Interview with Edwin LeRoy Duell

Edwin LeRoy Duell was interviewed on February 27, 1969 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 Iowa, Canada, California and Utah. His wife, Ida (Adams) Duell, also participated.

FH:Please state your full name.

ED:[My name is] Edwin L. [LeRoy] Duell.

FH:What is your birth date?

ED:[I was born] September 5, 1900.

FH:[Where were] you born?

ED:[I was born] west of Redfield, Guthrie County, Iowa.

FH:What was your father's name?

ED:[His name was] Elton Borton Duell.

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

ED:[Her name was] Lucy Rebecca Gander [Duell].

FH:Can you tell anything about your early childhood?

ED:The first [event] I can remember [happened] in the house [where] I was born. I was standing by the kitchen window looking out over the field watching my father and one of my half-brothers. They had a two-horse slip with a team. They were cutting snow through a bank so they could get out through there with a wagon. That was the first [event] that I can remember of anything.

I have faint recollections of playing with some of the neighbors' children around there before we moved to Redfield. After we moved down there, I remember the little house that my father and mother lived in [and] some of the neighbors [that lived] close by there.

I started to school in Redfield. When I was about seven years old, my father moved [us] outside of the town a little ways. [It was] on one side of the town. He had a corn patch out there, [which was] kind of on a hillside. [On the] back of that hillside, there were a lot of thick trees. I was scared of that because back in there it was dark under those trees. I never did go back [there]. When I 00:03:00[went] back [there] in 1947, I went back to home place. That hill where those trees were had all been cleared off. I do not think the hill was over 100 feet high. It looked funny.

FH:The perspective a child is quite different [than] as a grownup.

ED:Yes. I had a cousin [who], I thought, lived about a half a mile to the north and another half a mile to the west. When I got back there, it was not over a quarter of a mile.

FH:[Did] it seem a lot farther [when you were younger]?

ED:Yes. It seemed a lot farther.

FH:That was quite an experience. [Did] you start school in Redfield?

ED:Yes.

FH:How long did you go to school there?

ED:I went to school there until my parents moved to New Dayton [Alberta, Canada] 00:04:00in the spring of 1909. I went to school up until the time that we moved. I cannot remember --.

FH:[Did] your [education] continued in New Dayton?

ED:Yes. [I went in school in] New Dayton. The first schoolhouse in New Dayton was just a little one-room school with one teacher for all the grades.

FH:Why did your father go to New Dayton?

ED:Back in 1907, he and my mother bought two quarter sections of land. In 1908, his health was not too good. He decided to go up to Alberta and try to sell [that land] and make a little money. He bought the land on speculation. When he got up there, he felt so much better. He came back and said we were going to 00:05:00sell out and move up there. [We were going to] break that land up and farm it. By the spring of 1909, he sold out everything that he did not require. [He] bought [items] that he did require and moved two carloads of household goods and livestock up there. He arrived about April 19, [1909]. Two of my half-brothers, Charley and Ray Huggins went with him. They were children [from] my mother's first marriage [with] her first husband.

FH:Were they quite a bit older than you?

ED:Charley was eight or nine years older than I am.

FH:[Did] your father's health seem to improve up there?

ED:It improved very much [and] he felt so much better. The one thing he liked up 00:06:00there was that at night, as soon as the sun got down low, there was a cool breeze that came up. Back in Iowa, you suffered all night long. It was just as hot at two o'clock in the morning as it was at noon [with] high humidity. He suffered from the heat there so much. He and my mother both loved it up there.

FH:I know about this Iowa climate. [Laughter] I can agree that they [would] enjoy [it] much better up there. How much [education] did you get in Canada?

ED:I do not remember what year I started to school. It could have been 1909 or it could have been 1910 or 1911. I just do not know. I cannot remember. The new schoolhouse was built in 1911 or 1912. [It was] some [time] in there [that] they 00:07:00built a larger school. They were getting quite a few more people [in the community]. My father bought me a horse to ride to school. [It was] a nice, quiet pony. I started riding him [to school].

FH:How far [did you live] from school?

ED:[It was] four miles [to school]. During the winter in 1913 [and] 1914, I boarded in town. [I did that in] part of 1912, [too].

FH:Was this because the winters were so severe?

ED:Yes. The winter was too severe. [In] the [winter], it was too cold for me to ride back and forth. My father could not take me back and forth.

ID:All the children went across the lake during all those cold winters.

ED:[Laughter] I was all alone there. I rode a horse to school after the weather broke in the spring. [I rode the horse] while [the weather] was not too good. Along in June, I rode a bicycle for four miles [to school]. I would ride the 00:08:00bicycle in and push it home. [I did that] most of the time on account of the wind.

FH:[Did] you get a lot of wind [there]?

ED:I just could not ride the bicycle against the wind.

FH:Were there some teachers that you remembered [from school]?

ED:Yes. In 1913 [and] 1914, there were two English school teachers [that I remember]. [Their names were] Mr. Richards and Mr. Reynolds. They were both retired old colonels in the [Canadian] Army in Africa. [They] could have been retired from India. I do not remember. They had a lot of words that they pronounced different from what my folks did.

FH:This would be unusual.

ED:I have been trying to think of some of the words. In our words, when you 00:09:00cross the line, they can tell if you are American or Canadian. There are certain words that [if] you use [them] they can tell if you are a Canadian or American.

FH:This would be quite an interesting experience to have school teachers like that.

ED:They were the ones that taught us to play soccer. That was their game in England where they lived.

FH:Is that why you [played] soccer there?

ED:Yes, we [played] soccer there. It was a ball like a basketball, but you kicked it. You could not touch it with your hands. You had to kick it. You could hit it with your shoulders or your head, but you could not touch it with your hands.

FH:Was it almost like you had your hands tied down to your side?

ED:Yes. During recess, we used to play that a lot.

FH:Did you like that game?

ED:Yes, I enjoyed it.

FH:Did you play other games?

ED:We played a little baseball, but not too much.

FH:Were you kind of divorced from the states? [Laughter]

ED:Yes. I remember I made a homemade baseball out of an old yarn sock. I would wind it up and stitch it. I took it to school. It got wet and I was [the] 00:11:00catcher. I missed the ball and it hit me right in the nose. It nearly knocked me down. I bled like a stuck hog. [Laughter]

FH:It would be heavy that way. Your life was made up of farming and [education]. Did you learn to be a farmer?

ED:I did not grow up to be a farmer. A lot of my education was self-learned. I was always observant, even as a boy. I observed the things that would give results and those that did not give results. As long as I was farming, I never learned to keep a book. I was never a bookkeeper. I could tell by observation whether I was making a profit or not making a profit.. I had to be practically 00:12:00self-educated that way.

FH:Would you call this the university of hard knocks?

ED:I think you would [at that]. [That is what] you could call it. I did not have an education.

FH:[Did] your father teach you a lot?

ED:He was a carpenter for twenty years before he went to Canada. He was able to build the barns and the house. He worked at that for twenty years [and learned to work with wood]. He had all the old wooden tools. I still have most of them. I have kept them. There is an old tool chest he had [out there].

FH:They are keepsakes now.

ED:Yes. They are all relics today. I would like to give them to a museum where they would be kept all the time. [Inaudible]

FH:Do they have museums in that part of the country?

ED:They do, but not too close. There is one down at Sweetgrass, Montana-Coutts, 00:13:00[Alberta, Canada] on the International Border..

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FH:Tell a little bit about your people, your religion and religious background.

ED:My father was born and raised a Quaker [Religious Society of Friends]. Our daughter and Jack's wife, Geraldine, have been checking into our genealogy. I found myself and told them where to find us in the genealogy building in Salt Lake [City, Salt Lake County, Utah] where a John Duell married a [woman named] Hannah in 1730. She was forty years old. She had a son they called John, Jr. John, Jr. had a son they called John Minor [Duell]. John Minor was the father of 00:14:00Joshua Duell, [who was] my grandfather. [Minor is a Quaker designation for grandson.]

FH:For goodness sake. You found this record?

ED:I found the first three, but I did not find where they connected up until I started figuring [it out]. They checked it and found where it carried right through. My father --

FH:Were they Quakers?

ED:They were Quakers.

FH:Was your father [a Quaker]?

ED:He was born and raised a Quaker. When he came to Redfield, [or] maybe [it] was before [he came to Redfield], he had joined the Methodist Church. I was born there. They went to the Methodist Church there [and] I used to go with them.

FH:Were you [a member of] the Methodist Church?

ED:I was baptized in the Methodist Church back in 1907 or 1908. I do not remember which year. I tried to get my baptismal certificate a couple of years ago from my cousin [who] is back there. He checked with the person [who] had the old church records. [He] found out [that] the house had been burned down that [the records] had been in and those records had been burned. That helped me in getting my old age pension. I have no birth certificate.

FH:Tell about your father.

ED:He was a remarkable man. [Emotional] He never talked very much.

FH:Was he a quiet person?

ED:He was quiet [and] never said too much.

FH:Was he a hard-working fellow?

ED:Yes. He was not one that rushed, but he kept at it steady. He got the work done. He did not rush at anything. He just kept working until he [was] done.

FH:Was he a very even-tempered person?

ED:Yes. He was very even-tempered. I never can remember my father speaking a cross word to my mother or anyone. [Emotional] As far as I can remember.

FH:That is a good memory to have.

ED:Yes.

FH:Did you know his parents?

ED:No.

FH:Did you know their names?

ED:[Their names were] Joshua and Abigail Borton. [Inaudible]. I have a record of them in an old family [Holy] Bible. All of that [information] is in [there]. [There is a record of the] father and mother and the children in the family Bible.

FH:That is a priceless possession to hold on to.

ED:Yes.

FH:Tell about your mother.

ED:She was a good cook. I guess that is the reason I grew so big. [Laughter] One of my half-brother's wife told me that I was very delicate when I was [younger]. They did know if I would live or not.

FH:You would never know it now.

ED:No. They said I had rickets when I was a baby. Somehow they brought me out of it. When I went to Canada, I weighed seventy-five pounds. [This] was in May before I was nine years old in September.

FH:Canada has been good for you.

ED:Yes, Canada has been good to me.

FH:How many children did your parents have?

ED:Mother had five sons and two daughters by her first husband. The two daughters died in infancy. At the present time, there are three of the sons [alive], Ervin, Ray and Charley Huggins.

FH:[Are they your] three half-brothers?

ED:Ervin is eighty-seven years old. I have an old Seth Thomas clock that his father bought for my mother when he was born. [It is] eighty-seven years old. It is running like a clock. It would [run] if it was wound up. I fixed it up last winter.

FH:That is a valuable piece.

ED:It is [an] old clock with the weights on it. [They] come down on each side.

FH:[Is it] about eighteen inches tall?

ED:[It is] eighteen inches tall. I remember the clock striking as far back as I can remember. We took it to Canada with us. After we built the new house, it did not run for about twenty years. Last winter I had nothing to do, [so] I got busy [and] cleaned it up, took the works out, cleaned it up with kerosene and fired it up. [I] put on new nylon strings and tinkered around with it and away it goes.

FH:That is something.

ED:Yes.

FH:Were those your mother's children by her first marriage?

ED:Yes.

FH:Was there another sister?

ED:My father was married and lost his first wife before he was twenty-one [years old]. I do not know how soon afterward, but he married [again]. I think her name was [Keziah] Reynolds. I cannot think of her first name. He married a Reynolds and he had --

FH:Was this Lydia?

ED:Yes. I believe her name could have been Lydia. [Lydia Duell was an aunt.] We have it in a record up there. There were two daughters and a son that he lost. 00:21:00They are buried in the Farm Ridge Cemetery in Illinois. That is in the records that I found. He raised the one daughter, Idabelle [or "Belle"]. She was a child and he raised her. I think after she was married or about that time, he married my mother's sister [Rachel Gander]. He lived with her possibly eight or nine years. Then she passed away. My mother was a widow with children, so before [her sister] passed away, she asked him to marry my mother because she knew that she was a widow. .

FH:I think that is a wonderful way to do [it], don't you?

ED:Yes. Then I was born [on] September 5, 1900.

FH:How long did Idabelle live?

ED:She lived until she was around seventy-five or eighty [years old]. She had a stroke. [In] her last years, she was in a wheelchair and in bed a lot. When I visited her in 1947, she was in a bed. She still had a son and a daughter [who] were not married. They were up in their forty or fifties. They helped her and took care of [her]. She finally passed away.

FH:Tell about your mother.

ED:She was very kind to me [and] took care of me.

FH:You said she was a good cook.

ED:She was a good cook. She liked to travel. My father and she both liked to 00:23:00travel. They went back to Iowa on visits. The first time they went back to Iowa was in the fall of 1911. [It was] that winter of 1911 and 1912. I never [went] back to Iowa again until 1947. My father and mother took trips. My mother would have liked to have been a nurse. She said at different times that when she was young, she enjoyed nursing. Our daughter [and] our granddaughter are nurses.

FH:It runs in the family.

ED:We have another granddaughter who is close to being a nurse. [She is] Melvin's daughter. She has her mind kind of set on that. Whether she will follow 00:24:00it out or not, [it is] hard to tell.

FH:This seems to be kind of a hereditary thing.

ED:Yes. I like to do a little doctoring of animals. [Inaudible]

FH:Do you remember your mother's people?

ED:My mother's father, my grandfather [Samuel Harrison] Gander, was in the Civil War. He [received] an honorable discharge in 1865. I have the original copy of that discharge. I cannot think of his first name. He was away from home for 00:25:00quite awhile. My mother was just a [young] girl at the time. They were all glad to see him when he got back. She talked about that [experience].

FH:Can you remember your mother's mother?

ED:No. I cannot remember her. I think she passed away about 1898. [It was] before I was born.

FH:Would you like to name any of these people? Can you remember her mother's mother?

ED:[Her name was] Sarah Ann [Imlay] Gander. Her mother's maiden name was Imlay. 00:26:00According to the book that our daughter [has] of the Imlay family, her father was the eighth generation of Peter Patrick Imlay that came from Ireland. It is in the book what year he came over. It was way back in the early [years].

FH:We can get that from the record. Were your people a religious people?

ED:Yes.

FH:How do you feel about prayer? Do you believe in prayer?

ED:Yes, I do. I found that I could pray in silent as well as in the open and aloud.

[I can pray] in my own mind. [Emotional]

FH:Is this effective in your life?

ED:Yes.

FH:You referred earlier to the scripture that says to "pray in your closet and I will reward thee openly." I think this is true.

ED:Yes.

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FH:Would you tell about your growing-up years? What did you do for fun?

ED:In the summertime I used to snare gophers and drown them out with a water pail. There were a lot of gophers around there at that time.

FH:Were these gophers or were they ground squirrels?

ED:They called them gophers. They do not call them ground squirrels. They are a different kind from the real ground squirrels. Some of them called them flicker tails. They [would] lie on their side and squeak and flick their tails. The first one I remember was when we were going on the train from Moose Jaw, 00:28:00[Saskatchewan, Canada] to Lethbridge [Alberta, Canada]. I do not know how far [we were] out of Lethbridge, but the train stopped. They were a ways out there. It was the first one that I had ever seen.

FH:[Did] they came out and sit up by the hole?

ED:They came out, sat up there and [would] whistle and flicker [their] tails. My father bought me a .22 [single shot] rifle for my birthday when I was twelve years old. I [shot] my first duck that fall. I also [shot] a goose.

FH:With a .22?

ED:With a .22? They were sitting [there].

FH:That was good shooting.

ED:[When I shot] the goose, the wind was blowing a certain amount. I shot at one 00:29:00goose. I was not used to shooting the rifle and did not allow for the wind. The wind blew it over and hit the goose off to the left. It was not the goose that I shot at all! [Laughter]

FH:At any rate, you got one. [Laughter]

ED:I got it [and] took it home.

FH:[Did] that give you a little training in shooting?

ED:Yes. That is how it really happened. When I was around thirteen or fourteen years old [and] going to school, I bought a pair of boxing gloves. I used to box. I would put them on with anybody. I was just a [youngster]. One of my friends kind of [bent] my nose a bit. It will not go the other way. He hit on this side and just pushed it over. We used to box like that for fun. Later on, 00:30:00in the summer of 1916, my father went to Lethbridge and came home with our 1916 Studebaker. [I think it was] sometime in July. [It was a] four-cylinder Studebaker with kind of a cloth folding top. He drove it home. [It was] the 00:31:00first car he had ever driven. He drove it home and then he had me [learn] to drive it. He showed me what to do [and] what he had learned. That was in July [of] 1916. I have been driving ever since.

It was [in] this 1916 Studebaker that my wife and I went to Waterton [Alberta, Canada for] our honeymoon. We did not have a tent, but we slept in this Studebaker car with that top. It rained and leaked. We had pans inside the car to keep from getting wet. [Laughter] We had a campfire outside and cooked out 00:32:00there. I think at that time we did not have too much money. Our crops had been bad in 1918 [and] 1919. They were not too good in 1921 [or] 1922. I do not remember what I had [for money]. Maybe [I had] $20.00 or $25.00, [but that] is all we had. We were up there for about two weeks. We had to make everything go as far as we could.

FH:In 1918, when they had the influenza epidemic in the [United] States, did it affect you up there?

ED:It did [affect] a lot of people. There were a lot of people [who] died from the flu. We never went to town [without having] these cheesecloth masks that we wore over our mouth.

[END OF TAPE ONE -- SIDE ONE]

ED:I never had any desire. For some reason, I never wanted any part of it. For one thing, about that time, my father [started] to raise quite a lot of hogs. He had one of these fifty-gallon wooden barrels on a little cart that he had made. It had buggy wheels on the side. They fixed it up and put [a] barrel on there. We put the slop in [it] from the house. Dad would add a certain amount of greens. If it needed [it], [we put in] a little more water. That would stand from morning to night. Then at night, we fed the hogs. We would fill it up in 00:35:00the morning. Beer, to me, smelled just like that old slop barrel. It is true. [There was] a certain amount [of food that] was fermented in there. There was gas. There were bubbles coming up from it. It smelled just like that old slop barrel. To me, I just as soon take a drink of that old slop as take a drink of beer. I have tasted a little. [I have taken] just enough to taste. [I have] also [tasted] some of the other hard liquors, but I did not want them at all.

FH:You were very fortunate that they did not hold any attraction for you.

ED:[They held] no attraction [to me]. By the time I was fourteen [years old], I was driving my first horses -- [a] team of horses on a harrow. When I was 00:36:00fifteen [years old], I left school before I finished [the eighth grade]. I drove four horses on a ten-foot drill. [I] worked plowing through the summer. We had to do a lot of summer plowing [summer fallow] up there. [We] plowed all the ground [with a] two-bottom riding plow with six horses on it. After the plow, I took [operated] a binder when I was fifteen [years old]. After the crop was harvested in the spring and the threshing machine came along, I took four horses on a grain tank which held around 130 or 135 bushels of grain. We hauled it down to a loading platform at McNab [Alberta, Canada], a [railroad] siding there. I shoveled that load into the boxcar and then I would have to get in and shovel it 00:37:00back to the end. I would haul two of those loads. The closest [inaudible] would be three miles. I would make two trips one day and three [trips] the next [day] unloading wheat. That was when we were threshing [the grain]. We had two wagons. There was another man running a wagon. When the wagons were not there, they would run the grain into a granary and store it.

FH:This was pretty hard work for a fifteen year old.

ED:It was hard work for me, but it developed muscle. I was big [then]. When I was sixteen [years old], I weighed 172 [pounds]. We went down to California that winter.

FH:Why [did] you go [to California]?

ED:My father had a very sick spell. It was during harvest time [or] right about harvest time. He was in the hospital in Lethbridge about two months [or] maybe 00:38:00[it was] three [months]. I do not remember when he did get out. It was left up to me and my mother to manage the farm. He had six or eight men there at that time. So I got started very early in life in that kind of work. [I had a lot of] responsibility. My father was too sick to give me any advice. I had learned a lot before [he [became sick]. When I was ten or eleven years old, he was doing some outside [crop] cutting with the binder. I milked four cows, night and morning, besides riding the horse back to school. [I] milked four cows and 00:39:00separated [the milk]. He was on the binder to make some money for his expenses.

We went to California in the fall of 1916. [We] came back in 1917 on the boat from San Pedro [California] to Portland [Oregon]. From San Pedro to San Francisco [California], I was sick as a dog. It was the first time I had ever been on a boat. [I was] sick. I thought my whole insides were coming out. [Laughter] In San Francisco, they loaded sugar on that same boat at the rate of four tons a minute for twenty-eight hours. That put a lot of bottom [ballast, as a concept] down in there. The wind was blowing from the west and the old boat 00:40:00was rocking sideways until they pulled up a sail. A lot of the stewards were sick. [Some] had been on the run for years [and] they were sick. I never missed a meal. I had had my sickness.

FH:Were you immune?

ED:Yes. We got home on March 1, [1917]. We had to start getting the horses in and start graining them. [We had to start] putting them up for the farm work. I used to work mending harnesses. I used to have a man or two helping me. We would work at that [job]. When we started out in the spring, the horses were soft and we could not do too much [work] at first. We kept graining them. One time, 00:41:00before we stopped using horses in 1928 or 1930, we were working up around thirty-six head. [They were all] in the harnesses.

FH:You can do a lot of work with that many animals.

ED:We bought our first tractor in the fall of 1917. [It was a] 1020 Titan International tractor and an [Allemand] Taylor separator. My dad bought that [equipment]. The first engine that I can remember was in the summer of 1913. It was an old four-horse clean copper cool engine. We used that on the pump and the feed grinder for grinding feed. I was used to running that and working with [it] until we got the tractor in 1917. We ran that old separator until the fall of 00:42:001928. In 1923, we got a 1540 [tractor].

FH:You really just grew up on the farm.

ED:I had to grow right up with it. I gained knowledge by experience because I did not gain it in the schools. When I first started making income tax [reports], I could hardly add. After I had made the income tax [report] for a number of years, the boys were in the twelfth grade, we were working together, and some problem came up. They had a pencil and paper. Each one of them [was] working it out with pencil and paper. I told them what the answer was before they had it half worked out. I got in the habit of doing that when I was working on machinery. My mind would be running over a million things. I got so that I 00:43:00could figure out a way for adding, subtracting and multiplying.

FH:[Did] your father's health fail and you had to take over?

ED:I had to take over [the farm]. When he [came] home, after he went to California, he started feeling better again. They took trips down there and back to Iowa. In the fall of 1920, they were out at Victoria [British Columbia, Canada] and Vancouver Island [British Columbia, Canada]. After I was fifteen [years old], I went to school there in Long Beach [California]. [I went to school] at the technical high school there and took [the] ninth grade.

FH:[Was that at] Long Beach Polytechnical High [School]?

ED:[Yes,] Long Beach Poly High [School].

FH:What year did you go to school there?

ED:It would be the fall of 1917 and [spring of] 1918. Before we left for home, 00:44:00my folks wanted to let me stay there and get more education, but they [thought] that I was needed on the farm. The farm was not paid for [at that time]. We were buying it.

FH:Was your father getting along in years and not too well?

ED:Father was getting along in years and was not too strong and could not depend on [hired] men too much. He wanted me there to help run [the farm]. I did not argue the call. So I thought that would be the best thing to do. After going to Poly Tech High School in Long Beach, I did not go to school again until the fall of 1920 in New Dayton. I went back in the ninth grade, [even though] I never did 00:45:00have an eighth grade diploma. I studied that winter [and went] as much as I could [and] rode on horseback to school.

FH:You had a great desire for education. [Was] this the reason that you became self-educated?

ED:I think possibly [that is the reason]. I had studied a lot, [but it was] practical [knowledge]. I had practical experience along with it. I figured things out. In the later years, if I had trouble with anything I was a troubleshooter in mechanical work.

FH:[Did it] just come natural to you?

ED:[That is] right.

FH:Tell about your courtship and marriage.

ED:The wife [Ida (Adams) Duell] told you quite a bit of that in her story. I had 00:46:00the old Studebaker car. There were not too many cars around. I kind of drew a lot of the girls. I went out with quite a number [of them]. I was always one that, if something they did displeased me, I was finished. There was one girl, in particular, that I took to a baseball game down at Sweetgrass, Montana one day. Down below in the stands just a seat or two below us, there was a woman. I would not call her a lady. She was tight [and] she was drunk. That woman was the only thing that the girl I was with could see. She was just watching her and laughing at the things that she was saying and doing. That cooked my goose right there. I never took her out again. There were others that I went out with 00:47:00[during this time]. When I found one that appealed to me, I kept going out with her. I would not say it was love at first sight, [but] I kept liking her more [and] she was good to me. She liked what I liked. We both enjoyed the same things. Finally, I proposed to her and she said, "Yes." We set a date, which I 00:48:00do not remember now. It was during the winter. We decided to get married and set the date for the Fourth of July. That is when we [were] married. [We] took a honeymoon [with] the car and went to Waterton for awhile.

[There was] kind of a funny incident. While we were at Waterton, one of my half-brothers came up from the Dakotas to visit us. My father got in touch with me and wanted me to come down to be there with them. I do not know what day [it was, but] while we were there, a hailstorm came through. It came from the west to the east [and] right across our place. Before the hail got to our place, about four miles west of our place, it stopped hailing and started raining. All 00:49:00we got was the rain until [the storm was] about a half a mile east of our farm. Then it started hailing again. That hail jumped our place.

FH:Talk about divine providence!

ED:[That is] right. We always said that the Lord knew we needed that crop. That is what happened.

FH:That is a story you do not hear very often.

ED:No, [but] that is what happened there. We did not know anything about it until we got home. I do not remember, [but] a fellow might have told us in Waterton. We got home as soon as we could and visited with my half-brother and his family.

One year afterwards, in the 1940s, the same thing happened again. It stopped 00:50:00hailing about four miles west of us. It rained and [the wind] blew. [It was] just like you dropped a pail of water on us. It just poured. There was water running everywhere. That storm got down about three or four miles east of us and then [it] started hailing again. You could see the ground white to the west of us and you could see the ground white to the east of us.

.It hailed to the north of us and it hailed to the south of us. In all the years, we have never been hailed out. There was one year, while I was on the council, that we had enough hail. It looked like you had taken one of these ball-peen hammers and went on the north and the south side of the house and just hit it with the ball-peen hammer. [It hit] just in spots [and] scattered. There were none of them closer than a foot apart. Some of them [were] eighteen or twenty inches apart. It broke two windows. One was a basement window and one was 00:51:00one of the storm windows on the bedroom. That was the only damage that we ever had in all the years that we have been up there. That is not saying that we will never have hail. That is what I told the boys.

We can get hail insurance there. [We can] buy hail insurance. My father put on [took out] hail insurance in 1915 when we had our first good crop. It was kind of laughable. There was a fellow [who] sold the hail insurance to my father in 1915 and 1916. In 1917, he asked my father if he wanted to buy some hail insurance. He said, "No, you have caught me twice, but you won't catch me again." [Laughter] That was his way of telling him. The crop in 1917 was only 00:52:00half the bumper crop in 1915 and 1916. [It was] forty-five, fifty [and] fifty-five [bushels per acre] in some of [the] three acres in three or four years. It was a wonderful crop.

FH:You married this girl and then where did you go to live?

ED:We lived there on the home farm. My mother and father [went] away as much as they could during the winter. They were there in the summer. We lived together and got along pretty good. The last three years, about all my father could do 00:53:00was put in a good garden. He would work in the garden. When he would get tired out in the garden, he would come in. [He would] go to the couch and lie down and rest for an hour or two. [Then] he would go out and work for another half hour or so.

FH:That was a nice way to live when you get to a point in your life.

ED:[He was] just watching and seeing that things were done. He was happy about it. I was doing the managing [of] the farm. He saw [that] things were being done. In 1917, we bought a Percheron stallion. He was a very kind heart. He loved him very dearly. He only weighed about 1,800 pounds. He was dapple gray when we first got him and then he turned white. The day my father first saw him, there were two little children [on him]. The fellow that owned him had two little children -- a little girl five [years old] and a little boy seven [years 00:54:00old]. They were riding this stallion around town on horseback. He was that kind. [He was] very gentle. He had some very good colts that grew up to [be] very good horses. When my father got to where he was walking with a cane, he used to go out and put the bridle on this old stallion and lead him out to water. If any of the rest of us took him out, he was just prancing around from one side to the other. [He was] just eager to get over to that water trough. When my father put the bridle on him, he led just like an old saddle horse. [He was] just as quiet and easy [and he] never made a bad move.

FH:They really get to be intelligent.

ED:That horse was intelligent. He knew that he did not want to hurt my father. He just went along so quietly. My father enjoyed taking him out to water. He 00:55:00liked the old horse.

FH:Tell about your family.

ED:The day Elton [Duell] was born, we were setting up a header. The crop was short and we were setting up one of these headers. I had gone to get the doctor. I do not remember, I think I went to get the doctor. He was at the house. I had a man or two helping me and I had to go back down there. These headers do not bind. They just cut off the heads and elevated them into a rack made of [inaudible]. It had a low side on one side and [was] high on the other [side]. Then we stacked it. Elton was born there in the home. [It] seems to me [that] 00:56:00Melvin [Duell] was [also born in the home]. I am not sure. I am pretty sure he was born there in the home. The same old Dr. McCallum came over there. They grew up there.

We had an old dog we called "Bobby." The boys were six [and] eight years old. This old dog would not let them fight. Even if the roosters started fighting in the yard, he would go bust them up. [If] anything started fighting, he would break them up.

FH:[Was he] a regular peace maker?

ED:[Yes], he was the peace maker. One day I was on the porch. Elton said to Melvin, "I bet you don't dare to pick up that stick there." There was a stick lying right close to Melvin. Melvin did not pick up the stick. As soon as Melvin 00:57:00reached over, the dog rose up and started growling. He never let them fight.

He was just that kind of a dog.

FH:I have never heard of such a thing before.

ED:[He did that] even [with] grownups. There were two men that were working for one of the neighbors. They were fixing fence down in the coulee one day. The old dog was there and these two men started scuffling. This old dog was after the one [who] was doing the pushing. [He was] named [inaudible]. He had to get at him. He finally did. He grabbed him on his leg and pulled his pants and his underwear. The [fellow] cussed the dog for doing it. They were just teasing about it because they knew he would do it. They were teasing him.

FH:This is a remarkable thing. [Laughter]

ED:He was [a remarkable dog]. One day we had two pigs that got out and were in 00:58:00the garden. I told him, "Take them out, "Bobby"". He went after [the] old sow. She was a long, lean sow. All she knew how to do was fight. They [were] worked over close to the garden fence. She got her nose under him and threw him right over a four-foot fence. [Laughter] He picked himself up and looked at the sow. He went over to the gate and got after her much harder. He finally got around and grabbed her by the hind leg and away she went. He put the run on her. It was really funny. I saw that right there. [Laughter]

FH:Animals can be really intelligent.

ED:He was [very] intelligent.

FH:Tell about your children. You were going to tell some more about the dog. Go ahead.

ED:It is okay. We lost our little Dolores [Duell]. I was with a group of men headed for northern Alberta on a big game hunt. We left that morning [and] stopped in

Calgary that night. I had my truck with a tarp over it. [We had] all our bedding and groceries and [equipment]. We stayed at a hotel that night. I had to go to the Wheat Pool office the next morning. That is a grain handling pool that we shipped our grain through. When I got to the [office], they said they had a [telephone message] for me to call home. They told me that our little girl had died. [Emotional]

FH:That was a terrible blow.

ED:I turned around and hurried back home. [Emotional]

FH:[Did] you have any indication that there was anything wrong?

ED:No. She was good until after she had her sleep [nap]. About three o'clock in the afternoon, she took sick and she passed away before midnight. [She had] spinal meningitis of the brain.

FH:[Did] it take her in a hurry?

ED:Yes.

FH:These tragedies sometimes hit and we really do not understand why [they do].

ED:No.

FH:[Did] you have other children?

ED:Yes. Our son, Jack [Duell], came after that [experience]. He was very delicate [and] we had a lot of help with him. Then our daughter, Faye [Duell, was born].

FH:Tell about the personalities of these children.

ED:Elton likes to talk, but he is not too much on [machinery]. His son, [who is] my oldest grandson, follows after me a lot from what I can see.

FH:Is he more mechanical?

ED:He is more mechanical [and] likes mechanical work. Melvin always did like 01:02:00mechanical work. He wanted to go [work in] the garage [Duell Motors and Massey-Harris tractors], but he was there alone at the garage so much of the time. He worked there six days a week from eight in the morning until six at night with not too much change [in his schedule]. I used to go in and help him. It was too much for him. It bothered his health. His health started to fail so in 1963, [he sold] the garage. They still have the garage there. There is a 01:03:00little store in the building there now. He went to work for wages where he did not have any responsibility. I really think that he had too much responsibility [when he was] too young.

FH:Is he getting along good now?

ED:He is doing fine. [We] could not ask for any better. His life is really better. [He] has [had] wonderful health, too.

FH:[Did] your children have [very] good mates?

ED:Yes, very good [mates]. Jack has been the cowboy of the family. He especially likes to work with horses. [He likes] breaking horses and training horses. He was not too much on the mechanical [work] until he got on his own. He has been 01:04:00on his own for quite a few years now. He is getting older and getting more mechanical. He did not mind it too bad. He has been doing quite a lot of mechanical work here the last few years. [He works on] both tractor and combines and [equipment] like that.

FH:Did he just about have to?

ED:He is getting set up on his own farm down there. There was not much there when he started. We bought this other farm in about 1941 or 1942 [from] an old lady [whose] husband had passed away.

ID:The year does not matter, [but] it was 1945, Edwin.

ED:It was during the [World War II that we bought it and] labor was hard to get. 01:05:00The boys stopped [going to school when they were] in high school [and] they never finished the twelfth grade in high school. At that time, it took them two years to get a twelfth grade certificate. They could not get it in less than two years. That is what the school [thought was necessary]. [It took] two years to get a twelfth grade certificate. They [thought] if they were going to be farming, why spend two years to get a twelfth grade certificate. So they decided to stop and help with the farming. It was during the war and labor was hard to get. We had a chance to rent this place with the option to buy it. During the war, there was a quota on wheat. You could not ship it because of the shipping [limitations] to England and France. They could not get much of that over there. We had a large surplus of wheat on hand in the granaries. I could sell it after the war was over and they bought it [at] an auction. [Inaudible]

[END OF TAPE ONE -- SIDE TWO]

ED:[Jack] does quite a bit of carpentry work there. [Inaudible] He started off with just a big garage. He has six children now. When his family grew, it was too small so he built onto the garage. [He built] a house onto the garage, a nice two-car garage. It is not fancy. Working alone that way and farming, he 01:07:00does not have too much [spare] time.

FH:[It] keeps him hopping.

ED:David, his oldest son, is getting to the age where he is doing a lot of work with him. David has been working since he was eleven or twelve [years old]. During the summer, David takes the tractor and does some of the [summer fallowing] for him. On Saturdays and holidays, if there is work to be done, he is out there doing it. He is a pretty good-sized boy. [I think he is] seventeen [years old]. The girls work out in the garden.

Geraldine, Jack's wife, is a very good singer. She sings at wedding receptions, 01:08:00showers and [events] like that. She studied voice for a year or two, [but] I do not remember where. She [has] practiced and is very good.

All of the children are very capable of doing a lot of the work. Karen does a lot of knitting. She knitted a sweater when she was eleven years old and put it in the Lethbridge Fair in the open class. [This class] was open to all and [she] took [first] prize at eleven years old. Barbara is a painter [and] artist. She 01:09:00has lovely paintings. Her hobby is painting horses. She loves to ride a horse very much. Johnny is becoming a mechanic. He is seven or eight years old. He is out watching his dad repairing the combines. He asked his dad, "How does that work?" His dad said, "You study it and find out." He looked that combine over good. He climbed on top of it and looked inside of it. He went back to his dad and told how it worked. When he plays, he is farming. He has his garages, his 01:10:00corrals, his cattle and horses -- little miniature [animals]. He is always playing out there. He will do fine. I think David will go into electronics. Geraldine's uncle is in Toronto in electronics. [He is] very high in electronics down there.

FH:That is a good field.

ED:It is a good field. They have moved. Marilyn [is] too young to know [what she will do]. They will do alright there.

FH:Are you just a little bit proud of your family?

ED:I am proud of all of them.

FH:You should be proud of them, they are good children. Talk about the things that you have done. Have you farmed all your married life?

ED:That is all I have ever done. I have never ever worked for wages a day in my 01:11:00life. I [have] gone out and worked and helped other people, but I have never worked for wages a day in my life. I never [received] a day of wages.

FH:You are a very remarkable person to be able to say that.

ED:I will take that back. The only thing I did in [that] way [was when] I was on the county council for nearly seven years. I [received] wages [for] that.

FH:This is like [doing] community [work].

ED:It was a community [work, but] we [received] compensation. It was not really wages, [but] we [received] compensation for our day [of work].

FH:This is like our county commissioners.

ED:Yes, [it is] public work. There were times we would take a day in the car and 01:12:00go over the roads to see what was needed on the different projects. [We traveled] in the different counties of the district. There were five of us. There are nine districts in the county. We were the public works committee.

FH:You were responsible for the --.

ED:-- whole nine districts.

FH:Did you do some work on the school board?

ED:Yes. I was on the school board for about eight or nine years. It was just a consolidated school. There was not too much [to do] there. Hiring the teachers and firing the teachers was about all [we did].

FH:Your life has been rich and a rewarding life.

ED:It has [been].

FH:After such a wonderful life and experience, would you be willing to give counsel to your family? What would you like to tell them about life? This is not to go just to your own children, but to some [who] are not even born yet.

ED:One of the rules that I learned when I was young [was to] to tell the truth even if it hurts the worst. [Emotional] Always tell the truth regardless of the consequences. That was one of the things that I have always tried to follow and 01:14:00made it my pride to do.

As far as money matters are concerned, if you have to borrow money, when you get the money, get them paid off. [Inaudible] Sometimes I would borrow money. Even during the Dirty Thirties [1930s], I would borrow money. As quick as I [received] some money, I paid them off. If I could not pay them off, I told them why, [and] when I did have money, I paid it. I [have] a good credit [rating]. My credit was built up, especially at the bank, because I did this. I have been dealing with one bank since I started farming. [I have been at the same bank] since the time I had any money to put in the bank and work with them. That was one rule that I always lived by. I know of another man [and] the way he worked up a credit. He ran a big garage. The way he worked up a credit to start with when he was young is that he went to the bank and borrowed some money. He did 01:15:00not need it, but he borrowed some money. He had it for awhile and then he went back and paid it back to them. He kept doing that. The time came when he needed some money, but he had a credit [rating] built up. When he went to the bank, his credit was there. He [received] it and as soon as he could pay it back, he paid it back. He built up a big business that way.

FH:That is a [very] fine illustration.

ED:That is what one fellow [who] worked for him told me. When he was young, he built up his business that way. Those are the things that I have always practiced all my life. If I had to borrow money, as soon as I had money to pay it back, I did [pay it back]. During those Dirty Thirties [1930s] --

FH:-- they were lean years.

ED:They were lean years. One fall, on about 700 acres, I got less than 7,000 01:16:00bushels [from my crop]. I hauled 5,000 bushels to the elevator to be sold. I did not sell it at the time. I borrowed $1,100.00 on 5,000 bushels. The price of wheat dropped down to between $.20 and $.21 a bushel. I sold out. I [received] a check for less than $5.00 for the balance of 5.000 bushels. I got $1,100.00 on the wheat -- [an] advance on it. I paid my store bill, my gas, oil and labor. I had about 1,000 bushels to sell. It cost me feed for the next year.

FH:That is rough to take.

ED:That was rough to take. During those years, there was one time I took eight hogs to Lethbridge. They weighed an average of 185 pounds. I [received] less than $28.00 for eight hogs.

FH:That is a heart breaker.

ED:It broke my heart raising hogs. I did not raise hogs much after that because I knew that did not pay. Even feeding the wheat as cheap as it was, it did not pay. I do not think I raised many hogs after that [time].

FH:If these children [who] are coming up can hear what you said in the way of counsel, understand and know your personality like this seems to portray, I 01:18:00think it is going to be a wonderful blessing to you.

ED:I hope [it will be a blessing]. The way youth is now, they think that was the way it was in his time. It will never be like that again. Like this winter, when it got down to 50° below [zero], my oldest son said, "It is unbelievably cold." I told him of the times [when] it had been down [that] cold. The last thirty years it had not been down below 30° below [zero]. I told him about one year in particular. I do not remember what year it was [now]. [It] went for six days 01:19:00straight [and] was never warmer than [45°] below [zero] in the daytime and down to 52° below [zero] at night. Then it just broke. The Chinook [winds] came and it was 30° and 40° above [zero] after that. When it started to warm up [it] got up to 13° below [zero] [and] I started going around in my shirt sleeves after that cold spell. It just felt so warm. It did not feel cold. You take six straight days at 45° below [zero] and then when it does warm up it does not feel cold.

FH:No. When it warms up to 15° below [zero], [it seems warm]. [Laughter]

ED:[When it warmed up to] 15° below [zero], it did not feel cold. That is just the way it was [up there]. I told my sons and my grandchildren about it. They do 01:20:00not think it will ever be that way again.

During the Dirty Thirties [1930s] during the dry years, we had a long and hard way to get along. A lot of those years, if it had not been for my Aunt Hattie, I do not know what I would have done. My credit was good, but there were a lot of things that I could not run on the credit. I was farming a half-section of her land. She was my mother's sister. [Her name was] Hattie Mallory. She was a widow 01:21:00and living in California. She was a woman who was pretty tight with her money. She did not squander [and] she had some [money] saved up. There were times I could not get enough money to [buy] oil. This was in the thirties when we were doing all the tractor work. [We were not using] horses any more. I did not have enough money to get enough oil to do summer fallowing. I would write to her and she would send me $200.00, $300.00 or $400.00 to buy oil and gas to get the summer fallowing [work] done. I paid it back to her when I sold the crops.

She wanted me to keep it there in Canada until she asked for it, especially in 01:22:00her later years. She lived until [she was] eighty-five or eighty-six [years old]. In her later years, she did not want too much cash on hand. She told me to keep it for her. She would write to me whenever she needed some money and I would send it to her. She was good to me and told me one time that if it had not been for my father and I [she would have sold her land]. They had had bad crops in 1918, 1919 [and] 1920. There was not much of a crop in 1921 and 1922. In the spring of 1923, she was just about to get her land paid [off and] my father told her to hang on to it [for] at least another year [and] she did. She was working [on the farm] for my father and mother. [She was] helping my mother right before 01:23:00I was married. She finally decided to [keep the land]. In 1922, we [had] a good crop. Her share of the crop paid off most of what she owed on her land. She was telling me, in her later years, that she always thanked me and my father for having her hold on to the land because that gave her a good living [income] afterwards.

FH:You were a savior to her.

ED:I was a savior to her. The last year that I saw her [was] back in 1952 [when] she gave me a contract to buy the land. She passed away on July 4, 1953. She was through with it. [Land] was at a very cheap price. She did not want to give me 01:24:00money, so she cut down the price of the land so I would benefit from that [purchase]. The rest of it went to the two stepchildren that she had.

FH:In these later years, [were] you are able to turn the [farm] work over to your son?

ED:I sold the one section where the houses are to my oldest son [Elton], but we have the privilege of living in the one house that we built in 1950. We tore down the old house. My father built all of the houses. We tore that [one] down the summer of 1950 and built a new home on the same spot [with] a large basement. We have the privilege of living there as long we want [to live there]. Then it turns over to my oldest son. He is buying the land there. I also sold a 01:25:00section of the farm land that Jack is farming. We sold that to him. We sold it so he would be able to pay for it and not wait until we pass away before they can start paying for it.

FH:Are you able to enjoy life now?

ED:Sure. I do not have to work if I do not want to. I do not need to work. I am not [the] kind that can sit around. Even right here, it gets monotonous not being able to do something. When I am home, there is always work to do on a farm. I go down to the shop. There is always something to fix up.

FH:When winter breaks, you are liable to be back up there. [Laughter]

ED:Sure. We plan on being home by the 20th [of March]. I would like to be home by the 20th. Just like in the United States, I have income tax papers to fill 01:26:00out. We have to have them in by April 30th, so I have to be home. I did a lot of my work before I left. We have to get home before then, but I do not want to go back too soon because you know what the weather can be like up there.

FH:It is quite enjoyable here where you are visiting.

ED:Yes. Two years ago this winter, we were down south here with our camp trailer. We got back April 16th. It snowed a little bit that night. The snow went out and I went to Lethbridge the next day, [which was] on April 17th. That night, it started snowing hard. For three days straight it snowed. I do not remember what the [amount of] snow was then, but [it] was like on Wednesday, 01:27:00Thursday and Friday. The next week, it started snowing again on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. [For] that snowstorm, [it] was thirty-four inches. The next week after that, there was another snowstorm on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. [It was] three days straight. Altogether, there was something like seventy-six or eighty-four inches of snow in those three storms. The last one was the [first] week in May. Talk about a mess.

FH:I think I will stay in St. George.

ED:That was the first time in all the years that we have been up there, that we ever had anything like that. On May 16, 1909, I can remember there was about fifteen or sixteen inches of snow on the level [ground].

FH:[Do] you like Canada?

ED:[I like Canada] very much. I have never found a place yet that I would want 01:28:00to live, especially in the summertime. We do not [have] the extreme heat. The record up there is 104º. [A] lot of years it never gets over 90°.

FH:It is a dry heat.

ED:It is a dry heat. It is not too bad. Most of the time it is under the 90s. We think it is pretty hot when it gets up to 90°.

FH:[It is] just like we think [your weather] is pretty cold.

ED:We have had three years of hot winds. [That was in] 1918, 1919 and 1936. We [had very] hot winds during the summer and it just took [burned] the crop right up. There was practically no crop at all then.

FH:That disaster can be quick when you [do not] have irrigation. Is there anything else that you would like to tell your children and family?

ED:There is one funny incident I would like to tell. Most of them know [the story by] now. All of my grandchildren [know it]. [For posterity, the story] might be the day grandpa rode the horse. [Laughter] It was June 23rd. I do not remember which year, but not too many years ago. I went to my son, Jack's, place. He had a palomino stallion. He had been a stallion, so he was eight years old. My son, Jack, had told me how ornery that horse could be sometimes. Sometimes they would go to ride him and he would be just as nice a horse. [He would] work good [and be] a [very] good horse. Other times, he would try to buck. He would not neck rein. He would be just as ornery as he could be. This 01:30:00day I went down there [and] I was going to turn the bulls with the cows.

I went to the corral and our daughter-in-law, Geraldine, went out there with me. This palomino was in the corral. I went to catch him. He would not let me catch him, so I ran him in the barn. He went into the stall and I put the halter and the saddle on him. [I] bridled him up and took him out of the barn and he broke away from me. I got him into the barn again and got a hold of him. I put what they call a war bridle on him. It was a bridle I made with lasso rope. I took him out and gave him a few jerks with that and he came right to me then. He stood still and I got on him. He would not move. He just stood there. I doubled up the lasso rope and wrapped under his belly about five times. He still stood 01:31:00there. He finally did start walking around in a circle. I tried to neck rein him and he would not neck rein. I pulled him around and headed him across the corral. I rode him across there about eight or ten times. [It was] just on a walk. When he got to one of the corral gates, the bull was standing on the other side and I noticed one of his hooves needed trimming. I rode him back to the barn. Jack was not there at the time. I told Geraldine when Jack came back, [ask him] to call me. Ida was in the hospital at the time in Lethbridge and I was there. I told Geraldine to have Jack call me over at Elton's, [which was] up at the other place. I was eating dinner up at Elton's [place]. We had just had dinner and the telephone rang. It was Jack. I started to tell him what an ornery 01:32:00old cuss [his] pal was [and that] I could not get him to do anything. Jack was laughing. Finally, when I stopped talking, he said, "Dad, that was [the] five year [old] palomino that has never been rode before." [Laughter] I had to think.

ID:Jack laughed so hard that he could hardly talk.

ED:The last colt from this old stallion was a palomino. He was five years old. The year he was a four year old, Jack had started to break him to ride. He had the bridle on, the saddle on [and was] taking him outside. He had him trained to stand dead still while he got on and off. That is all the horse knew. That is 01:33:00the reason he would not move when I got on him. [There was a] reason Jack had not finished breaking him after he had come that much [with him]. We did not get any rain until June 21st and he had bought a field of hay. We went to get this hay and [we were] loading it up. Jack got a pitchfork in his leg just above his knee. [It was] an old rusty pitchfork. It was the first time it had been used [and] we were starting to load. That crippled him up. He was not able to do anything more with him and he turned him out. [He] never rode him after that. He was the horse I got on and started to ride.

FH:You are just plain lucky.

ED:I was lucky in a way. He was such a kind horse. He did not have a mean hair on him. He was just one-of-a kind. After Jack came home that afternoon, they got 01:34:00that bull's hoof trimmed. He saddled him up [and] the old palomino came in. The one that was the stallion [came in] and he saddled him. I rode him then. He did good. He took this five year old [horse]. [He] got on him and we took the bulls up to the pasture. I never saw a horse ride like he did, [which] had never been rode before out [in the open spaces]. He could walk him [and] he would walk. He would get out and trot. He would lope. He never made one bad move. He never tried to buck or anything else. He was just as nice a horse as there ever could be. Jack did not have time to finish breaking him. He had to sell him. That was a funny incident in my life. One that I will never forget. I do not remember what year it was.

ID:[It was in] 1964.

ED:It was possibly around 1964. I have always remembered the date, June 23rd. That was the day that we were going to put the bulls in the pasture. [Laughter]

FH:That is a good story.

ED:That was possibly one of the funniest things that happened in my life, especially in my later years. There were a few other things in my younger years that happened, too.

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF]

FH:[In] Elton's family, [Sherry] is the oldest [child]. [Rick] was twenty-one [years old] last spring.

ID:[He was twenty-one years old] last July [1968].

ED:It is hard for me to keep track of all my grandchildren's birthdates. I know our own children's birthdays pretty well, but not the grandchildren. Rick is a lad that likes to work with old cars and have them souped up. He changed the 01:36:00motor out of one old car and put it into his [car]. [He put] the transmission and everything like that [into his car]. He did it last summer. He gets a kick out of doing that [kind of thing]. He likes mechanical work. He would rather repair something than throw it away unless it is absolutely useless. Sherry was a girl like our daughter, Faye [Duell], in lots of respects. When she [Sherry] graduated from the twelfth grade in Warner High School, she was the --

ID:-- valedictorian.

ED:I saw her report card at Easter time. There were all As but one [on her 01:37:00report card]. There was one A [on there]. She was a girl that she never [inaudible]. She was [a] girl [who] very seldom ever went out with boys. I bet that last term, my daughter did not go out over two times with boys the whole school term. She worked hard in school. She did her schoolwork instead of chasing around. Some of her girlfriends [who] were in her same class flunked because they were chasing around too much. She was not [chasing around]. She studied and then went to the University of Edmonton [Alberta, Canada] for a year [where she] took three years of nursing. [After that, she] took another year at the University to get her bachelor of science in nursing. Before she left high school, she had quite a few years playing the piano. She loved music, too.

Gary [Duell] was never too well as a boy. He had kind of an eczema from the time -- he was allergic to something from the time he was a baby. [He had] allergies. 01:38:00As he grew up, he never could go out to gather eggs. He would come in blowing his nose and his eyes [were] red. [There was] all that [dust] out in the barn. He has outgrown a lot of that now. This year he has a 4-H Club calf [inaudible]. He is doing [well] in school [and] he is a scout. This last fall, around the middle of November, he [received] the Queen Scout [award].

ID:He and David [both [received] the Queen Scout [award].

ED:He [Gary] and Jack's oldest boy, David, [received] the Queen Scout [award], which is a very high honor. They are going to Raymond High School over in 01:39:00Raymond [Alberta, Canada]. It is about the same distance as it would be to [the] Warner High School. Janice is an outdoor girl [and] loves the outdoors. She loves to ride horseback. She loves all animals, cats and dogs; it does not matter what it is. A year ago this last fall, she took on a 4-H Club calf. She loved that calf. She hated to see it go [and] she cried. She could not help it.

ID:She cried and grandpa cried.

ED:They were steers. After they were judged, the next day they were sold. In the judging, there were eighteen calves in the class. Her calf took fourth [place] 01:40:00out of eighteen [calves]. That is pretty good.

[END OF TAPE TWO -- SIDE ONE]

ID:It was one of our own calves [that we] raised..ED:It was one of our own calves [and] he was a good calf. Elton and Jack picked him out. [Janice] was very faithful during the winter she would wheel [go] out to the barn to feed her calf at 7:30 a.m. in the morning, [even if] the snow was blowing. There was 01:41:00fresh water in front of it all the time. [The water was] heated. She would feed her calf, get back [to the house], get her breakfast and get ready for school. During the winter, they had to leave about 8:15 a.m. to be in there on time. Gary got a kick out of Janice's calf last winter. This year they both have a calf and they say they are coming along fine. They were two calves that they bought from the Mormon Church [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] ranch in Cochrane, Alberta [Canada]. [The] Mormon Church sold the ranch last fall.

ID:Janice is quite an accomplished pianist.

ED:She is a pianist there at the music festival and studying all the time. She is to play [in the concert] at the Yates Memorial Center in Lethbridge --

ID:-- March 11, [1969].

ED:There will be quite a crowd. She will be fifteen [years old].

ID:[She will be] fourteen [years old].

ED:It is hard for me to keep --.

ID:[She will be fourteen years old] on the 24th of this month.

ED:[She will be fourteen years old on] February 24, [1969].

ID:Out of twenty-two, there were four chosen and Janice was one of them.

ED:That is pretty good. She is very faithful. When it was storming last winter, 01:43:00Elton had to go out and feed the cows. [She] was out there with her boots on, packing bales and scattering them out just right along with him. She loves to get out and work that way. [She does] housework, [too]. She dives in and helps her mother.

ID:Why don't you tell about our darling Beverly, dad?

ED:Melvin's children are Brian and Beverly. They lack just a few days of being a year apart. They are both wonderful grandchildren. Brian has been driving a school bus and going to school this winter.

ID:[He will be] eighteen [years old].

ED:[He will be] eighteen [years old] this coming May. Beverly will be seventeen [years old]. They are [very] pleasant children to be around. [They are] lovely [children]. Isabelle is a wonderful wife to Melvin [Duell]. [Emotional]

Faye has a wonderful husband. [His name is] Ed French. He held the amateur light 01:45:00heavyweight boxing championship for Canada for two years before he went on his [LDS] mission. [This was] after he had been to the University of Edmonton. He started his boxing career at Edmonton. He is very athletic that way. I think he wanted to teach boxing. [He] would teach boxing in Lethbridge if he just had time. He has [been involved with] the Boy Scouts [of Canada] for a couple of years.

FH:Is this the man [who] is so busy all the time?

ED:Yes. [He is especially busy] with cattle. He is a cattleman right from the word go. He studied cattle [nutrition] at the University of Edmonton. It gives him a big advantage. In his work, he has [a] commission firm where people can 01:46:00consign cattle to him to go through the sales ring. He sends them the check [after the cattle are sold]. He has nine men working under him now. [These men work for him] both at the commission firm and out at his ranch or feedlot. He is feeding 400 to 500 head all the time. Being there at the sales ring all the time, he has a chance to buy any [animal] that is good and going cheap according to the market. He buys them and sends them out to the feedlot. He sells [direct] to packing houses instead of going through the commission firm. He has his own 01:47:00commission firm. You can make [very] good money that way.

Their oldest daughter, Cindy, wishes she was a boy. She loves to ride horses and be out on the ranch where there is stock and the cattle. I would bet dollars to donuts that she will marry a rancher instead of anybody else because she is that way.

Carol is the next daughter. She is studying piano. They are both studying piano and going to school in Lethbridge. [They are] lovely girls. Cameron is the boy 01:48:00in between. As brothers will be, they are either picking on him or he is picking on them. They get along. Marie is quite a little gal. All of them [are] smart as a whip. You cannot trick them on anything. [You cannot even trick] little Carla. She is the youngest [child]. We do not know when they ever stop to rest. It does 01:49:00not seem that they ever sleep long enough to rest. They are on the go all the time. [They are] lively.

ID:They have a wonderful mother.

ED:They have a wonderful mother. They have their evening prayers, their morning family prayers and family night. We do not need to worry about Faye and her family. [Emotional]

FH:It sounds to me that you are kind of proud of them.

ED:We are very proud of all of them.

FH:You need to be [proud of them].

ED:[We are] very proud [of them].

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF]

ED:We had a camper up until this year. We bought it in the fall of 1962. We have 01:50:00had a lot of enjoyment with it. We have [made] two trips down through Arizona [and] California. [We took it] down to San Diego [California]. Three years ago, we went up along the west coast.

FH:That is a pretty drive.

ED:[It is a] very pretty drive. [We] went to San Jose, California and then up through [the] redwoods. [We went] up through Portland [Oregon] to Seattle [Washington]. While we were down north of San Diego [about] forty miles, we saw my half-brother, Charley. He and his wife were living there. We stopped and visited them for a few days. [We] had a very enjoyable visit with them. He is the youngest of my half-brothers. We went on through to Portland to Seattle. 01:51:00Then [we] visited one of my cousins that live by the Flathead [Montana] country. [They live in] Camas Hot Springs [Montana]. Their daughter and her husband and one of their granddaughters live there. We visited them for a couple of days and then went on to Vancouver, British Columbia [Canada] where we [visited] a man [who had] worked for us back in the 1930s. He and his wife have been over to visit us different times. We stopped and visited with them for a few days. Then [we] came back through the [inaudible] and --

ID:-- Rogers Pass [between Alberta and British Columbia].

ED:[We went over] Rogers Pass and back through Banff [and] Calgary [in Alberta, Canada] and on home. [We arrived home on] April 16th. [It was] just before the snowstorms.

FH:Were those lovely trips?

ED:Yes. We have had other trips. We were down in Arizona in 1948 with Faye and Jack. Faye had a spot on her lungs [that came] in 1937 while I was down in Iowa. The doctor advised us to take her down there. She got away from her school work, basketball and dancing. [It] was quiet. We were gone for almost three months. By the time we got back, the spot was healed. [Inaudible] That was the time that Jack worked over the horses. He had seen me break a colt to ride the summer or fall before. He knew how to go about it. The fellow there broke horses for 01:53:00[inaudible]. [The horse] was around eighteen months old. The man just shook his head. Twenty minutes after Jack got the rope on it, the colt was prancing on his heels. He could not get away from it.

He is a natural with horses that way. It comes natural for him. I worked with horses from the time I was old enough. We had the stallion there. We had a good many horses to break with a harness and saddle horses. That was part of my life. [I was] working with cattle. We have always had cattle. My father took four head of cows and seven or eight head of horses with us when we went to Canada. That is what I worked with all of my life. All my life has been with cattle, horses 01:54:00and machinery.

FH:That was what you were meant to do [in life].

ED:That was what I meant to do [in life]. We were back in 1948 and 1952. In 1953, we went down to the western states back to Des Moines, Iowa [and] Redfield, Iowa. [It was] the first time that my wife had ever been down there [to] see what the country was like [in] corn country. I was there in 1947 and back in 1952. She met my half-brother, Loren [Huggins], there. We had Easter dinner with him. He passed away that fall from a heart attack.

FH:[It] sounds like it was good [that] you visited him.

ED:That is right. I was there in 1952 and in 1959. In 1964, we had our first 01:55:00trip with [the] camper down there. Every time we can get away, we have and we will [continue to go]. This is not our last trip to go.

ID:The most fun we have had is when we had the camper and went on fishing trips.

ED:Yes. Our biggest fun was when we took the camper and had fishing trips, especially out to Flathead, where my cousin lives.

ID:[We went] up to Waterton when the family would get together.

ED:All that my cousin and his wife have done a lot of [in] their life is fish and hunt. They knew where the fishing was and they really enjoyed it.

FH:I understand they have some really good fishing up that way.

ED:As far as the paper is concerned, it does not hurt to put as much as [inaudible]. If they can catch them. This cousin of mine, his wife was born and raised within a few miles of the old homestead in 1911. I never [was] acquainted with them until about the summer of 1960. It was the summer of 1960, my half-brother, Ray, came up here from California. He lives in Long Beach, California right now. He came up to visit us [in] his car. We had been corresponding with him and my cousin's daughter. He told us where the rest of the cousins lived. We stopped and saw them. He had known them before. I had 01:57:00never known them until we went down there and met them.

The first one I met [was] Orville [Swisher]; [he] was running a little store. I asked him if Orville was there. It was his wife [who] came to the door. She said, "Yes." She called [for him]. I said, "Hello, cousin." He looked at me [and] said, "You have got me. I don't know who you are." I said, "I am Edwin Duell from Canada." [He said,] "Oh, you Duells from Canada. It wasn't fifteen minutes ago there was a car from Alberta came down here and stopped [for] gas. I told them I had a cousin up in Canada." We had a nice visit and saw them quite a bit after that.

Then we went on [to] meet Emory [Swisher] and Myrtle, his wife. They had another 01:58:00brother and cousin [of mine] that lived by them. [His name was] Wilbur [Swisher]. [He] lived in [Camas] Hot Springs. He [was] up around eighty-five [years old when] he died. Emory [was another cousin of mine]. [Inaudible]We used to go up and they came over and visited us. They only lived 260 miles from us. He had lived [there] all those years and we never knew one another.

Orville had seen me when I was a boy [of] about five years old. My father and mother had gone from Iowa through Post Falls, Idaho to Portland, Oregon. They stopped there to visit my mother's sister and her husband. Orville was only a 01:59:00boy of ten [years old] and I was five [years old]. He remembered me, but I did not remember him.

We went on and kept fishing whenever we could. We went to Duck Lake [Montana], [which] was just across the line [United States border] from Cardston [Alberta, Canada]. [We] fished there two different trips. He was getting up close to his eighties then, but he was [very] active for a man of that age. [He was] very active. He enjoyed fishing, but not in the boat. I had a motor boat and we would take the boat out. [Inaudible] from thirteen to sixteen [or [seventeen inches. He really enjoyed it. He always liked to fish and [we became] very close 02:00:00friends. I really felt closer to them than I had my brothers. [Emotional] We were together more and we had more things that we enjoyed together. [We had] more things in common.

They took us up on a creek below a dam that irrigates around the hot springs. The fish in this creek were eastern brook trout. They were not too big. They were all the way from four to ten [or] eleven inches. One Sunday, we went in there, there were the four of us, and we only caught 200 [fish] between us. [Laughter] That was all. It was quite a job to clean them. I got quite a kick 02:01:00out of it. Ida caught quite a few [fish], even with her arm in the condition that it was [then]. There was fluid in [her arm], but she forgot all about it when she was catching fish.

All of our life we have always done a lot of fishing. We rented a boat while we were on our honeymoon and went out on the Waterton Lake and caught some fish. We have always fished all of our life whenever we could [go fishing].

Emory called us up a year ago. [It was] on Monday before the American Thanksgiving last year. They wanted us to come down because the Kokanee were running. The Kokanee are landlocked, sockeye salmon. They die after they spawn. 02:02:00After they spawn, you can snag thirty-five of them a day. We had long enjoyable hours doing that with Emory and his wife, Myrtle. Ida could not do it because of her arms. She did not have the strength in her arms to do it. She enjoyed seeing us do it.

A year ago, just before the American Thanksgiving, he called us and wanted us to come down because the Kokanee were running. We had been planning on leaving on Tuesday. So we hustled up and got away after dinner on that Tuesday. We had to go to Lethbridge [first and] got down there about six o'clock. He was expecting us. He had not told his wife that we were coming. He had supper all cooked for 02:03:00us. He had cooked so much -- he had pig hocks and cabbage in the pot cooking. His wife was cooking at the school across the street. When she came [home], she said, "Emory, are you out of your head cooking all those hocks and cabbage?" He never said anything, just grinned. A little later, their daughter came in and their two children [inaudible]. That is the reason he had all the pig hocks and cabbage. He knew we were coming. That was on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, he was raring to go fishing. He was complaining of the bursitis in his arm. He said his arm was hurting [and] paining him. He was raring to go 02:04:00fishing, but he did not fish any that day. He went with us in the camper. He was not feeling a bit good. He was complaining that sometimes his heart [would] start to pound and it would stop for a couple beats and then it would start up again. We showed him pictures before we went to the camper and went to bed about ten o'clock. I got up the next morning and got dressed to go into the house.

In their house, they have a glassed in entryway. [It is] kind of a sun porch. Then there is a door that goes into the living room and another door into their kitchen. I just got on the porch and Myrtle came out. [She] said, "Oh, Emory is gone." I went in and he was sitting in the chair just like he was asleep. [He was] just that way. He was lying back there just like he was asleep. She said he 02:05:00was talking to her just a couple minutes before [that time]. He wanted to know when the 'Canucks' were coming in. He always called [us] the 'Canucks' from western Canada.

FH:That is a nice way to go.

ED:It was a lovely way to go, but it was kind of a shock because we were not expecting it. We knew afterwards that [the] pain in his arm was one of the [signs] of a heart attack [or] heart trouble. He knew his heart was not good, but that was one of the [signs]. These are all good memories. Last summer we went fishing with Myrtle. We are always going to try to do it as long as we can. He enjoyed it.

FH:This trip that you are on now could prove to be a wonderful trip.

ED:Yes. We had a wonderful time when we went down to Tucson. [The] cousin [who] was at the [Camas] Hot Springs [and] died at about eighty-five [years old], [had a daughter]. His daughter and her husband [Tom and Rosie King were] in their camper [in] Tucson. They were staying with some friends [who] used to be neighbors to them up close to Kalispell [Montana]. They run [manage] a trailer court. They pulled in and we pulled in -- we had to stay there, too. One Sunday, the six of us took our car and [we] went over to the [National] Organ Pipe Cactus Monument [in northern Arizona, between Colorado City and Fredonia on the Utah -- Arizona border]]. We had a lovely picnic over there. [We] sure enjoyed ourselves. It was a wonderful trip.

In about three days, my cousin's daughter, Cole, and [inaudible] had their 02:07:00camper just the next place over. They came up from Las Vegas [Nevada] on their way home. They had driven from Las Vegas to be with us another three days before they went on north. He had a [inaudible] and he wanted to go back. So they went back to Las Vegas and then made that special trip up here. We have enjoyed our trip, although we have had anxiety on this trip. Right now, the way things are going, I think we are going to be okay. [Emotional] I [have] prayed in silence that we would be okay.

FH:I think you will have your prayer answered.

[END OF TAPE TWO -- SIDE TWO]