Joseph Hyde Josephson and Elizabeth Thorpe
By Vernal Josephson
13 February 1979
Dad, sometimes during his reclining years when he was reduced to puttering around in the garage and reminiscing to himself over old photographs of his youth, wrote a short “Memories of My Dad’s Life,” and added a single paragraph on his own married life. In essence, he said he grew up and lived trying to get along in life. He claimed no great accomplishments and showed pride only in activities during his youth and his sheepshearing ability. His story is appended to this history.
Mother wrote nothing of which I am aware, so I am trying as well as I can remember to describe them and their characters, their lives together and their accomplishments. Any omissions, wrong emphasis, or apparently misplaced loyalties are unintentional in trying to summarize their lifetimes.
They were an odd, but remarkable couple. How they got together and stayed together is a mystery, considering the strong, stubborn, independent, and secretive nature they both possessed. In retrospect, their lives represent a strong devotion and adherence to ideals and morals instilled in them by their parents. Thus, antagonisms were suppressed to the point that their lives together represented an uneasy but workable truce. They really loved each other deeply but they were unwilling or unable to indicate it overtly. However, there were unguarded moments when it could be detected in their glances at each other.
Mother’s parents came from England (Manchester) and Wales (Tregaran) in 1862 and 1863 by their parents who were converts to the Mormon Church. Grandmother was a small child (8 years old) when her parents emigrated and she helped push a handcart across the plains. Although she came from Wales, I don’t remember her speaking Welsh, other than for a few expressions like “isterlou” and “quinnylaan bukin.” However, her cooking skills (which Mother inherited – particularly in apple pies) was like the Welsh cooking I sampled on my visit in 1972 to the Welsh region where she was born. Grandfather was 10 years her senior and was 10 years old when he and his parents emigrated in 1862. My earliest remembrance of Grandmother and Grandfather Thorpe was when I was about 4 years old and we often visited them at their home in Pleasant View, Idaho, about 1 ¾ miles from our place. I’ve often dreamed of their large white home, the upstairs, the attic, the parlor (used only on special occasions) and the hidden passageways (which I probably imagined). Since mother was the oldest of 12 children, my initial spoiling probably came at the hands of my aunts (Urilla and Kate) and uncles (Ray and Bill). Although they were probably in their teens at the time, they seemed so adult and world-wise. They were wonderful to us.
Father’s parents came from Sweden during the same period and settled in St. John. Dad was also from a large family – 12 children, although from two wives. I have only one faint recollection of Grandfather Josephson. I could not have been more than three and he died shortly after. However, I recall that he was visiting us sitting on Mother’s rocking chair, and I sat on his lap. I suppose I felt his heavy beard but I don’t remember. Grandfather Josephson’s family had emigrated to Calgary, Canada, when Dad was about 22 years old. They subsequently returned and settled around Rexburg, Idaho. Consequently we had little contact with relatives on Dad’s side (except for their infrequent visits). I met most of them when Joe and I visited them after our trip to Yellowstone Park in 1936. Our visit to the McClains and my subsequent correspondence with cousin Dorothea raised Mother’s protective hackles considerably since she felt I was vulnerable to predatory females – none of whom she trusted or liked, particularly cousins on Dad’s side of the family.
Mother grew up in Pleasant View, Idaho. She went to elementary school there. She worked on Grandfather’s farm and also hired out. She met Dad when she was a cook at a shearing corral. Sheepshearing was an annual affair on Devil Creek where all the sheep owners brought their sheep. At that time, Dad was considered one of the fastest sheepshearers around and was, no doubt, smug and proud of it as he should have been. Mother is alleged to have swung a floor mop at him and wrapped it around his neck when he was pestering her – Mother always disclaimed it but felt that he deserved it.
Dad grew up in St. John, Idaho, and worked on his father’s ranch until the family sold the ranch and moved to Didsburg, Canada. Dad went with them originally. After two years, Dad returned to the Malad Valley area where he worked as a sheepshearer as mentioned earlier. The remainder of Dad’s family returned from Canada after one year and most of them settled around Rexburg, Idaho. Only Aunt Hannah (Anderson) and Aunt Mary Jayne (Reed) returned to Malad Valley.
I don’t know much about Mother’s and Dad’s courtship except isolated incidents such as the floor mop affair. I expect that it ended in a mutual truce in which they both admitted (privately) that they had met their match and mate. I’m not sure whether Mother’s parents really approved of Dad, due to his unsettling previous occupations, and particularly for his taking Mother to the Teton Basin where he and his brothers started a sawmill.
The sawmill experience was not particularly rewarding for either of them. Mother missed her own folks and bitterly resented having to be chief cook and bottlewasher for Dad’s brothers. Dad apparently was not much of a businessman and had little regard for forest rangers and their determination of which trees could be cut. The result was a failing business which Mother and Dad gave up and returned to Malad (about 1909) where they made a down payment on a piece of farmland in Pleasant View, close enough to Grandfather Thorpe’s farm to allow frequent visits for Mother and her children, and far enough from Dad’s family to eliminate any effective contact. Dad, I think, felt he was an alien in a group which, while tolerating him, let him know where their moral support lay.
The farm consisted of 80 acres of level land suitable for dry farming. Its southern edge bordered on swampy meadow land – a small swamp was in the southeast corner of the farm and provided water for cattle which were pastured there. The original price for the farm was $6,000, and the down payment was $1,000 which was their sole remaining wealth from the sawmill business. The unpaid balance and interest on it was a bitter burden for all of us for many years. Its severity is illustrated by the fact of six farmers who had made down payments on similar farms from the original half section (320 acres), only Dad and Mother hung in until many years later when (about 1931) the owner, John E. Jones, compromised and reduced the price rather than take it back. Land was not selling during the 1930 depression period.
Dad, along with Granddad Thorpe’s help, built a small three-room frame house (kitchen, living room, and bedroom) near the northeast corner. The local well witcher and Almy Wight, the local well digger were hired to locate a likely site and drill a well. The result was a 120-ft deep 3-inch diameter artesian well which (until it went dry) provided excellent water for the family, garden, and farm animals.
My earliest recollections which I can date were when I was four because I remember saying as Dad took Joe, 8, and Elizabeth, 6, to school – “In two more summers and two more winters, I’ll be able to go to school.” Joe and Elizabeth were in the same grade because Joe, as a baby, was sickly and Mother was over protective of him then and for the rest of his life.
Joe and Elizabeth were born at Grandfather Thorpe’s houses, the log house and the new white two-story home, respectively. I was born in our home. Two other children, Mary Ellen and a baby boy, born later (3 and 4 years) died soon after or at birth. I vaguely remember their funerals. I was thus the baby and probably would have been spoiled even more by Mother if she had not been spending most of her protective interests on Joe. Elizabeth must have felt left out, but I don’t recall any evidence of it in her attitudes.
Life during those early days was very pleasant. In the summer we played on the lawn and in the orchard, and in the winter we skated on the ice in the meadow and sledded on the hill in W. John’s place. Mother and Dad were very comforting people in that they supported our amusements and made sure we were well clothed and as healthy as they could assure. Only later, when we became more demanding or more observant of them could we detect the uneasy truce between them. This was usually characterized by long periods of silence on Dad’s part when he would seldom come in the house, followed by emotional outbursts by Mother. Then all would be serene for a period.
My earliest recollections of the Pleasant View farm were of raising mainly alfalfa which was fed to milk cows and their calves. The lower 20 acres was pasture, having succumbed to the alkaline deposits from the irrigation system. The next 20 acres was devoted to grain and potato growing. The remainder, except for the building area, garden and orchard, was alfalfa.
The irrigation was provided by the local water system which diverted water from the Malad River. We were on the end of a ditch about 3 miles long, so we had the hardest task in maintaining the ditch and preventing “accidental” diversion of water during our turn by users closer to the source. My most distinct remembrances of the ditch include the onerous ditch cleaning each spring, the numerous times we had to re-dig the ditch around slide-outs caused by Bishop Jones’ cattle which always managed to tromp in the weakest places, and Bishop Jones chastising Dad for repairing the ditch on Sunday (his water turn) instead of going to church. It is a tribute to Dad’s tolerance and forbearance in that he didn’t whale me for complaining about ditch cleaning, or tell the Bishop off. He took the latter silently, but his church attendance decreased sharply afterwards.
About 1912, Dad homesteaded a 320 acre sagebrush farm in Buist, Idaho, about 25 miles from the Pleasant View farm. Travel was by wagon or buggy over very rough roads and required about 8 hours for the trip. Dad would spend the week there while Mother stayed in Pleasant View with us children, ran the farm, and milked the cows.
Dad started to dig a well by hand, but gave up when he was able to get Bill Winters to drill a well about 200 yards west of the original site and across the dry stream bed of the Sheep Creek. River?
Bill Winters drilled the well 20 feet from where the well witcher had advised, and hit an approximately 5 ft. layer of water above solid rock. The well witcher maintained that his site would have been in the middle of the underground river rather than on the edge. However, the well never ran dry and the water depth was always the same whenever we pulled the pipe to replace cylinder leathers in the cylinder located at the well bottom. The water was pumped, first by hand, then by wind when a Samson Mill was erected, and by automotive power (rear wheel of the Model T truck) that summer when the wind did not blow (abt 1932).
Dad built a 16 ft. square one-room bungalow in which we all lived when we moved to the ranch for the summer. It was moved from the original well site to the new site after the well was drilled. In my earliest recollections of living on the ranch, the house had not been moved and water was obtained from the Hartman well about a half mile distant. It was transported in a wooden 50-gallon barrel mounted on skids and pulled by a horse. Needless to say, water was rationed and used for hand washing until you could cut it with a knife.
Dad’s job as a homesteader was to fence the tract, clear the land, build a house, and produce a crop. All to demonstrate that he had the ability and desire to deserve a farm and that he could make the ground produce – all within 3 years.
I don’t remember the fencing effort, but I recall riding on Dad’s lap on the sulky plow breaking sagebrush. The jarring events included being tossed off the plow when it hit a hidden rock and overturned. The hairy, exciting events were in hitting a sagebrush where a rattlesnake was sleeping and having it suddenly slither up to join our feet on the plow. Dad casually disposed of it with a convenient rock and continued plowing. Only years later did I regret having unnecessarily killed so many rattlesnakes. None of us were ever harmed by them.
In retrospect, it is a great tribute to Dad’s and Mother’s grit, determination, and perseverance that they were able to develop two farms with no powered conveniences and were able to hang onto them through financial difficulties, depressions, and severe weather conditions. In addition, we owe them a great debt of gratitude in supporting our educational desires far beyond their own achievements and in instilling in us the same traits of stubbornness, independence, and self-sufficiency which they had.
I think my relationships were closer with Mother than with Dad in that she was more vocal in her feelings and fiercely protective of us against the public. She always seemed to feel that others looked down on us. She resented our not having a school wagon to go to the elementary school 2 miles away while others in the opposite end of the district did. However, she always saw that we were clean, well clothed, and on time for school. She was very proud when I graduated from high school, the youngest in my class, but she strongly opposed my going to Weber College after three years of winter boredom when I missed school because of the depression. I suppose she mainly objected to losing her “baby.” Later, when I began showing interest in girls, she became more reactionary in her attitude both toward my actions and the few girls I talked to or dated. Such girls were a real threat to her family unit which she did not want changed. Her reactions were the same in Elizabeth’s case – extreme covert hostility to her few boy friends.
I’m not sure she ever forgave Glenna, my wife, for stealing me from her. Consequently, although our visits home after marriage were infrequent, I was never sure of our welcome. While we were in Montreal and Boston (1939 to 1945) only one short visit (1942) was made. Glenna and Sandra stayed only briefly with Mother and Dad after I left for Boston, then she wisely went to Cedar City for the rest of the summer with her parents. The magnetism of the 2 year old child, Sandra, was not strong enough to cancel the repulsive forces between Mother and Glenna. Dad seemed to have been a silent spectator.
Later visits when we were at Los Alamos, New Mexico, were less restrained in that we made them help in the harvest and let the three children enjoy ranch life, and because we had more independence of movement – the cost and time for the trip was much less than from Boston, and we could better afford it.
Growing up with Dad was, in a way, fascinating in that you could never predict his moods or reactions. Based on what I know of his youth and activities and what he somehow had learned, he did not want to be a farmer. He spent some time at Rexburg Academy studying bookkeeping and was very good at arithmetic. I remember spending many hours looking at his marvelous book of Palmer method script writing and pictures of animals made using the method. I don’t recall him practicing such script, but he could draw beautiful horses – a desire for art? He was very proud of his sheepshearing ability and the respect others had for him – a desire for recognition? He once had a fabulous carpenter toolchest and was quite competent in the use of tools until we children ruined or lost them. He loved the forests, based on first hand observations when we were obtaining logs for the ranch house. He might have become a successful lumberman, if allowed. Thus, I feel that he felt forced into being a farmer and spent his life trying to make the best of it and trying to make Mother happy, even though he would have preferred another existence.
Dad was always interested in new farm machinery. Consequently, he had one of the first threshing machines driven by true horse power – three horses hooked to a “merry-go-round” which was connected via “tumbling rods” to the thresher. One of the first two-cylinder John Deere tractors was later purchased to power and pull the thresher from farm to farm. Hired hands were required, and Dad’s compassion always overrode his judgement in hiring. He always hired men who were needy but usually they were lazy and exercised little judgement. As a consequence, we always ended up paying for damaged equipment and obtaining minimum work. I guess those numerous experiences have made me very skeptical of the need for massive welfare support for the needy – they are generally in that situation due to lack of initiative and judgement.
By the time I left the farm life, Dad had changed farming from true horse power to fully motorized in order to eliminate the need for outside help at any time. True independence. Occasionally, we used the harvester to do custom cutting, but any hired help survived only if he did his contracted job – which usually was to work as hard as we did and not make any errors of judgement such as not tying a Helson hitch tight enough on a 100 lb sack of grain to ensure that it would not come open in handling.
Working on the farm with Dad was interesting in retrospect but dull at the same time. He knew how to pick up a large hay pile and pitch it above his head onto a loaded hayrack without the pile breaking up and dropping hay leaves down his neck, and without leaving many scraps to clean up. Although each pile would be different in size, shape, compactness, and weight, he could instinctively pick it up and lever it into the inverted hoisting position in one fluid movement. It was a joy to watch him and to learn to do it even though he was impatient at our slowness in learning. He would say, “After all, it’s easier and takes less time and effort to do it right.” It was fun watching Dad compete with Uncles Ray, Thomas, and Ed at haypitching and seeing Dad’s glow of satisfaction working with equally good haypitchers. These were the types with which Dad liked to work.
He also knew how to train horses for farm work so that they would instinctively do the right thing if urged on by appropriate cue words and a well-delivered whip snap. I must admit that I acquired a choice vocabulary of cuss words from him to which I later added a few I probably made up.
He always worked as hard as he could at any task, and during harvest, long hours meant nothing except in assuring the job was finished before the hailstorms came. Only during the winter time when the ranch was snowed in did he slow down – even then he was always puttering away at something out in the shed.
The period from 1928 to 1936 was, I think, the most difficult for everyone. The depression and severe drought was hard on all of us. Dad continued to farm with horses even though the wheat yields were minimal (approximately 5 bushels per acre) and it sold for as low as 20 cents per bushel. Mother continued to milk cows and sell milk and cream. Her income provided most of the basic necessities while the ranch income almost paid for upkeep and debts.
We started spending summers on the ranch in 1932 after the log ranch house was built. We children began our socializing, mostly through church meetings with other young people. I don’t think either Dad or Mother approved, mainly due to the threat against Mother’s idea of keeping to ourselves, and to Dad’s belief that the lack of sleep resulting from our nocturnal socializing hindered our work ability and interests.
My decision to go to Weber College in 1934 was not welcome to either Dad or Mother. I think Dad instinctively knew that I would not become a farmer and take over the ranch when he retired. He also knew that Joe would require parental care indefinitely. The only thing Dad did not realize was that he had squelched any desire I had for farming by never allowing us to farm part of the land as a business on our own to prove our capability.
Mother resented my going because I was “leaving the nest.” However, she provided weekly food parcels and helped all she could.
From 1934 until 1937 when I married Glenna, I spent only the summers with them helping run the farm and making it prosper sufficiently to provide new power equipment – the diesel tractor and harvester, with which we custom cut many acres of grain.
Life from then on through the war years was much easier for them. Crops were good, and prices were high. They sold the home in Pleasant View and built a new home in Malad as Mother could have more social life without requiring Joe or Dad to drive her since she never learned to drive.
Granddad and Grandmother Thorpe died early in the 1930s so Mother had relied strongly for family support on her brothers Thomas, Joe, and Ed, and on Uncle Eph’s sons. She was happy when her nephew Clem Thorpe built the new home, but she was very unhappy at his repeated delays and overruns in costs. I don’t know what Dad’s reaction was, but I suspect he was secretly glad to see her kin found sadly lacking in the same traits for which she had objected in Dad’s relatives or hired help.
They continued to farm the ranch for a few years after Joe died in 1959. How they managed I’m not sure. After they sold the farm to Elizabeth and Ronald, they lived in Malad. Dad spent most of his time down in the furnace room – the only room in the house where Mother would let him smoke – a habit he had always had, to my recollection. He nailed all of his old photographs on the wall and reminisced. He alternated this with driving erratically around town – his youthful eagle eyesight long since having dimmed.
When Mother was no longer able to cope with his frailties and activities, he was placed in a rest home in Ogden, Utah, where he died. He bitterly resented this and the last time we visited him there, he pleaded with us to take him back to his childhood home (no longer existing) in St. John.
Mother lived alone in the home in Malad until she broke her hip when she slipped and fell on the ice. She never regained mobility and spent the rest of her life in Logan with Elizabeth and in a rest home.
Two extraordinary people, disguised as simple farmers, respected by all (even though it was not always expressed) and able to survive through many hardships while rearing us to adulthood with enough savvy and common sense to be equally self-sufficient. They were such wonderful people. I wonder why we did not realize it and tell them?
By Vernal Josephson