Latah County Oral History Collection

This conversation with Edward Kent and his half brother Andrew. This conversation with Edward Kent and Andrew Cox took place on the front porch of Mr. Kent's home on American Ridge, on August 10th, 1976. The interviewer was Sam Schrager.

Up here.

Edward Kent: Well. My mother and I came out here in 19, 1898.

And and his dad, Mr. Cox, William Cox. We've been out here almost two years or.

And his brother and my mother met. 4th of July common. Right. On celebration at the dock. Coming. They went to school together. My dad.

And they got right back and forth. And I guess I can work. We come out here in November.

1988

Andrew Cox: I don't know, I'm in 98 and 1898.

Sam Schrager: 98. Yeah.

Edward Kent: And there was a little. Just a little two room cabin sitting up there with that house. You know, about where the garages I remember. And down past that. Well, over that way. There was another building there that they called the old dairy. Somebody had thought a. Making a cheese factory out of it. I remembered that they always called the dairy, and it was kind of used for a bunk house and a storeroom.

And it was 80 acres vacant. That's down below here. And that concrete.

Homesteaded on that. And you had to have a building site. So he moved down here just over the line of build a barn and house. And I don't know whether, you know, that was it, but he built the house of 19 to.

Andrew Cox: 1900, I think the house built in the barn, 19 one.

Edward Kent: That sounds about right. What year was Agnes born?

Andrew Cox: 19 oh.

Edward Kent: One. That's when Louise had a family.

Andrew Cox: Oh, my sister in law. On the 4th of July, 1901.

Sam Schrager: How long did this corresponding go on before she came out here?

Edward Kent: Well, I don't know, because, I, I Cox that's the one that the that my mother lost.

Andrew Cox: Come on and.

Edward Kent: Make me come out here. He was here when.

Andrew Cox: I got here. It couldn't have went on too long.

Edward Kent: Oh, I've known him for years.

Andrew Cox: Oh, they'd been together in Nova Scotia for.

Edward Kent: I have an idea. Probably a little over a year, maybe 18 months. Something like that. I don't know, no, that's just my guess.

Sam Schrager: So they hadn't seen each other? Many?

Andrew Cox: No, never. I think dad was 16 when he left Nova Scotia, and I think he was 33 when they married. Yeah. Yeah, I know it.

Unknown: So he'd. Not alone. Like.

That.

Sam Schrager: How how old were you then? Well, I can I did, yeah, you.

Edward Kent: I was nine years old and I was nine and obviously come out here in November.

Sam Schrager: Did he have, this place, Was he farming very much at that time?

Edward Kent: Well, he had the cattle at the gamble Place this year.

Andrew Cox: He at that time, he had practically all their own place. Their on lease or.

Edward Kent: My he he had it. I think he'd bought all the gamble place. And he was farming off of that place over there.

Andrew Cox: Well he didn't buy the last the gamble place too. Therefore he built a house up there. Well, gamble wouldn't sell that spot up there.

Edward Kent: Oh, well, I don't know.

Andrew Cox: I left.

Unknown: I remember old.

Andrew Cox: Man Gamble and I bought that the first thing he done to pull that orchard out. You know, no gamble matter now. He really will never build up there. And you know, I know had gamble was still here and would go down but he and.

Edward Kent: I oh he'd gone to California and.

Andrew Cox: He moved to California. I guess he left right after that.

Edward Kent: Yeah. he was he was assessor. And they talk until I come out here.

Andrew Cox: Gamble.

Edward Kent: Gamble.

Sam Schrager: Art gamble was, was he, just getting out of farming and selling a piece by piece to your father?

Andrew Cox: Well, I, I think he just hung on to that little corner in there with the houses, just the laundry color. And that bought land from other people to carry. He had 328.

Unknown: They were like.

I don't know.

Andrew Cox: He bought from off Miller. Did he buy from from Phillipsburg.

Edward Kent: And all that you place? I don't think, he. I don't think he ever had it. Yeah.

Sam Schrager: Well, do you know how much of an idea whether it was rough? Go for him at first?

Edward Kent: Well, yeah. I don't think it was too damn easy. Oh, I think he he had a little stake when he come here. I know he brought foreign horses with him when I come.

I think.

Sam Schrager: Yeah, he.

Andrew Cox: 19 one some rebuilt the barn. He fell off the roof of the barn on the rocky Franklin.

Edward Kent: Yeah.

Andrew Cox: You want to about him?

Edward Kent: A whole bunch of broken.

Unknown: You know,

Sam Schrager: As I have heard about it, divorce back in them days was not so common. And not so not so accepted by my a whole lot of people. I wonder who was any different in Nova Scotia than it was in the West. Here?

Andrew Cox: I don't know, I never heard of change.

Edward Kent: Well, I couldn't get enough about that. And, I know my mother and father separated and she got a divorce, but she had that before.

Andrew Cox: Or you left. So.

Sam Schrager: Yeah, I don't know. I haven't heard in anybody that I know from Nova Scotia that that that landed right out in this country. You'd hear other people and,

Andrew Cox: Well, old man Gammel was from Nova Scotia. I don't hear that's how that got here. And when another Nova Scotian left California together following my harvest north one year and they decided to leave California. And the other fella some way, I had dad's drunk with him, and he ended up here to gamble to nab that. Would that come up here after with his trunk?

Edward Kent: And he started and there was another famous over here, Joe Davis here. Yeah, yeah. And there was another family here. Well. Dunlap. Yeah. Dunlap. Maybe they left you. Yeah. Dunlap. Rundle. Everybody knew judge.

Oh, I don't know.

Sam Schrager: And they were Nova Scotians doing.

Edward Kent: Yeah. he and he had a brother come out here. George silver. Denver silver. He settled in or Athena and George, he farmed this place over here when Davis got here. Come here one time. He got married after. I remember when he got married, he married a woman from Terra, Nova Scotia.

Andrew Cox: A Terra girl. Sure. I mean, you are, You made some other names back there. But don't ask me. Just one. Shubenacadie nationality.

Edward Kent: Yeah. Oh, glory story arc.

Sam Schrager: I know the Indian high. High,

Edward Kent: This is my wife and daughter.

Come on in now. They scared.

Andrew Cox: You know, like you were.

Sam Schrager: What you were doing. We did. You work pretty much when you were growing up.

Edward Kent: Well, yeah.

Andrew Cox: Worked on metal.

Edward Kent: But, I'll say one thing. I had an awful good stepfather.

And I didn't ever want for anything for that going myself. I and everything that I really needed. Probably more to.

Andrew Cox: Come up with a lot of things in my head.

Edward Kent: Yeah, I thought I had a whole.

Andrew Cox: Lot of it up.

Edward Kent: Better. If you got to live through that to understand what it is.

Oh, I, Always wanted to be a cowboy when I was growing up. From 12 years old on.

I work for a granddad here.

Andrew Cox: Quite a lot.

Unknown: Of know, and I've course.

Edward Kent: Like most of my life, farm for myself a year or two.

Sam Schrager: Did you get much chance? Did you get much chance to do. Yeah, yeah. Cattle stuff.

Edward Kent: Yes, I yeah, boy yeah I could, I could very, I follow the name of Ted Roberts and he had a lot of it. And then I ran it over on the breaks to Clearwater, and he had a quite a bunch of cattle. I worked for him about a little over a year. Steady at one time. That's all it was.

Cattle.

Who did you go on that cattle track and from Panama? Well, that was a fellow named Woodruff. he shipped, ten carload to cattle, cul de sac and half way down here. That's before, I don't know, I guess they were to brush or run up as far as commissary rate. And then they picked up enough for a train load up at, Rosario and Grant.

That had been the lowest. And he met him on the train coming up. He needed another guy to go to Montana with so and had me down there by train, ran up the other end, and I went to Rossellini. That would have stayed up there. And I went to Montana. There they go. Basin. Oh, yeah. I'm loaded down to come down.

Here at 90 miles, drive into wisdom. That took us, I think, just a little over a week, but put it over a week. And that's when the smelter was going good. Did Anaconda I know the first 15 miles out. They fed them cattle. Hey, stockyard. And, They wanted them to be full and try and keep them free for the first 15 miles out.

First days drive. But we lost. I think seven had that. They eat that rest for fishing.

And I work mostly with horses. After he went up there, he had quite a few cattle, but I was with the horses. Yeah, quite a bunch of horses and 1100 head horses. And right in the spring of the year breeding season, he had two Jackson, two study authors. That's about all I've done that sprinkle had. I left up there right after hay, and I think.

Sam Schrager: It's a, what do you call it? What season? Breeding season. What what season did you call that?

Edward Kent: Pregnancy. Spring. Yeah, yeah.

And bring that mares in.

Andrew Cox: In May and June and three year old and become 11 months later.

Edward Kent: With Ram, I went to the corral and got out a bunch of mares, and they had what they call a squeeze gate, ran them down a chute, and they squeeze gate and bring a stud over to one I don't if I wasn't a horse, let them up. There's heart and where they breed them, and they had a paintbrush there, black and white paint put a number on them whenever they were bred, and with no one to bring them back.

I say no, some horses died over here. I worked up for Camp Potlatch. When it first went in there, I was up there, one bring it and a quite a few horses that had his brand of.

He had pretty well pretty well bred horses for that that then there wasn't too many draft horses in the country, but he here he had, protection in the Belgian stallion and he'd had he had some pretty good horses there, three and four year olds when I was a.

Sam Schrager: Did you have any guys working for him that were what you call cowboys?

Edward Kent: Oh, yeah. Yeah. You had about 6 in 6, but he had his, son work. There was a cousin. Yeah. And then there was his foreman for the name of Pearl Simmons. And then there was a guy did nothing but break horses. He was from Colorado. I don't remember what it was.

No good place to work on a thing. A lot of mosquitoes. Him. They had to wear mosquito bars just to big chunk of mosquito bite and put it over it and tie it around your neck.

God. They just. He kept.

Sam Schrager: Mosquito. I never heard of that. He he actually put it over your head or.

Edward Kent: Yeah. Just great that over you most everybody wore a stiff rimmed hat that you could get plenty air.

I was up there about three years ago and went through the big old basin that way, and I would never know. And I did, man. And I finally went into a bar over there and this some guy around there, no one in there. I thought he looked like a native. I got to talking to him. They don't give me a quite a history of the change of the country.

He'd been there for years. Years.

Outside of that line, nothing was match about that.

Sam Schrager: When you when you were growing up, or was there a lot of work that you were supposed to do around those buildings.

Andrew Cox: There wasn't nothing else to do. They doing that all the time? Well, that's one thing that he always he kept cattle. We milk cows. I mean, I don't know if he had a dairy cow.

Edward Kent: You know, or.

Andrew Cox: Something. Did probably ever quite kid. But.

I know every Saturday afternoon he used to take us down. Real criminal. Yeah. Come up to work with that kind of dog, try to get communities to work, right? Yeah. And of course, Sundays after.

Edward Kent: That was.

Andrew Cox: Sunday. That was Sunday. We didn't go to training. We didn't do anything like that or that any repair work to do, we done that midday. You of the stock or anything extra that could be done on Saturday. But he never took it out to the family.

But now we do. We have to kind of get over that.

Sam Schrager: Did, and did family go to church at all? I said.

Andrew Cox: Yeah, okay. Where we just right up here. Where, you know, where Frank. And it's gotten here when the church right up on top of the hill, right here. Or sometimes we take a do get either the Scotch bread program or. The church up here again when we run back. But a little erosion.

Edward Kent: You'd be more than.

Andrew Cox: A church and everything. But he noted, you get up in the paper during church. That's where we got Christian.

Edward Kent: Well, I didn't have a minister down there, something like that. Yeah, and I don't follow that. all right. All the time. Impressed. Oh, that they can hear.

Andrew Cox: That he's in Cambridge.

Edward Kent: Yeah. He he he preached down here.

Andrew Cox: Junior.

Edward Kent: Preach. I guess he was a good man, but I never liked him.

Andrew Cox: Snapped read out on print.

Edward Kent: You never saw another nature came truer to pull. I don't know what the hell. I don't know that old Tom never had my prints, never forgotten, you know.

Sam Schrager: I mean, you.

Andrew Cox: Really found in that.

Edward Kent: Right? Yeah.

Andrew Cox: Oh, maybe your shoulder.

Edward Kent: I mean, they bought them for that one.

Sam Schrager: Was he using them for farming or just for rain?

Edward Kent: Oh.

Andrew Cox: Never again. Something with me?

Edward Kent: Yeah. Yeah, he had bank one after that. Had to cross a potlatch up there or just. Or you get up to that bridge going up on Cedar Creek. He'd been up in that country.

Sam Schrager: Yeah, I know, just.

Edward Kent: You know where Cedar Creek.

Sam Schrager: Yeah, I know where it is.

Edward Kent: Just down below that. He was called Cross Road at about where it is now. But he had to hold a cross to get it into that road.

Andrew Cox: I never did know just what he was doing right in the border, but I know I can remember.

Edward Kent: Yeah. Stuart Wilson, George Wilson seen him out there in here and him in the creek. He was just you know, I thought that.

Sam Schrager: what was that you being united brethren like they were they the holy rollers around?

Edward Kent: Well, I don't know.

Andrew Cox: I don't know that you'd be intimidated. They think you'd be church down there, but, I don't know up here. Why. I don't know why to come over here. Over here. What? They work?

Edward Kent: All they had.

Andrew Cox: Everything to think that and everything. You've got to go and pray. The louder and the more religion.

Sam Schrager: And I've heard that before.

Andrew Cox: I guess they feel that way to do like that.

Edward Kent: Yeah. That whole revival meetings. Right. All three weeks, every winter, sometimes they'd have a camp meeting place in the summertime down there where the this road hits, I don't know, over Nine Pines, big tent set up. And then what is this religion where they wash one another sheet?

Sam Schrager: Yeah, I know I've heard of that.

Edward Kent: Well, I had I know one summer up here they had that and there was a family lived over here by the name of Stevens, and he was a I forget what the hell it was called him, but that's that was his religion. And I think probably the only time he ever had his feet washed.

But he wasn't a bad old guy.

Andrew Cox: And a good, okay.

Edward Kent: Good engineer in.

Then that went in the movies. We had a mail carrier here. He was an old timer here. Mitchell met him and there was a fellow lived up here. The name Holly Roberts. And he'd get religion about once a year.

Andrew Cox: Would national every time they had to have me.

Edward Kent: Yeah. So Mitchum was carrying mail. He carried the first mail out. I guess this carried here. He carried quite a long time man to. And he come down along and somebody tell him. Well all they Roberts got religion again last night met looked at him. He said, well he said it'd be a God blessing somebody. Shoot him now for he gets old.

He was a quite a politician too.

Sam Schrager: I pretty much yeah. I think he might have had something to do with the university.

Edward Kent: And there. Oh, he was a politician. I don't know.

Andrew Cox: Neither. But I mean.

Sam Schrager: I know I've heard it mentioned.

I think what Carlson was talking about, you know what?

Edward Kent: Carlson will come.

Sam Schrager: Around.

He lived on the upper end of the American ridge. Cummings.

Edward Kent: Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Cox: Yeah. Well, but if they'd know him. No, no, no. Robert.

Edward Kent: Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Cox: Coming, coming back from lived up there were Malcolm. Pecuniary back.

Sam Schrager: Up.

Edward Kent: Yeah. You know, one of the first guys I remember meeting when I come back, I know they were working in that field. And of course there I got. I was working up there, too. I walked up there.

I'd never seen many horses and stuff and and guys there. They had three, six horse team in the field. It. And I could hardly get them to come back home. Then I went up to the barn full blown up that and got no and God horses. I don't know how many had they had in there on both sides of that barn, hanging all full of harness.

I know I it was so.

Andrew Cox: Barn floors.

Sam Schrager: You kind of got got to like. And then right away then and for some.

Edward Kent: Yeah. And and that was drilled that field just after I come to Idaho for some and all that. What Cedar and I remember we feel the drill right up there and God I wanted to drive them horses. Are you do you think you can keep one on the line? Oh, I guess so. Hell, I didn't think nothing more about that track and nothing.

I just said all I had to do drive down just to see of them. I didn't get far till I was off the track. Then he went and showed me. He let me go. A little ways to go down that way was going to turn. He said he better take him over. I thought he had to.

That is in the fall. Yeah. I don't remember any other forward that fall. I don't know, you getting pretty late. It. Yeah. But I think he finished season that field.

Sam Schrager: How one did did they usually run farming. And as far as doing that work when, when they usually get the crop in.

Andrew Cox: The only thing they do know, I don't know, it seemed like we had more time to do it than we do now.

Edward Kent: It seemed like the season was longer.

Andrew Cox: Harvest time. Of course, then bind it and shock it all it into an old, stationary fresh machine. Harvest and run. Clear up in October.

Edward Kent: Yeah, there was a lot of a lot of the grain. They called it in and stacked.

Andrew Cox: Yeah, well, they're going to be a couple of fresh machines on average here.

Sam Schrager: Well then once you got, that done, didn't have an awful lot of time to get ready for it to get the ground ready for the winter. Did you?

Edward Kent: It was a.

Andrew Cox: Full time job.

Sam Schrager: Were they growing more, mostly winter wheat.

Andrew Cox: There was a lot of Springfield.

Edward Kent: Yeah, a lot more.

Andrew Cox: That much more than it is now. Of course. They were a lot of being raised in this country at that time. I remember right here on this point, the number eight men had been they a lot of been raised or Quakers. They got the been gotten on stack or they'd seen that ground back to wheat.

Sam Schrager: Why didn't the beans work out? I mean, they don't even hardly ever see.

Andrew Cox: Too much erosion. You know, you put in there in order to cultivate in the after from the road up and down here. And of course, I'm sure the water gone down. Yeah.

Sam Schrager: I heard that they were dirty there for the thrashing machines. They were pretty hard to work in sometimes.

Andrew Cox: Well, I guess so. I never worked in too much.

And I've been on my own farm an era. I've had one after being in that 43, wasn't it?

Edward Kent: Yeah, 42 or.

Andrew Cox: Three. 42 or ordinary again. And they just put in there, told me and put them in that. Right. More time. I get in there, said you put them in or else. No, I did, I guess I didn't make any money. I don't think I get very rich off of me. And then we had an awful time getting that ground to go down.

It was late when I got the bean fries. I'd went and bought a little old farm vine that I popped and pick them up out of the window and trash. I mean, it wouldn't work. So I had to wrestle another machine. And then I kind of I got them trashed. And why we had to. No more plan on dumping you get scenic.

Mean means go on from the ground out. What if you couldn't do anything else with it? But no more so. More and more. And we had one tractor here. Had my own. Wheat milk. And I don't know, we had this barn from the cow.

Edward running in that time and.

Get up and help. Milk in the morning. I quit early enough in the morning. I'd run all night and come in and out of the milk in the morning. And I'd do the milking at night for an hour, maybe stay out.

Unknown: I got out of the tractor 24 hours.

Andrew Cox: And you could use that time.

Unknown: You could buy a tractor.

Sam Schrager: And I didn't know it was that rough at that time in the war and.

Edward Kent: Oh, my gosh.

Andrew Cox: Right. That was you couldn't buy machinery? Nothing. At that year. I had that big truck, but I couldn't get driven by a big night being cut. Or I had to depend on the neighbor for everything.

Sam Schrager: It was kind of silly. They'd make you, Put in,

Edward Kent: I heard Walt Carpenter dead. Tell about Moscow there. I forget how many bushes a lady had all thrashed the sack. The field, and it got to where they couldn't get it out. It just laid there and rotted.

And I guess money was pretty hard to get Ahold of. I know he said he had a I had a milk pen. If he got any small change, he put a on. He kept it under the bed. He said that's the only thing. It kept them. It was a pen. Those that out. And when it got right tight in the dough letter, they said they'd pull him through.

He was from a lot of that land up there where the universities got out.

Sam Schrager: She. Well, I'd heard there was, there had been some wet harvest since. Since then?

Andrew Cox: Yeah, we've had wet harvest. We had well, last year we just started crashing here and like, what, about three weeks? It rained and everything done. Course, we finally got out here. We got some good weather and got it right. Course, after the grade, we got a little.

Edward Kent: Well, the first year I was on syndicate that's 25 or 4 when it rains.

Andrew Cox: 25, 26. The first crop. Yeah.

Edward Kent: It rained. We sprouted in the shock, but we're fine again. Fresh. But I don't.

Andrew Cox: Make a lot of beans. Loft on this misery and.

Edward Kent: I think Victor only got about $0.30 a bushel. $0.33.

Andrew Cox: I what dark was office over that lunch?

Edward Kent: And I don't know how I didn't have a very big crop over there. I had about six acres of full wheat, and I reshot that three times. Reset the shucks show to dry out, and then finally come dry enough that it had got dry enough and thrashed it. But it just kept rain and in a range of much, but it just kept it wet.

Andrew Cox: 42 there was a wet fall of it with what.

Edward Kent: I wanted and.

Andrew Cox: A lot of crop loss that year, but of course it should have been trashed.

Edward Kent: Like, yeah, a lot of it could have been a year and I made an effort.

Andrew Cox: I guess maybe the family name could have been lost anyway, but have grain that got trashed wasn't worse, right? Yeah.

Edward Kent: And it was no good for seed. It got swept. It took all everything out of it.

Sam Schrager: Could you count on getting out and start working the ground about the same time back then is now in the spring.

Edward Kent: Came to me.

Andrew Cox: We used to get out early, and we do now a lot of time.

Edward Kent: Yeah. We've, we used to be able to work a little earlier when the ground was a little better, because I figured the track to the horse and then back to go like a tractor did. That was the theory. When I first started using tractors.

Andrew Cox: And it used to be we had wintered here and all went off and turned fine and dried up and went to work. Yeah. Now we just don't have wintered. We have winter from the 1st October to the 1st of May. You just mess along. It's not really lettered but knows and rains tomorrow. It just keeps everything all messed up.

The climate I don't know. Climate change be different. you to figure here, but, Well, heck, from the 1st of December to a lot to February. Why, you used a bunch that the way you travel? Yeah. You don't want a holiday?

Edward Kent: Yeah. Slammed into the canyon a lot. And now are there any, I.

Andrew Cox: Guess no parent canyon.

Edward Kent: To lay on overnight. That's. But industries.

Andrew Cox: That get used to snow here. Get deep and make the crust. Come on. There's no way you can drive a team out, right? No, but yeah.

Sam Schrager: Could you get on being able to, go in clear and to Kendrick or Juliet? on snow?

Andrew Cox: Oh, we did that. Yeah. God, we all we all the family can get it in the wintertime. All up, up in Canada. Can you get in there?

Sam Schrager: I.

Wonder what people did when they were coming across the ridge, you know, with the sled and then. And there wasn't any snow to get down the canyon. It must have happened. See, it happens all I mean, nowadays, it's like that all the time up here and down there.

Edward Kent: As well as spring and I think ten. I guess 19, ten. I was working up. I worked up on the Clearwater. I went around the same and we come out to South Lake. I think of it last year, February, and there were lots of snow up there. We stayed all night southward, and Gordon Harris brought us to Kendrick the next day in a slam, and we got down Puerto Bear down to Potlatch.

I ran out of snow and there was eight of us that he brought down, and when he got out, walked on again. Again, he left his sled. Dad rode one of his horses. Him. I know snow on Kendrick, but there were lots of snow up from South Lake. Then.

He he rode a kind of a feed barn up there in the hotel. You could get a meal there. Is there mealtime and no short order meals?

Sam Schrager: Yeah.

Where was that? At this place.

Edward Kent: At South Lake.

Sam Schrager: At south. But yeah.

Edward Kent: Gordon Harris, the guy had run it. His grandson runs this Fleming's place down here.

Andrew Cox: At my equipment.

Edward Kent: Company and cannery. And the only one is, Gordon voice that I know was. And that's, Virgil. He lives in Lewis. I think the others. No, I think maybe the youngest one. Harry. Harry. But I, I believe he's a polar. I wouldn't be sure he was the last time.

Sam Schrager: Or do you ever, ever hear foster that guy and Julia Foster school of healing.

Edward Kent: they've put you out on a field one time, regular boomtown, like a mining town. Come in and built that old big house up there on the street above Main Street. they had that full. Everybody could rent a room in town, and a patient is living in it. he he.

Sam Schrager: He really he really did make a boom.

Edward Kent: Oh, she had.

Yes, sir.

Sam Schrager: I've heard him talk about his cancer cure, but, I'm afraid it wasn't passed down to modern science because it don't seem quite sound yet. If he had it, they're getting.

Andrew Cox: A lot closer to the salt. And I tell you, the people now, this. Have cancer that lived a lot longer than they were 50 years ago.

Sam Schrager: Sure.

Edward Kent: I remember one fella come here. If he had family quarter someplace, you know, near the lower limb. Oh, that's. And I'm the first one. I treated him, put a plaster on it, but some kind of bandage over and I can see that old guy. And walking up and down the street, swinging his arms, I guess. Just painted the hell up.

Oh, he was just real misery. I never forget him because, my God, he sure looked like you in misery.

Sam Schrager: The no other one.

Edward Kent: A big, stout, husky looking flower.

Sam Schrager: Do you know whether it done him?

Edward Kent: I don't know, I don't know what happened to him. But it just looked like his, lower lip on the left hand side is just about a half feet away.

Sam Schrager: Yeah, that's what I'd heard, you know, with skin cancer, that he that he really, you know, worked on. Yeah.

Edward Kent: Well, wasn't that how how dad come to come to.

Andrew Cox: God, I do.

Edward Kent: I say he had something like that. That's how he come to come out west here.

Andrew Cox: Oh, I think he had come out west.

Edward Kent: Well, I don't know about that. Give me that idea. But it was. I got his impression.

Andrew Cox: No, I think, Leon Rose was his men. After they met, Lewis got married, and then they went back to Detroit, and they all got together.

Edward Kent: Well, maybe that's why it was I just thinking that he come out here. Doctor foster.

Sam Schrager: Quite a few people did come up that way from. Yeah, I think, but you know Mrs. Marie well in the.

Andrew Cox: Corner yet again.

Sam Schrager: And so that's how her parents came. They were up on Camas Prairie and he was sick. So, father, they came. Juliana.

Andrew Cox: I remember remembering her father. I remember her mother. Her mother still lives. Who's that? Mrs. artist?

Edward Kent: Oh, yeah? Yeah.

Sam Schrager: Well, did you did you, go down to Canada? Julietta very much come up here or.

Andrew Cox: It was our main town. We created Julietta most of the time. Was just two miles down here. Yeah. I'll go to Kentucky. Yeah, I get you train, you get all together. Don't kid.

Edward Kent: Yeah, just about.

Oh, well, store.

Sam Schrager: Or two miles from only two miles. Did that mean that you would get down there real often? Like every one.

Andrew Cox: Every Saturday I'd go to w shop.

Edward Kent: Once a week. But, the other town. Yeah.

Sam Schrager: You remember Alexander stored in a whole.

Lot better than I do, because I never.

Edward Kent: Yeah, I guess.

Andrew Cox: Right where that's when.

Edward Kent: Lester Noblet runs this store in Juliana. Now, his granddad bought run that store. He's the one that sold out. to Alexander. This is his granddad. There was three boys. There's Charlie and John Bell. They all come over there. They were. And they had a little store at all. Seen it, and they come over and bought that store there.

I think it was from Alexander's. You know, Alexander Alexander bought it from them right at that store. Before that it fell under the name of Kight. He had a pretty big family living here, and he had a for years there.

Sam Schrager: What do you remember Alexander being like all.

Edward Kent: The all exandria. Yeah. Oh he was it all sounds good to me. He was pretty radical. And he was.

Always like to play poker. They're quite a poker player.

Sam Schrager: And he play in the store.

Edward Kent: Oh, no, no, no, they had a little place down there. Mine guest there on it. No bread. They no bread one time. Yeah. He was long about fest. Professor Foster, he's quite a poker player too, And there was, there were about a dozen of them down there, an old man, Damon Foster and Alexander and played together.

Yeah. And Tom Fox. Snyder, Frank Snyder. Charlie. Charlie never played.

Frank. No. The other way. Charlie was the one who played Frank with elders.

Sam Schrager: When you say Alexander was, was a little radical. How so?

Edward Kent: Well, he was.

Sam Schrager: This politics or.

Edward Kent: No, he just, pretty easy to take offense. Said anything it said with him. He fell pretty quick.

Sam Schrager: And he's Jewish, fella, from what I heard.

Edward Kent: Yeah, I heard he was a Jew.

No. He in front of everybody named Joe. After in the blacksmith shop. And this, Joe Exotic got mad at him. Christ, Hampton was a husky man.

Andrew Cox: He my three Joe.

Edward Kent: And Joe was going to with him, and he just picked you up. Double him up. His arms shook him a little bit. They said, you better behave yourself or you're going to get hurt. And they set him down. He walked off. I seen that show.

Yeah. Picked on the wrong guy. That damn.

Sam Schrager: Did you know many of the Indians down? Oh, you work into.

Edward Kent: Yeah. I used to know quite a bunch of Jack Savage.

Sam Schrager: Did you know him?

Edward Kent: Yeah. Johnny Woods, Jonas Motors.

Sam Schrager: Irish.

Edward Kent: Dave Williams.

Sam Schrager: Yeah. It's been around here a long time. I can't remember, though.

Andrew Cox: All I knew Jack seven. I can remember in that time.

Edward Kent: Yeah, I.

Andrew Cox: Remember him well enough to say.

Edward Kent: I know I worked for a pond, but my service back, they all Indian country.

Andrew Cox: They told me I was on the reservation.

Edward Kent: Yeah, I was on the right.

Sam Schrager: Where is this? That which places?

Edward Kent: Oh point way down on the potlatch there.

Sam Schrager: Oh, yeah.

Edward Kent: And, it was heaven. Just live down then it was a rentals and this rentals. He was a squaw managed by the Squaw. And this Evans, he married one of their daughters, and he had two sons. They had that whole point down at one time. And this Ted Roberts I was telling you about, I worked for he married one of their granddaughters.

She was alive the last I know. She lived out that way. She's about my age.

Sam Schrager: Was, remember, name.

Edward Kent: All the Roberts. Unless you remarried. I never heard of it.

There was a quite a family of them. Those two boys and four girls. I think.

You bought two lives. I know they're dead, but I don't know.

Sam Schrager: What else did you get to know? Did you get to know that, you know any of these folks? That enough to, you know, call them friend? Like,

Edward Kent: Oh, yeah. And I stated, oh, right there, please. Oh, March. March. I knew him very well. Jack Evans, remember the first time I ever. Eat out of a park? He had? It's mostly venison, but I love what I did. Of what dog? He had it. I got an outside fire there. Big iron kettle. I just have long hair.

About noon he went and got me a plate and a wooden fork. He said, get you some venison? God, I was hungry. And then I tried it anyway. And the just spread it around that they'd ground theirselves and baked. It was pure wheat. That's all it was. And made it to taste all right.

Sam Schrager: Yeah.

Edward Kent: As far as drink, I don't think we. I think the water. That he was very sociable and. I was working the place up on the pueblo and then Martin was up there and he had cattle. So Jack's seventh had cattle and horses over there on the water break, sneak up through there. He'd always have them all about mealtime and they'd ask you then to eat.

He was very manly and. Just nice to me. And he was a pretty old man. I'd do.

They told about, you know, the the French government come in here and the Indians. So a lot of horses to him. And that was pretty flush with the money and he went someplace I forget where it was for Spokane or not, but he he was going to buy him a sale.

Sam Schrager: A what?

Edward Kent: two a rig with a cover on it.

Sam Schrager: You call that? What do you call a serial? Surrey.

Edward Kent: three serials.

Sam Schrager: Surrey with an all on the end. But, yeah, I.

Edward Kent: Don't know how to spell, but he was going to get one of them. Fancy. You get up there. He he seen a Hirsch. One of the first Hirsch. Come on. I got he had that one. He bought it and brought it home. I don't know, whatever did become of it.

Andrew Cox: It was one or go.

Edward Kent: Got it. Could have been. I don't know that. I know what sent down there. And they said, know I don't know.

Andrew Cox: Whatever because of that. Got for a few last night I don't know. You don't factor that. You know dad Kennedy was buried. What do you know down there? Yeah. Kept out for black. We had Crowley and or three. Cole.

Edward Kent: Yeah.

Andrew Cox: I went down that I called the Hirsch. that came before that with me, like 3 or 4. And I took it down and back and back into that shed again. And then I think they had that for Mrs. Jacobus is really.

Edward Kent: Yeah.

Andrew Cox: Go. Jean insisted that she'd be buried in a sweater on her arm, and that would later get mad. I think I'd want to say that the last time I remember.

Unknown: I put you for that in Chicago.

Andrew Cox: I forget who had the people, but it was a hot.

Unknown: Day, and I remember going to fifth grade. And your funeral. And you get a burger up here? Yeah.

Sam Schrager: I'm very good. This road, from here to Juliana. I had to do that.

Edward Kent: How are you traveling?

Sam Schrager: Oh.

Andrew Cox: Like what? A coyote?

Sam Schrager: Like, you know, that's. And.

Andrew Cox: But I'm fine.

Sam Schrager: Except I go back to Troy. I live in Little Bear Ridge.

Edward Kent: Oh.

Sam Schrager: You do? Yeah.

Andrew Cox: You live on a little better if you never go this way every day.

Sam Schrager: But then I haven't lived here. Only lived here for a few years now. I live near Amy Pierce's own place. Heard him near the Hilliard.

Edward Kent: I remember my wife had bought over on Park Ridge Lane, Little Bear and Troy.

Unknown: What was your name? Morgan.

Andrew Cox: Park Ridge?

Edward Kent: Oh, yeah. She was about six years old, I think.

Andrew Cox: But,

Sam Schrager: One of the cars.

Unknown: He said that the old timers still call that place.

Well, I've often.

Sam Schrager: Wondered, I guess some some places the Indians didn't. It didn't get treated too good. Like in I for down in Lewiston. They couldn't, you know, places they couldn't even go. Yeah, but I guess that that it was, some ways it sounds like they.

Unknown: Might have been more mix between them and the whites. There is now. I don't know, but,

Sam Schrager: The younger people, it's, and things are different maybe than they used to be. well, I don't know my idea about.

Edward Kent: Indians when I was younger. If they like you, they were your friend. Then you better stay away from the police. They were no half way business. But if they like you, I like to. You know, they didn't. They didn't want you to mess around on. that's the idea I have the Indians. The early 19.

Sam Schrager: Did you guys go to school up here? You didn't go down each one right around here, right? What was the school?

It was. It didn't have a name.

Unknown: Yeah.

That's all I ever had. It was.

Edward Kent: I got a plan that wasn't very much.

Unknown: Got.

Let's see.

Edward Kent: You're a peg, peg.

Andrew Cox: Yeah. They did. They, finish and they. Yeah, they both graduated.

Edward Kent: They did. They.

Sam Schrager: Were then you started to work and did have, any grades. Did you go to school? They have eight.

Edward Kent: Yeah.

Unknown: If you go that far. You went for that? Yeah.

Of.

Sam Schrager: I don't think it's any different than the old timers.

Unknown: And, those.

Sam Schrager: Low school didn't.

Unknown: Go that far. They.

well, it was much of.

Edward Kent: They just had a.

Andrew Cox: Four month school or.

Sam Schrager: If your school.

Unknown: Was me and my.

Andrew Cox: That building were for events that are live, I believe.

Sam Schrager: Right. Spokane.

Andrew Cox: Yeah. Yeah. That they made that over out of it. but that it was.

Unknown: Rough there you are in the old school out here.

So I never went to get what they wanted in. Yeah, I felt that every they.

Edward Kent: Had other one. When I first year I went up there set up there at the corner.

Andrew Cox: Oh the one I went and got away from. Yeah.

Unknown: Oh I want to go up there with.

Andrew Cox: Going 40, 50. Well, the first.

Edward Kent: Time I went to school up there was 52 kids. Oh that.

Andrew Cox: That one teacher.

Edward Kent: And I went to school a little bit. Massachusetts. Pretty strict. Yeah. And the first day I went up here, I had a hard time finding a seat from the whole scale to. So she took me and she sat me down to follow the name. I had two hours hell, either to grow a man and we just the school all nicely got seven right?

He had a dam on Hancock that went off and just scared the hell he never forget it.

Andrew Cox: The teacher could never.

Edward Kent: That's always half of the problem.

Back row school Massachusetts question.

Unknown: But you got a yeah.

Yes, I got.

Sam Schrager: Like, when you were like, prohibition.

Unknown: Hit around here. And so it was like, this was like a.

Sam Schrager: Pretty hot time.

Was there much moonshine around here?

Edward Kent: Oh, you could get a drink now and then. Yeah, I guess. Well, whiskey wasn't too scarce.

Unknown: it started flowing in here.

Sam Schrager: When it had been legal.

Andrew Cox: I can't remember like before.

Edward Kent: Yeah, I remember when they got that, you know, I in the time I was 13 years old, I would never refuse to drink in a bar.

But the first drink I drink, a beer I ever had. I don't think I was 14. Yeah, but it can drink. I went in there with Frank Rocky and Joe, the brother. I was about the same age, and he took us in. Any bottles of beer. And the fellow used to live up here. The name of cap. Cap Carlson was tending bar.

And, he looked for me, and he says, you think he is old enough to have a beer, Frank? Oh, yeah. He said one beer. One or. He looked to me a little bit. Yeah. He said, I guess he'd be a man yet for his mother.

Unknown: He'd give me the beer.

Sam Schrager: That was Frank Rocky's father. Yeah.

Edward Kent: Oh, Frank. Rocky? Yeah. Did you try that? Frank?

Unknown: Yeah. He wasn't real well. Knew it.

Edward Kent: Oh, yeah. Joe was older, and.

Andrew Cox: I was sorry.

Edward Kent: Yeah, yeah, I was, I was in between Joe and Charlie.

Andrew Cox: Then you got to get that over pretty practically. Yeah. God, I heard the band of Allen or not around here. Dave and Pappy trying to pull that thing back out of the crate.

Edward Kent: Before.

Andrew Cox: That, we had that little red vacuum.

Sam Schrager: That Frank's father died in that week in the flu.

Andrew Cox: Yeah, I.

Would own the place they lived in.

For the boys, we were frying. Really? For boys. And one girl in the family.

Edward Kent: Three. Three girls.

Andrew Cox: Carrie. Frank. Boy. Oh, yeah. Frank. That.

Edward Kent: Yeah.

Andrew Cox: Are you over there a lot?

Edward Kent: When I was a kid.

Unknown: I used to always like to go over there. Oh, Nick. Yeah, that would.

Andrew Cox: Be Frank. Frank back if you want to. And be a grand man here, Rocky. And when they used to have that Kendrick down the paternal temple, he was always.

Unknown: The guy who put up the.

Knife. He was pretty permanent.

Andrew Cox: Type of guy, I tell you. Every time that fraternal temple had anything doing in it, he had to be there.

Unknown: And I'm here with Tony.

Andrew Cox: We're never.

Unknown: Well, that's about all.

Andrew Cox: You know, I we didn't go to for real, right? To begin to get cars.

Unknown: So this is,

Andrew Cox: Mostly people from Italy.

Sam Schrager: Just from, you can't recommend people money drowned and we're good.

Unknown: Get.

Thank you. Good.

Andrew Cox: And the Detroit people there.

Unknown: A little better for the good. You know.

Andrew Cox: Randall flatted up there out.

Unknown: Of Troy. Yeah, he was a pretty good dancer. That.

Edward Kent: Yeah. You remember when we had the civilian Elmer?

Sam Schrager: Yeah, I heard all about that place.

Edward Kent: Oh, quite a place here.

Andrew Cox: Yeah, that was during prohibition. Yeah. I remember going out there on a very dry.

Edward Kent: And old Pat Malone from help or Bovill.

Sam Schrager: You remember him well? Yes.

I've heard he was quite a character.

Edward Kent: He was. He was quite a character.

Sam Schrager: He used to come down there to Helmer, to dinner.

Edward Kent: Yeah. Yeah. You you went up there.

Andrew Cox: put it up for him in the church for about 30 or.

A little party was always around there.

Edward Kent: And everybody liked him, you know. Yeah.

Andrew Cox: Long after they had.

Edward Kent: Kept order in pretty good shape.

Andrew Cox: Cars had got pretty plentiful. And now maybe people are they. People came from work.

Edward Kent: You know what brought that up? That helmer. Very. What about CC camper then? Over there between help Kevin Bovill 300 of them guys out there, and they came over there and I guess they just. Couldn't keep order at all.

Unknown: Well,

Sam Schrager: I heard it, Pat. Oh, really? Didn't didn't do much. You know, he's was, I heard he was kind of there more just for to have somebody there then.

Andrew Cox: Well, I think if anything, need money to go down the line too bad or anything. I think that I could have taken care of it.

Edward Kent: Yeah, yeah, but I don't. And he didn't.

Andrew Cox: But, if he knew somebody had a drink out and a bottle in the brush or something, he wasn't going to run out and arrest him for that.

Sam Schrager: And then he'd be more likely to go out and share a little bit of.

Andrew Cox: What I've heard. I never drank with him, but.

Edward Kent: I couldn't say that.

I don't have a drink with him.

Sam Schrager: But then I heard that Summerfield was really, coming out. There was really kind of on the trail of,

Edward Kent: Well, he was more after the guy in the that I think.

Andrew Cox: Yeah. If they could find some kid that had a bottle that drunk or something, they might take him and try to bulldoze in and tell them.

Edward Kent: Where where he. Oh.

Andrew Cox: Yeah. Quite a bit of on the in.

Edward Kent: But they had a pretty hard road to try to hold it.

Andrew Cox: Driving fort. Yeah, sure.

I mean drunk sheriff and laid all county during probation.

Sam Schrager: Whose uncle?

Andrew Cox: My wife. Oh, John. Woody, I don't know where he it. If they had to Summerfield some fatal was going to be deputy. Yeah. And, there's a guy down here in Kentucky. My God, he had a kid. He lived out there right at the foot of the Water Gulch before he got there. And hell, he was making moonshine all the time.

They used to have a doctor where he had the jug around me. John on the street going get blocked by the train up here. Pretty wild. But they always pretty sure they never found anything beyond only one. Hell, if we'd arrested him and took him to Mars and put him in jail, we'd had the fed. The family. Yeah, the rebel do all.

He was dead. That could have been me.

Edward Kent: Yeah, pretty close to it. By golly.

Andrew Cox: I know you. We've had pretty crazy stuff to drink. I don't think any of.

You made it out of food. It was brand new.

Edward Kent: Well, he's dead bootleg down there before when they. When the liquor was legal. And then they had a little, I call it Applejack made it out of apples.

You could get a gallon jug of it for $0.35 and a better drink. And I'll bet you the average grain of whiskey you get, though. Because he didn't put it, he just distilled it.

Andrew Cox: Like that and let it get.

Edward Kent: Hardened and run it off.

Sam Schrager: And $0.05 a gallon sounds like a price. You couldn't be, $0.35 a gallon. Sounds like it.

Edward Kent: Well, I got yes. And LeBron, man. Goodbye. And I know there's no for one harvest work. Ralph ate it over and like, shreds there he stack straw. That's before they had a when blower all fresh machines. Yeah. We go up there every every Sunday. That was his trip to go up there to Canada and get a gallon jug of that applejack.

He kept sitting right where he drank in the straw, away from the carrier. He didn't drink any water, very little. Anyway, when he got get tired, I guess he took a shot of that. Applejack took about a gallon last in a week.

Sam Schrager: Kind of hard. Can you see how how they could have ever passed the a law, you know, making drinking, illegal. I guess we were back on, and it seems crazy, but, you know, maybe then it made sense. Maybe some people thought they. People really thought they could stop.

Andrew Cox: It, but I that.

Edward Kent: Well, it's just another. I make these guys pay taxes now, that's another way. They had a raising taxes.

That's kicking up a dust anyway.

Andrew Cox: Yeah.

Unknown: They're going to pay for that water.

Edward Kent: Well, another thing is used to be different in this country. They used to be a fence around about every two acres. Anyway. Now you don't. If you find a fence in the country that used to be a quite spring. Jumped around all the fences.

Sam Schrager: What's the, They're just because there were so many little places that everybody had it.

Edward Kent: Well, yeah, I'm. I had, I don't know.

Andrew Cox: If you had all your horses yet. You after I, you know, I and talk about field. Yeah.

Sam Schrager: And all this, I was in most of this place ever, ever have timber on it?

Andrew Cox: No, they weren't timber down at that point. I can't say back on the North Slope ever. But I don't think they they're all. They might have been a scattered pine tree out in here or something.

Sam Schrager: So it was pretty much prairie. All right over here.

Andrew Cox: I can never remember. It came out that way.

Edward Kent: Oh, not this side of mine's.

Andrew Cox: In the draw.

Edward Kent: Yeah. After you get up to Frank, me a place up there with the drawings down in there. It has timber.

Sam Schrager: That that mean that, you got pretty good crops on this land from the very beginning. The first farm, you know, I think.

Edward Kent: Oh, I think so. I think they used to raise quite a lot of, flax, didn't it? Didn't I don't know. Well, that's what I've been told to. That's for my time. About the the flower boy. I understand they broke this. Shut up the same way out around Moscow, I've heard. Well, Ted, talk about it more than anybody.

And he was there when? Not at all. A bunch of cash. And they'd plow it up and let it lay. Plowed up like this this spring. And they that it lay over and then work it up so it the flax did about the first crop they'd have on this box and they, they cut that with a header and a place to elevate it in the header box, or they just ran it out and one rose on the ground and they go around picking up in a stack of a scout machine.

Sam Schrager: What do you think your folks were getting when they were, when they were farming here in the, you know, in the early 1900s on the acre and mules.

Andrew Cox: Well, not far back and right. And remember lines. Are you from 30 to 50 bushel wheat? Barley.

Edward Kent: Barley. And I remember if you had a ton, you had a pretty good crop. Yeah. Some you cut in half, but, Yeah. No. 2200, 2300. But it figured a good crop that's. I remember.

Sam Schrager: You think they could get ahead a little bit more every year? That kind of, you know, that kind of deal with that. They made a little change.

Andrew Cox: But we didn't. They wasn't using commercial fertilizers or anything. Then you get out of your ground and they did it. You didn't have to work around there with them.

You didn't have the wheat to the right.

Edward Kent: Well, I bet you farmers we started talking in the house. I might have found a softer chair. And that's why I didn't get the hard.

Andrew Cox: I think.

Sam Schrager: Maybe I should get going with that.