Hay Baler

     One of my biggest regrets was that I weaned Garth too early.  I weaned him in October so I could pick spuds with Stanley, after our own were finished.  The most I ever picked in one day was 500 sacks.  I could pick faster than Stan but he lifted all the baskets to dump.  We needed money that year and every thing I earned went right to the bank to pay off the loan, we had taken for the summer expenses.  Prices were low and Jess didn’t want to sell anything to pay the note.  

      Jess decided to buy a hay baler.  They were expensive but he justified buying it by baling for the neighbors.  One week it had rained and every ones hay was down and ready to be bailed.  Jess usually didn’t work on Sunday, but he thought he had better this Sunday because of his neighbors hay getting ruined.  He had trouble with the bailer and when he tried to crank it, the crank slipped and hit him on the knee.  He thought he had broken his leg but only bruised the knee.  He said he knew he shouldn’t have been working on Sunday and that was the last time he bailed hay on Sunday.  

       I would take the three boys with me and we would clean up the hay at the turns and run errands and do what we could to help.  Jess took a job at Terreton bailing hay and stacking it.  I went with him and cooked for the crew and lived for six weeks in a dirty shack of a house.  It was a good time to just enjoy my sons.  It was difficult but we survived.  The men would shoot pheasants, as they came home from the field and I cleaned them and cooked them.   

       That winter, Jess got a job in Montana, baling hay out of a stack.  It looked like good money but it was a disaster.  It was cold and the machine kept breaking own.  I was home trying to take care of the cows.  I didn’t lose any calves while he was gone.   The farmer he was working for killed a moose that had been bothering the hay stack.  He didn’t want the meat so when Jess brought the bailer home,  he brought the moose meat.  He was worried when he was stopped at a check point but they only looked at the baler and let him go through.  I don’t usually like wild meat but this was good and lasted us most of the winter.

Jess did a big bailing job near Firth.  He thought it odd that neighbors balers were sitting in their yards and yet Jess got the job.  When he finished the hay the farmer said he would pay Jess in a few days.  He never did pay anything.  This ended Jess's money making venture.

Garth

  Garth was born July 4, 1950. 

Jess and I liked to walk to the river on Sundays.  This time we decided to go on the holiday.  We could walk up through our own fields and look at our crops.   We would sit at the edge of the river and visit and then walk home again.  Steve and Lee were big enough to enjoy going with us     We hadn’t walked very far and I knew it was the day Garth was to be born.  Again the baby would come early. 

     Jess’ sister, Zella was expecting two weeks earlier than I was and  Kyle was born that morning.  Garth came early and again our third son was born at the maternity home. Zella and I were in beds side by side, but I was sitting up feeling slim and back to normal, when a friend came to visit.  She looked at me and asked when was I going to have my baby.  I will never forget my reaction to that statement.  It might be interesting to tell that Zella’s first baby was born on my birthday and my first child was born on her birthday and then we both had babies born on the 4th.    Garth was beautiful, healthy, contented baby.  He had huge adenoids and tonsils and had to have them removed, before he was a year old.  This was a fun time of life.

 

  We had three sons and were only farming the valley.  We had time to enjoy life .

 

 

YWMIA

     YWMIA stands for Young Women Mutual Improvement Association.  I was call to be the President. June 15, 1947.  I had a growing learning experience.  I had a lot of enthusiasm but little know how.  I wish they would make you a counselor for a year before becoming a Pres.  I was green and made many mistakes but I felt the Lord helping me and I didn’t have any great disasters. 

    There was a General Board member attending the first Rexburg annual M.I.A. conference.  I felt the Spirit of the Lord as I entered the church and I knew I was doing the work of the Lord.  Steve and Lee were babies and I couldn’t have done it without Jess’s full cooperation and my mother and Rachel.

    Bessie Wilcox was the Stake M.I.A. Pres. and I will always be grateful for her support and suggestions.   The girls had until their 25th birthday to earn The Golden Gleaner award.  It is comparable to Eagle Scout for boys and requires a lot of work.  Bessie encouraged me to earn the award.     As I finished my last requirement I decided to write my request for the award.  It was late at night.  Jess and the boys were asleep.  In the letter I wrote my testimony.  I was full of the spirit, after all the things I had read and studied, for the award.  As I signed my name and turned off the lights and started to walk across the kitchen floor I heard overpowering music.  I had never heard anything like that before.  My whole body felt lifted and tingly.  I have never doubted from that moment on, that the church was true.  The Lord does care about us and knows what we are doing.  I can still shut my eyes and after 60 years again remember that glorious experience.

                                                                     Rose Evening 1948  Gwen President

Building the House

    The winter of 1946-47 was extremely cold.  Our shack of a house was cold.  There wasn’t any place to get warm.  The house had originally been a one room log house.  Four lean to rooms were added after.  None of them had any insulation.  We could have the thermometer read ninety, in the front room by the wood burning stove and freeze water on the floor.  Jess was sick that winter with yellow jaundice Lee was a tiny baby and Steve running around on the cold floor.  Jess was determined to build a new house.  

      We drew plans as our winter entertainment and by spring knew just what we wanted.  Jess’s mother was a big help, insisting that every available corner had a cupboard built.  She knew the things she didn’t like in her own home and made sure we didn’t make the same mistakes.     Jack Stacy was an excellent building contractor.  We contracted with him to build our new house for $9,500.00.  We had that much money, if we sold all our beef cows.   We had enough money to build the house but had to borrow to buy the furnace.  That was the first time we had ever been in debt for anything, except the farm.   Jess always wished he hadn’t sold the cows.  We should have borrowed for the house and kept our cows.  We had good quality cows and never again had top quality cows.

Jess's dream at this time was to get $50,000.00 dollars in the bank.  He figured we could live good off the interest.  That shows you money had a greater value then.  Jess also said if we had a hundred head of cows we could sell the calves  each spring for enough to live on.  He wouldn't have to buy more ground.

Busy summer  

Needless to say it was a busy summer.  Lee was learning to walk and I was trying to paint and run errands for the farm and house.  One day Lee fell on a guy wire, at the edge of the garage and severely cut his wrist.  Jack Stacy drove my car and I held Lee’s wrist together to stop the bleeding as we rushed to the doctor in Rexburg.  It was a close call.  All at once the new house didn’t seem so important  

       We had another disaster that summer.  We were at my mother’s house and my mother had put some diesel fuel in a pop bottle to be used to start fires.   Steve went on the back porch and thinking the bottle had pop drank some..  He chocked and we knew he was in trouble.  I drove a hundred miles an hour to Dr. Hoffman and it was a wonder we weren’t both killed on the ride.  The doctor gave him some medicine and kept him there to watch him.  I never criticized any mother who has a child killed or hurt in an accident.  Every one of my six sons could have been killed in an accident growing up.  I am grateful that none of them were ever killed or crippled from my mistakes.

Lee Henry

 

  Lee Henry was born December 23, 1946, at the same maternity home, where Steve had been born.  The other babies born earlier were a couple of days old and went home for Christmas, but Lee and I had to stay. Lee was a beautiful baby.  His hair was long and over his face and the doctor wanted to cut his hair.  Lee was a contented baby.   It was lonely and I thought it was the worst Christmas I had ever had.  The day after Christmas, when it was time for breakfast, I could smell bacon.  I was hungry.  When the breakfast tray came there wasn’t any bacon.  I ask the lady in charge if she had forgotten the bacon and she replied she only cooked enough to flavor the eggs.   I still think of that sometimes when I smell bacon cooking.  

      During the war,  you couldn’t purchase anything made with metal.  We had received a Montgomery Ward catalogue.  It displayed a portable sewing machine, but underneath was written, “not available”.  We decided to order it anyway and sent the check.  We never heard anything back and the check wasn’t cashed.  While I was in the maternity home, the sewing machine came and Jess put it in front of the Christmas tree.     I was released from the maternity home, after eight days and was going to stay with my mother.  It was cold and I wanted to see Steve.  Jess insisted that we go home first.  I was out of sorts.  I didn’t want to go to that cold home.  Jess instead and I stepped inside the door and saw the sewing machine. I know it was one of the best Christmas presents ever.  I had Lee Henry and a sewing machine.   That sewing machine was still in good condition but it was misplaced when I moved down from Newdale.