Life Story
October 1976
(Cover page is a portrait of Rayond Jones Evans in a suit, sitting on a wicker chair and on the other side of the cover page, is three pictures: top left side is two children in blessing gowns caption says Raymond and Charles Evans. Top upper right picture shows three children in blessing gowns, captions says, Griff Davis, May Fredrickson, Raymond Evans. Bottom picture two children with a dog in between them, caption says: Raymond and Griff Davis, Towser)
I was born October 29, 1900, at Malad, Idaho. My father was William Morgan Evans and his wife, my mother, Mary Jones Evans. I will write what I remember but it won’t be in order.
I remember when I was a baby and we lived on the place up New Canyon that Duane Jensen has now. One of my first memories was of Mother holding my brother Evan, and I was screaming. There was a rattlesnake on the floor of the one room house. (The building is still there and is used as a granary.)
Another memory was of men bringing Robert Roberts to the house during the night, with a broken leg. He was deaf and dumb. Mother was alone at the time. Later the folks sold that place to Thomas Marley and he sold it to J. Peter Jensen.
I remember on the old ranch that my Grandparents Evans spoke Welsh. I remember playing around the old log house with the dirt roof. It had three rooms. One room had rows and shelves of cheeses. The cheese was sold to freighters going to Salmon River country and to Butte, Montana. The cheese was made by Grandmother Evans and her daughters, Aunt Annie, Alice and Mame. We next moved into the square log house down from the field under the hill. It had two rooms and we built a board shanty by the back door. We tore the old log house down and built a barn out of it. It still stands but the roof has caved in. I remember riding on a horse behind Aunt Alice taking the cows out. I would take them to the Northwest corner of the place Vernon Jones has now. It was open range clear to the Oxford Mountain. We turned the cows out and they could go for miles in any direction as there were no fences at all to stop them. In 1910 they started to raise wheat and built fences. I remember riding behind Morgan James on a buckskin horse over the land Bob has now. It was all grass to the horse’s knees. It had never been plowed. D.L. and L.L. Evans had the ranch joining ours. I remember a large corral, cutting several hundred head of cattle there. The two cowboys cutting them were Ed Williams and Bert Eliason.
When I was about 8 years old, I remember the way we farmed. We did not raise much grain and we would cut it with a binder, then shock the bundles, and then stack them and thresh them with the old horse pull thresher. I remember old Reese Jenkins, a red bandana around his neck, sitting on the horse power, (several teams of horses going round and round). The separator had a small platform by the cylinder. There was one man there to cut binder strings, one or two men pitching them up to him. One man measured the grain in bushel measure. I was stacking straw. A long wooden chain carried it up on the stack. Then came the header and straw threshers. The first combine I saw was a ‘Holt’. No engine, driven off the bull-wheel with 16 heads of horses. On the place Joe Ward has now. I have a picture of the old header in my genealogy book.
We used to plow with a hand plow, then Sulky one-bottom with three horses. Later a two-bottom with 6 horses and then a three-bottom with 8 horses. We then went to a tractor. The first combine we had was a McCormic. It drove off of a bull-wheel. We later put an engine on it. I was partnered with Joe Neifnegger. We would knock out a bearing in about three days, or pistols as Joe called them. When one would go, it would knock a hole in the crankcase. The bagger was sitting right by it and it would just miss his head. We had several different combines over the years. We got the first Hillside in 1945, the first self-propelled about 1950.
When I was about 6 years old I would ride a sulky plow with 3 horses. Dad was on another one just ahead of me. There are still parts of the old horse power on the ranch. When I was 10 years old I was on an old single disc plow that had 4 horses on it. We hit a rock and it threw me off and the horses ran away. They sure scattered dirt.
Dad always had 4 or 5 hired men. He ran a large herd of cattle and a large band of horses. He always had a stud around. Charley Morston used to take care of it.
The Welsh people were very superstitious in those days. A man had hung himself in a vacant house about a mile up the creek from our place and a cowboy named Billy Rumsey was killed up in the field when his horse fell into a wash … .The Welsh people claimed that these two ghosts would come out at night. Sam Jones was working for Dad…he lived at St. John. He swore a ghost rode behind him, on the horse, all the way to St. John. Another man would not go out to turn the water alone at night. There had to be two men to turn the water at night.
Malad City
I remember the town. Where the hotel is now there was the old bank saloon. There used to be an opera house where the Allen drug is now. Jones and Richards had a grocery store and cafe where the J.N. Ireland Bank is now. Across the street, where the service station is, William Thomas had a furniture store. Later Ben Williams made it into a pool hall. Jack Russell had a cafe next to it. He ran a poker game. He always laid a six-shooter on the table while he played. The town had board sidewalks. There were no improved streets. When the streets were muddy you would see lots of white top buggies mired up to the hubs, pulled by four horses. There was a tie yard and a black smith shop back of the Jones and Richards store. It was nothing to see a hundred teams tied there. George Hansen had a livery barn where the ‘Chat and Chew’ is now. As a boy I used to sit on an old log barn where Lawrence Jones’ home is and watch ball games to the East of it.
Childhood
(Raymond told the story of when he was 7 years old, his mother and Dad, Aunt Leah and her new husband Wilford Hill, and one of Ray’s brothers traveled to Yellowstone Park. They took three months, went by wagon, and camped along the way. They went up through West Yellowstone, through the Park and then down through Jackson Hole and Star Valley Wyoming).
I was always in trouble with everybody. I would put mice in the hired men’s boots, water snakes in their beds or anything else I could think of. I was always in bad with school teachers and with Old Catel, the principal. The kids from Devil creek and Deep Creek would go to school on horseback in the summer. There would be 50 or 100 going to school. Old Catel and I had a feud going. There was just the one old school house then. It was on the South East corner of the block. When school would take up, the kids would all line up and march in together. There would be a line up clear out to the street. I was always the last one on the end of the line. I played hooky alot and I would come, Catel would come after me. One time when I was in the 3rd or 4th grade I came to school on an old cow pony. I had her tied up where the football field is now. This time Catel came after me and I ran for my horse with him after me. I got the horse and took after Catel and chased him right into the school house. I guess I was mean. One time Catel took after me. I ran down the road. Grandfather Jones had a picket fence around his lot which was one block south of the school. I went through a hole in the fence. Catel tried to jump it and caught his pant leg on a picket and it tore his pants up to his belt. All the school kids were behind him. He caught me one day and worked me over with a rubber hose. He had my underwear and socks soaked with blood. My Dad took it up from there. He went to see Catel and Catel treated me differently after that.
I was always running away, sometimes for a couple of days at a time. My Dad would put the stud in the corral in the day and lock me up in his barn…which was the old tool house when we were growing up. I spent many days there.
Working Years
My father died when I was 12 years old. Mother was left with 8 children and was expecting the 9th. My brothers are Evan, Lester, Edward and Amos. My sisters are Leola (Bonnie), Ann, Leah, and the baby Wilma. Wilma died at the age of 12, May 3, 1926. Evan died of cancer Sept 2, 1976 and was buried in Malad. Ann died of cancer Feb. 28, 1977 and is buried at San Jose, California.
After my father died, my mother leased the ranch to Grover South. He ran it for many years and then Austin Green ran it. Mother moved our family to town, and I worked around Malad the first summer.
The next year I worked at Dairy Creek at the shearing plant. Amos Lockyer and I hauled wood to keep the boilers going. Sammy and Noah Myers came down every day on a burro. The shearers sheared zebra stripes on the burro. They had a purse of $25.00 for anyone who could ride the burro. No one could. At the end of the day, Sammy and Noah would get on the burro and ride him home.
The plant had 25 shearers and they would put out 2 to 3,000 sheep a day. The sheep had scabies and had to be dipped. They would boil tobacco leaves and sulfur for dip. I hauled a wagon load of sulfur from Malad one trip. The wagon was bouncing and I got sulfur in my eyes. I had to lay over a day at Rocky Ford because I couldn’t see.
Ben Price ran a buck herd when they dipped them. I had a hook on a pole to duck the sheep. I missed one and fell in, and those bucks pretty near drowned me. One good thing, the bed bugs in the bunk left me alone after that.
There was a store and post office there. That fall, the milk cow got lost, and I was sent to look for her. I took a cigar from the store and rode up to Mud Spring…I felt pretty sick. I lit the cigar and threw the match down and saw it start a grass fire. The fire burned clear down to the head of Malad. They had a bounty out for the one who started it…I was lucky!
The next summer I fenced at Dairy Creek for Paul Johnson. We fenced his 160 acres, his step father’s 160 and his grandmother’s. The next year I worked for Amos and Ted Jones at Buist. (North East of Holbrook, Idaho).
That Fall, (he was 18) I came down with Typhoid Fever. I had quite an experience. I was pronounced dead. I felt myself being sucked up a long dark tunnel, it was very painful. I came out to bright sunlight and feeling very peaceful. I was then in a place of peace and quiet. If I thought of a place…I was there. The only people I saw were my Father and Grandmother Evans. They had both been dead for many years. They told me I had a mission to do and had to go back. I didn’t want to. I had no choice. I have been wondering ever since what that mission is.
The next summer I joined the Navy. I joined and was out in half a day because my Mother would not give her consent.
I next went to Henagers Business College at Salt Lake City for six months. When at Henagers, a friend of mine wanted me to go on a blind date. The blind date just happened to be my teacher…I got good grades after that!
California
I worked on the farm in 1921 and then I went to California where I worked as a logger at Santa Anna lumber yard. I worked with Will Heston and his boy Hugh, felling eucalyptus trees to be taken to the orange orchards for windbreaks. One day while we were felling trees a whirlwind came up and tipped the tree into 3 orange trees. They wanted us to pay $500.00 per tree, so we quit and worked next at a small sawmill as an off-bearer. An off-bearer took the boards away from the saw and platform and piled them up. The first day a plank caught on the saw plank and just missed the sawer’s head and went through the tin roof and over the fence. The sawer took off after me. I took off for far places unknown. Since it was my first day I did not go back for my pay.
While at Santa Anna I worked on a bean thresher, walnut house and E.K. Woods Lumber. I took one job way out of town picking cotton. I worked one day and made 15 cents. I bought a pack of camels and walked back to Santa Anna.
In Los Angeles I worked for a while for Palmolive Soap Co. I also worked for a glass factory where I made a lot of whiskey glasses. I then worked in an iron foundry until Spring, making bathtubs, sinks and other iron products. I was pouring molten iron on a bathtub. It took 6 men, two working together. One corner blew out and poured molten iron on one of the men from his hip down. It burned all the flesh from his leg down. I QUIT! James Vaughan, Jay Evans, Bill Colton and I beat our way on a freight train to Malad but were kicked off at Yerma, California and we then bought tickets. Bill Colton and I were kicked off the train after buying tickets. The conductor found out his mistake and came looking for us.
Sheep and Mining
That first winter after I came back from California I worked on the dam at Alexander near Soda Springs for the U.C. Construction Co. It was in January. They had made a coffer dam in the river and were fluming the water over the dam site. They were putting concrete in the bottom of the dam, which was about 30 feet below the flume. Two other fellows and I were blasting the ice away from the head of the flume. Somehow a charge of 3 sticks of dynamite went off in the flume and blew a section of the flume out. It flooded the whole works. The boss came down and fired the two men with me. I did not wait to get fired, I left. We were on the night shift. There was supposed to be a soft drink place there. There was a killing about every night. I went over to Alexander and got on the blinds of the mail train. (The blinds are the spot between the engine and the cars). The fireman saw me get on and turned a water hose on me. It was about 10 degrees below zero. When I got to Pocatello I got off the train and could not move because my clothes were frozen stiff.
I then went to work with the sheep. In the winter we were at Rupert, Idaho and on the Caribou Mountains in the summer. (Marcia’s note: Dad would always throw a close scrutiny on any and all young men who came around to see me…if he didn’t like them he would tell me they looked like a sheep herder. He was always teasing me about marrying a sheep herder.)
I then went to work in the mine at Park City, Utah during the winters and worked with sheep in the summer. I had a lot of close calls in the mines, but somehow my life was always saved. One time I drilled in a mine hole, looked at the end of the drill and it was plugged with a dynamite cap. I should have been blown to bits.
It was about this time that I was reading the Bible and checking out different churches but couldn’t find any that I liked.
I worked at the Keystone Mine, Ontario Mine, Judge and Silver King Mines. We walked about a mile to get to the skip in the Ontario mine. One day one of the men was having trouble with his wife so he put a piece of dynamite in his mouth and set it off. When I got up to where he did it, I saw an ear hanging on a post.
Another time I had a good laugh when I saw a drunk Irishman and Chinaman rolling in the gutter which was full of water.
One time in the King Mine, the shift boss and I were talking over a problem. I had a green Irishman for a mucker. He sat down while we were talking. The shift boss asked him what a wheel barrow was for and then told him that it was to train tame apes to stand on their hind legs. He called all Irishmen ‘apes.’ One Irishman was nicknamed “Patty the Pig”. His real name was Murphy and his wife ran a boarding house. A few of us were sitting in front of a cafe enjoying the spring sun when a young fellow asked us where Patty the Pig lived. It was just across the street and had about an eight foot wall in front of the house. He went up and knocked and asked Mrs. Murphy if she was Mrs. Pig. She lowered the boom and knocked him clear over the wall to the street.
One Christmas we came off the night shift. A bunch of us were in the cafe. A boy selling papers came in only half dressed. A big Irishman bought all of his papers and questioned him. He was about ten years old and we found out his Mother was a widow and had several children. A few of the boys went to investigate. The family was destitute. That drunk Irshman took up a collection. We got coal, food and clothing for the family.
Two of my friends drilled a missed hole in the mine and were killed shortly after that. A missed hole is one that the explosive didn’t go off the first time. This was back in the 1920’s. I will name a few of the mining men I knew: John J. Daily, founder of the Daily Judge Mine. I was staying at the King Mine in 1924. Others were Con O’Neal, Billy O’Neal, Driscol, Jack Dillon, Neal Collins and several other shift bosses at the King. Some of the mines I worked in were the Kruger, Judge Mine, Black, Ontario, Murphy and Keystone. While I was in Park City I roomed with the mine engineer and had access to some of his books.
I was working in the Black Rock Mine in Butte when the Anaconda and Clark lawsuit was settled. The Anaconda won. The Clark interest had to pay the Anaconda millions of dollars, and then the Anaconda took over the Clark interests.
While I was in Butte, Montana, I worked in the following mines: Black Rock, Badger, Ella MaLou, Damond, Anaconda, Stewart and the Leonard mine at Meaderville, which was just over the hill from Butte. There was no organized labor in Butte, and only one Union which very few belonged to. It was called the I.W.W. (Industrial Works of the World) or more commonly called “I won’t work”.
Most of the boomers lived at Mrs. McFeeney’s boarding house, about 500 men, but I stayed at Mrs. McGraffs. I roomed for a while with Lawrence Matthews who was a graduate from Yale. I went to the School of Mines in Butte at night for quite a while. The Anaconda Mine wanted a few of us to go to Alaska or South America on contract to stay for three years at $400.00 a month. I was about to take the South American Contract but I came home and met Mabel Jensen…that was the end of the contract!
I worked at Malad that summer and was operated on by Dr. Mabey for a ruptured appendix.
My Experiences with the Sheep
In 1921 I worked for Williams and Dredge. I started at the ‘lambing sheds’ at Rupert, Idaho. The country was new and was all sand. The wind blew the sand in drifts. It would fill the roads full from the top of the fence posts to the top of the posts on the other side. The farmers were trying to level the drifts with four horses on fresnos (big scraper). The farmer we got our hay from had built a new brick house. The wind blew the sand from under one side of it and it fell in.
When we got through lambing I went out on the Minidoka Desert. The second day it rained all day. Bob Marcus and I had the sheep. About sundown the wind came from the North and it got cold. To make matters worse our camp tender got lost and we were soaked through. The camp wagon never caught up with us until the next night. To keep from freezing we would get in front of the sheep. They were pretty well bunched and drifted with the wind. What warmth came from the sheep, kept us from freezing.
We were on the desert until July, and I had many experiences out there. The rattlesnakes were thicker than the hair on a dog’s back. Towards the end we got our camp water from ponds in the rocks. We would strain 2 quarts of wigglers out of a bucket of water and then boil the water before we could drink it.
One day we stopped at a Mexican’s camp and no one was there. We opened the oven door and found a lamb that was cooking and it still had the skin on. It made me sick to look at it. In a few days there were sheep all over and we found the Mexican dead. He had been dead for several days and he sure did stink. They figured he had been bitten by a rattlesnake.
Lou Anderson (LaDell Anderson’s father) was a government trapper and he stayed at our camp a lot. Ike Jones was herding then, and he and I slept on the ground behind the camp. A bear got in the sheep and ran over us. I raised up and was face to face with the bear. The bear put on the brakes and took off. I ran to get in the camp, but when I got to the door Ike grabbed me and I lit out to the end of the wagon tongue…but I got in!
Lou Anderson told me how to make the government animal scent, it was used to lure animals to their camp. I made a batch and kept it in the boot of the camp wagon. (The boot was space under the bed in the wagon) I had all the coyotes and bobcats on the desert around us. The boss could not figure out why…until he found the scent. I pretty near got fired! I buried the scent and that was the last of the coyotes and cats. I guess they stayed around where I buried the scent.
I spent the next summer on Gray’s Lake and Lane Creek at the head of the Blackfoot River, North and East of Soda Springs, Idaho. Heber Jones was herding then. We were in Brown’s Canyon. One morning I went out to get Heber in for breakfast and found him sitting under a pine tree reading, unaware that there was a bear up in the tree. I called him to look up. He saw that bear and jumped about ten feet and landed running, leaving book and all.
The next spring I went to Burley and went to work for the U.C. Cattle Company. I wound up on a ranch at Pilot Peak. I quit and went to Soda Springs and worked with the Sheep on the Dredge Blackfoot Ranch. I then spent the winter at Park City. The next spring I worked with the sheep at Rupert.
I went on the Raft River Desert in February. The grass was 4 inches high. A rattlesnake scared my horse and I fell off and landed on a prickly pear on my shoulder. I had to go to Burley and have the spine pulled.
The biggest part of Raft River had been taken up but they had all gone broke and had pulled out. We leased ground from old Sam Catrel, one of the best ropers I ever knew. We had a snowstorm and lost 400 lambs in one night. That spring, the cattleman from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, were feeding their stock at Rupert because they had sold their hay at Jackson Hole to feed the Elk. The storm caught them and their cattle drifted out on the ice of the Minidoka Reservoir and they lost a lot of cattle. I left there and came to Malad and helped lamb a herd at the head of Malad. Some of the men there were old Bill Stowe, Warren Bush, Dick Hall, Dale Stuart and Frank Ruesggsegar.
I spent the summer on Black Mountain in Star Valley. I would go down and fish in the Salt River with Pete Anderson. I rode an old work mare with blind bridle and no saddle. Coming up the trail one day I met a bear…face to face! The old mare whirled and took off, I fell off and took off after the mare! I looked back to see the bear taking off over the ridge. I guess I had scared that bear to death! I gathered up my things and went back to camp. The herder wanted the bear, so we found his tracks in the next canyon and followed them. They circled back and we found out that the bear was following us! We never got to see him again. The herder slept up on the ridge with his dog and the boss and I slept in a tent on the creek. One night we woke up when the tent came down on top of us. I guess it was the same bear and he had got tangled up with the dutch oven and had backed into the tent, knocking it down. It was the bear tracks that showed what had happened.
The next summer I worked with the sheep on Baldy Mountain. One day I dug a hole to bake bread in and hit a vein of copper. I figured on going back but never did. Kennecott Copper has filed on the whole mountain now.
The next spring I worked in Hagerman Valley for about a month. I then went to work for the Andy Little outfit hauling hay. I was in the shed one day talking to the shed man. They had been losing a lot of lambs, so I told the shed man to clean up the sheds. The foreman was outside and heard me. I then went to work in the sheds.
When I was with Andy Little in the sheep in 1927, we came to the South Fork of the Salmon River by a waterfall. I had a fish line and hook and made three casts. I caught 30 pounds of fish. They must have been steelheads. I went back 30 years later with Hugh Clark and Neal Hawks to look for the same place but couldn’t find it. When we went through in 1927 there were no trials, and we never found the ridge we went up. The second time there was a road and marked trails. The road went down the South Fork to the East Fork then up Seesaw to McCall. The Brown Lumber Company was cutting some logs there.
They then gave me the job as riding boss. I had charge of 18 bands of sheep on the range, I never had wagons, just pack outfits. I had a team of mules and a light spring wagon. When I would go down a hill the mules would run away and I couldn’t hold them, nor could I hold them when we would go to the home ranch. One day I had the foreman, Tom Smith, with me and a couple of green Basques. We had a long slope to the ranch and the mules started to run, since they had run down that hill with me before, I just threw the lines down and said, “Run you sons of guns!” I lost the Basques! Tom laid down in the bottom of the wagon…when they got to the gates the mules stopped! Tom fired me and then hired me back.
Another time we moved a camp. The herder had a basket of pups sitting between us. The mules ran down a hill. There was a wash about 3 feet deep at the bottom, we hit the wash and the double tree pin pulled out. The wagon, herder and I lit out at the end of the tongue but we never spilled a pup!
When we started for the summer range we took two bands of sheep up the trail. Tom Richards herded one. We crossed the Payette River where the Cascade Reservoir is now. I counted several bands of sheep there. I went down the trail looking for lost sheep. Then I went to McCall and took two brands of sheep over the Granite Mountain, Goose Lake, to the head of French Creek. There was four feet of snow there and I would have to dig the pack mules out of it. We went on the Hazard Lakes, then to Grassy Mountain above Riggins. I fixed one camp and then went to fix the other, the next morning I went back to the first camp. The herder went to get a bucket of water about 45 yards from the camp and met a grizzly bear and 2 cubs. He just happened to take his rifle with him. The old bear took for him. There was a pile of empty shells about 10 feet away from the bear. I asked him if he got scared and he said not until he went to put a shell in the gun to shoot the cubs.
I went back to McCall and spent a few days there. The foreman came in and said that the dry bunch (sheep without lambs) had no range. He said to trail them the rest of the summer. We started out at Gold Fork and went over the Black Mare Pass which was covered with ice. We had to cut notches to step in. One of the mules slipped and slid down over ledges a good fourth of a mile. She was dead when I went down. I found most of the pack but lost my rifle, I couldn’t find it. There had been a snow slide in the winter which covered the trail. I had to go to the bottom of the canyon to get out, and I came face to face with a small black bear. I shot him with a pistol, the first bear that I ever killed.
When we got out on the ridge there had been a fire some time ago, and the growth had started to come back. There were acres of huckleberries. It was nothing to see half a dozen bears there. We crossed the South Fork of the Salmon River then to Johnson Creek on the South Fork side. There were two dikes of Isinglass that stuck up ten feet high. We had to hunt for a place to get through. From Johnson Creek to the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the Salmon. The Ranger turned us back to the South Fork of the Payette River. The foreman told us to go back over the trail, we got as far as Johnson Creek, there we had all the forest men in the country there for a Pow Wow. We got a range permit around what they call the Needles, South East of McCall. A mule got in the camp on Johnson Creek and raised heck with our grub. For two weeks all we had to eat was canned corn and mutton…no salt. One other thing, while we were on the headwaters of the Middle Fork we had a fire. We were showing some kids how to handle an ax. The first chop I made I pretty nearly cut my foot off. It was 100 miles to a Doctor so I put a chew of tobacco on it, wrapped it up and it healed fine. While we were there a bear was getting into the sheep so we set a trap and caught him. We had a drag (8 feet log) on the trap. We had to kill the bear with pistols, we took some chances but we got the trap.
I quit the sheep there and went to Malad for a while. I worked around for a couple of months and then went to the mine. It was my last winter in the mine. I worked the next summer in Malad. I forgot to mention that I worked for some time in the Sunshine Mine in the Coeur d’alene area and in the Alfa [Alpha] Mine at Ely, Nevada. I have left out some of the things I should have put in.
When I worked with the sheep I usually got through with them in September. I would do other work until November, when I would go to the mines. The year I worked at Ely, Nevada, I drove down in a model T Ford. When I left there, I missed the road and got out on the Salt Flats, at night, I got my speed up to 10 miles an hour. The wind would spin the car around and around, it was a cold wind in November. I knew if I went north I would hit Highway 40 so I used the North Star to go by. I wound up at Wendover. I got to Salt Lake and went to work in the smelter at Murray. I worked there for about 10 days, then went to Park City. I spent the winter working at the Silver King Mine. One other year I went with Donald Vaughan to Midvale and worked at an open hearth furnace as a second furnace man until it closed. Then on to Park City where I worked at the Ontario Mine. One other year I helped Mother on the ranch.
One Saturday night I went to the LaGrande Dance Hall in Malad. I was sitting on the balcony and saw a girl on the dance floor. She was dancing with another fellow, but I announced to the guys I was with that I was going to marry her. I butted in and got to know her. She was the only girl I was ever interested in. It seemed as if I had known her forever. When I asked her to marry me, she said she would if I would promise to investigate the Mormon Church. I did. We were married December 26, 1929.
I studied the Book of Mormon and the Bible and found all my answers, what all the stars were for and why, who made them and how, and why and how, and what my part in them was and why. I was baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 1942.
One night I had been out to Holbrook to see Mabel and coming home I went to sleep. I woke up with the Holbrook Hitching rail on top of the car. I felt bad…it was the last hitching rail in the county.
Another night Charlie Evans and I borrowed Lawrence Evans’s Essex to go visit our ‘school marms’ (Mabel and her sister Geneva). We were going 80 mph on a graveled road when we hit a black horse. End of the Essex.
In 1929, I worked in Malad all summer. I got married on December 26th. Mabel taught school that winter and I went to work for Andy Little sheep outfit until Spring, then came home and worked around Malad that summer. I went to work at the old Elkhorn Reservoir at the head of Malad. Dave Gibson and I sunk a shaft for a lost drill. I was working alone one night, down about 85 feet. The hoist caught fire and as I was climbing out I got hot tar in my eyes. That same day the engineer asked me what it looked like down there. I told him we had a footwall and hanging wall and a very large steam of water under us. He came down in a hurry and let out a big oath and said “that site would not hold pigs” and closed it down. He had a 12 cylinder Mormon car and about 10 cylinders wouldn’t start. He let out another oath and said “1200 horses under the hood and all dead”.
We moved to the ranch in February, 1931, and darn near starved that winter. The next summer was the depression. I had 12 acres of wheat full of wild oats. I put it all on one wagon and got 18 cents a bushel. I had one cow. I sent her to Ogden to the sale with Bert Call. Sold her for $1.50 and had to dig up another $1.50 to pay Bert to haul her down. I used hired men to put up the hay at $1.50 a day. I asked the J.N. Ireland Bank for a $25.00 loan. The cashier said he would have to see the Board of Directors. I waited a couple of hours, then went over to the First National Bank and asked Henry Thomas for a loan of $100.00, he didn’t say a word but shoved out a note for me to sign. I don’t know if the Ireland Bank okayed the $25.00 loan or not. I have never been back to see. The Fall of 1931 I worked for Rees Jones for 50 cents a day for 10 hours a day. That fall Mabel and I went to town. The wind blew the door of the house open and the pig got in and got hold of a sack of flour. What a mess! Wife was one mad woman! I shot the pig!
The first summer on the ranch I worked for the Forest Service on the park in Power House Canyon. Crazy Jenk Williams and I made the first half of the trail to Wrights Creek, then Emmet Thomas brought in a crew and finished the other half. I then took a crew and finished the park fencing. The crew members were Ed Evans, Ervin Johnson, Drummer Bill Williams, Sylvester Owens. That winter of 1931 and 1932 I burned logging stacks in the old canyon. The first year on the ranch we traveled back and forth in a buckboard and team.
After I was married I promised Mabel that I would investigate the church. I went to the Second Ward in Malad. They would not even speak to me when I would speak to them. I never went there again. I never wanted to have anything to do with them but when we moved to the farm the people in the Reynalds Branch got me interested. They had a wonderful Gospel Doctrine teacher, Mary Corbridge, and she could answer all my questions. Between my wife and Sister Corbridge and all the rest of the Branch I joined the church on December 1. 1940. I was baptized by John J. Williams, a neighbor and was confirmed by Bishop J. Guy Gleed. Before that time I believed in survival of the fittest. I still do except in the church it is called progression and retrogression. I guess the Lord taught me differently.
Our crops were hailed out seven years straight. A complete loss some years and a partial loss the other years.
I was asked to check out different mines for people. One was at Battle Mountain, Nevada
with Hy Hansen. One was North of Wendover with Ray Hatch. They were both good. The one at Battle Mountain is operated now by the Gulf Oil Corporation. The one on Carter Island is still open. Sometime someone has stacked up 40 tons of ore. It is a really good deal. I checked the Bannock Apex for Lawrence Jones. No good. Checked a prospect at Arco, Idaho. No good. One at Malad for Archibalds. No good. I located a prospect of gold in Cooper Canyon, west of Arimo and one west of Downey, Idaho for lead and silver.
One year when I got hailed out, all of my neighbors threw in the sponge and quit. I
thought I would give it a try. I went to Jedd Jones Sr. at the First National Bank and asked him for $5,000 to buy cattle. He asked me if I had paid my taxes and other expenses. I said “no”. He asked if I had a hay crop and what I figured on feeding them. All “no”. He said if I had guts enough to ask he had guts enough to let me have it. I bought yearlings at $8.00 a head. I cut the hailed out grain stubble to feed them and sold them in the spring for 9 cents a head. That started me with cows. That was the turning point. I then had a feedlot on the farm and bought and sold animals. I had a good producing well drilled on the ranch in 1952 that yielded 100 feet of water a minute. I leased and ran 1200 acres of land on the Devil Creek area near the Malad-Downey Divide.
I had a couple of bad accidents. In 1944, Mabel and I had been over to her parents’ place at Oxford, Idaho. Coming home I saw a car parked in the center of the road with its lights on bright. When I passed it I hit a man. It threw him back over the hood of the car. He hit his head on the corner of the windshield and on the pavement. He lived for two days. The train crew watched what happened. They said the man was standing behind the car and watched me come, he then jumped out in front of my car. His name was Alfred Denny.
The other accident was in 1969. I had a holstein bull that I couldn’t trust so I always carried a pitchfork when I was around him. One day I made a mistake and turned my back on him. He charged across the corral and hit me when I wasn’t looking and worked me over plenty.
I broke my collarbone and really hurt my shoulder. I was in the hospital for several days, including Thanksgiving Day.
Mabel and I raised a family of six children: Wilma Evans Fridal, Nedra Evans Preece, Raymond J. Evans, Robert H. Evans, Marcia Evans Daughtery, and William Donald Evans.
The wife had very poor health and spent a lot of time in hospitals and she put up with me. One time she was in bed and getting weaker all the time. She asked for a blessing so I had Bishop J. Guy Gleed and Stake President Hendricks to do it. When they were through President Hendricks told me she had a goiter. The Doctor had been treating her for her heart. I called up Dr. Bailey in Salt Lake City and he said to bring her right down. I had Guy Benson take her down in the ambulance. While we were getting her ready the Doctor came up and forbade me to take her down. He said she would not live to get as far as Malad. I walked out the back of the house. I did not know what to do and then a voice came to me saying, “What are you waiting for?” I went back in and we took her to Salt Lake. The Doctor in Salt Lake said if we had waited another 3 days it would have been too late. She stayed in the Holy Cross Hospital for two weeks while they got her built up for the operation and then they operated on her for her goiter.
Another time she was pregnant and Doctor Mabey wanted her to have an abortion but she would not consent. She went to Doctor Garst. He did not give us much hope but he took the case and she came through okay. The baby was William Donald Evans.
I guess I had better write a little of my religious experiences. After the experience I had in 1918 when I had typhoid fever I started to investigate several churches. I still did not get what I wanted. I worked with an old man in the Silver King Mine in Park City. His son was killed in a car accident. The priest wanted $500.00 to pray him out of purgatory. He had to mortgage his home for it. Most of the people in Park City were Catholic. A few days later the shift boss asked me for a donation for the priest. I refused. When I came off shift that day I was fired. In Butte, Montana, I saw the priest go to the Chief of Police and turn two guys that had committed murder, loose.
In the summers with the sheep I would study the Bible. At one time I even thought about suicide. Mabel wouldn’t marry me until I promised to investigate the L.D.S. Church. I first went to the Second Ward. They made it plain they did not want me. After I joined the church Wayne Archibald and I took over the Junior Sunday School in the Third Ward. I was also a Home Teacher, Secretary of the Senior Aaronic Priesthood. One time Lon Corbridge, a High Councilman, asked me to go to Portage with him. When we got about half way there he said I had to give a talk. I couldn’t back out so I wrote a few notes to talk on. He talked first. They had a generator for lights and when I got up to talk the lights went out. Best talk I ever gave. I was second councilor in the 5th Quorum of Elders with Loyal Hess, President; LaMar Thomas, 1st Councilor; and Wayne Archibald, Secretary. I was then called on as a home Missionary. My companions were Bert Marble, John Blaisdale [Blaisdell], Karl Smith, Verlin Allen and Howell Williams from Cherry Creek.
I was also a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood, Sunday School Teacher, special Interest Teacher, Jr. M. Men Teacher, Ensign Teacher, Secretary of the Y.M.M.I.A. for 8 years, Scout Committeeman, High Priest Quorum teacher with John Blaisdel [Blaisdell], Quorum leader, and 2 years with Royal Jensen. I was also called to work at the veil in the Logan Temple.
One day in 1960, I knew that Marcia had a sick little boy, he had ruptured an ear drum the day before and we were quite worried about him. I went out to milk the cows and a voice came to me to go to Marcia’s because she needed me. The feeling was so strong I went to the house and told Mabel we were going to Logan. She phoned Marcia and was told that Mike was feeling better and everything was okay. I then went back to the barn to milk and again the voice came back to me, stronger than before to go to Logan now! This time I ran in and told Mabel to get her coat. We had to hurry. I drove as fast as possible. When we walked in Marcia’s house she was surprised to see us. I picked up the baby Kevin and suddenly he started to gasp for air and started to turn blue. Marcia ran for the phone, there was an older lady talking to her friend. When she was told it was an emergency she would not hang up saying it was just an excuse. I grabbed the baby and we ran for the car and made it to the Doctor’s office in just minutes, all the time trying to keep Kevin breathing. The receptionist told us we couldn’t go in because we didn’t have an appointment. Marcia just ran back to the Doctor’s office without permission, he came out, took one look and grabbed the baby. Before we knew it there were three Doctors working on the baby. He had what was called “quick pneumonia”. We were told if we had been only a few minutes later the baby would have died. Dean had driven their car to work, Marcia was home alone with her three little children and it was a very cold, snowy day. There was no way that she could have made it alone.
I worked with the Boy Scouts for several years as a Troop Committeeman. I served two years as Round Table Chairman for the Malad and Portneuf Districts and then District Commissioner. I was then Assistant District Chairman with Boyd Lewis and again with Norman Jaussi. Then I was a Stake Scout Master. I resigned in 1975 on account of poor health and was called back as Advancement Chairman until 1976. In 1971 I received the Silver Beaver Award.
I worked for four years with the Agriculture SCS Program, 2 years as Red Cross Advertising Chairman, 4 years on the Republican Central Committee as the Secretary, 12 years on the Malad Valley Irrigation Water Board. While I was on this board we bought the Crowther Reservoir and built the Devil Creek Dam and Reservoir. The County told us to build it. We never had any water to guild. We had $600.00 in the bank to start. We had to buy Crowther Dam to get the water. It cost $85,000. We had to buy the right-of-way for $200.00. The total cost of the project was $2,200,000. Our wages were $10.00 a year. We had a lot of men on the Board during the 12 years. I was the only one to be on the Board from start to finish. The two best men to be on the Board with me were Charles Nielsen and Robert Hess. The members of the Board at the last were Charles Nielsen, Raymond Evans, Farrell Daniels, and Parry Ipson. The Dam was built under the Small Irrigation Act. The engineer was Wendel Smith of Preston, Idaho. I also served on the Bear River Commission.
I have always enjoyed hunting and fishing with my boys and with friends. I have always liked to look over old mining towns such as Yankee Fork, Yellow Jacket, Leesburg, and Hiley Mines. I enjoyed the mines at Mackay’s old camp and the smelter North of the North Fork of the Salmon River and out of Leadore. I hunted elk with Larell Jones and Wayne Archibald on Lochsa Selway, Salmon River and Island Park.
The first time that I went to Emmett, Idaho, I went with Eli Vaughan, Ben Williams, and Ralph Williams. We went in a Model T Ford. There were no improved roads and we were pushing the Ford through mud. It was in January and it was cold and wet. There was a sign that said “Speed Limit 100 MPH…Ford do your damndest!”
Footnote:
August 1998
Dad and Mother sold the ranch in 1970 to their two sons, Robert and Don, and moved to a little house in Malad. Dad had very poor health and was in and out of the hospital, much to his dismay. There were several amusing stories of his hospital stays. One time a man in the next room who was expected to die…did. The Man’s wife came screaming out for the nurses, Dad ran in, in his hospital gown, pushed the nurses aside and started CPR. Mother was so embarrassed.
Another time he decided enough was enough so he cut all of the plastic tubes, going into various parts of his body, with his trusty pocket knife and was getting dressed to go home when the nurses interceded. Again Mother was very upset with him.
In spite of all Mother’s worrying about Dad, it was her health that took a trun for the worse, and in July 1980 she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She died Oct. 14, 1980 leaving Dad alone, and devastated.
He lived in the little house in Malad for a short time, then moved to a Senior Apartment in Downey. There were three older men living in those apartments and Dad sort of took care of all of them. One day he was talking about one of them and was telling us about the “Old Man” when he suddenly paused with a look of wonder on his face and then said, “I’m older than that old man!”.
When a Senior Apartment became open in Malad he moved back. He was always wondering why he was still alive, especially since Mother was gone… At this time he was living by his cousin Nadene Lowry. At the age of 83 he taught her the gospel and she was baptized. She wanted him to baptize her but he was very wobbly and so it was decided he would just confirm her.
We had quite a time with him because he had extremely low blood pressure and every time he would stand up suddenly he would pass out. He was brought up in the old school that every time a lady would come in a room a gentleman would stand up. His daughters would try to sneak into a room when he wasn’t looking, to avoid him falling. Someone was always catching him.
His health continued to fail and we were scared of his driving. When he was 80 the family knew he had to get his driver’s license renewed and we knew he couldn’t pass the driver’s test. They gave it to him anyway! It was about this time that his car suddenly developed transmission problems and it was pretty sad that none of his kids could help him get the car fixed…so it was permanently parked. He started walking…sometimes miles. He walked to the cemetery every day to visit Mother’s grave. He started out to the ranch several times but usually someone would see him and give him a ride. He was such a sweet, lovable man that he had many friends and everyone seemed to look out for him.
When his family realized that he couldn’t live alone anymore, they moved him to what he called the, “Half Way House” which was the assisted living home by the hospital. He lived there until he fell one day and broke some bones in his back. That was the beginning of the end. He went from the hospital to the rest home, never to walk again.
Dad died July 21, 1988 and he died alone. Several times the family had been called because they thought he was dying, but when we all came he always rallied around because he was so glad to see us all. On the day he died, he ate a big supper and then went back to his room and died peacefully.
Dad was a quiet man, a hard working individual who loved his wife, his family and his church. He had a unique sense of humor and could really tell the stories about Malad and the people who lived there, some were quite hilarious. He was liked by everyone who knew him and is missed by everyone. He was very much loved.
My Testimony
By Raymond J. Evans
At this time, I feel compelled to write why I joined the Latter-day Saint Church. The summer of 1917, I worked at Buist, Idaho. I contracted typhoid fever. The Doctor pronounced me dead. It felt like going through a long dark tube, being pressed all the way. It was very painful. Then coming out to bright sunlight and feeling very peaceful. I felt free; no pain. I seemed to understand and have a great knowledge of all things. I only saw two beings there, my Father and Grandmother Evans. They had both been dead for many years. They told me I had to go back, I had a mission to fill. I hated to come back. I wondered what that mission could be.
The fall of 1920, I attended Henager Business School in Salt Lake City. In 1920 the Doctor told me to get out in the hills. I went to work with the sheep in the Grays Lake area in Idaho. I would lay awake at nights looking at the stars wondering why they were there, what caused them and why? Why was I on this earth and what was the purpose of it all? I wanted an answer. I could not find anybody that could answer. I investigated several churches. They could tell me why. I did not like their ways. I went to work in the mines at Park City, Utah, and Butte, Montana. The ways of the Catholic Church made me sick. I wondered about the L.D.S. I went to the Second Ward in Malad. A few of us boys were on the balcony. A woman spoke and said they did not want cigarette smokers there. I left before the services were over. While she was talking she was pointing at us boys.
In 1927 the Kennecott Mining company wanted me to go to South America to work in the mines there with a guaranteed wage for three years’ work. I came home to see Mother and the rest of the family. On Saturday night I went to LaGrande Hall to dance. I was sitting on the balcony and saw a girl on the dance floor. The only girl I had ever seen who had interested me. I butted in and got to know her. It seemed as if I had known her forever. When I asked her to marry me, she said she would if I would promise to investigate the Mormon Church. I did. I was married December 26, 1929. I studied the Book of Mormon and the Bible and found all my answers. What all the stars were for and why, who made them and how, and why and how, and what my part in them was and why. Then in 1942, I joined the Church.