MEMORIES OF MY FATHER RAPHAEL CLEMENT
My memories go back to the old farm, two miles north of Fairview. We did all our farm work with horses then. And I remember Dad out in the fields doing the farm work, plowing and harrowing. It seemed like the work would never end. Dad was the type of man who kept on at a steady pace until things were done. When I got bigger, I can remember some of the horses, some of the teams that we had, but the earlier ones, all I can remember is that they were horses, but I can't remember the identity of any of them.
I remember one incident in particular when I was quite young, maybe five years old, five or six perhaps, Dad was hauling rocks to make a roadway out past one of the meadows so that we could get through the swampy area to the fields beyond. I was with him, although too young to do much of anything.
We had a team on the old red buggy, which was an express wagon, a delivery wagon in the early days, but somehow had gotten into the family. I never did know where the red buggy came from, I suppose Dad or Grandpa bought it or traded for it. At any rate we had a load of rocks in this red buggy, we called it a buggy, but it was actually an express wagon, it was larger than a buggy. One horse of the team which was hitched on to this old red buggy, was a black horse named Spider.
I remember things went well until we got down into the swampy area, and the wheels sank down into the mud. The horses began to pull and old Spider jerked somewhat. I can't remember whether a singletree broke, or a hame strap on the harness, or what it was, but something broke anyway. And Dad was a little bit perturbed, but he didn't say much, and I sat up right there, and tried to act like a real grown-up, and I said, "That old beast", and I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a slight smile on my dad's face for a moment, until he began to contemplate the damage that was done. The repair work was soon done however. We resumed hauling rocks without any further incident.
Dad was quite strict with the youngsters in the family with not a whole lot of tolerance for kid play. I think one of the reasons for this was that he was working very hard through those Depression years, to try to make a living for the family. With the worry that goes with a situation of this kind.
I remember one time, it was about time to cut the alfalfa in the south field, but part of that field wasn't in alfalfa, and Dad had the milk cows over in the part where there wasn't alfalfa, and I was supposed to herd the cows and keep them on the east side of the ditch that separated the pasture from the alfalfa.
All went well for an hour or two, but as kids will, I must have been around six or seven years old at that time, my attention got diverted, and it wasn't long until I wasn't watching the cows. It's quite a job trying to keep the cows out of the alfalfa when there's no fence between.
And the first thing I knew, I looked up and the cows were all in the alfalfa. Dad had come home, from someplace, and two of the cows were bloated. And when I saw him coming across that field with that certain look on his face and that certain type of walk, I knew I was in for it. He didn't say much of anything as he drove the cows into the corral. But I knew I was in for a backend warming, but that was one time when Mother came to my rescue, he was mad enough then, I don't know what he would have done. In looking back on it, I don't blame him because those cows were valuable at that time, and it was just through my own negligence as a kid, that I didn't watch them well enough, and keep them out of the alfalfa.
Dad had a feel for kids, as for how much a person could take when working in the fields, and he never overworked us. But he expected us to work up to our capacity. A lot of times, when he could see that we were getting too tired, he'd let us stop for awhile, and do something else, or just stop and rest for awhile and then we'd go on. When haying time started after the grain was cut, and we were hauling the grain, it seemed like those fields were miles across, like we never would get the hay into the barn and the stack yards.
Since I was too young to pitch the hay onto the wagon, it was my job to tromp and load the hay on the wagon, or stack it on the wagon, and also to drive the team from one pile of hay to the next, down the windrows.
It usually went alright until we came to the end of the pair of windrows, and then I had to turn the team around. And at that age and that small size, I didn't have enough judgement as to how sharp to turn the team.
There were occasions where I cramped the front wheel on the wagon and nearly tipped the load over. The first few times, Dad didn't say much other than to give instructions, but when it kept happening, then he got a little bit angry, and I found myself wishing that those windrows didn't have any ends to them. I'd like to have seen them all go in one straight line so I wouldn't have to turn that wagon around.
But it sure was a joyful feeling after we had got a load of hay on the wagon, and then Dad and Grandpa would get up on the wagon and dad would drive the load into the barn, and all I had to do was just lay there in the hay and watch the scenery passing as we went down across the cricks, and up the lane, around the house, past the granary and down to the barn.
But as soon as we got to the barn, why then the work started again. And me being that young at that particular time, it was my lot to ride the haypole of course. And there were occasions when I got the horse tangled up in the haypole rope and things didn't pull so good. But then after awhile, as I got a little bit bigger, then I could handle these things with no problem.
One time, Dad and Bud and I were hauling hay, Grandpa wasn't with us this particular day, and the hayfork rope broke and Dad was disgusted, and said, "These so and so delays." He was aggravated because the rope broke and stopped the work. I remember I knew better than to say anything, but the thought that went through my mind was, "what's wrong with you, this gives us a chance to stop and rest." But being a kid, I didn't realize that it was more important to get the hay in the barn, than to be sitting around resting all the time. He was anxious to keep things going until the hay got in, before the storms came.
Dad was always quite noted in Sanpete Valley for the good pulling horses that he had. His teams were quite well known.
I remember one time when I was about nine or ten years old, I believe, and I asked Dad when we were going on the mountain. It was in the early part of the summer. The field work had been done. The grain had been planted, the garden had been planted and all those things, and it was about time to start going over the mountain - working in the mine, hauling coal and things, and he said, "well, we'll go next month." Well it was near the end of the month at the time, but next month seemed to me like it was ten years.
Day after long day passed, and still it seemed like that month would never end. I didn't badger Dad very much, but I kept asking Mother every day what the date was, and I think she got a little bit tired of it, but finally the next month came, and Dad said, "alright, in a few days, Don, we'll go on the mountain." This is one of the things I like to do the best because we'd hitch up early in the morning.
The night before,Mother would get the Grub Box all filled up, and we'd get some hay and grain in the wagon, get our bedding loaded up on the wagon, and then the next morning at 4 o'clock, Dad would get out of bed and holler at us kids and he'd get the team harnessed up, feed them their hay and grain, and then we'd go in and eat breakfast. And then we'd hitch up and get gone right about daylight.
It was sixteen miles from the farm to the mine. We'd get over here about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. But the thing I liked about these trips was to watch Dad drive those teams. Even now, in looking back, I think he was about the best teamster, the best handler of horses of anybody that I have known. I've seen a lot of people handle teams, but I don't believe that any of them excelled over him in his ability to handle those teams and get the most out of them, he was a very skillful driver. He could handle the farm equipment and the wagons, and put these things right where he wanted them.
As we were going up Cottonwood Canyon, which is now called Fairview Canyon, the sun would rise as we got part way up the canyon, and we'd watch the sun come up and shadows, and we could hear the horses feet clopping along on the road, it was a dirt road at that time, a very narrow, crooked wagon road up that canyon. These times were some of the most joyous times that I remember, going over the mountain in the wagon with these teams.
Later on, when I got big enough, then I was able to drive the teams by myself. But at this particular time, I went with dad, and quite a lot of the time I went with Grandpa in hauling coal over the mountains. Grandpa was a little bit more patient with me, he taught me a lot of things but I learned an awful lot from Dad by just watching. Watching him drive, watching him handle those horses. The things he would do, the way he'd correct them and train them and make them do what they were supposed to.
I remember on one of these particular trips, we had old Bess and Kate. We had a pair of little Bay horses out in lead, we had a four-horse team on the wagon at this time, and I was with dad. Dad and I were the only ones on this trip. We got over to Cox Canyon, turned up Cox Canyon, we were going up to see Christensen's coal mine after a load of coal.
Not far up from the mouth of Cox Canyon, there were a bunch of tents that were pitched fairly near the road. It was a work crew that was building a coal chute for a mine down at the lower end of Cox Canyon. And these two horses, this little team out in front, the lead team, were scared of the tents and stopped. So Dad had to stop the wheel team to keep their front feet out of the doubletrees. And he tried to get these horses to go, but they shied and backed up, and then they'd shy and try to pull the wagon clear off the road, but they absolutely refused to go by this one tent which was pitched near the road.
And I remember Dad got a little bit angry after trying to get these horses to go, and he picked up a rock - his aim was always what I would almost call deadly accurate. He hit the horse alright, but the rock bounced off the horse and hit the wall of the tent that the horse was scared of. When that rock hit the tent and made that rustling noise which made the tent move, that horse just about left the ground.
They started backing up into the wheel team, then the wheel team started backing up and cramped the wagon, and I frantically asked Dad if I could get out of the wagon. He was a little bit short with me for diverting his attention while he was trying to handle these four horses and keep them from getting tangled up. But finally he did let me get out, and I watched with fascination.
Eventually he got the situation in hand and got the lead team to go past that tent. He didn't stop the horses once he got them going, he just went right on, and it was up to me to either walk all the way up to the mine or else run and catch up with the wagon and climb in while it was going.
I don't remember much more of that trip, except that when we got up to the mine, we stayed in the cabin that night. We hobbled the horses out on the hillside. I do remember the next morning, going out with Dad and carrying some of the halters while we went in search of the horses. We caught the big team, Kate and Bess first, and then after some little chasing here and there, we caught this little team that we were using for a lead team. We went back to the cabin and after breakfast, we got harnessed up and pulled under the chute and loaded coal and started back.
There were just a few glimpses or instances of the rest of that trip that I can remember. One was going up the Olsen dugway which is between Huntington Canyon and Flat Canyon. Dad was a little aggravated at the team out in front because they weren't fast enough for old Kate and Bess. Kate was a beast of a thing to drive when she was headed home - she wanted to take the load and the other horse and everything else, and go with it. She was hard to hold.
But we went along well enough across Flat Canyon and then down past the beaver dams. Then we started up that long pull up Gooseberry. But when we got up to the head of Cottonwood Canyon, Dad stopped and unhitched the lead team because from then on it was downhill. We only needed one team on the wagon to guide it, and we used the brakes to hold the wagon and the load of coal back.
And then came the usual. When Kate and Bess started down that canyon, it wasn't long until Dad had the lines wrapped around his hands trying to hold those horses back, and handle the brakes going down the canyon. It was quite an ordeal driving those horses down because the closer they got to home, the harder they were to hold.
In looking back, when I started driving teams and hauling coal down that canyon, I wasn't so glad then but I am now, that I wasn't big enough to drive that team by myself - hauling coal with them, because a lot of times I was with my granddad. When we were going down the canyon with that particular team, he had the lines wrapped around his hands, and leaning way back, holding those mares back for all he was worth, and his shoulders would begin to ache. I was getting fairly hefty at the time, I wasn't big by any means, but he let me drive them for awhile, while he rested his arms and shoulders. It was all I could do to hold them, I couldn't drive them more than a mile at a time and then I'd have to give the lines back to him.
But Dad was able and could always handle them alright, and that was one of the best pulling teams that we ever had. I don't suppose you'd call them famous, but they were well known by the other teamsters and people up and down Sanpete valley, especially in the Fairview area.
I remember Dad telling about one incident. I wasn't with him at the time, but he was working for a sawmill in upper Huntington Canyon. Dad was going towards the sawmill with a load of logs on the wagon. There was a man, I had no idea who it was, in one of the old cars - I believe it was a Model T Ford, and was driving along this road towards the sawmill, it was a wagon road, and this old road crossed the creek in Huntington Canyon in a number of places.
In this one particular place, the bank had been gouged out by the water and it was quite steep, off to the side of the road a little bit to one side of where the road crossed the stream. And somehow or other, this man had gotten his front wheels up out of the water, but the hind wheels slid sideways - the back end of the car - and the hind wheels were caught against this nearly vertical bank, and he was stuck.
Dad came along with this load of logs on the wagon, and he couldn't cross because the car was in the way, so he offered to pull the car out with the horses. As I remember, the way Dad told it, he said he wanted to fasten the chain onto the frame of the car, but the man said no, he wanted it fastened onto the axle. And Dad hesitated and questioned him, and he says, "Don't you think we ought to put it on the frame?", but the man became indignant and said no, he wanted it on the axle.
Those Model-T Fords had one center spring that held the front end of the car up, and it was fastened to the center of the axle. So Dad went ahead and put the chain on the axle like the man wanted, and when those old mares dropped down and began to pull, what they walked off with was the front end of that car - the two front wheels and the front axle. The rest of the car was still sitting where it had been. In other words, that team literally pulled that car apart, pulled the front end right out from under it.
If the man had let him put the chain on the frame of the car as he wanted to, that wouldn't have happened, but what really happened, was that the horses pulled hard enough to break the bolt that held the front spring, and it let the spring go and pulled the front end out from under the car.
Another time, coming down Cox Canyon with a load of coal from Steve Christensen's mine, there was a truck that was ahead of us. There were four to seven wagons behind us, and we were immediately behind this truck. The truck went across a wooden bridge that had been built a long time before that, and when the hind wheels went across this bridge, the bridge collapsed and the hind wheels went down into this little stream. It wasn't very deep but the truck went in just about to the axles. The bridge was about as wide as the diameter of the wheels, which meant that the wheels just fit right down in, and there was no way that truck could get out.
Well, Dad unhitched Bess and Kate, took them to the front of the truck and put a chain on it. The truck was trying to go at the same time the horses were pulling, but they had several tons of coal on the truck, and those old mares pulled with everything they had. But there was no way they could pull it out of there because, to pull it out meant they would have to pull hard enough to lift the back end of the truck and the load vertically out of this stream, and it was against the broken part of the bridge.
So they ended up hitching more horses onto the truck. I don't remember just how many more, whether there were two more teams or three that it took to pull the truck and its load up out of the stream where the bridge had collapsed.
After awhile, when I was around 12 or 13 years old, Dad decided that I could drive one of the teams by myself over to the mine. At first he let me drive the empty wagon over, then either he or Grandpa would drive the load back, because he wasn't sure whether I was big enough to handle the team and the brakes on the wagon coming down the canyon with a big load of coal on it.
But not long after that, I kind of proved my worth I guess, and he did turn me loose with a load of coal. And I felt like I had about 14 eagle feathers in my hat when I got the team and that big load of coal down the canyon. I thought for sure I was grown up.
Another incident that took place with my granddad Clement, Dad wasn't with on this particular trip. Grandpa had four horses on the wagon. I'd never driven four horses before, and we were going up the canyon, and I kept badgering Grandpa. I said, "Let me drive them. He says, "No, you've never driven four horses and you'll get them tangled up." "Oh, no I won't", I said, "I can do it, I know I can do it, I've seen you do it." And he kept putting me off, kept telling me no, because he knew what would happen. I just wouldn't give up, so finally in disgust, he handed me the lines and said, "Alright, you drive them."
So I started to drive. Everything went fine for a little while until we came to the first fairly sharp turn in the road, and then I turned the lead team too much. In trying to get them straightened out, I pulled the wheel horses and then the first thing I knew, all of them were all tangled up. Grandpa hollered, "Whoa!" at the horses, and the wagon started to coast back down the canyon. I put the brake on, and the first thing I knew, the lead team turned clear around and was headed back down the canyon, and they started pulling the wheel horses around.
Grandpa didn't say anything, but what he did was step off the hub of the front wheel onto the road and caught the lead team by the bridle bits, stopped them, turned them back around, got everything straightened out, and then I was plenty willing to give the lines back to him, but he wouldn't take them, and he says, "You wanted to drive them, now you drive them!" I'll tell you, I was one nervous kid, as well as tired by the time we got to the head of the canyon. I felt that I had accomplished something alright, but that was nerve-wracking to try to keep those poor horses steady and keep things going right, at that young age.
In looking back on that incident, it just shows how kids are. They get themselves into the middle of something they can't handle, and then grownups always end up getting them out of the mess they get themselves into.
But as time went on, I got so I could drive four horses, and we could make a round trip from the farm to the mine and back in one day, thirty two miles. We'd get over to the mine about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, load the coal and start back. We'd get about to where the Oakland Dugway came down into Huntington Canyon, and then we'd stop there and camp overnight, and go in the next day.
I remember Dad singing. He was a tenor, and he studied in earlier years under a voice teacher. He was studying a grand opera, but something took priority over it.
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