I can truthfully say that the piano has changed over time from being my enemy to being my friend. It has been a long process and it did not occur without a lot of tears and frustration, but it has occurred. This may bring some hope to members of my family who embark on the quest to see this same thing happen to their children.

I began piano lessons when I was quite young. I don’t remember exactly how old I was when I started but lets just say it was “in my gentle youth” and well before I got anywhere close to being 12 years old. I would guess it was closer to when I was 6 years old or so. I guess I had to know how to read to play the piano or I would have started even earlier. I believe my first piano teacher must have been Terry. He was assisted by Mom who was the one who made sure I practiced my piano each day for at least a half hour. At first it was great fun. I think that probably lasted for a week of so. After that, it was pure “compulsion over the heart and life of one young boy”. My Mom was very diligent. She had already been through the same process three times before I started to learn. I didn’t realize it at the time but I was lost before I got started. Mom didn’t give up and she wouldn’t let me give up.

I became the proud owner of John Schaum piano book number one, followed by number 2, then number 3 and so on. I can’t remember just how far I got. I had lots of different teachers. Mom would arrange with anyone she thought could teach me and I would continue to progress, no matter how slowly. Some of the teachers were motivating and some were not. It didn’t matter. I got to practice almost every day on the piano.

When I was almost 12 years old, Mom decided that Aunt Vera would be my piano teacher. That was a serious problem for me because Aunt Vera was one of Mom’s best friends and I knew that if I didn’t progress as expected, Mom would hear about it. Dutifully I marched across the street for my piano lesson.

Aunt Vera took a different approach. She asked me if I would play the piano for Priesthood Meeting when I turned 12 and received the priesthood. At that time she was the ward organist. I told her I didn’t know how to play the hymns and she said we could remedy that situation. Instead of opening the John Schaum book, she opened the hymn book. She knew all the hymns and she selected one for me to practice. It was “God Speed the Right”. I could play most of it with one finger on each hand that played similar notes an octive apart. I could play half of the song  within a day or two. It took a little longer to learn the second half because it too playing chords with both hands but I finally got it right. I got to where I could almost play it in my sleep. Once I had it down pretty well, she picked another hymn. I think it was “Do What is Right”. It took a while to learn that one but I finally learned it too. The Priesthood was glad because they were getting tired of singing “God Speed the Right” every Sunday morning. With two songs we could alternate.

After that I kind of took off. I eventually learned a lot of the hymns and branched out into some more popular songs as well. I began to enjoy playing the piano because it was songs I could “sing-a-long” with and I liked to do that.

Mom used to say that all she wanted to do was to “get me over the hump where I enjoyed playing” and I guess she finally accomplished that. To keep me interested, Aunt Vera also gave me a few basic organ lessons on the church organ. I never thought it would happen but today I am the “prelude organist” for the Plainview Branch. I guess I am the only one who knows anything about how to play an organ so I got the job. I’m glad Mom persevered and I’m glad I finally “ got over the hump”.

I learned to read quite well when I was in elementary school and I enjoyed reading books. The Heber School had some books we could check out to read and we had reading time in school but that was about the only opportunity we had to visit anything like a library.

At that time in Arizona, there was a “Bookmobile” that was like a bus filled with shelves full of books and it would visit the small towns like Heber about every month or so for a few hours. People could get in the Bookmobile and look through the books and check them out to read and to be returned the next time the Bookmobile came to town. We took advantage of that when we could.

I am not quite sure how it came about but Mom decided that we needed to have access to reference books like encyclopedia’s and dictionaries and atlases so she visited with the Bookmobile person who explained that the Bookmobile could provide the books if there was a library in the town. Mom decided that our house would become the public library for Heber-Overgaard or at least one bookcase in our house would become the library. It meant that people could come at any time to look through the book case and select books. We became the librarians and checked out the books to people. Each month or so when the Bookmobile came to town, we could exchange most of the books in our bookcase for a completely new set of books except for the reference books which stayed in the bookcase. If we wanted books more often we could box up some books and send them to Phoenix and they would send back a box of books they had selected. Some of them weren’t too good so Mom preferred to pick the books herself from the ones on the Bookmobile.

Our bookcase got filled every month with fresh books and we had new books to read. Many of the people in Heber and Overgaard took advantage of the library and checked out books to read from our library. We often came home to find people looking through the bookcase in the corner of the dining room for something to read.

True to their word, the Bookmobile provided a set of Encyclopedia’s and other reference books which we used a lot over the years. I mention in another section that Charlie Reidhead loved to come and sit and read the encyclopedia’s. He also enjoyed the other books.

I can’t remember just how long our house served as the library. It was several years. Finally Mom decided to end the agreement and the Bookmobile picked up all the books except for the encyclopedia’s. I think they thought they were too old to be useful to anyone else so they left them with us. It was probably after I left for college that the “Heber Library” closed.

A few years later someone fixed up the house across from the store to be the “New Heber Library”. I don’t know if they put the word “New” on it but those of us who lived in town in the “good old days” knew that the “Original” library was in the rock house on main street.

I read a lot of books in those years that the library was in our house. My Mom was pretty sly and by having the library in our home she encouraged us to read. We all learned to read well and we learned to read for entertainment. Dad read to us aloud a lot and some of the books he read were from the Bookmobile. In addition we provided some service to the community. I guess it was a good deal all around. I don’t know whether the Bookmobile even exists today but I would not be surprised to see it driving down the road or parked in the center of some small Arizona town.

Some of the fun and interesting experiences of my life are ones  that my children and grandchildren will likely never have. They  involved the butchering of various animals for food  for our family.

A common practice when I was growing up was for families to raise animals for slaughtering each year. Almost every family raised a beef, a pig or chickens for food. Many of the men also hunted deer or elk or wild turkey each year to supplement the family food supply. Our family was no different from other families in Heber. We raised a pig and had chickens as well. Dad was never a hunter but Ted did kill a deer a couple of times as I recall.

Each year we also killed a beef. Dad had made an agreement with Uncle Laurald for a beef each year. Our milk cows were always bred to a beef bull. The resulting calves were half dairy cow and half beef cow. Uncle Laurald would take our yearling calf each year and put it with his other calves on the range. He especially liked it if the calf was a heifer because it would grow up to be a cow that gave more milk and raised larger and heavier calves for sale than his other range cows. In exchange for our yearling calf, he would provide Dad with a yearling steer that we would butcher for meat.

 Butchering took place in the fall of the year when the weather was cold. We had a place in our garage where the slaughtered beef carcass could be hung for skinning and gutting. The animal was shot between the eyes with a rifle to kill it. After shooting it, the animals throat was cut so that  all the blood could drain out when the animal was hung up. The animal was then  hung upside down (head down) and it was skinned and the guts taken out. Usually a large wash tub was placed right under the head on the floor and as the guts were removed, they fell into the tub. Only the heart and liver were saved from the enthrails. After the slaughter, the carcass was allowed to hang in the cold garage for a few days. The skin and the carcass had to be inspected by the sheriff or one of his deputies to be sure the animal was not “rustled”. If the brand on the hide was OK (matched the bill of sale) and the carcass was OK(free of disease or parasites) , the sheriff would stamp both the skin and the carcass in several places with a stamp using indelible purple  ink. Once that was done, the carcass could be cut up and packaged for freezing or family  use.

First the carcass was cut in half. We had a meat saw and Dad would use the saw to cut right down the middle of the spine to make two equal halves. This made it easier to handle them when processing the meat.  Each half weighed about 100 lbs or more. Theses halves were then usually cut into a front quarter and a hind quarter and those were the pieces we took into the kitchen for further cutting up. In the kitchen the quarters were cut into steaks or roasts, wrapped in freezer paper and put in the deep freeze for later use. Some of the meat was ground up to make ground beef or hamburger and packaged and frozen. By the time we had a full beef in the deep freeze, it was pretty full. Often meat was shared with friends or relatives. The frozen beef was expected to last the family for a full year or until another beef could be slaughtered. One beef alone was not enough for a year so most families also had a pig.

Most families in town raised at least one pig each year. The piglets were purchases when they were very small (about 1 ft tall) for about $10 each. Dad seemed to know who had piglets for sale and we always got one. Most of them were probably Durock or a similar breed and most were red or brown in color. Later we had a few that were white.

Slaughtering a pig was very different from slaughtering a beef. Before killing the pig, a special form was constructed. It consisted of a slanted ramp about 3 ft. wide. At the high end of the ramp was a barrel full of hot water. The water was heated by putting the barrel about half full of water over a fire until the water was boiling hot. Once the water was hot, the pig was lured close to the slaughter site by putting feed there and then it was shot and killed. It’s throat was cut to drain out the blood for a few minutes. Then the pig was lifted up on the ramp and slid into the barrel full of  boiling water then pulled back out onto the ramp. The water somehow released the hair and made it possible to scrape  the pigs hair from the skin. Several men worked together to scrape off the hair. Every so often they would dip the pigs carcass back into the hot water then pull it out and continue scrapping off the hair. Once the pigs body was completely bald (white color) , the pig was hung  upside down in the garage for gutting. Very few of the pig enthrails were ever saved as I recall. Once gutted, the pig was also allowed to hang in the cool garage. I think this was to cool the meat for easier processing.  I don’t think there was any requirement for inspection of pig carcasses, but I am not sure of that. Once the carcass was cool, it was cut in half like the beef. The difference was that it was possible for a man to handle a full half carcass. These were taken into the kitchen for cutting up. Most of the time our pigs had about 1-2 inches of fat just under the skin. This fat was removed and” rendered” or cooked  to get the grease for soap making (to be covered in another section) . The skins were made into “fried pig skins” that some people liked to eat. I wasn’t one of them. The meat was cut into pork chops, bacon, hams and roasts and some of it was made into sausage as well. Again it went into the freezer for future use.

Besides a beef and a pig, many families,  including ours,  also slaughtered chickens. At that time it was possible to order baby chicks through the Sears or Mongemery Ward catalogue and they came by U.S. Parcel Post. The chicks came in a box with lots of holes in it and with either 25 or 50 chicks per box.  I don’t remember exactly which. I do remember picking up the boxes of chicks at the post office. The chicks were put into “brooders” which were like cages that had light bulbs for heat.  They had  watering and feed troughs around the sides. I don’t remember exactly how many chicks we got each year but I would guess it was at least 50. A few would die but most would survive. Once they got feathers on them, they could be taken out of the “brooders” and put in the chicken coop. They were fed wheat or other grains and food scraps. Within a few months, they grew to be full sized chickens. The slaughtering of chickens usually fell to Mom and us kids or Mom and Grandma and us kids. To slaughter chickens, we would cut off their heads using an axe and let them hop around like “chickens with their heads cut off” and when they quit jumping around, the carcasses  were  dunked in boiling hot water which allowed us to pull out the feathers. This is called “plucking chickens” and we got to be pretty good at it. Once the chickens were “plucked” naked, they were taken into the house where Mom or Mom and Grandma would cut them open and pull the enthrails out. This was called “cleaning” the chickens.  Sometimes there were partially formed eggs inside the chickens and these were kept for making noodles. The chicken livers and gizzards were kept as well.  The “cleaned”  chickens were put in bags whole for freezing. It usually took several hours to slaughter all the chickens but it was an easier job that the butchering of the pigs or beef.

Mom and Dad were very thrifty. Whether by necessity or choice, they tried to be as self reliant as possible. Part of that was raising animals to provide food for the family. That is not possible in most places now but I remember well those times. The process may sound rather gory but it was very routine and  familiar to us at the time and we did not view it as being “gory”. Often neighbors helped neighbors when they were slaughtering an animal and we kids would stand around and watch. It was quite an adventure. Through the year that I was growing up, we didn’t go to the store much for meat. We went to the freezer instead. I don’t think we ate more meat than others but we did usually have some type of meat to eat at least once a day and it was very good meat.

 The butchering of animals by families  is something that is in the past for the most part. Now the slaughtering is done in very sanitized slaughter houses. I don’t think the meat tastes any better now  than it did when we did it ourselves. It’s an experience my family will probably never have. Maybe this description will be sufficient to give you some feel for the process. I hope it doesn’t result in my family becoming vegetarians overnight.