Age 23

This page was published by Vonda Vanderhoof Vernell, Vanderhoofs daughter. It was recreated here with her permission. 01/17/2010

"When I was four years old, my Uncle Jess, Dad’s oldest brother, who had a ranch down on Promontory, bought me a little two-year old buckskin mustang taken from a herd of wild horses. He was a good horse for 30 years. I won a lot of races on the Fourth of July celebrations in Holbrook, Stone and Snowville. His name was Buck.

One time Mom didn’t get up to fix breakfast. After a while Dad said we had to get a doctor. We had no phone and the nearest one was in Snowville, six miles away. Dad said that I would have to go, because he was too big to ride on Buck.

I got on and Dad gave me a quirt and told me to hit him with every step. I kept him at a dead run the whole way. It was the first time I ever rode down a hill that fast because I had been taught to never run a horse down a hill. When we arrived, he was going as fast as when we started out and I never had to hit him once.

I had a note to give to a lady and she phoned for the doctor who came straight away to see Mom."

The Day I Almost Died

When I was about four years old, Dad and Uncle Joe was finishing putting the last of the hay on the stack. The last derrick fork had been taken up and Dad had rounded the top of the stack. He had to throw his pitch fork down, then would hold on to the derrick fork tines. Then they would back the derrick horse and let the stacker down off the stack. was standing next to the stack on one side of the rack. Uncle Joe was on the other side next to the team. Dad said, “Where is Vernell?” Uncle Joe replied, “On the other side by the hay.” So, Dad threw the fork toward the center of the rack. Well, I was thinking that I would be safer if I was over with Joe, so I took off running toward him. The fork tines hit me in the back and I went down. Three tines had gone clear through my lungs and shoulder. The one in my shoulder had gone clear through. Uncle Joe grabbed the fork handle to pull it out and lifted me off the ground. He put his knee on me to hold me down while he pulled the fork out. I remember a lot of yelling and Grandma Lenora saying, “You have killed him!” I was having a hard time breathing I could only take little short breaths. Later on I got so I could breath a little easier. I must have had a pretty good night because I wanted to go play the next day, but Grandma said, no, because I could start bleeding. But, I felt fine and that was the end of that.

Dear Vonda,

Darned if I can figure out where you got the picture of me on the chair. I had it, post card size, with my other pictures. Then it came up missing. I hunted high and low. Every time I would think of it, I would look again but never found it. I thought it was the only one made, and I thought I must have burned it with some old letters and things I was getting rid of. I always felt to bad about it.

What I remember about the trip that day:

Dad and Uncle Joe went to Ogden in a white top buggy. They took the back seat out and tied the back curtain down. They could haul as much

in it as they could in a small wagon. I don’t know what the reason for the trip was. It was about a 100 miles away.

I remember when the picture was taken, the man told me to get on the chair. He had me stand up and hold onto the back of the chair. He had something covered with a black sheet. He pulled the sheet partly to one side and told me to look in a funny little thing. He said, “Do you see that right there?” I was leaning forward and said, “Yes, I see it.” I straightened up and the big flash of light came.

I remember my dad leaving me at Aunt Kate’s place with Alley Biddle, Kate’s son. Dad said, I will pay you but I want you to be good to him. Alley said he would. Dad left for a while and when he came back I had a red mark on the side of my face. Dad asked me what happened. I said that Alley slapped me but Alley denied it.

Dad and I was walking up the street. We passed a store in an alcove. Outside the store there was four or five rocking horses, painted gray with saddles and bridles. As soon as I saw them, I ran on ahead and climbed on one. I was taking a wild ride when the store keeper came out and said, “It looks like you have bought a horse.” Dad said,“Oh no, we can’t buy it this time.” He lifted me off but I got the reins over the horse and was trying to lead him. I could pull it a little at a time. They were watching me and finally dad said, “Well, I guess I have bought a horse.”

I remember on the way home. I guess I had caught a cold because I was coughing at lot and Uncle Joe made me a bed in back of the seat. He gave me some cough syrup and spilled it.

I can remember riding the horse when we got home to Grandpa’s. Everyone was quite pleased with the idea. Harold was about 2 ½ years old and had to ride him, too, only he had to be held on.

Vernell as a young boy

Vernell and Warren, 1915

Starving Horses by Vernell Vanderhoof

When I was about eight years old, there was a very harsh winter when the horses that were wintered over in the nearby hills had a hard time foraging for food. There came a day when Dad brought down four of the weakest horses in order to try to save them. He sent me and Harold, who was about six, to take the horses to Grandpa Jess’s place ten miles away where there was enough food for them. Harold was put in a cart pulled by two horses; a hot stone was put at his feet and a blanket wrapped around him. I was mounted on a pony.

Dad told me to drive the horses along slowly because if one of the horses fell, it wouldn’t be strong enough to get back up. Things went okay until we came to a geed lot that had some stock already feeding in it. They horses I was driving veered into the field to forage. I went after them, but as soon as I would get one or two out and back to the road, others would return to the field. I tried and tried until it was getting awfully late. I got cold and tired, so I gave up and Harold and I went to a nearby store to rest and get warm. It was run by a couple everyone called, Aunt Peggy and Uncle Dick.I got to the door but then don’t remember anything until I came to, sitting in a chair next to a warm pot belly stove, wrapped in blankets. When I recovered, Harold and I started out again. I felt awfully bad about having to leave the horses and I thought I would get into trouble. But, when I got home and told my folks, I was told that I should have left them much sooner. Dad heard from Aunt Peggy sometime later, who gave him a scolding that he had sent two little boys to do a man’s job in such foul weather.

I had to stay out of school to do farm work when my Dad couldn’t do it because of the injury to his back. The older I got the more I stayed out so that by the time I got to the 5^th grade I had lost a year. Then, I lost interest, until one teacher, Thomas K. Bailey told me if I come to school every day, he would put me through two grades in a year. I told him that I would sure give it a try. He gave me a book on Ancient Greek History and told me to do my best.

We ran out of feed for the horses before the winter was over, so they had to be moved to the mountains where they could find enough dry grass to keep them alive.

 

Vernell and Warren 1917

"Aunt Ester, Aunt Maud and Uncle Joe were going to school. I wanted to go too. Although I wouldn’t be six until April, they got permission from the teacher to let me come so I rode old Buck to school. Miss Pack was our teacher… The Stone Schoolhouse was built of boards and painted a gray-blue. It had two big rooms, grades to 5^th in one and to 8^th in the other. It had a belfry tower on top with a big bell that could be heard all over the valley.

The next year I started to school at Nelson. The building there was made of logs… The stovepipe was so close to the ridge pole it would catch on fire and we had to run out and get snow to throw on it. School had been going two weeks before my folks found out. When my Mom took me over, the teacher, Dora Sexton, tried to get me to catch up with the other kids. One day she had me up at her desk and I guess I wasn’t doing so well with the questions she asked—so she hit me with the long pointer stick. I decided I had to do something because my Dad had told me if I got a licking in school I’d get another when I got home! So the next day when I started to school, I camped out for a week before anyone knew of it. (instead of going to school)

"I was the only one who rode a horse to school. All the other kids lived closer than two miles. I was envied by the others and some of the kids were always trying to figure out a way to get a ride on my horse. But, I wouldn’t let them. Soon, they got to offering me things like fancy colored marbles. One time Johnny Palmer offered me a gen-u-ine wooden whistle. I didn’t know what a genuine wooden whistle was, but for a half mile ride up the road that genuine whistle could be mine.

It wasn’t long before my Dad wanted to know where I was getting all those extra treasures. By this time the teacher had observed what I was doing and tried to make me stop. When I didn’t she called me into the little room where the girls hung their coats, and gave me a choice; I could stay one hour after school for a week or she would use a strap with a buckle on it on me. Well, I chose to stay in after school. I could explain that better than the marks a strap with a buckle on the end would make.

One day my Dad had me ride Mollie, a roan mare, to school. She was just a three year old and not completely broken. One of the kids offered me an enticement I couldn’t turn down. So, I got this kid on behind me and we immediately got bucked off. The teacher saw this and the next morning she said, “Now do you know what I mean?”

The kids were all outside when I untied and mounted my horse to ride home. They kept after me to let him run. They wanted to see how fast he would go, so I showed them. My horse had been standing all day and he wanted to see how fast he would go, so I showed them. My horse had been standing all day and he wanted to run. It soon got so he wouldn’t wait for me to get on He would start racing as soon as I raised off the ground and just as I got a foot in the stirrup. Then, I would pull myself up until I could let go of the saddle strings and grab hold of the saddle horn.

One day when this happened, Buck was racing down the road and I was hanging on the side of the saddle working my way up, when the mailman was driving up the road and saw a horse running with someone hanging on his side. He thought I was in trouble and pulled his team off the road. His plan was to jump from his buggy and stop the runaway. But, by the time I got to him I was up in the saddle, so I gave him a big wave as I went by. The next day he told my folks and that ended that…"

Vernell on Billy, 1917

One cold, winter day my Dad and I were driving a bunch of horses from one place to another where they could find more dry grass. We were about half way up a broad, steep, rocky ridge where most of the snow had blown off. We were leading our horses and driving the others very slowly up the hill. We could hear howling down in the canyon, on the other side of a patch of timber. From time to time we could hear answers from different places in the mountains above us. In a little while a gray form came over the ridge, then another and another; seven in all. Dad said they were wolves and evidently the one down in the timber had found something to eat and was calling the others to join him. They came on down the hill and passed within 20 feet of us and never even looked our way.

One night, about twilight, I was riding along the north shore of the ponds. There had been a band of sheep in there all summer. I felt one of my stirrups come loose. I got off my horse to fix it and found that the lacing that holds the stirrup leather had come untied and let the stirrup slip . I got it tightened and was about to knot it when I had a prickly feeling on the back of my neck. Without looking around I got back on the horse and leaned down to tie that lacing—and there, standing not three feet away from my boot tracks, was the biggest coyote, or wolf, I had ever see. I rode off without rechecking as I was suddenly in a big hurry. To this day I can’t tell you if it was a wild animal or a big dog, but it looked fierce enough to me to have been a mountain lion!

Vernell and Warren

THE LONG SUMMER

One summer, Uncle Jess, Dad’s older brother was short handed at the stock yards in Ogden. He sent a letter saying that if Dad would come and help him, he would return the favor and work for him later on, paying him back. It wasn’t a good deal because our plowing had to be done in the spring and early summer. Then it needed to be farmed, harrowed, weeded and then planted in the fall for a crop the following year. It took a lot of work.

Mom did her best to try to get him not to go, but Dad said that we boys could do the plowing and he would be back to help with the harvest. So, off to Ogden he went. I was about eight years old and Harold was six.

We did pretty good when Dad was there to harness the horses and keep the plow shears sharp.

Not long after he left, one of the horses decided that it did not want to be bridled. I could get the bit in her mouth, but I was too short to reach her ears and get the head stall over back of the ears. She would throw her head and knock me down. Mom came over and tried, but by then the horse knew she had us bluffed. This was a horse I had to work and I could do nothing until I could figure out how to get her bridled. If I didn’t go to work, then Harold wouldn’t. Harold had three horses that he worked on the small 14” plow while I had the larger 16” with four horses.

After a while I took a couple of ham straps and made some additional holes in it, then put the bit onto the halter. I could put the halter on without touching the ears, so I was able to put it on her and snap it onto the cheek strap on the other side. (I hope you can understand what I am saying.) We missed a couple of days work while I figured that out, but then we got going again.

That same week John Hawks and Elsie had to leave on some kind of a business trip and left their five kids with us. They were Dora, William, Nellie, Ardon, Larwin. So Mom had them to be responsible for along with me, Harold, Edd, Jessie, Cleo and a new baby. The Hawk’s went on their merry way and those couple of days lasted three weeks. The children could not help, but they did hinder us a lot. They wanted to play.

Part of the 100 acres were plowed before Dad left, but we had the rest to get finished before Dad got home.

I would take our small wagon and go out into the sage brush ¼ mile from the house taking my ax and cup up enough to keep the cook stove going. If I could find dead dry sage, it wasn’t so bad, but the green sage was tough and hard to cut. The wagon was actually a toy, but it was big enough to haul all that two of us boys could pull. It was built like Dad’s big Studebaker wagon with the box we could take off just like his.

Meanwhile, the plow shears were starting to get dull and we were having a hard time making the blades plow. The land was getting too dry because of no rain. Most of the time we did all right, but sometimes we hit hard spots and the plow would jump out of the ground and go quite a ways just scraping the ground. It wasn’t a good job of plowing.

Finally, Ma and Pa Hawks came and took their kids. What a relief for Mom. A month had passed and no word or letter came from Dad. Several more weeks passed with still no word. Imagine what Mom was going through.

One day, Uncle Joe came. Grandma Lerona was worried, too. When Joe was getting ready to leave, Mom gave him some money to call one of his sisters. But, just a little later, we could hear someone coming down the road from the north. We couldn’t see anyone but Mom recognized Dad’s voice. She told me to get on my horse and see if I could catch Uncle Joe. I caught up with him and he rode back with me.

Dad had taken the train to Malad and then got a ride with someone from the valley.

Warren's Story

Dad was in a corral at the stockyards when a loco horse came running across the corral from behind, hitting him and knocking him half way across the corral. He was taken to a hospital, unconscious. He was in the hospital for three weeks and came home as soon as he could. upposed to call and tell us. We didn’t have a phone, so they would have had to call the store ten miles away. If they did, we never got the message.

Uncle Jess came after the harvest and thrashing was over, just in time to help me get started on the grain drill. We would fill the grain drill box about twelve feet and go a couple of rounds then fill it again. He gave me a lecture on how I had to be the man of the place. He stayed three days and then he was gone.

The seed had to be treated in a fifty gallon barrel with water and blue viteral to kill the smut germs. If it wasn’t done, the kernels would turn to black powder (no good). Dad fixed a tripod over the barrel and fastened a block and tackle to the top, tie a small rope around top of a gunny sack, then let it soak for a few minutes, pull it out to let the water drain out. Then repeat it until all the grain was done. The following year I had to do this, treating the grain, as we called it, myself.