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Show Volume XV Issue IX The Ogden Valley news Page 11 April 15, 2008 Ralph Hansen’s Horses Soap Suds was another horse of mine. I taught him to stand stretched out. He would sit up and lie down and out like he was dead. I taught him to kneel and shake hands. I was 18 then. He’s the first horse that I had that was really mine. He finally turned into be Helen’s horse and, like everything else, was later sold. Red had been a wild horse on the Connor’s Spring Ranch. She had run wild until she was a four-year-old. She was hard to break. The day she got broke we were deer hunting up on the ledges of Middle Fork and we were on a little ledge about 2 feet wide that dropped 200 feet down. She thought she was gong to boss me and that’s the day we whirled and turned around seven or eight times on that little tiny ledge. That’s the day she finally decided I was going to be boss. We used to run cattle at Snow Basin. We had run some heifers there and they had calves. It was my job when I was ten to go up and find the cows and calves and bring them home. I would leave first thing in the morning and go up. When I found a calf, I would put it on the saddle and Note: This story is from Valley Elementary teacher Mrs. Jane McVaugh’s 1996-1997 fourth grade class that collected and typed up a number of historical accounts from Valley residents, then compiled them in a book called “Tails, Wings, and Other Things: A collection of animal stories.” The following account is by Ralph Hansen. Animals have always been a big part of my life. I think from the time I was three years old, I always had a horse and I always rode a horse. When I was three years old, there were only one or two cars in the whole town of Huntsville. They didn’t have any tractors and they didn’t have any hay balers. This was in 1935. When I was three, I started milking cows. My dad told me that when I earned enough money to buy a saddle milking cows, at two pennies a cow, he would buy me a saddle. I was six years old when I got my saddle. It cost about $53 and it was the best saddle we could get. It took three years for me to get that saddle. By the time I was six years old, I was a top hand with horses. One evening I was going over after cows and had been playing along the way. I was hurrying to go get the cows to make up for lost time. I was riding my horse Lickety Split up a road and then we turned. They had just made the road from Huntsville to Eden. I came onto that asphalt road just as fast as that horse could go and made the corner. Of course, horses and corners don’t last too well, and the horse and I went sliding. The horse’s feet went out from under him and we both went upside down on the road. I don’t remember if I passed out or not, but I caught the horse, then went and got the cows and went home. We had some red punch for supper that night, and I watched it turn green. I told my mother, “This punch turned green.” She said, “What happened to you today?” She looked at my head and I had a big knot on it. They took me to the doctor and he said I had cracked my head open. I got a skull fracture out of that fall. We farmed the ground over by Casey Acres. Mike was a work horse and the other work horse was named Beauty. Dad had just broken them that winter to work. I was raking hay and I remember seeing a big old horse fly bite Beauty. She jumped and reared and they both took off. They ran clear over to where my house is now. I was on the hay rake and the hay rake dumped. I was going through ditches and everything else that the hay rake had caught. It was going dump, dump, dump, dump just as fast as it could go. I was hanging on to that seat just glued to it! Henry Burrows was irrigating and he ran and caught the horses. Then I turned them around and went back and finished raking the hay. I always had a horse to ride. It was my horse, but until I got out of high school and bought my own horse, if it needed to be sold, it was. We were very poor and everybody was very poor in those days so you did what you had to do. I had a variety of horses. All my horses were work horses that were also rode except for one. That was Champ. The reason he was named Champ was because I liked cowboys and Gene Autry was my favorite cowboy. His horse’s name was Champion. We had Champ until he was 27 or 28 years old, then he got hit by a car and we had to destroy him. He was a big part of my life and he was fast. I had the fastest horse in town and that made me pretty proud. and we didn’t have a car. He had to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week in Ogden for the war effort. So I started the farming and I’ve been farming ever since. That’s 57 years I’ve been farming. Because of that, I’d be late to school every day. Mrs. Allen always felt sorry for me because she had to milk some cows before she went to school too. Mom would wake me up, then she’d call me again and I was so tired I’d go back to sleep. Then she got to where she’d set the clock ten minutes fast. She’d say, “Ralph, it’s 5:00 o’clock.” And it was really only ten minutes to five. “Get up.” I soon caught on to that so she’d make the clock 20 minutes fast. I’d say, “O.k.” Then I caught on to that. Finally, the clock was whole hour fast just for her to try and get me up to get the chores done so I could go to school. We used to have dances at school. Kids would go to the dances from the time they were 9 years old. HISTORICAL cont. on page 12 Historical Photo SOPHOMORE CLASS Top Row (left to right): Dell Robinson and Gordon Madsen. Middle Row: Mr. Rauzi, Verna Ferrell, Jean Jude, Bryan Renstrom, LeGrande Robinson, Leon McKay, Max Dutson, Barbara Smith, Joyce Peterson, and Vivian Hill. Bottom Row: Evalyn Wilson, Verla Allen, Bette Fuller, Jeanette Ward, Annie Perkins, Joan Jensen, Donna Winter, Beth Ward, and Betty Rae Clark. Russel McDonald and Ramon McKay were absent at the time the picture was taken. Photo courtesy of Ned F. Clark. The Ogden Valley News is looking for Ogden Valley and Ogden Canyon historical biographies, stories, and photos to use in its publication. Please mail, email, or call Shanna at 745-2688 or Jeannie at 745-2879 if you have material you would like to share. 801-745-4000 2555 WOLF CREEK DR. EDEN STORE HOURS: MON. - SAT. 7 AM - 10 PM SUNDAY 7 AM - 9 PM Family Pack Size drive the cow all the way down to Huntsville. Another horse was Old Dick. I would take him and, before Christmas, I would go up Middle Fork. I would ride him up and put 14 or 15 Christmas trees on him. I’d rope them on him and they’d be clear up over the top of him until you could hardly see him. Then I’d wade through the snow that was clear to my waist coming back home. I’d never get home until about 10:00 at night. I never knew a time that my mother didn’t worry herself to death. The only thing she said was, “When you get close to Huntsville, you start singing as loud as you can and I’ll be on the porch and I will hear you.” So I always sang. The trees were the only thing we had to sell for extra money. I’d get us one tree, and then I could sell the others for a quarter a piece. I gave three trees to relatives, and I’d usually have about ten to sell. I’d have $2.50. I was a rich kid! That was the Christmas money that I’d buy presents with. When I was eight years old, my father moved to town. It was during the Second World War, Rod’s Lean Ground Beef $1.00 OFF with coupon Expires 5/1/08 Pumpkin Choc. Chip Cookies 50c OFF with coupon Expires 5/1/08 Any 1 lb. package of Strawberries 50c with coupon Expires 5/1/08 Birchberry Sliced Meat or Cheese 50c /lb. OFF with coupon Expires 5/1/08 One lb. or more in the Deli Farr’s 5 qt. 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