Interview with George & Tootsy

E:	OK, Uncle George, tell us about your dad [George Henry Simons] walking home from Sprague.
G:	That's all I know. about it.
E:	Well, what was it. I have forgotten it.
J:	Well, what we were talking about -- we had a wonderful father- - that's what we were talking about. And we both agreed that we had a wonderful father, because he came there with nothing.
G:	He had 20 cents and a winter supply of food when he came onto the homestead.
J:	And he worked down at Sprague and I didn't know this.
G:	He worked at Sprague on the railroad.
E:	Which means that he worked his way up by working on the railroad. Didn't we wonder about that once?
J:	I knew Uncle Frank [William Franklin Simons] did, but I didn't know he did.
G:	Well, they came from California together by covered wagon, Uncle Frank and granddad -- my dad. They would stop at a place and work for awhile -- mostly on the railroad -- that's about all the work there was. They stopped down at Umatilla, Oregon.
E:	And your brother Bill [William Walter Simons] was born in Umatilla.
G:	In Umatilla County, Oregon. And then in the spring, well, I don't know, in the summer, they came up to Steptoe and they wintered at Steptoe. That's where Harry [Harry Sidney Simons] was born. When he was two weeks old they took off for the upper country.
E:	In a covered wagon?
G:	In a covered wagon. There were no roads, of course. They mired out several times and had to dig out, you know. Mama [Elizabeth Jeannette Apperson Simons] and Harry -- the kids, put a blanket out on the ground. They would be out there on the ground. They said that it was funny that they didn't lose them both, but they didn't. How many times they had to do that I don't know. I have heard them tell about it. Uncle Frank had his homestead there.
J:	North of Creston, what is now Creston.
G:	Yeah. I think he went up there in the fall and wintered there.
E:	Did he have a family with him?
J:	He was a bachelor. He must have taken up his homestead north of the Jumps there.
G:	He did.
J:	Jumps must have been in there, north of where he took his homestead.
G:	Yes.
J:	And Aunt Mary [Mary C. Spencer Kunz] was there. She had two, Charlie and Jimmy and she must have had Holly, too.
G:	No, Walter.
J:	That's right, Walter. She had been married twice before.
E:	So he didn't have the problem of babies?
J:	No, he wasn't married.
G:	He had a girl. He had a lady friend, but when he went up to Creston on the homestead, his girlfriend married the feller where they were living.
J:	When Uncle Frank built up his homestead, I heard he had this spring or well. And Aunt Mary would come down and wash the clothes there.
E:	That's how he met her, huh?
G:	Anyway, Dad said that he [Frank] waited and let a couple of other guys marry her before he finally made up his mind to propose to her. Just kind of kidding, you know.
E:	How do people know? Do you just go to land, or does the government say you can have this land?
G:	The government says you can have this land.
E:	It was open for homesteading?
G:	Well, that wasn't open for homesteading. They just had squatter rights.
E:	They were just squatting at first?
G:	When it was open for homesteading, they filed and they had six years to 'prove up on it.
E:	How long did they squat? How long were they there as squatters?
G:	I believe it was seven years at that time, but I'm not sure.
E:	You mean they were there seven years as squatters and then another six as homesteaders?
G:	No, it didn't make any difference. They squatted until they could file and then it added on.
E:	You wouldn't know what permanent to do to the place.
J:	I think there was a rule that you had to do some improvement.
G:	I think so.
E:	For the homesteading, but for the squatting?
G:	I think you had to for the squatting, too. And you had to mark it out. But they went over there because there was water. There was a spring there.
G:	Uncle Frank dug a well.
J:	Wasn't there a little spring there, too?
G:	I don't remember. But we had a spring house.
J:	Oh, yeah, right in the yard.
G:	No, not in the yard.
J:	There was a spring in the yard. Papa built a shed over it and Mama washed there. And that's where that rattle snake came in when Ollie [Olive Myrtle] was playing down there. And there's a spring lower than that, too.
G:	Yeah, but I thought where the rattlesnake came in was there at the old wagon shed, you know.
J:	Oh, do you?
G:	Yes, because there wouldn't have been a bed in that spring house. She put the kids on the bed and she went to kill the snake and it went out. And she would go out and it would come in. She chased it that way for a while until she finally got a whack at it.
J:	I think that's a different story.
G:	You don't think I know what I'm talking about.
E:	There was probably more than one snake.
J:	Yeah, because the way I heard it, was that Ollie was down there sitting on the ground inside. It didn't have a floor. And she was down playing on the ground and the snake was between her and the door and Mama.
G:	It might have been a different story.
J:	A rattlesnake. Mama had to kill that snake.
E:	So she did.
J:	Yeah, she did. You know, of all we kids who grew up on that rattlesnake infested place, only Elmer [Elmer Frederick Simons] was the only one who was ever bit.
E:	Was he bit? What did they do?
J:	They gave him whiskey.
G:	That's the worst thing they could do, but they didn't know it. They gave him alcohol. I believe Kate Perry was there.
J:	I think it was whiskey. Papa always had whiskey for snake bites. Because when he was gone, I had charge of the whiskey and I had to keep it from Glen [Jennie Overbay's son]. He didn't know I had it.
G:	There was two snakes and they were fighting. He was killing one of them and he stepped back on the other one. They figgered that he had spent so much of his poison fighting that other snake that he didn't have much left. He had to go clear up the canyon. He was awful sick, but --
E:	Oh, my gosh. How old was he? I mean approximately -- was he a youngster?
J:	He was a youngster. He wasn't a young man. He was just a kid.
G:	We'll say 10 years old, but I don't know.
J:	He was down in the canyon, you know we went all over the canyons.
G:	He knew he was going to die, you know. He were always taught to be deathly afraid of rattlesnakes. He willed everything.
E:	He did?
G:	He gave his chewing gum to Harry.
J:	You know what, I bet the chewing gum was -- It was pine pitch.
G:	It might have been. He used to chew pine gum. Boy, it's good, too. It had a good flavour.
J:	We didn't have boughten gum for years. We were quite old.
G:	Boughten gum was rubber gum, what we called rubber gum. We got it maybe at Christmas. I don't know when we got it.
E:	Do you remember anything else he willed to anybody?
G:	I think maybe he had a jack knife he gave to somebody. [Lots of laughter]
E:	It wasn't funny at the time. He was a scared little guy, wasn't he?
G:	That was before my time. I only remember them telling me about it.
E:	Okay. We decided there were two springs.
G:	Oh, there were two springs and the well wasn't very deep, you know. When they dug the well, I don't know. It was there when I... But I remember the old pump handle that I could reach up to. I remember one time when it was colder than the dickens and I went out after some water and my hand freezing on the handle, and sting. I thought somebody had put some lye on the pump handle. We had been taught to be afraid of lye. It would burn you, you know, and I just figgered somebody had put some lye on that pump handle.
J:	It was an iron pump handle and if your hands were a little bit damp, it would freeze you to it.
E:	Okay. Any more rattlesnake stories?
J:	It's really strange there wasn't. I don't know how come there wasn't more casualties.
E:	Probably because you were taught --
G:	We were always taught to be deathly afraid of a rattlesnake or a coyote. And that old bluff. The place that's down for a hundred feet if you fell over that.
E:	Yeah, you were taught to be afraid of that.
G:	Yeah, we were told to stay away from the bluff.
J:	But we went over there quite often.
G:	Yeah, we went over there quite often, but we kept our distance.
J:	You could look down at the river.
E:	So that's how she raised you, I mean, that's how that number of kids grew up. Because you were carefully raised.
J:	We decided that we really had good parents. When Papa died, his estate was worth $50,000.
G:	When Mama died.
J:	Oh yes, when Mama died.
G:	They appraised the estate at $50,000.
E:	Is that right?
G:	And they started with 20 cents.
J:	At that time, they had 14 kids and $50,000.
E:	And she was a young woman when she died.
G:	40-something.
E:	I think she was 43. OK, we still don't have the Sprague story. He [father George] would walk home from Sprague. What would he do?
G:	He worked on the railroad.
E:	Even after he homesteaded?
G:	Yes, my brothers and sisters, what there was, and my mother, stayed there. They had a cow. I don't know if she milked or if Bill was big enough to milk.
E:	If it was the very early years, the babies were still very small.
G:	It was when they were first on the homestead. Maybe they hadn't built the old house yet.
J:	Well, if it was the first year, he would have had to built a house, a log cabin.
G:	He built that old wagon shed, just for temporary place to live while he was building the old house.
J:	Well, he likely went down to Sprague to work to get some money for that.
G:	I don't think so. I think that winter he built the house. And as soon as he got the house built, then he went down to Sprague. I'm not sure.
J:	Well, I don't know anything about it either. I know Mama lived that open shed one summer when he was working. And Indians would come up and she would give them food. She made friends with the Indians.
G:	The door was open and it kind of got dark in there. She looked around and there was a big Indian standing in the door. She had a pot of beans and she started feeding him. He got enough to eat and off he went. She wasn't afraid of him.
J:	There was more than that time it happened; it was more than once.
G:	Well, I s'pose more than once. Whenever they would come she would have something for them to eat.
J:	Because for years and years afterwards, Vi [Violet Hazel] and I were huckleberrying across the river and we came on to Icot and Sapeechie. They just loved us because we were Mama's daughters.
G:	And old Jim Tamantwa, he told us he remembered my mother. He said she was afraid of Indians but she was a good woman.
E:	He said that?
G:	Yeah.
J:	So we don't know if it was the first or second summer that Papa went down there. I have a feeling it was the second, because --
G:	I do too.
J:	Because he had that patch of oats planted. He wouldn't have had that planted if he had built a house and all of that the first fall. So it very likely was the second summer.
E:	When do you think they arrived there, what part of the year?
G:	Well, I don't know.
J:	What time did they arrive there at Uncle Frank's -- spring, summer, winter or fall?
G:	It was in the spring. Harry was born in March, the 24^th was it? Anyway, he was two weeks old when they started out for the Big Bend.
E:	Oh, I see. In March they were in Steptoe, and two weeks later they left. So it was in April they arrived in Creston.
G:	No, they started in April. They couldn't travel as fast as you do in a car.
E:	Oh. [Laughter]
G:	I don't know how long it took them to go up from Steptoe to Creston.
J:	It was in the spring and as you said, they mired down a few times. It had to be in the spring because Mama took plants, trees and things, and started them over there.
G:	She had the seeds.
E:	She brought them, maybe from California.
G:	Yeah. She had poplar and locust seeds.
J:	Box elder.
G:	Box elder, I mean.
J:	I thought you did.
G:	Anyway, there was a row --
J:	On the fence line of Uncle Frank's place. And then she planted some over home, too. Because we had two big, big box elder trees in front of the house.
E:	There was that line of trees that was between your place and Krauses'.
J:	That's what we are talking about. That was Uncle Frank's place. Mama planted those. She brought those seeds.
G:	But there was - where you first go in the gate to go into the old place - there was a row of trees there.
E:	I remember that.
J:	Do you? Was that there when you were --
E:	Was that a boundary between anything?
G:	Well, it was the south side of our place.
E:	She was an enterprising woman, wasn't she.
J:	Yeah, she was and she loved plants.
G:	And she brought rattle grass.
J:	Yes! Yes.
G:	And Dad was always a digging into her for bringing that; I remember that.
J:	I remember years and years ago, I used to love it. And I would pick it. I took Stella [Cheley, his sister-in-law?] a bouquet of rattle grass. I don't remember all that story. I remember we carried on about the rattle grass for quite a while. It disappeared.
G:	I don't know why. It used to be all over.
J:	It would be dry. When you would pick it, it would rattle.
E:	Where did she plant it, in the garden?
J:	Well, I don't know. I guess she did. Well, I know there was some by the side of those box elders on that line of fence.
G:	It would grow anyplace.
E:	Why did Grandpa dig into her for that?
G:	'Cause it was a weed.
J:	He was very conscious of weeds. When there was a new weed that would come into the country, which they did -- the new seeds would blow in -- I remember him pacing the floor because it was going to ruin the ground.
G:	And us kids would go out -- there was a white mustard. We would cover that field and pull all that white mustard. It wasn't but a few years 'till it was out of hand.
J:	And then there was cockle.
G:	And cockle and then the Russian thistle.
J:	That was when we bought the Blackfan place. I remember that. It just blew down on account of that Russian thistle coming in.
E:	There wasn't what they have for weeds now.
J:	We didn't have any sprays then, either. We had to hoe them or pull them or whatever.
G:	And we did fight Chinese lettuce.
J:	Oh, that's right.
E:	We still don't have the story. What we are talking about is the summer when he probably built the house. The second year, he worked in Sprague.
G:	As far as we know. Anyway, I don't know how many worked on the house, but he had to have help on that. But I know I heard him tell about Bill Robertson being the corner man. He knew how to cut them corners. They had to fit, you see.
E:	And this is the house that I know that Auntie Tot and Uncle Elmer lived in?
G:	Yes.
E:	That would have been built the second year, the first year, probably.
G:	That was built between '83. and '84. Because Elmer was born in '84 and he was the first one born in that house. And Gwen was the last one.
E:	Is that right?
G:	All of us kids after him and Virgil was born there and all of Elmer's kids.
E:	Okay. Tell the story again. He would walk home from Sprague...
J:	Well, we don't know how many times he walked home from Sprague. He might have just gone down there in the spring and walked home in the fall.
E:	Yeah, it might have been just one walk.
J:	Because Uncle Frank was over on his homestead, then. Because I head him say that one time Mama got frightened and got on the horse and had the two kids, no, the three kids, and went over Uncle Frank's.
E:	What was it?
J:	I think it was Indians.
G:	You see, that was when the Indians really did do things. But it was usually because they was just getting it back on somebody.
E:	Well, early it was kind of friendly.
G:	Well, when the folks moved there, the Indians over there were friendly.
J:	You mean, across the river, don't you, George?
G:	Yes, they was across the river.
E:	I was going to ask that too. They lived across the river from where the homestead was.
G:	But the Indian trail came right through --
J:	Right in front of the log house.
G:	They would come to the river, you see, and get in the canoe and tie the horse in back. He would swim and they would paddle across the river.
E:	Where were they on their way to?
G:	I don't really know. There wasn't anything at Wilbur.
J:	Well, it must have been Walla Walla. Papa had to go to Walla Walla to get his groceries.
G:	There was a trading post at Fort Spokane pretty early.
J:	I don't know how early, but I know he went to Fort Walla Walla. I've heard him say that he got his groceries from Walla Walla.
G:	He would have to take the team then.
E:	But that might have been where the Indians were on their way to.
G:	Yeah. But they wouldn't get just a five pound sack of flour and a pound of coffee. When they went, they really bought groceries.
E:	Did you ever see that, or was that before your time?
J:	Just one man would have to go.
G:	And he would probably buy groceries for half a dozen families.
E:	And load it on horses?
J:	They had a wagon.
E:	You said they came across the river.
J:	That was the Indians. I never saw Indians have a wagon. But they did have, after I was away from there. But they always had horses.
G:	They would have two or three horses with pack saddles. They used to come up and sell huckleberries.
E:	I remember that.
J:	We were talking about Papa getting groceries down at Walla Walla.
E:	He would take a wagon.
J:	Yeah. He would buy a hundred pounds of flour and a hundred pounds of sugar. Of course, we bought a hundred pounds of sugar when I was on the ranch.
E:	Okay, when he walked home from Sprague, did he have a pack, a bed role?
G:	I have an idea he did. I have an idea.
J:	I don't think he could walk that in one day.
G:	When we had horses, we figgered 20 miles a day for the horses was a day's work. If he walked 30 miles a day, well that would bring him -- if he had a place to stay all night.
J:	Very likely, he stayed out on the prairie.
G:	He might have.
J:	Well, he undoubtedly did, because there isn't much more than that between Sprague and our place, now.
G:	And the closest white woman, when Mama was there, was ten miles.
J:	Mrs. Brown. Where did they live?
G:	They lived west and south of Creston.
E:	You mean they were the earliest settlers there?
J:	Browns? Frank Brown?
G:	I don't know what their name was.
J:	Well, Frank Brown was our neighbour and friends for years. And then they went to California.
G:	And they had a Violet?
J:	Yes.
G:	Then that was it.
J:	They moved up later to where Charlie Robertson used to live on the Shell place, didn't they.
G:	Not that I know of.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
G:	I walked to school.
J:	Well, of course you walked to school. But where did you go to school?
G:	I went to Mount View.
J:	And who was your teacher?
G:	Mrs. Kibbison was my first teacher.
J:	And did you walk alone, or did you go with some of the kids?
G:	I run ahead. I remember that.
J:	You even run ahead of Ernie.
G:	Well, I don't remember about Ernie. But Carrie and Harry.
J:	Do you remember that or did you just think you remember that since I mentioned to you that you very likely was ahead of them when I was behind them.
G:	No. That didn't have anything to do with that. Because I went to school when I was five years old and you wasn't to school yet.
J:	No, I hope I wasn't.
G:	So that --
J:	Did you carry your own lunch.
G:	Yes, I carried my own lunch. It was in a lard pail.
E:	What did you have for lunch?
G:	I don't know.
J:	How would you get a lard pail?
G:	I don't know.
J:	Because Papa and Mama made their own lard?
G:	I know it, but I know I had a lard pail. A five pound lard pail.
J:	A five pounder. That's a good size lunch.
E:	How come you were running? Were you excited to go to school?
G:	I run pretty near every place I went at that time. I was just a kid when I was five years old.
E:	Oh, I see. But when you went to school, you didn't like school. You were hanging back?
J:	Oh, I liked to go to school, but Mama thought she was starting me ahead of Carrie and Harry, because Carrie always looked out for me. But the snow was way up above where I couldn't see over the tracks, you know. But I could see their heads going way ahead of me. But it was cold and my garter came loose and my panties were wet. And I couldn't catch them. I called to them and called to them. Of course, when I got to school, Carrie fixed me all up and everything was lovely. See, Mama just thought they would catch up with me if she started me ahead.
E:	How did they get ahead of you?
J:	They had gone out and Mama didn't know it.
E:	That wouldn't have been your first day because there was snow.
J:	No, that wasn't my first day. I don't know when school took up. It didn't take up the first of September then, you know, because the harvest wasn't over with by that time.
G:	Well, we went to school before the harvest was over, I know that. When I got big enough to work in harvest, that was different. We had seven months of school, I'm sure.
J:	He thinks we had seven months of school, but I'm sure we didn't because we could never get the teachers that long.
G:	Stella [Auntie Tot, Elmer Simons' wife] taught Mount View for seven months and then three months over at Brents. And I went to school at Brents.
J:	That was when you were a big kid.
G:	Yes, I was 12 years old.
J:	But I'm talking about when you first started.
G:	I was 12 years old.
J:	Well, gee whiz. School had been going on for a long time by that time. I'm talking about when we were little.
G:	Yes, that's what I am talking about.
E:	You weren't too big by then. If he was 12, you were 10.
J:	But I'm talking about when we were 4 and 5 years old and the school was so young, they couldn't get teachers for way out in the country.
G:	There was one teacher that I remember. Kate Perry. She was at our place before I started school She was a teacher and she boarded at our place.
J:	Oh. I know why you don't remember Spencer Jones. Because they were at our place when Fosco and Stub were little. That's the reason you don't remember them. You don't have a very good memory, do you?
E:	He doesn't remember things before he was born? How come you remember?
J:	Because we were told. I think likely Carrie or Harry. You know, I have been with Harry and Carrie a lot since I have been grown up. Especially Harry when I took care of him those six weeks.
G:	The Mount View school was down toward the Carman place when it was first moved in there.
J:	Where do you think it was moved from. I thought it was built there.
G:	It was there the first I remember.
J:	I heard Mama was the one that named it Mount View. It was in view of the mountains.
E:	It's a nice name.
J:	I love it.
E:	What did you learn in school? Or, what was school like when you got there?
G:	Well, we learned the ABC's. That's the first thing. And then we learned to count. And I've learned a lot more since then. That was the main thing in the first grade. There was no kindergarten. Everybody went to the same teacher.
J:	Well, there was one room. When we had class, we had to go sit on a bench up in front.
G:	There was a pot bellied stove in the middle of the room. Then, later they got one with circulators. I don't know what you call it. But anyway, it had a big jacket around it and the heat was supposed to go up and come back down.
J:	Well, we didn't go to school for very many years after that was on there.
G:	Maybe not, but we went some.
J:	That was when we were getting to be big. We were almost kids then.
G:	And we carried water, drinking water from Uncle Bob's and Aunt Lu's [Robert and Louella Grinsted].
J:	That was the treat, to be able to go down there and carry water. I didn't get to go very much 'cause I was one of the little ones. But I do remember doing it two or three times.
E:	How did you get selected to get the water?
J:	Well, I think it was anybody who asked to go first.
E:	One of the big kids?
G:	Probably. The pump was in the pantry. An old pitcher pump.
J:	Imagine having us track through Aunt Lu's nice, clean kitchen into the kitchen to pump water.
G:	We would find a cookie in there or something.
J:	Darn it. I never.
G:	I just loved them people. Uncle Bob and Aunt Lu was just wonderful to us kids.
E:	To everybody in the school, or just to your family?
J:	Well, all of us were related to them. The Jump kids were kinda related because Aunt Mary was John's sister, John Jump's sister.
G:	Not Aunt Mary, Aunt Lu.
J:	I know it, but Aunt Lu was Uncle Frank's sister.
G:	Oh, the John Jump kids, you said.
J:	That's what I said. So you see they were all related. Except the Peasleys. I won't claim, I won't claim relation to the Peasleys.
E:	Uncle Bob and Aunt Lu were nice people.
J:	The only thing, Aurora had prettier hair than I did. It was long and blond, and she could braid it and it hung over her shoulders. Otherwise they were pretty nice.
G:	I think that was just your idea.
J:	Well, Aurora thought so. That makes two of us.
E:	Aurora figured she had prettier hair than you? She let you know?
J:	Uh huh.
G:	Bill had pretty hair, too. It was red.
J:	Well, Uncle Bob did too.
E:	Red hair?
J:	It was sandy. It wasn't red. That's what Bill had, too.
E:	Uncle Bill? Your brother Bill?
J:	No, no. They just had Aurora and Bill. Delores is Bill's daughter
E:	Okay. So Carrie and Harry were supposed to take care of you?
J:	Well, Carrie always looked after me. In fact she used to carry me on her hip until her hip was enlarged.
E:	No kidding?
J:	Oh yes. No kidding. That made her look funny, you know. She hated it but she told me that's what caused it. Me, a-straddle her hip as she carried me around. You see, I wasn't very well.
G:	No, she was sick.
J:	Awful sick. Elmer says he can remember coming up from Gramma's and wondering if Gramma was there, wondering if I was dying or something.
E:	Oh, really?
J:	Well, Elmer told me.
E:	You were so sick they thought you might die? What was wrong, Aunt Tootsy?
J:	They didn't know. The story goes that Uncle Henry fixed up some concoction, some kind of a tea and gave it to me. Very likely it's true, but I don't know what it was.
G:	And that brought you out of it?
J:	And I don't know what it was. Way back in my mind I can remember drinking some tea that was so good. I thought it was sage tea, but I don't know anything about it. And I don't know if that was when they gave it to me.
E:	I bet it is, because your memory would remember that kind of significant thing.
J:	And, I've never tasted a tea as good as that. George, do you remember how old I was when I began to get more healthy?
G:	No, I don't.
J:	I don't either. But it was when I was little, because it was over at the big place.
G:	I think it was before Minnie was born.
J:	I wasn't very big then. I couldn't have been more than 4.
G:	I remember when Minnie was born.
E:	You were 4?
G:	I was born in '94 and she [Tootsy] was born in '95 and Minnie was born in '97, wasn't she?
J:	Yes, but George was born in February, so he was two years older than I was. I was born in December. Minnie and I were both born in December. He was born in February, so he was almost two years older.
G:	22 months.
J:	When he tells it like that, it sounds like he was only a year older.
E:	That's like Pete's and my battle.
G:	Minnie was born the 12^th of December. Jeannette was just a little more than two years.
E:	Just 9 days. What do you remember about when she was born?
G:	I don't remember now just what it was. But that picture of that family group. I remember distinctly where we had our pictures taken. There was a bridge over the creek at Wilbur.
J:	Goose Creek.
G:	Anyway.
J:	It was named after Wild Goose Bill.
E:	She's a baby. It was probably the next summer.
G:	She was born the 12^th of December and she was less than a year old. It was nice weather.
E:	Was she born at home?
J:	Well, we all were. There was no other place to be born.
E:	Did a doctor come out?
G:	Yes. He might have been late, but he would come out. Doctor Yount. Aunt Hattie was always there on the job. She told me that I was born quite a while before the doctor got there.
E:	She had to know what she was doing.
G:	Oh, yes. I don't know if she was there when Milton was born. But, I think after him she was there with every one of the kids.
J:	It's amazing how she could get there, because she had to come clear up the canyon.
G:	We always had a buggy.
E:	Somebody always went and got her? And those December births probably weren't too easy.
J:	No, we had a lot of snow then.
G:	It was probably two miles, wasn't it? It was three quarters of a mile from the Blackfan place over to our place and she lived down the canyon.
J:	And she had to go by Uncle Bob's pasture and down by Uncle Pete's pasture. Oh, it must have been more than two miles.
G:	Anyway, about the last time I saw her, she said, "Georgie, I can remember when you were just that long."
J:	When they lived at Puyallup.
G:	Well, they lived in Tacoma.
J:	Not right in Tacoma.
G:	Well, they lived out on 96^th just off of Pacific. It think it was out to Tom's at Spanaway.
E:	Why had they left the homestead? Had they homesteaded?
G:	I don't really know.
J:	It was a very poor piece of property.
G:	I don't think that was a homestead. How they got it, I don't know. But them days, you could buy land for just a little. His place was just over the hill.
J:	It was awful steep between the house and the field.
G:	I don't know how they come up.
J:	George, did they have any farm land across the creek?
G:	They had some up on the hill. They had some on both sides of the hill. They had to clear up by Barnhart's to get to that patch and then they had to come up the other way to get to the other piece. And what they had there, I don't know.
J:	I don't either. I never thought about it till just now. I remember how steep and rough it was.
G:	Well, they couldn't go straight up. They had a garden up on the side hill. They could raise anything up there.
J:	Well, they had a garden near the house.
G:	Just above the house. That's what I mean.
J:	Right by the house they had asparagus. They had lilacs.
G:	The spring where they got the water was west of the house. There was a horse trough there where anybody who went by watered the horses
J:	Oh, it was good water.
G:	I don't think I ever went by there in my life without taking a drink of water.
J:	Nobody ever did. Didn't they have it piped to the house, too?
G:	I don't know. I don't remember that.
J:	I think they did. I suppose it was melted snow.
J:	They tried to condemn it.
E:	I didn't know that.
J:	Oh, yes, they told Lary that water was not fit to drink, that he should not drink it.
E:	Down on the flat? Down near our barn?
J:	Yes. The county sent a man down to take a sample and they couldn't believe that it was so pure. And they came down a second time. I don't know if they ever came a third time or not.
E:	I never heard that.
J:	Is that the truth?
G:	Where is that?
J:	On the Sherman flat.
E:	Where our barn is. Pete's still using it.
J:	At the Sherman place.
E:	Park's store.
J:	The Sherman Post Office, where we used to get our mail.
E:	Okay. You know where that barn is. It's about 100 yards east of that.
G:	Yeah. One of the kids mired down in that. She walked across ahead of a cow. One of Lary's kids.
J:	The Indians used to camp there.
E:	Is that right?
J:	Daddy remembers that. They made that a camping place.
G:	Right by our place to Sherman.
E:	I haven't known that.
G:	Where was Bill [Will Kunz] born?
J:	In Keokuk.
G:	Where did his mother [Josephine Bejot] die?
J:	In Keokuk. They had twins younger than Daddy. And they died, too. Mike [Michael Kunz] lost a wife and two babies all in a year. Can you imagine how a man could stand a thing like that?
E:	I can't imagine.
J:	He was a young man, too.
E:	With all those kids to care for.
J:	Then people criticized him because he married Gramma [Amelia Much].
E:	He had to marry.
J:	And she could sew.
E:	I didn't know people criticised him.
J:	Well, you never knew the older generation of Kunzes like I did. And, of course, you belonged to the wrong family anyway.
E:	Who criticized her?
J:	I'm not going to tell you. But you can make up your own mind.
G:	Who criticized who?
J:	Mike.
E:	Mike, for marrying Amelia. But the thing was, he had just lost a wife and had babies to take care of.
J:	Well, Daddy [her husband Will Kunz] was the baby then because he had lost the others.
E:	But he was pretty close to baby. He was two.
G:	How many was there older than Bill?
J:	I think it was six.
E:	Gene and Frank and Kate and Joe and Leo and Will. They couldn't have been big enough kids to really help.
J:	Well, Daddy lived with his grandmother. When we went east, when we went to Keokuk, Daddy and I and Rita [Turner -- their daughter], we went to that house where his grandmother [Mary Weber] lived. He was so excited. I never saw anybody so deeply excited. Inside of you, you could just feel he was so excited to get back to see that. Because, you see, he wasn't very big when he left. And he remembered the house. We went in the house. There was a young couple living there. He said, "Was this room this big years ago?" And she said, "No, we took out a partition." And he said, "Yes, there was another room there." And while we were in there, he asked the lady if she minded if we could look in the back of the place. He wanted to see the big hill. And it was just a little slope. But he remembered a great big hill.
E:	For little legs it was a big hill.
J:	I've always been glad we took that trip. He sure did enjoy seeing that old place. We went to the cemetery and saw his mother's grave. He was always more contented to go on living since he saw his mother's grave. But that was an awful thing for Mike to go through.
E:	For the little kids, too.
J:	But gee whiz, for a man, and having nothing. Living on just nothing, really.
G:	I think Papa [George Simons] was criticized, too.
J:	I know he was, but gee whiz. Papa-- we needed her.
G:	If we had behaved ourselves, she might still be living with us.
J:	I wouldn't live in the same house that Glen and Marvin [Jennie Overbay's son and ?] did.
G:	Well, of course, Glen and Marvin wasn't there at all.
J:	I know it, but if she had still been there, they would have been there some times.
E:	You didn't behave yourselves?
G:	I did. But the rest of them didn't.
E:	What did they do, or did you say that to be funny ?
G:	I know that in the summer time she had done the cooking in the old house. I don't know why.
J:	Well, we wanted to keep the new house clean. The flies.
G:	But that's the only time I remember having a run in with Jennie. Something I had done. I don't know.
J:	Did she spank you?
G:	No, she didn't spank me. I was too big to spank. She had a curtain rod and she went to hit me with it and I reached up and got it and mashed it on the end. One time she had some potatoes there. There was a fly in it. I went to get that fly out. She didn't see the fly. She just thought I was putting my finger in the water just to be mean.
J:	She was awful clean.
G:	She never was out of the town of Johia, Virginia 'till she came out of there. She left her friends and everything.
J:	Well, her family. She left two kids there.
G:	Yeah. Three kids. She brought Amy and Glen. Glen went over to stay with George Callahon [Gallavan [Gallavan?] and Laura, and left Amy there. She was three years old. She was so homesick, she didn't know what to do.
J:	Well, she did things, though. She went ahead and sewed for us.
E:	Why did she leave that home in the south?
J:	She didn't have a home in the south. Her children were in the Masonic Home.
G:	Henry Keys got Dad. He was her son by another marriage. He was friends of ours before we ever knew about Jennie.
E:	And he said his mother could come. Imagine that long a trip.
J:	Yeah, clear from Virginia. And she knew how many kids there were.
G:	Yeah, she knew what she was getting into. She took care of us. You couldn't find a better cook.
J:	Well, she was a very plain cook. But we always had nourishing meals. Lots of vegetables and meat. And we had a cake every Sunday or a pie. We didn't have dessert very often. We had always fruit on the table.
E:	So you preserved fruit?
J:	Oh, yes we preserved fruit. See, Papa raised lots of fruit.
G:	We had ten acres down in the valley. Orchard Valley we called it, down at Peach. We had peaches, lots of berries. We used to go down there and pick berries.
E:	How do you get to Peach?
J:	Well, from Creston, you go out north and then turn down. You go east.
G:	Now from Creston, you go out east about a mile and a half and go off north down the canyon road.
E:	How did you get to it from your place?
J:	Well, from our place, down the canyon by Carl Houston's.
E:	So you wouldn't have to go into Creston. And Peach was down by the river, wasn't it?
J:	Oh, yes.
E:	There were lots of orchards down there before the river was backed up?
J:	I think there was over a section of orchards.
G:	Dad had ten acres there. Just rocks. He paid $100 an acre to have it cleared.
J:	Oh, George. That's a lot of money. You mean $10 an acre.
G:	No, I mean $100.
J :	He never had $100 in his life.
G:	Anyway, there was a big strawberry patch. And they paid for the place in the first year with strawberries.
E:	So you picked strawberries and sold them.
G:	I know Fosco and Stub stayed down there with the pickers the first of the season and then Ernie and I.
J:	I bet that was wonderful.
G:	It was. We played with Charlie Hill. And it wasn't long after we came home that Charlie dies. He was just a kid. I don't know what was the matter. We played in the irrigation ditches and we would find those hair snakes and play with them.
E:	Again, it's a year and a half. I can't get over that. The number of little kids that your mother had to take care of -- a year and a half apart.
G:	Having them was no easy thing either.
J:	Ollie and Carrie were awful good.
G:	Ollie washed my hair one time and I was awful scared. She laid me on her lap and my head was down toward that pan of water. And I was scared and I was bawling.
J:	I didn't bawl when she washed my hair and put blueing in it.
G:	Blueing?
J:	Yes.
E:	What did she do that for?
J:	Because my hair was just white, so she blued it. We always had blueing for the clothes. Then she curled it all up on her finger. Then she took me in and showed Mama. But Mama didn't appreciate it. She made her wash it out. But that was Ollie for you. That was what Aunt Ollie was like. Anything for fun. No matter how much work there was, Ollie was for fun.
G:	Do you remember we always boiled the clothes? There was a boiler of hot water on the floor. Ollie had Minnie in her arms and Minnie had a cat. When she got over that boiler of water, she dropped the cat. It hit that water and ran out. It ran under the dry house.
J:	Did it die?
G:	Finally. But they wanted Bill to kill it and he wouldn't do it because he wanted Ollie to see that because she shouldn't have done it. He was punishing her for carrying that kid over that boiler of water.
J:	Leave it to Bill to punish somebody. He was always bossy.
G:	The hair all came off that cat. It walked on its front feet. It finally died... They were going to make money drying prunes. Dad built a house out there and made slats out of lathes. That was his drying house.
J:	We dried more than prunes out there. We always depended on Carrie for everything. Well, she would always get up and get to work. And Ollie was the kind that would stay in bed as long as she could. She didn't do it for meanness. She was good, but she was always late. But Carrie was always--
G:	And Ollie got married first.
J:	Well, she was older. But when Carrie was home, we always depended on her, even when Ollie was there.
J:	George, you were a lot of help. I remember the strawberries.
G:	You probably was there all the time.
J:	No, I wasn't. I just got to go down once in a while. I remember going down there once. I was picking the biggest strawberries I could find. Bill made a fuss about it and didn't want me to do it. I went and asked Dad, and he said I could do what I wanted to do. I wasn't very big.
E:	He spoiled the little ones? ...
G:	I remember, what you wanted -- that was OK with Dad.
J:	Well, when you have a sick child, you pretty well give in.
G:	We had an awful good mother and father, if I do say so myself --
J:	Too bad you didn't take after them.
E:	What were you going to say about Harry and Bill?
G:	She was the one who was talking about Harry and Bill. We used to stay down there for two weeks.
E:	What did you eat?
J:	We took food from home.
E:	For two weeks?
J:	We never stayed that long. The season wasn't that long.
G:	Maybe it was one week. But the first part of the season, Fosco and Stub were down there and Ernie and I the last part of the season.
J:	I think it would have been better if you had put Stub and Ernie, and Fosco and you together, knowing my brothers like I know my brothers.
G:	Ernie and I did everything together.
E:	How come?
J:	They were so near the same age. Ernie was only a year older than George.
G:	And six months. I was February, and he was 19^th of August.
J:	October.
G:	No, August. [Ed.'s note: Ernest was born August 19, 1892.]
J:	Well, I don't know, but I think if they had split the twins and split you and Ernie, they would have been better off.
E:	How much older were the twins than Ernie?
J:	They were born in '91, February 20^th and Ernie was born August 10, 1892.
G:	And Harry.
E:	Harry was reliable, too?
J:	Oh, yes, Harry was reliable. One time I remember -- do you remember, George? I don't remember how many of us were left there and Harry was in charge of us. And when we got hungry, I suppose it was for lunch, he went down in the cellar and got the crock of milk, stirred in the cream, got a loaf of bread and crumpled it in that and gave us each a spoon. And we ate our dinner on his lap. He held it on his lap.
G:	Or he would sit it right in the middle of the floor.
J:	He didn't that day. He had it in his lap.
G:	Well, that was Elmer who done that.
J:	I asked you if you remembered. Why didn't you say you didn't?
G:	I remember Elmer doing that.
E:	Well, that's not a bad meal.
J:	No, it was a good meal. I like it now. There's nothing better than homemade bread and milk.
E:	But Aunt Carrie had a boyfriend named Roy?
J:	Roy Blackfan. That was when she was old enough to have a boyfriend. They went together what seemed to me all their lives, but they didn't. See, the Blackfans had the place that we bought. Mama and Mrs. Blackfan were real good friends. Her name was Minnie and Mama named Minnie after her.
G:	That's right. I had forgotten that.
J:	They lost a baby before they moved to California. Mama promised to take care of the grave there at Sherman. We always have. When we would go down, we would always put flowers on the grave.
E:	Was that Minnie?
J:	No, I think it is Baby Blackfan. There is a little lamb on the tombstone.
E:	Oh, I remember it.
G:	Bill and Edith are buried there. [William Simons and Eda Lunstrum?]
J:	In that same lot.
G:	And I think Aunt Em. Is she?
J:	You mean Uncle Pete's wife?
G:	No, Aunt Em.
J:	Daley?
G:	Daley. [Emma C. Simons Daley]
J:	I don't know where Aunt Em is buried.
G:	She is either buried--
J:	I don't think she is on the Blackfan lot. Isn't Albert buried on Elmer's lot [their brother Elmer Simons]?
G:	I don't know.
J:	That's something for us to research. I had to go up there to identify Uncle Frank's grave [William Franklin Simons]. His name is William F. The kids, Patty [Patricia Kunz] was up real early to go to the cemetery.
G:	I went up there to see about Granddad [William Simons]. I said he was W.W.
J:	That's Bill [William Walter Simons].
G:	I know, but I said it was granddad's, too.
J:	What was his initial?
G:	There was just "W" there. Midge [Dolly Margaret Simons] said it was "W. J." for Joseph because Joe [Joseph William Simons] was named for his granddad [Joseph Jump]. It was her Granddad Jump.
J:	He was nice to be named after. Joe Jump was a nice one to be named after. I would be proud of that. It was Jim that really had sticky fingers.
G:	I don't remember that. J.H. Jump [Joseph Jump], John-- he was John's father and Aunt Mary [Mary Jump Simons]'s father. He was a Civil War veteran.
J:	I was thinking they were brothers.
G:	Not Bill [Jump].
J:	Oh, I was thinking they were brothers.
G:	Not Bill. Bill was the one you couldn't trust very much.
J:	Bill was John's son. No, No. It was one of the older ones. It was Jim Jump.
G:	Maybe it was Jim Jump.
J:	Yeah, it was Jim Jump. He would go over and visit Nels Nelson and every time Nels would miss something, every time. And even when he stayed right with him, he would miss something.
G:	I didn't know that. But I didn't like Jim Jump.
J:	I wouldn't have known it if I hadn't known Nels and Mary Nelson so well. But how there could be such good people in the same family like John Jump and Aunt Mary, you know. They'd never do anything dishonest in their lives. And then there was Jim. And then old Bill came along! Anyway...
G:	Bill shot Uncle Ed [Edwin Simons] in the back of the neck with a 22 pistol. It didn't kill him. Uncle Ed took the pistol away from him.
E:	My gosh, what did he do it for?
J:	We don't know. In a funny way, he thought Uncle Ed had some money.
G:	And he wanted the money to buy the pistol with. He bought the pistol himself. Just a single shot with a 22 pistol.
J:	Even at that, it was a gun. G-U-N no matter what it was.
E:	That's quite a story.
J:	Well, it really was a terrible thing because Papa and Uncle Frank were brothers and it was Aunt Mary's brother's boy. It was the family so they didn't want to do anything to disgrace the Jumps. Well, it really was a terrible thing.
G:	Anyway, they had to go to court and they said he was shooting at a [__?__].
E:	Oh, really?
J:	They had it all made up.
G:	Uncle Ed and Dad didn't get along anyway. And Uncle Van [Levander Elsworth Simons] and Dad never spoke to each other for several years. It might have been just one year.
J:	I know what that was about. It was about the thrashing. Papa had to thrash somebody else's wheat before he thrashed Uncle Van's, and there was snow on Uncle Van's before he thrashed it. Aunt Addie [Prayther, Van's wife] told me this when we went down to her 81^st birthday. I didn't know. I thought they were always good friends.
G:	When Uncle Van and Aunt Addie was married, they weren't on speaking terms. One time, I don't know how long after that, they met out at the four corners there at the school house, right in the middle of the intersection, and they stood there and talked for an hour.
J:	Well, they had it coming.
G:	And the next Sunday they were at our place for dinner.
E:	Is that right?
J:	It was a misunderstanding, wasn't it? Very likely, it wasn't as long as it seems because Aunt Addie told me it was on account of that wheat. They cut the wheat and stacked it, and then pulled the thrash machine in and thrashed it. Papa owned the thrashing machine and he would do thrashing for other people. And he had other commitments. Likely, it was just from that time to spring. That's a long time not to speak to your brother.
G	Anyway, they got married during that time. I believe the other Aunt Mary had left Uncle Van.
J:	Uncle Van was married and had two daughters by his first wife, and they were separated.
E:	And this was when he married for the second time.
J:	Yes, and she's the mother of Melvin. She's Melvin's mother. I don't even remember that Aunt Mary.
G:	I remember seeing her. There's a picture of her somewhere.
J:	Aunt Addie had Curtis before Uncle Van married her. But Uncle Van treated Curtis as he did any of the others.
E:	Is he Curtis Simons? Was he adopted or did it make any difference?
J:	I don't think they knew what adoption was in those days. Really. They raised kids and that was that. It was hard times. There's no doubt about that . I don't know how they ever existed. And yet it seemed like everybody was happier than they are now.
E:	Does it seem like that to you?
J:	When I look back, it seems like we were always happy and we were always planning to do something. There was so much interest in doing things. We didn't have anything.
G:	Everybody had a butchering day. Now we usually [had] 12 to 10 to 16 hog to butcher every winter. Everybody would come. Andrew Anderson and Uncle Bob [Robert Grinstead, husband of Louella Simons] and Uncle Pete [Peter H. Simons] and Uncle Frank [Frank Simons]. And everybody had their jobs. Now Dad had a 32 rim fire rifle, single shot. And when he pointed the gun at the hog and pulled the trigger, there was a dead hog there. No argument about it. And then he would stick it and then he gutted it.
J:	Wait a minute, he didn't gut it until he had scalded it and scraped it.
G:	Uncle Frank was the water man. He would dip his hand in the water a time or two, put a little more snow in and dip it again.
E:	There was heat underneath it?
J:	There was a big vat. Papa had a big vat.
G:	He's do this. And if the hide came off, it was too hot.
E:	Off his finger?!
J:	Oh, boy.
G:	Anyway, they usually got a pretty good scald on it.
J:	See, Papa had a platform built, a wooden platform and a big vat. I don't know where he ever got the vat. Maybe he made it.
G:	Well, he may.
J:	Very likely he made it. And he would build a fire under the vat.
E':	People would bring their pigs over?
G:	No, we would go to their place.
J:	Uncle Frank did, because I remember it. I imagine Uncle Bob did
G:	They might have. I don't know.
J:	It was a big day.
G:	They had a platform on both sides of the vat and they'd take a rope for the front end of the pig and one for the hind end and they'd cross it and worked the rope and rolled the pig. Then they would hold the side and roll the pig over and then roll it out on the platform.
J:	And scrape it with butcher knives.
G:	And scrape it. Now they got those scrapers, you know.
E:	OK, so they scald them and scrape them and then...
G:	Then hung them up and then wash them off good and then...
J:	And then gut them.
G:	And then gut them.
E:	And you would always do it in the wintertime.
J:	Oh, yes, 'cause we didn't have any refrigeration. And then we had to can them or cure them. Or make sausage -- to keep it, y'know, or it would spoil. But that was the Mama's part.
E:	But it was done during the winter so that before it got cured it wouldn't get any bacteria?
G:	When it was cold.
J:	I don't know how they did it when Papa did it over there, but I know they would put the salt on the hams and leave it dry salted for a long time.
G:	Oh yeah, we'd hand it over. Sometimes it was so doggone salty, you couldn't hardly eat it.
J:	Well, they got so they could do it right.
G:	And hang it in the smoke house and smoke it.
J:	What was salted so bad that you would think you couldn't eat it? I don't remember that.
G:	Sometimes it was pretty salty.
J:	Oh, you're just a crank. I thought it was real good.
G:	It was good. But I remember it was salty.
J:	We would make sausage out of the best part of it.
G:	Oh yes, take that tenderloin down.
J:	Each side of the backbone.
G:	Cut that up.
J:	It was just nice and lean and just so good. And then they made the sausage of that. But when Daddy did it, the butchering, we didn't.
E:	Because then you could freeze it?
J:	Well, no. Then we could eat it fresh.
G:	Well, we ate a lot of that fresh, too.
J:	Oh, yes. I s'pose.
E:	Did you pack it in the snow?
J:	It was cold enough.
E:	So for a part of the winter you had a lot of fresh meat.
J:	Well, it really was a big job until you got it all worked up because you didn't dare leave it and go about something else. Because you never knew when there was going to be a warm spell. And then all of our meat would be spoiled. It really was a case of that or starve, and get it all tended to. And so the sausage had to be ground and fixed and packed in jars. Some people cooked it before they packed it in jars and then put lard over it.
G:	And it used to get pretty darn strong then, if I remember correctly,
J:	When Daddy [her husband Will] and I did it, we didn't cook it and we put real hot lard on it and it kept real good all through spring work. When Daddy and I were married, we soaked our meat in brine in a big barrel. And then took it out in the spring and soaked it in fresh water a couple of nights. And then we would hang it up in the smoke house and let it drip and smoke it. Boy, that was good -- the bacon and the ham and the shoulders, you know.
G:	I don't remember much about it in the old place. On the Blackfan place, we had a rock cellar [root cellar?] and on top we had what was supposed to be a freeze-proof building, packed with sawdust. Dad used to cure his meat up there.
J:	We had a little room that we smoked it in. A little room that was built off the big room.
E:	You know, he was smart, wasn't he?
J:	Yes, he was.
E:	He was a young man when he came up. Where did he get his knowledge?
J:	He was a progressive man.
G:	I don't remember whether he set that strawberry patch out or not, but I've heard them say that they paid for it the first year on strawberries.
E:	He had the equipment for the pig butchering, and he had the thrasher. He provided well. He seemed to have a lot of knowledge. When you think about they were a very young couple.
J:	And he knew how to take care of horses. He took awful good care of the horses.
E:	I wonder where he got his knowledge. He had a good education.
G:	He went through the 4^th grade.
E:	But he knew his business of farming and I'm interested to know where he got that.
J:	Well, he worked when he was young, but he worked on the railroads . But he must have worked on farms, too, as he came along. He had to have some place for Mama and the kids to live.
G:	I don't know how they did it. They lived with a feller down there at Steptoe. Uncle Frank came there with them, but he came up to the Big Bend. He had a ladyfriend there and the guy who owned the house where they lived married her.
J:	I never heard that.
E:	But he would have to have knowledge for northwest farming. That would be different from California or Oregon or even Steptoe.
J:	I don't think Papa was in California for so very long.
G:	I don't think so. He worked for Mama's father. He had stock.
J:	Oh, Grandpa Apperson had stock?
G:	That's what I heard.
J:	I wouldn't be too much surprised to hear that he did, because Merle and Albert Apperson who were down there -- you know, Uncle Jack's kids. They run cattle up in the mountains. Instead of grass -- there is no grass there for the cattle to eat -- they ate brush, leaves off the brush.
E:	The whole butchering process would have to be different in California. They wouldn't have the winters to do it. You would have to have specific information for the northwest, for eastern Washington. It would be different from this part of the state.
J:	Very likely he learned coming along.
E:	But there weren't a lot of established farmers to learn from.
J:	No, there were no established farmers. But if he stayed there a winter, he would know how long it is cold. So he could plan that the next year: "I have to get my butchering done. Better raise some pigs and get my butchering done before it turns warm."
G:	And they all butchered beef in the fall and let it hang out until it froze solid.
J:	But you would be using it, you see. I don't know if they ever made jerky over at the homestead place, but I know he did at the Blackfan place.
G:	I don't know if he did either, but I know he made corn beef.
J:	Oh, yes, he made corn beef.
G:	I don't know if they canned any of it or not.
J:	They didn't have any way to can it.
E:	How do you make corn beef.?
G:	I don't know.
J:	I don't either. Salting and seasoning some way. I imagine there's alum put in.
G:	I think there is.
J:	I think they seasoned that with cloves.
G:	I don't know really why they didn't put it in the deep freeze.
E:	That would have been a lot easier, wrap it up in individual packages and have it sliced.
G:	Boy, what a difference.
E:	Just the work that it would take to keep food for every season.
J:	Listen to George tell -- I don't remember this, but George has heard it. He wasn't there. He said that Papa worked down at Sprague. Undoubtedly walked down there. And he left Mama with Bill and Harry.
G:	Bill and Harry and Ollie.
J:	And Ollie. In the open cabin that summer. Indians were around. And he planted a field of wheat.
G:	Oats. Where they were, I don't know.
J:	Very likely back on the bluff, you know, where that straw stack is. And then he walked home in the fall from Sprague. Can you imagine that? And Mama had all cradled in bundles that oats.
E:	With three babies?
G:	With three babies. One time she missed Ollie. She could hear her crying. It seemed like she was right under her feet, but she wasn't. She found that kid in a badger hole. She reached down and got her by the hair.
J:	I never heard this until George told me last spring.
G:	There was a big rattle snake that come under the bottom log. She went to kill it and it went out. She put the kids all on the bed, the three of them. She went out to get it and it come in. Finally she got a whack at it and killed it.
J:	See, there were a lot of rattlesnakes over there. And that shed, that first homestead shed was out near the [well] where they built the house. The rattlesnakes were right up in there.
G:	They just moved in there one summer, the summer before Elmer was born. By the time Elmer was born they had the house built.
J:	This is amazing to me. Where did they get the lumber, those logs? And how did Papa have time to get those logs and build that house in one year?
G:	Well, he was over at Uncle Frank's a while. They lived there.
J:	I know that, but they were there that summer.
G:	Yes. I don't know how they managed it, but they got it.
J:	I just can't imagine where they got all that timber, because he only had two horses.
G:	Yes. And he built that cabin living over at Uncle Frank's.
E:	That's a huge job.
J:	To me it seems like a mammoth job. And then to build the house that they lived in which is still standing. And that's logs.
G:	And those logs are huge. Well, he had help on that, I know. The neighbours ganged up.
J:	But there weren't very many neighbours.
G:	No. Bill Robertson cut the corners on that house.
J:	That was right friendly of him.
G:	Nobody liked Bill Robertson.
J:	But they loved Mrs. Robertson.
G:	Why, I don't know.
J:	Because he was always trying to do somebody. He was a mean-dispositioned man, really.
G:	One time, Mama was working around in there. It got kinda dark. She looked around and there was a big Indian standing there. She had a pot of beans and some bread and she started feeding him. When he had his belly full, he took off.
J:	She'd always stop and feed them. And the Indians loved her. Years and years after that...
G:	..Old Jim Tamantwa...
J:	Years and years after that, Vi [Violet Hazel] and I were with a bunch, huckleberrying across the river. We came by an Indian's house, you know. It was Sapeechie's and Icot's. When they found out I was Mama's daughter, they just loved me. Then I went and got Vi and they showed us their dried camas that they had drying on the roof of their cabin over there. They said how they loved Mama. She was such a good woman.
E:	So she got to know these Indian women. Probably others too.
J:	Yes. And one time after Mama died and Ollie was living in the house, they came to see Mrs. Simons. Stella [Cheley, Elmer's wife] said she was Mrs. Simons. No, they wanted to see the good Mrs. Simons. And they made her to understand that they wanted to see Mama. When Stella told them, they just cried and cried, Stella told us. Those squaws must have been young girls at the time they...
E:	They must have gotten to know her more than just getting some food.
G:	Oh, yeah.
J:	Then, when there wasn't so many people around, you could get to know people better.
E:	And they didn't threaten each other.
J:	Although the Indian scare wasn't over. Which one of the boys used to carry...that's your story.
G:	Carry what?
J:	Carried the mail. Who was it carried the mail from Wilbur to Fort Spokane? [Ed.'s note: It was Frank Simons.] I believe that was someone else. They were scared of Indians then.
G:	I know when I can first remember we got our mail at Sherman. I rode Old Charger down there and got the mail. When I went home I told Mama that Mrs. Parks must be hard hearing. I said I had to knock two or three times before she told me to come in.
J:	The Post Office?
G:	The Post Office. Mama said, You don't need to knock at the Post Office, you just go right on in." After that it was fine and dandy. But there was a little rock on the window sill of the Post Office. I took that and knocked with that.
J:	You must have been a pretty big kid if you rode Charge because he was a big horse and he was Harry's.
G:	Well, I was just a little kid.
E:	It was your first trip, anyway.
G:	Yes, it was my first trip. Well, one trip I came along and Tom Copenhaver and somebody was down talking at the corner down where they used to play ball. Charger jumped sideways and I rolled off. And Tom Copenhaver helped me on and I went on home.
J:	Well, you had to be pretty big if the Copenhavers were in the country. You were big enough to hang on. You were trying to show off. Charger was a big horse. Harry just loved him. All the boys had their horses.
G:	Yes, he was a big horse. I remember when Harry got him. He couldn't get him in the barn.
J:	I wouldn't be a bit surprised because Charger was so high.
E:	You got your own horses?
J:	Course they would be a dollar and a half a piece. We got them from the Indians.
G:	Old George cost Dad a dollar and a half. He took some punishment, that horse did. Everybody rode him. I rode him into town and went someplace. I must have been a big kid by then because I never rode on a train until I was 16. Anyway, I'd turn him loose and he'd go home.
E:	Really?
G:	Oh, yeah.
J:	He liked to get home.
E:	That was efficient. That was very efficient.
J:	When Vernal was born, Carrie was -- before he was born -- Carrie was hungry for parsnips in the spring. Papa [George Simons] would carry parsnips over into the spring -- They need to be frozen before they are good. And Papa put some in a sack and put me on George and sent me down there to take the parsnips to Carrie. That was down at the Carmen place where Genevieve and Harold used to live. And Tom Gallavan [Callahon?] was there. I tied the horse up outside, you know. It was cold in the spring. When I got to get on him, I got on him. Tom was going to ride along side me. When I got on George, he took for home and he went home, and I mean went! Everybody was scared to death. But I hung on and away we went. Tom couldn't possibly catch up with me. He climbed up on the windmill to see if I had fallen off or anything.
G:	I thought he went home with you.
J:	He was going to, but he couldn't get on his horse in time. When my leg got across that saddle, George and I were on the way home.
E:	Think how efficient that is. You can't send a car home. You have to drive it to get it there, or a bicycle. Nothing works that well.
J:	But George really was a good horse. He was high spirited.
G:	But we didn't get Old George 'till after we was on the Blackfan place.
J:	Oh, no. He was one of our last cayuses. I think when Papa went to take the train, he had him hitched on to the buggy with another horse. And he didn't like it. He didn't like to go up that steep hill. He balked. Papa was in the buggy. Who took Papa in that time?
G:	I don't know because I was right there some place because I went to Spokane with him. Well, somebody else did. Herb Blaisdell and I was going to Montana and Papa was going with us.
J:	Yeah, but who took Papa to -- I don't know. I remember I must have went down to the gate to open it or something, because I remember seeing George. Well, it would be somebody.
G:	But I remember that we was there at the hotel and Papa didn't feel good.
E:	In Spokane?
J:	In Spokane, George?
G:	Yes. And he told us, Herb and I, to go on and he would stay there at the hotel for a day or two and go home. But he never went home.
E:	He went to the hospital.
G:	I went there and staked out a claim and got a job from John Kenny at the hotel. I worked for him for about two weeks. I got a letter from Mamie and she said Papa was still in the hospital, and he was bad, and they didn't think he would ever get well. I packed my clothes and one thing and another in a suitcase, took them over to the depot. Maybe I mailed them home. Don't seem like they mailed that much at that time. Anyway, I sent the suitcase home. I went to the depot and tried to phone to Elmer for some money. They said I could telegraph but I would have to wait for the money. Well, there was a freight train come along and I got on. I rode that into Havre and I stood around that depot for a while. When it came in, you catch the [__?__] I was scared. I bought a ticket to Chester. I thought I had more of a chance to catch the train there. Anyway, I was green, see. I got a job unloading flax. I unloaded four horseloads and a two horseloads of flax. I got some money and my dinner. Pretty soon there was a freight train come along and I got on it. But it only went a little ways and tied up. Well, then it was dark. I went over to a saloon. They said the trains didn't stop there much at that place. But up seven miles they nearly always stopped there. Well, I started out. I got out of town about a mile and there was a freight train come along and stopped. It was dark. I tried to catch it. Anyone with experience could have caught it. But I didn't. It was going a little too fast for me. So I walked up to the other town. We got up there and here came a freight and I got on it. I rode to Chester. I was laying down there. There was a guy looked in, so I got up and got out and went down town and got me a sandwich. I came back. There was a passenger train. I asked the fireman if I couldn't ride on the cinder and pass coal for him. He said, "No, it's daylight. If it was dark, you could."
E:	He wouldn't let you?
G:	So I crawled on the baggage. I got up between the baggage car and the cinder and I rode there until Browning. They stopped at Browning to take on some water, and I was afraid to get back on. But I caught a freight. It came up there and didn't stop, but it was going slow enough that I could get on. I got on that car and pretty soon the [__?__] came along. He said, "Where have you been?" I said, "I just got on at Browning." I was just a kid and didn't have no experience. He said, "Well, the freight didn't stop at Browning." I said, " I know it, but I got on anyway." He said, "How far you going?" I said, "Spokane." He asked for a dollar. I said I didn't have a dollar. He said 50 cents. I said I didn't have 50 cents. He said I had to get off at [__?__]. But when we got there, I was in a different... [Quarter-page portion of text missing. - ed.]
E:	Did you see him alive again?
G:	Yes. I put on some clothes of Uncle Bob's. Mrs. Mung was there and she loaned me $10. I went to see Papa a couple of times and...
J:	And then went home.
G:	He died during that week. I stayed and did the thrashing, paid back Mrs. Mung, and went back to Montana and filed for homestead.
J:	You couldn't have filed for a homestead if you were only 19.
G:	I stretched the age when I filed homestead. Then I registered for the army.,
J:	It doesn't hardly pay to lie, does it?
G:	Not too often. I told them I was born in '93 instead of '94.
J:	Well, that wasn't too big a late.