Speaking to the Future:
Cora Deane Younger
Oral History Interview with
Cora Deane Younger
Conducted on July 18, 1993, recorded in Douglas County, CO.
1994.015
Larkspur Historical Society Oral History Project
[Interview conducted] by Penny Burdick
Transcribed by Pamela Catlin
Original transcript on deposit at
Douglas County History Research Center
Douglas County Libraries
Note: The transcript of this oral history is as accurate as possible. All text in brackets is not part of the oral history. It has been added for clarification purposes.
NOTE: A third person speaks occasionally, we believe her name is Shirley, do not know the relationship to Mrs. Younger.
BEGIN TAPE 1 SIDE 1
PENNY BURDICK : . . . Cherry Valley in 1874. What I want to ask you about is, want to ask you about your family background and age of your parents, that's better, you know, and where they're buried, any stories about them that you remember, I'll give you this list. . .we'll startin ’ up here--
CORA DEANE YOUNGER : I wish I knew, I wish I had asked them more questions years ago,
BURDICK: Yeah, we, we yes.
YOUNGER: When my grandmother was alive. . .
BURDICK: Yeah, me too
YOUNGER: ‘ Cause now we wonder, you know.
BURDICK: Me too, that's the problem I'm having with my family.
YOUNGER: Yeah, I know.
BURDICK: The ones that can tell me what I need to know are gone.
YOUNGER: That's it, we waited too late. It didn't make difference to us then, we didn't think anything about it, but now I wish I could remember. . .to ask my grandmother when you came across the prairie, what did you do? They came here in 1874.
BURDICK: In, right in here, or where?
YOUNGER: Over here where my brother lives now, where my brother--
BURDICK: And where's that?
YOUNGER: Well, over here at the Hiatt Ranch.
BURDICK: At the Hiatt Ranch?
YOUNGER: You know Shirley [unclear] on the county line, and that was in 1874.
BURDICK: Where did they come from?
YOUNGER: Iowa [unclear, name of town in Iowa]
BURDICK: And what made them come here?
YOUNGER: I suppose, he had, grandpa had homesteaded and I suppose they wanted to come west, you know, and they left in about May and they got into the Springs, oh I think it was along in August. Took them, I suppose, about two months to come across.
BURDICK: Can you imagine that? I know, I can't.
YOUNGER: With a two-year old child.
BURDICK: With a two-year old child. Can you imagine that!
YOUNGER: And they lived down there for I don't know how long, a week or so, two weeks, a month, I don't know. Then they went to Golden and my father was born in Golden and then they came back down here on the ranch, I suppose he had homesteaded that, and then by that time he probably could come down here and they built a log cabin and they lived in that.
BURDICK: Is that the one that's still over there?
YOUNGER: No,
BURDICK: This is different.
YOUNG: It's all torn down. He made a map, I've got it about this big showed here the position of the old house here and here's the milk house and here was the toilet, here was the barn and here was the shed. And then they built the new house, but he was killed in 18, ah 98. He slipped off of a load of grain when the wagon's wheel dropped into the irrigation ditch, he slid off the hay. . . the yoke and the wagon run over his back and broke his back and he died in 1888, I mean 98. And they had this lumber all ready to build the house, and, of course, he was buried then at Evergreen Cemetery. Mom said that he lived about two weeks. And, ah, and then, but in 1900 then my grandmother went ahead and built the house, and she lived in that. She and Pop then until 1904 when Pop was married and Mom came there then. And that's where we were all born, in that house.
BURDICK: What do you remember the most about that house, even about this country? What comes to your mind the most?
YOUNGER: Oh, it was just. . .it was, 10 of us, we just had a ball all the time. We made our own playthings and, you know, we didn't go to Denver, we didn't go to the Springs, you know.
BURDICK: Too hard to get there.
YOUNGER: That's a long ways.
BURDICK: What kind of transportation, did you have a car? [unclear]
YOUNGER: . . . not until 1914.
BURDICK: So if you had to go to Denver you had to go by wagon. . .
YOUNGER: We didn't go!
BURDICK: So how did you get your supplies, of flour, you had to get flour and sugar and some of those supplies, how would they make it?
YOUNGER: We went to Eastonville in a wagon, and in wintertime Pop had a, a sled, a two-horse sleigh and he would take his milk to town sitting on a board cross the back of that sleigh and we'd go to Eastonville and, ah, take the milk to the creamery and then we'd buy our groceries there.
BURDICK: So the creamery was in Eastonville. That ’ s where you went.
YOUNGER: Yeah, there was a little creamery there, and, we'd buy our groceries there. Mrs. Killen used to work in the store there at Eastonville. Higby's had the store there, you remember in the early days. And Pop said he could remember Mrs. Killen waiting on people there in the store, you know, I can't remember that, that was probably before I was old enough to go to town.
BURDICK: Yeah, cause you know cause Greenland was quite a ways away then, at that particular time, you had to go clear way down. . .
YOUNGER: But we didn't go to Greenland, no we went to Eastonville. That's where we did all of our trading.
SHIRLEY: --from that place, it was closer--
YOUNGER: See that's close to Payton.
BURDICK: So Mrs. Killen ran that store and then the Higby's ran the one in Greenland, I guess that's where I'm getting mixed up, cause there was the general store in Greenland which you probably never. . .
YOUNGER: No
BURDICK: went to because it was too far.
YOUNGER: No, Greenland was a long ways off, I didn't know anything about Greenland, it was too far away.
SHRILEY: They had several stores. . .
BURDICK: . . . so that store in Eastonville would have everything from flour to nails, if you need nails for the barn, where did you get siding, where did you get the material, you just used the trees around the building?
YOUNGER: Well, I suppose, there were sawmills everywhere, you know.
BURDICK: Was there?
YOUNGER: there were just sawmills everywhere. I don't know where they got their lumber, but Mom said they had all this stuff ready to build when Grandpa Hiatt was killed. And, ah, the neighbor thought it was terrible that she would go ahead and build that house after her husband died. But what else could she do, she lived in a little log cabin. . .
BURDICK: . . .she had all these kids, she had to have a roof over their head.
YOUNGER: And the carpenter that built it lived at Payton. And he came out there, I can't remember what his name was, but he came out there and he built the house, and it had a fancy parlor, two parlors and a kitchen and a pantry and three bedrooms upstairs. And, ah--
BURDICK: . . .of course you heated with wood and that was it, I'm sure.
YOUNGER: Oh yes, sure, sure.
BURDICK: That would have been fun every morning to get outside and get some more wood in so that you. . .
YOUNGER: Oh no we got that it at night, we always got the wood and the chips in at night, you know, and fill the reservoir on the stove, you know, and pump the water. There was well close to the house, about as far as here to there.
BURDICK: So that's where you took your bath, right in back of the stove in the kitchen, once a week or whatever?
YOUNGER: Oh yeah, that's right.
BURDICK: Must have been an effort.
YOUNGER: But, Mom lived there with my grandmother, they had just the one kitchen, so Mom and Pop, of course lived with my grandmother, and then along about the time, I don't remember just what year, why, ah, my grandmother told my Dad that he had better build on some rooms. So he did, he built on another big room so that Mom, then, had a kitchen and a living room and then she had then three bedrooms for her family. And, so they built on a room.
BURDICK: How did you get to school?
YOUNGER: Walked!
BURDICK: You walked, how many miles you think it was?
YOUNGER: Three miles.
BURDICK: Three miles each way.
YOUNGER: Yeah, and we walked, cut right across through the pastures.
BURDICK: In the middle of winter, what did you do when the snow. . .
YOUNGER: We didn't go to school in the winter.
BURDICK: . . . was 10 feet deep. You didn't.
YOUNGER: We started in May and went until Christmas, and Christmas program was the last day of school.
BURDICK: No kiddin'
YOUNGER: Right.
BURDICK: And that's how you got around then, I've never heard that before. That's how you got around the weather.
YOUNGER: Yeah.
BURDICK: I'll be darned. 'cept in the summertime, I suppose, you know, you needed help, your folks needed help around there and the kids was gone, how did that work?
YOUNGER: Well kids, school didn't, I don't know how they worked that out, but we were at home to pick potatoes and help with the hay and things like that, and still I remember Pop cutting hay and we kids sometime would walk up the road on what we call the Walker road now and cut down there about half a mile and we'd run into Pop cutting hay and there'd be the hay rack and we'd get a ride home. That really helped.
BURDICK: And in those days, I would imagine, did you have a tractor or was everything horse drawn?
YOUNGER: Oh no, no.
BURDICK: So how did you pick up they hay out of the field, did you have a rake that was horse-drawn, that would rake it in a pile--
YOUNGER: . . . sure we had [unclear]
BURDICK: . . . or did you hand do it on the wagon. . .
YOUNGER: We had a duck rake. You know, and there ’ s three of 'um out here now, three duck rakes out here and that's what they used. And then Pop would rake up, make long ricks, you know, then he'd go along and rake it and then clip it and that'd the pile here and then they'd come along with the hay rack pitch it on with a fork. Then take it to the barn and, we had in the barn was a, what'ch you call it, was a deep fork that came down in the barn on the hay rack, you know, he'd drive in it to load and this big fork would come down and you'd scoop it in the hay and then somebody outside would take that other horse and drive it away and that'd pull it up in there, pull it across the barn and dump it. Real modern, you know.
BURDICK: Well, real handy cause it worked,
YOUNGER: Sure,
BURDICK: It worked good.
YOUNGER: I don't know anybody else had one like that, but we did. Old tractor in the barn, yet, I suppose.
BURDICK: And how did you, I assume, you would ah can, if you had an opportunity to get fruit, did you ever get fruit?
YOUNGER: Oh sure.
BURDICK: And would can it then; peaches, pears and stuff
YOUNGER: Oh sure, peaches, apples, Mom canned everything, so did my grandmother.
BURDICK: And meat then. . .
YOUNGER: . . .oh yes . . .
BURDICK: Would you get ice from Eastonville for a refrigerator. . .
YOUNGER: We'd cut our own ice.
BURDICK: right off a pond.
YOUNGER: We had a little pond that we cut our own ice.
BURDICK: And did you preserve it then through the summer months?
YOUNGER: Well we had, we called it the bunk house. And there was one end where our hired man could sleep in it, it was fixed up and had a window and everything. And then in the middle that was a work shop and then on the north end of it was a room and they stacked this ice in there and they covered it with cement with sawdust. And that lasted all summer, we had ice all summer long, and they would cut that ice down off a pond, you know, and then pull it out and put it in a wagon. A neighbor generally came in and helped, you know, and then we'd store it in this place in big cubes about the size of that and cover it all with sawdust and it'd keep winter, all summer.
BURDICK: So then when you wanted to put it in your ice box, you would cut something that big you'd cut it in half.
YOUNGER: We didn't have ice boxes, that was unheard of.
BURDICK: Okay, so how did you keep milk then and things like that cold? Eggs
YOUNGER: We had a milk house, it was a house that was insulated, it had double walls and it was insulated with sawdust. And on the west end of it was a trench, trough that ran through there that water ran through from the spring and Pop would set his milk cans down in that, and that kept the crem. But that place was kept spic and span, it was finished all sanded, you know, and was calcimin green, I can see it yet. And on the north end of it was racks and they had big pans about so big that they slid those pans of milk in there and after it set for overnight and all they'd a skimmer and skim the cream off and then they'd feed that milk to the pigs, cats, chickens, calves, and then, of course, we got the separator and we separated. But the separated was in there too, but that place was always kept shut, you know, and nothing could get in and they had a screen on the west side on the window where you could open up the window and get fresh air in there. But we called it the milk house, and they would go up. . .
BURDICK: so in the. . .
YOUNGER: . . .get milk
BURDICK: . . .wintertime it would never freeze because of the double insulation. . .
YOUNGER: yeah
BURDICK: . . . and the sawdust so you never had to worry about stuff freezing.
YOUNGER: I suppose it did freeze some but hard, you know.
BURDICK: And if you did ice cream, you made it and ate it right then and there, you didn't store it, you made a batch and you must have had to eat.
YOUNGER: Well we ate it for dinner (both talking) we ate it all for dinner.
BURDICK: And you hand cranked it too boot.
YOUNGER: Right, I've got an old crank out here now in the garage like we used to use, you know, let the old bucket go to pieces, forgot. And of course we churned out own butter.
BURDICK: And your meat then, basically, you preserved it with salt and left it in the milk house too?
YOUNGER: No, we had a special meat house to keep the meat in.
BURDICK: So you had a sep.. .still a separate house for the meat?
YOUNGER: Yeah, the meat was put in there and Poppa would cure it, rub with it with, I suppose, brown sugar and salt, it was cured you know. And then it was hung along in there and it kept all year.
BURDICK: And they would have to, I assume, double insulate that to keep it cool also, so it wouldn't get too hot.
YOUNGER: Well, I can't, I don't think it was insulated, but it was separate from. . .
BURDICK: . . .the milk house. . .
YOUNGER: . . .yeah.
BURDICK: Brown sugar and salt?
YOUNGER: Yeah, I remember seeing Poppa pack that, and you know they packed it down in I don't know whether it was big heavy boxes or what and covered with salt and it stayed in that so long and then, you know, they could go out and shake that all off and then hang it up and I think they put bags over it or something in the summertime when they hung it up, you know, now that was the pork, the beef, you know, that hung up in the that other place close to the ice house. And we'd want a steak off of it, well Pop would go out and saw off a big steak and bring it in. But that wouldn't keep in the summertime, that was just for winter.
BURDICK: Yeah, that's what I was wonderin ’ how you would keep it in the hotter months or if you just didn't have beef in the hotter months or if you just hunted elk or deer or something. . .
YOUNGER: . . .I don't think we did. . .
BURDICK: . . .for the summer months or you just ate vegetables for the summer months or
YOUNGER: Oh no, we had chickens. . .
BURDICK: . . .you had chickens in the summer. . .
YOUNGER: . . .lots of chickens. And then of course, I suppose Pop, I know we would fry the sausage and put it down in the … I think they poured lard over it or something, sausage, they used to put it in bags made bags out of muslin and put that in there. And then, you know, you just cut it off. Or they would pack it down in stone jars, I used to go out there yet and dig out sausage and bring it in and make pattycakes and fry it. They worked hard didn't they?
BURDICK: Very hard, very hard. How long did they live, considering how hard they did work, did they live a long time? Do you remember about you mother and your grandmother?
YOUNGER: Well, Mom died, Mom died, she was 83 when she died. . .
BURDICK: . . .so obviously long time. . .
YOUNGER: . . .she died in ‘67 and she was married in 1904 and Pop died in '52 and he was born in 1876.
BURDICK: And when did you get electricity there, or did you ever have it?
YOUNGER: We never had it.
BURDICK: You never had it you just used oil lamps at night. . .
YOUNGER: Oh sure.
BURDICK: You probably went to bed when the sun went down cause why use the oil on the lamps, or--
YOUNGER: Oh no, we'd read, you know, always read and, we read a lot, I love to read, and I can remember now, see I was next to the oldest one, and we'd go into my grandmother's house at night and she would have a book, she always had good books for us to read. There's one called “The Youth Companion ”, we used to read that. She'd get those things and we'd go in there and she'd lay on the couch be half asleep, probably, and there'd be two or three of use gather round and I'd read to 'um and we'd come to a word that I couldn't pronounce and I'd say, I'd spell it for her and she'd say sugar, call it sugar, so I'd say sugar and go on you know (laughter) but we did, night after night we'd sit in there and read stories like that, you know, cause we didn't have TV.
BURDICK: And then it'd be Christmastime, I assume, you would go out and cut down a tree and--
YOUNGER: Right
BURDICK: --you would make your own decorations--
YOUNGER: Sure, popcorn
BURDICK: --obviously you didn't go to the store and buy all this fancy stuff.
YOUNGER: Popcorn, trim it with popcorn.
BURDICK: Did you really put candles on it?
YOUNGER: Yeah.
BURDICK: Did you really?
YOUNGER: We had little candle holders, you know, that held candles and had the little candles about so big, yeah.
BURDICK: And then you'd worry about it burning down all the time-
YOUNGER: Well--
BURDICK: You'd blow all those out when you got ready to go to bed.
YOUNGER: Well, I don't know [unclear] we always had a Christmas tree.
BURDICK: Was there any spare time left over by the time you'd get up, go get your water, bring it in. . .
YOUNGER: sure
BURDICK: . . .cook your breakfast, ah, go out and work in the field, do your laundry, tell us about laundry day.
YOUNGER: Well, it was this way--
BURDICK: . . . probably rub a dub a dub, with water you hauled in from the creek. . .
YOUNGER: No we had a well
BURDICK: You had a well.
YOUNGER: But we carried it in and heated in a big wash boiler, hot water you know and then put it in the tubs and then just scrub it and rinse it and hang um on the line. If it'd freeze, you'd bring them in and thaw um out.
BURDICK: How'd you make soap?
YOUNGER: Mom made, she always made her soap. We never bought soap.
BURDICK: Do you remember how she made it, I'm curious?
YOUNGER: Well, I don't know, lye and water and cracklin's, I don't know how they did it?
BURDICK: What is cracklin's, I never heard of that?
YOUNGER: Oh yeah, you know, we rendered our own lard, cooked the lard, and oh those cracklins were so good to eat, especially when they had a little bit of lean meat in them, gee they were good when they were fresh, yeah, she made them out of cracklins and put it in a big, oh, iron kettle. She made the soap outdoors with fire under it and she put that water and those cracklins and lye in there and boil it and boil it until, and then they'd pour them into a box and it would harden and [unclear] they cut it out in bars. We made soap in tubs.
SHIRLEY: oh yeah
BURDICK: So what would you use for laundry, you know, we have the harder soap for like if we were washing our hands and that kind of thing but we think of laundry soap as being in a powder.
YOUNGER: Yes, we bought soap for our hands, I remember Ivory soap, we used to have that you know, but this other was the laundry soap we just break [unclear] I have lye out here now a couple cans of lye that I was going to make soap someday again, but I never got around to it. No, we used to make soap in clumps.
SHIRLEY: I remember that too.
BURDICK: Did your teacher live there, I assume the teacher must have had to live right by school or live with a family by that school, cause obviously they couldn't get around that good.
YOUNGER: Year, Miss Guard, she boarded with my father's sister and they lived about a mile and half from school. And that teacher walked to school. And she would go to school of a morning early, start the fire, you know, and I suppose she probably swept the school at night before she left, we kids used to clean the blackboard for her, I remember, wash them all off you know, erase them good, wipe um.
BURDICK: Did they make you start real early in the morning so you could get home and help at home, or did they start you at nine to three like we do now?
YOUNGER: No, we'd leave for school, I expect about 8 o'clock.
BURDICK: Cause it probably took you 30 minutes or so to get there. . .
YOUNGER: Oh more than that--
BURDICK: --45 minutes to get there.
YOUNGER: I think about an hour, school took up at nine, it took about an hour, I'm sure to get there.
BURDICK: And then when you guys were out in December did the teacher leave or did she stay on with the family--
YOUNGER: No, she, no, uh uh. This was a teacher, she was raised here at Monument [unclear] and her parents live here in the Springs now or her relations. But anyway she lived with my aunt and she would go to school and she was just a lovely person, thought a lot of her. But we had some that was kind of rough too, one of them kept a curtain with the top of the door in the school and I remember one day some boy did something in class she didn't like and got that curtain down and she wacked him across the shoulder with it. She'd be arrested now . . .
BURDICK: Right, that's right
YOUNGER: But you know you didn't have any backtalk in school like that.
BURDICK: Well so you had, you probably didn't do a kindergarten, but would have like a first grade, the sixth grade in that school and then the kids that went on into secondary, higher levels jr. high or sr. high they had to go live in the Springs, I assume.
YOUNGER: No, no they had high, out there at that school, I guess they had high school there too, but I was up in, I think the 7 th grade, then the districts all consoliated and our little school went into Eastonville, and that's where we had a high school.
BURDICK: Was right there in Eastonville?
YOUNGER: Yeah.
BURDICK: And that was in a separate building?
YOUNGER: Well this Bluff school was out here in the country and Eastonville was about 3 or 4 miles farther over than that. But I went to the Bluff school, I think I was probably either the 6 th or 7 th grade, then we consolidated with Eastonville and rode in a bus.
BURDICK: Oh, you did ride in a bus?
YOUNGER: Oh yes. Just a truck with flappy curtains on the side of it, but it was a bus.
BURDICK: Can you image that! [unclear] weather ’s a little nippy like it is today a little chilly in the bus.
YOUNGER: Well, but you put on clothes.
BURDICK: And lots of them.
YOUNGER: But that was better than walking to school and gettin' to school and our feet was wet and we sit and put our feet up on the old heater in the middle of the room to warm our feet up. But ah--
BURDICK: Well, that's interesting so you were able to complete all through school then right there at Eastonville.
YOUNGER: Well, yeah, they had the four years of high school at Eastonville.
BURDICK: So, you stayed in the one building say til 8 th grade and 9 th through 12 th was there high school so to speak.
YOUNGER: Yeah, I think there must have been four rooms in the high school, in the school. I think there were two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs.
BURDICK: And when you went to grade school, do you remember how many kids were there about?
YOUNGER: Oh I think probably in the school we probably had about 18, I have pictures of us in front of the old Bluff school with Miss Whitaker. She was the one that could take the curtain to 'um and give um a whack. [Laughter] But I think in that picture there must have been about 15 of us maybe and I know there was [unclear], his sister and one other kid who was older than I was but then my sister, Clara that passed away, she was a little girl, she went to school there too.
BURDICK: I suppose teachers probably in those days didn't have to have college and all that other stuff, did they?
YOUNGER: I don't know.
BURDICK: They just had to like to learn and like to plan and--
YOUNGER: I don't know.
BURDICK: --like to teach kids. But you were all mixed up I assume like first grade all the way on to eighth grade and everybody was kind of segregated in there own level or where ever they were at and--
YOUNGER: Well, I don't know, I remember I always had one certain seat in school I always liked, I remember yet it was on the northeast of the school house, school house faced to the south, I mean the back of it and the front of it was right on the road, on what they call the Evans Road over there now. I know the spot just where it is, they moved it away now. But, ah
BURDICK: And what year, so then you are out of high school and what did you do immediately out of high school?
YOUNGER: Came home and worked.
BURDICK: Came home and worked, you went ahead and lived at home and just kept working,
YOUNGER: Sure
BURDICK: Until you married Bruce, right.
YOUNGER: Sure, sure, worked for all the people in the neighborhood, babysat here and babysat there and cooked for thrashers here and some of 'um said well what, how come you helped everybody and I said I don't know, ‘cause I just was handy I guess, but I probably helped cook for thrashers, clean house, babysat for people and kids, you know, for everybody.
BURDICK: ah, I guess I forgot to ask you exactly what it was you grew over there, of course you had milk cows, but you did grow potatoes--
YOUNGER: oh yes
BURDICK: --and lettuce this was good potato country.
YOUNGER: Oh Ma had a beautiful garden, they had a lovely garden, she had apples, we had two or three apple trees, we had our own apples, we had potatoes, we raised everything. We raised chickens, Mom, we always had lots of eggs, of course milk and cream, made our own butter, you know.
BURDICK: And you remember doing that, I'm sure. How long do you have to pump that stuff til it gets to be butter? You see those old butter churns and go like this
YOUNGER: I've got it in there, I don't know.
BURDICK: Or you whip it, you just whip it
YOUNGER: No, I've got the old churn in there.
BURDICK: So how long did you have to churn?
YOUNGER: Oh, I don't know.
BURDICK: Til your arm was broken
YOUNGER: Oh, no
BURDICK: It didn't take very long,
YOUNGER: I don't think so. [unclear] sit down there beside and churn with a book in this hand, just churn away, you know
BURDICK: What made it thicken up, I curious, you got cream in there ‘cause obviously you use cream, put straight cream in there.
YOUNGER: Sure.
BURDICK: What made it thicken up, just cream it
YOUNGER: Well, no, it finally curdles you know, it kind of brakes and your cream or your butter kind of gets “gobby” in there and you churn it until it kind of gets up in a wad and then take one of those skimmers and dip it out and wash it, run cold water over it you know, and there was your butter milk left, you used it to cook with.
BURDICK: so you didn't do ice, you didn't do ice at all you just put room temperature cream in there and started
YOUNGER: Yeah and you had to have the room, the cream you were going to make butter you had it kind of warm, I mean, it would be room temperature, you didn't take ice cold cream and beat it, or churned it you know. I think we brought it of an evening or something cause we were goin' to churn tomorrow so got to get some cream in. Of course we had butter bowls to put it in, you know and the paddle
BURDICK: I bet it made quit bit at a time, didn't it?
YOUNGER: Yeah, I think so, oh maybe two or three pounds, I don't know.
BURDICK: That's a lot, a lot, and how many times a week, of course if you had ten of you, plus your, everybody else you'd probably be doin' it pretty often, at least 3, 4 time a week for that many people. . .
YOUNGER: No, I don't think so, we might churn once a week and I don't know if we'd do it that much or not, I don't know.
BURDICK: Well, maybe you don't have bread everyday so.
YOUNGER: Yeah, we did all of our bread baking. Boughten bread was a treat.
BURDICK: I'll bet.
YOUNGER: Mama baked on Monday and Friday, and baked biscuits every morning. And by Sunday we were always out of bread. So we'd have to have pancakes.
BURDICK: Well, that's all right. But, ah, so she could make that much bread at one time, she must of have spent a whole day doing nothin' but bread.
YOUNGER: No, no, no. Mom'd bake bread and we'd come home from school and there'd be these about five of these great big loaves there and she wasn't looking and we'd take the butcher knife and cut the heels off (laughter), my Dad said it was a funny thing our loaves never had heels on 'um, but that bread was so good when you come home from school, it was warm, you know, and so we'd just sneak in there and take a knife and chop it off and eat it.
BURDICK: You must have yeast going all the time then from one batch to another to keep your yeast ‘cause you didn't go to the store and buy yeast like we do now.
YOUNGER: No, no we made it, we had our own hops. We raised hops and made their own yeast.
BURDICK: No kiddin!
YOUNGER: I don't know how to make it.
BURDICK: Yeah, I was wonderin' how you do hops. Some how, same way as making beer but--
YOUNGER: yeah
BURDICK: --you would just--
YOUNGER: when we got where we had yeast, it was those little hard cakes, little, I don't know what. . .because of Fleishman's yeast but it was of little kind of whitish cakes, you know, came in a little package, I think there was 5 to a package maybe, boy that was good, when you could, that really made it easy.
BURDICK: Yeah, whole lot easier than trying to raise your own hops, you've got that right.
YOUNGER: But I can see those hops yet all along on that west fence there,. . . picked those leaves and I don't know how they did it, just took it for granted.
BURDICK: You take a lot of things for granted now.
YOUNGER: Yeah, right
BURDICK: Life is easy.
YOUNGER: Right.
BURDICK: Go light the furnace over there with a match and not have to worry about it.
YOUNGER: And we'd cut the wood, I always liked to cut wood, always thought that was fun, that's the reason I still like to cut wood, always like to cut wood when I was old enough.
BURDICK: You'd have to get a huge saw though if you had a big tree you'd have to get a huge saw to get it at least quartered so you could an ax and finish it.
YOUNGER: Yeah, but we didn't, we didn't cut it up in blocks like that, Pop'd just go out and get wood around in the timber, most of its downed wood and he'd just bring in, you know, big chunks of wood, go out there and split it up and chop it put make pieces big enough to stick in the stove and then Mom would say “Now children, chip basket. ” We'd have to go get a basket or a can of chips, you know, generally was an old wash board, and bring it in and stick it behind the stove, you know, to start the fire with.
BURDICK: Um, what's the worst snow storm you ever remember here? When you were growing up, or even now.
YOUNGER: 1913 was the big one.
BURDICK: How long was it 'til you got out of there?
YOUNGER: Oh, I don't remember, but I do know that it, the snow storm just filled the front of the house, we couldn't get out to the old john so we tunneled through it.
BURDICK: Had to dig a tunnel to get through, huh
YOUNGER: Yeah, you know how it would blow through and just make a big drift from your house and I can see it yet we had to tunnel through that to get through that big drift to go down to the old john. And my dad, I remember, shoveled until midnight to get the cows out of the cradle to the creek to get water the next day, cause it just blew in like it did out here last winter. Just leveled you know. And Pop worked there until midnight that night trying to get the cows out of the cradle to feed them.
BURDICK: By himself.
YOUNGER: To get water, yeah.
BURDICK: That would be an awful lot of shoveling wouldn't it?
YOUNGER: Yeah.
BURDICK: So you think it was 4 feet deep?
YOUNGER: Oh, I imagine. . .
BURDICK: 5 feet deep
YOUNGER: Not on the level perhaps but you know how it would drift over.
BURDICK: Just on the drifts--
YOUNGER: But it was just terrible, I remember they said about it was over the fence and everything, you know, but [jump in tape]
BURDICK: So what did you do for entertainment when you dated? You know, you couldn't go to a drive-in movie, there was no television to watch, did you just take long walks together, or, ah, sat and talked and read or.
YOUNGER: We really didn't go anywhere.
BURDICK: You just sat and talked.
YOUNGER: Well, we didn't go anywhere, we couldn't go to the Springs, not until I got older, when I was 18 and 20 like that, we went to the Springs to a picture show or something like that, but before that, heavens, no you just didn't have any place to go to, there wasn't any place to go.
BURDICK: Yeah,
YOUNGER: We would have parties.
BURDICK: Barn dances?
YOUNGER: No, my folks didn't believe in dancing. We didn't dance. Nope.
BURDICK: So, when you went to a party, what 'd you guys do?
YOUNGER: Oh, we spun the platter, that was a fun game.
BURDICK: Spun the platter, now let me hear about this I'm real interested.
YOUNGER: Well they'd take a pie pan and we'd all sit in a circle. The man, the person that was “it ” would get in the middle and spin that platter and you'd jump up and grab it. And then you'd get to spin the platter, you know, was exciting.
[All laugh]
BURDICK: Yeah, I bet it was swell.
YOUNGER: Yeah, we played Gossip too, we'd sit in a circle you know and one start here and tell you something then they'd come clear around and come back to you and then they'd say well what did they say and it never came out the same way. That's what was Gossip.
BURDICK: And it's still true today, isn't it?
YOUNGER: Right.
BURDICK: It is still true today.
YOUNGER: And, of course, we went to Sunday School. When we were younger we went to the First Christian Church and it was over there by Carnahan right across the road from where Carnahan's live now was the First Christian Church and we used to go there in a wagon and we had, we didn't go for just, we didn't have Sunday School, we went for church and the minister that came. . .
BURDICK: So he would just travel around every week, or would he only come twice a month, or
YOUNGER: No, we had it every Sunday.
BURDICK: So he must of. . . lived around.
YOUNGER: And I don't know whether he lived there around there I don't know, I don't even know who the minister was. But I do remember they had baptisim one time in a little pond there on the Cantril place and two or three of the people were baptized right out in the creek you know, I remember seeing that. My Dad told about the time that they were baptizing some people there and some little boy was watching it and the minister's coat floated out on the water and the little boy said oh look at the duckey on the pond (laughter).
BURDICK: Funny what you remember isn't it.
YOUNGER: Yeah, isn't though.
BURDICK: It's funny what you remember. Ah, let me see. What do you remember about the depression, besides you didn't have anything but then you didn't have anything before the depression much so you got along fine. . .
YOUNGER: Well.
BURDICK: But did you need, by that time you had a car didn't ya?
YOUNGER: Oh, Pop got the first car in 1914.
BURDICK: Do you remember what it was?
YOUNGER: A Ford.
BURDICK: A Ford.
YOUNGER: And he got it from, ah, [unclear] Brothers in Peyton.
BURDICK: And I assume he cranked it of course to start it.
YOUNGER: He did, he did.
BURDICK: And did it start all winter, too?
YOUNGER: Oh yeah,
BURDICK: Did he keep it in the barn?
YOUNGER: Yeah, and he had to drain the water out of it everytime and then fill it up everytime you'd. . .
BURDICK: That' s right, there was a [unclear]. . .can you image that.
YOUNGER: You put it in the barn and put a blanket over it to keep the birds and everything from getting it dirty.
BURDICK: What's the first tractor he had, do you remember, did he have a tractor before a car or did he have a car before a tractor?
YOUNGER: No he had a car first.
BURDICK: You just used horses all the time.
YOUNGER: I can't remember whether he even had a tractor when I was married. Oh, he probably did I was married in 1926. I think he had a tractor, probably, I can't remember. I used to rake hay with horses, though.
BURDICK: And, of course, you raised your own horses there, or traded them with the neighbors or whatever?
YOUNGER: Well, I don't know where he got, we all worked with a four-horse team to plow or anything, I used to plow with my dad. He'd run one plow and I'd run a plow, I'd have a smaller plow, mine had two horses and he would have a four-horse team or something. One day he went to the Springs and he had to take the cream to the Springs that's when we'd have to go to the Springs. He said “I've got to take the cream to town today” and he said, I had been helping him plow, that's on the ranch in Elbert County, we had another ranch there, and, ah, I said “Well Pop I'll go over and finish it. ” Oh he didn't think I should and I said, “well, I can.” So he went to town and I took the two horses and I went over there and I finished out that piece by myself. Drove over there and hitched up and finished up that and Pop said I'll be back by the time we get ready for another land. Well he didn't get back so I just layed out in his land but I plowed it the wrong way, I turned it out, so he had a ditch in his field for quite a while.
BURDICK: Did you get in trouble for that?
YOUNGER: No, he just told me I should of turned it this way, but anyway I plowed all by myself. Can you imagine me going over there by myself and driving [unclear] about three miles by myself in a wagon.
BURDICK: It doesn't surprise me at all, doesn't surprise me at all. How'd you meet Bruce?
YOUNGER: Well the first time Bruce said he saw me he was, Bruce was an assessor, assistant assessor, you know for El Paso County and, he said that he came over one day to, you know the assessor went around to ranches took everything, he said I came in from takin' the cattle out or bringin' the cattle in or something and he saw me then, told Pop he'd sure like to meet me. But I didn't meet him then, but I went to a sale over here at Acres one day with Pop and Bruce saw me there that day, that night he called me and wanted to know if he could come over and have a date. He called me from a telephone I guess over here somewhere and I said yeah, he came and went to church. So that was the way we started.
BURDICK: Getting back to the telephone, that's real interesting. Do you remember when you first got a phone over there, or if you ever did, while you were still living at home?
YOUNGER: Yeah, we had a phone, Mom had a phone in her house after she got in her house and my grandmother had one, and they would just run on the fence post, the wire would just run on the fence post and there were little white insulators, you know, I've got some of 'um out here yet. And that's the telephone and they had a telephone I know, went down to my grandmother's where Momma used to live [unclear] miles. . .
BURDICK: You were all on the same line, I assume you had no sophistication so when your phone rang did everybody have to pick it up to figure out who it was for?
YOUNGER: I don't know. I know we used 'um.
BURDICK: Did you remember havin' to call an operator if you wanted to call someone else or you just rang and it rang in everybody's house?
YOUNGER: I suppose, I don't remember. I do know my grandmother had a phonograph and she'd get a new record and it was one of these old Edison records or tele/phonographs about so big a square. And she'd get a new record and she'd put it on that, ah, phonograph and she had two big horns and she'd stick that up there and ring the phone a long ring and everybody would listen to it, she's play that and everybody in the community would hear that. (laughter) Well, you. . .
BURDICK: what a riot
YOUNGER: know that was neat, you know.
BURDICK: You were probably the only one that had one of those.
YOUNGER: We did, I don't think there was anything around.
BURDICK: Must have had to turn that up awful loud to get it to where everybody could hear it all right.
YOUNGER: I don't know, but you know, she'd take the receiver off and ring and then I suppose everybody'd come and listen and you know, she'd play that new record, you know.
BURDICK: What did you do for doctors over there, I assume there wasn't anyone close.
YOUNGER: Well they had a doctor at Eastonville.
BURDICK: They did.
YOUNGER: And they had one at Elbert, Dr. Kethinger(sp) was at Eastonville, then he went to Limon and Mom had to go to Denver for an operation, so they went to Eastonville, took the train to Limon, met Dr. Kethinger (sp), and he took her to Denver. She was operated on in Denver and then when, I think she was up there about two weeks. That was in 1914. And, ah, then she came home and then there was a Dr. Anderson at Eastonville, too, that I think delivered some of the kids.
BURDICK: So you weren't hurting for medical care per se, you know we think of now some of these isolated communities don't have any medical.
YOUNGER: Dr. Denny was at Elbert and Dr. Denny was there probably about the time when you were born, Dr. Denny was at Elbert. He delivered all my kids.
BURDICK: So when you went into labor you just called him up and said come on over and that was it.
YOUNGER: Right, but before I went that night when Trent was goin' a be born, I made Bruce do the milking and get everything done before we left. Then we just got in the car and drove over to Mom and called the doctor and, ah, told him I was goin' to have a baby , goin' have a baby.
BURDICK: . . . shock when he found out there was two of um, . . . be no way of knowin'
YOUNGER: . . . didn' t know, oh, we thought was goin' to have twins.
BURDICK: Just by your size, or . . .
YOUNGER: Yeah
BURDICK: Did they have sophisticated enough equipment to hear?
YOUNGER: No, no they didn't and Aunt Sue, our friend, she was a friend, but we called her Aunt Sue came out one time to see us, visit me, when I was living over there, she said, “Ah, so I think you're goin' to have twins. ” And I said, “Well if I do, I'll give you one. ” Just for the heck of it, you know. So after the twins were born she came out to visit me and she said “Now which one you goin' to give me? ” I said “Well, I've changed my mind now. ” (laughter) Anyway when they were born that night, Norman was born first, Dr. Denny, I remember yet he turned around to Mom, he says well we're just half through.
BURDICK: So everybody was wonderin' what are we goin' to do now, we only got one bed, and we only got one, so many clothes and . . .
YOUNGER: Yeah, well, I divided up the clothes, you know, we didn't have pampers and all
BURDICK: No that's right you hung them on the line
YOUNGER: But I had big diapers so I sat up in bed while I was, you know, recuperating and I cut those all in two and made two sets of diapers, so I had enough.
BURDICK: Can you imagine how big it'd be if you hadn't cut um though, how good would they be?
YOUNGER: Yeah, they'd be like blankets.
BURDICK: My word.
YOUNGER: [unclear] ankles were about the size of my finger and they were just [unclear] the babies were, Norma weighed about maybe 3-1/2 pounds, and Norman maybe 4-1/2 something like that.
BURDICK: Did you go to term then?
YOUNGER: No.
BURDICK: You were early.
YOUNGER: 7 months.
BURDICK: Well they were good sized then for 7 months, considering there was two of them, that's ‘cause you're a hardy thing.
YOUNGER: Oh, yeah!
BURDICK: That's ‘cause you were out plowin' fields and choppin' wood (laughter) the day before.
YOUNGER: That's right.
BURDICK: So what did you do for an incubator, or did you have to incubate?
YOUNGER: We didn't have an incubator.
BURDICK: Did you have to keep them warm though because they were so small?
YOUNGER: Sure!
BURDICK: So how'd you do that?
YOUNGER: We put, I had a basket about so big, you know, and Momma put them in there and we put water bottles around 'um.
BURDICK: 24 hours a day?
YOUNGER: Yeah, just about that.
BURDICK: But you know with two people, it'd be hard for one person to stay rested enough to do everything they had to do at home, plus do babies, plus stay up around the clock to keep 'um warm, so at least with two people sharing the load, that helped a little I'm sure.
YOUNGER: Well, I stayed there two weeks, probably.
BURDICK: Is that all?
YOUNGER: Sure, then I came home and one of my sisters came home with me for a little while and helped me out, you know. But I tell you it was around the clock.
BURDICK: I would imagine.
YOUNGER: You'd just get one taken care of, fed.
BURDICK: It was time to start another
YOUNGER: Put it on a bed, then the other one'd be crying and pick up that one and then, here you'd set it down. . .
BURDICK: I bet you didn't milk for awhile then, least for a month, huh?
YOUNGER: No, we only had one cow, Bruce and I never had but one cow, that wasn't too bad, you know.
BEGINNING OF TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO
BURDICK: . . . yeah, that's a miracle that they survived, considering there really wasn't anything in those days--
YOUNGER: Yeah
BURDICK: You know, that they had been smaller, why--
YOUNGER: Well I know a lot of those people, you know, it was terrible you had those babies out there, you should of gone to the hospital and Dr. Denny says if anything would have been the matter I could had her in the Springs, about ¾ of a hour, cause they were born in '32. [unclear]
BURDICK: Yeah, I'm sure Dr. Denny had seen everything once and maybe twice, so he knew what to do.
YOUNGER: Yeah, he saw me, yeah, he saw me once before they were born.
BURDICK: That was it, huh?
YOUNGER: Told me I was goin' to have a baby, (laughter)
BURDICK: Well you probably already knew that anyway.
YOUNGER: Yeah, that's for sure, I knew what it was.
BURDICK: No pre-natal care, you didn't have any pre-natal care with any of them.
YOUNGER: No, No, No!
BURDICK: Well, it's interesting how, ah, you know, things change but they still kind of remain the same when you get to the end of it, I mean. . .
YOUNGER: That's right, yeah, that's right. . . but they did fine they grew. [Pause]
BURDICK: Ah, do you remember the Castlewood Canyon dam flood, probably not you might be too far out, I don't know where that. . .
YOUNGER: Oh, yeah.
BURDICK: . . . rain started or do you remember that?
YOUNGER: Oh yes!
BURDICK: You do?
YOUNGER: Yeah, and we had been there when I was a kid, our whole family, there was 7 or 8 cars of us, all from Elbert and everywhere when we were kids. And we all went over to Castlewood Dam and had a picnic and south of the dam right where you about turn off to go into the dam everybody stopped, there was a rattlesnake, so they killed that rattlesnake and hung it on the fence so we all could see it. Then we all went down to Castlewood Dam and had a picnic there and, ah, I can remember it yet, we walked along the top of that. Grandpa Rudy, that's my grandfather, took some of us in a boat and we, he paddled us around in a boat. And my other Grandma Hiatt, she just had a fit, she just knew he'd upset and drown us all, she just worried herself sick, but he didn't. We had a good ride in the boat, you know, he paddled across over to the other side, oh I can see it yet. Well, I've got a picture of it somewhere, the Castlewood Dam of the water, you know. I couldn't tell you where it is, but I've got one somewhere that we took.
BURDICK: So when it broke it must have rained for days at a time, or. . .
YOUNGER: I think it went out all at once.
BURDICK: Then just had one terrible bad storm that started it.
YOUNGER: Yeah, you see the storm was all up in this area and around winter something, up in that valley, you see.
BURDICK: Ah, before I forget can you tell me the names of the neighbors, of the people who lived all around you, even when you were growing up, and you know, even 20 or 30 years ago, do you remember some of the names, I mean, obviously we have the Geigers over here, we had the. . .[unclear] give us some of the names of the people you remember.
YOUNGER: And I was reading in this book here, that we were just looking at, they all lived around here. The Geigers, McFarlands, and Grays, and the Steppers, oh, all of 'um around here, the Browns and Tennals and Whistlers, of course you know, Bill Brown over here, Ruth Lorraine, oh yeah – [unclear] Nice neighborhood. . . [unclear]
BURDICK: My family came here in 1913, actually my family came here in 1897 but not El Paso county they were in Douglas county. . .
YOUNGER: But there was a Burdick here somewhere but I don't know where they lived.
BURDICK: Yeah, I saw that name, I couldn't figure it out. . .
YOUNGER: But I can't remember where they lived, [unclear] were up here, you know, they lived at the Fox Farm up here, right here at the end of the timber, you know.
BURDICK: I assume most people here raised cattle, primarily.
YOUNGER: They did then and they farmed.
BURDICK: They did [unclear]
YOUNGER: There was wheat, oats in this country around here, you know, and then, of course, when the [unclear] this was all potato country, you know, lots of potatoes.
BURDICK: Wonder when blight came, ‘cause now you know I try grow potatoes, I get that blight--
YOUNGER: Yeah,
BURDICK: Where did that come from?
YOUNGER: I don't know. It was probably brought in on the feed or something sometime, I suppose. But they say these fields were all potatoes, ‘cause they said there'd just be loads and loads of potatoes.
BURDICK: Then you didn't have trouble with the growing season here being short?
YOUNGER: No.
BURDICK: Your gardens were ok, weren't they?
YOUNGER: Well, I think so--
BURDICK: You could even do corn and that kind of thing, tomatoes?
YOUNGER: Oh, yeah.
BURDICK: Tomatoes
YOUNGER: Oh, yeah, not tomatoes, I never did try to raise tomatoes, oh, I tried um but I never had much luck. My garden used to be over here by the, closer to the meadow. Then finally we put it out here and, of course, we had to water it then you know, over there we had a little ditch that we could run water in it, had good gardens.
BURDICK: You know you couldn't afford, in those days you couldn't afford not to have your garden work, ‘cause that's what feed your family--
YOUNGER: Why, yeah.
BURDICK: You ’d best have beans, and you best have potatoes or you were in a world of hurt.
YOUNGER: Your turnips, carrots, and squash and even pumpkins if the season's long enough, you know. Well, you never thought of buying a can of pumpkin, I don't think I ever knew, I don't think they ever had pumpkin in cans, did they? [unclear]
BURDICK: You had to take one, cut it in half, quarter it and cut all the seeds out. . .
YOUNGER: yeah
BURDICK: . . . cut all the meat out, boil the meat down and get the stuff to make a pie.
YOUNGER: Mash it all up, you know and then make your pie, boy they were good pies. You had your good ole cream that you put in it, you know.
BURDICK: We want to know how you make pie crust, now this is interesting, this is not on this piece of paper over here, we want ah know how you make pie crust, because it is an art that is lost.
YOUNGER: Well, you use lard.
BURDICK: Yeah, pure lard.
YOUNGER: I like and I can make it with Crisco, but don't make it with butter, I think that makes a terrible pie crust. But I always say, I was making something here one day and Louis Killin came up and you know he used to come up a lot, he was here in business with Bruce. And I was doin' somethin' there and Louis said “How much you put in? And I said, “Oh just a pinch of this and pinch of that ” “You're just like my mother, she never measures, just a pinch of this, a pinch of that. ”
BURDICK: But the secret is lard, isn't it. Lard and fat makes real pie crust.
YOUNGER: I, generally, take about 2 cups of flour and oh I take out lard, I don't measure it, I just—
BURDICK: Until the consistency you way you think it ought to be
YOUNGER: That's right
BURDICK: What it that, what is the consistency of a pie crust?
YOUNGER: Well, you don't want it too, too gooey, you want it kind of dry, and don't want to work it too much, so that you'll still have kind of lard in there, makes flakes you know. And take ice water, I sprinkle ice water around, real cold water. And, of course, some salt and then squeeze it up in a ball and just roll it out.
BURDICK: Right on these counter tops.
YOUNGER: No, I have a board I always roll my pie crusts.
BURDICK: Not too much flour on the board, right?
YOUNGER: Well not--
BURDICK: Just enough so it won't stick
YOUNGER: Yeah, and you know you can always take a little bit more, sprinkle it on [unclear] but no I always loved to make pie crusts, and I always. . .
BURDICK: You're, you're a legend in your time on that, nobody ’ s ever duplicated. . .
YOUNGER: I could make better pie crusts than Mom could, Mom said that I used, I would break us up buying lard, used lard [unclear].
BURDICK: But you know you had all those by-products from your, from you animals and so on, so it was always there.
YOUNGER: Yeah.
BURDICK: So I mean, obviously you didn't go to Eatonville or Eastonville and buy a can of Crisco.
YOUNGER: No, they didn't have Crisco.
BURDICK: No, they didn't
YOUNGER: But later on, you know, we, I've got a couple of cans out here, Norma says “ Mom those are antique cans, ” cans about so big that we used to buy lard in. And, ah, but now when we got over here you see we didn't raise pigs, once in awhile, Bruce and I would have a pig, we'd butcher it, you know, but we didn't have lard all the time like we did at home. We'd always had those great big old jars of lard, you know, and kept them out in that milk house where it was cold, and you don't want you lard soft, either, you don't want it too soft, if it is that wouldn't be a good crust. I can take it right out of the refrigerator and make a pie crust.
BURDICK: Well.
SHIRLEY: Was Gwillimville still? How was it when you moved here, was Gwillimville still going, or was it a dead town by that time?
BURDICK: In through here?
SHIRLEY: Yeah, that Gwillimville.
YOUNGER: Well this is Gwillimville through here, this place down here and that place up there, they were all started by the Gwillims and that man up here took that book that has a picture of his house out here in the early days there was no trees here when we came here on this place, there wasn't a tree. I planted everything except two box elders and I thought they were bushes, every spring they'd grow up and they'd have about a dozen stalks and I thought they were just bushes, finally one year and I said now that's the end of it, I cut 'um all out except one, and it's a tree, all went into one and made a tree. But I planted everything else, you know.
BURDICK: Ah, Gwillimville was a town, I assume with a store, and hotel.
YOUNGER: Down here.
BURDICK: . . . what was it?
YOUNGER: Down here, down here was the store. Well, you know, up here they started, there was a post office and a creamery, up here at this, and the big house, a two-story house. Willey should be shot for tearing that down, because [unclear].
BURDICK: So, Willey bought what was Gwillymville?
YOUNGER: Yeah, the house. . .
SHIRLEY: [unclear]
YOUNGER: I've got pictures, I've got pictures of Bruce's family, he rented it. They lived in it for awhile. I've got pictures of them sitting out on the step. Bruce, Bruce, Wayne Younger and Bruce's Mother and Grandma Younger, they were sitting on the step. They lived there for awhile. They rented it, raised cattle, I suppose. But, anyway, they thought the railroad was goin' come up this valley, you know.
BURDICK: Oh, they did?
YOUNGER: So they built that big house up there, for a hotel, that's why we always called it the hotel.
BURDICK: Now, let me understand something, that big house on the east side of 83 as we're goin' into Colorado Springs, that great big two-story house that ’ s abandoned now, just what is that, do, did you ever know the people that lived there, or not?
YOUNGER: Oh, that was the Pettigrew Place, that was Pat Murphy, he built--
BURDICK: Started there and ended up over here, huh.
YOUNGER: In the cemetery, you mean.
BURDICK: Well no, but I mean, the place over here where Rex is, I thought that's where Pat Murphy lived.
YOUNGER: No, no [unclear] place up here we own, the old building is right up here.
BURDICK: Oh, is that right.
YOUNGER: That's where Pat lived. But that up there was the Pettigrew place, that was the Pettigrew's and he and Mr. Murphy, I think, were good friends.
BURDICK: Oh.
YOUNGER: And I always heard it that one of them came here and the other one's a friend and he came. But that up there is the Pettigrew place, and--
BURDICK: Doesn't look like anyone has lived there for 30 years or better.
YOUNGER: Oh no, it's a shame. The young kids go in there and they call it the haunted house.
BURDICK: Looks like it's was good sized house.
YOUNGER: They say, they taken the staircase out, that staircase was made in Denver and brought down there, Mr. Pettigrew did it, put it in that house. But Pat Murphy had a log cabin up here, and he was goin' to get married, he had a girl friend and he started to build a house, the old foundation's up there yet, and the, where he was going to have a fireplace in it, and his girlfriend gilted him, so he didn't go ahead with the house, he didn't build it. So he lived on in this little log cabin. And then, I guess, must have been Pettigrew, must bought his down here some way, but then Fred Larimer(sp) bought it for awhile, I mean he owned it and when we came here there was all fields out here, you know, things they raised out here. Billy Brown and. . .
BURDICK: Who then lived over here on this homestead, over at Rex ’ s now?
YOUNGER: Well it all started there and I don't know which one it was. I should of gone and talked to Mrs. [unclear] and some of 'um and learned more about it. But, when we came here a family by the name Rupert lived down here, Beryl Rupert, her folks was one that owned that house over there where the old school house is, the Duttons and then she married John Rupert, he was in the Army and when he came back they had a restaurant at Elbert, then finally they ended up down here. But--
BURDICK: When did you acquire that property?
YOUNGER: I think about '42 or '43 we bought it, right along there somewhere. John and Pearl went to the Springs to live. . .
BURDICK: Well, did you acquire, ah, your acreage all at once here or did you but it over a period of time, I assume you just kept buying it, more and more of it. . .
YOUNGER: No
BURDICK: . . . over a period of time.
YOUNGER: We bought this in '28, but we didn't move here 'til '34.
BURDICK: So it just sat vacant then for those few years?
YOUNGER: Yeah
BURDICK: Til you could move over here.
YOUNGER: We'd come cut the hay in the summer, you know, I'd move over here then with the kids, you know, save runnin' back and forth, we'd just move over, cut hay over here in the summer and then move back. But we had a friend in the Springs, she lived out at the Broadmoor, and she thought it was a thrill to come out here and live out here in the summertime. So they'd come out here and live in this house a couple months in the summertime, just for fun, you know. But, Bruce's folks bought that where he lived in 1918, where Norman is now, you know. And then--
BURDICK: Just out of curiosity, what would an acre go for in 1918? A dollar?
YOUNGER: Oh, I don't know, probably about 5 dollars, I don't think--
BURDICK: Five dollars. . .
YOUNGER: I imagine about $5, maybe $10, I don't remember, I don't know what. But I think we gave about $10,000 for this, I can't remember and maybe $10,000 for the Rupert, I don't know.
BURDICK: And was there like 40 acres with this, too, this. . .
YOUNGER: Oh no. . .
BURDICK: . . . house or more [unclear]. . .when you bought it.
YOUNGER: I think we had around what, about 4 or 600 acres here.
BURDICK: You just bought it all at once?
YOUNGER: We bought it all at once. You see it goes almost up to the highway up there. And then it goes over west here, you know, you see where that's all terraced over there, we owned that too. But there's a family came in here that bought the place, bought the Newman place up there and, ah, he bought the whole thing, and we had a piece there that met together just like this, and there was a gate here and we'd put our cow from here into that. When this man bought it why he didn't want that gate in there so he took it out, so we just sold it to him, that's why all that terrace is there at the Newton ’ s place. We owned that, it was terraced like it is down here on the Rupert place. See the soil conservation came in and terraced that land, you know, and they also planted those trees down there at Rex's the soil conservation.
BURDICK: Uh huh.
YOUNGER: And I wouldn't let them put any up here, because I had to live over there in the timber and I couldn't see out so I didn't want trees around me.
BURDICK: Good thinking.
YOUNGER: Yeah.
BURDICK: Well this has been lots of fun, do you have any closing comments, you have any regrets, do you have, ah. . .
YOUNGER: No, it's been great. . .
BURDICK: Do you have any advice for future generations, like us.
YOUNGER: Get in and work, save your money and. . .
BURDICK: Save you money, that's. . .
YOUNGER: Right, right. . .
BURDICK: That's the reason this generation made it ‘ cause they weren't mortgaged.
SHIRLEY: I agree.
YOUNGER: And we never bought anything 'til we could pay for it.
BURDICK: That's the answer. Then you don't have to worry.
YOUNGER: Yeah, that's right.
BURDICK: But, you know, it must of seemed like a lot if you bought 600 acres at one time, didn't you worry about how in the world you could pay for all this.
YOUNGER: But we had it, we had the money before we bought it. We paid in cash.
BURDICK: So then you just earned that money by working, did Bruce work other ranches, or work with your folks to earn that money, or how did you get that money?
YOUNGER: No, he worked with his dad, he and his dad worked together and raised cattle, and if we got up to 50 head we had quite a herd.
BURDICK: Takin' care of them in the wintertime.
YOUNGER: Well you had your hay and you feed 'um, you know, you didn't have to buy hay, we didn't have to buy hay and still there were time when they went on east and bought hay, some kind of cane or something out there and bought it and it wasn't baled it was in bundles, you know. I remember one time they brought back something and it had some kind of, what was that stuff that grew along the road, wasn't thistles, but some other kind of a weed. And it went to seed and we were so afraid we would get it started, so my mom came up here one time and my brother, he was a little fellow, he was just the age of Ruby. And we gave them money and they'd go out and pick up those seeds that was there, where they could find them on the ground, . . . we gave a penny or this and that. . .but we never did, what is that stuff that grew along the road, but it had a big seed, but we always fed the cattle out there and Bruce was so afraid we'd get that started up here. But we never did.
BURDICK: Hum, wasn't as bad as knap weed.
END OF INTERVIEW