Moving Day

Welcome to the new home of Uphill Both Ways! I hope you'll come back and visit often.

We're going through a transition period while we change blog platforms. So if you are here, it means everything worked! Moving has never been so fun!

Speaking of moving...I have a story to tell you.

Bert and Mae Brown were married on February 11, 1914. They went to live on a dry farm in Hatch, Idaho, soon after their marriage. Here's how Mae describes it:

After saying all of my life that I would never marry a farmer, I went to live on 160 acres of dry farm. I want my children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren to imagine, if they can, going out on 160 acres of dry farm. When I say dry farm, I mean just that, no water within five miles. Sagebrush four feet tall, and beds of lava rock. It was quite an experience. As far as the eye could see was sage brush and lava rock.

But it was all new to me and I laughed at everything. As I jumped out of the buggy my skirt caught upon a sage brush and I laughed about my skirt hanging up on a sage brush. But it wasn't so bad, we were young and foolish. We had a team of horses, a plow, a wagon, two cows, a dog, chickens, and a two room house Bert had built the fall before.

In 1918, Bert and Mae were expecting their second child during the worldwide influenza epidemic. Many women were dying of the flu, especially those that were pregnant. Mae wrote, "In our little village four women died in one week and they were all pregnant."

Mae Brown on a grain binder near their first home on the dry farm.

Mae and Bert decided to move to Pocatello for the winter so that she would be near a doctor and a hospital and could get help.

Bert got a job with the Vogt Sheet Metal Company, and one day, he helped install a furnace for a man in Tyhee (a small farming community nearby.) He inquired and found there was an 80 acre farm for sale.

This is the rest of the story in Mae's own words.

When he came home that night, I'll never forget, he came in so happy and said, "I've made more money tonight than I've made in all my life."

I said, "What have you done?" I thought maybe he had robbed a bank.

He said, "I've bought a farm in Tyhee."

Well, I wasn't very happy about that, I never did like farming.

When we first moved out here to Tyhee I thought it was the worst place I had ever seen. I used to call it "God Forsaken." The wind blew so strong you could hardly go outside.

Daddy went back to Hatch, while I was recuperating from my baby's birth, to move our belongings to Tyhee. He didn't pack anything, just took things as he came to them, loaded them in a wagon, drove the wagon to Bancroft and loaded everything into a boxcar.

He had all the animals; our horses, cows, pigs, all the farm machinery, all of our household furniture, all loaded just as he came to it, never packed anything.

When he got here he unloaded the box car into a wagon and then put all the furniture, dishes, everything we owned into the granary in the same manner. Then as we needed anything we would have to go out to the granary to get it.

The night they brought me out here with my two little children, I think it was the second day of April, it got dark and we didn't know where the lamp was. There was no electricity and the lamp was out in the granary. I had to hunt and hunt for it and other things we needed. When I came back into the house I swore I wasn't going to live here.

"I can't live here in this wind and in this rock pile and this half finished house. I just won't live here."

Well that was a statement I never lived up to. It is now fifty-eight years and I am still here. But this place doesn't look like it used to, because of Daddy's hard work.

This story makes me laugh and I love the way Mae tells it. She pokes fun at herself (and at Bert!) and makes me think if she can do all that with a smile, I can do it too!

We've had a few traumatic moving days in our family in the last year. But this story gives it all a whole new perspective. Mae seems to have taken it in stride - she always looked at things with such a fun point of view. Maybe our experiences weren't really that bad...

Have you had a moving day fiasco? How does it compare to the experiences of your ancestors? Please leave a comment and tell me about it!

Comments Imported from Blogger:

6 comments:

Dirt Princess said...

I love your blog...so interesting. I could just sit and read it for days.

JoLyn said...

Wow - thanks so much! And I was just sitting here wondering if anybody would ever read it!

Becky Jamison said...

I agree with Dirt Princess. I'm wanting MORE when I finish your stories. I LOVE your blog and can't wait to see your new "digs". And Bless Mae Brown. What a trooper. Nowadays people get divorces for less than what she went through. They were amazing! I wish more people (me included) had that perseverence.

Jenny said...

I feel like such a weakling when I read about some of the things these people went through.

Greta Koehl said...

Hmm - a good blogging prompt: good and bad moving experiences. This story especially resonated with me because with my family background, I know from desolate. And I'm with the others - this is a great blog.

tipper said...

Loved this post JoLyn!! I feel like I know Mae and Bert personally after reading it. If one perseveres in marriage-there are bound to be a few times of refusing to do something and then giving in anyway like Mae did-and just look how it paid off for her!

You've got me excited about the new digs!