Earl & Eliza Halls
Earl’s mother, Ellen Melissa Barker Halls, wrote a birthday poem to Earl on April 16, 1915. It is included here.
Just think, my boy, you’re twenty five
And I am forty-four.
When nineteen years have come and gone,
You’ll think you’re that or more.
But now you’re in the prime of life
Go singing on your way.
Think often of the old folks
Whose hair has turned to gray.
We love you just the same dear
As we did when you were small.
We love you in the spring time
And we love you in the fall.
We’ll always be your friend, boy,
No matter what you do.
But we’ll love you all the more
If you are brave and true.
So don’t forget your duty
To do the best you can.
You’ve passed your childhood days now
And have grown to be a man.
I wish you a prosperous, happy life
And plenty of girls and boys,
And I’m glad you have a right good wife
To share your woes and joys.
May this be a happy birthday
With plenty more to come
With plenty of good pure water,
But with never any rum.
(Earl) In the spring of 1915, my partner, Frank Halls, had an offer to go into a blacksmithing shop and garage business in Monticello, Utah. A well-to-do cattleman named Frank Adams offered to put up the money, and Frank was to be the shop man and manager. Frank left, and I tried to collect the money we had out. But not much luck!
My Uncle George offered me a job as foreman on his ranch in Idaho. I took it. Eliza came down with the mumps and I packed our household goods and left for the ranch, leaving her and Glenn with my folks until she got over the mumps, then she came out by train. I learned the hard way what a foreman is. He is the man who can work ten hours in the field, milk seven cows, feed 200 pigs, and keep everything in repair. By midsummer, Frank was riding me to come to Monticello and go in with him and Adams. I didn’t intend to, but during haying time while Uncle George was gone for two weeks and I was running the haying crew, Stanley, Uncle George’s boy, driving pull time on the stacker, went too far and tipped the stacker over. In trying to get it straightened up, one man got smart and let loose of the rope he was holding to keep the stacker from falling too hard. I fired him, and when Uncle George came home, he hired him again. And I quit. Couldn’t be a foreman and have authority under such circumstances.
(Eliza) Earl got a job from his Uncle George in Raymond, Idaho, and I got the mumps. Grandma came and took me and Glenn home and there we stayed for two weeks. Earl wouldn’t kiss me goodbye. He had to do the moving all by himself. Glenn and I took the train from Ogden about the middle of March 1915, for Montpelier where Earl picked us up. I cooked for Uncle George and two men until school was out in Ogden, and Aunt Celia and her family came to the ranch. I guess we got paid for it. Earl did not last very long under Uncle George. He should have known that before he started, but I guess the sound of “foreman” sounded good, and a job was a job. He now had a family to support.
We sold our washer, and I was back on the washboard until Aunt Celia moved out from Ogden. She had me come over and use her washer. She insisted that I use it. Well, the word “foreman” had a different meaning to Earl than it did to Uncle George. Until the boys came out, he milked the cows, then he gave Earl one cow to milk. The milk always left a sediment in the bottom of the pan, something like soured milk, and it kept getting worse. I was afraid to use it. I took a pan of the milk over to show Aunt Celia and that was the end of that. We were not to use that cow’s milk anymore. I was to come over and get what milk I wanted, also cream, as they had a separator, and I was cooking for two men at the time.
The foreman job was continual. We never had a whole day off, Sunday or holidays. We were going picnicking on the Fourth of July with Earl’s cousins and friends up the canyon, but Uncle George had a small job for Earl, and they did not wait for us, but told us where they were going. Not knowing the canyon, we never found them, so we picnicked all by ourselves. The same on Sunday; there was always something that needed doing on Sunday morning and Earl was the one. He did all the blacksmith work, and repair of the machinery. Uncle George knew what he was doing when he hired Earl, and Earl should have known what he was getting into as he had worked all his life for his uncles, but I guess “foreman” had a good sound.
There was this boy about seventeen called Fritz, who was born in Raymond of Dutch parents. He had worked there for years. He was always bugging Earl to wrestle. Earl threw him twice and thought that would stop it, but it didn’t. It could have been that he thought he should have had the foreman job. Anyway, something came up out in the field that could have been avoided, but it was Fritz that was responsible, so Earl fired him. Uncle George had hired him, and he said something to Earl, who blew his top and quit.