I, Mable Evelyn Banks Tolman, was born July 21, 1897, near Wakarusa, Kansas, near Topeka, at my folks home in the country. My father had gone after my Grandmother Jordan. He had just arrived back home when I was born.
My father, James Stanley Banks, was the oldest of seven brothers. He was born Sept. 21, 1865, near Steubenville in Jefferson County, Ohio. His father was Charles Wesley Banks and his mother was Sarah Ellen Lee. They were married when he was 18 and she was 15 (1864). His father served in the Civil War when he was 15 and 5 of his sons served in the Spanish American War.
My mother, Edith Mae Jordan, was born May 19, 1866 at White Willow, 111. Her father was John Snyder Jordan, and her mother’s maiden name was Helen Jennie Moore.
I had one sister, Bertha, born June 5, 1895.
My folks were very strict and very religious as Dad was Supt. of Sunday School, most places we lived. We went to church every Sunday, by horse and buggy. I was baptized at Dillon, Montana, in the Methodist Church and haven’t joined any other church.
We lived near mother’s folks and I was very fond of them. I can remember how I liked to go to Grandma’s place as she always had cookies for us. They had a cement wall around two sides of their place about two feet wide; we really enjoyed running around on it. They had a big tree at their back door which had a bench all around it. It was so nice to set out in the shade in the summer time. I don’t remember much about it around there but that we had to go through Grandpa’s orchard to go to Uncle Clyde’s, mother’s brother, also to get to Aunt Lulu’s place.
We moved to a place in the country about 3 or 4 miles north of Grantsville, Kansas, and lived in a big old two story house for several years. Then we moved into the little village of Grantsville. I started school in town.
My father put in the first Bell telephone system at Grantsville and we had the switchboard in our frontroom. I remember every Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa came down. We used to have a big Christmas tree.
We were still living there when Dad’s brothers came back from the Spanish American War, from the Philippines. They brought my sister and I goods for a dress; one was red plaid and the other was red. I sure wore that dress. We only had one good dress as my folks were poor and we didn’t have things like they did in later years.
I had measles while we were there and I was very sick. The doctor came every day for a long time.
I don’t remember just when we left there. I think I was around 8 when we left Kansas. We moved to Calhoon, Colorado about the time of the big earthquake in San Francisco in 1906. It was out on the prairie and a long way from town. We had a team of mules that were very gentle and we would hitch them to a lumber wagon and go out on the prairie and gather fuel which consisted of buffalo chips.
Grandpa and Grandma Banks came to Calhoon and built next to us. The following year late in the summer, my Aunt Lulu and Uncle Bert came out from the East. We decided to go on a camping trip to the mountains west of Colorado Springs. We rigged up a covered wagon with the necessary things for four grown-ups and three small girls. We were gone about 10 days and about a 50 or 60 mile trip. The men fished and the rest of us explored the old deserted ghost town. One day in our rambling, Aunt Lulu and Bertha (my sister) looked in a window of an old saloon and directly into a large mirror in which they didn’t at first recognize themselves. They were really frightened.
We moved to Colorado Springs. The furniture went first; Dad went ahead and we had a horse and buggy. Mamma, Aunt Lulu, Bertha, Ester, (my cousin) and I drove the horse to Colorado Springs from Calhoon. Our horse had been poisoned by loco weeds and it had made he kind of crazy. Every time we stopped, someone would have to get out and lead her to get her started again. It sure frightened us. Dad had had her a long time.
Dad had a grocery store there. When we first went there we lived 3 or 4 blocks from the store but we soon moved over the store. (I was past the old store in 1961 and they had taken the upstairs off.) I had a deaf and dumb girl friend there. Aunt Alison and Cousin Harry came out to see us there. Harry was only about 3 or 4 years old then. Grandpa and Grandma Jordan came out there too. We missed Grandpa one day and when he came back he had been up to the top of Pike’s Peak. We left Colorado Springs in August of 1907 and went to Dillon, Montana.
Dad rented a place from an old Englishman, he made a few trips to England while we were on his place. I have a small gray trunk that he gave me. We lived close to Dad’s brother Andy. He was killed by lightning in August 1920. His wife had died of cancer in 1919. We only had a little way to go to school there. I saw that old school building in 1959 and it looked the same when I went to school there 51 years before. It got awful cold there and the snow drifts would really pile high. We liked to run over them.
We had a big threshing crew, it kept us busy cooking for so many and so many meals for them. Maybe we would have them only a day or so. We had to get up real early to get their breakfast and it was late at night so we didn’t much sleep while they were there.
Dad liked to travel and he got the wander lust again. Mama tried to get him to stay there. She said “You won’t be satisfied until you are back here.” But he wouldn’t listen to her so we moved to Mount Morrison, Colorado about 15 miles from Denver. Dad went ahead of us in a box car with the furniture, horses and cow. We went on the train and Dad met us at Denver and when we got out to the place, we were so thirsty we went to get a drink, and my! what water. We thought it was because Dad had had milk in the cup that made it taste so awful. It tasted like rotten eggs smell but after we go used to it, it was okay. It was real alkali water.
While there we had one of those sand storms and you couldn’t get out as the sand would cut so. Dad couldn’t get out to the barn to tend his stock. When it was over, Dad’s fall grain was cut off and the posts were all sanded. We had a pet pig and when we went to school we had to run off from it. It followed me one time pretty near to school. We had to go over a hill and down on the other side. It was about 2 miles each way. We had to walk all the time.
Dad ran a threshing machine and there was a cook shack that went with it. So mamma went with them to do the cooking. Bertha and I had to stay alone all the time. Bertha was awful afraid all the time.
I remember we were with the folks when they were moving and they were crossing a bridge and it rolled backward and one of the fellows got his arm broke. Dad and mamma would come home every week-end. One day we were going to have chicken, so Bertha rang its neck and when she let it down it ran away. So we got it again and put it in a box and its head came through some boards, then Bertha shot it and another time we were going to make peach pie. We put half peaches in it and it was so heavy.
We stayed there about a year or two then Dad had to move. We lost what we put in the place. In March 1913 we moved to Marion, Idaho. We got there before Dad did so we stayed at Oakley. When Dad came we had to walk and chase the cows and horses from Oakley to Marion, about five miles. We moved across the road from the Tolman place. They were still living in their old log house but were building their new one.
When Dan seen me, he said that I was his girl. When they moved into their home, Dan’s room faced out place across the road and he would sit in his window in the evening and play his harmonica, it was sure good. I don’t really know when we stared going together but he would pick me up when I was walking to school. They told him he was robbing the cradle. My folks told me I couldn’t go with him but we kept going together anyhow. He would walk me to Church and back. Finally they let us go together.
Dad got a new piece of land between Marion and Burley, what they called Kenyon. Dad, Bertha and I cleaned the 80 acres of sage brush. There was a lot of work to it. Dad drove back and forth. He had built a shack to live in while he was building the house. I remember one time Dad stayed down there. Bertha and I had driven back home and the next morning we had to go back and there was 6 inches of real wet snow, that was in June. Dad built a two room house and we moved down in the summer of 1913 so I never finished school. I only went to the seventh grade as it was too far from a school.
Dan would drive down every week, we would go to a show. It was about 10 to 15 miles there. He had a nice buggy and a horse called “Ruby”. Sometimes Joe would come with Dan as he went with Bertha. One night all four of us went to Burley to a show. Coming home we got on the wrong road and we went through a barb wire fence and ended up in a straw stack.
Bertha and Joe got married Dec.8, 1914 and 11 months later on November 1,1915 I was married to Dan at Twin Falls. Dan was my only boyfriend. We stayed at Twin Falls a week. We went to Blue Lakes and went boat riding. Bertha and Joe were with us too as we stayed at their house. When we went to get married we had to drive with a horse and buggy to Twin Falls it was about 65 miles and it was so cold going. We stayed there a week. The bunch gathered every night to chivaree us but didn’t get us by the time we got home.
When us girls were married, Mamma and Dad left Kenyon and moved to Leader, Idaho. Bertha and Joe moved up there too. They were there only a year or two when the folks moved back to Dillon, Montana. That is where Mother died in 1924 or cancer. I went up several times to take care of her. Mother Tolman would take care of the children that I didn’t take with me. After Mama died, Dad moved back to Wendell, Idaho. He remarried again. He died at Gooding close to Wendell, June 13, 1958 and was buried at Dillon also.
We lived with Dan’s folks while our little two room home was being built. We moved into our home in the spring of 1916. Our first baby was born Oct.6, 1910. We named him George. He really helped us later in life. Then came Calvin in 1918. Edith in 1920. When Edith was a baby, Dan hauled beets for his brother Cyrus and we moved down to Declo and lived in a sheep camp wagon and when we were through there we moved to Jerome. We rented a place there. We had an awful hail storm that sure hurt our crops.
George took sick one day, we took him to a doctor about a week later in Jerome and he said it was nothing to worry about. He would get up in the morning and he said he felt fine but about 11 o’clock his fever would come up and was high the rest of the day, that was the fall of 1921. He was like that for about two weeks, then Calvin came down with it and it was then the doctor told us it was typhoid fever. Calvin was so bad he was delirious for seven weeks. Louie came over to help as we had to have help. When he got so he could eat he could only have a teaspoon of broth every two hours. When he was able to travel we moved back to Marion on our place. Dan’s brother and wife lived there while we were in Jerome. Edith wasn’t feeling very good as she was cutting teeth, she had just started to walk. She kept getting weaker so she couldn’t walk. Burl’s wife took typhoid from us and nearly died. I got it too and then Burl got it and died with it on Feb. 14, 1922. George had the walking kind, Edith had the one without the fever. I guess the rest of us had the old time fever. My that is an awful disease to have. When the doctor let me up, I got milk leg and was bad for a long time and it has bothered me ever since.
There were 7 more children to bless our home. They were James, born in 1922, Oscar in 1924, Lester in 1926, Dan Jr. in 1928, Francis in 1930 and last the twins Floyd and Lloyd in 1932.
All of our children were born at home in a two room house at Marion near Oakley. We finally moved two more rooms on in later years. We lived there at the same place (it was part of Grandpa Tolman’s place) for 19 years. All that time we had to haul all of our water from Grandpa Tolman’s place. We hauled it on a sleigh with old Ruby. We never had a washing machine so I did many washings on the old scrub board, then we finally got a hand washer. I suppose some of the older children can remember having to run it. Then we got an electric washer and had it up to Dan’s folks place because we never had electricity at Marion, just coal oil lights.
When I took sick before the twins were born, Dan was working at Jerome at the time. He had to come home and take over the house. He was sure faithful. It was hard on him as he had to do it inside and out. He had a long time of it for I was in bed 3 months before I had my goiter out. He stayed with me all the time in the hospital. LaVerda took care of the children at home.
It was a very serious operation, Feb. 17,1932 and I was in bed all told about 3 months. Dan took over. He took care of me doing the house work and sent the children to school and then did his farmwork. He never complained that was four months before the twins were born. We had such a time saving them. That is when George helped out as he took his father’s horse team over at Bolder to a rock quarry. The money he got went to help the twins back to health and feed them. They were so different, one was just as light as the other one was dark. We called them lighty and darky. Edith started to make her first bread while I was in bed. Her Daddy taught her how. She was only 12 years old and she could get a good meal for a bunch of men then.
Dan was a hard worker and he helped so many people out. When Fred Larsen, Dan’s brother-in-law died, Alice would need some wood so Dan took the boys up in the hills and taught them how to get out wood. He spent so much of his time in the winter getting out wood to keep his family warm and to sell it for money to help out. When all of Cyrus folks were down with typhoid fever he went down and helped nurse them back to health. He did so much for others all the time. I want all of you children to speak highly of him as he was a mighty fine man. I don’t think he ever had any enemies.
Dan was afraid we were going to lose our place so we decided to move to Wendell in 1935. Dan, George and Calvin worked in the potato cellar. They worked long hours. Dan got to be the boss on the place we were on. He worked so hard he decided to get us a place of our own so we moved to Vale, Ore. in March 1939 to a house you could see out of the cracks. We stayed there a month and on Apr.29,1939 we moved on the place where we were both happy as we were buying it. It was an awful place as there was only about 10 acres that could be farmed. All we had was a pair of old work horses to work the place with. Dan worked awful hard leveling the land every one thought we would starve to death on the place but Dan and the younger boys worked long hours and got to farming a lot more of the place.
Eight of our boys served in the service, part of them in World War II and part of them in the Korean War. They all came back home safe. George didn’t serve as he already had a family.
All are married and have families of their own now. Ill health forced Dan to quit farming so we were going to sell the place and he took sick one afternoon. He had a Cerebral Hemorrhage. We took him to the hospital on April 1, and he died on April 19, 1958. I sold the place to Francis. My how I have missed him. I’m still living in the old house on the place at Vale, Oregon where Dan and I moved in 1939. Since Dan has been gone I have taken several trips.
MABEL EVELYN BANKS TOLMAN DIED 24 JUNE 1979 AND HER FUNERAL WAS HELD IN VALE, OREGON LDS CHAPEL WED 27 JUNE 1979 AT 2:00 PM
Order of Services:
Family prayer by Raymond Tolman
Prelude and Postlude Music by Doris Saunders
Invocation by Blain Saunders
Life Sketch and Remarks by Dr. Orville H. Tolman
Musical Selection “Beyond the Sunset” by Janice Belnap, accompanied by Vicky Tolman.
Speaker: William O. Tolman
Music Selection “O My Father” by Janice Belnap and David Tolman, ace. by Vicky Tolman.
Benediction by Dick Stickles
Dedicatory Prayer by L. Dean Tolman.
She was buried in the Valleyview Cemetery, Vale, Oregon
Casket bearers were:
Roger Tolman, Jimmy Tolman, Robert Tolman, Frankie Tolman, Rick Tolman and Randy Kinney.
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