Grade School Years
In April 1936 Dad
bought a farm at a price of $7500 across the river in Weston, where Uncle Art
Moser’s family had lived a few years previous.
It was an exciting place with a nice home and a big barn. There were 40 acres of irrigated land, 60
acres of dry farm, and 20 acres of lower pasture. We raised sugar beets, peas,
beans, corn, potatoes, and alfalfa on the irrigated land, and wheat and barley
on the dry area. All of our farming was
done with horses. We had a small herd of cow that I would take to and bring
back from pasture. We always had a good dog which could be a big help in
bringing in the cows. There was first Jeff, then Napoleon, and Wolfe. I rode a
pony to bring in the cows and horses. I preferred bare back and was a good horseman.
There was always too
much work, resulting in big weeds in the beet and potato fields. Since Dad was
often busy with other things, I spent many long days pulling giant weeds all
alone. On these long time I thought about the places around the world where
I had stamps in my collection. I poured
over maps and the news where World War II was being fought, hoping some day to
see these places.
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Grandpa Lundquist
smoked until a few years before his death. I would join him ono the sunny side
of the house or the smokehouse, where he loved to sit in the sun. He would roll
up his cigarettes in a most adept manner. He used Prince Albert, Half and Half,
and Bull Durham tobacco. He loved to sit
in the kitchen, where he would prop his legs on the over door and drink his
coffee. He would pour the hot coffee in
to its saucer, blow on it through his big white moustache and drink it from the
saucer. All of these things were fascinating to a young boy who loved his
grandpa.
| Grandpa Lundquist |
But the most memorable for me was the oft-repeated story he
told me about the picture of the ship Titanic about to hit the iceberg. Somehow
he would make the telling of it so compelling that I would listen raptly, and
then ask him again and again to tell it again. I would be sitting on his lap,
feeling his gentleness and love.
Another activity I enjoyed with Grandpa Lundquist was
fishing in Bear River, just below our farm.
He loved to fish and taught me to thread an angle worm onto a hook, then
throw the hook and sinker into the river.
He urged patience and quiet, saying that the fish would hear us talk and
would swim away. We caught many carp and
suckers, and an occasional catfish.
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| My first grade class picture. Can you find me in the middle row, right side? |
In the fall of 1936 I attended first grade in Weston, and
my teacher was Mrs. Nelson. It was about
this time that my dad bought me a .22 rifle, which held 21 rounds (bullets),
making it quite heavy for a six year old.
Then in the second grade my teacher was Mrs. Schoells, who held spelling
and addition contests frequently. I
excelled in and enjoyed these contests, usually in final competition with my
friend, Cleve Neuenswander. My teacher
in third grade was Laurel Jones. At about this time I became very active in
playing marbles in a circle ring at recess.
Each player would put up so many marbles in the ring, and then lag
toward the ring at the far side to see who would shoot first. I won most of the time and eventually won the
tournament as the champion. We played another marble game where there were a
series of holes in the dirt, which we shot our taw into, and then progressed on
until we became “poison”, then to seek out our opponents to hit (poison) them.
Another game that we played often at recess and noon-hour
was “last one on the bridge is it”. On a
signal we would race toward the far side of the area. The last one to reach the far side, was
declared “it”, so it was his task to catch someone and pat them on the back so
that they could join him in catching others. Eventually several kids were
caught, making it easier to catch the faster kids. Usually it was the bigger
kids who were last, but they finally were caught and patted on the back.
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| Barry's 3rd grade report card |
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| Barry's 5th grade report card. You'll notice in the comments that he skipped to 6th grade mid-year, and adjusted admirably. |
When at home from school, there was always plenty to do
around the farm. We always had cows to
milk night and morning, plus feeding them and taking them to pasture during the
spring through fall. There were other
animals to feed: pigs, chickens, horses and sheep. We also hauled the winter supply of manure
out to spread on the fields. In the years when we had silage in the pits, we
had to haul it to the cows. When they knew it was nearing the barnyard, they
would throw their tails in the air and come running, because it was partially
fermented and delicious to the cows.
Because we always raised sugar beets, we had a quota of beet pulp and
molasses for purchase. We would go to
the sugar factory in Whitney and haul a load back to a pit new the feed
mangers. The cows loved both the pulp and the molasses, especially the latter.
They would have even eat straw if it had been covered with molasses.
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One of the reasons for Dad buying me a .22 rifle was the
big problem of ground squirrels in our fields. The squirrels were eating our
sugar beets and other crops. So Dad
agreed to give me 1 cent for every squirrel tail, obtained by either shooting
or trapping. I grew pretty good at
setting out traps, and was able to shoot a few.
The .22 shells cost 25 cents for 50 rounds. I enjoyed matching wits with
the squirrels and in saving our crops.
There was quite a problem with magpies in Franklin County,
so the county agreed to pay 5 cents for each magpie head. Magpies were clever
scavengers that ate chicken and pheasant eggs, and robbed grain and other
crops. I was always ready to try to
shoot them with my .22, but they were leery of people. One day, on the last day of grade school,
Carroll Whitney and I walked home from school in Weston down Weston Creek
toward our homes. On the way we robbed magpie nests of baby magpies. We
wrenched their necks, and snapped off their heads. We probably secured 20 heads
that day, paying us $1—a lot for boys during the depression.
One of the most interesting times for me as a boy was
skating on the frozen ponds in the river bottoms. Some of the ponds had gas bubbling up from
the pond bottom. I don’t know if it was natural gas or swamp gas. In any event, we could set it afire to warm
us on really frigid days. Our skates had
a broad strap that would cover our instep, with our toe caught under a hook in
the front. Needless to say, the skates
could be a little wobbly, and skating was not easy, but we had fun in the very
cold weather, sometime below zero.
Similarly, I had a pair of long broad skis that had a strap
over the instep. I would carry them to
the top of a hill in our pasture and then ride them down. It was a lot of hard
work for a few seconds of dash to the bottom of the hill. One Saturday a friend
and I carried our skis up the slopes of Big Hill south of Weston. We walked for several hours on the deep
crusted snow, sometimes falling through the crust. Finally we hopped on our
skis and raced down the long slopes of the grain fields covered with snow
toward town. It was all over in about 10
minutes. Too much hard work for the quick pleasure of the descent!
Everything in Weston revolved around church and school
activities. I recall participating in a Christmas musical program where I was
dressed in a crepe paper clown’s costume and played a water whistle. It was hot in the recreation hall over the
grade school and I must have brushed my face with my hand, which was wet with
drops from the water whistle. The result
unknown to me was that red coloring from the crepe paper was spread across my
face. What a sight and a matter of enjoyment to the audience.
Another event of ready recollection was a Primary program
in which our class did a dance to music.
My partner was Joan Olsen. Our dance required us to kick over the bowed
head of the partner. We practiced
without a flaw, but the night of the performance she must had lost
concentration because she kicked me in the head.
In grade school we always looked forward to the high
schoolers coming to announce some play or music program. They would snake up and down the aisles
chanting: “Your pep, your pep, you gotta
go get it or you’re going to lose it, your pep, your pep, your pep”.
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We always looked forward to holidays like Thanksgiving and
Christmas, because we usually got together with our cousins for a big dinner.
All of the mothers were great cooks, so we had wonderful things to eat. And then the men would sit around telling
stories, which we boys really enjoyed.
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While I was slow to learn to swim, this didn’t deter me
from joining other boys in going swimming with friends at the West Cache Canal
just above our home or down to Bear River a half mile below our house. We skinny-dipped. Some of the older boys would run atop the big
wooden flume across the gully rather than wade against the swift current inside
the flume. Since the road to Weston ran below the flume, the boys could be seen
by occupants of the cars driving by.
At Bear River there were big sandy beaches that sloped away
from the river where we could sun bathe or play in the sand. But the insects
were fierce due to the sloughs that abounded there. The worst pests were deer flies, followed by
mosquitos and other small insects. When
I learned how to swim, I especially enjoyed swimming in the river as it wound
around with deep hole and shallow places. As there were stories of people who
had drowned in Bear River, this gave the experience a touch of danger.
Sometimes in the hottest days of summer, Dennis and I would
sneak off from our weed hoeing to get a quick dip in the river just below our
fields.
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| Dennis and Barry. 1938 |
A vivid experience in which I did not observe the action,
but felt the gravity of the consequences, involved my .22 rifle and my brother
Dennis. I must have been about 13, and Dennis about 8. He had wanted to shoot
my .22 but I had resisted for a long time. One day I relented to his pleading
as we were finishing milking the cows. I
told him he could take the .22 to the house across the road from the barn. He
wanted to shoot some sparrows that were always pestering us.
Evidently he stopped at the side of the road between the
barn and the house, seeing plenty of sparrows in the box elder trees in front
of our house. He probably raised the
rifle up to sight on a sparrow, but before he could line up the gun sighs with
the sparrow the weight of the gun caused it to sag downward, thus foiling his
lining up the bird with the gun. After
several attempts, he apparently pulled the trigger, sending the bullet off
right toward our house. The bullet went
through our big front room window, on across the living room and through the
doorway into the kitchen, hitting the door of the refrigerator, and then
bounced back across the room to the feet of Grandma Lundquist, who was standing
at the sink. Dennis has claimed that the
bullet dropped into Grandma’s tea cup.
When Dad and I got to the house following milking the cows,
we were surprised at the alarm caused by the realization of the close call of
Grandma and others. Needless to say, it
was a long time before Den got to shoot the .22 again. The hole in the window
was not repaired for years, reminding us of the Lord’s blessing on our family.
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