Interview with Frederick Cross Hoyt

Frederick Cross Hoyt was interviewed on October 10, 1968 in St. George, Washington County, Utah by Fielding H. Harris, a representative of Voices of Remembrance Foundation. He related his personal history of living in various parts of Utah. His wife, Inez (Heaton) Hoyt, also participated.

FH:Would you please give your [full] name?

FCH:[My name is] Frederick Cross Hoyt.

FH:[What is] your birth date?

FCH:[I was born] May 3, 1890.

FH:[Where were] you born?

FCH:[I was born in] Orderville [Kane County] Utah.

FH:What was your father's name?

FCH:[His name was] Josiah Miller Hoyt.i

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

FCH:[Her name was] Ellen Alice (Spencer) [Hoyt].

FH:[What are] your memories of your early childhood?

FCH:The first [memory] of my childhood is in Orderville when I was about five 00:01:00years old. I know it was one of the most thrilling ones I had because the snow on the divide was about six feet high. That is not a severe height on the divide, but it was ten days getting the mail in. They hadn't had any mail for ten days. My father came in with the mail [with] his horses and sleigh bells [ringing]. They used to have sleigh bells on [the horses]. Practically all of 00:02:00the people in the town came [out] because that was the first mail [in] ten days. That was one of the most outstanding [memories] that I have. There weren't many [memories] until we went to the ranch.

We would always leave Orderville about April first [or] the latter part of March in some years. My brother [Israel Hoyt] and I would drive the cows out there. We ran the dairy on the ranch with the Castle Ranch. We would drive them up to [Howard] Spencer's Ranch the first day and then over to the Castle Ranch. That was about [a] twenty-five mile trip. While we were there, we raised dogie [orphaned] lambs most of the time. There were sheep around there and my brother 00:03:00and I would gather them up. The most we [ever] had was about seventy-five head. We would milk the cows, feed the lambs and make butter and cheese. [We could] sell the butter for $.20 a pound and cheese for $.10 [a pound].

In the fall of the year, my father would make the trip that we called down the river, towards Marysvale [and] Circleville [in Piute County, Utah] and Panguitch [Garfield County, Utah]. He would trade for grain, flour and [items] that we 00:04:00needed for the family. We would go with him on these trips once in awhile. Later, we bought about fifty head of horses. We used to ride them all the time we were out at Castle [Ranch]. There used to be lots of prairie dogs out there. When we would chase the horses, we had to watch pretty close [or] our horses would step in those prairie dog holes and we would fall over. [Laughter] I have been thrown twenty or thirty feet, but I never broke any bones in my body. I had 00:05:00a lot of thrills!

FH:Did you ever break a horse's leg?

FCH:No, we never did break a horse's leg. We used to play with the prairie dogs. 00:06:00We had an old house and it had a high ceiling. We got the idea that we would put some of them up there in a box and keep them there. There was a board across [an opening]. We had them up there and decided we wanted the box down. I got up there and I couldn't undo a wire to [take] it off. I asked my brother [Josiah Hoyt] to hand me a broom stick so I could pry it off. When I pried it off, I [had] pried the board off instead of the wire and I came down head first. [Laughter] I landed with a box of prairie dogs on my head. It didn't hurt me; [just] scratched me up a little. [Laughter]

FH:[Did] it hurt your pride a little? [Laughter]

FCH:[Laughter] Yes, it taught me to [more closely] watch what I was doing. One 00:07:00time, out at the ranch, we were [inaudible] a calf and he was fighting. My brother [Josiah] was holding one rope and I was holding the other [rope]. It started after me and my brother started to laugh. I knew what he was going to do. He turned the calf loose on me. [Laughter] I whirled, started to run and the calf got his head between my legs and was taking me down. [Laughter] I was running on my hands. My brother was laughing at me. My mother was hollering at him to stop the calf. [Laughter]

FH:It sounds like he was a practical joker.

FCH:Yes. That was the way we had our fun on the ranch -- with the calves and cows. [One time] I was riding a little bay mare that we called "Molly." We didn't have a saddle, I had a rope. This cow was wild and I roped her, but I had the rope tied around her neck so it wouldn't choke her. I roped the cow and took her about a mile from [there] back to the corral. She had [run] away. [That] was the first cow I ever roped. That was the way we used [to do] it. We would have 00:09:00the rope on there so she could run and not choke to death.

FH:[Did] you let the horse do the pulling?

FCH:Yes, so she couldn't get away.

FH:I am interested in knowing how you caught those prairie dogs.

FCH:We [used] a box trap. We would put the box trap there [and] catch them alive. One time, we caught two and they were fighting. Tom Blackburn and I [let] them fight. When a prairie dog bites, he will clench down and won't give up. He is worse than a bulldog. He will not let go. [Laughter] We were pulling them and having a lot of fun with them, when one got loose and got a hold of my finger. 00:10:00It bit right there. We cut it's head off and we still had to pry the teeth out. [Laughter] The Indians used to come up there and shoot the prairie dogs. They used [them] for their meat. They would always come up and get the prairie dogs the first of June. Young prairie dogs were good to eat.

FH:I have not heard of anybody eating them before.

FCH:They ate them all the time. Later, when we were in Orderville, I remember the first time an Indian was killed. There were a couple of young boys fooling 00:11:00around and the rifle went off and killed [an Indian] in Glendale [Kane County, Utah]. We were coming down through there and the old Indians were crying, the way they do. They went down just below Orderville and kept singing all night long. The next day they took him over in the hills, put him in a wash and buried him. That was the Indian story.

I have watched the Indians when they were making bows and arrows. They would 00:12:00take the sinew from a deer, chew it, twist it with their fingers and keep pulling it until it was the right size. They could make a string any length they wanted by doing that. I have made one or two strings, six feet long, when I was a [youngster] to put on a bow. [We] found what is called a serviceberry bush [dual purpose plant] and you would [inaudible]. The Indians always made their Indian head arrows. They made the point out of flint. They would get [the flint] hot and put a drop of water on it. That would break it out to the shape they wanted.

FH:They did it by getting it hot first?

FCH:They would get the flint hot and then [put] a drop of cold water on it and it would pop like glass. That was the way they made all their skinning knives and arrowheads that you see around. Some of them were pretty expert at doing it. We watched them do that. [Working] with pine nuts was interesting, too.

One time, Tom Blackburn and I were chasing a horse for a man by the name of Art Swapp. We chased [the horse] and finally got [him] to come back. We went down to 00:14:00Tom's father and he asked us what we had been doing. We told him and said we got $1.00 for doing it. He said, "You boys would run to hell for $.10 and it cost you $1.00 to get there." [Laughter] That was one of the first lessons I learned. [Youngsters] didn't think of what the consequences could be. All they [knew] was having fun chasing the horse.

FH:How much [education] did you [receive]?

FCH:I only remember one grade that I passed. The rest of the time I would get 00:15:00pretty near and then they would pass me on each year because I was larger than some of the [other students]. I was about three years behind my crowd.

FH:Was the reason for this because you had to work on the ranch?

FCH:Yes. We were not [in school]; we had to be out on the ranch making a living. We didn't have [life] like now-a-days; you could not travel fast. I helped my father [at] the sawmill when I was nine years old. He would roll the logs on and 00:16:00I would run the saw. My father was a millwright and was good at mechanics. They always had him run their saw and mill. He did the rolling [of] the logs on the carriage and I would saw them. It was just above what they call Black Rock Canyon in Long Valley [Kane County, Utah]. We worked on another [sawmill] that was across the valley. That was [Nelson] MacDonald's mill. [Later], we worked on 00:17:00Clyde Roundy's mill. That is where I broke my first horse. I pulled the horse over on me. It was just a yearling colt, but he came over on top of me. Father asked me where it hurt. I told him my arm hurt. When I started walking off, he started to laugh at me because I was limping when it was my arm that was hurting. [Laughter] My aunt, [Mary] Ellen [(Meeks)] Hoyt was there and she got 00:18:00after dad for laughing at me when I was hurt, but that didn't help it any.

FH:[Did] he pay any attention [to you]?

FCH:No. I didn't get much [education]. I was always good in mathematics, what we used to call arithmetic. I could always tell the teacher the answers to the problem. By the time she was through, I had the answer. I couldn't write it on the board so that anybody else could get it the way I had. I could work [the 00:19:00problems] out, but they would not give me any credit for it because I couldn't tell them how I had done it. [Laughter] There was one girl in the school who was the best in mathematics. She tried to write her [problems] on [the board] and keep up with me, and she could not do it. She would get 100% and I would not get anything because she could write it down. [Laughter]

That is the way [education] was and that is what it is. It isn't what you know or what you can do -- it is how you do it. They didn't want you to go to the farm. They came back to how I learned how to add. I learned it myself. They are teaching it now in the schools. [With] the decimal system I could add up six 00:20:00rows of figures. I could figure them up and get the right answer, just as [if] you were counting dollar bills, in dollars, tens and twenties. I guess that is all I [had] better tell you. I could tell you a lot more [as] I have had a lot of experiences in my life. The last two years I went to school I played on the basketball team. We won the first championship in Kane County. [On the team were] Hans Chamberlain, Char Easton, Franklin Heaton, Heber Meeks and myself.

FH:Was this school competition?

FCH:Yes. I had been out [with] the sheep head and I came back to play the last game. I had been out from March until about the last of [the] school [year]. They had the regular team playing. We were playing Kanab [High School] and Kanab was about to beat [us] when one of our [players] fouled out. I can't remember 00:22:00which one of them made the foul that put him out. I was sitting up [on the bench]. I have a picture that shows where it was. I jumped [up]! I had a big boil on my hip and that is why I wasn't playing. When I jumped off, it broke the boil and I went in there. I made enough points that we passed them up and won the game. That hurt, but it felt better after I got through because of my exercise. [Laughter]

FH:[Can] you name teachers that you remember?

FCH:During that time there was [Benjamin] "Ben" Cameron from Panguitch and D. [David] D. Rust I don't know where he came from, but he taught school in Orderville when I was playing basketball. Once, one of the boys threw the ball and hit Rust on the back of the head and knocked him down. He did not mean to, 00:24:00but he threw the ball and it hit him.

FH:[Did] it knock him right down?

FCH:Yes. Another time in the [classroom] when "Ben" was teaching, there was a bunch of boys [who] decided they were going to give Ben a licking. One of the older fellows, Hans Chamberlain, was going to tackle him first. He called him up there to come by the board. He had been making a lot of noise. "Ben" told him to get in the corner and Hans said we would not do it. "Ben" moved to turn and Hans 00:25:00hit him. "Ben" just turned around and he just knocked him down. None of the other boys would come up, so Hans was the only one [who] got the licking. [Laughter] We were pretty tough on teachers and "Ben" had been warned about it. "Ben" was about nineteen years old and he wasn't going to let us run him out.

FH:Did [you]?

FCH:No, they did not run him out. Some of the [town] people were going to have him dismissed from school, but they didn't. [Laughter] Mariah Porter was there. All the [grades] were right there together. There is one story about when my wife's [Inez (Heaton) Hoyt] Aunt Chloe [Leavitt] was a teacher there. [Some] of the boys had killed a skunk and one of them put it in her desk after school. It 00:26:00[stayed] there all night. [Laughter]

FH:Wow! [Laughter] Did you have school the nest day?

FCH:They had to clean the school. [Laughter] They had to ventilate, scrub and everything else.

FH:It sounds like you all were full of practical jokes.

FCH:Yes, that was the way we got our fun. We had to make our own fun; we did not have movies or anything like that. Although [we did] have [a] radio. They used to have old radios [that] you could plug in your ears. We used to go hear them 00:27:00once in awhile.

FH:[What] do you remember about your dad?

FCH:My dad was away from home most of the time either working with cattle or at the sawmill. He took training [as] an apprentice in the blacksmith shop in the days of the United Order. That is where he learned his mechanics. That is why he was [hired] at the mill. He milled in the latter part of his life.

[The United Order was a community system organized by Brigham Young where participants contributed their possessions and labor and received in return what they needed to live on.]

FH:Was the United Order before your time?

FCH:I was born in 1890 and [the United Order] was [over] in the early 1880s. A lot of evidence and a lot of the old [equipment] were there. In Orderville there was an old tannery, the blacksmith shop, the grist mill and the iron foundry. They had everything there [as] they made practically everything they had. They had a woolen mill and it was complete. People who had training said it was the best trade school [education] that they could get. They had farmers, blacksmiths 00:29:00and people [who] worked [with] the cattle and sheep.

FH:Was everything they did an apprenticeship?

FCH:Yes. They would see if they had any surplus [and] they would take it to Salt Lake City [Salt Lake County, Utah] and trade to get [items] that they needed and did not make at home. They made about everything there. They had silk and they owned a share in [the] cotton mill in St. George [Washington City, Washington County, Utah]. They had a woolen mill [and a] shoe shop [with] a man who made shoes for everybody. Maybe my wife did not tell you, but he made shoes for her 00:30:00and for me. [He] was old man [Thomas] Blackburn.

FH:[This] is interesting. [Did] many of these businesses, if you want to call them that, occupations, carry over into your day?

FCH:Yes, [they] carried over. The people didn't understand the United Order. We were going to start a dairy in Orderville and this man in the United Order was telling lies. He said, "If you men do not want to get rich, you do not want to 00:31:00go into this [in] the cooperative United Order plan."

FH:Did [they] make practically everything [that was] used?

FHC:Practically everything they used [was] made right there. It could have soon [become] so that they could make all of it, but they got selfish pride. That is what broke up the United Order. Just to keep peace [was the reason] they broke it up.

FH:Was your father trained by those who had been in the [United] Order?

FCH:Thomas Robinson is the man [who] used to run the blacksmith shop. I will 00:32:00tell you [about] one incident. One time, the old Indians came in to watch [the workers] in the blacksmith shop. There was an old Indian we called "Dry." He came in and Ike Robinson cut off a piece from a horseshoe, about an inch square, [and] it fell down and the old Indian stood on it. Us [youngsters] were there watching. It was sizzling, burning and smoking and his foot was just about as thick [as] the sole on his bare foot. When it got through that quick, it burned. 00:33:00He let out a yell and out the blacksmith's shop he went. [Laughter] Nobody would tell him to get off because his --. [Laughter]

FH:His feet were pretty tough.

FCH:His feet were as tough as they could be. I could tell you [more] stories like that.

FH:What kind of a man was your father?

FCH:He was six-feet two-inches and weighed 190 pounds. He was strong. He was considered one of the strongest men in Orderville, or in the whole county. He 00:34:00used to wrestle side-holds. That was the only kind of wrestling they had in the early days. He was a sheep shearer. I started shearing sheep when I was thirteen years old. I could shear as [many as] fifty head. I continued until last spring 00:35:00when I sheared my last sheep.

[END OF TAPE ONE -- SIDE ONE]

FH:Have you been doing it all these years?

FHC:The most [sheep] I ever sheared was over 190 in eight hours. That was [with] the clippers [or] machines they call it. Father was always in a hurry and had to keep going. One time, the United States marshals were after him. He was younger than most polygamists were. He was a polygamist and was down in the field chasing horses. They called him over to them. He said, "I will be up there in a 00:36:00minute." He had to get some horses. They said, "We will go on up and see your father." They thought they were supposed to [arrest] an older man. When they [left], he went off [in another direction] and they didn't chase him. [Laughter]

FH:[Did] it fool them because he was so young?

FCH:Yes. He had a big family and that was what they were looking for, those old men in polygamy.

FH:Did he stay around?

FCH:Yes. He would be [at] the sawmill, but he wasn't home very much. In the summertime, once in awhile, he would leave the sawmill and come help us [with] the haying or plowing. Other than that, he wasn't home very much. He was more off working. He had to so we [would] have any clothes.

FH:Did they ever [arrest] him?

FCH:No, they never did. They took my mother to Beaver [Beaver County, Utah]. She happened to be the first wife and [could] prove it. They could not do anything with her. They asked my mother if her aunt [Alice (Spencer) Hoyt] -- she was the 00:38:00younger wife of the two -- and they called [my mother] her mother, [but] she was not.

I have had a lot of outside experience. When I was thirteen years old, I was out south and west of Orderville. They took me out there and put my sheep camp at what they called a Mail Trail. [The other camp] was near Cub Spring [Garfield 00:39:00County, Utah]. [The camps] were about six miles apart and I had 1,000 head of sheep. They went off and left me there for thirty days. They left enough food, but I ate too much and ran out so I had to kill my own mutton. I would go from one camp to the other and stay one day, what we would call dry, out away from it, and come back and water. The next day [I] would go back over to the other camp.

One time when I was there, I was coming in a little after dark and my sheep were 00:40:00watering. All at once, my dog came as fast as he could run [and] ran right into my tent. I did not have any gun [and] did not know what it was that scared him. A little while after that, a bobcat was making a [terrible] noise. I thought it was a cougar. I did not know then that the cougar doesn't sound like that. The bobcat will make a big noise when he is around, but the cougar does not make [any] noise. They are more sneaky that that. I did not spend a very pleasant night. [Laughter]

FH:Is there some real danger with a bobcat?

FCH:No. The danger was not with the bobcat. I think it was a cougar that scared 00:41:00my dog because the sheep all ran, but it didn't kill any. I did holler at it. Lots of times you can yell and scare them away.

FH:Your father was a big, rugged man. Was he a hard worker?

FCH:Yes, he worked all the time. He had been down to Marysvale and [there] was a [terrible] storm. He [became] cold when he was coming home, [came down with] pneumonia and died [February 21, 1904 in Orderville].

FH:How old was he when he died?

FCH:He was thirty-nine years old.

FH:Do you remember much [about] him?

FCH:No, I do not know very much about him. We were not around him very much. I know quite a lot about him, like wrestling with different men and shearing. He always sheared as many [sheep] or more than a lot of [men]. He freighted and that is where I [received] some freighting experience. He would take one of us boys each time he went to Marysvale. One year I made three trips to Marysvale 00:43:00and up on the divide with wool from Orderville. It took us about ten days to make the trip. One trip we [made] there was a circus in Manti [Juab County, Utah]. It was the first time I had ever seen any of these big animals. We saw elephants and [other animals]. We had gone up on the train to Marysvale. When we 00:44:00were leaving [the tent] I was holding on to one man's coattail. I guess he was a little excited, because when I came to, I was watching some snakes. I looked up and the man I was holding on to wasn't the one I thought it was and I was lost. [Laughter] I went out to the entrance and stayed right there until he [my father] came. I was sure tickled to see him! [Laughter]

FH:How old were you?

FCH:I was about twelve years old. When we were shearing sheep on what they called the old Sand Corral, we used to go out and play with the rattlesnakes. There used to be a snake den out there. When we were [youngsters], we were playing around and one [boy] had an oose [yucca cactus] cane and was reaching up. [The den] was under a little ledge, kind of a cave. He was trying to get one out. I took another oose cane and poked it up his pants leg. He shot right out of that cave! [Laughter]

FH:Did he come right up with that? [Laugher]

FCH:He sure did! [Laughter] That was Dave Sorenson [from] Orderville.

FH:Tell about your mother.

FCH:My mother was a hard worker too. She did a lot of work. I know more about her that I do about my dad because she was always there [at] the dairy. She used to ride the horses sideways [side saddle]. She would help us with the cows and dogie lambs. She was the main one with the family. She practically raised the family.

FH:Was some of this because your father died [when he was] younger?

FCH:Yes, but before he died she did all this other [work]. She used to drive the teams out and drive them back. She rode horses, milked the cows and made butter and cheese.

FH:That was okay if she enjoyed and could do it. Some of the women today, I do not think could do this.

FCH:No, they would not do that now. You could not get them to do it. She was strong and healthy practically all of her life. She did most of the teaching of 00:48:00us. We were always taught to pray and to depend on the Lord rather than anything else. We [used] go back and forth to Grandfather [Howard Orson] Spencer's [home]. He was a practical man and was one of the first presidents of the United Order. He lived right beside the road. No matter who came along, he would feed them. Mother was a lot that way too. No matter [who] it was, they would feed people. They never did charge anything for people to stay on the ranches. When 00:49:00we stayed with grandfather, he would teach us a few things. One practical experience we had was when there were four of us, my brothers, Israel, Howard Spencer, Homer Spencer and me. We were [at] the ranch getting some chicken feathers to make arrows. When we gathered [the feathers], Howard and I were watching when grandfather came out. [He saw] what we were doing. Howard and I 00:50:00ran. Homer and Israel stayed in the [chicken] coop getting the feathers. Grandfather grabbed a lock of their hair, jerked and pulled [the hair] out. Then he grabbed to other one and said, "How does it feel to have your tail feathers pulled out?" [Laughter]

FH:Did that stop you from getting [the] chicken feathers?

FCH:Yes, it stopped us. [Laughter] They wouldn't trust Howard and me and we wouldn't go in.

FH:[Did] you make your own bows and arrows?

FCH:Yes, and we used to make our own tie-ropes out of [horse] hair. If you take 00:51:00the hair from a horse, you can twist it and turn it around like that. We would twist it, double it up and make what we called hair ropes [or] tie-ropes. We would make them almost any length we wanted. We also made the lasso ropes; they called them rawhide ropes. We would cut them into four narrow strands and braid them together.

FH:Did those ropes last?

FCH:Yes. Those hair ropes were strong. It was hard to break [them]. Neither 00:52:00could you [break] the rawhide. They are the best ropes. I would rather have one, even today, than anything I have seen since. It takes more time to make a rawhide rope. To make a good one, you have to be pretty good.

FH:You have to know how to handle the hides [to] make [the rope] come out good.

FCH:You just scrape the hair from [the hide]; that is all you do.

FH:[Would] you tell about your brothers and sisters?

FCH:I would [like to] tell one joke about my older sister [Nellie] with my 00:53:00brother [Timothy] and me. When we were [youngsters], there was a little puppy [that] came to [our] place. My brother and I were chasing it around the house and having a lot of fun with it. My sister came out with a sheet around her. We reversed it. We were the ones [who] were running instead of the dog! [Laughter]

FH:Was this at night?

FCH:Yes, we thought we saw a ghost! [Laughter] About the same time, in that same house, [there] is something I would like to tell about my father. We used to reload [our] cartridges. [One time] we were reloading them and one of my sisters 00:54:00or brothers [was watching]. We went to sleep and dad went in [the house]. He would show us how he could throw a cap in the fire and it would pop [with] quite a kick. When he went in the bedroom, I got one and put it in there. That time the spark threw a little piece of wood over into the powder and it blew up. [It] blew about six inches of the coal in the house, just spread it out. It moved a flour bin with 500 pounds of flour about a foot away from the wall. It knocked my dad down. It was quite a job. That was the [kind of] experiences we had. I 00:55:00never knew any of them to get hurt. There was one time where a couple of boys tried to drop a match in a can of powder, shut it up and throw it. It went off and rapped them on the head. [Laughter] We learned a lot about guns and powder.

FH:You learned about powder in a big hurry that time!

FCH:It doesn't take long to get a lot of experience.

FH:Tell about your brothers and sisters.

FCH:I want to tell one more [story] about mother. Mother's youngest child 00:56:00[Harriet Hoyt] [had not] been born when father died. She made her own way. She always paid her tithing and always taught her children to pay [their] tithing. We all didn't do it, but she taught [us]. She would take her tenth pound of butter and tenth pound of cheese and put it away. When they sold it, that went for tithing or she took it home and gave it for tithing. She practiced [this] all of her life.

FH:[Did she tithe] either the material substance or else the money she [received] for it?

FCH:Yes.

FH:You had good training.

FCH:Yes, that was good training. If every family would do that, there would be more tithing paid. [Laughter]

FH:What about your brothers and sister? What has happened to them?

FCH:They all lived except the first [child]. The first one died [Howard Orson Hoyt] from the whooping cough when he was a baby. My sister, Nellie [Louisa Hoyt] died in [American Falls] Idaho about a year ago [November 14, 1967]. She was eighty-three [years old].

FH:Did she have quite a large family up there?

FCH:Yes, she had quite a few children.

IH:She had eleven [children].

FCH:She had eleven or twelve [children]. My brother, Israel [Hoyt] died about two years ago [November 13, 1965 in Hurricane, Washington County, Utah]. They had twelve or thirteen [children].

IH:[They had] thirteen [children].

FCH:My next oldest sister [Edith] died [inaudible]. She only had two boys. She married John Henry.

FH:What was her name?

FCH:[Her name was] Edith [(Hoyt)] Henry. The next [child] was me. I was the fourth one of the family. My brother, Josiah M. [Miller Hoyt, Jr.] died last 00:59:00year [February 15, 1967]. The rest of us are living. Annie [Cross Hoyt lives] in Las Vegas [Nevada] now. My brother, "Tim" [Timothy Hoyt], lives in Hurricane. Ervin [Hoyt] lives in Orderville. He is the only one left in Orderville. We were all raised in Orderville. My sister, Harriet [Hoyt] lives in St. George. She [married] Melvin Cox. There was one brother who died, [Edward] Vincent [Hoyt]. 01:00:00He was just older than Ervin.

FH:Did you have [any] music in your life?

FCH:No.

FH:[Do] you like music?

FCH:My mother used to play a guitar all the time and she sang quite a bit.

FH:[Did] your music come after your marriage?

FCH:Yes, that is when I got mine! [Laughter]

FH:Did you enjoy reading?

FCH:Yes.

FH:[What] do you like to read?

FCH:[My] first reading was the Youth Companion. It was a magazine. It had stories in it, a lot of western stories, experiences of early day people, wolves and bears. Would it be alright to tell some of the bear stories?

One [story] that amused me quite a lot was when Alfred Meeks was up [on] Swains 01:02:00Creek [in Kane County, Utah]. One night, a bear got into his sheep [herd]. He and his dog took out and ran the bear [off]. They made him get out into the country [area]. The next night [another] one got [in the herd] and he thought he would do the same thing. The dog took after him and the bear didn't run, it started after the dog. The dog started to come back to Alfred. Alfred started running and sees that the dog and the bear are gaining on him, so he climbed up a tree. The old bear came to the tree and looked up at him. The dog goes on. The 01:03:00next day they go back up there to see the tree that he climbed. He climbed up [the tree] and it bent right over. He came down and one of the fellows said, "Somebody was holding that tree up for you." [Laughter] You can't tell what a bear will do. One will [act] one way and another [will act differently].

FH:I don't think I would want to wait to see!

FCH:[Laughter] They had an old white cow in the corral and were trying to get 01:04:00her out. They chased her around and one of the young fellows, Bowers there, and the cow started towards him. He started to climb the tree. The cow went out of the corral and when he looked down, he was sitting on the ground with his legs and arms around the tree. [Laughter]

FH:[Was] he just too scared?

FCH:Yes. He didn't know where he was going! [Laughter] There are a lot of stories I could tell. I have a pretty good memory of things like that.

FH:Tell about your courtship and marriage.

FCH:[Laughter] I used to take her horseback riding. That was the way [we met]. We would ride together. We didn't do very much courting.

IH:I was gone too much.

FH:How long did you court her?

FCH:Was it about two years, wasn't it, off and on? I would come back from the sheep herd. I would be out [with] the sheep herd most of the time -- the sheep herd or the cow camp. I would ride out where they were gathering cattle [for] 01:06:00the roundup and then herd the sheep. The longest I ever stayed away from home herding sheep was eighteen months.

FH:How did you finally [win] her?

FCH:I don't know. I just asked her. [Laughter] We didn't have very much time for courting. She was busy and so was I.

FH:Where were you married?

FCH:[We were married at the] Salt Lake [Temple] on June [5], 1912.

IH:Yes.

FCH:[That would be] fifty-six years last June. When we went to get married, we took my mother-in-law and my aunt. [We] left Orderville and drove to Panguitch the first day. From there [we went] to Marysvale [where] we got on the train and [went] to Salt Lake [City]. We came back the same way.

FH:Were you married in the Salt Lake Temple?

FCH:Yes, by Anthony H. Lund.

FH:Were you prepared for this marriage? Did you have a home?

FCH:Yes, I had bought a home. Mother [his wife -- Inez (Heaton) Hoyt] wanted 01:09:00[me] to buy another place, [but] I took her home. I bought it, but we didn't live in it for about two years after --.

IH:Yes, we did. You [have] forgotten.

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF]

FCH:We lived there two years and then we rented it --

[END OF TAPE ONE -- SIDE TWO]

FCH:-- Thomas Lunt and went to live with her mother. At that time, her mother [Emma (Palmer) Heaton] came to St. George [to live]. I took over the [United States] Post Office at that time and [we] lived in her house. Our first child 01:10:00[Von Frederick Hoyt] was born in Wilford W. [Wilde] Heaton's home in Orderville, where the post office was. I continued making all the reports out from then on and worked in the post office until 1949.

FH:You spent a long time [working] in the post office.

FCH:Yes. I [worked there] until [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] called [us] on a [LDS] mission in 1949. We went together to the New England States. When we left home [inaudible].

FH:You don't want to forget a very important [bit of information]. Did you have a family during this time?

FCH:Yes.

FH:How many [children] did you have?

FCH:We have eight children -- Von [Frederick], [Lionel] Mack, Leon, [Howard] Clinton, Milton, Loraine, Hermoine and Wendell [Hoyt].

FH:Would you tell about those children?

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF]

FCH:Von worked around the home and went to school. I was still freighting some. When he was six years old,, he went with me to Marysvale. When we [arrived], one of the Swapp boys, Mel Swapp, wanted to go to Salt Lake [City]. He wanted a four-horse outfit brought back. Von drove four horses back from Marysvale when he was six years old.

FH:How long of a trip was that?

FCH:That was 110 miles.

FH:How many days did it take you?

FCH:It took six days.

FH:He was six years old and drove a four-horse team.

FCH: I drove them when I was that age, too. I milked cows [too]. He was always a good worker. When I was away from home, either at the post office or someplace else, he was there. He learned how to milk when he was that [young]. We had a big work horse that he had to get up on the fence to get up on him. [My wife] would send him to the store and he would go get the things and bring them 01:14:00[home]. Somebody would have to hand them [up] to him at the store. He would get up on the tie rack, as they called it, where they tied up their horses. He had a lot of experiences that way. All [the children] went through school. I guess he [Von Frederick] completed every grade, as near as I can remember. He went in the [United States] Army. He was the next to last one to go when they were drafting.

FH:Did all your boys have military service?

FCH:Yes, all of them. Von [Frederick] went on his [LDS] mission and after he came home he married Melba Cope. They have a family of eight children. [Lionel] 01:15:00Mack died in [military] service. He was in the mission field for two years. He was home [for] about two months and was drafted into the military service. He died in New Guinea. [Leon] was about twelve years old when he died in St. 01:16:00George. They operated on him for appendicitis. [oward] linton is the iHoward] Clinton was in the [United States] Army down in Australia. An explosion broke [Howard] Clinton's ear drum and it became infected. They brought him back to the 01:17:00[Bushnell General Military] Hospital in [Brigham City, Box Elder County, Utah].

The next [child, Milton,] he was [involved] in music more than any of the others. They all liked [music]. He joined the [United States] Air Force and went to Alaska. He met his wife while in the service. He married Mary Jane Paulk. [Howard] Clinton married Ruth Horr.

FH:Were all of your children married in the temple?

FCH:Yes, all of them. Loraine married Ordell Jones. She lives in St. George now and has a family of eight [children]. Hermoine [lives] in Las Vegas. They work in the organizations, all of them.

FH:How many descendants, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, do you have now?

FCH:There is only one great-grandchild. I believe it is thirty-two grandchildren.

IH:[We have] thirty-four [grandchildren].

FH:You are getting a real posterity.

FCH:Wendell is the youngest [child]. He is [a] policeman in St. George and has four children.

FH:I don't suppose you are a bit proud of your family, are you?

FCH:No! [Laughter] They are doing pretty good.

FH:Is there anything that you would like to go back and talk about? What about 01:20:00your church activities after you were married?

FCH:Right after I was married, I was in the Mutual Improvement Association [and] worked there for many years. Then I worked in the Sunday school. I was the secretary of the Elders Quorum. I was in the Seventies Quorum and was secretary for two years; then I was in the presidency for seventeen years.

FH:Can you remember who ordained you a Seventy?

FCH:[It was] Rudger Clawson. When I was in the Seventies Quorum, the stake president asked us to sell the Quorum's 300 head of sheep to send a certain boy on a [LDS] mission. He told us to sell [the sheep]. He was impressed [thought] that that would be the best thing for us to do -- sell the sheep and send this boy on a mission. We could get $10.00 a head for them and it would cost $600.00 01:22:00to send a boy on a mission. We thought we could send more [boys] than that.

We talked it over and most of the [members] did not want to sell their sheep. They were making good money and they didn't want to have to pay fees, so we rejected him. Three years after that, they wanted us to send a boy on a mission. We were having a hard time getting anyone to take care of the sheep, so we sold our sheep for $300.00. I tell [folks that] when the Lord asks us to do something, we had better do it. If we don't do it, He will make us wish we had. If we had sent the first boy on a mission, we would still have [the] $2,400.00 01:23:00that we could have [used] when we sent Joe Jorgenson on a mission. We had to dig up $300.00 [for] that. That taught me a lesson that it didn't pay to fool with things that the Lord asked us to do.

I want to tell one more [story] about my brother, "Tim." He was in the [United States] Army [during] World War I. He said when the boys were in camp they had to train with a 120-pound pack and pack it for twenty miles. Some of the boys 01:24:00were having quite a kick out of it. They were putting empty cans and pasteboard in the pack [so] their packs were light. When they went into the [inaudible] woods, those boys [who cheated] the first day out, their shoulders were all sore, blistered and broke from carrying those packs. They had their full pack and this is what they had to carry when they went into [the] fight.

FH:They had to have that much to survive.

FCH:They had ammunition, rations, water and everything so they could survive. 01:25:00They had to either leave them or somebody else [had to] take them. He said that taught him a lesson, that you don't cheat anybody but yourself when you cheated. I don't care what it is -- you can not cheat and get by with it. You have to pay the bill. You always lose out when you don't [inaudible].

FH:Absolutely. Is there anything else you would like to talk about?

FCH:There are several [inaudible]. That was some of the best experiences that I 01:26:00know of [and] I would like to tell [about] them.

We left on our mission in an old 1938 Buick car. We drove it across the continent and up into Halifax, Nova Scotia and back over to Fort Wayne, Indiana 01:27:00where we traded for another [car]. We did that by taking the advice of the president. I could have sold [the car] in Hartford, Connecticut to one of the missionaries, but he didn't want me to. [The president] said not to do it, because he didn't want those boys going home in a car. He said, "You take it and go west and then trade it for another car." We went into this place in Fort Wayne. We were not there over two hours, when we had bought a new car. It was a second-hand car, but it was only about two years old. We didn't have the money 01:28:00to buy it. We had $600.00 in the bank and we paid him that. We had enough [money] to bring us home. The rest of [the balance] we put on term payments. I had [purchased] cars before I went on my mission from GMC [General Motors Corporation]. They asked me [questions]. They took my check, put it on the contract, sold me [the car] and I was on the road in [about] two hours. [Laughter] When I was out there in the mission field, I could take my check in 01:29:00and cash it. President [Dilworth S.] Young said, "I don't see how you ever got by with it." He had to have references and he was a mission president. [Laughter] That showed my credit was good. They asked me who [inaudible]. I gave Bradshaw Chevrolet [where I] bought [the old car] and they okayed that. And [I used] a [reference] from the post office [because] I spent thirty-seven years [there].

FH:That was a good reference alone for you.

FCH:Yes. I had my certificate that showed I had been [the] postmaster.

FH:After you came back from your mission, did you settle in St. George?

FCH:We went to Salt Lake [City] for [the] October Conference. When we came home, they called us here the first of November. There was thirty days from the time we left the mission field until we were [in St. George]. We have been here ever 01:31:00since. After we had been here, I went to the bishop. I wanted to buy a home. I didn't want to pay rent all the time. My wife didn't think it was a good policy. She said, "Would you ask the bishop for advice on something like that when he fed you off?" We had a ranch up there and his cattle would come over there. He had more cattle than we did, and they would eat most of the feed. I said, "Yes, 01:32:00he is the bishop of the ward and I believe that his advice is good. I would take it."

When I went to him, I told him to tell me the best thing to do, because I was going to do what he said. When you go to a bishop and ask for advice, be sure to take the advice that they give you. We came down here and bought a place from Gordon Mathis and paid [for] it. We had one check we could get by without, that was the insurance check we [received] from the boy who died in New Guinea. We paid him that and got to where we had [the place] paid for. Her uncle wanted to 01:33:00buy the place we had over there. He and his wife were getting old and everything was on the ground floor. They had been in the Palmer Apartments and had to climb up and down the steps. When we got the [inaudible] he went back on it. I found this place to buy and I had dealt on it, intending to let him have that one. Then I found I had both of them on my hands. [Laughter] I rented that one and I got this one on a good deal. I had to pay him $100.00 and $100.00 a month to pay 01:34:00for it. I had that other place rented, so we got along. That shows that we took the advice of the bishop. He said, "Whatever you do will be for the best," and it has been. We finally sold that place; then we sold the one we built in Orderville. We paid this one off so we have this one in the clear now. It has all worked out.

FH:How many years have you been doing temple work?

FCH:[I have been involved for] seventeen years.

FH:Have you been doing ordinance work in the temple ever since you [arrived] here?

FCH:Yes, we have been doing ordinance work and going through [the temple]. [At] first, [during] 1950, I was a [inaudible] from November to December. Then along [about] September 1951 we were going through [and] taking names.

FH:If you could do [what] you wanted to do the most [for] the rest of your life, what would [it be]?

FCH:I would mostly do temple work, because that is the thing I can do. I can 01:36:00keep doing it as long as I can. I have taken all the parts, except the sealing, in our temple work.

There is another experience I want to tell you about. When we left the mission field in Hartford, Connecticut, I went to jail two or three times. One of our members kept getting into trouble. We would try to help him out. We [also] went to the old folk's home. This is one of the greatest testimonies that I ever had [doing] that work. We visited around with those folks [who] weren't any older than the people here. They were just waiting for time to take them. They had no 01:37:00interest in anything and didn't want to do anything. They were growling. They had all the accommodations -- their meals were served, amusement [entertainment] and everything was furnished for them in those homes, yet they were discontented. Then you come over here, the same ages, just as many cripples, just as many blind, just as many infirm here as there was there, but these people were all happy. [They get] up and do their work and go right along. The 01:38:00difference in the spirit would make everybody have a testimony [that] this is the work they should do.

If I was doing what I liked to do, [I would] keep on doing this kind of work. There is only one thing that I would like better, [that] would be to [inaudible]. I would just as soon do missionary work [inaudible] and home teaching. I can do that too, as long as I can [do] this over here. We have been holding our home evening right along [as] practically all of them we have. We 01:39:00have a pretty good understanding of that [and] the correlation work.

Until just a week ago, I had been secretary of the High Priests Quorum here since the Seventh Ward was organized. The people and we don't know [inaudible] the thing that we should teach by authority. We are called by authority. Like the Savior said during His time, or they said of Him, "He speaks as one having authority, not like the scribes and Pharisees." Too many of our home teachers, 01:40:00that is the way they teach, like scribes and Pharisees; somebody else's testimony. There are too many people who try to give somebody else's testimony for their own, and you can not do it. There is a little saying I learned: "You can no more teach what you ain't learned than you can go back to where you ain't been."

I have read Josephus. Since 1960 I have read all of the church books through about three times. I haven't read them for getting dates. I believe that these 01:41:00scriptures were the word of the Lord. I believe that. That is what I was trying to [say]. Was how the Lord dealt with His people since the beginning. Then I read

Josephus where he said, "There is two ways of coming to any sort of learning or moral conduct in life. One is instruction in words and the other is in practical exercise. Moses used both of them." That is the same thing we do in the temple.

We teach both by precept and by example. That is what we have people do and this is the only way you can learn. That is the way the Lord has taught His people 01:42:00from the beginning, but we wouldn't learn. We didn't know how to do it. I started to go through and [was] taking these names through. I started studying what all of this was about so that I would understand the meaning of the endowments and what it meant. I have come to the conclusion that there are three things [the endowments] teach us. One is how the Lord teaches His people, what He teaches them and why He teaches them. How He teaches them [is] by their own personal experience and at the peril of their own life. What He teaches them is 01:43:00[that] there is a God and Jesus Christ. All of these things are done by the power of God. Everything, no matter what, and it is all going the way He said it would go. We were sent here to get the experience. The experience we are to get is so we could live in the Celestial Kingdom. [Inaudible] That is the why. The teaching is so we can get to the highest degree of glory there is.

FH:So we can become like Him.

FCH:Yes, perfection. We know that perfection is only gained by doing the things 01:44:00the right way all the time. You can not deviate [from] it, either way. He said, "I am the Lord, cannot look upon sin --

[END OF TAPE TWO -- SIDE ONE]

FCH:-- with the least degree of allowance, but if they will repent and do the commandments, they shall be forgiven. They who will not repent, from them shall 01:45:00be taken even the light they have had. For My spirit will not always strive with man, sayeth the Lord of Hosts." That is the way it is. He gives us every way in the repentance. In the nineteenth section of The Doctrine and Covenants" it says, "I give unto you a commandment to repent. Repent, lest I smite you with the rod of my mouth and by my wrath and by mine anger, your suffering be sore. How sore, you know not, how exquisite you know not, how hard to bear you know not. For I, the Lord, have suffered all these things for all, that if they would 01:46:00repent, they might not suffer." That is the gift He gives us. He suffered then and found out which was right. He went through the whole thing like He says. He sweat even blood, the pain, and like that. He suffered both body and spirit, even drops of blood. He didn't have to do that, but He did. He was obedient and that is why He gained where He is.

FH:The infinite atonement.

FCH:Yes. Some of them said, "He was lots better than we were." His flesh hurt 01:47:00just as bad as mine would. He was a human, just the same as us, only He knew how to obey and we don't. There are three things we have to guard against in this life. The first temptation that was ever given [was] something to eat. In the Garden of Eden that was their first temptation. After the Savior had fasted for forty days and forty nights, what was His? It was something to eat. When the children of Israel came out of Egypt, that was their big cry -- something to eat. That was the first thing they were tempted to go back to Egypt for. That is 01:48:00the way the Lord deals with His people all the time. He teaches them by experience. He almost has to drive us out of the good times before we can learn. Although He says if we would repent, we wouldn't have to do this. He has told us time and time again that He would fight our battles for us if we would keep the commandments, but we won't do it.

FH:After all of the experiences of your life, it would be well if you could 01:49:00leave counsel and advice to your descendants and bear your testimony.

FCH:I don't know how I would do that. If I was giving counsel to them, I would say to keep the word of the Lord. No matter what it is, the word of the Lord is like it says in the first section of The Doctrine and Covenants, "The arm of the Lord shall be revealed, and they who will not hear the voice of the Lord, neither the voice of His servants, neither give heed to the words of the 01:50:00apostles and prophets, shall be cut off from among the people. They have strayed from mine ordinances, they have broken mine everlasting covenant, they seek not the Lord to establish His righteousness, but every man walketh in his own way, after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol which waxeth old and shall perish in Babylon, even Babylon the great, which shall fall." That is one of the best there [is] on the family because the word of the Lord is given out by the president of the [church]. There are too many people [who] say this came from President [David O.] McKay.

In the [Holy] Bible and other places it says, "And the Lord came unto Samuel or 01:51:00unto these." That is the way I think it is there. I think that the word of the Lord comes to President McKay. He sends it on to the stake presidencies and the stake presidencies send it down to the bishops. The bishops send it out to the ward teachers and the ward teachers should take it into the home. That is the word of the Lord, just as much as President McKay [received]. If they would follow that, what they are taught, and it we do that [and] would keep the commandments, we wouldn't need any Medicare, we wouldn't need any insurance, we wouldn't need to worry about anything. It has been demonstrated time and time 01:52:00again how the Lord has fed His people. Yet, we won't follow that.

He says He will try us and the more severe the trial, the greater the blessing and I believe that. I have been broke and I have been sold out. I told my wife, it had been stolen and then [we were] called out. We were called out just when our post office job was [beginning] to pay something. We were called on a mission. We were getting so we were getting more money than we needed. I went broke and for about twenty-five years I never did get it all paid, but I paid 01:53:00all my debts. I didn't sign any bank [inaudible] off, but it has taken all that time. I always listened to the voice of the Lord.

Once a bishop sold me some land and he didn't have the right to sell it to me. Another bishop sold it to somebody else. I got a deed for it, but the thought came to me, just as plain as day: this church [inaudible]. I was about to kick 01:54:00over the traces and go the other way. I was blaming the church for what the bishop said. He said, "The church doesn't belong to the bishop, it belongs to me." Since then, I have been getting along [a] lot better than I did before.

FH:You [received] the real story that time.

FCH:That was a testimony to me that you want to [inaudible]. That is what is the matter with practically all [of] the people. They don't believe in the church. They don't believe their leaders and [those] are the ones [who] should lead. Let them be responsible for it. If they take you wrong, they will be the ones [who] 01:55:00suffer the consequences. I still believe man will be punished for his own sins and not for Adam's transgressions. That would be my advice to all the children to go to the bishop. Like on this Medicare; we have the power. The Priesthood has the power to do all these things, no matter what it is. The Savior healed every kind of disease. If we believe He is the Christ, [then] we have the same authority as He had. We have to act in the name of the Lord, and that is what He did. He came down here and acted in the name of the Lord. He said He had never done anything -- only what He had seen His Father do. If we would follow that 01:56:00same policy, we wouldn't need any outside help. Nobody could even make a dent in them, if we would live that way. That would be my advice to my children and my testimony to them,

[END OF TAPE TWO -- SIDE TWO] is righteousness, but everyHis