Daniels Idaho Farmer 1914-1923
One day while in this mood a friend of mine came to town. He was a farmer and lived about one hundred miles north of Logan. He wanted me to go with him, he said he knew where there was a place to be had on the public domains that I could homestead, but I was broke flat and told him so. He said he had ten dollars that he could let me have so I could go. This I accepted, fixed up my tool box, left six children with my wife, and started for the farm by team. We were three days on the trip. I went to look at the place he had spotted for me in the mouth of a little canyon, with a beautiful spring of water flowing through it, but could be used for culinary purposes only. But it looked good to me, so I filed on it, borrowing more money from my friend. While there I worked for the farmers at my trade for the summer, and trying to make arrangements to build a house. At the same time I worked in my spare time for my pal to pay my board while there. In the fall I went home with seventy five dollars to winter on and started to make preparations to sell my home which had a two hundred dollar mortgage on it that I could not redeem.
Finally in the spring of the same year or the year of 1914, I traded my place for a team of bay horses, a wagon, and an old harness and the man assumed the mortgage. I then took my oldest boy with me and started for the new ranch and home where I arrived the third day. My friend and I took two teams and logged out some small logs and built a two-roomed house in the sagebrush. The boy and I borrowed another team from my pal and then came back. We had no finance and things looked rather dark to start for a hundred miles and a wife and family with hardly anything to eat and no money. But with determination my wife and I were willing to go with hopes for the future. We had 25 lbs of flour and a part of a ham, some coffee, and sugar and that was all. My youngest brother went with us. The first night we camped, my wife had a bucket of coffee on the campfire when my brother and my boy got to scuffling and kicked the coffee bucket over and scalded the little boy’s leg from the knee down and all the flesh came off. It was three months before this healed. Up.
After three days travel, we finally reached the ranch and started work. Father and mother came to visit us for a while, mother went back home, but father stayed with us that summer. He and I worked at our trade that summer. I did not do any farming that summer, but next year we broke some new land and raised a small crop. Father left us and did not come back to the place any more after this. This was in 1915, I did not work any more for wages but stayed on the farm.
During the years of 15, 16, and 17 we accumulated a few stock, chickens, horses, cows and a few sheep and things looked quite favorable. By this time the family had increased to seven children, two girls and five boys. When the war was going on, land came up in value and grain was high and I decided I did not have enough land so I bought 160 acres more land, thinking that the price of wheat would soon pay for the land.
We plowed all this new place and planted it in spring grain and watched it burn up all summer, no rain. The seed for this crop I bought at $1.40 per bushel and did not harvest enough to pay the seed back. Still I had the courage so I planted the same ground into winter wheat, borrowing the seed at the rate of $2.10 per bushel and it came up fine that fall.
Then we had another girl presented to us, but all the ups and downs and the large family did not discourage my wife, she was healthy and strong, she never missed a meal if we had it in the house.
The crop still looked favorable in the spring but wilted before harvest. However, I got enough to pay for the seed and our bread but going in debt a little more all the time. I planted another crop with hopes for the better, this was in the year of 1918. The crop was in full swing and wheat was at a good price, so it still looked possible to make good and the crop yielded about half of what I should have had. Nevertheless we appreciated it very much as it was better than we had had so far. The drafting for men was getting close to my age, however, it came within one of being my turn before the armistice was signed.
We had been living on substitute for so long that I was almost a dead man. Well, however, I again planted my crop and looked forth to the future in the year 1919 but did not get any more than usual, only another boy which was not unusual, however this was number nine, and my financial conditions becoming worse all the time, but I still looked forth for next year which is the farmers only hope.
We again planted winter wheat and got an excellent stand of wheat, and that fall or the fall of 1920, wheat was $2.60 per bushel. The crop grew fine and ripened excellently, so my neighbor and I got busy and prepared for a bounteous harvest and was all ready to cut the grain within three days, when all of a sudden there came a hail storm and completely destroyed the crop. So that was another season gone and nothing accomplished. One year or so prior to this time I had lost one horse after another one or two months apart until they numbered seven and two cows in a space of eighteen months. In my opinion this takes courage.
My older boys were growing up into manhood and had received practically nothing for their labor so we decided it was best for them to get out for themselves which they did, working here and there just taking care of themselves.
About two months after the hail storm another surprise came to us. Just like the old saying, ( A fool for luck, and a poor man for babies) . Babies is right, for this time it was twin boys. This made the family number eleven and my wife and I were thirteen. My wife was forty years of age and I was forty one. This was the last of the family. They are now six years of age and the whole family has always been healthy, thank the Lord for that much.
We again planted our crop and obtained about the same as usual, however enough for a living for another winter. In the year of 1922 we raised another half crop which hardly paid expenses and by this time I began to feel like there was no use trying anymore so I started to look for another location. My creditors were crowding me pretty hard. This started me worrying considerably, and I had my crop in again but it did not look any better than usual, so I went with father down to the state of Nevada to work at my trade again. I worked about two months and found that the firm I was working for was no good, they had no money. However I got of what I had coming and went home. The balance I did not receive until the following December. Father stayed on the job and lost one year’s work and I stayed home and harvested my crop which did not pay my expenses. My creditors were crowding me worse than ever and began to take my implements from me. This time my only backer suddenly died leaving all he had in an estate so I could not obtain a settlement until it was probated. My mortgage being in this estate, I tried and tried to come to some settlement but could not when finally after months of worry we decided there was only one way out and that was bankruptcy. Between the family we had a few sheep that we sold to pay for this bankruptcy which we did. The next thing was to find a place to go.
I then went back to my home town and located a job on a big dairy ranch at a salary of $65.00 per month and at the same time I was sick with the ulcers of the stomach and went under the doctors care for some time. When I recovered from this, I went back to the ranch after my folks.
We piled up the few belongings we had and started with teams in a big storm for a hundred mile trip which took four days, and landed with $65.00 in cash, a team, harness, and wagon, and a second hand Ford car.
Then my wife’s health began to fail owing to the change of life and bad teeth causing more expense. This was the year of 1924 and in 1925 we were still on the dairy ranch, it was a very tiresome job. My family were all home except the oldest daughter who had married some three years before and was living in Idaho. My father’s health was very poor so he could not work at all. Having no finance he was in need of help too but I was unable to help him. Three years in the family was a boy now married and not too well fixed. Going back to my job this has become so monotonous that I began to look for another place. I found a place to lease with forty acres of land which I soon moved to.
Just as I started to move, my thirteen year old boy took sick and had to be operated on for appendicitis which meant more expense. However I had located a job to work at along with the place, in a service station, which I relied on for a livelihood. Just ten days after I started, some difficulty came up and I read quite a number of Macfadden’s story magazines so I decided to write one with the hopes of getting something out of it.
As I now write my conditions look very dark but the old saying is (the darkest is always before the dawn). This story may not be of much interest to the possible readers but I will write a few lines heere that is interesting to me, and if reflected on for a while, will be to many others, and that is, that my wife and I have just as much love for one another as the day we were married. We have gone through twenty years of struggle without a quarrel of any consequence and still in the same temperament and hope to be the rest of our days.
(picture of the original home and outbuildings), ( The Forsberg home – 1945), (The Daniels community building for school and church. (Daniels School class 1923-David and Dorothy Forsberg) (Front row #4 and & #5 from left, 3rd and 1st grade.)