Mabel Winterfeld's 1994 Speech

Notes used for the speech given at the "Old Timers Party"

July 30, 1994

I've heard so many people talk of "The Good Old Days".  When were those days?  Perhaps they were honorable days originating as a special time or period.  I'm going to speak of my parents and the old time, relating to an earlier period.  
My parents were both born in Illinois, dad at Mt Zion (1870). and mom at Springfield (1877).  Dad's name, Rufus Daniel, came from his grandfather, "Ru" Daniel Traughber.  My mom's maiden name was Nellie Francis Hillman.  "Nellie" came from her aunt Nellie Cooper.  Both of their families were to move to Kansas and then to Monette, Missouri before they would meet and eventually wed.  The year my folks were married, without warning to ordinary observers, one of the worst financial panics in the U.S.  passed through, "The Panic of 1893".  They weathered many a hard time together.  To their union, 12 children were born.  Eight lived to maturity.  

Front Row: Lena and Mabel

Middle Row: Nellie, Paul, and Clara

Back Row: Harry, Rufus, and Clyde 

(picture from "Trumpeters Dell", photo courtesy of Delbert Winterfeld)

In 1862, Congress passed the Homestead and Exemption law, an agreement to occupy and cultivate such land for 5 years in exchange for ownership.  It changed to 3 years in 1912.  Because of ill health, my dad wanted to move west..  He first went to Everett, WA but there was no work and dad didn't like it.  With an invitation from Mr. Charles Ritchey to homestead land as he had done, my folks sold their home and orchard and left Monette for Swan Valley, Idaho.   We stayed in Idaho Falls for about 2 months.  Dad caught a ride to Swan Valley with Frank Calderwood and bought 80 acres with a large 3 room log house from Joe Edwards.  It had been homesteaded by Joe, Alex Martin's grandfather.  
The spring of 1914, with joyful songs of the birds and pretty wild flowers, found the Traughbers settled in Swan Valley and very, very busy.  Dad worked with his 3 sons, 8, 10, and 12, to get timber for fences, barns, etc on Pine Creek Bench.  The road to Victor had a steep grade at the end of the bridge.  One had to rough-lock the wagon with heavy log chains get down with a load.  Paul and Clyde's jobs were to take turns handling a measuring stick or herding cows at home.  On June 12, Clyde went with dad and Harry to handle the measuring stick while they cut timber.  A few yards in front of them 2 others were cutting timber.  While taking his measuring stick to dad, Clyde caught his foot in brush.  He fell, catching himself by throwing his foot upon the tree just as dad's ax came down with a bang, cutting Clyde's foot off.  All but a piece of cord in the heel was severed.  Dad put a tourniquet on Clyde's foot with a stocking from his other foot.  With help from the other 2 timber cutters, they loaded Clyde on a wagon and drove him to Victor to see the doctor.  The next day he had to be taken to the hospital.  Dad and a neighbor took him in the neighbor's white top buggy and horses.  Clyde stayed in the hospital until the middle of September.  He wore steel braces for several years.  

No, we cannot forget the love of family and neighbors working together in times of sickness and depressing times.  

-Mabel Traughber Winterfeld

Water is life.

Farming on the upper and lower Pine Creek benches in the early 1900's relied heavily on water storage in cisterns and God's gift of flowing water to fill them with.  An early trapper, Bill Wolfe, who had trapped in the area for over 50 years, told some of the first settlers on Pine Creek bench that the freshwater spring on the upper bench had never been known to run dry.  Besides Bill Wolfe and Mike Spencer, another reclusive mountain man living up Pine Creek, Dan Jacobs and his wife Rebecca Jennie were the first white people to live on Pine Creek bench. They homesteaded some 640 acres in 1901-1902 and purchased another 320 acres from Larry Hanson shortly thereafter.  They had first pick of acreage because Dan offered to finance the development of a canal from upper Pine Creek to the benches.  (Our Turn in Paradise, pages 65-67)  It must have been obvious to Dan that the success of the farm, especially one of such size, was dependent on water.

Diverting the water from Pine Creek to the benches was a huge idea for the times.  In 1900, congruent to applying for homesteads, Jacobs, along with Dan Post and Larry Hanson, founded the "Pine Creek Canal Company Limited".  The canal was built along the south edge of Pine Creek, beginning near Pine Basin.  The rudimentary road flanked the north side of the creek.  The location of the canal on the south side required a trestle be built. It was built from pine logs and stood nearly 100 feet above the canyon floor.  The wooden aqueduct eventually rotted out and was replaced with a siphon, consisting of 2 large pipes that dropped off the south side of the canyon and back up the other side to the canal.  The canal must have been completed by 1910, when Mr. Jacobs sold the land to Joachim Kruse.  Frank Stoltenberg reportedly finished the construction of the aquaduct as part of the sales agreement.  In 1923, Hank Kruse had hired H.L. Wiese to "walk the Pine Creek Canal with a shovel patching 'rat holes'".  (Our Turn in Paradise, page 76)  By the 1940's the ditch had been abandoned.