Interview with Edward Sirls Terry

Edward Sirls Terry was interviewed on November 28, 1968 in St. George, Washington County, Utah by Fielding H. Harris, a representative of the Voice of Remembrance Foundation. Edward Sirls Terry related his personal history of living in Washington County, Utah. His wife, Florence (Woodbury) Terry, also participated.

FH:What is your full name?

ET:Edward Sirls Terry.

FH:Your birth date?

ET:I was born December 21, 1886.

FH:Where were you born?

ET:In Mesquite, Nevada in the first little adobe one-room house that was ever built in Mesquite.

FH:That was where you were born, in the first little adobe house? Well, what do you know? That is really something to remember. Tell [me] your father's name.

ET:My father's [name] was Thomas Sirls Terry.

FH:What is your mother's name?

ET:My mother's name was Hannah Louisa (Leavitt) [Terry].

FH:Will you tell some of the things you can remember from your early childhood? Just things you can remember, talk about them.

ET:In my early childhood my father and mother moved up on the Beaver Dam Wash 00:02:00[in Arizona]. They took a farm there above the Blue Ranch. I was very small and had one sister younger than me. We worked along with the rest of the family, hard [work] at all times, grubbing ground and planting it into crops. My father was a wonderful orchard man. He planted a vineyard and orchard and [they were] wonderful. We also raised a [very] fine garden every year. [We] raised corn, 00:03:00cane, and alfalfa hay. We made molasses for years and years. Even after I was married we made lots of molasses and [were known for] having the best molasses [made] anywhere in the country. We raised lots of beans. [When] we were little fellows, we used to go out after the beans had been gathered and thresh [the beans] in a wagon-box or on a canvas with flailer. [A small implement used to separate grain from husks and other chaff.] We used to go out and spend hours and hours going up and down the rows picking up the beans that had [been] threshed out so none of them [were] ever wasted. My father had a few head of 00:04:00sheep, five head to start out with, and they kept increasing. I and my older brother would herd them with the milk cows out on the hills in the spring of the year.

We chased the chipmunks and little rabbits. [We] ran and barked like we were dogs. They would go down in the hole [and] we would get two sticks and dig in 00:05:00the holes and put our nose down to the holes and smell them and go to growling and digging again. One time we ran a little rabbit down in a hole and we dug for quite a little while. We took turns and the hole stayed just so close to the top of the ground. After it went [for] a ways, I said to my brother, "I'll go over here. He is going straight this way. I'll go over here and dig down." I went over a little ways and dug down and there was a little bit of a hole. I said, "There is a hole here but it is too small for him to come up in [so] I'll dig towards you." I dug towards him and we put our nose down to smell and dug a 00:06:00little [more] and then put our nose down and smelled. Finally, my hole kept getting bigger and bigger, and we figured we could reach each other, so we reached in. I said, "I can feel him!" My brother says, "I have him by the hind legs. Now let loose of him and I'll pull him out!" He pulled him out and an old rattlesnake had swallowed him half-way down. It was the rattlesnake that I had a hold of and that taught us to not dig in holes any more.

FH:Oh, I should say!

ET:In those days sore eyes broke out all of the time. We would get sore eyes. We 00:07:00were herding cattle and sheep and, when the days would start getting warm, the sheep would split off from the cattle and start to run for shade. We would have to run after them. We had just one pair of shoes between us. Each of us had a shoe on and, [as] we would run along, [the] cactus slivers were awfully thick. We would run and step on a rock with a bare foot and on the ground with the other and herd the sheep. We had a lot of experiences [like that]. One time my brother and I were riding a little horse we called "Coley." We went quite a long ways from the ranch. Coming back, we were running the old horse and we came to 00:08:00where the trail went up around a place that had washed out deep. [It] just made a sharp turn around it. When the horse came to that he jumped across this hole and we both fell off. The horse went on home [but the fall] crippled my brother. I helped him along for a ways and he finally said, "I can't go any further." So I went home and told my mother and [an] older brother and they came and helped him [get] home.

FH:How old were you then?

ET:I think I was about nine and he was about eleven.

FH:Were you able to get some schooling during the years you were growing up?

ET:My father [had] his oldest son, from his second wife, to [bring] his family and come and live on the ranch. In fact, he had two of his sons come with their families and live on the ranch. They were there for two years. My half-brother, 00:10:00Zera Terry, taught the three families for those two winters. After that, I went [to school] for four years [in] Littlefield, Arizona. Aunt Rosa Jarvis, from St. George, was our teacher for the first two years. Shirley Miles, from St. George, was the teacher for the next two years. This was the amount of my schooling 00:11:00[other than] what my mother taught me.

When I was about sixteen years of age I was doing a lot of trapping. In fact, I trapped all my life up [until] two years ago. I'll have to tell this one trapping experience. We would [take] our coats or pelts into St. George and get the bounty on them. [There was] a bounty [of] $.50 a piece. Old Uncle Charlie Miles was the recorder in the court house [where we picked up] the bounty. [One] time I brought in a bunch of hides and he said to me, "Edward, did you catch all 00:12:00of these in Utah? You know we can't give bounty on the ones caught in any other state." I said, "Well, I caught them all but this one big one here." He said, "Where did you catch it?" I said, "In Nevada." He said, "I can't give you bounty on that [one]." I said, "Why not?" He said, "The law says they have to be caught in the state of Utah." I said, "No, the law says they have to be killed in the state of Utah." He said, "That is right, but you caught it in Nevada." I said, 00:13:00"Yes, but I drug him across the line to kill him."

FH:[Laughter] He paid you the bounty then?

ET:Yes.

FH:Were there [events] that happened to you in your early life that you consider to be adventures? Would you like to talk about some of these things?

ET:Yes. I had a buddy, Elliot Snow, from St. George that chummed with me. He used to [come] to the ranch and stay sometimes for a month. We were [always] 00:14:00chasing [and] catching wild horses. One time we went out towards the Meadow Valley Wash [Nevada] on one of the hottest days in the summer. [When] we got out there we couldn't find any water and we were awful dry. We [had] some homemade 00:15:00crackers with us for our lunch. When we [were] ready to eat lunch [we] had no water [and] I wouldn't eat any of the crackers. He ate some, which made him that much drier. We found a little place in the rocks where the cattle and the horses had sat in the shade. There were none around at that time. They had all gone to summer range. The rain water had drained off from where they had stood around into a hole. It was the filthiest [water] that anybody could ever think of. I 00:16:00scratched out quail feathers and all other kinds of [trash]. I drained some of that through my teeth to drink. [It] would have killed most any ordinary person. [Elliott] just stayed out there and gagged at the thoughts of it. Before we got home he [was] so badly gone that I had to lead his horse with the reins over the horn of my saddle and hold [on] to his arm and run the horses. He could see green trees and ponds of water all the time off to different directions. When we [came] to the first water, a little drizzly stream coming down a ditch to the 00:17:00field, a very small stream [that was] so hot it was almost ablaze. I wasn't afraid to let him get too much water because his mouth was so full of [his] swelled tongue that he could hardly get any down at all. If it hadn't been that I drank what I did out there [neither] of us would have been alive today.

Another time, I saved [Elliott's] feet from freezing. We were riding after 00:18:00cattle up in some mountains, about twenty miles further east. A snow storm came up. The next morning it was so frozen that icicles hung down on the horses. They had been standing tied up. Icicles hung down on their hair along their side. I 00:19:00had been out before with a brother-in-law that knew how to handle [cold weather]. He showed me how to wrap my feet in newspaper and then in burlap sacks. We didn't happen to have any newspaper but we had burlap, plenty of burlap. I wrapped my feet in burlap so that it was hard to get them in the stirrups. He asked me what I was going to do and I told him. He said, "That ain't gonna do you any good." I couldn't get him to wrap his feet up. Before the day was half gone I had to take him off from his horse and take a doubled rope and run him up and down the draw, back and forth, to warm him [and] his feet up. 00:20:00[We] went back to camp. I saved his feet and saved him from freezing to death.

[Later] I met him in Salt Lake City [Salt Lake County, Utah] and he was with some of his high-class friends. He didn't even know me. That was the thanks that I got for saving his life twice.

FH:Some people don't have any sense, do they?

ET:No.

FH:[Laughter]

ET:I could tell a lot of experiences such as this, but it would make too long a story.

FH:Maybe you ought to tell about your father. Can you tell a little bit about him?

ET:My father was Thomas Sirls Terry. He joined the Mormon church [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] in Pennsylvania and came to Salt Lake City in September [of 1847]. It was shortly after Brigham Young came into Salt Lake [City]. He was captain of a [wagon] company that came across the plains. He saved a young woman's life [and] he married [her] after she grew up to be a 00:22:00woman. He saved her life after she had been run over in a stampede of buffalos. They all claimed that the blessing that he gave her was what saved her life. Later on in his life, after the church had built a temporary church house, our father was still a tobacco chewer. While they were having a meeting my father, 00:23:00with some other young men, stood up in the back of the meeting house which had a dirt floor. Brigham Young was preaching [from] the Word of Wisdom. My father had a big cud of tobacco in his mouth and he just dropped it out on the floor. That was the last [time] he ever chewed tobacco.

He finally married Mary Ann Pulsipher. After they had two children, he married her sister, Louisa Pulsipher. They lived just out of Salt Lake [City], which was 00:24:00just a small city then. They lived up in Cottonwood Canyon on a ranch. He was called on a [LDS] mission back to Pennsylvania. He left a brother-in-law, a young man, with his family and he went to Pennsylvania. The Indians were bad those days on people that lived out of the town. When he [returned] from his mission he brought a brother with him. Those were the only two of the Terry family that came to the United States that he knew [about]. While there were two 00:25:00Terry families, one lived in St. George and one over at Rockville later on, they never could trace any genealogy back. Although the family at Rockville had the same names that my father's family had.

My father, with his father, mother-in-law, and brother-in-law, was called down to St. George by Brigham Young [during] the [beginning] of St. George. One of my father's oldest children was born in St. George. They said it was the coldest winter they ever had in St. George. The temple was a wagon box setting on the 00:26:00ground ─

FH:You mean the hospital?

ET:The hospital was a wagon box setting on the ground without any fire or light. Later on, my father, his families, and the two Pulsipher families moved up to what they called Shoal Creek, ten miles above what is now Enterprise [Washington County, Utah]. They were the first whites to ever go there. An old Indian told 00:27:00them about this place [and] what wonderful meadows were there. That is why they [went]. My father was the bishop there for twenty-four years. Later, when Enterprise was started, one of my father's oldest daughters and her husband were the first family to start the town.

FH:Oh?

ET:After his first two families had pretty well grown up, my father married my mother [who] was a very young woman compared with him.

FH:What was your mother's name?

ET:My mother was Hannah Louisa Leavitt. They finally moved to Bunkerville [Nevada]. After a few people had settled in Mesquite, they [moved] over there. I was born in the first one-room adobe house that was ever built in Mesquite. [When] I was a very small boy, my mother moved up on to the Beaver Dam Wash [to] 00:29:00a ranch there. There is where I spent my life, mostly in the hills [around there], up until the old ranch washed away. I [moved to] another one two miles further down the canyon. I sold that [ranch] in 1953.

FH:Tell about your mother. What can you remember about her?

ET:My father was a wonderful orchard and vineyard man. He soon had a fine big 00:30:00orchard and vineyard. [When] the fruit and vegetables [ripened] he would go west to Delamar [and] Pioche [in Nevada] peddling. My mother would sometimes be alone for a week on the ranch with us children. She worked hard all [the] time in the 00:31:00garden and made clothes for us. My father [had] five head of sheep, five ewes, and one of them had a buck lamb. From that, we raised a little [herd] of sheep. My mother used to shear the sheep with us boys holding them. She would wash [the] wool time and time again to get all the grease and dirt out. Then she 00:32:00would card it into little rolls [and] spin it out on the spinning wheel into balls of yarn. I [would] sit nodding many a night while she would be spinning this yarn out. She would say, "Edward, wake up! Edward, wake up! I can't do this without you. Wake up!" I [think] some of the nights seemed to be a week long.

FH:[Laughter]

ET:She would knit our mittens, stockings, and jackets, out of that [wool]. On 00:33:00Christmas we would all have a new pair of stockings that had never been worn. They would be hung up by the fireplace. After we had gone to sleep, [they would put] a pomegranate, an apple, and a piece of molasses candy, a few little [items] like that, a few peanuts ─

[END OF TAPE ONE -- SIDE ONE]

ET: ─ that we had raised, all [things] that we had worked hard to raise. That would be our Christmas.

FH:That was a good Christmas anyway, wasn't it?

ET:It was a very good Christmas. We had an old uncle, Orrin Leavitt, my mother's 00:34:00brother. He was kind of an invalid but he used to do quite a lot of work on the ranch. He used to live with us every summer. One time my father was off with a peddling load and was gone an extra long time. The family, all the girls, boys, and Uncle Orrin went down one mile below where we lived to strip [sugar] cane. 00:35:00We [had] the forenoon's work done and went out along the creek to eat our lunch. [Our] uncle didn't feel very well. He just kept sitting [and] looking down the canyon. My oldest brother said to him, "Uncle Orrin, what is the matter? You don't feel very well do you?" He said, "No. I wish I could see somebody coming up from Bunkerville." That was where he lived. My brother said to him, "Well, 00:36:00Uncle Orrin, you go home. You have done enough for today." So he went home. When we [arrived] at home that night, my mother had him in bed. The next morning he was so bad that my mother put me on a horse and sent me forty-five miles to Bunkerville. I was about thirteen years of age. [She] sent me to Bunkerville ─

FH:That's a long ways to go on a horse.

ET:─ [to] take word to his folks down there. [When] I got down there, two of 00:37:00his brothers got on horses and went up [to the ranch]. Another one [brother] took his mother on a buckboard. I went with another uncle [on] horseback back [home]. But we didn't do this until the second day. My father came [back] from 00:38:00his peddling trip before they all [arrived]. He camped one night fifteen miles from the ranch [on] an awful rough road. After he [made] camp and [said] his prayers, a voice said to him, "You are needed [at] home." [Emotional] He harnessed up his horses and came [home]. He [arrived] one hour before my uncle died. When [we] were coming the next day, we met the folks coming with him in 00:39:00the wagon taking him down to be buried.

This is the kind of a life that my mother lived after the family was pretty much all married. Sometimes my father and mother went, in the wintertime, down on the Muddy [River] Valley [in Nevada] where one daughter lived. [They] went other places [also]. [My] buddy, Elliott Snow, and I were on the ranch pretty much 00:40:00alone most all of the time. Later on, my father and mother moved to Enterprise and lived there. My father always said he would live to be a hundred years old. He would have, but he fell in a well and killed himself when he was ninety-three 00:41:00years of age. [He] was a spryer, stouter man than what I am now. I have always said that it was a blessing to him that he did die that way. He had a bad cancer on his nose and it would soon get him. He had suffered an awful lot. My mother lived around with her family [in] different places [after he died]. [She] finally had a little home built by her youngest daughter, [Exie], in St. George 00:42:00and there is where she died. We took her to Enterprise and buried her beside my father.

FH:How many brothers and sisters did you have? How much family was your mother's and dad's family?

ET:My father's and mother's family were three boys and three girls. They had two girls, then three boys, and the third daughter.

FH:Why don't you start with the oldest one and tell their names and a little bit about each one of them?

ET:My oldest sister, Maud Etna Terry, lived to be quite old before she was 00:43:00married. She would [live] where ever the younger sister was living. She would go and stay with [her] and with other relatives. She finally married a man by the name of John ─

FT:Patten.

ET:─ Patten. He had lived [in] the Mormon Colony in Mexico. His first wife was 00:44:00a Terry, but no relation as far as we know. They raised quite a family there in Payson [Utah County],Utah, and that is where my sister died. John Patten died there later.

My second sister [Mary] married Ezra Bunker right after he came [back] from [his] mission. He was from the town [of] Bunkerville. Their first children were twins, a boy and a girl. I will have to tell you a little bit of an experience with them. One time they were taking my mother up to Enterprise and I was 00:45:00[going] along with them. The road was awful rough, terribly rough, and on the way going up, one of their little girls was asleep in the wagon. After they had gone quite a long ways, they missed her. They went back and found she had fallen out of the wagon.

FH:Was she hurt?

ET:No, no, she was just crying. They moved back and forth from one place to 00:46:00another. They lived down [in] the Muddy [River] Valley. My father and mother used to go down there and spend the winter with them. At one time they lived down at the mouth of the Beaver Dam Wash. We, all of us, used go visit them there. My oldest brother [lived] there with my sister and brother-in-law. They carried the mail from St. George to the Beaver Dams by buckboard and horseback.

FH:The next child?

ET:The next child was this brother [who] lived with them and carried the mail. He married ─

FH:His name was what?

ET:His name was David Dudley Terry. He married a girl from Littlefield [Arizona] by the name of Stella Iverson. Shortly after they married, they moved to Delta 00:48:00[Millard County, Utah]. They lived there up until a few years [ago]. He did [very] well there in the early [days] of Delta [and] was one of the early settlers there. [He did very] well there [raising] Lucerne [alfalfa] seed. My mother gave money to buy his marriage license. He did [very] well and sold out in Delta just a few years [ago] and moved to Provo [and] retired.

[My] second [brother] [Jedediah] lived on the ranch with us. He and I ran the 00:49:00cattle on the ranch. He was the biggest and stoutest man that I ever saw. Everybody said they had never ever seen a man as big and stout as him. He went on a [LDS] mission to Mississippi. While he was there he took [very] sick. The people said it was consumption, but it wasn't. They doctored him and doctored him and [continued] and cleared his mission. [After he] came home they doctored 00:50:00him up there. That caused him to [start] taking medicine. Every little thing that happened, he had to take medicine for it. If one little dose of medicine helped him, he would take a half a dozen. He took everything that everybody prescribed and I'll always say that it was medicine that killed him. He married Clara Woods. They never had any children of their own, but they adopted a boy and a girl. My brother still owned some property on the old ranch when he died 00:51:00in 1953 ─ a real old man, older than what I am today. [There] were only eighteen months between us.

FH:He just [became] old quickly?

ET:Yes. I am the next one. I was on the ranch all the time and out in the hills. I will say I led a wild life. I had a story [about] my life written by a young 00:52:00man in Provo, by the name of Reed E. Lowe. Everybody that read it figured that it was one of the best wild-west stories that they ever read! It told all about my wild life, about my wild horse chasing and bronco riding. I was, at one time, figured [to be] the best bronco rider in this part of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. But I always said that a brother-in-law of mine was the best bronco rider I ever 00:53:00saw. He just changed it the other way [around]. I have had a lot of mighty close calls to death by these horses. I'll have to tell one [story]. I bought a range-raised horse, a wild horse, from out on the Muddy Valley Wash for $15.00. That kind of a horse is selling for $600.00 to $800.00 today. After I rode him a few times, [he] fell with my foot in the stirrup. It was a good thing that I was 00:54:00an expert shot with a six-shooter. I always carried one on my hip, in my hand, or under my pillow. This horse fell with me and I always took pride in telling people that a horse could never get away from me. If he did throw me or fall with me, that I could always hold to the lead rope. This horse fell with me and got up with my foot in the stirrup. I had to hold the lead rope. He was a tall and leggy horse. He whirled with me on the outside, kicking at me all the time, and I was up above the ground all the time. He tried swinging fast [and] kicking 00:55:00at me. I unbuckled the button on my six-shooter holster and shot that horse twice before he fell. Otherwise, if I hadn't had that six-shooter, that would have been the last of me. I have had a lot of uncommon experiences.

After I grew up and was in my twenties, I used to go down to Mesquite quite often to the dances. I finally [started] going with a wonderful young lady [by] 00:56:00the name of Florence Woodbury. My youngest sister, [Exie], and I were very close. We were younger than the rest [and] we were very close and always played and worked together on the ranch.

I will have to tell about one time [when] we were out along the creek [and] we had been trying to catch fish. We had thrown some big rocks into the creek so we 00:57:00could step from one to the other across the creek. Old Uncle Jed Burgess, a caring man that ran cattle, came along on foot. He had camped down [at] the ranch and came out there on foot after water. He said, "Well, Eddie and Exie, you are building a bridge for Uncle Jed Burgess, are you? Hee, hee, hee, hee, hee." We played together all the time. After we grew up, [Exie] lived around 00:58:00[here] after most all of [her] family left the ranch. She would [come] to the ranch with father and mother and then she would go down to stay with grandmother and her girl-friends. Later she [started] going with a young man, Roland Blake from St. George, and she married him. They raised a family of three boys and one girl. Roland died and she spent most of her time working in the St. George 00:59:00Temple. She later married a man that was working in the temple. After she died, then this man died. The girl [Exie's daughter] married and went back east. The three boys married and live here in St. George.

FH:I think you [had] better go back and tell about that young lady you met and go on from there with your life story.

ET:During the trips that I [made] to Mesquite I met this young lady, [a] fine 01:00:00young lady, Florence Woodbury. We courted for a year and a half and then we [were] married. On the trip up to St. George to [be] married, we took [my] youngest sister, [Exie who] wasn't married then, and left her there. That is when she [started] courting [with] the man that she married. We [were] married 01:01:00and went up to Enterprise. That was our honeymoon, up to Enterprise. I had a fine span of bay mares and a fine little black-topped, one-seated buggy. I was [considered very] wealthy. In fact, I was at that time. I had right close to three hundred head of fine Durham cattle and had this ranch producing [very] heavily. And I had $1,140.00 in $20.00 gold pieces when I [was] married. My mother didn't have to buy my license! [But] today, that brother that she bought 01:02:00[the] marriage license [for] is well-to-do and I'm a poor man.

FH:It sounds like you have a lot to be thankful for, though.

ET:A mighty lot to be thankful for. After we were married, we moved to the ranch [and] lived there. We had a little one-room [house] that we lived in right [by the] side of my father and mother. When our first child came along, we were 01:03:00living then [in Mesquite]. I had moved my wife to Mesquite, Nevada and we were renting [from] an aunt of mine and her husband, [who] was Bishop William Abbott at that time. We rented part of their house.

FH:What was the [birth] date of [your] first child and [its] name?

ET:The first child was Francis Sirls Terry. He was born in Mesquite December 29 ─

FT:In 1913.

ET:─ in 1913.

FH:Tell a little bit about him and his life.

FT:He was a great wrestler when he was in school.

ET:Yes. This little boy was the stoutest baby that I ever saw in my life. I used to drive four horses a lot and he would go with me. He would grab a hold of the lines, and the four lines were [very] big for a man. He would [take the] four lines, two in one hand and two in the other. Sometimes he would [be] pulling 01:05:00with one hand harder than the other one and pull the horses out so that the wagon wouldn't be following the wagon tracks. I would have an awful time [getting] his hands loose from the lines. He was that stout. After he grew up, he was [very] stout [and was] quite a wrestler while he was going to school. I'll have to tell one [story]. [Once] I was going down [to] the field after a load of hay and he was about four years old. I had [a] fine mare but she was 01:06:00hard to catch. He wanted to ride "Old Bluchie" all alone. So I put him on her. I started down and he was on "Old Bluchie" all alone and she started going off to one side. I told him to pull her over towards the wagon. He kept pulling her off the other way. So I got off the wagon and went to catch her. She just twisted her neck and kind of squealed and went trotting off. The further [away] she got, 01:07:00the further back he bounced back on her back. Finally he bounced off of the back of her, lit right on his head and shoulders, with his heels up in the air and got up limping. He said, "I don't want to ride "Old Bluchie" all alone any more." [Laughter]

FH:[Laughter]

ET: He had a lot of experiences like that. Another time, while he was a baby, I had [a very] fine purebred English thoroughbred stallion. I got on [the horse] and had [Francis] in my arms and got to jogging the horse up and down. The horse stepped in a ditch and fell and threw [Francis] way out in front. Another time, while he was a baby, my wife and I went up to Enterprise for the Twenty Fourth of July. At the time, my brother, just older than me, was going with the woman that he later married. In Enterprise, one of our nephews got a bunch together to go up to the Enterprise Reservoir fishing. He had a big span of mules, real lively mules. He [hitched them to] a wagon and put all of us on spring seats on top of the top bed; put us really up in the air. I sat with my wife on my lap [and] with one foot out of the wagon. My brother sat on the other side with his sweetheart in the middle and he had our baby in his arms asleep. We [were] up just a little ways and met the ranger’s buckboard coming down. There was a road [that] turned out on a steep hillside. This young man that was driving swung the team out on this hillside and tipped it over right down the hill. I [could] see we were going–

[END OF TAPE ONE – SIDE TWO]

[The following transcript of tape two was completed in 2021.]

ET: – [over] and I throwed my wife off and I lit on the upper side. My brother throwed the baby off down the hill. And him and his sweetheart rolled out of the way of the wagon. He throwed the baby off in a bunch of bushes and he never even woke up.

FH: Oh, for goodness sakes! ¶ET: And the wagon tipped over on some of ‘em. I don’t know how I ever done it, but I got around on the lower side and picked that wagon up with my two hands enough so they could pull one of my nieces out from under it. The wagon was laying right across her legs. Another niece that had been in an accident once before, she had a metal plate in her head over her brain. It crushed that in so it rested on her brain. She was out of her head until they got a doctor. She had to go to Cedar City and have that fixed up.

I’ll have to go back and tell of a little experience of my own that happened before this.

[TAPE RECORDER TURNS OFF.]

ET: While on the ranch, I had a field of hay down ready to haul. But I went out on the range, and while out there, I got a hectare a bunch of wild horses and I run them down into the ranch. It was right in the middle of summer when the hottest days. I run them down to the ranch, and they broke out and spit on me. And this horse that I, one horse that I wanted to get off the range run along lookin’ back at me, run into a drift of wood that the flood had piled up against a tree and fell over. I jumped off and tied him down, and by the time I got him tied down, a young man that was work– was livin’ there with us workin’ for me, he was out on this “Old Bluchie” that my baby wanted to ride all alone, he was out there with her bareback and she was pretty sleek.

I just jumped off from my horse and jumped on this mare bareback and took after one of these other horses. I run him off up in the hills, where the hills was up and down washboard, tearin’ up and down like this, and I didn’t take my lasso ‘cause I’d tied this horse down with it. And I was goin’ down off one of these hills and there was lots of rabbit holes mounds, that pile up a big pile of dirt, and I was reachin’ out, just before I grab him– got to the bottom, I was reachin’ out to get ahold of this horse’s tail, and both horses hit this piles of rabbit holes and went end over end. And, I lit on my face in the bottom of the draw, in the hot sand, on my face, and this mare atop of me wringin’ wet with sweat. The only place I could see out from under her was where her, was right in front of her hind legs, right by where her bag would be. She laid with her legs up against this bank so that she couldn’t get ahold, by kickin’, she couldn’t get ahold of the dirt. And there she was, the same as tied down on me. In fact, she was tied, because she had one of the bridle reins tied around my spurs.

FH: [Laughter.]

ET: And I had my left arm throwed out of joint and laid across my back so that the back of my hand was on my other arm over here.

FH: Wow.

ET: I never will know how I ever got that mare off of me. But anyway, she got off of me and when she jumped up and went to go, my spur held her. And I got up with this arm a-swingin’, and I went and– untied this– rein from my spur and then I run over to a Joshua tree that stood up there, [a] young one, and it forked out. And there was just room below the forks for me to get there and work my arm around there, got my fingers locked together, and kept jerkin’ on it till I jerked it back into socket. I got on the mare and rode home, and got it unsaddled and everything under a big mulberry tree that made an awful lot of shade. And when I got off, I fainted. I finally came to, and the next day, I pitched hay all day long.

And then, when the Fourth of July come, and we loaded up a load of stuff, fruit stuff that we had ripe, and went there to Enterprise. And we went to Enterprise and– I told about the way [crosstalk], about tippin’ over. We went to Enterprise and when we was there and had this accident, we got the doctor and he x-rayed those that had been crippled, me along with the others. And he said that my collarbone was broke, and that where the arm had been throwed out of socket, one of the cords that held it in the socket was broke.

FH: Hmm.

ET: And this is the kind of experience that I’ve had. This is only just one out of, I could say, a thousand of such accidents.

FH: My goodness.

ET: I will go on now with this boy of mine.

FH: Okay.

ET: He growed up on the ranch and as he got old enough to go to school, we moved. In fact, we moved quite a lot of the time, moved my wife into Mesquite for the winter, had her on the ranch in the summertime. And he growed up there and after he got old enough to go to high school, we moved him from the ranch into St. George. And while he was goin’ to school here, he went different places with the school and wrestled. He was figured one of the best wrestlers there was in the country. At one time he went to Cedar City, and the school up there had a Japanese boy that was much older and much bigger, and they figured that Cedar City was gonna get off with the wrestlin’. But they said that– the coach told me, he said, “I never seen anybody take such a fall in my life.” He said, “That Japanese boy took.” He said, “Sirls picked him up and give ‘im what they call a body slam.” He says, “It was really a slam.” He says, “He’s like to never come to.” He wrestled different places around.

And he got in a wrong environment here, in St. George, and one time I had to go and get him and fetch him back from runnin’ off, and put him back in school. I wasn’t, haven’t lived on the ranch all the time, work hard to make a livin’. I wasn’t sure that I could take care of my family as I should. I have to give my wife credit for all that was done outside of makin’ a livin’. He finally quit school and went off out in Nevada, and that was the last schooling he had before he really finished his high school. He went out into Nevada, and while out there, he married a young woman and they had one child that is now twenty-three years of age. And he came here to the ranch after the child was born, or came here to St. George where we was livin’ after this child was born. And then they moved back up north and–

FT: [Inaudible.]

ET: – he was called into the service then. Him and this woman was separated and divorced. He was in the service, in the Navy, until the war was over. Then he came home and married another woman. And they came out to my deer camp on their way goin’ down into California to visit a relative of hers there, and that is the last time that I ever seen her. And she had a son, and then she left him. And he has just run around ever since. He’s been here to see us a time or two, and he has worked for these construction outfits and has always been in on the strikes. And he’s gettin’ to be an old man. Today, I’m sorry to say that his life is the way it has, it’s the sorrow of my life to think that I wasn’t or that I could take more care of him.

FH: Mm-hmm.

ET: I will now go to the second boy.

FH: M’kay.

FT: Antone Verl.

ET: His name was Antone Verl Terry.

FH: He was born when?

FT: May 14th.

ET: He was born May the 14th–

FT: 1916.

ET: – nineteen and sixteen–

FT: Mesquite, Nevada.

ET: – in Mesquite, Nevada. He was like the other boy. He was raised on the ranch and spent quite a hard struggle of it himself. And he got to be my main stay with the cattle, and was a real horseman and a real cowboy. When he quit the ranch, he had a nice little bunch of cattle started, and he–

FT: [Inaudible.]

ET: He didn’t– He was called, he was examined for the army, but he didn’t pass. The doctors wouldn’t say what was wrong with him, but he was the stoutest one of the whole family outside the oldest boy, while he was young on the ranch, and he was a wonderful, wonderful son. He married a girl from Mesquite, Nevada, and they moved around one place and another. And he finally worked for President Wells.

FH: President Wells, uh-huh.

ET: President Wells.

FH: Uh-huh, alright.

ET: And he worked there for a long while. And then he sold out his cattle and moved to Idaho.

FT: Nampa [Idaho].

FH: Nampa?

ET: Nampa, Idaho. And he’s still living there. He has been down twice of late to visit us. He took me out a year ago out over our old stompin’ grounds, where our cattle ranged. He was anxious to go over some of our old ground again. And he calls us on the phone about everything two or three weeks now, all the time. He had his family down to see us a time or two. He’s a boss at the Utah and Idaho Sugar plant there, and is doin’ well in the church. [He’s] doin’ well in the church, and he– Well, I’ll leave that now and go on to the next–

FH: That’s fine. Alright.

ET: – next –

FT: [Inaudible.]

FH: He has a big family, does he?

ET: Yes.

FT: [Inaudible.]

FH: Alright.

ET: He has a big family.

FT: His oldest son just visited.

ET: His oldest son was just here yesterday. He’s just home out of the service on a vacation; he’ll have to go back in. He was here and visited us. His oldest daughter got married and had two sons, our first great-grandchildren.

I will now go back on to the next son.

FH: And his name?

FT: Vivian Terry.

ET: Vivian Terry.

FT: Born November 13th.

ET: He was born November the 13th–

FT: 1918.

ET: – nineteen and eighteen–

FT: St. George.

ET: – [in] St. George, Washington County, Utah.

FH: Okay.

ET: He was like the others. He was raised up on the ranch and went to school at Mesquite, Nevada, and then finished his schooling here in St. George. And was called into the navy in World War Two, and went in there, just before he was on his way [was] when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He spent two years, he spent his time in the navy until peace was declared, if that’s what you wanna call it. And he had a great experience. He was on the Saratoga when it was torpedoed, and he said that that crew worked the hardest that they ever worked in their lives, pumpin’ water into the two rooms on the opposite side of them to keep it afloat. And that they was, for days, on rations because their food was all in the bottom of the ship. And I never knew until later years, he never would say anything about what the army life was, that I never knew until a short time back, that he was shot in the foot. And he was on the ship at the same time that the two son-in-laws and another very close buddy was in the navy, and they never ever seen each other. Only him and the oldest son, they was allowed to, the two ships pulled up side by side and let them visit a little while.

FH: Hmm.

ET: He came home and married a young lady in Los Angeles. They never had any children of their own, but they adopted two girls a year apart. They are fine young women now. The only thing I don’t like about it, while his wife is a wonderful woman, I think the world and all of her and she does of me and Mother, and their girls do– in fact, the youngest one seems to just worship me– but they’re Catholics. But he never, our son never, after he went into the army, he never lived much of a LDS life.

FT: Although, he’s ordained an elder.

ET: Huh?

FT: Although he’s an elder. He was ordained an elder, but he don’t take no part in the stake.

FH: Mm-hmm.

ET: He was ordained an elder, but he is just living a workin’ man’s life now. He has a wonderful job all the time, has a wonderful home in California there.

And, I’ll now go back to the oldest girl.

FT: Norma May.

ET: Huh?

FT: Norma May.

ET: Her name is Norma May Terry,–

FT: Born the 22nd of May.

ET: – born the 22nd of May–

FT: 1921.

ET: – nineteen and twenty-one–

FT: St. George, Utah.

ET: – [in] St. George, Utah. And she spent all of her life on the ranch and here, in St. George, Utah, goin’ to school here. And after she was– what was her age when she got married, Mother?

FT: Nineteen.

ET: When she was nineteen years of age, she married a wonderful young man, Lerin Porter, who turned out to be a wonderful carpenter. And they lived here in St. George for a while. And he was a partner that built some of the finest homes here in St. George. Finally, a man by the name of– Oh, what’s his name, Mother? This–

FT: [Inaudible.]

ET: President Bennett. William Bennett was president of the stake here, and he’d seen some of his buildings, but he had a home in–

FT: Jacksonville, Florida.

ET: – in Florida, and he resigned here and went down there. But before he went, he wouldn’t rest until he got my son-in-law and my daughter to go down there to build him a motel. And they went down and built him this motel, and on their way back, they visited a number of the states around. And they came back here, and they bought a little motel here that was started, and he finished it, the Stardust Motel here in St. George. They lived here for a long time until the third child was born, and they– This man, Bennett, wouldn’t rest until he got ‘em back down there. He went so far as to buy a place just over the line in Georgia, in Woodburn, Georgia, a place that was big enough that it had a bank in it, but didn’t have a motel, and the motel was right on the main drag. And there was just six months of building a twenty-eight-unit motel and a fine home, and people from around here and from the picture that I’ve seen, it’s the finest in the world. And the people from around here that went there and visited ‘em, said they never expected to ever go into as swanky a motel as that was.

FH: Hmm.

ET: And my daughter’s life after they had lived there and they’d had their fourth child, and lived there for some time– Well, this motel, they told me that it, for eight years that they’d been there, that it’d never had a night’s vacancy. And the prices there were so much better than here, that there was no comparison. This man, Bennett, owned the interest in it, in this place, and my daughter– Neither my son-in-law nor my daughter’s health was very good. My daughter got so bad that she wasn’t expected to live and the doctor there had her lined up to go to Mayo brothers clinic in the east. And this doctor in Whittier, California that had hunted deer with me for thirty-five years had operated on my youngest daughter’s life, which lived there in Whittier, and had saved her life. And through her and this doctor, they got my oldest daughter to go to Whittier, California there and have this doctor there operate on her.

The doctor in Woodburn, Georgia said that it was her heart. This doctor in California said to her, he said, “Norma,” he says, “if you come here– I’m not a heart specialist, but if you come here, I’ll guarantee you the best there is.” And when he operated on her, he had two other doctors with him, and they cut her from the backbone on one side over to the backbone on the other side, took one rib out. The other two doctors said to him, “For heaven’s sake Doc, sew her up, there ain’t a chance on earth. Close her up, there ain’t a chance on earth.” He said, “This is one woman I’ve got to save.” And he did save her, while they had an awful struggle of doin’ it. But he told me after about eight years, he told me, he says, “Ed,” he says, “I don’t know what I done, but it must have been right.” But he says, “I saved her life. I just x-rayed her, and there ain’t one thing wrong with her [other than] she’s underweight.” He says, “All the big clinics in the United States, not just one, but all of them, said it–”

[END OF TAPE TWO – SIDE ONE]

ET: “– can’t be so.” He says, “It is so.” [He] says, “They’ve been watchin’ that case. It is so.” And that was how that I come to go down there. He was well acquainted with both my daughters, thought the world and all of them while he was huntin’ deer with me. And he talked to her and all to me, and that’s how I come to go down there to have him take my leg off.

And my daughter and her husband was called by the church over to [inaudible] on a work mission. He went over there and built chapels over there for the church. They came back and they live in Cedar City. He’s a–

FT: He helped build seven different chapels.

ET: Or he overseen that many?

FT: He just built them.

ET: Well, yes. And he– they live now in Cedar City. They got a wonderful home there. And he has built a $34,000 home for sale there, and is now working building other places. Their oldest son is on a mission now, in Canada.

Now, I will go to the next child.

FT: Hannah Louisa.

ET: The other one is named after my mother, Hannah Louisa Terry.

FT: Born–

ET: Hannah Louisa was born the 15th of February, nineteen and what?

FT: 1925.

ET: Nineteen and twenty-five.

FT: St. George.

ET: [In] St. George, Utah. She spent her school days here, in St. George, and she’s still livin’ here. She married a fine young man by the name of Keith Abbott, from a very religious family. He went into the service and came back safe and sound. And they have a family of four fine daughters. They live, now, in Whittier, California, and their oldest daughter has a fine son, our another great-grandson. And my son-in-law is the city manager of the City of Whittier, California.

Now, we will go on to the next.

FT: Ezra Edward.

ET: Huh?

FT: Ezra Edward.

ET: My next son’s name was Ezra Edward.

FT: Born September the 19th–

ET: Born September the 19th–

FT: – 1927.

ET: – nineteen and twenty-seven–

FT: St. George.

ET: – [in] St. George, Washington County, Utah. He, like the others, spent his school days here, and was called into the service to that, what they call the little police action, over in Korea. He was, well–

FT: He was an elder before he went, nineteen.

ET: He was bound an elder before he went–

FT: Ordained an elder before he went.

ET: – And he was shelled while he was there in a bad way and was shipped home. He came home for just a few days and then went back to San Francisco to have– he had some of the shells taken out of his stomach before he left Japan, and then he went back to San Francisco to have more taken out, but they wouldn’t take it out. They shipped him back east and he was put there as the trainer over soldiers there. He then came home and he married a fine young lady from over Toquerville, Utah. They now live in Salt Lake City, has a fine home there and a fine business there. And they have a family of, what, Mother?

FT: Five children.

ET: Five children, three girls and two boys.

I will now go on to the next.

FT: LaMar W.

ET: Huh?

FT: LaMar W. Woodbury. LaMar Woodbury, LaMar W.

ET: LaMar W. Terry.

FT: Born the 29th of September–

ET: Born the 29th of September–

FT: 1931.

ET: – [nineteen] thirty-one–

FH: Okay.

FT: St. George.

ET: – [in] St. George, Washington County, Utah.

FH: Alright.

ET: He spent his school days here until he was called into that little peace action over in Korea. He, like his brother, was shell-shocked there. Shot there and came home, and then went to Provo, Utah to finish his college there. He, while there, met a young lady and was married. And when he left school there, he went to Las Vegas, Nevada and took a job as a teacher there for two years, and then took the job of the principal, and is the principal of a North Las Vegas school there, now.

His first wife, they went hay-wire, you might call it. After they had adopted twin baby boys, and then she had a baby girl, and then a baby boy, and then she went hay-wire and left him. She was in a bad enough way that the law in Nevada gave him the home, the children, and everything else, but what she stood up in and an old car. He then married a young woman that her husband had left her. She was also an LDS woman; she had two children, two boys. He married her, and she, if I must say, is best, the finest woman, the finest mother that anybody ever saw. And she has them six children there now. When they got married, there was six children under six years of age, and they’re really pitchin’ them up in the right way.

And I will now go on to the third boy.

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF.]

ET: But, –

FH: This last boy, then.

FT: [Inaudible.] Dean Thomas.

ET: Our next boy’s name is Dean Thomas Terry.

FT: Born the 9th of March–

ET: Born the 9th of March–

FT: 1934.

ET: – nineteen and thirty-four–

FT: St. George.

ET: – [in] St. George, Washington County, Utah. He got his schooling here. He did not go to college, but he finally married a fine young lady by the name of–

FT: Carol Foremaster.

ET: – by the name of Carol Foremaster. They have two fine sons, and she had so much trouble givin’ birth to these that they wouldn’t have any more, but they adopted a baby girl, and she is really a doll. And he was in business here in St. George for a while in the service station business, and when the Shell people went outta business here in St. George, they got him to move to Las Vegas and take a station over there. And he has done so well there, that he’s got two ten-day trips for him and his wife, everything paid, for bein’ top tire salesman for Firestone. And they also got a trip to the World’s Fair, ten day trip, everything paid, from the Shell people.

FH: Okay.

ET: And he’s done well enough that he is in with two or three others has bought four or $500,000 worth of property around the country to build some homes on. And I guess that’ll be enough of my family now.

FH: Okay. Now, can you tell me a little bit about your own life since you started that family, and where you’ve moved, a little bit?

FT: [Inaudible.]

ET: My father was a patriarch and he gave me my patriarchal blessing when I got ready to get married.

FH: Mm-hmm.

ET: I’ll go on now with my life.

FH: Alright.

ET: I’ve lived all my life out on the ranch on the Beaver Dam Wash and had very little chances to attend church. Well, I was a elder and was a strong believer in the church, in the religion. Whenever I was so’s I could, I went to Sunday school and meeting, which was quite a few times in Mesquite, Nevada and also here in St. George while I was livin’ on the ranch.

After selling out the ranch in ‘53, I found out that I hadn’t laid up anything where I could draw social security. And so, I worked around part of the time here and there for different runs until I laid up a little social security. I was a great hand with livestock, and a livestock man in Cedar City got me to go there and lamb sheep for him and take care of cattle for him there. For eight years, I was there in the summertime, and I spent two winters there. One time when I was trimmin’ up some big buck sheep for the show there in Cedar City, I was in a pen with four of them a-trimmin’ them up with sheep-shearers, and one of them big old fellows with horns seen a chance. I had my left knee up against a cement wall, he reared up and pasted it just as hard as he could paste it, and I’ve seen them kill grown bulls before now. And he just about flattened it out on this cement wall. I was pretty-well crippled in that, along for eight years, enough so’s it was hard for me to get on my horse. I had to have, while I was ridin’ all the time, I had to get on– I had a hard time gettin’ on the horse– I had to have a saddle with a low back to it and a gentle horse. Although I run a deer camp every year and handled all kinds of horses, shod good and bad.

A year ago last June, I was with the sheep and I was riding a horse [who] was real gentle, but he was awful fat and no withers and I had a brand new saddle that was flat on him, and after I go a little ways, I had to cinch it up again. And I got on him this one morning and went up to where I had bedded the sheep and there was a big lamb layin’ there. The others had gone on a feeding, and he didn’t know, when he woke up he didn’t know where they was and he just jumped up and tried to go back the other way. And while I was chasin’ him back and forth, I took my rope down to rope him. And there was lots of big tall greasewoods. This horse run on– the lamb run on one side of a big greasewood, and the horse darted around the other side, and I was leanin’ way over and had a pair of heavy shoes on, too heavy and too big for me, and leanin’ over, and I hadn’t cinched this horse up a second time. And when he darted around the other side of the brush, I tipped the saddle over and flipped with head and shoulder on a big rock, and he jerked me over this big greasewood and pulled it up. And he’d have been dragging– pulled the saddle under the horse’s belly– he’d have been dragging pieces of me yet if he hadn’t kicked that brand new saddle all to pieces. And what I mean, all to pieces.

I then quit the job shortly after that, and come to St. George and went to work in the temple. Although the leg got to hurtin’ me terrible, I had my right eye operated on for a cataract. And then later, that was in 1967 in September, 1968 in 18th of January, I had the other eye operated on for cataracts. And in six days after that, I went to Whittier, California to this doctor that had saved my two daughters’ lives and that had hunted deer with me for thirty-five years. I went there and he operated on my leg twice tryin’ to save it, and finally told me that, “We’re goin’ to have to take it off.” I says, “You’re not tellin’ me any news.” I says, “I had a dream the night before that I came down here, and I seen all the leg operations and priced ‘em all.” And he said, “Well, what’re the price of them?” I told him what the price of the two operations was, and he says, “You never missed either of ‘em $25.” And I said, “I seen people that night in my dream that I didn’t know whether I’d ever see ‘em again or not.” And I said, “I went down to the doctor’s place that operated on my eye.” The next morning I told my son-in-law about this dream, and I says, “When I got down there, there was a woman that I hadn’t seen since I was to her mother’s funeral twenty years ago, before.” And I said, “The doctors in Cedar City was gonna have me go to Salt Lake. I went over to my daughter’s place to get ready to go to Salt Lake, and she says, ‘You’re not goin’ to Salt Lake. You’re goin’ to Whittier, California where Doc Frank Rogers is.’” And I said, “That’s where I went to have my leg taken off.” And that is my life up till now. I’ve now got my artificial leg on and tryin’ to–

FH: Tryin’ to learn to use it.

ET: – tryin’ to learn to use it.

FH: Oh, yes. Mm-hmm. Well, fine.

ET: Now, is that enough?

FH: Well, now you’ve had a wonderful lot of experience in your life, and I think you’re well qualified to give counsel to your descendants.

ET: You know, I was– I could be here all night long and tell you of accidents like that, shootin’ that horse, you know.

FH: Yes.

ET: And the like, this here, and some of them worse than that.

FH: Uh-huh [affirmative]. Well now, after all of this experience, would you like to give counsel to your descendants, to your children and their families?

ET: Well, I’m a poor hand at that, but I guess–

FH: Well, why don’t you try then? Maybe bear your testimony if you’d like to.

ET: I’d like now to bear my testimony to my children, my grandchildren, and all that might be. I have been all my life a strong believer in the Mormon religion. And as I have told you, my wife and I have raised our children up in the church, and we’ve told you all about ‘em. I now want you to know that I know that Jesus Christ was the son of the living God; and that Joseph Smith was a prophet in these, the last days; and that David O. McKay is our wonderful prophet of today. I bear you this testimony, and I do it in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. [This was the] testimony of Edward Sirls Terry, ordained a high priest by Rudger C. Atkin on– What was the–?

FH: March the 29th.

ET: – March the 29th of nineteen–

FH: Sixty-four.

ET: – sixty-four.

[END OF TAPE TWO – SIDE TWO. END OF INTERVIEW.]