Interview with Omer "Dick" Bundy

Omer Bundy was interviewed on June 5, 1968 in St. George, Washington County, Utah by Fielding H. Harris, a representative of the Voices of Remembrance Foundation. He related his personal history of living in various parts of Nebraska and Utah.

FH:Would you please give your full name?

OB:Omer Bundy, [but] all my life I have been [called] "Dick."

FH:[What is] your birth date?

OB:[I was born] November 30, 1891.

FH:[Where were] you born?

OB:[In] Willow Island, Dawson County, Nebraska.

FH:[What was] your father's name?

OB:[His name was] Abraham Bundy.

FH:[What was] your mother's [full] name?

OB:[Her name was] Ella (Anderson) Bundy.

FH:Can you tell of some early recollections in your childhood?

OB:[During] my childhood in Nebraska, I remember a cyclone or an awful wind coming. We left the sod house and went to the cellar. My mother and father and 00:01:00the baby went first. They told us [children] to stay there and I didn't listen. I went out the door and went to [go] around the corner of the house and when I [was] where the wind could hit me I couldn't make [any] headway. I just stood there leaning against the wind and squalling until my father had time to go in and lay the baby down and come back out and get me. That was one of [my] early recollections.

Another [recollection] was they shot a tom cat in the morning and they took him off into a little swale. There were no draws or washes like we are acquainted with. [It] was just a swale. The older ones [began] talking at the dinner table about cats having seven lives. So we went out to the edge of this little swale to see if the cat had gotten up or if he was still there. My oldest brother and 00:02:00sister told James and me to go down and kick him. We went down there and, when we

[came] to within a yard and a half of him, Jim said, "You go kick him." So I started to go and just then all [my] brothers and sisters yelled, "Here he comes. Here he comes." I didn't look around to see whether he got up or what. I came [running up] that slope! [Laughter]

Another [recollection] was as we were getting ready to come out west, I heard them talk about mountain lions. I can remember distinctly seeing the sun come up on the prairie and go down on the prairie and we didn't know what a mountain was. As we [came] on our way out here, I don't know where it was, there was a mountain off in the distance probably forty or fifty miles away. As we [came] 00:03:00quite close to it, I could see a mountain lion up on the side of the mountain about a third as big as the mountain. I have been scared of them ever since! [Laughter]

Another thing I recollect was when we [came] into Wyoming, a mare that we had 00:04:00caught her foot under the bell strap and rolled into a ditch and died in the night. She didn't drown but she was upside down and she died. Then we [continued] on. I don't remember when we sold the team and wagon. I can remember stopping at noon at what they called Devil's Slide [Morgan County, Utah] or Devil's Stairs, I don't know which.

The next thing I can remember is we were down in Bunkerville [Nevada] where Steve Bunker lived. He had a boy by the name of Newell. Newell and I were together. We were living in our covered wagon in their backyard. Father was working for the Bunker family. One day, Newell and I went out and [took] some melons. They caught up with us about it and we both [received] a tanning for that.

FH:Did you have some [education] in that early [time]?

OB:No, not then.

FH:What happened then?

OB:We lived in Bunkerville. It was in August. My sister, Ina, just younger than I, got diarrhea and almost died. They didn't have fans or anything in that time and the covered wagon was the only place we had to live. Father was working all day long and would be gone away. This child just kept getting weaker and weaker. Mother said that, in the evening, when it was getting dusk, a personage in white 00:06:00came into the yard and came and looked in the doorway. Then [he] turned and went away. When father came home, she told him about it. [Emotional] Father asked her if he touched the baby. She said, "No. He didn't come close enough to touch [her]." Then father said, "She will live."

We were there until later in the fall and we moved up to Beaver Dam [Arizona] and we owned half of the Beaver Dam ranch and lived there [for] five or six years. A lot of little things happened there. My two older brothers and I [would] go up to the narrows and catch humpback suckers and go hunting. Sometimes I would get tired and howl before we would get home. One time, I stubbed my toe. I got alkali under it and the toenail came off. I can well remember those things.

One time, my brother Jim and I were across the creek cleaning out the cottonwood 00:07:00leaves that fell in the little ditch that we had running down to a garden spot. My brother was shoveling the leaves out and I was supposed to rake them back so they wouldn't blow in again. I would have extra time and, as I stood there behind him and he was working like a little beaver like he always did, I looked up the ditch ahead of us and I said to him, "There is a crow up there in that cottonwood tree." "Yes," he said, but he didn't look up or pay any attention. When we got quite a bit closer, within possibly thirty yards, I said, "No, it isn't a crow. It's an owl. I can see his ears." He looked up then and stood there just a minute with the shovel lying in his hand. He said, "Yes, it's a wildcat." [Laughter] So away he went across the creek to the house and [I was] 00:08:00right after him. I can't remember when I couldn't keep up with him. He was four years older, but he was the [smallest] of us.

We went over and got the shotgun and the dog and came right back to where he had dropped the shovel. We had an old shotgun that was bored out. I suppose it had been a rifle and bored out for a twelve-gauge shotgun. He couldn't hold it up. He had to sit down and put it over his knee to be able to manipulate it. When he shot, he shot a little too high and just some of the bottom shot hit the old wildcat.

The wildcat is a big brindle cat. It stands up about the same height as a bobcat 00:09:00but he has a longer body and he has a long tail. He is brindle all over. People around here now don't believe such a cat existed. But there are some, too, that know that they have seen them in recent years. He put in another bullet and shot 00:10:00again. He shot him right in the face and he dropped. The first time he shot him and hit him, he jumped and started to come down. There were some limbs hanging down and he grabbed those limbs and drew himself back up into the parts of the tree where he was in the beginning. Meanwhile, Jim put in another bullet and the next time shot his head full of shot. He fell and, as he hit the ground, the dog got on top of him. I don't know how long we lingered around there, but not very long. When we went back to the house we were big Indians!

That wildcat had been around us there for I don't know how long. He had [taken] chickens from us all the time and even got a little pig or two that were ranged away from the house.

FH:How old were you when that happened?

OB:I was about seven years old.

FH:How many brothers and sister did you have?

OB:I had four brothers and four sisters. There were nine of us.

FH:Tell about your parents and where you lived when you were first born.

OB:We were born in that sod house in Nebraska. Father was the doctor, the midwife and the nurse [when] five of us [were born]. My oldest sister's name is Lillie. [She is] Mrs. [Peter Martin] Iverson now. She lives right down here. She 00:12:00is eighty-five years old and has been hard of hearing [and] practically clear deaf for many years.

The next was my brother, Roy. He was adventurous and wasn't afraid of anything. Then Jimmy came along and did all the work between Roy and me [when] we were [children]. When Roy wasn't there to take the shotgun or the twenty-two, [Jimmy] did. I never [was able] to use one until I was practically grown.

FH:Did that make you feel bad?

OB:No, I kind of thought that I was being left out. As a [youngster], I always had to carry the rabbits or the ducks or the fish. When I was loaded [with game], they took over.

FH:They [thought] that was your job. Tell a little bit about your father. What was he like?

OB:My father was a strong man. He was born in Illinois. I don't really know whether he was brought up in Kansas or in Nebraska, but I think [it was] in Kansas. I have heard him say that Grandpa Bundy would get him out [very] early in the morning to husk corn. Corn was a big part of their crops. Everybody had 00:13:00corn for hogs, horses, cattle, chickens and everything that we raised. That was a big item. They would drive through the field and take the ear out of the husk and throw it into the wagon box. There were two of them on each side. They [were] husky lads. My father was one of the younger ones of the family. When he [became] big enough, that was his job with the older boys.

My oldest uncle, Ambrose, could take a sack of potatoes or corn off the ground with his teeth and put it on his shoulder. My father said that he had double 00:14:00teeth all the way around. I don't believe that. I think [he had] worn sort of a crevice on the inside of his teeth. When my father [grew] older, his teeth turned sort of the same way. I doubt that he had double teeth all the way around. It had the appearance of double teeth.

FH:What about your mother? Would you tell a little about her?

OB:My mother's father was a Polish Swede. He apparently worked his way from Sweden over here or else beat his way because we have never been able to find where he disembarked from a ship or was registered. We found where he went 00:15:00through the Civil War on the side of the North. He married Rachel Chitty and they had five children. My mother's mother died when she was eleven. Her father, 00:16:00the Swede, August Anderson, died when she was thirteen. That left five of them orphans. My mother took more responsibility of looking after the younger [children] while they were alive than the oldest sister did. She didn't carry that responsibility like my mother did. These are things that were told to us.

The family of [children] was let out to other families to be raised. My Uncle Ambrose took my mother to raise her and went off to Kansas. Father was there at 00:17:00home on the dry farm. One time, grandpa told him to go out and hook up a team and do some harrowing. He told him to hook up a young horse that wasn't [fully] broken. My father didn't think that was a wisecrack and he was big enough to go on his own, anyway. He pulled out that afternoon and headed for Kansas where Ambrose, the oldest brother, lived. I believe [it took him] three months. He [went] out towards Kansas.

I should get my father's history to read to tell this. Those that already have 00:18:00that history will know my memory is not [very] good. He fell in with Al Smith, I think his name was. [He was] a rough [fellow and] a horrible talking man. They were going down the Missouri [River], Mississippi River or some river. They were on a little raft they [had] made and were going down this stream. A boat was coming up and making an awful wave and they figured it would dunk them. I believe it did dunk them, but they got right back on.

My father was [gone] long enough that he grew a big beard. He had an extra heavy beard. He told me he seldom [went] into a barber shop for a shave [that] the 00:19:00barber didn't complain about his tough whiskers. Some of them said his whiskers were just like baling wire. Al took a liking to him and watched out for him until they got down the river where father would have to leave to go where Ambrose lived. Then he made his way out to the little town where Ambrose lived.

He met a fellow that had lived in Nebraska and knew the family, but the man didn't know him. He had grown up. He asked this man if he knew where Ambrose 00:20:00Bundy lived. He said, "Yes, he lives out here on a ranch, but he is here in town now. He has come in with a load of corn. He is down [at] the store." In order to sell that corn, the store man made him shell it off the cobs. They had a grinding outfit that shelled it [very] rapidly. They went down there together. My father stepped over close to Ambrose and said hello to him. Ambrose looked up and went on with his corn grinding. This man said, "Don't you know who this fellow is?" Ambrose said, "No." He looked at him again, just [a] glance, and said no, he didn't know who he was. He said, "This is your brother "Abe"."

When Ambrose had last seen "Abe" he was just a little [boy] around the yard. He didn't believe he was his brother at all. He just figured it was some [fellow] trying to peddle himself off to get a little lodging and a place to work for awhile. So he didn't pay him any attention. Father asked him if he could go home with him [and] he said yes. After they [were] out of town, Ambrose began to ask him questions that nobody but one of the family would know. Father was able to answer these questions and then [Ambrose] knew for sure that he was his younger brother.

Father said he could remember when two of his brothers and two of his uncles 00:22:00went off to the Civil War. He was only a little [boy] in the yard then. He was white-headed when he was [a youngster]. When he grew up, his hair was as black as any Indian.

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FH:Tell again about things that happened at Beaver Dam.

OB:I don't know just how long after we had killed this wildcat, or maybe it was before we killed the cat, my sister and I were crawling [on] the log house. We saw a little bottle of [liquid]. I crawled over to where it was. It was 00:23:00strychnine but we didn't know what it was. I took the cork out. I had heard them talk about strychnine and I hesitated. Ina, my younger sister, said, "Let's taste it." She stuck her finger into the bottle and took a little taste and immediately spit it out. Then we crawled down off the house and went to where mother and my oldest sister were peeling peaches. It was in the summertime. I asked mother what it was. She said, "It is poison. Where did you get it?" I told her [it was] on the wall of the log house. She said, "Father has had it hidden up there all [this] time where he thought it was safe and here you have found it."

She was immediately scared. She told Jimmy to get "Billy," a little horse we 00:24:00had, and [to] go over to Littlefield [Arizona]. [This] was about a mile [away]. It is about a half a mile now. She said to tell them that Ina took poison. Away he went as fast as he could go. He found Henry Frehner, Joe Frehner and Joe Reber and told them. They jumped on horses and came. Joe Reber came with a pan of milk in his hand across the sand hills as [fast] as [his] horse could run. It seemed like Jimmy hadn't been gone more than ten minutes before they [were there]. Four or five of them rode into the yard and began to advise mother to 00:25:00get some milk and some raw egg down her. [Laughter] She hardly knew what was taking place. Evidently, she spit all the strychnine out. She had to take the cure anyway. It didn't have an evil effect.

One time my father was going to go out to Delamar [Nevada]. At the time, we had melons and fruit to peddle. Delamar was out in Nevada about two and a half days' travel with a team. He took me along. It was in the summertime and it was hot. Just as we started to leave Littlefield to go across the sand desert, Joe Reber told father, "Out there is Tule Springs [Nevada]. You should get there in fairly good time and you can camp there. There is water at this spring for the horses 00:26:00and your camp." It was just a little spring but there was a trough there. He said, "But beware of sidewinders. Sidewinders are known to be there." Father had been raised where he wasn't used to sidewinders. He only [became] acquainted with them after he [moved] to Beaver Dam.

We [arrived] there about sundown. My father rolled the bed off. We had our bed rolled up in a wagon cover. We had the wagon cover doubled and then rolled the bed up in that. Just after we ate our supper and had this unrolled, I was ready for bed. I got down on this bed and my father was letting the horses finish eating their grain. He was waiting to take the nosebags off of them. Something began to hop around on the bed and I said to him, "There is something on the 00:27:00bed! Something is moving." He said, "Lie still and I will get the lantern." He lit the lantern and both of us thought it would be a sidewinder. When he lit it, it was a kangaroo mouse. He was around for the grain and had been scooting and hopping around like they do.

That is the last I can remember about that trip until we got to Delamar. We immediately sold out our load. Fruit was in big demand in the summertime. It was a mining camp that was away from any agricultural places. We were just ready to start back to Beaver Dam [when] four men came to my father and said, "We want to go to the [Grand] Gulch Mine in Arizona. We will give you $40.00 if you will 00:28:00take us to St. Thomas." They freighted the ore from the Gulch to St. Thomas, Nevada. This gulch is out here along the Arizona strip. They said, "We will give you $40.00, $10.00 [for each of us]." That was a pretty good wage. Father told them, "Alright. Get your bundles and we will take off."

We started to come back quite a ways [on] the same road, then we went down to what was [called] the Meadow Valley Wash [Nevada]. As we went down there, a man had told us that if we knew where to find a side wash we could water our horses without hauling water for them. Sometimes this was a wash that poured down into 00:29:00the Meadow Valley Wash and hit into solid rock and ground out a rock pocket. If it had rained recently, there would be water in it. We found the pocket and watered the horses and then came down to the Moapa Bench [Nevada].

Indians lived there. They had a watermelon patch above the reservation. The men we were hauling got out, swiped a few of the watermelons and brought them back to the wagon. Some little Indian [children] saw [them]. They skipped on ahead to the reservation and told the Indians that we took some of their melons. When we [came] down, they came [out] and wanted pay for these melons. The [fellows] lied to them and said they didn't have any melons. The old Indian kept looking around the grub box and the bedroll trying to see these melons. One of the [fellows] 00:30:00had a pistol in the grub box. He got it out and told them, "Get on back down there where you belong. We don't have any melons."

My father was in a tight place. He would have paid for those melons in a minute rather than lie to them. But he had those fellows and he just didn't go ahead [and do it]. They had time to get the whole Indian reservation out against us and clean us out, but they didn't.

We went down to St. Thomas and delivered these men. Before we [left] the next morning, three men came from the [Grand] Gulch Mine. They wanted to go to Delamar. They told dad they would give him $40.00 if he would take them back to Delamar. So we did. Dad wrote to my mother and told her why we were so long and 00:31:00sent the first $40.00 to her in case these [fellows] might rob us. But they were honorable men. We [took] them back to Delamar and came back to Beaver Dam.

FH:That was quite a remunerative trip. He did alright.

OB:Yes. We did [well]! We sold [the] fruit we had for about $40.00 and made $80.00 on the side. That was a lot of money in those times. Yes sir, we did alright!

FH:You had some illness I thought you should tell about. Did we pass that up?

OB:It was after I [went] to Mexico that I had typhoid fever.

FH:We will talk about that later.

OB:We are still at Beaver Dam.

[END OF TAPE ONE - SIDE ONE]

OB:It was the spring of 1901. My father always read the Deseret News. It was telling about this colony [with a] wonderful climate and rich soil. The Alatuga Gold Mine [was] twenty-five miles away to market anything they could raise. He decided that he would go to Mexico. He owned the Beaver Dam ranch, but that wasn't big enough. He imagined that we boys would all want to settle around him like [the folks had done] in Nebraska or Kansas. The younger generation would settle around the old folks if there was land they could take up. There wasn't anything at Beaver Dam to warrant the family staying there, so he decided to go 00:33:00to Mexico to this new colony. [He is probably referring to Colonia Morelas in Mexico.]

On April 17, 1901 we headed for Old Mexico. We sold the Beaver Dam ranch for $600.00 and [paid] $300.00 [for] another team and wagon. We still had the team and wagon we [brought from] Nebraska. We needed more room. We sold to Jim McKnight from Minersville [Beaver County], Utah. [McKnight's] oldest boy's name was Roy and his oldest daughter's name was Lillie. My oldest brother's and sister's names were Roy and Lillie. McKnight's name was Jim and my brother, just 00:34:00older than I, was named Jim. So we had [several] like names in the family.

We headed off for Mexico. We went down [by] the Virgin River until we hit the Colorado River. As soon as we [came] to the Colorado, we three [children] ran on ahead, stripped off our clothes and went swimming at the edge of the Colorado River. A ferry boat took us across the river. It took two trips to ferry us across. The next place I can remember was Chloride [Arizona]. There was a branch railroad that came from Kingman [Arizona] up to Chloride and White Hills. There were two mining camps, one was Chloride and [other] was White Hills. The branch [railroad] line came up there. After we went by these two towns and started to 00:35:00go towards Kingman, we heard a train whistle. We went up on a ridge and here was an engine and two coaches coming up the line flying the American flags. [The train] had President [William] McKinley on it. He was out stumping, they called it in those times.

FH:[Was he] campaigning?

OB:Yes, campaigning for votes. That is the first time I ever remember seeing a railroad [car]. I had seen them in the East but I [didn't] remember it. There were none down here. [Our] line didn't come to Cedar City [Iron County, Utah]. We didn't go out as far as Moapa. We went right down the Virgin.

Before we arrived in Kingman, there was a mail carrier [who] met us. He had caught a gila monster. He was carrying the mail on a pack-horse but he managed to tie this gila monster in one of the alfogs [panniers] in a way that he [couldn't get away]. When he met us, he told my oldest brother, "I will sell you this for $3.00 and when you get into Kingman you can get $5.00 for it." So Roy ventured and gave him the $3.00. But when he [arrived in] Kingman, I think he only got his $3.00 back and a lot of worry. The folks [were] afraid we [children] would get too close to [the] gila monster. Even though [it] was in captivity, [it] still could have bitten us if [it] had the chance.

We headed off with instructions from Kingman to go down across the desert of Arizona. We were told that there was one desert that was 110 miles across. There was water only in one place [where] we could stop overnight. We would have to haul water for our horses and for ourselves [for] at least half of these 110 miles. I remember when we [were at] the edge of the mountain where this spring was, they took the horses up there, watered them and brought back what water they could handle. There was no road up there. We didn't spend any extra time camping there. WelI, I believe we did camp there and took the horses up two times to give [them] a good rest to start on the rest of 110 miles.

We [came] close to Phoenix [Arizona] and had heard that you could get $.10 apiece for horny toads and lizards. For these other reptiles like the gila monster, you could get a good price for them. My brother and I [went] out and [caught] some lizards and horny toads. When we [arrived] in Phoenix, they sold so quickly that my brother Jim, after we had been there a day resting, decided to go back out to the edge of town and find some more.

When we went to lay over and rest up either a day and a half or a day, we fell 00:39:00in with a family by the name of Black. There was a Willy Black about my age. Willy and I decided we would go to Tucson [Arizona] and see the town. I remember being in the town and seeing a mule pulling the streetcar. We saw a lot of things. When we [were] ready to go back to camp, we couldn't tell which way to go. We were lost. I am getting ahead of my story. That was in Tucson, [not] in Phoenix.

We started on for Mesa [Arizona]. Some fellows came and offered to go get my brother Jim. Dad decided that they had him hid somewhere and that if he started on they would let him go. They offered to get him for $3.00. Dad figured he would start off like he was going to leave him, which he did, and we went out 00:40:00about three miles from Phoenix. There was a streetcar line that ran from Phoenix to Mesa, some kind of a coach. We went out there and camped early in the afternoon. When [it] came by, Jim saw us. He was on it. [Laughter] He found out we had left. [They] stopped and let him off and he came back to where we were.

It was in Tucson where Willy Black and I [were] lost and couldn't find [our] way back. A fellow said he would call a policeman and he would probably know where this carriage yard was. They had a lot of buggies. They called it a carriage yard in those [days]. He would find out where we were. We [became] scared and 00:41:00began to howl. We were sold on the idea of a policeman. About that time, our two sisters [who were] hunting [for] us, [found us] and took us back to camp.

I remember, too, as we approached Tucson or Phoenix. [It was] one or the other. I am not sure. Little Mexican boys came out to meet us, mill around and see what we looked like. We were two families. My brother, Roy, began to match me up with these Mexican boys for a foot race. He kept matching us and matching us. He [was] up to a fourteen year old [boy] and I could still outrun him. There wasn't any wager. It was just for the sport of it. He knew I could run [quite] fast and he wondered how fast those Mexican boys could run. They [were] up to the biggest 00:42:00boy they had and I still outran him.

We [arrived] down on the border at Naco and started to freight to Cananea [Mexico]. We had the two wagons and teams. We had to wait there for quite some time to get our colonization papers. We had to go to Mexico City and be signed [up] by some of the officials before we could colonize into the country for good. We had permits to go over and freight from Naco to Cananea which was forty miles away. [This] was before the railroad was finished to Cananea. We were freighting there. There was good grass down in the swale on the Arizona side, about a mile from Naco [and] we moved down there. There was a well there about 00:43:00fourteen feet deep. Somebody was supposed to have cleaned it out. We depended on it being clean [when] we moved there. [When people] would come over Sunday, the horses could graze and [we] didn't have to buy hay for them. That was a way to save a little.

We pitched the tents [and] we were getting along pretty [well]. We lost Willy Black, I don't know where, [and] we fell into a family of Stouts. In this family was a Snow Stout. [He was] a little younger than I was. He and I [went] over [to] Naco which wasn't a very big town at that time. [We] would [find] whiskey and beer bottles [to] sell to the saloon. [We did] a [big] business for [boys] that had never had a dime or nickel in [their] lives. We cleaned up Naco!

One day, we decided we would go across onto the Mexican side and see what we could do. There was nothing to designate where the line from Sonora [Mexico] to Arizona was. Only the railroad track separated the two towns. We went across and started up an alley looking for beer bottles. I [found] one or two. We looked up the alley and here were five Mexican [children] and they were in the same business. When they saw us over on their side of the line they [thought] they could take the bottles away from us. They came after us and we ran for the Arizona line and went across. They never caught us!

In those times, they were freighting coke from Naco to Cananea which was forty 00:45:00miles away. Coke and merchandise were the main things we loaded going to Cananea for the town. It was quite a big town. Both Mexicans and Americans worked in the mines there. [When] the Mexicans saw us, they took after us and we ran to get to our tents. We went into the "Y" of the railroad where the engine turned around. All around this "Y" was coke piled as high as they could pitch it out of the cars. The freighters would come there and hire Mexicans. Lots of them loaded their own coke. The coke was light and they had to throw it up [quite] high. They hired lots of Mexicans who did that kind of job all the time.

As we went into this "Y", we went out of sight of everybody. They caught Snow. He had had the measles and was weak in the ankles and they overtook him. I stopped to see the circus. They surrounded him. First one would poke him and then he would make a dive at him and then another one would poke him [from] behind. They were having a big time. I thought this [shouldn't] go on, so I grabbed up a couple of big pieces of coke and started to [go] full speed with a chunk in my hand. One of them saw me coming and said, "Look out!" They all looked up and saw me coming with that coke ready to sling it and they started to run. As I went by Snow, I said to him, "You beat it for the tents," because I knew I could outrun them. He started for the tents and, when these Mexicans got 00:47:00to the pile of coke, they began to grab coke, too. I let them have it. [One] had a straw hat and the rim kept [the coke] from hitting him in the forehead. The coke wasn't quite heavy enough to knock him down [when it hit] the rim of the straw hat. I turned and they followed us. We went over the piles right to our tents and [we were] through with that.

At this place where we camped, typhoid [fever broke out]. My father [had] it first. He sent my oldest sister and two brothers to Cananea with a load of freight. Before they [arrived] back, my brother, Roy, came down with it.

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OB:He made the trip out but, before he [arrived] back, he was so sick he couldn't sit up. They [became] stuck. They were hauling a regular load of ore 00:48:00back from Cananea to Naco. The earth had been torn up to make the railroad grade and they [became] stuck. [There were] some rains and water [collected] there. This earth wasn't used to having water and it [became] soft. They [sunk] down to the axles when they drove into it. They were youngsters and didn't know better. Roy was so sick he couldn't think about doing anything except to unhook the tugs and come home. He was lying over "Old Bill's" neck when they came home, harness and all. They had to [travel] about five miles. They [were] within about five miles of Naco [when] this happened.

Where we were living, rats had been sprawled out in the well and it was curbed a 00:49:00little bit at the bottom. They were behind that curbing. They [thought] that they had cleaned everything out of it, but the rats were back there and the typhoid germ [developed]. By the time the youngsters [returned] my father was so bad. They gave them quinine in those times. They gave him so much quinine to kill the fever that he would get delirious [and] sort of go out of his head. He wasn't so bad. Most of the time he knew what was going on. When my brother, Roy, [took] it, he would just about have fits. He would get up and get hold of dad and say, "The train is coming! Get off the track! Hurry up and get off the 00:50:00track," all kinds of things like that. This quinine was affecting him to that extent.

We moved right away. I don't know some of the people we were acquainted with. The Stout family and the Black family came and moved us across to the Mexican side. We had [received] our papers by that time. My oldest sister came down with [typhoid fever but] not [as] bad as [the others]. I [came down with] it but I laid around the house in the afternoons. In the mornings, I would get up and play as usual. In the afternoons, I would [be] down with [the fever].

We [arrived] there in June and stayed until about October 6 or 7, [1901]. We 00:51:00were ready to go whenever the sick folks [were] well enough to venture off. While we were there, the oldest boy of the Stout family died [from] typhoid [fever]. They had to bury him at Naco. There were some Latter-day Saint families there, but [not] any organization. There were several families from the colonies over in Chihuahua [Mexico] that were there freighting. The Stout boy was about seventeen years old [when] he died.

As we left Naco, we went twenty miles along the line over to Agua Prieta [Mexico], a town on the Mexican side. [This would be] the last town we would see 00:52:00until we would get to the colony. When we got there, our horses wouldn't drink the water. Agua Prieta has black water [with] a brackish iron smell. The horses refused to drink it. A little Mexican [boy] said, "There is good water over where those tents are." So father and I went over there with the four horses. Father walked because he [felt] so poorly [that] he couldn't get up on a horse. I rode one of the horses and he led one of them. I came along with the rest of them. We [came] to the custom house and he told the American custom man [that] we wanted to go over and water our horses. He told us to go on.

When we [went] over, there was a survey camp there surveying [for] the city of Douglas [Arizona]. There were just surveyors there, no signs of a town. A little old man came out of one of the tents and saw us watering the horses. He laid his 00:53:00glasses up on his forehead. He said, "We are going to build a city here. We are going to bring the railroad in from El Paso [Texas] and connect it up to Bisbee [Arizona]." There was a branch line running from Benson [Arizona] down to Bisbee that handled the ore in those [days]. He said, "We are going to bring the railroad in and we are going to build a city here. We are going to run a branch line down to some rich mines we have down in Sonora. We are offering to sell lots here for a dollar apiece to get an advertisement in the El Paso Herald [when] this city starts to [gain] momentum." He asked father if he wanted to buy some of the lots. Father said no, he didn't think so.

He had $10.00 in his pocket and $500.00 over in the jockey box. He put his money 00:54:00down [in] the jockey box [because] he was afraid the Mexicans might hold him up. It was all new to him going into a strange country and he couldn't speak the language. He used that precaution [and] put it down under his rasp in the jockey box so, if they [were] held up, they wouldn't be apt to look down there.

He didn't buy any of the lots. We went down to Mexico and freighted and just about bought land down there. We were down there eleven years when old Salazar came within a few miles of us. There were nineteen of us [that] stayed down there. When we came out, those lots were right where the Copper Queen Store [in Douglas, Arizona] stood. We could have [made] $10,000.00 [if we had bought] those lots! [Laughter] I have had that portrayed to me two other times in life, 00:55:00but [I was] too stupid to take advantage of it [either time]. I have good back-sight but no good foresight!

We [came] into Morelas [Mexico] with about one hour of sun [left in the day]. [We] pitched the tent and father found where there was a midwife. People came to help newcomers quite a bit. Mrs. Horace Curtis lived across the valley about three quarters of a mile. He went over there and saw her and then came back. Before morning my brother, [Chester] "Chet", was born on October 13, [1901]. My brother Jim's birthday is on October 13, but they are not any unluckier than the 00:56:00rest of us! [Laughter] We lived there at the colony. I had a lot of experiences. I don't know whether I should tell those things or not while we lived at the colony. That began to be close to my wild part of life.

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OB:We were there at the colony when it was only three or four years old. The Yaqui Indians were on down the Bavispe River which is called the Yaqui River. [It was] not far below [from] where we lived. They were hostile people at that time. They were a tribe that never submitted to the Mexican government although [the government] had been fighting for thirty years to try to overpower them. But they never hadn't [succeeded] at that time. Some prospectors went down the river prospecting. There were big stories about gold nuggets [being found] where 00:57:00the Yaquis lived. These prospectors went down there and someone killed [some] white men. Word came [back] to us that these two men had been killed by renegade Mexicans.

It came to our [inaudible] was the bishop O. P. Brown. He could speak good Spanish and understood quite a bit about the Mexican laws. The word came to him about this depredation that had been committed down the river on Sunday. As soon as meeting [was over] Sunday afternoon, he hooked up a light wagon with a team of mules to go across the river where it was purported that these renegades came 00:58:00down out of the hills in the evening [to] get provisions from a Mexican family. They were paying them to go to the store and get [provisions]. He deputized six of the young fellows to go with him. They left with guns and shotguns and [arrived] there about sundown which would be close to when these six guys would come down out of the hills. They were led by a white man, but the others were Mexicans.

Brown stationed two of his men in the doorway of this family. He arrested them and put them in the back room and told them to stay there regardless of what took

place or they would shoot them. He stationed two of them in the doorway and two 00:59:00of them down on the bank of the river. He had two more of them stationed at an advantageous place. Just as it [became] dusk, these men came riding to this house. The two men at the door ordered them to hold up. They didn't hold up. They opened [fire] on these fellows and shot all around them but didn't manage to hit them. Maybe they weren't trying to hit them.

FH:They did this on purpose.

OB:They all scattered and the two fellows that were concealed under the edge of the river bank had a chance to shoot too, but they didn't. Two of the Mexicans made a run for the river. These fellows ordered them to hold up and they didn't, so they fired into the water at them. Whether they were aiming to kill them or not, I don't know, but they didn't. The bunch scattered. These two that went 01:00:00into the river had been going over to a threshing machine [to] thresh grain and [to] hydrate a little grain for their uses. They raised barley and wheat mostly. I don't know whether the threshing machine was in the barley stack or [not]. It was Sunday and it was closed down. These two fellows made a run for the river and left their horses. They went into the river and the two boys watching that part of it tried to hold them up. They didn't hold so they fired at them. Whether they aimed to shoot them or not, I don't know. They didn't, anyway. These Mexicans then went to the threshing machine and got gunny sacks and tied them on their feet. [They] came right up through the colony. It was night by 01:01:00this time, quite late at night. [They] went right through the colony heading for the New Mexico line. I don't know what happened to the [rest] of them.

The white man [was] separated from the others, I think, and went back into the State of Chihuahua where he was from originally. He and another man had held up a pay train that was going out to a little mine in Chihuahua. They shot the man that had the pay train of $5,000.00 Mexican money. They would come through the mountains and [had] come through this colony years before that. He had gone down on the borders of the Yaquis which was a no man's land, more or less.

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OB:He was at the head of the fellows [who] committed this depredation of killing 01:02:00those two prospectors and came back up through there. The two went through the colony at night. There were no lights but people had lights in their houses. They went back into the hills headed for the New Mexico line. The next day they picked up their tracks and followed them. By that time, they [had] Mexican officials in there. I suppose they came from Fronteras [Mexico] which was the nearest Mexican town and thirty-five miles away. They followed their trails back into the hills and shot the two that were trying to get away. I don't know any particulars about the rest of the bunch [or] what became of them.

Those were exciting times. [Father] was [in] the house when the shooting [began]. About forty shots were fired. They didn't know what was going to take place. I remember that my father immediately changed into a black sateen shirt and [went] away from the house where he could see if anybody was approaching the house. [He] would [then] have a drop on them. He stayed out there for several hours.

That is only one of many [stories] I could tell. I was the third boy and the [youngster]. The older boys always called me "kid." Later on, I went out on the freight road with my father down to Nacozari de Garcia and [we] were gone five 01:04:00months one summer. Meanwhile, my good old pal accidentally shot himself with a shotgun. They lived on a ranch in the Cabalereo Canyon. They were milking cows and making cheese. This boy had a bridge-loaded shotgun behind a trunk. A bunch of quail came down into the yard and he ran to get his shotgun. He didn't wait until he pulled it up. He started to go back before [it was] out and it went off and shot him in the back of the head and killed him. I didn't know about it for weeks afterward. Those were [events] that ought to have settled me but they didn't.

I was always a pretty good coward. I always [thought] being a live coward beat 01:05:00being a dead hero! I was always cautious about a gun or anything that was dangerous. It was a good idea, because I went to work in the Holbrook Mine in Bisbee in July 1907. I wasn't sixteen [years old] until November [1907]. I had some close calls [nearly] getting killed in the mine. I look back now and [think] that the Lord protected me for some reason [that] He had for me later on.

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OB:One of The Book of Mormon prophets teaches us that the Lord extended the 01:06:00lives of some that they might have the chance to repent. It tells us there in the Thirty-fourth chapter and the Thirtieth verse of Alma, "That whatever spirit we have when we go down into the grave we will come up with that same spirit." We don't get much of a chance to make much progress in the spirit world. I felt in those early times when my life had been spared from accident and death in the mines, which I came close to three different times while I worked there as a [lad], that He had something for me to do in those times. I think this [LDS] mission I filled out here among the Spanish-speaking people was one of them. Perhaps this family that I have is another one.

I was telling you about this house west of the temple being the eighth home that my folks owned.

FH:I want you to tell about your folks receiving the gospel and tell how it was that they happened to accept the gospel. Then tell about the homes they built.

OB:Two missionaries [from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] came into western Nebraska where we homesteaded. One of them was named George Bunker from Bunkerville and [the other one was] George Beale from Richfield, [Sevier County] Utah. They traveled without purse or scrip, practically. They were in the neighborhood and there [was] a lot of excitement and talk among the farmers 01:08:00[who] lived quite a ways apart. I guess they gathered on Sundays. My father heard about them. He had studied the [Holy] Bible quite a bit and [thought] he knew quite a bit about it. He wanted to find out --

FH:[Did] your folks belong to two different churches?

OB:[They belonged to] the Methodist church first and then to the Presbyterian [church]. They left the Methodist church because he couldn't see in the organization of the church [what] that the New Testament teaches. Then he went over to the Presbyterians and was still at a loss to see [whether] they were right. [Then] these Mormon missionaries came along. All he ever knew or heard about the Mormons was that Joseph Smith was a horsethief and [that] they were polygamists -- they had more than one wife. That is all he knew about them. So 01:09:00he sent word to them to come and stay at our place when they didn't have [a] place [to] stay overnight.

One evening, as he was coming in with his teams [from] the dry farm, they came to the corral where he was preparing to take care of his teams. He said, "[I] will tie up my horses and then take you in and introduce you to my wife. You can stay in there until I get my chores done." They said, "No, we don't want you to do that. We want you to go ahead with your chores now. We are farmers, too. We live out in the west where they have to irrigate." He didn't know what irrigation was as they depended on the rains. They stood there while he took 01:10:00care of his teams and other chores that he had to do. [They] compared their way of life with his. It was quite a comparison and a lot of interesting talk, I imagine. They never said a word about religion. They just talked about farming and home life.

When they [were] through, he took them in the house and introduced them to mother. He told her they would be there for supper and through the night. She proceeded to make supper enough for them all, which was [easy] for ranchers to do because they had plenty of milk, butter and eggs that they raised.

They still didn't say a word about their religion. He [began] wondering if the stories he had heard were phony stories. Finally, he broached the question of religion to them. They then proceeded to tell him the key passages of scripture of the gospel such as, "Behold, I will send Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." He figured he knew the New Testament but he had read over [these] passages of scripture and they didn't have any meaning to him. As the night went on, they talked. They took the stand, mostly, and talked and taught them the gospel. My mother said that very first night 01:12:00[emotional] she had a feeling that they were far superior to the religions that they had belonged to. She was, you might say, converted that first night, but not him. He took the [Holy] Bible, the New Testament especially, and compared it with The Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants and studied it for quite a long time before we started out here. He never applied for baptism. My mother was baptized first.

As soon as that happened, the prejudice that existed back in those times began to show up [rather] strong and they began to prepare to leave and come west. He 01:13:00said he had a desire to come out west. They began to sell their [belongings for] whatever they could get out of it. They left there with two wagons and seven head of animals. Two of them were big colts that followed along and the other five were mules.

They traveled toward the Rocky Mountains. They [were] there too early for the snow to be gone in the Rocky Mountains. There was a man by the name of Al Smith [who] owned a ranch. As we camped there, he told father, "You are going too early. You better wait here for three or four weeks until the snow gets off the 01:14:00grass in the mountains or you are going to go through a lot of hardship that won't be necessary." Father told him, "Alright." He said, "I'll pasture your animals, it won't cost you anything and I will give you work. I need a man and I can give you work. I have lots of pasture and it won't cost you anything." So father harkened to his counsel and stayed there.

He said before they [arrived] in Ogden [Weber County, Utah], he could see the wisdom in Al's advice. [When] they [arrived] at Ogden, apparently they were out of funds and they sold a team there. They [used] these two big colts and drove them on to Bunkerville. [Then] they went on to Mexico.

FH:Tell about the construction of the homes they [built] and different places they lived.

OB:We lived at Bunkerville in the covered wagon we came in [and] then moved on up to Beaver Dam and bought that Beaver Dam ranch. I always thought that was given to him. As I remember as a [boy], my father told them that there were two prospectors [who] had built a log cabin there under a big mulberry tree. They were prospecting the Littlefield Mountains. They had prospected to their satisfaction. They hadn't found anything that he knew of that was rich enough to hold them. They [were] ready to leave and they told him he could have the ranch. He gave them a slab of bacon, some flour and a few things that they needed and 01:16:00that was all there was to it.

In The [Bundy] Family History, they have recorded that he paid $300.00. I don't believe he had $300.00. I think the story that I remember is right. I could be mistaken because so many times I am. I was only a lad when he told me those things. He told me lots of things that happened [when] I was with him as a [boy] on the freight road.

This I have never told to any of the family except maybe one or two of them in recent years. He told me that his two older brothers and two uncles went to the Civil War on the Union side. While they were out there, a fellow married to a Bundy [woman] betrayed these Union soldiers and eight of them were killed. Two 01:17:00of these Bundys, an uncle and a great uncle, were killed in the Civil War but I don't think it is recorded in our life history. I have never studied it to see. As they were coming home after the war was over, they went to this fellow's place [who] had married a Bundy woman. [They] took him [out] in the fields and shot him to atone for the eight lives he had caused to be lost on the Union side. I don't think it is recorded. I recorded it in the history I wrote, but it is lost and I don't know what became of it.

They built onto the log cabin. They didn't really build a home, but they built onto it which represented the building of a home they had. Then we went on to Mexico and we made adobes [bricks] down there. The colony had sets of men that were skilled to some extent in bricklaying, burning lime and burning bricks. I can well remember making the adobes [bricks]. We would make the little adobes [bricks], make a kiln [for] them and burn them along with someone else's [bricks].

FH:The adobes [bricks] that you made, did you mix grass or anything with them to give them strength?

OB:No. I think we mixed a little straw with them. We couldn't use very strong 01:19:00straw because they were just four inches wide and eight inches long like our bricks are made today. We had to make a lot of them and put them in a kiln. They hauled wood and had enough wood to burn [the kiln] steady for thirty-six hours. I am not sure on the length of time. I know my father and another man were burning and stayed there day and night until they got them burnt. Then they sealed up the kiln. When it had time to cool off, the adobe [bricks] were hard then. They were sort of a reddish color. We built the house out of them. We had to go over to Colonia Juarez to get any lumber. I don't know why they couldn't [go] to Douglas, Arizona. No doubt, the lumber was a good deal higher [there] 01:20:00because it was shipped in on the railroad [from] many miles to be in the lumber yards. They could go over [to Colonia Juarez] and buy it from the people [who] sawed it.

FH:Was there native lumber there?

OB:Yes, [it was] native lumber. I went along with him over there. We left the colony. Colonia Oaxaca was twenty-five miles up the Bavispe River. We left the river to go to -- I can't think of the name of that canyon. We went up this 01:21:00canyon. We left the Sonora line at the top of this canyon and went out onto the open land of Chihuahua. We went down the canyon about six or seven miles. It was not a narrow canyon. It was a wide canyon with hills on each side. As we got out onto the open valley we saw a big string of antelope. They were the first [antelopes] I had ever seen. There must have been thirty-five of them. They followed one behind the other. They didn't run in a flock like deer will. They just [took] off back toward the hills. A little later, we went out in this open Paunavelas Flat and here came the prairie dogs. They were thick in Nebraska but 01:22:00I never remember seeing them. As usual, I thought I would run and beat one of them to his hole. I tried for hours to do that. I was behind the trail wagon and when I could see one chirping away from his den, I would start running [thinking] I could overtake him before he could get in his hole. But I couldn't! Finally, there was an old [one] and I got the run on him when he wasn't watching, and got right onto him before he saw [me]. As he started to go for his hole I took my hat and brushed it in front of him. He grabbed my hat with his teeth and bit a hole or two through [it]! [Laughter] I kicked him away from his hole. I don't believe I killed him. But I showed him I [could catch] him [even] if I couldn't catch the younger ones.

These were all new things to me. I must have been about thirteen years old, maybe fourteen. We went a little further and I could see a lake off to one side. It was open country with nothing but lots of prairie grass and a few mesquites. Yes, there was mesquite. But I could see a lake off to one side. I got my twenty-two and headed off for this lake. Father said to me, "Where are you going?" I said, "I am going out to this lake and see if there are any ducks on it." So far, I hadn't killed anything to go in the frying pan. I can just see a big smile come on my father's face. He didn't say a word. He just let me go on. This lake was quartering off ahead of us and I kept following out there and following and following for an hour or two. I never could come to that 01:24:00confounded lake to see if there were any ducks on it.

Finally, I discovered that the road had turned off. They were nowhere in sight. I knew I had him off to the right. I could see some cottonwood trees [up] ahead. So I quartered and headed off for them. I could see a long way. I could see his freight outfit for a long way as I went [toward] the lake. I kept watching him, but finally he was so far away, I couldn't see him. I headed over to these cottonwood trees. They were not a mirage. They were actual trees. When I got there, he was camped and eating dinner. As I walked up, he said to me, "Where are your ducks?" [Laughter] I said, "I could never find the water ─ to say nothing of ducks." Then he turned with a big grin on his face and told me that 01:25:00it was a mirage and there was no such thing as a lake out there. That was my first experience with a mirage.

We went over to the colonies. We went through Colonia Dublan and on up to Colonia Juarez. At the [top] of the [hill] we could see this little [town of] Juarez was snuggled away in the valley down there. To me, it was one of the prettiest places I had ever seen. The fruit trees were all in blossom. [There] was an open spring and a good climate. I was amazed to see that beautiful thing. We had been coming across the hills with just the natural vegetation which [was] a lot of chaparral. Then, all of a sudden, we come to the edge of this valley and down a dugway. We got our lumber and went back. I don't remember much about 01:26:00[the trip] going back.

We built a house. Afterwards, I was down on the freight road with him the second time. The older boys did the chores and the work. I was kind of a restless [fellow] anyway so he took me along to do chores with him [and] to help him a little with the freight teams. I remember we were going down the canyon below Macasara where there was a big concentrator. [This was used] to concentrate the ore that they mined out about seven miles from Macasara. They ran the ore in on a narrow gauge railroad to the concentrator. They concentrated it and shipped 01:27:00the mature ore out. The railroad was in there at that time. We hauled freight from Macasara to Copus, a smelting town. They smelted the ore there. We hauled that ore to the railroad. [The ore] went on to the United States for treatment. This Polarus Mine didn't produce [very] rich ore, but it had a lot of it. So they concentrated it and then [sent] the concentrates to the United States.

There was another mine thirty-five miles beyond that out into the wild. The company kept a few scouts for fear the Yaqui Indians would come up and run off 01:28:00with their stock. Belén [New Mexico] was about eighty-five miles, I think, from Macasara. We were down into Sonora, forty miles from Douglas, where this town was built for the concentrator. We did lots of work there. It was a booming town [with] lots of freighting. There was lots of money and work going on there. Quite a lot of the colonists were out there working, getting ready to pay for land or their houses.

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OB:I might go ahead and tell you about the [Mexican Madero] Revolution [in 01:29:001910]. This revolution started down in interior Mexico and gradually came up toward the border. Pancho Villa and his generals came into the colonies in Chihuahua. They didn't treat them too badly over there. One or two men [were] killed over at Colonia Diaz. It wasn't anything like lots of the things that are going on in the armies now. Even though they were rough looking men, they still respected our American women. You have to give them credit for that. They were 01:30:00more or less a prideful people and their women were respected. They [went] in the colonies of Chihuahua and they outsmarted them there some way and [put] the women and children on a cattle train one night. They [took] lots of them out. When they saw that they were outsmarted, that made them quite hostile. Salazar, one of [Pancho] Villa's generals, started to come across to Sonora. They went out towards the Mexico line and held up.

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OB:They [took] those colonists out and then the rebels came toward the New Mexico line where there was high plateau country and wild turkey and lots of 01:31:00deer and fish in the streams. They rested there for awhile. Meanwhile, we [received] word that they were coming through the colony going to the El Tegre Mine to rob it.

As I told you before, President [William Howard] Taft of the United States and President Joseph F. Smith of The Church [of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] advised us to [leave]. The women and the children and lots of the men left. Nineteen of us young fellows stayed down there with the hope that the Federals were going to come around on the train. They came down to Fronteras on the train and they hoped to head them off. The rebels were on horseback. We stayed down 01:32:00there in hope they would head them off. But they weren't fast enough. Salazar with 400 of his rebel soldiers came into the valley fifteen miles above the colony. They came off the hills and down into the valley. There had been a lot of traffic on the road hauling wheat and the colonists [were] going back and forth out of there. The road was [very] dusty. It was in October. There was a long stream of dust coming down the road. A fellow that I was with, David Neagle, and I were up on a ranch about two and a half miles above the colony in the direction the rebels were coming. We decided to get down on the hill and they would go by our ranch and go on to the colony. We got out on the hill and 01:33:00hid our horses in a patch of mesquite and then we crawled out to the edge of the hill. The edge of the hill was lined with black melapine boulders. We crawled out there to watch them go by.

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OB:We figured we could lie quietly there and they would never know that we were going by. They [were about] a third of a mile away [from us]. We were lying there waiting for them to go by when, all of a sudden, [we saw a] stream of dust begin to get in one big pool. It wasn't a long stream. It was just a big pool. Then we knew they were camping for the night. This was about sundown. We laid there until it was dusk, got our horses and went back down to the ranch. They [were] within two hundred yards of the ranch which was set off in the mesquite. But they were bound to know [the ranch] was there. We went back down and turned 01:34:00the horses, pigs and chickens loose into the fields.

We [had] a bit of supper and, while we were eating, one of the Levin boys [came]. He was a lad about sixteen or seventeen years old. They sent him up to tell us because they didn't know that we knew the rebels were coming. He came to us and the three [of us] left to go toward the colony [and] get out around them to go to the Arizona line. We had to go about a quarter of a mile south before we could get into a lane [trail] that would take us across the valley. Just as we turned to go into this lane, a guard rode out. [By] now, it [was] about an hour after dark. He rode out in front of us and hailed us. He told us he was an 01:35:00advance guard of Salazar and he had orders from Salazar to take [our] saddles and guns. They didn't need our animals. They had plenty of animals but they wanted our saddles and guns. They told us they were in a war with the government. They felt that they were justified in throwing down the government because it was run for the rich people and the masses of poor people were nothing but slaves. He was right [in] his statement. He was giving us the truth about things.

I had a Spanish Mauser that the Gardner boys had [given] me. The [Gardner boys] wanted to get it to the line [so] they let me take it because I didn't have a gun. It was so long [that] when I stood it on the ground the end of the barrel hit me right between the eyes. I couldn't tie it on the horse so I had it in my 01:36:00hand. The three of us, stood in a triangle. He [kept] talking about what they were doing and the orders that he had. He asked "Dave", "Is that the only gun you [have]?" "Dave" told him a lie and [said], "Yes." I was [really] excited and I wasn't saying anything. I saw "Dave" [dig] down into his chaps pocket and come out with his .44 poking right toward his belly. I had this old Mauser ready with the safety cocked. All I had to do was pull the cock and I would have him right in the belly. He started to sprawl to get to me and my gun. I was in high anxiety! I was about to bawl. I told him, "You try to take my gun and I will kill you." He saw that I meant it. He said, "No, you can keep your gun. You can 01:37:00keep your gun."

We started to go on, just a few rods, until we could turn the corner to go west through this lane that took us over onto the other side of the valley from where this army was camped. As we started down this lane, a bonfire loomed up on the other end where we could have [gone] off into the creek bottom. There they had us, him behind us and behind mesquite stumps and a ditch bank and they were down there. We surmised there were three or four of them that would guard that end of the lane. We milled around there for only a few minutes but it seemed like a long time not knowing what to do. Finally, "Dave" said, "We will just jog down [along] there." He saw that the fire was on the opposite of the lane from the road. There were a lot of arrow weeds down there. They had gone down and made a 01:38:00little bonfire. As their habit was, [they would] strike one match, make one fire and all of them [would] light their cigarettes from that one fire and save on the matches. ["Dave"] said, "We will jog along down there and if they order us to stop, we will break and run. If they shoot, we will shoot back."

The Levin boy had a .32-20. His horse had fallen with him and broke the handle on it but he could still shoot it. I had this old Mauser in my hand and it [was very] awkward. "Dave" had his .45. He sent [for] and [received] a new Remington [so that] if he had to use it he would have something fast and handy to use. By the time we got down there, they had their cigarettes lit and had gone on. We went into the creek-bed and the west side of us was all open country. We knew 01:39:00better than to follow up the road that went along the west side of the valley because [the] guards had gone that way. We climbed up the hill and it was a steep, steep hill. It had been made out of rocks. The valley, at one time, had been up there but it had [been] cut lower in the years that had gone by and left this creek-bottom down quite low. The hill could have been fifty yards to the top and loose. We started to go up [but] the horses could hardly make any headway. About the time we [were] halfway up, a guard hollered at us, "Good evening," in Mexican. We didn't answer. He hollered again at us, "Good evening," 01:40:00and we didn't answer. We were getting close to the top about that time. Then he hollered at us to halt. We still didn't answer. I never got over feeling the bullet get me in the short ribs. He didn't shoot but I just figured he was going to!

We got up out of there and [went] out onto a flat malopi mesa. We rode about a mile and a half or two miles just as fast as we could ride. "Dave" Neagle and I were on good horses but [the Levin] boy was on this old mare. She was sort of jaded and he was [riding] as fast as he could. We got over to where a wash cut us off from the main valley. We stopped and could hear this fellow down there hollering up to an adobe house where "Bill" Curtis stored a lot of wheat. This 01:41:00house [was] off in the mesquite a ways from the road so nobody would know it was there. The bush men stopped there and they left [a] fellow to guard the back way. He [was] notifying them that somebody had gone off the west side of the creek. We just sat there quiet while that went on. We could hear them. After awhile, they built a fire down there and got around [it]. We slipped down off that hill and [went] onto the Fronteras road and [headed] out toward Fronteras.

Before we could get out into open country again, we had to go up a sort of canyon. There was a Mexican ranch there and we were just as scared of Federals as we were of rebels. If the Federals ran into us, they would take [our] horses 01:42:00and give us scrip which wasn't worth the paper it was written on. We were [quite] scared to go by there, yet we couldn't very well get by it without going up this little side canyon. The dogs started to bark when we [were] within a couple of hundred yards of the place. It wasn't right on the road. The adobe house ranch was possibly twenty-five yards off the road. "Dave" said, "We'll have to do like we did before, go by in peace, and if we can't, they will fire and we will fire back." Before we [were] even up with them, the dog shut up. We went by and there wasn't a stir. They figured it was rebel scouts or Federals. Yes, it could be Federals. The Federals were shipped from El Paso around to 01:43:00Douglas and then down on the railroad to Fronteras. It was within about fifteen miles of this place where they would be put off on foot unless they could get horses there, [very] few of them would be on horseback. We were scared of them anyway. We went by there in peace and out into the hills a ways and stopped at one o'clock. David said, "We better let our horses rest a little and get something to eat and get a little rest ourselves. When daylight breaks, we will get up and go on."

We came to where the cutoff took off to Fronteras. The road went a few miles further and then wound down quite a narrow canyon into the Fronteras Valley. We 01:44:00[were] up just a little after daylight and were in high suspense that we would run into guards of the rebels or guards of the Federals. We [came] to the forks of this trail and went by there silent and everything was alright. We thought we were safe then. We had a clear outlet for the Arizona line. We didn't aim to go to the custom house. We were going to go across [the Arizona line] which was a penitentiary offense. I [had] been in the penitentiary once before for doing the same thing. [I went] across with horses and I didn't have a permit from the custom house to go across.

Just when we [had] our nerves settled down and were going up a little draw full of mesquite, all of a sudden we heard three shots right behind us. We broke and 01:45:00ran. We figured it was one or the other, [rebels or Federals]. We were going to get away if we could. We [were] going so fast up this little draw. The roads were built by the first wagon [that went through] and then more [wagons] followed. Our horses couldn't make the turns around the mesquite in the draw so we [went] out to the edge. There were grease woods out to the edge and we had [clear] sailing there. As we were making [the] run up through there, I looked back. "Dave" was pointing the way. We could see our [Levin] boy coming and another boy back there on a mule. About that time, "Dave" hollered, "Look out!" I turned around and just then I was up in the air! My horse was going across a deep wash and his [horse] had already gone across. As he made that spring quite a few of [those] old Mauser bullets came up out of [my] belt and went to the ground. But we didn't stop!

We headed for a little hill and [thought] if we could get to that hill we could 01:46:00overlook them and have advantage [over] them. By the time we [came] to the bottom of this hill, I saw our boy coming across the road and the other boy was coming up on a trot. Something had happened that kind of quieted things down. We went on anyway. We went up onto this hill where we had the advantage all around us. [There were] three fellows from the colony and another boy, Ether Haney's younger brother. I can't think of his name. He came along ahead on the mule, but "Dick" Huish shot down there just to scare us. They had overtaken us enough to see us [and] he just [shot] down three times with his six-shooter. He sure did scare us! We [came] up onto this hill and [were] located [and] they came riding up there. "Dave" was [very] mad. I was afraid he was going to shoot "Dick" Huish 01:47:00right there even though he was one of our own. He was so mad to think he would do such a thing in such perilous conditions. After a little while, they patched it up. I can remember distinctly that "Dick" [was] white under the gills while "Dave" was bawling him out.

We started on and we were only a few miles now from where we would start to go down this narrow canyon down into the Fronteras Valley. We overtook Moroni Fenn and Zane McNeil. That made quite a little bunch of us, eight altogether. We began to think maybe we could stand off a few guards. We didn't [want] to go down this wash. If we didn't go down, we [would] have to cut off toward the 01:48:00hills [in] quite rough country [to] get into the valley where the mesquite was heavy. If there wasn't a trail or a road, you could barely get through with a horse. We held a little council up there on the hill [as to] whether we should tackle going down that narrow road. [The rebels or Federals] could be stationed down there and have the advantage on us. Finally, we decided that two of [us] would go ahead and we would stay about fifty yards apart. If they came around the bend and the rebels were there to catch them, they would give a signal back and the rest of us would go back up the canyon. So that is what we did.

We went down through that canyon and nobody disturbed us. We headed for the Arizona line. [We were] about eighteen miles from it, down in a mass of mesquite. It was afternoon by this time and we were [quite] hungry. "Dave" knew 01:49:00there was a ranch over there. We decided [to] go over there and see if we could buy some jerky and some corn that they had. We went over there and found three more of our men. The Mexicans were friendly to us. They knew some of our men. They told us, "Don't go up the valley." You could see the railroad bridges. They were built down in Mexico. They made the little bridges out of timber, big beams across small washes. The rebels had gone on ahead of us and set them all afire. We could see through there for about fifteen miles.

The line of the bridges was smoking. The first one we came to was quite a long bridge. The timbers had burned out and the rails were hanging from one side of 01:50:00the wash to the other. Some of the ties were still smoking and burning. It [was] a dismal appearance for us. The Mexicans told us, "Don't go up the valley or they will capture you. They are going to fight in Agua Prieta in the morning and the rebels are going to make a run on the Federals there. The Federals have come there and dug in trenches and the rebels are going to try to take it away from them. You will get into the fight and some of you will get hurt. So stay out into the hills."

FH:About how many of you were there now?

OB:There were three of us when we left the ranch. "Dick" Huish and the Haney boy overtook us at the fork of the trail. Then we came up onto the top of this hill and there were Moroni Fenn and Zane McNeil. That made eight [seven] of [us]. We went down to this ranch to see if we could buy beef and there were three more: 01:51:00Hank Jones [was one of them] and I can't remember the fellows that were with him. That made eleven [ten] of us and we had sixteen head of loose horses besides the ones that we were riding. We were trying to get out with two choice horses.

Then we milled along back away from the valley about a mile and a half until about one o'clock. We were within three miles of Agua Prieta. We decided we better stay there until daylight and then we would make a run for the Arizona line regardless of where the custom house was. If we [were] put in the "pen" it would be better than losing our outfits and maybe getting into a fight. We stayed there [until] it began to get light. Press Jones had a pair of field 01:52:00glasses and he could see dust forming down in the valley. We were back about a mile and a half from the valley. We sat there ready to go [and tried to] decide what to do, whether to take a chance and go straight through to the line and not go down there to the custom house, or what.

Then it [became] light enough and he said, "That isn't any army." We thought it was the rebel army saddled and ready to make [an] attack on Agua Prieta. "That isn't any army. That is a big herd of cattle." We stayed there until [nearly] sunup. We could see then it was cattle and some cowboys with them. We decided to go down there. As we approached, the foreman of the outfit came on a lope to meet us. He said, "I am glad to see you fellows. I am sure glad to see you. I [have] a job for every one of you here. Come on down. I will have them make some 01:53:00coffee and biscuits. There is plenty of fried meat left from breakfast. Come on down and get something to eat." We were willing to take that part of his advice! [Laughter]

When we [were] through eating, we told him we didn't want a job. We wanted to get the horses across onto the Arizona side. He [said], "They have called the fight off at Agua Prieta. The rebels have gone back down into Sonora and you won't have any trouble there." So that is what we did. I had to leave the old Spanish Mauser and several other guns [as] they were Mexican property. We couldn't bring them across without paying duty on them.

We came across and the big herd of cattle was shoved across the next morning. They had 1,200 head of cattle they had bought. They were going to ship them to 01:54:00Kansas City. This [fellow] tried to get a permit to go across and they wouldn't give him a permit. The cattle had to be inspected. They wouldn't give him a permit so he got about half-drunk and acted like he was crazy. [He] told his cowboys to shove them across the Arizona line! That is what they did [and] the Arizona Rangers took them over. This [cattle] man offered us $5.00 a day and our board. When the rangers took [the cattle] over, they had to have somebody to herd them. We were there with horses [and] they offered us $5.00, American money, a day and board. So [we] all went to work. Those were exciting times!

My parents were back in LeGrand, Oregon. My sister, Lillie, had her baby the 01:55:00night that they [were] out [in] the refugee camp. Her husband was there with his teams and he wanted to drive them back to Moapa Valley. He didn't want to [leave] her with [the] little baby and the other four children, just youngsters. They wanted to send me back with them to LeGrand, Oregon. I had already been there with my mother a year before that, so I kind of knew how to travel. They trapped me into taking her back there. I [went] back to LeGrand, Oregon in October 1912 and stayed there until February 1914. I just [became] an old man then. I just worked on a lumber job, came home, ate, slept and went back. I didn't get out with the young folks [at all]. I started to get old and feeble. 01:56:00My health began to fail me.

[My father] had to work at the Pulver Laver Company. In the wintertime, he would leave [home] before dark [and] didn't get home until after dark, to earn $2.25 a day. When I worked in the mines in Bisbee, I [received] $4.00 a day and I only worked eight hours. I thought I had caused him so much trouble and [had] been so worthless to him [that] I better do something and start to mend my ways. I told father, "If you want to go down to Moapa Valley, you pull out. I [have] this steady job here and I will finish paying the little that we owe on the home." They bought one house there. They didn't really build that many homes. They owned that many homes. They bought another house and put them together and made 01:57:00a house out of them. He went down there and I stayed with mother and a younger brother and three younger sisters.

I quieted down during that time. Then my health began to get bad. I couldn't see it then, but it was just from a lack of recreation and a little bit of getting out and doing something besides just working. My two sisters worked in the laundry and they told me I could go [to Moapa Valley]. I went and, after about five or six months, one of [my sisters] and the younger brother came. Finally, my mother and the other sister and the youngest sister came to the valley down here.

We started to establish ourselves there and bought land from the church on long- 01:58:00term payments. They [became] dissatisfied. They couldn't make the payments. It looked like they wouldn't have much when they bought the land. They heard [about the] country [on the Arizona Strip], Mt. Trumbull. They sent an expedition to look it over and decided to move out there. Meanwhile, I was having the time of my life in the valley. I outran the whole valley on the Fourth of July. On Labor Day in 1915, I won over in Las Vegas [Nevada] and outran [all of] Southern Nevada.

FH:Are you talking about foot racing?

OB:Yes. I [received] $25.00 for the prize there. Everett Syphus, [who] lives here, was a clerk in [the] Beckley Store in Las Vegas. He says that I came down 01:59:00there and picked out the suit of clothes I was going to buy when I [won] this foot race. I didn't [think] I could outrun them; I was just joking! But I did outrun them! I was slick!

Then I began to quiet down and live a decent life. One day Bishop Robert O. Gibson, [who] still lives in [Las] Vegas, came down. We lived about halfway between Overton [Nevada] and St. Thomas. That whole country belonged to the Moapa [LDS] Stake then, [including] [Las] Vegas and Caliente [Nevada]. Overton was the headquarters [for] the Latter-day Saints. [There] was a quarterly conference day at Moapa. I had gone home and the bishop came about dusk to see 02:00:00my father. He was irrigating that day. He didn't leave the irrigating up to me like [he] should have done. I ought to have taken that off of his hands. He didn't trust me to do the irrigating. [The bishop] came there to see my father and I was milking the cow. I heard them talking. He was talking about the farm work and how he was getting along financially. He was feeling around but he didn't want me to know what he came there for, I guess. When I [was] through milking the cows, and instead of hanging [up] the milk [pail because] we had some cats that had bothered the milk, I went up on the hill to the house about forty yards away to leave the milk. I came back down on the opposite side of the haystack to feed the calf. As I stooped over to get a little hay for the calf, I 02:01:00heard him mention my name. He [said to] my father, "I have a request for three missionaries from the St. Thomas Ward. I have Everett Syphus and Harvey Frehner. [Their] families are able to send them. But where is my third man? If I call "Dick", do you think he would go? Do you think you could keep him in the mission field?" Dad said if the freighting from the [Grand] Gulch Mine to St. Thomas stayed [good], he could keep me. The [bishop] said, "I don't see any way out of it [except] to send [his name] in. He is the only other fellow I [have] in my whole ward that I can send in to try out."

The next morning I [took] the narrow gauge [railway] out of there and never wrote back [emotional] for three months. I [thought] of all the things that they 02:02:00could think about doing, [how could they] call a [fellow] like me to the [LDS] mission field. I looked at the missionaries that came home and how polished they were and how educated they appeared. I never stopped to think that the two years they had been out there had put a lot of that on them. When I finally wrote home, I told my mother to come up to Eureka [Juab County, Utah]. I landed up in Eureka, Utah. I was working there in the Mayday Mine and [became] acquainted with my wife. [Rowena (Whitmore) Bundy]

FH:Is that where you met her?

OB:Yes. I made a prediction. I sent my mother money and told her to come up there out of the heat. It was hot down in the Moapa Valley. [There] were no fans or anything in those [days]. I told her she just as well come up there because 02:03:00father was gone five days out of the week and there was nothing to hold her down at that time of the year on the ranch, the place we were buying. So she came up there.

[END OF TAPE TWO - SIDE TWO]

OB:I [was on] the Eureka [fire] hose team by that time. Ed VanLeuven had a picture of me spiking the team in Lowell, Arizona, a few years before that. He was going to do all he could to get that big $500.00 silver cup which was the prize for whichever team won it three years in succession. I was swearing around the house a little bit where I roomed there with Ed VanLeuven. My mother said, "You will make a bright missionary." [Laughter] I said, "Hell, I am not going on any mission." She said, "What are you going to do?" I was [nearly] twenty-five years old then. I didn't know what to say. I looked out the window and this 02:04:00Whitmore girl that I had started to go with was coming. I said, "I am going to marry that girl out there." I didn't have any more intention [of that] than anything in the world. We had just [become] acquainted a little while [before]. But it went through anyway.

When they caught up with me [about] this mission call, they called me to go down there to Salt Lake [City] and [to] be ready to go by the October conference. This call came to me on August 22, [1916] and the hose team was practicing to go down to Laguna [Arizona] on August 24, [1916] to contest with all these other teams. There were eleven fire hose teams. Back in those times, every little mining town had a volunteer team and I was the first right-hand man on [the] Eureka team. [We] practiced for about a month. Then they timed us. Each man made 02:05:00a run by himself. I [did] the run in ten and two-fifths seconds. We ran a little bit on an up-grade and we ran a little bit on the curve. I made it in the shortest time, but I never could spike that team with the eight men behind me. I would get the cart too close to the hydrant or else too far away. They asked me if I would release my position back to Neal Bonner that had been spiking it. I told them yes, anything to get along.

We went down to Laguna and won the big $500.00 silver cup. We had to win three years running. [Once] Eureka [won] it two years and lost [the third year]. Spanish Fork [Utah County, Utah won] it two years and lost [the third year]. 02:06:00Then Eureka [won] it two years and this was the third year. We won it! But it wasn't on my speed. Tommy Hancock was [in the] back holding the tongue. We went out to [the] Saltaire [Pavilion in Salt Lake County, Utah] the night we [arrived] and danced until midnight. Then we went back to the Cullen Hotel and rolled and tumbled until daylight. We didn't have a bit of strength. Our hose connectors were professionals. They were pipe fitters in the mine and they caught up what we lacked. [While] we were training for this, they put me on a day shift because I was one of the racers. [When] I came home [from the] day shift [on August 22, [1916] my mother said, "There is a letter for you." It was a big letter and mighty few of them I had ever [received]. I just doubled it up and stuck it in my hind pocket and went down [to] practice. After the practice 02:07:00was over, I was getting dressed. I took my pants to put them on and I saw that letter. I pulled my pants on and I thought, I wonder what the deuce that thing is. I opened it up and here it was: a call [emotional] to be ready to go to the Southern States mission field at October [1916] conference.

It just stunned me. It stunned me and I just sat there. The fire chief, Bernard Hall, said, "What is the matter with you, "Dick"? Are you sick?" I said, "No." He said, "Well, there is something wrong. I have never seen you that quiet before." I kept dressing and he kept quizzing me and so I handed it over to him. He was a [Mormon] convert from England only a few years before. He was a big fellow. He was supposed to be from England but I think he was [of] Norwegian 02:08:00extraction because he was a big fellow. He read it and said, "Lucky boy!" I didn't think I was lucky. It caught up with me and I was afraid to turn it down, yet I knew I wasn't fit. I wasn't capable of going. Any money that would come from my family was out [not available]. But I went down. [The letter] came on [August] 22 and we went down on [August] 23. I went in to the president of the church's office to make a plea to let it go for six months and then go to the field so I could save up a little money.

When I went in there, the clerk, the same one that Alvey Fenn and I [had gone] 02:09:00to see, was there and he counseled with me. He said, "I have been here for a long time. I have been President Smith's clerk for a long time. I have had quite a lot of fellows in the same boat that you are in. I have been advising them always to go. Don't let [anything] stand in your way. The way will be opened up." I didn't have that much faith that a way would be opened up. I didn't know where the money was coming from. But he talked to me that way. On [August] 23 we came down and on [August] 24 we made the run.

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OB:On October 7, [1916], after conference, Elder [Alvey] Fenn and I were 02:10:00together. We went through the conference. Monday we went to get a patriarchal blessing. The Patriarch, Hyrum G. Smith, gave each of us a wonderful blessing. A lot of mine came true during that first mission. He told Elder Fenn, "Your life has been spared for a wise purpose which purpose will be made known to you according to your faithfulness and humbleness." That worried Elder Fenn. He couldn't make out what that was. He knew his life had been spared by an unseen power a time or two. He was out on the freight road as a [youngster] with six 02:11:00mules and two wagons and going low in the dugway. The brake lock [was] bumped and knocked the brakes off. He and the six mules, he was riding one mule, all went to the bottom. When they [were] about to the bottom, two mules fell down and he was there in the wad with the rest of them crawling out unharmed. It killed one of the mules and crippled the other one for life. So he had had a lot of narrow escapes, too. I had mine in the mines and he had his [on] the freight road.

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OB:He advised me to go [on the mission] now and not put it off for six months. This old friend of mine that I was raised with wouldn't listen to anything else but I go with him. He was going to have me go with him. We went through the conference. During conference time, they said there were five young elders [they] would like to have come over to the presiding bishop's office immediately after conference. No, that was not when we [were] out of conference. We were sent over there to get acquainted with the mission president of the Southern States mission who was Charles A. Callas.

FH:That [name] is right.

OB:The next day was Monday. We went up to the patriarch and [received] a patriarchal blessing. One of the things he told me was that if I would listen to that still small voice I would be guided in the paths of duty and safety. He told Elder Fenn that his life had been spared for a wise purpose which purpose would be made known to him according to his faithfulness.

The next day, Tuesday, when we were going through the temple, all five of us 02:14:00were in there. We couldn't talk. Everything was new. It was just simply astounding to me. A little old man [who] was guiding the session through came out on the stage and said, "There are five young elders I wish to give out notice to," and something said [to me], "You are one of them." I couldn't talk or converse with the others. As we went on through, [my] side thoughts [were], are they going to cull you? They will cull you and Elder Fenn. Quite a lot of the people lived in Salt Lake [City] that had lived in the colonies. They [would find] out what [we] were and were going to cull [us]. I couldn't believe anything else. When I [came] to the change room, I said to him, "What do you think they want out of us?" He said, "Oh, I don't know." I said, "I know. They are going to cull us out." He said, "I don't think so." I said, "I'll just bet 02:15:00with you." He said, "We'll wait and see. We will go over and see what they want."

When we got over there, President Joseph F. Smith had gone home. The same clerk that I had interviewed [with] twice about going to the mission field and getting released for six months was there. He recognized me as soon as I walked in. I told him what we had come over for. Elder Fenn couldn't make up his mind to leave me and trust me to go down among the Mexicans and go against his wife's wishes. He couldn't decide. It was right then that Elder Fenn got up and began to pace the floor. He went by us back and forth for about three times. Then he 02:16:00turned to the clerk and he said, "I have converted this renegade. He is to go now instead of waiting for six months. I can't trust him to go down there among the Mexicans. He is just liable to run away from the mission. He ran away from home and he is just liable to run away from the mission. If I go with him, I [have] to go against my wife's wishes and she sacrificed a lot for me to go on this mission."

FH:[Did] they want you to go among the Mexicans and Spanish-speaking people instead of going to the Southern States mission?

OB:Yes. Ray L. Pratt was set apart again as a mission president. He had been president down around Mexico City for six years before the revolution. They dissolved that mission during the revolution and he was just starting to get going. I think all he had were thirteen missionaries and he was just a branch 02:17:00president under President Herrick of the Western States mission. When he found out about me, he was [out] to get that [fellow] that [hobbled] him down on the -- [laughter] because he knew he had lots of hard work in him [from] hard knocks he had had all of his life. He needed such a chap as that to start the missionary work here in the United States.

When the clerk couldn't decide, he said, "Presidents Penrose and Lund are in their office. Let's go in and put it up to them." As the clerk knocked, President Lund came to the door and invited us to come in. As we [went] in, the 02:18:00clerk (I don't know why I have never learned his name) introduced us. He said, "These are two of the boys that were asked to come over here and this one can't decide to go down among the Mexicans." President Lund said to him, "Habla usted Espanol? [Do you speak Spanish?]" He [rather] sheepishly said, "Habla poquito [I speak a little]." He married a girl that couldn't [speak] any English, practically, when he married her. Spanish is what she had been brought up [to speak]. Then President Penrose wheeled around in his chair and took Elder Fenn by the hand. He said, "Elder Fenn, if you will go down among the Mexicans, 02:19:00[emotional] I will promise you in the name of Israel's God that you will be blessed." As I said, nothing ever came with more force before and it never has since. [Emotional] To me, the tears were freely running down my face and Alvey's also. The clerk felt the impact of it, too.

About two days later, President Pratt had us down there at the D&RG [Denver & Rio Grande] Railroad with our tickets to go to Romeo, Colorado instead of Chattanooga, Tennessee. It would have cost me $37.00 to go to Chattanooga and it 02:20:00only cost $13.00 [to go to Romeo]. It looked like things were kind of shaping around [and] favoring me in some ways. When they put the proposition up to me, I jumped at it. I thought I will be about equal to a Mexican anyway. I never thought about the fact that I would have to learn to read and write and practically to talk. I am too skeptical. I jump to conclusions too much.

We were headed for Romeo. We [arrived] there and he separated us. He had thirteen missionaries, I think, and there were four of us coming. He wouldn't change Elder Ray. He told him, "If you will call me, I will go wherever you want me to go. But my bishop has called me there and, unless you call me, I am not going. I am going where the bishop sent me." They said, "We [don't] have the right to call you. If you will volunteer, we would like to have you go down 02:21:00there, but if you want, you'll have to go on to the Southern States." That is what he did. He went alone and the four of us went down among the Mexicans.

As I told you before, Elder Fenn was only out about six weeks until he was leading [emotional] the whole Western States mission in accomplishments. He was selling Book of Mormon's right and left. He even held a street meeting and [held] cottage meetings nearly every night. He took over. The other missionary's time was up. There was a lad from somewhere in Idaho. He didn't like the 02:22:00Mexicans. He wouldn't go out and live with them or stay overnight or anything. He would eat with them at noon, but he wasn't going to stay overnight with them. He would walk a half a day out and then walk a half a day back. Elder Fenn wanted me because he knew that I would stay with him. Wherever he went, I would be with him and we could get by cheaper. He told me when he was trying to convert me to go, "I [have] $350.00 and I [have] my wife and children fixed so that they can get by on their own." Down in Pomerini he had managed to [hire] two school teachers and he had his farm rented out and [would] get something out of that in order to take care of [his wife]. He had the $350.00 and where he was going to get [more] after that he didn't know either. He told me, "What you can get a hold of, I will divide it with you and we'll go just as far as we can. 02:23:00When it's all gone we will stop and go to work." You could go to work anywhere then. World War [I] was going on and there was [a] demand for every [skill] that we had. He said, "We will go to work, and when we can accumulate a little, we will go back and report [for] duty again."

It didn't work out just that way. The ward that I left sent me $52.00 and my brother, Roy, sent me $40.00. With what I had, I had about $225.00 of my own. We went out to Romeo and President Pratt divided us there and gave me Elder Farnsworth [who] had practically been raised in Colonia Dublan. He could talk the language fluently. He had a wife and five children. He had them [living] in 02:24:00Provo [Utah County, Utah]. Elder Fenn [was teamed with] Elder Stevens from Idaho. He was kind of a high-toned fellow. He hadn't gone out and roughed it much in his lifetime. When his time was up [and he was] about ready to be released, he was in Santa Fe [New Mexico] and I was with Elder Farnsworth over in Las Vegas, New Mexico. He had just trained me to where I [had] confidence enough that I could pray and sing and maybe talk a little bit. Elder Fenn was holding all these cottage meetings and the reports were going in and then they would send the entire bunch of reports back to us. Elder Farnsworth felt like he was kind of down the line ─ about second or third in accomplishments next to 02:25:00Elder Fenn. He was training me as fast as he could to get me where he could use me.

We didn't go out tracting on Sundays. In fact, we ran off a little early on Saturday afternoons and did our washing for the week. On Sundays, we [would] just lie around and rest. We had never been out to stay overnight either. But anytime they showed up with Mexican food I could eat it right along with the rest of them. I liked it! I like it yet today! Elder Fenn told him, "He is going home. I wish you would send me Elder Bundy. We [don't have] very much money and 02:26:00we will go out in the country and do country work and get by cheap." That is one thing they required of us back in 1916 ─ that you go without purse or scrip if they could get you to do it; go out and live with the people day and night. We lived up to the mission rules. All the time we were in their homes and around with them, we were setting an example and preaching the gospel. The greatest accomplishment was [the number of The] Book of Mormon sold. President Pratt told us, "If you can leave a [copy of The] Book of Mormon in a home and leave the impression that it is true, you have left them the gospel. If they don't read it, you are in the clear with them anyway. They are left without an excuse." 02:27:00Elder Fenn was a professional at selling [The] Book of Mormon. On his third mission (he has filled ten of them now among the Spanish-speaking people), they called him down to Corpus Christi [Texas] for a six-month mission. The Southern Arizona Stake was [paying] the expenses. He went down there and went right to work. He had already had two other missions. He went down to Mexico City [and] his son was born while he and I were in the field in the beginning. They sent him out there to Corpus Christi. He sold 600 [copies of The] Book of Mormon the first six months he was out there. He said after that he [was] so busy he forgot to keep track. He didn't know how many he sold.

Two other missions borrowed him to train new missionaries as they came out [on] how to tract and hold cottage meetings. He said he labored with 300 02:28:00missionaries. You can see he was in big demand.

FH:[He was] a powerful missionary.

OB:That blessing that President Penrose pronounced on him was still holding.

FH:Did you go with Elder Fenn?

OB:Yes. President Pratt sent me a letter and told me, "Elder Stevens is going home. Elder Walsh has come from Colonia Dubri just coming into the field and he can talk the language. I will send him to Elder Farnsworth. You go over to Santa Fe with Elder Fenn." I read the letter and handed it over to Elder Farnsworth. 02:29:00He was concerned [why] the letter had come to me, the junior companion, instead of him, the senior companion. When he [read] the part [that] said for me to go over there, I could see his countenance, it really dropped. He finished reading it, looked up at me and said, "All he has [had me do] is [to] break in broncos. When I [teach] them to work, then he has shifted them off to somebody else."

Elder Fenn [was] already leading the mission. It made him feel [quite] dismal. He didn't exactly like Elder Walsh. He had been raised with him down there. [He was] a good fellow. He told me, "He's a good fellow. He is able to go right to work because he knows the language. But, in some way, I don't exactly like him." 02:30:00He kind of detested losing me.

They tried to separate Elder Farnsworth and me up at Taos [New Mexico] once when they held a little missionary conference there. I wasn't there when the meeting started. Elder Allred, I and Elder Ivey went up to see the old Indian hogans. We were gone and they called [the missionaries] in and paired them off to make a change. When we came back, he told us about it. I told him, "I don't like the idea." The man he sent me to go with was a good man. He was a big fellow. He was a good man but, [in] some way, I didn't fancy him. I told him, "I don't think 02:31:00you did a fair thing with us to hold this meeting and pair us off [when] we weren't here." He said, "Well, that wasn't quite the fair thing. But you have been on the freight road. You know how [to] take a steady horse and put him in with the bunch and he will be a benefit to [the] team of four or six. You can take a bronco and put him in with a lot of steady goers and right away he turns out to be a good freight horse." I said, "Yes, and you can put him in there and he upsets the whole outfit sometimes." [Laughter] I don't know whether he couldn't come back or he thought he better not come back. He said, "Maybe we better reconsider it. You stay with Elder Farnsworth and I will put Elders Ivey and Allred back together." So that cleared [the matter] up. I stuck up for Elder 02:32:00Farnsworth. I wanted him and he wanted me. He didn't want to separate for this other missionary and I didn't want to separate either. When this letter came telling me to go over to Santa Fe, that just topped him off.

I went over to Santa Fe and Elder Fenn and I went out in the afternoon and did a little tracting. I never led out. Elder Farnsworth took me along and I [had] heard the introductions to pamphlets enough that I understood it and knew how to give it. But he never pushed me out to take the lead. When I [was] over there with Elder Fenn, that was the first thing he wanted to do [to] start me off on my own. Most of the language I studied [was] the Tonas grammar which was the recommended grammar for the missionaries at that time. Elder Fenn already knew 02:33:00the language from being among them so much. We wouldn't agree on lots of words. I used them like I learned them in the grammar and it sounded odd to him. He told me, "They don't know what you are talking about." I didn't know any other. All I could do was use the grammar language. We didn't get along very well on that point.

We went out the first afternoon. The next day he said, "There is an Indian pueblo down here on the Rio Grande [River]. Let's pack our suitcases and go down there and see what we can find." I think it would take us a day and a half or two days at the most to get down there. We packed our suitcases and left Santa Fe with $.13 between us. We each had a dozen [copies of The] Book of Mormon, a 02:34:00hundred tracts, a change of underwear and socks. That is about all we could cram in our suitcases.

[END OF TAPE THREE -- SIDE ONE]

OB:The first afternoon [we were] out of [the] sight of Santa Fe a little way. We had success. We went into farmhouses [and] he would give them his talk. He was strong on telling them about The Book of Mormon and their ancient forefathers. He had that down pat. He did interest them. We [started] to go further down and, all of a sudden, there were no more houses in sight. We turned around and went lower down on a creek bed and there was a house setting up on a point of the hill that we hadn't been able to see. He said, "We better go up there and see if 02:35:00we can find someplace to stay tonight." We went up there [and] the man was an Austrian. He had married a Mexican woman. They [spoke] Spanish. He had built a new house up there by the side of the old house. They were still living in the old house because the new one was not finished enough to move into it. Elder Fenn started to talk to him and he just swept that fellow off his feet. He didn't give him a chance to say, "No, we can't keep you." By the time he [was] through talking to him, he was just simply sold. We were welcome to stay there. He would have to put us in the new house but it was alright. He said, "We will have supper in awhile." Of course, Elder Fenn just kept talking [to him about the] gospel, telling him one thing or another. Lots of things he had experienced as a [boy] down in Sonora interested them. He was a good talker.

After supper, we [were] ready to go to bed. He took us up to this new house and lit a lamp. There was a wash pan and a big pitcher in it, but there was no water in the pitcher. But we didn't notice that. He told us, "Be at home here. You are alright." Then he bid us good night and [left]. After a little while, he remembered there was no water in that pitcher and he came back. When he came back, we were kneeling at the bedside having our evening prayer. That sold him more. He had no worry. Way out like that, there was a chance for us to have been robbers. Those things had [entered] their minds. But this man, I don't think, 02:37:00had any suspicions of us. If he did, when he found us there praying, that settled it all. The next morning we got up and had breakfast, sang a song or two, talked and joked with them. We bid them goodbye and went on down the country. That is the way we went for the nine months that I was with him.

Many places we went to, the night before we would hold a cottage meeting there and get up the next morning and leave some of them in tears. We never [went] back. He just kept us going and scouting around to find different places and what the conditions were to have the gospel preached in their home or to send other missionaries to follow up.

After we had been out together for quite a long time, we would get to wrangling a little bit over the language and one thing and another. They sent us down to 02:38:00San Mercel [New Mexico]. San Mercel was the last place on the Rio Grande [River] before it came to the Elephant Butte Dam [New Mexico]. The railroad leaves the river valley there and cuts across Las Cruces [New Mexico]. It goes across the bench line there for forty miles. About halfway between, the road went out to the Elephant Butte Dam. We had never seen a dam. They called us to Las Cruces for conference. When [the train came] down about to San Mercel where we were, we got on. There were eight of us and we decided right then we were going to take off and go see that Elephant Butte Dam. It was really something in those days.

We got off [the train] about two o'clock in the morning out on the desert. There 02:39:00was just a little railroad station and a café. You paid whatever he wanted to [charge] for your food. It was high. We ate and then headed off seven miles, I think it was. Maybe it was fifteen miles to the Elephant Butte Dam. We saw it all in a group. When we started to leave, we split up. Two went one side of the river, two down another road so as to cover all the ground we could trying to give out tracts. [We would] just talk a few minutes and give tracts as we went on toward Las Cruces.

The rest of the missionaries were there when we arrived in Las Cruces. He gave us a bunch of instructions. That was about the third conference we had had in 02:40:00about fifteen months' time we had been out there. During World War I, it was [quite] hard for them to make calculations and do things like they can now. They couldn't get over the ground and they didn't have things down pat like they [have] them in the mission fields now.

After the conference, he sent me with Elder Walsh and sent Elder Fenn with Elder Ivey. Elder Walsh and I headed back for Las Vegas, New Mexico. I think Elder Ivey and Elder Fenn went out toward Fiera, New Mexico. During the time they were 02:41:00out there, Elder Fenn sneaked home. They worked all through New Mexico and into Arizona. Benson [Arizona] is not very far from the New Mexico line. He sneaked home and went to his wife in the evening without her knowing he was in the country. [Laughter] They had a new baby that was four or five months old that he had never seen. He couldn't stand it any longer. He swept her off her feet and these two lady missionaries stood back [emotional] to take in the picture when she recognized him.

In the Rio Grande country, the sun shone bright. It was cold at night, but that 02:42:00old sun on the alkali formations that are up and down the Rio Grande would tan you. We wore derby hats quite a bit. Finally, I got a big old wide-rimmed hat and wore it. We were not pinned down to any missionary apparel like they were in other missions.

Elder Fenn and I stayed together nine months. We went down to the Indian pueblo and learned that they had twelve councilmen. They weren't called high councilmen. There were twelve councilmen and a governor. He worked more or less under the judgment of these twelve councilors. We went into the town Sunday afternoon. We went across the steel bridge across the Rio Grande [River] over to 02:43:00the northwest side of the river. The first thing we did was [look] up the governor to get permission to tract the place. Elder Fenn [knew] quite a bit about these kinds of things. He took us right in. He told us, "I can give you my consent, but if you are going to stay here very long, I should call the rest of them in and get the judgment of the twelve of them. As far as this afternoon and maybe a while in the morning, go ahead." So we stayed all night with him.

I saw the first penitentes. It is a secret organization [of flagellants that 02:44:00exists among the Spanish people of New Mexico]. They climb up a ladder and go down in there. There are no doorways into it. They whip themselves [thinking] they are doing penance; they are sharing the suffering the Savior went through. It is sort of a religious outfit, but yet it is a cruel outfit. It is a secret outfit. Nobody is allowed in there, but one fellow we were acquainted with got in before the [ritual] started. He hid behind some barrels [and] saw the whole [event]. He told us they had a mallet made out of ose with a rawhide or leather strap on the end of it. They would slice one another until the blood would come and carried on to beat the band. [A] friend of his hid him in there and told him not to make a move. He didn't until it was all [over] and they had left. Then he got out and crawled over the wall and left. We found out that much about it.

We headed on down the river and we knew we couldn't follow the river down to the next town without crossing it. The river went up against a [bluff] and there was 02:45:00no way to get by [except] to go across the bridge. This was February 13. He had heard of a Mexican with a broken leg [who was] down along the same side [of the] Indian pueblo. His leg had been set but it hadn't healed. He couldn't go back across the bridge and go down the other side without seeing that fellow. We went down about three or four miles to get to where he was.

We were [very] close to where the bluff came in and the river went against the bluff. We couldn't do anything [except] go out on the desert for another five or six or eight miles and skip another town. He wouldn't do that. We [went] down there and stayed all night with that man. They made us [feel] at home and fed us 02:46:00beans and tortillas. That was good enough. Of course, it had chili in it, too, to flavor it up a little.

The next morning [when] we [were ready] to go, I looked and saw how far it was back to [the] Indian pueblo. The other one down the river was about the same distance. He said, "Let's go down and see if we can find a shallow place and wade [the river]." It [was] high out there [and] 6,000 or 7,000 feet above sea level. It was February 13 [and quite] a doggone hard thing to do. We went down and found a place where the water was just starting to go over a rapid. It was only about this deep. We figured if we got up there far enough, we could get across easy before we went into the rapid. We took our clothes off, tied them in 02:47:00knots, tied them on us, took our suitcases, which were already half empty, on our shoulders and made it across. When we got over there, he said, "According to good hygiene, we should bathe all over, not just up to here. Let's jump back 02:48:00in." So we did that and it was a foolish thing to do. We took that little bath and went on.

We got to Santo Domingo [Pueblo, New Mexico] in the evening. It was starting to snow a little bit. There were a lot of Old Mexico Mexicans living there working on the railroad. They were living in boxcars. The next Indian town was down about a mile and a half further. The Mexicans told us, "You can't do much with the Indians. They are all Catholics and they won't pay [any] attention." But we knew better than that because we had stayed in this other [place] and the governor treated us alright. He started to solicit a place for us to stay with those Old Mexico Mexicans in these boxcars. He [went] around about three or four 02:49:00places. Finally an old man told us, "You can come in here. We have to keep a little fire in the stove. We have plenty of coal. The railroad furnished us with plenty of coal. There is a mattress in there. We can spare a blanket, maybe two of them. With your overcoats, you can keep warm."

We went in there and it was stuffy and I started to have a sore throat. He slept away alright, but I put in a [very] tough night. The next morning he wanted to go back up to where we had come from because he had heard of a few more houses up there that we had missed. So we had to go back up there. I suffered with this sore throat and bad cold all that day. That night, we [came] back to the Santo Domingo Indian Pueblo where the Santa Fe Railroad [meets] the Rio Grande.

As we went in there, the houses were all built to face south with just a little window or two and hardly [any] doors on the north side. In the wintertime they suffer with [the] cold. The sun shines a lot out there but the cold north winds blow and sometimes it snows quite a bit. As we went into that town, we couldn't see anybody. There was a north wind blowing. We didn't see anybody [except] a [child] or two. Finally, we cornered a [child] and asked him where everybody was. He said, "My father is around there in that building skinning a skunk." Alvey asked him, "Could we go see him?" "Oh yes, you can go see. I will take you around there." He took us around there and this Indian was skinning a skunk. I had read about the Indians eating dead horses and cattle that had been killed on 02:51:00the railroad. They eat dogs, and the first thing that struck both of our minds was he was skinning that skunk to eat. I didn't know anything about shipping furs then. We asked him where the governor lived. He told us, "Down there, but I have an [older] boy that has gone to take a horse to pasture. As soon as he comes back, I will send him down with you to the governor's place."

[The] boy came back quickly and he took us down there. Elder Fenn told him [who] we were, what we were doing, that we had a book that was a record of their ancient forefathers and we wanted to tract the place. He said, "I have twelve councilmen and I have to get consent from them before I can give you 02:52:00permission." He said, "Where are you staying?" We said, "We will stay wherever anybody will take us." He said, "Stay right here, then. I have plenty of room and plenty to eat. You are welcome to stay right here. I will call in my councilmen this evening."

We just relaxed there. He had two or three boys and sent them out to notify [the] councilmen. Just about dusk, eleven out of the twelve [councilmen] came stringing in. One of them was out of town. Then a funny thing, to me, [happened]. Elder Fenn started to explain about The Book of Mormon to [an] old Indian in Spanish. The Indian put it in Indian language to them. Most of the councilmen either didn't understand English or Spanish or at least they wouldn't 02:53:00let on that they did. Elder Fenn would tell the governor [and] he would tell [the] councilmen in Indian. We didn't know what was going on when he was talking Indian, but he was telling them all about it. There was a good spirit there. Those people were honest people and the spirit of the Lord was there. You could feel it. After the meeting was over, some of them took a [copy of The] Book of Mormon and went home.

As we sat there talking to the governor, it was still early in the evening. The nights were long. He gave us supper and showed us where a good bed was and we were all set for the night. He said, "The young folks over there in another room are having a birthday party. Would you like to go in there and watch them 02:54:00awhile?" We said, "Yes, we would like to." He took us in there. There was a bunch, seventeen to twenty, youngsters from fourteen years [of age] up to twenty years old. They were dancing. They were dancing a dance, as near as I can explain, it like the Virginia Reel. They went back and forth and were dancing. It was amusing. It was the first one we had ever seen. I had never seen a Virginia Reel [dance before]. I had danced quadrilles in Mexico but I didn't know what a Virginia Reel was. I think this thing was an offshoot of the Virginia Reel. They had picked it up and altered it a little bit.

We watched them awhile. He said, "Shall we go?" I said, "Anytime you want. I bet 02:55:00a nickel I could go out there and dance with them." He said, "Do you want to?" I said, "I don't want to." It was Sunday night and missionaries were barred from dances anyway. The more he thought about that, the more fidgety he [became]. He got up after awhile and told the governor who was standing there, "My companion wants to dance with them. Do you think it would be alright?" He said, "Sure, it would be alright." He got up before the bunch of them and told them that I wanted to dance. So there I was on the spot: break the mission rules and dance on Sunday night besides! I thought [about it] for a little while [and] then I thought, they sure will have me hitched up to be a funny fellow if I don't go out and dance. When the next set started, I got up and [found] a little squaw and danced two or three times. I sure made a hit. I was pretty good looking and 02:56:00single then. I made a hit with that bunch of Indians!

We only stayed there a little while. The next morning, he gave us our breakfast. A funny thing took place that I must not leave out. He told us we would go in the other room and have breakfast. When we went in there, they set [up] a little table that they could move around about this square. It was set for three. They were honoring us to eat with the governor only and not the family. On the plate were round legs that looked just like [the] skunk's legs! The first thought that hit us both was they had cooked that skunk for us. He had beans and tortillas. 02:57:00Of course, he had coffee but we didn't drink coffee; we had water. The first thing he did was [to] pick up the plate, get a piece of meat and hand it to Elder Fenn. He looked the plate over and [found] the littlest piece he could and put it on his plate and handed it to me. I took a piece and then set it down. We went ahead eating beans and tortillas which was generally the bulk of a meal. First thing I knew, I saw Elder Fenn cutting. He cut his piece into little bits and pieces and was still cutting. He never put a [piece] to his mouth. The thought to him was that it was a skunk and the thought to me was [the same]. But we couldn't [talk about it] there with the Indian. I thought to myself, doggone that old Indian. He is eating that like it was good. I am going to tackle it. So I cut into it and it tasted alright. I thought: if it is skunk, from now on I will eat skunks! When the Indian passed it around the next time, Elder Fenn said, "I have plenty." He never tasted it. When it came around to me, I took another piece and proceeded to eat it.

We stayed there at the table talking for quite awhile. Elder Fenn was taking the lead all the time and I was gazing around the place. Over by the stove there sat a half of a white turkey. Its wings from the elbows down, the feathers and all were there, and I could see where she had sliced that meat off of the breast as well as the legs on the plate, too. Elder Fenn has it recorded in his book to this day that it was a skunk and I know just as well as I know anything that it wasn't a skunk. A fresh-killed turkey, or anything like that, fried right away the meat is a little bit spongy. You can try it with your own turkey anytime. It is just a bit spongy and may be a little bit tough. But it was turkey and I know 02:59:00it was.

We headed down to a Mexican town by the name of Sandia [New Mexico which means] Guatemala. By this time I had [recovered] from my cold and Elder Fenn was coming down with his. Oh, he was sick. He had a high fever, awful headache and sore throat. He was really in bad shape. When we [arrived] there, it was Sunday. The Mexicans weren't very friendly like they [had been] in lots of places. We went on down part way through the town and ran into a white man, an old bachelor. He was sitting at his table eating chicken. He had a whole fried chicken. Elder Fenn was so sick that I don't think he cared much. He told him, "We travel like the apostles of old and depend on people to feed us and give us beds." The old 03:00:00fellow just sat there eating away. He didn't invite us or anything. We left there and started on.

The Mexicans would tell us [about] one place and another. We began to inquire 03:01:00where we might stay because Fenn was sick. We had never lain out yet and this was about ten days we had been out on the hospitality of the people all the time. We began to inquire about a place to stay and they kept telling us [about] quite a rich old man down below town, a little ways, with a grist mill. He was a Protestant and he would be apt to take us in. We kept working the town a little bit as we went down there and had that in mind. We got down to where the houses were all pinched out. We went by a house that was sitting up on the hill. I don't know why we didn't see that house. It was sitting back a way away from the road and up on the hillside. We went by and down to the old fellow's place. He told us, "I'm sorry but I [have] two of my children with their families here and 03:02:00we [have] some sickness. We just have no place [where] we can take you in." That meant that we had to go back to [the] town that we had been tracting and try to get a place to stay.

We went back up to the edge of this town and went into a little draw and kneeled down and prayed. I mean we prayed, too, because it was cold and getting dark. We came up out of that draw and there was that house sitting up there. We had gone by it twice. They [perhaps] didn't have a light on when we went by [the first time]. But it had a light on. We went up there and told her our story, that we travel like the apostles of old and we had this book and so on and we were looking for a place to stay. She told us about the man with the grist mill. We told her that we had been down there and he had two of his families there with a 03:03:00lot of children and he couldn't possibly take us. She said, "My husband is here with a broken leg on the floor in front of the fireplace. I can give you blankets and you can lie there with him. That is where he has been for a week or two," lying there with that leg trying to get it to mend. She turned and asked him [if] she should invite us in. He said, "Yes, tell them to come in."

We went in and she fixed us supper. We administered to him which we did a lot of in those times. We administered to one [person] up across the river that had [a] broken leg. He told us before we [left] there, "I feel at ease [and] better than I have since my leg was broken." She came out with blankets and quilts and spread them down close to him, close enough to the fire and [brought] a lot of wood in to keep the fire going. When it was time to go to bed, she said, "You get up on the bed. The children and I will sleep here with my husband." We said, "No. We are young men. We have been raised in Mexico. We know how to take hard [knocks] as well as you do. You get back up there on your bed." [Emotional] She 03:04:00said, "No." We argued with her for quite a little spell but she won out. We got up on the bed and stayed.

[END OF TAPE THREE -- SIDE TWO]

OB:That makes me think of another time. I [have] to tell this because it won't come in the story anywhere else. A young elder came from Mexico up to Manassa [Colorado] where President [Ray L.] Pratt lived. He managed to get out to us [so we could] take him down the country to put him with another elder. We left this family the next morning and he [was] feeling alright. They drank in the gospel to beat the band. All we had were chili, beans and tortillas, but we were used 03:05:00to it. I liked them then and I like them yet.

We went on down and got another Mexican boy. He was only a boy, too. He was about twenty-one years old. He came from down in the interior of Mexico. We went down through another Mexican town and the three of us managed to stay that night. Then we went across the [Rio Grande] River again to another Indian and Mexican town combined. This little fellow knew a lot of history that his grandfather told him. He said, "We had plates and we wrote our history until the Spaniards came and conquered us and destroyed all that kind of [information]. My grandfather told me about these things when I was a small boy. The story of The 03:06:00Book of Mormon is true. There is nothing unordinary about it."

We went over to another Indian town to see the governor. He had been back to Carlyle [Indian School, Carlyle, Pennsylvania]. He was a highly educated Indian. He had been back there and [was] educated for the purpose to come out and do what he could for his people, the Pueblo Indians. They took us in wholeheartedly. We had supper. There was a bed there with quite a big straw tick on it. They generally [used] straw ticks or [corn] shucks for the interior of a mattress. They didn't have mattresses. They had these kinds of mattresses. We stayed up there at that place until eleven o'clock. It was cold outside but we 03:07:00were in around [the] fireplace and we were alright.

When it was time to go to bed, the old governor said, "You three sleep up on that bed." We said no, we would be alright on the floor. "No, we want to honor you by giving you that bed." [Laughter] We got up on that bed and it had five slats [under] it, five one by fours or two by fours. I don't know which it was. When we [put] our weight on it [the] shucks [bogged] down between and you could feel every one of those slats. Oh boy, we put in a tough night! The Mexican boy was quite short and he curled up and kept warm with the bedding and the heat of the fireplace. We really put in a tough night but we couldn't do anything about it.

We went on down to Albuquerque [New Mexico] and we got [quite] brave and held a 03:08:00street meeting. We were around Albuquerque for a couple or three weeks. There was another Indian Pueblo down at Isleta [New Mexico]. That is where the Santa Fe Railroad starts to cut across the desert to go to Kingman, Arizona. We were [in Isleta] a day or two. They told us about the Pueblo Indians being out at Casa Blanca [New Mexico] forty miles on the desert along the railroad and another little town. I can't remember the other little town. Casa Blanca was the biggest Pueblo Indian town that we had been to. Our ambition was to go out and see those Indians and leave them literature.

We started across [the desert] and there were no houses or anything along the railroad for miles at a stretch. Finally, we caught a train that came by. A local passenger train stopped and picked us up and took us to where there was more population. We got off and walked on. When we [arrived] there, one of the first white men we ran into was a [Bureau of] Indian [Affairs] agent. He was Presbyterian, I think, [and] he welcomed us. He didn't realize that we were Mormons. He welcomed us and told us we could stay at his place. As soon as we 03:10:00[were] by ourselves, I told my partner. "Get your change [ready]. When we leave here in the morning you will have to pay for this. If he finds out [that] we are Mormons, you aren't going to get this lodging for nothing."

We had a pleasant evening with him. A lot [of our conversation] that evening [centered] on religion. The next morning we [had] breakfast. We were adjusted to the Indian town of Casa Blanca. When we [started to leave], Elder Fenn said to him, "We are very much obliged to you." He said, "Obliged doesn't buy groceries and [items] like that. I keep lots of people here and they always pay." Elder Fenn argued with him quite a bit. But he dug up, I don't remember [how much] it was. It wasn't too much, but we dug up [paid] alright for our lodging.

We went [on] to this Indian Pueblo town. It was the first place I had ever been where the Indians had lots of pine nuts. When they built their adobe walls they always left a place about three feet from the floor with a hole to pour pine nuts in the fall of the year. They always kept that replenished and anybody that came in would help themselves to the pine nuts. We sure did enjoy the pine nuts. Neither one of us knew what they were until that time, that I can remember.

We started to work with them but, right away, we found out that scarcely any of the older ones could read Spanish. We were just loaded with Spanish material. The younger ones could all read English. We surveyed the town and got an idea 03:12:00about how many it would take and phoned in to Manassa for them to mail us forty English [copies of] The Book of Mormon as quickly as they could and some English tracts, which they did. We had them nearly all sold and about all we had to do was deliver them. We went over to another little town, which was kind of a string town along where they farmed in the little valley. We finished that work and then started back for the Rio Grande [River], way below Isleta, where we had left it.

There was a branch [railroad] line that took off to meet the main Santa Fe [Railway] line that was coming from the east out in the desert. We followed that 03:13:00branch [line] back. Two sewing machine agents came along and picked us up. They said to us, "What are you doing out here dressed up with suitcases like that?" We told them we were ministers. We were a little smart right there. When we told them ministers, they didn't know what kind of ministers. As soon as we [were] in the car and were [moving], Elder Fenn opened up with [The] Book of Mormon story. They found out right away that we didn't [beat] around the bush [in] letting them know we were Mormons. When we [arrived] at the first little town, he stopped and unloaded us. He said he had a little car trouble and he would have to go down to a garage and we could wait there. [We] were in front of a little ice cream store. [He said] he would come back and pick us up. That was the last we saw of him. That was just to get rid of us!

On that same day, we went on down to a little village [where] a lot of Chihuahua Mexicans were working on the railroad. It was a cold day, too. That old New Mexico country out there is wonderful for sunshiny days but cold north winds would come and it was cold at night.

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OB:We went down to the [railroad] sidings where the Chihuahua Mexicans were living. It was getting towards evening and, as I say, a cold north wind was blowing. It began to look like [there] was a poor chance for a place because nearly all these Mexicans were [living] in boxcars that the railroad furnished them. We began to solicit in one place and another for a place to stay. We [had] 03:15:00supper alright. They voluntarily gave us supper, but where we were going to bunk was a question. Finally, we went to the commissary that was run by a white man. They had provisions in a couple of railcars for these people where they could buy food and clothing. We told the man [the] predicament we were in. However, we went off and had prayer and asked the Lord to provide a way. We had been by this place and had seen this man but he had never done anything about seeing that we had a place to stay. We went back up to his commissary and told him we were up against it. He said, "You can't stay out in this cold tonight. Over there is a 03:16:00tent with a mattress in it." He took about four blankets [off] the shelves and handed them to us and said, "Sleep in them and fold them up and bring them back in the morning. You are welcome to them." That is what we did. With the aid of our overcoats, we slept alright.

My memory has left me [about] where we went from there. We were still out quite a good many miles from the Rio Grande [River]. Whether we cut across and left the railroad that was going down toward San Marsale or not, I just can't remember.

FH:Where was the next place you labored?

OB:We were down on the Rio Grande [River] below Isleta. There is a town called Belén [New Mexico, about] thirty miles below Albuquerque. We went down in there 03:17:00to labor and explore the country. We were a regular team of explorers, Alvey Fenn and myself. Alvey was adventurous and I would follow him. We went down in there working the country as we went down. We went below Belén and headed for San Marsale. That is where the railroad leaves the Rio Grande [River] to cut across. I [took] one side of the railroad and he [took] the other side. We split up with the mission president's permission. We figured we could cover about double the amount of ground.

Dogs were quite a problem to us. Soon he [was] ahead of me a little bit. There was a high railroad grade. There were just a few houses back against the hill. I heard some dogs start to bark over that way so I watched and the dogs came out to meet him. They didn't wait until he got to the house. Three of them came out to meet him. There were three houses and each one of them had a dog. When he would stoop over to get rocks, I couldn't see him. The only time I could see him was when he came up to throw them. I could see the dogs give way and here they would come again. I stood off there and watched the amusement for quite a little while. He decided if they wouldn't call those dogs off, he would shake the dust off of his feet, I guess. I don't know that he did that. He was quite riled up.

We came back together where an irrigation canal went under the railroad. The road was there also. It was along in the middle of the afternoon. We had been sent to go to San Marsale. That was the last town on the Rio Grande [River] before the Elephant Butte Dam took over. When we [arrived] there in the shade of those trees--

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OB:The mosquitoes came swarming right in the daytime. [Alvey Fenn] was freckle-faced, sandy haired and thin skinned at that time. They would land on 03:20:00his hands and he would smack them and the blood would [come] where they had [bit] him. [Laughter] He said, "Let's go back." I said, "No, we are going to San Marsale." He had always lived up to the request of the mission president. I wanted to go back as bad as he did, but I wanted to see just how far I could prod him because he wanted to give up. I said, "No, we are not going back. We are going on to San Marsale to the point where the president told us to go." He kind of argued awhile. I said, "Well, let's go." We went down to a little railroad station that we could see from there. When we got down there, he asked the station man, "How far is it down to [San] Marsale?" He told him. He said, 03:21:00"Are there many houses between here and there?" He said, "No. It is just alkali flats, willows, mesquite and [a] winding road down there." He said to me, "Let's go back." I said, "No. Let's go on down to San Marsale."

He stalled around a little while. We saw off at the foot of a hill [that] the desert came right down to the river. There was no raise. Right back where the desert gravel ceased to come into the valley, there was an old fort. We could see some life up around [the] fort. So we went up there. We went around and came to the gate of the fort. The first thing we saw was two or three crippled [men] in a saloon. We started to tract. We could just feel the spirit of the devil 03:22:00there. There was nothing for us there at all. We couldn't even give tracts away at some places. So we [left] there and went back toward the railroad. He said, "Let's go back." I said, "Well, it looks like we might just as well." [Laughter] 03:23:00So we headed back toward Albuquerque.

When we [were] just below Belén, we were going along a gravel road and I had a pair of shoes that I had when I went out there. [I] had worn a hole in the middle and my foot was on the ground. When I would step, [my foot became] sore after awhile. I saw a sardine can lying by the side of the road and I told him, "Stop a minute. I [have] to repair my shoe." I took my knife and cut the lid off this sardine can and wedged it between the two soles of my shoe and made it work. We went on a little way. A German [who] was purported to be a millionaire came along in a Buick roadster. He stopped [and] said, "Where are you going?" We 03:24:00said, "We want to go to Albuquerque." He said, "Get in."

We got in his car and away we went up the road [at] thirty miles an hour. It seemed like we were flying! The roads were just dirt. We went through a little village and the chickens were out in the road. He went right through those chickens! They got out of the way. Soon we came to a bunch of young hogs. He ran over one of those hogs. He never stopped to pay any attention to that hog or anything else. He took us into Albuquerque and took us to the [most expensive] restaurant there was and gave us our dinner. We knew President Pratt was expecting to come to Albuquerque to pay us a visit. We didn't know anybody would 03:25:00be with him. As we came out of there, we stood on the sidewalk and looked across the street and there was President Pratt and President Herrick of the Western States Mission. I had bought a black wide-rimmed hat. I was tired of [my] derby. But Elder Fenn still had his. Dirty as it was, he still stuck to his derby hat. It sure did let him get sunburned and tanned as much as a man could get down in that country. That altitude surely [allows] you [to] tan.

We went across the street [to] where they were standing in the shade. This was the first time we had ever seen President Herrick. President Pratt made us acquainted with him and he said, "I saw the one missionary when he came out of there but I supposed he was with some old farmer. I couldn't determine [that] 03:26:00another missionary [was] with him with that hat you [have] on."

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OB:I want to [tell] one experience we had down in Isleta. We stayed there overnight with an Indian [who] was almost blind. The next morning he wanted us to administer to him [and] we [did]. We [were] gone about a week, maybe longer, [and] when we came back we called on him. We couldn't just go through the [town] and not call on him. He told us, "I can see better than I have for twelve years." So the administration helped him. He was old. He would have naturally been losing his eyesight anyway. He was all but blind when we stayed with him 03:27:00that night. When we came back, he said, "I can see far better than I have been able to see for twelve years."

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OB:We went up to Del Norte [Colorado] to explore at President Pratt's request. This was when we had been in the field a year. It was October and President Pratt sent us word to come through Manassa and pick up [the supplies] we needed and go on up to San Rafael [New Mexico]. The country was all astir in the fall of the year harvesting potatoes. They sent trainloads of Irish potatoes out of that [area]. [The potatoes] were in big demand in the cities in this country and 03:28:00[for] feeding our army over in Germany and France.

As we went, it had been our custom [for] one [to] take one side of the road or railroad or street. We went out into the country going toward Del Norte about ten miles from Monte Vista [Colorado]. One road separated and went out into the open country but the river and the railroad went up to Del Norte. I [was] behind. There were more houses on my side than there were on his and I [was] behind. When I [arrived] I didn't know where he was and [went along] this open country for a mile or two tracting a little. [There were] mostly all white people out there. Finally, I began to inquire to see if they had seen such a man 03:29:00as he was. They said no. So I came back to this little town. I don't remember the name of the town. [There were] just about a half a dozen or maybe a dozen homes there. Then I started [going] up a road that went by the side of the railroad and soon I [was] picked up by the sewing machine agents. They were my lucky card out there! They picked me up and took me up to Del Norte.

It was getting dusk and I was worried about where I was going to stay, although if I had to, I could have gone to a rooming house. I had sold enough [copies of] The Book of Mormon so that I had some money. I saw a boy come down the

alleyway onto the main street and I hailed him. I said, "Did you see anybody 03:30:00like me, dressed like I am, around [here]?" He said, "Yes, he is up at our place up that alley. He is going to hold a meeting there and stay there all night. I am going down to the grocery store to get some groceries to fix for supper." I said, "Can I go back with you?" He said, "Yes." I went up there and found my companion. We held a good spiritual meeting. Several families came in and filled the house. The next morning we were out of literature of any kind. We thought there was nothing to do but to head back to Manassa to get stocked up again. We went to the place where he sent us to go.

We went back down to this place on his side of the road. As he went up, he 03:31:00apparently missed anybody at home. But over on my side is where I had gotten behind when I went out in this open country. When we were coming back, I got ahead of him. I came across the [railroad] track over on his side to see if they had seen him. They said they hadn't. So I started down the road a ways where I could see some men working unloading potatoes. As I approached, there was a wealthy looking house and I started to go in there. Something said to me, "If I were you, I wouldn't go in there." That is where that still small voice that I was told if I would listen to it I would be guided in the paths of duty and safety. So I passed it up and went out [to] where the two men were unloading 03:32:00potatoes. They [had] heard of us. The father had time to warn them about wolves being among the sheep. They wouldn't have anything to do with the literature. I couldn't even strike up a conversation about raising potatoes!

Presently, [Alvey Fenn] walked up and started to talk to them about raising potatoes and one thing and another. They were snobbish and wouldn't talk to him. We started to leave. He said, "Did you tract this house?" I said, "No. I am not going to," but I didn't tell him why. He put his derby hat on the back of his head and said, "I [will] pass up none of them." He went in and I went back [to] where the road crossed the railroad, over on my side of the railroad [tracks]. I 03:33:00was just about parallel from where he was but the railroad [track] was between us. [I was] talking to a young Mexican [who] was a ranger and could speak good English. I was speaking Spanish to him. Presently, Alvey Fenn walked up and there was blood all down his clothes. A big welt was coming on his jaw.

He told us he went in that place and they were just getting ready to eat. About four men were in there. He told them what he was doing and they told him that they were Catholic and they didn't believe in the kind of [information] we were 03:34:00preaching. Elder Fenn bore his testimony to them. The man of the house came out to the door and asked him if he believed what Christ taught. Elder Fenn told him yes. The fellow said, "Christ taught if they swat you on one side, turn the other." So Elder Fenn allowed him to slap him on one side. Then he turned the other side and hit him on the jaw and made a big welt. With that, he came out into the yard. He figured Alvey wouldn't fight or he wasn't after fighting. He kicked him [in] the muscle of [his] leg, put a welt on [his] forehead and broke his nose. He still couldn't knock Elder Fenn down. We figured that was his idea. 03:35:00He had knocked Elder Fenn's suitcase out of his hand and it flew open. The literature that he had fell out. He knocked his glasses and his hat off. There was a claw hammer lying in the yard. The Mexican went to pick up [the] claw hammer and came up like he was going to hit him on the head. Elder Fenn said up to that time he hadn't had time to call upon the Lord. He said, "Oh Lord, you will have to help me." He said that man walked up to him just ready to hit him on the head and he went just as pale as a sheep. The hammer fell out of his hand. It fell at his back and he staggered back into the house. Elder Fenn came through the fence over to where I was instead of going up around where the road crossed. He just cut straight through.

[END OF TAPE FOUR -- SIDE ONE]

OB:This Mexican was [quite] put out about it. He said, "Let's go back over there." I said, "Yes, let's do." Elder Fenn said, "No. We will just leave this up to the Lord. I never came out here to fight. I had my mind made up that I wouldn't fight. The Lord will have to take care of the thing. I don't want us to get beat up worse than we are." There were four of them and only three of us and Elder Fenn would [have] been knocked out.

I saw Elder Fenn when he was a rough buckaroo down in Sonora [Mexico] on the freight road. He could have whipped all four of those men. [If] he had made up his mind to fight them, he would have laid them out in a short time. That was my opinion of him.

We started to go on our way down toward Monte Vista. Elder Fenn had been kicked 03:37:00on the muscle of his leg and it gone so stiff [that] he could only pull [his] leg up even with the other one and then take a step out. We were going down along the railroad [and] we made about three miles of the seven that were [between] this place and Monte Vista. There were a bunch of Mexicans and two houses that we had skipped as we were going up. I told him, "You stay on the road and I will go alone there and tract those Mexicans and [the] other two houses. He stayed on the main road [and] I went down and tracted the houses. I was following the railroad on toward Monte Vista. There was quite a gang of Mexicans with a potato digger. [They were] digging and sacking potatoes. There 03:38:00were five of them on the upper end of the field. The boss and another man [were] down on the lower end [working on the] potato digger. I started to talk to these fellows. [One] looked up and motioned me to go on because I was holding them up from their potato digging. But I didn't go right on. Soon he motioned me to get out of there. I started to go a little bit and [was] talking to those fellows. He started to come on the run [toward me]. They told me, "He is a mean man. We would advise you to go on." I went on. I knew I could outrun him if he [came] within a rod of me. I went on anyway.

I [came] down to Monte Vista. We had stayed there one night before we went up to 03:39:00Del Norte. [There was] a friendly family that we knew we could go back and stay with all night. When I [came] into town, it was after sundown and almost dusk. I didn't know where I would find him, whether I would have to go across the town to this place or where. As I was going down the sidewalk, I saw a swarm of Mexicans down on a corner. I went down there and here was Elder Fenn talking the gospel to them with his jaw swollen up. A sewing machine agent came along and picked him up and took him in to Monte Vista to the hospital. They patched his nose up. It didn't cost him anything. He [came] out and he was watching for me 03:40:00because he knew what part of the town I would [be] in. He was talking to these fellows and the same man that ran me out of the [potato] field was in the bunch. He had a car and came in there ahead of me. He beat me in there and he was listening to what Elder Fenn was saying about The Book of Mormon. [He was] very interested. When he saw me, he apologized. He said, "There are all kinds of agents here that hold up my men. I didn't know you were a religious man or I wouldn't have ordered you off like I did." I told him I was used to that and not to let that bother him.

After a little while, we decided we would hold a meeting. We [went] out on the streets of Monte Vista and sang a song. One of us prayed and then we sang another song. He always poked me out to talk first. He was the senior elder 03:41:00although I went to the field first. He was two years older, married and settled down with a lot better judgment than I had. I could get up and tell them first one thing about the gospel and then another and cover a lot of subjects but stick to none of them. He always seemed to get what he was going to preach about out of my introduction and then he would take over and give them a good sermon. [He would] stick to one point.

We stayed all night and then left Monte Vista the next morning. We headed out -- I can't remember the name of that little town. It was an American town. It is where the narrow gauge [railroad] comes from Santa Fe. When we [went] back to 03:42:00that town, there were a lot of Latter-day Saints there. They were having Mutual [Improvement Association]. There was nothing to do [so] we went to Mutual. There were two lady missionaries there and one of them was Mrs. Syphus up here. She was Effie Blazzard then. The other young woman lived in that part of the country or at least fell in love while she was on her mission. Afterwards, [she] married and stayed right in that town. We stayed there a day or two, just long enough to get used to American food.

We struck out again for Questa, New Mexico going toward Casa Blanca, a 14,000 03:43:00foot mountain that is snow-capped year round. There was a little town over at the foot of [the mountain] and we struck off through there. It was fifteen miles over there. I was about [worn] out when we [arrived] there. Elder Fenn was bow-legged but he was tougher than I was. He could outwalk me. We were [very] tired when we [arrived] there. As soon as we got there, [it was] maybe an hour or an hour and a half before sundown; they told us that news had come over the wire that President [Woodrow] Wilson had declared war on Germany [April 1917]. The people, both Mexicans and white people, were [rather] stirred up about it. They were about equal in population.

As we very often had done, we hunted up the trustees to get permission to hold a 03:44:00meeting in the schoolhouse. We did that and named a time to hold the meeting. While we were waiting for the time to come, both Americans and Mexicans collected. Elder Fenn had never talked to American people. I wasn't first class at talking to the Mexican people, but I had a little story that I had told so many times I had it perfected. When the time came, he said, "You talk in English to these American people and I will talk in Spanish to the Mexican people." That is [how] we held about an hour or an hour and ten minute meeting, mixed Spanish and English songs and all.

Then we went from there toward Questa, New Mexico. That was my first place of 03:45:00labor with Elder Farnsworth. There was an old lady there and she [had] belonged to the church in her younger days. She had a granddaughter that had read The Book of Mormon and she believed in it. In fact, I think she joined the church. She was in love with a young fellow that had a little Indian blood in him. She herself was mixed with Spanish [blood]. They wanted Elder Fenn to marry them [and] we [did]. About four or five years ago, they came through here and came to see me. I was [away]. They told my folks that Elders Fenn and Bundy had 03:46:00converted them, married them and they had come to see me. I regret that I wasn't here.

Elder Fenn had a great big gold band ring he wore on his second middle finger. When he would go up to a place and knock, it very often was a cedar post for a door frame, he could make a noise with that [ring]. I couldn't make a noise with my bare fist. My knuckles would hurt too much to pound that post. When we would be around Latter-day Saints, he would make a knock like I would make and then he would make fun of me. People wouldn't come [to the door] and I would go on. I said, "Yes, and when he knocks so hard, they figure we have come to tear the house down so they naturally come to the door." This girl gave me a gold band 03:47:00ring then. She had had it for years. I think she said an old lady or her grandmother had had it in her younger days and gave it to her. She gave it to me so that I would have something to make a little more noise with!

We went to Questa and stayed there about a day. As we left there to go to Taos, we ran onto a German fellow [who] had a mineral detector, like a plumb bob. It had mineral on the inside and a string you could hold up. If there were minerals in [the ground], it would start pointing in that direction. You would keep following it up. They had found a mine out there with that instrument. It had 03:48:00been made in Germany.

FH:That is very similar to a divining rod.

OB:Yes, I suppose so. This man and his Mexican wife were living there and [he] was the owner of this mine. It was working a little bit. We went on down to Rio Hondo, Deep River [New Mexico]. [It was] a little town down quite a narrow canyon where two canyons come together. There was a little circus outfit. I don't know what you call it. It was a man, his wife and his boy and they lived in a wagon. He could cut all kinds of capers. He could put his head between his legs and stand on his hands. It was very entertaining. He and she together 03:49:00pulled off a little stage [program] for about thirty minutes. They came into this town and we naturally ran into them and talked to them awhile. He said, "I want to hold a [program] here. I need both of you. I need one of you to take tickets as the late ones come in and one of you to usher the people to their seats." So we did that. He paid us. We didn't ask for any pay, but he wanted us to have pay. In fact, he wanted to help us. He was [interested] in what we were doing. He was big hearted. I have never seen anybody that could tie himself in as many knots and positions as that fellow from that day until this, although there are some [fairly] limber [fellows]. To me, it seemed like he was the best yet.

We held a meeting at Rio Hondo and then went on to Taos. When we got to Taos, Elder John Whitten was there. He had served in the missionary work a lot, even down in Old Mexico where they [were] run out. We had a place. We would stay over sometimes a day or two and wash our clothes and rest up when we would find places where it was convenient. We stayed there for a day or two and then headed on toward Las Vegas, New Mexico.

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OB:I [came] into Eureka [Juab County, Utah] in the spring of 1916. I [was on] 03:51:00the hose team and met my wife [Rowena Whitmore]. Then I [was] called to the mission field and went to Salt Lake [City] and went out to the mission field. I kept writing to my wife although we didn't have anything settled between us. I kept writing to her for over a year after I [went] out there. We would send our letters through the mission home headquarters in Denver [Colorado] which was the regulation for missionaries in those times. All of a sudden, no letter came. I thought, well, I am here and there and it [was] lost or it hasn't caught up with me. I wrote and told her, "I haven't [received] an answer to my last letter." I waited for about two weeks or more and still none came. I thought, well, I had lost two good girls before that. The first one about broke my heart and then the 03:52:00next one cracked it again. I thought, well, this is the end of the third one. I guess she has married or gone back on me. I wrote on a piece of paper, "Goodbye if you call that gone," and put it in a big business envelope and sent it to her.

She was in Eureka. All [this] time, her letters were coming back. The two or three letters she had written had come back to her and she knew I wasn't getting them. I was writing to her and wrote this because I figured that she quit. Out of the blue sky, how she came to do it I don't know unless there was inspiration in back of it. I had mailed her a letter from [Costilla, New Mexico] a year or 03:53:00more before that. She addressed a letter to me to Costilla, New Mexico. Elder Fenn and I were coming through there on our [way] to some place. I don't remember where we were headed. We were coming through there and he went in to see if there was mail from his wife. They kept a constant correspondence up independent of the mission house. They did from the beginning. He went in and [asked if] there was any mail for Elder Fenn. The postmaster said, "No. There is a letter here for Elder Bundy. Do you know anything about him?" He said, "Yes, he is out here." He handed him the letter. She was explaining to me that she had 03:54:00sent all these letters and they had come back to her. So I had to write and tell her that I hadn't [received] any and why I did what I did. We sailed along alright after that.

FH:Did you ever find out why the letters went back to her?

OB:No, never to this day. I was working in Las Vegas, New Mexico again in June 1918. My companion went home and I was waiting there for Elder Stevens to come out. He had been raised in Mexico and knew the language like he knew English. 03:55:00Before I [was] with him, I contracted an infirmity that I have never [overcome] to this day. They released me on those grounds. As I was coming home, I went through Denver because I owned some stock in an automatic switch. I [had] hopes that maybe it had developed. From there, I went to Cheyenne, Wyoming. I changed cars there and got on the main [railroad] line going to Ogden.

There was a young woman there with five little children. I bet the oldest one wasn't more than six years old. They were going back for water. I watched [them] for awhile and thought I might as well give her a little hand. I started to help the children and then she called me over. I was seated across the aisle from 03:56:00her, a little back behind her. She said, "Aren't you a Mormon missionary?" I said, "Yes. I am just coming out of the mission field down among the Mexicans." I was [very] black, too. I had a dirty hat, a narrow-rimmed hat again then. She told me about the Spanish influenza breaking out in the east.

This was the last day of September 1918. I landed in Salt Lake [City]. She lived in Eureka. I wrote [Rowena] and told her I had landed there and if she would get a recommendation [emotional] we would go to the temple. She couldn't get the 03:57:00recommendation very soon. Finally, she did and we went to the Salt Lake Temple. I am not sure but I think Joseph Fielding Smith was the one that married us. Anyway, it was one of Joseph F. Smith's sons, it wasn't the patriarch. Joseph Fielding is the only other one that I remember hearing about.

FH:It could have been David A., the presiding bishop.

OB:Yes, it might have been him. But it was one of his sons. My sister, Annie [Bundy], came up from Lund [Iron County, Utah] to get acquainted with Rowena. She kept me in the mission field to a great extent. She and my wife went back to 03:58:00Eureka and I went out to Garland [Box Elder County, Utah] to see if I could get a job bossing Mexicans in the beet fields. I couldn't get on, so I came back to Salt Lake [City] and took the farm train that ran out to Magna [Salt Lake County, Utah]. Her father was working out there as an oiler [oiling machinery] in the mills at Magna. I [went] out there and found him. I told him I had come to stay with him awhile. He said, "I'll take you up with me to see the boss [when] I go to work." He was on [the] afternoon shift. He said, "You just as well get a lunch. You show up there and you let them know you want a job and they will put you to work." That was the case. He took me up there and 03:59:00introduced me to his boss. I told him I wanted to go to work.

They put me on what they call the bull gang. It was a bunch of [men] that unloaded the congoleum cars that came in with ore into a big bin. It was a dangerous business. I was [kind of] scared on the job. I got out of a lot of it for a little while until I began to get more acquainted. Then I had to buckle in and take my share of it. I stayed there with him about ten days. I told him, "Whenever I give up my minister's certificate, I become subject to class A for the [United States] Army. They will be drafting November 27, [1918]. I will have to go without a doubt to the army. I think I will go up to Eureka and get acquainted with my wife before I have to go."

I left him about four o'clock in the afternoon. That night, he [was] caught in a big belt and pulled into a wheel and was killed about eight o'clock. I went on up to Eureka. My wife knew I was coming. She came out on the summit there to meet the train. She took me to her home. The next day was Sunday. About nine o'clock, the telegraph boy came with news that her father had been killed. That upset the applecart again. We went down to Springville [Utah County, Utah] to bury him.

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OB:I went back to Salt Lake [City] with her and I started working in the Blue 04:01:00Rock Mine. By that time, the flu was raging. That little mine had been working thirty-seven men and there were only thirteen of them left [to] work. The rest of them were either dead with the flu or else at home [and] not able to work. My brother-in-law, Abe Hollett, [who] married my wife's sister, and I went the full length of Eureka every shift. Neither one of us ever contracted the flu at all. One or two times we wore a little makeshift mask they had over our snoots.

Then, in March [1919,] I decided I would like to see my folks out here in Mt. Trumbull [Arizona]. I told her I would leave her what money I had and go see 04:02:00them and come back. By this time we had a baby coming. I went out to Mt. Trumbull and saw my folks. I [started] working on the pipeline out there and stayed until May [1919]. [Rowena] came down to St. George [Washington County, Utah] with her mother, her brother, sister-in-law and her brother-in-law and sister. They went out to the mouth of Tuweep [Arizona] with a team to see the canyon. We went to work here, and when they came back, they wanted her to go back. They [didn't like] this country. It was hot by that time. They didn't think it was a fit place for a human to live. They wanted us to go back and I didn't want to go. I was interested in [land in] the south and I was going to homestead there some day. I didn't want to go. So they took her and went back to Eureka.

I stayed here and worked until July [1919]. I worked out here in the fields for Frank Seegmiller. In July, I caught a truck out of here to Lund. There was no branch [railroad] line from Lund to Cedar City then like there is now. I caught a truck out of here to Lund and went up to Delta [Millard County, Utah]. My sister, Annie, and her husband were living in Delta. I [arrived] there in the middle of the night, along about one or one-thirty. I had a little bed roll. I claimed it and went off out of sight of the lights where I could put down my bed. I was [quite] tired because I had ridden on the back end of this truck from 04:04:00here out to Lund.

I [was] settled down [and] just about to sleep when the doggone mosquitoes attacked me. It was in the summertime and it was too hot to cover up head [to] heel. Those mosquitoes bit me everywhere I wasn't covered up. Along toward morning they let up and I [was] sound asleep. The sun was shining [and] a train came by and woke me up. As I rolled up my bed, I saw a blacksmith shop, just a shed, down the track a little way. I thought I would leave my bedroll there and then I would go downtown [to] see if I could find my sister. The blacksmith [was] a man that I knew in Mexico, Francis Bunker. He was one of Delta's blacksmiths. I was glad to see him. I hadn't seen him since [before the exodus]. 04:05:00He left there before the exodus. I immediately recognized him.

[END OF TAPE FOUR -- SIDE TWO]

OB:I left my bedroll there and went down to get something to eat. I went into a restaurant, a little lunch counter. As I gave my order, a fellow came in. He said to the cook, "Did that [fellow] show up yet?" He said, "No, he never showed up." He went out and in a few minutes he came back in. He said, "You tell him if he comes to come on out there. I can hardly start my mixing outfit without his help." I said to him, "[Do] you have a job?" He said, "Yes. Can you use a 04:06:00shovel?" [Emotional] I said to him, "Is that the same thing they call a muck stick in the mines?" He said, "Yes." I said, "I started to use one of them ten years ago." He said, "Come on." His name was Clyde Maxfield. He was in the business of putting in cement foundations for houses and building houses, too. He had several men working. The men weren't too plentiful. I went to work with him and stayed there for quite a little time. His father was bishop of one of 04:07:00the wards. I don't know if there were even two wards in Delta at that time. His father was a big man and hauled the gravel several miles out a little northeast of Delta. He would haul it in trucks.

One day when Clyde didn't have anything for me to do, he told me, "You go with my father and get a load of gravel." We went out there and there was a wash. They had been getting [the] gravel [from] under a high bank. It was six feet high or better. The top of it wouldn't be very good but back in about four feet was [very] good gravel. He kept digging back in there. I looked it over in the beginning and I thought, by jingles, [which] could just as well break loose. 04:08:00There was a tunnel back along there for maybe twenty feet. It was easy enough to come loose. I began to get a little bit worried. I would take my shovel handle and pound it like I had seen the miners do in the mines to see if it was solid or loose. It registered loose to me. I told him, "Brother Maxfield, I just don't believe this is too safe for us. Is there anyplace else we could load?" He said, "Yes, we can go down in the bottom there but we have to throw the gravel up into the bed, while here we are just level with it." I told him, "I would just as soon work a little harder and feel safe about it." So he moved down there. When he came for the next load, that [ledge] had fallen off, a [big] slab of it. It would have crushed us and pushed the [truck] down the side of the hill if we had 04:09:00stayed there. I kind of give the Lord credit for that, too.

I worked around Delta for a little while. The oldest child was about to come. I quit and went up to Eureka with my wife and her family. Her mother [had] two children [who] were at home yet with her. I left Delta Saturday night. Monday morning I went to work on a pipeline down below Delta. I had rustled me another job and it was a [fairly] good job. I was getting four six bits [$3.00] a day. That was a [fairly] good job for a laborer. I worked there until the baby came and then I left. [It was] a Saturday again. I went to Salt Lake [City], and 04:10:00Monday morning went on a job on State Street. I rustled me a job [as] a laborer on a big building. I was there on that building when President [Woodrow] Wilson came to Salt Lake [City]. We all stopped while he was going [down the street] and [he] waved his hat at us.

[Rowena] soon came and we started getting little [items] you have to have for housekeeping. I knew I couldn't stay there in winter. I would have to pay rent. As long as I kept working, I could save and get along. But whenever the cold weather set in, [the job] would shut down. I told her, "We [might] as well get out of here and try to get somewhere else." I wrote to Delta to my brother-in-law and asked him what was going on down there. He said, "They are in 04:11:00the heart of the beet harvest. I think you can go right to work." We decided to leave there on [a] Monday morning. By the time we were on the train and out of there, the snow was coming down to beat the band! Big flakes [were] coming fast [and] I was glad I was headed south!

We [went] to Delta but [it wasn't] a warmer place. When [we arrived], it wasn't snowing. I went out and topped beets. The wind blew five directions in one day. It blew all four directions and then started over again the fifth time the way it was in the morning. I couldn't make my salt topping beets. There was a big knife made for the purpose of picking up the beets and hacking the tops off.

FH:I have done this kind of work.

OB:The first day, my wrist swelled up, the one I was [to] hold the beet with. 04:12:00About the end of the second day, I was done for. When I went out, I was all blown up with myself. I [thought] if the Mexicans could make $5.00 a day, I could. I don't believe I made $5.00 in the two days. So I gave it up. I had a brother-in-law [who] married my sister, Mamie, in Las Vegas [Nevada]. I telegraphed him [to ask] if he thought I could get a job down there. [Emotional] He went to see the round house foreman [at the railroad]. The round house foreman said, "Sure. I'll get him a ticket. [Have him] come down on the first train."

We went down on the first train [and] lived with Mamie and her husband for quite 04:13:00a little [while]. I went to work on what they called the bull gang. It was bottom wages. It was paying about $3.50 a day. After a short time, a friend of mine, Evan Lee, wanted me to come and live in their home while he went over [to] the valley. His wife [was having] a baby and [this would] help pay the rent on his house.

While we were there, our boy [came down with] whooping cough. He was born in August [1920] and this was in December. He started to cough. My wife [picked] him up out of the cover. We just lived in frame houses. It was cold and he [had] 04:14:00pneumonia along with the whooping cough. She was doing about everything that she knew, but [it] wasn't too much because this was a new experience for her. She said, "You go and get Sister Allen," an older lady [who] lived up the alley from us. "[Have] her come and see what she thinks we ought to do."

I got Sister Allen [up] in the middle of the night [and] she came down. As soon as she [arrived], she said, "He [has] pneumonia. The best thing you can do is get a mustard plaster on his lungs." They put [a] mustard plaster on and we waited around there possibly for three-quarters of an hour. The blood veins in his face and lips were all blue. She told me, "Go uptown and get the doctor. Go 04:15:00get Dr. Martin." This was about two o'clock in the morning. I ran up town [and] it was about three and a half blocks. I went to the hospital and Dr. Martin was just coming in [from] a call. I told him what I was up against. He said, "I will go right down to the drug store. I [have] a key to the drug store. I will go down there and get some Musterol. It is [a] new [medication] that has been developed lately. It is [very] good for pneumonia." We went down there and got [some] and, of course, walked back.

By that time, the baby was in awful shape. He told them, "Take that plaster off and let's put this Musterol on because it works faster. You have done the right 04:16:00thing so far, but the Musterol will work faster." They took the mustard plaster off, washed him and then put Musterol on. [Emotional] That sent him into spasms. It was hot but maybe it brought the color back to his face. He went pink instead of purple. The doctor stayed there while he tested his lungs. He said, "One lung is completely shut off and the other one is [almost] shut off. I will call back 04:17:00again about eight o'clock in the morning." He came back the next morning [emotional] and tested him again. He said, "He [doesn't have] any congestion. He is on the way to recovery." He had that whooping cough for so long and [then the] pneumonia and it took him down. He was just a skeleton.

Evan [Lee] came back [and] both [families] lived in that house until May [1921]. I wanted to get back out where my folks were and start doing something about [a] 04:18:00homestead. Victor Iverson had sent a team in to St. Thomas [Nevada]. He wrote to me about it, that he wanted it brought back out there. He knew I wanted to come out there. We went over on the train to St. Thomas and got [the] team and went out there.

I am not going to tell one little instance here because my wife gets such a big kick out of it! But I believe I will tell it anyway. We [were] creeping along. We [were] up on the mountain from the Gulf's Mine to a place called Pigeon Springs [on the Arizona Strip]. We were in a buckboard. We didn't have many belongings [at the] time, a trunk and suitcase or two. That was all. We went to 04:19:00Pigeon Springs [and] I told my wife, "I am going to sleep on the ground." I took care of my horses and hunted [some] wood when I saw a big old cougar track. I have been scared of cougars ever since I saw that big lion on the mountain when we were leaving Nebraska. I have been scared of the cat family. I came back and told her, "I believe I will put my bed up along side yours. There is a big cougar track out there. There are evidently cougars that come in here to this spring to water." She gets a big kick out of how big a coward I was! I was just that!

We [went] to Mt. Trumbull, worked in the sawmill during the summer and earned 04:20:00the lumber for our house. In the fall of the year, some deer hunters came out from [Las] Vegas to hunt. They didn't get any deer. They were engineers that knew and described the country to them. There were antelope out in that country at that time and no law, practically. They [were] ready to go back. We asked if we could go along. They said, "Sure. Pile in. You are welcome to go back." We piled into an old Ford with them. We went [all the way] to [Las] Vegas that day. It was about twelve hours or better by the time we left Mt. Trumbull and [arrived] in [Las] Vegas. I more or less started in again down there. I worked in the [railroad] shops and was working there when the railroad strike came in 1922. We went out on the strike.

Meanwhile, I had built a little tie house and acquired two other little lots. When that strike, came I was too stubborn to give in. I could have [gone] back to work as a scab for more money than I was getting when I [started, as] they were short of men. The union had the railroad [quite] badly hampered. For days, no trains [arrived] on time and some of them never did get in. I still had this homestead [idea] in mind. I couldn't go back to the shop so I got a job out at Arden [Nevada] with a bunch of Mexicans. [They were] excavating for some mills [in] the gypsum plant they had there. I worked ten days and got in an argument 04:22:00with the boss about [my] pay. I quit that [job] on Saturday and came to town and went to work Monday morning driving a team around town. It was as good a pay as I [received] out there. But it lasted only about thirty days [and] then I was out of a job. I had to grab any little jobs I could around town because I was a union man. I wouldn't go back to the shops. A lot of people were in sympathy with the union and a lot of them weren't. I could [find] little jobs, enough to keep us going.

Dan Potter was working up at the Blue Diamond [Mine in Nevada] with a team. All the teamsters went out on strike and they lost. He came to me to buy his team because he knew I had [a] homestead out here. I had bought a team from him in 1915 on time and paid for it. Here was his chance to get around [the] strike by 04:23:00selling me this team. He said, "The job will last all winter and [they] paid us $5.50 a day and fed us and our teams." So I bought the team. I went up there and started to work. The job only lasted about five weeks when they closed [the mine] down for the winter. Here I was with this team on my hands and no job. I came to [Las] Vegas and started hauling wood, gravel or anything I could with that team. Hay was [selling for] $40.00 a ton and grain was $60.00 a ton.

It took about all I could get to keep myself and the team going. [Rowena] had gone to work in the laundry. We had two youngsters by this time. She left the youngsters with a neighbor and paid her a little for [taking care of] them.

FH:What were the names of these two?

OB:The oldest [child] one was Emer [Paul Bundy]. He was born in Eureka at his 04:24:00grandmother's place on August 5, 1919. The other one--well, I am ahead of this other lad. He hadn't come yet, I believe. I would have to think these things over to get that straight.

FH:We want to hear their names.

OB:I named the next one Rey L. Bundy. I named him after the mission president, Rey Lucera. Lucera indicated enlightenment or advancement in Spanish. He spelled the name R-E-Y instead of R-A-Y. I named [the boy] after him.

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OB:We were working away there and had this little tie house. [It was] paid for. I was working where Nellis Air [Force] Base [Nevada] stands now with an old 04:25:00fellow by the name of Pete Peterson. We were graveling the road. Pete drove the team and I shoveled the gravel into the dump wagons. He had two of them. He had to haul it down the road about four miles. He had to make an eight-mile trip. Meanwhile, I would have another load loaded. We worked there for a good deal of the winter.

In the spring, we [drove] our old Model-T and moved to St. George. I went to work for the Mojave County [Arizona] Road Department building a road from St. George out to Poverty Mountain [on the Arizona Strip]. I was on that [job] about six weeks or two months.

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OB:We were repairing the road from St. George to Poverty Mountain. When we [were] on top of Poverty Mountain he dismissed us. I had a team on the job and had my wife and our two youngsters with me [and] the wagon. He expended all the money they had allotted him. He had a case and about two-thirds of another case of pitric acid that the government had spread [out] over the country after World War I. They used this pitric acid to throw over into the German trenches. It is 04:27:00powder on the order of dynamite. They gave me these two cases to take over to Mt. Trumbull to use on the roads. [At that] time, there were not very many roads and there had to be a little work done [on them] all the time. [I was to take the cases] to Martin Harrison who was the road supervisor at that time. As we left, we separated. They came back to St. George. I cut across and, about halfway between the foot of Poverty Mountain and Poverty Knoll, an awful thundershower came up. It was on the Twenty-fourth of July. [It was] a regular lightning storm. [There was] no shelter to get to [except] the wagon with the powder on it and my wife and the two [children were there also]. I sometimes 04:28:00feel like the Lord [emotional] wasn't too far away at that time also. We were [having] high anxiety while that was going on.

[Pitric acid is a crystalline, water-soluble, intensely bitter poisonous acid used chiefly in explosives. Also spelled picric acid.]

OB:It soon passed by and we got over to my brother, Jim [Bundy's] place and just [arrived] in his yard when another [storm] was coming from the south. We hurried and unloaded the powder [and put it] in his barn. We went over to the schoolhouse where they were celebrating the Twenty-Fourth of July. We stayed there that summer.

When the railroad strike [happened],I think I came out and built a home on the homestead [on the Arizona Strip]. We stayed out there permanently for about 04:29:00eleven years. I [became] superintendent of the Sunday school for quite a few years. The climate [became such] that we couldn't raise [anything]. I used to raise corn, beans and spuds [to] help feed the stock we had. We didn't have much stock because I only had one section [of land] or a little over. We got along pretty good at times. When The Depression came and the climate changed, I [became] too shiftless. I could have still kept raising some stock but it was 04:30:00good judgment to stop trying to dry farm [because] the climate became colder, dryer and windier.

We [inaudible] away there until finally I got a job trapping for the State of Arizona. They put some trappers on to relieve the sheep men and to [put] a little money in circulation for the other people. This was in 1934. I got the job [and] it paid $100.00 a month. I furnished my horses and drew $100.00 a month which was good pay for those times. Out there, our expenses weren't much. We burned coal-oil lamps. Coal-oil, flour, sugar, lard and [items] like that 04:31:00were about all we had to buy. I told my wife, "We are getting out of here. Whenever we can see a loop hole to jump out, we are going to leave here." In July 1935, [the State of Arizona] laid me off. [Rowena] moved in here in May and I followed the first of July.

FH:[Did you come] to St. George?

OB:Yes. We bought these two lots here. I was supposed to pay $400.00 for them. I made the first payment on them. It was $50.00 a year. But I didn't have money so 04:32:00I had to turn Brother Guy Hafen's cattle. I [sold] eleven head of cows and calves to finish paying up what I hadn't paid him in cash. They weren't worth very much in those [days]. But I made a good jump when I left Mt. Trumbull to come here. We have been here [long] enough that I have [become] financially much better fixed. I have done quite a lot of temple work which my patriarchal blessing said I would do.

FH:How have you made a living here since then?

OB:Just labor. When I came here, I tried to get on welfare or relief. They 04:33:00wouldn't have me because I came out of another state and [I] wasn't an established citizen. So I just grabbed [jobs] from the farmers; anything I could [do]. Then the WPA [Works Projects Administration] started and I [worked] on that. The CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps] system came into action here and I went on that as a local experienced man and got the powder job. [I] was on that until there came a time when they had to change from Salt Lake Division to the Albuquerque Division. They [transferred] us [to] that [division]. [For] about two weeks there was no work to do. The camp was up there and I couldn't stand to be lying around up. I had [some] garden ground and a place to work. I just came 04:34:00down here and stayed until that time was up.

When I came back, the captain bounced me. He set me back to $30.00 a month. I was getting $36.00 while I was a powder man. I made my mind up that I would quit. If you could get a job from someone that paid more, then you could [be released from the CCC]. I had worked for Wilford [A.] Schmutz a little bit out on his farm. I went [to] him about [a job] and he said, "Yes, I need you. I can put you right to work." I said, "You will have to go with me up to the captain and tell him that you have given me a job that pays $2.50 a day." So he did [and] I got out from under the captain and the CCC job. [Laughter] They brought another man in to take my place and paid him $90.00 a month.

FH:You were out at Mt. Trumbull about eleven years. You only had two children when you went out there. Tell about the [other] children that came along.

OB:Yes, there is a lot [to tell], alright. I went to work over in Hidden Canyon [on the Arizona Strip] running the pump. [I] was pumping water out of a canyon where he had run three little springs together and then made a cement tank --

[END OF TAPE FIVE -- SIDE ONE]

OB:-- to catch the water. When it would get full, it would pump it out about a 1,500 feet lift out on top where the cattle could get to it. I went over and took my brother Jim's place and ran [the pump] while he came to town with his wife for her to have a baby. I told him I had to be off [that job] in about five weeks and for him to be back. But he didn't get into town. He [came] down about 04:36:00five miles this side of the community and his wife had the baby. It was a [small] community at that time. So he turned around and [came] back. He had lots of work to do and he kept staying over there and staying over there. I was anxious about my wife. We figured our baby was coming [soon] and I was anxious to get her [to St. George]. I got mad and turned [around] and walked the eighteen miles across there to home. When I [arrived at] my father's place, [Rowena] had left there and [gone] over [to] the homestead by herself. I had to walk two more miles to get over there. [Laughter] We got ready and [drove] in the old Model-T and came here and rented a place. We figured [we were] a week ahead [of] when the baby would come. We were mistaken a month. I worked around 04:37:00here at one little job and another, [doing] the best I could. [We] didn't have much money to be facing a doctor bill. [The delivery fee] was only $25.00 then. That is all it cost to have a doctor bring your baby [into the world].

We rented from Sister Larsen and she was sort of a nurse. She would take the babies from the doctor and nurse after [they were born]. She would [help] the mothers until [the babies grew] bigger. We were all set and one morning my wife said, "I am afraid you are going to have to get the doctor." We waited a little while. She said, "You better go get him." We were about four blocks west and three blocks north. I ran downtown to get him and he was operating at the 04:38:00hospital. It was right by the post office then. He stopped his operation and got in his car. We went back up there and he gave her a shot to retard the pains. Then he went back and finished his operation. [He] came back up and gave her another shot to bring [labor] on. [Our] girl was born in just a few minutes.

FH:What is her name?

OB:[Her name is] Nora [Bundy].

FH:How many children did you have by this time?

OB:She was the third one. In forty minutes her twin sister came. When they were 04:39:00all taken care of, we went back up to the homestead.

FH:They are twins. What are their names?

OB:[They are named] Nora and Ellen [Bundy]. They don't look any more alike than their names are alike either. We went back to the homestead and worked and skimmed along there. After about three years and two months or something like that, another baby was coming. So we came [to St. George] again. I rustled a job working on one of [Warren] Cox's hotels. He was remodeling and building onto it. This was early spring and it was raining a lot in the country. Everything looked prosperous [down] south. When we [would get] lots of rain, it would look like a 04:40:00good year. I well remember that the cottonwoods came out early that year. We rented from Sister Allredge and [Ada] Adele [Bundy] was born there. When that was over, we went back to the homestead.

In another three years we had to come in for another baby. Cyrus Gifford, my brother-in-law, came out there with his car. He took my wife up to LaVerkin [Washington County, Utah]. By the time that baby was ready to come, I came in. We [had] Dr. [George Russell] Aiken, [Sr. from Hurricane, Washington County, Utah]. We stayed there most of that summer and I worked up in Zion Canyon [at 04:41:00Zion National Park]. Then we went back to the homestead again. That [child] was Dean [Bundy].

It was only about twenty months that time when another baby was coming so we had to come back in here again.

FH:What was the name of the one born at LaVerkin?

OB:His name was [Dean] Olean. I must have been inspired. I gave him the name

Olean, like a lean person. And that is what he is, he is just as lean. He is six-feet-one- inch and not over 135 pounds, I don't think, unless he has [gained weight] lately. He is the husband of two different women and each one of them 04:42:00[bore] him a twin boy and girl. He has nine children. He is the biggest producer in my family so far. He was born at LaVerkin.

We named one [child] Richard Moroni [Bundy]. That was his great-grandfather's name, Moroni Miner, from Springville [Utah County, Utah]. He lived to be 100 years old. We named him Richard because I thought it would naturally follow my nickname, "Dick", which I went by all my life until I went in the mission field. The [children] I was raised with wouldn't know who Omer Bundy was. My brother, Syphus, called me the other day and he said, "Is this you, "Dick"?" I said, "Yes." He said, "This is the first time I knew you had another name." I have known him since 1915. [Laughter] Those that knew me back [then] all called me 04:43:00"Dick." My family all did. [Richard Moroni] died out there. He [came down with] diphtheria and died when he was fourteen months old.

In fifteen or eighteen months, another baby was coming. We came [to St. George] again. This was during The Depression [years]. [We] had very little money. I always had to go to work whether I had a little money ahead or not. I always went to work to find anything I could do to bring in an income. After he [Stanley James Bundy] was [born], we went back out. My wife had to have a tooth pulled while she was in bed with him. The dentist broke the tooth off. He said, 04:44:00in her condition, he didn't dare dig down and get it. So he let it go for another week. I took the youngsters and went back [home]. He came December 3. We left the place out there with quite a few turkeys, calves and chickens that needed attention. I took two of the children and went back and left Ellen with her mother over in the west part of [St. George].

It snowed out there while we were gone. It snowed about six inches. But we made it back. This girl and Adele had never had a ride in an automobile before and they [became car]sick. [Laughter] We were going out with two school teachers [who] were teaching out there. We had to have two teachers back then. [There] were forty-two pupils. Now, the school went through the [last] winter with only 04:45:00three pupils in it. That shows how badly the place has been deserted. After she [became] well enough to come out [to the homestead], my brother, Jim, [who] hauled wood here quite a bit, came and brought her back out. It snowed so heavy that they only [came] within about ten miles of getting home when they [became] more or less snowed in. There was a ranch house [nearby] with a sheep wagon. The sheep herders weren't there. The missus of the house told them to help themselves to that sheep wagon. Jim and his wife and my wife with this young baby [were] all in the same bed. They kept warm, but they were snowbound for that day. The next day, the storm was over and they managed to make it on home.

[That] is when The Depression came on. I got a job trapping and when [they laid me off] we came [to St. George]. We lived here in a tent and [Ferral] Doloras [Bundy] came on September 28, 1935. A little over two years later, another boy came. I named him Glendon Blaine [Bundy]. He was our tenth child. I told my wife when he came we would have to pay him for tithing as best we could. He is the 04:47:00only one that went to the mission field. He went to Argentina and filled a mission, came back and worked around a little. He married Laska Bowman. They have two children. My wife is off to see about the third [child] now down in Cutler, California where he is teaching school. He set his sights to become a seminary teacher because he has always had a lot of interest in the church. He is not a very good church-going member now, but he has the interest of the church in mind. [His wife] was a convert to the church and has been faithful, too. This [child] that my wife has gone to help with makes forty-one grandchildren.

About two years [later], another [child was born in 1937]. We were living here and had the doctor and the nurse come here. [It was] a girl and we called her Rowena Renae [Bundy]. Her mother's name was Rowena and Renae was one of her aunts. She now lives in [Las] Vegas and has three little boys.

In the WPA days, you had to give the names and the birth [dates] of all your children. I used to know the names and the birth [dates] of my children a lot more readily than my wife did. I had to keep track. Every time I went on a new job [I] had to give their names and their birth [dates]. I haven't been on [the] 04:49:00WPA for quite a while and I am about to forget how old they are.

FH:You will have to review it a little bit! [Laughter]

OB:Yes. I have been very careless not to write down their genealogy [and] I am way behind on the dates of the births of the grandchildren. I have been putting off writing [my] life history for quite a few years now. It has been weighing on me. Here is one time I kept putting it off and putting it off [and now] I am getting it done so much faster and quicker and easier. [Laughter] [It is] not as extensive, though, if I had gone ahead and written it out like I did before. There are lots of little things that I skipped by.

FH:It might be wise for you to make a record and get all your dates in order.

OB:And then have it recorded like this.

FH:It isn't necessary, as long as [it] accompanies your records.

OB:We are getting along [fairly] good, about as good as we ever have in my life, because I draw $123.00 [a month in] Social Security and my wife draws $56.00 [a month]. We raise a lot of the [food] we eat. We have the old homestead and, in time, [will] get tax money out of [it] and maybe a beef.

FH:Do you still have the homestead at Mt. Trumbull?

OB:Yes. We [held] onto that. We [held] onto it on the testimony of that old man, Morris, saying that he heard Brigham Young say that country would wave with wheat fields. They got ambitious before the climate went out too much and raised 04:51:00wheat fields out [on the Arizona Strip]. If the climate would go back to where it was the first five years they were out there, there could be thousands and thousands of acres of wheat raised out there, dry land wheat. It is good land. It is a good climate for wheat.

FH:How many miles is that from here?

OB:[It is] sixty miles. Seven miles from here [St. George] you go off on the old highway and go into Arizona. That is right on the road going over to Tuweep also.

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF]

FH:You have had your family. What more do you want to tell?

OB:I have cheated my family by going off prospecting when I could have come [to St. George] and worked for the farmers and [received] any amount of produce to send out to them. I gave up trying to raise [food] out there and I used judgment 04:52:00when I did that because the climate blanked out, you could hardly raise anything. But I can look back now and see that if I had come here and worked for the farmers I could buy the products [of] my work, any amount of it, and I could have kept my family in fruits and vegetables which they suffered much for. I could have moved them in here sooner and [given them] a little better chance for [an] education. We lived two and a half miles from the schoolhouse and a lot of the time they had to walk. The two oldest boys walked [to school] most of the time.

FH:How many years have you [lived] in St. George?

OB:My wife came in here three years ago this past May and I came in July [1965].

FH:Where are your children at this time?

OB:The oldest boy, Emer Paul, named after [my] wife's brother, Paul Miner, lives in Herbert, Oregon. We call him Paul. Rey L. lives in Elko, Nevada. Nora is living here with us. Her twin sister, Ellen, is up in Bountiful [Davis County, Utah]. Adele lives down in Las Vegas. Olean, nicknamed "Dean", named his oldest child Dean Jr. and never knew that Olean was his name. "Dean" was only a nickname. He lives in Portland, Oregon. He is a meat cutter. His Grandfather 04:54:00Whitmore was a butcher. I think he inherited the ability to cut meat. That is about all he ever does is cut meat. Then the next one is Stanley. He is somewhere in southern Colorado, up around Durango, Colorado. He never writes. Once in a while, he calls us on the telephone. The next one is Doloras. She married Virgil Bice. He is an airplane mechanic [and] has been in [military] service twelve or thirteen years. They have five children. They live in 04:55:00Marysville, California. The next one is Glendon Blaine, the tenth [child]. He is now in Cutler, California. School will be out next week, I guess. We don't know whether he is coming home or whether he is going to stay there. He kind of likes it down there and there is plenty of work. The next one is Rowena Renae. She lives in Las Vegas. She married John Parks.

I think [the] baby that my wife went to help them with [makes] forty-one grandchildren. You have Doretta over here and she has seventy-five 04:56:00[grandchildren] or something like that. So I am just one of the little ones. But I have more than any of [my brothers and sisters who] are younger than I, although my youngest brother's wife had seventeen children. She had bad luck. They both had the same blood [type]. The children would live to be about nine months old and die regardless of what they could do for them. Finally, they went to Salt Lake [City] and they found out about this blood [problem]. They could give them a shot [to] prevent it and all the rest of [their children] are living. They have eleven living children.

I would like to say that I am grateful to my parents that they joined the church and brought us out west here where the immediate families are the Bundy families 04:57:00or the Anderson families. As far as we know, we are about the only ones that have ever come into the church. There are about 400 descendants of my father's family. We have had two bishops. My brother, Roy, was bishop for thirteen years. My brother, [Chester] "Chet", was [bishop] for twenty-one years in the Mt. Trumbull Ward. We have had thirty-six missionaries from my father's descendants. I was the first one and probably the poorest one. My sister, Mamie, filled two missions and brought fifty-six into the church. She had short missions. She also filled a stake mission and was active in the stake mission again when she passed 04:58:00away. My brother, Roy, was seventy-five when he died. He [had] arthritis when he was about forty years old and [had] crutches on his knees most of the time for the rest of his life.

FH:After all this lifetime of tremendous experience, do you have some counsel you would like to pass on to your descendants? Maybe you would like to tell them a few things and then bear your testimony to them.

OB:I would like my descendants to know that I feel the gospel is true with all 04:59:00the intelligence that is within me. I know it is true beyond a shadow of a doubt. They must live close to the gospel if they are not going to get in the shuffling that will take place in the near future. If they are going to escape that, they have to live close to the gospel. They have to live The Word of Wisdom. I try to gauge my life, to a great extent, by The Word of Wisdom. There is no other thing that will give me more satisfaction than to know that they all 05:00:00had become active and lived the gospel like part of them do. Some of them don't.

I have had the opportunity to do a lot more temple work than I [did earlier]. I think I have done 1,500 names, which is a small amount compared with lots of the people that come here from the outside and work steady. We had one old brother, Ernest Reber, [who] had his arm shot off with dynamite. He did 13,000 names. He said that he thought he had an awful hard road in life. He lived over in Santa 05:01:00Clara [Washington County, Utah] and never had a permanent way to get over to the temple. He always started out on the road and always [was] picked up or some [one] came for him to get to the temple. As he [became] older and looked back through life, he said he was glad [emotional] that he had lost the arm because, if he hadn't, he would have been off doing other things and wouldn't have all the temple work to his credit.

FH:He felt it was a blessing to him.

OB:Yes.

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF]

OB:A group was going to come from Kanab [Kane County, Utah], and it snowed that night. They telephoned and said they couldn't come. They were afraid to [go] on the snowy roads. It snowed seven-inches deep. They telephoned the dormitory for 05:02:00student volunteers to come down and do some baptizing. A young man by the name of Young -- I always know the first name but I never remember it. But I do distinctly remember his [last] name. He weighed about 185 pounds. [He was] a real young man. He came down and I baptized him 150 times. George Harmon's daughter came and I baptized her 130 times. That is the most that I ever baptized any two people. I went into the fount one time, they were sort of behind, and baptized a group of youngsters 447 times without ever a break or anything.

One time I had a seminary class come up from Mesquite [Nevada]. There were eleven boys in the bunch. Five of them out of the bunch were above six feet and one of them was six feet four. I really whipped that fount when I was baptizing those big ones. But they knew how. They had been coming since they were youngsters off and on. They knew how to handle themselves. It wasn't a big job. The girls weren't nearly as big. There were only six of them, I think. They took part of the names. If just a few girls come, they get more names. Now we are doing 240 as a rule -- the girls do 120 and the boys do 120. One time, I went 05:04:00over there and there were twenty-six girls. I can't remember where they were from, but there were no boys. So I [was able] to baptize the whole bunch 240 times. Last Saturday, I baptized boys and girls from Pioche, Nevada. I baptized them 265 times. Two times this spring, since I went back to baptizing, I baptized 270. They get a little behind and then they boost [the numbers] up on us. When they get ahead again, they cut us down. You can give President Atkins a lot of credit for making changes. I think it is really a blessing because he spreads the work out. He involves more people all the way around. It gives them [the] privilege to do.

Like the ordinance workers over there, there is a great staff of them on now 05:05:00[compared] to what it used to be. Of course, they are doing a lot more temple work now, too. But, in proportion, there are more of them.

FH:It makes the load lighter on each one and gives them each an opportunity.

OB:There are seven or eight of us baptizers that are baptizing every week. Some come on Wednesdays and some come Thursdays and Thursday nights. Then they come again on Saturdays. There are only three of us baptizing now, but for a

long ─

[END OF TAPE FIVE -- SIDE TWO]

OB:─ time there were four of us baptizing on Saturday.

FH:Approximately how many baptisms for the dead have you performed?

OB:I think I can fully say that I have baptized 38,000. Brother Barnhurst set 05:06:00his goal for 100,000 but he only got up to 67,000. Now I have set mine for 65,000. Whether I will get to that or not, I don't know. Brother Pace came down here from Thistle [Utah County, Utah] or somewhere, told us in Sunday school one time [how many] he had confirmed in the last few years. He had confirmed 28,000.

FH:This is a wonderful work.

OB:I [received] a patriarchal blessing in Manassa, Colorado. The patriarch told Elder Fenn his life had been preserved for a wise purpose which would be made 05:07:00known to him according to his faithfulness and his humbleness. When he had been out [on his mission for] a year, he had filled that part of it and he still didn't know what that was about. He urged that we go to the stake patriarch out in Manassa, Colorado, San Luis Stake. He [received] another [blessing] and that patriarch never had a chance to know what Hyrum G. Smith [emotional] told him, but he repeated the words word for word. Still, Elder Fenn didn't know. He worried about that for years. A few years ago, he told me that it had been made known to him. He would be called to the Mesa Temple [in Arizona] as an ordinance worker.

FH:Is he there now?

OB:No, not unless he [went] there since last September.

FH:Where does he live now?

OB:He lives in Benson [Arizona] and has filled ten missions. He finished his tenth mission last April [1967] all among the Spanish speaking people. He has one of these [a tape recorder]. I'll have him send up his tape and have it recorded. He has been urging me strongly to come down there. My wife and I and my brother "Jim" and his wife went down there to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary. Then we went down to the colony we were in. We were only about ninety miles from the colony. James and I had been gone for forty-seven years. He has one of these tape recorders. He has been after Brother Cosby and me to 05:09:00come back down and visit with him while he tapes. He will have a wonderful life history to [leave], far more adventurous and greater than mine.

His wife's mother died and left [inaudible] when she was about thirteen. They were Catholics, I suppose. The husband was an artist. He went around and drew the makeup of the ground where mines were and prospects [of ore] were. They would send it east, and if it looked good to the company, they would send a geologist out and maybe buy that prospect. That was his job. He came into the colony. The mother took sick and in two days was dead. She left him with five children. He couldn't follow up his work. He had to leave the children and go on. He left them among the Latter-day Saints there. This oldest girl, Carmen, 05:10:00applied for baptism within a year. She didn't know any English when they came in there. The father was an American and the mother, we suppose, was a Mexican. She had dark hair and dark eyes, but not quite the same tint of darkness in her skin that the Mexicans have.

When Elder Fenn and I were in El Paso, he said, "I have information that my wife's aunt is here in El Paso. Let's go down and see if we can find her." We went down and I had already tracted her place. Of course, I didn't know who she was. She told him, "My mother is alive and is out [in] [inaudible], New Mexico. 05:11:00She would be [very] glad to hear about the foster family." The revolution was on down there and there was [not any] mail. Nothing [inaudible] anymore. We lived in Sonora and they were down in Chihuahua. They didn't know what had become of this foster family. They didn't know that she had died and the children had been left there. So he went out to [inaudible].

The second patriarch told him "rolls of genealogy will be given to you of those that are waiting to have their work done". When he went out there to see this old lady, a young woman came to the door. He asked if this was where the old 05:12:00lady lived. She said, "Yes. Would you like to see her?" He said, "Yes, I would like to see her." She took him [to] the back room and told her, "Here is a man to see you." The old lady was [almost] blind. He shook hands with her. He told her, "I am Carmen's husband." [Emotional] She said, "I [have] something for you. I have seen you in my dreams."

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF]

OB:-- and felt her way around the wall to the corner where there was a little old trunk. She came out with a roll of genealogy of 2,000 names of her and her husband. They had come from Germany and France as young people. They came over here and fell in love. Instead of [speaking] one or the other's language, they used the Spanish language. Alvey's mother-in-law [grew] up under the Spanish language. When they [received] that genealogy, then we found out she wasn't half-breed Mexican. [Emotional] She was German and French. One of the lines had come over here in the early days. A great big tract of land in Colorado and New Mexico that had been given to him as a [bounty] for army service in this 05:14:00country, I think. They have never been able to get anything out of it.

I [shouldn't] be telling this because my story will conflict with his when somebody gets them together.

[END OF TAPE SIX -- SIDE ONE]