A: I suppose, I know in town, a lot of people that got their allotment for gasoline and didn’t use it would take their extra coupons to the service stations. Then when someone needed to go to Grand Junction for a doctor appointment, there were always extra coupons that the station had. You could get them and it seemed to all work out. Everybody cooperated.

Q: Did people share their meat and grocery coupons? 

A: I don’t remember, we didn’t have too much money to buy much meat. We had chickens, and somebody we bought milk from all the time. I can’t remember now who it was.

Q: Your father taught you hunting in Missouri; did you do hunting here?

A: Yes, but I never went deer hunting with my father, here. He always had his own buddies that he went with here. He took my older brother, but me being a girl. After I started going with Harold, I went hunting with him. We’ve been hunting and hiking all of our married life.

Q: Going to school in Moab, what grade did you start here?

A: I started in Eighth grade. Even back then, Moab was about 50% Mormon and 50% non-Mormon so no one had a majority so we all got along pretty well. It was just a good bunch of kids to go to school with. Jimmy Walker was a little older than I, the same grade as my brother. With him hanging around with my brother, I became acquainted with Jimmy and we are still like a brother and sister, even after all these years. So many of the people have moved away that were in my grade.

Q: You finished high school here?

A: Yes I graduated from high school here in 1947. Harold and I were married in 1947.

Q: How did you meet Harold?

A: Through his sister who was a year older than I. She started telling me about Harold while he was still in the Navy. She said when he comes home, “I’m going to introduce you.” So she did and that’s what happened.

Q: After you were married where did you live?

A: At that time Harold and his folks were in partnership at Pack Creek Ranches, the Upper Ranch and the Lower Ranch. After we were married, I moved to the ranch with him and he ran the ranch. His dad had a gas business here in town. Harold took care of the cows, we had about 300 head of cows all the time and we’d have calves which we’d sell off. We raised a lot of hay.

Q: You cooked for the crew and what were your duties out there?

A: Yes, whatever it needed. I went with Harold to ride when I could and took care of the garden. Anybody who showed up at mealtime, I fed them.

Q: Where did you shop?

A: To Millers in Moab.

Q: How were the roads? 

A: It was fifteen miles from the lower ranch to Moab. It was graveled road. Usually it was quite passable but you had to drive down through Pack Creek. If it was flooded, you just stayed on the other side. We had pickups. Ann was born in May and that next winter when she was a baby, we were snowed in at the ranch for about a week before somebody came to see about us. The truck wouldn’t start. The tractor had something wrong with it so we couldn’t get it over to get the truck started. We were just there and we must have a foot to 18 inches of snow. Of course, we had plenty of food and we were all right, but no telephone.

Q: Was it just you and Harold at the ranch?

A: During the winter it was just us, but in the summertime we had someone that came and did the irrigating on the hayfields and helped with the chores around the barn and stuff. Then when we started haying, we’d get extra help. We did as much as possible ourselves.

Q: How many children do you have?

A: We have three. They were all born in Moab here.

Q: Was that at the old hospital?

A: The old one, before Allen Memorial was built. When Ann was born they kept me a full week. For the others, I guess it was five days for each of them. Quite different from what they do with women now.

Q: Were you living at the ranch for all of them: when did you leave the ranch? 

A: Just Ann was born while we were at the ranch. They sold the ranches in the fall of 1949. We bought a small place in town and moved in to town that winter. We sold to Musselman and he started the dude ranch there.

Q: Do you ever go back out there? 

A: Yes, we drive out and still wish it were ours. We tried to get Harold’s father to sell it to us when he wanted to sell. He said, no, he wanted to sell it all or keep it all; the partnership was not working out too well. He would show up a three o’clock in the afternoon and just complain about what wasn’t done.

Q: What was you house like in town?

A: It was an old house. When we moved in, we’d haul a load down in the daytime and get it unpacked and put away. Then we’d go back to the ranch at night until we finally got everything moved so we could come down and stay. The first night Ann woke up and started crying. I turned on the lights and there were cockroaches everywhere. That floor was literally covered. It was horrible. We started fighting cockroaches and finally got them thinned out so we would just occasionally see one outside. Man! That first month down there was terrible.

Q: Did you have city sewer and water?