Glen Alvin Lambert
Born 8 Aug 1892, Woodland, Summit, Utah, USA
Died 15 Oct 1982, Roosevelt, Duchesne, Utah, USA |
| Margaret Rowena LEWIS
and Glen Alvin LAMBERT
Taken about 1917
|
Notice: When an image has a
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or more information. |
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History and Adventures of Glen Alvin Lambert
Son of Ephraim and Agnes Catherine Harriet Michie Lambert
Husband of Margaret Rowena Lewis
Transcribed from an audio tape made when he was age 74 [1966], in
Anaheim, California, USA |
This is Glen Lambert. When I was a youngster, six or seven years old, I remember my grandfather,
Robert Michie, on my mother's side,
telling a story about his past life. I'll try and relate the story
just about as he told it. Granddad Michie was born in Scotland and
lived there until he was a young man, when he migrated to Africa. He
went to Africa; after going to Africa he went into the cattle
business, acquired a ranch, and did pretty well there. He told us
somewhat about the animals in Africa, those that bothered him and
whatnot, and he mentioned the baboons. He said they were thick in
his neighborhood, and he said, a single baboon wouldn't bother
anybody, but occasionally they'd get into big bunches. And in that
case, he says that they'd fight most anything. They used to stampede
his cattle and he said that on occasion or two he'd have to run away
from them on horseback. He said that usually a rifle shot or
something like that would scare them away, but when they got in
these bunches, nothing would scare them hardly.
He got to be quite a wealthy man down there, that is, in that
day he got to what they called fairly well to do at that time. But
he was located on a river, along some river there (I don't remember
the name of it), and a flood came and just about wiped him out.
After that he had practically nothing left but a small bunch of
cattle; this flood drowned most of his cattle. So he decided to go
back to England again, or back to Scotland, I presume. [He went to
England.] So he loaded his stock onto a ship, a British ship, which
was a low barge of some kind, on account of the load it sat pretty
low in the water anyway, and headed for England.
And he said on the
way to England there was a big white shark - those are the largest
sharks and considered to be man-eaters - and this was a tremendous big
one according to his statement, which followed them. He said it
followed along the side of the boat almost on top of the water and
every little while would dive under the boat and come up on the
other side. He thought that probably it could smell the cattle and
it expected to get fed or something. He said they used to toss
things to it occasionally, and it would catch everything they threw,
even a piece of wood or a piece of metal. He stated that the shark
when it would grab something would turn on its back. Its mouth being
on the underside, in order to catch something, it would turn over on
its back. This thing followed them for days, and he said that it
seemed like he never was going to leave this ship, so they finally
decided to give him a good dose. They had some old cannon balls on
this ship, old heavy metal balls about, I imagine, four or five
inches in diameter. So they heated three of those in the furnace on
the ship; and heated them, he said, until they were white with heat.
And they put them in the shovel and put them out over the water; and
this old shark came up, of course, and turned over to catch them and
they dropped them right in his mouth, and he gulped them down; and he
said that was the last they saw of the shark.
Well, he came back to Scotland [correct place is England] and
married after he got back there. He was up in his thirties I think
now in age, when he got back to England, anyway, and never been
married. But he married into a Potts family, and he and his
brother-in-law, Thomas Potts, and their wives joined the Church [of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints] and
came to America. And my mother was born, she was the oldest of the
Robert Michie family, and she was born in Boston on the way west.
And they finally came to Salt Lake City and moved out, eventually,
out to Woodland, which is a place on the Provo River, just south of
Kamas. And that's where I was born, was in Woodland, and lived
there. |
And I thought it might be well, might be interesting to my
family and posterity if I told something about my Granddad on the
Lambert side. His name was John Lambert,
and they were three
brothers of them. They were Englishmen and they were converts to the
LDS Church England and came to America.
And on the way over, Grandad
Lambert (I don't remember whether he was the oldest. I believe he
was the oldest of the three brothers that came to America. They were
young men at the time.), and Grandad Lambert, either on the ship
coming over or after he landed on the east coast had a dream, and he
dreamed that he saw Joseph Smith, the Prophet, in his dream. And
some time later he landed in Nauvoo in Illinois, and the
headquarters of the LDS Church at the time. And he was walking along
the street shortly after he got there and he noticed, he recognized
Joseph Smith
across the street and he walked over and introduced
himself. He recognized him the minute he saw him and he told him who
he was.
Grandad Lambert was quite a staunch Mormon and he lived
there [Nauvoo] and then he came to Utah later on. While in Nauvoo he was one
of the, for some time he was one of Joseph Smith's body guards. He
was a big man, Grandad was, a big square shouldered fellow, well
over six feet in height, and was an athlete. He could outrun most any
man of his age and size and he could jump. I remember when he was
quite an old man, as I remember him, he could stand flat footed on
the ground and jump ten feet on level ground just on a standing
jump! And very few men can do that. And I also saw him take a hold
of a cedar post in a fence with one hand a-hold the top of it and
the other hand down on the post and hold his body (he was a big
heavy man, over 200 lbs.), and he'd hold his body horizontally
straight out from the post in the air with this tremendous strength
that he had.
Well, after he came to Utah; he arrived in Utah; now his, the
three brothers, my Grandad Lambert and the youngest brother came to
Utah and the other brother [Richard], the one, he stayed [in Nauvoo, Illinois], he didn't come to
Utah. He joined that Reorganized [LDS] Church and stayed back in the
middle west there in Missouri, somewhere there. His posterity today
is about the same as John Lambert's posterity that came west. He [John] was
quite a staunch believer in the Church after he came to Utah, and
his profession was mason. He was an expert mason, laying brick,
chiseling rock and whatnot; but he didn't like Brigham Young for
some reason. Nobody knew. Even my Dad who used to talk about it said
he didn't know why. [Other versions say he didn't like the bosses
whom he had to work under in building the temple.]
After they came to Utah Grandad Lambert bought a bunch of
thoroughbred cattle from England. They were purebred short
horn cattle and it was the only bunch of purebreds, I guess,
probably in the state of Utah for quite a while. His youngest
brother [Joseph] had some kind of a... - he never married but he had a physical
defect of some kind. I don't remember what it was. I remember my Dad
telling about it, but I can't recall just what it was. He was
herding cattle up east of Salt Lake, on the east bench and somebody
shot him. They never knew who did it; that is, I think Grandad
Lambert had an idea who did it, but he never would say anyway.
Anyhow, he didn't get along, I guess with Brigham Young,
although he always donated to the Church and I know that he donated
on the temple, but he wouldn't work there under the domination of
Brigham Young. He finally sold out in Salt Lake and moved out to
Kamas and took out a homestead there, and eventually went into
polygamy. He had one wife that he brought out to Salt Lake with him,
and then later on he married another one and he had two families.
Dad was the second boy in the oldest family. [Actually, Ephraim
Lambert was the second son of the second wife, Elena Hansina Larsen.]
I can remember when I was a youngster that Grandad Lambert used
to come over to Woodland. My Dad lived in Woodland where I was born
and Grandad Lambert, John Lambert, and his wife used to come over
and visit us when I was just a kid, a very small kid; back as far as
I can remember anything, and I guess I was five or six years old. I
can remember Grandad Lambert talking to me; sitting in a chair in
our home and talking to me. And he had, I remember he had the
biggest hands of anybody I ever saw. And he used to put his thumb
down on the edge of the table and press on it to make the thumb
wider, and his thumb when he'd do that was just two inches wide. I
remember my Dad measuring the width of his thumb. It was two inches
wide and the normal man is about one inch. He seemed to have
tremendous strength and aside from that was a big man. He was fairly
well to do in Kamas. He always had a pretty good size bunch of
cattle until he died and his estate was divided up and some of the
boys got more than the others. I know I remember my Dad didn't get
hardly anything out of his estate. That's about all I remember on
Grandad.
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This is Glen Lambert again. After World War I, after I was
discharged from the war, sometime later I got into the U.S. Civil
Service in the Department of Agriculture Forest Service. I did this
by taking a Civil Service examination, which I passed, and got my
first appointment in 1923 and was assigned to duty up at Moon Lake [in the Uinta Mountains]
on the Lake Fork District as fire guard. That was in May and my work
there consisted mainly of improvement work to begin with and then a
little later on I was on fire prevention duty, fire suppression and
some administrative work. But a good deal of my work was working on
a trail, manual labor above the lake, approximately two miles above
the Moon Lake in Lakes Fork Canyon. This consisted mainly of cutting
timber,lodge pole saplings, and piling the brush along the side of
the trail so it could be burned, and digging drain ditches and
whatnot along the trail. And of course we couldn't burn this brush
until after there was snow on the ground, but we always piled it in
those days and tried to pick out an open spot along the sides of the
trail somewhere and piled this brush and waited for it to snow in
the fall before we burned it.
During my time in the service I had two quite narrow escapes.
And I thought it might be - well that my family, that is, I thought
my family might be interested in these so I'll tell the story as
they happened.
That fall, in August of that same summer I was
promoted to ranger and was assigned to the Manila District with
instructions to transfer to the Manila District in the last of
October; but I was to stay there on that district until along about
the time of that transfer. Along in the fall, Robert Blood, the
District Ranger there, had to make a trip back to Boston there in
connection with his dad's death and his dad's estate. So I took care
of the whole district, the Lakes Fork District there for about a
month and a half. In September, one day in September, I don't
remember what part of September it was, a snow storm hit there and I
got up in the morning and it was snowing hard. So I got ready to
burn this brush and I put on my burning equipment which consisted of
a torch and some kerosene oil and a shovel. We always took a shovel
along when we were figuring on having anything to do with fire. So I
went up the canyon and, rode up the canyon on my saddle horse and
started to burn this brush, but the snow was awful wet and it kept
snowing harder and harder and it snowed all day. I burned quite a
lot of brush but along in the afternoon it got so wet that the snow
was five or six inches deep and it put the fires out before they'd
burn the brush. So I decided that I would come on down to the [station], so I
tied my equipment on the horse on the saddle. It was so wet that
I was wet all over and the saddle was wet and the horse was wet and
I was cold, so I decided I'd walk down. So I turned the horse loose
and he just sailed off down and, of course, went right into the
corral and into the barn at the station there at Moon Lake.
And during the summer when Blood, the ranger had left to go east
he left his dog, his family dog with me, which was one of these long
haired cur dogs, oh rather this medium size dog, was quite an old
pet of the family. And he stayed with me and was with me this day,
and he and I started down the trail. He was about, I'd say, 50 yards
ahead of me and we'd only gone a little short distance when up to
the right of me, up the slope there,there was an opening in the
timber; went up there, I'd say, about 50 yards. Then it closed in
again in this dense lodge pole reproduction. And I heard a bark up
there in the timber, sounded just like one of these hound dogs. It
didn't sound like a coyote, it was quite a coarse bark; and the old
dog returned the bark and away he went tearing up there to where
this bark come from, barking and away he went. And when he got up
there to the edge of this timber at the upper edge of this opening,
these two animals jumped out of there, come tearing out of that
brush and caught him. They jumped right onto him and they had him
strung between them. And there was brush all over this side of the
hill, and I imagine he thought it was just two big coyotes. So I ran
up there as fast as I could to rescue that dog and on the way, it
was rocky all the way, and I picked up some rocks in my hand, good
big ones, and when I got up there, I could see that I was mixed up
with something a lot bigger than coyotes.
It was a couple of timber
wolves and the old male wolf was a real big one. He was a light gray
and had a big black spot on his shoulder, oh, as big as my hat or
bigger, and had a black streak down each side of him. And the female
(I presume the female) was more of a brownish gray and not near so
big. They had this dog, one of them by the back of the neck and the
other one by the rump, and they was just shaking him and pulling him
and trying to pull him apart. I belted this big wolf in the ribs
with a rock and they let go, and the old dog was yelping and howling
and snarling and fighting as much as he could. And the dog took
right around me in a circle about a rod, I guess, away from me. And
there was brush all around there and they was dodging through the
brush all the time, the sagebrush, or the chaparral's what it was.
And I was throwin' rocks as much as I could and I missed 'em most of
the time, but these wolves seemed to pay absolutely no attention to
me whatsoever. They was determined to get that dog. And I was
throwin' rocks as hard as I could, but every little bit they'd catch
the dog and I'd have to blast away with a rock to get them to let
go. But the wolves paid no attention to me whatsoever; they was just
after that dog.
Well, all at once one of 'em,I hit one of 'em, the
old male wolf, in the side of the head with a good big rock bigger
than my fist, and man did he come alive. He twirled around and faced
me and then opened his mouth wide and showed the biggest set of
teeth I ever saw in my life and snarled and growled at me, and the
hair on his back stood straight up and his eyes were green. And he
just stood there and opened his mouth and showed his teeth and
snarled at me. And I was going to throw another rock but I held it.
I didn't make a move and he just looked me over and snarled at me,
and then finally he turned a little to the right and went around
to the left side of me and just took a few steps and just whirled
around to look at me and snarl at me again and show his teeth at me.
Man alive, I think if I'd have run or if I'd have throwed another
rock, I'm afraid he'd have jumped right onto me. That's what I was
afraid of. I was backing down the hill all the time and he was
walking away. I was backing down the hill keeping my face to him,
and each time he'd mosey off up the hill towards the female (I
should state that the female in the beginning after the big wolf
stopped chasing the dog, the smaller one ran back up into the timber
and went into the edge of the timber and stood there) this old big
feller, he just walked around, and every little ways he'd turn
around and look at me and snarl at me and the hair on his back stood
up on end. And he was a ferocious lookin' beast, there's no question
about it. I kept backin down the hill and backin' down the hill, and
every time he'd stop and turn around and look at me and snarl at me
I'd stop too.
Finally, he went back up to the edge of the timber
which was, I'd say, maybe 75 feet or 100 feet from where I was, or
where I'd first had the rumpus with him. Well, the old big wolf
turned around and sat down on his haunches and barked. He stuck his
nose up in the air and barked once and then turned and looked at me and
just sit there looking at me. And I was sneaking back down the hill
backwards as much as I possibly could until I finally got down to
the trail. And every little bit this old big wolf was sittin' up
there just taking his time sittin' on his haunches. The female was
back in the timber just standing there. And as soon as I got down in
this trail, believe me, I took off down the canyon and I ran like
everything, but I could hear that old wolf barkin'. He just let out
a bark, one bark, then he'd stay still for a little while, then
another bark. And for a mile, after I'd left him, for a mile down
that canyon I could still see him barking.
And, well, I finally got
down to the station and I had a .45 automatic pistol there at the
station, plenty of bullets; and that morning when I'd left I thought
about taking that, and then it was wet and snowy and I thought,
well, there'd be no use in taking it so it'd just get wet. But the
first thing I looked at when I got back to the station was that .45
pistol and wished that I had taken it with me up there, but I
didn't.
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This is Glen Lambert again. The second event which might be
considered a narrow escape in my time while in the forest service
happened over on the Manila District. I think it might be well to
tell it in case that some of my family or posterity might be
interested in it. But I think it might be well to tell some of the
circumstances that led up to this event. I was transferred as stated
before to the Manila District in the fall of 1923 and served there
two years, then over on the Lone Tree District two years, and then
was transferred back and took charge of the Vernal District in the
fall of 1927.
The first year when I lived to Vernal, it was thought by the
supervisor of the forest that because of the watershed values and
the timber represented over on the Dutch John side of the Green
River (that's north of the Green River from Greendale), it should be a
part of the Ashley National Forest. Prior to that, it was just
public domain, free use and was being abused in some cases by range
overgrazing and whatnot. In the fall of 1928 we got an engineer out
from Ogden and he went with me. I took him over to Greendale. Hardy
was the ranger over there at the time, but Bert was old and couldn't
get around very well, so anytime there was any real work to do over
there, why, I was usually assigned to go over there and do it. So I
went with this engineer and we went to Greendale and got some horses
and we stayed there all night. [We stayed] one night at the Green River Ranger
Station (that's in Greendale) and the next day we went on down to
the Little Hole, sized up the country. What we wanted to do was to
kind of make a type of map of the country on the north of Green River, map
in the timber so a line could be drawn there as to the boundary of
the forest, how far north it should be and how far east and so on.
We camped down there in the Little Hole one night and the next day
we forded the Green River at the Little Hole and went over on the
Goslin mountain country and pretty well covered that country, and
went on up just west of Dutch John (where Dutch John is now) and
camped at Dutch John Spring, which is down the hollow there about
half way from the main road down to the Dutch John boat ramp. We
camped there overnight and next day we rode over the Bear Mountain
area, west of there, and on over and crossed the Green River below
Linwood on the ferry (there was a ferry there at that time). We got
our horses on it and ferried them acrossed and we took the trail on
down Green River and got down to the Green River Ranger Station
quite late that night. And then after coming back to Vernal, I made
up the report for that area. There was quite a long detailed report
to make on it. We had to point out the values of the timber and the
cover and everything and why it should be made a part of the Ashley
National Forest.
Well, I did that and I did all of that report work on the east
end addition. We made two additions after that on the east end of
the Ashley there on Diamond Mountain and I made those reports; made
the survey and made the type maps and everything, and made the long
detailed report for each one of them. There was two of them on the
Vernal District that had to be done there and then this one over on
Greendale on the Goslin mountain area. Well, that was the means of
getting a bill in Congress in Washington, through those reports.
They look 'em over and if they think it's worth while, why then they
ask the Congressman to introduce a bill to make that part of the
Ashley National Forest, which they did in this case.
Well, along in 19...(Bert Hardy was ranger there then) along in
1937, the winter of 1936 and I think it was, or was it? It was the
spring of 1937 anyway. There was reported a sheep trespass. Some of
the Greendalers had a little herd of sheep there, those ranchers,
four or five of them had put a bunch of sheep together and had made
quite a herd and sneaked 'em over in the Dutch John country for
winter which was against the rules. They had no permit over there
and 'twas on the forest, and Hardy should have taken care of that.
Well, the supervisor heard about this trespass case so he designated
me to go over there and investigate it and make a report on it. So I
had to go around by Evanston and when I got to Manila Bert Hardy was
incapacitated, as usual, which always occurred when there was any
work to be done (any hard work anyway). So I waited there a day for
him and he never sobered up, so I went on down there, picked up a
horse at the old Finch ranch and went on across the river and got
over about Dutch John. When I crossed the river, however, there was
some water on the ice then and I could see the ice was breaking up a
little bit, starting to crack and looked a little bit dangerous then,
when I went down.
When I got over towards the Dutch John country I
met this herd of sheep coming out. Some way they had got word that I
was coming and they had bunched up the sheep and was pulling out.
But, anyway, I rounded 'em up and they didn't try to stop me. I
counted the sheep and got a statement as to about when they come on
the forest and when they left. Well, I went on over I had to find
out just what ground they'd covered and I had to do quite a lot of
riding over in the Dutch John area then, and I was alone and I
covered that area pretty well, find out just the area they'd
covered. I had to make a map of that in the trespass case and the
snow was about four inches deep there. So dark come and I got -
just pulled into the timber there on the west side of Dutch John
Flat and built me a fire and set up all night. Tied my horse up, just
built me a good fire in the cedars and set up all night.
Next day I
went down across the river there. I went down Skull Creek [he always
pronounced it "crick"] on the (there's two Skull Creeks there, one
on the north side and one on the south side of the river), crossed
the ice down there and went over to Green Lakes. Old Ed L. Anderson
was there then. Ed had a good place to stay. Stayed there all night
and the next day I come back. And going back to Manila, when I got
up toward Linwood it was quite a warm day that day, but there was
quite a brisk breeze a blowing, snow was melting. There was about
eight inches of snow over there towards Linwood and when I crossed
the river there, there was quite a lot of water on top of the ice,
and a sheepherder going to Manila had crossed just ahead of me, and
he was standing on the west side. Now that was just above, a little
ways above where this boat ramp is now over in Antelope Flat. It was
just a little bit below where the boat ramp is on the west side of
the river there in Antelope Flat. It was quite a narrow place in the
river there and the water ran a little swift.
Well, this sheepherder hollered at me and said that I better go
up a little bit. He said that his horse stepped in a hole where he
crossed, where they'd been crossing right there. He said, "My horse
stepped one foot in the hole there and nearly went down in, nearly
fell down." So I went up about a rod and it did look better. I
started across, and I had a long rope tied to the horse (tied to the
hackamore), and I undone that, undid it on the saddle and I looped it
up and I held it in my hand.
Well, I started across. The water was
about six or eight inches deep on top of the ice there for part of
the distance across all through the center part. Well, I got right
square there in the center and down went my horse! The ice broke and [left]
a big hole, I guess ten or fifteen feet across, and he went down.
And I scrambled off, of course. I didn't know whether he was going
to hit bottom or not, but he did, he hit bottom, and it was just
deep enough that the water run through the saddle. And the water was
running quite swift there, it was about, I'd say, four-, maybe four
and a half-, five feet deep, the water. Well, I scrambled off and I
still hung to the rope, although I don't know how I did it, this
long rope. And scrambled of course toward the lower side. When he [the horse]
first went down there was so much water splashin' and one thing and
another that I got wet all over, even my head and my hat. The only
spot that didn't get wet, for some reason, was a spot the size of my
hand on my left shoulder tip. After I got out and shook the water
off of me I had one little dry spot there. My head and everything
run under water, even my hat.
Well, I got to the lower side, of course, and was trying to
crawl out and [there was] a big piece of ice there. [I] had one leg and one arm on
top of the ice and the other leg and arm was under the ice. I was
just straddling the edge of the ice, in fact, and the water was
running pretty swift, and a big piece of ice (the ice was about
eight to ten inches thick) pushed against me there and locked me
against the [first piece of] ice and I was just stuck there for a little bit. I don't
know how long Ð seemed like quite a while to me, but then I guess it
was only a half minute maybe, or maybe a minute. But it pushed me
against the ice and I couldn't budge, but I hung on for dear life,
and finally the ice turned up edge-wise and the current sucked it
underneath. It almost took me with it, but I clung to the ice [I was holding] and
crawled out, wet all over.
By that time this sheepherder come running over there, and
between he and I, we pulled the horse over to one side of the hole
and [we] crawled out there and got the saddle off the horse. The horse
was a pretty good sized horse (horse weighed 1100 lbs. anyway), and
it was a horse that had been kind of trained to do various things -
rare up on its hind feet and everything, and I think that's what
helped us get the old - it was an old mare - and we pulled on her and
yanked her and hollered at her and she rared up and finally got her
front feet up on the ice and she kept trying and she never gave up.
Some horses will just give up and that's the end of it. But we kept
the two of us pullin' on that rope and her tryin'and tryin', finally
she got one hind foot on top the ice, and us a-snaking on her and
she got up and finally got out. It was the biggest wonder in the
world that we got her out of there. But we did and I got on her and
got the saddle on her as fast as I could. I was wet, soaked, wet all
over, and got on her and kicked her and lashed her with a rope and
away we went as hard as I could go, and I got up there to the Finch
ranch. There was quite a little stiff breeze a-blowing although the
sun was shining. I got up to Finch ranch, and they took me in and
put me in the bathtub and I took a hot bath; and they dried my
clothes and I come out of there feeling fine. Never even caught a
cold on it. So that's the end of that story.
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This is Glen Lambert again. There's a story known as "The
Rhoades Gold Mine" which I think might be interesting to anyone that
hadn't heard it before.
Kamas, Utah, is a community located about 50
miles east of Salt Lake City and is on what is known as Beaver
Creek, which is a tributary to the Weber River. The Kamas Valley is
about half way between the Provo River and the Weber River. This
man, Rhoades, came to Kamas in the early days when that valley was
being settled and located a ranch just north of Kamas. And he'd
spent a lot of his life trapping and exploring and traveling around
the country. In fact, he went to California during the gold rush
days, but he was late there and he didn't find any gold there. That
is, my father was well acquainted with him. He was older than my
dad, of course; my dad was a young man at the time and the story
that I'll tell was told to me by my dad.
This Tom Rhoades came back from California and, according to my
dad, he never brought any gold with him. He was late getting down to
California and didn't make anything there, but he was prowling
around a lot in the Uinta Mountains and it was generally known that
he discovered a rich gold mine somewhere in the Uinta Mountains,
east of Kamas. Nobody knew just where or how far east of Kamas this
was, but periodically he would make trips into the mountains and
come back with gold. But now, aside from what he needed for his own
keep, he gave it to the LDS Church, handed it over to Brigham Young
and it was used to build the Salt Lake Temple. They were building
that temple for about 40 years and a good deal of the material had
to be freighted in, and that cost money and that's where this gold
went, to pay the expenses.
Well, this man, Tom Rhoades, he spent quite a lot of time in the
mountains and nobody knew just where he found this gold. Now my dad
claims that he found it over somewhere in the Duchesne River area.
That was the idea of quite a lot of people. He went there and made
frequent trips, as I said, and he brought this gold into Kamas. Some
people saw it. My dad saw one sackful as least. He [Rhoades] brought
it to Granddad Lambert's place to have it weighed. Now he had, at
that time, he had over 60 lbs. of pure gold. It was in chunks or
nuggets and Dad was standing around staring at it (he was sixteen or
eighteen or nineteen years old at the time) and he [Rhoades] looked at my dad
and says, "And there's a whole lot more there than you can carry,
young man."
Now he was a good rifleman and had spent most of his life in the
mountains, and he let it be known around there that nobody was to
follow him because he wasn't above shooting anybody, I don't think,
if he found anybody following him. However, some people did try to
follow him, but they didn't follow him very far. They lost his
tracks and came back. The only man that really tried to follow him
was a stranger that came into the country. I suppose he'd heard
about this Tom Rhoades and his gold mine. He came in there and the
people said he was a Spaniard from his looks. He had a black
mustache and a swarthy complexion. He had a good saddle horse and he
was inquiring about this Tom Rhoades, where he was and if people
knew anything about him. But he left on one of these periodic trips,
I presume to go to his gold mine. So this fellow lit out on his
tracks and went east and nobody knows how far he went or anything
about it, but in about a week this fella's horse and saddle came
back and no man on it and nobody ever knew what became of this
Spaniard, as they call him.
Now it was suspected by some people that knew Rhoades, they
said,"Well, he must have brought the gold from California." But my
dad seemed to know differently. He said that Tom Rhoades never did
bring any gold from California. Dad did hear him say that he on his
prospecting trips and hunting trips and trapping trips into the
Uinta Mountains that he saw a very likely looking place. So he dug
down on it, he says, a little ways and found gold that was much
richer than that ever was in California. So from that idea there's
no doubt that it lies somewhere in the Uinta Mountains. Since his
death there's been quite a lot of people look for it, of course, but
nobody has ever found it.
Now Brigham Young, when he (going back to Brigham Young) took
this gold to Brigham Young, who was Governor at the time, and
President of the LDS Church, (he was Territorial Governor); he told
Rhoades never to make that public 'cause he said that the people
there were, which they were, they were engaged in farming and that
was their only source of food; and a gold mine like that would cause
a stampede into the mountains and probably a lot of the people would
starve to death. Now Brigham Young told him that if he wouldn't make
it public, he said that he would never (he and his posterity would
never) be in want for the necessities of life; and they weren't.
His family, his posterity, his sons and his grandkids and his
great-grandkids have always been fairly well to do wherever they
lived. They didn't work any harder than anyone else, but seems like
they were always able to acquire land and ranches and cattle; and
wherever they went it wasn't long before they were probably about
the best off people in the community.
I might carry this a little farther. He had, Tom Rhoades had two
sons. One was Cale Rhoades, which was the oldest son, and then he
had Tom, Jr., who settled later on up in the Tabiona area. He lived
at Kamas in the beginning and then moved out to the Reservation
there after the Reservation was thrown open for white settlers.
Well, Cale Rhoades was a big man and my dad said he had the biggest
feet and wore the biggest shoes of any man he ever knew, and he was
strictly a mountaineer. He spent a good share of his time in the
mountains. Now it was supposed that the old man Rhoades told him
where this gold mine was because they claim that Cale Rhoades never
did do much work. And he moved to Castle Valley (that was out in the
Price area) and built the first cabin there. In fact, he was the
first white settler that ever came into that country. And he built a
cabin a little farther north than where Price is now, which was the
first house ever built in that country. And he was a bachelor at the
time. And a little later other people began to movein there and
settle, and there was a family come in there by the name of Powell.
I don't remember that I ever heard what the dad's name was, but he
had two sons, anyway, and a daughter. And later on Cale Rhoades
married this Powell girl. And they never had a family, but they
lived there in Price.
And this man Powell (the oldest one of these two Powell sons)
was acquainted with my dad and after we moved over to Roosevelt from
Woodland (which is just south of Kamas), this Powell came there one
time and stayed all night to our place. He and Dad talked all night
about old times and I sat there and listened (I was about sixteen or
seventeen years old at the time). And he talked about Cale Rhoades.
He said that he thought himself that Cale Rhodes did know where that
gold mine was 'cause he said every summer that Cale Rhoades made a
trip (at least one trip or more) over into Uintah Basin to the
north. Now where he went in the Uintah Basin nobody knows, but he
did make this trip. He got along with the Indians. He was well
acquainted with most of the Indians, the leaders of the Indians
anyway. He got along with them and they didn't interfere with him
wherever he went. And Dad claimed that one time he and another
fellow from Kamas used to come over into the Upper Duchesne and Rock
Creek areas and trap beaver, which was contrary to the laws of the
Indians there. They hid out from the Indians; they didn't allow the
Indians to find them and they said one trip there when they were
going back over the mountain to Kamas they saw where Cale Rhoades
had been camped. And it was right there at the forks of the Duchesne
River where the west fork of the Duchesne comes into the north fork,
there at what used to be Stockmore. Dad said he'd been camped there
right recently and he knew it was Cale Rhoades because he was
acquainted with Cale Rhoades and the size of his tracks. He said his
shoe tracks the biggest, he said, that he ever saw on a man and he
knew it was Cale Rhoades.
Well, this Mr. Powell, the brother-in-law of Cale Rhoades, as I
said, he said that Cale Rhoades made periodic trips, which was about
once every summer at least, over into the Uintah Basin. But Powell
didn't know, he said that he didn't know whether he had any gold or
not. But he said that he never did work very much anyway. And Cale
Rhoades when he died, Powell said when they buried him he went to
the home and helped 'em prepare him for burial, and he said there
was an old turtle back metal top trunk in the house there that had
some of Cale Rhoades' things in it, and his wife told him that it
was strictly Cale's material, so they opened it and see what was in
it, and he said in the bottom of that trunk there was about, oh, ten
or a dozen samples of rock, he said, about the size of an egg, each
one of them on an average, and he said that those were over half or
three fourths gold, pure gold every one of those samples. So it
would appear that Cale Rhoades did know where that gold mine was.
And it was speculated for quite a long time after he died that his
wife had a map of it, but this Mr. Powell said that he was quite
sure that Cale Rhoades' wife didn't have a map of it. She remarried
some time after Cale Rhoades' death and this Powell said that he was
quite positive, he never seen or heard of her ever having a map; and
being his sister, he said he thought that he would of known
something about it. |
I might go just a little farther on this story. This Mr. Powell,
he and his brother (the younger brother), they went out hunting one
day, hunting deer over in that area. And they went north of Price
and he said that they went up on a ridge (the ridge running east and
west there), and the south slope was brushy and on the north slope
was very steep and there was about eight or ten inches of snow there.
He said they stopped on this ridge and talked a while and decided
which way they should go, and he said that his brother (he was
telling this to my dad) decided to go right down this steep hill to
the north through this heavy Douglas fir timber and into the bottom
of the canyon and then was coming west up the canyon and meet him,
and he would go along the ridge west and then down into the canyon.
But after he left he'd gone about a quarter of a mile, he said, west
along the top of this ridge he said he heard his brother holler.
And he said it sounded like a rather strange holler; it was
something unusual, at least, for his brother to be hollering; and so
he turned and went back to the tracks where they'd separated. And
then he took down the hill to the north through the heavy timber on
his brother's tracks, and it was in the snow, and he got down not
very far, he said, part way down that hill and he said he could see
his brother setting in the snow, just setting up in the snow. He
said he was blood all over, his face he said was blood, and one eye
was clawed out and hangin' away down on his cheek; and he said it
looked like the top of his head the whole scalp was pulled off.
And he said his brother was plum rational, just sitting there, and could
talk to him, told him what had happened. He said he'd come down that
hill and he'd walked right by a bear's den that went back into the
hill (the hole). And he said he never saw the hole when he come by
it, but he said this bear rushed out of that hole and jumped right
onto him. And he'd slid down this steep hill for some distance and
he said that bear had shook this man until there was blood out on
top of the snow, he says, ten or twelve feet on both sides of him
(the trail that they made when they were sliding down the hill). But
the bear was gone and he said his brother told him all that what
happened, and then he said he asked him to ordain him an Elder in
the LDS Church. And this older Powell, he said he held the
Priesthood, and had the authority, so he said he put his hands on
him, he said, and ordained him an Elder. And he said just as quick
as he got through and said Amen, he says, his brother just flopped
over and died.
And that's the end of that story.
<><><><><><><><><> |
This is Glen Lambert again. I might tell you about an experience
Bert Hardy and I had in connection with circumstances over there on
the Manila District. I was transferred to the Lone-Tree District and
Hardy came from Vernal and took over the Manila District. And
whenever there was any hard labor to do, why, I had to go down there
and do it, and it was at this time we were working on the telephone
line that came from Manila and went up by Bennett's ranch and on up
by the Nebeker ranch and so on, connected with the main line farther
up over on the mountain from Connor basin (that's where the Nebeker
ranch was). And we were doing maintenance work and it started to
rain. We were on Sheep Creek down below the Bennett ranch on Sheep
Creek there and it began to rain.
There was two old cabins in there right at the lower end of
Bennett's ranch. He lived at the upper end of his place in a better
house, but Johnny Bennett had for quite a long while had been road
farming on the Ashley and when they got through working the fall
before he'd stored the left over equipment in one of those old
cabins. So when it began to rain there Hardy and I went into one of
these cabins to wait for the rain to quit. And one old barrel in
there had quite a lot of explosive in it. It was picric acid. It
had about twice the explosive power that dynamite has and was a left
over World War I product. And in the same barrel there was a box of
caps and fuse, and while we were waiting there, I don't know which
one of us suggested, "Why don't we set off some of this powder to
waken things up a little bit?"
So I took a stick of this picric acid and the sticks were larger
than dynamite and it was powerful stuff. The sticks were about twice
as big as dynamite or maybe three or four times as big as a stick of
dynamite, and then the powder itself had twice the power of that
dynamite. So one stick of that, I'd say, would be worth about eight
or nine sticks of dynamite. Well, I fixed it up and tied a fuse to
it and walked down the road (the road goes down the canyon, went
right by the old cabin). So we walked down the road about 75 yards,
I guess, and the road went along the bank of the creek like up on
quite a high bank from the creek and then on the high bank of the
road, which was the north side, there was a bank of dirt (the road
was cut into the bank there) and the upper bank was about three feet
high. And there was red soil so we just put that on the upper bank
of the road on top of this red soil like and touched it off, walked
back to the cabin and waited for it.
It was smokin' and burning there and all at once here come one
of Bennett's cows, great big old fat milk cow that come up out of
the creek bottom there, and started to walk up the road. And she saw
this smoke a-smoldering there and so she looked at it and walked on
up the road and starin' at this smoke. And, great Scott, we just
thought that this cow would be blown up completely. And while we
were setting there we couldn't do a thing about it, here come the
old cow moseying up along the road and had her nose pointed right
out for this little smoke where this fuse was blowing and started to
walk right straight for it. And when she got to within about three
feet of it, it went off.
Well, we thought, of course, that she'd just
about touch it with her nose when the thing'd blow her head
slick-n-clean off. That's what we were waiting for and, well, it
went off and blowed so much dirt and stuff in her face and blowed
the cow clear off the road and she rolled down into the willers. And
there was so much dirt and dust kicked up that we thought, of
course, her head was gone and we'd have to pay for a valuable milk
cow, so we didn't even dare to go down and look for a little while
till the dust settled. We thought Bennett and some of his folks
would hear the noise and see the dust and would come down and see
what in the sam hill had happened down there. So we walked down,
finally, and the old cow was a-laying in the crick and she just got
up and shook her head. Her head was still on and seemed to be all
right. I think it probably deefened her for the rest of her life,
but we never did say anything about it. She got up and shook herself
and shook her head and walked shakin' her head. We were two
happy guys, believe me! (ha)
<><><><><><><><><> |
This is Glen Lambert again. One time when I was in charge of the
Hole In The Rock District and Hardy was on the Manila District, he
asked me to come down and help him on some business. We had to go
over in the Antelope Flat (that was east of Linwood on the east side
of Green River) to check on some herd of sheep. I think it was Keith
Smith's sheep. And we went down there, drove a car down to the river
bank, and there was a ferry across at the time. Now this was in the
early part of the season and the river was quite high. And so we got
on this ferry and went across the river from the west to the east,
and went over to this sheep camp afoot and back again later in the
afternoon. And, well, the river was still a little higher in the
afternoon and we got on the ferry and tried to come back, and
there'd been a heavy wind come up during our time over on the east
side of the river, and I suppose that it changed the current of the
water a little bit. And the operation of that ferry depended on the
water current.
Well, we got on the ferry and tried to come back across, got
just halfway across and the ferry stopped. And we manipulated it
every way we could; we went back and tried it all over again several
times and it wouldn't budge beyond a certain point in that river.
And it operated on a cable and for some reason the current of the
water just stopped it at a certain point there. And so we went back.
There was an old boat on the east side, but this was an old
wreck of a boat, and there was one good oar and one half oar there
(the upper half of the oar was gone, broken then throwed away I
guess), and it also had a hole in it so that it leaked. It had a
hole in it about the size of a dollar in the bottom of the boat. And
water poured in, of course, but we got in the boat, and there was a
gallon can there. Whoever used the boat, of course, had to be bailed
at the same time, and I tried to oar the boat, row the boat, and
Hardy bailed water. And Hardy was scared of water; you couldn't
hardly get him to ford a creek. He'd always wait till I went through
first and then if it looked pretty good, then he'd come across and
so on.
But I did the oaring, the rowing, and he did the bailing. And we
started across and he was throwin' water for everything and I was
rowing the best I could, and he was yellin' and hollerin' at me (I
didn't pay any attention to him). But we got out about in the middle
of the river and the current took us down the river, and we went
down, I guess, almost a half a mile and come out on the same side we
started on which was the east side.
Well, he jumped off the boat fast as he could and got off on the
bank there, and I, well, I rowed back up part of the way and went
back up the river and stayed as close to the bank as I could. And he
stayed on the bank, and I rowed this boat, traveled along slowly and
went up the river. Well, I rowed up the river about a half a mile, I
guess, above where the ferry was, and he got in, finally, went to
throwin' water and hollerin' and yellin' again. And we went across
that time and I rowed as hard as I could and we finally got out just
about where the ferry was on the other side. That's all of that
story.
<><><><><><><><><> |
This is Glen Lambert again. I thought it might be interesting if
I told something the old Fort Thornburgh Road and why it was
established and whatnot. This road extended from Carter, Wyoming to
the Ashley Valley, and it was named by Judge Carter, they called
him. He was a government representative over in this territory; was
located over on the U.P. [Union Pacific] Railroad. And after the Ute
Indian and the Uncompahgre Reservations were established over in
Uintah Basin, why, it was thought that they needed a military post
over in this country somewhere; over in that country, in the Uintah
Basin. So Judge Carter recommended to the government (Washington)
that they build a road somewhere over the Uinta Mountains, and he
mentioned two routes in his letter. We had a copy of the letter in
the Forest Service at Vernal. And he represented one route by way of
Henry's Fork and the Uinta River, and the other was farther east he
mentioned in his letter; but after some examination he thought that
the eastern route would be better. So they went ahead, that was
approved and they went ahead on that road.
It was built by soldiers entirely, and they had mules as teams
at that time, and a lot of it was built by hand labor. It started
left of Carter, Wyoming and came by way of Lone Tree, Wyoming and
Burnt Fork, Birch Creek, and when it hit the foot of the Uinta
Mountains it went up the first steep dugway there at Carter Dugway
(that was over just east of Birch Creek). And from there it went on
through what they call Sheep Creek (across the head of Sheep Creek)
Sheep Creek Park and down Carter Creek to where all the forks, you
might say, of Carter Creek come together and form the main creek.
Just south of there on a kind of flat, right adjacent to the main
divide, there was a big spring come out which they called Young
Spring. The water that comes out of there is just about half of
Carter Creek, you might say. It's a good big creek of water, comes
out of one hole, and that was one of their main camps that the
soldiers set up in working on that road. From there there's about a
four mile dugway that comes up the north side on the main ridge of
the Uinta Mountains to what they call Summit Springs. It's on top of
the Uintas. There they come on down into the Ashley Creek slope,
through Summit Park, Big Park, and into Soldier Park. Soldier Park
was another camp that the soldiers had, and now there's signs of
having been a camp there. There's two large old rock ovens that was
built by the soldiers that they baked bread in still existing there.
And they came on down into what they call Government Park (that was
a tributary to Big Brush Creek, the head of Big Brush Creek), and
there they had a mill there and sawed out lumber, what lumber that
they needed for along the road, and also for Fort Thornburgh.
When that road was about completed, which was in about 1879 I
believe, when it was completed it came on down the face of Taylor
Mountain and went off east toward the Steinaker Draw and came out
where the gap where the Steinaker Draw Dam is now for the Steinaker
Reservoir, then turned west and went back up into the mouth of
Ashley Creek, and they set up their post there. And that was the
main military post for quite a while. And they also had a road that
came from Spring Creek at the foot of Taylor Mountain on down the
river, Ashley Creek. But they could only travel that during the low
water time so that wasn't used very much. It was used by the
military in going back and forth where they didn't have heavy loads
and whatnot, but that was the first and only road into the Uintah
Basin for quite a long time.
Later on when this Fort Thornburgh was abandoned and Fort
Duchesne was set up, why then they built a road from Price, by way
of Nine Mile where Myton is now; came on into the Uintah Basin that
way. Later on, of course, when the Uintah Basin was opened up for
settlement, and the Indian Reservation thrown open for whites, some
of it, there were other roads established; the one by the way of
Strawberry, the Wolf Creek Road, and prior to that time there also a
road that came in by the way of Watson. They had a short narrow
track railroad that come by the way of Watson. Mainly it was put
there to haul out Gilsonite at those Gilsonite mines out there. And
the Ashley Valley used to get most of their freight that way up
until, oh later on. Some of them did some freighting in from by way
of Price.
Now this Thornburgh Road was used mainly by the military
and whites after Ashley Valley was settled for some time, and then
the Dyer Mine was discovered. That's about three miles east of
Government Park on what they call the Dyer Ridge. And that was quite
a rich pocket of copper, it run 60% copper. And that was hauled out
by teams. They built a road from the Dyer Mine just west there into
what they called Anderson Creek and then on over into across the
head of Brush Creek, into Windy Park, and then into Trout Creek, and
connected up with the Thornburgh Road there at Trout Creek. That's
for several miles. And they used to haul that ore by four-horse
teams from the Dyer Mine to Carter, Wyoming. And they dug out about
a million dollars worth of copper there. And when they had about
half that much out they built a small smelter there on Anderson
Creek. But not long after that the ore run out; it just seemed to be
a big pocket there.
Well, there's copper ore scattered all over the country there
now; you can pick up little pieces. The country there was all
located and dug up here there and everywhere. A lot of it is
privately owned at the present time. Since that time, since they
quit operating there, I don't know, there's various outfits that
have took it over, leased it and tried to develop a business there,
and tried to find where that ore came from, but so far they've never
been able to find it. Whether there's a vein in there in the
mountain or not, nobody knows. They even drilled some holes down
there, still couldn't find where that big pocket of ore come from.
Possibility that that's all there was. But some people that were
interested in it got pretty well off through it, and even though
they had to haul there ore clear over to Carter, Wyoming to the U.P.
Railroad by team.
Last summer, I'd say that I had the privilege of going with a
couple of men from Ogden. One of them was a Forest Service retiree
and another a Postal Clerk retiree. They come out and wanted to get
a story on the Thornburgh Road and I went with them over the
Thornburgh. We started in Vernal. We went up where the old camp, the
old Fort Thornburgh, was in Ashley Valley, then followed the road
clear from there to the Carter Dugway on the north. And took
pictures all the way along and discussed it and one thing and
another. I think they wanted a write-up for the archives. They was
going to make a history of it and file it away there just as a
history for Utah. I think that's all.
<><><><><><><><><> |
Lightning
This is Glen Lambert again. When I was located at Lone Tree (I
was in charge of the Lone Tree District) Bert Hardy in Manila and I
used to get together and do telephone maintenance once or twice a
year. This was in early spring. We used to have go over the line
that was in the high country all the way along until it got pretty
well over to the Hole In The Rock Station. There were branches that
come down to Manila by way of Saul's Canyon to the Nebeker Ranch and
on to Manila. And one time we were over there working, there had
been a break up in the Saul's Canyon (that's quite a steep rugged
canyon, narrow canyon, heavy timbered), and I know had been broke. A
tree had fell on it right down in the bottom of the canyon.
There was water in the canyon, a stream of water, and the wire
was in the water and, of course, that grounded the wire. There was
nothing that could get on beyond that so we went in there to fix it
early in the spring as we could get there. And it was thundering and
lightning, there was a storm on, and I got hold of the wire. I got
one end of it, the end that came from Manila, and tied it around a
tree. And about all Bert did was hold some tools for me, and I had
to do all the climbing; he couldn't climb anything. But I pulled up
on the lower line and I took a hold of the line that come over the
mountain from Vernal and when a lightning shock or a thunder shock
or an induction from lightning, it'd give you a pretty good shock
sometime. Sometimes it was so hot you couldn't hardly let go of it.
And I got a little shock there on the line that come from the north,
so I dropped it and didn't let on it hurt me any. And I went and got
hold of the line that come from Manila (that was pretty well clear
from lightning shocks anyway) and I hollered to Bert, I says, "Go
get that other line and pull it up to me here and we'll try and get
enough slack to make a weld in it there," so he went and got it and
was pulling on it and he got a heavy shock. It just about knocked
him over and that kinda tickled me because everything that's done,
you know, I have to do it. He holds the tools and helps me hold the
wire and something like that, and I did all the work anyhow. Well, I
laughed about it and he got mad and said that was enough for him for
that day. He just quit and took off for Nebeker's Ranch and I got on
my horse and follered him down. We waited till the next day and took
off again.
<><><><><><><><><>
Coffee with Sugar
Well, that year we went on over to, we got over as far as Birch
Creek, the Birch Creek Ranch. They called it the old Edwards Ranch,
but it belonged to Wiley Collett at the time. And we went in there
to have lunch, and nobody was home, so we went to work and old Bert
made some coffee there. Collett wasn't home, but we went ahead and
Bert made some coffee there, and he was bachin'there (Collett was)
but he wasn't home at this time. And there was dishes and dirty
dishes strung all over the country and the table was loaded with
them, and there was a can on the table about half full of sugar. It
was, oh, a baking powder can, a large one, and it was about half
full of sugar. And the sugar looked kind of greasy and dirty, but we
were pretty tired so we just took the lid off and dove into that
sugar. And, well, we made a little coffee there, and we had some
lunch with us, and we ate lunch and we drank some of that coffee
with the sugar in it.
And about the time we got through Collett come
home. And, oh, he was glad to see us. He was bachin' there; his
family wasn't there during the winter time. And he come in and
wanted to know if we had got something to eat. We told him,"Yeah, we
had some grub." But we told him we used his sugar. He says, "What!?"
He says, "I hope you didn't use that sugar!" and he grabbed that can
and he says, "Why, that's my coyote bait can!"
He'd been trying' to poison coyotes around there, and there was
still snow on the ground. And he'd make baits out of lard, small
baits about, oh, three quarters of an inch in diameter. And then
he'd take a hot stick (put a stick in hot water) and make a hole in
those round baits of lard, and then he'd put a little alkaloid
strychnine into that hole and seal it over with lard and then throw
these lard bulbs, or what you'd call 'em, into the sugar. Maybe a
half a dozen of 'em in there. He'd fill the can up, it's about
half full of sugar, then he'd shake it up and get all the sugar
stickin' to the lard that he could. And then he'd go out around some
dead animal somewhere where the coyotes were coming, and he'd drop
these around out a ways from where they'd come in to feed, and it
was a good way to poison coyotes. They'll pick every one of those
lards if they got a little sugar on it.
And when he come in and he
saw that can setting in among his dishes on the table, why he says,
"I hope you didn't need to use any of that sugar." And we told him
we sure did; so we all looked at one another and wondered which one
was going to die first. I looked at old Bert and he looked at me,
but evidently we didn't get any poison, but it's a wonder we didn't.
(Ha - ha!) That's all of that story.
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Shingling the Office
This is Glen Lambert again. While I was a ranger over on that
Hole In The Rock Ranger Station, not long before I moved to Vernal,
A.J. Nord, the supervisor, came over there, and between he and I and
Bert Hardy (Ranger Bert Hardy at Manila), we built a
little office building there for him. Well, we worked for some time
(I don't know how long it took us), but we worked off and on there
various times. And I remember we were putting the roof on along in
November; it was quite late in the season and it was blustering
around and, well, when we got to the roof we built trestles around
it and we had the shingles on the south side of it and had switched
to the north side. That is, we moved our trestles around to the
north side late in the evening, and then the next morning we started
on the north side. But during the night it had rained a little and
sleeted a little, and was very cold that morning.
Nord, he was
running around on the ground there and telling us what to do, every
move we made, and whatnot. I might say, the day before, Mrs. Hardy,
Bert's wife, had made us some aprons that we tied around our waste
with pockets in it to keep our nails in it. And the nails were in a
kettle; we set 'em down on the ground there out a little ways from
the building. Just in a big aluminum kettle there, just shingle
nails. And they were wide open to the weather, and when we started
that morning Hardy and I got up there and started to nail, but the
nails were so wet and nasty, we didn't put 'em in our mouths. The
day before when we were shingling on the other side of the house
we'd fill our mouths with these shingle nails; and it was a whole
lot easier to get 'em out of our mouth than it was out of our apron
pockets.
And so we were workin' there and, Bert, he didn't like the idea
of working in that awful cold weather. And I think Bert had hit his
finger a time or two, and I'd done the same, and I guess we were
both growlin' about it a little bit; and Nord was down on the ground
runnin' around telling us to slant our nails a little more and tell
us what to do, and we were all a little bit out-of-sorts. Bert had a
big old red bulldog runnin' around the yard there. He was a nasty
lookin' old feller and a great big dog, and these nails were setting
out in the open in this kettle and they were wet.
Well, they got wet during the night, of course, from the
weather. But after we'd been workin' up there for a while, Nord
jumped up there on the trestle between us, right between us, and, of
course, we were getting the nails out of our apron pocket and
nailin' them. It was pretty slow work but Nord jumped up there and
says, "Well, you oughta' put 'em in your mouth," he says, "you'll
get a lot faster." And he crammed his mouth just as full of shingle
nails as he could get it. And just as we started to work Bert Hardy
said, "Nails are all wet this morning," he says, "can't put 'em in
our mouths this morning," he says, "I forgot to tie up that blamed
bulldog last night."
And when he said that Nord just exploded and
blowed those nails out of his mouth clear over the top of that
building. He jumped down off the trestle and run over to the hydrant
there and turned the hydrant on (the water) and rinsed his mouth out
and spit and spit and spit, and rinsed his mouth and got red in the
face and got mad and quit and wouldn't work with us any more during
that day. (ha ha ha) That's about all of that story I think.
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[Glen was a Second Lt. in the Army in WWI - taught shooting at
Camp Kearney near San Diego, CA.]
[Glen Alvin Lambert passed away October 15, 1982.]
Transcribed by Sherrell Ann (Sherri) Lambert McManus, 1999,
Anaheim, CA. (Items in brackets [ ] are corrections and/or additions
made by Sherri.)
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[COMING SOON] Photos of Glen A. Lambert's Family
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