Click here to download Wallace's history, written by himself (quotes from this page are taken from this).
Born: March 22, 1910 in Yost, UT
Parents: William E. & Mary Ann Holden
Siblings: Richard (3 Dec 1891-19 March 1908; Clarence (28 Jan
1893 - ): Alma (1894); Henry (6 June 1896-16 Dec. 1977); Mamie Ines
(1898); Nellie Arizella (10 June 1900 - 25 Dec 1902); Leo Edwin (28 Feb.
1902 - 7 July 1973); Mary Emma (30 Jan 1905-?); Amelia Marilla (20 Oct.
1906 - ?); Wallace Harold (22 March 1910 - 16 Jan 1993); Edith Priscilla (4 Dec. 1913 - 5 May 1929).
Married: Viola CHATELAIN - January 23, 1940, Ogden, UT
Children: (Living)
Son: b) 7 Aug 1941
Son: b) 25 Oct. 1943
His Story
School
First years of school were in a 2-room schoolhouse in Yost, UT
He remembered Mr. Walkins the principal, and La Rue Bruham, his first teacher" One night she [La Rue] was invited home to stay over night. She had me on her lap and I told her I didn’t think I’d ever like a homely teacher, but I sure liked her. She often reminded me of that saying."
At first they lived in Johnson Creek and he rode to school in a one-horse buggy with his siblings Leo, Emma, and Millie, and then a few years later Edith joined them. Later their dad gave them each a saddle horse and riding out-fit to get to school."Those days the winters were a lot worse than we have now. All the lanes and roads were filled to the top of the fences. We would have to go through the fields, any way we could to get to school. Dad had between ten and twelve milk cows, which at the time was a big herd. Edith and I got the job of milking them. ... We also had to feed the cows, both milk cows and range cows. Lots of mornings we could hardly see to feed, it was so dark, but we had to do it that way in order to get to school. The minute school was out we were the first to leave the school grounds in order to get night chores done before dark."
Church
Wallace was baptized in Emer Taylor's pond in Yost, UT at age 8.
Old Yost Church
He and his family went to primary and church in a two-seated white-top buggy.
- Later his dad got a Model T Ford Sedan.
A Model T Ford Sedan, 1924
"We really thought we were rich. He [dad] didn’t know how to run it and wouldn’t let nobody else try. He about wrecked it and finally let Leo drive it. That was one way to get Leo to go to church.”
More School
At age 10 & 11 his father moved the family to Ogden to escape the cold winters. He didn't like the schools there, and told his dad that "if he didn’t bring me back to Yost I would run away. So he brought me back to Yost." He lived with his brother Leo and his wifeVirginia Wright on the family ranch and went to school the rest of that year.
Wallace is in the front row, far left. A school in Utah, taken about 1922; he was probably in the 7th or 8th grade.
His dad bought another house in Ogden, so he went to two more years at a different school in Ogden. When they built another room onto the Yost school, he attended there for 9th & 10th grade.
"That was the end of my school years. The last two years of school Dad took me out of school around the 1st of April. I had to herd the range cattle and keep them off the alfalfa. I had to study what I could at nights at home to finish those two grades."
Work
Beginning at age 16 he mainly worked "herdin’ cattle in the Spring and Summer and feeding them in the winter" for his father who had between 300-400 head. He would gather the cows with Jess Tracy (his cousin) for a month and then drive them to the rail-road station in Kelton so they could be shipped to Ogden. One year around the 1st of November he was driving cattle from Yost to Kelton, which took one week. Then he went from Kelton to Park Valley to gather more cattle that they had missed on the first round-up. He had around seventy-five head that they took over the mountain from Park Valley to their ranch in Yost. They left Park Valley early in the morning and made it to the top of the mountain around sundown. He related The following experience almost him his life: "We got into snow drifts from six to ten feet deep. I had the best horse so I had to go ahead and break trail though the drifts. We finally got them to the bottom of the canyon. I was wet and about frozen. Dad was there with a team and sleigh. He had made about three trips with hay. He had some quilts and horse blankets. I was ever glad. He wrapped me up and brought us home. The next day we went back and finally got the cows home. I spent the rest of that winter feeding cattle."
Each day he hauled hay to cattle to three herds all in different places: Oliver, Yost, and below
Wallace Spencer’s (known as Fred Chadwick field).
A hay wagon similar to what he would have used. "So I didn’t have any time off. I had two good teams of horses. The wagons in those days were iron which were rough riding and hard to pull.”The Derrick
“Dad decided to build a large crane derrick, which was fifty feet off the ground, which was the high end. After he got it built and up none of the men had . . . or were brave enough to crawl out to the end to thread it. So he turned to me and said, “I guess it is up to you.” I tried to get out of it, but when he said crawl up, he meant it. I was the little kid that took the orders, or else. As I got to the end to start to put the rope though, a big whirlwind came through and turned the top about two-thirds the way around, which scared me so bad that I never grew any more. That’s the reason I’m so short now.”
This is a hay derrick similar to that described in this story. Recreation
Early Photo of Durfee Hot Springs, Built Early 1900s
Almo Swimming Pool“In those days there used to be a swimming pool in Almo. All the young people went quite often over there to swim. The west side was around four feet deep but the east end was between six and seven feet. They had a cable across with several ropes and rings hanging down for ones that couldn’t swim, and I was one that couldn’t swim. One time I jumped from the side for a rope and missed it and went to the bottom. I’d give a hard jump and come up to the top. About the time I’d open my mouth to call for help I’d get a mouth full of water and down I’d go. I was all but gone when I happened to feel the wall. It was all I could do to pull my head above water. At that time Leo happened to see me and come to my rescue. I soon lernt to swim after that."
Dances
"I’ll never forget my first dance and the woman I danced with. It was Irene Hall; she was a Mother as well as a dance teacher. She gave me a few instructions on how to dance. But when the music stopped I just left her in the middle of the floor and run to the bench. She came right after me and taught me a good lesson on how to show a woman to her seat.”
On His Own
At one point in his teenage years he got into a heated disagreement with his father over how he had carried out a task his father gave him.
"When I didn’t do it just the way he wanted me to he started to give me holy hell. I jumped off the wagon and run for my horse. He tried to catch me but wasn’t fast enough. I run the horse for home and gathered up my clothes and bed, what I could load on the horse, and took down the road. Mother tried to talk me out of going, but I didn’t listen.”
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| John Blyth |
After that he worked for his brother's-in-law: first Jack Tooth and then Clarence Cramer (Millie's husband) who had sheep.
"He had a band of sheep of 1600 head, the wages was good but I got the job nobody else wanted and that was the drop herd. I had to live and sleep right with them and the rattle snakes, which was plentiful."
During that time his younger sister Edith was killed in a car accident. After that, his father wrote letters to Wallace asking him to come home and help him. His father had a small farm in Little Cotton Wood Canyon, south of Salt Lake City, and Wallace left Clarence after the lambing season was over, and helped his father. One year later his father sold the farm and they moved back to Oliver Springs in the spring of 1929.
“We started out with an old one-bottom plow, some other horse machinery and a few old work horses and a house that would roast you in the Summer and freeze you in the Winter.”
His mother and father moved to Ogden in the winter and left him to watch the farm and feed the cows and
horses. He had "neighbors" that would stop by and check on him periodically: Karl Oman, the mail carrier stopped by as he passed through three days a week. Morris Smith, the Yost merchant
at that time, would also stop and
bring him supplies and see how he was coming or getting along.
Mr. Blyth had 120 acres of land right in the middle of their ranch, so Wallace and William E. had to lease it for three years with the option to buy. After three years theybought it so they could begin to "improve the place."
Modern aerial view of the Oliver Springs Dairy Farm, 1998?
The depression in 1932-33 was a rough time. Wallace explained:
"the government bought cattle from $6 to $18 a head. Then we had to shoot them and drag them off into a wash. Sheep sold for $1.50 a head. About the only thing that kept us going was the milk cows. I’ve been in the dairy business ever since."At this point Wallace stopped writing his history, but his daughter-in-law Charlotte Tracy wrote the remainder of his history:
The
23rd of January 1940 he married Viola Chatelain in her grandmother’s
parlor in North Ogden, Utah. She was
just a couple of weeks shy of her 20th birthday at the time. Viola was the oldest of seven children. She had five brothers and one sister. Vi enjoyed working outside and that suited
Wallace fine as he was always looking for more hands to help with the
place. When he brought his bride home
they moved in with his parents in a small 3 roomed house constructed of
re-cycled logs. There was a small
unfinished basement under the house they poured a cement floor and the
newlyweds claimed it as their space. It
was cool in the summer and cooler in the winter. They hauled the house water from a nearby
well. The outhouse was just about 50
feet from the back door. There was no
electricity and of course no telephone.
By and by they acquired a kerosene powered refrigerator and a wind
generator that provided inconsistent electricity to the house and barn. They cooked on a wood stove that also
provided heat for the house.In August of 1941 their first son was born, and in Oct. 1943 their second son and last child was born. Both boys were born in Ogden, Weber, Utah. Wallace & Viola & the boys were “sealed” in the Logan Temple 24th of Feb 1947. By this time the paternal grandparents had retired and moved to Oakley.
Wallace continued to work the place with Viola’s capable help. As the boys grew they joined their parents in the fields and the milk barn. They tried everything they could to keep a going. They raised turkeys, pigs, beef, chickens, red potatoes and alfalfa seed. The men also did some custom work for neighbors with the equipment
He took his church jobs seriously, was a devoted Home Teacher with his companion Wesly Ward,they took good care of their families. Wallace was the Bishop of the YostWard being set apart by Elder Mark E. Peterson and December 3rd 1961. He served until October of1967 or about six years.
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| Yost Church |
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