Interview with Neil Snow Forsyth

Neil Snow Forsyth was interviewed on April 22, 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 Utah, Nevada, Canada. His wife, Ruth (Spencer) Rasmussen Forsyth, also participated.

FH:What is your full name?

NF:My name is Neil Snow Forsyth.

FH:What is your birth date?

NF:I was born August 24, 1879.

FH:What was your father’s name?

NF:My father’s name was George James Forsyth.

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

NF:My mother’s [name was] Sarah Sophronia (Snow) [Forsyth].a FH:Where were you born?

NF:I was born in Pine Valley [Washington County, Utah].

FH:Are you a native of this part of the country?

NF:Yes.

FH:What do you remember about your early childhood before 00:01:00you went to school?

NF:I am telling this from my memory. Several years later, my parents said I couldn’t remember [this incident] because I was only two years old when it happened. But I told them enough [about the incident] that they decided I did remember it because they didn’t remember some of the things that I [told them].

We lived on the east side of the Fremont River. We had moved out to Loa [in Wayne County, Utah] when I was only a year old. Father 00:02:00lived on the Maxfield place. He must have just been renting there because we lived there the first year that we were there. We went out there in 1880. In the fall of 1881, he moved up the river a half a mile to another place on the same side of the river. Sometime after that, I [began] telling about when we went across that river in the deep gorge, ten or twelve feet down. The bank had [been] down on each side to make a wagon road. It was steep down [and] up and out the other side to the Fremont River. I was standing behind the spring seat. Father and mother were sitting in the spring seat of the wagon going across the river to a neighbor [who] lived on the west side of the river. We were on the east side. I was 00:03:00so frightened when [we] went down. That river [was] running down that deep gorge and the wagon [was] going down there. It frightened me so that I [have] never forgotten it.

When we [were at] the other side, it was Manly Brown’s place. Hugh Brown’s father lived across the river from us. They had invited my folks over there for dinner. Eldon Tanner’s mother was just a year older than I was. My sister [Sarah Isabelle Forsythe] was a year older than [she was]. While Sister Brown was fixing the dinner, these two girls were skipping around [singing] —“I wished that I was grand-pa-pa and grand-pa-pa was I.” I followed them around. I can remember how they skipped around and I was toddling along behind them. I thought: I wish I could sing like that. At that time, I couldn’t even talk so that anybody could understand me.

When I was telling that a few years later, the folks said, “Oh, you couldn’t remember that because you were only two years old.” We left [the] Maxfield place and [moved] to the Webster place before John [James Forsyth] was born. He was born in November of 1881. 00:04:00They decided I couldn’t remember [that].

FH:You had a remarkable memory.

NF:I remember one spring father had a [man by the name of] Sam Dalton grubbing brush on the Webster place when I was four [years old]. [While] he was grubbing brush, he found a young cottontail rabbit. He gave it to me. I remember taking that rabbit home and playing with [it] for a day or two before it died.

The summer after I was four [years old], father had bought a quarter-section of land further up. He was building on the northwest forty of that quarter-section across onto Spring Creek. I used to ride behind him on the horse going over there while he was building a new home. We moved 00:05:00over there in the fall of 1904.

FH:Where did you start school?

NF:My first [education] was in Loa.

FH:What was your school like?

NF:I can’t tell you very much about my school, the first two years anyway, [as] I couldn’t talk plain. I had my tongue cut three times before I was eight years old. I [didn’t] go to school very much before [that], but I went to school some every winter.

Father had a lot of cattle and I started riding when I was ten years old. I went out on the roundup the spring after I was ten years old. Father took me out on a roundup. [There was] quite a crowd of men. We were out [there] a week or ten days. I [don’t] remember just how long. 00:06:00He put me on a horse that was eleven years old. Thad Blackburn started teasing me about riding a horse older than I was. I tried to get father to let me have another horse because Thad was teasing me about riding this old horse. Father said he didn’t think any of the other horses were safe for me and I would have to ride that horse on [the] roundup.

FH:You were fortunate to have a good horse.

NF:We had a lot of good horses. When I was fourteen [years old] I broke my first bronco.

FH:Tell about that.

NF:I rode him some that fall of the year. [By] the next spring 00:07:00he hadn’t been ridden much all winter. I [rode] him to take a horse to the ranch one morning. They turned that horse loose in the lane for me to drive him up to the ranch. I hadn’t [gone] very far from the house when he [went] past me and ran back. I was trying to head him [off], but I couldn’t stop him. When we [were] back [at] the lot he jumped the fence into the lot and the bronco tried to jump it, too. He hit his breast on the top pole and went over on his back. The folks on the porch saw my leg. It was all they could see! My body was on the other side. The horn at the back of the saddle kept the weight of the horse off me. He tripped onto his feet and ran down the lot. I jumped up and followed him. Mother screamed and fainted when she saw me. The boys came and helped me catch the horse [and] they put a halter on the other horse. I [rode] back on the bronco and took him to the ranch. I wasn’t hurt. 00:08:00FH:That was a close call.

NF:When I was fifteen years old, my brother [Thomas William Forsythe] and I went up to the ranch to gather cows for milking. We had a dairy up twelve miles above Loa up on the UM Park [Creek] of the Fremont River. We would go up there about the middle of May [to] make cheese and butter until about the middle of August. We did that for twelve years. When I was fifteen, my older brother [Thomas] and I and went up there one spring to gather in milk cows to start dairying before we moved up there. [That] night we staked [a] saddle horse up close to the house.

The next morning my brother said, “I will fix breakfast while you take this horse and go down and catch a horse for me and bring it up here.” I saddled it up [and] got on this horse. I had a little 00:09:00boy’s saddle with wooden stirrups. It just came down to the bulge on the horse’s side. I was not very big. I went down and roped a saddle horse down in the meadow. When the rope hit him he whirled and the horse I was on started to whirl. [The horse] fell and mashed one of those stirrups in my foot. It was inspiration that kept me in the saddle. When the horse [stood] up I was still in the saddle, but I had lost my rope that the other horse was dragging. I ran and caught that horse, [took] the rope and led 00:10:00him up to the house. My brother had to get a crowbar to get that stirrup off of my foot. [He had to] pry that wooden stirrup loose. If I had not gotten up with the horse I would have been dragged to death.

There were some Indians camped right there by our place. They saw my brother carry me into the house when he [took] me off of the horse. They came over. When they saw what had happened [one of the Indians] pulled my boot off. When he pulled my boot off my foot puffed up twice as big as it would have been. These squaws said they could fix that. They went out and gathered some roots. I don’t know whether it was squaw brush or what it was, but some kind of brush out there, [and] they gathered some roots. [They] told my brother to boil those roots good and bathe my foot with that. The next day I was able to go out riding 00:11:00again. The swelling had all gone out. I went riding with my brother gathering cattle. Those Indians seemed to know how to—.

FH:They had to. That was their way of surviving. How far did you go in school?

FN:After I was eighteen [years old] I came down to live with my grandmother [Sarah Sophronia (Snow) Forsythe] in Pine Valley [Washington County, Utah]. My uncle, William J. Snow was the teacher there. Whether I had finished [the] seventh grade or not, I was put in the eighth grade under him. When school was out that spring, he gave me a term slip [report card] showing my credits [and] that I had passed out of eighth grade. Every [subject] but grammar was up in the eighties and nineties.

When I was 00:12:00twenty-two years old, my folks came down to Pine Valley and St. George with my older sister [Sarah Isabelle “Belle”] for her to be married [to George Cannon Gardner] in the St. George Temple. They came [with] a four-horse team [in] a light wagon. My sister was married in December.

In January they started home and talked me into going home. I had been down here for about four years [by] then. We [came] to Cedar City [Iron County, Utah] where some of my cousins were going to the Branch Normal College there. They talked me into staying there for school. My cousin took me over to the school the next morning and introduced me to Nathan T. Porter. 00:13:00[He] was the principal of the school. She took me over into his office, introduced me, went off to her class and left me in there. She told him that she wanted me to go to school.

He questioned me a little about what [education] I had had. He wanted to know if I had any credits to show. I said, “I have my term slip I [received] in Pine Valley four years ago for eighth grade.” He said, “Could you show me that?” I said, “It is in my trunk over at Jones’ where my folks are waiting for me.” Father had said he would wait an hour for me to decide whether I was going to go to school. I hurried over there and [got] that term slip, brought it over and showed it [to him]. When he looked at it he said, “What [subjects] do you want to take?” I wanted to take bookkeeping, carpenter work and algebra. He said, “You will have to take English.” 00:14:00I said, “I don’t know anything about grammar. There was a girl in school who used to do my grammar [work] and I would do her arithmetic [work] when I went to school.” He said, “You will have to have grammar. You can take anything else you want if you will take English.” So I did.

I registered in school there in January of 1902. I took just a second semester. I started in the middle of the year. I took bookkeeping. They had to send off for a bookkeeping set for me. These sets comprised five businesses. The teacher just gave me that book. He said, “You can finish that first business as fast as you want or be as long as you want at it. When you finish the first business, bring it to me and I will pass on it.” 00:15:00So I did. He passed it and marked it and said, “Alright. Do the next business.” I did those five businesses and handed in my books. He passed on them. I passed with ninety-seven or [ninety]-eight percent on bookkeeping. After I handed my books in, he told the class, “This man started here the second semester. Most of you have taken this [course] all through the year. He is the first one to hand his set in completed.” FH:Did [learning] come quite easy for you?

NF:Mathematics was easy. I could do anything in mathematics. I took algebra [and] passed algebra that year with over ninety percent. I only took it through the second semester.

FH:Did you have two years [of education] at the Branch Normal School?

NF:I had three years. I took three years, but the third year I didn’t take much of a course. They [had] an appropriation [of] $40,000.00 00:16:00to build a new school building. I helped build that school building. I had taken the carpenter [course] two years before in the carpenter shop. The [third] year I helped on that school building.

FH:That gave you a chance to apply what you had learned.

NF:Bishop Hudson from Salt Lake [City, Salt Lake County, Utah] had the contract for that [building] and Henry Mortensen was his foreman. I cut all the trusses for the roof of that building. I cut all of the truss timber out there. We were putting the trusses together when Henry Mortensen had to go up [to Salt Lake County] to his brother’s execution. His brother, Peter Mortensen, was executed [November 20, 1903] for killing a man [James R. Hay] a year or two before that. Henry left me in charge. We were just ready to put those trusses up [when] Henry came to me and said, “You cut all of those trusses, so you take charge of putting them up there.” There was a man [working] there, a head carpenter, from Salt Lake [City]. 00:17:00When Henry [returned] this head carpenter quit because I had been in charge of putting up those trusses. He thought it was not right for Henry to put a school [boy] in charge when he was the head carpenter on the job. He quit his job. When we [came] to the finishing, Henry [had] me finish the principal’s office. I had built cabinets in school and had sold cabinets and desks to people around to help me with my school expenses.

FH:You took to it like a duck to water.

NF:The first year I went to work on the Leamington cutoff when school was out. I drove a four-horse team [with] a water wagon for [the] construction [crew] at the Leamington cutoff. Along in August, I [came down with] what they called walking typhoid [ambulatory case of typhoid fever]. I [became] so weak, I couldn’t harness 00:18:00the team. So I quit and went home and helped with the crop that fall. I decided I couldn’t go back to school because I hadn’t earned enough money to put me through another year. Just a week or two after school had started, I [received] a letter from [Nathan] Porter. He [wrote], “I thought sure you would be back here [because of] the work you did last winter. I was sure you would be back this winter. I think you should be. It won’t cost you anything to come back. We will give you a scholarship if you will come back.” The very day I [received] his letter, Neil McMullin came there buying cattle. I had worked for Neil McMullin and knew him [very] well. He always stayed at our place when he came there to buy cattle. He started talking to me and I told him about this letter I had from Porter. He said, “Wouldn’t your father let you have money to go [to school] again this year?” 00:19:00I said, “I wouldn’t ask him. He knows I want to go and he hasn’t offered to let me have the money. I wouldn’t go and ask him for it.” McMullin said, “How much do you need?” I told him. He sat down and wrote out a check for what I said I would need. He said, “You take this and go to school.” He only had one son. He said, “I am going to see that my son gets an education whether he gets anything else or not.” So he wrote out the check for what I needed. I said, “Do you want me to give you a note?” He said, “No. When you get out of school and [start] earning money, you can send me the money for it.” FH:There are a lot of good people.

NF:I have met a lot of good people. I have met some that weren’t so good, too. [Laughter] 00:20:00FH:Which came first, your military service or your [LDS] mission?

NF:[I went on] my mission [first]. When the school was out that third year, I went back to work for my uncle in Pine Valley.

FH:Did you teach school for two years?

NF:In August I [received] word from the folks that they were moving to Canada that fall. I told Uncle Joe that I wanted to go and see them. He said, “I only [have] one saddle horse here and I need it.” I told him I would go on horseback. He said, “I need my saddle horse here, but I have a three-year-old colt out at Mountain Meadow [Iron County, Utah]. If you want to break him [and] get him gentle enough to ride, you can ride him out there.” I went over to Mountain Meadow and brought this [colt] in. 00:21:00[I] rode him there for a week or two. I rode him two times. I don’t remember just how long.

I went to visit my folks and tell them goodbye before they went to Canada. As soon as I [went] there, the school board came and wanted me to take the principalship of the school at Lyman [Wayne County, Utah]. I said, “I am not a teacher. I didn’t get a teacher certificate. I took carpenter work. I am going to be a carpenter. I am going to build houses. I don’t want to teach school.” They went [to] the county superintendent and he said, “I will give you a permit to take that school. We want you to 00:22:00take it.” Mother helped them talk me into taking that school.

I had to take a team and buggy and bring that saddle horse and saddle back to my Uncle Joe. Then [I went] back there to teach school. My brother and I bought father’s place. We were to pay him $1,000.00. I didn’t have enough to pay my share. My brother, “Tom” [Thomas William Forsyth], said, “You go down to Albert Stevens.” Albert Stevens was a man that I had worked for one summer when I was only sixteen years old. I helped put up his hay. Here I was twenty-six years old and hadn’t seen him for about eight years to speak to him. He was at UM [Creek] riding after his cattle and wouldn’t be home for a week or two.

I went up to McClellan’s store. They weren’t members of The Church [of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]. His son, Scott, was the manager of the store. I guess I had seen him once or twice while I was there, but I had hardly seen him to speak to him for seven years. 00:23:00I walked in the store and he said, “Neil, what can I do for you today to please you?” I said, “Lend me $300.00.” He said, “Lend you $300.00? What in the world would you do with $300.00?” I told him “Tom” and I were buying father’s place and we were paying $1,000.00 and I needed $300.00 to get it. “Tom” said he had some steers to sell. As soon as he sold those steers I could pay [him] back.

McClellan started telling me about how many people had fooled him and how much money he had lost by accommodating people, by giving them credit in the store and lending them money. I thought there is no use talking to him. I just as well go. I turned and started to go out and he said, “Scott, do we have $300.00 we could let Neil have?” Scott said, “Yes.” “Well, you better give it to him.” There were no banks there. It was all cash then. Scott 00:24:00counted out $300.00 and handed it to me. I said, “Do you want a note for this?” “No,” Mr. McClellan said. “The name Forsyth is all the security I want. If your word isn’t any good, your note isn’t any good. The Forsyth name is enough for me.” I told him I thought I would have it for him in a month. But “Tom” hadn’t sold his steers. I raked up $250.00 just when the month was up. I told him I would try to pay it in a month. I saddled up the horse, rode down to the store. Willard Pace lived across the street from the store. I knew him. He and “Tom” had a mail contract together — carrying mail. I thought: Willard Pace always has some money 00:25:00on him. I will go over and see if he won’t let me have $50.00 so I can pay that up. I rode over to the fence and called to him. I said, “Willard, do you have $50.00 on you?” “What do you want with $50.00?” I told him that I had borrowed $300.00 from McClellan and I lacked $50.00 of having it paid up. I wanted to pay it in a month because I thought maybe they wouldn’t charge me any interest if it was only a month [late].

He pulled out $50.00 and handed it to me. I went over and took the money to Scott. I said, “Here is your$300.00.” He took it, put it in the safe and thanked me for it. I said, “Do I get a receipt for this?” He said, “We didn’t put it on the books.” I said, “I don’t need a receipt if you haven’t booked it.” That was the kind of a name my father had.

FH:[Laughter] Things are a little different now-a-days.

NF:They are for most people. 00:26:00In all of my contracting [work] I never had a written contract; only [when] it was required.

RF:Don’t forget to tell about making cheese.

NF:I have done thousands of dollars worth [of work]. The first man I built for when I went to Canada was the chairman of the school board. That was in 1907. I met this man the day I went into Canada. There was no train to get up west from Sterling [Canada] that day. This man and two other men had come out from Lethbridge [Canada] on a train going south that morning. The train I went on the day before was twenty-four hours late getting in there. It was in February when the roads were snowbound and the snow plows were working on the roads day and night, all the time, to keep them open. There was [the] school board 00:27:00chairman and two other men [who] came. I had telephoned my folks when I found there was not a train going over to McGrath [Canada] where my folks lived. I [told] them to meet me in Raymond [Canada]. They said there was a mail sleigh coming from Raymond to get the mail for the west and take it as far as Raymond. I [told] the folks to send a sleigh to meet me.

There were the three men [who] came out from Lethbridge to go west, this chairman of the school board and two farmers from McGrath. They [were] trying to get to Raymond. The four of us went on that sleigh to Raymond. My brother [had] a team and sleigh and came over. The father of one of these men, Charlie Searle, had telephoned to his folks to meet him in Raymond. His boy was out hunting for a team 00:28:00and my brother was out hunting for a sleigh. My folks had their bob sleigh loaded with hay. When father [received] the telephone [call] to come to Raymond to meet me, he said. “You will have to find someone with a bob sleigh, a pair of bobs, to go over and get him.” He met this Searle boy hunting for a team. It was about 20° or 30° below zero. They drew cuts and this Searle boy had to come and bring the team to get us. When we [came] to Raymond, we went to the hotel for dinner. They had a big pot-bellied stove that was red hot. You could stand up there and warm one side and then turn around and warm the other. After I ordered my dinner, 00:29:00I said, “I am going out and try to get warm. I had just a light overcoat that I had worn down in . I had gone from up there where I had been building during the winter. I started down the street on the run and a man grabbed hold of me. He said, “Here! Where do you think you are going?” I said, “I am going to try to get warm.” “What is your name? Where are you from? Where are you going?” pumping questions like that. I said, “I can’t stand talking with you. I am freezing.” He said, “What? Freezing on a day like this?” The sun was shining just as bright as it is today here, but [it was] in February. He said, “Freezing on a day like this? It is only 20° below zero today. You should have been here when it was cold.” Then he let me go and I ran around [for about] two minutes and went back [to the hotel] and had my dinner.

That week there was a whole half-page in the Raymond Recorder. 00:30:00This fellow was editor of the Raymond newspaper. There was a whole half-page about Neil Forsyth [who] had just come up from Nevada where he had been building and going up to visit his folks in McGrath.

FH:[Laughter] Did you know you were being interviewed?

NF:I didn’t know what he [was] questioning me about. [Laughter] FH:Did you [receive] your mission call from up there?

NF:Yes. In February 1906, B. H. Roberts and one of the [Council of the] Twelve [Apostles] came to [the] stake conference. I don’t remember which one of the twelve was with him, but he was in the presidency of the Seventies Quorum. He wanted to ordain six seventies. He picked out six young men to be ordained seventies and I was one of them. When they were through ordaining us, Brother Roberts told the presidency of the Seventies Quorum that he wanted to send me 00:31:00and George Chappell on a mission. He said, “I want you to call those two boys on a mission right now The president of the quorum [told] me this when I went to get my Seventies transfer in April when school was out. He said, “Where are you going now?” I said, “I don’t know where I am going or when I want to present this transfer, but I want to have it with me so that when I get [to] a place [where] I am going to stay for a little while I can present it.” He said, “If we had known this, you would have been going on a mission now. When Brother Roberts picked you and George Chappell to go, we told them we couldn’t let you go because you were the principal of our school and president of the young men’s Mutual [Improvement Association].” [END OF RECORDING ONE.] NF:I was in the superintendency of the Sunday school and 00:32:00president of the dramatic society. He said, “He is in everything here. We can’t let him go now. If we had known you were going to leave this spring, you would have been going on a mission.” I worked in Salt Lake [City] that summer and helped build the Union Depot [there]. I was working for the outfit that had [the building contract]. When they were through, they went out to Garfield [County, Utah] and built [the] big smelter [American Smelting and Refining]. I was working on that smelter in Garfield in August. We quit work [on] Saturdays [at] noon. We were getting $.45 an hour. That was top carpenter wages [at that time].

I came into Salt Lake [City] Saturday afternoon. Going down West Temple [Street] there was an employment office that had a sign in the window: Carpenters Wanted in Ely, Nevada. So I went in to see [about it]. They said, “Tex Richards is building a big hotel out in Ely, Nevada. He will pay $7.00 a day, seven days a week for carpenters.” I said, “How can I get there?” “You give us $3.00 and we will give you a ticket to Ely. When you get there, they will hold the price of your ticket out of your first week’s wages.” I gave them $3.00 [to buy] my ticket. I went right back out to Garfield, collected my money and brought my toolbox in. Monday morning I left for Ely. I went down 00:33:00and helped build that hotel.

When I was through, [I went to] Lund, Nevada. My sister [Sarah Isabelle “Belle” (Forsythe) Gardner] had married here in the temple three years [earlier and] was living in Lund. I went down to visit her. The bishop [at] Lund was just having a house started. He had old Brother Smith starting [the] foundation for a house. He asked me to help Brother Smith [with] that house. We framed up the house, sheeted it and [we were] ready to put the rafters up. Brother Smith tried to figure out how to cut the rafters. There were hip and valley rafters and common rafters. He was figuring around there. I said, “I can cut those rafters. You don’t have to spend all that time figuring. I know how to cut them.” I had a steel square and knew how to use a square to cut any kind of a rafter. The bishop said, “Alright. 00:34:00Go ahead.” I started cutting them and old Brother Smith said, “Oh, we better take some of them up and try them.” I said, “We don’t need to try them. I have cut enough rafters. I know it will work.” When I cut them all we put them up and they all fit fine. We sheeted them in. That night after we sheeted them, [we got] ready to start shingling the next morning. The bishop said, “I guess you [will] have to finish this house.” I said, “What is the matter?” He said, “Brother Smith said he couldn’t work with you. You had too much to say. You talk too much or something. I don’t remember what [he] was said.” He said, “I paid him off and you will have to finish the house.” That was in November. I finished the house about the last of January. Then I went back to Salt Lake [City]. When I [arrived] in Salt Lake [City] it was cold and miserable weather. I don’t remember just how long I stayed in Salt Lake [City]. I thought: 00:35:00there is no inside work here and it is too cold to work outside. I will go up and visit the folks. They had been trying to get me to come to Canada. When we sold out [in] Loa and my brother went to Canada the year before, I said I wouldn’t go. I didn’t want anything [to do with] Canada. I wouldn’t go up there. I thought: I will go up and visit them until spring.

I met the chairman of this school board at Spring Coulee [Canada] going into McGrath. He saw my carpenter tools and said, “We are going to build a schoolhouse at Spring Coulee as soon as the weather permits. We have to have a schoolhouse there. We have a teacher hired to start school the first of June. We want that schoolhouse built just as soon as the weather will let us get started. We would like to have you give us a bid on it.” I said, “Alright. I will give you a bid.” Along the latter part of March, I [received] a letter from him saying they had their plans and specifications for the school. 00:36:00He would like to have me come up and give him a price on building it. They were going to furnish all the material. He said they had their material ordered.

When I [went] up there, he met me at the station and took me down to his place. He said, “There are three or four outfits from Cardston [Canada] that have bid on it.” They had bids in from three or four others. He said, “We would like to have you give us a bid.” I sat there and figured. We had dinner and after dinner I went ahead. Just before train time I had my figures ready and told him what I would build it for. There weren’t any other school board members there or anyone else to say a word. He said, “The job is yours.” I said, “Alright. When your material gets here, let me know and I will come up and build it.” Before I finished the schoolhouse he took me down to a set of buildings. He owned thirty-six sections of land there and owned several sections up near Brant [Canada] a hundred miles north 00:37:00of there. Before I finished [the] schoolhouse, he showed me a set of buildings on one of his farms [where] a family was living. He said, “I want a set just like that built up on that section near Brant. I want to know what you will build it for.” I measured up all those buildings — the house, barn, granary and outbuildings and all. I measured them and figured them up. By the time I finished the schoolhouse, I had a price ready for him, what I would build them for.

“What will you go for by the day?” A carpenter’s wage was still $.45 an hour up there, the same as they had been down here. I said, “I will go for $5.00 a day. You pay me wages for one day on the way up or back.” It would take us a day to go up there on the train and a day to come back. I said, “You pay me for one day on the road. I will go for $5.00 a day.” 00:38:00He said, “Alright. I will take you up there.” As soon as I finished the schoolhouse he bought a railroad ticket for me and took me up there. When we [came] to High River, [Canada], he [had] a team and buggy there and took me out to [the] farm. We staked off where he wanted the buildings. That afternoon he [went] back to High River. The next morning he made arrangements for the lumber at the lumber yard and made arrangements for them to let me start making window and door frames right there in the lumber yard before the lumber was hauled out [to the farm]. The next morning I started cutting and making window and door frames for the buildings. He went to find somebody to haul the material out there. Before time for the train going south he hadn’t found a man. Just before train time he came in there and handed me 00:39:00$400.00. He said, “I am going to pay you $5.00 a day and I want you to hire help and get these buildings [built] up here.” This was June 2nd. He said, “I want you to hire help 00:40:00and [inaudible] get through just as fast as you can because I have another job for you. I want you back there by July 1st.” He gave me a month for that big house, barn and granary. He handed me $400.00. He said, “When you find out how much more money you need, let me know and I will send you a check for what you need. Don’t leave any bills. Pay everything before you come back. Then come back and settle up with me.” I wasn’t quite through on July 1st, but I spent the [day] July there. That was Dominion Day [and] I spent it there at Brant with some friends. I finished up a couple of days later. 00:41:00He bought me a return ticket to be back on July 1st. This ticket was [purchased] June 1st and it was good until July 1st. When I finished I was two or three days late, but I thought I will get on the train anyway and hand the conductor this ticket. If he won’t take it, I will pay him for my fare. I [boarded] the train. I was sitting there reading the newspaper and the conductor came along collecting tickets. I just pulled the ticket out and handed it to him and he clicked it and put it in his pocket and never even looked at it. So I [went] back on my return ticket.

I [went] back and settled up with him. When we were through settling up on that building, he said, “Now we, Steve Dudley and I, are going to build a store here. Get the material. We will buy all of the material. When we get it built, we will stock it. 00:42:00We want you to build it for a third interest in it. You can hire [your] help [and] we [will] pay any help that you hire. You just build that store for a third interest in it. When you get through building it, we want you to run it.” He told Steve Dudley, “He told me what he would build those buildings for, contract it, and then he told me he would go for $5.00 a day. I told him I would pay him $5.00 a day.” Dudley told me this afterwards that Thompson came to him and said, “We want that man to run our store. I said I would pay him that contract price on those buildings. He was up there and hired a lot of help and I had no way of knowing how much he paid out for help. When I figured up it just cost me $40.00 less than he [had] agreed to build them for. We want him to run that store.” He wasn’t a Mormon either.

Before I finished the store I [received] a call 00:43:00from the seven presidents of the Seventy. When my seventies transfer went in there, B. H. Roberts saw it and recognized it. They wrote me to see if I would go on a mission. I said, “If you will give me three months to finish up what work I have, I will go.” They wrote back [that] if I would report in Salt Lake [City] on November 16th, they wanted me to go on a mission to Great Britain.

I went to Mr. Thompson after I [received] that letter. I said, “Mr. Thompson, I can’t run your store for you.” He said, “What is the matter?” I said, “I have a call to go on a mission. I have told them I will go. I have to leave here on November 16th to go to on a mission.” He said, “Are you crazy?” I said, “I don’t think so.” He said, “What in the world are you thinking of to turn down a proposition like that, a young man like you? 00:44:00You may never have another chance like that as long as you live. You don’t know how to preach anyway.” I said, “I didn’t know how to build houses until I learned.” Two different nights, after I quit work there, he took me out through the fields and tried to talk me out of going on that mission. I said, “I have told them that I would go. I have my call now to go on November 16th. So I am going.” He said, “I sure can’t understand you Mormons.” After I came back I did thousands and thousands of dollars of work for him and his sons. After he died, I built houses and all sorts of things for his two sons. Never once did we ever have a word in writing. Never once [did we] have any difficulty at all with all the work I did for him.

In all of my contracting, 00:45:00I have had two men that I had difficulty [with] and didn’t get quite all of my money. I [received] most of it. I [received] enough so that I didn’t lose any money on the job. But there were two different ones that disagreed with me on some things [and] I let them off without full pay. I have more men [who] paid me more than I asked. I have had others that have said, “That job was worth more than that to me. You have done it so much quicker than I thought it could be done and made a good job of it.” They paid me more money. I have had four or five different ones [who] paid me more money than I asked [from] them. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] NF:I [arrived in] England just before Christmas and was assigned to the Berman [England] conference. My brother [Thomas] older than me went over in 1898. He spent two years in the Berman conference. When I left to go to Great Britain, he said, “When you get over there ask them to send you to the Berman conference so you can labor where I did.” President [Charles] Penrose was in charge of the mission at that time. There were seventy-some elders [who] went over there. About two-thirds of them were for the British Isles. The rest were for the continent. He met with us [assigned to] the British Isles in the afternoon after we [arrived in] Liverpool [England].

He called us up by name and said, “Do you have any preference? 00:46:00Any place that you would like to go?” Some of them did and some of them didn’t. He called Elder Pickett. “Do you have any preference to where you want to go?” He [stood] up and kind of stammered a little and started to tell him where he thought he wanted to go. He was kind of slow about it. President Penrose [became] a little out of patience, I guess. He said, “We will send you to Ireland. We need some good Picketts in Ireland. We will send you there.” He dropped like he had been shot. [Laughter] He just dropped into his seat like he was just ready to faint. I was called right after Elder Pickett. I thought I am not going to tell him that I have any preference. When he asked me I said, “No. It doesn’t matter to me where you send me.” He said, “We will send you to the Berman conference.” [Laughter] [So] I [was able] to go 00:47:00where my brother had labored.

I [was] set to labor in Dudley [England]. There was an Elder Howard in Dudley [who] had labored in Kidderminster [England] before he came to Dudley. He spent the biggest part of his mission in Kidderminster. He had only been in Dudley a little while when I was sent there to labor with him. Some folks at Kidderminster had asked him to come back there for the holidays. So we went to Kidderminster and spent the holidays. I didn’t do any tracting until after New Year’s. Right after New Year’s he said, “Dudley has all been tracted now. We will go down to Netherton [England] and start tracting in Netherton the first day for tracting after the New Year.” He took me down to Netherton [and] said, “You go up that street there and I will take this street on this side.” I went up that street and the seventh door 00:48:00I went to a lady came to the door. I told her who I was and that I had a little tract that I would like her to take and read. I said, “I will be around again later and see what you think about it.” I went on. I remember that that was the seventh door that I went to. I don’t remember whether it was the next time around or the third time. At that time, we went around with three different tracts when we were tracting a district. We would take three different tracts and, if we [had] any investigators, we would visit them again. If we didn’t, we would go on to another district.

It was either the second or the third tract I [had] when this woman came to the door. She had tears in her eyes. I could see from her looks she had been crying. She said, “We have read your tracts and we like them very well. But my mother is very ill. 00:49:00The doctor just left here.” She broke down [and said], “The doctor said she won’t live until morning.” I said, “The doctor doesn’t always know. There is such a thing as people being healed by faith. You have read the scripture. You know what the Savior said about being healed. ‘If there is any sick among you, call in the elders and let them anoint them with oil. A prayer of faith will heal the sick.’ I am an elder in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. [Emotional] Doctors don’t always know whether people can be healed or not.” She said, “My house isn’t in very good shape, 00:50:00but if you don’t mind coming in, I would like to have you go up and talk with mother.” I said, “I would be glad to go up and talk with her.” I went into her bedroom and asked her a few questions. I quoted that passage of scripture to her. I asked her if she had faith. I said, “Do you think that is possible?” She said, “Yes, I do.” I didn’t have any oil with me and I knew I couldn’t anoint her and pray over her. I told her that I would pray for her anyway. I said, “I will pray for you.” I prayed that if it was the Lord’s will that she [would] get better.

When the doctor came the next morning he was surprised. She was so much better and had been eating. She hadn’t eaten anything for two or three days. Her fever was gone and she was better. She was seventy-four years old. That was old at that time. That was getting [very] old. The doctor couldn’t understand it. He expected to find her dead that morning. 00:51:00They didn’t dare tell the doctor because of the way people talked about the Mormons there at that time. They didn’t dare tell the doctor that a Mormon elder had been there and prayed for her. But she [recovered]. About five months after that, I baptized the family. I baptized them in June. This [had happened] in January. I baptized them the forepart of June, just about five months after that.

After I came home in 1911, I went to Calgary [Canada] and worked there the summer. I sent for this man and his wife. They had one little girl and [her] mother. Her mother, this man and his wife were baptized. In the fall of 1911, 00:52:00I sent money for this man and his wife to come out and bring their little girl. This woman had an old maid sister there [who] wasn’t very bright. She hadn’t taken an interest. She didn’t seem to be bright enough to understand the gospel and hadn’t been baptized. But she was kind of helping [to] look after her mother. I sent them money and they came to Calgary. There wasn’t even a branch of the church in Calgary at that time. There were two other Mormon families living there, but neither one cared whether there was a branch of the church there or not.

I [found] him a job and a place for them [to live] there. [This was] just before I left to go south down to McGrath where the folks were because winter was coming on. I left them there, strangers in a strange land 00:53:00[and] no branch of the church. I wondered how they would come out. In 1913, he helped to convert some people there. There had been some students and different ones [who] came up there so that he was the means of getting a branch organized in in 1913. When he died, they sent for me to come up and preach at his funeral. [Emotional] Whenever I would go to , after there were branches and several wards in , I would meet people who would say, “You are responsible for us being in the church. If it hadn’t been for Faulkners we never would have been in the church.” [The] Faulkners had converted them. It was the seventh door that I went to on my first day out.

FH:It isn’t often the missionaries can get that kind of result and know about it. Did you 00:54:00enjoy your mission?

NF:I had a wonderful mission. I baptized quite a few people. There was one man I met in Rugby [England]. After I left Dudley, I was sent to Rugby to help open up a branch. There were one or two LDS families there, but they didn’t have a branch there. There hadn’t been any elders in for some time. I don’t know how long it had been. They sent Elder Russon and me to Rugby. The first place I did [tracting] was [at] the police station. I [had] the chief of police and a policeman. I talked to them and gave them both a tract and [received] permission to hold street meetings in the market place.

In about a week or two after, I was tracting in a place and knocked on a door. A woman came and just opened it a crack. I had my umbrella with me. She just opened a little crack and peeked around the door. 00:55:00I could see that she wasn’t very apt to let me in. I put my umbrella inside the door and started talking to her and telling her about [the gospel]. She wasn’t interested in religion. She didn’t care anything about it. There was a man out there cleaning windows outside. I talked to her quite a little and she tried to shut the door. My umbrella wouldn’t let it shut. Finally she grabbed the tract and said she would take it anyway.

When she took the tract I turned around to this man and asked him if he would like a tract. He said, “We are Christians. Why don’t you go to the heathen nations?” I said, “We send our elders any place in the world [where] we can send them. We believe that we have something that you haven’t, even though you are Christians here. We have something that you don’t have.” He said, “You can’t tell me anything about religion. I preached in the for four years. 00:56:00I decided it was nothing but just men preaching for a job. I quit because I decided there was nothing to it. It was just a job for somebody [who] wanted a job.” I said, “It isn’t a job for me to make a living. I am paying my own expenses here. I am not preaching for hire or divining for money like most of them are.” He said, “That is alright to tell people.” I said, “You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to, but that is a fact. Mormon elders pay their own expenses. The church doesn’t pay us wages to come out and preach. I would like to have you take one of these tracts, read it and see whether we have anything that you haven’t.” “Alright, I will take it,” he said. So he took the tract and I went on.

About a week or ten days later I was going up the street and I heard somebody whistle. I looked up and down the street and couldn’t see anybody 00:57:00around. I started on and he whistled again. Then I looked up a side street and there was this window cleaner up there. He motioned for me. He said, “We read that tract and I believe you have something. We want you to come and see us.” I said, “I have a companion. We never go visiting at night one at a time. We always go together at night. If you set a night we will come and visit you and your family.” So he set a night and we visited them. It wasn’t long after that until I baptized them. I saw them when I was overseas in Birmingham [England]. This was in rugby. They moved to Birmingham [later]. She had had twins a while after she was baptized and they had named one of those twins, Neil, after me. [Later], they came to Montreal [Canada]. I think it was about 1921 or 1922 [when] they came to Montreal. Along in the 1920s I saw an elder, 00:58:00Grant Caldwell, [who] had just come from a mission in Montreal. I asked him if he had met the Lamb family. He said, “I sure did. They are the mainstay of the branch. One daughter plays the piano, another one leads the singing. The Lamb family is our mainstay in the branch.” I baptized another woman — a widow woman. She had been a Sunday school teacher in the for nineteen years. The district president came to interview the people [who] I was going to baptize. After he had interviewed her he said, “Elder Forsyth, if I could baptize one person 00:59:00like that in the mission field I would think I had been well paid for my mission.” FH:What did you do when you came back from your mission?

NF:When I came back my father and mother were down here working in the temple.

FH:[Were they] here in St. George?

NF:They were working in the St. George Temple. They had been coming down here every winter from Canada to work in the St. George Temple to get out of the cold weather. I [went] into Salt Lake [City] the latter part of January and I came on down here and lived with them until April conference. We visited around here until April conference [and] then we went back to Salt Lake [City].

This woman that I had baptized in [inaudible] that [the] president said if he could baptize one like that, was [living] in Salt Lake [City]. She wanted to go to with us. 01:00:00So we took her up there to Canada with us. Soon after she [was] up there, there was a man up at Mountain View [Canada who] had lost his wife. He was hunting for a housekeeper. His brother-in-law came and said, “Do you think that woman [who] is here with you would go up and keep house for that fellow?” I said, “I will talk to her and see.” She was staying at our place. There was one of my cousins in Salt Lake [City who] told me I would have to watch out; that woman was in love with me. I said, “Oh, she isn’t in love with me. She is in love with the gospel.” Some people thought that maybe she had come out to marry me. But I don’t think she had anything like that in mind when she came out because I never had any idea. I never said or did anything to cause her to think that I thought about anything like that. I talked with her about Brother Dunn [who] wanted a housekeeper. She said, “Yes. 01:01:00I will go and keep house for him.” It wasn’t six months after that that he married her. They moved down to Ogden [Weber County, Utah]. I had one or two letters from her. One letter I [received] from her awhile after that, she wrote that his oldest son was going on a mission.

FH:Did you have [any] military service?

NF:I was managing a lumber yard. I hadn’t been making anything extra [money]. Carpenter work wasn’t very rushing around there soon after I was married.

FH:Did you get married before you went into the [Canadian] Army?

NF:Yes, I was married before I went in the Army.

FH:Tell about your courtship 01:02:00and [when you] married.

NF:I was on the way to in the spring of 1910 when I came back from my mission. I had been down to see this school teacher that I had corresponded with all the time. I bought a ring. It wasn’t a real diamond. I didn’t pay any big price for it, but it looked like it could be a diamond. I intended to give it to her. When I left Salt Lake [City] I just brought my suitcase. I left my trunk in Salt Lake [City]. I brought a suitcase down to where she was teaching school in Southern Utah. [END OF RECORDING TWO.] NF:I thought I had that ring in my suitcase. When I [went] down there, I couldn’t find it. We talked things over a little. 01:03:00She was teaching school and I didn’t know what I was going to do; I thought: I better not get in a hurry to ask her to marry me anyway. I [don’t have] that ring. I will have to wait and see if it is still in my trunk or if I have lost it. We just talked over things. I stayed there a day or two where she was. Then I came on down here and saw the folks.

I wrote to her all that summer and made arrangements that we would spend the Christmas holidays in Salt Lake [City]. She was going to teach in Tooele [Tooele County, Utah] that next winter. The next winter I [received] word she was teaching in Tooele, so in our letters, we decided we would spend the Christmas holidays in Salt Lake [City] together.

When I [went] to McGrath, I started to work for Merrill and Critchfield. They were two carpenters that were contracting there at McGrath. I worked for them for a day or two. As soon as I [came] home, this Dudley 01:04:00[fellow who] had [built] that store where they wanted me to clerk, came [to see me]. He told me he was going to to go in the real estate business. He wanted me to go up there and go in the real estate business with him. I didn’t want to go up there. I told him I didn’t want any real estate business. He kept at me [for] a week or more. Finally, he talked me into going to Calgary with him. I went and fussed around with him there for a little while. Finally, I [took] a job [with] a contractor in Calgary that summer. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] NF:He had bought a section of land up near Brant and we went 01:05:00[there] on a Saturday. We stayed over there on Sunday. I had two cousins living out east of Brant. I stayed with the Hall brothers. They had hauled their sand and gravel for these buildings I had built there in 1907. I [was] quite well acquainted with them. I was staying with them over Sunday. Sunday morning I said, “[Do] you have a saddle horse here [so] I can go out and see my cousins out east here today instead of going to church?” They said, “Yes.” So I went out on a horse and had dinner with my cousin and came back in the afternoon.

Meeting wasn’t out when I [came] back. I went in the house and sat down and was writing to this girl telling her about what I had done and so on. I heard the Democrat [buggy] come in. That was before cars. There were very few cars at that time. I heard the Democrat drive into the yard there, but I sat there writing 01:06:00[when] May Hall came in. When she [came] to the door she said, “Here he is in the house.” So Mark called [to me], “Come on out here. I want to take you for a buggy ride.” I said, “I am busy.” He said, “Come on. I want to take you down here and introduce you to your future wife.” I said, “I will be right out.” I just dropped my letter and went out and he took me down to “Tom” [Thomas Karen] Hatch, a farmer who lived [on] the next section to him. He took me down there. Brother Hatch and his wife [Ona Jane (Pearce) Hatch] and some of the [children] came out and I was talking to them in the Democrat. His wife was a stepmother. The mother [Viola Melissa (Pearce) Hatch] of his children had died several years before and he had married her younger sister. She had a baby and the oldest daughter was in tending this baby. She didn’t come out. 01:07:00After they had talked a minute, Mark said, “Neil, you unhook the team and take them down to the well and water them.” So I jumped down and unhooked the team and took them down to the well. I don’t know whether he called this girl out or how it was, but anyway when I [came] back with the team she was out there and he introduced me to her [Chloe Roseltha Hatch]. We kind of laughed about it.

The next morning I went on to Calgary. I never saw her again all that summer. I went to Salt Lake [City] and spent the Christmas holidays with [the other] girl. When I [went] back to Salt Lake [City] I found [the] ring in my trunk. I thought: that is funny that I didn’t take that down there. Maybe I shouldn’t be in any hurry. We never talked about getting married. She would come in to Salt Lake [City]. There was a teachers’ convention [and] she came in for that convention. I was there. After the convention she went back out to Tooele 01:08:00and I went back to Canada. We still went on writing each other. We were friendly [and] friends.

Dudley told me before I left Canada in December that he was going to build this other building near Brant on this section of land he had bought before he went to Calgary. He wanted me to build those buildings just as soon as the weather was suitable. He wanted me to come after the New Year. So I went up there in January. We had a spell of pretty good weather and he took me up to start those buildings. He already had some of the material on the ground. I started building a barn. His brother was batching there in the granary. 01:09:00He was taking this girl out that I had been introduced to the year before.

He had an older brother in the mission field. On Sunday he took me with him over to Brant to go to the services there. After the service we all went down to Hatch’s to spend the evening. There were only about a half a dozen young people there that were members of the church. It was their habit every Sunday to go down to Hatch’s and spend the evening. When there was a dance, or anything, he took this girl. But he told me he was just holding her for his brother [who] was on a mission. She was going to marry his brother when he came back from his mission. In talking with the girl this Sunday evening, chatting with her at different times, I found out that she wasn’t engaged to this boy and didn’t intend to be. 01:10:00[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] NF:Dudley was still living in Calgary, but he used to come down there nearly every weekend. I guess it was along in the latter part of February or first of March, he came down one Saturday. When he [was] there he said, “I have to go out here and see two or three farmers today. You just as well come and ride out with me.” It was kind of cold for outside work that afternoon. I still didn’t have anything closed in. I got in and rode with him out there. We [started] talking about this girl. I don’t know how it came about. Anyway, he said that Sanford [Dudley] was just holding her for Odd [Dudley]. She was going to marry Odd when he came back from his mission. I said, “I bet she doesn’t marry Odd when he gets home. I have talked with her enough to know that she has no intention of marrying him at all.” 01:11:00He said, “Oh, she will.” I said, “I will bet you $5.00 I can take her away from . Sanford is just keeping her from the other fellows until Odd gets back.” He said, “Alright. I will bet you $5.00 you can’t.” The next Sunday night at Hatch’s, her brother had a girl there for the evening that lived out a-ways away from there. It was quite a cold night. Along about ten o’clock she thought it was time for her to go home. He said, “I will go out and hitch the horse up and take you home.” They had a little one-horse buggy. So he went out, hooked the horse up, tied him up to the wagon, came in and said the buggy was ready. She went to get her wraps to wrap up and put her coat on for the cold. All the rest of them went in. I was sitting talking to this girl. All the rest of them went in the other room when she went to get her wraps. 01:12:00The others were going to get their things to go home. When they all went out I said, “Let’s go out and steal Fay’s buggy.” She said, “Alright.” We jumped up and went out. I untied the horse and we drove out through the field. I asked her if she would go to the dance with me the next Friday night. She said she would. So nobody else took her after that.

Before the summer was out we were engaged to be married. After we were engaged, we were talking about getting married. I decided I wanted to work as long as I could that year. I said I wasn’t going to have very much money. I said, “I won’t have enough money to buy furniture and things for your housekeeping when we get married if we go to Salt Lake [City] to be married.” There was no temple up there then. There was none in Idaho either. Those temples weren’t built. 01:13:00I said, “What do you want to do? Shall we go to Salt Lake [City] to be married or get married here and buy furniture?” She said, “Oh, let’s be married in the temple.” I said, “Alright. If that is the way you feel, that is alright with me.” [Neil Snow and Chloe Roseltha (Hatch) Forsyth were married December 20, 1911 in the Salt Lake Temple, Salt Lake County, Utah.] We came to Salt Lake [City]. We were married on December 20, . We went back [to Canada on] January 1, . [The] Meeks brothers came to me and said they wanted me to build a big hog barn that had a passageway between pens on each side and a roof over the top where they could store feed and have the spouts run down from the feed bins. They would chop grain and put it in those bins up overhead and have spouts running down to the troughs. They wanted me to come build 01:14:00that hog barn for them. I went out there. Before spring, I had built that hog barn and I had enough money to buy a bedroom suite.

I had come from Calgary in November.

My folks were going to St. George again that winter to go to the temple so I asked them to let me live in their house that winter. They said I could stay there and look after things and we could live there that winter. That is what we did. When we came back from Salt Lake [City] we went right to live in my folks’ house. They came down to St. George for the rest of the winter.

I went out to Meeks’s [to build the hog barn]. She went up to stay with her folks while I was out there. When I was through with that hog barn, I came back. There was a man there [who] was selling his furniture. He was going to move back to and wanted to sell some of his 01:15:00furniture. I bought a bedroom outfit, a cupboard, table and chairs and enough to set up housekeeping.

I rented father’s place there for that summer and we lived in with them until our baby was born the next winter. There was a man there [who] was running a lumber yard. There wasn’t much work there in the wintertime. It was too cold. This fellow said he would get me his job in the lumber yard running [it] for this big company in if I would buy his house. I looked at his house. He had quite a nice home and offered it quite reasonable. I told him, “Alright.” I made a deal with him to buy his house. 01:16:00I took the lumber yard over on February 1st [and] ran [it] until World War I broke out.

When the war broke out, I thought Canada was crazy to go into that war. I said, “Why not let England fight its own battle. Let the people over there fight their own battle.” Some of our own boys had been killed. We had two sons [by] then. Our first son was born in October of 1911, about ten months after we were married. In September of 1913, before the war broke out, our second boy was born. We had those two boys when the war broke out. In 1916, after some of our boys had been 01:17:00killed over there and my brother-in-law and Aaron McGrath and several others had enlisted and were in the service, I started talking to my wife about going. She was pregnant again with our third son. She was pretty well along with him. She wouldn’t think of letting me go.

Major [Hugh B.] Brown came down there. He was the one that was [signing up the] enlisted [men]. He had been training men there before the war ever broke out. He came down there when they were having a farewell for my brother-in-law and others. There were six of them [who] had enlisted in April. They were having their farewell and Major Brown was there for their farewell dance. I wanted my wife to go to that dance. She said, “No.” She wouldn’t go. She couldn’t dance and she wouldn’t go to the dance. 01:18:00She said, “You can go if you want to if you promise you won’t enlist.” I said, “Oh, I won’t enlist tonight. I am not going to enlist if you are not willing for me to, but I would like to have a talk with Major Brown.” When I came home from the dance she said, “What did Major Brown tell you?” “He told me he wouldn’t advise any married man to go without his wife’s consent or to let you decide it.” She said, “Well, it is decided then.” On May 5th Major Brown came again. When I [came] home from the office for dinner that day, my wife said, “I see Major Brown is in town again today.” I said, “Yes, I saw him get off the train this morning and talked to him at the station.” She said, “I have been talking to Florence.” That was my sister. Her husband was in the service 01:19:00then. He was in training there. She said, “I have been talking to today and I have decided that, if you think you ought to go, I would rather you go now with Major Brown and these boys that we know than to go later with somebody else.” I said, “When I get back to the office shall I telephone in?” She said, “Just [do] whatever you feel like.” When I [went] back to the office I telephoned him. He came up. I made arrangements [so] I could enlist and wouldn’t have to report in camp until the first of July unless they were called overseas before that. When I wrote to [the lumber] company about it, giving them thirty-day-notice, the manager called me up on the telephone and wanted to know when I had to [leave]. I said, “I don’t have to go until July 1st unless they are called overseas before that.” He said, “You won’t have to go. The war will be over before 01:20:00July 1st. We are not going to get a man to take your place.” It went on until about June 10th. [On] June 10th I [received] word they were going to leave for overseas on June 22nd. I had to report not later than the 20th. He said, “Be at Medicine Hat [Canada] not later than June 20th.” So I telephoned right to the manager and told him I had to report. He sent the superintendent out with another man to take my place and they checked me out. We left on June 22nd for overseas. We went to Port Arthur [Canada] on June 23, 1916. We came back through Port Arthur on June 23, 1919, just three years [later].

FH:Did you see active fighting when you were overseas?

NF:When we [arrived] over there they split our 01:21:00unit up. Some officers had been killed over in France. They figured they had been killed by their own men [who] didn’t like them. They were splitting all the units up that came under officers. They sent me to the Fort Gary Horse. Sixteen of us went to Fort Gary. Some went to the Canadian Light Horse. Some went to the infantry. We were sent all around every way. I was with the Fort Gary Horse, but I [inaudible] to be two men. Somebody said I would never get to go over to France. I said, “I didn’t come over here to loaf around all the time. If I am going to stay in the Army, I want to get in and do something. I came over to try to help win this war.” I don’t remember the date. 01:22:00They called for a bunch of men to transfer to the veterinary corps. I thought maybe I could get over there as a veterinary corpsman. So I put in for a transfer. I [was] transferred to the veterinary corps. I hadn’t been in the veterinary corps very long until they called for a unit of men to go over to the veterinary hospital in Le Havre [France]. They found out in the veterinary corps that I was pretty good with horses. The next morning, after we [arrived in] Le Havre, they lined us up [and] called the roll. When they called my name they asked me to take two steps backward and two other men they called to take two steps backward. After they were all through, they called for everybody to march, but us three men to stay there. The others marched 01:23:00away. An officer came and said, “We want you down here at [the] number one dressing shed.” They took me down to number one dressing shed. They had three dressing sheds in the veterinary hospital. These other two fellows were taken to the other dressing sheds.

It wasn’t long until I [received] a corporal stripe. The very next week they gave me two stripes. A week or two later they made me a sergeant. As soon as they gave me a sergeant stripe, I went to the sergeant major and said, “When they want a veterinary sergeant up the line let me know. I am ready to go.” He said, “We don’t want you to go. We need you here in the shed. There are other fellows here that I would rather send than you.” I said, “I want to go and do something. I don’t mind getting up there. I am not afraid to go up the line.” 01:24:00It wasn’t long until he came around. He said, “You really want to go, do you?” I said, “Yes.” The sergeant said, “The veterinary sergeant in the Fifth Brigade of artillery has been killed. They want a sergeant for the Fifth Brigade artillery.” I said, “Put my name in.” He said, “I have tried two or three other fellows and they are all scared to death. They don’t want to go.” I said, “I am not afraid. You can send me.” The next morning I was told to stand to for the front. I went up and they put me in the Sixty-first Battery. I had a lot of experience there.

FH:Did you come home without being wounded?

NF:I [was] gassed one day when we were on the move during the last big push. 01:25:00A gas shell broke. There were lots of soldiers moving. The lines were packed with men on the move and I had a very fractious horse. A gas shell broke just a little bit in front of me. Before I could get my gas mask on, I [received] quite a dose of gas. My horse was so fractious [that] I couldn’t do much but try to hold it down. I finally [had] my gas mask on, but I [received] quite a dose of gas. I was sick that night — [very] sick. I went to the doctor and he knew I never did take my rum ration. They would give calls for rum ration every night or morning. I guess it was in the morning. Anyway, every day they would call the men up for rum ration. I never did line up for my rum ration.

This doctor said, “You go to the quartermaster and tell him to let you have all the rum you can drink. 01:26:00That will fix you.” So I did. I went to the quartermaster and told him what the doctor had told me. Of course, he knew I never took rum ration. He brought a jug of rum out with a pint cup and handed them to me and said, “Help yourself.” I poured out about half a cup of that rum, drank it, sat there and talked for a minute or two. He said, “Do you want any more of that?” I said, “Yes, I will have another drink of that before I go to bed.” So I poured out another good drink of it, drank that, went over and went to bed. The next morning I was still sick. I couldn’t see that it made a bit of difference to me. I went [on] for about three days. I couldn’t keep anything down me. I was sick and miserable.

I had to go see the VO [Veterinary Officer] one day about something so I had my batman saddle my horse up for me [A batman is a soldier or airman assigned to a commissioned officer as a personal servant.] 01:27:00It was two or three miles over to where the VO was stationed. I rode over there and when I saw his batman [I] asked him where the captain was. He said, “He is down in the dugout there. I will go tell him that you are here.” He went down in the dugout where this captain was and came back. He said, “He told me to take your horse and send you down there.” So I went down there. When I [came] there, he had a quart bottle of old scotch whiskey sitting on the table. He had had a drink or two out of it. I could see he [had] drank a little of it. When I went in and I looked at that bottle, I thought: boy, I bet that will help me. I didn’t like that rum. It was nasty stuff to me.

When I was a cowboy I drank enough whiskey that I knew I liked whiskey and I wouldn’t get 01:28:00drunk on it. I looked at that bottle. I thought: boy, I bet that will help me. He saw me looking at it. He said, “Would you like a drink of that?” I said, “I sure would. I believe that would help me get rid of that gas.” He said, “Help yourself.” He set a glass out there. I poured out a good drink of that scotch whiskey. I sat there and talked with him [about] what I had to [say to] him. When I [stood] up to go, he said, “You better have another drink of that.” I said, “Alright. I will take another.” So I took another good drink of that scotch whiskey.

I went out and got on my horse. When I [came] back, supper was over. They had had supper and everybody had gone. I went to our cook and said, “I am ready for something to eat now. What do you [have] for me?” He said, “What do you want?” I told him what I wanted. He fixed me up a good supper and I ate and went to bed. The next day I [woke] up feeling fine. 01:29:00I never had any more trouble with the gas.

FH:There are some things I want to ask you about. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] NF:I went into Germany with the army of occupation and I was billeted with a German family in Cologne. We were over there six weeks. I [became very] friendly with the family [and] they treated me nicely. When I first went there, they gave me a room. I had my revolver on me. I didn’t know then just how they would treat me. When they told me where my room was, I hung my revolver on the foot of the bed and locked my door. 01:30:00The next morning I heard somebody quite early in the morning try the door. It was locked. When I got up and came downstairs this woman came. I could understand a little bit of German [as] I had studied a little German so I knew a little bit. This woman started to ask me why I didn’t leave my boots outside so she could polish them for me. She said, “I wanted to polish your boots this morning.” This made me understand that she would polish my boots if I would leave them outside of my door. The next morning they asked me to come in and have breakfast with them. They just treated me fine.

It was just before Christmas [when] we went in there. It was the latter part of November that we [arrived], 01:31:00but we were there for Christmas. Just before Christmas she [received] a letter from her son that he was still in the German forces back twenty kilometers from where we were. The German soldiers had to stay twenty kilometers from the occupying soldiers. She handed me his letter to read. I could see he was [writing] about home and Christmas. Without thinking, I said, “Is he coming home for Christmas?” She said, “Nein, nein.” She shook her head and looked so sad. I thought: here I am, an enemy in their home, and their own son can’t come and spend Christmas. [Emotional] They were going to their daughter’s for Christmas dinner and they insisted that I go and have Christmas dinner with them. Their daughter and her husband just treated me swell and were [very] nice. The more they tried to cheer me up [emotional] the worse it made me feel. 01:32:00To think there I was, an enemy in their home. Their son couldn’t come [home] and they were treating me like that.

Just after that, we were moved up to Obersteig [Germany] for the last two weeks we were in Germany. Then we came back to Belgium. We were in Belgium for three months trying to get rid of the horses. They were selling the horses to the Belgian government. I would get a [small] bunch of them ready and we would ship them out. Then maybe a week or ten days later, we would get another bunch ready. I was tied down there with those horses for three months. We finally [went] back to England about the first of May. We were there until the middle of June before we [left] England. 01:33:00[On] June 23, 1919 I came through Port Arthur and I [was] home on June 25, 1919. My third son was born on September 2nd after I left. He was nearly three years old when I [returned] home. [Laughter] FH:You were [very] fortunate to come through without any real problems.

NF:There was one morning when I woke up. I used to make my bed in a big shell hole. I wouldn’t go in the trenches where there were all kinds of vermin. I would find a great big shell hole. I would level it out in the bottom and make my bed in there and stretch a tarp over it. [END OF RECORDING THREE.] NF:One morning I woke up [during] the big Amiens push [in Germany]. I had staked my horse right in front of this shell hole and went to bed. 01:34:00I hadn’t heard a thing. When I woke up the next morning I could see shrapnel holes in my tarp overhead. When I dressed and looked out, there were sixteen dead horses lying around right in front of me. The Germans had bombed [the area] that night. They [flew] over with bombing planes and I hadn’t heard a thing. I had slept through it all. Another veterinary sergeant was killed in the shell hole about a hundred yards from me. I wasn’t touched.

FH:What can you remember about your father and mother?

NF:I remember that my father was very strict. As far back as I can remember, when he said anything, 01:35:00I never questioned him on it. No matter what it was that he told me to do, I knew that I had to do that. He was that way with all of us. On one occasion there was a school teacher visiting us. He was telling about the trouble he was having with some of the boys in school. Father said, “If you have any trouble with any of my children, just let me know. If you can’t handle them, I can.” That was his attitude. We had to be obedient no matter where we were.

FH:Do you think this hurt you?

NF:It did me a lot of good. I was glad to go away from home when I was eighteen [years old]. [I had] a chance to go down and stay with my Grandmother [Snow]. I thought it was good to get out where I could do a little bit more as I pleased. But I learned later that it was the best thing that ever happened to me that he was strict. He was a good father. He had been in the bishopric. 01:36:00He had been a bishop’s counselor and was on the High Council for years.

My mother was the first Sunday school teacher I remember. She was a good Sunday school teacher. I am sure she never had an enemy. Everybody liked my mother whether they were members of the church or [not]. I have had so many people tell me that she was the best woman they ever knew. She was [very] considerate and always taught us that we should be loving and kind. She told me, more than once, that I must learn to control my temper. I had quite a temper. I was [very] quick-tempered. She used to talk to me a lot about controlling my temper. When the school board wanted me to teach school, she said, “That will help you to control your temper. You will have to control it when you get in the schoolroom. It will be one of the best [ways] for you to learn 01:37:00to control your temper.” FH:Do you know the names of your father’s parents?

NF:[My] father’s parents were Thomas R. [Robert] [and] Isabella (Donald) Forsyth.

FH:Did you know them at all?

NF:I knew his father. His mother died in Salt Lake [City] in 1853. I thought it was 1852, but when we were up there two weeks ago I looked at the grave. She had a baby girl [Saville Delina Forsyth] born there [November 25,] 1852. She and the baby girl both died in September of 1853. So I never knew her. Grandfather married another woman [Mary Browett (Holmes) Forsyth August 20, 1853] after his wife died. He had six children by his first wife. 01:38:00There were three boys and three girls. Do you want their names?

FH:If you would like to give them.

NF:His oldest son was Thomas R. [Robert] Forsyth named after him. Then he had a daughter, Jeanette [Forsyth]. Then there was a daughter, Isabelle [Forsyth] — always called “Belle”. They were Aunt “Belle” and Aunt “Net.” Father was the fourth child, the second son. Then he had another daughter, Merinda [Forsyth]. We called her Aunt “Minnie”. [Merinda married Charles Seegmiller of St. George. He died at the age of 106 years old.

We called him Uncle Charley. Many St. George Seegmillers are their descendants.

— Added during editing by Jay LeGrand Forsythe, nephew] Then another son, Neil Donald [Cornelius Forsyth], was her 01:39:00sixth child. Their seventh child was a girl [Saville Delina Forsyth who] was born in [City]. She was about a year old [when] she died.

FH:What do you know about your mother’s parents?

NF:I lived with my Grandmother [Sally ()] Snow when I was eighteen years old. I came down there and lived with her and her son, William [James Snow]. He was the only child she still had at home. He was a school teacher. I lived with them and did chores around there. I went to his school. [Uncle William Snow had a PhD and taught history at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah County County, Utah as late as 1945.] — Added during editing by Jay LeGrand Forsythe, nephew] FH:Would you name your own brothers and sisters?

NF:My oldest brother was George Snow Forsyth. Father’s name was George James. 01:40:00Then there was my brother, Thomas [William] Forsyth. I don’t think he had a middle name. Then I had a sister, Sarah Isabelle [Forsyth], who was the third child. She was born on September 1, 1877 and named after my mother I was born on August 24, 1879. Then my brother, John James [Forsyth], 01:41:00was born on November 29, 1881. Then [came] Mary Emma Forsyth [and] I had a sister, Lucy May [Forsyth]. 01:42:00I don’t remember the date that she was born. Joseph Frank Forsyth was the next brother after Mary. He was born on January 12, 1886, six and a half years after I was born. Florence Ida [Forsyth] was my youngest sister. About three or four years after Florence Ida was born, there was a son, Donald [Forsyth]. He only lived about sixteen months.

My oldest brother [George Snow] died July 15, 1896 of diphtheria. A week later, his brother-in-law died of diphtheria. The next week my sister, Lucy [May], died and the next week Donald. The four of them died within a month [of each other] of diphtheria. It was an epidemic. They didn’t know it was diphtheria until they all died. 01:43:00Then they tried to put a stop to it. I can’t remember whether there was anyone else in the town that died [from] it or not.

FH:Did you have eight children?

NF:Yes.

FH:[Give] their names and tell about them.

NF:We were married December 22, 1911 in the Salt Lake Temple. Our first son Thomas Rex [Forsyth] was born October 22, 1912.

Neil Scott [Forsyth] was born 01:44:00September 1, 1913. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] FH:You have given the first two [children].

NF:Something is wrong on that, I think. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] NF: [Neil] Scott was [born] September 1, 1914. Kenneth [Forsyth was born] September 2, 1916. Milo [Forsyth] was born on April 12, 1920. 01:45:00Duane H. [Forsyth] was born May 3, 1922. Ruth [Forsyth], our only daughter, was born August 7, 1924. Garth Dean [Forsyth] was born December 5, 1927. Bryce H. [Forsyth], our youngest son, was born August 13, 1929.

FH:Tell about each of these children.

NF:[Thomas] Rex was a very obedient boy. We never had much trouble with him. He never went out at night 01:46:00[but] that when he came home, if we were in bed, he would come in and tell us where he had been and what he had been doing. We never had any trouble with him at all. During The [Great] Depression in the 1930s he was working around for almost nothing [when] he decided he wanted to go to school. I didn’t have money to send him to school, but I had a little flock of sheep that I had moved off my farm. I had a man looking after things and he wasn’t tending to things very well so Rex came to me. He said he had a chance to sell those sheep for a fairly good price. He wanted to know if I would let him sell them to get money to go to school. I said yes.

He sold those sheep and went to Edmonton [Canada] to school. 01:47:00He received a teacher’s certificate, came back and started teaching. He taught at Beazar [Canada]. He was principal of the school at Beazar for two years. Then he went out to Kimball [Canada] and taught there the next year. He met a girl out there [and they were] married at Kimball. The next year he taught at Mountain View [Canada]. When he was teaching up there, he enlisted [for military service in] World War II. Up there, when they graduated from the ninth grade, they had to send their report into the provincial board at Edmonton. The local school board couldn’t pass them. They had to be passed on by the local board and then by the provincial board. 01:48:00Everyone in his ninth grade passed. It came out in the paper that he was the first teacher in Alberta [Canada] to ever pass every one of his ninth grade students. [Emotional] He enlisted in the [Canadian] Air Force when school was out. He received his wings as a pilot [and] went overseas. Over there, he was made navigator of a B-52 bomber. Just before they left on one of their bombing trips over Brussels [Belgium], he wrote a letter to us and one to his wife. [He] sent them to a friend of mine, a woman [who] had been very friendly with me when I was in the mission field. [She] was friendly with me when I was over there during World War I. I had given him 01:49:00her address and told him when he [had] leave, to go visit her and her family. They had treated him just like they had me and been so good. Whenever he [had] leave he went to visit them. When he was going on this last trip, he wrote these letters and sent them to her. He wrote a letter to her. He said, “If I don’t come back [emotional], send these letters.” After she found out that he hadn’t come back, she sent those letters [to us and his wife].

FH:Did he almost know that this was going to happen?

NF:They were farewell letters to us. [Emotional] We never knew what became of him. When the squadron came back, his plane wasn’t with them. None of them knew where or when it went down. They didn’t know what happened to it at all. All they knew was 01:50:00that it didn’t come back with the squadron.

The next boy [Neil Scott] was just the opposite [of] him. When he was out and he came home he never had a word to say. He would go to bed and never tell us anything. One night when he hadn’t [come] home when we thought it was time he was getting home, I went to look for him. I had a pretty good idea where he would be. I went to the bishop’s house. I could see the bishop sitting in his kitchen with a light in the kitchen. Past the front room I could see the bishop’s daughter and Scott on a sofa in the front room without a light. The door was open between the kitchen and the front room, but there was no light in the front room. I knocked on the kitchen door. The bishop came to the door. I said, “Would you tell Scott 01:51:00that I want him to come home?” He said, “I was just waiting for him to go home so I could go to bed.” He went in and told Scott. Scott got up and came home with me.

I think maybe it was a year or two after that, one Saturday night he hadn’t [come] home. There was another boy [who] had been staying with us [who] had been quite friendly with Scott. He didn’t live in Cardston, but we had known his parents in McGrath. He came up and stayed with us part of the time. I don’t remember whether he had stayed with us [that] Friday night or not. Saturday night he and Scott went out and hadn’t [come] home. About midnight, my wife woke me up and said Scott had never come in and I better go look for him. I didn’t know where to go, 01:52:00but when I started out I thought there are a couple of Lee boys he is quite friendly with. Their mother was a widow. I thought: I better go up to Lee’s. That was the most likely place I could think of.

It was after twelve o’clock Saturday night. When I [was] close to Lee’s, I could hear a gramophone [record player] going and heard the music in there. When I [came] to the door I could hear them dancing in there to the gramophone music. I rapped on the door and one of the girls came to the door. I said, “Is Scott here?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “Tell him I want him.” He came to the door. I said, “Don’t you know that this is Sunday morning? You have no business dancing this time of night. 01:53:00It is time for you to come home.” He said, “I have a girl here that I have to take home.” He went back in and shut the door. I stood there a minute or two. He didn’t come out again so I rapped [on the door] again.

He came to the door. I said, “I am waiting for you to go home with me.” He said, “I have to take that girl home.” I said, “Who is she?” He told me. I said, “That is on the way to our place. You can bring her right along with you until we get there. You can tell her goodnight and come on home with me.” So he went in and got her. When we [came] to that gate I said, “I will wait here for you while you tell her goodnight.” He took her over to the door and told her goodnight. He came back and was he mad! He just carried on at an awful rate. You bet I wouldn’t find him again if I went after him. He would make sure that I didn’t find him. 01:54:00I said, “If there is any chance of my finding you when you are out where you shouldn’t be, I am going to find you.” I mentioned [the] other boy, “Lloyd can go to hell if he wants to, but he is not going to take you if I can keep him from it.” I never had occasion to go to get him again. Many times since he married he has said, “I am sure thankful [emotional] that you did what you did with me.” FH:It is hard at the time, but afterwards they find out. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] NF:— [Ruth was] engaged to a boy [who] wasn’t worthy of a recommendation to go to the temple. I never had much trouble with Kenneth. He married a nice girl. Every one of my children [was] married in the temple.

One of them, when he first 01:55:00was married, was in [military] service during World War II and met a girl in the east. He [became] engaged to her. He had her converted to the church before he asked her to marry him, but her folks wouldn’t let him baptize her or bring her out west to marry her. So he married her in their church at Port Arthur, brought her out home and baptized her as soon as he [came] home. When she had been [in the] church a year, they went through the temple before their first child was born.

The youngest one [Bryce H.] met a girl when he came back from his mission. He went to Calgary to work and he met a girl there [who] had only been in the church seven months when they were engaged. She agreed to wait until they had been in [the church] a year before they [were] married. They waited five months after they were engaged [and then] they were married 01:56:00in the temple.

They are all active in the church today, every one of them. My fourth grandson is in the mission field now. Two of them have returned home. My first one went to Finland. He spent two years and a half in Finland. The next one spent two years and a half in Belgium and France. The third one went to Italy. He will be home this summer from Italy. The fourth one is down in Arizona in the Indian Mission now.

We went to see him in February . We were down at Mesa [Arizona] and I inquired at the temple and couldn’t get any trace of him. They thought there was no chance of my getting to see him. The next day, a woman came to me in the temple and said, “I saw an Elder Forsyth from Canada [who] was in a bookstore here a little while ago. He is here for a meeting. 01:57:00There is a missionary meeting in the Twenty-third Ward chapel from three to four o’clock.” This was just a few minutes after three. I tried to telephone to the Twenty-third Ward chapel. I couldn’t get [through]. So I rushed over to Brunsdale’s, a couple from [who] had a trailer house right close to the temple. They were going to the temple there. They had already gone home from the temple. I rushed over there and told them that Rex was over there at the Twenty-third Ward chapel in a meeting and I wanted to go and see him. Sister Brunsdale said, “Jump in the car. We will go.” She took me over there and I visited with him a few minutes in Arizona.

FH:How many grandchildren do you have?

NF:I have thirty grandchildren.

FH:How many great-grandchildren do you have?

NF:I have five [great-grandchildren]. 01:58:00The last one was born March 27, . There was one born up here at Provo [Utah County, Utah] about the same time. I didn’t get the date of its birth.

FH:With all [of] these tremendous life experiences that you have had, you are qualified to give counsel to the generations to come and [to] bear your testimony.

NF:I have [given] my testimony to them a good many times.

FH:There will be some [who] will not be able to see you in person [who] will be able to hear [your interview].

NF:I have encouraged all of my grandsons. I had three of them in the mission field at once. 01:59:00Before the first one had [come] home there were still two in the mission field when he went. One of them has come home since he went down to Arizona. When the first ones went, I said, “I will have two or three grandsons in the mission field for the rest of my life, as long as I live.” I have tried to encourage all of them. My youngest son just has the one son. Before he was ordained a deacon, he started saving money for a mission. He had a paper route there in Salt Lake City. His father said, when he talked about putting money in the bank to save for a mission, “For every dollar you put in the bank I will match it with another dollar.” So the boy is trying to see how many dollars he can get in for his mission. His father is matching every dollar he puts in. 02:00:00I hope they will all go. My daughter’s second son says he doesn’t want [to go on] a mission. She doesn’t know whether he is going on a mission or not. I talked to him when we were up there last winter or last fall. I talked to him about a mission. He didn’t tell me he didn’t want to go. I said, “You will be old enough to go on a mission when David gets home, won’t you?” He said yes, he would be old enough. I said, “Well, I hope you go.” When we were up there and I talked with my daughter, she said, “He doesn’t think he wants to go on a mission.” He might go yet. I am in hopes he will.

RF:He is a quiet boy. [Inaudible] NF:Yes, he is very quiet.

FH:Still water runs deep.

NF:He doesn’t have much to say, but he is a nice boy. He is a good worker [and] has a good job. 02:01:00He earns good money. I told all of them, more than once, that a two-year mission is worth more than two years in any college or university. I said, “If you spend two or two and a half years in the mission field you will find it is worth more to you than any [education].” FH:How [do] you feel about the church?

NF:I know that the church is true. From the way things are going, I would say that the second coming of Christ is approaching very rapidly right now. [That] is my way of looking at it. I think [the year] 2000 begins the seventh generation since the Savior and they run in sevens. 02:02:00So I say that [the year] 2000 is the beginning of the thousand years of the millennium. It may not be exactly on 2000, but it won’t be very far from it.

FH:It might be closer this way than the other way, too.

NF:I hardly think I will live to see the second coming, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I did.

FH:It wouldn’t me either.

NF:My doctor says I am good for a hundred [years].

FH:You probably will then.

RF:He will be ninety years old in August.

NF:My family is planning a big celebration for my ninetieth birthday on August 24, . My oldest son is planning it. He said, “We want to have at least ninety [people] there for your ninetieth birthday.” FH:That shouldn’t be too hard. [Laughter] 02:03:00FH:One more little thing. Did you lose your first wife?

NF:Yes.

FH:How long ago?

NF:[Chloe Roseltha (Hatch) Forsyth died November 13, . We had sold our home and business in Cardston in 1958. I had built a new home just two blocks from the temple and figured we would spend the rest of our days in the temple. But eleven months after we moved into the new home she had a heart attack and she never [recovered]. The next winter after she died, I came down and spent the Christmas holidays. I had locked my home up there in December and flew down to Salt Lake [City]. I locked the home up and left it. I spent the Christmas holidays with my son and daughter in Salt Lake [City]. On January 10, 1964 I came on down to St. George and started going to 02:04:00the temple here. [Emotional] This woman was wheeling her mother into the temple in a wheelchair.

FH:What is her name?

NF:Her mother was [Chloe Celestia (Durfee)] Spencer. She was a Spencer, but her name was Sister Rasmussen. I never learned her name for two years after. I knew her mother was Sister Spencer. I never learned her name. I went here two winters and saw her. I never paid much attention to any of the women the first winter I was here. But the second winter I was here I used to look at her and think about her. [Emotional] I thought: she sure is very attentive to her mother. In February of that year her mother was ninety-nine [years old and] she wasn’t able to come to the temple. I noticed this lady was coming without her 02:05:00mother in February. But I never [had] a chance to talk with her and never heard anything about her. [END OF RECRODING FOUR.] NF:I don’t know whether I had even heard just where her mother was and what she was doing until the end of March. The day before I left to go back to Canada, I was getting my mail at my cousin’s place up the street. I came out of the temple in the afternoon to go up and get my mail because I was going to leave for Canada the next day. As I [went] out on the street I saw a woman ahead of me going up [the] street. When I caught up to her, I found it was this lady. She told me her brother had taken her mother up to Richfield [Sevier County, Utah] and put her in the hospital. She was staying in a trailer house with 02:06:00her niece. Sister Black up here was her niece. They had a trailer house back of their house and she was living in that trailer house and boarding with them.

We talked and she told me that much about her and her mother. When we [walked] up to my cousin’s place I said, “This is where I get my mail.” She stopped and we stood there and talked probably for ten or fifteen minutes, but we didn’t learn each other’s names. We just talked about her mother and different things. She went on up to her niece’s. I went in [to get] my mail. The next day I left for Canada. But I couldn’t get her out of my mind. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] NF:I went up [to ] and I found I couldn’t stay in my home. So I rented my home. I moved all of my [possessions] out and rented it. 02:07:00I went over to my son’s place in Washington and saw his daughters graduate. Then we came down for the June conference. After conference, my daughter wanted me to stay for Father’s Day. I said, “If I am going to stay for Father’s Day, I am not going to stay in Salt Lake [City].” I had gone to the temple early Tuesday morning and had been there nearly all day and only [did] two sessions. The next morning my daughter took me down to the bus station. I came down to St. George Wednesday morning.

The next morning I saw this woman in the chapel here. When we came down from the first session there is a place where the men are going through this way and the women come through that way and meet. Just as I [was] there who should come but this woman. She looked up kind of startled and said, “When did you come [back]?” I said, “Just last night.” 02:08:00That was about all we [said] there. When I changed my clothes I looked in the chapel to see if she was there. I thought I would ask her to go to dinner with me. She wasn’t in the chapel, so I [left]. While I was getting my dinner, she came out of the dining room. When I [finished] my dinner I went to the chapel and saw her there. I walked over where she was and asked her if she would go to the prayer circle with me. She said she would. When we [were] in the prayer circle I said, “I want to have a talk with you while I am here.” There was no chance to talk any more there.

When I went to the room where my hat, coat and shoes were, I [took] my shoes and my hat and came out. She walked into that room to get her wraps in the [inaudible]. She said, “If you wait a minute, we can walk up the street together.” 02:09:00She was wondering what I wanted to talk to her about. We were together the rest of the time that I was here. We planned that we would write to each other. That was in June, just after the June conference. We were married on August 5, in the Logan Temple. We have had quite a wonderful experience together. We both like temple work. 02:10:00[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] NF:This man thought he could run around ahead of the horse and help stop him, but they outran him. They hadn’t gone very far until the tongue came down and ran in the ground. I guess it hit an alfalfa root. Anyway, it flipped the front wheels up and broke the tongue and the reach both. The double-trees of the front wheels went over. The wrench came out of the double-trees and let the team loose. They ran with the double-trees. This fellow said that I went straight in the air and I came down on my head. He said I lit right on my head 02:11:00on the ground. He said he was running towards me. I sat up and said, “Go catch the horses,” and fell back down again. He said he started to go after the horses. It was right close to the house and father had seen me from the yard. He was hurrying out there. When he [came] to me he found I was unconscious. He called to this man to come back. The man came back and they carried me into the house unconscious. Father [left] on a horse and brought Patriarch Blackburn up and they administered to me.

Mother sat by me there all day. She never left me until late in the afternoon. I don’t know just what time. Late in the afternoon, when father came in, he and this man had a new reach and 02:12:00a new tongue and had gone on hauling hay. Father had come in after every load. As soon as they came in with a load, he would come in to see if I was still unconscious. They came in there with a load late in the afternoon. Father came in and mother was still sitting there. She said I had never come to at all. I was still there unconscious. He went out to help unload the hay. It couldn’t have been very long after he went out that I opened my eyes. Mother spoke to me and I looked around. I said, “What is the matter? What am I in here for?” She started telling me and I couldn’t remember what had happened. She tried to tell me. Finally, I could remember the tug coming loose and the team starting to run, but that was as [much] as I could remember. I couldn’t remember anything that happened after they started to run with me. I couldn’t remember the tongue coming down or what happened. 02:13:00She asked about me. I said, “I am alright. I am not in any pain. I am alright. I am not sick or anything.” After I had convinced her that there was nothing wrong with me, I wasn’t in any pain or anything, she went about her work. She hadn’t done her housework. She had neglected things in the house and just sat there with me all day. She went [to get] busy. As soon as she was out of the room, I [stood] up. I don’t know whether they had finished dressing me or not, but anyway if they had, I [stood] up and dressed and walked out. Father and this man were just finishing unloading the hay. Father looked up and saw me coming down and he said he thought it was my ghost [laughter] because he said it hadn’t been many minutes since he was in there and saw me still unconscious. He saw me coming walking down through the lot. He said 02:14:00he couldn’t believe it was me at first. I said I was alright and the next day I started hauling hay again. I never had a thing wrong with me.

FH:[Was] this an every day occurrence in your life? Were answers to prayers and administrations common?

NF:It sure has been. While I was in England before I went to France, while I was in the Fort Gary Horse there, I paraded sick one morning. I had a bad cold, a cough and a sore throat. The doctor examined me. He said, “It is just a cold. I will give you light duty for today.” When I [went] back in the lines and reported there and they saw my report, light duty, they sent me down to the sick horse lines. They said I could go down there 02:15:00and help with the sick horses that day. So I went down to the sick horse lines and I was coughing around there. The corporal in charge noticed me coughing and said, “Here. I have some cough medicine here in the saddle room. Come in and have some of that. That will stop your cough. That will fix you alright.” He took me in the saddle room and there was a big quart bottle sitting up on a shelf there nearly full. He handed that down. He said, “Take a drink of this. That will fix you.” So I took a taste of it. I just took a sip to taste it to see what it tasted like and it had horehound in it. It reminded me of a canker medicine mother used to make for us when we were [children]. It didn’t taste bad. It had a good taste. He said, “Take a drink of it. It won’t hurt you.” So I drank three or four swallows of that. 02:16:00It tasted alright. He said, “You can lie down on these sacks and go to sleep. There is nothing for you to do here. We just have to keep an eye on these horses. You just as well lie down here and go to sleep,” and I did.

I woke up about five or six o’clock the next morning. I was in the guard room. I looked around and it was dull. I could see there was a light some place near enough so that I could see there was a soldier sitting there by my bed. I said, “What am I doing here? Where is this? Where am I?” He said, “This is the guard room.” I said, “What am I in here for?” I wasn’t undressed or anything. I still had my clothes on. He said, “I don’t know. I was just sent here to guard you.” 02:17:00I said, “I want to see Major Brown.” Hugh B. Brown was our major there. I said, “I want to see Major Brown and find out what is wrong.” He said, “I can’t leave here until the change of guard comes. There will be a change of guard coming at seven o’clock. When he comes I will go and tell Major Brown you want to see him.” When the guard came, this fellow [left]. It was only a few minutes until here came Major Brown and a doctor with him. Major Brown asked me what happened. This doctor asked me, “What did you have to drink yesterday?” I said, “I don’t know. You go down to the sick horse lines and ask that corporal.” He said, “The sick horse line?” I said, “Yes. He gave me some cough medicine down there.” He said, “I will go down and see what it was.” 02:18:00So he and Major Brown [left]. A few minutes [later], he came back. He said, “How much of that did you drink?” I said, “Oh, I drank three or four swallows of it.” “My God, man, you drank enough of that to kill three men. That is belladonna poison. A teaspoonful is a dose for a horse.” I found out this doctor had examined me the afternoon before. They said two men had found me lying on those sacks and they couldn’t wake me up. I don’t know whether they brought a doctor there or whether they took me to the doctor. Anyway, there was Major Brown and a doctor there. They questioned me and Major Brown told me that the only thing I said was: it is nothing but a post card. He said they kept questioning me and talking to me trying to get me to say something. He said I just said, “There is nothing but a post card.” 02:19:00The doctor said, “Oh, he is drunk. Send him to the bug ward until he sobers up.” Major Brown said he knew that if I was drunk that I had been doped by somebody because he knew that I didn’t drink. He said he thought I was in the hospital because the doctor had said for them to send me to the hospital. They found out they had sent me over there and the bug ward was full so they wouldn’t take me in because they didn’t have a bed in the bug ward. They brought me back and the doctor told them to put me in the guard room there until I sobered up.

FH:The Lord was with you and saved your life. That is all there is to it.

NF:Before the war even started, in fact, I had my brother-in-law living with us going to school there in McGrath. He wanted Patriarch Gibb to give him a patriarchal blessing. 02:20:00One Sunday I brought Patriarch Gibb up there after Sunday school to give him a blessing. That was in May or June of 1914. It was before the war. The war broke out in July of 1914. It was just a month or two before the war broke out or before there was any thought of a war.

After he gave Lorenzo a blessing, I said, “I think I will have you give me a blessing.” I had had a blessing by Patriarch Blackburn when I was fourteen years old, but I thought I would like another one. So he gave me a blessing. When he [wrote] that blessing out he sent us a copy of it. In reading that blessing, my wife said, “It sounds like you will be going on another foreign mission sometime.” I said, “Yes, it sounds like we will go to foreign lands for something.” We laid it away and forgot about it.

The war broke out a month or two later. 02:21:00I wasn’t in favor of Canada going to war when it broke out. After it had been going for nearly two years, I started to talk to my wife. One day I said to her, “Now supposing the war was here and we knew there were people [who] could come and help us and they wouldn’t come. What would you think? It looks like they are never going to end that [war] unless they get more help. I think we should go. Everybody that can, should go.” So she finally gave her consent for me to go and I went.

In that patriarchal blessing, this verse that made us think I would be going on another foreign mission said, “After the world has been swept with a vision of destruction, you with others will go forth to help set in order the things of the earth. Knowing the way is difficult and very dangerous, you [emotional] will always be found at your post.” 02:22:00Then he went on to tell of temple work and things that I would do after that. It told how I would work in the temple and that many would come to me for advice and so on. He gave me a long blessing.

We never knew until I enlisted on Friday, May 5th. On Saturday, my telephone was ringing all day. One woman called me up and said, “Is it true that you have enlisted?” I said, “Yes.” She said, “Robert,” her oldest son, “has wanted to go and I wouldn’t give my consent. He just came in and asked me if he could go if you did and I said yes. I knew you wouldn’t go and leave your wife and family. I guess I have to let him go.” [Emotional] Sunday morning I took our oldest son to Sunday school. My wife stayed home with the next boy. 02:23:00I was teaching the senior gospel class in Sunday school. I usually went early to welcome the members of the class as they came in. When I [came], there was an old Sister Spencer [who] was the only one in our part of the chapel. I went down and shook hands with her. She said, “I had a letter from Arthur.” That was her oldest son. He was teaching school up in the northern part of the province. She said, “I had a letter from Arthur the other day and he told me he had enlisted. It just about broke my heart. [Emotional] When I heard that you had enlisted it was a big relief to me because it made me think there must be some reason for our boys to go or you wouldn’t be going. It sure was a relief to me to think that you would enlist.” Another woman telephoned me [and] said, “I wouldn’t have been any more surprised if Bishop Parker had enlisted 02:24:00than I was when I heard you had enlisted.” When I [arrived] home from Sunday school that day, my wife said, “Do you remember that blessing that Brother Gibb gave you?” I said, “Yes. What about it?” She said, “You know, we thought you would be going on another mission.” I said, “I think there was something about my going to foreign lands or something like that.” “Well this is it.” She never worried anymore about me. [Emotional] When I told one man I had enlisted, he jumped onto me [and] said, “You are crazy. They are killing them off like flies. There won’t be one out of a hundred [who] will ever come back from there.” I said, “I will be that one of a hundred, then. If there is only one in a hundred, I will be that one.” He said, “I wish I had the faith that you have.” [Emotional] He said, “I will remind you of this talk if you ever come back.” So the first time I saw him after I came back, he said, “I have thought 02:25:00about that many a time.” [Emotional] [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] NF:I was running a concrete floor for a man and was short handed. I didn’t have enough men and I nearly worked myself to death that day. It was after dark when we finished. I had to finish it that night. I couldn’t leave it until morning. I [drove] my car home. I went home and had my supper. After supper I said, “I am going to have a bath and go right to bed. I am just give out.” I [was] out of the bathtub and just getting dressed. A pain hit me right there; just like somebody had jabbed a knife in my leg right on the shinbone. It kept hurting me. It pained until I could hardly stand it. I went to bed and it was still paining. Finally, I told my wife, 02:26:00“You better send for the doctor. Let him come and see if he can do anything for me.” The doctor came and examined me. He said, “I don’t know what it could be.” He gave me some pills to ease the pain, but I didn’t get any sleep. I couldn’t get any rest [from] it. The next morning my leg was swelling up. I telephoned for the doctor again. He came and looked at it. It was beginning to turn dark. He said, “We better take you to the hospital.” Two or three days [later], they cut it open. I felt the doctor digging in there. He dug a lot of stuff out of there and then put a lot of gauze in and sewed it up. It was October 16th [when] I went in the hospital. 02:27:00They let me out for Christmas Day. I had Christmas dinner, but they said I would have to come right back to the hospital the next day. The next day they cut thirty-two pieces of skin off my thigh to graft on [my leg] because it wouldn’t heal up. [It] finally healed up.

The next summer I met two sisters [who] were nurses. One of them was my day nurse and the other one my night nurse. I was going down the street with my carpenter overalls on and met [them]. They stopped me quite surprised. “What? Are you back to work now?” I said, “Yes. I have been working all summer.” “Is your leg all healed up?” I said, “Yes, it finally healed up. It is alright. It doesn’t bother me anymore now.” One of them said, “There were two nights that I didn’t 02:28:00think you would ever come out of the hospital alive.” About that time, I met a man [who] had been in the same room with me for a little while when I was worse. I met him at a stake conference. He wanted to know how I was. He said, “I didn’t think you would ever come out of that hospital alive when I was in there. I thought your end was [very] near.” FH:You fooled them all.

NF:Some years [earlier] in 1925, one Sunday afternoon I lost my horses and I had found them. We were taking them home and the pain hit me in the stomach and I was in pain all the rest of that day. I couldn’t eat any supper. If I did, I threw it up. The next morning, Monday, I went to see a doctor. The doctor examined 02:29:00me. He said, “I will give you a prescription for you to get some medicine. You better go home, go to bed and take care of yourself.” I [bought] the medicine and went home, took some of that medicine and went to bed. About three o’clock that afternoon I felt something break inside of me. I knew it broke. I could feel it just tingling to the ends of my fingers and my toes. I told my wife, “There is something broken in there. It is just going all through me, just making me sick as a horse. I want you to telephone the bishop and tell him to bring somebody out here to administer to me and to come with a rig so they can take me to the hospital.” She telephoned the bishop. [He] lived across the street from the creamery. His counselor was running 02:30:00the creamery. He went right across to the creamery. There was a farmer there with a team and buggy. He [found] his counselor. He said, “Brother Forsyth wants us to come out, administer to him and bring him in to the hospital.” They came out and administered to me and took me in to the hospital. That was Monday afternoon. Wednesday morning the doctor telephoned my wife that they were going to operate on me Thursday morning. He said, “We have to operate on him Thursday morning.” Thursday morning they didn’t give me any breakfast. After breakfast was over the nurse came in with a syringe and a water bottle full of water to give me an enema. She gave me that enema and [put] me on the bed pan. While I was on the bed pan I turned sick to my stomach. I said, “I have to have a wash bowl. I am sick to my stomach.” She hurried and brought a wash bowl. I filled the wash bowl and the bed pan both, 02:31:00just cleaned out everything there was in me. This was my third day in the hospital and I hadn’t slept hardly any. I had just been in pain and sick all the time. I couldn’t eat or sleep.’’ When that stuff [was] out of me I lay down and went to sleep. It was three or four o’clock in the afternoon when I woke up. As soon as the nurse found I was awake she came in. She said, “How do you feel?” I said, “I am alright. I am well. I want to go home.” She said, “The doctor is coming to operate on you. When he came this morning he couldn’t wake you up. So he said, ‘Let him sleep. When he wakes up, you call me and I will come and operate as soon as he wakes up.’” I said, “I don’t need an operation. I am well.” She said, “I will call the doctor.” The doctor came and started to question me. 02:32:00I said, “I am well. I don’t need an operation. I want something to eat.” After he talked to me for awhile, he said to the nurse, “You can give him some supper tonight, but don’t give him any breakfast until I come in the morning and see how he is.” They gave me supper that night. Then I had to wait until the doctor came the next morning to get any breakfast. The next morning I said, “I am alright. I am well. I want to go home.” He said, “You can’t go today, but we will see how you are tomorrow. You can have your meals and see how you get along.” Saturday I said, “I am well. I have to go home.” So they let me go home on Saturday.

Three weeks after my wife died, I got up one morning and washed and cleaned [myself] up ready to go to the temple. I started to fix my breakfast and I turned sick. I didn’t eat any breakfast. I thought I better not go 02:33:00to the temple this way. I went up to my sister’s-in-law and told her, “I was too sick to go to the temple this morning, but I think I will go down to the post office and get my mail. Maybe if I walk around a little, I will be better by noon.” So I went to the post office [for] my mail and went back home. I was feeling some better then. I thought: if I can eat some dinner, I will be alright to go to the temple this afternoon.

I fixed me some dinner. I sat down and started to eat and I hadn’t eaten but just a few bites when I turned sick and I had to go to the bathroom. When I was through at the bathroom, I telephoned to the doctor. He came over and examined me. He said, “I will have to take you to the hospital. I think maybe we will have to operate on you.” I went to the hospital. I thought I will soon be with my wife. My mother died 02:34:00just four weeks after father did. I thought we will probably be like father and mother were. I will soon be with her. I went to the hospital feeling quite happy thinking I would soon be with my wife. When he [came] to the hospital, he put me in a room and [put] me in bed. He said, “I will telephone to Dr. Larsen.” He was the surgeon. He said, “I will telephone to Dr. Larsen and see what he says.” [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] NF:Dr. Larsen gave me a thorough examination and must have given me something to put me to sleep. I didn’t know that they gave me anything. I never knew just what happened. The last I could remember, they were standing over by the door with their backs to me talking. I couldn’t hear what those two doctors standing there were saying. It was the last I could remember.

The next morning, I think it was around five o’clock, before daylight. 02:35:00On December 5th they took me to the hospital. This was December 6th. I woke up and I felt I had to go to the bathroom. I didn’t realize when I first woke up just where I was, but by the time I was awake enough to see where I was I could see I was in the hospital. I remembered that I had come to the hospital the day before. I started to get out of bed and my sister-in-law grabbed me. She said, “Here! What is the matter? What are you going to do?” I said, “I have to go to the bathroom.” She said, “You can’t go to the bathroom. I will call a nurse.” I said, “I don’t want a nurse.” I piled right out of bed and went to the bathroom. When I came back she said, “You should not have done that. Didn’t you know they operated on you?” I said, “No.” She said, “They operated on you at seven o’clock last night. They sent for me to come 02:36:00and stay with you.” I said, “I knew I felt sore down there, but I didn’t know I had been operated on.” I walked around. I was only in the hospital ten days until I went home. When I had been in there a week, my son came to my room to see when they were going to let me out. The doctor was there. The doctor said, “There is still some inflammation in his bowels and we can’t let him go until we get that cleared up. We want to get that inflammation cleared up and it will be two or three days before he can go home.” I said, “Inflammation of the bowels. Didn’t you take my appendix out?” [END OF RECORDING FIVE.] FH:He said, “We took out what there was in there, 02:37:00but he said it was just a little bit of dried stuff that had been in there for years. Your appendix had broken.” It broke way back in 1925 and this was in 1962. I knew that something broke inside of me. He said, “That appendix had been broken for years and it was a little dried up stuff there that had caused inflammation of the bowels.” I [was released after] I had been in there just ten days. They let me go down to my son. My son took me down to his place Saturday night. I went to church with him on Sunday. Monday his wife brought me back up to Cardston and I went to eleven sessions of the temple that week — Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Friday I went back down to my son’s place. That night I telephoned to Great Falls [Canada] for an airplane to Salt Lake [City]. I telephoned my daughter in Salt Lake [City] and told her I would be in Salt Lake [City] at 5:45 02:38:00Saturday night and for them to meet me at the airport. I went to Salt lake [City] and stayed there until January 10, . I came on down here on January 10th [and] have been going like that ever since.

RF:He wanted somebody like me to go with him, though.

NF:I married her on August 5, 1964.

FH:What is her name?

NF:[Her name is] Ruth (Spencer) Rasmussen Forsyth. She has taken care of me. People in St. George say that I look younger, act younger and better than I did [before] I married her. She sure has been good for me. She is better than any doctor. She has done more for me now than any doctor has done.

FH:Have you had a good life with her here?

NF:I sure have. I had a good life 02:39:00with my first wife, too. We had a wonderful life together.

FH:Do you have your future all mapped out? What do you want to do the rest of your life?

NF:We figure on doing temple work most of the time. We don’t make any definite plans to where we will go or what we will do. A week ago Monday one of her nieces came here with her husband in the afternoon. They stayed with us Monday night. By the time we were ready to go to bed, we planned that we would go with them up to Aurora [Sevier County, Utah]. Her niece’s mother was up there. My wife hadn’t seen her for quite awhile and said she would like to go up and see her, her sister-in-law. Her husband was dead and she was a widow. Ruth’s brother had died some time 02:40:00ago and left her a widow.

We left Tuesday morning and went up to with them. On Thursday, there was a man there that had told me he would take me over to Wayne County [Utah] to see the Forsyth Reservoir. There had been a reservoir built where we used to run our dairy. I had never been there to see it. It was built after we left there. He told me he and his wife would take us over there on Saturday. Thursday, Ruth started talking about coming back to St. George. We hadn’t found a way to go on up north. We wanted to go up there and visit our grandchildren in Provo and visit our folks in Salt Lake [City], but we hadn’t found anybody [who] was going [up there]. So Thursday morning we started out to visit some of the people that we hadn’t visited. She said, “I think we better go back to St. George if we don’t find a way to go north.” I said, “I want to go over to see [the] Forsyth Reservoir before we go to St. George. I will go down and see [Mr.] Bastian and see 02:41:00if he can take us tomorrow.” We went down and I asked him about taking us tomorrow. He said, “My wife could have taken you today if we had known, but it is too late now to go and I have to go to Salt Lake [City] tomorrow. I just [received] a letter last night. I have to go to Salt lake [City] on business tomorrow so she couldn’t take you until Saturday.” We went on up to do some more visiting. [Later], I said, “I am going down and see [Mr.] Bastian again.” I went down and said, “Could you take us to Salt Lake [City] tomorrow?” “Yes, I would be glad to take you up there.” I said, “Alright. We will go to Salt Lake [City] with you.” That is the way we do.

FH:Isn’t it a wonderful thing that you are footloose and fancy free now? You can just live an 02:42:00enjoyable life.

NF:When I first talked to her about getting married, I said, “If I do get married again, I haven’t a home.” I had rented my home and told my sister-in-law I wouldn’t take another wife into that home because we had built it just the way it suited my wife. There was too much in there to remind me of her. So I had leased it to a man for a year. The next spring I sold it. I had already sold this home when I started to talk to her about getting married. I said, “I haven’t a home to take a woman to and I don’t want a home. I want to marry somebody that is young enough and well enough that when I want to go anyplace they can go with me. If it is very far, we will fly.” I fly about as much as I go any other way now or more. I had flown from Canada east and I had flown to Hawaii. I had flown to Vancouver [Canada] a couple of times. 02:43:00I had flown around quite a lot. I had already bought a ticket to fly to England before I talked to her about getting married. [END OF RECORDING SIX. END OF INTERVIEW.]