Davis Holiday Memories

 Harker Davis and his sons - early 1920's

Johnny - Floyd - Norman - Richard - Lemuel - Garnons

Charles Harker (front)

 Della Davis and daughters - early 1920's

back: Augusta - Marjorie - Edna - Birdie - Mable

front: Rachel - Della - Florence

When I was very young, holidays meant going to the ranch in Haswell. The ranch was located seven miles northeast of Haswell, Kiowa County, Colorado. This was the sheep ranch where my grandparents settled after leaving the Colorado Springs area, and where my mother went to school. When they first got there, Grandpa Davis hired a teacher to come live with them to teach school for his children. I think he had about 10 children at that time.

My uncles and aunts were all married or gone from home when I first remember.  The house had seven bedrooms, and families would take a bedroom when they arrived. The smaller families would double up in a bedroom. One uncle lived next door, so some always went to stay next door with them for the nights.

On Thanksgiving, people would start coming in on Wednesday, and Thursday morning the men and older boys would go coyote hunting. One time they got home about noon with several coyotes in the trunk of one car. They usually see several at one time, and as they get one, they quickly throw it in the trunk and go on after another one. This one day, when they got home, they got out of the cars and opened the trunk. You should have seen the men all scatter, as one of the coyotes was not dead and he jumped out as they opened the trunk!

After a big meal, Grandpa Davis would get out the cards and the card tables to play “High Five.” There would be tables all over the house, as many as 12 – 15. My grandpa Davis was the only one that smoked; none of his five sons who were usually there smoked. The sixth son, Lemuel, started smoking when he was in the Navy during World War I. So even though none of them were Mormons, it was a smoke free house, although crowded with card players.

If the weather was nice and the lakes were frozen over, you might see all of us going to one of the lakes (both were about ¼ mile from the ranch house) for a lot of fun ice skating. Even my granddad and Uncle Frank might be on a sled with a pitch fork for a pusher. We had some wicked games of something resembling hockey!