Interview with Leamo West Peterson

Content Warning: Medical treatment & procedures

Leamo West Peterson was interviewed on March 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 Nevada and Utah. His wife, Verda (Bowler) Peterson, also participated.

FH:What is your full name?

FP:[My name is] Leamo West Peterson.

FH:[How] is your first name spelled?

LP:[It is spelled] L-E-A-M-O.

FH:[What is] your birth date?

LP:[I was born] December 6, 1903.

FH:Where were you born?

LP:[I was born in] Panaca, Nevada.

FH:What was your father's name?

LP:[His name was] Samuel West Peterson.

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

LP:[Her name was] Mary Elizabeth (Davis) [Peterson].

FH:Can you tell about your early childhood?

LP:When I was a [youngster], before my parents moved back to Utah, we lived in Caliente [Nevada]. The other [boys] would hunt bottles to make their nickels. I 00:01:00would go down to the saloon when they would take their bottles -- I lisped quite a bit -- and [fellows] would give me money to hear me swear because I lisped so much! I used to laugh at the [boys] hunting bottles, because I could [get] my [money] for swearing. [Laughter] I am not proud of it now, though.

FH:No, of course not. It is funny what [youngsters] will do.

LP:They will do anything for nickels and dimes.

FH:Where were you when you started to school?

LP:I was [living] in Enterprise [Washington County] Utah.

FH:Can you tell about [events] that happened to you in Enterprise?

LP:We lived on a ranch three miles from town. We walked to school. Only during bad weather did we [ride] a horse. We went to school in a red brick schoolhouse that Jack Pulsipher later owned. Maude Bigler was my first teacher. I remember how she drilled us on a song that they [sang] then -- Matthew, Luke, John, Acts of the Apostles, Epistles to Romans --.

FH:[Was it] so you could memorize the names?

LP:Yes. I thought she was a great teacher. I was just a [boy], but I thought she was [good]. After we went to school there, we went to [school with] Darrell Woodbury in the old Bill Auger home it is now or it was until they tore it down. I thought Darrell was a great teacher.

FH:Did you enjoy school?

LP:Yes, I [liked] school when I could make up my mind to go and I didn't have to help my parents. The next teacher that I remember who was outstanding was Bernie K. Farnsworth when I was in the fifth grade. I was mean. I had a cousin who was two days older than me, and we would fight anyone that wanted to fight. It did 00:03:00not matter who it was, where it was, how many, nor how big.

FH:What was the cousin's name?

LP[His name was] Vernon Gibson. I was a regular pest in school. Old Bernie picked me up by the ears a time or two and slammed me up and down on the seat to straighten me out. As I [was] older, I realized he was a good teacher. Willard Canfield was another outstanding teacher I had. He just liked to beat me to death a time or two, because I was ornery. William "Bill" C. Staheli, from Santa Clara [Washington County, Utah] but he lived in Enterprise, taught me in high school. I was having a [bad] time. He was [teaching the] eighth grade and I was the first year in high school and had algebra. I was having a [bad] time with algebra. I went to Mr. Staheli finally; I thought he was the only thing there was. I told him what a time I was having; I guess I had quit. He said, "Leamo, it isn't the student that is failing this class. It is the teacher that is 00:04:00failing to teach you. A student never fails; it is the teacher that is failing, not you." Mr. Staheli helped me and I got through my algebra that year. I have loved Mr. Staheli ever since, if a man can love another man. I think he is one of the best teachers we ever had.

FH:Do you feel that the teachers were outstanding in quality that you had?

LP:I think they were. I never had a bad teacher, the [entire] time I went to school.

FH:I have found this is true in this whole area; the teachers have been wonderful teachers.

LP:You do not appreciate it until you [are] older. I had George [E.] Miles from down here [and] he was a good teacher. Judd Fawcett: he was the one that I was failing under in algebra, but he was a wonderful teacher in other subjects. He just didn't get it over to me on algebra.

FH:Sometimes they don't understand.

LP:I think on the whole, I have had as good of teachers as anybody could have had.

FH:How far were you able to go in school?

LP:I went to eighth grade in Enterprise. Then we had two years of high school 00:05:00and I went to Panaca, Nevada and graduated from high school. When I was working for the State [of Utah], they gave us college credit for studying the ways of handling people, men and women both, in first aid. They said it was eighteen college credit hours when we passed the first aid course and the handling of people on the job. I was a foreman.

FH:That was good training, too. When you need it, it really means something.

LP:Yes. I saw in Vegas Village [Las Vegas, Nevada] where they needed a lot of training like that [because of] some of the people they had to handle down there.

FH:We have a similar need in our schools today.

LP:I thought at the time when they used to whack my knuckles with the rod, or pick me up by the ears, that it was wrong. I think if we had more of that today, we would have better schools.

FH:We would have a lot better students.

LP:It is just like Mr. Tobler -- there was another outstanding teacher. I didn't have him, but he taught my boy. My boy had trouble in school and I went to see him. My boy never knew I went to see him, but I went to see what the trouble was. I told him I do not even know why I am over here. He said, "I can tell which [students] are getting backing from their parents and who isn't." I told him I wanted to get it straight; we got it straight and there were no feelings at all.

FH:Have you been to [see] teachers about your children?

LP:Yes, I have been to several teachers about my [youngsters], especially my boy, but they never knew it at the time. [Inaudible]

FH:That avoided them having to be embarrassed by it.

LP:It had the [youngsters] thinking I was backing them up. Myrna [Peterson], my daughter, never gave me any worries at all. The boy got in a little bit of trouble.

FH:Boys are a little different from girls. [Laughter] In [your] growing-up years, were you [very] active and did all kinds of things?

LP:Yes. I worked on the railroad [and] on road jobs. I worked at the stamp mill one time, separating the lead and silver from rock. I worked in the processing plant as a ball mill operator. I worked as foreman of the highways between Enterprise and here, and towards Cedar [City, Iron County, Utah], for about 00:08:00eight years.

FH:What age were you when you started working on your own?

LP:I was fifteen years old when I went to [work on] the railroad; I told them I was twenty-one [years old]. The first time [inaudible] the road master came along, I heard him, but I tried to keep out of his sight. He said to Hugh Edmondson, the boss, "How old is that [fellow] over there?" He said, "He said he was twenty-one years old." He said, "You know he isn't twenty-one." The boss said, "He told me he was." "You know he isn't. You have him get a minor release from his parents and a release from the school board, or let him go." I knew I couldn't get it, so I had to go, that was all. I went back again after school was out and worked there. I was working there in the fall, [but] I wasn't going to go to school. My parents were having a lot of trouble with sickness.

My dad bought a pair of horses and he said if I wanted to drive them I could drive them and he would drive the other team between the times I was going to school, but he wanted me to go to school. My parents wanted me to have an 00:09:00education in the worst way. They did everything possible for me to have an education. I guess I was too sympathetic. My mother was sick for twenty-one years before she died. My dad was pretty near a pauper when she died. He had spent everything he had, his cows and everything, to try and help her and he couldn't do it. I felt like I should help them instead of helping myself.

It was the most foolish mistake I made. When I was about twenty-one years old, I was in Camp Valley in Nevada, pitching hay in grass hay season. I had graduated from high school. All the high school [students] that year went to summer school and got schools in. They could do that in Nevada. This [fellow] told me, "If you will go to summer school, and take my three [youngsters], I will give you $135.00 a month. In three years you can go back to school again and get another contract. We will furnish you a house and meat, but we [do] get snowed in for 00:10:00two or three months a year." All the [students] I knew had gone and [finished] their six weeks. Like a foolish youngster, I didn't go because I didn't want to go alone. That was the first big mistake I made.

FH:It is too bad that you didn't take advantage [of that opportunity]. In these earlier years, did you ever take any trips?

LP:Only when I would take off and go looking for a job. I thought it was fun to ride a freight train [and] make my way on a freight train. When I was close to nineteen years old, I took off from Enterprise and went to Salt Lake [City, Salt Lake County, Utah]. I had been out around to Pioche and Caliente. I went to Provo [Utah County, Utah] and stayed with some relatives there, Naomi and Thel Woods. I stayed there and helped them with their vegetable [crops] during the canning season for a little while.

I came back to Delta [Millard County, Utah] on a Monday morning. I needed a job 00:11:00and I started looking around. I went to Whiskey Smith's place. His boy told me, "We need a man. Dad has gone into town to find one. Stay and have supper. If he doesn't find one, you can stay and go to work for us." I stayed and had supper with them. He brought a man he found in town, so he didn't need me. They gave me my supper [and] I thanked them and went around towards Delta. I saw a big straw stack. I thought: I might as well save my dollar, and I slept there that night. I went in to town [and] laid around there Tuesday and [that] night. Wednesday 00:12:00morning, Amos F. Terry, an old cowpuncher my dad used to be with -- he lived in Enterprise and died last year [1968] -- he said, "Leamo, why don't you come stay with me for old time's sake for a day and visit." I said, "I can do that; I have nothing to do. Maybe I will find a job." As we were going out, he saw the water boss who said, "Amos, you get the water tonight on your beets." Amos said, "I can't take it; I have threshers coming tomorrow." I said, "Amos, go ahead and take your water; I will help the threshers. I don't know anything about watering your ground, but I will help the threshers and you can come and supervise yours." He said, "I promised to help my neighbors; they don't have much grain." I said, "I can help them too. I am not doing anything." I worked eight hours, the whole day.

That night I said, "If you will take me back to town, I will go back and maybe I will find something [to do]." He said, "Stay over tonight." I said, "No, I don't believe I had better do that." He said, "I will pay you for the day then." I said, "You don't owe me anything. I just offered to help you with that because I 00:13:00saw you were in a pinch." He said, "Why don't you stay a day or two?" I said, "If you want to feed me, I will stay and let it go on the work I did." I stayed with him until Sunday morning. He went in [to] conference Sunday morning and I went back in [to Delta]. I was just laying around in Delta trying to find a job. I had a few dollars, so I [didn't] have to bum my eats. I wasn't eating three meals a day, but I was careful.

I was sitting in a pool hall one night and a [fellow] came in. The [fellow] next to me said, "Do you know a [fellow] from Enterprise, Utah that goes by the name of Jones part of the time and Peterson part of the time?" I said, "No, I don't." I did not know who he was. I said, "Mister, I know one from Enterprise [who] goes by Peterson, but that is all he goes by." He said, "Where is he?" I said, "That is me, right here." He said, "Let's go outside; I would like to talk to you for a minute." We went out and he said, "You say you are from Enterprise?" I said, "Yes." He said, "The postmaster down there is my cousin; I would like to 00:14:00hear from her." I said, "Why don't you write to her? That is what the mail is for. There is no postmaster by that name down there. I have a [inaudible] at the post office and there is no woman by that name [at] the post office." He said, "Yes, there is." I said, "You use the mail and find out."

He said, "Where did you get that hat you have on?" I said, "I bought it in Pioche." He said, "You went through here on a certain time on a freight train?" I said, "Yes." He said, "You got off here at the depot?" I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "You came back here [at] a certain time? You have been up to Provo and Salt Lake [City]. You came back here at a certain time [and] had dinner out [at] Whiskey Smith's [on] a certain day?" I said, "Yes, I told you that." He said, "You forged a check on Whiskey Smith over in Oasis [Millard County, Utah] last Thursday and went in Delta. That is what I have you for." I said, "I didn't forge a check on anybody." He said, "That is the [fellow] they said it was, 00:15:00Jones or Peterson. He said you signed it Jones." I got to thinking and said, "What day did you say that was?" He said, "Thursday." I said, "Mister, you go down to the telephone and call Amos F. Terry in Sutherland [Millard County, Utah] and see where I was from Tuesday afternoon until Sunday morning."

He went down and called Amos F. I couldn't tell -- I just heard the question he asked him. Then he quit and called the [Millard] County sheriff in Fillmore and said, "I have this man Peterson, but I don't think you have anything on him because he has a witness. He was not even in Delta that day. He was with this Amos F. Terry all that time." He came out and said, "I am glad I found you and you are not the [fellow] I want." I said, "Mister, you have nothing on me. I am 00:16:00a lot gladder than you are!" [Laughter] I was pretty cocky at the time, because when I first started, before I found out what they had me for, and not knowing a soul in the town -- I am glad I thought of Amos. I always had a lot of respect for Amos after he came to my aid when I needed it. [Laughter]

I used to ride back and forth from Caliente to Modena [Iron County, Utah]. I would call my folks to either send out a horse or somebody to meet me. I would start across the desert afoot, because I wanted to go home and see my mother as regularly as I could. I jumped on the freight train one time and took the heel of my shoe off. My foot slipped through, caught on the rail and the wheel took my heel off. It never pinched my foot at all, just took the heel off my shoe.

FH:That was too close for comfort.

LP:That was too close for comfort. Then I was -- maybe I am getting ahead of the story.

FH:These [events that] you have been telling me about were mostly before you 00:17:00were married?

LP:Yes, sir.

FH:[Were they] when you were growing up?

LP:Yes, sir.

FH:What was the first job you did? Was that the road work?

LP:That was on the section. George and Joe Woodbury had a bunch of cattle and a big farm. The first job I ever [had was] working for them herding their cows. We went to school, at that time, for half a day. I herded their milk cows along with our cows over on the hill for $.10 a day. Getting them out of the corral for $.10 a day was better than just herding ours for nothing. The first two times they gave me the $1.00 in a check. I thought: my gosh! that bank will think that [fellow] is making a lot of money! [Laughter] I was that young. That was before I was even fifteen years old. I was just going to grade school.

FH:[Laughter] [Did] they have to herd the cows because there was no fence?

LP:There was no fence; you had to herd them on the hill and get them back at night.

FH:Things have changed a lot in our day.

LP:Yes. One time my grandchildren came up from [Las] Vegas and they said, "Grandpa, let us go see where you get [the] milk that you get from cows." [Laughter]

I used to haul gas from Enterprise to St. George and [from] Lund [Iron County, Utah] to Enterprise for cars. They did not even have trucks [back] then. I took some [youngsters] with me down there one time. I was only fifteen years old. We were selling gas tanks and the gas leaked out. You know what hot gas will do to [a youngster's] bottom. If I didn't have a mess by the time I [arrived in] Enterprise. [Laughter] Those fellows sat on those barrels and played around with that gas [and] it got on their pants. I played it that way all the time in the summertime and when I wasn't going to school.

I took a load of poles one time from Modena to -- I thought I was going through 00:19:00Enterprise and my folks didn't give me any money to pay for hay [because] they [thought] I would be home the next night. When I got to Modena and loaded those electric light poles, they sent me to Pinto [Washington County, Utah] with them. I went straight across Newcastle [Iron County, Utah]. I only knew one [fellow] over there, Jim Nale. His boy was running his place. I went there to try [to] get some hay. His boy wouldn't let me have [hay without] any money. When I was a [youngster], living on the ranch, I brushed flies off Jim Nale's face while he slept, but his boy wouldn't let me have a nice piece of hay and send him the money from home. I started out [from] home with my horses [for] fourteen miles, took them across, got back the next morning and took that load of poles on up, when I ran into -- I don't remember his name. He said, "Where are you going?" I said, "I am going to Enterprise. I didn't have money to buy hay and Claude Nale wouldn't let me have any without the money." He said, "You take this $1.00 and go back and stay there, and pay on up." That is the rest of the story.

I went on a lot of trips that way. I helped [with] this first fire plant down in 00:20:00the Gunlock [Washington County, Utah] area. I hauled that big water wheel down there. I drove the big baggage wagon. I wasn't big enough to do anything else. They had ten horses on one wagon; one water wheel was on there. I hung my leg over the dashboard, just a [youngster], but I bruised it all in here and made a [inaudible] I never walked on [it] for awhile. He [was] over there in the meadows and if anybody doesn't know what those meadows are over there, they just went in there. We camped there at noon on one side of the wash and were from then until the second day getting to the upper end of the field. We dropped through that mud. Just to tell you how bad that old meadow was, it was perfectly 00:21:00dry. They just drove down and we had to get planks three feet wide, cut them and put them under the wheels to try to get that wagon back on top of the dirt. Bert Price said he was coming through there one time when he saw what looked like a hat moving along the top of the ground. He walked over and picked it up, and there was a man. He said, "Do you need any help?" "Hell no, I don't need any help. I am riding a 1,400-pound horse down here someplace." [Laughter] That is just the way the meadows used to sink down. That is what he told me a lot of times. [Laughter]

FH:That [mud] was pretty soft. [Laughter]

LP:My brother Delbert [Peterson], the brother just younger than me, and I went to [inaudible] one time. We heard about a job over there. We went over [but] 00:22:00they did not have any work anyplace. They had a bunch of mules over there. They had eighty broke mules and they brought down eighty raw broncos from Salt Lake [City]. Up at [inaudible] we tried to get a job, but there weren't any jobs for [youngsters]. We went to the [railroad] depot and stayed there overnight. We went down the next morning, no [jobs]. We went down at noon and they didn't have anything. We decided we were going to have a job. We stayed there that night and went down the next morning. They wouldn't give us a job. We went down at noon, and that [fellow] said, "My God, get these [fellows] out of my hair. Put them [to] doing something." We went to work for them. They would take two of these bronco mules and put them with two others, and start those old teamsters out. If you know what those old teamsters were, they were a pretty rough bunch.

FH:Yes.

LP:[They] put two broke mules with two broncos [and] started out [with a] Fresno [scraper]. Pretty quick, those mules would take off and those skinners [were] going as fast as they can go. They would just throw the line there and go. [Laughter] Let them go and the way the boys were riding [inaudible] round up mules and [inaudible] when they would get away from that Fresno. We went down 00:23:00the canyon and worked down there for a while. I got a rock in my eye one night and I was afraid I was going to go blind, so we quit and went home. [Laughter] We had a few dollars to us. We had to get a doctor to get the rock [out of] my eye

FH:Your experiences were certainly varied.

LP:Yes.

FH:Can you tell me now a little bit about your father?

LP:Dad worked on the railroad. He was just about like me. He got to be a fireman once [but] then he got scared. He always had a strong testimony of the gospel. 00:24:00He always acted like he did. My mother was sick for twenty-one years [and] could hardly get around. She hardly went to anything. He didn't go to church as much as a lot of people. He had a good strong testimony. I [thought] -- this is me talking -- I [thought] my dad was as good a man as I was ever around. I never heard him profane but once in all the time. He had been out all day with four horses and had one horse that was not doing its share. I looked at him. I guess dad could hardly take that. He just dropped his head and told my mother afterwards how it made him feel when he profaned. I heard him and the way I looked at him, because I was -- it wasn't because [inaudible] I was just surprised to think that he did [it] because I never had heard him profane before. If I had had that much trouble with a horse, I would not have just profaned, I would have killed it! [Laughter] I would not have played with it at all.

My mother died in October 1927. We came over for her funeral. Dad never did seem 00:25:00to get over it. He [had] taken care of mom [for] so many years. He was trying to herd sheep, but he finally left that and went to Caliente and worked. He freighted, herded sheep [and] has done everything in his life. After she died -- I don't remember when it was -- he married Aunt Hulda Dalley in Summit [County, Utah] and they lived there until he died [November 14, 1950]. He was quite active in The Church [of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] there. He had plenty of time because he was semi-retired. I didn't know he was as free-hearted with 00:26:00his money, [but on] the day of the funeral, the bishop said, "This is the kind of man we like and a bishop loves and respects. He wasn't a big man and he wasn't strong, but he could do more work for a little man than anybody I ever saw. It did not matter what the bishop asked for, his purse was always the first one out and the first one to make a donation." It was not because he had the money; he would put off something else.

Before he died, I was over there [in] late October. He said, "Leamo, will you come over and move me away from here in November?" I said, "Where do you want to go, dad?" He said, "I am going to St. George to work in the temple. I am going someplace to get out of this cold." He died in November. I was there [and] I moved him home when he died in November. It seemed like he knew he was going someplace.

When my wife and I were living in [inaudible]. I don't know why it would happen 00:27:00that way, but we buried my mother in one week and we were in Enterprise. Her brother, Gene Bowler, said, "Pete," -- he had been herding sheep for [inaudible] -- "What about me coming down to Caliente and staying with you?" I said, "Come down, Gene. You are welcome anytime." He said, "I do not know where I am going, but I am sure going to get away from here for awhile." Just a week to the day after we buried my mother, we buried Gene. He didn't know where he was going, but he knew he was going some place. It seemed like he had an intuition. The funny thing, a year later, my grandmother died. We came over to her funeral and just a week to the day, her [my wife's] grandfather died. [It] seems strange 00:28:00that those four people died. It was a year apart, but it was one and one and then one and one.

FH:This happens quite often in families. I have found this to be true. Tell more about your mother. What do you remember about her?

LP:I was [very] close to my mother. I would go to work for a month or two, then come home. When I came home, we would sit up and talk. I would visit with my folks. My dad would finally go to bed, but my mother and I would sit up many a night until two or three o'clock, just visiting. It seemed to come natural to us, to just sit and visit. She asked me one time what had happened between dad and me [because] dad was scared of me. He didn't dare talk to me. I said, "I couldn't [think of] a thing that could have ever happened. I didn't mean to have dad ever [think that] he couldn't talk to me." [When] I was born she had an 00:29:00appendicitis operation. After my brother Delbert was born, she had a little hernia. Instead of stopping having children she went on to have my other brother [Jasper Lynn Peterson]. It enlarged it a little bigger [and] they had her on a table seven times trying to sew that hernia up. When my sister [Sereldia Peterson] was born, it broke clear across. She was on the operating table seven times to try to get that sewed up so it would hold. Her entrails all hung out and a factory made a bandage of seven thicknesses to hold her entrails up. Then she got dropsy on top of that. She was practically an invalid for about twenty-one years before she died. She died [October 11. 1927] when she was forty-one years old.

I heard her tell my dad one night that I thought a lot of her. I thought a lot 00:30:00of both my parents. They were all wool and a yard wide. I heard my mother tell my dad one time, and I often wondered if it affected me any, she said, ""Sam", I am just afraid that my sickness is going to turn Leamo. He acts to me like seeing me suffer this way is kind of turning him. I would sooner die right now then have him get so he didn't believe." I believe that might have had something to do, but I think the biggest thing that hurt my faith [was] when I was a [youngster and] my grandmother died. I was with her like I was with my mother. I was going to school and she was sick for so long. I used to study and stay with her so the rest of them could sleep. There had to be somebody there to hand her [what she needed]. I would study with her until twelve or one o'clock every night while I was going to high school. Just before she died, it was in the 00:31:00evening when she died, she [had been] talking to my grandfather all evening long. The way she talked it [sounded] like he was preparing a house for her --

[END OF RECORDING ONE.]

LP:-- and he had it about ready. She talked to him and talked to him. When I was taking my uncle back, he was a fairly good man [and] nothing bad about him, he would never be baptized. If he was talking to Mormons, they were the worst people there was on earth, but if somebody was talking against the Mormons, he would fight like a buzz saw, but he would never be baptized. When I said, "There had to be something to this religion, Uncle "Will" [Peterson], because grandma talked to grandfather all evening before she died." He said, "Oh hell, she thought about him every day of her life. She was just living her past over as she was dying, that is all. There was nothing to that." [Laughter] I wonder sometimes if that affected me. I don't think it did. For a long while, [when] 00:32:00they talked to the dying right before they died, I thought: it is like he said, they have probably been thinking of them all their life and that is the reason they are thinking of them now. I know different now.

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LP:It is getting into my own family, but I know that people who are dead stay with you. After my little granddaughter was burned up -- we were down in the field. We had a farm and my boy [Lerald Wayne Peterson] worked at the mine and I worked on the road. We did our farming on Sundays and Saturdays and anytime we could get to do it. We did not have too big a farm. We were down cleaning ditches one day, and my daughter-in-law [Mildred (Strickland) Peterson] was running the disc. [We were] getting ready to plant some grain. [Inaudible] the ditch and my little granddaughter was singing Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam. I said, "That is wrong. It is Jesus Wants Me for a String Bean. She said, "Grandpa, do not say that."

We went uptown that day. They said they were going to New Harmony [Washington 00:33:00County, Utah] to see some friends. When I got up there, there was an old basement that had burned up. Weeds had gotten in there [and some youngsters] had lit a match and thrown it in there. There was a tire lying in there, still burning. I looked at it and thought: I ought to go put that tire out. Then I thought: they are going away [and] there will be nobody there and nothing [will] happen there. We went on to church and I left it go so as to burn it [out]. When she came out of church that day, instead of going home, she came up to me. She seemed to be very fond of me. She kissed me on the lips and said, "Good-bye, grandpa." I never thought about what she meant by good-bye. Pretty quickly I went on into Priesthood. Soon after, a firstaid man came after Errol Martin. [He] said that Brenda Peterson had caught on fire and was badly burned. We went over [there]. She had gone down to this old tire. She had on a nylon petticoat 00:34:00and it just went like gas. She ran as far as up to the second trailer up the street before my son got to her. We took her and started up to Salt Lake [City] with her, [but] she died close to Beaver [Beaver County, Utah] so we went back.

After she died, that child was with me continually. It just seemed like I could see her trailing behind me. Every place I went -- it [became] kind of annoying, to think I could not get away from her. I was up on the road cleaning out cuts one day with a loader. I [had] a cut clean and started to pull down another one. It was so real, that child stepped right in front of that big wheel. I slapped the brake on and she looked just natural, standing in front of that big wheel. She just smiled at me all over. A day or two after that, I was down doing the 00:35:00milking and it felt like if I looked back, I could see that child. I [looked] back and told her, "I have had as much of this as I can take." She said, "I want you to see I am happy and [for you to] be happy too." I said, "I can not take much more of this." I have never, from that day to this, ever felt her presence. Not once have I felt it. I know that people who are dead can -- you have either a good imagination or else they are there, that is all.

FH:This is no imagination; this is real. I know this too. Tell about your father's and mother's children.

LP:Delbert [Peterson] was the oldest one next to me. I was the oldest, then Delbert. I don't know who the Delbert is for, but he was named for my uncle "Will", Delbert William Peterson. [Jasper] Lynn Peterson was the third child and 00:36:00my sister, [Sereldia Peterson]. My brother [Delbert William] still lives in Caliente. He has been quite sick and had a lot of trouble. His wife has been having a lot of trouble. I don't know how they have been getting by. He gets a pension of $260.00 [each] month, but I don't know how they have been getting by because he has been sick so much lately. They live there, my other brother [Jasper Lynn] lives in Las Vegas. He is a security guard for one of the [companies] down there. My sister lives in Milford. Her husband [Warren Fernley] is a locomotive engineer. My brother [who] lives in Vegas, Lynn, had two boys. My brother, "Dub" [Delbert], didn't have any [children] and my sister didn't have any children. I do not know about my sister, whether she is religious or not. My brother-in-law is a Mason [Free and Accepted Masons], but I do not know what degree he [holds]. They do not seem to be taking much to do. She [has] 00:37:00filled every chair in the Eastern Star in Nevada. When they moved to Utah, they did not seem to want to take her on, being a Mormon and a Mason too, for some reason. I do not know why.

FH:They have restrictions about this in Utah.

LP:My brother, "Dub", belongs to the [Independent Order of] Odd Fellows lodge. My other brother doesn't belong to anything, just his family. I guess he belongs to them -- he has two boys. "Dub" thought as much of his stepdaughter as he could a child of his own. When she died, it just about did him up in business. They have got their granddaughter with them now. I guess he has most of the care of her because his wife is paralyzed on one side and she cannot do much. My sister said "Dub" could take just as good care of that baby as she could.

FH:How old is the baby now?

LP:How old is the baby, mom?

VP:I imagine [she is] two or three [years old].

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF]

LP:My brother lives in Las Vegas. They all think they are Tom Mix [and] they try 00:38:00to dress like cowboys. [Laughter] My brother is a good singer. He can play the guitar and sing with the best of them, but he never has managed to get [into the musician's] union. He had a job on the radio once, but he did not [belong to] the union. They would not let him work without getting in the union, so he was just out. He didn't have the money to get a union [card].

FH:Do you remember or know anything about your father's parents that you ought to [tell] about?

LP:All I know about my father's parents was my [that] grandmother, Phoebe M. [Maria] West was born over here in Washington [City]. She married Soren Christian Peterson, [who] was my dad's father. They lived in Parowan [Iron County, Utah] until my dad and his sister, Julia [Peterson], were born. I don't 00:39:00know what the matter was, but they separated. She came back to Washington [City] and dad was raised in Washington [City]. I do not know a thing about my granddad Peterson, other than he died and was buried in Parowan or Cedar [City]; I don't know which. My grandmother is buried in Enterprise. She married James Pendleton after she [divorced] Peterson. They lived in Enterprise until the time she died. She was buried in Enterprise Cemetery and so is he. Whether my granddad was [buried] in Cedar [City] or Parowan, I don't know. We called grandpa Pendleton, "Grandpa Penn." We called him grandpa, just the same as we would have anyone 00:40:00else, because he was a wonderful man, just as honest. At one time, he was a hard-shell Baptist; then he finally joined the Mormon Church. He was just as good a Mormon as he was a hard-shell Baptist. Once in a while he would have to get on that old hard-shell Baptist line. He read the [Holy] Bible through twelve times. He had a list of every time that God was mentioned in the [Holy] Bible. He could tell you how many times, but I do not remember now what he said it was.

[Hard-shell is the adjective used to describe Baptists who reject a common Christian notion of missionary work.]

FH:What do you know [about] your mother's people?

LP:I don't know a thing about him [her father, Joseph Henry Davis], only that he was a freighter. He used to freight from Milford to Delamar [Nevada] before the railroad [came in] there. He died when he was in his thirties, I think. She had the four children, all [young] when he died. He was just as well and healthy less than a year before he died. He played the violin for dances. They said he 00:41:00would jump and kick his heels together three times while he was in the air. When he was talking about people their age, he said, ""Lem," we are never going to get old, are we?" In less than a year from then, he was crippled from rheumatism and died before --.

FH:You never can tell.

LP:You never can tell. Then my grandmother came to Enterprise and lived there. My dad took as good a care of her family, his family and my grandmother as a man could do it that just had to work with his hands.

FH:Do you believe in prayer?

LP:Yes, sir.

FH:Have you ever had your prayers answered? Could you tell about [it]?

LP:I do not know that I have had mine [answered]. I think I have. I have had them answered on me through the Priesthood. I have had them answered on my wife. 00:42:00I do not know if it was because I prayed for my wife or whether I prayed for myself, but something has helped me. It has to be something because the doctors have not done it all. I know that because when I left Salt Lake [City] the first time, they did not seem to think I was going to live very long, but I have lived since 1963 this way.

FH:You [had] them fooled, but there was some help you had.

LP:Yes.

FH:Can you tell some of the things you did for fun when you were growing up?

LP:[Laughter] When I was growing up, we called ourselves the Rusty Six. The [young people] could not have a party that we did not [take] off with their 00:43:00[supplies]. That was the thing we enjoyed [the most]. One of the fellows, Rex Bowler, my wife's brother, played the guitar. I picked the guitar pretty good and Lee Holt played the accordion. When we could not get in [to the party] any other way [but] to steal their eats to a party, we would get them outside with the guitar and the accordion [for] them to listen to while we went around and [took] their cake and ice cream or whatever they had. We had a bunch come up from St. George. Dixie College used to always bring a play to Enterprise. I guess [this was] to encourage [young people] to come down to [the] school. I was down over there with Art Truman and a bunch and we went clear up on Flat Top [Mountain four miles west of Enterprise] to pack snow down on horses to make ice cream one night when this play came from St. George. They stayed home and were making the ice cream. Old [inaudible] sat out where we could see them through the window and watched them trying to freeze it. We were waiting there for them to get it [finished]. When they [had] it all packed, they went in and started playing the organ. One of them was playing the accordion and the rest of them were singing [and] having a big time. While they were in there, we went in and 00:44:00[took] their ice cream. When they came out to get it, they didn't have any ice cream. [Laughter] Old [inaudible] Auger, one thing I admired about him, his brother found out it was him, but he would not squawk on the rest of us. They would not do anything to him because he would not squawk and tell them who the rest of the bunch were. [Laughter] That was about all.

I used to steal melons and [items] like that. The most fun I had above anything else was riding a horse and getting out in the hills. I loved the hills. That is one thing I don't like about [my life] now. I worked for years in the hills, teams in the forest when I was coming along with my family. I danced. I used to like to go to dances. I thought at one time I was quite a play actor. I [acted] in several plays. I really liked it. It was fun to get out and do those things, 00:45:00but it never did me any good.

FH:It didn't do you any harm, either. [Laughter]

LP:No.

FH:Did you [participate] in any sports activities in your life?

LP:No. I was going to school and I had been wrestling the [boys] in school. They had a wrestling match and I used to wrestle all the time with [boys] around there. That was the only kind of sports I ever did. I had a wide strap I packed around; I would get down on the ground and try to pull up posts with a strap around my neck to strengthen my neck. You had to have a stout neck to be a wrestler. That is the reason, I think, I have such a big neck now because I worked my neck so much [with] that strap on those posts.

I thought one time I was a bronco rider. I traded for a colt because it threw me off [when] I was going to ride it. I finally rode it. I saw two or three 00:46:00[fellows] try to ride it and they all [were] thrown off. I said, "Hell, I can ride that." I got onto it, but I did not ride it any longer than they did. I traded for it so that I could get to ride it. I did ride it.

FH:That was one way to overcome it. [Laughter]

LP:In those days, we traded. If there was anything we wanted, we had to trade something for it.

FH:That was the way you got things instead of paying money.

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF]

FH:What about music? Have you enjoyed music?

LP:Yes, sir.

FH:Can you tell what kind of music you like?

LP:I like western music, guitar, ukulele and [the] banjo. I like good music like the [Mormon] Tabernacle Choir. I told my wife, it would be awful to ask it, but I would like for my daughter to play for the choir if they had a funeral for me 00:47:00when I die. I love to hear her play. She has played the piano since she was just a little bit of a girl. She took music lessons. She bought all the music they had there for a long while. She is in the Relief Society music department in Las Vegas. It would be a devil of a note to ask her, but I would just be tickled to death if she could play for the choir. That would be my final wish, to hear her play.

FH:I do not think there would be anything wrong with that [request].

LP:When my dad died, he asked that she play The End of a Perfect Day for him. It was hard on her. She played it beautifully, but she thought grandpa was kind of out of place to ask her to play that for him.

FH:You can see that he would want that. That was a wonderful thing. Have you 00:48:00enjoyed reading?

LP:Yes, I have liked to read all my life, especially history, anything that is historical. I have read a lot of material that I would have been a lot better off if I had never read it, but I read it. I enjoy my church works now and anything that is in the line of history.

FH:Tell about your courtship, your wife and your marriage.

LP:There wasn't much to tell about that. The first time I ever paid attention to my wife or knew much about her, a girl came and wanted me to -- these were horse and wagon days -- take a wagon box and take four girls and two boys over to Modena. We did not know that they had dates with men when we got over there. I took my dad's team and wagon and we went to Modena. When we [arrived] there, 00:49:00this older girl [who] got us to go, this [fellow] didn't like the idea of this boy [who] was with them; he thought he was her date. He broke her jaw. The girls all stayed in Enterprise and they all stayed in Modena. I told her mother early the next morning where she was, and I guess they would get home someway. They would not come with me. That was the first [time] I was with my wife [Verda (Bowler) Peterson], just going over there that day. I do not know how we drifted into going together. We just started in, that was all.

FH:It just came naturally. [Laughter]

LP:We just did what came naturally. [Laughter]

FH:How long did it take you to decide?

LP:I guess we fooled around for three or four years before -- it was when I got out of high school before we ever got around to getting serious. We did not have a job or money when we married. We [were] married [July 2, 1927 in St. George] and started housekeeping. [Laughter]

FH:You had a little faith, probably.

LP:As far as I am concerned, I do not know where I could have [found] a woman who has stood by me since I have been sick, like she has and never murmuring. I do not know what she said behind my back, but she has sure been good about waiting on me and trying to keep me alive. I do not know why she would want to keep a man alive that was not worth a darn. I do not believe a man ever had a 00:51:00better woman than she is, as far as her family is concerned. She can tell you her religious history. I will go on record right now as saying that if I had my life to live over, I would want her for a partner because she has been true blue all the way through. I heard them tell at a funeral how this woman stayed by her husband all during his sickness. I said, "He was not sick as long as I have been and my wife has stayed by me and would not let me get out of bed at night when I have been sick." In the daytime, I have picked [up] the hoe and started to hoe, she is afraid I am going to overdo and get sick. She has really been good since we [were] married. We have had a lot of ups and downs and had a tough time of it.

We [were] married right during the depression. After we married, I worked at everything; I herded sheep, tended camp, worked on the railroad, drove truck and [did] most any kind of work that I could get. When my [children] were coming up, when they were [young], I worked for 200 pounds of potatoes a day, field run.

We kept the field heat on and sowed all the good ones we could get out of it for sale [inaudible]. I worked for hay and grain that I would trade around for this or that to get by. She never complained that I ever knew about, about not having anything.

FH:Where did you go to live after you married? First, where were you married?

LP:We were married in St. George by Bishop McArthur. Was he a bishop or a stake president? He lived over here and he married us. I worked for her father for a while. We went up to Caliente and I [found] a job at the railroad tunnels in the early part of 1928 or late 1927. We stayed there for a couple of years. Then I 00:53:00came back and helped her dad on the farm for a year or two. Then [we] went back to Caliente to the tunnels for awhile. We went up to Pioche and worked on the narrow-gauge railroad for awhile. We moved from there back to [inaudible] on the railroad, walked track for a while there and then [went] back to the tunnels again.

FH:Did you have some children?

LP:Yes, we have two children, a boy and a girl.

FH:Tell about those children. Take the first one and tell a little bit about his life.

LP:He has been a hardworking boy. He started out pretty puny when he was [young]. Everybody called him "PeeWee", but he weighs about 200 pounds now.

FH:What is his name?

LP:Lerald Wayne [Peterson]. He grew up like all the other [youngsters], 00:54:00graduated from high school. I came here and wanted him to go to college down here. I told him I would get him a place he could batch. He said, "No, I will go down and stay at Dick's [Cafe]." I said, "You can not eat at Dick's and go to school because I [do not] have that kind of money." He did not go to school. He went up there [to Enterprise]. He has always [liked] automobile mechanics and working on cars. He married -- when did he get married, mom?

VP:I don't remember.

LP:He married a girl [who] did not belong to the church. Then he went to work at Iron Mountain [Mine in Iron County, Utah]. He worked there until it closed up and then he bought a farm. He has been farming since, but now it looks like he 00:55:00is going to lose his farm, home and everything to the [United States] Government. He had some bad years.

FH:Everyone occasionally has some of these hard problems.

LP:Yes. His wife finally joined the church and they go to the temple pretty regularly. I think they said they were going to try and be here tonight for a temple session.

FH:Where is their home now?

LP:[They live] in Enterprise. They have seven living children and two [who] are dead. One boy just married the first of this month [March 1969]. That was Michael Henry; we called him "Mike." He lives in St. George now. The other [youngsters] are still home. There [were] two -- the little girl [Brenda who] burned to death with the nylon petticoat. That same fall they lived on the main street right through town. His wife was quite a hand to play with her [children] to keep them off the street. She moved the baby up into the doorway where she 00:56:00could watch it in the walker and was out there playing ball with the [children]. She kept looking at him and finally she looked up and he looked so funny, she went up and looked at him. He was sitting there as dead as could be. They do not know what in the world happened to him.

FH:[Did] he must have strangled or something?

LP:No, there was not a thing, just his head was laying over on the side of the [walker].

FH:Isn't that strange, though?

LP:There was just a little rim along here where he laid his little head over on the railing, like he went to sleep and quit breathing. They didn't even perform an autopsy on him. They said there were a lot of babies between six and seven months of age that died and they could not tell why. I have heard of several since then [who] did.

The boy [who] got married [received] a high school education. We thought he was going to go to college this winter, but he has not done it yet. The other boy is quite active in the church. The little fellow has a little pride; he is quite proud of the fact he is a deacon. [Inaudible]

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF]

Lerald, my boy, married Mildred Strickland. I would refer to her as Johnson [who] was her stepfather. She knew him. When they were married, he said he never adopted her and for her to get married under her legal name, Mildred Strickland. She has been quite active since she joined the church. She has her genealogy on 00:58:00her mother's side all the way back to England. She wrote a letter and found [who] somebody thought her father was. She had never seen him; he walked off and left her mother when she was so small she didn't remember. She found out about him and wrote [to] this address. The woman wrote back and said he had been dead an hour or two when that letter came. [So] she never [was] in contact with him at all. They had buried him by the time she wrote back. She didn't wire or anything, she just wrote back and told her that her father had died two or three hours before they [received] that letter from her. She teaches [and] works in the Primary. She is on the Stake board [for] the Primary now. She is [very] religious, at least she thinks she is, and I think she is.

My daughter, Myrna [Peterson], married Robert Bagshaw. His father was Ray Bagshaw. Maybe you knew old "Bob" Bagshaw, who used to be here in St. George? 00:59:00That was his grandfather; he lived here. He came from England.

She [Myrna] has been quite active [and] has hunted [her] genealogy. Everything she has she knows it is true or right. She knows the dates and everything are right because she has looked it up personally. For a long while, "Bob's" grandpa [Ray Bagshaw] didn't know whether he was ninety or ninety-one years old. She was [working on] her genealogy so she wrote back to England for his. "Bob", that is my son-in-law's granddad's date [when] he was born. It showed that grandpa was a year older than what he [thought]. They live in Las Vegas, [but] they lived in Enterprise for a long while. When she was growing up she played for all the Mutual [Improvement Association] dances and [was the] organist for [other] organizations. They overworked her a little bit, I thought, [while] going to school. She enjoyed it; she still enjoys it. She enjoys her piano. Her health is 01:00:00not too good, I am sorry [to say]. She has a lot of migraine headaches and has a weight problem.

VP:She has five [children].

LP:There is Merilee, Dale, Stephen, Donny and Carol. Did I get them right, mom?

FH:Talk about your life after you were married. Tell a little more about some of your activities.

LP:All I did was work wherever I could.

FH:You have named some of the places [where] you lived.

LP:I worked in Caliente, Pioche --

[END OF RECORDING TWO.]

LP:-- Nevada, I worked in Crestline [Nevada] on a section. I worked down in Uvada [Iron County, Utah] on a [railroad] section [and] worked Modena on a [railroad] section. I worked out west of Pioche on a highway job, driving team for a contractor part of one summer. I worked for the [United States] Forest [Service] off and on for quite awhile. I had my own wagon and team. I worked for them quite a bit. I never stayed anyplace long enough to get anything but [build up] a little Social Security. Most of the [fellows] now-a-days have two incomes, but I have just one.

FH:That is better than nothing; it helps.

LP:Yes. I bought a farm and had it paid off, all but $290.00 and I gave it to my 01:02:00boy when I got sick. I knew I could not work it anyway. I gave it to him and went to Las Vegas. I worked on the highway up here for practically fifteen years. The last eight years I was a foreman on the highway from Enterprise to the Nevada state line on [Highway] 120 and down this way to Veyo [Washington County, Utah], just this side of the bridge and down to the county line. I worked sealing in just about every town in District Five. As foreman, I had to go every summer with the sealing crew.

FH:Tell about your civic activities.

LP:The only activity I ever did, when I had a team or an outfit of any kind, 01:03:00[was when there was] any donation work to be done. I tried to get in and do my part on that. I do not remember the year when they started the volunteer fire department in Enterprise. George Snow was the first fire chief they had and when he [was] mayor he resigned. I do not know why they cursed me with the job, but they gave me the job as chief then. I went to Salt Lake [City] for three summers to fire school that the Salt Lake City fire department had up there. All but one year [was] at my own expense. They gave me $25.00 one year to go up there. I combined it with trips on my eye. I was going to an [eye] specialist so I would take vacation time and get paid from the state for my time up there. You could not brag on the fire department. The only time that anybody was interested in 01:04:00the fire department in Enterprise was right after a house burned down. Then everybody wanted a fire department. I tried and tried to go [after it] all the time I was there, but you could not do anything with it.

[Earlier] they organized a Lion's Club there. [The] St. George [club] sponsored it. We had it [for] just exactly five years. I should have had a diamond pin for five years perfect attendance; I never missed a meeting. The only time I missed, I came down here and went to make up for a meeting that I missed. It went five years and then broke up. It seemed like our town was not ready for an organization like that. They want to do everything through the church and the Priesthood. There were people [who] told us that we were not doing anything the Priesthood could not do. When they had to have $150.00 for the Boy Scouts [of America] Council that we were in down here, they came to see how much the Lion's 01:05:00Club could give. They had a Chamber of Commerce at the same time. I proposed that we give $50.00 if the Chamber of Commerce gave $50.00. The members of the Chamber of Commerce said, "You know the Chamber of Commerce doesn't have any money." Grant Tobler proposed that.

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF]

LP:One thing that I will say about my son-in-law and my daughter-in-law, they 01:06:00have been good to mom and me in a lot of ways. One time I said, "It would not be many years until I would go to an old folk's home." Mildred said, "You are not going to an old folk's home. That is one thing you are not going to do." [Laughter] I do not [know] whether I am or not. They are having a tough time. Myrna and her [mother] did not get along very well, because she was not too strong for the idea when Myrna told her she was going to get married. I guess all mothers thought there was not a boy good enough for her daughter. I think now that she has decided he is a pretty good Joe they get along like real buddies. They yell at each other like you would think they were mad, but I do not think they ever are going to have any fights over it. They are good [and] they are good to us. They try to do everything they can for us. We have tried to be good to them, too. We have helped them when we could.

FH:Usually this is reciprocal. If one does it, the other does it. [Do] you feel 01:07:00like your children are about tops?

LP:I think I have got the best [children] there are. The boy has not been outstanding in church positions, but I feel like he is honest and I think that he is okay. The girl is tops. I do not think my girl ever spoke back to me sharply in my life. Lerald never did very many times that I ever think of. One time, I felt very bad. That was when we first [had] that farm and we were putting in a head gate. We had a pond together with another [rancher] and he kept nagging at me about having Lerald do this and do that. He got mad and wouldn't do it; then I got upset and told him to take his horses and get away from the place. When I saw that boy going up the road with his little old mare that he rode and the colt following him, I was never so sick of anything in my life. Thank the Lord, he didn't go any further than town, stayed there overnight, decided that dad was not quite so bad and he came back. If he had stayed like I felt I wanted him to when I saw him leaving -- it was a pretty 01:08:00sick feeling.

FH:Was it a good lesson?

LP:It was good for him and me too.

FH:You did an important [event] that I think you ought to talk about. Did you take your wife to have her sealed to you?

LP:I do not know what year it was. We were not married in the temple. I used tobacco and drank a little bit. We finally got good enough that we had her and the [children] sealed to me.

FH:This was about sixteen years after you were married?

LP:Yes, about sixteen years after we were married. We never went back to the temple. I am sorry to admit it, but I started using tobacco again. When my daughter went [to the temple], I didn't feel I was worthy to go to the temple, 01:09:00so she had to go alone. I think she always hated it and so [have] I, but the day she was married, I could not go to the temple. I quit smoking again and kind of straightened up. When my boy was ready to go, when they had three children [and] his wife [had] joined the church, they decided to go to the temple. I straightened up and went with them. I have never been very bad since. I have not been very good, but I have not been too awful bad.

FH:[Laughter] Let me ask you a question. [Do] you believe this marriage sealing was very important?

LP:Yes.

FH:As you have gone through life and you have had wonderful experiences, do you feel like the things you have done were the right things? Do you feel you have 01:10:00come through the right way?

LP:In some ways, yes. I could have been a lot better man in a lot of ways than what I have.

FH:Would you like to give counsel to your children and grandchildren [who will come] after you? [What] would you like to tell them?

LP:I would like to tell them if I knew how, without making them angry, what they should look for in life. I think I could tell them a lot of things. [Young people] do not want to be told now-a-days. Maybe they are just like we were.

FH:Maybe some time they will feel differently though. I think it would be well for you to counsel them.

LP:I wrote a letter to Mike when we lived in [Las] Vegas. I [was] thinking maybe he will think that his folks said something about him. Mike started out and he [received an] award for [the] Priesthood, the 100% award. All at once something 01:11:00happened; he just quit. He would not be married in the temple and ask them for a recommendation to go to the temple. I do not know how far he [was] in the Priesthood, but he was not married in the temple. I was afraid if I wrote him that letter the way I wrote it, that he would think his folks had said something to me about him, and wanted me to write it. I read it today and I wish I had given him that letter anyway. Sometime I think I will give it to him even yet. I would like to make my [children] see the folly of a man starting to smoke and drink, because it is two of the most useless habits that I can think of. I have done them both and there is not a bit of good comes from it, [but there is] a lot of harm from [them]. My drinking was not ever so heavy that it hurt me physically, I don't think, but I know my smoking did. At least, I believe it 01:12:00did. There are a few people [who] have emphysema like I have that have never been smokers, but very few. There has never been very many women had it until now. They are starting to get a [larger] record of women [who] have emphysema because they all have been smoking

FH:It is pretty clear the way you feel about life and the things that ought to be done. I think these are wonderful things for you to pass on to your family. Do you feel like the church is true? How do you feel about that?

LP:I would not dare to say that I knew it was true and that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, but the things I have seen through the Priesthood, the blessings 01:13:00that I think my wife and family have received, I can't see how it could be anything but true, on those conditions. We have seen it done so many times. The night I went into the hospital in Las Vegas, the first time down there, my son-in-law and Bishop Seastrand, he was bishop then, came and they gave me a blessing that night. I do not remember much about it, but I think that the way I was, I was practically unconscious when they got me to the hospital, I don't think that I [would] have lived if they had not [been there]. I do not think the doctors could have worked on me quick enough if there had not been some kind of influence there to help out until their [medicines] started to take effect. I firmly believe that man should use the doctors and do the things that he can do himself, before he asks the Lord to do everything. I think that is one thing you 01:14:00should do, do everything you can yourself before you ask the Lord to come in and take a hand and do it for you. Some might think I [am] wrong that way, and think you should call on Him first. I feel like the Lord put doctors and all these things here for man to use. If they had not been [there] for man to use, I do not believe that they would have been as good as they are today.

FH:In other words, it gives us knowledge to use wisely.

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LP:When my wife was in the hospital over there, they said she would be there a week. She was there forty-two days. She [had] a blood clot after she had an operation that they said would take a week before she would be out. She stayed there and stayed there. Finally, she asked if I would have Alpine and Stan Staheli come over from Enterprise to administer to her, and I did. I thought she 01:15:00was a little better then. When I went over again, she asked if I would bring Brother Holt over. I never took anybody else, because she did not mention anybody but Brother Holt. When he got ready to give her the blessing, I walked out of the room because I did not feel I was worthy to put my hand on sick people, [so] I walked out. He called me back and said he wanted me to come in. I told him I did not feel I was worthy to do it, but he said he did, and to come back. He administered all of it himself; all I did was stand there. It seemed to me that from the time that they administered to her first, and the time that Brother Holt did, she started getting better.

Another woman had the same kind of operation there, [a] Presbyterian lady. A nice nurse got after this lady and said the doctors had to come in and give her a lecture about what she was doing wrong. They arrived the same day she got one of these blessings. This Presbyterian woman, not knowing anything about our 01:16:00religion, I guess she [thought] because he came in and talked, she told the other one, "I will have Dr. [inaudible] come in and give you a going over like he did Mrs. Peterson, and start you on the right way." I [thought] the way she [was] better from then on, it could have been nothing but Dr. [inaudible] work and the Lord that pulled her out of it. There was something they never did tell me, because I asked Dr. Graff one day, he said, "Did Dr. [inaudible] ever tell you about your wife while she was in the hospital?" I said, "No. What was he supposed to tell me?" He said, "He will tell you when he wants to." It worried me for a long while. I do not know if they [thought] she was not going to get better. [Because] she had a blood clot in her lungs they would not move her to bathe her or rub her back. She was lying on her back for I do not know how long. They would not let her move for fear that clot would go to her heart. I will always think that it was those blessings she received that started her on the 01:17:00mend. It looked to me like the doctors had done all they could before we called on the Lord.

FH:This is important for your children to know and understand how you feel.

LP:I hope they know. They know that I have had the elders several times. I have been reluctant to ask for them because I never [thought] I was the type of man that had lived good enough to ask the Lord for anything, to be right frank with everybody. I have never taken any part in religion, but I never did anything to anybody to hurt them intentionally. I have never been anyone to brag about either.

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LP:I would like my [children] to know that I love them and I would give my life for them if I could do it. There is nothing that would please me better than to see all of the boys go on [LDS] missions and the girls to grow up to marry men 01:18:00[who] were eligible to go on a mission or had been on a mission. I would like my wife to know that I appreciate her more than she will ever know. I may not act like it, when I get ornery, but I appreciate her more than she will ever realize in this world. My [children], my family, mean everything to me. That is the only thing that matters. It does not matter what anybody does to me or what happens to me, just so long as my [children] and my [grandchildren] and my wife are taken care of. I say this in all [the] sincerity in my life.

[END OF RECORDING THREE. END OF INTERVIEW.]