The Life Story of Hester

Elizabeth Damron Brimhall

Compiled by Richard Logan Brimhall and Ivy LaPriel Burnett Brimhall Editors:  Alicia Brimhall, Christina Elizabeth Brimhall Stewart and Marcela Brimhall March of 2005

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1:  Echoing Footsteps

• My Birth

• Whooping Cough

• Blessing and Baptism

• My Physical Description

 

CHAPTER 2:  My Mother - Armelda Ferguson Damron

• Mom’s Physical Description

• My Mother’s Was From Kentucky

• My Mother’s Role

• Mom’s Personality and Cookies

• Church and Working with Mother

• Mom’s Quilting

• Wash Day

• Hatching Chickens and Picking Cotton

• Nap on Cotton Sack

• Mom’s Butter

• Jack and Buttered Biscuits

• Honey and Beehives

• Company and Chicken to Eat

• I Spill the Cream

• My Mom Lives With Us in Winslow

 

CHAPTER 3:  My Father - Joseph Vernon Damron

• Physical Description of Dad

• Damrons Come From Utah

• William Wallace Damron, My Paternal Grandfather
• Dad and Pima Cattle Story

• Dad and Het combing Hair

• Dad Carved Toys For Another Family at Christmas

• Dad and Old Buck

• Dad and Our Buggy

• Dad and Sun Flower Story

• Dad and Buggy River Crossing

• Dad, Buck and Shopping

• Dad and Buck Dies

• Dad An Article on Shaving

• Rag Rugs

• Dad and Visits to His Mom

• Dad Helped With Canning

• Dad Popping Corn

• Dad Tingled My Legs

• Dad and Annie Tripped

• Dad Plowing the Fields

• Dad & Incubating Eggs

• Eggs to Pigs

• Dad Passes Away

 

CHAPTER 4: My Siblings

• Armelda

• Joe

• Ray

• Lewis

• Annie

• Chet

• Jack

• Bettie Lou

• Home Alone

 

CHAPTER 5: Home Life While Growing Up

• Dad and Killing Animals

• Bladder Balls

• White Corn

• Jack and I Playing in the Corn Stalks

• Mom and Head Cheese

• What our Family Ate; Cush, Pig Weed, Etc.

• Get Rich Meal/Pearls

• Streaked Grease

• Our Snacks

• Constipation

• De-worming

• Stomach Aches

• Living Condition/Water and Power

• Canning on the Hot Stove

• Wash and Ironing Days

• Ironing Chores

• Cow Chain Story

• Ditch Broken Arm Story

• Screen Porch Scared Story

• Built Hatching House Story

• Playing Bottle Horses with Jack

• Willie McRae Story

• Carpenter Telescope Story

• Our Thatcher Neighbors

• Games We Played

• Tarzan Movie Story

• My Jobs

• Description of Our Home

• Our Kitchen

• Jello Story

• Joe Arkansas Project

• Linoleum Project

• Cream Separator Story

• Easter Egg Hunt Story

• Thanksgiving Cake Story

• Our Christmas

• President Kimball

• Parental Church Activity

• Jake Suicide Story

• Sacrament Meeting Stories

• Fast Offerings In Kind

• Monkey Bill Moody

• Horseback Riding with Kitty Curtis

• Ditch and Bee Sting

• Mexican Family

• Uncle Gene and Aunt Hatties’ Hay Barn

• Record Player and Radio

• Roasting and Eating Doves

• Favorite Foods

• Honey and Beehives

• Tubing in the Big Ditch

• Sneak Swimming

• Chet and School

• Patriarchal Blessing

• Baptism For the Dead

• Childhood Sickness

• Trials in my Life/Dad’s Death & World War II

• Reading by Lamplight

• Mom’s Flowers and Our Tricks

• Making Soap, Washing Socks, Raising Chickens

• Danger of Cotton Wagon

 

CHAPTER 6: Education

• Elementary School Favorite Teachers

• Trips Growing Up

• Friends and Dating

• High School

• Friends in High School

• How I Earned Money in High School

• HS Freshman Yr.

• HS Sophomore Yr.

• HS Junior Yr.

• HS Drum Majorette

• HS Pepperette Club

• HS Plays

• HS Offices

• Jr. College

• College Majorette

 

CHAPTER 7:  Marriage and Life With Vaughn Lorenzo Brimhall

• Meeting VLB

• VLB Jumping the Ditch

• Hospital Blessing

• Vaughn’s Heart Attack and Blessing

• My Husband

• Tribute to My Husband

• Mama Lived with Us

• The Wreck

 

CHAPTER 8:  Our Children and Our Home

• Children

• Humorous Episodes in Our Lives

• Lessons Learned with Children

• Places we Lived

• Adult Friends

• Betty Whipple

• Rexburg Women's Weed Suitcases

• Learning from other Women

• Betty & Temple Slip

• Betty Sharing Joys and Sorrows

• Betty Caring for the House

• What happened to Betty and Tom Whipple

 

CHAPTER 9:  The Years of World War II

• Called to War

• Basic Training

• Letters and More Scorpions

• Hot Water Steam Story

• Ricky and Marsha W.W. II

• VB + HB WorId War II Story

• My Cousin Irene

• V-Day Victory

• Vaughn Comes Home

 

CHAPTER 10: Talents and Community Service

• Talents

• Community Service and Work

 

CHAPTER 11:  Travel

• Places Traveled To

• Chile in Conflict

• Arica, Chile

• Easter Island Visit

• Return to Santiago

• Mexico Jorge Visit

• Easter Island Article

 

CHAPTER 12:  Church Service

• Callings

• Missions

 

CHAPTER 13:  Family Reunions

• How the B-13 Ranch Came to Be

 

CHAPTER 14:  To My Posterity

• Advice to Youth and Goals

• Strength from Tribulation

• The Text of My Patriarchal Blessing

• My Testimony

 

CHAPTER 15:  Photos of Who We Are and Who We Were

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

This work was completed in 2005 and is a compilation of writings and cassette tapes dictated by Hester Elizabeth Damron Brimhall in the late 1980s through 2005 about her life.  At the time of this compilation (2005) she is 85 years old living in the last home her husband built for her in the early 1960s in Winslow, Arizona.  She is still very physically and mentally sound and participated actively in making this book a reality.  Richard and LaPriel Brimhall began working with her in the mid 1980s on her life story.  She is a record keeper, saving letters, articles, photos and keeping extensive personal journals over the years, all of which have been used in different degrees in the compilation of this work.  Working with her in this project over the years has been a great blessing to us as a couple.  It is her intent that this work provide the following;

 

1.  A testament of faith in God;

2.   A love of and enthusiasm for life; and

3.  A statement of positive, moral courage to face what is experienced by each of us in this mortal probation.

  

This book is written to her current posterity and, especially, to the many generations yet to come.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 1:  ECHOING FOOTSTEPS

Looking down from the peaks of the present into the valleys of the past I present these echoing footsteps of my life.  Dedicated to my precious decedents, loved ones and friends--this year of 1987 from Winslow, Arizona.

 

MY BIRTH

The ring of the horse’s hoofs on the frozen earth split the silence of a cold, clear night as the country doctor hurried to answer the call that a new baby was attempting to enter the earth.  He caught a glimpse of the small adobe home and urged his horse on and soon was slipping from the horse’s back to hurry up the walk.  It was 11:45 p.m. when he delivered me, and you might say I came by way of home delivery.   Soon the four sided clock on the church steeple bonged out the midnight hour and firecrackers, guns, cannons and bells resounded over the Gila Valley bouncing off the surrounding mountains.  Not to be left out, my oldest sister

Armelda said, my lusty cry joined the New Years celebration of the town of Thatcher, Arizona in the Gila Valley.  My Father's full name was Joseph Vernon Damron.  My Mother's full name was Armelda Skaggs Ferguson.  My name was Hester Elizabeth Damron.  I was born December 31, 1919 in Thatcher, Graham County, Arizona.  My nickname was Liz, Hettie or Het.  We lived in an old adobe house and I was born at home.  At my birth my Father (Joseph Vernon Damron) was 45 years old and my Mother (Armelda Ferguson Damron) was 36.  I was the seventh child of nine

children.

 

WHOOPING COUGH

At six weeks my eyes dimmed and my chest heaved with the dreaded killer disease of whooping cough racking my system.  Because of the loving care of my anxious parents, I survived to be forever the smallest and feistiest one in my family.

 

BLESSING AND BAPTISM

I was blessed and given my name on March 30, 1920 by Allando B. Ballantyne in the Thatcher Ward in the Thatcher St. Joseph Stake.  The Bishop was N. Nichelson.  I was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on June 30, 1928 in the Thatcher, Arizona Ward of the St. Joseph Stake.  The Bishop was Bishop J. H. Porter.  I was con-

 

firmed on July 1, 1928 by Elder John Bilby.   The Ward Clerk was Delbert Taylor.  About the only thing I remember about my baptism and confirmation is that I was wearing a white dress and that I was baptized in the font of the old Thatcher Church/Stake Center.  It recently burned to the ground.

 

MY PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

I had very dark-brown, straight hair, hazel eyes and a straight nice nose until a cow ran over me and rearranged it some.  I was bouncy and full of energy and ready to sample all of life's goodness.  One of my teachers said I never walked anywhere as I either ran, skipped or danced my way through life.  When young, I had lots of freckles and my brothers teased me and called me an old turkey egg.  I’d come up fight'en!!!!!!!!!!!!  Thank heavens I finally out grew them in my teens, but then came pimples.   I hated them, as I’d much rather had dimples and en-                vied girls who did. Now at 67 years of age I have brown spots and wrinkles.  I’m a short 5’ 1 &1/2” tall and weighed 105 pounds when married and now weigh 125 pounds.  It could be put on my headstone. “Here lies Hester E. Brimhall, dieting at last”.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 2: MY MOTHER - ARMELDA FERGUSON DAMRON

 

MOM’S PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

My Mother was rather tall--probably five feet six or seven.  She was thin all of the time that I was growing up.  She was sort of "raw boned," as people used to describe it.  I remember that she had sort of bucked teeth that crossed in the front.  That was a predominant Ferguson trait.   My grandfather's teeth crossed in the front,  my Mother's teeth crossed in the front, my sister Armelda's did and my brother Ray's did.   When one of my daughters was born, Sylvia Ann, and started growing up her teeth started crossing in front.  We had to have orthodontic care for her.  Also, my grand daughter, Christina Brimhall Stewart’s teeth were bucked and crossed in front.  She also had to have braces.

 

MOTHER WAS FROM KENTUCKY

My mother’s family came to Thatcher from Kentucky.  In 1976, Mother told me the following stories about her life and that of her family, the Fergusons.

 

“The name given me at my birth was Armelda Ferguson.  The place I was born is Lawrence County Kentucky in 1884 February 6th.  Ma’s name was Sarah Ann Skaggs and Pa’s name was William Ambrose Ferguson.

 

My Grandmother’s name was Sarah Gillum and she was born in Elliot County and my grandfather’s name was Lewis L. Skaggs and he was born in Lawrence County Kentucky.

 

Ma married my dad when she was young.  She was a big woman about 5”8” tall.  She had bright blue eyes and long black hair and lots of it.  She was such a happy woman, who sang a lot.  She had five

children, Laura, Armelda (me),   Mary, Hulda and Henry.

 

Pa was a wonderful, hard working man and very handsome with dark, thick hair and a mustache.  He had an adventurous spirit and was brave and courageous.  

 

We lived in a log house that had a big front room and a large kitchen, but no bedrooms or bath.  There was a fireplace in both rooms made of rock.  It got mighty cold there, and if we wanted to, we could burn wood in both rooms as it was plentiful.  We cleared off the land to cultivate, and that gave us our wood.  When we wanted to go to the bathroom, we just hunted a spot in the woods or a gully and wiped on leaves.  Nobody knew about outdoor toilets then.

 

Sometimes when we wouldn’t have a horse to farm with, we borrowed Uncle Link (Melvin Porter) Ferguson’s mules.  He was my dad’s brother.  His wife’s name was Rindy (Rinda) Fyffe and her father was Merida.  They just lived through a field from us.  We had other relatives there such as Aunt Sebra Elizabeth Skaggs who was married to John Milton Skaggs.  We called her Aunt Seeb.  Some of their kids were Ressie, Sarah, Dave, Elzy and Nianza.

 

When I was about six I went to Keaton School.  I wore wool clothing that my mother had made.  First she spun all the material for all our clothing from sheep's wool that I helped Dad sheer.  One time my cousin came to watch us sheer the sheep and while we were walking to the house, she was swinging the sheers, which were very sharp, and the end stuck in my leg just above the knee.  For months my leg was stiff and I could hardly walk.  Because of being pretty stove up, Dad allowed me to get 10 duck eggs and nine of them hatched.  A mud turtle got one, so I raised only eight.  I finally got tired of them and traded them for guinea hens.  About this time we moved to Morgan County and we went to school there awhile.  We also moved to Johnson County and finally we went back to Lawrence County.

 

When I was seven years old Pa had cut down a beech tree for fire wood and Laura and I were gathering the chips.  All of a sudden Laura started screaming, “Run! Meldie run, it’s Lee Prince’s old mean pig, and he’s coming down the lane and he’ll bite us!”  And she ran towards the house.  The pig was big and contrary but instead of running, I took a handful of chips and started pounding on her head and she really got mad and knocked me down and mauled me and bit the back of my leg up pretty bad.  Later on the Princes killed this pig and sent us a shoulder, as was the custom in those days.  When I tasted that meat, I swear it was the best I ever ate.

 

Laura, Mary, Hulda and me learned to milk the cow.  In those days the women did the milking.  We had an old gentle cow and she was kind of blue and white so we named her Frosty.  Mother would milk, then we girls would strip a pint tin cup full and by taking turns under mother’s supervision we all learned to milk.

 

Laura was mothers helper in the house, and being as I was next in line, I helped Dad in the fields and outdoors.  Henry was the only boy and too young to help.  I worked right along side of him by grubbing corn which was our principle crop.  We had to rotate the fields and the one would have to be cleaned the following year of sassafras and young chestnut growth.  First I’d drive a yoke of oxen while Dad held the plow and I used to help plant the corn and always, I did the string beans which were planted in the same hill as the corn.  We raised enough beans to sell and bought clothes with the money.  We also raised sugar cane and made our own molasses.

 

When we were older our cousins used to come and we’d go exploring in the mountains close by.  We went to a place called Raven Rock where there were caves made from over hanging rocks.  The squirrels and chipmunks would gather nuts and bunches of grapes so we would get long sticks and scrape them out from under rocks.  There would be beautiful bunches of wild grapes and meaty nuts making a wonderful prize for us.  We also gathered what we called mountain tea, but is called wintergreen now.  There was beautiful bright persimmons, and the paupau’s were shaped like a kidney that grew green, then yellow, and when ripe turned brown, then black when spoiled and smelled from far off.  Also beechnuts, walnuts that were black and tan, hickory nuts, wild cherry trees, hazel berries and many more were everywhere.

 

Together we explored the pleasures nature offers the young, lazing away hot summer days under our favorite dogwood tree.  We’d roam the Kentucky woods in search of all these wonderful prizes.  Our Dad and uncles would possum hunt through the long winter nights with their favorite possum dog.  Most times we could hear their barks, high pitched, rapid signaling they’d located their prey.  Our hearts would leap with excitement of the coming day break and return of the successful hunters.  Dad liked coon, but Ma favored possum.

 

May apples were so delicious.  The sarves trees grew everywhere.  When we were working in the fields we would stop to rest under their lovely, spreading branches.  We kids would go climb the trees and eat the berries.  One tree was our favorite and was especially tall and all the branches were eight feet high from the ground.  Both my sisters and uncle tried to climb it and so did I.  The bark was smooth and white and difficult to climb.  I was the first to finally make it up and my uncle John Ed said, “If Meldie can climb it, by golly, so can I.”  And he did but it took him three more days of hard trying for him to accomplish it.

 

One day Mary and Laura was sitting under this tree and I was up in it.  I’d break off small limbs loaded with delicious sarves berries and throw down to them to eat.  They were really gobbling them up when all of a sudden the limb I was sitting on broke and I fell out of the tree and landed sitting down right between them.  We were all so startled then we just laughed our heads off.

 

We churned butter every day and never drank sweet milk.  We always had buttermilk that was left after the butter was formed.  We never knew what light bread was.  We always ate hot or cold biscuits and corn bread.  Grandma Ferguson occasionally made either sour dough bread or salt risen.

 

We made our own lye from ashes for soap making.  All winter we would save the ashes from the best wood.  Then when March came we would have a soap making festival with all the relatives and neighbors.  We would first pour boiling water over the ashes and then cold water.  The seep that came from the ashes was pure lye.  During the winter the entrails of the butchered pigs were split and washed and hung to dry for later consumption.  All the pig’s meat drippings (lard and grease) were saved and all this would go into a big iron pot with the lye water.  After boiling and cooling, there would be a thick, soft soap.  Enough would be made and stored in a barrel to last a whole year.

 

As Laura and I went into the woods one day that were near our home, saw a large hornet’s nest under a little beech tree.  We were supposed to be gathering fire wood.  I got a stick and started poking the nest just to see what would happen.  Laura told me that I shouldn’t do it, but I was a dare devil and did it anyway.  She grabbed her fire wood and ran for the house.  The hornets came buzzing out from their nest and covered me with their stings. Boy! did I ever jump and scream and holler.  You could have heard me in the next county.

 

We ate mostly things we had raised or grown in the garden.  We killed about two pigs a year and ate vegetables, fruit, chickens, ducks, geese and sometimes turkeys and eggs.  We farmed corn, cane, potatoes, onions, peanuts, tobacco, beans, squash and sweet potatoes.  We also raised oats and fodder for the stock.  We had lots of beehive boxes and sold honey and molasses.  We made our own brooms out of broom grass that was plentiful.  Also raised and ate a lot of popcorn and string beans.

 

The country we lived in was hilly and heavily wooded in places.  A little creek ran near our house, and we played in it a lot.  In late summer it would go dry in spots and even the deep dug wells would get low.

 

Ma sent Mary and me to the store to trade a hen and some eggs for sugar and oatmeal.  We were riding a horse.  I was in the saddle and Mary was behind me.  The old hen let out a big squawk and scared the horse and he pitched us both off.  Mary wasn’t hurt, but I had some broken ribs and my arm was dislocated.  I was so bunged up I couldn’t work in the fields for the rest of the summer.

 

Ma got real sick and Dad took her to a doctor and he sent them to Louisville for Ma to have an operation.  They removed a 60 pound tumor.  It was in a big sack of liquid and in it was black hair and teeth.  They said it probably started out as a baby and then the tumor took it over.  It was displayed in a medical college in a five gallon glass jar of alcohol and was called an ovarian cyst.  She hadn’t felt well for a long time and no wonder.  She got better and was her old self again singing around the house and weaving linseyl-woolsey for all our clothes.  Then the dreaded tumor came back and she became rapidly sick, but refused to be operated on again, because it would cost our home.  Ma didn’t want dad and us kids to be homeless.  She suffered great pain and swelled up tight as a drum and burst.  Dad dressed it with warm, soapy water each day and pressed clean white cloths to it to try to keep it dry, but it oozed all the time.  It was summer and we didn’t have screen doors, so someone had to stay with her all day to keep the blow flies away.  She got constipated and begged us to dig out the stool.  We didn’t know about enemas then.  She was sick so long that all our food was about gone to feed the people who came to help us with her.  I was eleven years old when she died.  She was buried way up on a hill on Grandpa Lewis Ferguson’s farm in Lawrence County Kentucky.

 

About two years after Ma died Pa married Hannah Boggs.  Soon after the Mormon Elders showed up in our area and my sister Laura was converted to the LDS Church through the teaching of the Elders and reading Orson Pratt’s works.  Then Pa, Mary and I joined.  This was around 1898.  Hulda was baptized a year later as we left Kentucky for Arizona.  Henry, being too young at the time, never was baptized or joined the Church.  Laura wanted to get an education and be a school teacher, but Pa said she either had to get married or come with us to Arizona.  So she stayed in Kentucky and married Millard Fyffe and later came to Arizona.

 

When we left home for Zion it was in the month of July.  There was Pa, myself (I was 15 years old), Mary 13, Hulda 11, Henry 8 and Eda (Edie), who was our half sister, was 2 years old.  Hannah didn’t come because she had Nancy, a five month old baby.  That left Mary and me to carry the load as mother of the family in Arizona.  The trip took us two weeks on the train and whenever it stopped, Dad would get off and get Edie a cup of milk.  She was weaned, but couldn’t go without milk.  Dad bought tickets to Mesa, but by mistake they forgot to have us get off and we ended up in Wilcox.  Dad didn’t like the looks of the place so we rode our tickets as far back as we could and they put us off in Thatcher.  We were anxious to get somewhere with the Saints, because the missionaries had told us how wonderful it would be.  But to our great disappointment we found these people weren’t any better than our dear home folks and friends we’d left in good ole’ Kentucky.

 

When we got off the train Pa had less than five dollars in his pocket.  We camped under the cottonwood trees and some folks felt sorry for us and lent us a fry pan to cook on.  Next day Dad got out and found us a place to live and I went to work doing house cleaning for people.  Some of them were more than kind and others took advantage of us newcomers.  Old Grandma Ray charged us 10 cents for a quart of milk when we later found out everyone else was charging 5 cents a quart.  We switched to Mrs. George Hoopes to get our milk for 5 cents a quart.  Her husband was on a mission and she needed every penny she could make.  Mary and I washed for people for 25 cents a day and Pa saved up his wages of $1.50 a day.  The following December he sent for Hannah and baby Nancy to come from Kentucky.

 

Hannah had to follow Pa to ranches and goat camps.  She met very few people and life was hard for her.  The country was desert and far different from the lush fields and lovely trees of her Kentucky.  She had very little chance to make friends and had another baby, Sarah Ann.  She finally came to coaxing Pa to return to Kentucky.  So, he saved enough money to send Hulda back with some relatives and he borrowed enough money later on to send Hannah, Henry, Nancy, Sarah Ann (whom we called Sadie), and also Edie.  Then it took Pa almost a whole year after this to square his debts and save enough for a ticket for himself.  Then he told me I either had to get married or go home with him.  But he just had barely enough money for his ticket and I knew it, and besides I didn’t want to go back.  I could make more money here and not have to work as hard.

 

Before leaving Kentucky I remember how heroic and wonderful I thought my Dad looked as he stood on cross ties and bore a fervent testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  He was a handsome and loving father.  After Father returned to Kentucky Hannah had twin boys, Truman and Norman.  After awhile Dad and Hannah were divorced and Dad returned to Thatcher, as did many of my brother and sisters.  Dad married again.  Her name was Mary Jane Donnels and they had four children.  Dad died in 1932 in Thatcher and Aunt Jane (Mary Jane Donnels Ferguson) died in 1939 in Phoenix, Arizona and was buried in Thatcher.

 

I married Joseph Vernon Damron the 17th of November in 1903 in Thatcher.  I was 19 and he was 29 years old.   We moved in with his folks for three months and I learned to love them.

Armelda Ferguson Damron at 19

 We moved to ourselves in Thatcher, then to Central where

Armelda was born, and then back to Thatcher after suffering many difficulties such as the Gila river flooding and washing our farm land away, our horse dying, our house burning, etc.”

 

MY MOTHER’S ROLE

My Mother's role in our home was very predominant because my Father was sort of easy going and took things as they came, so she took over as the head of the household.  She was very strong-willed.  She had to be, so that we could survive.

 

MOM’S PERSONALITY AND COOKIES

The personality and characteristics of my Mother were that she was a very calm, sweet and an enduring person.  She was compassionate, loyal and kind.  Her hair coloring was dark brown, and she had bright blue eyes.  She was talented in bread making.  She made beautiful molasses cookies that were as big as hot-cakes which she always stored in a round wooden bread basket.  It was sort of like a barrel made out of slats with wire around it.  It had a wooden top that would slide underneath some holes near the top.  It was airtight and was perfect for molasses cookies.  It was wonderful to come home from school and be able to go get a big ole’ molasses cookie.

 

CHURCH & WORKING WITH MOTHER

What I enjoyed doing with my Mother was walking to Church.  We'd talk as we walked to Church.  I enjoyed working in the kitchen and washing the socks on the washboard.  I'd help her candle the eggs and decide which one had a little baby in it and which didn't.  

Armelda Ferguson Damron 1908

We always enjoyed canning fruit together.  It was nice to go to the cotton fields and be with your parents.  She used to play jacks with us girls all of the time.  We'd get up on the kitchen table and play jacks by the hours, and she could really play.  Also, about twice a year all the family would go up and clean the family grave lots.  We enjoyed doing that and making them look nice.

 

 

 

 

MOM’S QUILTING

My Mother was a wonderful quilter and in fact she was a master quilter.  People from all over the country would come and hire her to make quilts for them.  I remember when she was in her eighties, one winter she quilted 25 quilts.  Some of them were king-size, queen-size and doubles.  We figured it out one time and she made $.25 cents an hour quilting.

 

WASH DAY

Wash day was every Tuesday, and I knew every Tuesday when I came home from school that we were going to have beans and hot bread for dinner.  That was our washday meal, and it sure was good.  Sometimes we even had corn on the cob with it.  In those days, people didn't have money.  It was depression years and so you made do with whatever you had.  Whenever my Mother got through washing the clothes, the floors were mopped with the last rinse water and it would have quite a bit of soap still in it.  We would wash and scrub all the floors like this on washday and everybody was always tired when this day was over, especially my Mother.

(L-R) Hester & Armelda Damron

 

HATCHING CHICKENS & PICKING COTTON

My Father never worked out in the public.  The only thing that I ever remember him doing was hatching the chickens in the adobe chicken hatchery that we had built behind our house.  My Mother would get out and pick cotton to bring extra money into the home.  We would hoe cotton until it was mature and then we would pick it for farmers.  My Mother was a real good cotton picker and she could make $1.50 a day by picking 100 pounds of cotton.  I can remember when I was very little, I would go to the cotton fields with her.  We would take our lunch in a lard bucket with a lid on it.   Our lunch would usually be deviled ham sandwiches, boiled eggs and pickles.  I couldn't eat deviled ham for a long time after this because the lunch would get hot in the sun and not smell to good by the time we ate it.  We'd open the lunch bucket and the smell of those sandwiches would come up very strong.

 

NAP ON COTTON SACK

I can remember when I was small that my brother Jack and I, would get tired of following our Mother up and down the cotton rows.  It would be time for our naps.  She couldn't quit picking because she needed to make the money while she could and so she'd let us lay down on her cotton sack.  The sack was 6 to 8 feet long and about 2-1/2 feet wide.  There was a big strap that went over the shoulder and down under the other arm.  There was an opening in the top part of the sack.  You'd pick and put the cotton in this opening.  All of the sacks were made out of heavy canvas.  A cotton filled sack made a good bed.  Either Jack or I would lay on the bottom of the cotton sack while she'd pull us up and down the rows as she picked cotton while we took our nap.

 

MOM’S BUTTER

My Mother made the best butter.  It was just simply delicious.  We'd save the cream for a week at a time.  We had this big crock-like churn that we used.  She'd warm the cream to a certain temperature and then we'd put  the cream in that churn.  It had a dasher with a round thing that fit inside the crock.  You'd take hold of the handle and dash that thing up and down until it made butter.  Then she'd pour the contents out into a big bowl.  There would be buttermilk and little pieces of butter.  She would put salt on the butter and work out all of the water.   The remaining butter was a beautiful golden color.  She had a mold that was made out of wood.  It was hinged and it would make a perfectly square pound of butter.  I remember that she would use wax paper.  She would take the butter out of the mold and put it down on this wax paper.  She would wet the wax paper and fit it around the butter.

 

JACK & BUTTERED BISCUITS

We would then sell the butter.  This helped us to buy our clothes and things like that.  That butter was so good on hot bread that she would just take out of the oven!

She would make these great big biscuits.  We’d would put this homemade butter on them and just eat them up.  They were so good!  I can remember that my little brother Jack's favorite thing was for my Mother to stand at the oven door, take out a great big biscuit that was, oh, about three times as big as the biscuits that we make now days, and toss it to him so he could catch it.  He thought that was the neatest thing.  We always teased him because once in a while he missed, so we really razzed him.

 

 

 

HONEY & BEEHIVES

I can remember every year my Mother would go with my grandfather out to where he had land and his beehives.  They'd take the honey out of the beehives and extract it.  I can remember that she'd come home with her lips all swollen up with bee stings all over her, but I never heard her complain.  I can remember all of us being so excited to get fresh honey.  We thought that the honey comb was very delicious.  We'd chew it like gum until we got all the honey out of it before we'd spit it out.

 

COMPANY AND CHICKEN TO EAT

We had lots of company come to our house and my Mother was very efficient.  She would go out into the chicken pen, catch one of the chickens  and cut or wring its head off.  Then she would dip it in hot water, hang it up by its feet with a wire on the clothes line and pick all of the feathers off from it.  Then she would take a page from the Sears and Robuck Catalog, set it on fire and singe all of the little fine hairs and feathers off from the chicken.  Then she would take it in the house, cut it open and take all of the entrails out.  She would then cut it into pieces and fry it.  She was the best chicken fryer!  I don't know how she made chicken taste so good!  Whenever we had company,  she'd go through that rigmarole.   We always had fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy,  a salad,  peas or corn,  and usually vanilla cake for desert.  Everybody loved to come to our house because her cooking was excellent.

Armelda Damron & Two Sisters 1961

 

I SPILL THE CREAM

Saving the cream so that we could make and sell the butter was a very important thing in our family and was something that we all knew had to be done with great care.  We'd milk the cows and then mama would put the milk in a pan.   We didn't have a refrigerator like we do now days, but we had a cooler door that opened to the outside where it had shelves and was screened.  My Father put gunny sacks over these screens.  We'd keep the gunny sacks wet all of the time.  That is how we kept our milk, our butter and stuff like that cool.  Back to the milk in the bowl.  When the milk formed a rich yellow cream, my Mother would skim it off and put it in a lard bucket.  After she had saved all of the cream for about a week, she'd put it on the back of the stove so that it would heat up to the right temperature so she could make butter out of it.

 

This one time, when I was in the kitchen with her, she told me, "Hester bring me the cream now because I have the churn all scalded out and clean.  It is time to make the butter."  She carefully explained to me to put my hand underneath the bottom of the bucket.  When I got over by the stove, it felt kind of hot so instead of doing as she had told me, I took hold with my finger and my thumb and held on each side of the bucket.  As I started to bring it over to the kitchen table where she was getting ready to churn, the whole bucket of cream slipped out of my hands and lit on the floor.   Cream just went everywhere; all over the stove, all over the cupboards, all over the table and chairs, all over my Mother's feet and legs and all over me.   There was our money all down the drain for the next week.  We would not be able to buy many groceries because I had spilled the cream.  I was just heart broken, and I started crying and saying, "Mama Mama, I didn't mean too, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"  I thought sure that she was going to spank me because I didn't mind her; I didn't do what she told me to do.  I didn't put my hand under the bottom of the bucket.

 

She stood there and looked at me for a minute,  and then she took me in her arms and she said, "I know you didn't mean to.  I'm sorry too, but let's just get it cleaned up and forget it.  I know you won't ever do it again."  That was such a kind, Christ-like way to treat a situation like that. I have never forgotten it.

 

MY MOM LIVES WITH US IN WINSLOW

At 92 years of age my Mother couldn't live alone anymore because she couldn't remember to turn the gas burners off on the kitchen stove when she finished cooking and she couldn't bathe herself because she couldn't get in and out of the tub.  We brought her home to Winslow, Arizona to live with us after Ray died.  She lived to be ninety-nine years old (lacking three weeks).  I love my Mother very much.  All the time I lived away from home after I was married, I wrote to my Mother every week.  I called her often after we had built her a new house and had a telephone put in.  I felt that was one way I could show her how much I loved her.

 

CHAPTER 3: MY FATHER - JOSEPH VERNON DAMRON

 

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF DAD

My Father was a jolly person.  Dad stood about 5’ 10” tall, with a stocky build.  He had brown hair and dark brown snappy eyes, like most of the Damrons do.  He was rather short for a man and of stocky build.  He wore bib overalls all the time, with a long-sleeved shirt, winter or summer.  His small size 8 feet were covered with brown, ankle-high work shoes, and a red bandanna handkerchief hung from his back pocket.  

Joseph Vernon Damron 1925

His dark hair was sprinkled with gray. He had a real thick mustache and I can remember he would sit by the fireplace and spit tobacco into the flames and would they sizzle!  Sometimes he’d miss and where he’d sit by the fireplace was always a little off color.  One of my jobs was to get soap and water and wash it clean.  I didn’t appreciate that one bit.  He was jovial and had a good sense of humor and everyone liked him.  He was friendly and concerned about people.  All his friends called him “Paddy” which is an Irish name.  He was good natured and mild most of the time, but fiery when pushed too far. He could never hold his temper once he let go of it.  He was a carpenter, but rarely worked outside the home.  He made all of our little rocking chairs and all of us kids little straight backed chairs and tables to play house with.  He was a good, decent Father who loved us children.

 

DAMRONS COME FROM UTAH

My family goes back a long way in Arizona.  My Mother came from Kentucky to Arizona.  My Father, Joseph Vernon, came as a child with his family from Mormon settlements in Deseret,  Utah.  Besides my Father, there were seven brothers and four sisters and their father and mother when they left Kanosh, Utah in 1882.  They came in three covered wagons trailing a milk cow and a few extra animals.  When they approached the Colorado River they had to fasten and drag a log behind each wagon to hold it in check in its steep descent to the river.  To cross the river, the wagons were placed on barges made of logs.  The horses swam the river.  When they finally arrived in Pima, Arizona, they lived in tents for six months.  The children attended schools in Utah and Pima.  Schools were organized as soon as the settlers arrived in any area as they were education minded.  My grandfather, William Wallace Damron, taught school in Kanosh, Utah and so was pressed into that position wherever they lived. He was the first U. S. Post Master in Thatcher.  It was combined with a mercantile store that he owned.   He was prominent in politics and was a well respected person.  I can barely remember my Grandma Hester Elizabeth Ray Damron, for whom I was named.  I do remember that she was blind, heavy set and passed away from cancer of the lip and face.  We always had to be very careful when we went to visit as she had candy for us and we were taught we must wash it before we ate it.

 

WILLIAM WALLACE DAMRON, MY PATERNAL GRANDFATHER

I found this newspaper article in my Mother’s trunk about my grandfather.

 

THE BULLETIN PUBLISHING COMPANY publishers G.H. KELLY AND W. B. KELLY

1897 GRAHAM COUNTY. ARIZONA TERRITORY

W. W. Damron

    This well known citizen and public officer of Graham County, went from Texas to Salt Lake City, Utah in 1855.  There he engaged in farming, teaching school and clerking in stores.  Being raised in the south, he was never satisfied in a northern climate and he immigrated to Arizona.  He arrived in Pima, Graham County, on the 25th day of November, l883, when this valley was but little more than a desert wilderness.  Mr. Damron was quick to see the grand possibilities of such a favored land and he was impressed with the belief that here would be “The Oasis” of Arizona.  Since his arrival in Graham County he has engaged in farming, teaching school and merchandising.  Besides holding various public offices, the duties of which have been faithfully and satisfactorily discharged, he has always taken an active part in public affairs, standing always firm for every measure that looked to bettering the condition of the poorer class.  Mr. Damron was elected county treasurer in 1888 and again in 1890; in 1892 he was elected probate judge, serving two years, and he was elected again to that office in 1896, being the present incumbent.  He is an old-time Jeffersonian Democrat and his council is sought on all party matters.  W. W. Damron & Sons also keep the Post Office in Thatcher.

 

DAD AND PIMA CATTLE STORY

Now, back to my Dad.  What a fantastic story teller my Dad was.  If it wasn’t exciting enough to suit him, he would just change it and make it the best story in the whole world.  He’d tell me stories about when he was a young boy growing up.  One of these I remember so well is just after he came with his parents to Pima from Utah.  The people were living sort of like the United Order.  Everybody helped everyone else.  This day it was his turn to take care of the little town of Pima’s cattle.  He had to herd them up into the hills by the big canal.  We always called the canal the big ditch even though it was a nice sized irrigation canal running through the whole valley.  

 

The Apache Indians were on the warpath at the time and he was a little anxious, but it was his turn and he had to go anyway.   The cows had only wild grass to feed upon.  I don’t know how old he was, but I figure he was about eleven or younger.  He said he was quietly herding the cattle when all of a sudden he could hear the thunder of horses hoofs so he ran to the top of the hill.  Crouching behind a tree he looked down onto the plains.  There was a large band of Indians coming at a rapid pace with their horses with faces painted for war.  It frightened him so bad that he didn’t know what to do for a few seconds.  Then dashing down the hill at breakneck speed he scattered the animals so the Indians wouldn’t take all if they came upon them.  Making a wild dive into the slow running canal he jerked up a reed similar to bamboo.