Sunday, November 30, 2008

Willard Carlos McBride (con'd)

(This is continued from last week's post.)

Most mornings, my brother and I (Willard C. McBride) would drive the cows, after milking them, to the "field" for pasture, two miles away, thereafter would go on to school. After school, again, we would go after the cows, drive them home, feed them some, and milk them. I recall one experience which frightened me because I was afraid my brother, Dewaine, had been seriously hurt or killed while driving the cows home one evening. Due to a screeching of brakes on a car going too fast, the cows became startled and quite wild. They turned around from going forward, and ran backwards, tromping my brother, Dewaine, until he was unconscious. It was by the home of Hyrum Crockett, and with the aid of his family, first aid was given to Dewaine and it was found that he was not seriously hurt.

As I have said, much of our food was bread and milk. My mother would make jams, preserves, jellies, etc. from the fruit of the orchard. Often, we did not have enough money to make jelly from the fruit, so my mother would put up in jars the juice from the fruit. Then if we later got a little money, she would make jelly out of the juice. Jelly required a lot of sugar to make it, and often we would not have the money for sugar.

I remember well the delicious and beautiful lovaes of brown light bread my mother made, which we would break into pieces into big bowls filled with milk, take some jam, preserves or jelly in a spoon, dip it into the bread and milk, and this became a fine evening meal in the summer, especially. Also, we would eat the bread and milk, taking bites of onions or radishes, which we grew, and found this fare to be delightful to eat. We grew a garden, although this project was not always successful. In the winter, we had pork from the hogs and beef from one or more of the steers which we would kill (steers, being castrated male animals, which otherwise, would have been bulls.)

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Willard Carlos McBride

At some juncture, my father, either before or after his marriage to my mother in 1914acquired a six acre area of land in the town of Pima, Arizona, where he built an eight room house, including an outside porch, screened in. It was a house mostly of brick, but contained some frame work. On this land, he grew alfalfa, some corn or cane at times, had an orchard (apples, plums, apricots, grapes, peaches, etc.), and it was on this area of land that we kept our cows (at least at night and sometimes during the day). He kept about six milk cows, some calves to sell or to use for beef, some hogs, chickens, and other animals.

In addition, he acquired at 15 acre farm some two miles from the house or our home. This we always referred to as "the field." Here he grew more alfalfa (for hay for the cows), wheat, and some barley. It seemed to be the practice, generally, for the families in Pima to live on a small area of land where they had small fields for grazing of cows, and an orchard, and to have a larger farm or "field" a few miles away out of "town." This was the situation, as may be seen with my father and his family. At times we "pastured," the cows in the fields on the six acrea area where our home was located, but much of the time we would drive the cows to pasture on a portion of the 15 acre farm or fireld two miles from home.

My first memory of life, as I recall, is that of sitting on a stool (a short, 2 by 4 inch board, which was nailed at the top of a board about one inch thick and aboaut 10inches square) milking a cow. We always brought the cows from the 15 acre field every night to milk them in the corral (pen). One of the jobs of my brothers and myself was the milking of the cows, feeding the calves (still on milk), letting them suck our fingers to learn what the milk tasted like, after dipping our fingers in the milk. Of course we milked the cows morning and night. After milking the cows, we put the milk through what was called a separator, a machine which separated the milk from the cream, the cream coming out of one spout and the milk, now removed of the cream, coming out of another spout. We saved enough milk before it was separated for our own use in drinking. We fed the milk with the cream removed to the young calves still on milk, and mixed the remainder of the milk with the cream removed with dishwater and other garbage, to feed to the hogs. In addition, we fed the hogs corn, and a weed in the summer, which we called pig weed, a sort of reddish-color weed, which the hogs liked.

I recall how good it was to drink the warm milk from the cows with hot light bread, with honey or preserves (jam). My mother would bake six loaves of bread every day, which we would consume. One must remember that there were nine children at home for a while, plus my mother and my father, my father's three children from his first wife and six children of my mtoher's by him. It seemed that our mainstay was bread and milk. We sold the cream, or most of it.

(Note: this was taken verbatim from the personal history of Willard Carlos McBride.)

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Emma Jane Hubbard McBride (continued)

(The following was taken from a history written by Emma Jane Hubbard McBride and then recorded in the personal and ancestral history of Willard Carlos McBride. In an earlier blog, I recorded what Emma had written about marrying Don Carlos McBride. This is a continuation of that story.)

June 6, 1914, we (Emma and Don) boarded the train to go to Salt Lake City, Utah to be married in the Salt Lake Temple. We were married June 11, 1914. We had a lovely trip. We visited many places of interest in the city, went out to Sandy and visited Don's brother, Bert, and family and when we started home came by Santaquinn, Utah, Don's birthplace and visited his uncles, Jim and Ed Clark.

We also went to Goshen and visited my mother's sister, Ellen Steele. Fannie was a little girl, five years old. She was with us. We enjoyed her cute sayings and actions so much. We were always sorry that we did not take Mildred, but we didn't know enough to do so, I suppose.

In July we returned home on the train one warm afternnon. Donald and Mildred, (Don's other two children) were at the station to meet us. We borrowed a buggy and came to Don's home. It was a very happy family. That night we bought bread and milked the cow, had some supper, cleaned up the dishes.

The children all helped to do everything, and we always worked congenially and happy together ever after. Grandma Nuttall (La Preal's mother--LaPreal was Don McBride's first wife) and her girls came in the evening for a while and welcomed me in the family. They were always nice to me, which I appreciated very much, for they might have made things very unpleasant for me had they wanted to do so.

That first night before we went to bed, Fannie was sitting on her Papa's lap, and I was fixing things and getting the beds ready. Fannie said, "Papa, let's always stay home now and never, never move again." Her papa told her with tears in his eyes that Aunt Emma (the name Fannie, Mildred, and Donald called me) was going to make a home for us and if they would be nice, she would always stay and do the best she could to be a mother in the home.

I must say that they all did everything they could to do their part. I never can express how glad I am I have had the opportunity of being blest with them as children. They have expressed their love for me. Mildred gave me a present when she first earned her money and gave a little message like this: "To the noblest and best mother I ever knew."

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Emma Jane Hubbard McBride (continued)

The following was written by Emma Jane Hubbard McBride on March 27, 1935:

Our lives were very much like most children's are--work and play with some schooling. We lived on a farm and milked cows, fed pigs, harvested hay and grain. Also, my father owned a thresher and threshed grain all over the valley. That made a good deal of work for all, especially for the older boys, Moore and Paul. Mother and Minnie (my oldest sister), were brought in on the labor also, for if it rained or the thresher got broke, the threshing crew was at our home, and, oh, my, the cooking that had to be done. We youngsters had some pretty good times, too. There was more cake, more pie for us, for somewhow, we got to share. How our parents kept us all filled, I don't know, but they managed to do it. Little did we know the sacrifices they made, and all we can do to repay them is to live good, do as much good as we can and as little harm, make our parents glad they stayed true to the trust given them, that of rearing so many, 7 boys and 5 girls. Becky, however, died when a baby, September 12, 1891. The rest grew to be quite good sized children--eleven of us. How our parents took care of us and did as well as they did with us, I don't know.

At first, when we were small, if we went to anything, we had to go to Pima, but soon enough people settled there (Hubbard) to start a school The town was named Hubbard, as with our family and my elder brother, Free Hubbard's family, there were so many they decided to name it for the most population. (Free Hubbard was the son of Elisha Freeman Hubbard and Agnes Archibald, my grandfather's first wife noted earlier. The preceding sentence is my, Willard C. McBride's, note of explanation.) In the first school, thirteen was the number, not many compared to the number now with more than thirty to a class even; but we learned and a had a good time anyhow, climbing the foothills and sliding down them, making play houses in the mesquites in Wests' field, and playing ball, dareline, and stealsticks was our pasttime at recess and noon. The first year, the older children (two) were appointed to clean the house and get drinking water. This water was brought from the big ditch in a bucket then. I remember that rusty old dipper we all drank from. When through, it was dropped in the bucket, sometimes slobbers and all, for it wasn't very funny to carry the water, so we must not waste it. But that water tasted good as soda water or other fancy drinks we get now. If we got it fresh, it was plenty cool, and if it had run through Wests' field where herds of stock watered, never mind, though there wasn't ever anything wrong with the kids, and if anyone would have told us people were cut open, a poison appendix taken and out and sewed up in eleven minutes, well, we would have tried to swallow a lizard or something to try to see how it seemed. But ignorance is bliss, so let it stay that way. For it is not only folly but inconvenient to be wise sometimes.

The Hubbard Ward was organized with my father being made Bishop. Here came added responsibilities for all, especially my father and mother. In due time, Sunday School and Primary were organized. This brought in all who would work. But that is the thing about these small wards, everyone who will has opportunities--young girls twelve years of age were chosen to be Primary and Sunday School teachers. It develops leadership. Life moved along. Finally, the ward was reorganized--someone else put in as Bishop. But there was always plenty to do, thanks to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It gives us all jobs.

Note: The following was taken from personal and ancestral history of Willard C. McBride. I have left it as his mother, Emma Jane Hubbard McBride, wrote it.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Emma Jane Hubbard (McBride)

Emma Jane Hubbard was born on April 7, 1892 in Pima, Graham county, Arizona. Shortly after her birth, her family moved across the Gila River, only a short distance, to what was later known as Hubbard, Arizona, named for her father.

Emma was the fifth child of twelve children of her father, Elisha Freeman Hubbard and her mother, Almera Wilson Hubbard. The child born just preceding her, Rebecca, died soon after birth.

Her father had another wife before he married Almera Wilson, whose name was Agnes Archibald, and he and this wife, also had children.

Emma met the recently widowed Don Carlos McBride, who already had three children. My mother wrote the following in her personal history: "I lived in the Hubbard Ward all my life, up to then, and helped in the home ward as most of the young folk did then. One Sunday in June of 1913, I went to church as usual, noticed we had stake officers visiting the ward. During the meeting, a man, one of the stake visitors, came down in the audience to speak with me. I was surprised that he came to me. Some of my friends thought he was asking me to keep house for him, as he had three motherless children to care for, but he had asked the Bishop to appoint a genealogical representative in the ward. The Bishop had told him there was a Sister Hubbard he believed would be all right, and told him to talk to her about it as he, the Bishop, did not understand about it himself. So that was my first introduction to Don c. McBride. I knew him when I saw him and had for a long time, but he never even knew I existed. He, as a stake officer, and I, as a ward officer, became quite well acquainted, and by December, 1913, were planning to get married. Then through a little misunderstanding we quit keeping company for about two months. I surely found I wanted him, and he said he was convinced he needed and wanted me. We finally put our pride in our pocket and made up. I might say that was our last trouble or mmisiunderstanding. We came to know each other better every day and became nearer to each other until it seemed he knew my desires and I his before we mentioned them to one another and acted accordingly. On June 6, 1914, we boarded the train to go to Salt Lake City, Utah to be married in the Salt Lake Temple. We were married June 11, 1914.

I (Willard C. McBride) was the second of six childrlen born to my mother, Emma Jane Hubbard McBride, and father, Don Carlos McBride. All of us were born in Pima, Graham county, Arizona, after Arizona had been made a state. We were all born in our home, not a hospital.

Learn more about Emma Jane Hubbard McBride in the next post.

Note: this information was taken from the personal and ancestral history of Willard C. McBride. As far as possible, I have left it in his own words.

Emma Jane Hubbard (McBride)

Emma Jane Hubbard (McBride)