What is your full name and where were you born?
Paul Wilson Horel I was born in Cheyenne, that is, if you want to get technical well then never mind because I was adopted at one month of age, born the 23rd day of March 1917 and was adopted out of the Wyoming Children’s home in Cheyenne and I presume that’s where I’d been.
How did you come to be living in Worland?
My folks, HH Herb Horel and Louise Horel were my parents as far as I’m concerned. They lived on a farm at Colter which used to be a Post Office. They lost a son and they adopted me. That how I got to this country.
So they were farming before they adopted you?
My dad bought two homesteads, just north of the Wyoming Industrial Institute, which is near the boy’s school, down on the river.
What was it like growing up on a family homestead?
Typical farm kid only I had it better than some. I was alone. I was a spoiled brat. Same thing. Learned to work from the time you could carry two ten pound lard pail buckets of water up from the river to put on the trees that were planted, you gathered the eggs and brought in the kindling. Dumped the water. We had running the water you know, running from the kitchen to the well & back.
What’s the first chore you remember doing as a child?
I don’t know, probably taking out the ashes from the old coal stove, bringing in kindling, gathering eggs
What was a typical day like for you?
You got up about 6, had breakfast at 7. I never had the chore of milking the cows, because always had hired hands that did that, customary chores water the garden took care of the chickens and a few things like. Dinner at noon, nap after dinner and supper was at 6 o’clock. Johnny well better be present. Went to bed at 8. I guess that’s typical.
Did you have chores after dinner?
I was one of the lucky kids in the neighborhood. I got to help with the hay. I got ride the old mare that pulled that the stacker up and down. And that was a ten hour day backing those days. I don’t remember I had much else to do between times take care of cattle. Ride the saddle horse. Chase things. I don’t know that there’s anything spectacular during the day except three meals and work.
What was your favorite part of living on a farm?
I don’t know that I had a favorite part; I didn’t know any better that was just the way of life. That was accepted.
Were most of your friends farm kids too?
Yes. My best friend lived across the river. I grew up right on the bank of the Big Horn River. In the winter time I used to run across the river on the ice. In the summer when the school started I had to walk a half mile up to the end of the county lane to catch the school bus. In the winter time when the river froze over I could scoot across the river and ride the east side bus, because I could go in to a chum’s house where it was warm and wait for the bus. The old school bus, the old canvas bodied school bus, in cold weather we sat on each others’ feet to keep them from freezing. Just accepted as a way of life. I’ve went through school in Worland. I didn’t have to go to the country school. There was a Buff schoolhouse up the lane from Weber’s place. Above the Bluff canal. The dividing line was the Industrial Institute. Anyone south of that to Gooseberry went to the Buff school and Wyoming Industrial Institute to Worland came to the Worland school.
What was your school like?
Started the 1st grade at the old Emmett building. Had the first three grades in the old Emmett building. 4th grade in the “chicken coop” as we called it. We were the WWI brats – big class you know, they didn’t have room for us, so they built a frame building on the west side of the E building for the 4th grade. Grade A in one end and Grade B in the other. Restroom facilities were in the basement of the Emmett building – you trekked across the lot. 3rd grade – the first to use basement. 5th grade was the last class to use the attic rooms.
You said your class was a big class. How many were in your class?
Paul - There must have been about 50 of us, both grades. 32 of us graduated from high school in 1935 – we were one of the largest to graduate. From then on the roll jumped up.
Margaret – there were 12 who started in the 1st grade and graduated together. That was an interesting thing.
Paul – There were probably ten or twelve of us who started 1st grade and when clear through high school together. I can’t tell you names but I can only account for other fellows in the class: Frank Hyashida, Dean Tolman, Harvey McNutt and I can’t remember the last one. Then there’s two of the girls. Both of them dropped out before they graduated and they got married. There was no pregnant graduates in our day.
Tell us a little bit about going to school, about the classes and activities.
You didn’t have any choice until you got to 8th grade. If you were in 2nd grade, there was read, write & artithmatic. Then when you got to 8th grade then you got a PE class, which was probably one of the first ones. But it started about that time – when I was 14. Except for trucking over to the high school to take shop – you had one room and one teacher basically. You probably had to go to the basement for music or something. There wasn’t too much choice. Then when you went to High School, that was quite a jump, because you got to pick or got told what you were going to take. Eng, Algebra, FFA. Or if you weren’t interested in farming then you took something else.
Did you have classes at that time to prepare you for college?
No. The only preparation we had for going to college was Professor ET Ferry who lectured us.
Do you remember any of your other teachers and how the classes were taught different than today?
In 5th Grade, old Hilda Sunny was a sweet Norwegian from the Dakotas. Hilda never raised her voice. She had a little bell setting on her desk and God forbid she ever hit it twice, ‘cause when she slapped that it was front & center attention. And some of the older teachers in the 8th grade, old Watson taught us arithmetic because the arithmetic teacher couldn’t get out of bed to get to school. And he taught therefore we learned. In those days you learned your multiplication tables, addition. He would stand up in front of the class, and tell you “we’re going to divide today” and he’d give you a figure. And when he pointed a finger you better have an answer. You really learned arithmetic in those days. Then you got to High school then you learned algebra and geometry. A lot kids just hated geometry but I thought that was more fun than anything. With a compass you figure just about anything.
What about vacations you took with your family?
I guess back up to when my Dad first came to the country in 1902 he got acquainted with a Jess Skinner from up Owl Creek and they trapped all winter, they crossed the river to Thermopolis and trapped down to Bonanza and across the river and back up to Thermopolis once a week. After dad got the farms then old Jess was employed by the highway dept as a maintenance man on the top of the continental dive and he had a cabin up there. The Farliens and the Horels went up there each year for a week in the summer. Margaret and I have been on top of all the big mountains around the continental Divide. Being as we were practically the only kids in each family Margaret always had a cousin from Denver and I had Bob Colby was my cousin. And we always had company. There wasn’t anything to do but climb mountains and fish.
What was it like back then? Was the fishing good?
Yes, it was good. I don’t remember that there was a limit. This old buddy of dad’s had a cabin up there. He only worked 6 days a week. He knew every lake, every trail all over the top of that mountain so he was a great guide so he’d tell us exactly where to go where the fishing was good.
Were there a lot of wild animals at that time too?
Margaret – There were moose with calves.
Paul – the biggest thing to contend with was the domestic cattle, because that was grazed. All you had to do is say picnic somewhere, Margaret’s mother and mine I think practically had a basket filled every time, gathered up and go.
What historical events had the biggest impression on your life?
I remember when the banking holiday occurred I distinctly remember that. I heard it on the radio and Dad asked Mom “you got anything squirreled away and she came up with about 50 buck and he said “oh we’re in good shape”. Otherwise we had credit, we always on the farm raised a field of oats, sacked oats and hauled them down to Sawyers and traded sacked oats for groceries or butchered a beef and traded a half beef for groceries. Money was scarce but I never suffered. We ate well. I always had a nickel in my pocket. I guess because I was a spoiled brat and the only kid.
What kind of natural disasters do you remember? What about winters in the 20’s and 30’s.
Growing up on the bank of the Big Horn River. One of the first disasters I remember was in 29 when the ice jam took the Neiber Bridge out. Anyone familiar with the old ranch house was, on the bank of the river, just a quarter of a mile basically north of where the railroad crossed the river. The ice piled up and flooded 10-12 acres just north of our house. I remember going out the front door, across the front yard, climbing up on the cake of ice that was 30” thick as big as this room, walking down to the river bridge on top of the ice and being 10-11 feet off the ground, the ice was that thick. And of course, being born in ’17, WWI was history, but talked about. I remember going back to Iowa on the railroad with mother to visit her folks. Fairfield Iowa, that’s where mom’s sister and her folks were. James Bichard was a veteran of the Civil War. He was crippled, disabled. In fact he had a hole in his side that you could stick your finger in from a musket shot. He lay on the battle field for three days amongst the dead before someone discovered he was still breathing. They resurrected him from that and he lived to be about 90 I guess. But his Civil War pension was $7 a month so Mom’s sister and her husband took them in and cared for them. And we went back to visit them and of course, always fun to be on the railroad, being a little kid up & down the aisle got a test of this and a snack of that. And then I got married in 1938, to Helen Link. One of Chris Link’s daughters on the Emblem Bench. She was one of a brood, not a family. She had 5 brothers and sisters. Their mother died and then the father married a woman who had two and then they had five. She left home, graduated from 8th grade at Emblem. Had a sister in Worland, Mary Clark was her sister. Raymond was her brother in law. Helen came to Worland to go to school. I don’t know why she didn’t want to go to Greybull or something. I got acquainted with her. Back then the seniors thought they had to initiate the freshmen. And I asked if I could take her home. Well, I took her home and we went together for three years then got married. Only married to her for 66 years. Lost her the 26th of January this year (2005). At her memorial service the preacher said I can visualize her going around and giving all the other angels a dust rag.
We were married in 1938. Glenn Swing and I were real good chums. We gathered up Glenn Swing and Betty Barngrover and went to the Methodist parsonage at 8 o’clock in the morning the Reverend Kitch married us. She sent her dad a penny postcard that we were married and we stopped by the ranch on the way to Denver for a honeymoon. No use wasting a whole day to get married. So then our first son was born in ’40 and the war broke out. And that was quite the decision to make whether to leave my bride and kid who’d been born in August, go into the service. That was quite the thing to make up my mind over. Because I’d put in 5 quarters at Laramie in ROTC, but I probably gone in with a stripe or two or something. Left right after the kid. Debated about that. My old dad finally said “well they know where you are if they need you, they’ll get ya”.
What did you study at UW?
Anatomy. Ag of course, but I had my choice got to the U of W, mother was sure I was going to get married right away quick. I was going to wait for Helen to get out of high school so that’s why I put in 5 quarters in three years. Took Agriculture, wasted the first quarter. Didn’t do too much. Come home, help farm take the beets out. Then put in another quarter at the university then come home and help bring the spring crop in. So that was kinda the way I grew up until I got married.
Do you remember your first car? The one your folks had?
It was a 29 Durant. 75 – big one. It had 620 rubber under it. And had it until 1934 and put fifty thousand miles on it. Dad was a cattleman, county commissioner & so on and was a director at Stockgrower’s State Bank until he died. I was very familiar with every wire gate from Bonanza to Big Trails because he brought cattle up and down.
You said you had the first battery radio. Can you remember when you got electricity?
1935 and I helped Ed Nissen wire the two ranch houses.
What were the first things your family got when they got electricity?
An iron and refrigerator were probably the first two.
When did you get telephone service?
Paul - Dad signed up for telephone when they first showed up, putting in rural telephone. But I can remember having a telephone all the time. You had to drag your kitchen chair over to reach the receiver, you had to crank it. There were two boxes and a mouthpiece. It was a party line. 4R4 was our number or 4J4.
Bob – 9J3 was mine.
Margaret – ours was 32
Paul – We [Margaret and I] would run each other up and down in her dad’s dental chair and play dentist when no one was watching.
Tell us about Dr. Sid.
Dad had two brothers – dad came to Wyoming from Iowa in 1902. They came to Wyoming, him and three other fellas with a team and a wagon. They got to Thermopolis in July in 1902. Dad went to work for Ed Gaylor, north of Thermopolis on the river on the east side and they had a big ole water wheel to run out of the river to irrigate the garden stuff. Then they ran a trap line. In 1906 he went to farming on the old Luther Albertson place which was two miles, west side of the river, out of Worland. I sold it to Kenny Bower years ago. But Dad farmed there for a time then he bought two homesteads. This north side of the WII. The Sid McNutt and the Hess place. He put the two homesteads together. I’ve been asked a good many times how come he bought those. Dad was not a dirt farmer; he was a stockman he was looking for a ranch home. He left just a little hay for a few cows and saddle horses. Dad had a great eye for cattle. He was pretty prominent, better off than a good share of them because of his knowledge of the cattle business. After he was established his brother CS or “Doc” Horel graduated from dental college in Iowa City. Anyway, Dad was out here and said Worland needed a dentist and so Uncle Sid as he was known, came out set up a practice, decided he didn’t like looking in peoples’ mouths and called Jake Farlien, who’d just got out of school, to come out and take over for him. So that’s how Jake Farlien ended up in Worland, because of Uncle Sid. Then this brother went to work for the forest service in Jackson so we trekked over there each summer. When I was just a kid I remember going over Togwatee Pass with 6 inches of snow back in the good old days in an old Buick touring car with no side curtains. And we fished, and loafed around and followed him around.
What was Jackson like in those days?
In those days they rolled up the sidewalks after the first snow. Skiing wasn’t a big event. No tourist industry. As long as Sid was a ranger there, they snow shoed all over the country in his line of work. Somewhere there’s a book about rolling up the sidewalks. The only people who lived there year round were those who shoveled the snow off the roofs.
What was Saturday night like in Worland?
Sat Night in Worland was a big event. The stores stayed open until 9 o’clock. Everyone came to town on Sat. Night.
Did you bring cream & eggs to town?
Oh yes. The barbershops, that was their busiest night.
How much was a haircut?
4 bits. Shave and haircut was 6 bits.
After Doc got out of, well up & quit, in later years, when I was a freshman in high school he and dad’s other brother from Iowa set up a meat market on main street. WA Denton was on the corner – what is now the Golden Dragon. They had just moved up the street, but he was there and then Sawyers took over the building. The next building was split down the middle. The union meat market was one side and Pfeiffer Beauty Shop was on the other side. The place smelled so bad you couldn’t walk in or out of it. Then the bakery. All the stores just lined up the street there. It wasn’t Merz Bakery to start with; I don’t remember who had it.
Did you get a bath on Saturday night?
Yes. We had a well, one of the earlier ones with soft water. Al Groshart drilled it, right close to the back door. Then mom had old Hans Hanson come out and built a porch around it so the well was in the porch so you didn’t have to put on an overshirt to get water. I still have the old #3 round washtub that was used as a bathtub when I was a kid.
What did you do on Saturday night?
Everybody sat in their car and watched people go up & down mainstreet. As a kid I got to go to the show. It was a dime. There was always some pianist playing before the show. A candy bar was 5 cents. They were huge and got bigger in 1931. Three Musketeers bar – there were three chunks – strawberry, chocolate & vanilla. The sections were quite a bit bigger than the “fun size” nowadays. Gum was a nickel a pack, a penny a stick. Ice cream was a nickel. The Creamery made ice cream – that was kind of a specialty treat.
What day did you play baseball?
Sunday.
What about church?
Paul - I suppose baseball was after church. I grew up going to the Baptist church. Because when mom came to Wyoming to marry dad she was a member of the Congregational church and at that time Worland had Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, Mormons and Adventists and that was about the extent.
Margaret - The Volga Germans were Lutherans.
Paul - The German Lutheran church down there. So there were six churches in Worland really.
So then you went to baseball?
Colter had a baseball nine. And I mean that took practically one off of each farm. I don’t know when, because I don’t hardly recollect it, so it must have been 15 or something.
Baseball was “the” sport in Worland.
Paul - Baseball and of course high school football.
Margaret – Football in High school.
Paul - Dad was a baseball fan. I never played baseball. Dad played on the Colter 9 baseball team. I wasn’t too awful good in sports, I got two left thumbs. I played tennis as a kid.
Margaret – It was a dirt court. But we sure had a lot of fun playing tennis.
Paul – Remember when Worland put up a tennis court right where the fire hall is now?
Margaret – We had skating rinks – in the winter time – all around town.
Did you have to earn any money to buy Christmas presents?
Naturally Christmas was a big event. Cold weather. I couldn’t tell you how many times, but it was a lot of 40 below weather when we were kids. Christmas dinner was always at the Colbys and thanksgiving was always at our place.
Did you have a tree? Where did you get it?
We went out and gathered our own or had someone bring you one. Didn’t have to have a permit to cut a Christmas tree. Get one brought over from Ten Sleep. Woods & Connor’s stage line would bring one over – probably for gratis.
What kind of gifts did you receive?
I can show you the best one I ever got. I still have a little wind up truck delivery wagon, station wagon version, long before station wagons were popular. That is probably right at 80 years old. It’s in excellent condition except one little rubber tire is about gone. Little Gem. JC Penny. Wind up motor that still winds up. It was never taken outside to play in the dirt. I was about 8. I was offered $800 bucks for it and laughed.
Did you celebrate Easter?
Paul – There was the Farliens, Nickels, Colbys, and Horels. Easter dinner.
Margaret – Everyone would chip in with something, carry in dinner.
Paul – That was before the term “carry in” was known. You just brought somethin.
How did you observe the 4th of July?
Margaret – That was Washakie Days.
Paul – 4th of July was celebrated up at the Colby’s yard with a big picnic. All of us boys went swimming in the Bluff canal. About a quarter mile down the canal from the house was a check. The water was chin deep right out in the middle. A check is a structure put in the canal, that you put boards in it to raise the water level. Like a dam. But the 4th of July was always in the Colby’s yard.
How was your birthday celebrated?
Birthdays were always celebrated, are still recognized. Not to the extent that they were. Gifts were usually a shirt or in later years a necktie. Something practical, nothing frivolous. You didn’t waste money on flowers not even for a funeral because flowers didn’t last.
How did you keep cool in summer?
The big old ranch house out there had an upstairs in it. First thing it had a big old screened in porch clear across the front of it. That’s where evenings were spent. I slept in the upstairs and it had windows on the northeast and south and the downstairs had three outdoor doors and it cooled off enough. We didn’t have electricity, city folks had a fan.
Did you go barefoot?
Six and a half, seven days a week. The only time we had to wear shoes was for Sunday school.
How did you keep warm in the wintertime?
Paul - Long john wool underwear, overshoes, mittens, caps with ear muffs.
Margaret – It was cold.
Do you remember any blizzards? Any tornadoes?
And then the river froze over, then the ice built up. And when it got about ideal time, when it was 20” thick. We stored our ice in cinders to start with. Then we got updated and started to store it in sawdust in a separate ice house. There were just boards and then filled the ice between the studs. The ice would last until about the first of August depending on how many times you made ice cream.
How did you make ice cream?
It seemed like it took forever. There are two schools. One of the hired hands’ wife made raw ice cream but when mom made it, she didn’t make it often because Aunt Lola made it, they cooked the custard. They put it in the freezer compartment, put the dasher in it. Put it in a wood bucket; fill it up with crushed ice, sprinkled salt on it and then more ice. Started turning the crank. When it got froze, you couldn’t hardly turn the crank then you pulled it up and licked the dasher then packed it, you put in more ice and more salt and more ice and then cover it up with a gunny sack and waited until everyone was ready.
Margaret – I remember when I was a girl. You gave me a matchbox to hold, and when I opened it there was a mother mouse with all her babies in it.
Paul – It’s her story, I don’t remember that.
Where did you learn to swim?
Paul - Didn’t swim in the Big Horn River. That was treacherous. That was something you stayed away from.
Margaret – We did seine in the river, though, for fish. It was exciting because there were strange looking fish in the river, I remember real queer looking fish.
Paul – There was about seven different types of fish in the river when we were seining. Walleyes, suckers, red horse and three or four other cuttlefish. Of course we didn’t keep but walleyes and northern pike. The rest of em were dumped into a sack and taken over to the Mexican who thought it was a real choice to have fish. But no, you didn’t swim in the Big Horn River because when it was anywhere close to being full it was too swift, too much current, too deep and was treacherous. And then when it got down you didn’t like swimming on the rocks, there was no happy medium, there was no bays, puddles, it was just not to swim in.
Did you participate in 4H or anything?
No. I had enough chores without messing with 4H. In high school then I got into FFA. As a freshman, they were threatening to take FFA out of high school, disband, give it up. Lawrence Lamb was our AG teacher, I could drive so I took his car and three or four other AG members so we could lead a petition. Some of the other classmates circulated the same petition through Colter and the north of town and we gathered enough signatures that the school board decided “well, maybe we ought to leave it” and that’s how close we came to losing FFA.
Who did you most admire when you were young?
Family. Mother & Father to start with of course.
What about public figures? What president?
I was named after Wilson. But that was no choice of mine. Probably FDR was the first one because, new deal and times was tough and so on.
When you were little what did you hope to be when you grew up?
Well, I was going to be a farmer. There was no question asked. That’s where I made a big mistake, not paying attention at college life. Should have had a sheepskin in a bottom drawer somewhere that would have been real handy when I buggered up my back and couldn’t farm. Would have been nice to have gone back and told someone else’s kids what to do.
Would you choose farming if you had to do it over again?
It was a good life back then. I wouldn’t encourage a kid to try and get into farming now. They scare me to death. They pay twice as much for a tractor or a combine or something as I could have bought the neighbor’s farm for. And what incentive is there, there’s too many controls that we don’t know anything about, we get the tail end of them out in this country. But definitely wouldn’t encourage anyone to get into the cattle business because the stock market is controlled. I was in the cow calf operation from the time I was two. The BLM put me out of business, or one of the big reasons I got out, you get told when you can do something regardless of the season. Nine tenths of those that are in the BLM couldn’t make a living otherwise so they go to work for the government. When the Taylor grazing act was set up, the Worland district was set up, which is still the Worland district, there was a head of it and a secretary and the range rider. That was the three.
Do you remember any memorable times in the community?
Like I said the big ice jam of ‘29 and the bank holiday and the end of the War (WWII). There were two or three good fires in town.
Your best friend lived across the river, you mentioned crossing in the winter on the ice. What was his name?
Donald Townsend. Margaret talked about skating ponds in town. I come to town a time or two to skate, and that was no fun. If I didn’t have from the railroad bridge, a mile and a half upstream to the Lower Hanover dam, if there wasn’t glare ice clear across the river in that length, I didn’t have room to skate.
What was the scariest thing that ever happened to you?
Scariest or most serious. When I herniated three discs in my back scooping silage to feed the old cows. That was so long ago I forgot. Louise was a senior in high school. It was quite a while ago. That’s what retired me. After two surgeries and still hurt, I arm-chaired it for awhile, got discouraged with that, give up.
What about banking?
Paul - I remember two or three farmers in Colter that went into see George about a loan and their story wasn’t good enough for him to loan the man money so they run across the street to Farmer’s State. Probably got closed up two or three years after that. No, George Muirhead would cheerfully loan you a dollar if you 99 cents collateral. He wasn’t tight he was a thrifty Scotsman. On the bank holiday, do you remember how long the Farmer’s State was closed? Because I know Stockgrowers opened the next day. Of course old George Muirhead was related to the Clays.
Margaret – My uncle was with John Clay. George Rae, married my mother’s sister. I remember the house – in one of those pictures of Worland, that shows where the laundry was and my folks’ house. And on Culbertson was the house that they lived in, and it was the only one. And its still there. And another house I thought of was the one Ross Hibbard had next to EY Booker and it’s the only house on Coburn and 7th that still exists.
That nursery school was the hub of Colter community. Anything after cold weather was held there. Back when they had their own power plant, at 9 o clock the power went off. It was fired with coal. The coal was delivered to Colter by box car, hauled with teams and wagons with free labor. Old Pop Hankins was the blacksmith. He was a real artist. He was also an artist with a black snake - whip cracker. The kids around the school never messed with Pop Hankins. They knew just exactly how far that old black snake would reach out there. I’ve seen him take a spot hair off that big the back of a critter as he took it up the road, not just occasionally, every time he flung out his arm. He worked up there and lived on the county lane, just south of my place.
Was your mother a good cook?
Paul - No.
Margaret – Louise, after I was married even, always brought me a birthday cake, an angel food cake.
Paul – That was one thing she excelled with, was her angel food cakes. Mom, I hate to admit it, but Mom thought she was a tad bit above cookin. She didn’t do a lot of cooking; it was always farmed out to someone. She kept a respectable house, yes, a ranch house, and three cowboys could show up at 3 o’clock in the afternoon and by 3:30 she had them gathered around the table and be feeding them. Bacon, eggs and hashbrowns. Homemade bread. Then after the bakery got established she quit baking bread, she didn’t like it and she didn’t have to and she had money enough to have store bought bread, there was just a few little things like that in life but she excelled in her angel food cakes. She’d sit there with that old crock between her knees and whip.
She had to cook it on her wood stove?
Mother had a coal range. The old coal stove in the kitchen and the furnace in the basement. Coal furnace. 1934, dad had a heart attack it was up to me to get up in the mornings and fire up the coal stove before I went to school. Bailed out that one morning and shuddered into my clothes, down one flight of stairs and down another, stoked up the old furnace, went out the front porch – big screened in front porch clear across the front of that house – big old thermometer. 50 below! No wonder I was cold. Run back in and stood on the furnace.
Uncle Dwight, mom’s sister’s husband, came out here from Chicago because he was told he had six months to live if he didn’t get out of the dust. He and his brother were floor finishers they had a big old sanding machine that they rode and the dust was about to kill him and the doctor said, “have you got anyone out west?” and he said “my wife’s got a sister” and the doctor said, “get your butt out there”. So they came out here. They lived in a tent. Well, Uncle Dwight built that house for mom. Probably ’15 or a little before.
Bob - I remember Lawrence Colby riding a motorcycle. I used to see him riding a motorcycle standing up in the seat going down Highway 20. I’ve never seen anyone do anything like that since.
Paul - There were 4 Colby boys. Lawrence, Don, Bob, Frances. Lawrence and Bob are both dead. Frances, as far as I know, is still alive, in Grand Junction. Dwight, he’d rather carpenter than farm. And everybody criticized because he got all the timbers out of the old Neiber Bridge. That was all wood structure, an old railroad bridge, he salvaged all of the timber, hauled it up above the canal there and had an old boy bring a sawmill down from Grass Creek, and sawed all those timbers up, all the big ones, and built that barn.
Why he didn’t build Aunt Lola a house, no one knew, but he built this barn, hated the horses, but he built this barn. Then after he sold the place he worked for Martinson for years building houses. Then he was a fanatic with a lathe and when he passed away there was two wheelbarrows full of little wood boles of various sizes.
You like to woodwork, Paul. Tell us about that.
It’s hazardous to your health. I sold the shop equipment. Right now I’m involved with blue bird nesting boxes.
Bob – Lawrence Colby was a really versatile kind of guy. He wired our house out on Slick Creek for electricity; we got power in ’38. And also, he and Donald, didn’t he fly or something? There was a landing strip behind Colby place.
Paul – Yes, he flew a plane, but he won it. He bought a dollar ticket and won it, took lessons and learned to fly. I flew over quite a bit of country with him. Lawrence was a misplaced genius. He was a genius, only you had to keep him headed down this narrow path or he’d get sidetracked awful easy. But he was a whiz electrician. In fact, he wired the Kirby Theater when it was first built and you can only image the miles of wire. All four of those Colby boys were genius.