1916-1920 — Promises, Prohibition and Pandemic

I carried on with the homestead, Nora and I doing the hard work of managing livestock, planting, harvesting and improving the land. Bill had promised time and again to transfer the title to me once he had the patent. He had no interest in owning the ranch but Ed and Nora didn’t have means to buy it. Pulling out enough profit on 77 acres wasn’t easy. I wrote letters of inquiry, in hopes of finding a legal way to secure the ranch.

Never being one for strong drink, even I knew the new prohibition law—added to the state constitution and going into effect in 1917—wouldn’t change much downriver. Folks around here had always found a way to get what they wanted and a good bottle of whiskey was no different. The nearest lawman was a range or two away and I figured the stills in the hills were already working overtime.

It was almost the middle of May when after I finished the morning chores, I rode across the valley to give Mrs. Warrington a hand in packing up her household. Henry Warrington was busy filling wagon loads with their hunting trophies. Bear skins, deer skins, antlers—you name it, they killed it—and no one downriver went hungry when they were on the prowl. Once Henry had a wagon loaded, he drove it down to the river and stacked his prizes on the shore, then came back for more.

The Warringtons had been living on Pine Creek for two and a half years, Henry managing the Pine Creek mine while his wife tanned bear and elk hides, every camp dog in the valley sniffing round for scraps. Harry Guleke was due with an eighteen-foot scow, and Henry swore he meant to load 1,500 pounds of skins and horn aboard. Guleke had taken the Salmon down to Lewiston a dozen times by 1916, but the Warringtons had not, and they weren’t about to leave Idaho without seeing the scenic wilderness for themselves.

At Lewiston their cargo would be transferred to a steamer bound for Portland and from there they would go on to San Francisco by boat. I confess, I envied them. That night I asked Billy why we hadn’t yet made such a journey. He laughed and said, “Because I’m not crazy.”

We saw them off two days later and got word soon after that they had made it safely to Lewiston—having killed a bear on the way down, as if 1,500 pounds of skins weren’t advertisement enough. Perhaps they were a floating noticeboard, bound to bring more hunters upriver the next season.

I can’t say I was surprised when I read the headlines of the first June issue of the Salmon Herald newspaper—but I was horrified.

Salmon Herald, June 2, 1916

SPLIT HIS HEAD OPEN WITH AN AXE

The Moore outfit, Robert A. Moore and family, that caused county officers so much trouble here last fall, have run afoul with the law in Montana. Over at Bannack, last week, Mrs. Moore had a row with her spouse. He was drunk. Waiting till he was sound asleep, in the middle of the night she split open his head with a double-bitted ax. Then she stuck around till daylight, told her story to neighbors, and surrendered to the officers. She is now in jail at Dillon.

They were a tough lay. Both the Moores are tough. He was in jail here for beating up his wife, and during his incarceration she managed, it is said, to make her living as a woman of the town. The children were taken from them and a movement was begun to send the little folks in the children's home at Boise, but for some reason they were not kept at the home, but were with the parents when the tragedy occurred.

Both the Moore parents drank like fish, and Bob while under the influence of booze, was especially brutal to his family. When Idaho went dry, the state no longer looked good, and then Montana caught the tribe. The Moore woman is said to be the same person that led to the jealous play at Indianola, Feb. 24, 1909, where Charles Layton killed "Wild Bill" Verges, one of the most harmless and least offensive citizens we have ever known.

Sheriff Harry Waters and Coroner Dr. Hamner at that time went down and arrested Layton and his boy, the father framing up a story to fasten the blame of the killing on his boy, and the boy at first swearing to the fact, but the coroner's testimony proving that this was impossible, the Laytons dropped it and Mr. Layton is serving a twenty-five year sentence for the crime.

Mrs. Moore is now the recipient woman of much sympathy at Dillon, where she appears as the much abused and long suffering wife, driven to an act of desperation by the ill treatment of a worthless husband. The people of Dillon ought to send the sorrowing widow some roses.

Just as I feared, Bill changed his mind about transferring the land patent to me when he got it, even if he promised to give me the money when he sold it. I received a letter in response to my query at the end of July and to my astonishment, a law passed in 1914 that allowed a deserted wife to patent land in her own name. I argued that Bill had abandoned me for two years, but Ed and Nora just shook their heads. I sat down, took my quill in hand and wrote the letter anyway.

Shoup, Idaho August 1, 1916

Honorable Secretary of the Interior

Washington, D.C.

My first knowledge of the existence of the validity of the Act of Congress (copy enclosed) was made known to me today through C. Hisbener of Boise, Idaho. My husband W.E. Taylor deserted me for two years and made good his intentions by publication of the fact in the county paper for several weeks.

During the two years I continued residence and cultivation on the homestead with the help of my son (17 years of age), a little hired help through the harvesting and the lending hand of friends and neighbors.

After an absence of a little more than two years he has returned for short periods once or twice a year with the intention as he says, of making final proof on the homestead so that I could have a deed to it, as not wanting it himself, he would turn the title over to me.

He does not vote here, always leaves his belongings with the better part of his wardrobe at his hotel. There has been no reconciliation and we are man and wife only in name, but it was the opinion that the husband only could make final proof which he has done under date of January 26, 1916 at the U.S. Land Office, Hailey, Idaho. Serial No. 012966 patent has not been issued.

I shall now proceed to acquire patent under Act of Congress, Oct 22, 1914 and desire information under such rules as the Secretary of the Interior has transcribed.

"By act of congress approved, Oct 22, 1914 it is provided that where the wife of a homestead settler, or entry man while residing upon the homestead prior to the submission of final proof, has been deserted by her husband for more than one year, she may submit proof on the entry and secure patent in her own name, being allowed credit for all residence and cultivation had and improvements made, either by herself or by her husband."

Very Truly Yours,

Annee C. Taylor (Mrs. W.E. Taylor)

I wasn't going to hold my breath and good thing because no sooner that I wrote that letter, Bill received the land patent. With the ranch up for sale, I packed a trunk and rode the rails to California to see my family.

Jeanie and her husband Al Garcia, lived in San Francisco, Millie in Redwood and after a short visit with them, I went to visit mother and Leland in Sumol.

After Mother let go of me, she squinted as if trying to match my face to an old photograph.

Clyde and his seven sons lived in Pleasanton a few miles from Sumol. The family visit was disrupted when not long after I arrived, Edna’s husband William Chamberlain died on July 19th. I made my way to Woodland and stayed long enough to be of some comfort to poor Edna. The death cast a pall on my travels, and with the Spanish flu making its deadly rounds in California, I returned home to enjoy what was left of summer.

My Barton grandchildren were growing like weeds, Alta content to live in Ulysses with her in-laws—the Caseys lived nearby and there was still a small but happy bunch living up on the mountain, the mining outfit still digging, and a few stamps crushing ore.

Ed and Nora’s daughter Eleanor was born June 28, 1919—the same day the Treaty of Versailles was signed, yet the war sure left a long tail behind it. That fall, the flu came back to our county, and by January 1920, Salmon was still seeing cases. Some survived the illness only to die of pneumonia.

When Tommy Hardy took sick in February, Jane hung a quarantine sign on the door. She met me outside, scarf tied across her face, and I left bread and canned peaches on a stump.

Idaho Recorder, March 5, 1920

Shoup Flu Patients

A. W. Pope and little daughter Hazel are up from Shoup, both again well enough to travel after their siege from the flu. The entire family was attacked. In the Pine Creek locality Tom Hardy is still ill from complications that succeeded his attack of the same malady. Mr. Pope says it was arranged three days ago that incidental with fumigation of the place everybody should take a bath, a rare occurrence at least for one or two but regarded as of great benefit at least to others if not for themselves.

We did what we could—boiled water, sat up nights, prayed. Tommy pulled through—or so we thought. He had trouble breathing one day and was gone the next. We didn’t call it the third wave back then. We just called it still here.

Idaho Recorder, March 19, 1920

Pine Creek Victim of Flu

Thomas Hardy, who was among the first of the lower Salmon river persons attacked, died of the flu at the home of his mother, Mrs. Stewart, on Pine Creek, on Tuesday, March 16. Pneumonia developed after the patient had shown marked improvement and indeed after he had been pronounced well on the road to recovery. The mother of the young man is the widow of Scotty Stewart and he was born in Scotland about 25 years ago.

The ranch sold that year and Bill and I moved up to Ulysses joining Alta and Peter and my horde of Barton grandchildren. Billy Jr. and Madge came back from Montana and settled with us— we had a veritable family enclave and the men all had work. I knew that I’d always long for the valley of Pine Creek but I was getting too old for ranching.

Bill and I went to Salmon to celebrate Independence Day and by August 1920, the rest of the country had finally caught up—on the 18th, the 19th Amendment was ratified, granting women the right to vote in federal elections. I remember thinking how remarkable it was—after all, I’d been casting ballots in Idaho since 1896 when the state granted women suffrage. Those were state matters but now the entire nation would pour red ink alongside me in federal contests.[1]

Before snow blanketed the land, I woke early and rode to Shoup to catch up on gossip and visit my friends.[2] I urged my horse over the pack bridge and rode up to Pine Creek to visit Jane Stewart.

We spoke of many things—about Scotty, about Tommy, about the people we’d both buried and how grief never leaves, only changes its seat at the table. The coffee cooled between us as the shadows lengthened, neither of us in any hurry to send the other back into the narrowing days.

When I rode home the next morning frost clung to the grass and Pine Creek’s voice followed me up the trail, soft and steady as breath. Then, as the ridge fell away, the Salmon River flashed into sight—silver in the pale light, curling through the canyon like a memory that refuses to loosen its hold. Pine Creek, Shoup or Ulysses, downriver was home.

NOTES

[1] Salmon Herald, May 12, 1916; Idaho Recorder, May 12, 1916; Idaho Recorder, May 19, 1916;

[2] Idaho granted women full suffrage in state elections on November 3, 1896, becoming the fourth state to do so after Wyoming (1869), Colorado (1893), and Utah (1870). While this allowed Annie to vote in state and local contests, women in most other states remained barred from the polls until the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Even then, many women of color and those in U.S. territories were still denied the vote due to citizenship restrictions and discriminatory laws.