Interview with Frederick Cheney Van Buren

Frederick Cheney Van Buren was interviewed on May 15, 1969 in St. George, County, by Fielding H. Harris, a representative of Voices of Remembrance Foundation. He related his personal history of living in various parts of Utah and California.

FH:What is your full name?

FV:My name is Frederick Cheney Van Buren.

FH:What is your birth date?

FV:My birth date is September 26, 1883.

FH:Where were you born?

FV:I was born in Manti, Sanpete County, Utah.

FH:What was your father’s name?

FV:My father’s name was Andrew Cheney Van Buren.

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

FV:My mother’s name was Lovina Emeline (Cox) [Van Buren] FH:Can you tell [anything that] you remember from when you were a [young] boy? 00:01:00FV:When I was a [young] boy, my father was a farmer. I was doing the harrowing on a pulverizing harrow while he was sowing the seed. [: an agricultural implement with spike like teeth or upright disks, drawn chiefly over plowed land to level it, break up clods, root up weeds, etc.] One of the horses threw the bridle off [while] fighting flies. The bridle didn’t have a throat latch on. She threw her head back and the bridle came off. I thought I could catch her and keep her from running so I stepped on the doubletrees. [Doubletree: a pivoted bar with a whiffletree attached to each end, used in harnessing two horses abreast.] She saw me and jumped and jerked the doubletrees from under my feet. I slipped down behind the doubletrees and went on to the harrow. She jumped and the other horse jumped and pulled the doubletrees back on my chest. The horses started to trot. My father [saw] the predicament while I was screaming. He ran about 00:02:00100 yards before he [could] get the horses stopped.

FH:It is a wonder you weren’t killed.

FV:[It] was soft plowed ground so it wasn’t so bad. It scraped my belly some.

FH:I bet it did. And the harrow was right on your back?

FV:The harrow was right on my back.

FH:I think there must have been a guardian angel walking along with you.

FV:I hope so.

FH:Do you remember any other experiences in those earlier years?

FV:We had the experiences of a country boy. Some of them were good. Some of them were bad. Some of them were silly. Some of them were mischievous.

FH:Yes, most boys have a little mischief in them.

FV:For instance, we took a wagon apart [one] New Year’s night. We took it all apart, pulled it up on the schoolhouse a part at a time and put it together. One of the old farmers said, “How in the hell did they 00:03:00get that up there?” FH:[Laughter] You knew! So you did some mischief then and enjoyed it.

FV:Some of it I am ashamed of now.

FH:I guess every boy does some things like that. Where did you go to school?

FV:I went to school at the Orangeville Grade School. There were only five grades. We called it the fifth reader. That was the highest that I ever [went] in elementary school. After that, I went to high school at the Castle Dale Academy in Emery [County, Utah]. The principal of the academy, at that time, was the brother of Benjamin Cluff, Jr., who was the principal of BYU [Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah County, Utah].

FH:Yes.

FV:He had two brothers with him, Foster and Walter. Walter was a young teacher who was, not married. We went with some girls from Price [Carbon County, Utah]. He asked me if I would go to Price and bring the girls over for the commencement exercise in 1898. 00:04:00I told him I would go over if he would furnish the outfit. He said, “I will not only furnish you the outfit, but I will give you your credit in algebra if you will go.” FH:Wonderful! [Laughter] FV:I said, “You have yourself a deal!” So I went and got the girls. He later married Gertrude Miller, who was the daughter of Ruben G. Miller, the president at that time, of [the] Emery [LDS] Stake. This was in the days before the Carbon Stake [was] separated from the Emery Stake.

FH:Do you feel that you had good teachers and [a] good [education]?

FV:They were good teachers, very good teachers.

FH:Did you enjoy school?

FV:Yes, I enjoyed schoolwork. Those were in the days of President Karl G. Maeser [at] BYU. 00:05:00He was our commencement speaker.

FH:He was a powerful man, wasn’t he?

FV:Yes, he was. Later, when they sent me to Beaver [Beaver County, Utah] I had his children in school. They were children of Reinhard Maesar, his oldest son.

FH:Did you ever [experience] anything in those years that you would consider to be funny or amusing? Can you think of anything like that?

FV:Yes. I was shearing sheep when I was sixteen years old. We were shearing down across the Colorado River at . They plowed a furrow down from the mouth of the canyon to the shearing bend to furnish water. When the water [was] kind of clear, I [could] lie down [and] get a good drink of fresh spring water. A Mexican was there named Carny. He came 00:06:00along and saw me drinking out of that ditch and he stepped on my head and smashed my face down into the water.

FH:[Laughter] FV:I was just a [youngster and] I couldn’t do anything, so I just laughed it off. Later, we moved down to Brocks. Brocks was the station on the way to Fort Duchesne in Summit County (Utah). In those days, they had two forts to take care of the Mormons. One was at Fort Duchesne in Summit County [Utah] and the other one was Fort Cameron, in the mouth of Beaver Canyon [Beaver County, Utah]. We were having a rough time shearing wet sheep and [had to] wait for the sheep to dry. I was on the fence on the opposite side of where the fun was taking place. Someone had bet one of the boys, a fellow who was drunk, that he could not put the billy goat’s 00:07:00nose on the floor. The billy goat was used for loading the pens with sheep. He would enter and the sheep would follow him in. He would jump out, come around and then load another pen. He got on the billy goat with his bangs down over the billy goat’s forehead. He was trying to teeter his nose on the ground. Every time he teetered down, the billy goat turned his chin up under his throat.

Finally, the billy goat got tired of him teetering on his head, so he dropped his head and the fellow slipped down on his hands and knees. He butted him in the back end of the lap and down he went on his belly. When he got up, he butted him again. He got up and he butted him again. Finally, I jumped down from where I was on the opposite side [and] ran around to climb up on the fence. It happened that this Carny, the Mexican who had stepped on my head, was sitting on the top board of the fence. I took hold of the board, not noticing that he was there. The boards were nailed to old rotten pine. Too late — I pulled the board off and he landed on the back of his 00:08:00lap in the ditch.

FH:[Laughter] You paid him back!

FV:I got him paid back. He chased me, but I ran. All of the boys working out that way always carried guns in those days. I was afraid of him so I went down where my camp was down on the creek. It was called the Many Creek. I saw him skulking in the cottonwood trees below. I thought he was probably going to use his machete. He had one about twelve inches long. I lay down on the pillow and washed. When I went out to throw the water out from the wash dish, I saw him jump behind the tree. I reached back, got the gun, and shot into the tree three times. He came out with his hands up, saying, “Amigo! Amigo! Amigo!” FH:He changed quickly, didn’t he?

FV:I said, “Carny, I didn’t know you were behind that tree.” That was a little white lie, but it scared him so he left that afternoon. 00:09:00FH:[Laughter] That was a very interesting story. Did you have any military service of any kind?

FV:I was in the Utah National Guard for two years. It was a cavalry unit then. We were bivouacked at Fort Russell in Wyoming. We had a mean horse that we called The Kaiser. He finally got away and stepped on a board. He put two men in the hospital [who were] trying to take that board with the nail out of his foot. We let him go and they caught him afterwards. I think they killed him. I don’t know. 00:10:00[Once] I was trying to curry him when the major came along. He swore at me and said, “Private, don’t you know anything about horses?” I stepped back and saluted him and said, “Not that kind, sir.” He said, “Give me that currycomb.” I gladly handed it over to him. He went up [to the horse] and said, “Whoa, you G.D.S. of a B.!” He slapped that horse on the ribs with that currycomb. The horse whirled and kicked him right in the back of the hip. [It] broke his hip and knocked him about fifteen feet. He didn’t say any more. I suppose he went to the hospital and they fixed him up. He learned the hard way.

FH:You bet he did. In your military service, did you leave this part of the country?

FH:How did you come out on your marksmanship?

FV:I made expert. 00:11:00FH:That is as good as there is.

FV:[That] was an interesting experience. We were shooting on the 1,000-yard range and the wind was blowing about thirty-eight miles per hour cross range. Nobody was hitting the target, let alone the bull’s eye. When it came my time to go down on my target, I followed a lady who was shooting with her husband, E. T. Crossman. He was the [inaudible] rifleman for [the] [Repeating Arms] Company of New Haven, Connecticut. She got up before he did. I heard him say he was going to hold on the bull’s eye and let it hit where it pleased. He shot and they pulled my target that I was going down on and marked the bull’s eye on it. I thought that the wind was blowing his bullet off sixteen feet, so I went down and aimed at the bull’s eye 00:12:00on his target. I made nine straight bull’s eyes, which was the highest score made on the rifle range that day out of 3,800 fellas, but it was just a dunce’s hunch. I happened to hit it right.

FH:Very good. Did you feel that your military service was a waste of time? Did you like it? How did you feel about it?

FV:They offered me [the rank of] captain to see if I would make another enlistment. I told them I wouldn’t go back in if they gave me the whole army. I had had enough.

FH:What has been your life’s occupation?

FH:How did you get your 00:13:00training for this?

FV:I started [at the] Beaver [Academy when] I was sent there in 1903. That was where I became interested in coaching. I went to the in 1904 for twelve weeks. I came back and taught. In 1906 I went to the for twelve weeks. I came back and went to the University of Utah [Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah] for seven summers and two years. I also went to BYU for two half-years. In 1912 I [received] a fellowship at in ] for a year. That is where I finished up with Dr. Bourne, who was probably the leading physical diagnostician in the world at that time.

FH:Yes. You had some wonderful training.

FV:On the strength of that, they sent a man up from the [United States] Naval Academy looking for an instructor. In a week, he sent me a contract from the Naval Academy. I turned it down because I wanted to come to and work [at] Deseret Gymnasium [Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah]. I also [received] a contract from Reed College in Oregon. I turned that down too 00:14:00[and] came to BYU. At one of the summer sessions there, Benny Harker, who was my very close friend said, “Why don’t you put in an application for the directorship of the Deseret Gymnasium and I will put in an application for your wrestling coach?” I put in the application for the directorship, but [they selected a fellow who] was a local boy and had married one of the apostle’s sons. They gave him both jobs. Now, I didn’t [have] any [job].

I came back to and [put in] an application [at] in St. George for coaching. 00:15:00I signed [a contract]. It wasn’t long before I [received] a telegram from the Deseret Gymnasium in Salt Lake [City] to come there and take [the job]. Benny Harker had been killed in a motorcycle accident. I went there in 1920 and I was there four years until 1924. Then I came back to the south and did two or three more coaching jobs [at] Parowan High School in Iron County. Then they wanted me to go to Beaver. I had a little difficulty with the [school] board over some students. They wanted to change my course and take coaching away from me. I told them they couldn’t do that. That was my major. If I left at all, I would leave it all. I left there and went to Beaver. I was principal of Beaver High School in Beaver, Utah for another year. While I was there, I [received] a telegram from Weber 00:16:00College in Ogden [Weber County] to come take the other Church [of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] gymnasium. In 1924 I went to and was there for four years. I consider that was really the best job that I ever had. I am the only one [who] has ever been the director of both of the church’s big gymnasiums.

FH:That is a record.

FV:At the time, they were ready to turn the junior colleges back over to the state [of Utah]. I lost my job at when they turned it back over to the state.

I went to and put in an application at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Mr. Hathaway and Mr. Garbit, his father-in-law, were the owners. They wanted me to demonstrate [my skills]. I told them that if they would furnish a class and a pianist, I would do what I could. They asked the director 00:17:00at work if he would let me take [his] class. I took the class and told the women if they would help me, it would probably do some good in helping me get a job in at the Pacific Coast Club. At that time, the Los Angeles Athletic Club owned eight units. They owned the Hollywood Athletic Club, the Surf and Sand, Santa Monica, Doleville, Pacific Coast Club, Bakersfield Gun Club, the Riviera, and the Los Angeles Athletic Club. They owned all of those.

They were satisfied with my work, so I went to Long Beach. I had to wait for one-half of a year. During that half year, I [found] a job coaching at the USC [University of Southern California] Dental College under Dean Ford. When the half year was over, I went 00:18:00to the Pacific Coast Club in Long Beach. I was there for fifteen years. After I was finished there, I took a job in town for another three or four years, but I worked in the shipyard. During those four years, they excused me from the Pacific Coast Club while I worked in the shipyard. I worked for Calship [Consolidated Shipbuilding Corporation] for four years. I worked at night [the entire time] — two years [on the] swing shift, and two [years on the] graveyard [shift]. FH:Was this during the war?

FV:[It] was during World War II. They built [approximately] 464 ships. We built twenty attack transports. They were armed. I got to be quite a shipbuilder. They put me on the assembly line. I took the pieces at the 00:19:00back rear cranes and brought them out to the ship. I told them where to put them and how to lower them. We welded them there, suspended, and they had to be burned off around the edges so they would fit the deck. Then we lowered them on the deck and welded them down. I worked on the assembly line until the work was finished.

FH:This was rather unusual work for an athletic coach.

FV:That was the first industrial work that I ever did, but I had quite a yen for it, I found out. I liked it.

FH:During all of these years, have you been active in the church?

FV:I belonged to the Long Beach Ward. I was on the High Council in for twelve years. When I came back to the Parowan Stake in , they put me on the Parowan Stake High Council for another six years. I [have] served eighteen years on the High Council. I made regular visits to the temple while I was doing that work.

FH:Were you also active in the church when you were growing up?

FV:I went to the church school, the Beaver Branch of BYU [Murdock Academy], for five years.

FH:Yes. You came right up through the ranks of [the] Priesthood and were 00:20:00active in all of the organizations.

FV:I never was a deacon that I remember. I think I was ordained a priest first. I can’t remember that. I would have to look at my certificate. I may be mistaken on that. I think I was a deacon for awhile.

FV:My father fought all through the Blackhawk Indian War. He was not only a good farmer, he was good Indian fighter. He had a code all of his own. For instance, they came back from Grass Valley [Washington County, Utah], where he had killed three Indians. He had been sent to 00:21:00guard a trail. When the shooting stopped up on the hill, his partners went up there. They hadn’t any more than left [when] there come four Indians down the trail. He shot at them with his gun, but he said he didn’t think he even frightened them. He knew that something had to happen. So he sat down and took his cap and ball six-shooter, put his elbows on his knees and shot as they came up. One of them fell, [but] they kept coming. They didn’t know where the shots were coming from. As they came on, he shot and down [went] another [Indian]. The other two saw him and they detoured and ran across [to the hill]. As they ran over the hill, he shot at the two. He [shot] one of them in the heel. They caught two Indians and were going to execute them in Nephi [Juab County, Utah]. He didn’t know it was the same Indians. The Indians told him [because] the Indians knew him. He was 00:22:00delegated to shoot these two Indians and he wouldn’t do it. They courtmartialed him because he wouldn’t shoot a tied-up Indian. He said that if they would turn them loose he would try to get his share, but he wouldn’t shoot a tied-up Indian. He didn’t want to be executioner, but they courtmartialed him. There wasn’t much they could do because they needed all of the men and he was a good Indian fighter. It wasn’t very serious.

FH:Was your father a kindly person?

FV:He was a very kindly person. He used tobacco all of his life and I suppose that is where I got a yen for the smell of tobacco. 00:23:00If I could smell my father’s cigarettes, I knew that help was close. While it was taboo as far as the church was concerned, I associated it with my father. I loved my father very much.

FH:I can see that.

FV:My father’s [father] was Cheney Garrett Van Buren. His mother was Lucy (Phillips) Van Buren. Lucy Phillips was the first child of a couple who had been married before. Her mother’s name was Phillips and her father’s name was Baker. Right after they were married, that is the name she took. They each had ten children. They married each other and had four girls after they were married. 00:24:00She was the oldest of the four girls.

FV:Later, Rufus Crane Baker died and left an estate. My father shared in the estate, which helped out in his old age. Finally, he died in 1877 of uremic poisoning. [Uremic poisoning is a term to loosely describe the illness accompanying kidney failure.] FH:Tell a little bit about your mother. What do you remember about her?

FV:My mother was Lovina Emeline (Cox) [Van Buren]. She was the daughter of Cordelia (Morley) [Cox]. Cordelia Morley was the fourth child of Isaac Morley. They lived in when Joseph and Emma [Smith] came [there]. He lived with them the first year [in Ohio]. 00:25:00Later, she was sealed to him, although she was married the same day as her friend, Jemima Losee, to Walter Cox as his second and third wives.

FH:Oh yes, I see. She was [Walter] Cox’s second wife then.

FV:She was [Walter] Cox’s [third] wife. His first wife was Emeline Whiting. His second wife was Jemima Losee. His third wife was Cordelia Morley. His fourth wife was Lydia Losee, a sister to Jemima.

FH:How do you feel about your mother? What kind of a person was she?

FV:My mother was a very beautiful woman. She had a dark complexion. Her eyes were brown. That is where I got my brown eyes. For a time, when I was a [boy], I thought she was too strict and I used to lie to her. She put some money on the mantelpiece. She had forgotten where she put it. She whipped me for stealing it. 00:26:00That was an unfortunate thing because she had misjudged me. [Emotional] She found out [where the money really was]. She [had] put it in the clock instead of under the vase.

FH:[Do] you have a great deal of love for your mother?

FH:How many children did your parents have?

FV:My mother and father had seven children.

FH:Can you name those children?

FV:The first one was Loretta Lovina [Van Buren]. The second one was Arthur Andrew [Van Buren]. The third one was Verona Geneva [Van Buren]. She died when she was twelve years old. The fourth one was Chester Granville [Van Buren]. 00:27:00He went exploring to in 1900 with the BYU expedition. The next one was Kate Leone [Van Buren]. I was the next one. My brother [Vernon Van Buren] was the last one. He was the youngest [child].

FV:They are all dead but Kate. Kate is alive [and living] in the old folks’ home in Roy, Weber County [Utah]. She is a little older than me by two years. She still has her faculties as far as I know. She did when I was there last. I will be eighty-six in four more months [and] she will be eighty-eight before very long. She [was] had eleven children. 00:28:00FH:Talk some more about when you were growing up. Did you have any fun when you were a youngster?

FV:Yes, I used to have fun. We used to go to Huntington [Emery County, Utah] to see our sweethearts over there. One time I went over with a boy by the name of Ed Johnson. His father’s sister had married my mother’s brother, so we were pert near related. We were going over to see the Killpack girls. He furnished one of the horses and I furnished one. His horse hadn’t been worked and it was about twelve miles over there. That was quite a drive to go in an hour. His horse got so lame and crippled up going over, that coming back she fell and broke her shoulder. We had to come on in with a buggy tied to one horse. Later we had to go back and kill his horse and drag it off in the hills. 00:29:00FH:That was a shame.

FV:That was our principle pastime from the time that we were about fourteen or fifteen [years old]. We had our girls in every town.

FH:Did you go to any dances?

FV:I used to always go to dances on Friday night. I used to be quite a dancer. I remember taking a waltz prize dancing with my cousin, Jenny Reed. [When] I came to Beaver, they put me in charge of the dances and we rejuvenated some of the old quadrilles. I had an experience there. It was just following the time when the garrison of soldiers at Fort Cameron, the other of the two forts, was in Utah 00:30:00to take care of [breaking up] the polygamists. They came up with the idea of breaking up our dance. They stopped their team and wagon right in front of the barracks where we were dancing and drank their liquor. [The dance] was in one of the old soldiers’ barracks. It happened that the girls in the group were the daughters of a milliner who was the wife of Ed Thompson, the deputy marshal [who] killed a polygamist in Parowan, Ed Dutton. People didn’t like him at all. Nobody liked him because he was anti-Mormon. He was a red hot Mormon hater.

His girls were partners with Lindsay, Billy and Joe Hardy. These girls had hats on that their mother was selling. They were the big, wide-brimmed beaver hats with a low crown. 00:31:00They had hat pins that were about twelve or thirteen inches long. She had a hat pin stuck through the crown of [her hat]. In bobbing her head, laughing and kidding around, she jabbed a [fellow] in the face. He came and whined to me [as] I was in charge of the dance. [He] said, “I don’t think that those girls ought to be allowed on the floor with those long spears in their hats.” It looked to me like a timely thing to speak of, so I asked them please not to go on [the floor] with those long hat pins. She and Billy Hardy went on and I put them off the floor and told them to stay off until they could do as we asked them to do. Well, I looked around and Professor Hickman, then president of the Beaver Branch — he had it changed to — 00:32:00was right in the midst of a melee with Billy Hardy. I looked around just in time to see Billy go down the first time. Before I got down there, Hickman had knocked him down the third time, and the third time he stayed down. He started crawling for the door and everybody took a kick at him wherever they could kick. Finally, he and Joe were out and the rest of their sympathizers, I supposed, although I wasn’t out there. I locked the door and we went on dancing. We danced until 1:00 that morning. President John R. Murdoch [put] his arm around me the next day and said, “Brother Van Buren, the capitalist stock of the went up 100% last night.” FH:[Laughter] That was about right, too.

FV:That was right. [Laughter] FH:When you were in school and growing up in —. 00:33:00[END OF RECORDING ONE.] 00:34:00FV:— with my behind and broke two of his ribs, so he lost the wrestling match [Laughter] I [had] quite a reputation that was far beyond my ability.

FH:[Laughter] That was a lot of fun, anyway.

FV:When I was in the Pacific Coast Club in Long Beach, I had two wrestlers go to the national tournament. One of them [placed] first in his weight [class]. I also had two boxers who were in the Golden Gloves. One of them placed first. They were brothers, the [inaudible] boys. 00:35:00FH:Was athletics a big thing in your life?

FH:Wow!

FV:They were all swimmers. My youngest daughter, Fred’s [a grandson] mother, did the backstroke, the second daughter did the breaststroke, and the third daughter did the crawl stroke. She lives in Enterprise [Washington County, Utah] now. She had a family of seven [children] and was an expert swimmer. Their records stand well 00:36:00even today in after thirty years.

FH:Now tell about music in your life. Has it meant much to you?

FV:I led the dance orchestra for awhile in Parowan. We danced every Saturday night. I led the choir in the Parowan Second Ward for three years, but the first choir leading that I ever [did] was [at] the Emery Stake Academy. I had choral work. I used to sing [in] what was known as the DMV male quartet. It was made of Dunn, Mitchell, and Van Buren — DMV. They called [us] The DMV.

FH:Very good!

FV:People of Beaver remember that quartet because we sang for political rallies and [events] of that kind.

FH:[Did] they use you quite a lot?

FV:Yes, we [had] a chance to sing quite a lot. 00:37:00FV:I have used [music] in the gymnasiums [while] putting on shows. We put on what we called the gym circus every fall. We put on a water pageant every spring after we [had] some swimmers. We generally used a generous supply of music in all of the pieces for the choruses and so on. Those choruses I directed myself.

FH:You had to be a very versatile person to do this work.

FV:I don’t know about that, but I did the work.

FH:What about reading? Have you enjoyed reading?

FV:Yes. I read all of the church works. 00:38:00I have read all of the books that were written by this [W. Cleon] Skousen. He has written four [books and] I have read all of them. I have read [about] the church history. I have an interesting [collection]. I have twelve different kinds of bibles. I have been quite a bible student in finding the differences between the bibles. It starts out with Luther’s bible, with the Emphatic Diaglott first. [The Emphatic Diaglott is a diaglot, or two-language polyglot translation, of the New Testament by Benjamin Wilson, first published in 1864.] This particular book I have is 100 years old. I [also] have Luther’s bible in [the] German [language]. I have the Catholic Douay bible. I have the English Revised. I have the King James [Version]. I have the Moffatt and Scofield [bibles]. I have the Jehovah’s Witness bible, which is a very interesting [book]. That is a copy of the Eastern Bible used by the Eastern Catholic Church. 00:39:00FH:Yes.

FH:Do you read German also?

FV:I haven’t taken German. I have taken French, Spanish and Italian. I only have a very poor reading knowledge. I can read titles and things of that kind, but I have taken Latin because of the study that I have made of the bible.

FV:I have outlined the bible on a piece of surveyors’ cross-section paper. It is about thirty-feet feet long. When I found out the bible is as important as it is — no history has been written that is worthy of the name but what has depended on the bible for 00:40:00a lot of their work — I decided that I would make a diagram of world history. I made it on a piece of surveyors’ paper about thirty-five feet long. I outlined what happened [during] each century, as near as I can tell. I have that to pass on to my grandchildren. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] FH:What else have you done in the way of writing historical works?

FV:I have all of my genealogy books. I have a Book of Remembrance of all of my [children’s] activities and I have a scrapbook. I have turned them over to my granddaughter in because I can’t write now at all. I have turned them over to her on [April] 7, and she has them all up there. There is a group in the family — which is interesting. I was down to see them 00:41:00three years ago. The group is what we call Ann Darrow group. Ann Darrow and her husband, Edmund Darrow were converts to the church. They started out in with the Presbyterian [Church]. They got as far as and they lost their team. They were stranded there and a group of Mormons came along and asked them if they wanted to go to Salt Lake [City]. They had never heard anything kindly about the Mormons and were a little worried about it, but they finally decided to go to Salt Lake [City]. Her husband was an officer in the Presbyterian Church and the 00:42:00requirement that they put on him was that he couldn’t keep his job if they had more than two children. He had himself sterilized so he wouldn’t have any more than two children. When they got down there, they came so close to starving to death that the women from Salt Lake [City] came out with food for them. They were living down on the Jordan River just west of the [Utah State] Penitentiary there.

There were two or three [events] that happened that marked her as quite an individual. She was going home one day and heard terrible crying and screaming. She went inside of an enclosure and Indian braves were shooting arrows at a little baby girl. This little baby girl was sitting on her dead mother’s body and they were shooting at her. It happened later that she [the baby] was identified as the granddaughter 00:43:00of Chief Tintic. [Chief Tintic was a Goshute Indian. There is a mining district named after him, north of ].

This Ann Darrow took the baby and gave the Indian boys that were shooting at her probably $6.00 or $8.00 for the baby. She raised the baby. She took the name of Kate Alduras who was Chief Tintic’s daughter. She finally married and had a daughter. Her name was Edith Richardson. She finally went into the Canadian Indian Service, and I guess she is somewhere in now. That was Chief Tintic’s family.

FH:[Did] she raise that girl?

FV:When she found out about polygamy and how these women had children, immediately she had a yen for more children, but that was out of the question. She couldn’t have any more because her husband was sterile. She finally thought about it, 00:44:00cried about it and prayed about it. Finally, someone suggested that she go and ask Brigham Young about it, so she did. Brigham Young was sympathetic with her and said, “The only thing that you can do is divorce your husband and marry a polygamist.” She said, “Who?” He gave her three choices. One was my grandfather, Frederick Walter Cox. Another one was Orville Sullivan Cox and the [third choice] was Whiting. He was from the family of my grandfather’s first wife, Emeline Whiting. She chose my grandfather, but my grandfather wasn’t particularly anxious to marry her because he already had four women. Finally, Brigham Young became insistent. She got the divorce from her husband and married my grandfather. She had two sons from grandfather. One was named Charles Edmond Richardson and the other one was named Calvin Sutherland 00:45:00Richardson. In 1872 Ann Darrow died. In 1874 her husband Edmund Darrow died. It left these two boys orphaned. They went to Manti to ask their older brother what they should do. He said that the best thing to do was to go to with the crowd of immigrants [who] were going. So they went to Arizona. First, they went to Chihuahua in Mexico. When the Mexicans rerouted they drove them out of Mexico. Finally, the boys grew up there, Charles Edmund and Calvin Sutherland, [and] married. Each one of them was a polygamist. Calvin Sutherland had 00:46:00three wives. One of them was a Whiting girl. Of the other two women, one of them had ten children and the other one had fifteen. It looked like Ann Darrow knew what she wanted. Charles Edmond had four wives. I think it was one of his wives [who] had fifteen [children]. Uncle Calvin — we called him “Sully” — one of his wives had twelve children. The woman who belonged to Charles Edmond had fifteen [children]. Grandfather had more children out of those two boys than he had out of the rest of his children put together. He had over seventy grandchildren.

FH:Isn’t that something?

FV:They had a family reunion of the two families that came from Ann Darrow. 00:47:00The family that came from Frederick Walter Cox and the one that came from Orville Cox, his brother. They met on April 21, 22, and 23, . They invited me down, but I couldn’t go because I was not physically able. I had been down [before] and those people there were the most lovely people that I ever saw. It was a relief. I have two cousins. One belonged to Uncle “Sully”, 00:48:00and the other belonged to Charles Edmund. Those two families live mostly now in Mesa, Arizona. They were the loveliest people I ever saw. I was with them for a week, and I didn’t see a cigar, a cigarette or a glass of beer. I didn’t hear a smutty story or a swear word in all the time that I was there. The women are beautiful. The two oldest daughters of that family [are named] Annie Johnson and the other one is Menorah Richardson. Her mother married Hans Richardson. She had ten children. She had seven girls and three boys. From those ten children she has over eighty grandchildren.

FV:So both families were prolific with a vengeance. 00:49:00We love them very, very much.

FV:Yes, I will tell you about it. When I went to Beaver I was one of a number of young teachers [who] had been sent down from BYU. Most of them found wives down [at] the Beaver branch of BYU. Of course, there was a lot of speculation about what was going to happen to me, especially among the teachers. Finally, there came into the school —we were just getting started — a covered wagon with three girls sitting in the front spring seat. Jokingly, I said, “Do you think there is a chance for me in that wagon?” This lady teacher said, “No, one of them is too old, 00:50:00one of them is engaged already and the other one is too young.” Well, the one that was engaged, I later married.

FH:[Laughter] FV:It really was a sweet romance. We played on the stage together in school plays. We went over to Panguitch [Garfield County, Utah] to a play on a Saturday night. We played Saturday night, but the idea was for us to come back after the play was over. We had a white-top buggy. That was in the days before automobiles. We were jogging. I was with my partner whom I played opposite whom I later married. Her name was Celia Jane Pendleton. We were jogging along in November and it was snowing when we were making the trip. There were two boys [in the group]. One was Fred Maeser, Karl G. Maeser’s grandson, and the other one was Horace Gunn. She stuck her head out from the blanket 00:51:00we were wrapped up in and said, “Horace, how would you like to be me?” He said, “I would a damn sight sooner be Van.” [Laughter] We were married on June 14, 1905 in the Manti Temple.

FH:Where did you make your home?

FV:We went out to Castle Dale to visit my people and stayed until fall. My father brought us back to Beaver with a team and wagon. We made our home [in] Beaver. That is where our first child was born. The Beaver school was at and we used the drill ground for [an] athletic field. There were two barracks on the west side that faced the campus and there were two [barracks] on the east side that faced the campus where the garrison soldiers were quartered. The hospital was on the northeast quarter. 00:52:00There were two bakeries on the east side, back up on the flat, and two laundries on the west side. There was a commissary and guardhouse in these barracks. We had our show in one of these barracks and danced in the other. The others we used for a classroom. I had the preparatory department. I had two classes in high school, physiology and algebra. That is where I caught up on the algebra that the teacher gave me [laughter] as a bonus for going over after our girls. We had a very, very sweet courtship and were married on June 14, 1905.

FH:How many children did you have?

FV:We had five [children].

FH:Will you name them and tell about each one?

FV:Jessie [Van Buren] was the oldest one. She was born on 00:53:00June 20, 1907. Gordon [Van Buren] was the second one and he was born on September 27. 1909 — the day after my birthday. Helen [Van Buren] was the third one. She was born on May 30, 1913. Vida [Van Buren] was the fourth one. She was born on May 31, 1915. Shirley [Van Buren] was the fifth one. She was born on January 22, 1919.

FH:What has happened 00:54:00to these children?

FV:They are all married. We were living on the ranch up at the Hoosier. We had a little bunch of sheep. My oldest daughter [Jessie] had to be with the sheep because I was in town taking care of the farm. She and her brother, Gordon, tended the sheep. She caught a bad cold in the latter part of July. We had some visitors [come] down from Salt Lake [City] and thought [them] to be diphtheria carriers according to the doctor. She got diphtheria and died on August 1 , 1921.

FH:I see.

FV:Gordon married a girl from Bountiful [Davis County, Utah]. He was a forest ranger 00:55:00in Idaho and Utah. He started in the White River Forest in [Uintah County] . He went to South Dakota and finally came back and was stationed in Denver [Colorado]. He had difficulties there for quite a long time, but he got them straightened out. Finally, this last year, [he] retired from the [United States] Forest Service after serving thirty-five years. At the present time, he is in Denver, Colorado. His daughter lost her husband and he had to go and take care of her. That is where he is now. She has a baby boy about a year old. He is just there temporarily.

FH:Where is his home really?

FV:I don’t remember the address, but it is in one of the suburbs of Denver. 00:56:00FH:Where are the other children?

FV:Vida was the next one. Vida married Barlow Wood from Clearfield [Davis County, Utah]. At the present time, they are living in Seal Beach, California. Shirley, after her first divorce, married Frank Henderson. He works in California and she lives here. She is raising two children by a [former] marriage. Her son, who has been in Viet Nam, is here. That is this boy here, my grandson, Fred. [Showing a photograph.] FH: Has he been in Viet Nam and come back?

FV:He wasn’t in military [service] there. He was working for the Philco [Corporation]. 00:57:00FH:Has your life been pretty much devoted to the directing of athletics?

FV:Yes. I have directed athletics and physical education since I left Beaver in 1908.

FH:Have you been holding close to the church for all of those years?

FV:Yes.

FH:You spoke about being on two High Councils.

FV:Yes. I coached [at] Parowan High [School], [at] Weber College, [at] Beaver and I coached for the athletic club in for fifteen years.

FH:Do you feel you have learned any lessons from [your] life?

FV:Yes. One lesson that I have learned 00:58:00is that you had better do what the Lord tells you to do. It doesn’t make any difference what it is, you had better do it. I think that I was somewhat careless in some of the things that I did. When I was at the Weber Gymnasium in , my wife’s youngest brother married Eileen Byrne. She was a [young] girl [who] went to Weber College. In the course of time, she had a baby, but the doctor didn’t take very good care of her during that period and she got dropsy. [Dropsy, now known as edema, is an abnormal accumulation of fluid beneath the skin or in one or more cavities of the body that produces swelling.] When it was nearing her time of confinement, the doctor said the baby had died and he would have to take it. The grandmother wanted to go out because she [had] called in the elders two or three weeks before. The elders had blessed this 00:59:00[young] girl and promised her that she would go through the ordeal naturally, that the baby would live and she would live. I have got to go back a little farther. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF FV:She called me at the gymnasium and asked me to come out there and see that the doctor didn’t touch her until she had a chance to get this elder. She finally came after she had been gone a half-hour. The doctor was angry with me. He threatened me with a lawsuit and that sort of thing. Finally, she came with the elder. I didn’t know the elder at the time and I can’t remember his name now. He wanted me to anoint the sick woman and then he would seal the anointing. In the sealing of the anointing, even in the face of what the doctor had said — [the doctor] said that the baby was dead and she would die within an hour if something wasn’t done. 01:00:00[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] FV:In five minutes after we took our hands off the mother’s head, the baby was born, but it was dead. He just laid it on the bed and it was as black as your boot. He steered his attention to bringing her back. She passed right out to unconsciousness. After some time, she began to come out of it and he tried to get her into a new position. The baby had not yet been moved from the foot of the bed. He swore at the nurse and told her to take it out [because] it was dead. She picked it up in a diaper and carried it [to] the kitchen while we were all in tears. The grandmother wanted the baby blessed and named. I didn’t see any percentage in blessing a dead baby, 01:01:00but I went along with it because the price [was] to have the baby born according to his promise. She brought the baby in. We took the baby wrapped up in the napkin, we blessed it and gave it its father’s name. His name was Rulon. When we had finished the blessing, someone said, “It is a girl! It isn’t a boy! It will have to be blessed again.” We made arrangements to bless it again. His name was Rulon and her name was Eileen. We took the first of his name, Rulon, and the last of her name and called her Ruleen and blessed her. I could feel that life was coming into her then. Finally, she screamed and started to breathe. Everybody was in tears. 01:02:00The doctor came to the door. He heard her scream and he collapsed in the door.

He lived just through the block south of where I lived. I lived on the north street and he lived on the south street. The next day, I was working on the back lot. He came to the metal fence and called me over. He said, “What did you fellows do with that baby yesterday?” I said, “You were there. You saw what went on.” He said, “No, I didn’t see all that went on. Did you resuscitate it at all?” I said, “No, we didn’t resuscitate it.” Well, he swore and said that it must have been ten minutes. I said, “I don’t have any argument with you, doctor, about that. The important thing is that the baby is alive. It came to life while we were blessing it and we gave it its mother’s name 01:03:00and father’s name combined.” He said, “It must have been ten minutes.” I said, “I don’t have any argument at all. I think it was a long time.” I was as surprised and astonished to see it as he was. He said, “I don’t know what happened, but you have something that I don’t know anything about. I have learned one thing. First, I want to apologize for my rudeness to you yesterday. Next, I want you to be assured that whenever I have anything to do where the Mormons are concerned, I will wait until they do their praying or their ordinance work or whenever they do before I do mine.” The baby is alive now and she has five children in Torrance, California. Her husband is president of the stake there. I have a picture of her with her children and their names in my 01:04:00Book of Remembrance. That was a real miracle.

FH:With the power of the Priesthood and the help of Lord, just about anything is possible, isn’t it?

FV:I don’t have any other explanation for it. I say that unhesitatingly. The thing that I have learned is you had better do what the Lord tells you.

FH:Is this the kind of council that you would like to give to your children and grandchildren? What else would you like to tell them?

FV:That is all they need to know. Just do what the prophets say. Of course, they have to believe in the prophets to believe [what] the Lord [has] told them. Once it is done, you do what the Lord tells you through his prophets. FH:Would you like to do anything 01:05:00further in terms of bearing your testimony?

FV:I just know that the work is true, that is all. They called me in on an accident. We were close to the gymnasium in Long Beach. We were close to the Rainbow Pier [in Long Beach]. The tide came in bringing an enormous amount of sand. Sometimes it fills up in places where you swam yesterday, but you can’t swim today because it is not deep enough. A boy of about ten or twelve years old dove off of the Rainbow Pier and hit in the shallow water and broke his neck. They called me over from the club to administer to him there. In the administration, I promised him that he would get well. That bothered me because I begged and pled in the prayer that I said not to say 01:06:00anything that was detrimental or that wouldn’t happen. [END OF RECORDING TWO.] FV:I had prayed that I wouldn’t say anything in my administration that was contrary or wouldn’t come true. Unwittingly, this promise that he would get well came out. I worried and worried about it all that day and into the next day, but the boy got better. He got well, so I just know beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is power in the Priesthood. That is all that you need to know. When the prophets tell you what to do, you had better do it. It doesn’t make any difference what it is.

FH:How long has it been since you’ve lost your companion? 01:07:00FV:Missed her? My light went out when she died.

FV:I think so. I think so.

FH:[Do] you have a strong testimony [that] this is true?

FV:I have a strong testimony this is true.

FV:That was just a few months back.

FH:This is reasonable. This is not a bit out of reason. 01:08:00FV:That was my experience, of course. There could be a lot of other explanations for it, but that was my explanation. I think that is what it was. It was a question of reassurance. That is the way I took it, but they said it just alike. Of course, I thought it was Barbara. She is a widow [and] still living, 01:09:00but there wasn’t any Barbara there when I went to the door. Sometimes when I would be there alone, neighbors would come in. I wouldn’t answer the door and they would come in. I would wake up when they would come in. They would speak to me. Of course, they all knew I was alone. That was my experience. [END OF RECORDING THREE. END OF INTERVIEW.]