CLAUS FRIEDRICH STOFFERS

CLAUS FRIEDRICH STOFFERS(14) son of Johnann Christian Detlef Stoffers(28) and Catharina Dorthea Stoffers(29) was born 17 February 1834, at Seefeld, Schleswig Holstein, Prussia. (This was part of Denmark and later Germany.) He was the second child in a family of six. His birthplace is near Oldesloe Germany, here he learned the trade of cabinet making and served an apprenticeship for five years. When he was 19, he left his home and country to avoid military service. He lived and worked in New York City, but for how long is unknown. In 1853, the first Steinway piano was made and Claus made piano keys for them while in New York. He left New York City and moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. Somewhere along the line he was converted to and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But where and when is not known. (The story is told that Claus married and had two children, a girl and a boy and was later divorced?)

ELIN ANNETT HOLMBERG(15) a daughter of Ola Hansson Holmberg(30) and Ingrid Christina Sandberg(31) was born 8 October 1852, at Sanly Malmo Lane, Sweden. (The spelling of her name has always been a question the above is probably Swedish (Aleen Annette.) Her brother John was born 9 May1854. She came to Utah, when she was eleven years old with her mother and stepfather Sven Anderson and family, as converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They crossed the plains with ox carts and had many experiences with the Indians. At one time they came to a place where a small village had been massacred. All the houses burned and the people scalped, one man was alive but unconscious and died without regaining consciousness. Another time a young girl that belonged to their company was always staying behind the wagon train and the captain told her the Indians would take her if she didn’t keep closer to the wagons. She still lagged behind and sure enough one evening she was quite a ways back and a band of Indians came by and carried her off before they could get to her. They never did get her back. Elin walked a good part of the way to Utah. The family gathered buffalo chips and carried them for miles to use for fuel.

After arriving in Salt Lake the family went to Moroni, Utah, where her Mother died from injuries she had received when a wagon wheel had run over her in-route to Utah. In the Moroni Ward records the date of Elin’s baptism is 23 October 1864, by Andrew Anderson. When Elin was fourteen, she left Moroni and went to Salt Lake to work for a family of one of the Church officials.
Another place it states she worked for the Sandberg family which could have been an uncle.

Claus worked as a cabinetmaker and also made furniture for many people in Salt Lake including Brigham Young. He met the young Swedish girl, Elin Annett Holmberg and they were married 22 August 1870 in the Endowment House. While making their home in Salt Lake, Claus helped in the construction of the Salt Lake Temple. He made his living in part by selling a variety of household goods, pictures, combs, hairpins, thread and materials. He carried his goods in a small covered wagon, traveling around Salt Lake and the surrounding territory. He did not like this kind of life and wanted more for his family. He had an opportunity during these years to buy land that is now downtown Salt Lake City, but it was not to be. While residing in Salt Lake, they were blessed with four children, Frederick Wilhelm, Emily Sophia (May)(7), Larona Henry, and Laura Christine.

About this time Claus became inactive in the church due to a disagreement with Brigham Young about tithing. He heard of land in the yet unsettled territory, that is now Wyoming, which he could buy and some he could “prove up on.” At that time Cokeville, Wyoming was only a trading post for trappers and Indians. Yet, here was the opening of a new empire, to convert a vast waste of land into one of the richest communities in the country. And so in 1881, the family moved to Cokeville, Wyoming. At first they lived in a small log cabin and in 1882, he filed on a homestead on Sublette Creek about four miles south of the present town of Cokeville. Here he started ranching and got into the sheep business. He had a store on the Oregon Shortline railroad but later sold this business to some railroad men. Shortly after Emily was married, they built a big 11 room house where the family lived until Elin and her son George moved to Utah. The home is now owned by Mrs. Ted Thomson. The following children were born after they moved to Cokeville, Luella, John Wilbert, George Edward and Oscar.

Between 1881 and 1919, when he passed away, he had built his estate up to 2700 acres patented land, 9000 acres range land, and 13000 acres of government leased land, 16,000 head of sheep, 300 head of cattle, 100 head of horses and had $200,000 in the Montpelier, Idaho Bank.
Some of Laverl Stoffers (a grandson) memories were that Claus was a very thrifty person, and a shrewd business man. He believed all things should have a place when not in use, all his farm equipment was kept undercover when not in use. He believed children should be seen and not heard. He was very strict about meal time manners. About eight years before his death he threw away all his tobacco and pipes, whiskey and cards and from that day on he would never permit their use in his home.

Elin became inactive in the Mormon church, due to the disaffection of her husband to the church and attended the Presbyterian Church. She was a small very good looking woman in her early years and plump, jolly and very sweet in her older years. She loved her fellow beings and had a heart large enough for all her eight children and her many grandchildren.

Claus died 16 January 1919, at the age of 85 from what was then called dropsy. For several months before his death he could not lay down but spent all his time in a large black leather chair. Owing to the influenza epidemic, it was decided to hold the services at the residence of the deceased instead of in the church. All of the immediate relatives of the family were present with the exception of the youngest son, Oscar. He had arrived in Virginia from France where he had been serving in the Armed Forces in World War I, the day previous to the death of his father.

Alleene lived in Cokeville until all her property was lost during the depression years from
1928 to 1933. In 1933, she moved to Riverdale, Weber, Utah where she lived with her son George until her death 25 May 1938 at the age 86. She died from diabetes and infirmities incident to her advanced age. Funeral services were held the following Sunday at the church in Cokeville, Wyoming. Claus and Elin were both buried in the Cokeville cemetery.
(Most of the above was taken from obituaries and notes written by their daughter Luella S. Manning and grandson LaVerl Stoffers.)






The following was copied from a history written by their son George Stoffers and daughter Luella S. Manning.

Claus Frederick Stoffers came from Oldesloe, Sleswick Holstine, Germany and worked in New York before coming to Salt Lake City where he worked as a carpenter and cabinet maker. Here he met Annette Anderson and they were married in the L D S Endowment House August 22, 1870. They lived on Commercial Street where four children were born: Frederick William, Emily Sophia, Larona Henry, and Laura Christine. When Laura was one year old, they moved to Cokeville, Wyoming and four more children were born: Louella, John Wilbert, George Edward and Oscar Roy. They lived on a ranch four miles south of Cokeville in a two-room log house with a small grocery store built onto the north end and a work shop on the south end and a single room was built at the west and a few feet from the kitchen door for the two older boys and a teacher who boarded with them.

Mother Stoffers went to Evanston for groceries. Father Stoffers and the older children had to stay home to feed the stock and take care of the ranch. When they still lived in Salt Lake, Father Stoffers would go to Southern Utah to peddle jewelry and eyeglasses, watches, etc. Fred would go with him to help him with the horses and Fred would sell pictures of Brigham Young. Father Stoffers saved up enough money to buy cattle and a few sheep and also raised pigs, chickens, turkeys, etc.

Mother came to Utah with her parents when eleven years old. They came with a colony of Mormon converts and traveled from New York to Salt Lake City by ox team; they settled in Moroni, Utah. The family consisted of six--the parents and four children. There was Mother, her brother John, a half-brother, Ed and a half-sister Sophia. Mother and her brother, John were born to our Grandmother when she was married to Ola Holmberg in Sweden; he deserted them and then Grandmother married Sven Anderson. Two children were born to them --Edward and Sophia.

Crossing the plains, Grandma, Mother’s mother, fell from their wagon and was badly injured and never regained her health and only lived two or three years, then Mother’s stepfather married again and four children were born to them: Parley, Andrew, Alvin and Emma Anderson. Mother came from Moroni to Salt Lake with her uncle to work as house maid for a church official when she was 13 years old.

When crossing the plains, Mother and all that were able, walked most all the way. There were many Indians. One girl in the company wouldn’t keep up with the ones that were walking and the Indians stole her and they never did get her back. One time they barely escaped a buffalo stampede.

There was no railroad going through Cokeville when Dad and mother moved there; it went through in 1882. When moving to Cokeville they stayed with a family that lived at Sage Creek, near Randolph until they got the two-room log house built. The house had no shingles--just slabs, straw and dirt roof. The inside was lined with white muslin which they had to take down and wash twice a year. There were two neighbors—the Jack Coggins family lived where the Orson Bennion ranch is and Abe Stener ranch 1/4 mile west of us. Later the Mau family came.

When mother and Dad lived in Salt Lake there were no street cars, buses or taxi cabs. Everyone walked unless they had a horse and buggy. One day Mother walked to Ft. Douglas. It got dark before she started home; she got lost and a storm came up and a flash of lightning came and Mother saw that she was in the city cemetery. The caretaker helped her out and showed her the way home. Mother studied the Doctor book and went out nursing a lot when anyone was ill or a baby was born. Sister May was often left to care for the family.

One fall Mother, brother Fred and I (Ella) went to Ogden to get fruit, while in Ogden, Mother got a telegram to come home at once that sister Laura was very ill with typhoid fever. She went home by train. Dad got Mrs. Coggins to come and help May until Mother got home. Fred and I came back with the fruit and had to stop at Sage Creek one night. Oscar was a baby. Mother took him with her and he was ill in Ogden. Mother’s brother John Anderson was living in Ogden at that time so we visited with them while getting fruit.

Mother always had to work very hard to raise her family of eight besides board the teachers through the school months with very little to do it with. It was really a struggle for her when they had the grocery store and Dad would have to leave her alone. Mother knit all the socks for the boys and Dad and stockings for us girls while we were small; also made all of our dresses, Dad’s garments and all the shirts during the first years; then they started ordering from Montgomery Wards. Things changed from year to year as we all grew up and conditions changed and improved.

Father has often told me of his early boyhood when he was an apprentice learning the cabinet trade. When I was in my preteen age, my Father and I spent summers alone in Rock Creek and at these times he would tell me about his early life. Rock Creek was over the mountains east of our home on Sublette Creek, and the Old Oregon Trail passed directly in front of our log home. Rock Creek was just a narrow valley and at that time there was not a soul there, just the valley--about three miles wide in the widest place and from Sublette Canyon too just the end of the canyon, we had the whole valley and it sure was a lonesome place for a kid about six years old, but my Father was very good to me. He did his best to keep me entertained and when I look back on those days I believe they were my happiest. I, at least, found out what kind of a Father I had. He told me stories of his early boyhood. I wish I could remember them all.

One he often told me was how hungry and tired and lonesome he often got while he was working apprenticeship. He got no money but he had to work from early in the morning until sometimes ten and eleven o’clock at night. Sometimes he had nothing to eat, and was so hungry he would trade his brother Henry marbles for a scrap of bread. He often was so tired at night that he would not even go home but would fill a coffin which he had made with shavings and go to sleep in it. He would say, “so you see it will not be the first time I have slept in a coffin when I die.” He said a coffin makes a very good bed. My Father’s name was Claus Frederick and my uncle, his brother just younger than he, was a baker, so I have concluded that is how it was that Father was able to trade marbles for bread, although he never told me how it was, he had plenty to eat while Father was always hungry.

There are many things I do not understand now about his work, but he also told me that he worked in many of the smaller countries like Holland, Sweden, Norway and Germany. There is a great deal more he told me about his work but not being old enough to understand it all I am not able to put any of the stories together. He had a business started before he left Europe but I cannot recall if he ever told me in what country it was he had his business and he never told me how old he was when he left there but I would guess he was about 21, because he and a friend left because they did not want to be drafted into the army. I would think he was located in Hamburg Germany, because he had told stories of facts about his life in Germany that leaves me believing he was in Germany when he and his friend decided to run away from the draft. They left Germany as stowaways on a ship. He said they had made arrangements with their captain to stowaway in order to leave without having to purchase a ticket which I suppose would have given them away. He told me that it was very bad in the German army.

Sitting on the hillside one day watching the sheep feeding and in the cool of scrub quaken aspen, he told me a great deal about his home in Oldesloe Sleswick Holstine. This is the name he always told us was his birthplace and that it belonged to Holland. He told me that it was terrible the way they lived in the old country. He said the house was built either long with the big pig pen first, the chicken coop next on the other side, then the barn for the cows and horses and whatever other stock they had. He said the smell was so bad it often made him sick when he came home. The pigs and chickens, he said, often dominated the kitchen. Sometimes the buildings were built so they formed a corral for the stock. The backyard, therefore, was a hog wallow and manure heaps. He said you can be mighty glad you are in America where there is plenty of room and good clean air to breathe.

Father could speak five different languages: Swedish, Dutch, German, Norwegian and American or English but he would never try to teach any of his children any of these foreign languages; He would say, “You live in America--that is all you need to know.” He would speak in any of the four other languages to anyone who could not speak American but if they could speak American at all, he would speak to them in American. On rare occasions he would speak in other languages but just to have a little fun. He did not believe in using anything but American.

Father never talked much about New York. After he arrived there, he got a job in Stein way Piano Shop. He loved the piano and the violin. In fact, he liked any kind of music but the ones he loved best were the violin and piano. He has told me that for weeks he made nothing but piano keys and how he used to wish he could play real good. I do not believe he ever played a note in his life, but he loved good music. He and Mother used to go to concerts in Salt Lake City after they were married. He often tried to hum tunes but was never good at it. I remember one time in the sheep camp he was humming and when he quit I asked him what song he was humming; he smiled at me and said, “O, Vot, dats no music.” He never did tell me what it was.

While he lived in New York, he and his friends would go down to the wharf and buy live oysters. They would put vinegar on them and eat them alive. I never fancied that would be very appetizing but he seemed to think it was a real treat. He didn’t care too much for dead oysters. I cannot remember if he ever ate them. I do not know how long he lived in New York, but it couldn’t have been to long., I cannot remember him saying how long it was but it runs in my mind that mother has told us that he was in the same train as she was but it was just for protection while they came across the Indian country. As soon as they got where the Indians were peaceable, the mule train left the oxen train that mother was in. At that time, Mother was 11 or 12 so that would have made father 31 or 32 so I doubt very much if he was in the same train. I would say he must have come to Salt Lake much earlier; there was 20 years difference in their ages.

Mother has told me how Father courted her; apparently he took her to a concert and he liked her so he said, “We will get married,” and they did and believe me there was never a couple who were more devoted. Father was always good to her and of course I cannot say how much she loved him but it must have been a good deal because she was with him whenever it was possible. If Father went anywhere, she had to be with him, if she could possibly go. She even went out in the sheep camps many nights with him. Oscar was a baby at one particular time I remember best. It was at sheep shearing time and we were near the shearing corral on Sublette flat and it poured rain. We were all but flooded out but it was fun to have Mamma with us. She was always a good sport and we all had lots of fun even if it was rather unpleasant. When Father was sick, she was always at his side. Of course Father didn’t know what sickness was until he was quite old.

Whenever Father bought anything or made any kind of trade, he would always tell the buyer or salesman, “I vil hav to talk it over mit my vife,” which he always did, but if Mother didn’t approve, well Papa did it anyhow and it always seemed to turn out right. I remember so well when we moved into our new home from the old log house. It was my job to build the fires in the kitchen and front room; their bedroom was next to the front room, or parlor as we called it then. I always went into their room to call Mother and Mother and Father were always in each others arms; never did I see them otherwise in bed. Mother has told us kids that he would always want to have her arm around him and often she had a baby in one arm and him in the other. And how I did love to like to hear him say Annette; when he got older, that was his pet name for her. So, I am real proud of my father; he was a mighty good man and good to me and I cannot think of a time when he did not show love for his family. He always had to introduce all of us to his friends or visitors. So I have always contended that mothers’s and father’s marriage was for true and deep love and affection and they were lovers to the end. Maybe they didn’t show it in quite so demonstrative a way as some of the silly young people do now, but they surely showed they were very close to each other often Father would say, “Where is my little girl?”

I think I have had more laughs over things my father did than anything else on earth. Whenever Father went anywhere he had to have me go along. Once I threw my knee out of place. He wanted me to go with him to the sheep camps. I told him I did not want to go, I couldn’t walk. He said, “I don’t want you to walk and I don’t want you to tell me you do not want to go, you come with me”; so I went, but I thought it was mean of him, but it never hurt me and he was so kind to me all the way. Once he and I went across the Bear River to fix some fence. The water was so high we had to go around through town to get across and back even with our home. Father used to love to have a small bottle of whiskey, so he got Martin Dean to get it for him and before he was ready to go he was feeling real funny and he would say the funniest things when he had a little nip. This time he was sitting beside me saying nothing. I smelled smoke and saw he was burning; I yelled “‘Papa, you are on fire.” He saw that he had put his pipe in his coat pocket and it had burned a big hole in his coat pocket. He kept saying, “I might have burned up, good gracious what a foolish thing to do, good gracious.” He very seldom swore but this time he did he said, “Gott damn, Gott damn!” That was all he said until we got to Cokeville, then he had to go to the store. I was so ashamed of him, but I had to go with him into the store. He went straight back to the office and said to the man there, “Did you ever see such a foolish thing? I could have burned up if it hadn’t been for my Yordsy.” Well, everyone thought that was a big joke except me; I was so embarrassed I could have hid, but even with all his strict and bullheaded ways, it shows he was still the kind of a man who really could joke too, and he seemed to get such a kick out of setting himself afire.

When I was very small, I remember once he went to town from the hay camp which was in the old house on the S bend of Bear River. He came back really drunk. He came in the house and Mother sure got mad at him. He got mad too and went out. About midnight we began to hunt for him; we never found him until morning. He had gone behind a haystack and slept on a pile of fence posts. It was real cold, but I guess it turned out okay. At least, I remember no more about it. Another incident I remember very well was one day when he got a flask of whiskey and was slightly on the teeter side. He saw the pigs out and in the haystack; he got real mad and was going to kill the pigs. Mother took the gun away from him, but if he had blasted those pigs with a big load of buckshot with that old muzzle-loader, they would sure have done some squealing, but that is the side of Father none of us approved of. But when he got sick and he decided smoking was not good for him, he laid his pipe down on the table by his big chair and said to Mother, “I vill not smoke anymore,” She asked him if he wanted her to take the tobacco away. He said, “No, leave it there. I vill not smoke any more.” The same with whiskey. He said it made him crazy so he would not drink anymore and no one could talk him into a drink; he never touched it again, and never smoked again. He had a will power of iron; when he made up his mind about anything, that was it! Of course, he had some ways we didn’t think were so good, but he was a mighty good father.
In all my life with him, he never whipped me. The worst he did was one time in Rock Creek he had bought a bunch of arrows and a bow from some Indians who came across by the old Dempsey Trail. I had gotten pretty good with it and one day he told me to go down into the quaken aspen grove and get some fool hens, so that is what I wanted. I was having so much fun, I forgot to come back when he told me to. He had a switch in his hand; he gave me a whack across my back, but he missed me and hit the horse. I guess papa was sorry; anyhow he told me to help him gather up the sheep and then we would have the hens for supper. That is the only time I can remember him striking at me in any way. Whether he spanked the other children, I do not know but I don’t think so because I never heard any of them say he ever did. Mother spanked a little, but she too was the finest of Mothers and we all loved her so much I don’t think she ever had to spank, but we knew when either of our parents spoke, they meant it.

Father used to read books to me while in Rock Creek. One I loved was “Stanley’s Travels in Africa.” I have never forgotten it. There were several others he read, but I have forgotten them. One time when we were eating our dinner on one of Rock Creeks big bend peaks, I set fire to an ant hill and it set the whole hillside afire. I was so excited I thought surely now I am going to catch it for sure. The sheep were shaded up in the quakes, but we took off our coats and put out the fire. He put his arm around me and said, “Now Yortsy, you see vot can happen by carelessness; don’t you ever do dot again?” That was the end of that, but I surely had learned by lesson. We could have burned out half our herd, which was 5,000 head. We had trouble with the coyotes coming at night and killing the sheep. Father said, “Ve vill make vindmill to scare them away.” He had a meat saw and axe which he sharpened on an old rock and some pieces of quaken aspen. He made the vindmill all right and at night it made plenty of noise and we had no more sheep killed until they got used to it; then they would seem to love to kill under it, but by that time it was time to leave the Valley.

When my sister May and her boy friend came over to ask for Father’s consent--which people did in those days--they came in a two-wheeled dumpcart; just two wheels on the front gear of the wagon with a box on it and a spring seat to sit on. Mr. Mallory was mighty uneasy, I remember--but May, bless her heart, took me down to the springs to give me a bath and put clean clothes on me; which I warrant I needed badly, but gosh all fish hooks, she didn’t need to keep me there an hour. Charlie has told how he tried to ask Father for his consent, but Father would start a new subject with a shy grin on his face. After Charlie was about at the end of his patience, he said, “Well, what about it; can I have May?” Father seemed to be in deep thought for sometime; finally, “Does May want you?” “Sure she does.” “Vell den, if she vonts you, I guess that’s the answer.” “Can you take care of her and a family?” Charlie Mallory thought that was the worst hour he ever spent in his whole life and he certainly expected an answer far different. But believe me, I was the cleanest kid in Wyoming when May got through and Charlie gave her the signal.

Well, we were all happy anyway. Father hated to forget anything. I remember one time he forgot to get himself some smoking tobacco. He was miles from town but he walked back to get the tobacco. He was asked why he walked all the way; he said, “So I will never forget something like that again.” Father often told me how he used to go up to the pines on the old Dempsey Trail which was real steep. He said, “I alvays gott two loads at vunce. I put vin load on de vagon and van I tied behind den I light mine pipe, set myself comfortably on the vagon and vent down the hill in comfort.” Father was always very friendly with the Indians and he used to have them come around the place. He would feed them and treat them nice. The Indians always liked him and Mother but I was always afraid of them. I didn’t like his friendship with them, but I suppose it paid off in the long run. I have heard him tell about an old Indian buck who stopped at our place. He fed him and when he was ready to go he asked Father for a long rope. He was going to some other reservation to get his squaw which another buck had stolen. He said he would be back on a certain day and sure enough he was, with the rope. Father asked him if he got his squaw back. He said “No, he did not want her back she was very unhappy.” I don’t know what he did but I imagine he was satisfied with what he did to them.

Father was always taking me with him when he went on business trips. I liked to go but I was very bashful and he was not.
He always was asked to stay for dinner and he was always glad to do so but I was so bashful, I wouldn’t go. Sometimes he
brought me a sandwich, so that spoiled me right. One day he went away down to Sites place to get some pigs. Father went in and had dinner and I would not go in so he left me. He said he was going to break me of that foolishness. Well, I was about the hungriest kid you ever saw when we got home, but never again did I refuse to go in and eat. He would always take me to places he had to go on business. He would always walk into the bank and never stop till he was in the banker’s quarters and the funny thing about it; he was always greeted kindly and always would first attend to his business, next he had to have a long chat with the busy banker. How he did it, I don’t know, but even in Omaha, he did that very thing--just walked right in and asked for the head man and always he seemed to be welcome. I sure was ashamed of him, but now as I have grown older, I have decided he must have been welcome because he was always treated kindly when I thought the banker should have thrown him out.

When Mother and Father first came to Cokeville, it was a pretty wild country and at that time they could have cut hay on what is now dry, barren hills. There was grass knee-high every place and all kinds of deer and elk. They would not have to go hunt them; they could just kill what they wanted right at home.
Father and Mother moved from Salt Lake City to Cokeville as near as I can tell in 1881. I am not sure if they bought some land on Sublette Creek, but I have old filing papers where they filed on land as homesteads and preemptions in 1891 and where Father bought machinery to cut hay and farm some of the ground. In a letter he wrote to his sister in Hamburg in 1881, he tells them that he has four boys and three girls; the youngest eight days old, which, of course, was me. From those figures, I have come to the conclusion that is must have been around 1881 that they settled on Sublette Creek and started a new life for themselves. Also, Fred was ten years old when they moved from Salt Lake to Cokeville and he was born in 1871.

At that time, it was pretty much in the open. All the fences they had were small corrals built of poles. They went up Sublette Canyon for timber to build with and for wood to burn in winter and they all worked hard, long and late. Before me, an agreement between Father and John B. Hunter of Illinois that was made in 1884. Mr. Hunter furnished Father with 58 cows, three calves and three bulls for a term of five years. Father was to feed them plenty of good feed and when they needed it and plenty of it. After five years, he was to return the cows and half the increase. By this method, my family got started in the cattle business. For they did well on the deal. I have those documents if anyone is interested and would like to see them. Also, the letter translated to English. Mother and Father have often told what a hard time they had with those cattle. They were some old cows and they worked hard to keep them in good shape during the severe winters, but apparently they came out in good shape. Remember, Father was a cabinet maker. So, as they have said, people laughed at them and predicted they would go broke, but
Father used to like to tell people that Mr. Hunter said to those who laughed at him, “Mr. Stoffers was criticized and made the
joke of all of you, but I am glad to say, he has come out far better than any one of you.” He was proud of that of course.

Before my time, Father made two-wooden horses and a merry-go round. I have heard that it worked so good that people would come to ride on it. I am sorry I never saw it in running order, but he had to tear it down; so many people came and there was always trouble between them so he got rid of it, but I have handled and finally cut up the horses. They laid around until they were pretty well decayed, but they were always a curiosity to me. I wish I had taken better care of them and preserved them. I would give a lot just to look at them now. In those days Christmas toys were hard to get. Once he made me a gun of wood. It was kind of a clumsy gun but it would shoot wooden bullets and I cherished it for many years. Where it ever went to, I will never know. Also, my brother Roney made me a violin of native cedar which I loved but which also disappeared, but we always had a good Christmas. Mother would cook the best Christmas dinners ever cooked, and Father was a good provider. He always saw to it that Mother had plenty to cook with and no one ever left his home hungry; bother my mother and father were great to feed everybody who came to our home, but I have heard them tell of when they had to buy a pound of sugar at a time. Finally it was 100 pounds and then buy the 1,000 pounds, but we always had plenty of good things to eat in our home. (Note: Rosella told of how she enjoyed going to Grandmother Stoffers for Christmas when she was a little girl, but it was a long way from Bedford by sleigh.)

He and mother were great to take in young men who had no place to stay. I can hardly remember when we didn’t have somebody staying with us. One young man stayed one winter with us who was quite a mandolin player. He used to play for Father and he would be so pleased. He loved music. We had orphan girls live with us several years. The Schreiber girls, both their mother and father were dead, and for several years we had Hazel Coziah; she also was an orphan. Always we had a house full. Jarvis Mansfield, Tex Taylor and dozens of others, old and young. There was Mr.Herbold, Mrs. Parry’s father, old man Stickles and many I have forgotten. Until he died, he was glad to have someone around. Whenever anyone came, for any reason, he had to feed them before they left.

I have often pictured Father tearing down some wire fence and tying the wire to his wagon and he would drag it to where he wanted to use it. O what a mess! But someway or another he always got it straightened out and made it useable. He seemed to have a knack of untangling that wire. He never wore “glovies” as he called them. Sometimes his hands were bleeding, but he would not protect them.

He finally had to quit work, but he would often walk down to the hay field in the summertime. He would never say a word, just stand and watch us, then walk back home. He had a dog that was his companion on those walks. Another pet he loved was a little canary. He would sit in his easy chair and play with that bird for hours. The bird would go back and forth in his cage and sing his heart out for him, but when Father passed away the bird never made a sound after that, and he died also, shortly after. Father could not lay down; he had dropsy and he sat, slept and died in his chair but he walked to the bathroom just before he died; Mother and I helped him. He sat in his chair and seemed to sleep away. He had to have his coffee in bed for as long as I can remember; a habit he never got over.

There is much more that could be said about his working days. He was a hard worker and a tireless worker, He kept busy with something; was great to hunt for bargains of all kinds and I guess he was clever for he always seemed to come out on top? He and my sister Laura spent many hours together on horse back. Laura owned a little Indian pony; he was a wiry little pony. Father kind of took him over when Laura did not ride so much. I can see him now when he would get old Bogas and the minute he hit the saddle, away Bogas would go and he really could run. Father would be pulling on the reins and his whiskers blowing back; his coat tails flopping and he really enjoyed it.

I remember a bobsled he had; he had made it himself. The runners were about 10 feet long and the rack on it was about 8 feet wide and perhaps 15 feet long. He had sticks, poles and slabs for sides and I guess it was six or seven feet high and the loads of hay he would put on that sleigh! But he always would tip over with it too. I will never forget that old outfit, but he seemed to love to haul hay with it.

I wish it was possible to show you a picture of the old log cabins and the big stockade-like sheds, so we called them--sheds for want of a better name. There was the big square shed where we kept the milk cows with a big stack of hay on the north side to keep the wind out in winter. Two small barns with hat roofs side by side; one was the calf pen, the other one was used for everything. I really never learned what it was built for. Farther north about 100 feet or more was a large log pig pen and a dining room for the pigs in front with a long hewed log trough and in back was their bedroom with plenty of hay for them to sleep in. There was the big yard where we always had a big stack of hay for spring when Bear River would flood. Sometimes, when I was older, there were big stacks of straw and the pigs would burrow deep into it and sure had a swell warm bed in winter. Father had a kind of make shift slab shed on the south side of our log parlor where he did his carpenter work. I never did see him work in it. He had retired from that kind of work long before I can remember, I guess. Anyhow he never did want any of us to become carpenters apparently, but I can remember working in his shop. He had lots of tools--all, or most all of wood and what he had made himself. I would try to use them but I could hardly lift his big planes and everything was so hard to use. I don’t know if he ever got after me or not but I never remember of his doing that, but maybe he would say, “Na, Na, leava dat alone.” But to the best of my recollection it was Mother who would make me leave papa’s tools alone. Father seemed to have lost all interest in carpentry.

Father had some trouble with Frank Mau when he moved to Cokeville. Mr. Mau was always closing the road to Cokeville and crowding it up on the side of the hill. In fact, he did try to make us go up Sublette to the big ridge and away around to get to Cokeville and I just do not remember how many times he moved it. At last Father brought suit against Frank Mau and something he did seemed very foolish to me at the time; he staged a sit-down strike and camped where there was a nasty mud hole he then traveled. I don’t know if his attorney, Judge Conne, told him to do that or not, but it worked to some extent; we
got the road opened again--so, it worked all right, but I sure was ashamed of Papa.

Father bought two big young mules. They were big fellows and one was the nicest, gentlest mule you ever saw; his name was Pete, but the other one was a real devil and he could not handle him and none of the boys could either, so he devised an idea that he said would fix him. He set a tall post in the ground and fixed a chair there so he could sit; then he tied Mike to a pole so he had to go around and around the pole. He sat there with a buggy whip and made him go around and around that post. He kept that up for several days, then he tied some kind of contraption behind Mike and made him drag that all day. He finally got him so he didn’t run away and he made a real good work mule, but that mule never did get tame. He nearly killed me once when I went to harness him. Fred was in the barn or I guess he would have killed me. Golly, what a whipping Fred gave that mule! But I never did trust him again and every time I harnessed him, I trembled, but he was always the mule that pulled the wagon because he was so much faster than Pete. He was always far ahead of him. I remember when I got real brave and was going to ride Mike home from work. I started to climb on him; he made a big lunge and I lit flat in the dust. Mike stood laughing at me. I never did ride him.

Father had two bad sicknesses. First he had erysipelas. His head was so swollen and it broke open and formed a scab on the fore part of his head. It was days that he was delirious. Mrs. Coggins was helping Mother care for him and he said he had two girls. He just talked and talked. He imagined Mr. Branson had run into the northwest corner of the house, (our new house) and when he got well enough to go into the kitchen he looked to see how much he had torn out, but it was just his imagination. Mr. Branson had a good laugh over it, but to him it was real. We came very near losing our Papa but he lived a long time after that, but never without pain. Then his only other illness was the fatal one. He started to swell in his feet; it gradually crawled up his legs into his body, then into his body until it reached his heart and all the while he suffered constantly with erysipelas scars, but one night he asked to go to the bathroom. Mother and I took him and brought him back. He sat down in his chair, went to sleep and never woke again. Dr. Madera and Dr. Rich of Ogden did all they could but they new nothing of the new ways of treating dropsy. His siege with the erysipelas was attended by Dr. Pointer. Dr. Pointer told Mother there was nothing else he could do for him, that he would perhaps die before morning but Mother would not give up and she and Mrs. Coggins worked all night and saved him for many years after.

As Ella has told in her story of Mother, she was away from home when my sister Laura got sick. If I remember rightly, she had typhoid fever. My sister May was away from home. I do not remember where she was, but Father and I stayed with Laura. She was very sick and I was sitting with her--Father was in the kitchen reading the paper. Laura and I were having the best time. She seemed so much better, but all at once she couldn’t get her breath and I ran for Father. He was scared too and neither of us knew what to do. I said to Father, “Shouldn’t we get Mother?” He said, “How can we do that?” “She is in Ogden.” “We will send for her by telegram.” Oh, scared we were! I remember Father tried to assure me Laura would be all-right but he was just as scared as I was, but when we bathed her face with cold water, she came around all right, and I remember Father kneeling down by her and saying, “We will get Mama back as soon as we can.” Laura said, “I am all right, don’t make her come back so soon.” But we were sure glad she came back by train. But Laura got better and she had mighty good care with my sister May around. She never left her again, at least until Mother got back.

You know, I came near being the baby of the family; there were seven years between me and my brother Oscar and I can remember Mother did not wean me until I was a big kid and I can still remember once when I peeked through the door and said to Mother, “Mommie, I want some titty.” I don’t know how old I was but I think I was too big for that, but I wonder if I was a weakling and she was sorry for me or was I too mean to wean, or did she just think well this will be my last one, I better keep him a baby as long as I can. Anyhow you figure it out. I am so thankful that I was a baby to her for a long time.

Mother had a very hard time when she was small; she had very little schooling but she could read very well. She loved to read and enjoyed that privilege until she was too sick and old to read anymore. She loved to go visiting and to other places; she loved to travel and whenever she had the chance, she was ready to go. I remember very well how she used to love to go to Lagoon and how she was the best sport of all when it came to riding or going on everything there. She was a real sport in everything. She loved any kind of social entertainment. She loved to go to basketball games and she got so excited if the boys lost. She loved any kind of sport and she liked to get big feeds and she was mother to many who just drifted into our home. She was very tenderhearted. She gave her love and sympathy. She loved to tell of her experiences and many were mighty thrilling. She was kind of clairvoyant and I remember so well we had two teachers at our place one night and they begged her to try it on them. She sat us all around, each holding hands. She started to talk to the girls. She asked them who they would like to talk to through her and these girls swore that she did describe the party and that they had been dead for several years, and how Minerva Dexter, the older of the two, said she was telling the truth, but Mother did not like to do those things; she never talked about it, but she has told us that Father asked her to describe the place where they were to settle and she described our home in Cokeville on the banks of Sublette Creek and she has told us kids many terrifying things she had to describe when she was practicing, but please do not say she was putting on; Mother never did that and she did not like the things she was gifted with. She hardly ever could be persuaded to talk about them and did not like to be begged to do them. Only the one incident just mentioned is all I ever saw her perform.

There are many good things that I could tell but his is how she lived all her life. She loved her family and the man she chose---or did he choose her? Anyhow you can bet no man ever chose a sweeter lady than my Father did. Again she was no angel but I would give my life for her a thousand times if necessary. Many a tear is shed while I was writing about my saint of a mother---God bless her.

I wish to add my sister’s story of Mother and Father just as it is. She did mighty good. She remembers things I had forgotten and I think we owe it to her to leave her story just as she wrote it. Here it is: Don’t ever get the idea that I don’t remember my dear Mother? No eight kids ever had a better Mother than we did. I have to add my bit to her memory. She was a saint if there ever was one. Every one of her children worshiped her. I don’t believe she had an enemy in her whole life. When I say she as a saint, I mean it from the bottom of my heart. She loved every one of us and was such a sweet person. She tried to treat each of alike and to teach us to become good American citizens and if any of us went astray, --it was not her fault. I will never believe any different than that she had the power to heal the sick. She never over did that power or took advantage of it, but when it came absolutely necessary she had a power that very few people did have. She saved my Father’s life, she saved the life of a baby boy that the doctor said was dead. His folks were working for us at the time. The baby became fatally ill. Dr. Pointer gave him up as dead but I would not guess but that he is alive today. The family name was Carlings. And as many of you know, Dr. Madera gave up saving our own Vera. He told Mother she was beyond saving, and would surely die, but take a good look at her. Mother went to work at once and I think she is very much alive and has a lovely family. She has done many good deeds with her exceptional power from our Heavenly Father. She has told me many times that she never prayed out loud, she always talked to her God in private, and I know she always had her prayers answered if it was possible. She was the kindest person to everyone. She loved to have a little snack when people came to her home. She did a great deal of good among the older natives of Cokeville. It seemed that she was always gone to nurse someone. Thank God, Father never complained about it; he had his daughters to take over when she was off on some mercy trip. She nursed many of the old Cokevilleites. Perhaps if my sister May could be with us she could tell many who were nursed back to health by our Mother. I know when I was sick, just her touch and her loving ways of telling us we would soon be well, she would see to that. Oh, if only I could have her loving touch now, I know I would not or could not find a better doctor.