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My History
Ruel Bliss Triplett

The beginning of personal history from memory might be an indefinite and vague and mixed with what others have said, but some of the events of childhood are stamped indelibly on ones memory. So, it is with myself, as I shall tell some of my early memories, which are still vivid. Some of my early experiences remain and have been a factor in shaping my actions and character.

Mountains made an early impression on myself. We lived in a valley and on the east was the Sanpitch Mountains, really an extension of the Wasatch Mountains of central Utah. I used to gaze at these mountains and wonder about them. They weren't rugged or extremely high, but some peaks did stand out and how I longed to go to those high places. I never got to them, but I did subsequently fulfill my desire and went to other high places.

I remember a picnic up a canyon and my first taste of sardines. I thought they were a sensation. My aunt Tobitha had purchased a camera, probably one of the early small, box affairs, but she pronounced it, "Come here a", which was a little family item my Mother didn't let go unnoticed.

Fairview, where I was born, was once and at that time a rather bustling, little community. There was a sawmill and I believe two flourmills and some of the sheep men built brick houses. [In another place Ruel said," It also had two stores, a church, a post office, and a gristmill."] One of the grocery stores was called a cop-op, a hang over from the earlier church cooperative enterprises. Inside there were two long counters down each side, the merchandise on shelves behind and the clerk got down what you wanted. Out front were benches, and the men would play marbles, a game called "Perg", with little holes in the ground and the object was to shoot the marbles in the holes. There were no saloons or picture shows.

William Henry Harrison Triplett

My father was born in Unionville, Putnam County, Missouri, on April 22, 1863. He came west and was an LDS convert. My mother was born in Fairview, Utah of a Mormon family. They were married in 1894, my father being 31 and mother 20. My mother said it was stormy when they married and had been stormy ever since. (I remember some of their violent quarrels, and Zelda and I were frightened.) Although he joined the church, their ways were different.

My father attended a school in Fairview, Nebraska. By a miracle we still have some of his old school books. My father came to Fairview, Utah by way of employment on the railroad, which was being built from Salt Lake to Los Angeles. He was on the construction of the depots and bridges being a carpenter by trade. I remember him saying that Fairview appealed to him as a pleasant little town to settle down in. He said he was attracted to the town because it had a lumbering business and offered an opportunity for a builder. I remember of his telling of the fine lumber that came from the near mountains, a business and resource long gone. He had at least a year of college education in Nebraska. I believe he taught in school at least one year near Fairview and was a Justice of the Peace for a time or term. We have his huge, old dictionary. So a Triplett family preoccupation with books and learning is understandable.

My mother was of pioneer stock. I remember hearing the story told many times of how my grandmother as a little girl crossing the plains lost a needle and was frightened and hid behind a sage bush, and they had to search for her when they were ready to move, and she could have been lost.

So, my father was the new man in town. My father's and mother's romance began and apparently he had confidence in the success of his wooing because he purchased the original structure of the Blue House. But there was a snag. The young people around teased my mother about her suitor getting the cage before he got the bird, and she broke off the engagement. But they made up and he and mother married and moved into the Blue House.

My father built on to the original house, added an upstairs and painted it blue. Ever since it has been known as the Blue House.

It was here that we children were born. (Me--march 24, 1907). It is long since gone, being torn down and a highway going through where it was, but it figured long and large in my family history because that is where I and my brothers and sisters were born and where my parents spent their early marriage years.

Top: Ralah, Hortense
Bottom: Ruel, Zelda, Wendell

My earliest memory is of me before school age: a plump, round faced boy with my hair in ringlets. My parents and brothers and sister doted on me until I thought I was a prince or someone special. I discovered the error of that when I started to school and was treated like everyone else. (Ruel states elsewhere: "until I started to school and got educated in things other than the ABC's). I was treated less than friendly because I didn't understand other children.

I had difficulty making friends, playing rough and tumble with the other boys. That failing bothered me for many years.

Another early memory was when my father would take me to the store. Fairview was a tight little town and everybody walked. The business section was called downtown. My father wasn't a big man but I remember what long steps he seemed to take as we walked to the store; I suppose I was running to keep up.

It was in the Blue House where one winter evening my father and mother went visiting and Wendel and me were left in the Blue House. There was an upstairs bedroom. After dark, we could hear the awfulest creaking noises coming from the stairway, and I remember being so frightened. We were sure it was ghosts; we were scared stiff and cowered over in a corner. When my folks came home, my father explained the noise was the cold weather making the joints in the building slide and snap and was to be expected. Wendel and I were relieved.

I remember getting cold feet on a winter day (what child hasn't?) because I stayed out in the cold too long and my parents had me soak them in a tub of water-- and how I howled.

Myself and probably neighbor boys were playing in the yard and throwing rocks, a very common activity of small boys, and I was hit on the finger and it knocked the finger nail off.

Ruel (right) and Friend
Mother wrapped it and later taking that bandage off after it had dried, I didn't think I would survive that experience. Hortese removed the bandage by soaking it in turpentine, and I am sure she was careful, but I remember setting up a vocal protest and opinions of the procedure. That fingernail has since and always been crooked as a memento of that occasion.

Ruel and Zelda

Mother didn't permit Wendel or I or Zelda to play much with neighbor children, and that was a mistake because children learn from playmates of their own age. Too, I had long curly hair and they kept it in ringlets until I was quite big and that wasn't any credit to my self-esteem as a male. I was so glad when they cut it, I believe just before I started school. Now, I would be happy to have them back.

Those were the Fairview, Blue House days and my memories are just memories, but my parents felt a nostalgia to go back just as we feel a tie with our days at McKinnon, and my father wanted and talked about going back to Missouri. We have to have roots, call it traditions or whatever, but one lives partly with the past, even the sorrows. For myself sometimes I feel out of place. Sometimes I feel with a start "what am I doing here?" I never intended this. Although we assure ourselves we are lucky to have these opportunities in Green River, there are some things I left unfinished way back somewhere like my studies in rocks and minerals. I must take these studies up again and draw them to a conclusion. And get mine and our family pictures organized and this thing written that you are reading.

We moved, probably the year before I started school and then events became more complicated.

It was the custom in the early Utah towns for the farmers to live in town and travel back and forth to their farms. My father being from Missouri had different ideas. He had a small homestead west of Fairview on what was known as the West Hills. He built a house there of clay, adobe bricks. It was two rooms, one downstairs and one upstairs. He plastered the outside with a clay plaster and the stairway to the upstairs went up one side of the building on the outside. My mother was furious having to move out of town. They had a big fight, but finally she did move.

There was a deep wash to the side of the house and I remember roiling, muddy floods coming down the wash after a heavy rain and the mud was sticky in the bottom of the wash. I experimented to see how far I could reach down to the mud by grasping some roots and bushes on the bank and letting my legs down. The experiment was a big success. I couldn't get back and was frightened. It may have been Wendel or Zelda there, and they called my father and he got me out--only he had to walk through that mud.

We children had to go back and forth to school. Sometimes they drove us and sometimes we walked. There was a cemetery on each side of the road, and I was always glad to get past them. While we were still living in town, my mother said she saw ghosts and spirits moving above the cemeteries. (A group of people all dressed in white and moving along not touching the ground.) There was a stream, called Sand Pitch between us and the cemeteries. It was probably fog or mist moving above and looked like ghosts or spirits. However, this added to my aversion to cemeteries.

That was the so called "West Hills"; I suppose it has gone back to nature now. It was really dry country with rock ledges. There were many rattlesnakes and big ones, too. Father and Ralah would kill them with a big stick. I remember seeing them coiled in the road.

There was no water on our land, and my father dug a well and pumped water with a wind mill and tried farming without water called "dry farming". But none was not enough. It was impractical--we couldn't stay. The windmill and the shallow well pumped enough water for culinary and garden use. Other crops were sparse.

At times in my life I have looked back and reflected and wondered that if the laws of survival had been permitted to operate that I wouldn't have lived--that I would have and should have died young. I had a severe sickness when very young. I don't remember this, but there was something wrong with my stomach and I would vomit everything and I forgot how to walk and had to learn over again. Later when seven or eight years old, I had severe rumatism and missed most of one year of school. The treatment then was to wear red flannel underwear, and however it might be argued I wore red flannel underwear, and I recovered from the rumatism and have never had it since.

The West Hills is where dog Spot joined the family. We had milk cows, and they would set down a pail of milk and dog Spot would guard and keep the cats away but wouldn't touch the milk. Then they would give him a saucer of milk as a reward.

There was a neighbor, named George Tucker, a farmer who seemed to have been more successful at dry farming. He seemed to have harvested a considerable quantity of wheat. I mentioned him because of an incident later after we moved back to town. George Tucker used to go to his farm early in the day and with his children to do their farm work. I used to play with a little girl named Genie Pritchet and somehow we got invited to go to the farm. The Tucker children were put to work, but myself and Genie, since we didn't know how to do anything and were guests, had time on our hands, so we did the most natural things, we set up housekeeping. We made the outline of our house with sticks and rocks and assigned rocks and things to the furniture. Then I noticed a depression in a flat rock that had a small pool of water; it had rained the night before and I called

Genie's attention to it. She was surprised and didn't believe my explanation and said I had contributed to the pool of water and I don't believe she trusted me after that--but I was innocent.

This was the time of World War I, and food was being shipped to Europe. There was a demand for wheat. Idaho was booming, growing wheat, and there was a need for storage elevators. They were built of lumber, and so there was a call for carpenters. The West Hills was not prospering, so my father and Ralah went to Jerome, Idaho and got employment as carpenters.

This was in 1917 or 1918. The railroad was cooperative then. A boxcar could be rented to move your things, which we did, and we moved to Jerome, Idaho. We followed in a passenger train, and well I remember Salt Lake City. It seemed it was a world metropolis with streetlights, traffic bells ringing. Finally, Jerome and new neighbors.

Things were picking up for us. We got our first Model T Ford. Mother liked it there. She could grow more things.

Hillside House Built by my Father

My father's arms were giving out from driving nails all day, so he decided to follow Sim and Hortense to Wyoming.

Sim and Hortense homesteaded at what is now McKinnon. My father took up an adjoining homestead. It was really in Utah, Daggett County. What mattered most there was a

hillside, and my father wanted a hillside home. He got it by digging into the hillside with pick and shovel. It still stands.

Getting from Jerome to McKinnon is a story itself.

My father had come first, homesteaded and may have begun excavating into the hillside. They sent Wendel and me ahead. We landed there July 24, 1919. A date I can remember. I was twelve years old; Wendell was fifteen.

Those days the mail truck could carry passengers. Nels Helrick was the mail driver. He carried us beyond the Burntfork Post Office to the end of the road where Bert Wilde lives. He said follow those tracks. We got lost. We climbed the big hill and then could see Sim and Hortense's cabin. We were relieved.

The Nels Helrick mail truck was a Model T. Wendel fixed a small item on it. From then on he was Helrick's friend.

My Father in Later Years

My Father and Mother

I graduated from the eighth grade at McKinnon around 1921. I went with Morrell Spring in 1926 and returned in 1927. I hired N.Y.C. the fall of 1926 at age 19 at Albany and Selkirk, N.Y. and came back to McKinnon the spring of 1927. Then I was hired by the Union Pacific.

Growing up, becoming mature can be a most difficult time. I would say in retrospect my childhood was a time of desperation and a great longing to be grown up. I have been much happier as an adult. I hope my children have had it easier.

Looking back, if my childhood was a time of longing and frustration, my adulthood was a time of looking ahead. As an adult, I have been spirited along by the wonderful things I

was going to accomplish soon. I lived in the future. Now, whatever accomplishment I am capable of has been accomplished, so I live in the present and possibly to pick up the ends and complete things begun long ago.

Altogether I would say I am not unhappy with my life and although what I have achieved is far short of what it could have been, I wasted many opportunities, still I don't feel I have lived in vain.

I heard it said a long time ago that one is old when he begins his reminiscence. This is my reminiscence. I can remember only a few exact dates. This is a history only as I remember it as having been.

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Mom grew up living with her aunts and uncles and other people because her mother died when Mom was only ten. She has some memorable experiences when she went with her father and brother Leslie on trapping expeditions into the high Uintas. They would pack in and stay most of the summer. Unfortunately, they didn't have a camera.

Mom had a first marriage to Grant Bagley. He was killed in an airplane crash after which Mom worked for Mr. Ackerman at the Mt. View store and hotel where we met.

It began that afternoon when I saw a beautiful vision dressed in white and standing on the bridge over Smith's Fork Creek at Mt. View and you guessed it, reading a book. I was going by in the back of a pickup and that was the first time I saw Mom, and I was captivated.

I was 30 years old by then and was resigned to bachelorhood when Mom changed all that. But looking back I don't believe I was ready for the responsibility and settled routine of marriage much before. Mom and I have discussed that and we have concluded that it is better to wait until one is established and the years of experiment are over, that ones marriage has a better change of being permanent.

We both came from pioneer stock. My Grandmother on my mother's side having come across the plains with one of the handcart expeditions and the Meeks were early Utah settlers.

I was born March 24, 1902 in Fairview, Utah. We moved to Idaho when I was 9 and then to McKinnon in 1919 when I was 12. Mom was born at Lonetree May 5, 1913 and grew up in the Lonetree-Mt. View area. When we were married, I was living at Rawlins and working as a brakeman on the railroad (I hired on in Sept. 19, 1929). Mom was living at Mt. View and working at the Ackerman store and hotel, but we went to McKinnon and then to Manila, Utah to be married September 7, 1937 at Manila by Justice of the Peace Leland Meyers. Later our marriage was solemnized in the Salt Lake Temple.

I had acquired the property where Basil now lives, from my sister Hortense and I had the sawmill set up above Lonetree in the timber so our first years were divided between living in Rawlins and running the sawmill. That is why John was born near the sawmill in a mud hole on the road in the timber assisted by his mother and the fact that we didn't start soon enough (to the hospital). We did start but about one half mile from camp got stuck in this mud hole. I went back for the truck to pull us out, and when I returned I had a son.

I was becoming increasingly unhappy with my job on the railroad. It was a good job as jobs go and paid reasonably well for the times. The routine was getting me, the prospect of forever doing the same thing over and over. The same trips to Green River and return to Rawlins over the same sagebrush flats. Also the dust from the freight trains was making my hay fever terribly worse. I had taken shots for hay fever but they gave me an awful attack of hives. The cure was worse than the complaints, so that was the end of them.

Another thing, either by disposition, temperament or upbringing I have had difficulty working with, cooperating with other people. I can work for Ruel Triplett and put out a great effort, but for or with someone else, it doesn't turn out, and I don't know why. It may have been because as a young person self-education was a popular theme and some of my tutors were the writers Emerson, Thoreau, Sinclair Lewis and a host of others; writers who lashed out against social regimentation and the fear of being different. I believed I could do it myself, so I bought books on mathematics, history, geology, literature and what have you, but from experience I have later concluded that self-education is self-deception. One cannot bypass or circumvent the discipline of formal education.

But with that attitude and the times, I could see every excuse to leave the railroad. We had the land at McKinnon and the sawmill and $3,000.00 in the bank. I believed that since I had made my way before without depending on the railroad that I could again. I left the railroad and we moved to and began the McKinnon epic in 1946. However, we found the years at McKinnon hard going. We had the hardships of old cars, not much of a house, not many new clothes, work all the time. You children should know, we lived through it together. Although perhaps we can look back and see that the difficulties gave us strength. There is a lot to remember from those years and those years hold some beautiful memories.

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