
H. Clay Gorton
I
was born in Soda Springs, Idaho on March 7, 1923, the
oldest of three children. My two younger sisters are Gayla, b. Jan. 23, 1925,
and Leah Patricia (Pat), May 30, 1928. I anticipate that what will follow will
be a bit rambling. The objective is merely to record various childhood
experiences to give a flavor of what life for a child in a small town in those
days was like, as I think today’s youth have very little perception of what life
in a small town was like 70 years ago.
I was actually born in the home of
my uncle Henry Clay Gorton, and we moved to my grandmother’s home when I was
two. She was Leah Mariah Waylett Gorton. Grandfather had passed away several
years before I was born. Grandmother Gorton’s house was one of the larger and
older houses in town. In front were huge black willow trees. The lot on which
the house stood was in the center of the block and included 2 ½ acres of land.
To the east of the house was the barn, where we kept our milk cow and occasional
sheep and pigs. In back of the house was the wood and coal shed and ice house.
The front half was for the wood and coal, and the back half was used to store
ice for the ice chest. The ice chest, which we kept on the back porch, had four
compartments–one, on the upper left was where we put the ice. In the winter time
blocks of ice would be cut from the lake near town and hauled up by wagon. The
floor of the ice house would be covered with blocks of ice, over which would be
sprinkled a layer of sawdust. Successive layers of ice and sawdust would be
added until the entire room was filled, with only enough space at the door to
slide out near the top. That ice would last us all summer long.
When
I was younger, we had no indoor plumbing. The outhouse was
located about 20 feet or so west of the ice house. It was challenging to use that
facility in the winter time. A chamber pot was kept under each bed which could be used
at night to relieve oneself as necessary.
The floors in the living and sitting
rooms downstairs were of bird’s eye maple, over which rag rugs were placed. The
maple floors would be sanded and varnished every three or four years. It was my
job to varnish the floors. There were three large bedrooms upstairs. One of them
was my bedroom, the other was used as a guest room and third, I converted into a
chemistry laboratory when I was a senior in high school. I had a friend who was
two years older than me who attended the University of Idaho, Southern Branch,
at Pocatello when I was a junior and senior. He stole a great deal of chemicals
and chemical equipment from the university. Near the beginning of the second
year he was caught and was kicked out of school. So in shame he joined the army.
But before he left he gave me all the chemicals and equipment that he had
stolen.
With the help of some friends I hauled up to may chem. lab a
piece of slate that had been one third of a pool table, and it became my
laboratory bench. I added shelves around the walls on which to store the
chemicals. After I graduated from high school, I got the first year college chem
lab book and went through all the experiments in the book during the summer
before I registered for college at UISB that fall.
When
we were little,
one of my favorite pastimes was to play farm in the back yard. The fields would
be fenced with string, using sticks for fence posts. We used empty condensed
milk cans for cows, peach pits for chickens, half peach pits for roosters, and
horse shoes for horses. I had gotten a wind-up tractor for Christmas one year,
and we made roads for the tractor and the horses to run on.
Money was
very scarce in those days, so the tractor was indeed a luxury. For Christmas one
year I made my sisters furniture for a doll house, using a coping saw and wood
from orange crates we could get at the store. Another toy was made by punching
two nail holes in the lid and in the bottom of a three-pound coffee can and
tying a piece of string loosely in a loop through the holes. In the center of
one side of the loop we would tie a small rock. Then we would roll the can
across the floor. As the can rolled the loop of string would wind up on itself
lifting the rock. When the can stopped, the weight of the rock would cause it to
roll backwards at it unwound. We were entertained rolling the can away and
watching it come back.
We also had an old 44 caliber six shooter with a
broken handle. We were able to put fire crackers in the chamber and rocks in the
barrel at shoot at each other with the thing. We also had a 22 caliber repeating
rifle. One day I asked by father to take me hunting, which he consented to do.
So we walked out in the country together to shoot squirrels. On the way, Dad
showed me the proper way to carry the gun, how to cross a fence with the gun,
how to load and how to shoot. He would never go hunting with me again, but I
could go by myself whenever I wanted to. However, it was required that I always
went alone; I could never have anyone else with me. This rule undoubtedly
stemmed from the fact that Dad had a younger brother, Jay, who was killed in a
hunting accident while he and his companion were sitting on a log cleaning their
guns.
I must relate one hunting experience in which I was glad to have
been alone. I had access to a 4-10 shot gun and on occasion went out to shoot
ducks. On one such occasion I was out by myself a little north of Hooper
Springs, looking for ducks along Spring Creek. It was a cloudy day, with a
low-lying overcast and there weren’t many ducks flying that day. As I was
scanning the sky toward the north to catch sight of one I saw off near the
horizon what seemed to me to be a flock of ducks circling to land. As they were
about to land, they would then circle back up and start the process over. They
were too far away to shoot at, but as this process was repeated time after time
I thought that I would shoot out that way and probably scare them off so that
perhaps some other hunter could get a shot at them. So I raised my gun and
without taking careful aim, fired away. As soon as I had pulled the trigger,
with the gun barrel in front of me giving my sight some perspective, I realized
that what I had been watching was a swarm of gnats–and they weren’t even out as
far as the end of the gun barrel.
Another pastime when we were kids was
rolling hoops. Iron hoops of various sizes were plentiful as they were used to
hold wooden barrels together. We could find them in sizes from six inches to
three feet in diameter. We would nail a six-inch cross piece to a stick of wood,
and would roll the hoop, pushing it with the cross piece on the end of the
stick. We could make the hoop change direction by pushing on one side or
another. It seemed that wherever you saw some kid going someplace, he was always
following an iron hoop, which was being urged along with the stick in his hand.
We walked on stilts a lot, making our own stilts. The step on which we stood
would be anywhere up to four or five feet above the ground. We became quite
expert, being able to run and climb steps on the stilts. On occasion we would
tie them to our sides with belts and rope, leaving our hands free. This activity
was reserved for advanced stilting.
We played Tarzan a lot. To do so, we
hung a cross piece of a Quaking Aspen log from a branch of the tree with two
ropes. By tying three or four in succession at proper distances, we could swing
from one to the other.
For in-door activities, we read books quite a lot.
We also played string games. One favorite was to loop a string through two
button holes in a button. Large buttons worked best. Then, holding the ends of
the loop in our two hands we would wind the button around the string a bit. Then
as we would alternately pull and relax on the ends of the loop the button would
rapidly spin first in one direction and then the other. On occasion I would
press the rotating string against my sister’s hair, which would immediately wind
up in the string. Sometimes it was necessary to cut the hair to get it undone.
Many of our innocent pastimes would immediately land us in jail if practiced
in today’s society. One such pastime was to take a bunch of newspapers at night
up on Chester Hill, just north of town, where there were scattered juniper and
pine trees. We would stuff the newspapers under the trees and light them with a
match. It was exciting watching the trees burn up. Sometimes flames would leap
as high a 40 feet in the air. Along in July, when the June grass on Chester Hill
was completely dry, we would find isolated patches of it, and light it with a
match. It would burn up with lightning speed. On one occasion we found a bunch
that was bordered on the up-hill side by some low evergreen bushes. We thought,
“The flame won’t last long enough to catch those bushes on fire.” So we lit the
patch. We were wrong. It burned up the whole top of the hill.
Here are
some entertainment activities that you don’t to tell to your children. We used
to walk around town shooting the street lights out with a bee-bee gun in the
summer and throwing snowballs at them in the winter. On one Fourth of July we
climbed onto the roof of the two-story Enders Hotel, which was located across
the street from the movie theater. Since it was a warm night, the doors of the
theater were open to the street, so with our sling shots we would light the fuse
of cherry bombs and shoot them through the doors and down the aisles of the
theater.
Since it was the responsibility of myself and my two sisters to
do the dishes after supper each day (one was assigned to wash and the other two
to wipe), I would have one of the girls hold a rolled-up piece of newspaper
about six to eight inches long in her mouth and I would flip it with the wet
dish towel, cutting off pieces, each time closer to the attach point.
On
other occasions, I would have one of the girls hold a stick of similar size in
her mouth while I would shoot at it with a bee-bee gun loaded with a match stick
into which had been inserted a needle. With that practice, myself and some other
boys would get together to do the same thing. This became a competition; every
time the stick was hit with the needle-bearing match, the target man would have
to step back one pace. This continued until the shooter missed a shot, upon
which he became the target holder.
I was interested in chemistry in high
school. One trick I used to play was to fill a small gelatin capsule with methyl
violet (the stuff that gives the color to indelible pencils) and insert the
capsule in the end of a candy bar. We would then generously give the candy bar
to an unsuspecting student. If he bit into the capsule it would turn his teeth
and the inside of his mouth a vivid purple. If he was fortunate enough to
unknowingly swallow the capsule it would turn his urine purple.
We also
used to produce a hydrogen generator and fill toy balloon with hydrogen and let
them go in the assembly hall, where they would float up to the ceiling–which was
higher than the janitor could reach. After several days, as the balloons would
gradually lose their hydrogen, the balloons would begin to lower. It would take
several days for them to float down to where they could be captured by the
custodian. (Nitroglycerin)
Swimming was great sport. I learned to swim
when I was nine years old in the canal that wound around the bottom of Chester
Hill. There was a section of the canal below a head gate that was over our heads
for about ten feet. We would stand on the cement flooring of the head gate and
launch ourselves into the stream. The object was to stay afloat until we reached
a place where we could touch bottom. It didn’t take long under those conditions
to learn to swim. There was always a race to see who would be the first in the
water each spring. I think the water wouldn’t have been colder than if there
were ice floating in it. Those swims were of very short duration.
To get some money to pay for the necessities of a boy’s life, I engaged in
various activities. The first I remember was selling whiskey bottles.. This was the time
of prohibition and whisky flasks brought a nickel apiece at the local liquor
store. So I would roam the alleys and streets with my little wagon, collecting
all the whisky bottles I could find. I made friends with the local sheriff, who
would let me go into the jail and examine the empty cells. I could usually
collect quite a few bottle from under the pillows in the empty cells. I started
a collection and kept a scrap book of whisky bottle labels.
I also sold
the Sunday edition of the San Francisco Examiner. The price of the paper was
$.05, and my profit was $.01 per paper.
As I got a little older I was
able to mow lawns for a living. Power mowers had not yet been invented, and as
the people were all very poor, they wouldn’t pay to have their lawns mowed until
the grass was really tall. I would get $.35 per lawn. Since the grass was so
tall I had to push the mower over the same piece several times to get the grass
properly cut. It often took two full days to mow one lawn.
I saved my
money all summer to make important purchases. One summer I bought a tennis
racket, and the next summer I was able to buy a bicycle. The bicycle cost, as I
remember, about $25. The bike lasted me all through my teen years.
I
built a box on the back of the bike in which I could put papers to sell. Also, I
taught my dog, Skippy, to ride in the box, so he was a rather constant companion
as I rode around town. Gaining a little expertise on the bike, I removed the
handle bars and was able to guide the bike by leaning one way or another. On
occasion, we would ride the bike out to Conda, nine miles to the north of Soda
Springs, to visit my grandparents, Simeon Ralph and Emma Arminta Sterrett. We
would also ride out to the Blackfoot River Bridge, 12 miles north of town,
taking bamboo fishing poles with us, to do a little fishing.
Another
bicycle sport was to blindfold my little sister, Pat, put her on the handle bars
and ride around town. Her task was to guess where we were.
When I was 14
years old I took a summer job working for Heber Lau as a camp jack. Heber had a
head of 1000 sheep that were grazed on Mt. Sherman, just south of town. The
sheepherder as, to my mind, was an old man. We had an agreement that he would
teach me the art of being a camp jack if I would help him herd the sheep. That
was the most interesting summer of my young life. I didn’t realize that the
herder had conned me into doing all the work while he sat in the shade and told
me what to do.
Our equipment consisted of two saddle horses, two pack
horses, one useless dog, a canvas teepee for sleeping and another for storage of
supplies. We would get up about 4 AM and go out to the sheep. Once the location
had been established, I would take a bridle and three halters and go look for
the horses. At night we tied a bell around the neck of one of the horses so we
could hear where they were in the morning. After I had found them, I would put
the bridle on my horse and the halters on the other three, then tie the halter
of each to the tail of the horse in front. That way I could trail the horses
back to our camp. I would then stake out the pack horses, saddle up the two
saddle horses and ride back to where the sheep were.
At about 7:00 AM I
would ride back to camp to prepare breakfast. Breakfast consisted of sourdough
pancakes, eggs, bacon and coffee for the herder. I had to drink water. The
herder would come in about 8:00 for breakfast and then go back to the sheep, and
I was to follow as soon as the breakfast was cleared up. About 10 AM the sheep
would “shade up,” remaining so until about 4 PM when they would start feeding
again. So from 10 AM to 4 PM, the herder relaxed in the camp, while I took care
of camp duties.
We would move camp every three or four days in order to
keep up with the sheep. To do so we would load our belongs onto the two pack
horses and head off to the new camp site. Before laying down the sleeping tent,
I would gather the ends of pine boughs about ten or twelve inches long and lay
them in rows in an area equal to the floor of the tent. I would then lay the
tent over it and it down. The pine boughs became a very effective mattress. I
would then dig a ditch around the uphill three sides of the tent, and cover the
edge of the tent with dirt in order to ward off water from the occasional rain
storms that we encountered.
Our stove was made by piling a bank of stones
on three sides and laying on top the sheet-metal door of an old model T ford
that we carried along for the purpose. Our fuel was dead pine branches that I
broke into appropriate lengths by breaking them over a log. To hang our saddles
up I drove our ax repeatedly into the same spot in a pine tree until I could
bury the head of the ax in the cut. I then cut a 1-inch diameter pine branch
about a foot long and drove it into the cut. As the tree would swell around the
peg it became firm enough for its intended use.
Once a week I would have
to go for supplies. I would put the pack saddles on the two pack horses and
trail them down to a pre-agreed upon meeting place on the canyon road, where I
would meet Heber Lau. I would pack up the horses with the supplies and trail
them back to camp.
To find one another when we were separated, the herder
and I carried a package of fire crackers in our pocket. If one wanted to find
the other, he would light a fire cracker. Upon hear the noise the other would
also light a fire cracker. The first person would then follow the sound until we
met up, lighting fire crackers as necessary for guidance.
Counting the
sheep was an interesting exercise. The sheep had been individually counted back
in the stock yard before being trailed out to the range, and the number of black
sheep in the heard was identified. When we wanted to count the sheep to see if
any were missing, we would herd them into an open meadow, then ride around them
on our horses until they were bunched up really tight. We would then get off the
horses and walk slowly toward the herd about 20 feet apart. If any sheep would
try to break away and run around us, we would shoo them back with our
bandanas–but only on the outside. We would pay no attention to the sheep between
us. When we got close enough to the herd, some brave sheep would break and run
between, then all the sheep would follow. We could then move towards each other
until we were only about four feet apart, waving the bandanas on our outside
hands to discourage any new attempts. As the sheep would run between us, we
would count only the black ones. To do this we kept a number of pebbles in our
pockets, and for each ten black sheep we would transfer one pebble from one
pocket to another. Since the sheep almost never went off alone, but rather in
small groups, we knew that if one black sheep was missing, it would be
accompanied with about 20 white sheep. If we found any group mission we would
then start a search over where we had been until they were found.
In
addition to swimming, a little tennis, playing Tarzan by swinging on our
home-trapezes through the trees, and hiking around Chester Hill, our summer
activities also included golf. Since no one could afford to buy gold clubs, we
made our own. The club would consist of a seven-inch quaking Aspen log about
two-to-three inched in diameter shaved flat on one side, into which we drilled a
hole with a brace and bit, and inserted the club handle. We actually used real
golf balls, but we had to make our golf course in the back yard.
Winter
sports included skiing, sledding and ice skating. I tried to make a pair of
skis, but they didn’t turn out too well because I couldn’t get the points bent
up enough. But I was able to buy a pair. These skis were not used with ski
boots–an unheard of luxury; instead we cut one-inch-wide rings from a rubber
inner tube (inner tubes were made of real rubber in those days) which we would
put around ankles and under our toes in front of the ski strap. That would keep
the ski on, but was completely useless for any maneuvering. So we would ski
downhill in a straight line. Each person would follow the first and the path
thus made would often freeze, making for a very fast ski run.
We would
also do down-hill sledding. This was possible only after a sufficiently hard
freeze to leave the snow with a hard surface crust. That was often more exciting
than skiing, as with a good hard surface crust we could go faster than on skis.
Another fun sledding sport was to hook our sleds onto the runner of a
horse-drawn sleigh. In the winter when I was a kid there were very few cars on
the road, but there were plenty of sleighs. There was usually a bolt on the back
of the runners used to attach the metal runner to the wooden support. We would
run after the sleigh, slam down on the sled and slip our rope over the bolt on
the runner to get a free ride to wherever they we going.
On occasion,
when we could borrow a horse from someone, we would tie a roper to the saddle to
which the skier would hold on to, and we would gallop down the road with the
skier bouncing over the drifts along the side of the road–the forerunner of
water skiing.