ARTHUR PERCIVAL SAY
and
FANNIE EMMA BAUR
as remembered by Arthur R. Say their grandson
Arthur Percival Say (who was called Percy
by the family) was born in North Platte, Nebraska on the 10th of February
1872. He was the first born in the United States of George William
Say and Sarah Ann Say (Marshallsay). About 1876 they decided to move
to the Oregon Territory and went across the plains by wagon train.
They were in one of the first wagon trains to cross the plains after the
Battle of the Little Big Horn. They stopped short of Oregon
and homesteaded at Ft. Boise on Colston and Warm Springs Ave.
Percy built a log cabin store in Boise that
I understand is still there. He told me once that He once had
a saw mill at Payette and sold it, but did not received any payment for
the mill.
He left home at an early age. He worked
at various places around the state one of which was in Idaho City during
the gold rush. I don't think he did any mining, but worked as a carpenter.
He also worked as a carpenter at the Harkness farm or ranch at Arimo, Idaho.
He met Fannie Emma Baur there who was also working there. Edward
Baur had a farm near by. On 30 September 1901 at Weiser,
Washington, Idaho he married Fannie Emma Baur.
Fannie was born 20 January 1882, daughter
of Edward Baur and Franziska Baur (Wydler). She had an older brother,
Edward Theodore born 14 April 1879, and Johannes, born 10 September 1890
who died at birth. All were born at Wettsweil, Zurich, Switzerland.
They came to the United States in 1889 and settled at Providence, Utah.
Then the family moved to Arimo, Idaho in 1898.
Percy was a handsome man. One time he
was voted the most handsome man. As long as known him he had thick
hair that was as white as snow. When they were married, they moved
to Pocatello, Idaho where they had three children, Arthur Leonard, Edward
Percival and Sarah Francis, who died when she was 12 hours old. Percy
got a job as a fireman and carpenter in the Cache National Forest range,
which is now known as the Caribou National Forest from 1909 to 1919.
They moved to Pebble, Idaho, about 1908 or 1909 and were there about
4 or 5 years with the forest service. While at Pebble, Vera Ramona
was born on 21 July 1911, but died at the age of 2 months. The government
opened Indian land about 1902 or 1903 and Percy went to Blackfoot, Idaho
to file for a Homestead. He filed on a farm on Mink Creek about 9
miles south of Pocatello. From Pebble he was transferred to a ranger
station on Mink Creek above the ranch where he had homesteaded. They
had another son George William who was born 3 September 1915 at Pocatello
but died at birth.
Later he bought another farm where Mink Creek
runs into the Portneuf River for $50 an acre. Percy built many houses
in Pocatello and he built the one at 637 So. Hayes that they moved into.
They lived in this house until about 1930 when they moved back to the farm
on Mink Creek.
I remember four places that he built and was able
to visit him while he worked on these places. He worked on the Old
Faithful Inn in Yellowstone Park. I believed he lived in a tent while
working on this building. Another place was a summer home in Justice
Park above Mink Creek. While there I was riding in the pickup and
I decided to get out and hike the rest of the way. While walking
along the road I thought I saw a short cut and went on it, but found out
it was no short cut. I was able to go back to the road again.
He built a house on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. When I went
there the Indians were living in a teepee. Another place that he
built was on the lot just south of 637 So. Hayes. He got a lot of
the lumber from the government that was building the arsenal. He
also dug the basement by hand along with Ronnie and my help.
Ronnie and I went to the farm on Mink Creek every
summer when school was out and stayed there until it started again so we
got to know my grandparents pretty well. I think that Percy went
to school until about the fifth grade and Fanny about the 3rd grade of
school, but he was one of the most learned men that I have know.
Maybe it was that his mother was a school teacher at one time or maybe
it was that he read a lot, mostly the National Geographic. I believe
that he had all of the back issues and I used to go up in the attic above
the garage and look at them. He was also a poet and never stumbled
for words while making up a poem. Also he would know a poem by heart
by just reading it and he read poems all the time. I would try to
stump him whenever I could on a poem, but never could. One time we
just finished reading Lady of the Lake in school. I asked him if
he ever read it and he quoted me the whole poem. Of course I don't
know if he got every word right, but it sounded right to me.
I believed that Fanny liked to cook. On special
occasions she would cook large meals that included everything, or as she
would say "all the trimmings." During harvest time and haying when she
fed the farm hands, the table was full.
There was a CCC camp farther up Mink Creek.
When the fruit was ripe, they would put fruit along the road for the boys
to pick up to take with them. They had a lot of fruit. I would
guess that they had about seven acres of fruit trees that included all
kinds' apples, Bing & pie cherries, apricots, pears, peaches, plums
and raspberries. They did not sell much of the fruit, but gave most
of it away. Then they had two big gardens. All of this they
did not sell, but used it them selves and then gave the rest away.
The buildings on the farm included the house that was modern, electricity,
central heat, hot and cool water, which was from their spring about 3/4
of a mile away, indoor bath and toilet. There was a fruit cellar, two chicken
houses, a garage, grainery, blacksmith shop, a barn and two corrals.
There was also a big scale to weight the wagon of hay. The farm also had
a lot of cedar tress (Juniper or called Utah Cedar) and Mink Creek ran
through it. It also had a reservoir that was fed by a spring and
furnished the water for the house, gardens and some of the orchards.
Percy liked his cigars and every birthday and Christmas he got
his box of cigars. I don't think that he ever threw a butt away,
he would always lay it on a post or some place and if he wanted a smoke
there would be one close by.
The main crop that he raised was alfalfa hay,
but he also had wheat, barley, oats and a couple of years he tried flax.
The flax was a pretty crop, but I guess that since he was the only one
that raised it around there it was hard to sell. The farm also had
milk cows, pigs, chicken and horses.
Grandpa gave me a horse that we called Tom.
It was a cow pony and I rode him all over the county. We fixed up
an old time buggy Then he repaired a one horse harness and we would ride
that one horse buggy around. He also had another riding horse that
we called snip. It was a race horse that had a cut foot. We
used him for both riding and working. Then there was two big work
horses.
Percy was a very law abiding person. I have
never known him to willingly break the law. One time there was some
people renting his other farm. I do not believe they were paying
the rent. One day we took the wagon there to pick up some lumber
that he had stored there. These people did not want us to take this
lumber and they hit the horses and did all sorts of things to get us to
leave, but Grandpa did not say a thing but continued to load the lumber.
A few days later a summons came to Percy, and he had to go to court.
The court found him not guilty and also made the people move off his farm.
Percy told me a lot of stories. One
about a wild horse that used to roam around there. The horse had
a club foot but nobody could catch it. He also told a story about
robbers that buried their loot of gold up a canyon before they were caught
and the loot was never found.
The farm on Mink Creek had electricity, but
I don’t know just when they got it. The inside of the house still
had the carbide light fixtures in the house and a carbide pit outside
the house where they would put in the carbide and had water drip into it
to create a gas that would burn. It also had phone service , but
they were on a "party line" . That is where everyone on mink creek
was on the same line and you answered the phone by the about of rings on
the phone. You could hear anyone talking on any of the phones
so there was a lot of listening in on other conversations. Also a
lot of hard feelings as no one wanted to have there conversations listened
to. Also there was always someone on the line when you wanted to
call someone.
I’ll tell a little about the way they put
up their hay as they don’t do it that way anymore. When the alfalfa
was ready to cut they would mow it. He had two ways to mow the hay
and that was by horses with a mover or with a tractor that had the mover
attached to it. After the hay was cut they would leave it laying
on the ground for a few days until it dried. It could not dry too
long or it would lose the leaves and if it wasn’t long enough it would
mold. Then they would rake it into long rows and then put the hay
into small stacks so it would dry some more. During this time you
prayed that it would not rain as to get the hay wet and if it did it was
necessary to turn these small stacks over in order for them to dry.
After the hay was ready to stack he would go out in the wagon to load the
hay onto the wagon. This was done by someone on the wagon to stack
it and another person to load the hay into the wagon. This was done
by hand using a pitchfork. Then the hay was taken to the stack of
hay to unload the wagon. This was done by using a derrick and a Jackson
Fork and usually a three person job. One person was on the stack
of hay. A person had to know what he was doing to be a stacker as
if it was not done right when the hay started to settle one side could
settle more that the other side and it would start to lean and trip over.
Another person was in the wagon and would put the Jackson fork into the
hay and the another person would lead the horse to put the hay to the top
of the stack. The stacker would then swing the derreck boom around
until he got the hay where he wanted it and then trip the Jackson fork
and it would dump the hay and then move the boom over the wagon and the
person leading the horse would back the horse to lower the Jackson fork
back to the wagon. He stacked the hay in stacks that was (I believe
about 30 tons of hay) One time We had just finished the hay stack,
I was on the derrick horse and grandpa was stacking. This time I was also
unloading the wagon, so when I was not leading the derrick horse I would
tie him to the derrick. I was putting the wagon away and taking the
harness off the other horse while grandpa finished the stack.
He finished he wanted to come down and the way to do this was ride down
on the Jackson fork. The only trouble he grabbed the fork and
started down on it , but I did not have the slack out of the cable, so
he fell off of the hay stack with the Jackson fork landing on top of him.
A Jackson fork weighs about 40 pounds and is about 4 ft wide with four
prongs on it to pick up the hay. He got up and said " lets go to
dinner" The next day he mentioned that he was a little stiff and
didn’t know why.
Another time he racking hay with a team of
horses and on a trip rake. The horses started to run away with him.
Ronnie saw it and took out after him on another horse. When
he got to the rake Grandpa was not on it, so he went back to find him.
Through the dust Ronnie saw him rise up. He had blood all over his
head. Ronnie doesn't know if he ran over him or if the rake ran over
him, but when Ronnie got to him, Grandpa mounted the horse that Ronnie
was riding and started after the team. The team lost the rake when
they went through the gate. Grandpa started after them, but the neighbor
had stopped them. Everyone wanted him to go to the hospital, but
he didn't want to go. He finally agreed to go only after he had a
bath. That night he found his clothes and just walked out of the
hospital.
One day I will never forget is the day Ronnie
and I was cleaning the chicken coops. We got the International pickup
truck to get a load of straw. We loaded the straw and as we tried
to pull out of the straw the wheels started to slip. I don't
know if it was the hot exhaust or backfire, but the straw stack caught
fire. Fanny came running out, but I wouldn't let her near the truck
as I was afraid it might explode. Percy was out in the field and
saw the fire and came running in. It was a hot July day with a wind.
The fire went to the barn, corrals, and hay stack. It also burnt
the scales and the only thing that saved the house was the big poplar tress
around it. We saved the livestock, but that was about all.
He did not have any insurance. Not a word was said to Ronnie or me.
He rebuilt every thing.
My dad wanted a garage in his place in Idaho
Falls so Percy built it for him. I think it only took him one day
to build it and he did not use any power tools.
When I came back from the Navy (WWII) they
had sold their farm and bought a rooming house in Pocatello on Main Street.
Earlier they had sold their other farm to Eddie their son. I believe
that this is the first house that they lived in that they didn't build
themselves. I stayed with them while going to Idaho State College.
I often borrowed their car to go to Provo to see my girl friend. One time
on the way I burned out a rod bearing. He paid for it without a word.
A lot of times if I was a little short of money the would each hand me
$10 and tell me not to tell the other about it. Fanny would praise
me to everyone. If she liked someone she would do anything for them.
One thing, she never forgot a birthday. Grandpa got me my first bicycle
when I lived in Lima, Montana. He also took me to get my first driver's
license. I think I was 14 years old. We got it at Blackhawk
Idaho, where the state police had a station. There is no sign
of a building now at Blackhawk.
In 1950 I got a job at Mc Cord Field at Tacoma, Washington.
Percy and Fanny rode up there with me. That was about the last time
I spent any time with them. On September 24th 1952, Fannie died and
was buried at the cemetery in Pocatello. After that Percy had a stroke
and he went to the hospital. When he was able, he put on his
clothes and walked out without being released from the hospital.
He was never very well after his stroke. He got cataracts and it
was hard for him to read. He died on 6 May 1953, and was buried in
Pocatello, along with his wife, mother, son and two daughters. The
plot at the cemetery is in the North East corner of the Pocatello Cemetery
on South 5th. It is maybe about 50 yards from each of those corners.
Percy was a great carpenter, farmer, poet, father and grandfather.
I miss them both very much.
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