagon.  On one trip that he made, he had spent the night in the Lind home.  After eating a hearty and delicious breakfast that Grandma Lind had prepared, he started for the corral and barn to get his team ready to leave.  Dad and Uncle Raymond said that they would go and help him.  As they approached the corral, they saw there was a yearling heifer in the stackyard.  Dad ran the heifer down and caught her, Uncle Raymond picked her up around the legs, carried her to the corral fence and lifted her over the fence  into the corral.  Elmer said the heifer probably weighed at least 400 pounds.  His comment was, “I would never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

On another occasion, two men were trying to load a fifty-five gallon barrel of oil into the bed of a pickup.  They had a plank they were trying to roll the barrel up into the bed of the truck.  They would almost get it in and it would get away from them.  Uncle Raymond watched them for a while, then said, “If you will move, I will help you load your barrel.”  He walked over to the barrel, picked it up, and lifted it into the pickup.  It weighed about 450 pounds.

Some deer hunters borrowed a horse from Dad to bring a deer they had killed off the mountain.  After they left, Dad said, “Let’s go for a ride and see if we can find a big buck.”  We rode over the mountain to Chadwick Basin and Kimball Creek, we didn’t find the big buck, but we did find the two hunters trying to load the buck they has killed onto the horse.  They were really struggling, Dad offered to help them.  He picked the buck up and threw it over the saddle and tied it on, the hunters looked dumbfounded.

Our Trip To Yellowstone

In 1940, after the alfalfa hay was all in the stacks and the fields watered, our family (Philbert’s) and Uncle Raymond’s went to Heglar Canyon, east of Malta, Idaho to buy timber to build two A frame derricks.  After talking to the man who ran the saw mill and making arrangement to get the timber, we headed towards American Falls.  When we got to Highway 30 at Cold Water Camp, Idaho, they stopped to decide what to do and which way to go.  All of the older kids wanted to go to Yellowstone Park.  The folks, said they were not prepared to go to Yellowstone, they didn’t have enough ready cash to make that trip.  We had all of our camping gear, so the kids didn’t see why we couldn’t go.  It was finally decided that we would go as far as Blackfoot and see if they could cash some checks and if they could, we would go to the Park. 

Just outside of Pocatello, Uncle Raymond’s car overheated and stopped.  We received permission to camp in a freshly cut alfalfa field.  There were a lot of trains running on the railroad tracks, just across the road south of us.  There was an airport just north of us, they were training pilots, just prior to World War II.  They flew just as long as they could see in the evening and started as soon as they could see in the morning.  We, Country Kids, had never seen so many planes or trains.  We lay on our stomachs with our hands under our chins and counted the cars on the trains as they went by.  Between the planes and trains and kids counting, I don’t think any body got much sleep, but we had fun.

In Blackfoot, Dad and Uncle Raymond both got them a hair cut from Wayne Bird, who had lived in the Junction Valley some years earlier.  He was glad to cash a check for each of them, so we were off on our great adventure.  I don’t know how Aunt Mildred made out, Nila was only a few weeks old and they didn’t have disposable diapers back then.  At night they would pull the cars side by side, away’s apart, we would lay out our beds between them.  Dad and Uncle Raymond would sleep, one on each end, Aunt Mildred slept in the car with Nila, I don’t recall where Mother slept.  We kids just slept and didn’t worry about a thing.  Our meals were cooked over the campfire.

As we left Yellowstone, we drove through the Tetons and down through Jackson Hole.  When we arrived at the Snake River, we were amazed to see the bridge we would have to drive on to cross the  river.  As I remember it, it was just planking on poles driven and used as piles.  Two sets of planking about three feet wide, with a gap of about three feet in the center.  There were no guard rails on either side.  The road going down the canyon was under construction and very rough.  I don’t know how many were afraid to cross this bridge, but I certainly was.  I remember putting a quilt over my head and praying that we would be safe.  If we were going to fall in the river, I didn’t want to know about it.  The dad’s were good drivers and made it across safely.

When we got to Alpine, Wyoming, we camped for the night.  Some of the kids soon found a pretty black and white animal.  We were busy chasing it, trying to catch it.  When people saw what we were doing they started yelling, telling us to leave it alone.  We chased that scared skunk through a fellows campfire, upsetting his coffee pot in the fire.  The man wasn’t happy at all with us, our folks, well, they were grateful that we didn’t get sprayed.  We did have a good time on the trip.

My Baptism

As I was coming up through the classes in Primary, I was taught the importance of Baptism.  I remember looking toward the time that I could be baptized and become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  The time was nearing that I would turn eight years of age and would be old enough.

The 28th of June was a hot summer day, we were putting up hay on the Lower Place, Uncle Alex’s old place.  We were stacking hay near the old curved shed, it was my job to drive the derrick team.  One of the difficult things about driving the derrick team, especially for an eight year old boy, was that the team soon learned how far they could go, before the big spring on the over shot stacker would yank them backwards.  The horses didn’t like to be hurried up to the end of the trail and then suddenly be pulled back by the spring.  The man on the stack would yell for the hay to be thrown back farther.  I would try to hurry the horses to throw the hay, but they would hurry only so far.  Uncle Raymond’s family was working with us, putting up the hay.

When the noon hour came, Mother and Aunt Mildred brought dinner down to us.  We sat in the shade of the haystack and ate our dinner.  I don’t remember what else we had to eat, but we had watermelon for dessert.  When we finished eating, Uncle Vance’s family came, he was our Bishop.

Daddy and I went into one of the buildings and changed into our white clothes.  We all walked down to the creek, by the bridge.  There was a beaver dam under the bridge, backing up the water.  Daddy and I waded out into the water, which was pretty chilly.  Daddy baptized me and when I came up out of the water, I was probably more frightened than cold .  My cousin Gordon, who was standing on the bank said, “Do it again.”  I certainly didn’t want to do it again and was angry at him for even suggesting such a thing.

The baptism accomplished, we walked back up to the shed, changed into our working clothes and went back to work for the afternoon.

The following Sunday, 7 July 1940, I was confirmed a member of the church by my father.  I have often thought since that, even though I was baptized in the creek on my birthday, it was just as valid and binding as if I had been baptized in a font in a church.  A very memorable occasion.

One Very Scary Night

One day, when I was about thirteen, possibly about 1945, we had all been in Burley and arrived home around dark.  At bedtime, I went upstairs to bed, I slept in the south bedroom.

I had been laying there for some time, when I heard someone moving in the East bedroom.  I knew that there was no one sleeping in that room. There were some doors that opened up into storage areas back in the eaves.  I became more than just a little nervous, especially when I heard footsteps coming down the hall.  It was a bright moonlight night.  I reached down very carefully and picked up a shoe, then I lay very still and watched.  I saw two figures go by my door and start down the stairs.  My heart was beating so hard, that I could hear it pounding in my head.  I was sure that whoever was going down the stairs could hear it also.  I heard the clock in the kitchen strike eleven.  I counted the stairs as they went down, the perspiration was rolling off of my body and face.  I had never been so terrified in all my life.  I heard the clock in the kitchen strike twelve. 

There were no electric lights to turn on and if there had been, who knows what would have happened.  I heard the squeaky stair at the bottom, the clock struck the half hour, I heard the door at the bottom of the stairs open.  According to my calculations it took an hour and a half for them to go down the stairs.  I still lay there very quietly for what seemed almost a complete eternity, then got out of bed, closed my door very quietly and
locked it. 

Needless to say I didn't sleep much the rest of the night.  When morning came and it got light enough to see a little, I went down stairs and woke up Dad and Mother.  When I told them of the happenings of the night, Dad got out of bed, took his rifle and went looking in the basement.  We never found anything to be missing.  Needless to say, I didn't sleep well for a long time after that.

Later on we found out the rest of the story was.  Two men had escaped from the Cassia County jail in Burley, Idaho.  The Sheriff had followed them to Moulton and the Utah line.  Then, Sheriff Warren Hyde, the Box Elder County Sheriff, took up the search.  He followed them for several days before he caught them.  After he caught them, they told about coming to our place, the doors were not locked so they went in and hid until after dark and then left.  To write about this sixty-five years later still raises goose pimples and makes cold chills run up and down my back.

Philbert acts as "Historical Consultant"

In the early 1970's, Dad acted as a historical consultant for several newspaper reporters in the Burley (Idaho) area.  Al Dawson and Arvetta Savage wrote for the South Idaho Press and would write articles about the history of the local area.  As they had questions about events or people, they would often call or make a trip to View and visit with Dad about his memories, the people in Lynn and the surrounding areas.  Dad enjoyed sharing his experiences and was able to date and document different events by referring to his journals.  As they'd visit, the questions would trigger other memories for Dad.  He started writing short articles and stories that he'd share with Al, Arvetta, the Oakley (ID) Herald and others (or just for his own enjoyment).  We've added a new section on the right side of the page under the "Other Writings" area to house these articles and short stories.  One of these writings was about the dry farmers in the northern end of the Junction Valley along the Utah/Idaho border.  You can view the story by clicking here.

The name of Al Dawson's column in the South Idaho Press was "Western Sagas" and around the time that Dad died, Al left Burley and moved to Boise.  He went on to publish articles in the Idaho Heritage Magazine and wrote a book called "Western Saga Guide Book" using some of Dad's writings as a reference.  This really pleased Dad that he was able to contribute.

A new addition - "The Black Hills"

On the right side of the page, under the "Other Writings" section is a new addition called "The Black Hills."  Dad (Philbert) wrote this about 1963 - 1965.  Most of this information is from his memory.  For other of his writings, he'd go up to the college library in Logan and check out books,  he'd come home to read, research and check the facts. Then he would write the manuscript in longhand and Mother would type it for him.  Basically, it is the story of the schools in the Junction Valley (including Lynn) and stories of the early settlers.  I typed the book into the computer and then we added some photos of the people and places that are mentioned in the book.  I hope you read and enjoy it.  You can also read a copy by clicking here.

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.

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.