Interview with Newell Knight Crawford

Newell Knight Crawford was interviewed on January 13, 1969 in Springdale, Washington County, Utah by Fielding H. Harris, a representative of the Voices of Remembrance Foundation. He related his personal history of living in various parts of Utah.

FH:[Would you give your full name?]

NC:[My name is] Newell Knight Crawford. [I was born] on January 17, 1901. My father's name was John Robinson Crawford.

FH:John Robinson Crawford?

NC:Yes. My mother's name was Eliza Ellen (Hepworth) [Crawford].

FH:Where were you born?

NC:[I was born] in Oak Creek [Washington County] Utah, originally called Springdale. That is where I was born.

FH:Has that become part of [Zion National] Park?

NC:Yes. [It] was a two mile trek to school [to] Springdale from Oak Creek. My first teacher was Henry Ware. I was in the third grade [with] that teacher.

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NC:I think I went about three months.

FH:[Was this] before you [were] sick?

NC:School started late. We only had about six months of school in those years. I went to the president's holiday program. There I [was] exposed to the measles. I don't remember much of school after that until after I was out of [school]. I remember my older brothers and sisters coming home from school in the evening. I 00:03:00was sitting out in the door and watched them. One day they were coming home [and] a cow ran him up onto the fence. He had a book sack and [was] shooing the cow. [Inaudible] went down to see what the [commotion] was. He was up on the fence. That is what I remember from school [about] the children coming home.

Whenever it stormed, my father and brothers would take the horse team and drive to Springdale and bring us home instead of letting us walk in the cold rain. Dad [inaudible] night and morning. Then we had to get out and go get the wagon out 00:04:00to go to school. [We] made two trips a day, back and forth. School would let out at 3:30 p.m. and it would be around 5:00 p.m. before we [arrived] home. We would have our chores to do after that [inaudible]. The parents usually did most of [the chores]. We had to help gather wood and take care of the other chores that weren't done.

FH:[Did] you get the German measles?

UV:No, not the German measles.

NC:[There were] about three or four days [when] I knew nothing.

FH:Were you so sick you didn't know anything?

NC:I remember taking a strong drink. It wasn't whiskey.

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FH:[Did] you take some brandy?

NC:Brandy. It made me about to heave myself inside out [when I] took it. It was terrible. I could hardly do it. The doctor claimed afterwards that I took it anytime. Whenever I [had a] cold I might [get] pneumonia. I had pneumonia when I 00:06:00had the measles. I took it to [inaudible] and it caused my hearing to go out on me.

FH:[Did] you have the measles and pneumonia together and this caused you to lose your hearing?

NC:Yes, [I] lost [my] hearing. Many of [the folks] in town got their hearing aids at the same time.

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NC:I don't remember anything until the next year or two. I went to school and they found that I was too hard of hearing and I wasn't learning anything. Then they gave me something to see what I was doing and explained it [to me]. [They] told me how to do it and I went to work on it myself. I couldn't do [the work] 00:07:00in the class. That way I got myself out and [they] sent me back to [the] fourth [grade].

FH:[Does] this mean that you had special training? They helped you on the side. How far were you able to go in school?

NC:I went [through] the eighth grade in Hurricane [Washington County, Utah]. [I entered] the ninth grade but I didn't pass it. [Inaudible] I couldn't read [well] enough. [They] gave us Shakespeare [to] read [only] to find that I couldn't read at all and [couldn't] get anything out of the lessons. They gave 00:08:00us too much [school work]. I took the easier course and I didn't take enough subjects to qualify my grades. I left some of the classes. I just didn't feel like taking them.

FH:Were you very limited in what you could do?

NC:Yes. I did the best I could in those subjects.

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NC:[I participated in the] deacons' quorum and helped the deacons' quorum while I was working in [The] Church [of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] there. [I went] down maybe once a month and took my turn helping do the janitor work for 00:09:00the church in the morning before church.

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NC:We used to have our religion class every Wednesday. We had an hour session during the week. William [inaudible] taught the class a number of times and Samuel K. [Kendall] Crawford taught other times. They took turns. At that time they would have our class out and [use] the room for the primary.

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NC:I didn't learn much of that.

FH:Because you were hard of hearing it was hard for you.

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NC:I worked and got into [wood] carving. I made it by myself. I played alone so much. I carved [wooden horses]. Aunt Emma (Curtis) Crawford asked me to make one for the display for the primary. I made one and took it down and put it in the display room. One of my cousins bought it. That disappointed her. She wanted to buy it herself. I don't remember whether I made one for her but I don't think I did. I went from there [to] making more of them. One Christmas I made fourteen 00:11:00for my nephew, carved them out in about six weeks' time. The next year, my nieces all felt so badly about it [that] I had to make them [each] one. I made fourteen [more]. [Inaudible] asked me for one. I picked it up and sent it down to her all wrapped up in a great big wad of paper in a box about four-inch square. The horse was only about two-inches tall. She was unwrapping and unwrapping and disappointed for fear there wasn't going to be anything. 00:12:00[Laughter] [When] she unwrapped a little horse, she just jumped in the air!

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NC:[He was] a mighty good dad. He always attempted to get out and work. I remember him going out. Well, I don't remember him going out but I remember when he came in the morning. He had been out on the ditch taking care of the water. They had such a time keeping the water in the ditch. He had gone late and came in. I went out with him a lot of times. He would take me with him when I was just a young fellow. He would leave me sitting and looking and watch out for these boots or something like that and play there. He would always find me there when I came back. I remember going with him down to Grafton [Washington County, 00:13:00Utah] to cut grain. When we got to Grafton he unloaded his binder, set me on the table and went down the river bed. He crossed the [Virgin] River a time or two. The water went onto the table and I was sitting in the water. Of course, being it was summer, it [didn't] hurt me. He got down to the field, not quite as far as where Evan Lee lived. The Crawfords had a farm there. He went off and left me. I don't know where he went but he [was] way late. He [had not] expected to 00:14:00be gone so long. When he came back, I was asleep on that load of [items] for the camp back up on the wagon. I hadn't gone anywhere. He was afraid I would get lost and wander off when he was gone too long, but I just played around until I was so tired that I just went to sleep.

I went with him a number of times out on the farm. We call it [the] Big Plain that is out here [in Washington County, Utah]. We have been fairly good to work the ground [and] to get it all done. However, I had two other brothers taking turns. Whatever we had to do, we did it to help him out.

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NC:I remember my grandfather very well and my grandmother too. My grandfather 00:15:00died in 1913. I remember the family left at night to go out to the [Big] Plain and help plant it. He came back and they were all gone again. He was there. When Squire [Crawford] and I came home from school we went to help take care of some of the sorghum that they had made. We went down to put it in the shed because it might storm or somebody would take it. My grandfather told us how to do it. We saw him leave the blacksmith shop with a bolster with a wagon and a few tools in 00:16:00hand, a hammer and chisel. He was walking up the hill. We worked there to get the canned [items] in. We went down and came back up. When we came up to the house, my grandmother called me. We hurried up as fast as we could and she said, "Grandfather has passed away." He was lying right near the work shed where he was going to work. He went to put the bolster down and he fell right that way and the bolster laid right on his body.

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NC:We had to hurry and find Uncle Jim. We knew he was there but he had gone over 00:17:00east from there to [his] home. We called him and got word to the other folks. My grandmother liked me to be around playing but she never wanted me to play on her day-yard because I stirred the dirt up too much. [Laughter] But other than that she was real good to me. She would always see that I had a birthday card [on my] birthday.

FH:What were their names?

NC:William Robinson and Cornelia (Gifford) Crawford.

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FH:Tell about your mother.

NC:I don't know just what I would [say]. She liked to look after me [very] good 00:18:00because I had that sick spell. She watched over me [a lot] and never let me out. They were working and checked out from head to toe where I was gone. They were [very] nice. I know you could never find anybody else that was better [than my] mother. She [inaudible] fairly good.

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NC:I remember her daddy, but I don't remember her mother. It was quite a bit earlier.

FH:What was her father's name?

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NC:Squire Hepworth. He lived in Melba, Idaho.

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NC:[I had] four sisters and three brothers. There were eight of us in the family. I never did see my oldest sister.

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NC:[My brothers and sisters were:] William Robin Crawford, Squire Crawford, Susan Ruth, Lucy Sheba, Verda Davis, and Norman P. [Pierce] Crawford was the younger brother.

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NC:"Will" [William] passed away in 1935. Squire passed away [but] I don't remember what year.

UV:[It was] 1955 or 1956, wasn't it?

NC:I don't know. The rest of them are still living.

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NC:My brother, "Will," worked with my grandfather much of the time. One or the 00:21:00other of the boys and an uncle [were] helping him.

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NC:I used to work for my grandfather quite a bit of the time. We worked for ourselves too, [doing] whatever we had to do. [I] worked for the [Zion National] Park and built [inaudible] there for them. [I] worked for Arden G. Sheefer. At the time of his death, he lifted something and ruptured his stomach. He passed away three or four days after that. A few days [later] my sister, Verda, came 00:22:00down with appendicitis. We had her in the hospital. We didn't know whether she would pull through for awhile. She made it okay. She didn't look too bad because she took [sick] so quickly and [inaudible] hard on her. It left mother worrying because she lost one boy. Squire [served in] World War II. He went to [the] lumber camp on Portland Island in Portland, Oregon. He came back in 1945, I think it was. He went on a LDS mission. He came back and worked on the farm. 00:23:00[Inaudible] worked for himself but he worked for father later on.

[Squire] and I went up on the west of the mountain up here. One morning he left home to go up there. He passed a car, a [inaudible], with a little camper in the back of it. I was passing him and made a big turn under the tunnel. The car turned and started going sideways. I gave it a whip and swerved right across the 00:24:00road and turned around and came right back facing the road and saw my shovel lying out in the middle of the road. I didn't know what had happened, but my car started sideways on the gravel and turned way around. [It was] lucky that nobody was coming around or I would have hit back into him. [Laughter] It turned us white going sideways.

A curtain went up on the ranch every time we went to work. When we got done we would fetch it back. We had to work out here on the south mountain. I had to 00:25:00haul our equipment. Arden was helping. He had to go in the [United States] Army the same time that I did, just a month before I left. But he was in about three years. During that time, I had to farm with Squire and my dad doing most of the work.

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NC:I can't hold onto it.

UV:He goes to sleep. [Laughter]

FH:You like to read but you go to sleep?

NC:Yes, [and I] drop the book! [Laughter] My eyes are so weak that they don't allow me to read very much. I like to read but I like to put in my time on other 00:26:00things, too. I read at night so I don't have to waste too much time.

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NC:June and Wayne DeMille invited me to go to St. George to Wayne's wedding. While I was there, I was introduced to my wife [Sarah Ila (Workman) Crawford]. She was in the reception room [at] the wedding of Wayne DeMille. We went out that night and I got a date. We went down and spent our time out south of St. 00:27:00George that evening. From then on, I went down and saw her by myself after work. I would leave here and then come back before eight in the morning because I had to go back to the ranch to work. Therefore, not many people knew I was stepping out. I worked up here on the [inaudible] combine cutting grain. I would leave and come down about --

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NC:Go down and back and then I would be here Sunday and never mentioned going down Saturday night. [Laughter] I had the engagement all done. Paul Gifford came 00:28:00in one day telling me about their engagement and said, "You ought to tie her up and get married." I turned to him and said, "I already have the ring on her finger." It shocked him. He hardly talked to me anymore. [Laughter] He went out and told [folks] that I was engaged. That was the way the word got out. He told Ray Laney in St. George. After I came to the house to propose to her to be 00:29:00married, we told him to keep it still. She never even told his mother about it. She was married and her mother said, "We didn't know anything." He said, "I knew it the first thing." [Laughter]

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NC:[Laughter]

FH:[Did] you become an elder?

NC:Yes, I was an elder for several years before that. I have the ordinations of all of us: Ernest J. Crawford and Ronald Christensen, the whole line clear back to the time of Adam. We went to the temple. We got the recommendation. My bishop 00:30:00was James B. Madison. I went the first week to do my endowments. Then the next week we were married. We went right out and had our cake up and down the street to the bells ringing.

FH:A shivaree! [A noisy celebration for a newly married couple.]

NC:Yes. We came home and it started to rain. The family gathered here and we headed home. We had our reception for the wedding in St. George at [inaudible] 00:32:0000:31:00home. I know they had one and had the other one here at home.

FH:[Did] you have a reception in St. George and a reception here at home?

NC:Yes.

FH:Is this where you came to live?

NC:Yes, right here [in] Springdale to live in our own home. That was sixteen years ago.

UV:It will be seventeen years in a day or two.

NC:On [a] Friday night.

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NC:[Inaudible] turning lathe. [I] used that to do my first turning. Later on --

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NC:[Inaudible] timber I had to make [inaudible] we had timber where I got a good stick and tarred it out and I ripped it out on the saw. [I] do the turning and after it is straightened out, put it together, take the rawhide and soak it three or four days. [Then I] put it in lime and ashes and take the hair off. I 00:35:00would take the hide and scrape the hair all off [very] clean. I would take the knife and cut [the hide] in strings. I would average from twenty to thirty strings off of the hide. Then I would lace my carrier up and put it together.

FH:In other words, you cut your own wood, cure it and dry the ash wood. Then you make your own rawhide, cure it and cut it in strips.

NC:Yes. I had to do it the hard way. The trouble now is getting the rawhide to 00:36:00do it. They don't [inaudible] hides out. They don't do like they used to. The butcher man had the job and we would buy [hides] from the butcher shop. We don't have the chance like we used to.

JH:Is it hard to get the rawhide?

NC:Yes. I am getting allergic to cutting and boiling it.

FH:[Do] you do caretaker work during the summer?

NC:I work for [inaudible] during the summer and take care of his yard, watering 00:37:00outside, take care of the flower plants that they have and mowing the lawn. He had a patch [inaudible]. I had to do the irrigation for that and take care of it.

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NC:I am quite a lot weaker. If I had it all to start over with now I might [have] a different life than I have now. If [I] hadn't been hard of hearing I could have been better, much better. I could have studied. I just let myself lag back and I couldn't get what I wanted. I wish I could have been like a lot of 00:38:00them. I would have been further ahead than I am today. [Inaudible] without that education --

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FH:What would you tell people that have a hearing problem?

NC:If they have the means, get a hearing aid.

FH:[Get] a hearing aid and an education?

NC:Yes, an education. Because if you don't have [an] education you can't fill out papers, write down time for people [who] work for you, write explanations [of] what you want [done] if you are not there. You have to know something to 00:39:00tell them. I can't tell you much myself. I haven't had [an education]. I know other people [who] have had the education [and they] worked easier than I have. It came better to them. They haven't had the trouble.

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NC:I don't know. I can't tell you very much about it. I know there is something to it.

FH:[Do] you know [that] the gospel is true?

NC:Yes. I know the gospel is true. From reading so many of the scriptures where the men prayed and got the endowment of what they asked for and went to work. 00:40:00God had to have been there to help them when they needed the help. They got out alive and otherwise it looked like they might have gone. They had faith of some kind that they have got through God. Others have had it but I don't know where I have ever received anything like they have. I have not been in the [inaudible] I guess is the reason. But I know it helped me.

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NC:Something great [like] our astronauts going into the sky. [Or] someone 00:41:00inquiring enough to take up some study to learn more about the world [and] how it is built, and where we come into it. I would like to have gone [inaudible] first thing started. Like our phonograph, how it picked up voices and brings [them] out and say it out so we can hear and have [the sound] go into those small grooves and it comes out in the records. I had ever come [inaudible] bring 00:42:00it out and show the people and hear what had been. It would have been the most wonderful thing in the world for that to ever be brought about.

FH:What you are saying then is that there are a lot of miracles in this world.

NC:I don't know what to make and how to make it [or] get the [items] to put it into shape and bring everything together. [Inaudible] now to bring the picture out. [Inaudible] a great thing. Something about it [inaudible] somebody to bring those things out. I have had the talent to do only what I have made, chairs or 00:43:00just small things compared to what they have [done]. My mind has been weighed on that.

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