Edmund Z Carbine was born 15 Sep 1864 in Farmington,
Davis, Utah. He was the second son of William Van Orden Carbine and Susan Hulda
Miller. His older brother, William Arnold, was born 25 Dec 1861 in Farmington,
Davis, Utah, died 25 Sep 1863.
His mother passed away 26 May 1867 leaving her small son
about 2 1/2 years old. She was buried in Farmington. A new marker was placed at
her grave recently by her son’s children. The older marker was almost weathered
away.
Eddie was not very robust in his youth, but grew to be a
very tall young man who was 6’ 3 1/2” in his “stocking feet.”
A little while before his mother died, he was playing and
went to the bed where she lay sick, looked at her and said to his Grandmother
Adelia, “No, Mamma is here. She hasn't gone.” His grandmother always thought
that he had dreamed that his mother had gone. He grieved and begged for his
mother after her death and could not be comforted. His grandmother told him
that his mother had gone and wasn't coming back. One time, he was sitting by
the fireplace and looking up at the mantel, he smiled and said, “There is
Mamma, she isn't gone, she is there.” From his smile and the expression on his
face, everyone was convinced that he had seen his mother and after that he
didn't grieve so much.
As a child he was very tender-hearted. He could never
read in school about boys killing birds without crying. He had a little
handkerchief with birds on it, and he objected to having his nose wiped on his
“Birds.”
He had black, very curly hair, which he didn't like as
the other boys had straight hair. He wet his hair and combed it down straight,
but it didn't work. It would soon be all curled up again. He liked patches on
his overalls like the other fellows had. His father bought underwear for him,
but the other boys had homemade underwear and he wanted that kind. And when his
father bought him suspenders, he wished he had the kind made of overalls like
the other boys had.
All these things about this little boy were told to Anna
Hawkins Carbine by Grandmother Adelia who loved this little grandson very MUCH.
When Eddie was five years old his father married Sarah
Jane Miller, Eddie’s mother’s double cousin and daughter of Henry Miller and
Elmira Pond. The cousin’s fathers were brothers and their mothers were sisters.
After his second marriage on the 30 May 1870, Grand¬father William Van Orden
Carbine moved his family to Clarkston.
“Papa was deeply religious,” said Mother, “I have heard
him tell many things about Martin Harris.” It was while the family was living
in Clarkston that he first met Martin Harris and heard him tell of the Book of
Mormon and of seeing the angel who showed him the golden plates from which the
book was translated. It was his favorite story. “He said ‘not once, but many
times’ he climbed on Martin Harris’ knee and asked for his ‘Favorite Story.’”
He said he was told many times that he (Martin Harris) had never denied his
testimony.
At the time of Brother Harris’ death, Grandfather Carbine
had taken his family to southern Utah to visit his wife’s folks, the Millers,
and Brother Harris’ son took care of the place while they were gone, and he and
his family including his father lived in the Carbine home in Clarkston. It was
while they were there that Martin Harris died.
On one occasion while Mother was visiting in Salt Lake
City, her nephew Estel Wright invited her to go with him to Clarkston to attend
the dedication of a monument to Martin Harris.
Mother said, “Papa received his grade school education in
Clarkston. He didn't start to school until he was seven years old and then he
started in the third grade. His grandmother had taught him at home. From the
beginning, he was very studious and liked good books. After finishing the
grades he went to Brigham Young College in Logan, Utah. He was financed in his
education at college from his mother’s share of her father’s estate. Before he
graduated, he taught a class in mathematics at the college.” Mother had in her
possession a picture of his college class and an award which he received when
he was eighteen for the best penmanship in his class. The picture is shown on
the first page of this life story. The award was very beautiful, decorated with
pen and ink. I think it was lost in the move to Mexico. I think there were two.
I remember a smaller one done in pen work, and the verse which read, “Of all
sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these ‘it might have been.’” And in
a corner was A. White, Teacher. Mother said Miss Ida Cook offered to finance
him at one of the colleges in the East after his graduation. And she was very
disappointed when he decided not to go on to college. Mother thinks Miss Cook
was the principal. This should be checked to be sure. But Grandfather Carbine
was in ill health at this time and felt that he couldn't spare his oldest son.
I (Jennie) just remarked, “Papa was his standby, wasn't he?” And she replied,
“I should say he was!!”
About this time Grandfather Hawkins (William Carroll) was
trying to find a school teacher. He was a school trustee. He had heard that the
son of an old acquaintance “Billie” Carbine was out of school and wanting to
teach. He wrote Grandfather Carbine, and Eddie answered the letter in person.
He said, “When I met the Hawkins girls, it didn't take me
long to decide which one I wanted to go with.” Mother had many admirers and one
young man said to him, “Annie won’t go with you long. She will just go with you
(to Edmund) a little while, and then she will bump you.” But Papa said, “I’ll
take my chance on that” (an expression characteristic of Papa). The above told
to Jennie by Mother.
The first school started in October, and on the 21st day
of the following April, Eddie married Anna Clementina Hawkins in the Logan
Temple. They were married by Elder M. W. Merrill and when he said, “Kiss the
bride,” Eddie complied. He said, “Well, looks like you have done this before.”
They were both twenty-one, Eddie on 15th of September and Anna on the 6th of April.
Just after they were married, they went to visit Eddie’s
Aunt Jane, his mother’s sister. She told him that she had dreamed that his
mother came to her and said, “I feel alright about Eddie now.” She had always
felt that his mother wanted her to “look out for him.”
The first part of May that year the newlyweds moved to
the Snake River Country and started homemaking. Grandfather Carbine had filed
on a homestead in that new country (then called Egin Bench later called
Parker). And he gave Papa 80 acres for his part in helping him improve the
land. They built a little one-room log house, and in that little humble home
their first little son came to brighten their lives. He was named Edmund
William.
They suffered many hardships in that new country. During
the winter, all five of their cows died from exposure and short feed. They had
been told that the cattle would winter there and were not prepared for the
severe winter. Mother said, “Papa skinned the cows and sold their hides for
something over $4.00, and we were glad to have that money. I sometimes wonder
how we got along on so little money. We had plenty of flour and up until the
cows died, we had plenty of milk and butter.
Just now as Mother sat here by the table she said, “My!
If that wasn't a blue time…!” I had been asking more about the cows. Mother
continued, “We had some fruit (dried) that Grandpa’s folks had brought from
Utah. Grandpa’s family arrived the last day of October and the next morning the
ground was covered with snow and Oh! My! Oh! My! It was COLD. Their house
wasn't finished, and Oh! They all had to live with us in our one room (about 12
or 14x17), and there were eleven of us. Oh! My! That was discouraging! The days
were so short; they couldn't get much done in a day, couldn't start until about
ten o’clock and would have to stop early on account of the cold. It was SO cold
in the evening. Yes, we had lots of hardships in that new country. We hauled
water for two miles for house use. We melted snow for our use and to water the
horses when they were hauling posts. Papa taught school about three months
after the cows died.
The next summer we moved to Sand Creek, which was 25
miles from our home. There we had a dairy, milking 30 cows and making butter.
The butter was packed in gallon cans, packed almost full with about one-half
inch of strong brine at the top and then the cans were soldered up. We used
some of the butter a year after, and it was just as nice as newly made butter.
The cows were rented from the neighboring farms. We sold the butter to good
advantage that first year.
Papa taught school the winter following, about six
months. They didn't have such long school years in those days.
We went out to Sand Creek the second summer and milked 60
cows, but we didn't do so well at it that time. Sand Creek was in the
mountains. It surely was rightly named. Lots of sand, lovely water! Lovely
water! The best ever tasted. At the time we went to the Snake River Country,
there had been one canal made by the farmers and we had expected to irrigate
our land, but found it was all higher than the water. Grandpa had one small
piece that he used for a garden.
It was while we were in Sand Creek the second year, the
time that we milked 60 cows, and I hung Eddie from the limb of a tree while I
helped with the milking, and then I took Eddie with me and went for a visit
with my folks in Marsh Valley. Papa and the men helping in the dairy were
batching. They had eaten a watermelon in the evening and had left the rinds and
seeds on the table, and some on the floor. In the night, Papa heard a smacking
sound. He listened wondering if the pigs had gotten out of the pen. But he
could tell by the sound of the footsteps that it was a bear instead of a pig.
He lay, wondering what to do as the bear kept eating and getting closer to the
bed. The room was partially lighted by the moon, and he could see that the
prowler was really a bear. Finally, the bear came close and stuck his head out
over the bed, and then, the unexpected happened. A cat that had been sleeping
on a pillow at the head of the bed became frightened and spit at the bear
attracting its attention. Papa thought, ‘If I have a chance, it is NOW!’ So he
slipped off over the foot of the bed and out of the door, expecting every
second for the bear to grab onto a foot. He said, ‘If ever I was glad I didn't
have a wife and baby with me, it was then. It didn't take me long to pull my
hind leg out of the doorway.’
Papa taught school again. He taught for about fifteen
years in all. At one time, he was the only Mormon allowed to teach school in
that part of Idaho. (This was at a time when an attempt was made to
disenfranchise all Mormons.) The school superintendent at Blackfoot, the county
seat, spoke very highly of him to one of the trustees. He said, “You keep that
young man in your school. He is a very bright young man and you will do well to
keep him.”
The following summer Papa freighted from Bayhorse to
Blackfoot. He hauled ore to Blackfoot and hauled supplies back. This was when
Myrtle was a baby. On one of these trips when there were several teams, the men
discovered the body of a man floating in a cove where the water eddied in. He
had been tied there, they thought, until officers could be brought. When Papa
came back he was alone, and as there was no water for many miles, he was forced
to make camp there. He said the ripple and swish of the stream reminded him of
the dead man, and it was so lonesome, he wasn't a bit comfortable and made his
bed on the opposite side of the wagon.
Mother says, ‘They drove their teams with what was called
a ‘jerk’ line. This line was fastened to the lead horse on the left; the driver
rode in a saddle on the left wheel-horse and guided the team from there. He
worked the brake with a rope. One team of six to eight horses, two abreast
would pull two or three wagons coupled together like our modern trailers are
fastened to the cars.
Mother just told me of an incident that happened when Papa
was freighting in the Salmon River country. He was driving a six-horse team
down a steep dugway. One of the horses was very scary and as they met a pack
train of burros, the scary horse didn't like the looks of them. As they tried
to pass, a particularly wide pack on one of the burros dug him in the ribs and
he started the team running down that steep grade. The brake came off the
second wagon. At the foot of the hill, they had to pass a saloon and as they
did, one of the wagon wheels caught on a porch post and tore it out from under
the roof. He said, “The men rushed out of there like bees out of a hive.” How
Mother laughed when she told it.
I (Jennie) remember of hearing Papa tell that when the
men who were freighting would gather around the campfire in the evening and
tell stories, some of the stories were unclean. He said, ‘I got so I thought
that this was quite an accomplishment until I heard Lyman L. Martineau, a man I
respected very much, say, “You can no more draw clean thoughts from a filthy mind
than you can draw clean water from a filthy well.” It impressed me so much that
I lost interest in unclean stories.’
“One winter,” said Mother, “It was when Myrtle was a
baby; Al Richardson took our team down to Marsh Valley to winter as we didn't
have much hay. When he got down there he found that work was starting on
widening the railroad tracks from Ogden to Oregon. So he sold the team to a
contractor and had the bill of sale made out in his brother’s name. My father
(W. C. Hawkins) heard of this deal and wrote Papa that he had better come down
and see about it. When Papa got there, he had the bill of sale changed to his
own name, but he was afraid to trust the team to Al, so he made a bar¬gain to
go along with the company. When he came home to get ready to go, I told him,
‘If you are going to go, I am going along with you.’ He had planned to take
Al’s wife along to do the cooking. So I went along and I did the cooking for 24
men all that summer, and I had a baby a little over a year old. Sometimes, I wonder
how I ever did it. Papa helped me sometimes, and somehow I managed to cook for
those men all summer and take care of my two children.” (Al Richardson’s wife
was Mother’s sister, Gertrude, our Aunt Gertie, though we never knew her.)
Mother laughed as she told of the following incident.
“One time Papa and Al Richardson wanted to catch a train at a flag station
somewhere around Deweyville, Utah. They overslept and the train whistle woke
them. They got up in a big hurry, Al grabbed a candle and Papa grabbed his
pants in his hand and they ran to flag the train. But they got left.” Mother
laughed again as she said, “Wouldn't Papa have looked funny getting on a train
with his pants in his hand? Ha! Ha!”
Sometime in 1891 some men with money came to St. Anthony
and formed a company to put a canal on higher ground that would irrigate much
more land. It was finished in time for us to raise a good crop in 1892.
Papa was teaching summer school in Sand Creek that year.
He drove 25 miles. He came home Friday night and went back Monday morning. He
drove a fast trotting mare with a light two-wheeled cart. He irrigated the
crops on Saturday, and that year he raised 7,000 bushels of wheat. I think that
the land sub-irrigated.
Papa was Bishop of Parker Ward from the time he was
twenty-seven years old until we moved to La Grande, Oregon, in Feb 1902.” Above
is a picture of the Carbine family about the time Eddie was called to be
Bishop. Their children were Eddie Jr., Susan Myrtle and Katie seated on the
table. She is saying, “See my new petticoat?” And judging from Katie’s apparent
age, I suspect that “Jennie” was more than just a twinkle in her daddy’s eye.
It was after Papa was called to the Bishopric that the
town of Parker was afflicted with an epidemic of diphtheria. Many members of
the church died. They were buried at night to avoid the spread of the disease.
Two families lost three of their daughters. Papa went about administering to
the sick and taking them food which I had cooked and bread which I had baked.
It was a very sad time and Papa would come home so weary and so sad. He hung
his clothes in the granary and changed before coming to the house and we were
blessed that none of us got the disease.”
I remember standing beside Mother as she sat watching to
see a lantern on a sleigh as it passed in the night, and of hearing her say
that Papa was in the sleigh, that they were taking someone to the graveyard for
burial (quoting Jennie).
Mother looked thoughtful as she said, “We lived on the
homestead for about ten years, our finances im¬proving with the years. About
1897, Papa built a nice brick house on a ten-acre lot in the town of Parker.
Grace was the baby when we moved to the new home. I was happy there. We had a
nice spot for a garden. And it was much closer to the meeting-house.
I remember the bay windows in that house. I stood by them
looking out when Katie and I were company for each other, the time we were
quarantined with scarlet fever (quoting Jennie).
The new school was just across the street from our house.
I remember being asked to “speak a piece.” It was “over da hills and way fa
off, a fwag jumped up and his tail dwapped off” and when everyone laughed I put
my head on a desk and cried.
“One morning,” said Mother “I had an idea. I think it was
inspiration. I said to Papa, why not sell the homestead and that desert claim
of mine, and buy the Tom Smith place? I think he might sell it as he can’t keep
his wife here.” Papa said, “I think that is a good idea.” So he wrote a letter
to Tom Smith and found that the place was for sale. He bought the place and
another adjoining piece of land, making in all 320 acres. And in 1900, he built
a nice seven-room brick house. It had one of those “new-fangled” ideas called a
bathroom, and four bedrooms with clothes closets in each. Mother was very happy
with the prospect of a new and larger house. But sad to tell we never moved
into the new home. Papa went to Oregon and saw an orchard that he thought would
be a good proposition and bought a home called the Tom Smith Place in 1900. It
had an apple and cherry orchard. Mother had bronchial trouble in Idaho. It was
thought the milder climate would help.
Mother said, “The people in Parker surely hated to see
Papa leave.” They gave him a surprise party. They had told me about it, and
when he was going to the field, I noticed that he had some holes in the back of
his pants, and I asked him to change them, but he said, “Oh, I won’t bother.” I
said, “I wish you would, you might meet someone.” He gave in and changed.
Somebody came for him. I think it was Uncle Dan, and told him that there was
someone to see him at the meeting house. The people coming to the party had
tied their teams away from the churchyard so he wouldn't see them, and they
were all seated and quiet. Uncle Dan Miller, his First Counselor, took him in
at the back door, so he would be on the stand. I don’t believe there ever was a
surprise gotten off any better than that was. Papa surely was surprised!! Ah!
Those people surely loved him. They gave him a big office desk with his name on
it. There were about 400 people in the ward at the time, very united.
I remember the desk very well. It was in our home for
many years; it had a top that rolled up out of the way, and lots of drawers and
pigeon-holes. I am sure he enjoyed it very much. I have a picture in my mind of
him as he sat at that desk with his letters and other papers. And his legs
twisted around each other. As Mother had seen him in her dream before she had
met him. (L.J.G.)
It was after the move to La Grande that Grace, our fourth
sister, was taken sick with diphtheria. She was put in a room by herself as was
the custom in our family, and the rest of us were given antitoxin to make us
immune. Grace recovered in due time, but was left with her eyes terribly crossed.
Uncle Lehi Wright was a man who had the gift of healing. Papa asked him to
come, and he and Papa administered to her, Uncle Lehi sealing the anointing. In
the morning her eyes were straight. When the doctor came again he looked at her
eyes and said, “Mr. Carbine, how in the world did that child’s eyes get
straight?” and Papa pointing heavenward said, “Doctor, there is a power higher
than man’s. And it is by that power that her eyes are straight.”
How well I remember how wonderful it was to have Papa administer
to me when I was sick. His voice was so soft, soothing and full of tenderness
as he asked of the Lord the needed blessing.
“About 1904” said Mother, “Papa made a trip to Mexico and
while in the Colonies, a group of people were going to a neighboring town. On
the way they had to cross a river. When they got to the river, the ferry boat
was on the other side of the river. Papa said, ‘I think I can go over on the
cable and bring the boat over.’ It was quite a risky thing to do, and some of
the people thought he shouldn't try it. But he insisted. He went ‘hand over
hand’ and had his knees over the cable, too. It was very difficult to bring the
ferry back alone, as the current was very swift, but he made it. It was
considered quite an accomplishment by those who witnessed it. (Note: Brother
Martin Harris in Virden told me about this incident. He said he didn’t see it,
but was told about it. He said, “It was considered quite a feat of prowess.”)
In 1905, my dad was involved with the Utah–Idaho Sugar
Company and with a brother by the name of Tanner; he traveled down into Mexico,
down to Guatemala and the peninsula that’s out in the ocean down there,
whatever its name is. The idea was expanding the Utah–Idaho Sugar Company into
raising cane sugar. But he had a lot of experiences there. He saw a lot of the
structures that were built by the Nephites years ago, such as where they had
taken water across the canyons in great big stone flumes that were enormous
things, and he was really amazed at a lot of the things that he saw down in
Mexico. And on his way back, when he got to Colonia Juarez, the river was in
flood stage and the ferry boat.... They had a ferry boat that was run by a
pulley on a cable across the river, and the boat was on the other side of the
river. Brother Tanner and my dad wanted to get across the river to the other
side, so my dad walked hand over hand and leg over leg across the cable to the
boat on the other side and got it and then brought it back. He said that when
he was out in the middle, that his coat tail kept dipping in the water while he
was on that cable.
When he came to Juarez, while he was out looking around
the town over near the market place, there near the church, an American man
stepped up to him and asked him if he knew of a certain company that he was
looking for. And he let Dad see the sign of this company and Dad pointed it out
to him. He says, “Oh, that’s it all right.” He says, “Would you mind going over
there with me?” He went with this man, and when they went into the office, the
two men that were there were playing cards and they had put some papers over
the cards. They said they thought, when they heard someone coming that they
were the wives of these two men, and that they were hiding the cards to not let
them know they were gambling. Then they went on and asked Dad if he minded them
playing the cards some more. Dad said, no, he didn't have any objection to it.
But Dad noticed that when he went in the office, that the door lock clicked
behind him. He was a little uneasy about it, but Brother Tanner had loaned him
a six shooter that morning, and had insisted that he take it with him as he
was, traveling around there. And this man that went into the office with Dad
and got into the card game and started winning money and tried to get Dad
involved with it. Dad wasn't interested and said, no, he didn't want to play
any cards. He’d lived in the west a lot, and had seen a lot of gambling, and
wasn't interested anyway. After a while, he leaned back and let his coat fall
away from the six shooter and he noticed the men saw the six shooter. Then he
said, “Now, if you gentlemen will get up and unlock the door, I’ll be going.”
Dad, after living here on the border, and different times when unidentified men
have been found dead along the border, thought if it hadn't been for that six
shooter he had, he’d have probably been one of them.
When I was taking a class in the Book of Mormon in Sunday
School, I asked my father for a Book of Mormon. He told me to go to a bookstore
that was owned by one of the Mormon brethren, a man who wasn't noted for paying
his bills promptly, however, and who had owed my father for four gallons of
cherries for over a year. I obtained the book and had it charged to my father.
It was a real nice book and I really liked it. The next month, my father
received a dun for the book, but thought that the good brother would remember
the cherries, so he let it go. The next month, it was the same.
The next month, there was a rather sharp “Please remit”
and below it the words, “Little drops of water, little grains of sand…etc.” My
father thought it was time for a comeback. So below the cute little poem he
wrote:
4 gallons of Cherries grown on grains of sand
Wipe out your account, and leave a balance in my hand.
Below that he put the date of the purchase, then
4 gallons cherries at 30¢ each $1.20
Book of Mormon $1.00
Due me .20¢
And then he drew a line from the word hand to the
balance. And by return mail, he received 20 cents in stamps. He laughed or
rather chuckled and said, “I don’t believe Bro. D---- ever paid a dun more
promptly.”
I don’t remember my father ever laughing hard or loud but
he chuckled when amused and his eyes, which were large and very expressive,
would twinkle. Those eyes could be very stern, too, and somehow we didn't have
a desire to be disobedient.
In 1909, the folks went to Mexico. They bought 420 acres
of land located near Mochicahui, in Sinaloa. About 30 miles inland from the bay
of Topolobampo, which is almost directly across from the point of lower
California. It is a very deep harbor. It is at this place that we spent Easter
Sunday 1910. Also on Ohuira Bay, which is a part of the big bay of Topolobampo,
is where Uncle Arch saw Gene and me walking on the shore and where he dreamed
of seeing us again.
The whole colony went there for a three-day vacation. In
the evening, we seined for bait to go fishing in the next morning. All the men
and young people and children waded out in the water carrying the sein, and
then let it down to drag as we circled back to shore.
We caught all kinds of strange fish. One curious fish was
called a tortilla fish because it was about the size and shape of a tortilla.
It had one eye on the upper side and when anything touched it, it would swell
up like a ball. That was its protection against larger fish.
I shall always remember how beautiful the moon was that
night. It was full, and cast a long yellow reflection across the water.
The men rented two gasoline launches and planned to go
out to an island five miles out in the ocean. But the waves were so high, they
washed over the edge of the boats, and it was decided the trip would be too
dangerous. So Easter, 1910, was spent on Ohuira Bay. I got seasick and Gene
asked that we be put ashore at the place where they had planned to have lunch.
He spread his coat on the sand and insisted that I lie down on it until I felt
better. He sat beside me and fanned me with his hat. When I felt better, we
walked together on the shore and gathered shells. It was that same day that he
found the little book carved out of marble that I have kept so long.
We had a wonderful trip, one that will always be one of
my dearest memories.
The crop my father raised that year was tomatoes, and
they were shipped to the California markets.
That year the Fuerte River flooded. It was very unusual
for that time of year. It was so wide we could hardly see across it, and it
brought with it the crops of the poorer Mexican people who, not being able to
own land, planted their crops in the riverbed. We stood on the bank and watched
as many things came floating by, lots of calabazas and even a burro or two.
“Muy mala ,” said the Mexicans.
In May 1910, Mother returned to Oregon with the unmarried
children.
In August 1910, a great hailstorm came and ruined a
bumper crop of apples. And there went my hopes of going to school in Provo or
Logan. Papa’s cousin, who had been with us in Mexico and who had been a
professor in the Provo school, told me that my best bet was Provo.
Mother harvested the apples with the help of her
daughters. We sold 23,000 boxes of apples, but as they were all hail specked,
the price was very low. There would have been 30,000 boxes.
Mother just said, “Papa raised tomatoes the second year
in Mexico and the following spring he planted broom-corn and had a wonderful
crop worth $10,000. It had been harvested and was in the drying sheds. The
rainy season came six weeks earlier than usual and the broom-corn was all
mildewed!! Making it a total loss.”
Our brother Edd had returned from his mission in Germany
and in the fall of 1911, Mother took the younger children and went back to
Mexico, leaving Edd, Grace and me in Oregon. Edd went to work in the sugar
factory, Grace went to high school and I was housekeeper.
Then came the Mexican Revolution and in the spring of
1912 our family came out. Mother said, “We came out in an armored train. There
were flat cars in front and behind the passenger cars. These flat cars had bags
of sand piled on the edges at the sides, and soldiers with guns were in between
the sandbags.”
“Papa sold the place in Mexico, but he didn't specify
‘gold’ and was paid when the Mexican money was about the lowest.”
“It was after coming out of Mexico that Papa was
afflicted with inflammatory rheumatism. He went to Hot Lake for treatment. One
time in a mud bath he fainted. He was carried in and he ran out.” Mother
smiled. “Papa was always late to catch a train! I don’t care what the
conditions! He always got on the train as it was starting. And that was why he
ran. He had to catch that train!!”
As I asked Mother for more information, she told me the
following: “In 1914, we had a big crop of apples and no sale. Papa got a sale
for the entire crop in Denmark and had contracted for shipping space. He went
over with two carloads in January, 1915, and sold them to good advantage. Then
England decided she needed the shipping space, and so the space was cancelled,
and Papa couldn't ship the balance of his apples.”
While he was in Copenhagen, Denmark, he was crossing the
street one day and tripped and fell in front of a streetcar. His trip had been
so unsuccessful and he was feeling so blue and discouraged. In telling about it
afterward he said, “I almost felt like lying there and letting it run over me.”
Mother added, “He was carrying $30,000 insurance.”
This from Uncle Joe: “On the boat coming home from
Denmark, Dad was eating and he asked for sugar to put on his tomatoes and after
that the other passengers passed him sugar to put on his eggs and
potatoes…everything he ate.”
He was walking on deck one day and happened to turn
around in time to see a big wave coming. He made a dash for a ladder and hung
onto it. When the wave hit it took his hat with it. One of the passengers took
pity on him and gave him a hat. We always felt that he would have been washed
overboard if he hadn't hung onto the ladder. I later wore the hat. (Uncle Joe)
In the fall of 1915, the family moved to San Simon,
Arizona, where Frank and Arthur had filed on homesteads. They put down artesian
wells and farmed the land. Papa traded the home in Oregon for a seven-year
lease on a place with cattle on it in San Simon. But the man was a crook who
had money and had the banker and some other officials “bought.” It was cattle
country and the cattlemen didn't want homesteaders to come in and they made SO
much trouble, cutting their fences so their crops were destroyed. The man who
leased the place to Papa said, “You may raise crops, Mr. Carbine, but I can
promise you that you won’t harvest them.” He offered to trade for a place in
California and Papa accepted but found that it was so heavily mortgaged that he
never could have paid it out. So they went to Chandler, Arizona, farming there
for a year, and then to Chino Valley where they did pretty well. It was an
irrigation project. Then the City of Prescott put in a dam for water for the
city on the stream that supplied the project.
While in Chino Valley, Arizona, they farmed and ran a
dairy for Mr. Seigler who was also in charge of the Santo Thomas Ranch near Las
Cruces, New Mexico. Mr. Seigler wanted Papa to go and run the Santo Thomas
Ranch for him. He had been appointed receiver for it. This was about 1920.
“Papa was later appointed receiver for the ranch and
tried to colonize it with Mormon people. It could have been purchased for
$30.00 per acre. Almost 20 years later J. A. Widstoe came to look at Santo
Thomas Ranch with the same idea, but the price then was $300 to $400 per acre
and that was too high.” In the summer of 1922, a branch of El Paso ward was
organized at the Santo Thomas Ranch, and from that time until the family
scattered after Papa was called to the “other side,” we had regular Sunday
School. It was held at the ranch until Stahman bought it in 1925.
The crops on Santo Thomas were pretty good and in 1924
Papa purchased a place in Mesilla Park and built a beautiful home for Mother.
It was their dream home and they were so happy and proud of their home. But
they were not to enjoy it long together, for in the fall of 1925 Papa’s health
began to fail. In the spring of 1926 when my father was at my place he said,
“How would you like to be a grafter?” I knew by the twinkle in his eyes that
there was some joke, so I said, “If you think it is the thing to do, I would.”
He smiled and said that they were going to be grafting some apple trees and
thought I might like to learn how. I went up to their place and we grafted a
lot of scions on apple roots. While we were working, I asked, “What would you
think of the apple business for me?” and he said, “I think it would be good. Of
course, the marketing would be the hardest part, but Frank could help you with
that. Of course, I may be with you for a long time, but if (choking up) I
shouldn't…” and Mother interrupted with “Ah! You’ll live a hundred years after
I am gone and then turn into a burro!” (trying to jolly him), but he just shook
his head. Later that same day, Mother asked him why he didn't go to see a
doctor and he said, “I don’t think a doctor could help me.” I said, “Papa, just
how do you feel?” He replied, “Last fall I noticed that my fingers were numb,
especially when driving the car. Then I noticed that my feet were numb. Now I
feel numb to my shoulders and to my hips and I sometimes wonder what will
happen when the two numbnesses meet.”
In May 1926, Papa was asked to go to Thatcher to conference.
While there, he was ordained a patriarch by Elder Richard Lyman. There were
several others ordained at the same time. One of them, Mother said, was blessed
with good health. “After the meeting,” said Mother, “Papa came and sat down by
me and said, ‘which was the best blessing?’ And I said, ‘Yours was as good as
Brother Allred’s, but I wish Brother Lyman had blessed you with good health.’
And he said, ‘I do too.’ And it was just four months to the day after he was
ordained a patriarch that he was called to the other side, to do a special
work, I believe.”
Just before Papa went to Thatcher, and before I knew he
was going, I was at their home, and in conversation I said, “Papa, I dreamed
that you were called, by the head of the church to a position of great
importance over the whole United States. And we were so proud of you.” He shook
his head and said, “I guess it won’t be very important.”
I think it was about this time or a little before that
Papa read to us in Sunday School of an experience of a good man in Idaho. In
this account Brother Hale tells that his spirit left his body and was taken
into the spirit world. It was a very wonderful experience, and when Papa
finished reading, he looked around at his children and grandchildren and with a
voice choked with emotion, he said, “If I knew that the Lord had a work for me
to do over there, I wouldn't thank anyone who would keep me here.”
That spring one day, he came to see me to see how my
spring work was coming along. It was the last time he was ever in my home. As
we ate dinner together, I commented that I was the only one in the family who
wasn't called by my right name. I said that I thought that they were ashamed of
the name they gave me, so they called me something else. I had meant it for a joke,
but he looked very sad. And then he told me about his two Aunts Lovisa and Jane
who had always been so good to him. I think he wanted me to know that it had
meant something to him to give me that name.
He told of a time when he had visited with them. Their
children took him sledding on a hill and one time as they came down he fell off
the sled and rolled over and over in the snow. They took him in the house and
his aunts laughed as they shook the snow off him and at the contrast of the
white snow in his black curls. He said that they reminded him of it in later
years and laughed about it.
This visit has made me feel different about my name, like
it is a privilege to have it.
It was not long after the trip to Thatcher that Papa went
to see a doctor and was told, “Mr. Carbine, it would be easier to tell you what
isn't the matter with you than to tell what is.” He soon went to bed and
gradually weakened until the 26th of Sep, when he left us and passed to the
great beyond. He never gave even one patriarchal blessing and we feel that his
call was for over there.
I guess his main trouble was anemia of the severest kind
with other contributing ailments. He was given several transfusions of blood,
which gave only temporary relief. Now there is a treatment to arrest this type
of anemia, but it wasn't known in his day.
I never heard my father swear except “shave,” “shucks” or
“doggone-it,” and almost never a slang word or expression. He used such good
English and pronounced his words so perfectly, although he wasn't a fluent
speaker.
I never saw him really angry but once in my life. And
then I was glad I wasn't the one he was angry with. I well remember his words
were measured and terrible as he said, “YOU JUST MAKE MY BLOOD BOIL.”
This tribute from Verona: “When I first met him I heard
him say, ‘I have not been angry for more than fifteen years.’ I did not think
him really untruthful, but I doubted that that could possibly be true. When I
had known him a year and a half, mentally I went back and apologized for
doubting him that first time.”
“One time,” said Mother, “A man was angry at him and
using very bad language. Papa said, ‘Are you through?’ The man said, ‘No,’ and
went on with some more bad language. Papa said, ‘Now are you through?’ The man
answered, ‘No! I’m not!’ and went on with more of the same. The third time Papa
asked, ‘Are you through?’ The man said, ‘Yes, and what are you going to do
about it?’ Papa said, ‘Well, I don’t think you are much of a gentleman.’ And he
drove away. Later the man came to him and apologized.”
Most of the information on this sketch of the life of
Edmund Z Carbine was obtained by his daughter Lovica Jane Carbine Gruwell in
interviews at various times with Anna Clementina Hawkins Carbine, wife of
Edmund Z Carbine.
Typed by Joan Carbine Eyre.
There are more memories on FSFT of
Edmund Z Carbine and Anna Clementina Hawkins, but the following is included
here.
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