Last Updated on March 6, 2022 8:10 pm by Steven
George Andrew Loosle Notebook 1
Writings by George Andrew Loosle Notebook 1- Appr. 1924 (Age- 66 years)
GEORGE ANDREW LOOSLE’S writings were written in English with some German words. it was written phonetically. He would write the words as they sounded to him, but not necessarily the way English is usually pronounced. He was two when the family left Bern Switzerland. The Loosle family lived in Providence from 1863 to 1867. Church services in Providence were in Swiss German and in English. His parents spoke in Swiss-German and were learning English. Their son, George, undoubtedly was taught to speak in Swiss German and in English. George had very little school schooling, except in some winter months. He bought the school books for his youngest sister, Rosetta, and learned to read by helping her in elementary grades.
George wrote in two journals. This is the first of the two journals he kept written in 1924. It has been transcribed by Darrell K. Loosle, Grandson of George Andrew Loosle and Anna Dahle Loosle. The following is his writings:
History Of George Andrew Loosle In His Own Words.
These writings were written by George Andrew Loosle in 1924 at the age of 66. The writings were transcribed into paragraphs and headings were included. Most spelling errors were corrected but some grammar not corrected. Written in first person
First memories
I don’t know how old I was when I can remember. I think that I remember something when I was 4 years old. I think I remember that I was on a bank of a river and I saw a one-horse cart in the middle of a river. The horse was standing still and there was two young women sitting on the cart. There were some other people on the shore on the side that I was. They were excited and talking loud. Soon the horse started and came up on the other bank and there was no one on the cart and it ran and left. I can’t remember what river, but I think that it was the Ogden River.
Schooling
I can remember that I went to school in Providence. I remember that I went to school in Clarkston by where Leo Jardine’s garage now stands, and then in a one room log school house where John Buttars house now stands. A few years after there was a rock house built with two rooms in it. I thought that it was a pretty good school house, but I did not go there to school. Three or four of my sisters when to school there. The school was turned into a barn quite a few years ago.
(Note: George had very little schooling, except in some winter months. He bought the school books for his youngest sister, Rosetta, and learned to read by helping her in elementary grades.)
A pioneer
I have been a pioneer of Providence, Ogden, and Clarkston. I was also an early pioneer of Newton. I was there when the town was laid out in early spring or in February. I worked there (Newton) all spring and summer. Father was there when the town was laid out. I rode a ginez mule down there at the time.
Working on the railroad
I worked on the railroad in Battle Creek, Idaho. Father was the main worker. He was a mason or rock builder. Three or four times horses fell down with me while they was running as fast as they could run, and many time I got thrown off.
I worked on the railroad in Wyoming. I also worked on the railroad in Portneuf canyon on three different jobs, one was a half time job. It was tough meadow sand, and I put mud on the grade. That was hard on the horses.
Working to build the Logan Temple
I was in Logan canyon hauling wood for the lime kiln to burn lime for the Temple. I and other men would haul the logs to the bank of the Logan River. Then some men would cut them up and throw them in the river. I hauled rock for the lime kiln for one month. We would load the wagons and then unload them into the lime kiln. One or two men would help us to load up most of the time.
There were as many as 18 or 20 men working there. Most were Swedes and Danish men. Those men would quarry the rock and break them in small pieces. Two of us would lift them or one could lift them.
I hauled some lumber to the lumber yards. We could get paid half in store goods and half in money. That was when the temple building was going on.
Injuries
I laid under a hay rack by a young man for some time while there was a shower of rain. There was a hard clap of thunder and the wagon passed over my legs. My ankle and foot got broke on my right leg. I jumped up on my feet and then I could not think, or say what was the matter was with my foot. The horses ran with the wagon. The team was an old one and deaf, I thought.
I used to milk cows. One day I cut my thumb on my hand and then had to milk with a straight thumb. I learned to milk with my thumb doubled. That is an old country style to milk with the thumb doubled.
Once up in the canyon I cut a willow with an ax and then I was going to trim the willow with the ax. I cut me just a little above the knee and every time I would step the leg would bleed. An older man there told me to get some pine gum to put on my leg and that would stop the bleeding.
When I worked Uncle John and I was up in the canyon. We got on a side hill that was frozen. He slipped and fell and went clear to the bottom of the hill. He had frost on his feet and could not help himself. I was afraid that he would hurt his self when he got up where I was. He wanted me to slide down there too, but I didn’t because I was afraid to.
Employment and other experiences
I was on the railroad to solid rock noles east north east of Market Lake. Father was with and so was Yohan Loosli. They went home and I and my sister Lizey stayed on the railroad till snow came.
We got a job at Hole Rock in Beaver Canyon at Pine Butte station. The line of Montana and Idaho was about the middle of our job.
We got another job about 40 or 50 miles north of the Idaho line. It snowed while there.
My father worked with the shovel on the narrow gage railroad. He and a few or half dozen men from Clarkston camped at Mendon road on the train.
I hauled the men over to Mendon and stayed overnight. They was repairing the road.
Yohan Loosli worked some one summer as a section hand in Portneuf Canyon. He worked one fall on a Church farm picking hay.
Sickness
I can remember when the sickness came in Cache Valley. The grip, that was about 1883, I think, was in Providence and Smithfield and Clarkston. I found out the grip was mostly among the older people.
I can remember that a woman prophesied about the destruction of the wicked. I laughed when I saw that in the Deseret News.
The first one sick was my mother. I was sick. Father was quite dangerously ill. Sister Mary and Sister Anna was not very sick. Sister Sarah was sick the longest. I was sick one day and one night. I kept on walking then laying down, getting up and walking. I was 24 years at that time. I thought that I was too sick to lay in bed so I kept on walking. Then about dark I was sitting down on a chair in the middle of the room. My breath left me just as far as it could. I think I jumped and grabbed the door knob and ran out of the house. About when I got out I threw up and then I started to breath all right and quit throwing up.
I was lively at that time always on the go.
The flu was quite a thing or sickness. I heard that in town there was about 500 people got down at once. The sickness was also among the children.
Farming
I and Yohan were binding wheat behind a dropper harvester. Father ran the machine and we cut other peoples grain.
I can remember that I and another man followed behind father with a cradle rocking and binding the wheat. I remember that mans name was John Kevile and a man by the name of Leo Wicker and another man by the name of Gottlieb followed father with the cradle.
Father used the cradle for two years. After we or father got a machine that we called a dropper. It put the wheat in piles. Father ran the machine.
We thought that we could not plant too much wheat because of the time to rake the piles a little, and then make a band out of a good handful of wheat and put the bands around the pile.
Father ran a dropper machine for 5 or 6 years. We had 5 to 7 men binding behind the machine made it just right. I think sometimes our men would get slivers in their fingers.
Some after that, about 6 years we get a self binder that bound the wheat in bundles. We could go and stack it up but that machine did not last long.
We and Archibalds got a header together. With the header we would cut 10 acres a day through the header. With the dropper we cut 7 to ll acres of wheat a day. A header is the best machine now or for a long time.
My boys or us and Ken Thompson and Wendell Thompson got a combine harvester together. We got the harvester out to the Newton Ranch in our barn or machine shed. We got our grain cut first because it is ripe the first, all but a few acres. One of the boys run it last year, Norm ran it the year before and the year before that John ran it. Last year John was off to Southern Utah. Last year George worked on a header. We had 20 acres cut with a header so we would have chaff and straw and one stack of straw to feed our horses on in the winter.
The year of 1924 was a very dry year with a little shower in April, and another shower in September. We sowed lucerne seed in the spring and it did not come up, only a little of it. Seymour Thompson got his grain drill out to the ranch by April 20th. There is no sign on rain today, the 27th of April. It is dry and cold at night. The people raised middlin good crop. The price of wheat is $1.10 to $1.15 bushel. It was a very hot summer until the 13th of September.
Ward Teaching companions (Written in 1925)
I first went teaching with Alma Jensen in 1895, I think, and then for quite a while I stopped. I went out on hard scrabble. That’s a good wheat ranch. There is or been good wheat raised there. That is east of Clarkston town or northeast. I would hook up my team and sleigh from the ranch and then drive out to Alma Jensen’s ranch. Then we would come with me to Qualme Place and them to Predle George’s place and then to Roase Dales place and then to Lakes place and then Garrett Dahle’s place, and then drive back to Alma Jensens place. I think I went there one winter. That is all I can remember.
I went with Izera Thompson a few times to Steane Thompsons place and to James Hansens place up around that part of town.
I went teaching with Joseph H. Myler one year (1920) around Thomas Griffin Sr.’s block.
I went teaching with Charles Shumway 2 years. We went to James Thompsons on the block where Joseph H. Myler lives. (1921, 1922)
I went teaching with William H. Clark for 2 years (1923, 1924) around by Charles Shumways block to Joseph H. Dahles place, to Samuel Thompsons place, to Frank Godfrey’s place and Ida Griffin’s place where Leoha Jardine stayed or rented, and then around Thomas Godfrey’s block. We also went to Johnny Godfrey’s place. I don’t remember where we started. I believe we went to the Andrew place, and Henry Godfrey’s place and Morris Godfrey’s place at that time.
I started teaching with Alferd A. Atkinson, February 12, 1925, and went to Edward Godfrey’s place and to Andrew Griffiths place and to Morris Godfreys place and to John E. Godfreys place. We went at night and got home at 11:30 p. m. I went alone when he should be with me.
Asked to pray
I can remember when the boss of our camp asked me if I would pray. I and him was out on the railroad grade just then. I told him yes. I asked him when he wanted me to pray. He told me at the camp at night or morning and take my turn. If he had asked me just then no doubt I would have prayed then on the grade. There was 2 young men older than I was then. They never prayed or asked the blessing on the food. The boss did not ask them to pray. Bishop Jardine told the boss to have prayers night and morning.
Paying tithing
On October, 1885, my father, John Kasper Loosle, left home to go on a mission to Switzerland, Europe. He had to furnish all the money. Bishop Jardine said that he was well enough off to pay his way to the mission. But I noticed that we sold 5 acres of hay land to Newton which was flooded by Newton Reservoir.
Father was jailed several times while he was on his mission and he needed to hire lawyers to plead his case.
While father was on his mission I tried to pay a full tithing. I hooked up 2 teams of horses on an old bob sled to take a big load of grain to Logan. When I got to the Logan bottoms my bob sled broke through the snow and sank and I had to unload my wheat and then pull the sleigh out of the track and then load up again. I done that two or three times and then I saw that the sun was going down and there I was down in Logan bottoms. It was clear and cold and snow was a foot and a half deep. So I unhooked my horses and tied them by a fence. There was a hay stack and I gave my horses hay and I had a lunch with me.
I thought that it was too cold to sleep by the haystack so I started out for a log house that I saw about a mile and a half away or two miles away. I had leather boots, not lined, no rubber boots, or no socks tied on my boots, or overshoes. Before I got to that house my feet were cold and numb. When I got to the house my boots was frozen. I had to warm my boots before I could pull them off. I pulled my boots off my stockings. I thought that my feet was frozen, but they were not. Those people had only a one-room log house with six or eight small children. I ate supper with them and they said that they could give me a quilt and I could lay behind the stove. I think that I was foolish for not doing that. I think that I was foolish for not taken my quilts with me that I had on my load of wheat. But I asked, I think I did, or maybe they offered me a couple of gunney sacks to wrap up my feet and so I wrapped my feet with those two gunney sacks.
I started toward my load of wheat where my horses were tied to the fence. So I got my quilts and I went to their haystack and spread my quilts on the hay stacks where the haystack was cut. Then I rolled myself up on the quilts and tucked my feet or I laid some hay around me, but my feet soon got cold and I kept my toes moving until I went to sleep. When I woke up the sun was just coming up. I sure did not like to leave that house to go a mile and one half away to sleep on a hay stack. I had only a crust of bread to eat that morning. Then I soon hooked up my horses and was on the road for Logan. The sleigh road when across the Logan bottoms and there was a great many ditches or at least I pulled my sleigh tongue out a good many times and then I had to unhitch my horses and put in the sleigh tongue. Then I would start again but in a few minutes out it would come again and then that would stop me again.
When I got to Logan it was sometime in the afternoon, I think, by the time I got my wheat weighed and dumped in the bin and my horses watered and fed. I got my dinner or supper, I don’t remember where I got something to eat or when. I remember that I thought it was too late to go home, so I stayed there all night. I slept in the barn on the hay. I woke up when someone walked past my bed. There was a lot of stock there in the tithing corral and I think one of the hired hands picked up one of my boots and hid it. When I wanted my boots to put them on there was one of my boots missing. I walked around there with gunney sacks wrapped around my feet. I wanted to feed my horses and was ready to go for home, but I did not have my boot yet.
There was one man who kept saying that it is a funny thing that I lost one of my boots. There was a young man there that was doing chores. I am sure that young many hid my boot. I always thought that but said nothing. I think that if I had said something that young man would have brought my boot to me. He said he found it right where I slept, but I could not find my boot when I looked for it and for a good long time. I kicked all the hay around there.
I think now that it was foolish for me to take that load of wheat to Logan for tithing when father was on a mission and I might got my feet frozen and been laid up all winter, and then I think that we needed the wheat ourselves.
I remember that I gave as much as $60.00 tithing. I paid three different times donating to the Logan Tabernacle.
So I was three days going to Logan with that load of tithing wheat and I just think what sacrifice people will do for the Church and must do if he does his duty and he should. I don’t think I could be that good now.
Talked to Brigham Young and attended Martin Harris’s funeral
I went to the old-time party or picnic on February 20, 1923. I came just in time for the last table and was the last one that sit up to the lunch. John Ravsten was the first speaker. He asked some questions. The first question I did not stand up. All the rest I stood and said yes.
The first Bishop I knew, he baptized me. I was close to 10 years old and Bishop Rigby I knew.
I was to Martin Harris’ funeral. He is one of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon. And when I saw him he was not so very gray.
I saw Brigham Young and spoke to him.
I crossed the plains with an ox team before the railroad came to the country.
That is all the Bishop asked the first time
Member of Clarkston Ward Prayer Circle
George Andrew Loosle was a member of the Clarkston Ward Prayer Circle. Minutes of the Clarkston Ward indicate that he was a member sometime between 1902 and 1925.
A summary of the Clarkston Ward Prayer Circle is included in the “History of Clarkston, 1864 to 1964 by Ben J. and Eunice P. Ravsten. A brief summary of the Prayer Circle is as follows:
“It was a common practice for the brethren in the early history of the church to pray not only individually, but in groups. This was done in the temples they built, in the churches, homes, on the prairie, or under the star-lit sky.
The brethren were advised by their leaders to form prayer circle groups. These were to be presided over and directed by the bishop and his counselors. Meetings of the group were to be held regularly. A prayer circle was organized in the Clarkston Ward, June 23, 1901. John Jardine was Bishop at that time. Permission for the organization came from the First Presidency of the Church through the President of the Logan Temple. Samuel Roskelley was sent from the Temple to affect the organization.
The prayer circle continued for many years from its inception of June 23, 1901. Other circles in the valley and elsewhere in the church were also organized. Most of them discontinued and were not permitted to reorganize. Inasmuch as the Clarkston Circle continued to function through the years, it was granted the privilege to continue. A letter to the Clarkston Ward Bishopric, dated April 3, 1950, and over the signature of LeGrand Richards, Presiding Bishop of the Church at that time, reads in part as follows: “Your letter was handed to the First Presidency and the matter was considered by them and were advised that they approve of your continuing to hold these prayer circles
As of 1964, eighty-seven Melchizedek Priesthood bearers have belonged to the Circle. Many testimonies have been borne acknowledging special blessings received through the power of prayer.”
Early in the settlement of Clarkston prayer circles were held in homes. At a later time they were all held in a specially designated room on the third floor of the chapel.
The Clarkston Ward Prayer Circle was one on the last ones to continue and has since been discontinued.
Written January 23, 1923
At a quarter to three when I sent to see how Grandmas fire was. I didn’t think there was anything the matter with Grandma. When I got in the house I saw Grandma laying on the floor on her right side. She had her eyes about half open. I spoke to her but she did not speak. I lifted her on the bed. I then rubbed her hands and laid a warm iron to her feet. We then sent word to Anna Buttars. She phoned Mayme Heggie. We sent for Walter Thompson. I and Walter Thompson laid hands on her head. I have faith that she would turn conscious today or the next day. But she did not turn conscious. She died at 25 minutes to 11 on the 15th of January 1923. When she passed away there was Mayme Heggie, Anne Buttars, Rose Buttars, Wendell Thompson, Golden Buttars, Byron Loosle, Tommy Buttars and Pearl Buttars and all were standing around her bed and saw her last breath.
The first night after her passing. I stayed up until 4 a.m. and the other nights till ten or eleven. Also, on the first night my sisters Lizzy and Mayme stayed up all night. The next night my sisters Anna and Rose stayed up all night.
After a person passed away, and the body was prepared, the coffin would be placed in the persons’ home. It was traditional that usually two persons would stay up all night with the body and casket. On the day of the funeral services the coffin would then be taken to the Chapel for the funeral services
(End of writings by George A. Loosle included in Notebook I.)
Darrell K. Loosle xxxxxx@xxxxx.com
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