Interview with Irvin Bryner

Irvin Bryner was interviewed on May 3, 1968 in St. George, Washington County, Utah by Fielding H. Harris, a representative of Voices of Remembrance Foundation. He related his personal history of living in various parts of Utah. His wife, Lola Belle (DeMille) Bryner, also participated.

FH:Would you please give your full name?

IB:My name is Irvin Bryner. My father's name was Joseph W. [William] Bryner. My mother's name was Emma Charlotte (Blair) Bryner.

FH:When were you born?

IB:I was born in St. George [on] December 15, 1900.

FH:Can you recall anything from your early childhood?

IB:The farthest [event] back I can recall is when we were living in Sham, which is about twelve miles [west] St. George. [It is] above the [Shivwits] Indian Farm. Father went there to work [in the] Apex Mine and Smelter [on the Shivwits Reservation]. They smelted the [copper] ore from the Apex mine. He was running 00:01:00the tap furnace. At night, we would see the slag when they dumped it. [It] ran down red and white [and] some of the hot crystals would slide in the [Santa Clara] Creek and splash. While in Sham, we lived in a boarded-up tent.

The [event] I remember most was [when] the folks [went] away and left me there with a friend of mine, Harry Riding. Mother had a piece of petrified wood that was about the shape of the back log for a fireplace. [It was] about a foot long. It was almost squared-off as though it had been sawed. We [had some] little sulphur matches and a hammer. We would put the head of the match on the rock and hit it with the hammer. Little sulphur fireflies would go out into the air. We were having a lot of fun, but in this process, we [caught] the tent on fire. It 00:02:00was burning between us and the door. We crowded into the back end of the tent; there was no way to get out except by running through the fire. A number of [folks] came to the door [and] hollered at us. [They] wanted us to come out through [the fire], but we wouldn't go. They chopped a hole through the back [of the tent] and dragged us out. I remember that, even though I was only two-and-a-half to three years old. We moved back to St. George in the fall [so] the rest of the children [could] go to school. We lived in the neighborhood they call Swiss Block. [It was] on Third West and Third South [streets] in St. George.

My early childhood days, as I remember, [were] spent [there]. When I was not in school, [I was] roaming around what we called the brush. There were no houses south of our place; it was mesquite brush and rabbit brush. Animals were turned 00:03:00loose down there: cows, horses and burros. Our neighbors had a boy who lived over the fence from me, and [he] was very close to me, Van Prisbrey. We put a lot of time in together, chasing calves and burros that were left loose on the grass lots. We put a lot of time in on the Black Hill, which was close to us. We would go up there, take two barrel staves nailed together, and make a sled. There was no snow, but close to the top of the Black Hill was very steep. We made a trail down there [that] you can still see. We would lay the barrel staves down, lie down on the barrel staves on our stomachs, and come down the hill in a big cloud of dust. Oftentimes we would tip over and go rolling down, but none of 00:04:00us ever [were] hurt very much, and we would try it again. We would be all covered with dirt.

We dug holes in the hill ─ tunnels. We had one [that] I remember very distinctly. We had a little prospector's pick, and you can still see the remains of where it was. We started [digging] into a red clay bank. We dug a hole about three feet high and two-and-a-half feet wide. We kept picking until we [were] back in there about fifteen feet. We had pitch-pine splints that we would light. They would smoke up the back of the tunnel that we had dug. We would get our heads up in that and get dirt and soot, so that we were really dirty! Our parents would get after us, but we would go right back again. Finally, my 00:05:00brother-in-law said he was going to cave it in [so] it [would not] cave in on us. We had no fear of it caving in, we thought we were really hard-rock miners. We spent a lot of time there on this hill.

Later I [moved] to Grass Valley [Washington County, Utah]. My father [found] a job at the Grass Valley Reservoir that was being built to take water out on the west desert by the Newcastle Reclamation [Project]. We went up there in the spring of 1909 and lived in a tent. Later, I was [hired to do] a sprinkling job [on] this dam. It was a dirt and rock [dam]. There was a rock face on the back filled with dirt that they hauled in there with wagons. This dirt had to be kept wet all the while they were putting it in there in order for it to settle and be 00:06:00solid. It was my job to run this sprinkling system. They gave me $.50 a day for sprinkling [the] dam. For nine hours, I would wade through the mud and drag this hose. I really thought I was doing something in order to earn that much money. That fall, when we came back to school, I bought a suit of clothes. The first suit of clothes I ever had. It was what we called blouse pants; they had a little buckle going around the bottom of [the legs] and you put it up to your knees and then the pants would blouse down over it. I thought I was dressed up like a king when I had those on!

The next summer, I attended [my] first dance. It was held in the top [floor] of where the academy is now, the old Dixie College building. It was new then [and] had only been up about a year. I was barefoot. Everybody went barefoot in the summertime, girls and boys and all. I remember very distinctly dancing there and seeing a girl who was in the same class I was. I thought: I would like to dance with her. I remember walking over and putting one foot up a little bit and turning a big toe up in the air while I was talking to her. [I] asked if she would dance with me. She took one look at me -- she was quite a proud girl -- and she told me no. My heart went down until I could almost cry, to be turned down. I turned, walked off and danced with other girls. I never did forget it. 00:08:00Whenever I went to a dance, I never did ask that girl to dance with me. She went to school with me all of the time, was very sociable, but she was the only one [who] I would never ask to dance with me. I never did ask her to dance with me after that.

FH:Would you tell a little bit about your [education] up to this point?

LB:Also, don't forget ─.

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IB:When I was about five or six years old, I remember being out in the yard one day. I had a flipper [and] was having quite a time flipping cans and what not. At that time we were quarantined with the measles. When you were quarantined, you were supposed to stay on your property, not get off [of it], but stay right 00:09:00there. They put a yellow flag on your gate, and the orders were to not let anyone get off the lot. We lived down to the lower end of town, where there wasn't anyone else beyond us. Our corral and [hay] stack yard was across the street. We had about a fourth of a block for the stack yard. I was outside playing around with the flipper this day and my older brother, ten years older, was sitting on the steps. This was in the early spring and the chickens were congregated down [by] the cellar. The sun was shining down there, nice and warm.

This older brother said, "Irv, shoot that rooster down there and I will take the blame for it." There was no question in my mind but what I could hit that rooster. I put a rock in the flipper, pulled back, let it fly, and I hit a big 00:10:00Plymouth Rock hen. [I] hit her right in the head and down she went. The chickens flew out of there [with] this hen flopping around! I could see she was done. My brother, Will, jumped to run to tell mother about it, so I took off. I ran down to the pasture, through the partition fence [to] the other side of the pasture, and started up along back of a row of tamarack [tamarisk] trees. They all came out of the house. I was peeking through the tamarisk trees, so I could see them. They were running in every direction trying to [find] me. My idea was if they caught me, they would kill me. They were hollering [for] me to come back, that they would put me in the stray pen, but that didn't make any difference; I wouldn't come. There were some boys on top of the Black Hill [who] could see me down there. They could hear [everyone] hollering. They told them where I was. Mother came down to the corral, kept hollering at me not to run off, that they 00:11:00were not going to hurt me. Finally, I came up slowly; I was kind of skeptical [and] afraid maybe they would. She took me by the hand, led me up to the house, said they weren't going to hurt me any [and] that it was alright. I didn't kill the hen intentionally. She gave me a talking to. The next day, we had nice chicken noodles, so it wasn't so bad after all! We [had] some good out of it.

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IB:In those days, I was like most of the other small boys. We played marbles. That was a game that was played all over town. From the time school would start in the fall until it let out in the spring, the main [pastime] was to play marbles. I wanted to be playing marbles all of the time. Mother wanted me to be doing something else. She would round me up and get me to doing something else. Maybe I would see some [youngster] come along and we would take off. When I came home, she would ask me why I did it. I would say, "Cause" and that was not 00:12:00enough reason. After so many times, she would tell me to go get a little willow; she would have to remind me of it. We had a black willow [tree] that had been cut down [and it] sent out nice little slender shoots from the roots. I would go down and get one of those, bring it up, and she would tan my jacket. It impressed me that when she told me to do something, I had better do it. [This] was [what] I knew was coming when I would go [off]. One time she sent me uptown and told me to hurry right back. She had something for me to do --.

LB:You told me [you were] to get her some thread.

IB:Yes, it was to get her a spool of thread. I got the spool of thread [and] ran into some boys [who] wanted to play marbles. We took off [for] the other side of town. We played marbles and I was gone four or five hours. When I came home, she wanted to know where I had been, and I told her. She said, "I thought I told you to hurry back." I told her I forgot. She said, "Then go down and get me another willow." I went down and took my pocket knife and cut it every little ways, not clear through, but partway through. I brought it up and gave it to her. She went to hit me a lick with it, and when she brought it [up] the willow broke and she didn't hit me very much or hurt [me] much. She said, "I will go get one." She went down and picked up three or four of them so they wouldn't break. [Laughter] She tanned my jacket right good. Then she said, "Now, I want you to go uptown 00:14:00and get me another spool of thread." I didn't stop to play marbles on that trip. She said I was only gone ten minutes. That sounds [very] fast for me to make it, but I know that I sure did tear up the street!

I probably didn't get as many lickings as I should have, because I was into most everything there was to be getting into. I was like all the rest of the boys and we were into mischief wherever it was possible to get into. My younger brother and I, and a fellow we called "Tuck" Larson -- he was kind of a moron in a way, but yet he was smart. He had smart answers for everything you [asked], but he was still a little bit tetched. I ran around with him some. One Sunday we decided to go [gather] bottles. We had been getting bottles, washing them and 00:15:00taking them to the drugstore. They would give you $.10 per dozen for them. They would use them to fill prescriptions. We took off below town with a trash bottle -- Boney Hollow as we called it. There are houses around in there now. We went down [with] a gunny sack [and] had four or five dozen bottles in it. It was around the Fourth of July and it was good and hot. We came up to the old Bundy home. It was called [that] as far back as I can remember, but Frank Jarvis was living in it. This young "Tuck", as we called him, lived with George Jarvis, Frank's father. We sat down in the shade of these tamarisks.

He said, "Uncle George has watermelons in there." The tamarisks grew very thick and it was hard to get through them, but we decided we would crawl through and 00:16:00see if we could find a ripe one. We couldn't tell a ripe one, only by cutting it open and we didn't have a knife, so we broke off a dried stick. We turned the watermelon upside down, stuck that stick down into it; if it had red juice, we would pick it. We finally [found] one that was ripe enough to eat [and] took it over into the shade, ate what we wanted of it, and went on up the road. We had to tell some of the neighbor boys about it. About a week after that, some other boys [were] caught in there. They told on us, that we had been in there and plugged all of the melons. We didn't plug all of them, but we did plug some of them. We had to take the credit for it; the others had been doing the same thing.

I got word by way of the grapevine -- I was up in town and an older boy told me that Frank Jarvis was looking for us for plugging his melons. That set me to worrying. I was down [at] the corral cutting wood; I looked up and saw Frank 00:17:00coming down the street. He had hold of "Tuck's" hand, leading him, and I knew what was coming. I stayed there. I was [very] busy cutting wood and I didn't look up. Soon, mother hollered at me and told me to come up to the house. When I got up there, he had already told mother about us getting into the melon patch. They asked me if we did and [I] told them, "Yes, but we didn't plug all of them, we just plugged some of them." He said, "All of the melons are plugged." I said, "If they were, somebody else did some of them." We didn't do all of [them], but we had to take the credit for it. Mother told him he could take me, put me in jail, make me work, or anything, that she didn't have any money, which she didn't. Dad had Delamar [Dust -- a silicosis disease] and wasn't able to do very much [work]. He was just about done.

Frank decided he would have me cut sunflowers. There was a big patch of sunflowers between the melon patch and his house, so he couldn't see them. This 00:18:00younger brother of mine was six years younger than me, but he was just a little fellow. He was [very] worried. He said they were going to take me to jail. Mother sent him [along] too. We all three went down to Frank Jarvis' to cut sunflowers. This was about August, and some of them were about two inches in diameter and hard as wood. You had to have an ax to cut them off. We chopped sunflowers for two or three hours, [made] a path through there about twenty feet wide, so he could see from the house clear out to the melon patch. Finally, 00:19:00Frank came outside. He went down through the patch and found a ripe watermelon, brought it over and cut it. He gave us some melon and wanted to know if it was as good as the one we got. I told him, "Yes, it was a lot better. It was riper than the one we got." [Laughter] We had quite an experience. That impressed my memory so that every time I think about going into a watermelon patch, I think about that experience I had of plugging them with a stick and getting caught at it.

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IB:Going back to my first [time at] school, I was about five years old. With my birthday coming in December, I wasn't able to attend the district school, but there was a lady by the name of Miss Wilson here who taught the Presbyterian school at the Presbyterian Church. She had everything from beginners chart, as 00:20:00she called it, up to the eighth grade all in one room. My oldest sister and my oldest brother were going to school there, so mother sent me [also]. We had quite an experience in this school room with the [older] boys and girls in there. We would listen to what they were doing. Miss Wilson would have blocks, papers and scissors. We would cut out pictures, paint [and] knit on a spool of thread. After the thread was all taken off, they would drive four shoe tacks in it, then take a string, poke it down through the hole and wrap it around the tacks. Then take a needle [to] take the thread off and poke it over the top of the thread underneath. We would go round and round [to] bring out a little round 00:21:00knit thread, as we called it. Some would make little rugs out of it and sew them together. She kept us busy and made school life pleasant for us youngsters.

The next year, I started [at] the Woodward School, down in the district school. I had a lady named Miss Woodbury who taught us. She had the beginners and the first grade, as they called it. The next year I [was] in [the] second grade with a bunch of roughnecks. Some were about my caliber and we were all rounded in together. We had a young girl there for a teacher. She was a very nice, good-looking girl, named Lottie McQuarrie. She didn't have enough discipline for 00:22:00[the] kind of element that she had to teach, so she had a [fairly] sad time. I don't think I learned very much and I didn't help the others in there with me very much.

LB:[Laughter]

IB:She kicked me along that year. The next year I had Bertie Crosby for a teacher. The same thing went on. The next year I had Metta Morris for a teacher. She was just a young girl, and hadn't had much experience with roughnecks of that type. There were about eight or ten boys in there. They didn't want to mind [or] do anything. It was hard for her to make them [study]. For punishment, she would send us down to Lena Nelson. She was an old hand [at teaching]. She was an old maid and had been teaching for years. We would do something [that] she wanted to punish us for [and] down there we would go. Lena had all sorts of 00:23:00punishment for us, such as standing on one leg and holding an eraser up in the air with the other hand. She wouldn't let you take your hand that was free to help hold that other leg up. You had to stand on the one leg. She had one of these round rulers that she would [used to] point to the board. [If] you started to put your hand down or reach down to get your leg to help hold it up, she [would] swipe you a lick with that [ruler]. That was your punishment! She would have a whole bunch of [students] from all over [the] school there. She would have them lined up there, punishing them. I can remember that very distinctly.

The next year, she was my teacher. I decided I would have to toe the mark a little bit if I had her, so I began to do a little bit of studying. When she promoted me the next year to fifth grade, lo and behold, she got moved up there 00:24:00too. I had her two years. She had quite a rough bunch to handle.

When we [were] in the sixth grade, Sam Bleak was the teacher ─ [the] first man teacher. He played the cornet and led the orchestra for the school. In those days, we lined up outside when the bell was rung and marched in three abreast, each grade at a time. Sam had to play in the orchestra, be down there to oversee it, so there was always a big to-do going on knowing he was in the orchestra and wouldn't be there. All of the [students] would get in there, making all kinds of noise, and doing everything. The first morning that Sam came in -- he wasn't a very big fellow, and I think there was at least a half a dozen of us who could 00:25:00have taken Sam and pinned him to the floor without any trouble -- rolling his sleeves up as he came in. When he got to about the middle of the floor, he didn't have a smile on his face [and] all the noise stopped right now. He said, "This grade has had the name of being the toughest grade in school from the beginners up until now. It is going to be cut out, right now. If there are any of you [who] want to fight, come up here right now -- one of you, two of you, three of you, all at once, it doesn't make any difference."

You could hear the old clock down in the corner going tick-tick-tick. Nobody moved and everything was quiet. He said, "That is the way I want it." Things went along fine for about a week and finally, in history class one day we were 00:26:00talking about the crusades. Alden Pectol ["Jack"] -- he wasn't one of the big ones, he was one of the [smallest] ones, but he was one of the meanest ones -- was sitting in the front seat. The seat that you sat in was the desk for the one behind you. [Since he was] in front, he had a seat in front of him that was always turned up. Sam was standing with his foot on that seat and his elbow on [his] knee while he was talking. Alden began to laugh. He kept turning around and [said] something to the [student] in back of him. Sam told him to shut up a couple of times and he kept going on. Finally, Sam just dove over through the air and grabbed him right by the neck. He gave two or three jerks and up came the bench. He pulled the bench right off the screws and it went sailing across the floor. Jack was just a little fellow, but he was wiry and Sam just picked 00:27:00him right up off the floor and skated him over into the corner.

We had a powder box for a waste basket where they kept the waste paper and sharpened the pencils. He shoved his head and said, "Get your head up in that corner." He didn't get it up there far enough, so Sam gave his head a shove and shoved his head right into the corner. Jack didn't turn around to look back; he kept his head in there. When he [came] outside, they were all kidding Jack about it. He said, "I would have climbed right up that wall if he had told me to." Sam got along very well with the bunch; he conquered them all. He took one of the meanest ones, one that he could handle without any trouble, made an example out 00:28:00of him. That tamed the rest of them. We decided we would have to study. I think I got more out of that year of school, two to one, than I did all the rest of the time I went to school before.

The next year, I had Fred Fawcett for a teacher. He was a very fine [fellow]. He taught me and was very nice. I took an interest in school and really enjoyed it. When I graduated [from] the eighth grade, I thought: I will go work this summer and then I will come back and go to school again. My intentions were to go to school. I had worked in Ogden [Weber County, Utah] the year before in 1915. [I] 00:29:00worked for the railroad company for a couple of months in the freight yard --

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IB:-- pushing a freight truck around, loading box cars and unloading them, for $1.75 a day for nine hours. That sounds like a lot of money then.

FH:It was a lot of money.

IB:Yes, it was a lot of money. Then, I got a job at the Ash Fire Brick and Tile Company up on Twenty-ninth [Street] and Jefferson [in Ogden]. My job was wheeling bricks from the brick press into the brick kiln. I was a big husky 00:30:00[fellow] and could handle a wheelbarrow full of bricks without any trouble. They paid $2.00 a day, and that was really money! I did fine there. I came home that fall and felt like I was next to John D. Rockefeller, with what money I had saved. I bought a used bicycle there, and I really enjoyed it. I brought it back with me. [In] Lund [Iron County, Utah] they had a bus, or stage as we called it. It was halfway between a buggy and a truck. They had curtains on it like a buggy and a box in the back about like a Ford pickup would have now, but it was a wooden box. One person could sit by the driver and anyone else had to sit in the 00:31:00back with the mail. When I arrived at Lund on the train, about 11:00 or 12:00 [noon], they wouldn't take my bicycle on [the stage]. They said they couldn't take it and they would have to ship it some other way. I told them if they couldn't take it, I wasn't going to leave it and have somebody else take it. It was in a crate, so I got it out of the crate, put it together, got on the bicycle about 3:00 in the afternoon and started out for home.

In those days, there were no oiled or graveled roads; it was just roads made by traveling over them, and going out filling up holes. If the road got washed out, they went around it where they could get around. I rode the bicycle across the desert, over to Cedar City [Iron County, Utah] and down to the Black Ridge by dark. The Black Ridge, at that time, there were rocks in the road and the road 00:32:00was washed out. There were washes across the road, wagons bounced over there and a car had a hard time getting over it. If it was a car like now-a-days, they could not get over the road; they would get hung up. I rode the bicycle and [arrived] home about 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. I didn't want to wake the folks up, so I leaned the bicycle up against the fence and walked down across the street to the hay shed. They had some hay up in the loft, so I climbed up on top of that and went to sleep.

The next morning my younger brother came down to milk the cow. He came by the gate and saw this bicycle leaning up there. He didn't [recognize] the bicycle and didn't know I had come home. He ran back up to the house and told mother 00:33:00there was a bicycle leaning up against the gate. Mother told him to leave it alone [and to] go on down and milk the cow. He came down to milk the cow. He started to climb up on the shed to feed the cow and he saw me lying there, but he didn't recognize me. He just thought it was a man. I had grown to about my full height that summer. I shot up like a bean pole! He ran back up and told mother there was a man down there on top of the hay asleep. Mother came down with him. When they saw it was me, it was all fine. I was home, they were glad to see me, and I was glad to be home.

I really enjoyed [using] the bicycle [to] travel around. [I] went everyplace on it; that was my pride and joy. That fall, I had to take a colt down to the field 00:34:00and the hay supply was getting low. This colt was a yearling, maybe a little older, and they wanted me to take him down and put him in Well's pasture. I made a loop in the end of the rope, and would get a hold of it. That colt walked along just slow enough that it kept me guessing whether I could ride the bicycle or not, [maybe] he would tip me over. I was going to ride the bicycle back anyway. We got down below town a-ways and there was an old farm called Bunning's farm. They had water [there] years before, but it had dried up. They made a road to go right across the middle of it, up over the levee and down the other side. I started down across it, got to the top of the bank and the colt didn't want to come up. I was hanging on to the bicycle with one hand and jerking on the rope, finally he decided to come. Over the bank he came running and when he went by 00:35:00me, he jerked the rope out of my hand and it slipped over the handlebars, just like he had lassoed it. It tipped the bicycle over end for end. When the rear wheel came up close to him, he kicked with both feet, hit right in the middle of it and just tore it all to pieces. He ran and dragged it through the rocks, turned around on the hill and broke off the handlebar that was down, broke one of the pedals off, bent the frame, turned around and came back, stopped right there like, "I brought your bicycle back." I threw it by the side of the road, took the colt on to the field, picked up the bicycle [and put it] on my back [and] carried it home. [I] shed a few tears because I had lost my bicycle and didn't think I would ever get another one.

The following spring I started working for the power company, which turned out to be my life's career. At the time I started to work for them I thought: if I 00:36:00could get enough work to get enough money to go to Ogden, I would work there for the summer then come back and go to school. I went up to get a job; I hit up the office force there and they said I would have to see Woodhouse. "He will be in here about 4:00 [p.m.]. I came back about 4:00 and talked to Woodhouse. He said, "What are you going to do?" I said, "I would like to get a little work so I can accumulate enough money to go to school next fall. He said, "We have some work out here. We are going to build some lines." He gave me a job and [I] started the next morning digging holes, over almost to Washington [City, Washington 00:37:00County, Utah]. They were digging holes along there and raising poles on the power line that went to Hurricane [Washington County, Utah]. I worked for about a week on that. A fellow by the name of Charley Gilbert was the foreman [and] he took a liking to me.

One morning it rained a steady rain. It had been raining all night. I came to work, [put] my lunch up and he was in the basement. He said, "Where are you going?" I said I didn't know. "I thought maybe if they were going to work, I didn't want to miss the work. I was going to be here." He said, "You wouldn't go out and work today, would you?" I said, "Yes, I would, if you were going." He said, "We are not going to go work today. It is raining." I went back home. The next day when I came to work -- it was a good day and we were working -- he asked me, "Why didn't I go get a hold of Thompson? I will speak to him. You don't want to just stay with us. There is nothing to it, just digging holes. 00:38:00There is no future with it. Get on with him and get some experience." He talked to Thompson and they decided to take me on. They wired houses, tested meters, read meters, serviced, built lines and they did everything. I had quite a broad experience. I drove the trucks around. They had a 1907 Buick, a 1912 International and a 1914 Ford Touring Car, as we called it. They really looked good. You could get in one of those and go chugging up and down the street through the sand. You knew what streets to stay off of. Those [streets] that were sandy, you had better not get on [or] you would get stuck. The old International had hard rubber tires on it, a two-cylinder engine and a chain drive. It had curtains on the side.

FH:How old were you at this time?

IB:I was sixteen years old. I worked for them that summer. Another young fellow that went to school with me, Ted Farnsworth, a bosom friend of mine, I got him [a job] there. We were together night and day. We worked all day together and then we prowled around at night, chasing the girls; we were really having a big time.

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IB:We started to build the first line. After Ted came on, they put me out on the transmission line. We started to build the power lines from the old Number One Power Plant on the Magotsu [Creek] where the Clary Creek [Santa Clara River] and the Magotsu Creek came together, down to St. George. It was a 33,000 volt line with a telephone under-build. At that time, St. George was being fed by a 15- kilowatt plant that came off from the Cottonwood [Spring] Ditch [water pipeline 00:40:00from Pine Valley Mountain to St. George] up there. There was a 5,000-volt line that ran from there into St. George. About the biggest transformer in town was a 5KVA, and that was for the picture show [the Electric Theater]. [At that time] it fed everybody in that end of town besides the picture show. We worked on this transmission line. We had to be out on the job at 8:00 in the morning. Transportation from Diamond Valley [Washington County, Utah], where we were located, was by team and wagon. We would bounce over the rocks to get out there, work on the line until quitting time, and then [come] back. We stayed [with] John Miles and Aunt Mersey [John Talmai and Mary Jane (Whitehead) Miles], as we called them. We slept in our blankets out in the lot by their corral. She put out very good food [and we] took our lunch with us. We had an enjoyable summer building that line down to St. George.

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IB:After the line was completed from the Number One Power Plant into St. George, about August 1917, we started on the power line from St. George to Hurricane. Hurricane had never had electric lights before. We started the same [project] with a wagon and team. It wasn't the same crew, but part of [the crew were] the same men. Ted Farnsworth and Frank Kelsey were with me. We were the linemen on the job. We worked out of St. George until we [were] almost to Washington [City]. Then we moved to Washington [City] and lived with the Mark Adams' family. We worked out of there until we got over to Berry Springs [Washington County, Utah] and then we moved to Hurricane and they [gave] us a tent there. We 00:42:00lived in a tent by Bill Spendlove's, by the old flour mill [in Washington City]. We completed the line into Hurricane, and then built the distribution system around in Hurricane, LaVerkin and Toquerville [Washington County, Utah] and energized the line from St. George to Hurricane about the middle of September 1917.

We had an enjoyable time working there that fall. I would come home on weekends. It seemed like I had been away all summer when I had been gone a week and came back. I had a girl in St. George that I had been courting and I thought she was nice. After leaving St. George, I finally decided that there were other girls, so I quit courting this girl. It seemed [like] anyplace I could get a girl; I 00:43:00didn't have a steady [one]. I would take a girl out and take another one. This went on through that fall while we were building the distribution system in Toquerville. I came home one weekend and it was dark when we got back. I left the power office and started for home on foot. As I crossed the street, I saw my sister and my cousin there. They spoke to me and I talked to them. There were two other girls there, and [I was] made acquainted with them. At that time, I didn't know that this one [girl] was going to be my future wife. I talked to them for a few minutes and then I went on home. I remember the instance, but I never did see enough of her face to recognize her when I saw her again.

We worked to finish the lines up to Toquerville and through there. Then we came 00:44:00back and started for Enterprise [Washington County, Utah]. We started to build a line from the Number One Power Plant into Enterprise. That line was completed in about December. Then I moved to Enterprise and wired houses. I stayed at the old man [place], Bill Barnum's. We lived there for about a month or six weeks [while we were] wiring houses. I came back to St. George and we built a line from the Number One Power Plant down to Gunlock [Washington County, Utah]. After that was completed, I kind of got the rambling spirit. I wanted to do something else.

This was about March and the [spring] conference was on in St. George. Kenneth 00:45:00Cannon was going to school at this time. He was one of the boys [who] had been working with me during the summer. He was a little bit older than I was, but we went to conference. We were sitting in the east end [of] the gallery looking over the audience. Kenneth spotted Lola [Belle DeMille] and Vera. Lola later became my wife. He said, "Let's look at those two girls until they look around. Then we will just keep looking at them." We kept our eyes fixed on them for a few minutes and soon they looked up and saw that we were looking at them. In a minute, they looked back, and we were still looking at them. Soon they began to fix their hair, like there was something wrong. We would laugh and keep on looking at them. I decided right then that I wanted to go with that girl; she 00:46:00looked good to me with pretty curly hair. I thought: I will have to arrange some way to [go] out with her.

In a few days, they had a party at the Hen Wilson home and I found that she was going to be there. So I put forth a little effort to be invited. I attended this party and we [played] old-time games in these parties. Different [games] they would play [and] you would have to give a forfeit. In order to redeem that forfeit, someone would hold the forfeit over the head of another person sitting in a chair and say, "Heavy, heavy hangs over your poor head." They would say, "Fine" or "Superfine." If it was "Fine," it was a man. If it was "Superfine," it was a girl. They would tell them which it was [and] they would tell them what 00:47:00they had to do to redeem this forfeit. When mine came up, they seemed to have known just who it was and what I wanted. They told me I could chew rabbit fashion with my future wife.

LB:I wasn't your future wife then.

IB:I knelt down on the floor with my knee up and she sat down on my knee. They gave us a string. You put the end of the string in your mouth and then you chew that string until you came together, and then you would kiss. That was to redeem the forfeit. I made a date with her, took her out and I courted her for about a week. I was going out to the Arizona Strip to work for Preston Nutter on [the Circle Outfit] Ranch. I decided I wanted to go out in the wild so I took off. 00:48:00There wasn't any mail service out there. After I had been there about a week, Ev Terry came out. These two girls, Vera and Lola, lived at Terry's. He brought a letter to me. Both of them had written a letter [and] put them in the same envelope. I wrote one and sent it back. I think I wrote one or two letters while I was there that I had a chance to [mail].

I came [home] in about June and decided I would have to go up to Rockville [Washington County, Utah] to see her. There was no mail service going up there. You had to take [the] truck like you were going to Lund. I rode to Anderson's Ranch and then you had to layover there until nighttime and then you could take another truck that went from there to Hurricane. It took the mail back at night. 00:49:00You could layover in Hurricane overnight [and] the next day you could catch a buggy and go with the mail to Rockville. When I got to Anderson's Ranch, I decided that rather than lay around there all day, I would walk over to Toquerville. I was well acquainted over there [and] I had wired houses and built lines. I took my suitcase -- it was about three miles -- and took off over the top of [the] hill up the road.

I had gone about a mile [when] I met Sterling Russell and his wife coming down. His father was bringing Sterling down to take him to [enter] the [United States] Army. It was [in] June [of] 1918 and [World] War [I] was on. They stopped to talk to me on the road a minute. They said they had seen her out [at] the dance the night before, and what a big time she was having. I walked on down to 00:50:00Toquerville and visited there. He told me I could go back with him that night. He said he was going back to Grafton [Washington County, Utah], which was about three miles below Rockville. He said, "I am going back there tonight and you can go back with me if you want to." I told him I would watch for him in Toquerville. I went on to Toquerville and I visited there all day until about 4:00 [p. m.]. Here came Brother Russell back. He had two horses and [a] little buckboard and I got in with him.

We got to Grafton about midnight. He gave me a blanket and I got on top of a straw shed he had out there. It was nice and warm. I slept there that night and in the morning his wife gave me a good breakfast. He let me take a horse to ride across the [Virgin] River. I told him I would walk on up to Rockville. I rode across the river, took my suitcase and got off, turned the horse loose and he 00:51:00went back [home]. I walked on up to Rockville and went to [John Fabyan] Dennett's first. They had the [Dennett] Hotel there; that was my wife's grandmother's [Rebecca Alvira (Fisk) Stout Dennett] place. I went in there and Vera was pleased to see me [and] we visited for a little bit. She wanted to go right up and see Lola, right now. This was around 8:00 in the morning. Of course, I was anxious to see her too, so we took off. They lived at the other end of town.

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IB:Vera and I took off up the street. When we arrived at Lola's mother's [Clara (Dennett) DeMille] place, we came in the front gate. Lola was in the house and she could see out the front door and saw us coming. Lola's mother was standing out in the yard. Vera made me acquainted with her and said, "Lola is in the 00:52:00house." Vera started in the front door and Lola came out the back door. I was standing out the side so I tore after her. She had been up early, gathering some feed for the pigs out in the lot and she had on a pair of boy's shoes. She just loved grass that stuck in her dress, and the tails of that was a-flying. She was really taking off to the little granary that was in the back. I ran too. I could run faster then than I can now! She dived into the granary and tried to shut the door, but I put my foot in the door so she couldn't. She cried; she felt bad because she wasn't dressed up. I think she was pleased anyway, but she shed a few tears.

LB:[Laughter]

IB:The neighbors were all having a lot of fun out of it and her mother seemed to really enjoy it. I stayed there in Rockville with her for about a week. We 00:53:00visited and went in the buggy to Springdale [for] ice cream, danced, and did about everything we could do for entertainment in a little town at that time. I came back to St. George and decided I would go to Salt Lake [City]. I started out [for] Cedar City. I had a brother-in-law living there and I worked there for about a month for [Mr.] Woods [doing] cement work. Lola quit writing to me; she just dropped me. I went on up to Ogden where my brother was and worked there. He used to kid me all of the time. He said, "The only reason she went with you is because the war was on and she was afraid her other boyfriend was going to get killed and there wouldn't be anyone left, so she would take you." I said, "I 00:54:00think I could get her if I was there."

The time went by and the next September I came back home. He was kidding me all the time about her. I said, "I could go with her if I wanted to." He said, "No, you couldn't." In those days, when [young people] went to the dance, the old people all went up in the gallery to see who their sons and daughters danced with and to criticize the dancers [who] danced too close together and [who] shook a little bit. Mother picked her out for my older brother and the next morning at the breakfast table, [the conversation was] quite hot and heavy. He said, "You couldn't go with her." I said, "I will bet you $5.00 I can get her." He said, "How will I know you have her?" I said, "I will bring her down here and show her to you." I went up there the next night to the dance, and I danced with her and got her to let me take her home. It was about midnight or after when I came down. It was hot and he was sleeping outside -- all the [children] were 00:55:00home and sleeping on beds outside on the porch. I came in the house turning on all the lights and brought her through the house. [I] got some melons so he would be sure to know she was there. I took her home and I asked her why she quit writing to me. She said she heard something about me. I said I guessed it was good. She said, "No, it wasn't." I said, "You want to believe everything you hear and only half of what you see, and you will get along fine." I just said goodnight, took off and thought that was the end of us there.

I went back to Ogden and drove [a] truck for a while for the old Boyd Lumber Company. Then I took a job braking on the railroad. I quite enjoyed that [job], running [the train] from Ogden to Preston, Idaho. That was the next year after the influenza epidemic. I had the flu in 1918 and I didn't get it in 1919. I 00:56:00[was] advanced up to passenger service in just a little while. I really had an enjoyable time there. After I had been braking about a couple of months, here came a letter from her. It was leap year, and she was in Mesa, Arizona. She said it was leap year now and she had a right to write to me. That put new life in me again. I thought: I will go see her. I quit the railroad, came back to Ogden, and [found] a job [with] the Southern Pacific [Railroad] as a lineman at Lovelock, Nevada. I went out there for a month; [but] that wasn't enough, I wanted to head for Arizona. I quit, came back to Ogden, and came home.

I stayed home for four or five days. There was a job [I could have and] my folks wanted me to stay here. They didn't want me hoboing around. I told them I wanted to go to work [and] I couldn't stay here. I took a job on the road up there. They were making -- we didn't call them highways, but that is what they call 00:57:00them now. I went to work on this road. It rained a lot [and] I only worked one or two days. I told them they could send [my] pay to my dad down here and I took off. I had $5.00. I went out to Enterprise [and] stayed with the Barnums again overnight, and then I [went] to Modena [Iron County, Utah]. I ran into another fellow there [who] was going to Las Vegas [Nevada]. He said he was working [in] Eldorado [Nevada] and said it was a good job out there. He was a big husky [fellow and] I wanted him to hobo with me. He said no, he was afraid to. I said, "What are you afraid of?" He said he didn't know. I said, "I will be waiting for you there when you get off the train. If I get off of the front end of the one [train] you are on, I will be there first." The freight train pulled in the yard while we were there. We were sitting in a little court. I said, "What if that brakeman up there came and told you to get off of this court? You and I could 00:58:00take him by the seat of the pants, either one of us could, and throw him clear across the track." He said, "I wouldn't do it." I said, "I will go." A train came by; I boarded it and went on to Las Vegas. I got there about midnight, and he got there about 9:00 the next morning on a passenger train. We went over to Jim Cashman's garage and got his old 1907 Buick out of there and started out for Eldorado. We got to about where Henderson [Nevada] is now ─ it was just a sandy road through there, no buildings at all. When you got down to where [the] JC Penney store is now, it was big greasewoods. There weren't any buildings in there at all.

[END OF TAPE ONE -- SIDE TWO]

IB:It was dark when we got to Eldorado. They gave me a job and wanted me to go to work right then. I worked until 11:00, then we ate, then I worked from 11:00 to 7:00 [p. m.] and they gave me that shift. I worked about a month, quit, came 00:59:00back and decided I would have to go to Mesa. I got to Needles [California and] decided [since] I had never been to Los Angeles [California], I would have to go to Los Angeles. I hobo'ed it down to Los Angeles, spent my money in about four or five days and I was broke again. I shipped out back to Needles to go to work for the railroad. I had a chance to ride the [hydra] cushion [freight cars] out there. It paid $2.00 for your job and that gave you a ticket. I rode out there and when I got there I quit. I didn't want to work for them. I boarded another freight train, went to Kingman [Arizona] and got a job at a lumberyard. [I was] piling lumber for $.50 an hour. I thought: that was a living and that was all.

After a couple of days, Chris Pursley came along and asked me to go to work for Clarence Denney. He was the foreman out there. He said, "We will pay you $3.00 a 01:00:00day and your board. The days you don't work you [won't] get the $3.00, but you will get your board free." That was the direction I wanted to go, so I took that job. I worked there about a month and Mrs. Denney wanted me to go get [my] girl, marry her and bring her back. She said, "We will give you a home. We would like to keep you here." She called me the "Big Mormon." He took me over to Seligman [Arizona] and I boarded a freight train and took off for Phoenix [Arizona]. I got to Mesa and visited with my wife there. We thought that --.

LB:I wasn't your wife. You visited with your girlfriend.

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IB:I visited there with her. We made ice cream, went to picture shows and had a lot of [good] times. Finally one night, we had a little disagreement and I 01:01:00thought that was the end. I said good-bye, took off and went to my hotel. The next day was Sunday and I [planned to] sleep in and then take off and go up to the Bluebell [Mine, near Prescott, Arizona]. That was where I was headed anyway. About 9:30 [a. m.] I heard steps coming down the hall. I thought: [those steps are] coming to my door. Sure enough, [someone] knocked on my door. I was wanted on the telephone. I got up and answered the telephone. It was Lola's cousin [Sarah]. She said, "Lola wants you to come down and take her to Sunday school." I said, "She doesn't [want] such a thing." Her cousin said, "Yes, she does. She wants you to come down and get her." I said, "Okay, I will be down." I got ready, went down and took her to Sunday school and we made up. Sarah said she was the peacemaker. She said, "Blessed are the peacemakers." I stayed there with 01:02:00her for a few more days and then I took off and went to the Bluebell Mine to work.

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IB:I thought I could get a job on [the] pipeline at the Bluebell Mine, but after arriving there, [I found that there were] too many Mexicans on that job. I couldn't talk Spanish, so I [found] a job just plugging around outside for a few days. Finally, an opening came [on] a tramway. They had an electric tramway that ran from the Bluebell Mine to the Bluebell siding [in Mayer, Arizona]. They had to haul all of the [copper and silver] ore from the Bluebell Mine over [the] mountain on this tramway. All [of] their groceries and water came in on it. That was a good job for me until I had [to work] the graveyard shift. That made it so 01:03:00I got off work in the morning after all the white men had eaten breakfast [and] I had to eat with the Mexicans. They couldn't talk English and I couldn't talk Spanish. I had quite a time for awhile, when I wanted something on the table telling them what I wanted. If you asked for anything in English [they said], "No Savvy," and they didn't pass it to you. You had to get up and go get it. I finally worked out well there. I stayed there until December running this tramway.

I heard of the mine over by Kingman, in Oatman [Arizona], and I [wanted] to go over there to work. [It] was a gold mine. I quit and went over to Oatman [and found] a job at the United Eastern Mine. My cousin "Jack" was the one who persuaded me to go there. I had [worked with] him at the Bluebell Mine. We 01:04:00[rented] us a room in the Arizona Hotel. We slept there and ate in the café. We would go to work early in the morning [and] get off about 3:00 in the afternoon. After I had been there for about a month I had a dream one night. I dreamed I had come home from work [and] was just lying on my bed reading a magazine. [Soon] Herbert Johns came in, [he was my] cousin "Jack" [who] worked with me; as he came in, the telephone on the wall rang. We had a little box telephone about eight inches square up on the wall with a couple of bells on it. You would crank it to ring Central. [It] rang [and] Herbert went over and took the receiver down. I could hear what was said on the other end, it came in very plain. [The 01:05:00voice] said, "It is Irvin Bryner we want. His father died [and] we want him to come home." At that, I woke up. It was just a little while before the alarm was to go off and I laid there and I couldn't sleep. My heart was up in my mouth to hear that father had died. He had Delamar [Dust] and didn't have very good health.

FH:Tell me what is Delamar [Dust] is.

IB:It is [a] silicosis [disease from crushed] quartz.

FH:In other words, he worked in the mine.

IB:He worked in the mill. He had to crush [rock]. They call [the disease] silicosis now. He worked [in Delamar, close to Caliente, Nevada], about 1896 or 1898, in [the] mill. This dust, [like] ground glass, it was just as fine as flour and they would breathe it. Men died; they had a cemetery out there [where] 01:06:005,000 of them died. They didn't know what was the matter with [the men] when they were dying. Men were dying off like flies. Finally, after they found out [what] it was, they made [John] DeLamar go wet [and] make a wet process out of it. [John DeLamar] said he killed more Mormons than anybody else [and] he ought to have kept it going. [Laughter] He was a Mormon-hater. All of the men from around here went out there and worked. Mother had two brothers [who] worked there [and] died [from] it. Dad had a brother [who] died ten years before dad did. Men would come in from there and die. They would come home and die [from] it. [The dust] filled their lungs up and cut their lungs to pieces.

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IB:After waking up [from] the dream], I laid there thinking about it until time to get up. [It was] only a few minutes. Herbert got up and I told him about having [this] dream about my dad dying. We went to work, all day, and I couldn't get [it] off my mind. I thought of it all day long. That night when we came 01:07:00home, we walked up the street. The main part of Oatman is right in a wash. The street is in a wash and the houses are on each side of the wash. The Arizona Hotel is on the north side. We would usually go home, wash up awhile and then go down to eat. Herbert said, "I will walk up here and get a newspaper." I said, "I will go on up to the room." I walked on up to the room, was lying there on my back, looking up at the ceiling. I had started to read and I couldn't get my mind off from the dream, when in came Herbert. He said, "Irv, I came up the street and on the unclaimed telegram board down there, they have a name there that is spelled Irvin Dyner. I believe I would go and check it."

I jumped off the bed and down there I went. They had my name spelled wrong. I 01:08:00said, "Who sent that telegram and where did it come from?" It came from St. George and M. D. Terry sent it; that was my brother-in-law. It had been on the telegram board for twenty-four hours. It was on [the board] when I dreamed it. They would have taken it off that night and I would have never known that dad was dead. He would have been buried. I sent a telegram back and told them that I was on my way. I gave a man $20.00 to take me over to Kingman. It was twenty miles over there and I wanted to catch [the] train. It was the only way out; there were no buses. Trains were the only way you could go, or walk. This fellow took me over to Kingman; I caught the train and went to Barstow [California] that night. I had a layover in Barstow until the next afternoon to catch a train to come up. I got in [to] Lund about 5:00 in the afternoon, then I caught [a] truck coming down and I got home that night. Dad's funeral was the next day. 01:10:0001:09:00Instead of it being a telephone call, it was a telegram. Herbert Johns was implicated both in my dream and in finding it.

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IB:After father was buried, my future wife [Lola] and I were still corresponding. I stayed in St. George and plugged around at anything I could find for a little while. She came home on a vacation in March to Rockville. I took a trip to see her. We sported [flirted] a night or two there and I proposed to her up on the North Mountain.

LB:[Laughter]

IB:I hesitated about asking her mother. Her mother [Clara (Dennett) DeMille] was a widow. I had never seen her father [Ira DeMille]; he died before I ever met my wife. I asked her what she would do in case her mother said I couldn't have her. She said, "I would have you anyway." That gave me a little courage. I hated to 01:11:00approach a widow and ask her for her daughter. After we came down, I got her mother away from the rest of the [youngsters], Lola was there, and told her that we would like to get married and I would like to have her daughter. She said, "There is one thing; I will ask you to be good to her." I told her I would be the best I could, that I had to work for a living and I couldn't give her everything. She said, "She hasn't been used to having everything. You just be good to her [and] don't be mean to her." She went back to Salt Lake [City] and I came back to St. George.

My brother-in-law, [Bob] Kenworthy, had been talking about a dry farm on the Arizona Strip. He got me a little bit interested in it. I had decided at the time we were engaged that I would go back down to Las Vegas and go to work for 01:12:00the railroad braking again. It paid good money and would make a good career, but he persuaded me to go take a look at this place that was out on the Arizona Strip. We got in a wagon with Josh Crosby [and] went out [to] look it over. [It] looked like a [fairly] good thing to me. He persuaded me to take it up. We staked off [a] homestead. I came back home and kept on corresponding with [Lola]. I bought a tractor, wagon, plows, and everything, and out there we went. We began to tear up the sagebrush. We cleared off and plowed eighty acres that summer.

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IB:In [my] working years, before I was married, I sent any money that I didn't spend for my immediate needs, home to my mother. They had a hard time making a 01:13:00living. Mother put the money away for me after paying my tithing. That left me with about $1,500.00 [in] cash. That was quite a bit of money in those days. I paid cash for the tractor, plows and everything. I had a farm ready for planting and worked all that summer. In the fall I came in [and] we were engaged to be married in September in Salt Lake [City]. [When] I came in I was as brown as an Indian. I had been out in the sun without a hat on most of the time, out where the sun shines bright. I had an Indian tan on me and I was thin. I had been [doing] all kinds of physical exercise, running and cutting posts. I only 01:14:00weighed 164 pounds when I was married.

I came in from the farm and went to Salt Lake [City]. [Lola] was supposed to meet me down [at] the depot there. I came out of the depot and there wasn't anyone there. I walked up the street and got a hotel. I washed up and thought: I will walk down there. She was [living] down on about Sixth South [Street]. It was early in the morning and I thought I would walk down. I walked down to Belden Avenue and walked up to the door. She was living with her aunt. Her aunt came to the door [and] recognized me. She had seen my picture, even though she had never seen me. I asked her if that was where Lola Belle DeMille lived. She said, "Yes, she is upstairs crying her eyes out. Go right up there."

LB:Tell him why I was crying my eyes out.

IB:She said, "She thought you weren't coming."

LB:I went down to meet him.

IB:She went to meet me and was a little bit late and I had gone. She thought I was late for my wedding day. I went upstairs and kissed her. That made her forget the tears. We went down that day to get our marriage license. When we went in the courthouse, I guess we looked like we were after a license. When we got off the elevator, [an] old man [who] was there said, "It is right over there through that door." When I went to get my license, I handed him a $20.00 bill. He wanted to know if I didn't have something smaller. I said I had a couple of dollars. He asked her if she had any money. She had $.50. So he said, "It is all the same now." I have been able to say all the time that she paid part of it to get married. I only had $2.00 and she paid the $.50! We were married in the Salt Lake Temple and they had a reception for us at one of her aunt's sister's place 01:16:00that night. We had an enjoyable time; a lot of people came and gave us some nice gifts.

FH:Do you remember who performed the wedding ceremony?

LB:We were married by George F. Richards.

IB:We were married by George F. Richards in the Salt Lake Temple on September 7, 1921. After our few days in Salt Lake [City], we came back to St. George in this little old truck from Lund that was the stage. It took almost all day to come to St. George from Lund. We lived in my mother's place. Mother had gone to her sister's who had had a stroke and mother went out there. She was with us when we 01:17:00were married, but she went out to her sister's place and was gone for about a week or two, and then brought her [sister] back with her. We lived there for a year and a half.

The next spring, I went out to plant [the] ground that we had plowed. I took my wife with me [to the Arizona Strip]. She was pregnant with our oldest boy I was going to plant oats. We had some food left out there in the fall, such as beans, rice, a few raisins, and a little flour. The [food] that we took out, we had on [the] wagon. Going up a hill, a box fell off and the wagon ran over it and mashed it. It broke all of the eggs, and everything we had in there was 01:18:00scrambled up. I [thought] we [would] be out there three or four days, planting these oats, [but] it started to snow. I would just plant a little bit and then snow would come. It would get muddy and I would have to quit. We were there for over two weeks. We had eaten almost all the food.

LB:[Inaudible]

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IB:While this was [going] on, we didn't have a house to live in, we had a dugout. It was a hole dug back in the hill and no cement up the sides. It was just cedar posts put in the ground to hold the roof up over the top [with] dirt piled up to the sides, with a slab front and no heat inside. The cooking was all done over a campfire outside. My wife would cook beans; that was about the only thing we had to cook, beans, rice, or raisins, or a combination of them.

LB:For a while, we had that much.

IB:She tried to cook over this campfire and the wind would blow the lid off the 01:19:00pot and fill it full of ashes to season them up. One day, when it was snowing, I decided that I would see if I could find a deer. I told her to stay there; the wind was blowing and it was cold. I took the gun and [went] off. I made about a ten-mile hike through the country. We were the only ones on top of the mountain. I walked and walked and walked; never saw a sign or track of anything, cow or deer. I came back that night and we still had to live on beans and rice.

LB:[Inaudible]

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IB:We had to continue with the diet that we had until the grain [was] all planted. Then we took off down the hill for Bundyville [Arizona].

LB:Tell how long we were there. We were there --.

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IB:At Bundyville I bought some home-cured ham from the Bundys to go with the beans and that made them a little better. We went out and loaded up a load of 01:20:00wood in the hills there [and] put my wife on that and in we came, bouncing over the rocks, with a load of cedar wood into St. George. [When] we [arrived] here she was in [fairly] good shape for the rough treatment that she had had. Normally, most women would have lost their baby on that kind of a trip. She really got shook up, riding over the rocks [on that] load of wood. I stayed here through that summer and started working for the telephone company. [We were] waiting for the baby to come. He came along on August 26, [1922]. After he was born, I went back out to the dry farm [on the Arizona Strip] to cut posts.

FH:What was the name of [your] first child?

IB:[We named him] Dwane Blair Bryner. [We gave him] my mother's maiden name, Blair. My wife went home to her mother's for a visit and I took off to the dry farm to cut posts. I worked there for awhile and then came back and hauled wood. It was about the only occupation there was here; everybody hauled wood in the wintertime. I didn't have a team then [so] I hauled wood on shares. I would take a man's team and wagon, go get a load of wood for him, and then go get a load for myself. The medium of exchange was wood and molasses. You could trade wood, or molasses, or flour, or any produce. There wasn't very much money. I kept that up through that winter and the next fall we harvested our oats and cut [it] for 01:22:00hay. We had big stacks out there. We had some potatoes that we had [grown].

I started working for the power company. Gordon Wright had been [working] there. He [was] electrocuted and they wanted me to come back and work for them. I was only going to work for a month or two, but I worked until the next fall. I wanted to go [out] to my dry farm to do some work. I wanted a couple of weeks off and they wouldn't let me have it. I quit and went out anyway. I took my wife out there and this young son. He was just big enough to start to take steps and 01:23:00walk a little bit.

LB:[He was] thirteen months [old].

IB:After doing some work on the farm, I started to dig [a] water hole. I would take the Fresno and scrape out [the] hole. I saw his tracks. He would follow along in back of me [behind] the Fresno. [The dirt] would soften up and he would take steps about six inches [apart] and leave his tracks. We had an enjoyable time that trip out there. I came back in and they wouldn't give me a job at the power company, so I went down to Nevada to work for the power company [in] Las Vegas. Hale Woodhouse was the president of [the] company and he said he would take me down. My brother-in-law, Bob Kenworthy, went with me.

After we [arrived] in Las Vegas, we decided that we would go back and work on the railroad. They were doing some work there. So we rode back to Moapa [Nevada] 01:24:00and decided to go out to the bridge gang south of Moapa. We boarded a freight train to [get there]. They had a slow order on that [train and] I told him [the engineer], "That slow order is a ten-mile order and they are not supposed to go faster than ten miles per hour. [At that rate] we can jump off." This was a big 5,000 steam engine and it was upgrade there. I said, "They won't be going more than fifteen miles an hour and we can jump off." The train went out during the noon hour and they had gone in for noon and didn't have the flag out. The nearer they got to it, the faster that old engine went. He [the engineer] really began picking up momentum [and] was making about thirty-five miles an hour. I got on the edge of one of the cars and Bob [was] on the other end. I said, "When we go into this field where they dumped all this loose dirt, jump off." He jumped off 01:25:00when I did. I was a boxcar ahead of him. Instead of him waiting until I got up there, he jumped then. It was hard ground there and he took two or three steps and then he went over face-first right along the side of it. I thought he was going under the train. He slid on his stomach for another ways, then his heels came up over his head, and he rolled another time, then lit flat and slid. He was peeled up. We got off, gathered him up, and he was skinned every [place].

After the train passed, the work crew came out and we hit them up for a job. They gave [us] a job right now. It was on the 14th and he said, "Come back so I don't have to run one day. Come back the morning of the 16th. Be out here tomorrow night." We went over and sat down on a bunch of baled hay. They were getting ready to build a highway and they [had] dumped two or three boxcars of 01:26:00hay for their horses to [feed on while they] made this road. We sat on there waiting for Number Four [train] to come. We were going to ride the [hydra] cushion back. We saw a train coming way down the track. I couldn't tell -- it was right on Number Four's time, so I got out on the track and flagged [the engineer] down. He whistled to answer me and I stepped out. When he got up [closer], I could see that it was a freight train, so I motioned him to come on. He came up to a stop and wanted to know what the matter was. I told him that we thought it was [the] Number Four [train]. The fireman, engineer and [the] head conductor said, "Don't you [fellows] get on here. We will throw you off." I said, "We are not going to get on there."

We sat down on [a] bale of hay for another hour, waiting for the passenger train to come and we flagged it down. We were both so stiff [that] we could hardly get on [the] train. After taking that plunge off there, we could hardly get on it. We got back to Moapa and slept that night. The next morning Bob said, "I can't go. I have to go home." He turned and went home; he wouldn't go. I went back and 01:27:00worked for about a month. Then, I got a letter from [Hale] Woodhouse wanting me to come back up here to work again. I quit and came back up to St. George to work for the power company. My wife had been spending the winter up with her mother. She came back and we lived at mother's for a month or two. Then we rented a couple of rooms at Sister Allen's. We lived there until the next July [when] I bought a little home over on Fourth West and First North. There is a trailer court on [the property] now. We lived there until 1928.

Barbara [Bryner], our second child, was born while we were living there. She was born October 14, 1924. I worked for the power company here until they made a new 01:28:00division in the east end of [Washington] County. They transferred me over there in April 1928. They furnished a home and a car for me [and paid] me $120.00 a month. That was a lot of money. I was getting that, my home and expenses when I was away from home. We had another girl, Elaine [Bryner]. She was born on 01:29:00January 15, 1929.

[END OF TAPE TWO -- SIDE ONE]

IB:[Elaine] was born in St. George, down [at] mother's home, the same place the other two [children] were born. We lived in Leeds [at that time]. I had Leeds, Hurricane, Toquerville, LaVerkin, Springdale, Rockville, Virgin and Zion [National Park] all in my division. [These communities-areas were all in Washington County, Utah.] I read the meters, built the lines, did all the servicing, wired houses and did everything alone. In 1933 the company moved me to Hurricane. They took the old hotel that was there and made the lobby into the office. The dining room was my living room and there were fourteen other rooms that we had for our use. We had a lot of good parties while we were there. We 01:30:00lived in Hurricane from 1933 until 1934.

They had kind of an upheaval [at] the power company in Cedar City. [The] accounts [were] in such shape that they couldn't keep a manager there. They put one [in] for a little while, he would get in bad [shape] and have so many debts [that] they would fire him or he would quit. They transferred me up there and I thought: they want to get rid of me too. I told [Reed] Gardner, "If you are going to take me up there just to get rid of me, fire me now, so I don't have to transfer." I went up there and he said, "If you can't make it, I will either give you [your] job back or a better one." I said, "You have only got one better [job] and that is [in] St. George."

I went there and they had $42,000.00 on the books that they [were] behind on. I stayed there about a year. I didn't figure I had a friend in Cedar City [because 01:31:00of the] collecting. Everybody I knew was somebody [who] owed a bill. I got [the debt] down to $7,000.00 and Gardner said I could have [the job in] St. George. He transferred me back to St. George. I decided to build a home, settle down and never move again. I bought a lot [and] built a nice home on Diagonal [Street] and Second West. While we were in Cedar City, we had our second boy, Boyd [Bryner]. He was born October 3, 1934. We built this home in St. George.

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IB:─ Cedar City, before Boyd was eight months old.

George Grimshaw and I came down to St. George to hunt pheasants with Reed Gardner who was president of the company. We went over in the Clary [Santa Clara] Fields. I had my oldest boy, Dwane, with me. We started out early in the morning [going] down through the field. I hadn't [had] a shot yet, neither had [inaudible], but George had [shot] one pheasant. He was down in the creek[Santa Clara River] with Mr. Gardner. About sunup, I walked over the top of the bank and I could see Gardner and George down in there. They were a little ways ahead of me and I hollered at them. "Let's get in a field on the other side." There were hunters everywhere. I said, "There is a nice looking field on the other side of the creek [where] there aren't any hunters." I jumped the creek and ran up the bank on the other side. There was a cow trail, and in doing so I scared a 01:33:00[covey] of quail out of some brush. George whirled around to shoot at the quail up in the air. I was thinking: I [am] going to be in his way. As he pulled the trigger, he saw me on the bank, right in line with him.

FH:Oooh!

IB:I saw the shot hit the ground about ten feet in front of me, stringing. It seemed like ages from the time I saw it until it hit me. It hit me from my waist up and I [received] a pellet in each eye. It hit just above the eyeball, slid around in back of each eye. I [had] two or three pellets in my cheeks, in my chest [and] in my hands. I dropped; I thought he would shoot again. He thought he had killed me. He came running up there and I couldn't see. I could open one eye, but I couldn't see out of it. I couldn't open the other eye. I could take hold of the eyelash and pull it open, and then I could see, but as soon as I let loose of it, it dropped shut. They rushed me to the hospital in St. George [and] 01:34:00gave me a tetanus shot. [The doctor] asked me if I had hay fever, asthma, and all this and I told him no. He asked me if I had ever had hives; I told him, "No." Then he said, "Give him the works." They gave me a shot and I really had hives from that. My wife doctored me for about a week, putting hot packs on my eyes, and doctoring [the other wounds]. I couldn't see; I had to [stay] around in the house. Finally, I went back to work again. My left eye never did get so I could see well out of it. I could see light and out to one side, but nothing straight ahead.

After moving to St. George in 1936, I built this new home here on Diagonal [Street] and Second West. After a year of living there, we had another boy, 01:35:00Clair [Bryner]. He was born August 10, 1937. I worked on for the power company in St. George and thought we were going to stay there forever. [When] 1939 came along, a project opened in Nevada. They wrote me a letter and wanted me to take over a job at the Overton Power District. At first, I was not interested in it. They wanted me to give [a] reference. I told them I couldn't afford to give [a] reference because it would come back to my boss. I [had] one of my boys working for me to send in. He filled it out, sent it in and didn't get any answer back. In about a week, the board of directors came up to see me and wanted to know why I didn't fill [the application] out. A college teacher here, Maurice [J.] Miles 01:36:00here had recommended me. He was a son-in-law to one of them down there. He told them if they could get me to run it -- they didn't know anything about it -- "you won't have to do anything. You can just turn him loose with it and he will take care of it."

They decided they wanted me and so they came up. I told them that I would come down and look at it. I took my family the next day [and] we went down, and looked it over. They had good fishing; the lake was just coming up and that looked good to me, but it looked [very] hot. I told them I would think it over. I came back up and they would write and see if they could accept me. I told them, "I can't give you a reference because if I do, they will write to Gardner and Gardner will say, 'Aren't you satisfied?' You know where I have been working and I have had about twenty years [of] experience. If you want to take that, okay, but if you don't, that is okay." They said they would take it. I came home 01:37:00and in about a week I [received] a telephone call from them. They said they had [received] word from Washington, [D. C.] that [the] REA [Rural Electrification Administration] had approved me. Would I accept the job? They would have to know immediately.

I talked to my wife for a minute and asked her what about it? Would she want to go and she said, "Yes, I will go." We accepted and I went down on April 10, 1939 to take over the job. I worked hard and long hours getting the thing going until school was out and I moved my family down. My wife had packed everything ready to leave [and] rented the house. [We] moved down there into a little shack after living in a nice home here. I [had] a fellow take our furniture down [and] pile it up on the lawn. I had to go right to work as soon as I got there. I [left] my oldest son, the two girls and my wife to straighten things out. It was red-hot 01:38:00down there, the water was very poor to drink [and] they were all homesick before [the] night [of] the first day.

LB:It was June 1, [1939].

IB:We stayed through that summer. [It was] a good hot one! I took my wife with me to the REA convention at Yellowstone [National] Park [Wyoming] that summer. We left the rest of the family at home and had an enjoyable trip. [When] we came back, I tore down all the old lines that [were] in there. We had a lot of new lines to put up in Overton [Nevada and] new connections to make. All the rest of that summer I worked hard on it. We had a new line to build out to the Silica Sand Quarry, it was about three-and-a-half miles. Rather than contract it, I 01:39:00built it on my own using farm labor help. We had that line all completed about the first of December.

In the meantime, Mr. Gardner decided he wanted me [to come] back up to St. George again. So he began working on me to come back up here. I told him that I would come back if he would raise my pay up to $200.00 a month. I told him under what conditions [I would come]. I said, "This is a government project down here and they are after power companies. I don't want to move back up there and make any more feelings between REA co-ops and power companies [so] that they will get after you." He said, "I will take the chance if you will come back." I gave 01:40:00notice and told them I was going to come back up to Utah. I asked how much notice they needed. They wanted to know if I could recommend a man to them. I told them I could [and] I recommended Clarence Jones, a fellow who had been working in my place in Hurricane when I moved out of there. I understood that he was dissatisfied there; [well], his wife was. They came up and talked to him and he decided he would come down and take the job.

I moved up here on January 14, 1940, back into my home in St. George. They immediately started out with a municipal fight here. They were going to put in a municipal plant [and] they had a lot of meetings and bitter battles. The municipal plant went in [and it was] 1942 before it was in operation. It was my 01:41:00job then to tear down the old system, what was left [of it]. What the City [of St. George] didn't buy, I had to tear down. It was like tearing out my heart, [This was] where I had worked so hard to build it [and then] to have to go tear and pull it out. We tore down all of the poles. [World] War [II] was on and they could not buy new materials. A lot of materials, you had to have a priority to buy them, so we salvaged everything from anchors -- we would dig those up. The power company gave me a job in Cedar City and I took my family and moved up there in June 1942.

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IB:-- 28, after they moved me to Leeds, I was manager every place I [worked]. I moved to Cedar City as a manager there. We loaded up our furniture [and] traded rent with Howard Ahrens. Howard Ahrens moved into our home and we took his home 01:42:00up there. Our first night up there, before the furniture arrived, we [had] driven up there quite late, and thought we would go out to the Naegli Farm. The Naeglis were very good friends of ours and we drove out that way about midnight. They were all in darkness and we didn't want to wake them up so we decided we would come back and sleep on the floor [at the] Ahren's house. There was nothing in there except a few pieces of loose wallpaper where they had been papering [before] they left. We laid on the floor and put that over us. It was kind of a hard night. The next day when I went to the office and told them what we had done, the employees all said, "We had beds; you could have come to our place." We were kind of independent and didn't want to go, [so] we slept on the hard floor. We lived there through that summer and I enjoyed the work very much. 01:43:00There was lots of fishing at Cedar Mountain and Enterprise [Washington County, Utah].

Reed Gardner wanted me to take over everything there and I took care of all of the pumps. About November, Clarence Lewis from the Overton Power District came up and said that Jones' wife was dissatisfied [and] he was going to have to move. Would I come back? Then is when I didn't know whether I would or wouldn't. I talked it over with my family and they kind of liked to go back. I thought of all the good fishing up there and the good fishing down on the lake. I hadn't thoroughly decided until one morning it snowed. We had about six inches of snow 01:44:00and a car came around on First West and mowed off a pole at 6:00 in the morning. I went down there with George Grimshaw to fix [the pole]. I walked over to the truck and the bar was sticking out of the back of the truck. I grabbed hold of it and my hand stuck to it. I told him then, "This is too cold [of] a country for me." I had to go to a hotter country [area]. I turned in my resignation and took the job back in Overton.

We moved back down to Overton into the old Swapp home. It had been abandoned for some time and my wife really had a time cleaning it up to make it livable. But she did a very good job with the help of her children. They all helped her. We lived in that house for [almost] a year; then we bought a home right over the 01:45:00fence from there and remodeled it. When we [were] ready to move over there in 1943, I said it is too far to pack [our possessions] and too close to haul [them]! Some of the things we had, like the piano, we had to haul it, but we carried everything across the lot that we could into the house. We had a nice home there [and] we really enjoyed it.

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IB:We lived in this home and my work continued on about the same. I had more lines to build all of the time, more [accounts] to collect [and] more customers. Revenue kept on increasing and everything grew as a power system should grow. Our oldest boy was in the [United States] Navy. He went into the Navy about the time we left Cedar City. He was a radar technician in the Navy Air Corps and 01:46:00went to school almost all the [time] he was in the Navy, almost four years. My oldest daughter decided she wanted to be a nurse after she had two years of college. She went to Salt Lake [City] and took a nursing course. She won a scholarship and graduated from the St. Mary's of Wasatch College. She was a registered nurse and worked at Holy Cross Hospital [in Salt Lake City] until she was married.

FH:What was her husband's name?

IB:She married Guy McDonald, who was a returned soldier [from] the [United 01:47:00States] Air Force. He ran a garage there and they [sold] appliances. His father and his brother [helped him]. They [also] ran the Heber City Motors [in Heber City, Wasatch County, Utah].

LB:They [were] married April 2, 1947.

IB:Barbara was married to Guy McDonald in April 1947 in our home in Overton. They took a short honeymoon before returning to Heber City. She was still a nurse. She went back and worked until she graduated in the spring and then they moved to Heber City. They have made their home there since.

On Duane's return from the Navy -- he had met a girl back in Philadelphia [Pennsylvania] and they corresponded. After he came [home] she came out [and] 01:48:00stayed with us for about a week. He went on to Salt Lake [City] to finish his schooling. He wanted to be an electrical engineer. He went to the University of Utah [Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah] and graduated in April 1946. [He] came down and stayed with us for about a month. He had written different places for application for jobs as an engineer. I referred him to Gardner, who had [by] then moved down to Phoenix. He was president of the Arizona-Edison Company of Phoenix. I said, "You write to him and I am sure he will give you a job." He wrote to Gardner and [received] a letter right back that they would take him. I told him to go down and try it. I said, "You might not like it, [but] you go and try it. Your wife can live here with us until you definitely know you want to 01:49:00move down there." After he had been down there just a little while, he said he would like it. He moved his wife down and they lived in Phoenix for awhile. He later gave him a job as engineer over to Yuma [Arizona] and moved him down. We made several trips down there during the years that he was there. In 1951 he decided that he would leave there. He [found] a job with Sargent & Lundy in Chicago [Illinois] as a designing engineer.

LB:[He was doing] consulting and designing [work].

IB:[When] he decided to take that job, we went down to move [them] up to Overton. He wanted to stay about a week with us. He shipped all his furniture to 01:50:00Chicago and stayed with us about a week. Then he and his wife took the train back to Chicago. He stayed with Sargent & Lundy for about ten years. He decided he had gone as far as he could go there [and] he was getting along in years. He had a chance to take another job as a manager for an electric concern in Boston [Massachusetts]. It wasn't as big as Sargent & Lundy, but it gave him an increase in pay. Gardner tried to get him to come down there [and] offered him good pay. I tried to persuade him to come and be the engineer for Nevada Power Company. They wouldn't go high enough to suit him [and] he said he wanted to go up and not down. They wouldn't give him any more [money] than what he was getting. He said, "At my age, I am going to have to get on something. I am 01:51:00forty-two years old now. I have to get on someplace to stay and this looks like a good [situation]." He took the job in Boston and now has a nice new home there. They have two children that they have adopted. They never did have any children of their own. They have a boy and a girl, Bonnie and Brent [Bryner].

Boyd was our first one to go on a [LDS] mission. When he was twenty-one years old he was going to school at the University of Utah. He had two years of college training to be an electrical engineer. He [was] called to go and he didn't want to go. He said he didn't want to waste a couple of years of his life 01:52:00[at that time]. I felt [very] bad. I had never been very active in The Church [of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] and I wanted him to go. He kept making excuses. He didn't say he wouldn't [go, but] he just wanted to put if off. I told him one day, "Boyd, if you turn that down, I promise you will never be successful in any business that you go into. You will make a flop of it." He said, "Dad, you want me to go on a mission. You think that is the thing to do. I will go on a mission if you will do some of the things I want you to do." I was quite a coffee drinker. I drank coffee every day that I went out, and got pleasure in drinking coffee.

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IB:He said, "If you will quit drinking coffee, I will go on a mission." I told him, "Okay, I can gladly do that."

I tried to get them [the church] to take our other boy at the same time, [but] he was only nineteen [years old] and they wouldn't take him. They said, "No, they had to be twenty years old at that time." He was going to college at BYU [Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah County, Utah]. They wouldn't take him, but they took Boyd. He went on a mission and a year later Clair went on a mission. Boyd went to the New England States and Clair went to the Northern States. They both filled honorable missions. Clair became a traveling elder for a little over a year, the last year. He had quite an experience. He had Lewis Christensen as his companion and they made the rounds about once a month from Chicago to Duluth, Minnesota and all over [that] country and back to Chicago 01:54:00[by] the end of the month. They did that in the wintertime and in the summer they [were] sent down south where it was warmer.

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IB:[When] the two boys returned from their missions, they lost their girlfriends that they had before they [left]. While they were on their missions, I had the stake president come to me and [he] said he wanted to talk to me. I knew he was after me [to do] something in the church, but I didn't know just what. He said, "I would like you to be the president of the Second Quorum of Elders." I told him I hadn't been to Priesthood Meeting more than once or twice in six or seven years. He said, "That is okay, you can go." I consented to take the job. We only 01:55:00had about four or five [who] came to Priesthood Meeting. I was kind of a rough one to be in there and didn't hardly know how [to go] about it. They were broke, they didn't have any money [and] they owed bills. The first morning I went there they presented me with all the bills owed for gas and groceries. [They] had spent [this] to have parties. I looked at them and said, "I never did like to belong to an organization that was broke. If you boys will go [along] with me, we will have money to get everything we want within reason, pay all of our debts and be able to do what we want to do."

We decided to [have] a wood project. I had the power district trucks and we had chain saws, so we decided we would cut wood. On Saturdays I [would] asked for 01:56:00volunteers and it got so that was a regular party. I had them coming from far and near. We cut wood, piled it up, gave it away and sold it. We paid off all our bills. We had some of the best parties that they have ever had down there -- beefsteaks and everything. We accumulated something like $1,000.00 in there. We gave every missionary $50.00 for a Christmas present. Later, after both my boys were back off their missions, the president came down to me and said, "They have done away with the Seventies in our stake." They only had five or six Seventies. They didn't have enough for a meeting. They had two or three in Mesquite, two or 01:57:00three in Overton, a couple in Logandale and two or three in Alamo [Nevada]. They decided they would discontinue it and the church said, "You can't discontinue it. You have to have one." Most of those were drunks that they had. They had been on missions, came back and lived in beer parlors. There was one or two of them that were good fellows. [So] he came to me and said, "I want to pick out fifteen [from] the elders that you have and make Seventies out of them. I want you to be the president." I said, "Can I have the two counselors that I have now?" He said, "Yes." He gave them [to] me and I was ordained a Seventy. Then he said, "What are you going to do with the money that you have?" I said, "The equipment that we have belongs to me and to the power district. I am willing to 01:58:00split her [the money] down the middle; give them half and we will take half." That was the way we did it. We went on with the wood project and were called the Seventy Woodcutters. We would cut wood, give it to the widows, pile it up in the church welfare [and] sell it. We gave $100.00 to help out the library in the church down there. I stayed with that until I [became] so crippled up I couldn't get out and couldn't sit in the meetings. I asked him to release me from it because I couldn't sit in there.

[END OF TAPE TWO -- SIDE TWO]

IB:He said, "You won't be offended, will you?" I told him, "No, I just can't sit 01:59:00in there. I have to have a book to my back, and I can't sit in the church." President Bowler released me. I went occasionally when I could, when I felt like I could sit in there.

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IB:Going back a little ways to just before Boyd returned from his mission: one of my men who was working for me, dropped dead on the job. And the man who was president of the board of directors, about six months later he died. One night, it was the night before I was to go to a meeting in Las Vegas, I had a dream. I was asleep and I dreamed that I was up on this power line I had been working on. I went into the café at Glendale [Nevada]. As I stood there, things were turned just a fourth around. I was facing north and I should have been facing west. I 02:00:00looked around to see if the street was on my left and as I turned around, there stood Clarence Lewis. I knew that he had died. As soon as I looked at him I said, "Clarence, what are you doing here?" He said, ""Irv," I want to talk to you." I said, "Have you seen John?" He said, "No, I haven't." I said, "It is funny you wouldn't have seen John." John was the man who died just before him, as good a friend and as close ─ we were. He said, "There were a lot of people there and besides, I was very busy." Then, I woke up and I was scared pink. I lay there, I don't know how long, and then I went back to sleep again. I started dreaming again that I was up on a power line. I could see the power line over there and I walked over a little ways. There was a little cave, about like a fireplace. I looked through it [and] was going to go into it, but I never did. The next thing, I was standing up in this cave and a rock ledge came down over 02:01:00my head. I could see out a little stream of water running away and a pool of water there. I looked and Clarence Lewis was on my right this time. His hand stuck out and he said, "That is the headwaters of the Muddy [River]. That is my farm land out there." I never had a chance to ask him any questions. He said, "In case of an atomic attack, that water will always be good." With that, I woke up. It was broad daylight and time for me to get up. I was scared to death. I could never think of a place like that until about a week later when Seymour Fish talked to me and he asked me about the dream.

My wife had told Eliza Jones about the dream and she had told Fish, so I related it to him. The next morning when I went down to read meters, I went to the Lewis Farm. I looked down across the country and thought: someplace down there is where I dreamed. Sonny Lewis, that was Clarence's son, came around the house. I said, "Sonny, I had a dream about your dad the other night." I related the dream 02:02:00to him. He dropped his head and said, ""Irv," I will tell you where that place is. When you go down to the [Ute Warren] Perkin's Ranch, go up that wash. You will find that place." I went down and was coming up to this pool of water backwards and, as I looked at it, there was no question in my mind that it was the place. I just flew up the bank to see if my tracks were there. There were no tracks and, as I stood there and looked, I could see the gable-end of the house, just about that much, just as I had seen it in my dream. The trees were there, the water was there [and] the two palm trees, one on each side. I am telling you, my heart came up in my mouth! I went back and told Sonny. Later, Sonny sold his ranch and he retained that part of his farm. He has built a $50,000.00 home there and now is developing that spring. He said, "I know there is water there." 02:03:00He has water coming out of there now. I don't know how much more he has dug since I left there.

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IB:I would like all of my children to know [emotional] that if nothing else in my life ever impressed me, this dream could have not been any other way, only from God. I had never seen this place before and then to find it was as real as if I had been there. I know that the church is true without a question of a doubt. I would like you all to remember this. You no doubt have heard me tell it before, but I would like you to know that this dream was just as true as though it were real. Clarence said he was doing about the same thing there as he was here. He looked natural; he looked just as real as if he were alive. I knew that he was dead at the time that I saw him talking to me. If he had not told me that 02:04:00was his farm out there, I never in this world would have known where it was. You could have put me down in there and I would have never known where it was. Being able to find the place afterwards, exactly as I had seen it in my dream, I am positive, without a question of a doubt, that this is the true church and that [the dream] had meaning. Someday, we may need water in [the] Moapa Valley to drink. I have heard a lot of people say that they would go to get that water to drink if we had an atomic attack. This is my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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IB:I would like all of my children, each and every one of them, to live the gospel the best that they know how. I know that they will be rewarded beyond any measurement in this life. Money will not be able to pay them what they will accomplish if they will only take heed to the teachings of the church and follow 02:05:00after them. I ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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