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that trip going East, the train layed over all one night on the siding. When the conductor came through the next morning he wanted to know if we slept well. We said, “yes.” He said, “you should have. We parked this train on the siding all night so you’d get a good night’s sleep.” Then he laughed and went on. He said to my father, “there was a wreck on the line.” Father said he knew the train had stayed on the siding all night. My sister and I had slept so sound we didn’t know it until we awoke and the train was going. Upon arriving in Portland a big tent revival meeting was in full swing. The tent held five or six hundred people and was full every night with people standing outside. We all took time out of evenings to attend. They were wonderful meetings. My sister and I got to sing in the large choir. Finally I became one of the personnel workers. When the altar calls were given, I would talk with some who raised their hands but yet lacked courage to make a start. I would walk down that sawdust trail with them and kneel down and pray with them until one of the special altar workers would take over. I would then talk to others among the crowd. The meetings were of no one denomination but the two evangelists were Methodist. What good meetings they were. I don’t know when I had enjoyed myself more. It seemed to me it was just the thing I wanted to do for I was so happy helping in my small way. When the time came for them to move on to another large city, I was lost for awhile but the memory was sweet. Several times in an evening and sometimes more, I would walk that trail, with someone undecided, to give them faith and courage to grasp a better life and to have Christ in their hearts. Some had said they just couldn’t take the step even though it seemed so clear and plain to them. “You don’t know,” they would say, “my home isn’t a home” or “my wife is divorcing me.” Maybe it was “we have no control over our children.” But somehow the Lord would put the right answers in my mouth for what they were saying seemed of little consequence compared to the answers that came back in return. Scripture would come to me at times like that where other times it would fail me when I was in a more careless or thoughtless mood. I have lived and relived some of those talks and answers as the years have gone by, especially where their main plea was they were alcoholics or drug addicts and couldn’t give it up. I would tell them that nothing is impossible with God. God has cured more alcoholics than medicine if you are willing to put your whole faith and trust in him. Live for him and let him be the caretaker of your soul, mind and body. My life was made happier through those experiences. Thus the Bible became more precious to me. I read it each night before retiring.
I was eighteen that September tenth, nineteen hundred and ten. “It hardly seemed possible. We had been back in Portland nearly two months. I had had letters from Frank and the two Jims. Frank was rather put out because I had not written or told him we had gone East and was there most of the summer. He said he would have come to see me. Jim, Ida’s nephew, had been in Philadelphia and had gone there just before we went East and back to our old home. He learned too late that I was there so wrote me at our new address in Portland. The main statement in his letter was that he was coming out to Portland and take me back. I answered his letter right off. I said, “we’d like for you to come very much but don’t plan on taking me back.” That just about finished our letter writing. After some time he wrote saying it was impossible for him to come because of his job. I put that letter aside and I don’t remember if I ever answered it or not. About six months later we heard he was married to a Philadelphia girl. I was very glad and happy for him, for I, as yet, had not considered marrying anyone. The second Jim’s letter was so friendly and nice. He was so pleased we had gone to our old home town and state and had had a good visit with all our old friends. Finally too I began writing less and less to him.
Our rainy season had set in, just warm-like showers. The roses were still blooming as Portland was called the Rose City. No one quit work in that country because of rains. It was somewhat like a mist that lasted the winter through. Sometimes they would get what they called a “silver thaw.” Every branch, every leaf, every wire, every pole and every house top was coated with ice. Even rosebuds were encased in ice. Lots of damage was done when one of those came. Electric wires and so forth were down and walking was dangerous. It always seemed like, to me, that more people got out on rainy days than good. Umbrellas bobbing up and down with rain coats, overshoes and rain hats under them. The working men wore those raincoats called slickers and big rain hats. Rain didn’t seem to bother anyone there.
My sister and her husband came with us that same fall we did. They too, were a bit tired of the Montana cold. Their son, William Pruden, Jr., was a big handsome, rosey cheeked boy and took the notice of most people. He and Harry and Ida’s girl, Mary, used to have quite a time at my parents. Their grandma would always want to give them some candy, cookies or oranges. Mary would always take hers and thank grandma for it. But Pruden Jr. or Buster as we called him wouldn’t. Then he’d remark, “mama got some.” He and
Mary would go in the parlor and stand in front of the big window and here, with their arms around each other eat together what grandma had given Mary. Sallie and Pruden stayed on with us. He got a job clerking a store and that September, 1911, their second boy, Robert Harry, was born. They liked being in that warm climate so well they rented them a home.
There was a nice boy who used to take orders each morning and deliver by going from house to house for his father’s butcher shop. I had met him several times by going to the shop to buy meat for my mother. He was tall with blond, curly hair and blue eyes, a very nice boy. Each morning when he came to our house to take an order, if he didn’t see me, he’d ask where I was, of my mother. Most generally I was around someplace and we’d stand and talk until I’d tell him you’ll miss out on some orders if you don’t get to going. We did a lot of talking on the back steps and once in awhile he’d come in and have me play the piano for him. Though he asked, I never went any place with him. I remember his last name but I am not quite sure of his first name. Yes, it was “Morris,” his first name. I can see him now as plain as day.
After Sallie and Pruden moved to their home, father found, through the man he was contracting and building for, a much larger and nicer home. So we moved to it. It had a large attic with large rooms. Wilhelmina and I immediately took us one of those rooms. There were three large bedrooms, a big bath and hallway upstairs on the second floor. It had a very large kitchen, dining room and a large front room and hallway downstairs and a basement as large as the house below. Which was very nice for keeping and storing things. We could keep wood and coal dry for the coal furnace. The furnace made it nice for heating such a large house. A large front and back yard and located in a grand neighborhood.
My brother and his wife and little daughter moved in with us because the house was so large and we all got along nicely. That February their second child, a boy was born to them. It was February 8, 1911. He was given the name of Harry Claud.
That winter seemed to slip past rather fast. Our neighbors came often and visited. We attended church and made many friends. When spring came mama would liked to have made a garden but the yard was all seeded to blue grass which had to be mowed instead of hoed. Vegetables were pretty cheap anyway in that big city. A man with a small wagon and little grey horse came around twice a week selling every kind of vegetable and fruits that were in season. Mama always took a basket out and picked over and bought what we needed so we didn’t lack for fresh vegetables and fruits. The grocer came as well as the butcher each morning and took your order then delivered what you ordered by eleven a.m. which made it nice for housewives who didn’t have the time to dress up and go to the store in the mornings when they were so busy. I think that was the only place we lived that they did that.
When spring came, Pruden and Sallie bought a lot and built themselves a small home. It was some blocks from our place. I used to have fun caring for their two boys. They made a small garden and there was a fruit tree or two on it.
Spring faded into summer and that August the three girls we knew and liked so well when we lived in Great Falls, Montana, came to visit us. They stayed two weeks. We really had a wonderful time. We took in everything worth seeing in and around Portland. We got up early one morning and took what is called the trip up the Columbia River to the Dalles. We left around seven a.m. It was truly a beautiful, scenic trip with water falls, mountains, lovely homes and farms along the way. That afternoon as we were eating dinner we started to go through the locks. The boat tipped badly, sliding some of the dishes into our laps. We nearly went over backwards and would have had not the waiters grabbed our chairs .We got afraid that the boat would sink. The waiter explained it by saying it was the raising of the water and whirlpools in the locks. The wharf was loaded with vegetables, fruits, chickens and what have you ready to be shipped. A little boy came aboard with a basket of such luscious looking peaches. We bought some to eat, as did most of the other passengers. I don’t think I have ever eaten sweeter peaches. The trip was beautiful going but more wonderful in the moonlight returning. There was a couple of fellows that had tried all day to get acquainted with us but we had avoided them until now. They slipped around and asked if they might set down with us on the moonlight deck. As we talked you could hear the water beating and splashing against the side of the boat. I finally got up and walked over by the rails gazing deep into the old Columbia as the boat plowed toward Portland. I watched its waves with the moonlight shining on them. At home, mama had become worried and had asked my brother if he would go down to the wharf to meet us. When the boat pulled in and docked around midnight, there was my brother standing there as the gang plank was lowered. We came ashore and he hustled us away and we barely made the last trolley home which was about a ten block ride. I felt sorry for my brother. He had lost his sleep waiting to see that a bunch of fun loving girls made it home safe. Mama was still waiting up for us. Somehow, I guess, we had failed to tell her how long we would be on the trip. She figured that was too late for girls to be out.
And so the two weeks soon passed. We went to the depot that lovely August morning to bid the girls goodbye. They hated to leave and we wishing they could stay longer. Soon the train pulled out and we were waving like mad at each other as it roared down the tracks with three girls Montana bound. That was the last we ever saw of the girls but we corresponded once in awhile with each other.
That February we learned of homestead land in Idaho. We all thought it would be of great interest to have and live on a homestead in the West. We had read so many stories along that line. So when spring came, father took his suitcase that mama had packed and
headed for Idaho. He wound up in the town of American Falls, Idaho whose inhabitants could be counted easily. The depot was about the biggest part of it. It was a wheat and cattle country. Not having anyway, at the time, to get to Malta, a small inland town where you had to sign up for these homesteads, he bought himself a bicycle and peddled the thirty or forty miles’ to this small inland town. He got a team and buggy there to drive fifteen miles to Sublett which was a store and post office. He looked over these homesteads. Here again was dry farm grain and grazing for cattle. It was a pretty country. My father selected a nice place of a hundred and sixty which was the amount you could homestead. It was on Shirley Creek, up near the mountains or what they call “bench land.” In the summer the rains follow these ranges of Mountains. You are more likely to get rains and more of it than you would down in the “flats” or low land. He got his homestead all fixed up, sold his bicycle in Malta and took the stage back to Burley. There he took the train for Oregon. We were all waiting with great excitement and interest for the news. Upon papa’s arrival, we talked that evening through, until quite late. He told Harry how he had picked out a nice place for him adjoining ours if they got back there before someone else signed up on it. That put us in a big hurry to go. Preparations were soon underway for that trip, by buying and packing things necessary. Father even bought a wagon, harness and team of horses. He got a box car and started storing these things in it. He bought lumber and needed stuff for two homes, one for us and one for my brother’s family.
Finally the day came when we bid farewell to our neighbors who came to wish us well. The box car was on its way. It was dark, around nine or nine-thirty, when the train we left on rolled out of the depot bound for Idaho. Harry went with the box car on account of the horses needing feed and water. Anyway we were off there were a few tears in our eyes as we headed for a strange land something none of us knew anything much about. The trip was very fascinating, with much beautiful scenery along the way. As the train rolled along I began to daydream of that little home somewhere in Idaho out among the sage brush, coyotes, cattle, and ticks. I had not dreamed much of a little mountain stream but it was there alright, running clear as a crystal and just as cold. It came from lofty ledges where it originated.
About midnight we got into Minidoka, on the main line. This was about the middle of or May 10, 1912. My sister and I were quite tickled when we saw a fellow come with a wheelbarrow to take our suitcases to the little two-story wooden structure which was their one and only hotel. There was very little at Minidoka that year except for the depot, railroad track, a cafe and several houses.
When we were taken to our room, we found just the old fashioned bowl and pitcher on a wash stand in one corner of the room. But for all, the bed was quite comfortable. We slept well and awoke with the dawn. My sister and I lay thinking and talking of what we thought the country might be like. We saw very little of it in and around Minidoka by arriving after night. Arising, we washed and dressed. Just then mother knocked on the door and walked in. She said they were all ready to go down to the cafe for breakfast.
It was rather chilly that a.m. so we slipped on light jackets and were off. As we walked in folks in the cafe seemed to be staring at us. The waiter wasn’t long asking where we were from and where bound. Father said, “Rupert, for the present.” “Yes sir,” the fellow replied, “that’s going to be a fine country one of these days.” “What do you mean, one of these days,” father asked. “Well,” he said, “it’s new and they sure have lots of wind and jack rabbits but they got plenty of water. One day they’ll lick those obstacles.” “Well that’s fine” father replied, “but we are going out about fifty miles from Rupert in a wheat and cattle country soon as we can build two houses out there.” “You going to get some land through Uncle Sam, I judge.” “Yes,” father said. “You don’t look like that kind of a family,” he replied as he picked up his tray of dirty dishes and left. Father paid the bill and we went back to the hotel, packed our suitcases and came down stairs into the small but neat waiting room. Once more the man with the wheel barrow appeared, loaded our suitcases and was off to the depot with us walking behind and here we sat on the long seat waiting. The train was late that morning. It seemed hours that we sat there when it was only a short while until the train came steaming in. The three train men headed for the little cafe while the passengers and freight was being loaded. Here we sat straining our eyes, looking at the vast desert that stretched for miles into nowhere, so it seemed. Again we began to wonder, was this where we wanted to live, this somewhat forsaken country where the winds blew at will shifting the sands and the mournful cry of the coyote that fell on your ears at dusk and daybreak. Finally we consoled ourselves that where we were going would never be like this.
We had not long to wait now. The conductor was calling all aboard. The bell was clanging, then the whistle gave two sharp toots and the train started out and we were off, still gazing through the window at the glare of the morning sun on the sage and the silence of the desert. Here and there a jack rabbit scampered away as the train whirled up the dust in passing. It was so dry it seemed to make our faces burn for we were used to that moist Portland, Oregon, climate. Harry’s two children were very fussy. And mother was trying to help Ida with them. They too seemed to dislike the dry atmosphere.
Things began to look somewhat better as the train drew nearer to Rupert. Some were getting their suitcases ready as if anxious to get off. Father now was getting ours down. The train was blowing for the crossing. The conductor came through the train calling, “Rupert, next stop, Rupert,” as he went on his way. It was all dutch to us, sounded like a nice enough name, but what was it like? The train was slowing down. People with their suitcases were moving down the aisle. Father handed each of us a suitcase while he carried three and mother a smaller one. We moved down the aisle with the conductor
saying, “watch your step.” The porter, standing to one side, said “let
me assist you lady,” speaking to my sister-in-law for in her one arm Was her little son and the other was holding her little daughter’s hand tight. I could almost guess her thoughts, for if ever she needed her husband it was now. But, he had volunteered to go with the box car of freight for someone had to water and feed the team of horses. The train had gone on its way now and we were left standing on the depot platform. From the looks of those who descended, Rupert had increased quite a bit in the last few minutes. Some went one way, some another and horses and buggies were waiting for others. We stood for some little time looking in all directions. My father asked the station agent of a good place to stay and he pointed about two blocks to a wooden structure on the southeast comer of the square and said quite a lot of people stay there. All around the square were small wooden structures that May of 1912. The rooms were clean and comfortable. We were all tired and somewhat disappointed. A tent would have looked good to us right then, especially Ida with her two small children. The next night the freight pulled in and our box car of freight was shunted onto a siding. You never saw two people more glad to see each other.
Houses were small and hard to find, but father had hurried around all that next day and had finally found one that evening when the freight came in. The next day found a busy family getting our furniture moved into what would be home for us for some months to come. My father and brother lost no time in getting the lumber moved to our ranch, some fifty miles away at Sublett or in the foothills near Sublett on a little creek named Shirley Creek. Their first trip though was for my brother to go to Malta and file a claim on the hundred and sixty adjoining our place. Then the task of building the houses soon got into progress while we women folk stayed at Rupert and took in its surroundings.
We soon made friends and church people came to call. My sister and I were asked to sing in the choir and we did. We are also asked to sing solos which we did. We enjoyed going to the little Methodist church. The Baptist church found out we were Baptist. So the minister and his wife came calling. They were extra nice Eastern folks but we didn’t change. For we figured we would soon be moving to the ranch and we had already gotten acquainted with the people in the Methodist church.
My sister and I used to like to go walking around the square and shop. One morning we walked into a dry goods store. The lady who managed it came up to us and said, “you are not Idahoans.” We said, “how do you know?” She said, “from your white or fair complexions.” She then said, “you’ve come from the coast.” We said, “Portland.” She said, “I knew it. After you live here awhile you’ll lose that fair complexion.” I said, “I already have. This sun and dry wind makes my face burn.” We made some purchases then hurried to get home. The first thing I did was look in a mirror to see how much I had suntanned.
The next morning I was singing and washing the dishes when a young fellow knocked at the door to take orders for groceries and then deliver them later. I was somewhat talkative that morning and we talked for quite awhile while mama fixed out an order to give him. When he returned with the groceries we talked some more. That was the forerunner of someone else I was to meet for this party boarded at his home. Each evening he’d go home and tell him about the little girl that just moved here from Portland. The day went by and “Even tide” drew nigh. My sister was trying out a new piece on the piano, one of the last we bought before leaving Portland. It was a very pretty piece and I was just as anxious to learn it so I joined her there. As I sat thus taking in each note and sound, a melancholy feeling crept over me.
When we had retired I was still drifting and dreaming. Sleep would not come for I was once again, in my dreams, back home, my childhood home. I was turning over in my mind happenings, the old barn, skating pond, the hill where we spent so many happy hours coasting on chilly winter days, old Alice and her gingerbread that I like so well. It was evening and we had returned from school and father from work. Old Alice was putting the supper on the table as we gathered there. This was always a happy occasion for the family to discuss the happenings of the day. My mother was there at bed time roasting a pan of peanuts for us to enjoy before retiring. The mill and the steam engine that ground the com and sawed the wood. I could visualize the yard full of horses and wagons and people on milling day. The boy with the white goat and wagon and our store with its many attractive things to a child. I was once again on my pony visiting the many haunts of those early morning rides. Yes, it was all there in my dream. Now we were leaving it and the new country we moved to proved just as nice. I can hear my brother-in-law say now, “what a lovely spacious home you have. And Frank’s words in the letter I received just before moving West were, “wherever you go, I wonder if you will ever be able to entirely forget what you are leaving behind?” No, I hadn’t. I didn’t think the time would come when I ever would and most of all the little church in the Wild Wood
With its city Sunday crowd and the happy times we enjoyed there.
Somehow, I don’t know when, I drifted off to sleep. It must have been toward morning for the night was dark. And one of those Idaho dust storms seemed to come up from nowhere. The dust found its way in around the windows and under the doorsills. The house was quiet and still except for the wind.
I was awakened the next morning by the odor of fresh rolls baking. My good sister-in-law had arose early that morning to prepare and bake them, a delicious treat for breakfast. She had made up the dough the night before. I sat up in bed rubbed my eyes and hastily dressed. Breakfast was on the table and most everyone seated “Well!” they said. “Here’s sleepy head. What happened to you?” Harry and Ida’s little boy lay whimpering in his crib wanting to be taken up. Their little girl sat in her high chair without a care banging her spoon on her plate. Soon we were seated and “thanks was returned for all things good.” Truly what was on the table merited thanks, but as I gazed out of the window, the outside had not merited that much to me, yet. As I gazed the feeling crept with in me, we had made our choice, there was no turning back. We were destined to become part of this, and would be for years to come. This country of wind, dust and shifting sand, this country where we would carve out a home, would become dearer to us than any place we had ever lived before, for Idaho was a nugget in the rough waiting to be polished. And we were “Destined to go West.”