He really tried, but there wasn't any doctor or nurse in our little
town. It seemed he was making some progress until one day Mother had
gone for the day and Dad has us gather aorund. He said he had something
he just had to do and would we help him. He had some fierce looking
tools, like a saw, a knife, a hammer and other things. What are you
going to do, Dad? " we asked. He said he was going to take his cast
off. He was suppose to go to Ely to have it taken off, but there was no
money and no time to do that, and he was sure he could do it if we just
did as we were told. So we handled him the different tools he needed.
He sawed the cast a lot of the way, then it kind of opened up like a
book and it came off.. He examined his leg a little bit and then he
asked us to please leave the room. We didn't know just why, but what
had happened was the wooden stays they had put on his leg in Ely had
worked into the flesh at the top of the cast ad he had to literally pull
thee stays out of his leg. He had us bring antiseptic, whatever we used
then, and bandages and he bandaged his own leg. When Mother came home
she was really shocked to see that he had taken the cast off by himself.
He had to dress ths open wound every morning for many years.
I suppose we were very lucky that we had anything to eat, but these
were hard times for everyone. There was just the one grocery store and
everybody charged things at the store. Because it was farm country, if
people were short of money at planting time, they had the money at
harvest time.
So they thought nothing of running up a bill, then when they would get
the money they would pay. It was customary with everyone. My mother
worried terribly if she owed a little bit of money at the store or as
she saw the bill mounting and didn't know where we get the money to pay
for everything. As I told you before, Dad had this field across the
street from where we lived, where he had planted the alfalfa and he had
hoped he would get a good harvest from that. He would get on a horse and
go over there and watch it and would say. "It's coming along fine, it's
coming along fine.
He would have to irrigate it and again he would say, It's getting almost
harvest time and then we will have plenty of money." He decided to let
the alfalfa go to seed because there was more moeny to be had from the
seed than from mowing the hay and baling the hay. He was very proud of
the field and one day he said, "I think it will be ready tomorrow." The
next day he decided to wait one more day. That night a terrible wind
came up blowing all the seeds off. The next morning when he reached the
field he found that the seeds had drifted into piles hereand there.
There was no way he would be able to salvage what he had planted.
During this time, Mother's health had not improved because she didn't go
to a hospital and she hadn't had good care after the miscarriage. Dad
was not able to any farming and he developed a worse infection in his
leg, which progressed as time went on. It was decided that he would
have to go to the hospital in Salt Lake City. His family who were
living in Nephi would meet the train there, then take him into Salt Lake
City. Mother was not well enough to go with him so it was decided that I
would go along to help him. We had to take the stage from Baker into
the town of Milford which was quite a long tiresome ride.
At this time Dad could hardly walk at all. It was painful for him to
walk on his crutches. I was proud to be able to do this and happy to
go. I remember the day we were to take the stage there was some delay.
We were all ready to go and had to wait several days. That waiting
period was long but the time came for us to go and we met the train as
planned.
