CRICKET FLATS

I was born May 3, 1915 in Bothwell, Utah. My folks were planning on going to
California. Dad at the time was herding sheep to save enough money for the trip. When I
was two years old they packed up and went on a train and arrived in Montigue, California.
It was a small town, about 1,500 people, and through some effort on Dad's part, acquired
a ranch through Dr. Duynell there in Montague. It was about 6 miles west of town, Just
across the Shasta River. Dad started out with 40 acres. Later on he got 40 more after the
Duynell ditch came in so that he could irrigate the land.

I had two older brothers, Leon and Valier, and one little sister, Alice.

We all lived in a one room shack or house. We cooked, slept, and lived in this one
room home for about three years. The first things I can remember is we had a lamb we
called Bettie. Why? I don't know because it was a he. Dad had a big garden with which
he helped make a living, that and the animals: cows, horses, pigs and us.

We were as wild as anything.

Some strange things happened that I couldn't understand, like when grandfather
came one time with some small willows that he put in the creek for several days, then
planted. Lo and behold they said they were raspberries. Well, anyway they sure was
good, and the strawberries, my they were big, water melons that would melt in your
mouth. I can just remember the things that impressed me most. Like the little spring we
found by the cooley, coming out of the sand rock. When we worked pulling weeds and
got thirsty, we would go get a drink, guess who was dry all the time?

One day dad took me fishing in the Shasta River and I caught a big turtle. My was
I excited. Dad used to pull some dirty tricks on us. He got some red mustard one time
and put a little under the nose of Leon. Well in no time at all he had his head in a pail of
water. Valier and I couldn't see the joke, so we got the same treatment. We had our head
in water but quick. Don't try it, it sure is hot.

We had a creek that ran by the house we called a cooley. A great many birds of
different kinds nested the willows and cattails and if I became lost they knew where to find
me. The water wasn't very deep, so they didn't worry much. With the hay, meat, and
vegetables dad raised on the place it seemed we got along pretty good, but understand this
was all seen through a child's eyes. Like the time dad brought home some black rocks and
put them in the stove. I thought he was nuts, and we pestered ma to open the stove so we
could see them burn. They sure did. That was the first time I saw coal.

That fall we butchered Bettie the lamb. Sure it was a pet, but I didn't care. I
seemed to enjoy seeing it killed. I sure was a little devil. Then Dad butchered about 12
hogs, 2 steers. Most of the meat and vegetables went to town and bartered for groceries
to last out the winter and early spring. Dad had a smoke house where he smoked hams
and bacon. It always pleased me to open the smoke house door and smell the savory
orders that came from within. We had an old sow that was a mean so and so. Mother
was afraid she would eat one of us kids. She would to if given half a chance. I have seen
mother take after her with a single tree. Now if you don't know what a single tree is, it is
part of a buggy that the traces are hooked to. Now don't tell me you don't know what
tracers are? Man that hog was so mean she would eat her own pigs. Well dad was going
to kill her. He got the .22 rifle, shot her twice in the head, which made her mad and she
broke out of the pen and chased dad into the house, which was a mistake on her part.
Dad got the 30.30. That's all, pork chops for supper. *

One time ma was washing clothes, which is done differently today. She had a
boiler that was put on the stove and all the clothes were boiled half an hour or more. Well
she put it on the floor one time, and Alice and I were playing. Alice backed up and fell
into the boiler. The water was scalding hot, but she wasn't in very long on account dad
and Uncle Ensley pulled off her clothes and plastered her with pork lard. She came out of
it okay.

One day, just before the county-fair, I got a licking for something I can't remember
and was sent to the garden to hoe weeds. I was angry, so I picked out the biggest
watermelons I could find and chopped them up. That's right, they were the ones that was
going to the fair. Dad was soon known in them parts as the best truck gardener. A few of
the garden things escaped my wrath.

Dad had 40 acres to work at the time, but later on he got 40 more acres. It
seemed an awful lot of land. Dad was in the field most all the time. He worked the land
with a team of horses. Tractors were not known at that time.

I remember a bee man came to our place and wanted to put bee hives there so the
bees could make alfalfa honey. Then one day our horse kicked over a hive and was stung
to death. It took about three days for the hourse to die, but die she did. That kept me
away from the hives from then on. We got so much honey I got sick of it and couldn't eat
honey until I was about 45 years old.

BARBER PLACE

Dad got a chance to lease the Barber place. So he did which gave him another 80
acres. We left the old place and moved into the new one (only new to us). Joe Barber
was his name. A Portuguese fellow, his wife and 5 or 6 children. They moved away when
we took over. There was a big corral and a fine barn and we milked 16 or 18 cows. I had
one of my own, which I tried to milk but how much could a 5 year old milk? Just squirt a
little in my mouth. Well it sure hurt when we had the cows tested and found out mine had
TB. We had to get rid of her. That year dad grew some corn and wheat. The wheat was
as tall as mother, about 5' 7". The corn was as high as a man standing on a horse. I used
to have pictures to prove it.

We had our own horses to ride and we herded the milk cows to keep them out of
the alfalfa so they wouldn't bloat. I started riding when I was about 3 years old. When I
rode the old plow horse we called Lady. We had a dog named Lassie. Boy what a dog.
Dad still says she was the best dog he ever had.

Leon my older brother woke up one morning with appendicitis and was taken to
the hospital and was operated on. Then the trouble started a few weeks later when
mother was taken to the hospital with cancer of the breast. She had the left breast taken
off. Then things went on smooth for a couple of years. Then I had to start school. I don't
remember the name of the first school house, but they built a new one about a mile from
home called the Duynell school was built very modern, there were two outhouses, one for
the boys and one for the girls and a well was dug in the school yard. We could wind up
the bucket and get a cool drink. We all used a dipper, the same one. We didn't know
about germs them days. If there was a girl we liked, we would try to be first to drink after
her. A lot of times I wouldn't drink because a boy I didn't like drank before me. Dances
were held in the school house and we all wanted to go, each on his own horse. We most
always rode horses to school. Well the dances would last until 3 in the morning, but I
would always fall asleep under the table and miss all the refreshments. Once a month we
would ride our horses to town to the movies, silent pictures, but I knew what they were
saying because people would read the captions aloud. The piano player some times would
be carried away when an exciting picture came and would pound the keys so hard I
couldn't hear the people read.

One day Tommy White came and asked Leon and Valier to come to the Shasta
River to fish. Mother said don't go in the water. They went on happy, then met a
Burbank boy that was a chum of Leon's. When they got to the Knight's farm, Tommy had
to stay home, so Burbank, Valier, and Leon went on fishing. About two o'clock in the
afternoon, Leon and the Burbank boy was drowned. Valier ran all the way home to tell
Dad. We went to the river as fast as the old gray mare could go pulling the buggy, but it
was to late. They were both dead. I was so young I didn't know just what it was all
about. I remember mother would wipe the foam from Leon's nose when it came up as it
does on all drowned people.

All the relations came to the funeral, and the flowers were lilacs, and to this day
lilacs remind me of that funeral. I can see that casket with my brother in it. It was very
sad. In later years I have come to know just how sad it must of been to mom and dad. It
was held in the Duynell school house, and they were buried in Yreka cemetery.

After that dad and mom started having trouble. Mom wanted to get away from
there. So many memories I guess. They sold the ranch and moved to Montague. All of
us kids was glad because we didn't have any chores to do then. We drove the cows down
the lane for the last time. We were all so happy, us kids, that there was no cows to milk,
no wood to chop, pigs to feed, nothing just play.

Everything was packed and away we went in our old Model T Ford. Boy it sure
was old. Looking back seeing the farm disappear from sight for the last time.

We went on a trip. I don't remember how long, but it seemed ages. Then when
we were almost to Redding, Uncle Frank rolled the Ford over the bank. He, mother,
Valier, and Alice were in it, but no one was hurt. That ended the vacation. So we packed
up and went to Montague. Oh yes we had two cars. I was in the other one when the
accident happened.

Then the relations came. Uncle Lew, Aunt Millie, Aunt Audry and Uncle Ross
Crabtree. Uncle Ross died. It didn't seem important at the time because I didn't like him.
They had two little girls, Blanch and Cleo (cousins), they were just babies. Uncle Marvin,
Clarence, Ensley and Aunt Emily, and Uncle Lem Burbank lived in Grenada, about 20
miles away. I was put in school again, don't remember what grade, but I remember my
first licking in school. It wasn't over anything, just a pen I lost and blamed it on another
boy.

Dad worked in the box factory, so did Clarence and Marvin. Uncle Lew had a
shoe repair shop. There children was more our ages, so we spent as much time there as
we could. We got a house close to the school. I don't remember anything outstanding
that happened there. Dad came home one night and told us he was going to Bray to work
in another box factory. He left and we counted the days until he sent for us. He had to
find a place for us to live.

BRAY

We arrived in Bray about 1924 at night, right in the middle of the mountains. Big
jack pines right in the door yard. The town was right in a forest. A mile from town to the
north west was a big lake called Ares Lake. Water ran in from a split stream, half fed the
lake and the other half went through the meadows. The lake water ran out and made
another stream through the meadows, so we had 2 fishing streams. They connected down
by the box factory. Then one big stream ran down a canyon, down into Bray's meadows.
At the bottom of the canyon the stream made a sharp turn, and in the high water, bass
would jump the turn and land in a small pond. The pond emptied through a ditch into the
meadow. We used to put rocks in a sack and drag it through the narrow ditch which was
deep and that would bring the bass out on a small sand bar. Then we had meat on the
table. We spent a lot of time on the streams too, but the most fun we had was on the lake.
It was full of bass and lake trout. We would get in a boat and spend hours fishing from it.
Most of the time bailing the water out of it. Of all the people that fished there we never
had an accident, no one was drowned. Looking back it was a miracle. Some of the boats
we went out in wasn't safe at all. When we got hungry, we would go a shore and eat wild
berries, currents, choke cherries when in season. In the spring of the year the big bass
would come out in the shallow water that backed up in the meadow and sun themselves
and sleep. We would sneak up on them and club them. Bass is a good eating fish.

Then in the spring we went out to the meadows to our old swimming hole, where
we spent many a pleasant hour with the gang of boys. Each time before we went in one
could see some small bass in the water and after we got out the bass was still there. I
guess they got used to us or they just thought we were some other strange fish. We were
in the water so much it is funny we didn't get web feet.

Then the men at the box factory used to give us 25 cents for a Prince Albert
tobacco can full of worms, so we spent a lot of time searching for the elusive angle worm.
Then with our two bits, we would go to the store and purchase pork and beans or a pie.
Pies them days was 25 cents a piece or 2 cans of pork and beans. Behind the store was an
old touring car body, a touring car didn't have a top, it was cut off just above the doors.
Well we tried to fill that old body with used cans, but we never made it. One day when
we were coming home from Dunsmuir, we spotted a large band of horses, and in the
bunch was our old plow horse, Lady. Dad got out and with a little cunningness, caught
her and from then on we had a horse to ride. We had 4 cows and when we had to get
them, Lady came in handy. It was amazing how we ever found the cows at night because
they could go anyplace in a 90 mile radius. The way I did it was to find a old hollow tree
and put my ear to it and listen to see if I could hear the bell on the cow we called old Bell.
You see a hollow tree will catch sounds that other wise could not be heard, a lot like
jungle drums. It seems we had cows most of my young life.

It was a boys paradise, hunting and fishing. Plenty of game and a big lake close
by just a mile from town. We as children spent many a day on the lake, and a great many
days on the mountains. Out of 9 months of school, we attended about three. We stayed
there about two years. One day we, I mean the boys, were looking in a catalogue at the
long pants, and that is where I got my first pair of long pants, and got away from button
shoes. Previous we always wore ones called knicker bockers, a knee high pants, and I
never got a pair of shoes with laces, all the other shoes had buttons. They were a mess.

You had to have a button hook to fasten them and that hook was always lost, or the
buttons would come off. I always wanted shoes that laced. Boy was I happy when they
came. I was as proud as a peacock. I used to wipe and polish them shoes all the time. I
think I wore them out with kindness. We made some friends there I will never forget,
Angelo Fragenallo, Eddie Nagen, Evert Ballard and of course there were more, but they
were the closest. Lhar Chester and Lester Ellis, they were the ones I had to fight and
whip, and did. Calvin Lusk I didn't like him and George Badenhammer another one I
didn't care for, but me and Angelo went hunting all the time, and fishing that was the sport
of kings there. In the Bray meadows is were I learned to swim. I sure didn't get much
book learning there because the bigger boys would run the teachers out of town and it was
sometimes months before they could get another one to come and take a chance. When
we went to Bray I was in the fourth grade and when we left I was still there.

Then dad bought us a .22 rifle. A (raling?) black single shot wasn't very expensive,
but we had a lot of fun. Funny we didn't kill someone, even our own selves, because we
shot at everything. The shells only cost 20 cents a box. Now they cost about 60 cents a
box for shorts. Then dad bought us a 16 gauge shot gun. The best investment he ever
made. Boy we had wild game on the table all the time. Mostly quail and grouse.

Angelo Fragenello was the most outstanding friend, because he like to hunt and
fish, and was very good at it. East of town about a mile or even less was a rim rock, we
called it. It was a drop in the land about 100 feet. The land was level then a 100 foot
drop then level again. This happened again about 2 miles further on. Well the rim rock
was just as I said, rock, a lot of rocks, straight down, with a lot of caves, where we used
to trap. We caught skunks. Then we were introduced to the civet cat. It had a scent just
like the skunk. My what a smell. We never did catch anything very big, but we had a lot
of fun.

When I say we, I mean Valier and I or the friends we had. We never did get a deer, but
Angelo got a bear one time with a .22 single shot. Darned near killed him, and when his
dad found out, he almost finished what the bear started.

Yes, we went to school, sometimes. There were some mighty tough boys there,
always running off the teacher. Even some men teachers couldn't cope with them. You
see the school house was just one room with all eight grades in it and some of the eighth
graders was big. One was about eighteen years old and from there on down. I was only
about nine or ten years old then.

I put a dead skunk in the teacher's desk once. Well school was over for about four
days, and I couldn't sit down for a week. The teacher couldn't tell what would be in the
desk next, but they could be sure there would be something. Ernest Ballard even put a
rattlesnake in one drawer, alive. It was funny it didn't bite him but when he sat down and
opened the top drawer, the snake rattled in the bottom one. The teacher jumped so quick
his wig came off. That was the first time we knew he wore one, and from then on the
poor man never had any peace. Soon he left. School was out for about six weeks.

Then one day a lady teacher came and of course we were all in our seats waiting
for one of the big boys to start something. They did. Two of them grabbed her and was
going to pull up her dresses and tie them above her head. That way she couldn't get away.
Then they could spank her with a rubber hose that the previous teacher tried to use but
failed miserably. Well, they made a grab for the teacher and that is all they did. Clip, clap,
whiz, plop and they were on the floor with her sitting on them. After a lecture she let
them up. They took their seats sheepishly, but wasn't satisfied. At recess, one wanted to
fist fight her. All good and swell. So they put the gloves on, some she brought with her.
She beat the hell out of him. The next day he brought his father to school to show him
what a bad teacher she was. He, after a few abusive words, got the hell beat out of him
too. Then all the men at the box factory teased him so much about letting a woman beat
him up, they left.

But in the meantime, about the second or third day, in the morning, she brought a
hunting knife and a pistol to school. She stood at her desk and threw the knife about
thirty feet and stuck it just above the door. Boy that knife stuck in about half way in. The
room was so quiet one could hear a pin drop. No one asked about the pistol. We knew if
she could use that as good as a knife, we better be good, and from then on we learned
something and school never closed again, only at vacation time. We all learned to like her.
We found out she was a real smart and would fight for us if she had to. There wasn't a
man or woman in town wanted to challenge her in pistols, knives or fists. She was the
best teacher I ever had. We had to learn: We thought we would get our ears shot off.
But really she was very gentle, sweet disposition and loved all of us. She had a job to do
and done it.

One time one of the young heifers got on the rail road tracks and was hit by a
train. Boy what a mess. The biggest part of her was her head. Well we would get pieces
of meat, take it out in the woods and set traps around it. We got a great deal of skunks.
One day Angelo caught a bobcat. That was the most exciting thing I can remember.
Scared hell out of us so we went and got a man to kill it. It wasn't any chore for him, just
a whoop on the head and it was all over. In the summer the choke cherries were thick on
the rim rock and if you didn't have black teeth you just wasn't. You see chock cherries, if
one ate enough made the teeth black. Most of the relations lived there too. There was
Uncle Clarence, Marvin, Ensley and a cousin or two.

SACRAMENTO

Mom and dad separated. She took me and Alice to Sacramento and put us in
school. One of the teachers was one that was in Bray. She didn't like us even if we were
to young to have helped run her off, but we were disliked right at the start. I guess she
" talked to the other teachers. We moved a lot of time there in six months, and of course
we changed schools six times. Each part of the city had a school area and we went to the
schools in that area. We were only there about six months.

GRIDLEY

We were put in school as usual, of course, and was put in the fourth grade. In
Gridley we helped dad work picking turkeys, picking up (proons?) and everything he
could find that we could do. We had no one to care what we did and how we did it.

We didn't have a very good place to live. We lived in Claridies Campground. The
houses were just shacks, and us three, Valier, Alice, and myself with no mother to take
care of us. It was pretty hard on dad. So he just let us run wild. We were about as dirty
as wild. Dad was just a common laborer and worked when he could. He spent most of
his leisure time in the poolhalls playing poker. We weren't cleaned or fed properly.
Things were hum drum. We had to learn how to cook or go hungry, which we were most
of the time. Christmas and Thanksgiving was just another day. Valier came down with
double pneumonia and almost died. Mother came and stayed two weeks. She was in
Yreka at the time. Well he got better finally and when mother went back, she took Alice
with her. She was about eight years old then. Then things went from bad to worse. Dad
got a job with PG&E in Paradise and left Valier and I in Gridley to shift for our selves.
After that Valier and I were just a mill stone around dad's neck. I don't think he cared if
we lived or died. Sometimes we wouldn't see him, weeks at a time, and we sure didn't
want to see him either, because it meant a licking or a kicking. He said he could of
married several times if it wasn't for us boys. Of course we could go to the store and buy
things to eat on credit. I guess Valier bought more than I did, because when dad came
back he had a $100.00 grocery bill and a $75.00 meat bill. I know I didn't get much meat.
I practically lived on corn flakes and canned milk. We never had to ask to go any place,
we just went fishing down at the slough. We never got in trouble with the law. We were
pretty good in that respect, but we did swipe oranges, apples, nuts, and once in a while a
bottle of milk off someone's porch.

My grandfather and grandmother lived there, also Aunt Millie and Uncle Lew and
all the cousins. We would go to see them until we got kicked out, which was as often as
we went there. Aunt Millie told me later that she felt sorry for us but at the time she didn't
look it. She had her own family to look after which was pretty big. There were seven in
the family.

Dad started to go with Myrtle Phillips, a divorcee which he later married, but he
was out with her most of the time.

I can't stand kids today complaining about having it so hard--a bed to make, or the
dishes to wash. They should be grateful they have them. The greatest blessing is to have
a mother to watch over them and to have an interest in them.

We never did very far in school. No on cared and neither did we.

Then after about 2 years, Uncle Ensley and dad decided to go trapping in the Big
Springs country at Grenada. They made big plans, we spent weeks of preparation. They
bought a bunch of traps and I never saw so many traps, small ones, big ones, jump traps of
all sizes. Then after all the debts were paid, all the gear packed--one fall day we started
out to our destination, about 200 miles away, in two model T Fords. After a few
breakdowns, a couple of flats, eight or ten meals, we arrived in mountains normally called
Big Springs. We rented a cabin, supplied it with groceries and waited for winter. Oh yes,
school, (bah) who wanted to go to school when there was trapping to do. I put out snares
and caught cotton tails and quail enough to help out the groceries. Then came the big
day, we set our trap lines. We weren't experienced trappers, and all we got was skunks
and porcupines. We stunk pretty good to. Went to school and I had a fight pretty near
every day until I had licked most all the kids. Of course that made a big hit with the
teachers. They liked me so well, they wanted me to stay home and that is what I wanted
too. Then I could donate all my time to trapping. We made about $200.00 that winter,
but we ate good.

We got a big black German police dog that was very mean, but not to us. He liked
me and would do everything I told him to do. One day we ran into a porcupine and he
killed it, but the porcupine almost killed him too. Dad got him down on the floor and
started pulling out the quills. The dog made a couple of howls, then passed out cold.
Then the other quills came out faster. The next day his face was twice as large as normal
and he was a very sick dog for a long time, but finally got over it. A year after we found
another quill that had worked out of his face.

Coming home from school one day I came upon a semi wild cow that had dropped
a calf dead. She snorted, pawed the ground and was all for charging me. I wasn't scared.
I had a big rock in my hand. If she had charged I would have hit her. I didn't know then
that it wouldn't have done much harm to her. Maybe just made her more angry. A fellow
hallooed at me to get the hell away from there and afterwards told dad she was really wild.
It is a wonder I wasn't killed that day. We would always go to Grenada for groceries and
cross over the Shasta River. Each time it brought back memories of my brother Leon.

A stray came to our place and we kept him until his owners came to claim him.
When he asked dad if he would come and work for him and he did. The man's name was
Dan Shelly and had a ranch close to Soda Springs. As a matter of fact he had a soda
spring on the ranch in the yard. Dad and Valier milked cows for him and I went wild just
being a kid. Dan didn't think I could do anything and I didn't let him know any different.
He let me ride horses and trail cattle up the mountains to a summer range. Then one day
he told me to go with another fellow to take some horses to Scots Bar, that is down the
Klamath River. We rode all day and that night I was so sore. I just couldn't sleep. The
next morning I groaned in the saddle. By noon we were to our destination, put the horses
in the hand of the receiver and started home. We spent the night at the same place, only
this time I slept. After breakfast we started for home. I wasn't sore at all then. Summer
came and dad planted a garden for Dan and I trapped squirrels. Dan would pay me a
nickel a tail. Well I didn't care how I got them, sometimes a squirrel would bury himself in
a hole after he was caught in a trap. Only the tail was out, so off would come the tail. To
pull a squirrel out of a hole like that, most times you would pull off a foot and he would
get away. When we left there, I bet there was a lot of bobbed tailed squirrels running
around.

One day I was going to show the son of Dan how to ride a calf. Just then Dan
came and caught us. I didn't know it would grow up to be a prize bull. So to get rid of
me he had to let dad go.

In the meantime dad and Valier had a big fight over the hired maid. Valier
thought he was big enough to make love to her and dad didn't think he was. So Valier
left, he went to Oakland and worked in a salami factory. He stayed at Genenas(?)
Burbank, a cousin.

Well we left Dan Shelly's place and went to Grenada. There dad put me witha
family to work, room and board and school. They had a little shack at the side of the
house and that is where I slept, winter and summer. Many a night I thought I would
freeze. I milked cows, mowed hay, stacked it and all the other chores that a farm hand has
to do. The peoples name was Wanaka, Walter his first name. I had many experiences that
a young boy would get enjoyment out of, but to vivid to make an account. I milked 10
cows, night and morning, took the milk to the cheese factory. Then I had breakfast, then
went to school. The clothes I would wear was the only ones I had, so never changing or
taking a bath. The only time I could bath was in the summer when I went swimming.
When a kid is hired out like that, no one really cares and soon you stop caring to.

I'll bet the school teachers was glad when I left, because I must of really stunk.
Once in a while I would find an old pair of shoes that were worn out but still better than
the ones I wore, so a trade was made. Even overalls would be gotten the same way. I
stayed at the Wanaka place about two years. Then we had a fight and I walked out. Sure
didn't leave much.

Then I went to see Walter Jennings. Just Walter and his wife took me in and I did
about the same thing as I did at the Wanaka place. There I milked eight cows night and
morning, helped with the haying and irrigated the alfalfa, dug ditches. I was a farm hand.
You see, I was thirteen years old at the time and of course they didn't pay me any money.
That was one thing I never got, but I had a room in the house and three good meals a day.
Everything went on fine until one day we went to another farm to get a manure spreader.
I was sent to the tool shed for a wrench and there on a saddle was a German lugar
automatic. I don't know what possessed me, but I had to have that gun. So one night,
about a week later I walked fourteen miles to get it, and fourteen miles back. Yes, I had
it. Then when I walked in the house all the neighbors were there, even the sheriff and his
family. I was so proud of the gun I took the sheriff's son up to my room and showed it to
him. Well as soon as Jack Roy, the man I stole it from missed it, he notified the sheriff.
Guess what, yep, he knew who had it. Well they scared the hell out me, threatened to
send me to the reform school, even to jail. Well, sheriff Stewart was the daddy in law of
my Uncle Marvin, and I guess he helped talk Jack Roy out of pressing charges. Then
things were never the same after that. They even bought a gun to protect themselves from
me. I never had a thought about hurting them, they were almost like a mother and father
- tome. That scare they gave me lasted all my life. It sure don't pay to steal. Either buy
something or do without. You see, I only shot that pistol once and darned near scarred
me to death. I sure was glad the sheriff came and took it back. Boy, that was a man's
gun. Sometimes I think I would have been better off if I had been sent to the reform
school, at least there I could have gotten an education. As it was I didn't. Dad couldn't
read or write, so he didn't care much about school.

I didn't know where mom or dad was, and was at the mercy of the people I stayed
with, but I can't say they were unkind to me, just like I was a hired hand. When the work
was over for the evening, I could do anything I wanted to do. Sometimes just ran wild.

Jennings sure had a lot of bad luck with his stock. He had two sows that died, in farrowing, 
and four cows bloat on alfalfa and a yearling steer bloated in the new grain. I
learned to stick bloated animals, that is to cut them in a proper place to let the excess gas
escape. They were good people that never had children of their own. Then one day I
received a letter form dad saying I could come to Gridley and work on a dairy farm. The
Jennings were put out, but I left anyway. I put my belongings in a burlap sack and got on
the train. That same night I arrived in Gridley. Dad said he sure was ashamed that all I
could put my clothes in was a sack. What could he expect. He never sent me money or
even cared for me. I learned afterwards there was no love for me at all.

At fourteen years old I started milking cows with three DeLavall milking machines
that would milk six cows at a time. We started milking at one o'clock in the morning and
got through at six o'clock, and then ate breakfast. That took halfan hour. Then I slopped
the hogs, cleaned the barn, put down more feed. By then it was ten o'clock. I rested for
three hours, then back again. With two-three hour rests a day I couldn't take it, but I
lasted two weeks, $25.00 a week. Well, then I was on dad's hands again. It didn't take
long for him to find mother and take me to her. Before that, I got $50.00 in pay, dad got
$40.00, I got $10.00. He said that was for bringing me to Gridley. What could I say, he
had a few girl friends that liked to be paid for their services. Mom was in north
Sacramento, in a place called Gardenland. That was just before the depression. Things
were going bad for her then too, but she managed. Mom and step dad had a one room
shack they lived in with Alice. Shortly after I arrived, Valier. came to stay too. We had
some wonderful times there. Step dad's name was Haules Standley, but we called him
Stan. He would always have beer, wine and whiskey in the house all the time, and we
could drink all we wanted to, but we were not supposed to get drunk, and we never did.
Stan had about ten acres of garden that we took care of. One could grow most everything
there. We had tomatoes, corn, beets carrots, beans, chard and a lot more vegetables, even
artichokes.

There was a back water of the Sacramento River close by that had a lot of fish,
bass, carp, and a few catfish, and a lot of bull frogs. We ate good, but there wasn't much
money. Stan worked at a garage on Fifth Street in Sacrament until 1930. Then he was
laid off. Then things really got tough. We lost the farm and moved into town. Before
that I had a couple of pigs I butchered and we put the meat down in crocks, the same ones
we used to make beer in, and boy that sure helped. We lived in a campground there on
North B and 12th Street. We had a small cabin, two rooms I think, and a small kitchen
stove and we had to buy wood or go out in a cannery dump where peach pits were
dumped several years previous. We would screen the dirt out and sack the peach pits.

That sure would make a hot fire. In the campground we met the McNell family, Frank
and Johney and the two boys. We became fast friends. After about five months we went
fruit bumming.

We went to Marysville, thinned peaches and picked cherries. After that we got a
job cleaning ditches. Then when that was done, we went to Brentwood and picked
apricots. That took about three weeks. Then to Woodlake. That is down about the
middle of California, and picked olives. Now don't even try to eat an olive right off the
tree. Take my word for it. It is terrible. We worked about a month at this. Then we
packed up and went to Calipatria, that is right down by the Mexican border, in the
Imperial Valley. We picked peas for 35 cents a hamper. They hold about thirty five
pounds. We could make around a dollar a day. We stayed at that job about two months.
Then we went to Indio. There we did nothing, just roamed around not being able to find
work. Darned near starved. We would go out at night and swipe oranges, grapefruits and
tangerines. That was our main diet. Mother would make tortillas, which she was good at,
and that was the only bread we had to eat. Once in a while we had a mess of beans. That
was like a banquet. We stayed there about three months. Then I caught a freight train
and went to Calipatria again. Of course I had to walk about twenty miles like a hobo,
with my bed on my back, but in those days it was very common.

When I got to Sinclair's pea patch, I met a friend there. He was an old man called
George Holbrook. Then I stayed with him. We couldn't make enough money to live on,
so we had to go on relief. We stayed in Calipatria about a month. Then we went to Indio
to see mother. Mother, Alice and Stan was planning to go to San Jose. The peas were
coming on there and that was the only thing there was to do. Then we went to Santa
Maria, to a small place that was halfway between Santa Maria and Pismo. Pismo is a
small place on the beach about six miles from San Louis Obispo. We camped in a
eucalyptus grove. We met Gus Lathe, a German boy, that wanted to bum around with us,
so we let him. What a character. I did all the cooking. George seemed to like the way I
did things like that and we never went hungry because we could have stewed peas and
mustard greens, creamed potatoes and biscuits. Then we started working up the coast,
working where we could. We finally, after a year from when we started, we arrived in
Sacramento again. There I found mother again. I stayed with them for a while, then got a
job at the county hospital as an orderly. What a job. For the first thing, I don't like to be
around sick people and the second place, I didn't like to clean up messes or empty bed
pans. So they put me in the morgue, where the stiffs were. I didn't mind that so much.
The patients couldn't talk back.

One time the head orderly came to me and told me to go surgery and get a body.
First go to ward twelve and fourteen to see if they had a body in surgery. That was
women's wards. They said they didn't, so up I went. We always put a morgue sheet on
the dead people. Well the nurse there didn't have the sheet on right, so when I came in she
left. I guess she didn't want to see me strip the sheet off a dead man. Well I took the
sheet off and the body was naked as the day he was born. Then I proceeded to put the
sheet on right. I noticed the body was young, long black hair, fine features and a nice
body, but who would be interested in a stiff. Just as I was through the nurse came back
and helped me take to body the elevator. I made the statement about a boy that young
should have parents there or had they been notified. The answer she gave me sure
shocked me, "Boy hell, that is woman thirty five years old." Boy was I surprised and the
nurse wouldn't believe me that I thought it was a boy, but I did. Then I left the hospital
and went to Marysville and got a job on the Dan Toni Ranch. Dad helped me do that
because he worked there too. I worked there for three year, then I quit and went to
Sacramento again, back to the hospital. Ina short time after that, mother died there and
after that I didn't want to work there anymore. Grandmother and Frank Lewis was there
to mothers funeral and wanted me to come to Idaho to see them. So I got a job in the box
factory until I saved enough money for the trip. Then I set out.

The first time I saw Utah was at Wendover, looking down on the salt flats, and I
thought all Utah was the same. We, I mean a young girl I met on the bus, we came
through Brigham City. It impressed me so that I said if I ever settled down and married,
here is the place I would like to live. I arrived in Pocatello, Idaho. There I met Frank and
Frances Lewis, my uncle and aunt. They took me on to Aberdeen. There I stayed with
grandma all winter. There wasn't much to do there either. I worked on the rail road and
fed sheep, hunted rabbits and just goofed off. In grandma's house I saw a picture of a girl,
so I started writing to her. Then in the spring of 1936 we came to Brigham and met this
girl. Yup, after two years of courting, we were married in the Logan Temple and here I
am, six children later and about twenty five years of married life later in Brigham. Now I
didn't know where my folks came from at the time but later found out that my grandfather
was from here, dad was born in Albion, Idaho, great grandfather is in Harper Ward
cemetery and great great grandfather is in St. John cemetery at Malad, Idaho and mothers
relation's was in Paradise, Utah.