Interview with Roy Wilhelm, December 24, 1992

'''Roy''': The first thing I can remember the Old Man telling about himself, he . . . (said) one of our relatives, a woman, married a guy named Terry, Uncle somebody Terry, (Ed. Note:  story also told with Uncle George Draper giving George the knife) and Uncle Terry took a likin' to Pa and Pa was just a little kid, 4 years old and Terry would take him with him for company when he would go up the . . . he lived in Rockville where the . . . close to where Zion's Park is and they'd go up the canyon there and cut trees.  All the timber growing in the canyon, not up on the hill and he'd go with him and keep the old man company. The old man felt good about it, he gave Pa a little pocket knife, a little baby one with blades about that long and the folks didn't object, thought the boy ought to have a  . . . he was just four years old, so he went to playing with the knife.  He had it two or three days when he seen something and he was a runnin' to the house to tell his ma.  He had the knife in one hand, but it was open, and he fell down and throwed his hand out to ketch 'im and that blade went right under his eyeball.  He got up and turned loose of the knife but it didn't come out and went on to the house with this knife floppin' and he was crying and the blood was a squirtin' everthing and boy they got excited and they pulled the knife out.  Word spread to the old ladies around and they all got together and kind of organized.  Some of them did this and that, there wasn't any doctors--the one main thing that Pa remembered was they had to take good care of the knife, there was a part of them took care of him and the rest of them was a committee to take care of the knife.  So they took it and then they left it open and they wrapped it in a greasy rag, got it all wrapped and then they put it behind the kitchen stove in a warm place to keep it comfortable.  Didn't want to offend the knife.  Well, Pa got a high fever, got infection and they thought they was going to lose him but after about ten days, he was a tough old guy, and lived through it and  got alright.  That knife went in one of these wrinkles below his eye so when it healed it didn't even show a scar.  Nobody ever realized  . . .  it never affected his . . .  it never cut any nerves or anything that was optic.  He had as good a vision as anybody.  Well, after pa got out, then the committee with the knife, they got it and took it and buried it in a secret place on the back of the lot, rag and all. It had a great deal to do with the cure.   

While they was livin' there at that place, why Pa kind of got interested in Indians. Well, they had an Indian that come by and he'd mooch 'em for something to eat.  Brigham Young had put out this order it's cheaper to feed 'em than it is to fight 'em.  So this old boy would be there every night at the back door and knockin' on the door and he wanted all he could eat and so they put a big bowl of bread and milk or whatever they had.  Finally one time he showed up but he didn't come to get anything to eat; he’d worked for somebody and they'd paid him off with a bottle of wine.  He got drunker than a skunk and he climbed up on a  . . .  (was ya ever at Rockville?  There's a bluff along one side, and these great big, old boulders, part of the bluff that hadn't weathered enough to fall plumb down, stickin' out away from the bluff . . .  the highest of 'em about thirty feet high.) Anyhow, this Indian was up on a big one that was on the back of their lot, and he was drunk and had a butcher knife and he was cursin' the Mormons. He'd take a shot of wine and then he'd wave the butcher knife, "Gonna kill all the Wormons!" Pa was scared to death and he had a fear of Indians from that time on.  

But they savvied that maybe they'd move  to Toquerville . . . and there's where the Naegles lived; that's where he got acquainted with the Naegles. They called it Utah Dixie. That was the place where it  really, really was Dixie; it was warm all the time. Somebody had traded the Wilhelms a bunch of guinea hens, and the guinea hens would  just come along, just squat down and lay an egg wherever they . . . you could go look at the yard  and here's eggs all over the yard. They never set on the eggs, but the eggs would lay there and it was such even temperature, that directly, why one of 'em would hatch. You had eggs and little guinea hens all over the place.  Pa thought that was quite a thing. He always wanted to try guinea hens up around Vernon but he was 'fraid it was so cold  they couldn't even live up there. That's where they got acquainted with the Naegles, not knowin' that part of the Naegle family and the Wilhelm family would be called to come out to Arizona later.

I don't know whether they moved back to Orderville, or where they was when they got the call to go . . .  I think they went back to Orderville . . . the call to move to Arizona and so they struck out . . .  Yeah, that's right!  Grandpa was the first guy that put his stock into the Order, and when the Order began to break up, that's when he got called to pull his stuff out and leave . . .  They were all farmin' around there, the Gibbonses, the Naegles and all of 'em, they were never satisfied.  I don't know why.  But those Orderville people were satisfied.  Pa didn't know too much about the workings of the Order; he thought it was a big failure and a lot of other stuff. But it wasn't. I read a little thing about it, and then I got a hold of a copy of the Kane County History and it told about the Order, and it was very much a good thing.  

When the Wilhelms got here, why they settled in Concho and then the old man was a rustlin' around, he'd driven quite a lot of cattle with him, he took part of his stuff in cash and part of it in cattle and drove the cattle alongside.  So they was pretty well fixed when they come . . . and he was knocking around and discovered the wonderful grazing up on the mountains, just right for cattle so he took Goodman  . . . Goodman's old millstead now  . . .  

The sheriff had a guy in jail.  Did you ever see that old jail was over there?  Well, it was in that and (they) had a guy in there, he was a crazy guy, a guy named Aaron Adair.  He was a real nut, he was violent and they chained him like a bear.  Chained him up in there and along with all else, why the Wilhelms had the contract of feeding the prisoners when there was prisoners.  So the old man he was off on his daily duties but they appointed, I guess Haight had something else to do and  my Dad, it fell his chore to go and carry the food over there to the prisoners.  They made him a mark, see, for as far as that chain come, so (if) he didn't go inside that, old thing couldn't get im'.  And he said old Aaron Adair'd just plead with him to come over and visit with him.  Pa was too wise.  When he was through eatin' why Adair would come and push the things over the line.  Pa'd get a broom and rake 'em back.  Then another chore, another thing that he had, they had (a) poker game, all night poker game, every night.  The guys didn't trust each other, if one man was a winnin' too much and they couldn't catch him he was slick.  If they'd a caught him there'd a been a shooting.  But if they couldn't catch him why they'd just, some guy when it come his turn to deal, he'd just take the deck they was playing with and take part of the cards out of the deck anyway, ya know and rip 'em in two and just throw 'em out on the floor, order a new deck and they'd start playing with a new deck.  And that happened four or five times a night, that some guy that was a havin' hard luck would tear up part of the deck.  But the cards were all just alike.  They were all bicycle cards except the ones that had been tore up, see, and they're on the floor.  Well, Grandpa got Pa a job a sweepin' out the pool hall, the gamblin' place there, kind of straightenin' things up, so he took an interest in cards and he,  that's one thing, the old man always played cards and believed in that part of it, 'cause it was part of his boyhood, see and he would gather those cards up and pick out the clean ones  that wasn't get messed up, guys spittin' tobacco on 'em or something  and he would make up decks and trade these decks around town.  Make whole decks out of (them), he run quite a little trade there doing that and made himself a little money, and (end of tape side one)

All the time there, Grandpa's interest in Concho was more and more and this homestead of Lydia's, they had to get on it and stay on it or they'd lose it.  They built one of the best houses in the country.  Grandpa was a carpenter by trade and he was good workman, I guess.  And he built that house that was going to be the old ancestral home and they built a big house.  And Grandma was an exceptional cook, somehow the Wilhelms always was kind of particular about how the way their stuff tasted.  And when the church authorities would come through and they'd come over to Snowflake and then they wanted to come on to St. Johns, they'd always time it so they could stay with the Wilhelms in Concho.  Well, it was quite an honor but it was expensive and worked out both ways, everybody was satisfied.  And grandpa'd planted a big orchard there, several orchards and improved their place and everything, but then come the polygamy stuff.  And these, the Apostles, they had four or five of 'em all the time down here ridin' herd on these people and they had to advise them.  And so the Church members did what they asked 'em to, so they advised Grandpa, in that letter, to get the younger woman and go down, to follow the mountains down into Old Mexico and leave Lydia to prove up on her homestead.   

'''Roy''': Yeah, that's how come.  So, I'm  a kind of a detective, maybe it isn't a good thing to be a detective when you're playin' around with your ancestors but here grandpa had orders to go down there and he had orders to take a family on the road with him and you just can't thumb your way.  You gotta have something to eat and they were already established there in Concho, so it was one of two things they had a little money and he took the money and left two boys there, teenage boys, to make a living for their mother and the family.  And here the detective part comes in.  He come to the country in 1881 (1878.)  That's when they first took up that place in Concho and  it was in '84, probably the last part of '84, that he got this letter, it's dated there, to leave.  That's not many years.  He got paid off a hundred to one when he left the Order up there and he was broke when he left to go down over the mountains, would indicate to me he was a damn poor poker player.  But anyhow, be that as it may, you can include that in your writings if you want to but it is, a little gambling, is a long time trait in both families that cropped up from now and then, we got it from the Harris family on the other side too.  All because Uncle David Aldridge got lucky in San Bernardino one time.  He married a Harris, incidentally, Uncle Bill's sister.  He got lucky and won, oh almost a hundred-thousand dollars in a poker game.  Two big bags of gold.  It was all he could do to load 'em on a horse and  course he didn't figure that he'd ever get where he was going with those.  The poker game broke up just after daylight see, between daylight and sunup and those other guys didn't figure he'd get to goin' where he was goin'.  But he had two what they called horse pistols, big long barreled pistols and he had them already on his saddle loaded full blast.  And they didn't know about that and when he went aboard he got out in the middle of the street and he hit a run with the horse, see and he would have really fogged anything up that moved on the side but he made it, made it to where he had backin'.  And anyhow, on account of that game why he was always considered a very smart man by the Harris family and quite a few of 'em done a little poker playin' on account of it.