Enjoying Junior High

The Carpenter family moved to Pueblo, Colorado where Leona finished her years in elementary school and received this certificate of completion on 2 June 1939.

Certificate issued 2 June 1939

She was in the 8th grade in 1938-39

and the 9th grade in 1939.

She obviously took part in Western Days at Risley Junior High!

Leona Carpenter - 2nd row, far left

I love this picture of Leona and her dad.

Leona with her father, Ream Carpenter
14 years old - 1939

Coyote Hunting

One of the favorite pastimes of the Davis family men was coyote hunting, and this brief account makes it sound like a wild time!  

I wish we had some Davis family pictures of this sport.

Coyote in Colorado

photo from flickr

Early Thanksgiving morning the women would be in Grandma’s huge kitchen getting both breakfast and preparing the dinner. The men and boys would be eating and then going outside where they were getting ready to go coyote hunting.

Uncle Johnny, who lived on the ranch, would be getting the two greyhounds ready and most of the men were getting their guns ready. They would be talking about previous years’ hunting experiences and comparing guns and ammunition.

Some of the men, mostly the ones who lived on or close to the Davis Ranch or those who lived on or near the Harriman Ranch in Fowler, had “coyote cars or pickups.” They took great pride in having these tuned up to get a quick start and to be able to go over rough prairie lands. They preferred vehicles in which they could stand in the back and shoot over the cab while the vehicle was going full speed. The coyote cars also had to be able to turn very sharply and double back whenever the coyote felt they were getting too close to him.

1930 Ford pickup

photo from flickr

Can you imagine what it is like in the back of a pickup (with sideboards) when three or four men are all trying to remain standing, aiming their guns at the coyote when he decides to stop and go the other way? The driver jams on the brakes and cranks the steering wheel around to follow the coyote. Men have been known to be thrown out onto the prairie grass and cactus plants and then roll over and over trying to stop! Clark Harriman [Lou's cousin] rolled out once and they spent hours picking the cactus out of him! For some reason the wives are very much against their husbands taking the family car coyote hunting!

Tending the Sheep Camps

photo from flickr

One summer when I was about 10 year old I went to my Grandfather Davis’ ranch in Haswell for the summer. One of my favorite things to do was to go with my Uncle Johnny when he would go to “tend the sheep camps.” At both Haswell (Grandpa Davis and Uncle Johnny) and Fowler (Uncle Frank Harriman) I had many times tended sheep camps.

To tend sheep camps meant to take supplies to the sheep herders’ camps and to move their camp to another area where there would be more grass for the sheep to eat. The herder’s living area was a tent constructed on a wooden platform mounted on two 6”x6”x10’ wooden gliders which could easily be pulled across the prairie.

Usually the herder spoke little or no English, so I did usually not understand the talk with them, but it was always interesting to hear and to watch them communicate. Grandpa Davis and Uncle Frank could communicate with them, but the others knew key words and lots of sign language.

It seems like most of the herders would work for about six months, never leaving the sheep, and then go to town for a week or so and sometimes return. If they asked to return in a week, they were usually so drunk we would have to carry them (or someone in their family would carry them) to the car and we would dump them out at camp, making sure they had no whiskey on them.

The usual pattern was to go to the camp once a week or every two weeks depending on the amount of grass near the camp. The camp was usually a tent on a wooden platform mounted on two 6” x 6” runners – later on wheels. There was always a barrel for water on the platform. Inside the tent was a stove that used coal or wood, a cot, and a cupboard for food. Usually we carried a 100# sack of pinto beans, slabs of bacon, flour, salt and pepper, sugar, matches, tobacco, and a 25# box of prunes.

If it was time to move the camp because of the grass, we would hook on to the camp and pull it across the prairie for a couple of miles after telling the herders. If he needed meat we would kill and dress out a sheep and leave part of the meat and take the rest to other camps. The herder always had a pot of beans and a pot with prunes on the stove.

It may not sound exciting, but it was always an adventure to me. We most always saw a coyote or two and rabbits and rattlesnakes which we sometimes could shoot as we always carried rifles in the car or truck. I first remember using a Model A four door Ford, but later it was always in pickups. Uncle Frank usually had Chevrolets.

It was always fun to go with Clark [Harriman] as we never missed the chance to do something more exciting!

If This Old House Could Talk

While going through one of Dad's notebooks filled with a variety of memorabilia, I came across some memories he had recorded of his childhood home, told from the perspective of the house itself. Some of this information has already been recorded, but I always get excited when I find something in his own handwriting, such as the floor plan below.

1806 E. 5th Street

Either late 1925 or early 1926 I was occupied by the family Butler – Jesse Llewellyn, Mable Elsa, Louis Edward and Charles Lee. On September 7, 1927 Jesse Eldon joined the family. Mr. Butler was a fireman on the Missouri Pacific Railroad.

My neighbor for many years, the Berrys – 1806 East 5th – owned two lots between us. The Berrys were very old – one man, his wife, and a sister. They needed help with their yard and in the house. Mr. and Mrs. Butler took over the care of their lawn and helped them with transportation to doctors, to the grocery store, etc. Mr. Butler planted a large garden on their lot and shared vegetables with them. The Berrys willed their property to the Butlers, and they were taken care of until they all passed away in a few years.

The large garden (two lots) provided vegetables for eating and also for canning for use during the winter. When the vegetables were ripe, the canning project was a major event concerning the entire family. Eventually they filled the shelves in the basement. This preservation of food was essential because Mr. Butler's work with the railroad was sporadic, and he was laid off or many months each year until the late ‘30’s. He would find other employment – but would always return to the railroad when they called him back to work.

Floor plan sketched by Dad on notebook paper

When I was built, I had two bedrooms on the east side of my structure with a bathroom in between. The west side was a kitchen and a living room with the front door leading out of the living room onto a porch covered by the roof extending about 10 feet. The porch was the full width of the front of the house.

We added a back porch which added a bedroom on the east side, a hallway to the back door, and on the west side a stairway down to the basement which was only to the hot air furnace which was installed at this time with a coal stoker and a coal bin.

The three boys had been sleeping on one bed and were getting bigger – so Lou was moved to the new bedroom.

May 26, 1934 another boy was added to my house. Soon thereafter the parents’ bedroom was extended north and took half of the porch space providing room for a crib, etc.

North bedroom addition - left side of house

Mr. Butler agreed with a man who asked to do the work of extending the bedroom. They agreed on a price which included that the man would provide the materials. He came back and asked to be paid first so he would have the money to buy the materials. He got the money and was never seen again. So Mr. Butler had to finish it himself as the man had removed the north wall of the bedroom so it was exposed to the outside!

Sheep Shearing

Sheep Shearer in Colorado, circa 1920 - 1940
photo courtesy of:
Western History/Genealogy Department, Denver Public Library

One of the favorite times we had at the ranch in Haswell was in the summer when it was time to shear the sheep. For weeks the several herds had been working their way towards the ranch in preparation for the shearing. Everything had to work like clockwork when the shearing crew would arrive.

These crews were from Texas, and would consist of about 8 shearers with a trailer that had an engine to run the clippers and about 8 stations, four on each side. The trailer had doors so they could just lower the doors, lock them, and be on their way to the next ranch. With a schedule set up according to how many sheep the ranch had to be sheared, everything had to be ready or they could not arrive at the next ranch at the appointed time.

The herders would have the sheep on the hills where they could get water from the two lakes and still not get mixed up with the other herds. But that was not all that had to be done. Grandma Davis had to have sufficient supplies of food to feed the shearing crew plus the extra hands needed to work the ranch during this time, ad well as the family. It seems there were always visitors to watch the shearing also.

Shearing time was always a good time to cull out sheep that were getting too old to be profitable any more and to locate sickly or others for making up a new herd to be prepared for immediate sale or treatment of some kind.

Sheep chute
photo courtesy of: flickr

The men would run a herd through a long chute coming out of the large barn. Usually it was Grandpa who was telling the man at the gate which way to send the sheep, and he would switch the movable panel to send the sheep to the pen on the right or on the left. When finished sending a herd through the chute, men would put the different groups into smaller corrals according to their condition.

After this was done, the different groups would go to the shearers to give up their wool and then they would be herded off to special pastures by their herders. Those needing additional treatment would be kept back to have more added to their groups as the next herd would be sorted out in like manner.

Sheep shearing - circa 1900

photo courtesy of flickr

Next came the actual shearing. They grab the sheep by the front leg and set him up on his hind quarters and start shearing the belly first. A good shearer will end up with the wool all together as though they had skinned it! When they finish with one sheep, the man who picks up the wools give the shearer a token (like a coin) and he is paid by the number of tokens he turns into the boss when the day is over. So the faster they shear, the more money they make.

When the shearers break for dinner at noon, they consume a great quantity of food, for they work very hard, very fast, and it is very hot down on the plains of eastern Colorado. As kids, we helped some with the meals, but mainly we shared in the eating because we used up a lot of energy playing and working around the shearing pens and helping to get herds into the barn for separating and many odd jobs that had to be done.

Hegler's Swimming Pool

Delbert (1) and Louis (12) with family pets
about 1935

When I turned 12 years old, I joined Scout Troop #2 at the Bethel Methodist Church with several of the neighborhood boys. Our church did not have a Scout Troop at this time. Piff Wallace was the assistant Scout Master to Mr. Reeves.

An arrangement was made between Hegler’s Swimming Pool and Scout Troop #3 for the troop to work at the pool in the spring to prepare it for the summer swim season. The work had to be done on Saturdays during April and May.

Ray Hegler

The Hegler family owned a farm which included a stream in which they cleared out the brush and built a dam.  This dam created a pool of water about 150 feet long and 75 feet wide which made a very nice swimming pool.  In addition to the pool, the Heglers built a bath house, diving towers and boards, parking area and fencing.  It was a great business!

The pool consisted of a dam across a ravine and a stream working its way down to the Arkansas River. It was about a half mile north of Highway #50 and ½ mile south of the Arkansas River.

The stream would bring in silt from the fields which drained into the stream all summer. So we would wash the silt out of the sand, re-sand the pool bottom, and clear out any trash or growth from the incoming stream.

We would re-sand the area on top of the dam and on the beach on the west side of the pool. We would scrape and repaint the tower, diving boards, fence, dressing rooms, and business area.  In return for our work, we could swim free all summer.


Just before the pool opened for the public, the Heglers always had a pit barbeque pig for a big meal and party for the workers.

After the first year, our neighborhood boys took over the project, and the Scout Troop dropped out of it. We continued the project and free swimming until we were well into high school, and then some boys stayed on as life guards, etc. The group stayed on and swam free until WWII broke out and most of us ended up in the service.

We often went to Hegler’s on Friday after school and slept there Friday night. We would work and play and swim as soon as the pool filled (even though the water was very cold when it first filled.) Some stayed over Saturday night, but most of us had to come home for Sunday church meetings.

We did a lot of swimming for the summer when we could talk one of our parents into driving us out there. It was about seven miles from our neighborhood.

A little internet searching led me to Ray Hegler's obituary as published in the Pueblo Chieftain:

Hegler, Raymond E.
Raymond E. Hegler, 86, passed away Jan. 20, 2005. Survived by his loving wife of 19 years, Anna Hegler; his children, Alan Hegler, David (Cathie) Hegler, Gail Hegler; grandchildren, Melissa Merrill, Michael Hegler; his stepchildren, Marge (Jim) Penrod, Janice (Larry) Crump, John (Marcella) Mravich; grandchild, Becky Penrod; special niece, Pepper (Bill) Rhinehart. Also survived by numerous nieces and nephews. Preceded in death by his parents, Frank and Mary Hegler; first wife, Jean Townley; brothers and sisters, Pauline, Herman, Frank, Fred, Theodore, Wilma, Anna and Isabelle. Ray was the owner and operator of Hegler Swimming Pool. He raised fish at the Hegler Trout Farm. Ray was a member of the Eagles, NRA, Carpenters Union, Fin and Feather Club. He also loved to dance, have fun and was a kind and loving person.

I Belong to the Church . . .

Lou - 3rd Grade
1931-32

On 16 May 1931 I was baptized by Elder J. Leslie Hobbs and confirmed by Elder Jay P. Davis into the Pueblo Branch of the Western States Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My baptism certificate was recorded by Sister Amy D. Newton, Branch Clerk and signed by President J.T. Johnson.

Elder J. Leslie Hobbs
1931

Elders J. Leslie Hobbs and Jay P. Davis slept at Sister Maude Myers home down the street from us and took their meals at our house. Sister Myers had gone to work in a restaurant out by the cemetery on old Highway 50 at Blend.

Proof of my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - but they spelled my name wrong, and I am surprised that my mother let it go without getting it corrected!

A Shot in the Foot

In 1934 I was spending the summer on the sheep ranch at Haswell with Grandpa and Grandma Davis. Uncle Johnny, my mother's brother, lived next door to them and worked the ranch with Grandpa Davis.

Elma Louis Brandon and John Arnold Davis
married June 20, 1926

Hubert - Elda - Herbert
early 1940's

Children of John and Elma Davis

The John and Elma Davis family
about 1950

One day Uncle Johnny, his twin sons Hubert and Herbert, and I were going out to take some groceries to one of the sheep camps. When tending camps we always had guns in the car or truck in order to shoot coyotes, rabbits, or snakes. This time we had a twenty-two rifle in the car - a 1932 Ford 4-door sedan.

1932 Ford 4-door sedan
at a car show - not Uncle Johnny's

The twins [about 2 1/2 years old] were riding in the front seat with Uncle Johnny, and I was riding in the back seat holding the gun, ready to shoot a rabbit when we would see one. All at once we hit a big bump on the prairie and we flew up in the air. When we came down the rifle fired down toward the floor. The bullet went through my shoe and grazed my big toe, but luckily, it did not hit the bone.

Uncle Johnny says my sock was off before my shoe hit the floor! There was a neat hole along side of my big toe! We never did figure where the bullet went out of the old Ford, but I guess it just went on through the floor of the car.

I got some instructions about keeping the gun on safety until I was ready to shoot, and for years I heard a lot about “shooting myself in the foot.”

Fowler Weekends

Alice Bell and Clark Harriman
Lou's cousins

In the fall of 1935 I started the 7th grade at Park Hill Junior High School and began an interesting two years of unexpected association with one of my teachers. Her name was Miss Norton and she grew up on a farm in Fowler, Colorado just a few miles from where my Uncle Frank and Aunt Birdie (Harriman) lived. Somehow we made the connection that I liked to spend time visiting down there wherever I could, and she invited me to ride down to Fowler with her and another teacher, Miss Esther Hilton. She said that they went to Fowler almost every other weekend right after school on Friday, and they returned to Pueblo on Sunday evening about 5 or 6 p.m. Now this really appealed to me, and though I couldn’t go every time, I did go often. I would take my suitcase to school on Friday afternoon and then they would drop me off at our home on Sunday evenings.

I had great fun on these weekend trips to Fowler. Usually it was nothing real exciting, but just being with Clark and Alice Bell was a great pleasure for me. Many times it was just being with Clark doing one of the many chores around the ranch. One week it may have been fixing fence all day Saturday way out on the prairie many miles from the ranch house. That may not sound like fun to many people, but I always had a good time. Whatever we did, we made it fun and we enjoyed the fact that we were accomplishing something all of the time. This is where I really learned to work and to enjoy it. Uncle Frank made me feel like I was really something, and sometimes I would be paid for the work.

Uncle Frank Harriman
on his way to check things at the ranch
(year unknown)

Rattlesnake Scare
Sometimes it did get exciting. I remember one time when we were fixing an extension to a fence to go right up to the edge of a creek bed with a drop of about 15 feet. There was a large sage brush there, and as we attempted to hold down the brush with our feet and get a post hole near the edge, we heard a loud rattle and there was a large rattlesnake in the base of the brush. We both fell backwards getting out of there in a hurry!

Tumbleweed Fire
Another time we were hunting rabbits up near the spillway from the Highline Ditch to the Apishapa Creek, and we observed that where the water had been released to the creek in order to clear the tumbleweeds out of the ditch, they had accumulated in a huge pile on the way to the creek. I don’t know if many people know what a great fire a large pile of tumbleweeds makes or not, but we thought it would be fun to burn this large pile of tumbleweeds.

There was no one at home; they had all gone to town except for Clark and me. Fowler is about five miles from the ranch house and the land is pretty flat. When we lit the tumbleweeds it made an awfully hot fire, and we had to back off a long way. The fire got bigger and bigger until the flames were going up into the air about 75 feet or more.

Just as the folks were leaving town they saw this huge fire ball and the smoke (from 5 miles away) and they thought it was the ranch house on fire. Needless to say, they were really excited until they close enough to know that it was not the house. It is also needless to say that we were in big trouble!

Bringing up the Rear
Another weekend found us irrigating the big garden which was just west of the house. We rode a big paint horse, bareback, up to the head gate and started the water running down to the garden and then proceeded to open small ditches into the rows of the garden. Then we went back to get down to the east end of the garden.

When those rows were watered we jumped on the paint horse again and went back up to the west end of the garden to reset the water. Clark was riding behind me, and as we got to the end of the garden, the horse started to step on the first tomato plant. Clark reached around me, grabbed the reins to pull him back from the plant. But when he did, the horse raised his head and reared up, causing us to start to slide back off the horse. As we slid, we held to the reins and pulled him back and up more until we slid off the rear end and into the ditch full of water and mud.

Clark lit in the ditch, I lit in his lap, and as we looked up, there was the huge rear end of the horse directly above us and about ready to drop into my lap. We were both scrambling to get out of the mud and water as the horse pivoted around and stepped on the side of my lower leg and buried it in the mud.

The horse scampered off a few feet and stopped. I jumped up and started hopping around on one foot thinking my leg was broken for sure; Clark was trying to get up out of the mud. We were so glad we weren’t sat on by that horse that we started laughing as Clark saw me hopping around on one foot, and we were both covered with mud. We must have been quite a sight.

Then we heard Aunt Birdie yelling from the other end of the garden to see if we were all right as she had seen the whole thing and didn’t know if we were badly hurt or not. She said all she knew was that I was hopping around like a chicken with its head cut off and Clark was still down in the mud! However, my leg was just bruised, but I was scared to death!

Somersaulting Horse
One day I went with Clark and Uncle Frank (Harriman) to the feed lots near Manzanola, Colorado. We were in a Chevy Coupe, pulling a horse trailer with a horse all saddled and ready to do something at the feed lots.

We drove down and took care of business, and put the horse back in the trailer to go home. This time we went up Highway 50 instead of taking the short cut on the back roads as Uncle Frank needed to go to the bank in Fowler on our way home. We met a couple of big trucks on the highway, and the horse began to jump around in the trailer. His bridle/halter was tied down pretty good, but he was jumping around a lot. Uncle Frank slowed down and when we were almost stopped the horse lunged and did a somersault over the front of the trailer and the saddle horn crashed in the trunk of the car. The bridle reins broke and as we were almost stopped, the horse rolled off to the ditch side of the road and was not hurt. We covered his eyes and got him back in the trailer and made it home.

Alice Bell and Clark
circa 1931

Croquet Mishap

Another day when I came out of an incident a little worse for wear (and would be for the rest of my life) was the day we were playing croquet in the front yard of the ranch house. Alice Bell was waiting for her turn by spinning on her toe with her croquet mallet at arm’s length in both hands, and I was sitting on the grass waiting for my turn. When my turn came, I jumped up just in time for her mallet to meet the end of my nose with enough force to send me flat on my back, my nose bleeding like mad! To this day I have trouble with my nose, even though I had surgery on it in 1993 in Greeley. I have never cared much for croquet since that time.

There were many more fun weekends, but that is enough for now.

Aunt Birdie and Lou - 1943

Memories of Grandpa Davis

As a young boy, Lou spent a lot of time with his Davis grandparents - Della and Harker. These are just a few of his recorded memories.

Grandpa Davis’ Meals
Charles Harker Davis was the head of a large family: 6 boys and 8 girls (7 living.) There was no doubt in anyone’s mind as to who was “the man.”

After chores were done and it was time for breakfast, Grandpa took his place at the head of the table, and the six boys sat down. They didn’t bless the food (to the best of my knowledge), but there was a moment of waiting until Grandpa was served. It was a large meal as it often had to last until evening as he would often be gone all day on the open prairie.


Card Games – “High Five”
Whenever the family got together after most of them were married, it was customary to go coyote hunting in the morning and home to a big dinner.

After the dinner, Grandpa, who was always served first and finished first, would get out the card tables and the cards.

During the card games there was lots of teasing, joking, and good times. As teenagers we would give our eye teeth to get a seat at the card table. There would often be a dozen or more games going at one time – no smoking! Only one son and one daughter smoked, but not in front of Grandpa, who smoked, rolling his own. But he never smoked in the house.


Hiring Herders
It was always fun to go with Grandpa Davis when he needed to hire sheep herders or extras for lambing season or shearing season.

Outside of Las Animas was a place where people from Mexico would come and live in a little “barrio” which was a few long adobe building consisting of many small apartments.

This was during the early and middle 1930’s depression, and there were always many men looking for work, and they worked very cheaply.

We would drive into the parking area, and by the time we stopped there would be a huge crowd around the car. They would all be asking questions in Spanish and pushing.

I don’t know how Grandpa selected the ones he hired, but he did, and in just a few minutes they would be back with bags of clothes and be ready to go.

School Days

In September of 1928 I entered Park View School as a Kindergartner, where I continued through the 5th grade.

On 1 September 1931 I entered third grade and had Mrs. Dorothy Ritchey for my teacher. I had a good year and liked her very much. When I returned to Park View School as a principal in 1960, she was still teaching there. The first thing she said to me was, “I sure hope I was good to you!”

In 1932 I entered 4th grade and had Miss Williams for my teacher. She retired just the year before I went back to Park View as a principal.

In 5th grade I had Miss Daniels for my teacher. We got along great, and I enjoyed the year. We formed a softball team and went to Fountain and played them. Miss Pingatore was the gym teacher at Fountain. We didn’t have a gym teacher at Park View.

Fountain School - grade 6/5 (highest level

School Year 1934-35
Louis Butler - 2nd row, 3rd from right

In 1934 I went to Fountain School for the 6th grade. It was a good year, and we were given many extra activities. Most of the patrol boys came from our class, and we were given opportunities to work in the office. We put on plays which we wrote, and it was just a fun year for me.

In a costume for one of our plays. I don't remember which one!
1934-35

Then in 1935 I went to Park Hill Jr. High School for the 7th and 8th grades. My best friend of that time, and for most of my childhood was Charles Shelhammer. He lived in the 1700 block of East 5th Street, just to the west of us. We spent many nights at each other’s houses and were together a lot of the time. He was great fun.

Chuck Shelhammer - Louis Butler
8th grade graduation

In June of 1937 I graduated from Park Hill Jr. High. It was a big day and I got a new suit and a hat. I also had the block “PH” (letter) which was earned by gaining points for almost anything I did well.

8th Grade Report Card
June 4, 1937

Summer of 1937 - Fristoe, Missouri

Lou's cousins - Charles and Lila Laree Davis
about 1925

Louis Butler, Charles Davis, Lila Davis
about 1925

Shortly after school was out in 1937, my brother Chuck and I went to Fristoe, Missouri down in the Ozarks, 11 miles south of Warsaw, Missouri. I had turned 14 in March and had finished junior high and Charles would turn 12 in September and was ready for junior high. Uncle Floyd, my mother’s next to oldest brother, was living in Fristoe. It was in the Ozarks and very different than living in Colorado. Uncle Floyd was teaching carpentry at the high school as well as farming. Aunt Irene was a rather quiet lady who was not well much of the time. Their son, Charles, was about 9 months older than I, their daughter Lila was 5 months younger than I, and their son Mervin was the same age as my brother Chuck, almost 12.

This took place 60 years ago, so if my memory is not too clear about it, you will know why. Leona says that seems to make my stories more interesting and exciting, so bear with me!

Charles Davis, Chuck Butler on King

This summer was right during the depression, and my dad who worked for the railroad as a fireman, didn’t get to work many months of the year. So for us to spend a summer away was a help to my parents financially. Uncle Floyd said we could do a lot of work on the farm for them to help earn our keep. There was very little that we ate that summer that we did not raise on the farm. Chickens, pigs, cattle, vegetables and several kinds of fruit were all grown on the farm. There was lots of work to do, with the barn yards to be kept clean, animals to feed and water, cows to milk, eggs to gather, milk to separate in order to get the cream to sell, weeds to be cut or hoed everywhere, hay and grain to be harvested, and fruit and vegetables to be picked.

The family was a lot of fun, and we all worked together very well. The day started early with each of us assigned to early morning chores, followed by a big breakfast which would keep us going until noon. Before breakfast we would always have the horses harnessed and ready to go as soon as we finished eating. We had no tractor, so everything was done with horse drawn equipment except the harvesting of grain, which was done by an outfit that went from farm to farm. As part of our way of saving on expenses, we followed the combine from farm to farm to help each other.

Grain Harvesting
Uncle Floyd in big hat, standing behind tractor

Grain Harvesting Crew

The meals were really great on these grain harvesting, sharing times. I think that each farm wife tried to outdo the others with fried chicken and all of the trimmings. We really put away a lot of food after working in the field all morning. There was no money available, but everyone had lots of food from their farms. Egg and cream money seemed to be the main source of cash for everyone. The desserts were great, always several kinds of fruit and home made ice cream for parties. No candy.

My Uncle Floyd was a strong, hard-shell, southern Baptist. We had prayers at each meal and scripture reading at breakfast. Sunday morning everyone went to a little white church. The meetings lasted a long time – at least that is my recollection as a child. It was very hot, with no air conditioning. They would open all of the windows and sometimes we would get a cross breeze which would help. Not being used to professional preachers, I was not used to the volume of their voices. This preacher was so loud and spoke so fast, and his voice was so high pitched, that we could have heard the sermons from the parking lot with no difficulty! Uncle Floyd thought he was wonderful and we never missed a Sunday.

It was so hot and humid in the summer that we would stop work in the fields about 11 a.m. and go to the house where we would wash up and go in for lunch. Then everyone would take a nap on the living room or dining room floor as that was the coolest place we could find. You couldn’t sleep on the grass because of the ticks and chiggers.

This family took great enjoyment out of tickling someone. If you were ticklish, your life would be miserable, but everyone else would enjoy it. My mother had warned me about this before we went there to spend the summer. So I had made up my mind that they would not be able to have any fun with me, because I would tell them I was not ticklish. Well, it was murder at first to keep from being annoyed by their tickling. It would happen when you were asleep, or reading, or just not looking at them. They would crawl under the chair and tickle your bare feet. They used feathers, straws, or anything they could find. Sometimes I thought I would explode before they would give up on me. It took a long time before they gave up on me and only tried occasionally. I had to be on my guard continually.

In that little farming community they had a party every time there was the least excuse. They would gather at one of the farms in the evening and the parents would sit around and visit and the young folks would dance. I am sure that they had several dances of the folk type, but the main one I remember was “Skip to my Lou, my Darling.” Usually they had no music, so they all sang the song and danced to it. They had a lot of fun and I don’t remember any drinking or other problems at any of them. They always seemed to have homemade ice cream and cookies or cake.

Louis Butler and Charles Davis with Beauty

One of my favorite things to do was to go horseback riding in the woods and find a plum tree and sit on the horse and pick plums and eat them right there. We didn’t have the money for fruit at home during the depression, so this was a real treat. I would also find wild strawberries and eat them. The persimmons really didn’t get ripe until after we went home, so I don’t know about them. I know they were awfully sour before they got ripe! There were lots of currents and other kinds of berries and lots of cherries too.

One of the most disagreeable things about the farm was the presence of ticks and chiggers. We had to be very careful about being in the grass or trees and sometimes around the animals, or the ticks and chiggers would get on us and that could be very disagreeable. Whenever we worked in the woods or in the grassy areas, we had to strip down in the evening and check each other to make sure there were not ticks on us. We usually knew if we had chiggers, because they itched something awful.

There was a creek running along the edge of the farm just about 200 yards from the house. We could always catch fish there and it was a great place for a swim at least once a day, and often more than once. When there were rains, the creek would rise up pretty high and would be very swift. We used to like to swim in it and didn’t realize how dangerous it was. There was so much brush and so many small trees growing over the water and all tangled up, that when we would ride the waves downstream during high water, we would go down to the bottom to miss the branches. It is a wonder we didn’t get caught up in them, under the water, and drown. It surely was a lot of fun, though!

I was very sorry to see the summer come to an end. This meant we had to go back to the city and back to school.

front: Aunt Irene and Uncle Floyd
back: Charles, Lila, Mervin
about 1940

Uncle Floyd was an excellent wood worker and did some construction work. Sometime after we were there, the family sold the farm and moved to Orlando, Florida where Uncle Floyd worked in a furniture factory. Charles worked there also.

Young Lou

Unfortunately, neither Dad nor his mother wrote much about his early childhood years. However, we do have a number of pictures that illustrate very clearly that he was a typical little boy.

Louis Edward Butler
September, 1923
Picture taken in the doorway of their home in Haswell, Colorado

Fern Butler, Louis, Mable
Fern was Mable's sister in law, married to Joe Butler, Jess' brother

"I don't know if this was our home or Uncle Joe's home, but it certainly looks very humble and in need of repair."

Louis, 11 months
"At a family reunion in 1993, Uncle Norman Davis - age 97, told me he had bought me a little dog when I lived in Haswell.
This must be it."

Louis, about 2 years old, 1925

Louis doing tricks on the bike!

"The new bride - Louis Edward"
Written on the picture in his mother's handwriting

Early Childhood Home

In 1924, I moved with my parents to Pueblo, Colorado. Dad rented a house on East 4th Street, right across from the Fire Station. In Mother’s little notebook it says, “On September 3,[1925], the cars on 4th Street (which was a very busy street and also State Highway #96 through town) were honking and brakes were screeching when the Aunt looked out and that 2 ½ year old Pride and Joy was in the middle of the street with his sand bucket and shovel directing traffic!”

1806 E. 5th Street, Pueblo, Colorado
June 13, 1934

On December 1, 1925 (when I was 2 1/2 years old) we moved to a home at 1806 East 5th Street [in Pueblo Colorado]. We lived here until we four boys were all married and living away from home. It was a great place for us to live. There were about 25 boys and only three or four girls living in the 1700 and 1800 blocks of the street. We had a good time doing just about everything boys like to do. We had teams for baseball and football. We played tennis at the Junior High School. We went swimming at Hegler’s Swimming pool which was about 7 miles out of town, but we made it often.

"This is where I lived from about the winter of 1925 until I went in the service when I was 19 years old in October 1942"

We lived only about three blocks from the prairies where there was a baseball field and a dry creek. Up the creek about three miles were some cedars and hills where we used to hike on occasion. There was a nice little park a block from Park View School and one on East 3rd Street in the 1100 block. We only went there for games with a rival team.

Following a major winter storm

Our house was just about eight blocks to Park View Elementary School where I attended grades K-5 (and later became principal). We were about 12 blocks from Fountain Elementary (grades K-6) where we went for 6th grade and about six blocks to Park Hill Junior High where we attended grades 7 and 8. Centennial High School was about a mile and a half from our house.

The house after the front bedroom was extended to include the east half of the front porch

The area from the edge of the lawn to the house next door belonged to the Berrys who lived next door. They were very old, and my folks did lots of things for them. They gave us the empty lot between their house and ours for us to plant a garden. Later, they deeded the house to my folks and asked them to carry out their plans for burial, which the folks did. Dad put in a fence around the area from where the sidewalk would be (if there had been one) and back about half way toward the alley. There he had a sidewalk to get over to their house to check on them and to help out as needed.

As the family grew and Lou and his brothers married and had children, this home was still the site of many family dinners and celebrations. Do you have any memories of this family home?