(This picture of my first home was taken some 28 years after we had moved away.)
The two room log house that had the cracks chinked up with clay and rags to keep the wind out, a dirt roof that leaked when the dirt got soaked up with water, the rough board floor that had slivers where Mother didn’t have home-made rugs; the one Monarch wood range that served as cook stove, heater, and all else that was in need of heat, the home-made beds made from rough boards with straw mattresses that were put in the corners where they wouldn’t take up too much room; the warm quilts made by my Mother’s very capable hands covered the beds; the curtains made from flour sacks dyed to add a little color hung from the windows, the little cupboard that held the meager supply of the necessary eating utensils; the wood box that stood close to the stove to hold the fuel to keep the fire burning; the table,a and few chairs, and bench just large enough for all to get around, all this in the two-room house which was set in a very beautiful but cold spot, located three and one half miles east of the one-room school house that serves as school, church, and all other meetings, and the one little store that stood across the road from the school house in Daniels, Oneida County, Idaho.
I was born on the 25 December 1914 on a very cold but beautiful Christmas Day to a very wonderful Mother and Father, with Aunt Bert, as we called her (Mother’s sister Bertha) as midwife. She had come to help Mother at this time.
Awaiting my arrival with great anticipation were my four brothers and two sisters; known in order as Roy, Kate, May, Melvin, Elmer, and Harold.
I was blessed on 7 February 1914 by Brother Lorenzo Eggertz, and given the name of David Fredrick Forsberg. I don’t know where the David came from, but Fredrick came from my very good Grandfather Gilgen, on my Mother’s side. Forsberg came from a very honorable family in Sweden. Fors –means stream or rapid, berg– means mountain. I hope that I can always keep it honorable and clean.
My early childhood went along fairly smooth with the usual bumps and bruises.
We were located some 20 miles from the nearest town, Malad, except for the little country store, so we depended pretty much on the Lord for our cures, etc. My food and clothing were all very much appreciated as it was hard to get hold of any money at all. I don’t remember of ever having any money of my own until we moved to Logan.
Dad would take the horses and a wagon loaded with wheat in the early spring, or on the sleigh in the fall. He would take it to town and come home with the things he could get. It was generally made up of sugar, flour, Karo syrup, mostly canned goods, and maybe a new pair of shoes for one of us, or a pair of overalls (never dress slacks). It was always an overnight trip to town.
One thing we could always look forward to when Dad went to town; on his return he would always have a little sack of candy, mostly hardtack. On his entrance, he would always hand it to Mother and she would hand it out, a piece or two to eleven of us.
He would leave with a pretty nice day to go to town with a sleigh loaded with grain, and four head of horses. He would always take four head of horses. A nice day and nice track to get out on, and most of the time, he never knew whether he would have a good track to get back in on or not. Most of the time it would snow while he was gone, then the poor horses would have to buck that snow to get back through. By the time he got home, they would really be worn out.
We had only a very little bit of hay. The horses would get fed straw with very little hay in it when Dad got home.
Summertime was very pleasant. In winter we would have fun with homemade sleighs and skis. The mountains were our East door-yard.
I remember the little wagon that Dad made with a wooden box and iron wheels on it, which we had lots of fun with.
Most of the summertime we had to go bare-footed to save our shoes. I would wear my shoes to church, and as soon as we got home, we had to take them off and put them away. We didn’t have any Mutual or any other activity at that time. Our Church consisted of Sunday School and Sacrament meeting all held one after the other.
We used to tramp the hills and hike all over. I remember when we would hike the hills all the time.
I started school when I was seven because my birthday was in December. Miss Velma Palmer from North Logan, Utah was my teacher. I had her for the first, second, and part of the third grades. We little kids would get to ride the horse sometimes to school. It was 3 ½ miles one way. The big kids always had to walk. Most of the time we had to walk, though.
The schoolhouse just had one big stove in the corner. Just a wood stove. There were two rooms in the school. This stove had to heat the whole school. We would get caught once in a while in a blizzard or a rain storm while walking to school or going home. Winter mornings, walking to school was very cold. We had some caps that we would pull right down to our shoulders, with just two holes for our eyes to see out. The moisture from our breath would freeze on the cap, it would be so cold. When the teacher saw us coming, she would always make the other kids get away from the stove so we could get up to it and get warm.
(Picture at school when I was in third grade.)
One of the highlights I always enjoyed was when Dad let me drive the team of horses going home from Church or something.
I remember during the depression of about 1922, when I was about seven years old. About all we had to eat was flour made into mush. Mother would fix it in different ways. We would make a big pan of this flour mush, and she would cook it different ways. Sometimes she would fry it and we could maybe have a little Karo syrup on it.
We only had one old black cow milking at that time, and she didn’t give much, being fed on straw most of the time. There were then fourteen of us around the table that winter. My cousin stayed with us that winter.
Mother would bake eight big loaves of bread every day, and we would take in our lunch to school a piece of bread with maybe a little syrup on it. We each had a sandwich or two.
Dad had a little band of sheep, about 100 or 120 head of them. In the summertime we would turn them out on the mountain to graze. It was up to us younger kids to watch them and kind of herd them. Coyotes were quite plentiful, so they would get away with a sheep once in a while.
We would turn the cows up in the canyon to graze during the daytime, and had to go find them on the horses at night and bring them home.
We used to have some bad thunderstorms. We never knew when one was going to come up. My sister, May, and I were after the cows one night on one horse named Sport. We had ridden up the canyon quite a ways before we found them. We were just starting back when one of these storms hit. The lightning hit a high pine tree and laid it down across the path in front of us. We really got soaked with rain. There was a creek running down in front of the place, and it had quite a lot of water in it at that time. We used to catch some nice trout out of it with a string and a bent pin on a hook.
We went to the canyon lots of times with Dad to get wood and logs out. We had an old horse named Sam that was a light bay. He was all our favorite horse. Dad had him when he moved up there, and kept him until we moved back down. Dad would hitch him to a log, and tell him to take it home, and he would be waiting by the woodpile when we got home.
Our closest neighbors were the Rudolph Ruegsegger’s. They lived about a quarter of a mile west of us for about seven years. Then they moved down closer to the schoolhouse. Other than that, we never had any other neighbors within about three miles. Brother Ruegsegger was plowing up on a hill on his dry-farm when he hit a rock with the plow. It threw him off and onto the mowboard of the plow. The mowboard cut his leg up high , a gash about 6 inches long, and quite deep. Somehow he managed to get back down to the house. He was bleeding a great deal. Us kids were playing when he came back down, and Dad was way over across the hollow, the opposite direction, about 1 ¼ miles from the house. They sent three of us, Elmer, Harold, and I after him. Our sorrel saddle horse was turned out up on top of the hill toward where Dad was plowing. I happened to have a piece of pretty tough string in my pocket about four feet long. My older brother, Elmer, took this string and caught the horse. He caught the horse, Sport, and rode out to where Dad was, and in a very short while, here came Dad back through the field just as hard as the horse could run, no bridle or nothing, the string had broken. He jumped the horse over the fence and straight down the hill to Brother Ruegsegger. He rushed in to Brother Ruegsegger. The only thing he had was some flour and water. He made a paste out of this, and put it on the leg. This was the only way he could stop the bleeding.
I don’t remember whether Mr. Ruegsegger ever went to the Doctor or not. I don’t believe he did. But he was awfully weak from the loss of blood.
( picture of John Ruegsegger sitting on a truck.)
John Ruegsegger was my age. We chumed together all the time. One day when we were walking home from school on a beautiful spring day, there was Dorothy, John, and I. About one-half way home we came upon an owl that was caught in the barbed wire fence by his wing. We crawled through the wire and went round and round trying to get it dizzy so we could get hold of it. We finally gave up. Jake Newhouse came along with some leather gloves on, and caught it for us. He tied its wings above it. One wing was broken. He handed the owl to me. I carried it all the way home. With the help of my brother Roy, we put a splint on its wing, then put it in a rabbit pen. I would feed it scraps, and a mouse now and then. I kept it there a month or two. It got quite tame. It would take a mouse without taking my fingers. Finally when its wing was better, I p;ut it up on the corner of the chicken coop and let it loose. It hung around for a few days, and then disappeared.
My youngest sister, Dorothy, was quite a tomboy. She would climb anything. There was a big beehive of yellowjackets in the Cottonwood tree, about ½ way up –down in the corral by the side of the creek. The beehive looked deserted. John Ruegsegger and I were trying to get it, but we couldn’t climb the tree because there were no low branches. Dorothy came to where we were, we gave her a boost, and she climbed the tree. It was out on the limb a little too far, and she couldn’t reach it, so I told her to shake it down. She gave the limb a big shake, and out came a big stream of yellowjackets out of that thing, and headed straight for her. She fell out of the tree, lit on the edge of the creek. We helped her out of the creek, and went running in different directions. The bees followed her. She ran screaming to the house. She was a sight, her eyes and face all swollen up. Mother sent me back down for mud off the creek-bed, and she put it on Dot which helped to heal the stings.
One day my older brother Melvin wanted old Sport, our riding pony, and he asked my sister, Dorothy and I to get the horse for him, he was over to our neighbors in the field on the hill. We got nearly up there, and Dorothy got kind of sick, so I left her in the shade while I went on to get the horse. I got about 25 yards from him where he was standing asleep ( he was always easy to catch), and there was a coyote digging a hole. It startled me so I ran back down as fast as I could go and told my sister that a fox was digging a hole under Sport. Then we both ran home ( I think she forgot she was sick then) and breathlessly told Melviin. He laughed and took the bridle and got the horse himself. He said the coyote had left, but there was a fresh hole partly dug by the horse.
When we were coming home from Church one Sunday, and were about two-thirds of the way home; there were eight of us riding in the heavy Ludlow Buggy as it was called. It was a four wheeled buggy with a canvas top to shed the rain and shade from the sun. It was quite warm, and my younger brother, Leo and I were in the front by the dashboard. I was driving the horses, and Leo was playing a little by leaning over the dashboard when he lost his balance and tumbled out. Before Dad could grab the lines and stop the horses, both wheels had passed over Leo from his shoulder slanted across his chest and off. He was only about 3 or 4 years old. He was gasping for breath, and Dad picked him up and put him on Mother’s lap and we hurried home. They laid him on the bed and knelt down and prayed for him. Later in the afternoon he was outside playing as if nothing had happened. The Lord is still the best Doctor, all you need is the faith.