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Show Volume XXIII Issue XII The Ogden Valley news Page 9 July 15, 2016 The Autobiography of Robert L. “Bob” Wangsgard – Part XIV Note: The following is composed of excerpts from the autobiography of Robert L. “Bob” Wangsgard who turned 100 years December 22, 2015. This autobiography was written a little more than 15 years ago when Bob was preparing to celebrate his 85th birthday. Part I-XIII ran in earlier issues of the paper. If you missed a section that you would like a copy of, please contact Jeannie Wendell at 801-7452879 or Shanna Francis at 801-745-2688. Cattle Rustling - From the time the West was settled, there has been cattle rustling. I imagine there is excitement on the part of anyone rustling cattle. I know there is real excitement on the part of those whose cattle are stolen, and especially for those who are lucky enough to catch the rustlers. One fall day, Scott and I were on a cattle round-up on the range when we smelled something dead. We always traced down the origin of dead odor, so we would know if one of our animals had died. Every dead animal we found was crossed off our inventory book so we knew how many to look for each fall. We found the source of this particular stench that day. It was the head, legs, and insides of a Hereford animal hidden in thick brush. A week or two later, we rode by the same area and discovered that a car was parked in thick brush a few yards from the spot where the animal remains were discovered. Feeling sure that there was a connection between the car and the animal remains, we rode to Huntsville and called the sheriff. The sheriff agreed there was probably a connection and assigned a deputy to wait for the car to come off the hill. The occupants of the car were a group of young men from the west end of town who soon confessed to shooting and butchering the steer. They were arrested and taken to court. The judge ordered restitution for the animal, fined them, and ordered probation. Since the animal was killed on our range, we assumed it was ours and accepted restitution. A livestock operator from Morgan County heard about the incident and decided it might have been his animal. We contacted the admitted rustlers and they took us to the area where they had thrown the gunny sack containing the hide. The hide was recovered and soaked in a tub until the hair came off and revealed our brand. We acquired the range ground in 1960. One fall day I was working on a spring a short distance away from the old Trapper’s Loop Road. It was a rainy day and I had been the only car along the road until about 5:00 p.m. About that time, a white car drove over the road from Morgan County toward Huntsville. The occupants were shooting at cars and bottles and fence posts as they drove toward Huntsville. As I came to the church farm, I observed a group of cattle standing around a dead calf just inside the church farm next to the road. I stopped and went to investigate. A large Hereford calf had a single bullet hole in the middle of its forehead. I drove to Huntsville and called Halvor Bailey, the local sheriff, and Keith Jensen, the supervisor of the farm. Keith enlisted the help of the farm operator and the four of us drove to the spot where the calf was killed. The owners decided to dress and salvage the animal. The dressed-out animal was loaded onto the church farm truck. We were discussing what ought to be done next. At that moment, here came the white car that had crossed the road earlier that evening. The sheriff stopped them and searched the car. The loaded gun was in the car and the sheriff arrested the occupants on the charge of carrying a loaded firearm in a vehicle. The two suspects were taken to Ogden for booking and Keith Jensen and I also drove to the jail at the request of the sheriff. Keith had just finished milking and I was still dressed in the muddy boots and pants I had worn to work on the springs. As we stood in the booking room watching the rustlers being charged, a rather decrepit character, who was also being booked, sidled over to Keith and me and asked, “What do they have the two of you in for?” After the two men were booked, they were taken and given lie detector tests. I was placed in a small room adjacent to the interrogation room. I could hear all the questions and answers and could view the process through a one-way mirror in the wall. One of the suspects steadfastly denied any knowledge or involvement in the whole affair. He passed the lie detector test 100 percent. The other suspect confessed to every detail. They were both charged with killing the calf and were convicted. The sentence was a $300 fine for each, and probation of part of a year. I would never vote to convict or clear anyone based solely on the results of a lie detector test. In the fall of 1934, we were missing 26 cattle when we gathered them (the herd) off the range. We also had a neighbor who was missing 25 cattle. We rode our range until we knew they could not possibly still be there. We rode the Snow Basin area and the Ostler property between our range and Weber Canyon. We rode Cottonwood Creek for 10 miles up the creek form Highway 30. We drove to Cottonwood Creek and five men fanned out and walked five miles looking for possible makeshift corrals where cattle could be loaded. We rode our horses to the point they were exhausted and one of them was graveled and could not be used further. We borrowed a neighbor’s horse and Scott and I rode over to Mountain Green and crossed the Weber River and railroad tracks to scour the east side of the mountains east of Kaysville and Layton. No cattle! We made it back to our barn. As we took the saddle off the neighbor’s horse, he lay down and we couldn’t get him to stand up. We carried water and oats and hay to him for three days. On the fourth day, he got up and walked the half-block home. We drove over to Morgan and told Sheriff Carter that we suspected our cattle had been stolen. We gave him the brand information and he assured us he would be on the lookout. We later found out that about 75 days before our visit to the sheriff, he had inspected the cattle at the Petersen Railroad Stockyard. Two men on horses had driven 50 head of cattle into the yards and ordered two cars to ship them to Denver. The railroad agent insisted on a brand inspection and called the sheriff who came and inspected the cattle and issued the inspection report. When we visited the sheriff, he did not remember inspecting the cattle, so we continued our search. Grandmother Wangsgard died in October of 1934 so our cattle search was called off for a few days. At the conclusion of the church service at the Huntsville cemetery, we turned around to discover three Weber County sheriffs. During the services they had started a Students Identified from Photo from the Past A thank you to our readers Quinn McKay and Cleo Zarek who called in with the names for our picture from the past—a photo of a Valley school operetta. The picture appeared in the July 1 issue of The Ogden Valley News. There still are a few questions as per the identity of some of the students. Please call Shanna or Jeannie if you can help us with these remaining names. Front Row: ?, Brian Renstrom, Joann Jensen, Lorna Johansen, Ramona Bingham, Donna Burnett McKay, Lois Berlin, Vivian Hill, Quinn McKay, and Boyd Storey. Back Row: Verna Bess Ferrell, Bill Allen?, Tom Rowe, Brian Gardner, Gwen Robbins, Bill Peterson (or Max Dustin?), Leon McKay, Joyce Stoker, Rulon Shaw, Bob Winters, and director Nolan Taylor. The name of the operetta is no longer remembered, but was made up of at least two classes, juniors and seniors, who were very close. Both Vivian and Lorna were killed in a tragic car accident in their youth, along with one of two young men, who were also in the car at the time. REMEMBERING: YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN! Great Grandparents -John Marriott and Teresa Southwick Isaac R. Farley and Madeleine Malan James Harrop and Caroline Peterson James Iverson and Ane Marie Nielsen Great, Great Grandparents -Edward Farley, Jr. and Mary Moore John Daniel Malan and Pauline Combe Joseph Harrop and Martha Horrocks Peter Peterson and Anna Marie Olson Converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Immigrants to the United States of America Utah Pioneers 1851-1867 Ogden City & Weber County settlers. We value your faith, good works, courage, and sacrifices. --Lowell Marriott Harrop and Jerry Harrop check of shipping points on the railroad. First stop—Peterson—there were the brand inspection sheets. Two carloads had been shipped to Denver using a Huntsville name as the shipper and recording the brands of the missing cattle. After resisting the urge to make local arrests, Dad and the sheriff drove to Denver. The check paying for the cattle had been deposited in the First Security Bank in Ogden. Checking with the bank, they discovered the account was overdrawn and the bank was holding two checks being returned to a gas station in Lewiston, Utah. Dad and the sheriff drove to Lewiston. The gas station owner said, “Yes, I know the man. He lives in the town of Newton across the valley. But his real name is different than the one on the checks.” They went to his home in Newton and found out that he had left a half-hour before to drive to Ogden. A phone call to the sheriff’s office in Ogden sent two deputies out to Hot Springs to pick him up. He confessed, and implicated another man. The Cache Valley rustler was sentenced to the Utah State Penitentiary where he spent about 1½ years. The man he named as his partner (and the mastermind of the whole deal) left the state. But about a year later, Dad spotted this man at the stockyards and he was arrested. The man serving the sentence at the penitentia- ry was brought to Ogden to testify, but changed his story and the second man was turned loose. About a year later, a herd of sheep was stolen in Cache Valley. Somehow, they were tracked over the Divide from Cache Valley and found grazing unattended in the area near the county park north of Liberty, Utah. The man who had been turned loose on the cattle rustling charge was found sitting with a dog about a quarter mile from the sheep. This time he finally went to prison. The solution of the cattle rustling also solved a curious series of events. About the time our cattle were shipped—but long before we found out where they went—two horses were reported stolen in Liberty. When that appeared in the paper, someone in Eden reported he had two strange horses in his corral, but his own two horses were missing. A couple of days later the Eden horses came home. The final story was that the rustlers stole two horses in Liberty to use for the rustling operation. They found the Liberty horses were tender-footed, so they put the Liberty horses in the Eden corral and took the two Eden horses to complete the drive to the railroad. When they were through, one man went to Denver with the cattle, they turned the horses loose, and one man picked up the car they had previously left at Petersen. From The Past . . . An assembly program held Thursday, November 13, 1958 for the Valley School. The program honored the faculty, with mothers of the P.T.A. taking the parts of the teachers when they were younger. Pictures were taken and a gift was presented to each member of the faculty. Those taking part in the skit were Mrs. Jack Doxey, Alice Blaine, Beth Poorte, Nellie Newey, Norine Robins, Mary Doman, Vivian Loewenstein, Lavon Cramer, Pat Poulter, Phyllis Allen, Verla Frazier, Beverly Montgomery, and Mary Wangsgard. Other numbers on the program were a vocal trio by Jula Jensen, Laura Harrop, and Helen Buhrley accompanied by Joyce Montgomery. The audience also enjoyed a trombone solo by Drew Robins and a talk by Mrs. Shaw. Photo from “The Many Faces of a Bulldog” compiled by Kera Erickson of Eden. |
