Transcript of oral history interview with Hern Wilkins |
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Object Description
| TITLE | Oral history interview with Hern Wilkins |
| INTERVIEWEE | Wilkins, Hern |
| SUBJECT | Brigham Young; Air Force; Latter-Day Saints |
| Browse Topic |
Agriculture Education Family and community Military and war |
| DESCRIPTION | Hern Wilkins talks about growing up in Nutrioso, his Mormon ancestors, childhood chores. |
| INTERVIEWER | Luger, Jay; Jones, Lenore |
| TYPE |
Sound Text |
| Material Collection | Oral Histories of Nutrioso, Arizona |
| RIGHTS MANAGEMENT | Property of Alpine Public Library. For reproduction permissions, contact us at 928-339-4925. |
| DATE ORIGINAL | 2011-05-18 |
| Time Period |
1900s (1900-1909) 1930s (1930-1939) |
| 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 | 407 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 | Hern Wilkins Alpine, AZ Interview: May 18, 2011 I was born in St. Johns but I was raised in Nutrioso. I was born April 12, 1932. My dad was Lloyd Wilkins. He was born in Nutrioso in 1900. Mother was Genevieve Greenwood. She was born in Eagar, Arizona in 1902. My granddad’s name was Lloyd Orson. He and his family came from Beaver, Utah. They were sent here in the Brigham Young pilgrimage to this area. Granddad was ten years old and he walked from Beaver, Utah and drove cattle to Nutrioso, twice. My grandfather and my father raised cattle. Dad probably had a hundred head and my granddad had 150. The lake in Nutrioso was part of our ranch. I don’t know how many acres we had. To sell the cattle they usually drove them to Magdalena. I had three brothers and a sister. I had lots of chores growing up. You name it, I’ve done it. I didn’t have any favorites. We had milk cows, and pigs, and chickens. My mother, my grandmother and my aunt made cheese. I hate milk cows with a purple passion. Oh how I hated those things. Couldn’t go anywhere or do anything until you milked those cows. My mother, grandmother and my aunt made cheese. They all had about ten cows apiece. We had one of those big drums to churn the cheese. They got as much money for cheese then as they do now. She made ten pounds of cheese every day. The customers came to our house to buy it. They’d be standing in line to get it right out of the press. For fun things to do besides chores, we rode horses. My dad had the best saddle- horses in the country. We could ride them as long as we treated them right. I’d hate to think what would have happened to us if we hadn’t treated them right. We went fishing up in Cold Creek. We were up there cultivating corn and my brother said, “Let’s go fishing”. So I tied my horse to the fence and we went fishing. We stayed all day because we knew what was going to happen to us when we got home. I went to school in Nutrioso, Eagar and then Round Valley. I got to school in Nutri on these two legs right here. I have three today. (a cane) I’m crippled. We lived about three miles out of town, up what they call Dry Valley. In the spring and the fall we would walk. We would play all the way up and all the way back. When the winter came my brother and I had little mares that we rode. My mother would bundle us up in a blanket and ship us out and away we’d go. To get to town we had to hill- side it to get around the snow banks because the snow was too deep. It really snowed big time then. There were about 20 kids when I went to school in the building that is there now. All the kids in this area were my friends. There was Eddie Ellis, Billy Simpson (a cousin of mine), and Margaret Martin. None of my friends are here now. They are all gone. I had some good friends too. We came to Alpine all the time. We played basketball right over here at this church house (now the Community Center). Most every night there would be a bunch of us over there playing, including kids from Luna. The three towns did some activities together. We used to have an annual rodeo. All three towns would get together. We had a lot of fun. We knew the guys who worked the rodeo. We knew who they were so we all went. I used to break horses for a living but I never rode them in the rodeo. We didn’t go to Springerville much. I didn’t go to a movie until I was about fifteen years old. There wasn’t any movie, and there wasn’t any money either. I didn’t know I was poor and I really didn’t care because all the kids were just like me. They wore the same kind of clothes. I remember a little of the Depression. I was born in 1932. We didn’t have many clothes but we sure did eat well. We always had somebody at our house to eat with us. We lived on a farm and we raised all our own food. My mother raised a garden every year and I can tell you about it because I had to weed it. We didn’t need many supplies from Springerville. My dad would buy a ton of flour and a ton of sugar in the fall. We traded grain for it to the Beckers. That was pretty much all Mother got for the whole year. Out clothes were store bought. A pair of Levis cost two dollars and forty-five cents. Now they cost you forty-two dollars and forty-five cents. After I graduated from high school in Round Valley, I went into the Air Force. For two years I was stationed in Korea. After I got out of the service I cut logs with my dad for a living. We worked in Nutrioso up on Escadilla Mountain. I’ve lived here most of my life. I drove a truck, had a service station, logged, and cowboyed. Down around the Blue Lookout I chopped wood for a guy by the name of Wade Sharp. My dad always had plenty for us to do. We didn’t sit around the house, I’ll guarantee you. It wasn’t hard but we always had plenty to do. In the summer time I broke horses. My dad always had a couple of horses for me to ride. Then in the spring we had broncs that I had to work. One time when I was younger, we had one down to doctor it and he rolled over and kicked me. I was right up against him so it didn’t hurt me but it left a print where the hooves hit. I just rolled out through there like a bowling ball. My dad got a hold of me and jerked me up and said “Pay attention!” So I did. When my mother was just a girl about sixteen she cooked for all the ranches down on the Blue, such as the Four-drags and on down Hagle Creek. She was working for the Cosper outfit. She said the ranchers all went to Clifton to sell cattle, but this time they didn’t party because the cattle buyer told them, “Just turn them out, we don’t want them.” Thousands of head went unsold. |
| Sort Order | 05020 |
Description
| TITLE | Transcript of oral history interview with Hern Wilkins |
| INTERVIEWEE | Wilkins, Hern |
| TYPE | Text |
| Material Collection | Oral Histories of Nutrioso, 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 | Hern Wilkins.doc |
| Date Digital | 2010-2011 |
| DIGITAL FORMAT | DOC (Microsoft Word) |
| File Size | 2429952 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 |
