Deer Hunting in the Hills Above Lanark

I'm hoping this picture will stir a few hunting memories.  Feel free to add by editing this post, if you don't, you might not get the whole story, or some of the stories may not be exactly what you remember or want to boast about.  Ellis and Reed especially have some stories to tell.  I was probably the least of a hunter in the family, but still remember some of the stories told by Dad, Ellis, Reed and Mark about the hunt.  Please add to this blog so I wont have to relay the stories from my memory alone.  I'm sure your stories will be a lot more authentic than mine, though I will give it may best effort relying on my faulty memory for the words, and I may have a tendancy to embelish them a little bit.  The picture below is of Dad and Ellis off on an overnight deer hunting adventure.  Please tell all the stories that are important to you and I will try to sort out the reality from the bragidocio.

Good, I coaxed at least a couple of deer hunting stories out of Ellis.  Thanks.

I'm going to add a couple  more of ny memories that were told to me by Dad.  In one case the Great Depression seemed to be dragging on in Bear Lake  a little longer than in some places, I suppose, or maybe it was just living on a small farm in the cold and often dry Bear Lake country, but I remember Dad telling of one October when our little family was especially hard up for winter meat.  Dad had on old single shot 30-30 and only one bullet to his name.  He went hunting in hopes he could connect with a deer in one shot and bring home some meat for the winter.  During the day hunting he passed up several shots that were not quite certain and waited until he had a better shot.  He made that one bullet count and when he came home that night he had a large buck, meat for the table for the winter and a change from milk gravy and potatoes.  Back then Mom could make a little meat go a long way and we enjoyed it for  most of the winter. 

Dad was a good shot, though he never, ever practiced shooting.  Bullets were to expensive to waste in practice.  I remember one time he brought home a deer he had shot and no one could find the bullet hole where the bullet had entered the deer's body.  Dad said that the deer was running directly away from him as he was shooting and was about to go out of sight over the Long Ridge when he let go with the final shot.  When he got up to the spot where he had last seen the deer, it was lying there in the sagebrush, still warm and yet dead, not a sign of blood anywhere.  Upon closer examination it was discovered that the deer must have had his tail up (they usually do when they are alarmed and running away) and Dad's bullet had found its way into the deer's body for the fatal shot and had not even made a new hole.  That's right, dead center in the deer's rectum.  Think about it, a deer running full tilt directly away from you, probably two hundred yards away, a single shot 30-30 and split second to squeeze off the only round possible. A deadly enema, well not exactly but, you all get the picture.

I personally didn't do much deer hunting until I got home from my mission.  I didn't have access to a rifle and besides that I probably couldn't have hit a bull in the butt with a bucket of wheat.  I did enjoy hunting later in life, especially when all my six boys were growing up.  We had some good times and the boys can all (well nearly all of them) boast of getting their first buck when they were twelve or thirteen. We've got the pictures to prove it.   I kind of miss those days.

Reed was a great shot and I'm sure he has lots of stories to tell from his youth and also when he was married and lived in Laketown and had boys of his own.  He even shot an elk with his bow and arrow. Come on, Reed, tell us a story.

And I also know Mark had some pretty good days out it the hills with his rifle.  We'd all love to hear the stories .

These were times of fun and bonding with Dad and our brothers, and times of good exercise and excitement in the fresh fall days, when the air was crisp and clear and it seemed nearly every able bodied man in the valley was out in the hills doing the same thing.  School was always let out on the first day of the deer hunt.  It was like a holiday, Thanksgiving or Christmas or someting like unto it. Nearly  everyone had their stories of success and "near succcess" when we got back to school after the hunt.  It seemed like it was always the biggest buck on the mountain that someone just barely missed,  kind of like the fish that got away.  You have to take deer hunting stories with a grain of salt, unless you actually see the evidence.

by Bart

Making Hay the Old Way

The Bear Lake Valley is a high mountain valley with long winters and short summers.  As a result the number of crops that could be grown successfully was somewhat limited.  Alfalfa and barely were the two main crops raised on our family farm in Lanark.  The farm consisted of mostly very fertile land and had no rocks on it at all.  The soil was rich and produced bumper crops on good years, if we could get it irrigated at the right time.  It seemed our lives pretty much revolved around preparing the soil for planting, planting the crops and then making sure they got water at the right time.  Of course, there were the cows to be milked morning and night, that was a given, sort of like inhaling and exhaling as we breath.  Our farm was located over a mile from the main irrigation canal and was serviced by a smaller lateral ditch which had to be cleaned and repaired each year.  This was a monumental task, espcially with a shovel.  Eventually we got a horse drawn ditcher and even later hooked it to Arnell Earley's Caterpillar tractor making the ditch cleaning job much easier.  Everyone who had property along the ditch turned out to help clean it.  We were just at the end of the ditch, so that gave us more work to do.  Squirrel holes in the ditch were a major problem and could easity drain out most of the water coming to our farm and fields.  We always attended our church meetings as a family, but the only thing that would sometimes alter our attendance was when it was our turn to take a stream of water from the canal.  Dad knew how important that water was to the success of his crops and would sometimes miss a meeting if the water could not be set to run effeciently  for at least a couple of hours until he could get back to it.  When the alfalfa began to come into bud, Dad recognized that as a signal that it was time to get ready to harvest the hay, which would be needed for our animals during the long Bear Lake winters.  The first step was to mow the hay.  In those early days it was done using an horse drawn mower such as the one pitured here.  It was drawn by a team of horses and had about a four and half foot cutter bar.  One of the big problems was keeping the hay knife sharp.  This was done by using a pedal driven grinding stone about two or three times a day while in the process of cutting the hay.  Around and around the field the team of horses would go pulling the mower with Dad on the metal seat until the large fields of alfalfa were all cut.  It was a long and somewhat tediuous process for both man and beast.

After a few days drying in the sun the hay was raked, using a horse drawn dump or a little later a trip rake similary to the one shown below.  The hay was raked into long even windrows.  I remember sitting on that old iron rake seat until my rear was raw.  I was always a baseball fan as well, and I remeber Mom coming over into the field to tell me the scores of certain Major League baseball games that she had listened for on the radio at my request.  What a great mother we had.

Then the hay would be pushed up into large bunches with an implement we called a pushrake or sometimes a sweeprake.  It was pulled by two horses, one on either side of the pushrake and driven by a man, or in our case mostly by Ellis, who sat or stood on a platform at the middle and rear of it and controlled the team with the reins and sometimes a whip.  It was not an easy task.  The horses had to be trained to go jsut right or they would just go around in a circle.  Ellis got rather proficient at it and I remember how proud he was that he could take the place of a man at an early age.  I learned how to do it too, but not until much later.  I even did it as a hired hand for Cyril Budge in the Paris Bottoms after I returned home from my mission, while earning money for college, but it was that early training on our own farm that made even that possible.  Below you can see a pushrake in action.  This is just like the ones we used back in the 1940s and 1950s and on into the 1960s..

Then the large bunches of hay were pushed up onto the "ricker" which was postioned at the front to of the haystack and by using another horse or team of horses and a pulley and cable  assembly the large bunch of hay  would be deposited   on the top of the haystack where Dad was usually to stack the hay into an orderly, usually a square pile..  When we finished the stack was about thirty feet high.  Then we would move the "ricker" and start a new stack.  We would usually make four or five large stacks (about ten more stacks after I was eight years old, because Dad leased the Lyme Hymas farm, which we ran for many, many years) each year, the first crop being put up first was on the bottom and then, when it was time for the second crop, the original stack had settled some and there was room for the second crop to go on top.  It was hot, dusty and hard work, but our little crew, Dad, Ellis, and I and sometimes Mom got the job done.  Mom always had a hearty meal prepared for us at noon.  We looked forward to the break and especially Mom's good cooking.  We didn't have to be  told by the church authorities to eat a meal every day with the family.  That is just what we did, every day, three times a day, without fail.

Before we got the "ricker", the hay was often pitched onto a wagon with a pitchfork and then unloaded in the same fashion a little closer to the barn.  This also hard work, but somehow in those days we never even thought about it.  That was the way it was supposed to be, and it certainly never hurt us.  It just made as stronger and kept us out of mischief.  Most importantly we bonded while doing something of importance together.  I will forever be greatful for the opportunities of my youth.  I remember one day when I was probably about  eight or nine years old, Ellis and Dad were over in the North Field loading hay onto a wagon hayrack.  I had stayed home with Mother and we had been picking peas,  We had about a bushel or more and Mom went over to a nearby tree and sat down in the shade to shell the peas.  It was a hot day and Mom got rather faintish after a while and passed out.  I thought she had died,  I was scared to death.  I ran as fast as I could over to the North Field and told Dad.  I remember he grabbed me and threw me up onto the hay wagon and turned the team towards the house.  He was whipping them with the riens all the way.  We fairly flew across the field.  Moments later we arrived at the house where Mom had recovered from her fainting spell and was again at the task of shelling the peas.  Dad was so concerned about her, but fortuantely it was a one-time occurance.  Mom always had kind of a hard time dealing with heat on the hot summer days.  One memory just leads to another, it seams.

One of the best memories of the haying season was the home-made root beer,  Mom saw to it, that we had a never ending suppy of homemade root beer.  We almost looked forward to all the hard work of haying,, knowing that whenever we came back to the house,  there would be a good bottle of cold root beer.  Sometimes it got rather powerful, but mostly we drank it before it had a chance to become too fizzy.

by Bart

Horses, Good Times, and Important Lessons

Speaking of horses, it seems there were severel  memorable horses, that we had as we were growing up. I believe that was a natural part of growing up on a farm, espcially in the days when we didn't rely on tractors and  powered machinery to do much of the work.  It was mostly muscle and sweat, from both man and beast that got most of the work done in those early years as we were growing up on the farm.  This is a picture of one of those moments when the horse was used simply for fun.  It shows Ellis and me riding "Old Blue", at least, as I remember, that was her name.  I loved to be put up behind my big brother and go for rides down in the pasture to get the cows for milking or just around the field with no particular purpose in mind other than just to be outside and riding a horse.  We mostly road bareback.  Saddles were expensive and we could not often afford a good saddle.  I remember also some of the work horses we had on the farm. One team was named Pat and Strip,  They were a matched team, at least in looks, but one of them was a better worker and more responsive to it's driver than was the other.  I remember Dad  laying the whip on poor old Pat.  That seemed to help a little.  It was necessary to have at least one good team of draft horses.  As mentioned on another blog post, one of our horses, Old Bird, if I remember correctly, was used to pull a scraper that had been filled with dirt out from under the house as the basement was being dug under the house after it had been placed on the two outside basement/foundation walls, which had been dug previously.  I remember at least one other saddle horse we had.  We called him "Old Smokey".  He was a very good riding horse with a wonderful three-step gait, that made riding on him really quite comfortable.  Dad always used to ride him around Lanark when he was taking care of his watermaster duties on the South Liberty Canal.  One of Dad's favorite things to do was to get on "Old Smokey" and take a long ride up into the mountains above Lanark.  He loved the mountains, especially during the summer and fall months.  It wasn't nearly as often as he would have liked that he found time to take these extended rides in the mountains.    One thing in particular that I remember about "Old Smokey" was how difficult he was to catch.  He was good to ride, but he never wanted to just come up to anyone and let them put a bit in his mouth and a saddle on his back.  It used to be a family project to catch him.  He would run up one side of the pasture, cross the slough and run up the other side of the pasture and around and around we went.  Eventually we would get him corraled and Dad would put a bridle on him and saddle him and then it was off for a pleasant day on horeseback. In the summer time horses were used to mow and rake the hay, and on the pushrake. which was used to push the hay on to the "ricker" or stacker so it could be deposited on the top of the hay stack, where it was stacked.  Ellis became Dad's right hand man at a very young age.  I remember him driving the team on the pushrake when he was just eleven or twelve years old.  He did a man's work at a young age.  I was three years younger, so my task soon became leading the pullup horse on the ricker.  I remember how frightened I was to do this job at first.  It had to be done just right or the hay would all be dropped down into the "ricker" requiring a lot of work to get it out again and a huge delay in getting the hay in.  I think, I was about eight or nine years old when I assumed this task.  I had gone to the field over across the slough, I thought to watch Ellis and Dad do the work of putting up a haystack.  When I got there Dad told me he needed me to lead up the pullup horse.  I didn't know what I was doing, but he patiently showed me what was to be done.  I was scared, but I tried.  Ellis was driving the pushrake team and Dad was up on the stack with his pitchfork staking the hay.  I worked for a couple of hours without any major problems.  Then I got tired of it and decided I would walk home and be with Mother.  I started out across the field and got about a hundred yards from the hay stack when Dad noticed me leaving.  He called to me and asked me to come back, but I pretended not to hear.  He climbed down off from the haystak and came after me.  When he got to me, he didn't scold me, as I thought he might, instead I remember him kneeling down beside me, a little eight-year-old , and telling me, that I was a big boy now and that they really needed me to help them in the process of putting up the haystack.  I have always remembered that incident.  I remember the kindness in my daddy's eyes,  I remember the firmness in his voice, I remember the sadness I felt at not being able to get away from that work and that haystack, but more importantly, I remember, after I had had a little time to think about it, how important I felt.  It is so good to be neeeded and useful.  From that time on, I felt like I was a necessary and contributing part of the family.  Sometimes I wonder if the youth of today get that same experience and how they compensate for it, if they don't.  I am glad, that I grew up on a farm, where we learned to work at a young age and did so together with others of the family.  We bonded by working together.  I came to appreciate my Dad and my big brother, Ellis, and our dear mother as we worked together to make our living on that small farm under rather severe and trying conditions.  We did it, and all of us became better people for it.

by Bart

Whitey - Dad's Favorite Horse

Before Dad and Mom were married Dad worked on a ranch near Pegram.  He became aware of a herd of wild mustangs that roamed the sagebrush hills in that area.   Among the mustangs was a beautiful white stallion which Dad immediately took a fancy to.  After several attempts and with the help of his friends he was able to catch the stallion and then the battle began to see who was going to be the boss.  Everyone advised Dad to turn him loose before someone got killed.  He had a mean streak that would turn out to me a mighty challenge before he would become a horse that was enjoyable and safe to ride.   They saddled him up and a friend snubbed the halter rope to his saddle horn and they proceeded out toward the desert.   When they had traveled that way, with the two horses fastened together for a ways, his friend tossed him the halter rope and away they went, Whitey, which become his name, took the bit in his teeth and he ran and ran until both horse and rider were too tired to go on.   Whitey didn't buck but he did about every thing else to discourage his rider.  It was all Dad could do to hang on, he couldn't guide him or stop him.  Finally he got him back to the corral where the saddle was removed and the horse fed.  Dad had won the first battle.  Many other fights remained.  One time when Dad was coming home to Lanark from Paris he tried to turn up the Lanark road that is the main road that runs through Lanark.  Whitey would have no part of it ,however, and continued at  a full run down the road.  Finally, Dad was able to turn him up the Lanark Lane.  The snow was deep and Dad really the laid the reins to him as they plowed through the snow.  By the time they got to the house both horse and rider were worn out, but Dad never had any more trouble with "Old Whitey" as he came to be called.

No one but Dad could get close to him.  He came to like Dad and would come to him when he went down to the corral.  I think it was case of mutual respect.   If anyone else climbed into the corral he would flatten his ears back and charge.   As I look back I think it was fortunate that no one got injured by him.  Old Whitey was a high spirited  animal and seemed to run every where he went.  Dad was fine with that.  I remember Dad riding bareback much of the time, kind of like you see the Indians do in the movies.   Old Whitey got old however and one day when Dad came home from deer hunting his friend was lying out in the field in an un-natural way.  I remember Dad dropped his rifle and his lunch sack and ran out into the field.  I think it was the only horse Dad ever had those kind of feelings for.  In this case man and animal were best friends, Sort of like Bart and River.   I thank Bart for providing the image of the mustang above, as I'm sure there were never any pictures taken of Old Whitey.  This picture, however, is a "dead ringer" for Dads horse.

By Ellis

Edna's Baptism and Confirmation Certificate

Above is a copy of Edna Eborn's baptism and confirmation certificate.  I remember her telling us about her baptism in Lyman Hymas' Spring.  During those years, this was the most popular place for young people in the Liberty and Lanark area to be baptized, as it never completely froze over during the winter months and was sufficiently deep for a baptism by immersion to be performed there.  In my mind I thought I recalled her telling about a wintertime baptism, which would have made sense, since she would have turned eight years of age in November of 1920, but the official certificate says she was baptized by Torrey Austin on July 10, 1921.  Apparently her father and stepmother, Martha, must have decided to put the baptism off until the weather was warmer.  She was glad to be a member of the Chruch of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and worked diligently to live up to the sacred covenants she made with the Lord that day.  As I look back, I can see how important this event was in her life and how the teachings and covenats of the gospel have affected all of her posterity.  I do not have the official certificate, or a copy, for our dad, Darrell, but as I recall, he was baptized in the same place.  It may have been him, who was baptized during the colder months of winter. He was born on October 6, 1912.  I'm not sure.  Does any one else have any more exact recollections of these important events?

by Bart

I Am a Child of Royal Birth

Today is Mother's birthday.  Were she still living among us she would be 97 years old.  I think of her often and am greatful to have been so furtunate to have had such a wonderful mother.  I hope she and Dad are pleased with our lives as they look down from the heavens at us and our families.  When she was a young woman, Mother memorized this poem and I'm sure could have quoted it almost up to the last few months before she passed.  It meant a lot to her and gave her guidance as she went through life and all its trials.
I'm sure we, too, would be better people if we would internalize it as she did.

I Am a Child of Royal Birth

I am a child of royal birth.
My Father was King of heaven and earth.
My spirit was born in the courts on high.
A child, beloved, a princess am I.
I was nurtured there; I lived by his side.
In a home where patience and love abide.
My Mother was there in that glorious place,
Blessing her children with queenly grace.

I grew to the stature that spirits grow.
I gained the knowledge I needed to know.
I was taught the truth and I knew the plan,
That God and Christ laid out for man.
I was there when the stars of morning sang.
I mingled my voice when the heavens rang.
I was there to rejoice, to praise and applaud,
The shouts  of joy from the sons of God

I waited my turn and came to earth
Through the wonderful channel of human birth.
Then the curtains were closed and the past was gone.
On the future too, the curtains were drawn.
I lived on the earth, and God willed it so,
With freedom to choose the way I should go.
I must search for the truth, I must serve and obey.
I must walk by my faith or fall by the way.

Some day I'll go back; I will answer the call.
I'll return with my record to the Father of all.
The book will be openend and so will my heart.
There will be rejoicing, if I've done my part.
My Father, the King, with His infinite love,
Will welcome me back to the mansions above.
The curtains will part and eternity
In it's light and glory will open to me.

                                                    by Anna Johnson

This poem was read at Mother's funderal at her request by Iris.

by Bart

Edna Hymas and Her Parents/Our Grandparents

Edna Hymas Eborn was born November 8, 1912 in Liberty, Idaho.   At this writing she would be approaching her 97th birthday.  She was the sixteenth child of Benjamin Pitman Hymas and Elizabeth Price.  The picture below is of Edna's parents, our grandparents, on the Hymas side of the family and as I remember Mother telling me about this picture, it was taken at about the time of their marraige.  As you can see from the picture they made a good-looking couple.  I reget not having any pictures of mother as a baby or a young child, but we must remember that cameras were not owned by very many people in the Bear Lake Valley at the time and most pictures were taken by local professional photographers.  Their equipment was primitive by our modern standards, but as you can see from the picture of Grandma Elizabeth Price Hymas and her handsome, young husband, Benjamin Pitman Hymas, these rural photagraphers did an excellent job and we are left with some photographs of excellent quality.  I count each one as a treasure.

Below are the pictures that Grandma Edna had in her Book of Remembrance.  There may be others, but  if there are I don't know where they are or who has them,

The above picture, if the names on the back of the photograph are correct, are from left to right, Edna, our mother and grandmother, Aunt June, Aunt Ruby, a cousin Pearl Hymas and the youngest in the family, Uncle Rayo.  If this is the case, then this may be the earliest known picture of Edna Hymas, our mother and grandmother. I'm not sure of her age at the time,but assume she was a young teenager.  It was taken in front of the Hymas family home, which still stands on the hill in Liberty, Idaho.  It is just across the road from the large, white barn with the painted Holstein cow on the south end of it, which is easily seen from the main road passing through Liberty, just north and a little west of the Liberty Ward Church.

As a young woman, mother used to love to ride horses as you can see from the picture below. She said she was often given the assignment of herding the cows in the Dell west of Liberty. I think she rather enjoyed it.

The picture  below is of Edna's mother, Elizabeth Price Hymas.  Mother said she had no true recollection of her real mother, as she died about one and a half years after mother was born, shortly after giving birth to the seventeenth child in the family, Uncle Calvin.  She was forty-three years old at the time and had given birth to three sets of twins.  Not all of the children survrvived her, as some died in early childhood, including one of the sets of twins, Leo and Alonzo.  This left Grandpa Hymas in desparate straits, a widower, with a very large family and very much work to do in the home and on the farm.  I remember mother telling of how Aunt Bertha, the oldest living child, took on the reponsibility of caring for the home and family.  About two years after Grandma Lizzie, as she was affectionatly know, died, Grandpa Benjamin took a new wife, Martha Derricott, who bore the last three children in the family Eldon, Ruby and Rayo,making a total of twenty. Martha was about the same age as Aunt Bertha and this caused some conflict.  Of course not all of the children lived to maturity, but it was nontheless a very large and busy family.  Grandpa Hymas aquired a rather large holding of land and made sure the boys and girls alike had plenty to do on the farm.  They milked cows, raised, pigs, chickens and beef cattle, raised hay and grain, had a large garden, and operated a community cheese factory, using the milk produced by their own dairy cows and also buying excess milk from many of the neighbors around the area.  In spite of the large family, and maybe because of it, they seemed to prosper, maybe even more than most of their neighbors. The family cheese business was the source of most of their money.

Elizabeth Price Hymas was a daughter of Robert Price and one of his polygomous wives, Susannah Juchau. She was born and raised in Paris, Idaho.  At her death , at age 43, she was buried in the Liberty, Idaho cemetery. This is Edna's mother, our grand-mother and great-grand-mother.

by Bart