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Oral history interview with David Noble

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TITLE	Oral history interview with David Noble
INTERVIEWEE	Noble, David
SUBJECT	Brigham Young; Air Force; Latter-Day Saints
Browse Topic	Agriculture Education Family and community Military and war
DESCRIPTION	David Noble talks about his grandparents coming to Alpine in a covered wagon, sent by Brigham Young.
INTERVIEWER	Luger, Jay; and Jones, Lenore
TYPE	Sound Text
Material Collection	Oral Histories of Alpine, Arizona
RIGHTS MANAGEMENT	Property of Alpine Public Library. For reproduction permissions, contact us at 928-339-4925.
DATE ORIGINAL	2010-12-12
Time Period	1880s (1880-1889) 1920s (1920-1929) 1940s (1940-1949)
ORIGINAL FORMAT	Oral histories recorded on digital media with transcriptions.
DIGITAL IDENTIFIER	index.cpd
Date Digital	2010-2011
DIGITAL FORMAT	MP3 (MPEG Audio Layer 3) DOC (Microsoft Word)
File Size	1050 Bytes
DIGITIZATION SPECIFICATIONS	Oral histories were recorded on an Olympus WS-6005 Digital Voice Recorder.
REPOSITORY	Alpine Public Library. PO Box 528, Alpine, AZ 85920. www.co.apache.AZ.us
Full Text	David Noble Alpine, AZ Interview: December 9, 2010 We are interviewing David Noble whose grandparents were among the original settlers of Alpine. He lives and ranches on the original homestead, and his sister Arlene Saline has a ranch next to his. I was born in August 27, 1925 in St. Johns, AZ. My father was Leslie Noble. He was born here in Alpine. My mother was Rozella Brinkerhoff, and she was born in Tuba City, AZ. On my father’s side, my grandfather was Edward Alvah Noble. He was born in the Salt Lake area or the Illinois area. His wife, my grandmother, was Ann Jane Peel, she was born in Illinois. On my mother’s side, my grandfather was David Brinkerhoff, born somewhere in the Salt Lake area. His wife was my grandmother, Lydia Ann Nelson. She was probably born in Glendale, Utah. What year did your grand parents first come to the Alpine area? The Noble family came to Alpine in 1880. They were among the very first settlers here. They came here under direction of the church. They were devout Mormons, and as you may know, Brigham Young was anxious to settle through the West. They first went to the St. Johns area and then later came up here under direction of church authority. What did your grandparents do? They were farmers. They arrived here in very difficult circumstances. They came in an old covered wagon of course. I think grandmother was expecting her fourth or fifth child and they had that old covered wagon. They arrived here in the late fall and it was snowing like crazy. You can imagine how they struggled. Some gentleman (whose name escapes me right now) insisted that they take over a little log cabin in which he was living. I’m not sure what he did. If it had not been for that cabin I don’t know how they would have survived. They made it through the winter and then built a home the next spring. What did your parents do? My mother was a school teacher. She taught in these little communities for about 35 years mainly between here and Nutrioso, and down on the Blue occasionally. That was mainly after she retired. Mainly she was here in Alpine, and Nutrioso off and on. My dad was a rancher and a farmer. He loved cattle and we had a very pleasant comfortable childhood. I should mention that my Grandfather, Edward Alvah Noble, was the first Mormon Bishop of the Alpine Ward. He was called out of the audience, and that was not unusual in those days. I don’t think he was aware of that call coming before the meeting convened, but the residing authority called him from the congregation to be the Bishop. Where did your parents have to drive the cattle to sell? I helped build those shipping corrals up on the side of the road going up the Big Lake road. I was 12 years old when those corrals were built and the community got together and it was a united effort. I remember my brother and I were driving the wagon on which those logs were loaded. Of course we weren’t the only ones that made a major contribution to that effort. The men were there, and they’d dig the post holes and put up the logs. That was in 1938 I think. How many head of cattle did your parents raise? Eventually, Dad had about 120 head of mother cows and of course six or eight saddle horses, and then he had mules and horses that he used for farming. My parents had a total of 640 acres, which you know is a section of land. They were known as one of the main land holders here in the Alpine valley. They had 160 acres down by Luna Lake, south of Luna Lake. You know there is a beautiful home up there in the draw. It was just west of their property. But all that property from that property line all the way to the east end of the valley was Dad’s. When they first homesteaded that property the road did not go where it is now. It came down, went north on the very east end of the property, north and south almost to the trees, and then it took a sharp 90-degree turn and came due west just south of the Catholic Church. Where that big sweeping curve now is, that was a sharp 90-degree turn. The change in the highway didn’t happen until after WW II. Then my grandfather homesteaded 160 acres west of Alpine where we live now. And then they had half a section in Nutrioso that they used for winter range for their cattle. What are some of your memories of ranching as a boy? As boys we thought we were severely put upon, but as we look back on it now it was absolutely superb. We had horses and cattle, and each summer had to help with the crops. And in the fall, we put up the hay. We also branded the calves, and moved the cattle back and forth. Dad had a permit on Coyote Creek, just east of Three Forks. A little creek goes down through there. So each spring we would drive the cattle up there, about the middle of May, and they would be there until about the latter part of October. Then he would bring them down and pasture them on the ranch until about December. Then we would drive them to Nutrioso, to his half section where they would spend the winter. We’d bring them back home the next spring. All the men got together and put them back on the allotment. It was always a big day when we branded and did those things during the summer. What crops did your family raise? My folks grew oats, wheat, and barley. They were all for sale. During those days everything in this valley was planted. This was solid green from the west end clear down to and beyond Luna Lake. I do not know of an area in this valley that was not planted to green of some kind. Where was the harvest taken? They usually took the harvested grain to Becker Mercantile in Springerville. Mr. Becker would buy it. He was a middle- man of course, and he would sell it to a grain operation of some kind. That is what everybody did. And then they had shipping corrals for the cattle. Occasionally they would drive the cattle from here to McNary. I easily remember Dad and Earnest Judd. They were out on the west end of the valley, and they were the two largest cattle producers in the valley. One fall, I don’t know whether they didn’t like the prices the cattle buyer offered, or what the circumstances were, but they drove the cattle to McNary, which was a three day drive. We went out past Big Lake and on out across the mountain clear to McNary. That was the nearest railroad. Just like out of an old west movie. It was kind of exciting, but we did it. I guess I was about 12 years old when we did that. Where did you go to school? Well I went to school in this red brick building here through the eighth grade. It had two rooms. The first through the fourth grade were in one room, and fifth through eighth were in the other room. There were two teachers, one in each room. I went to high school in Round Valley. What did you do after High School? Well, WWII was raging then so I went into the service. I had a pilot’s license before I graduated from High School and fully expected to end up in the Air Force. I did, and I was in pilot training for the Air Force and that was in late ‘43 and early ‘44. I distinctly remember that I was going to pre-flight training in Pullman, Washington, at Washington State University. I suppose there were about 1400 young men there. They called us down to the field house one afternoon and said, ‘The Air Force has enough pilots and they were not taking us any further”. So we went into gunnery and those kinds of things. I distinctly recall seeing these healthy young men in tears over that. Do you remember your first vehicle? Dad always had cars. I remember an old Model-T and he had a Model A. I remember that very distinctly. I never did own a car until after I married. How many children did you have, are they still in the area? We had seven. Some of them are in Utah, but most of them are in Arizona. The oldest son is an attorney in Yuma. The second son is a dentist in Tempe. The girls married Well - CPAs, dentist, etc. So we have been very fortunate. Do you know any stories about Indian trouble or outlaws? There is one story. Perhaps you have noticed the monument down here on the side of the road on the south side as you go out 180. There was an old fort there that the early settlers built. That was built primarily because the Indians had come in and raided at one time and took a lot of horses, and as a result, that fort was there and stood for many years. I don’t remember any major conflict with the Indians, but I can remember grandmother saying there was a time or two when she fed the Indians as they made their way through the area. And then there is one other little story that I get a kick out of. Dad’s farm, his major farming operation was down on the 160 acres at the east end of the valley, and then during the winter the teams were kept up here on the ranch at the west end. So naturally the teams considered this home and they would only stay down there for a month or six weeks during the spring when the farming operation was going on. One May morning, as I recall, Dad and I were going down a little after sunup, and right here there was a little grocery store that used to sit across the street, George’s Store. We met one of those old mules. Dad had a team of mules, Tex and Rowdy, and they were getting old. As we came over the hill there was one of those old mules just walking up the road and Dad said something like, “Look at that crazy old mule.” He wasn’t causing any trouble or being rambunctious, he was just walking up the road. Dad had a rope in the back of the pickup, and he walked up to the mule and put the rope around his neck. He asked me if I would lead him back down to the farm where we were farming. I think I was about ten years old and just starting to notice the young women. You know, I thought I was pretty hot stuff. I can distinctly remember walking right down this hill and around the corner, hoping that none of my girl friends saw me. We got down there by the sharp corner that I mentioned, where it makes a sharp turn by the Catholic Church, and that old mule just laid down and died. He just groaned, went to his knees, and died. That has always touched me. He was going home to die. And here I was, interrupting his trip by taking him back to the farm. It scared me to death. I started running up the road and met Dad coming down. I told him what had happened and when he saw how frightened I was he just laughed. There was nothing anybody could have done about it. But I have remembered it all my life. Incidentally, maybe you know the story about the church being burned down. Some boys stuffed the dry Christmas decorations into the fire place and somebody lit it off and burned the whole place down. Well, my uncle was one of the two involved. One was Earnest Judd and the other was my Uncle Legrand, he’s the one that did it. Dad and his brother weren’t too close in age and they weren’t too close growing up either. They just didn’t always see things the same way. Uncle Legrand said that after the fire they were out there harvesting hay on the ranch. They were working in a big meadow and Dad stopped the team and walked over to Legrand and said, “That was a damn fine job you did.” I got to tell you one more story that is unique to me. I distinctly remember when the first water line was put in Alpine. It ended up that the end of the line was on the top of the hill in front of the school. A two inch line came down from a spring, and of course they had branches running off, but this was the end of the line where it ended up. I suppose I was in the second or third grade, and they just left the pipe open and the water was running out, cleaning the line. It didn’t have any place else to go so they just left it draining off the hill. I stepped out there, it was about noon, and I was thirsty so I just leaned over and took a big drink of water out of that line. I no sooner pulled my head back than a big old rat came running out! You can’t make these things up. Tell us about building the new LDS church after the fire? Well, the rock was quarried right out here. You just go around the hill and go up through the Estes property. My dad had the first John Deere tractor in the valley and he had an old wagon that he put rubber tires on so it would run up and down the road. I was 13 I guess and I could drive the tractor. So I remember driving back up there and they would load the rock and I’d bring it up here. Bryant Whiting was the contractor on the building. He later served in the State Senate. It was built under contract. There was a lot of volunteer labor, but he was the one responsible. Who is the oldest pioneer in Alpine? The oldest is Helen Slaughter. In fact I saw her car here today. She is just so modest but she is a remarkable, remarkable woman. Helen was raised right here in town. Then I am next. She might still have a sister alive, Virginia. If she is, then she is a little older than I. So I am the second oldest living original Alpine citizen. The reason I was born in St. Johns was because my mother was on the way to Woodruff where her parents lived. Her father was very ill, and she got as far as St. Johns and I stopped the journey. That is why I was born in St. Johns. My younger brother Bob and I are just 18 months apart. Mother was out on the ranch by herself with me when he decided to come along. The nearest midwife was Mrs. Tenney who lived on the main road, so mother was in a hurry to get to Mrs. Tenney in time. She was just dragging me along and I couldn’t go fast enough, so she set me on a stump and left me there and went on to deliver the baby. Finally, somebody came back to get me. I tell people that is why I am so crazy. She left me there all alone and I never recovered.
Sort Order	01060

TITLE	Transcript of oral history interview with David Noble
INTERVIEWEE	Noble, David
TYPE	Text
Material Collection	Oral Histories of Alpine, Arizona
RIGHTS MANAGEMENT	Property of Alpine Public Library. For reproduction permissions, contact us at 928-339-4925.
ORIGINAL FORMAT	Oral histories recorded on digital media with transcriptions.
DIGITAL IDENTIFIER	David Noble.doc
Date Digital	2010-2011
DIGITAL FORMAT	DOC (Microsoft Word)
File Size	3126784 Bytes
DIGITIZATION SPECIFICATIONS	Oral histories were recorded on an Olympus WS-6005 Digital Voice Recorder.
REPOSITORY	Alpine Public Library. PO Box 528, Alpine, AZ 85920. www.co.apache.AZ.us

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