Dear Friends and family,
I've been asked to say a few words to remember brother Francis. It will be hard to condense the 75 years I remember into a small time frame. I spent a lot of time with my brother. My dad was 41 years old when I was born so brother Franny became my mentor.
My first memories are of riding on the back window ledge of the old 1839 Plymouth coupe, while he drove about the west fields looking for pheasants. One day he shot one and brought it back to the car, I said "that was a nice looking pheasant", and he told me that it was a rabbit. I said, "It sure looks like a pheasant to me."
Two or three years later, we were camped with a herd of sheep in the head of Seely Canyon in a tent. Late in the afternoon he got ready to go around the sheep and bed them for the night. He asked if I was going with and I said no. I had large sores on the inside of my legs from riding behind his saddle. After he had been gone for about an hour, I decided to go find him. I thought I could find where he was bedding the sheep down for the night. Instead I wandered into a large patch of pine trees and got lost. It was getting dark and I began to panic. Soon I saw our dogs coming toward me and I was very happy. The dogs were acting strange on the way back to camp, so he (Franny) followed them. They had picked up my scent. Lucky for me. When he saw me, he spoke some rather harsh words to me on the way back to the camp. The rest of the evening before bedtime was pretty quiet. We worked together docking lambs and shearing sheep among other things you do around sheep herds.
When I was about 10 years old, he asked me to help him plow his garden plot. He was to run the plow, and I was to drive the team of horses. It went pretty well until we got to the side of the plot where there was some blue plum trees hanging into the garden. As the horses went under them, the limbs began to strike the horses on the butt. They got excited, and I got excited and I lost my cool. I yelled "Woo, back" and they got their hoofs tangled in the tug straps and chains. What a mess. He offered me some choice words and told me I was no mule skinner.
One fall day I was helping him slaughter 3 sheep and I was happy holding knives and pulling up the ropes, etc. Then he said that I was to kill and dress the last one. I tried to beg off, but he wouldn't hear of it. I was days getting over cutting that sheep's throat and breaking its neck.
One spring for Easter, Jay and I borrowed 2 horses to ride into the Cedar Hills looking for an old mine there. We never found the mine that time, but got caught in a late snow storm with heavy fog. We were soaked to the skin and real cold trying to find our way back to town and home. Fanny came looking for us and found us about the time we broke out of the fog. Boy, we were happy to see him, our rescuer.
I remember many, many hunting trips for deer, pheasants, rabbits and anything else there was to hunt. Everyone had a nickname. Some we hunted with were "Little Giant" (Neil Hafen) "Shagg Monsen" (Shel Monsen), "Whistler" (Wes Marx), "Fruit" (Eldon Hughes), "Dutch" (Boyd Hafen),
just to name a few. Every winter when the snow was plentiful we had rabbit hunts when every male in town would get together and make drives from Mt. Pleasant to Fairview along the foothills east of town. We fished a lot too.
When four wheelers came on the scene, there was more adventure. One time when Fanny was nearing 80 years old, we took off on the west mountain. We rode south along the top from Wales to Fayette, hoping to find gas there. They told us they hadn't had a gas station for 2 years. We headed back along the mountain north and down little Maple Canyon west of Manti. Franny run out of gas before we reached the valley floor. I hooked onto his machine with a tow rope because I still had fuel. I towed him 14 plus miles back to our trucks. We got home long after dark and Ada was mad at us. She said that he couldn't go with us anymore because the bums do not know when to come home.
In March 1955 I hired on to Kennecott Copper, Franny hired out for them the following June. We lived together in Aurthur? Dormitory at the Kennecott Aurther Concentrator Mill. We were so close to the Mill buildings that our beds shook from the vibrations. It put us to sleep after you became used to it.
In closing, I want to direct these thoughts to my brother, however you can share:
We shared many secrets
The same Mom and Dad
We shared lots of good times
Don't think of the bad.
Our memories we'll cherish
With Love without end
I'm glad you're my brother
I'm glad you're my friend.
Keep smiling and rest in peace, til we can ride the trails again
Your Brother, Bud
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