MY DAD, VICTOR MOSES EVERSEN (Danish form of Iverson)

My first memories of Dad was shortly after I learned to walk, probably at the age of 18 to 24 months of age. Dad was slowly backing an old timey car alongside the house. I walked out in the way and it knocked me down. Didn't hurt me any so I just laid there watching it pass overhead. When Dad seen me laying out there in front of the car he got quite excited. He made a big fuss over me. Guess he was glad that one of the wheels hadn't squished me, but I wasn't a bit concerned and didn't know why he was hugging me so.

Out at Dad's homestead on the Arizona Strip was my next memories at the age of 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. He had an old Model T truck that required a lot of fixing to make it run. I liked to watch him and hand the tools that he needed. When he first took up or laid his claim on the 640 acres we lived in a dugout just north of our homestead. It was only one room, with a door on the downhill end, a cookstove just inside, then the table and cupboard with the beds at the back end against a rocky hillside wall. The roof was made with a long ridge pole and shorter cedar poles sloping to the eves. Cedar bark covered the cracks between the poles over which a thick layer of dirt was piled. A well made dugout was warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Dad hauled rough cut 1 inch thick lumber from a saw mill on Trumble Mountain and built us a cabin on his claim about 1/4 mile west of the main road. It had 2 or 3 rooms with the water bucket hanging on a hook near the front door, a long handled dipper hung nearby with a washbasin setting on a bench underneath. Mom was glad to get in her new cabin but I thought the dugout was plenty good.

Down to the north of the house about 200 yards Dad scraped out a pond with a team of horses pulling a dirt moving fresno It was located along a draw that had a couple miles of drainage. Keith was just learning to walk at the time but me and Grant liked to climb some wide spreading cedar trees near the house and play down by the pond in the mud. Dad built a corral west of the house about 100 yards. Here he milked the cows and penned the calves during the night. .

Us kids all liked to go with Dad. One spring he fenced a dry lake bed up on top of the Hurricane Rim that was called Boney Holler, west and north of Nixon Spring a ways. At night us kids and Dad would sit around the campfire and listen to the stutter-blow call of the night hawk, the yap-yap bark of the little gray foxes, the lonesome howl of the coyote and sometimes his jangling night time serenade. Dad told us stories of his boyhood days along the Virgin River at Littlefield, Arizona.

They had fields on both sides of the river so often the cows were driven from one side to the other. Several of the old milk cows would allow the boys to run up alongside and jump on their backs and ride across the water. This was especially nice in the wintertime when the water was cold. He told of how the pomegranates grew big and sweet along the ditch banks in the late summertime. He talked of the melons they raised on that loamy, sandy soil: casabas, cantaloupe and watermelons, sweet and juicy. Us kids at this time in life hardly knew what pomegranates and melons were and I marveled at such wondrous bounties. Stories of raising fields of sugar cane. When the tassel of seed on top of the stalk began to turn red the kids would each cut a stalk, pull off the leaves and twist each section between the joints sucking out that sweet delicious juice. The sandy loam and hot summer weather was ideal to put that sugar sweetness into the cane juice from which they made molasses. They had no other sweetening agent for their food. Sugar and honey as we know it was nonexistent, or at least not available. The sugar cane matured the first part of July if planted early, or later during the summer depending on when it was planted. When the tassel of seed became deep red and before they started to fall off on the ground the boys would go through the field, stripping off the leaves and cutting off the seed head which was put in bags as seed for next year's cane patch and the extra used for chicken feed. Then the cane stalks were cut and loaded onto a wagon and hauled to where the sugar cane squeezer and cooking vats were located.

Several years after Dad told us these stories he took me to Uncle Walter's place in Washington where Walter was making molasses. He was cooking off some cane juice just like they did when they were growing up in Littlefield. The cane squeezer consisted of 3 upright rollers placed close together as a triangle. Below the base was a juice catch pan with a pipe sloping down to the first cooping trough which measured about 4 feet wide by 10 feet long and 10 inches deep, made from 3/16 inch iron metal. The rollers were turned by gears operated from an upright pole that stood about 10 feet high to which another pole sloped outward and down to where a horse could be hitched to the end of it. Another pole sloped outward that served as a place to tie the lead rope. So you hitched old Ben to the pole with the single-tree anchored to its end then tied the lead rope to the pole in front of him. Then you clucked (tcha-tcha) to Ben and he'd lead himself round and round as someone pushed the cane stalks into the rollers, making the juice run out into the first vat. A slow burning wood fire was maintained underneath. The juice was stirred and skimmed as it slowly evaporated. The thicker juice was moved to the far end where an overflow pipe led into the second vat. Here the evaporating process slowed down so that the thicker syrup would not burn. Uncle Walter was a master molasses maker and was real mindful to tend the cooking process carefully. It was a week's job to process a large field of cane, working from early morning to way late at night when they let the fires die down. But the product was worth the effort: clear amber colored sweetness with lots of body building ingredients in it. Dad liked it with his cracked wheat mush, with bread and milk and on the curds of clabbered milk and cottage cheese. Most all of their food was raised on the farm and any extra molasses was a good trade and barter item.

The Indians of the country liked to camp at Grandpa Hans Peter Iverson's place when they were traveling through. He had a shady place by the irrigation ditch where there was wood and water. The corrals and haystacks were nearby from which they fed their horses and he often gave them flour or ground corn. He was highly thought of among the Indian people. Dad was also a friend to the Indians and while us kids were growing up they came by wherever we lived quite often to visit with him. He told us lots of stories about those early day immigrants who came to gather with the saints in the Rocky Mountains. They were so honest they'd trade whatever they had below its value so they wouldn't cheat anyone.

One old timer wanted to trade his big plow for a smaller one that his neighbor had, but the one with the smaller plow insisted that he should pay "boot" for that big plow. But, the old brother with the big plow said that wasn't right cause he's the one that wanted to trade in the first place neither one would relent on his stand so they never did make the trade. Somewhat different from the average horse-trader now days.

An old Danishman was giving his kid a licking for something he'd done. When he got through popping his britches he says, "An what do ye tink o' dot?" The kid didn't say anything so the old mans says, "An ya tink, damn yer of father, an I'll lick ye fer dot, too" so he gives him a few more whacks.

One of the neighbor boys was always doing things that got him in trouble with his dad. When he knowed he was about to get a thunking, he'd eat some garlic, then when his dad started to scold him he'd breath fast like he was afraid. His dad would smell his bad breath and say, "away with ya, ye smell like the dead." The kid would run away and brag later, how clever he was.

Several times each summer a bunch of young people would travel the 4 or 5 miles upstream along the riverbed to the mouth of the Virgin River Gorge. Here was a good swimming hole and a sweet water spring that flowed into the river. They brought a picnic lunch or sometimes stayed overnight. Edible fish could be caught here and there was plenty of driftwood for a campfire.

The mail was carried by horse or mule up through the "narrows"it being the most direct and easiest route of travel along the river gorge as it cut through the west mountains. Rod Waite's father rode this route for years, traveling up to St. George on Monday or Tuesday then returning Thursday then Friday to Bunkerville, Nevada, the south end of his route. One winter day as he was headed up stream through the narrows an Indian rode out of one of the side canyons and joined him. After awhile, Grandpa Waite stopped to eat his lunch. A cold wind was blowing down-canyon so he built a little fire on the leeward side of a rocky ledge. The Indian pulled a dead packrat out of a sack and put it on the coals. He turned it several times so the hair would burn off. As it cooked, it swelled up to twice or three times its original size. Finally he removed it from the fire to let it cool, then picked it up and put the tail end to his mouth and squeezed as he sucked -"mmm, heap good."

Another time an Indian was riding along with him and the Indian's horse was acting crazy and difficult to handle. Finally it took off on the run, so the Indian pulled a big knife out of its scabbard and cut the horse's throat while they was on the run. I guess he didn't run away with anyone after that.

Grandpa Hans Peter tried to live according to the teachings of the Savior: Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, provide comfort for the weary. He had ample opportunity to do this as most of the travelers were weary and hungry and sometimes short on clothing by the time they arrived at Littlefield, no matter which direction they were going. "He that would borrow turn not away and if someone should strike you on one cheek turn to him the other." Grandpa used "HP"as his brand. His initials for Hans Peter. A man from up at Price Bench by the name of Henry Petersen also used "HP" as his brand. Sometimes Petersen would winter some of his cattle along the river in the Littlefield area. One day he rode by and seen a nice 2 year old heifer that Dad and his brothers had raised as a pet, so he cut it out from the other cattle with the same brand and put it in with some of his. The boys objected but he took it anyway. When Dad and Uncle Lee told Grandpa he said, "It seems that Mr. Petersen needs the heifer more than we do so let him have her."

One time someone came by and reported that Brother Reber, who had a farm on the Beaver Dam Wash to the north a mile or so, was mad at Grandpa and had said some bad things about him. Grandpa replied that he must have a talk with Brother Reber. In a day or two they chanced to meet on the road. Grandpa stopped his team, climbed down from his wagon and greeted Brother Reber with a cheery "good morning." Brother Reber replied with a surly grunt. Then Grandpa climbed up into Brother Reber's wagon, put his arm around his shoulder and told him what a good man he was and how much he loved and appreciated him. Dad said that when Grandpa first stopped the wagon he thought maybe they would have a fist fight, but when he climbed back off the wagon Brother Reber had tears on his cheeks and from then on was one of Grandpa's best friends.

When I was a kid and talked to the old timers that knew Grandpa, they said that he was highly thought of and respected by all the people up and down the Virgin Valley. He not only was a farmer, but was a stone mason and built many of the old rock houses in the Mesquite and Bunkerville region also the town of Washington. Many years later I done some repair and remodel work on one of the houses Grandpa had laid up and on which his sons had tended him. It had a shallow-type fireplace that put out the most heat of any fireplace I've ever seen in operation. The blaze burned there on the hearth by itself, then the top flames and smoke curled into the chimney, leaving only heat out in the room. Dad said they made the lime that was used in the mortar. They would heat the lime rocks with a fire for a couple of days, then they'd move the ashes and dig a pit below the rocks and then pour water on them, at which the rocks disintegrated and would run down into the pit, much like white mud and when it cooled off would be firm like Jello. The next day or so they shoveled the white gel out into the wagon box in big blocks like new made soap. This was mixed with sand and water to make mortar. There was no cement available at that time.

Dad and his brothers and sisters and the other kids of the little community went to school in a one-room rock walled school house, taught by one teacher. When the boys reached the age of 13 or 14 years they went off to work punching cows, herding sheep, driving a freight wagon or working as a miner, but some of them stayed on the farm and developed the land. A couple of Dad's older brothers and a married sister moved to the Mormon Colonies in old Mexico. This outpost had been established in the 1870's to escape the persecution being waged against the Mormon people. Later Grandma, with her 2 youngest children, Levi and Annie, also moved to the Colonies.

When Dad was in his 16th year he rode the train to California where he intended to catch the Southern Pacific back across Arizona and New Mexico for the nearest location to Morales, Mexico. On the way to California he met another young fellow and they became friendly so stayed together that night. In the morning when Dad woke up his new "friend" was gone and so was all his money. After a day or two looking for work an old fellow took him out to his mine where he worked for a month or two. They took out a lot of high grade gold bearing ore. The old miner liked Dad real well and wanted him to stay with him. He said that when he died all that he owned would be Dads, but the call of his family was too strong. Dad hankered for his mother, brothers and sisters, so one day he gathered up his stuff and said a final goodbye to his friend. He then traveled on to Mexico. From that time on Dad was always interested in minerals and mining. After he married Mom and he started to raise us kids, he was always prospecting and looking for ways and means to use the mineral resources of the land.

Dad developed a good product from gypsum. When I was a kid I hated what Dad was trying to do because he put so much time and effort into its development, but now I can see how short my vision was. He had a good thing that someday will be a multi-million dollar industry. It will really be a boon to the building business. Leon Jennings told me that Dad was a man born before his time. That he had developed a product that could now take off with great success. But Dad's time was during the depression of the 30's, not much building taking place and no money available to buy the equipment to produce the special product.

Dad's Model T Ford truck had a magneto by which it developed the spark to fire the pistons, somewhat on the order of the present day single cylinder engines. The spark was controlled by a lever near the steering wheel, also the gas feed. To start the engine both levers were adjusted to the most likely start position, then you went around in front where a crank handle hung idle. It was inserted into a slot at the front end of the crankshaft and given a hard turn or two so the spark could fire the gas in the cylinders which started the engine to run. This old engine didn't run too well so Dad had to do a lot of mechanic work on it. I liked to help him in any way I could. He hauled cedar wood to St. George where a big load would bring about $12.00 cash. With this amount we bought gas, groceries, and other supplies that the family needed. Twelve dollars then had the buying power of $250.00 or more now. The gas tank was positioned under the dash board above the rear end of the engine and the fuel was gravity fed to the carburetor. Sometimes when the truck was climbing a steep grade, no gas would run to the carburetor, especially if the tank was less than half full. The engine would die out and Dad would coast it back to the bottom then get out and crank it to start, turn it around and back it up the hill. That way there'd be plenty of fuel pressure. One steep little hill a few miles south of Wolf Hole always required this procedure.

While out on the homestead we always used a team and wagon for our hauling needs. We used the old Model T only for town going purposes. Gas was too hard to come by to waste it for running around out on the range. Most of the trips to Boney Holler was by wagon but we did take the truck up there once. Boney Holler was a wet-weather lake bed but most of the time it lay dry with no water in it. The ground was flat with no grass or other vegetation growing on it. Dad had showed me how to start the truck. Our camp was at the edge of the dry lake, under some trees. Dad had left the truck up the flat a couple hundred yards and told me to go get it. I guess he wanted to see if I could. So I run up there and pull the spark and gas levers into position, then got out in front ahold of that crank and pulled it as hard as I could. Surprise! It started right up. I get up there on the seat behind the steering wheel. On the floorboard under the steering wheel column are 3 pedals: one is forward gear, one is reverse and the other is a brake pedal. There is also a gear shift lever above the transmission case. Dad had explained what lever to push to put it in gear and start the truck moving. After adjusting the spark and gas lever some more I pushed on that lever and we started moving slowly along. I turned it in the direction where Dad was waiting. Maybe it was traveling 5 mph when we passed Dad, but I had forgotten how to stop it, so I made a couple of circles around him while he told me to push the spark lever to the "up" position. When I did that the engine quit puttin and the truck stopped.

Mom and Marie would come up to Boney Holler and camp with us sometimes. There were many different kinds of beautiful butterflies that flitted around. Dad fixed up some nets with long handles and the whole family would hunt butterflies. That was the most fun. Far more exciting than hunting Easter eggs. The weather was warm and balmy, but not ever very hot. Just our family up there alone with no other people around. Mom would arrange and press the butterflies under glass to show off their beautiful color and designs.

To return to the ranch we had to come off the Hurricane Rim. The road switched back and forth along the dugway in the mountain side, and the brakes on the iron tired wagon had to be applied most of the way down. One day Dad was driving home with Keith, Grant and me sitting in the bed of the wagon. Below us we could see an old timey car coming up the dugway, so when we came to a wide place Dad pulled the team and wagon off the road and waited for the car to pass. As it came alongside the driver stopped and they visited, asking directions to Tuweep along the Grand Canyon. They were a man and woman from California. The lady talked to us kids but we's bashful like Navajo sheepherder kids that hide in the brush like a coyote. We wouldn't say a word, so she gave us each a big yellow grapefruit. I'd never seen one before and after they went up the road I gave mine to Dad cause I could tell he thought they were good. Don't know what Grant and Keith done with theirs.

Ponds and reservoirs weren't very much developed at that point in time so on occasion there was a great scarcity of stock water. In 1928, Jim Hudson, a cowboy, shot and killed a Greek sheepherder, John Pheavas, who was guarding the Fred Shultz reservoir, keeping the cattle away from the water. The water belonged to the sheepmen, but some of those trigger-happy cowmen would rather shoot a sheepherder than a rattlesnake, even if it was in their grub box. That same summer our pond dried up and Dad moved his cattle over in the rolling hills not far from the Fred Shultz pond. Each day he'd drive the wagon into the pond and fill all the barrels his horses could pull and bring it out to the cows. They was always glad to see Dad coming. In the daytime Marie and I herded the cows and held them on good grass till Dad arrived with the water. Mr. Shultz was a friend to Dad and gave him permission to haul water.

One afternoon heavy clouds covered the sky, lightening flashed and thunder cracked and rumbled and the rain poured down in sheets. Marie and I rode our horse up on the hill a ways and set there with our backs toward the direction of the driving rain. It wasn't long till water was running everywhere and within an hour or so all the draws and low places was a big lake. We wondered how we'd ever get home that night but along toward evening we seen a horse and rider coming our way. When he got closer we recognized Dad on one of the work horses. As he crossed through some of the lower places the water near covered the horses back but he finally got over to us. We were sure happy that Dad was with us but didn't want to cross back the way he had come. He told us to follow him and hang on to the mane. I was scared but the horses were willing to go as we passed back across that deep water. This good rain came in August so there was plenty of summer left for the grass to grow green and tall to make feed for the coming winter. That's the way it is out there, always living on the edge of drought and starvation or plenty where there's enough for the next few months.

When we lived on the Arizona Strip there was no television, radio, telephones and very few people owned a phonograph. I remember one Uncle Lee had, a big horn-like speaker protruded out from one side and the record was in the shape of a 6 inch by 2 1 /2 inch piece of plastic pipe which turned around as the needle rode on the top side. There was a sad song about a fellow leaving his home one morning and when he returned the Indians had taken his wife and children and burned his cabin. It sure made me sad.

The Saints had parties, picnics and dances at the church house. Sometimes they'd make homemade ice cream if anybody had saved up ice from the winter before. Gimminee it was good! One summer all the Mormons went up on Trumble Mountain to the quakin' asp' grove for a camp out to celebrate the 24th of July. That was the first time I'd ever been up in that high country where the yellow long-leaf pine grew tall. As the team of horses toiled up that long steep grade, Dad stopped them quite often for a breather, but us kids didn't mind. This high forest land was enchanting, the smell of the pine trees, a cool and exhilarating feel of the temperature, a sense of wild things and nature in its primitive state. After a few miles we passed a sawmill with big piles of sawdust. Fresh cut lumber treated our nostrils with another tantalizing odor. Quite often we passed by little bunches of cattle as they picked the browse and grass or trailed along going to water or coming out from Nixon Spring. Marie and I rode Dugan most of the way. After awhile Uncle Roy Whipple and Aunt Annie caught up with us in their lighter wagon. Meb was following on his saddle horse. It think it was Roany, a good gentle mare that I sure liked. Dugan was also a gentle dependable horse. A couple of times we passed by big bulls a talking and a rumbling to themselves. They looked mighty mean and ferocious to me. When we arrive at the grove a little while before sundown there was a lot of wagons parked there and campfires burning. Hobbled horses grazed in the meadow, hopping about on their front legs looking for better grass. Dad soon found a good camp spot where he unhooked the team while Mom, Marie and me unloaded the camp. It wasn't long till us kids was running about visiting with all our friends and cousins. Grant and Keith wasn't very old at the time and Mom kept a close watch on them. When it got dark most everybody gathered around a big fire where sort of a program took place with story telling. Stories about the pioneers and the hardships they had endured, migrating from Europe, crossing the plains and settling this good land. How the gospel of Jesus Christ had given them courage and enriched their lives.

The Bundy's told of Abraham Bundy and his finding the gospel. Dad and Uncle Martin told stories of Hans Peter Iverson and his missionary adventures. The Aldridges, Van Leuvans, Snyders and others rehearsed history from their own lives and the lives of their forebears. They sang songs accompanied by guitar, harmonicas and other stringed instruments and everyone visited and had a good time. Most of the kids had fallen asleep by this time, but not me, my ears were perked up taking all these interesting adventures in. I practically lived each one as they were told.

Next morning just as it was coming daylight I heard a bull bellowing down the draw. He was coming up through the grove of long leafed pine trees east of the meadow. His deep low voice "bo oo oo, bo oo o, bo oo o" as he walked along. Sounds like he's coming our way. Then he'd bugle out with a high pitched note "awooa, awooa" just to let all the other bovine critters know what a fine big fierce feller he was. Gee whilikers, that sound sent shivers of excitement through me! It was a call of the wild that mingled feelings of fear and wonderment and desire to go see that great beasty. I jumped out of bed and ran over to Meb's camp. He was already up, getting his horse ready to ride down that way. He helped me get Dugan and just as the sun rays hit the top of them tall pine we was lopin across the flat to take a look-see: A big, solid red, bull that was pawin and throwing dirt up on his shoulders, and them long wicked-lookin horns. I didn't get too close, but Meb rode up near and headed him back down the draw. Only young boys ever have feelings of excitement like that. Them sensations of joyful adventure start to disappear by the time he's 20 years old, or so.

Nixon Mountain is a large oval shaped knoll that lays east and north of Nixon Spring, probably a dead volcano. Dad took me with him when he went over on the other side somewhere to visit Old Man White. His cabin was nestled among the oak and pine trees on its eastern base. Old Man White had a long white beard that rested down on his chest, and a gruff but kindly voice. After they talked awhile he hitched up his team of mules to a buggy and we all rode along to where he needed to do something. Them mules was gentle and well behaved, not treacherous run-aways like most of the mustang mules owned by the homesteaders down off the Hurricane Rim. Dad and Mr. White were good friends and I thought he was a good man but about 8 or 9 years later one of his neighbors shot and killed him over a water defugalty. There were several of his kind of man scattered over the Arizona Strip. Men who had lived a big share of their lives in the 1800's when the West was a wild, free land and had participated in those adventurous times. Men who for various reasons wanted to live alone, away from the bustle of humanity: Josh Crosby, Ed Yates, Jim Johnson, Luther Swaner, and a dozen others of their kind. Men who were hospitable and friendly but didn't want your company for very long at a time.

Dad was a friend to everyone and most everybody liked him and some took advantage of his generous nature, like the Jonses, our neighbors just south of Dad's homestead. I'd get so mad at their cheatin ways. Guess that is one reason I'm so touchy about people trying to pull a fast one on me. But I loved Dad with all my heart and I look forward to the time when I can greet him on the other side of yonder ridge.