WALTER WALLACE BOWLER &
MARY ANN HUNT
HISTORY OF WALTER W. BOWLER
(As Given To Ruby Stewart, A Granddaughter on March 1961)I was born in Sneiton, Nottinghamshire, England in the year of 1876. About the first thing that I can remember over in England was going to school or being drug at three years of age and if you were late it was just too bad for you were met at the door and you had to hold out your hand and really get it smacked with a ruler.
Then I remember when we were getting to come to America I was only four and it was at night when we were getting ready and I remember I had a little rocking horse which I really thought a lot of and I wanted to take it with me and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I hunted and hunted to try to find It because I knew if I didn’t I wouldn’t be able to bring it over with me, but mother must have known that I wouldn’t leave it behind either because I never could find it and I really felt sad. All we could bring with us were just bare necessities and we had to leave everything else behind.
It was through Zera P. Terry, a missionary over there that mother and father decided to come to Arnerca.
Father was a shoe maker in England and he made all his shoes by hand. Them days a pig bristle was used for a neddle. They would take and use some cobblers wax and wax the thread to the end of the bristle and then use that for the needle. They made the holes in the shoe and then laced the thread through with this bristle. When you came to the end of your thread you had to get a new needle as you couldn’t use the same one twice. With each thread you had to use a new bristle. These bristles were taken off from wild pigs there.
I remember it was night when we got on the boat and I remember seeing the lights shining on the water. The boat we got on was called Wisconsin, but it was like an old Wind Jammer, it had great big sails and lots of times we were drifted out of our way by the wind, it took us three weeks to get across. I remember we had got out far enough so you couldn’t swim back (about mid ocean) and the old tub started to get a leak. The sea was a very rough sea, about as rough as any one had ever attempted to cross and I think this helped to make the boat leak more.
I remember the waves would come up as high as Flat Top and then down to the bottom they would go, the pumps failed to work for quite awhile and everyone was starting to get quite concerned, except the old sea captain and he seemed to be quite a rough edged old fellow. I remember mother was quite concerned and he told her he had rode the high seas many times but he never worried when he had any trouble as long as his cargo was Mormon imigrants, he said they were as safe as if they were in God’s pocket.
In getting on the boat that night Mother Bowler had gotten separated from Father and she was about seven months pregnant and had to rassel eight of us kids and get us on the boat and all were out to sea four days before she even knew if father had gotten on the ship or not. It must have been quite a trial for mother.
After traveling on water for what seemed like ages, us kids saw something we thought was green land so we watched and watched till it grew night and then we were up bright and early the next morning to see, but the land we thought we had seen was no where in sight. The boat was really crowded, we had what was called ‘Second Class Quarters’ or more or less poor people’s class. Father had had a pretty good paying job back in England but when we left, it cleaned him of any possessions he had, to come across on the boat as there were eight of us children and it took all he had for fare.
Finally we did sight land and oh how thrilled we were when we thought at last we were coming into the new world. We landed at New York Harbor in 1880, we were really glad to see land once more. I remember all along the trip the only way mother could keep track of her brood was to count us by number and I remember of hearing her count 2-4-6-8, 2-4-6-8.
I remember coming across the continent on the train, oh how the wheels would clickity clack and it seemed like we sure crossed a lot of water and how scared it made me to corss all those bridges (maybe being on the boat so long and getting so sea sick caused me a little concern to not want it to happen again.)
We came to Milford by train and from there we traveled by team and wagon up to Old Hebron. At first to hear strange noise of the howling coyote sure did frighten mother she wondered if they were dangerous. The home we moved into was just a little old lumber one room house with a little lean-to shanty on the back. One thing I can remember there was that we sure got awfully hungry for a slice of bread, not butter or jam, but just a plain piece of bread. We always had to wait till meal time though, so all could get an even whack. I remember whenever mother would bake bread how we would all wait around just in case there was a burnt crust from the bread we might have.
I remember too how mother would get letters from her folks wanting her to come back to England and even offering her money to come on, and how homesick mother would get, she never got to see her folks again. Mothers’ family belonged to a different church and to what you might call the society class, but when she married father she dropped down to just a common class.
I remember Father had a shoeshop up at old Hebron after we moved into an old brick house and father also had a singing school where people came to sing, one time a boy, Danny Tyler came to the house and father was having one of his singing practices and after he had been there awhile he said “Brother Bowler, your shoeshop is on fire,” and when we looked out it was just about all burnt down. By then I was getting to be around nine or ten and Uncle John Pulsipher had a dairy. I stayed with him then to help him, I had a little old squaw Mare. We would get up in the morning and milk the cows and then I’d start the cows over to what we called the other bottom and I’d take the 40 calves and herd them, then in the early afternoon I would go get the calves and pen them up and then go and get the cows. I done this for two summers and each summer I got a little pony for my summers work.
It seemed like old John Pulispher had a knack for scaring kids and he scared me until I didn’t have another bit of scare in me. We had a little board shanty that had big cracks in and everytime it rained it would leak, he had a brick room to sleep in and it was my job to kindle the fire every morning. One morning as usual I reached down in the chip box to get the kindle and felt something hairy and boy did I light out on the porch in a hurry. He tried and tried to get me to go back and kindle the fire but I wouldn’t do it. He had took an old Badger he had picked up and put it in there to scare me.
Another time I remember we had a cow that wore a bell, called old Sucker. I had gotten all the cows home but old Sucker and I could hear her up in the rocks and I knew if she didn’t come by the time the last cow was milked, I’d have to go get her. So after tending the last calf, she hadn’t come so I had to go after her, I’d go a little ways and then stop, go a little ways farther and stop again and finally I got pretty near up to the rocks and was standing there trying to get her to come out when I heard a terrible noise (as there were cougars up in the rocks, that’s all I could think of) so with great leaps and bounds I soon landed back in the house. John had got tired of waiting for me to come back with the cow and had slipped up in the rocks and let out that awful noise to scare me.
Then one time we had an old buckboard and one Sunday morning I was riding an old horse called Pacer, as we always came back to Hebron for Sunday, as I was coming down by Pig Weed Flat I saw an old Indian coming from the North. My horse acted like he wanted to run and come to find out a deer ran across the road with some arrows in it, the Indian wanted me to head it but I was scared of him and didn’t know what he wanted and he told John P. about how scared his little Papoose was, that’s what he called me.
It was about the next summer that we moved to Gunlock and bought the Post Masters home, there my two little ponies and brindal heffer went in on the place. We had fruit trees and so we went to drying peaches, we’d drag boxes and whatever we could find to put fruit in, with a horse up to be dried. We done this all summer long it seemed like, we dried peaches up on board scaffolds and when fall came we found a market at St. George for $4.00 a hundred dried. We sure were happy mother had peaches in pillow slips, sacks and anything she could find to hold them, and then we loaded them up and took them to St. George.
I remember the day we loaded our peaches we had set a trap in the old shoeshop and we caught a skunk and it sure did scent up the town but we got our peaches out without any trouble. We had a ton of dried peaches which brought us $80.00. Mother bought the things we needed to take back with us. I remember father taught school too, and Frank Holt made molasses and sometimes he would take and throw whole peaches in the molasses barrels and make preserves out of it. Father would buy 25 to 35 gallon barrels of this preserves, we would eat bread and molasses and, oh my, did we have a heck of a time keeping the littel black ants out of it.
Then one time I remember Burt Truman was going with Florie and he and some other guys took the cattle over on the Beaver Valley Wash to tend them and I went along to help. I remember he asked me which I would rather have, a nice quirt or a $1.00 and I took the $1.00. We camped at the sand corral and there came quite a pour of rain that night. We had made our bed under a rock, the rain came running down over the rock, the older fellows were too long to get clear up under the rock and so they got wet up to their knees, but me being smaller I was up farther and didn’t get wet.
We made it on over the next morning and we went to ride out and left me to keep a smudge on the meat, and told me if they wasn’t back by dark to pen the horses and grain them and then put them back on the hill. They didn’t get back so I done the chores, got me something to eat then fixed my bed and went to bed. Soon after dark here came the hobbled horses scampering down the hill right past where I was in bed and the dog started to whine and rooted his way into bed with me and I couldn’t get him out, and the cause of all that was a cougar prowling around and needless to say I sure was scared. Just about midnight Bert came back to stay with me so I wouldn’t be alone all night. The next day the other fellows came back and brought about a year and a half old calf with them. Bert he was determinded he was going to make a buckero out of me so when we got ready to come home he suggested that I lead the calf home. Bill Truman and I didn’t think that I should, but finely I said all right get on “Grizzly Bob” he knows the trick of wild animals and he had me snub the rope around the horn and that was my first experience of leading a wild animal out of the mountains.
About the next thing I remember we moved back to Old Hebron, I was getting up into my teens. We had a nice brick two story house and a little hay meadow with a few cows, we used to go ride in the North Hills among the cows to see how they were, one winter was quite a bad winter and the cows would just lay down under a tree with their heads around on their sides and freeze to death that way. George Wadsworth would say the reason they would freeze was the tallow would freeze up in their necks. I kind of thought that was funny. I remember one time France and me went out riding, there sure was a lot of snow then and we made a fire by a tree to get warm. I remember the sun glaring on the snow made me all most snow blind from that trip. For about two weeks I couldn’t see very much I had to stay in bed up stairs and have my meals brought up to me, and oh, mercy, how the hot scalding water would run out of my eyes and down my face.
In them days sometimes they would black their eyes with Pot Black to help keep the glare from the snow from blinding them so bad. By then I was around sixteen, I then took to school and went two winters after Christmas, till school was out in the spring. Then we used to run around some in a crowd of Me, France, George, Ephf, Sam Western, Effie, Tacy, and Mary Ann, we used to go out to the dances.
My first recollection of Mary Ann was that I sure thought she was a pretty little girl. Dad was teaching school and I had been gone for awhile and when I came home to stay with Dad for awhile Mary Ann had been going with France, I wanted to go with her so I told France I would give him a big lead pencil that I had if he would relinquish his date with Mary Ann, and with quite some reluctance he gave in. As time went on I kinda kept track of her, the folks then went to Parowan but I didn’t go, I stayed with Bert Truman, a brother-in-law.
Then one time I remember there was a man coming up from Dixie with a load of soft shelled nuts for sale and he was having trouble getting up over the mountain and he got me a job with my team to help him get up over the mountain, and I got a few almond nuts for my pay.
Then finally Mary Ann and I went to keeping house, all by ourselves. We went to St. George to get married and Tacy went along with us. We fixed a little cover over the wagon. We went one day and then came back to the forks of the creek the next day and had a little get together there and then we came on up to Hebron and we had a wedding dance in the kitchen of Mary Ann’s fathers’ home and her father played for the dance. We lived in a little old shack of a house and one time I got a sack of oats for work and brought it home and I built a little old bin by the fireplace for the oats and oh my, there sure were a lot of mice promenading around the floor all the time, but we finally got rid of them.
After we went to keeping house I remember one time I went over to Pinto, on horse back and run my race for some sugar. Then another time there was a guy in Caliente that owned a couple of horses, Pinky and Star. He offered Am Truman some money if he would get them for him and Am offered me $5.00 if I would go over in Diamond Peaks and get them for him. So I took a pack horse, a couple of blankets, some grain and a little grub for me and the dog and started out. I finally found the horses just before sundown, I thought well I would start home and go till it gets dark and then stop. I reached a place where I was on a steep side of a mountain so I got down and gave my horse some oats and then hobbled them for the night.
I took two quilts and spread them up by a big rock. It wasn’t too long till here came Pinky and Star running past at a terrible pace, if I hadn’t of been so close to the rock I just might have been trampled by them. I sure got up in a hurry and my dog sure tired to get close to me, again it was a cougar which scared us.
I remember Uncle Elise, Bert Truman and me were clearing George Burgess’ land (which is now Charley Side’s place) we had to grub the brush to clear it. I remember the sage brush was so big and thick you couldn’t see cows in it. I got grain for my work.
Then came the Delemore Days (or Gay Ninties). We’d go out to Delemore and chop wood for $1.50 a cord, cut in four foot lenghts. Then we got to hauling lumber from Clover Valley Saw Mills. We worked and worked and worked and I remember Uncle Jeff having to have a little money that he sent home to his family. Then we was out in Caliente one time working and it was the 14th of July, the Coulverwell Brothers finally persuaded Uncle Jeff to stay and play for a dance and they would give him $5.00. So we stopped, I just stood around and watched what went on for quite awhile.
They had all kinds of games there, one was called Chuck Buck, which looked quite easy and so I thought by golly I’d like to have a little more money to take home and so I started to play. I had about $9 or $10 so I started to play 50 cents at a time and for a while they would let you win to egg you on but finally I started to lose. I just kept thinking I’d play till I won back what I started out with and then quit but I finally lost all I had (earlier I had stuck $5.00 in my watch pocket so I wouldn’t spend it and I forgot it). Well when I lost all the other money I had I really felt bad and talk about anybody being sick, well I sure was and we finally came home. When I reached in my watch pocket for a match low and behold there was that $5.00 I had stuck in my pocket. I had been so sick at losing my money that I had completely forgotten it. I sure was happy to find it.
Well about next thing they started to make that tunnel up by Onion Hill. I got a job for a $1.00 a foot. They gave me 50 cents in cash and 50 cents ditch credit. I drove the north end of the long tunnel and the south end of the short tunnel using a hammer and drill and gaint powder I’d make a hole and then stick in some powder and blast it. I got 18 feet on the north and 5 or 6 feet on the south end. I was just finishing it up as an old tramp and the other guy started it. Then we made the Hebron Ditch with a pick and a shovel we used the old railroad type pick and it cost us a $1.00 for one with a handle on it.
Then we made a Little Reservoir and each one of us would have a turn of water. I also remember of working on the reservoir up at Little Pine Valley and then we had a flash flood come one time and wash out the dam. Then Enterprise began to come up a little. I filed on a 40 acre farm down in the Enterprise Fields and later sold it to Seth Jones. We then started the Big Reservoir and when it was finished I went back and started to homestead the Bowler Ranch. We lived there in the summers and in Enterprise in the winters. We began to prosper for them days as I got quite a start in long eared cows. We sure had a lot of cows to milk. Then we went to clearing the ground up there with a grubing hoe as fast as we could.
I remember I had an old mower and reaper and men would come along and tie the grain up in bundles, we would go to each ones’ place that had grain to cut and share the work. Then later I had a twine binder too. I remember I had the first car in Enterprise, in 1912 I bought a Studabaker, but I called it a Steady Breaker. Whenever we went anywhere we would hitch the team to the white topped buggy and took them along with us so if we had any trouble we wouldn’t be stranded. I remember one time we went to Modena and had trouble with the car, it just wouldn’t go so we went on in the buggy, on our way back we towed it back to the ranch.
Then one time we had started to town to do the wash, we was coming along pretty good and we got just a little ways the other side of the Junk Yard Road and out came the rear end. I carried a new set gears with me so I got out and put in the new set, we went on in and got the wash done and then came back to the ranch, but it was quite late.
My next car was an Oakland, it was brand new and had lights on. I remember I was going to St. George one dark night and the lights went out. I didn’t know what was the matter so I just fooled along till I finally got to St. George and then I traded the Oakland off and got an ol Haymes (America’s first car). From then on it seemed like I traded cars all the time.
At the time Melvin was born at Santa Clara, Elva and I started for home, in the old Studabaker, at 4:00 o’clock in the morning, we had to go around by Cedar as there was no road between here and St. George. We got up to Black Ridge about noon and stopped to have dinner. It was night when we got to Cedar so we just kept right on coming and about midnight we had got over to Holt’s Ranch and had a flat tire. So we got out and built a fire and Elva kept the fire while I fixed the tire. It was morning when we got home.
It seemed like the Old Studebaker was hard to start and an old guy, Curly thought he knew how to fix it so he worked and worked with it but he couldn’t get it started. We had all cranked It until we all had blisters on our hands but it was no use and then Gene, just a boy came out and started to crank it and it started. Oh my, we were all surprised, so we got in and drove it down into Sheep Springs and all of a sudden we heard the darndest racket, crash, bang, clatter, down it broke. Well come to find out Curly hadn’t tightened up all the screws he had taken out and so it plum ruined the motor. So for $30.00 I got a new motor and had it fixed up and then I sold it. We called the cars stink wagons as they sure did make a lot of stink.
We finally got the farm so it would produce pretty good, we kept improving all the time, we had it so it would produce a nice bunch of hay and we had a nice bunch of cows too.
I remember one time a man and his little boy came along and wanted to know if I had any work he could do so I let him and his little boy weed the potatoes. He stayed with us for about a week, he worked for a $1.25 a day plus his board. Oh, and then there was another man who said he was a picture taker and so he stayed and took some pictures of us and one of Rex on some calves. We thought it would be nice to have some pictures of us and so I gave him a check for $5.00 and he was going to send us the pictures. I remember I akded him who I should make the check out to and he said “U. R. Dun”, and oh heckies I never caught on then but we never got the pictures or heard from him again.
Then another time two well dressed men came along and put me up a big story about the Railroad starting to use metal ties instead of wood and they were around selling stock in it and if I would give them $200.00 they would give me 200 shares of Acma Metal and claimed I would have that back in no time. They told me the stock was limited and told me the names of some prominent men who had taken stock, so I gave them the money. Well after I had time to think it over I decided that maybe they were nothing but common crooks and so I came to town and talked to William Lund about it and he talked me out of doing anything about it, as I had figured to catch up with them and get my money back, but I let him talk me out of it and I knew that I had been done again.
But here’s the thing about it, I always felt that when people told you something that they meant what they said but sometimes I found that they didn’t. Well Just one more story, a young fellow got married and when it came time for his wife to go to the hospital he came and asked me if I would let him have $25.00 and he promise he would pay it back on a certain day, but it went on and on and when I finally hit him up for it he just laughed at me. Well heck, when you do a favor for someone you’d think they would at least do the same thing back.
Well next I got into the law business, and I haven’t got out of it yet. One time Hytt and two other fellows were helping me fix fence and here comes John Laub, it appears he had got a set of teeth from a Doctor Hyatt from Parowan and he was trying to sue him for the teeth a second time and John said he had already paid for them so he had got Orvil Hafen to be his lawyer and it had come tine for the trial and he couldn’t get him to come up so Ivor Clove told him to come up and get me, so he had come to get me to take his case.
So we all came to town, we held court in the little old red brick Relief Society House. There was an Attorney Isom from Cedar who came over, Uncle Ves Jones was the Judge. We had a jury too, just like big time stuff. When Attorney Isom went to the jury he brought in another set of teeth and then he asked me if I wanted to make a plea and one thing I remember was I told them that they wasn’t a going to bring in another set of plates, and I must of done a real good job of convincing them as I backed them right down on everything, so when the jury brought in the verdict I won the case.
For a long time after I went by the name of Attorney Bowler. I have been in a lot of Justice Courts but the one I remember most was up in Salt Lake when the State of Utah brought suit against me over some ground I had. Judge Tillman D. Johnson had told a lot of baloney, so I told him a few things and gave him a check I had, to check upon for himself and see just when it had been paid and how much and so on. He told me to take it up to the State Capitol Building and when I got up there, there was the same Attorney who had crossed me up in court, he said are you feeling any better than you were yesterday and I said no I wasn’t and then he asked if I would like to take a punch at his jaw and I said, “there ain’t a dam thing I would like better to do if I was feeling half myself.” I wasn’t feeling very well at the time I had gone to court. But we finally got it all straightened up and I was found in the clear. That about finished the law business, but I have kept dabbling in it every since. (and today people still come to him to get papers stamped)
It was only a short time later that I had to go to Salt Lake to the L.D.S. Hospital for an operation on my prostate glands. After that I settled down and started to raising turkeys. We lost quite a few. And the fellows we got the turkeys from sent up some California guys to pick the turkeys and they made such a bobble out of it that they made most of the money and we didn’t get much of it. There were a few others who went into the business too and they also got took.
Now, just about twenty years later I had to have another operation (January 1960) for the same thing, it was quite a hard operation on a fellow 84 years old, but the Doctor said I sure got along fine for a fellow so old. I remember one time a little old Norwegian lady came and asked me if I was ready for a T-Bone steak and I said, “Boy that sure sounds good to me.” So she said “OK,” and pretty soon here she came with a bottle and a big long needle and I got my T-Bone steak in the arm.
One other experience though, during World War II I got a job out to Caliente guarding the railroad bridges and tunnels to make sure someone didn’t try and sabotage the railroad and cause trouble. I remember they told us to pack a gun and not be afraid to use it if we had to. We had to go and camp in a little old shack up by the tunnel. There was another old fellow and me and he made me take the night watch. We would have to check every train that came through and get the number of it and check the time it came by, but first about the time the train was due we were supposed to go clear through the tunnel and make sure there wasn’t anyone in there trying to blow up the tunnel while a train came. They told us if we ever got caught in the tunnel when a train came and didn’t have time to get out to lay down flat along side of the track or the train would draw you right under it.
One time I went out to check on the tunnel and I got caught inside of it so I laid down and my, the train sure had a lot of suction. One time I had got through checking the tunnels and I went back to the shack to wait till time for the next one and when it came time I went to go out and the door wouldn’t open. It had one of those wooden latches with a nail in the center on the outside to close it or latch the door. Well when I couldn’t get the door open, the first thing I thought of was that someone had locked me in so they could blow up the tunnel. I hollered for them to let me out but I didn’t get no answer so I got my gun and was going to try to get out and somehow the gun went off and I shot a hole through the floor. Well I kept a trying to get out and then all of a sudden the door opened. Well I couldn’t find anyone but I sure was
scared for awhile.I don’t know just what had happened but the door must have let the latch fall down in place and lock and then it must have jarred open again as I never could think of anything else. The boss said I was one of the best men on the job because when it snowed my beat was the only one that showed any tracks going clear through the tunnel and on up past aways and back, but I tried to do my job well.
Now I just go clod-hopp’in along doing something everyday, making myself think I am accomplishing something. When people ask me how I am, I can say now,”I’m quite sure I have shifted from high gear down to low, but I do think it quite marvelous that I can still get around so well and do as much as I do and I certainly am appreciative of my good health and that my eyes are still so good and that I can read without glasses.”
I would like to add here that it really is marvelous the way Grandpa Bowler can get around and drive a car. He travels to Cedar or St. George all the time and goes to the ranch to feed cattle everyday and helps his sons in many ways with their farm work, watering and what not. He surely is an active man for his age, he keeps busy doing something all the time. There are not many men who are his age who can get around and keep going like he does. He was 85 years of age last November and I surely think it is something how he can remember his life back so far. I have found it interesting to talk to Grandpa and have him tell me all these things and I am sure there are many more that maybe didn’t come to mind at this time, April 1961. This history still is yet to be concluded.
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(Added is a short conclusion of the last ten years of Grandpa Bowler’s life, as remembered by Ruby Stewart)
On March 24, 1962 Grandpa Bowler was in a car wreck. He and a step-granddaughter, Janis, who was driving his jeep, had been up to Flat Top checking his fences and were on their way home when they wrecked down by Joe Holt’s ranch. The jeep was really mashed up but Grandpa was only hurt a little. He did spent the next couple of days down at the hospital in Dixie, but was released ok. It was just a miracle he was not badly hurt. For the next ten years his mountain ground up by Flat Top was much of his whole life.
He would go up most every day and really work hard, keeping his fences mended up to keep his horses in, climbing up the mountain and taking feed up to them also. Quite often he took a day off and went to Dixie, just enjoying tramping around town visiting all his old friends and dropping in for lunch at the Big Hand Cafe. He was quite lonely these last years - not liking to spend anymore time than necessary in the house - because it brought back too many memories of Mary Ann and he still missed her so much. So he tried to keep himself busy. He also spent lots of time visiting with Andy Winsor till he died. One time when Aunt Carrie Laub Hunt was down visiting us she went to see him and Andy and they really had a nice visit, chatting about their early days up at Hebron.
In 1966, Lorraine, one of his great granddaughters sent him a graduation invitation. He was thrilled to death, to think a young girl would remember an ‘Old Coger’ like him and invite him to one of those fancy doings. He was so cute about it. It really touched his heart and when he came up to thank her he had a gift for her. He said he had been down to Dixie and was walking by a store window and saw this pretty model in the window. He thought, ‘My that looks just like Lorraine.’ So he went inside and told the clerk that he had a great granddaughter who was graduating that looked just like that model in the window, and he wanted to get her an outfit like that because she was so nice to invite him.
He didn’t know the size but she looked just about like the model, so he bought her a pair of slacks and a blouse and to his and our amazement it just fit. The night of her graduation he made sure he knew the correct time it started and he was there on time to help enjoy the occasion. He was really touched and it was a very rich experience we shared with him because of a simple little act. One that will always be remembered.
Sometime during these years, Lynn Clark came to him and told him that the Bell Telephone Company had asked her if she would do a picture of him for them. She got him to pose and did a ‘Meditation Pose’ of him with his head bowed, his hands folded, in his old clothes with his suspenders and arm bands. It turned out to be so ‘Heart Catching’ that she was asked to enter it in a World Wide Photo Contest, which she did, entitling it, “PEACE” and won 1st Place. Grandpa Bowler later told us with his little chuckle, he was quite sruprised that HIS picture had become so famous. And yet he was never to know just how famous. He said, “My gracious, what would Mary Ann say if she could hear that I had become such a big celebrity.”
Several years later Leo’s neice from North Dakota was visiting with us and say my picture of him and said, “Oh, you have one of those too. So do I." I was quite surprised and ask how come she had one. She said, “Oh everyone back east has one in their home because it’s such a beautiful, peaceful, rugged, pioneering picture, every one just falls in love with it and has to have one in their home.” I said, “My goodness, do you know who he is?” She said no it’s just a picture.” I told her, “Not to me, He was my Grandfather Bowler.” She was really amazed to learn that he was not just a face.
When Grandpa’s house burned, Kathy had been down to visit him that morning on her way to school, as she often did, everything was fine, she left for school and he for the ranch. Somehow the wiring or something went wrong causing his house to catch fire and burn the inside contents. I remember as went up to get him and told him that there had been some trouble and his house had caught fire, he just looked so sad and said, “My land, it was all right when I left this morning.” When we got to town and he saw that all his stuff was ruined, he felt quite sad, everything he had in life was gone, ruined. It was quite a tramatic shock to such an old man. But... he didn’t let that slow him down too much. He began to plan how he could begin to rebuild the Inside of the house, which he did living with his kids until he got his
own home fixed up and ready to live in again. However life was still very lonely for him, just trying to keep busy and active till his time came to leave this earth.Just a short while before he died, Laree and I and our families went down to visit and spend a few Family Home Evenings with him. He was so pleased and appreciative, he seemed to enjoy our visits so much. We sang many old songs he loved, told stories, reminisced of by-gone days; just had a great visit. He made the comment that It was so good to hear a song again that had a tune and story to it, instead of just a bunch of noise like so much of the music is today.
In November for his 96th birthday the family held a big family party for him up to the school. It was real nice, so many many family and friends were there. He really appreciated everyone’s thoughtfulness. He was still going strong, really alert, very active, able to get around well, keeping himself busy up until he died at the age of 96 on December 29, 1972. Thus bringing to a close the life of another “Grand Old Pioneer,” OUR GRAND FATHER BOWLER.
HISTORY OF MARY ANN HUNT BOWLER
(As Given April 1961 to Ruby Stewart, Granddaughter)
I was born at Old Hebron, Utah, October 2, 1880, the fourth of nine children of my parents, Jefferson and Celestia Terry Hunt. During my childhood we lived at Hebron in the winter and moved out to the ranch at Calf Springs in the summer time. I spent many memorable times at Terry’s Ranch with my grandma, Mary Ann Pulispher. We worked hard most of the time and had few holidays. One of the special times of the year was May Day, the whole town would go to Little Pine Valley, south of Hebron for a big dinner. We spread one big table on the ground and all ate together. If it was Sunday we would hold Sunday School and Sacrament Meeting in the open among the pines. Swings were made in the tops of the trees for us kids. It was lots of fun.
I remember there wasn’t many girls in the town of Hebron and I used to go and play with Carrie Laub sometimes. Will and Ma Laub had two girls Tacy and I used to play with, Jenny and Blanch. We liked to go to their place to play as they had dolls and dishes to play with and we never had anything like that so it was more fun to go to their house. Blanch, who was the youngest, had an awful pretty doll, rnanys the time I would like to have played with it but she never would let us touch it. It seemed like all we ever had to play with was some little puppies or cats which we would dress up and have a lot of fun with.
I remember one time after mother had got us kids all ready for Primary, and she was getting ready she sent me to get the key from Aunt Lydia Winsor so she could wind the clock and then she sent me back home with it, on the way I saw some real pretty sand so I stopped to play in it for a few minutes and in the process I lost the key. I hunted and hunted but I just couldn’t find the key, so I went on to Primary, I didn’t say anything to Mother about losing the key and then when I got home after Primary I went out back of the wood Pile and ask the Lord to help me find the key as I knew we just had to have it. Then I went back to the sand and there it was right on top of the sand where I had looked and looked before. Somehow I had faith enough that I knew it would be there where I could see it. I always believed in prayer and prayed many many times in my life.
I attended the little school at Hebron for six years. The school year being from November to March. We didn’t have many books but learned everything in them.
When we were small I remember we used to always have a lovely big tree in the Church House for Christmas as most of us didn’t have anything to decorate one at home. We always had a program in the Church and Santa Claus each year. On the tree would be a present for each one of us. I remember once Tacy and me got a little bracelet each, they had them hanging on the tree wrapped up in blue flannel cloth. When they read off our names we sure were thrilled. They weren’t much, just brass, but we sure thought they were nice anyway. On Christmas morning about all we would find was an apple or something like that and once in awhile we would find a little homemade bread doll sticking out of our
stocking. But ... we were always happy to get that.On Valentine’s nite we would go out and send the homemade valentines we had made. Sometimes I remember it would be kind of muddy but it was still lots of fun.
Then I remember a number of times when I was a girl about nine or ten, I would go sit out cabbage plants all day long for 10 cents a day for Zera Terry. In them days I thought I was really rich. There was just one little store in town up in George Holt’s upstairs we bought what we needed there but it wasn’t very much.
We always had lots of work to do and we would have to get up in the morning and do all our work before school, then come home at noon and get dinner and do the dishes. We sure didn’t have much play time them days.
When we lived on the ranch at Calf Springs we only came to town on Sunday. One time when we came one of Grandpa Terry’s third wife’s boys was there in a buck board. They went to cross a ditch it turned out to be deeper than they thought and when they went to cross it the buck board tipped up and dumped them all out in the mud and it was black mud. They sure were a mess, they had to come in mother’s house and have a bath and she had to find clothes for all of them to wear.
When I was 12 years old I learned the meaning of sorrow when my mother died, leaving me and my seven living brothers and sisters ranging from 3 years to 18. When mother died we sure felt bad, she went so sudden. Mother was expecting and when she took sick we got a mid-wife to come take care of her, she hadn’t been feeling well for quite a while but didn’t think anything was wrong. The mid-wife said the baby had been dead for about two weeks when it was born, its’ arms came off and the body was quite badly decomposed. Mother must have had blood poison set in, she was in so much pain at the time. I remember about the only thing they could do was get a whole bunch of cats and kill them and then streach them all out and lay them while they were still warm on mothers body where the pain was. In no time all the cats would turn a dark black color from the poison which was being drawed from her body. But pretty soon they ran out of cats and couldn’t find enough to get the pain all drawn out. It just seemed it just wasn’t to be, so mother died. I remember at the time I wondered, what on earth they were doing with so many cats and later Effie told me. At the time grandpa Terry and his last family was living down on the Beaver Dams. This same day he seemed to have a feeling that Celestia was going to die and we were just thinking about sending him word when he came walking in. It sure did leave a vacant place in our home and for a long while we didn’t know what to do. However we had been schooled enough in
work that it wasn’t hard for us to carry on that way. After that I used to go to work for Uncle Chot Pulsipher and do all his house work, pack all the water to wash. I used to have to go and sleep with Aunt Kate at night because Uncle Chot was gone so much and she was scared to stay alone at night.Father played the violin for all the dances. We didn’t have many, the 4th and 24th of July, Christmas and New Years was about all. Sometimes father would take us young folks to Gunlock to the dances. We’d take a team and wagon travel to Kane Springs and have dinner and then on to Gunlock and stay all night. We’d catch fish along the creek and eat them while there. The next day found us plodding back to Old Hebron after and enjoyable evening of dancing.
I was around 15 or so now and Emma and Martha Weston moved here and we used to go horse back riding some. Sometimes when the boys came home from their work we would go with them and have a party and have quite alot of fun.
One time Aunt Susa Lund and I went up the big canyon clear up on top of flat top on horses to pick choke cherries but we had quite a nice ride.
It was along about this time Tacy, Effie and I started to make us a Trusso. We made us four quilts apiece from money we earned doing house work for some of the neighbors for a $1.25 a week. I also bought me two sets of plates, one large and one small, one set of dessert dishes and one set of glasses. We took in washings from any who needed them done also, sometimes we didn’t have enough lines space to hang all our clothes so we would take them up the hill and hang them upon the sage brush to dry many times in the snow.
I used to go out with Uncle France quite alot. My first date with Walt was one time when he and France were laying on a rug one time Walt traded France a lead pencil if he would let him have his date with me that nite. So France traded pencils as they were quite an item in them days. From then on I went with Walt quite often. Tracy, Effie, Lois H., Eva Terry, and Martha West ran around together and Lois was always teasing me about getting married and she was always calling me “The little Old Woman.” One time we were having a party to Eva Terry’s place and she was always trying to get Walt away from me and this nite whe took Walt’s hat and hid it to try and get hime to stay there with he but he wouldn’t stay so he took me home and got his hat another day.
It was also along this time that Effie took the Telagraph Office, she let me watch it for her and I caught on to it real quick so she left me with it quite alot of the time. I remember one time we was having an electric storm and a big ball of fire came in through the window on the wires and on to the table then a second ball of fire came in, this time it caught the curtains and table cloth on fire and then started to burn the table. I was there alone and I sure was scared. There was just a little water setting in the bucket I threw that on the fire and then had to run down to the creek for several buckets of water to put the fire out. The creek was about two blocks away. Whenever it would cloud up and look stormy after that I sure could get scared. We got $5.00 a month for tending the office but for a long while it was just in T.O. pay or, produce of any thing they had that we could use from the Tithing Office.
I had to stay right with it all the time as someone had to be there by it at all times, I really liked it and that is why I learned it so well I quess. Then when Effie got married I tended the office alone for two years. Lots of times all the gang would come over to our place to get together as I couldn’t leave to go anywhere. We used to have quite a few nice dances. I kept the Telagraph Office quite a number of years after I was married. I remember when we were getting ready to get married we were putting a cover on our wagon and we thought we were setting on a cloud we were so happy. We were married October 8, 1897 at St. George, Utah. Father, Tracy Walt and I traveled to St. George in a covered wagon. The temple was closed all winter so were married in the Court House. When we arrived back at old Hebron a wedding dance was held for us in the kitchen of our home. Bishop George A. Hold took charge and father played the violin for the dance. About 30 folks from the half dozen families then living at Hebron attended. I think everyone had a good time. We recieved quite a few nice presents for such a small group. Some of the things I got were two long platters (one of which I still have) some plates, fruit dishes, two pickle dishes, and other things.
A trip to Milford for a load of frieght for George A. Hold was our honeymoon. We were gone 5 days and it snowed all the time we were gone. I rode in the back of the wagon with a blanket over me. We had to stay in Milford to wait for the freight. We made our camp with other freugters ub tge cikd wet snow. it took us three days to come home and one nite we traveled all nite to get borne. It was so dark and the snow was so deep and the weather was so cold that I sure wished I was home. One nite I was riding back in the wagon when all of a sudden a donkey let out a loud bray and really scared me but Walt came back and told me not to worry as it wouldn’t hurt me. Anyway I sure was glad to get home from that trip.
Our first home was a two-roomed frame house owned by Harry Bowler up at Hebron. We didn’t have much but a bedstead and a rockin chair father let me have, and a bale and chairs. I remember we was right happy tho.
On March 4th our first baby was born, we named her Celestia Luella (year 1898). In Sept. of that same year, (Sept. 1, 1898) we went to St. George to be married in the Temple and have our baby sealed to us. Then about two years later on 17 May 1900 we were blessed with a baby boy whom we named Eugene. When he was about 2 months old I went to Gunlock to stay with Walt’s folks and dry peaches. His mother had been quite mad at me tho bacause she had picked out wives for all her boys and she had chose Effie for Harry, Tracy for Walt and me France and Elva for George, (they being all being brothers and us all sisters) but it didn’t work wout that way, none of the others married and when I married Walt instead of France it sure made her mad at me and I don’t think she ever quite forgave me. However we got along quite well for staying right in together all summer. And althought I did enjoy the summer drying fruit I was glad to get back home.
Then La Rex was born at Hebron July 13,1902. When he was just a baby I was carrying wash water to fill my wash tubs so it could settle all nite to get the sand out and when an earth quake started. It really shook things up, Rex was laying in a big rockin chair in front of the fire place and it shook the bricks loose from the chimney. I ran to the house and when I opened the door, I could hardly see a thing because the room was so full of smoke and dust from the chimney and plaster that feel. Things sure were in a mess, that nite the whole town went to the Tithing Barn to stay as the earth quakes just kept coming and we were more safe there than in our brick homes. We stayed there for 3 days as the earth
quakes just kept comming and so we just kept staying there till they were all over. Once in awhile we would go home for food or clothing. But that was all. It sure wasn’t very much fun the quakes just kept cornniing every little while. Walt was away working at the time. I remember Hen and Julia Barnum’s table was left set for three days as they were just getting ready to set down to eat when the quakes started and so they just left everything like it was and came. It was quite an awful experience one I didn’t like.Then two years later on November 21 1904, another child came to our home and we named her Verda. It seemed like life was one big strugle of patch, pack water from the creek and scrub on the board. We didn’t have many conveniences them days. Money was scarce in them days and the men were gone alot. Walt worked at Delamore and hearded sheep alot some times he would be gone three months at a time. Somtimes there wouldn’t be any men at all in town. We wondered lots of times just what we would do if we needed a man. Sickness, death, and fire were some of our worries. I sure wouldn’t want to see them days again. I was left alone alot with the responsibility of my family and all the chores. I would get up early and milk four or five cows, drive them out on the hill top pasture, carry back wood to cook breakfast with and then the milk was all made into butter and cheese. I spent many evenings packing water from the creek to wash and supply our other needs.
When Rex was a baby we lived at Hebron in the winters and spent the summers on surrounding ranches. Some summers were spent at Rattle Snake, so named because one morning John Pulsipher, found a rattle snake in bed. We had a home made of quaken aspen poles with mud in between. The floor was just black earth which we had to keep dampened to keep from getting dusty. The roof was made of dirt. The kids slept on the floor and I lived in fear that some nite a rattle snake might find it’s way into our home and the sleeping kids on the floor. George A. Hold had a saw mill here and made lumber for the first homes in Enterprise.
In the summer of 1906 we moved to Enterprise, we lived in a tent on what is now Clair Hunts lot. Our little family now consisted of four, Luella Gene, Rex and Verda and I was expecting my fifth child, Austin. We lived in the tent for two winters before we were able to build a home. I sure did hate to move to Enterprise where the newly cleared ground was soft and sticky. We had the square block from where Clair Hunts place stands to where Nellie Twitchells place is. We built our home with two rooms on the ground and two rooms up stairs. We lived here in the winters and then move up to the ranch in the summers which was about seven months out of the year. We used to make lovely big cheeses in them
days. But it seemed like we still had alot of patching and even had to patch shoes to make them last.I remember during potato picking time they would plow the potatoes out and then park a wagon in the center of the field and we would have to pick the potatoes up in buckets and then carry them to the wagon to dump them. I done this when I was just a girl and then all my married life too.
After Austin was born came Velda who was born at Enterprise 26, jan. 1909. Then two more years passed and another baby girl joined our family circle on the 11 Aug. 1911. She was born at the ranch and we named her Norma. These two girls sure were awfully close all their lives they were always together and could really sing well together. One time when Uncle France was there the girls were out on the porch singing that nite and he said he had never heard such heavenly music. They were such good workers too they would always get right at their work. They used to go and weed the potatoes with great big straw bonnets on.
I remember lots of times we were scared at nite with some tramp that would be passing through stopping to our place for something.
Then it seemed like time still went on bringing more work and two more years passed bringing the arrival of a little boy 30 Oct. 1913 whom we named Donald. I sure had a time carrying him, no one thought I would live and when he was born I really had quite a hard time. I almost went into convulsions and they had quite a time with me. But to the amasement of all he and I both lived. I remember when I had him blessed everyone was sure surprised to see us so well. However, my health wasn’t very good after that for awhile. And I just about had a neverous breakdown. I remember one day I had just done a great big wash (packing all my wash water and scrubing all my clothes on the board) and I remember that night I was so tired, I went in and picked Don up to nurse him and I was so tired that all of a sudden I just couldn’t go on, I guess and I started to singing, singing, singing, so funny. I remember Luella looking at
me like she was so scared and didn’t know what to do to help me. Then I got so tired that I couldn’t even sing or speak anymore. Luella ran out and met Tacy at the gate and she ran for help and got Bart Farnsworth. I must have went numb and passed out on the bed as Bart said my heart was just as dead as dead. He gave me a spoon full of whiskey and then left to get some help, praying all the time for me. When he got out to the street he felt I would be all right so he came back in.Then some Elders came and I was administered to and I came to and my heart started to beating and I got so I could talk to them a little but my tongue felt so thick. I was a long time getting over than breakdown. Sometimes I would find myself getting down like a little kid and peaking into the stove and then other times I would cry and cry. I knew I was doing silly things but I just couldn’t seem to help myself. People would come and I would feel so embrassed but I couldn’t help it. The only medicine that I found helped me at all was Heart-Brain-and Nerve pills and they sure put me on my feet.
Every time I would have a nervous spell come on it seemed like Rex always knew and he would go in the bedroom and pray for me. I think that helped me a lot too. The Doctor told me that I shouldn’t try to have any more kids because I wouldn’t make it, but it seemed that that wasn’t the plan of the Lord for about two and a half years later on July 12, 1916 another little boy was born whom we named Melvin. This time I had gravel of the kidney and the doctor was worried about me and so he had me come to Santa Clara and stay with my father who lived there so I would be there when I started labor. I went but I finally stayed there a month before Mel was born. When the time came it took twelve hours for the gravel to pass through and it was twelve hours of intense pain. It was quite a struggle too that time. However, father was very happy to have .me stay with him and my step mother treated me very nice. Luella stayed to the ranch and took care of the family while I was gone. I came back home about a week after Mel was born.
Then as usual, there was work, work, work, and it seemed that our family still wasn’t complete, for on May17, 1918 we were blessed with another little girl whom we named Rowena. Again Luella stayed on the ranch and took care of the other kids while I came to Enterprise. Velda stayed at Enterprise with me, she was only six but she sure was a good little nurse. A Mrs. Adams who lived over to Etta Holts told me if I took sick to hang out a white rag and she would come over and take care of me, so when I took sick Velda took a white rag and hung it out on the clothes line where she could see it and she came over and took care of me. I believe it was the only normal or easy time I had with all my babies.
Then that following September Luella got married. I sure did miss her, it was just like I had lost my right arm. Well time marched on with nothing happening except a lot of work till a year from then and tragedy struck our home. Velda had been playing dare base at school, she had got quite heated up and then as the bell rang at recess she took a drink of cold water and it made her quite sick and so the teacher let her go home. She couldn’t hardly make it home, she was so wabbly and weaving so. She was sick for a week or so after that with a terrific pain in her head most the time.
Fanny Laub would come and rub her head and helped sooth it a lot, and for a while she seemed to get a little better. Then on the 27th of November 1919, Thanksgiving Day, I was in the kitchen getting breakfast and Velda hadn’t got up yet. There was a little snow bird that had got in the house some how and the kids were all having quite a time with it and then I came in to see what Velda wanted for breakfast and there she lay with her head throwed back on the pillow in a coma. We sent Dick across the street for Billy Truman. The snow was waist deep on him and the wind was blowing and drifting the snow too and it was really cold. She died about 10:00 o’clock, she never came too after going into the coma. Luella came down and she had to ride a horse as that was the only way you could get around in the snow. Walt was away hearding sheep at the time. It sure was miserable when we buried her, the snow was still so deep. Velda was an awfully pretty girl and as good as she was pretty.
Then life still went on and on the 19th of May, 1920, Clinton was born and once again I had a hard time. I know I got so I just dreaded my pregnancies, although I loved every one of my babies. I remember when Clinton was born Dr. McGregor was here and he sure had a time with me and Clint. We had a mid-wife too, and one had their hands full taking care of me while the other took care of the baby. I remember something was wrong with Clinton’s neck and it was so long and stretched. We thought Clinton was dead for awhile, but the Doctor worked with him and got him to breathing. For a long time Clinton couldn’t hold his head up to good. His neck seemed so long and spindly.
Then on April 21, 1923 tragedy struck again with the death of Norma. She came home from school one day with a terrible pain in her side and seeing company there she went and crawled under the porch and stayed till they went away. The she came in and told me. We sent for Sarah Day and she said it sounded like a bad case of appendicitis and that she should be taken to St. George for an operation. Norma wouldn’t consent to go until Walt came home and he was gone with the sheep again so it was a day or two before they could get ready to go. She was quite bad until they day before Walt came and then her pain subsided a little.
We thought she was better but when we took her to the hospital and they operated they found her appendix had ruptured and gangrene had set in and that is why her pain had eased a little. When they sent word that Norma had died Mary Whitehead was the nurse and she asked me if we had a daughter named Velda and said that Norma told her to tell Mom and Dad that she had to go, that Velda had come for her, and that she was in the most beautiful place she had ever seen, and for them not to feel too bad. The morning she had felt better though, she had turned awfully yellow.
Norma and Velda had been so close all their lives that when Velda died Norma never got over being lonesome for her and so I think that is one reason she died, so they could still be together. Velda was ten when she died and Norma was eleven when she died four years later. She also said to tell us that she sure hated to leave us, but that she just had to go.
That same year, June 11, 1923 my last baby, Alpine was born, making twelve children in all for us. Then time went on about the same and four more years passed. Then Eugene, who had grown to be a young man by now got Ether pneumonia and died October 20,1927. He was quite a character, he could visit with old or young people and never feel out of place with either. And so for the third time tragedy struck our home.
Many times in my life my prayers have been answered when my family has needed the help of the Lord in sickness and death. I don’t know what I would have done may times if I hadn’t had Him to turn to for comfort and help.
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Thus ends the History as given to me by Gandmother Bowler. For the past five years Grandmother has not been well, she has been home bound much of the time and has spent one or two periods in the hospital with pneumonia. At the time I started getting Grandmother’s history she took a bad spell and seemed like she just kept going down hill. Her appetite became such that she just couldn’t eat much and therefore her strenght failed fast.
On April 5, 1961 she at last became so bad that by 10:00 o’clock that night it became necessary to call the Doctor from Cedar City. When he arrived, after checking her over he said that she couldn’t last the night out without some hospital care. He gave her a shot that would keep her going until she could make it to the hospital. She surely hated to go because it was her one great fear of dying in the hospital and she just didn’t want to be there to die. We tried to comfort her as best we could and so with some regrets she went.
It was a sad occasion, she was so ill and we could do so little for her. Her stay at the hospital lasted for some five weeks, which were all a torture for her. But bless her uncomplaining heart, she never complained but was always worried for fear she was putting someone to a lot of bother. While there she didn’t seem to improve much. Some days she was a little better and then other days she was much worse. There were days when we didn’t think she would last very long but it seemed like it just wasn’t her time yet. However, bit by bit she was going down hill and she suffered much while at the hospital.
Many times she would be so blue and homesick and longed to be home. We tried to go down as often as we could and help cheer her up. The last time that I saw Grandmother alive she had had a very bad day. Mother and I had gone down to spend the afternoon with her and for some reason we couldn’t seem to leave, I know I just felt like I couldn’t pull myself away to go home. And she acted like she hated to have us go. It seemed like I just wanted to cling to her for fear of losing her.
On May 15 it was finally decided that she wasn’t gaining anything by staying there and she wanted to come home so bad that the Doctor said she just as well be brought home. She was put under oxygen when she first went there and she had to have all the way through it seemed she just couldn’t get along without it so they fixed up a tank to bring home with her. Her appetite didn’t improve any in the hospital and she had to be fed through the veins many times. I never in all my life saw anyone look so sick at the thoughts of a meal as I saw Grandmother look. It made her sick to her stomach just to think about eating.
For quite a while different ones in the family had been taking turns staying with her at the hospital and on her last night at the hospital it was Mother and Dad’s (Luella and Milton Laub) turn. Mother said Grandmother sure spent a terrible night, but in spite of it all it was still decided that she should come home. So the morning of the 10th she was got ready to come home. It made her very happy to get her garments back on and get ready to come home.
So on the morning or the 10th she was taken out of the hospital and brought home. Her son Alpine and daughter-in-law Dorinne brought her home in another son, Melvin’s car. They said on the way home she raised up and looked around a bit and seemed to enjoy the trip home. She was taken to another daughter-in-law, Theda’s home where she was going to stay. She arrived home about noon. After getting her in the house and settled, she just didn’t seem to get along too well and many times they felt she wouldn’t make it and then she would come out of It. Mother and Dad (Luella and Milt) stayed there with her for quite a while, most the afternoon to help Theda, as Grandmother wasn’t too good.
They had just gone home to get a bite to eat when Theda sent for them and said Grandmother was about gone. They rushed right over and got there to see Grandmother pass away. I had been down on the desert helping my brother cut potatoes and I had just got homes I had been looking forward all day to going and welcoming Grandmother home and when they sent word that she had gone I ran over but I was too late to see her.
I know now why I felt as I did down at the hospital. Grandmother passed away about 8:00 P.M. It was a sad and happy occasion, sad because we shall miss her association and happy because she would not have to suffer anymore. Many times I have visited Grandmother and done things to help her and I truly learned to love her. She was a wonderful person. She always thought of others before herself. I am so happy to have had the association with her that I had through out my life and I am so thankful that I was able to get a small part of her history before she passed away as I shall always treasure it. I know that Grandmother could have given me much more had the circumanstances been a little different and she had felt better. She certainly had a hard life but she was not one to complain.
Grandmother lived to be 80 years old. Her memory is one that shall be cherished by children and grandchildren alike. I only hope I can live to be half as good as she was. For she left us a great heritage.
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