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Show The Ogden Valley news Volume XXV Issue XVIII Page 9 November 1, 2019 Biography of Harvey Burnett: Part V Note: This history was taken from “Lest We Forget: History of the Burnett and Fuller Families.” It was compiled in the early 1960’s, I believe. Dad was a very ambitious man and expected every one working for him to be the same. He was always getting after us for not doing enough and not hurrying enough. I could not stand to hear anyone say I was not doing my share, for my nature was to try to please, so I would hurry until I nearly dropped, but even then my Dad was not satisfied with my efforts, or make me feel I was not pleasing him. Mother used to say, “I guess Harvey must go on his nerves, for he is always on the run.” It wasn’t my nerves so much as it was I wanted to please. This brings to mind the time some men took Merlin over on the West Hills to help survey the land, but because the brush was so thick, Merlin gave out. The job was to stay by the peg until the next man came to stay by the peg and to tell where to hold the end of the chain, and then the boy was to run another peg to the next man. Through some mistake, the surveying had to be repeated, so I took over the job of runner. The party did three times the amount of work the day I worked as they did the previous day. At the close of the day, I was dragging the surveying chain and running down the hill. I heard the surveyor say, “I thought Harvey would give out, for we did three times more today than we did yesterday, and here he is still running.” My Dad’s reply was, “Oh Harvey is like an iron man.” A little praise seemed to go a long ways with me. I would almost kill myself to have someone brag about me. As I said, I had to work very hard. When I was about ten or eleven years old, Dad sent Merlin and me to Ogden with two big loads of grain. Ogden was about 18 miles from where we lived at Eden. The loads were extra big and the roads were muddy and soft. If one got a little off the road, it cut in so much the wagon would get stuck. Once I got stuck in front of the church and several men gathered around to see if I could get out. Uncle George A. Fuller thought he could drive better than I because I was just a kid, but as hard as he tried, he could not get the horses to pull the wagon out of the mud. His excuse was that one horse was bulky. Cousin Jack Fuller bragged he had a team that would out pull any team in Eden, so he got his team hooked to the wagon, shoveled a little away from each wheel, and with the help of men pushing, rolled the wagon out. There was a little enmity between the team’s owners; it was an insult to let someone else’s team out pull his. Not only that, but there was also a feud between the Fullers and the Burnetts that had been going on for two generations. When they got me ready to go, Uncle George said, “Pat Burnett ought to know better than send a kid with that big a load.” I left feeling like a whipped pup. Not only was I branded as a poor horse skinner, but I had humiliated Dad by letting another team out pull his. Anyway, we got to Ogden about three or four p.m., and unhooked and fed the horses while we unloaded the grain. We had eaten our lunch while driving. About seven we started our journey home. Between nine and nine-thirty, the neighbors called mother to ask if her boys had got home yet. They knew we had left early that morning and had not seen us return. We got home about 10:00—wet, cold, hungry and dog tired. These trips were not just once, but many times, and the irony was that Dad did not seem to worry much about us. The valley started raising peas for canning in about 1918. We had to haul them to Ogden to be ... Because life is too short to hate your hair. threshed and canned. Dad had a reputation for putting on a bigger load then he knew the horses could pull. He sent Merlin and me to town with two big loads. We got along fairly well until we got going down the canyon. At the time they were putting in a big pipeline to carry the water from the artesian wells to Ogden. The road was all torn up; some places there were big holes and dirt. Many places along the road, there was just room enough for the wagon to go between the deep trench and the river or cliff. What made the condition worse, was the bolster on the wagon was cracked and when there was a big load, it would sag, and one could not turn the tongue to guide the wagon. As the result, the wagon would run off the road and get stuck. Also, there was a hill in the canyon called Red Fence Hill because there was a red fence to keep anything from running off the road into the river. The hill didn’t look steep, but when cars first came out, it was only the most powerful cars that could make it up the hill in high gear. Just as I started down the hill, the wagon started crowding the fence. The bolster caught. The only way one could turn the wagon to loosen the bolster was to rock the wagon hard, but I didn’t have time to rock it. I was too busy trying to drive and control the team. The farther down the hill I went, the faster we would go, and soon the horses were on a fast run. The loaded rack was bumping every post on the fence, and every second I looked for the wagon to break through and fall into the river or break the rack. The horses were pulling on the tongue as hard as they could and the old mare I had on for the third horse was getting behind and crowded into the fence. She tried to help, too, by biting the colt next to her, but that only made them go faster. By this time, I thought I was a goner. It looked like things could not hold together much longer. But just as I was about to give up, the front wheel struck a rock and the jar loosened the bolster. The wagon turned from the river and shot across the road and nearly hit a ledge on the other side of the canyon. I have often said I must have had a guardian angel or I would have been killed many times. To show how wicked the river in Ogden Canyon was in high water, a story is told that a man and woman went riding in the canyon to see how high the water was. They stopped and talked to a man and told him the water was so violent, it frightened them and they were going to turn around and go back. As they did so, they tipped over into the river. The man managed to get out, away down the river, but they found the woman three days later, and six miles downstream, washed up on a bank. The river had torn off her clothes, her body was battered almost beyond recognition, and only one high top shoe remained on her. Another time we were hauling hay from a place about three miles from where we lived. There were four loads. Dad was going to save time by putting all four loads on two wagons. It was hot and dusty and we were thirsty. Adrain drank too much water and got sick. Dad sent me home with the wagon that had two loads and with Adrain with me, while he gathered the rest of the hay in the other wagon. We started for home and, as usual, we had a colt hooked with an old horse. Down the road about a half mile was a deep ravine or small canyon, and as we started down, the colt would not hold back and began to run. Since the load was a little heavier on one side than the other, as soon as the wheel went on the upper side, it tipped the whole wagon over. I felt it tipping and yelled to Adrain to jump, but he was asleep—too worn out from too much work—and did not hear me. I jumped just as it flipped over with half the hay on us and the rest strung to the bottom of the canyon. The horses stopped because the wagon and rack were dragging on its side, which make it hard to pull. When the hay fell on us, I happened to be to the edge of the load so just was buried to my neck. But Adrain was in the middle with five or six feet of hay on him. I could just hear a faint moan. I found a fork and threw some of the hay off, then started digging with my hands. I got a little hole about six inches in diameter where his head was, and his face was red and sweaty. When my father arrived on the scene, he only cursed me for not driving right. It didn’t matter whether Adrian and I go hurt or not. As the results, we had to fix the rack and then load two more loads of hay. My father was a very impatient man and, at times, very cruel. Later he mellowed with age, and it was hard for people to realize how cruel he once was. To show you how thoughtless he was, I recall on a hot summer day, Dad sent Boyd and me to pile hay over on a hill, but first we had to chase some cattle to an area before getting to the hay. Dad gave us a time limit which was to be done before noon. It took us longer to get the cattle in than we expected, so we were late getting to the hill. The sun was extremely hot that day, and the smell of sage and dry dock weeds, plus the dry hay was nauseating and choking us. There was a little trickle of water seeping down in a hollow close by, but one had to dig a hole to get a drink. However, there was another spring over the hill in a hollow about three blocks away which was a better spring and the water was easily available. I decided to go over and get a good drink. Although Boyd didn’t want to go and said so, temptation was too great for a drink of water that he went with me. As we were already tired from chasing cattle, we poked back to the field. When we arrived, there was Dad cutting willow, demanding where we had been. Without giving me time to explain, he said, “Come here.” I might say at this time the willow he cut was about an inch in diameter on one end, and half inch on the other, and about four inches long and was not cut smoothly. Well, when I got near him, he told me to take down my pants. I thought he was fooling and just trying to scare me. He unbuckled one suspender and I pulled it up and he undone the other buckle and then started to walk away. He grabbed my arm and started to beat me. After about six whacks, I started squirming, pleading for mercy, but my pleading fell on deaf ears. He beat me unmercifully for about 20 licks and then told us to continue piling hay until we finished. He did not punish Boyd and I don’t to this day know why he didn’t. I climbed over the fence to some cold grass and shade to sit in it to cool and relieve the soreness on my buttocks. I was not only hurt, but humiliated beyond description. He will never know how much disrespect I had for him after that…. We kept piling hay in spite of the heat and dryness. From The Past . . . Can anyone identify these boys? So far, readers have tagged Johnny Stone, Maun Hislop, and Clark Olsen (love the garage in the background). — with Johnie Stone, Maun Hislop and Clark Olsen. If so, please call Shanna at 801-745-2688 or Jeannie at 801-745-2879. Photo courtesy of Vicki Roberts Jorgensen. November Special Get your hair in shape for the holidays! FREE deep conditioning with any chemical service and 30% OFF a take home treatment. Exp. 11/30/19 5522 East 2200 North in Eden Nov. 1 Solemnity ofAll Saint’s Mass at 6:00 p.m. Tuesday Night 5:00 p.m. Saturday Night 5:30 p.m. Sunday Morning 8:30 a.m. Fr. Mike Sciumbato 801-399-5627 StFlorenceHuntsville.org Tuesday 30 minutes before and after Mass. 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