The following is the life history of the Alexander Clan as I recall it from listening and being told and observing throughout the years.  It started, let’s say, in Syracuse, New York.  That was Grandpaw Alexander, better known as Eugene. Grandpaw left home when he was 14 years of age and I always asked him why he left that young.  He says, “Sonny, if you have 14 mouths to feed, sometimes your stomach wasn’t very full.”  So he decided to work his way west and make it on his own and see what was over the next hill.  He’d work awhile until he had a few dollars.  Then he would go some more.  He’d work at anything he could find along the way. 

          He finally wound up at Yankton, South Dakota, and he went to work, I presume, for ranchers there or farmers... I don’t know which they were.  Anyhow, he was quite a scrounger.  He scrounged around until he got himself a few cows, milk cows they were, and a few Indian ponies.  About.. Oh, I don’t know how many years he was there... probably 4, 5, maybe 6 years...  That’s where Grandmaw Alexander showed on the scene.  She left home from the Shenandoah Valley, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  She was educated for a teacher in those days and age...  Maybe it was a coincidence, I don’t know, she wound up in Yankton, South Dakota.  That’s where she met Grandpaw.  Of course, he romanced her and that was that.  After they were married and living in Yankton, South Dakota, there was 5 little ones born to that union... One girl and 4 boys.  Starting from the oldest down, there was Charlotte, Frank, Essie, Charlie and Bill.  That’s where they grew up to be pretty good sized kids before they left. 

          Then Granddad got itchy feet again and started on west.  He went to Deadwood, South Dakota.  That’s where he was employed with the Overland Stage Company... It was Ben Holiday Stages.  He drove on the run from Deadwood to Denver for a number of years.

          Then he got itchy footed again and decided he would quit that job and go west farther.  So he left Deadwood, gathered up all the kids and Grandmaw and pulled out and headed west on what was, I guess, the Oregon Trail at that time.  He tells me it must have been about Chugwater somewhere in there, he met Cactus Kate.  She was quite a colorful gal in those days and a pretty rough character.  She traveled with a pretty rough gang, as I understand.  Grandpaw thought she was alright anyhow.  That is the way he explained it.  Anyhow, he traded her 2 Indian ponies for a milk cow.  Then they continued on west to about where Opal is now, they ran into an old mountain man that told them about all the wonderful valleys up in the north country.  That would be New Fork Valley and the Upper Green River.  But Granddad didn’t pay him much mind.  He wasn’t interested in that.  He was bent on going farther west.  So he went out into Idaho past Montpellier a ways.

          Out in the country there between Montpellier and Pocatello.  And he tried farming for awhile there. But he said he couldn’t get along with the Mormons.  So he pulled up stakes and decided to come back and go up in the Green River Valley and see what really was up in there.  Before they left , that’s where Charlotte, the oldest daughter, was married to Jim Redman.  He was and engineer on the Oregon Short Line that ran, at the time, from Ogden up to Portland, Oregon.

           Then the 4 boys and Grandmaw and Grandpaw came on back to Opal and up the Green River.  That was in early spring of the year 1889. 

           They hit the New Fork down where it flows into the Green River and followed it up to what is the forest boundary now.  When Grandpaw saw that, he said, “This is it!”  So that’s where they stopped.  That’s how come they landed in the New Fork Valley in 1889.

           They got there in time that spring, I guess, to plant a vegetable garden and they had all kinds of flour, beans and dried fruit with them so they weren’t worried too much about being able to eat.  Grandmaw said they only had $16.00 in hard money between them. 

          They built themselves, what later was a bunkhouse, a one room affair.  That’s what they lived in that first winter.  They got out their logs and built a 2 room house next spring.  It was all logs inside.  The inside of it was just as flat...they did a good job on it for a bunch of punks that wasn’t supposed to be construction workers. 

          Then Granddad, in the spring, filed on the homestead where the original house was built.  I guess, probably, it was that fall he filed on it.  Then Dad filed on the section just adjoining it on the south and Uncle Frank filed on the one adjoining Dad on the south.  So that took in all of the valley that was any good.  So Uncle Bill went down country where Cora is now and the home place where Bud and Dottie now live, and he filed on that section in there...right in the middle of the flat...and he talked Uncle Jim into coming out and filing on the one that joined him on the east.  That way, they controlled the best part of the Cora Valley and the New Fork Valley. 

          Uncle Bill built his house down there...they all went together when they were building and putting up their houses.  Dad built a shack on his part and Uncle Frank built a shack on his part.  They all proved up on their land and lived on it.  It’s hard to believe that back in those days they didn’t have any machinery of any kind.  They had grubbing hoes, they kind of looked like a flat ax with a handle in them. That’s what they used to clear all the brush from that land.  This day and age people don’t think it’s possible to do that.  But that’s what they cleared their land with.  Of course they didn’t have to clear all of it in the flats there were places there wasn’t any sagebrush... but it still was a big job.

          They didn’t plant any grass seed.  The native grass, as long as it got water really grew.  Of course it didn’t produce like native hay would, but it still produced a lot of grass.  I might say now, the first year they landed there, they took their scythes out and cut grass around every low spot and pond they could find so they would have enough hat to winter their stock.  They hauled it on a ‘go devil,’ they called it.  It was just a couple of logs with some poles nailed across the top of it.  They hauled their hay in with that and stacked it for their stock during the winter season.

          After they had been there for some time, the Union Pacific got a timber contract to cut ties up in the Green River Valley.  That’s up in the Kendall country now.  And Grandmaw could see some possibilities because they were about halfway between stopping points, so they told me.  Between where they were going to cut the ties in the upper country and where they had to leave from Fontenelle, or someplace down in there.  So, she made up their mind they would build a stopping place.  So, they built on to the west side of the 2 room shack they had.  They built a 2 story log building. 

          There were a few settlers that moved into the Green River Valley about that time.  One of them was old Sandy Marshall.  He set a saw mill up by the Green River and run it by water power.  They got their lumber for their roof to put on that 2 story log building and their floors and what not from the saw mill up at Kendall from Sandy Marshall.  About that time, the Wells had moved in up there and the Lloyds, by the way, that’s where they claim I go my first name - their last name was Lloyd.  The 3 brothers moved in up there.  They were all pretty rough old characters.  It had an upstairs with, I think, 8 or 10 bedrooms and downstairs there was 2 bedrooms and a great big reception room.  On weekends, that’s where everybody from all over the country would come in Saturday night for a dance.  That’s where Uncle Bill and Dad played for those dances with their violins..fiddles.  The only 2 tunes that I can remember that they really got with (I never heard them play for any of the dances because that was before my time) was ‘Turkey in the Straw’ and ‘Buffalo Gal.’  Boy, they really belted them out!  Grandmaw taught them to read music but they didn’t pay much attention to that.  They’d hear a tune someplace and they’d come home and play it on the violin.  They played more by ear than they did by music.  They got quite a reputation built up for Saturday night dances. 

           The Birds moved up in the Green River country.  That’s how come Dad met Grace Bird.  That was Mom.  My mom I mean.  They were married and I was born April 3, 1905.  I often wondered when I was a little guy, why I didn’t live with mother and dad.  So I asked Grandmaw one day.  She said, “Sonny, when you was born, your momma didn’t know which end of you to put the diaper on... she was only 16 years old.”  So that’s how come Grandmaw and Grandpaw raised me.  They said if they hadn’t raised me, I’d have been bird feed or dog feed or somethin’.  So I guess maybe I owe my life to them.  Anyhow, they seemed more like mother and dad to me than my own family did.

           Then the Yargers moved in on the Green River and Uncle Bill met Ora (Elsie) Yarger at one of the dances. So he romanced her and they got married.  There were 7 kids born to that family.  I believe I got ‘em right.  There was Louise, Jiggs, Bud and Little Bill (Charles Franklin), Lollie, Babe and Hoot...I think that’s 7.  There were also 7 in our family, me (the oldest), Tuff, Charles Franklin.  He was about 8 months old when he died.  The poor little duffer.  Mom set him in his high chair to give him lunch.  When she had her back turned, he stood up and toppled out on his head ‘kerplunk’ on the floor.  Well, we didn’t have any doctors here then and he never did regain consciousness.  So they hooked up the team and took him to Pinedale.  The Burham Stage Line then took him into Rock Springs (over 100 miles).  But the little guy only lasted about 3 days after they got him in there.  One of Uncle Bill’s kids is named Charles Franklin too... I never did ask why and never did know.  Then there was Jack, Helen, Thelma, Gloria and Tige.  That comprises most of the Alexander Tribe.  And there’s sure a mess of us when we all get together I know.

          As far as I know, there wasn’t any of the older Alexander’s that went to school.  Whatever education they got, Grandmaw gave them.  She had all kinds of spellers and readers and ‘rithmetic books and history books that she used while she was teaching school.  I know when I was a little guy, that was one of my duties...every day after I was about 4 or 5 years old, I had to spend approximately 2 hours a day studying.  When a school was finally established, it was called the Jenkins-Alexander School.  It was on Dad’s place about halfway between Jenkins place down on the New Fork and our place up home.  It was a one room shack and they all got together, The Jenkins, the Wrights and the Alexanders, and they put it up.  That’s the way they did in those days.  They worked together on something like that.

          I can’t remember my first teacher’s name.  She later was Mrs....(to be Husten)..hmmm I can’t think of her last name now.  She married a fellow from around Daniel.  She gave all of us kids a test on our first day in school and I was stuck in the 3rd grade from the time I started to school.  So I didn’t have to spend too much time in school until I graduated from the 8th grade..thanks to Grandmaw.  I don’t think Grandad had any schooling at all, because Grandmaw had to do all the book work for him.  He could sign his name and that was about the size of it.  He still, apparently, was a pretty sharp old cookie.  He knew business anyhow.  That is, he made money.  And he was tighter than a.... oh, I don’t know what you’d call it... He didn’t spend a dollar unless he could see where he was going to get 2 back, let’s put it that way.  Anyway, that’s where we went to school.  It was the Wright kids and Mariam Jenkins and us kids.  There was about 7 of us in that one room school.  That’s where I graduated from the 8th grade.

          Then mom and dad decided they would take us to Pinedale.  There was a high school started here then... a grade school and everything.  And mom would stay with us in the winter time during the school year and feed us and see that we got to school and then we could go home in the spring.  So that’s where I got my high school education was in Pinedale, Wyoming.  I don’t know what year it was that I graduated...that is, I didn’t exactly graduate...I got a condition.  I would report on the “House of Seven Gables” so on the graduation certificate they made a note of that.  That didn’t bother me too much.  I figured I knew it all anyhow.  Ha! Ha!

          Grandmaw was a stickler for responsibility, I’ll say that for her.  As far back as I can remember, my part of the work around the place consisted of, every evening I was to get in the wood.  I had to pack in the wood.  I didn’t have to split it because I wasn’t big enough.  But I had to carry it in and I had to go out in the east meadow and run the milk cows in afoot.  They weren’t very far out.  And I had to see that the dogs and cats were fed.  And I always had to help Grandmaw with the dishes.  She’d wash them and I had to dry them.  Sometimes I had to stand up in a chair in order to get it done.

          The stop over building mentioned earlier was operated like a hotel.  People would stay over and Grandmaw would feed them.  She had a great big long table and fed them family style.  There was tie hacks and later, when I was about 5 or 6 years old, there was attorneys and doctors from New York state.  They said they’d heard of this place (country) being good game hunting country and they came out to hunt.  So Dad and Uncle Bill and Uncle Frank got started in the Dude business or hunting camp.  They took these people out every year and got their game for them .  There was only one fellow that I can remember.  He took quite a shine to me.  It was Dr. Von Zellon from New York City.  I can see him yet.  I wasn’t very big, but he took a shine to me and I can still remember his name.  There were doctors and lawyers and all kinds of business men that they guided out and got their game for them every fall.  And that’s where they got a lot of their money to set up in the ranching business.  Every time they had a few dollars, they’d buy a few more cows.  Uncle Jim [Redman] didn’t like living in Wyoming.  He wanted to go back to Idaho.  So he sold out to Uncle Bill and went back to Pocatello, Idaho.  

          About the time Uncle Jim sold out to Uncle Bill and went back to Idaho, Uncle Jim sold out to Granddad... sold his ranch and his cattle...and took off for Canada.  He wasn’t much for the ranching business.  He’s more of a mountain man.  He’d rather trap and prospect than do anything else.  So he hitched his 4 head of horses to a wagon and loaded all his junk on it... and he had 4 or 5 ponies he was trailing along with him.  He headed up into Alberta, Canada.  He went up into Peace River country.  He did nothing but trap and prospect while he was there.  He was always in hopes he’d find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but he never did.  I can remember every year he would send me a fox pelt...and I’d bundle it up and ship it to a St. Louis fur house...and when I got the check, I’d stash it away with the rest of my horde.  Besides that, I’d trap muskrat, min and skunks in the winter time and sell them along with it...I had quite a little horde gathered up as I recall.  By this time, the flats and the country around here was getting pretty well settled up.  There was the Loziers and the _____ Smiths, the Jenkins, the Rahms, the Nobles and the 2 families of Mershons.            

          When they shipped beef back in those days, they would round up their beef cattle in the fall of the year and they had to trail ‘em to Opal... that’s where the loading pens were on the railroad.  They’d load them on the cattle cars there and ship ‘em east to Omaha, Nebraska where they were sold on the market.  Back in that time when I got big enough to stand the _____ ridin’ that far, I used to go along with ‘em.  After a day or 2, after the beef was all loaded I’d gather up all the saddle ponies and bring ‘em home.  It took 2 days to come home and it took 7 days to trail the cattle down there.  I remember I used to come back and stop at a ranch right out from Names Hill.  I forget that ranchers name now...and the next day I’d ride on in to Uncle Bill’s place.

          Granddad got a letter from a brother of his, Albert Alexander from Seattle, Washington, one day...I must have been...oh...maybe 5 or 6 years old then.  It’s the first time I can recall that he ever heard from any of his relatives since the time he left home.  He didn’t even know where they were.  But Albert wrote to him and wanted to know if he’d be interested in going down to Mexico with him to look at the land...and see if there was any good for raising cattle down there.  So they decided they’d go.  So late fall...or middle summer...I don’t recall...that’s too far back to remember anyhow.  Anyway, they decided to go.  So Grandma and Grandpa took me and met Grandad’s brother at..I believe it was Rock Springs.  And we took the train in from there to Mexico City.  There’s an incident happened I recalll right after we crossed the Mexican border.  The conductor came through the train and announced that the train just ahead of us had been held up by Poncho Villa.  He was ridin’ high and wild in those days....takin’ away from the rich and given’ to the poor.  He said he didn’t think there was any danger on our train...we was pretty welll covered by troops riding the train.  So we went on to Mexico City and got a hotel room there.  Grandma and I stayed in the hotel and Granddad and his brother went out and got some Mexicans to show ‘em around the country.  They practically went clear down on the Isthmus of Tehauntapac.  They didn’t see anything that really impressed ‘em I guess.  Anyhow, they came back and Grandad’s brother boarded the train and headed back for Seattle, Washington.  And Grandpaw and me got on the train and we went to Vera Cruz for about a week.  And from there to Tampico and stayed about a week.  Then we boarded the train and went back up to San Antonio, Texas and spent the rest of the winter.  I know we rented a hotel room there that had a kitchenette in it and Grandma used to cook our meals in there.  On thing that stays in my mind pretty good...There was a colored fella...he was a white haired guy...he was bell hop there in that hotel...and every evening when he’d get off work, he’d take me by the hand and we’d go waling all over town.  He showed me all the interesting spots and places.  The only one I can remember much about was the Alamo.  I got quite a charge out of it...I guess.

          Then along when spring broke, we got on the train and went up to Iantha, Missouri.  Grandmaw had been corresponding with a brother of hers from Pennsylvania that had come out there and settled on a farm.  So he we went up there and spent...oh...a matter of months visting.  I can’t remember his first name...but he was a Butler.  And then when spring broke in the upper country we got on the train and came home.  But that was quite an experience.  I’ll never forget that.  I wasn’t very big, but I can still remember some of the incidents that happened.  

          Back in the early 1900s, the ranchers all got together and formed a school district...I don’t know what all it took it...they got together and built 3 school houses...little one room log cabins.  We built one on Uncle Frank’s property...it was about halfway between Jenkins’ ranch and our ranch home.  And they built on east of there...east and south...about a quarters of a mile east of the Clare Mershon ranch.  It was called the Decker-Binning School.  And they built one at Cora...it was a one room log cabin.  That’s where we got our first school education.  I can’t even remember my first teacher’s name...I can see her...what she looked like...I do remember she gave us all a test the first day of school and I was stuffed into the 3rd grade...thanks to Grandma’s teaching me...that’s one thing she was awfully persnickety about.  During the winters, I used to have to sit down and study about 2 hours every evening and work out problems and what not that she gave me.  She had all kinds of books from her teaching experience. 

          Let’s see...where do we go from here?  Oh, we used to ride horse-back to school every day.  That was 2 miles to the school house...2 miles home.  There was Marion Jenkins and us kids from home up there and the Wright kids...about 7 or 8 of us there in the whole school.  I don’t remember how large that district was when it was formed...but we was part of Fremont County at the time.  The county seat was at Lander.  The only ones I recall that was on the school board, there must have been more... Dad was Treasurer I know because he wrote out all the checks for the teachers each month...and Mrs. Syris Mershon, that’s Aunt Mary Mershon, she was Secretary.  That’s all I can remember that far back.  Oh yeah, I hit the 8th grade at home school...Dad and Mom decided that during the winter, they’d rent a house in Pinedale.  There was 2 or 3 houses then that was vacant and there was a pretty good school established there by that time.  It took in the grades as well as high school.  So, they would rent a house in the fall of the year and Mom would go down and take care of us and send us to school and keep us out of trouble...and that’s where I graduated from high school.   I can remember 3 of my best teachers.  There was Mrs. Hagenstein and Kit Carson and John Wilson.  For my money, John Wilson was one of the best math teachers that ever taught school. 

          That was how come they were in there,... Carsons and Wilsons and Feltners...they come up to take up land...They were World War I veterans and there was quite a set up for land for them at that time so they all come to Pinedale and filed on land around there. 

          I kind of missed the mark...quite a few years prior to the last statement that I made.  Pinedale was originally formed by a man by the name of Patterson at what is known as the Hennick Place now.  He had all that land in there and he decided he’d start a town.  So he’s the first one that plotted the town of Pinedale.  That’s why you see some Patterson original additions to the town of Pinedale.  There was only a few businesses.  There was the Jones that started the store...Seth Jones.  It later was the Mollring Store.  And then, there was the Borem Hotel which later was the Pinedale Inn... and the Bloom Hotel... John Bloom was the one that started that.  Instead of having a garage or anything like that, they had barns behind the hotels to put horses in.  And the printer come in there about 1904.  He started the Pinedale Roundup.  And there was 1 saloon..a guy by the name of Swartz started that.  Outside of that, maybe about half a dozen residents was the size of Pinedale.

          I forgot to insert back when I was talking about schools...the school year was only 6 months then instead of 9 like it is now.  And the school when they built it here, I don’t know what year that was, it was a big 2 room building...one room was grades and the other room was high school.  There was probably..all tolled when I went to school here...probably 30 or 40 students all tolled...now there’s that many in one grade.  Crazy huh?

           Maybe I should tell about when we got our first automobiles.  It must have been about 1915 or 1916.  Dad, Uncle Bill, Clair Mershon and Granddad all shipped cattle together that fall and they all boarded a train and they all went back to Omaha with the cattle.  And after they got ‘em sold, they went to Detroit, Michigan and bought 3 of those opened top Dodge touring cars.  It was about the first year they was on the market I guess.  Clair Mershon drove one back for Granddad and Grandma...Dad drove his and Uncle Bill drove hit.  I can remember after they got back, Uncle Bill used to take me out in the meadows.  I must have been about 10 years old then, probably, Ya didn’t need a driver’s license to drive then anyhow, whatever age it was...and he’d teach me how to drive...and we’d go around and around and around.  We’d find a smooth spot in the meadow and I learned to shift gears and give ‘er the gas.  That’s where I got my first driving experience.  And they was the first automobiles in that part of the country.

          The next year, John Rahm and Perry Jenkins..they was trying to outdo each other...one of ‘em bought a Cadillac and the other bought a Lincoln.  They was always fighting between themselves anyhow.

           It changed the way of getting around up there.  We didn’t have anything but a dirt wagon road to travel on but we made it anyhow.  And the roads in those days went right down from the home place...down the New Fork River almost to Pinedale.  There was places on it you could get up to 20 miles an hour...but very few of them... it was quite a deal. 

          I didn’t tell you what happened to Uncle Frank...don’t know if you’d be interested or not...the winter of 25... he probably got it from skinning some of the animals he’d trapped...he got tularemia.. that disease that rabbits get...it killed rabbits off by the thousands...he kept getting worse and worse and he finally drug himself to Seattle, Washington..he didn’t last but a few days after he got there... the doctors said he’d waited too long.

          And Uncle Essie...if you’ll notice he wasn’t mentioned much in here...one day I asked Uncle Bill why he didn’t settle in the New Fork Valley... so he told me... he said he was... oh, I don’t just how he put it now..errogan  and overbearing.  Apparently the black sheep of the family.  They said he was always arguing with somebody and getting into fights.  And Uncle Bill, him and Dad stepped into the house one day, or had to go up to Granddad’s and Grandma’s for something and they hear him (Uncle Essie) cussing Grandma... he was calling her every dirty name in the book...and Uncle Bill said he was behind Dad and he couldn’t get to him...but he said Dad nailed him... and he said he never saw anybody take a whipping and beating like he took.  He said Dad knocked both of his eyes shut and loosened up his teeth and flattened his nose...he really beat hell out of him I guess... and Dad was about 30 pounds lighter... but he was a lot agiler... and when he got so he could kind of set up and look around and wondered what happened.. he said Grandma told him to gather up his clothes and get out.  She never wanted to see him inside her place again.  So he said he left that night and the next thing they heard of him he was over on the Wind River side of the Mountains.  And to my knowledge, he never did come back.  At least I never saw anything of him.  And we heard...on that’s been quite a few years back.. That he had a little grocery country store and post office in Burris, Wyoming, that’s over north of Lander.  And I don’t know what’s happened to him since then.  He was married and had 2, 3 or 4 kids, I guess.  But I couldn’t say anything about it ‘cause I don’t know.  That’s some of the goodies...  I don’t know whether I should tell anymore of this good stuff or not... Maybe I should...

          Mom had 2 brothers younger than her.  One was named Claude.. the other was Roy.. They weren’t really outlaws in that sense of the word.  They was hell on killing game and leaving it lay.. And they got to killing old elk for the tushes..   Back in those days you could get $20.00 a pair for elk tushes.  And they would kill them off by the hand full, I guess.  Dad told me they better knock it off, but it didn’t register.  Anyway, the game warden caught up with them and they got 2 years down in Rawlins ( penitentiary) for it.  After that, they settled down and turned out to be pretty good citizens.  But it took that to settle them down.  That’s some scuttle butt that maybe you never knew anything about.. I don’t know.

          After Grandma passed away ... that must have been about 1920... Grandad decided he wanted to spend his winters in the hospital in Rock Springs.  He wasn’t sick or anything like that... he just wanted to go in and rent a room and let the nurses take care of him during the winter.  So, every fall, I would take him to Rock Springs and get him settled.  Then I would come back and Uncle Bill would insist that I feed cows and do the chores for him.  I don’t think he really needed the help but he thought maybe he’d keep me off the streets and out of trouble.  I don’t know... anyhow that’s the way we’d work it.  And when spring would come, I’d go down and get Granddad and bring him home.. Then next fall it would be the same thing over again..take him down, leave him, come back and feed cows and do the chores for Uncle Bill. 

          During the summertime, Tuff and I, Rob and Roy Lozier used to work up at the Green River saw mill for about 30 days in the spring of the year.  They would log all winter long up there... get the sawed timber out and then they would hire a whole crew and they’d saw it up in the spring of the year.  So we used to go up there and work.  That’s where I got my first experience around milling equipment.  The mill was owned by Doc Rickert, Paul Hagenstein and Lee Cooper.  They called it the Upper Green River Lumber Company.  They would saw about 100,000 feet a year.. Is what they’d put out.. Which is a lot of timber for that time and age.  In this day and age, it wouldn’t amount to anything.

          I don’t think I mentioned Grandma trading with the Indians..the fist few years afer moving to this country, the Indians on the Wind River side.. Over around Dubois, Washakee and other in there.. Used to cross the pass north of Green River Lake.  It’s called Gun Sight Pass.  They’d do that every fall of the year.  And they’d come down the Green River across and down the New Fork and out on the desert.  And that’s where they would winter and come spring they’d turn around and trek back over the mountains again.  And this path that they followed went by Grandad’s and Grandma’s place.  Grandma used to make lots of cottage cheese and butter and she had chickens.  They had eggs and she used to trade cottage cheese and butter and eggs to the Indians for buckskin.  And then she would make gloves and jackets for the bunch around home.  She said that was some of the best buckskin she ever saw that come from those Indians over there.  They got so that was quite a habit with them.  They got so they’d bring buckskin with them every time they’d come over ‘cause that cottage cheese and butter was like candy to them.  Grandma said they’d get in it with their fingers and gobble it up just like it was butterscotch or something.

          Right about 17, I took a course from ARI institute in Chicago, Illinois by correspondence.  It covered all phases of electric motors, wiring radio and you name it, it was there.  It took me a year to complete it.  While I was working on it, I built and sold some of the first radios in this area.  I wish I’d have kept one of them for a souvenir.  It must have been along about 1925, the fall, my Mom wanted me to drive her down to Mary Mershon’s.  She had to see her about school business... something to do with it anyhow.  I don’t know just what.  So I drove her down there.  The Merson’s lived out just north of Doc Lozier’s  place in Cora.  We got there and walked in the front room... there setting on the piano bench was one of the most wonderful blonds I’ve ever seen.  And the following 47 years proved it.  Aunt Mary  introduced her as her niece from Minnesota they’d hired to teach the Decker-Binning School.  She was going to board with Clare Mersons during the winter.  That was the start of a wonderful, I don’t know what you would call it, it was a wonderful life anyhow. 

          When I look back, even though we had our trails and tribulations, it was really wonderful.  Clair Mershon used to always kid his wife, Roxie, to put another plate on the table for supper on Friday evening ‘cause they were liable to have company.  He didn’t miss it very wrong. Anyhow, that was the starting of a wonderful companionship.

          That winter, Mommy taught the Decker-Binning School and I took Granddad to Rock Springs and checked him into the hospital.  That was his idea.  He liked to have those nurses take care of him.  And I came back and fed cows for Uncle Bill and did his chores during the winter.  The next spring , let’s see, Mommy taught the Decker-Binning School again the next year.  I think I’ve got this right.  We followed the same procedure that year.

          Then the following spring, in 1927, we slipped off and went to Green River City and tied the big knot that lasted for ever and ever and ever.  Then when school was out that spring we stayed with Granddad.

          That fall, Mommy and I took Granddad to Rock Springs and check him in to the hospital.  Then we came back and she had the Cora School lined up to teach that year.  We came back to Uncle Bill’s place.  He told us to go ahead and move in to Uncle Jim’s place.  That was about a quarter of a mile east of his place.  It hadn’t been lived in for years.  It was completely furnished.  Even down to the dishes.  All we had to do was get out some wood to keep the fires going that winter.  So Mom taught the Cora schools and I fed the cows and did chores for Uncle Bill and we got out wood and sawed it up.  Then the next spring we decided to move to Pinedale.  I don’t know whether that was good or bad.  Moma still had a contract to teach the Cora School and I went to work for Jay Molling.  I was clerking for him and driving truck.

          It wasn’t long after we was in Pinedale there was an old Hudson Roadster that came up for Sheriff’s sale.  I don’t remember who owned it or what happened. Anyway, it sold at Sheriff’s sale and we got it for $110.00 so we had transportation and Moma used to drive back and forth to Cora while I was working for Mollings there. 

          We had rented a little house from Mrs. A. Ball right next to what used to be the drug store.  I think I worked for Molling about 2 years.  I can’t recall for sure.  Then the post office department decided tolet a mail contract frm Rock Springs to Pinedale.  There already was a contract from kemmerer to Pinedale and a fellow by the name of Anderson had it.  But this other contract, when it came up for bids, Walter Scott from Lander bid on it and he got the contract.  When he came to Pinedale, he was looking for drivers on his stage line or mail route.  So that’s where I quit Molling ‘cause Scott paid a lot more money.  Molling kind of hated me for that.  He wouldn’t talk to me for a long time.  So I drove mail for Walter Scott.  It was me and Clarence Sager.  He was from Lander too.  Then when the mail contract came up for a 2nd time for bids, Scott lost to Anderson.  Anderson had both contracts from Rock Springs and the one from Kemmerer.  So I asked Walter Scott if he would contract his hauling to me to his store.  Oh, maybe I’d better back up here.  Walter Scott, when he went into business here, he just had the contract for mail, but he was a wheeler and a dealer and a pretty smart cookie.  So he opened up what was called the Pinedale Cash Store and the Scott Chevrolet Company.  He sold automobiles and also sold merchandise and groceries.  And he shipped every pound of his merchandise by parcel post because at that time the Federal Government paid him for every pound of freight he hauled, or parcel post he hauled.  So that way his groceries or anything he shipped didn’t cost him anything.  He got paid for using it or for hauling it.  It was kind of unethical, but it was legal.. according ot Hoyle.  Anyway that’s the way he eventually coned Molling out of business. 

          Then when he lost his contract 2nd time around, I asked him about hauling his freight for him.  I knew he couldn’t ship it parcel post anymore.  He couldn’t afford to.  So he said sure.  So I bought 2 trucks from him and 2 trailers and I went into the hauling business.  I went around the country and I got all the road hauling I could gather up.  And the following year I would go around and talk the ranchers into shipping their livestock by truck instead of driving them down there.

          I called an old fellow in Omaha, Nebraska that I knew and had met there, when we was shipping beef back, who had hauled cattle into the stock yards.  He was a big trucker.  His name was Peterson.  I asked him if he would come out and help me haul cows to the railroad.  He said sure.  So he came out and between the 2 of us we hauled the first cows, and lots of them, the first cows that ever went out of Sublette County.  That started the trucking business. 

         Anderson had these 2 mail contracts to back him up and he could see where we were making money hand over fist.  So he comes in, oh about the 2nd year we was in business I guess, and the first thing he did was cut the freight rate right in two.. In the middle.  Well, Peterson, he wouldn’t go for it, so he pulled out and I tried to buck him, and that’s when I shoulda woke up.  I was too stuborn and too stupid.  Because, boy he broke me flatter’n a pancake.  I borrowed all the money I could borrow and it was too late then.  But while we was trucking, I bought a lot from Dan Samora and built a little four room log house right on the main drag here in Pinedale.  We was doing alright here until Anderson moved in here with his trucks.  That cured everything.  We lost our home.  We lost our trucks.  When we walked out of there we didn’t have anything but the clothes on our backs.  Don he was just a little bitty guy then. 

          So I pulled out and went to Rock Springs and went to work for Superior Lumber Company as a carpenter.  And old man James, of the lumber company there, was a wonderful old guy to work for.  He never asked me if I was a carpenter or anything.  But he paid me union wages and that’s the most money I ever made working for wages.  I though I was really in the gravy.

          While we was in Rock Springs, I rented half of a duplex there to live in.  And the other half was rented to Lester Mocroft.  Lester Mocroft had a ranch up at Kendall and he’d sold the ranch and moved to Rock Springs and he rented the other half of that duplex.  So we had neighbors that we really knew.  I didn’t know it at the time, but Lester was a professional carpenter.  So in the evenings he used to teach or coach me on everything I need to know about carpentering.  He was about retired... is what he had done.. Intended to do anyhow.  ‘Cause he just lived there and set around that winter.  Every evening he would teach me all the stuff I never dreamed of before in the carpenter business.  And I got awful good start there.  Then it was, ahhh....I must have worked for Superior for a couple of years anyhow. 

          I ran into Walter Scott one day on the streets there in Rock Springs and he wanted to know if I would come to Pinedale and build him a restaurant and an office building...2 story building.  I said sure.  (I thought about it for awhile before I said that).  Sure I wanted to come back to Pinedale anyhow.  I didn’t like Rock Springs and the wind and the dirt.  Mommy wasn’t too crazy about it either.  So we moved back to Pinedale and rented a little house form Dan Samora.  That’s when I built that concrete building for Scott.  Set there beside the Pinedale Cash Store.  It had office rooms upstairs and a café downstairs.  The café was leased by Lou Goush.  I think that was his name, yeah.. And while I was here, I built a new home for Lou Gousch and I built a new home for Dan Samora. 

          Then, let’s see what happened next... oh, yeah...things was kinda slowing up in Pinedale ‘cause World War II was going great guns then and they put out an appeal for carpenters at Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne.  So, I gathered up and took off for Cheyenne.  I went to work the following day after I got there...on the Air Force Base. 

          I stayed with that job until I kinda got situated around there and knew what really was going on and then I sent for Mom and you kids.  She got Bill and Dot Baker to move you all down to Cheyenne.

          Then when the Air Force Base work was all completed, I went to work for Loren Hancock.  I got to know, oh what’s his name....Howard Wagner.  He worked with me out there and he told me Loren wa sa good man to work for.  So when it closed down, him and I both went to work for Loren Hancock in Cheyenne.  We worked , I don’t remember how long there...and they put out another call for carpenters in Colorado Springs Air Force Base.  So Howard and I loaded up our tools and headed for Colorado Springs.  We worked on that base.  We worked as mill men there instead of carpenters.  That was a soft job.  All ya had to do was see if that machinery was running like it should run.  And everything turned out like it should turn out.  I learned a lot on that job.  Then when it closed down, the commanding officer from Buckley Field came in there and wanted to know if he could have th whole crew, the whole mill that is that was on the base at Colorado Springs.  We all agreed to go to Denver.

          That’s when I met Lester Mocrofft again.  He’d come down to work in Colorado Springs as a carpenter there.  He went to work as a carpenter first and then I got him in the mill.   Boy, was he happy.  So he went to Denver with us too.  I went up to Buckley Field there in Denver.  That’s when I bought a trailer house.  I got it parked in a lot there and I went up to Cheyenne and moved Mommy and you kids all down to Denver.  We worked on Buckley Field there until it was completed.  Then the commanding officer from Pacific Naval District came in from Oceanside, California.  I think that’s where he was from.  Either Oceanside or San Diego.  And he wanted the whole crew, if he could get them, out on the base Camp Pendelton in Oceanside, California.  So we all took off and away we went to California.

          It took us 3 or 4 years to finish that base.  I think it was 3 or 4 years anyhow.  Then when it was finished, we came back to ..oh, where Helen lives..un, Lyman, Wyoming.  And we rented a little house there and Mommy and you kids stayed there until I could find some place for us in Cheyenne.

          So I came on into Cheyenne and we bought that old kind of run down house on Fox Farm Road, south of Cheyenne.  It needed a lot of work on it to fix it up, but I figured I could do that in my spare time.  So we got it straightened around and I went back and got Mommy and you kids and we went back to Cheyenne.  And I went back to work for Loren Hancock again.  Oh, I forgot to mention, before we left California, we bought a little shack and 7 acres right on the beach there south of Oceanside.  We traded off or sold, I don’t remember which and bought this place.  And when we left there, we sold it for what we paid for it, so we didn’t lose anything.

          Anyhow in Cheyenne, after I went to work for Hancock, I worked there for quite awhile for him in Cheyenne.  In the meantime, while I was around there, I was in quite a few warehouses that Hancock had stuff stored in.. And in one of them I noticed a planer.  It was pert near new.  Somebody’d lost their shirt I guess the company or the banks had taken it over and stored it in this warehouse.  Anyhow, I’ll tell you about it later on. 

          I worked for Hancock for quite awhile when he bid on the Pinedale School.  It was a pretty good sized job.  He wanted to know if I’d come to Pinedale and build that school for him... I said sure.  That’s when we moved back to Pinedale.  When the school was finished, it was pretty near impossible to buy windows and doors at that time.  And you couldn’t buy finished lumber anywhere.  And I knew where this planer was stored down there and I told Hancock I was gonna walk off and leave him.  ‘Cause I’d decide to stay in Pinedale.  So that’s when I shipped the planer up to Pinedale and set up the planing mill and I turned out lumber and mill work of all kinds.  That was really a money maker that deal was.  After I’d operated it about 2 years then lumber sales kinda slackened off.  I bought those lots where the Rivera Lodge stands now and built it.  I turned out all the material.  Even the doors and windows that went into it. 

          Then we sold it to Burzlanders after we’d operated it several years... and went over next door and bout some more property from Kurt Feltner where the Alpine Apartment was built.  And I built those apartments.  Maybe you don’t forget them ‘cause, boy, if it hadn’t been for you and Mommy, I don’t know how I’d ever got that place built.  Do you remember you used to come in after school and stack lumber up so I could reach it on the 2nd floor?  Mommy did all the interior decorating and painting.  We got it finished and operated it for several years.  And it was a money maker too. 

          Then I got itchy feet again and decided to sell out.  So, we sold the outfit, lock stock and barrel, and I took on the agency for Capp Homes.  And I started Capp Homes then.  I built one for Marlene Wise and I built 3 there in Pinedale and one down in Boulder.  I can’t recall that guy’s name.  But I still kept my cabinet work shop going all the time.  And I sold the mill to Tuff.  He wanted to buy it so I told him I’d sell it to him for $1,200.00.  He gave me a check for $300.00 and that’s the last I ever saw.  I just finally wrote it off.  I think he found out he made money so easy there, he spent it faster than he made it.  I think that was his trouble.  I don’t know what ever became of the mill, but I know the banks took it over.

          I wish I’d a kept track of how many cabinets I built while I was still building them.  But it was a lot of them.  They was scattered all over from Piney, Daniel, Boulder, Big Piney, Cora, you name it.  There must have been over 100-150.  That was a good business.  And then it kinda slackened up a little the year I leased the Pinedale Airport for a year’s lease.  I operated it and sold it when the time was up there.

          Then I took over the Arctic Cat Agency.  Boy, I had more fun with that than a barrel of monkeys.  I sold Arctic Cats all over the country.  They told me that I was the only guy that could sell Arctic Cats in June..the summertime.   I said heck that’s the best time to sell ‘em.  That’s when peoples got money.  And then I sold the Arctic Cat Agency to Ken and Bob down at the airport.  They had it now.  And I tried to slack off on the cabinet work.  I wouldn’t take on anything unless I just wanted to ‘cause I was getting tard.  I guess that’s what you’d call it.. or trashy.  Maybe it was lazy.  I don’t know which.

          Anyway, that pert near end s up my career as a contractor and builder and what not.  It’s been a good life.  I can’t kick.  I’ve had my ups and (blup..end of recording tape).

CADY CLAN

There was (grandpa) Thurston Cady, (grandma) Matilda Cady.. And 8 kids, starting with the oldest was Mortimer, Oma, Esther, John, Lavina, Ada (Celia, Momie) and Allen.  I don’t know when they settled in Minnesota, but it must have been a long time ago.  Allen still lives on the old home place near Lynd, Minnesota.  Grandpa Cady was Scotch-Irish and Gradma Cady was German.

I just remembered there was another girl... she was a twin sister of Ada and she was married to a fellow who’s last name was Thursten (Marion).. And for the life of me, I can’t remember her first name.  They had 2 little ones, Marion, Jr. and Ruth.  The 2 kids were just little tikes when their mother passed away, and I can’t remember what from.  So Grandpa and Grandma Cady took both the little guys in and raised them.  Marion, or Gus as everyone called him, lives in Page, Arizona with his family and Ruth and her family live in Baltimore, Maryland.