LIVING IN MORAN WY 1940-1947

​

Life on the Elk Ranch was wonderful in the summer, despite the mosquitoes who smothered everyone during irrigating and haying season.  In the winter it could be “Hell!”  Jim Chambers was head of the ranching and haying operation of the refuge.  He had an old white horse that he rode to go change the gates on the irrigation ditches.  No one knew how old the horse was but Jim estimated in his mid twenties.  I have seen crows sitting and riding on the back of the horse while it was grazing.  Sometimes we would put the boys on him and lead him around.  The horse didn’t act like he cared if someone was riding or not and the boys were so small their weight was nothing to him. Henry was born a year after Robbie,  both of them at St. John’s Hospital.  I had Dr. MacCleod for Robbie   He was a good doctor but was very severe and always yelled at me because I had two babies by the time I was 20 yrs old. He always frightened me. I was pretty shy at that time.  Dr. Elmore, a much nicer and kinder personality delivered both Henry and six years later, Byron. 

 

Jim Chambers had several children among them Irma, who married Moy Nethercott, Archie who was always a good friend and I remember one other Jimmie Jr.  Jim Sr.’s  wife died of cancer about the time we moved to the Upper Elk Ranch.  Jim had a wonderful way of massacring words. One time he was sputtering , “why they even have  PROSTITUTES for butter  meaning  substitutes, another time one of an employee’s  wife was having an operation one of her legs and he told. me ”She has those VERTICAL” veins meaning varicose, of course    As the war was going on when we moved there he was a “news” maniac.  He would come over to our house and turn on the radio and go from one station to the other at high volume.  We had a real good radio and even in that remote area you could receive many stations  from  Denver,  Salt Lake.etc  They only make Satellite reception like that in 2011 as I write this.  Henry was a baby at that time and sometimes Bob would be  playing his banjo and having drinks. Henry who had some allergy problems with milk etc. when he was under a year old would be crying, Robbie playing, I would be trying to fix dinner and Jim would have the radio going full blast.  One evening, not to long after Henry was born  I was nervous and blew up,  told Bob to put down the damn banjo, Jim to shut off the radio .  Poor Jim he left and after that he only came over about eight-o'clock and listened to the news for an hour.  I know he was worried about his son Archie who was fighting with  the Army overseas.,But our house was a living room kitchen combined and a small bedroom. So I couldn’t escape from the loud volume Jim had turned up to hear over the banjo and baby.

​

Several families came to the Elk Ranch with their cattle when an overabundance of hay was raised.  The excess was sold and usually one or two ranchers would bring some cattle down and a man over to feed the cattle for the winter.

One of the couples , Orrin and (Nellie or Mabel ) Seaton, how can I forget her name but I have)  They brought their own cattle and settled in for the winter in the “Cool house” one of the nice ranch buildings on the place.  In the summer it served as the dining room, cookhouse for the haying crews, usually at least twenty men.  Anyway our house was the closest to it.  The snows were deep so trails were dug between the four or five houses on the ranch.  One afternoon Mrs. Seaton came over for coffee and spent a couple hours,  She was only wearing a house dress, with an apron tied around her waist  snow boots and a  sweater. When she started to leave, we discovered  a moose had wandered  on the trail between our house and her place  As the snow banks were four feet high at least, there was no way she could get around it.  She kept waiting and finally decided she had to get home and cook Orrin’s dinner as it was getting dark.  She took off her apron and started to her house making “sho-o-o-ing “ noises.  Luckily the moose was not on the “prod”  which most of them seemed to be in the winter and it backed up step by step  I have no idea what we  would have done if it charged  at her  

 

Mrs. Seaton told me a story about her family coming over Togwotee Pass in covered wagons from Colorado.  She said she was a baby and the trail was narrow and hard.  It took more than one team to pull the wagon a few feet, then block the wheels with rocks while another moved a few feet  It was tremendously hard work but she said her mother told her that everytime the wagon was moving she would be quiet, but the minute they stopped she would start crying again just like babies in a car today.  I wrote a little story about this when I was correspondent for the Jackson Hole Courier living at Moran.  During the winter Orrin fell off a haystack and broke his hip so they had to hire someone to feed their cattle.  Mrs Seaton taught him how to do Rug “Hookmg” so rather than  waste his time he made a beautiful rug.  About four by five ft. I hope someone in the Seaton family still has the rug.  It was black with a huge flaming red  rose in the center.  Orrin worked and worked on it and by the time his hip healed enough for him to move around he had it nearly finished.  The moose were always a trial, as everytime Robbie and Henry would go out to sled on the hillside a moose would get between them and the house.  I would have to wade through deep snow, go around and get them back to the house.  One year a moose that had been fighting  or sick  his hide was badly torn on one side and he drifted into the property with  the houses and buildings.   He was fighting the horses charging at anything and everything.  Finally Jim got permission from Headquarters to shoot him.  He was ill and a real menace.  Sometimes the moose would trot across the porches on the houses and one slipped and fell, I thought he was coming in the door before he got to his feet.  All the porches were painted with a brown shiny paint. The moose  would sometimes get very cranky.  Jim Chambers said it was because the willows they eat were covered with snow,and  they were eating bark from the aspen trees and were constipated. Could be true, I don’t know.  I know they did love the willows.  People who were not good drivers would find one on the highway and run behind it instead of going around it immediately.  The moose would run down the highway with the car trailing behind and soon the moose would get tired and start striking at the car with its front hoofs.  The snow banks were  twelve ft plus high from the  Rotary plows blowing the snow  up until it was like a tunnel driving over Jenny Lake Flats to town. and from the Elk Ranch to Moran.

​

Another family that were feeding their cows on the Elk Ranch were  Verland and Joella Taylor and three children  Joe Jr, a second son, don’t remember his name and a little 3 or 4 yr old girl.  This was one of the hardest working families I have ever met.  They had a milk cow with them, and the two little boys, about 7 and 8 yrs. old were expected to get up in the morning, milk the cow, hitch up a team of horse to a small “sheep” wagon on sleighs, build a fire in the stove in the sleigh come in for breakfast. Then drive the team of horses four miles to the  school on the Moosehead Ranch. Unhitch the horses and put in the stable, attend school all day.  and reverse the whole thing in the evening. Returning in the winter from school  nearly dark.  The little boys had to drive past the Stippy and Will Wolfe Ranch  across the Grovont River bridge, One winter a mother moose with her calf decided to play “Billy Goat Gruff”  and would fight the  team the boys were driving when they tried to cross the bridge.  The boys would have to turn around, go back and get Stippy Wolfe (the nationally famous fiddler) to fire his gun up in the air so the moose would let them cross the bridge.  She only did this in the morning,  After this went on so often they finally had the Fish and Wildlife come and run her off as it was very frightening to the little boys. to be greeted on the bridge every school morning by a bridge- defending moose.  One more “Moose” story.  The Moosehead Ranch was owned by Fred and Eva Topping.  Eva had been a school teacher in one of the schools nearby when Fred came to the valley with a bunch of dudes.  I always heard that Fred had been a well known stage dancer and Vaudeville performer when he came west on vacation and met and married Eva.  I assume they purchased the ranch, I don’t believe it was inherited by Eva, but they catered to dudes and hunting and fishing groups.  I know Fred was an excellent dancer however he and Eva  seldom  attended the schoolhouse  dances etc.  Eva told me about a moose that loved music.  The radio stations all played western music, gave weather and stock and agriculture reports first thing starting about 6 A.M.  The Toppings turned on their radio which sat by the kitchen window each morning while they were having breakfast.  The stations would start with the Star Spangled Banner and close each night with a patriotic song. , There were some great western music in those days, “Louise Massey and the Westerners” were one of my favorite groups  and I loved the western yodelers. The Toppings had turned on the programs with the music for several years and suddenly a moose started coming to the window and would stand and listen until they turned it off and went out to do chores.  The Moose would then wander off until the next morning,  she would be there right on time when the radio started.  One year she brought a calf along who would stand quietly and listen too,  This went on for several years, then one year she didn’t come.  Old age or perhaps a hunter had taken the “Music Loving Moose”

 

The road was always closed from the Elk Ranch to Wolfes, Toppings, and Turners Triangle X Ranch after the first big snows.  They would leave their cars at the Elk Ranch and come there by horses and sleigh, put their horses in the corral while they went to town, sometimes staying overnight to attend to business, shopping, dental and doctor appointments  etc.. Everyone usually stayed at the Wort Hotel as it was in the center of town and within walking distance of most places.

One time the Turners and Jane Barker, Hilda and Bob an I and our boys all piled into our car and drove to town in for the weekend.  Why we all went to town in our car I don’t remember but it was very crowded with Bob and I and the boys in front and John Louise, Hilda and Jane in the back.  Something must have been wrong with their car  Several other times Turners rode in town with us but that was the only time I remember we had six adults and two little kids in one car. We would go to town on the weekend, rent a room, hire a teenage babysitter when we went out in the evening.  One time Robbie and Henry were taking a bath before bedtime and I ran downstairs at the hotel to get some sandwiches  and drinks for their dinner.  Before I got back they decided to get out of the tub and find me..  They came out into the hall, naked and the door locked them out as they closed it.  Wilma Taylor who ran the rental of rooms and was night clerk there for many years.  Wilma heard them crying in the hall and had to open the door and let them back in about the time I arrived back. 

 

Fred and Ruby Houchens had opened a store in Wilson at that time and their prices were very reasonable so we would go over there and buy most of our monthly stock of groceries.  We only shopped once a month. I canned 300 qts of tomatoes, 100 qts of peaches some pears and even canned beef and pork every summer.  We bought ½ pig a couple winters and smoked and salted some of it in brine.  The canned beef made good sandwiches cold and sliced. There wasn’t any refrigeration at the refuge just ice boxes,  In the winter a big project for the men was cutting ice on the Buffalo River.  There was a big two story building that was filled with sawdust which was saved from the logs sawed up for wood in the winter.  The men would take a week after the ice was several feet thick, go down with the sleigh and cut big blocks of ice with a saw.  Then haul it up to the sawdust building and store it in layers.  The ice usually lasted all summer for the employees but cutting it was a miserable job.  There was also a “spring house” built into the hillside that we kept meat in during the winter. One spring a bear came down and took an entire quarter of beef out and ran off with it, It belonged to the cookhouse but was a big loss of meat. The generator was only turned on at night for six hours, so for electric washings, ironing had to be done at night.  Most of the time we used a gasoline motor driven washer, and  to iron I had a gasoline burning iron.  It had a little tank on the back of the iron filled with gas to light.  You could turn it up as hot as you wanted.  How I would have loved wash and wear fabrics in those days, but everything had to be ironed  And a wife  never sent her  family out of the house without their jeans, cords, and shirts starched and ironed. Dryers for clothes hadn’t been invented so housewives struggled with getting heavy clothes dried. 

 

If you had a basement that was wonderful but none of the park houses had one. Most of the houses were built of logs and were not very warm   If you let the fire go out at night it would take all day to heat the place up again.  There was so much wood sawed up just about all of us used it for heat.  Sometimes we would buy a few sacks of coal for the winter nights,  But Bob never thought it was necessary,  We had bad winters then, very few plows to handle the huge storms  One winter we were snowed in for three months.  Luckily we had gone to town on JAN 2ND.  That evening we drove back to the refuge in a blinding snowstorm, Bob with his head out the window driving by the 10 ft poles along the road that had been placed there for the snow plows to see the boundaries. of the road..  We were lucky to get home that evening as  Jimmie Rains the mailman didn’t make it back to town , His car hit a drift and he was stuck on Jenny Lake Flat,  sat there covered with snow for three months until the roads were finally opened in March. He  had to take out his skis and ski several miles to Moose to the post office.   He used a snowmobile the rest of the winter until March and the plows broke the road open again. There was very little maintenance that could be done on the highway equipment as everything was going to the war effort so when the  rotary plow broke down repair parts were just not available and it had broken the day of the big storm.  Jimmie hung a red glove on the antenna of his mail truck as the snow and blowing covered the vehicle deeper  and deeper./ He was afraid when the Rotary plow broke open the road they couldn’t tell his truck was sitting there.  

 

Henry was a year old and he developed pneumonia.  We could call the doctor but it was so dangerous to try and take him to town on the snowmobiles (Snow Planes) in those days.  They were built entirely different, usually having a small airplane cockpit like a plane that would hold up to four people  They had a small airplane motor with propellers on the back of the  structure which pushed the plane through the snow.  As with the old plane propellers the operator would  by hand  pull on the propeller to start the motor  then go around to the side and push to get it going.  Depending on the waxing of the attached skiis and snow condition it could be difficult to keep them going.  Several people lost arms etc when they would be starting or pushing the machine,  They weren’t to trustworthy as it was easy to get in snow the snowmobile couldn’t glide through  easily.  They had no heater either.  Jimmie Rains came by the Turner Triangle X Ranch, Moosehead and the Elk Refuge bringing the mail which was now sorted at Moose rather than Moran.  He was so good about taking turns to bring a box of fresh fruit and vegetables to each household on his weekly trips  We really depended on him  We  would call in our order to the store and they would box it up and Jimmie could bring one box for each of us each week. When I called  the doctor thought it was to dangerous  . to try and bring Henry to town, so he had us make a steam tent of blankets and Bob sat in there holding him while I kept the water boiling with either Vicks or Benzoin (sp?  was used a long time ago)and was a menthol  liquid.  Bob had to sit there for nearly an hour before suddenly Henry broke into a natural sweat and stopped crying and fell asleep.  After we stopped steaming him and put him in a warm crib  he slept for hours.  Finally woke up with an appetite and started getting well.  Just before Christmas Stippy Wolfes wife Beryl became pregnant. And luckily just before  the road closed to town she started to miscarry.  None of the cars would start that morning and when Stippy Wolfe brought Beryl down to take her to town to the hospital everyone was frantic,  Bob was pulling our car with the team of horses, Our ford usually started easily but it was 45 below that morning.  They had a little pan of oil burning under a car with a blanket thrown over it to warm it up enough to turn the motor over.  I don’t remember which car finally started but finally one of them and Stippy drove Beryl to the hospital.  She  spent most of the next six months in bed but delivered a lovely healthy baby daughter in the early spring. 

​