cyrus-and-alice-bracken-tolman

Cyrus Tolman and Alice Bracken lived in Tooele until 1881 when he got the pioneering spirit again and decided to move this family to Goose Creek, Idaho, in the Oakley Valley. Alice was fifty years old and Cyrus was eleven years older. It would be difficult to move onto new land that was still covered with sagebrush. Goose Creek was also near to Marion, Cassia, Idaho. This 1900 U.S. Census record shows who was living in their home at that time. One of their first concerns was to provide water to their home and farmland. See this 1881 water rights documentTheir daughter, Minnie Elizabeth Tolman Pickett records, “I well remember the day we drove down into the Oakley valley. The weather was hot and dry, the dust five or six inches deep. There were no trees or any green shrubs. The town of Oakley consisted of a post office and a grocery store. Uncle Riblet, as he was known to all the settlers, was the postmaster. The grocery store was owned by George S. Grant, who later married my sister Alvaretta. Our home was a two-roomed log house. (In Marion)To my brothers, Alex and Judson, in their early teens, it was something new and it was an adventure. To mother, it was heartache and disappointment, but mother tried to be enthused for her family’s sake and did all she could to make the little house look as pleasant and homelike as possible. It was comforting to have so many of her family near her. Her sons, Ammon, William, John Albert and Alvin all had homes within a few minutes walk of her own.” (Cyrus Tolman: Father, Frontiersman, Pioneer by Loraine Tolman Pace, Second Edition, 2006, page 80.)

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