Interview with Roy Wilhelm, December 24, 1992
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[[Carl LeRoy Wilhelm|Roy Wilhelm]] Talks Family History | [[Carl LeRoy Wilhelm|Roy Wilhelm]] Talks Family History | ||
| + | *[[Interview with Roy Wilhelm, December 24, 1992]] | ||
| + | *[[Interview with Roy Wilhelm, February 28, 1993]] | ||
| + | *[[Interview with Roy Wilhelm, Summer 1993]] | ||
| + | *[[Interview with Roy Wilhelm, October 31, 1993]] | ||
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==Pa and Andrew Maxwell== | ==Pa and Andrew Maxwell== | ||
| - | Well, on the way to Arizona, another family . . . was on a wagon train, comin' through and the Wilhelms signed on that same wagon train to come to Arizona. It was the Maxwell family. There was an Andrew Maxwell; he was nine years old, like [[Zemira George Wilhelm|Pa]] . . . they were best friends on that trip . . . travelled together, and when they was off helpin' drive cattle along the side, they teamed up and did it together and they was chums all the way. It took six weeks to make the trip, and when they came to the place where the road forked, and the Wilhelms was to take the Concho road, and the Maxwells was called to go to Round Valley, they stopped and cooked dinner and had a little friendly ceremony. [[Zemira George Wilhelm|Pa]] and Andrew Maxwell vowed that they would never lose track of each other; they'd stay in touch. So he lived up there and was raised there, [[Zemira George Wilhelm|Pa's]] folks went up to [[Vernon, Arizona|Vernon]], and it was sixty-two years, or something like that, before they met again. Andrew Maxwell got to be cattle inspector and he had some deal in connection with his job to go to Show Low so he took the trouble of comin' by the ranch. That's the funniest thing you ever seen, two old guys puzzlin' . . . over each other! They was still friends. Took a long time to get back together. | + | '''Roy''': Well, on the way to Arizona, another family . . . was on a wagon train, comin' through and the Wilhelms signed on that same wagon train to come to Arizona. It was the Maxwell family. There was an Andrew Maxwell; he was nine years old, like [[Zemira George Wilhelm|Pa]] . . . they were best friends on that trip . . . travelled together, and when they was off helpin' drive cattle along the side, they teamed up and did it together and they was chums all the way. It took six weeks to make the trip, and when they came to the place where the road forked, and the Wilhelms was to take the Concho road, and the Maxwells was called to go to Round Valley, they stopped and cooked dinner and had a little friendly ceremony. [[Zemira George Wilhelm|Pa]] and Andrew Maxwell vowed that they would never lose track of each other; they'd stay in touch. So he lived up there and was raised there, [[Zemira George Wilhelm|Pa's]] folks went up to [[Vernon, Arizona|Vernon]], and it was sixty-two years, or something like that, before they met again. Andrew Maxwell got to be cattle inspector and he had some deal in connection with his job to go to Show Low so he took the trouble of comin' by the ranch. That's the funniest thing you ever seen, two old guys puzzlin' . . . over each other! They was still friends. Took a long time to get back together. |
==Concho, Arizona== | ==Concho, Arizona== | ||
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'''John''': Wonder at what point in time did they decide to go homestead up at Vernon? | '''John''': Wonder at what point in time did they decide to go homestead up at Vernon? | ||
| - | '''Roy''': Well, that comes along with what is known as the "Concho curse." The people in Concho, the Mormons that, they put the names in a hat, see, they put the description of land, see, so many acres when they got all their people that wanted to settle there. They had these plots surveyed and numbered they put 'em in and a man comes up and pays his money and draws out of there it's up to him what he got and over to Concho there was part of that land that was sandy loam where the sand had washed down over this clay and mixed in with it until it wasn't clay soil anymore but it was had enough clay in it that to hold the moisture and nutrients and it was good. Good land and bad land. The bad land, when it rained you couldn't even walk across it cause you got about that much mud on each foot, that old sticky mud. Well, those guys had a hell of a time getting their seed back, but the guys with the good land, man, Concho was all right. It was the garden spot of Arizona, they called it. Well these people that had the bad land, they concocted a scheme. Why not take the water that they impounded there in the Concho Reservoir and ditch it down the stream course? Down to the Hunt valley, where it was all good land, down where Doc Ellsworth was and then they could all have good land. But these other guys cited 'em to the fact that the evaporation on that much ditch, the evaporation and sinkage would lower the stream 'til none of them would have anything when it got down there. Well they hung on that point. They even got to where they were takin' their guns to church with them. All belonged to the same church, see. Then they got to where they wouldn't go to church at all and it was just a bad situation. So they sent one of the apostles to straighten it out, so he would talk to one faction and the other faction and the other faction trying to get 'em something, a little common ground. And they couldn't, the longer he was there the worse it got. Finally he decided that it was a lost cause and there was just nothing could be done about it, cause these people wasn't gonna budge. Anything was said about it, crystalized it more than ever. So he advertised that he had the solution to the whole thing and to come and have one big meeting. And he beat the bushes until they all got out to see what he had to say. And he told 'em that the situation was beyond human power to resolve it and that he had the authority to release them from their call as colonizers. And he says, "I release you from your call. You're free to go where you want to. Concho is no more as far as the church is concerned. I release you with this prophecy: That Concho will wither and die like a melon on a dead vine." Which it has. | + | '''Roy''': Well, that comes along with what is known as the "Concho curse." The people in Concho, the Mormons that, they put the names in a hat, see, they put the description of land, see, so many acres when they got all their people that wanted to settle there. They had these plots surveyed and numbered they put 'em in and a man comes up and pays his money and draws out of there it's up to him what he got and over to Concho there was part of that land that was sandy loam where the sand had washed down over this clay and mixed in with it until it wasn't clay soil anymore but it was had enough clay in it that to hold the moisture and nutrients and it was good. Good land and bad land. The bad land, when it rained you couldn't even walk across it cause you got about that much mud on each foot, that old sticky mud. Well, those guys had a hell of a time getting their seed back, but the guys with the good land, man, Concho was all right. It was the garden spot of Arizona, they called it. |
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| + | '''Roy''': Well these people that had the bad land, they concocted a scheme. Why not take the water that they impounded there in the Concho Reservoir and ditch it down the stream course? Down to the Hunt valley, where it was all good land, down where Doc Ellsworth was and then they could all have good land. But these other guys cited 'em to the fact that the evaporation on that much ditch, the evaporation and sinkage would lower the stream 'til none of them would have anything when it got down there. Well they hung on that point. They even got to where they were takin' their guns to church with them. All belonged to the same church, see. Then they got to where they wouldn't go to church at all and it was just a bad situation. | ||
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| + | '''Roy''': So they sent one of the apostles to straighten it out, so he would talk to one faction and the other faction and the other faction trying to get 'em something, a little common ground. And they couldn't, the longer he was there the worse it got. Finally he decided that it was a lost cause and there was just nothing could be done about it, cause these people wasn't gonna budge. Anything was said about it, crystalized it more than ever. So he advertised that he had the solution to the whole thing and to come and have one big meeting. And he beat the bushes until they all got out to see what he had to say. And he told 'em that the situation was beyond human power to resolve it and that he had the authority to release them from their call as colonizers. And he says, "I release you from your call. You're free to go where you want to. Concho is no more as far as the church is concerned. I release you with this prophecy: That Concho will wither and die like a melon on a dead vine." Which it has. | ||
'''John''': And this was all found in Church records? | '''John''': And this was all found in Church records? | ||
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'''Roy''': Yeah, old man Graham Cowley. These guys just carried on the business. | '''Roy''': Yeah, old man Graham Cowley. These guys just carried on the business. | ||
| - | '''John''': Well, is that about when your [[Zemira George Wilhelm|Dad]] and [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm, Jr.|Uncle Haight]] decided to go homestead at Vernon? | + | '''John''': Well, is that about when your [[Zemira George Wilhelm|Dad]] and [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm, Jr.|Uncle Haight]] decided to go [[Wilhelm Homesteads in Vernon, Arizona|homestead at Vernon]]? |
'''Roy''': Yeah, when this breakup come. It was all over there for them. Their friends, the people they were raised with, they were all movin' out. They were on the range see, and they had learned to, incidentally, [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm|Grandpa]] still had a remnant of his cows and when he got out of this here "captain of the guards," he'd lost his squatters right up at Valle Bonito, the old Goodman set, so he made a deal with the Mexicans at Mineral. Rented a house and moved his cattle up there, that was his headquarters. Well, while they were there and Haight and Grandpa was still riding herd on this big bunch of cattle, the Mexicans had raised down in the Scott place, that meadow down there, they'd raised a barley patch, a big barley field and they didn't have the way of gatherin' it that we have nowadays and time they got through mowin' and gatherin' up there was about, well, just too much of this crop still down there but it was just goin' to waste so anybody was welcome to go pick it up by hand and my Dad found out that it was worth five dollars a hundred pounds and that he could thresh it by hand, gather it up by hand and thresh the stuff by hand and eventually git him five dollars, so he did that. Well that's quite a chore for a little kid to do that, see. He wanted the money, he'd seen a pair of boots down to St. Johns or Concho in a store and that's what he was aimin' at. Those boots were five dollars, red boots, red leather boots. So when he got it done he says to his Dad when he went for supplies, he says, "I saved this up, a hundred pounds here and I want those boots. Will you sell this barley for me and bring back the boots?" And Grandpa told him yes, throwed the sack in and never said anymore about it. Pa never heard of the boots anymore and there was a gap between him and his Dad like there was between me and Pa, see, so they didn't talk things over, see, and Pa held that against his Dad till the day he died. | '''Roy''': Yeah, when this breakup come. It was all over there for them. Their friends, the people they were raised with, they were all movin' out. They were on the range see, and they had learned to, incidentally, [[Bateman Haight Wilhelm|Grandpa]] still had a remnant of his cows and when he got out of this here "captain of the guards," he'd lost his squatters right up at Valle Bonito, the old Goodman set, so he made a deal with the Mexicans at Mineral. Rented a house and moved his cattle up there, that was his headquarters. Well, while they were there and Haight and Grandpa was still riding herd on this big bunch of cattle, the Mexicans had raised down in the Scott place, that meadow down there, they'd raised a barley patch, a big barley field and they didn't have the way of gatherin' it that we have nowadays and time they got through mowin' and gatherin' up there was about, well, just too much of this crop still down there but it was just goin' to waste so anybody was welcome to go pick it up by hand and my Dad found out that it was worth five dollars a hundred pounds and that he could thresh it by hand, gather it up by hand and thresh the stuff by hand and eventually git him five dollars, so he did that. Well that's quite a chore for a little kid to do that, see. He wanted the money, he'd seen a pair of boots down to St. Johns or Concho in a store and that's what he was aimin' at. Those boots were five dollars, red boots, red leather boots. So when he got it done he says to his Dad when he went for supplies, he says, "I saved this up, a hundred pounds here and I want those boots. Will you sell this barley for me and bring back the boots?" And Grandpa told him yes, throwed the sack in and never said anymore about it. Pa never heard of the boots anymore and there was a gap between him and his Dad like there was between me and Pa, see, so they didn't talk things over, see, and Pa held that against his Dad till the day he died. | ||
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'''John''': Out in a cinder cone. | '''John''': Out in a cinder cone. | ||
| - | '''Roy''': Yeah, that's right. | + | '''Roy''': Yeah, that's right. |
==Pa's siblings== | ==Pa's siblings== | ||
