DonohooFamily: MARY BULLOCK

MY LIFE STORYMARY BULLOCK

There was a little four room log house with a dirt roof on a ranch in the North Eastern corner ofUtah. The Utah- Wyoming Line was about a quarter mile below this little house. The post office was about seven miles below this house, it was called Lonetree, it was located in the state of Wyoming, and in the county of Uintah. In this little house on the 30th day of Januaryin the year of 1903, lay a mother tired and weary with only an old mid-wife to care for her, soon Mister Stork flew over and dropped a wee bundle which turned out to be me. I was the tenth baby to come to this home., there were four sisters and three brothers waiting for my arrival.There was one baby brother and sister who had been called back to our Father in Heaven tomake their home.

The Isaac Bullock Jr Family, Mary is holding the doll

I was the daughter of Isaac Bullock Jr. who was born at Fort Supply Wyoming onSeptember 19,1857, his father Isaac Bullock Sr. was president of a company of settlers who had been sent there by President Brigham Young. When my father was eight days old a messenger brought word that Johnson's Army was coming, so they burned the Fort and put my father and his mother, who was Mary Alice Bullock into a covered wagon and drove toProvo, Utah My mother. was Mary Alice Webb, daughter of Pardon Webb and Clarissa Jane Lee. She was born June 1st 1859, at Payson Utah , Her parents started with one of the first companies of pioneers to cross the plains, but stopped at Winter Quarters to make wagons as Pardon was a very good Wheel Wright, They arrived in Utah in 1848.There was no church at Lonetree so I was a big girl before I was blessed. I must have been five or six years old, but I can remember it. My mother took me to Provo Utah to visit my grandmother, and I can remember of going to church and of two or three men taking up on the stand and I knelt down on the stand and I was sure frightened when the men laid their hands on my head.I was baptized when I was sixteen years old. I was living in Ogden Utah going to school, so when they set a day for baptism work I got a recommend and went. It was done in the 1st ward of Ogden , each ward had their own fount where they did baptisms for their ward. I was baptized on the 23rd day of Oct. in the year of 1919, by Frank E. Newman, and confirmed the same day by William E. Newman. I will never forget what a thrill it gave me when the brothers laid their hands on my head to confirm the gift of the Holy Ghost on me it seemed as if I was being transformed. The little community got its name Lonetree from a big cottonwood tree that stood alone right close to where the first Post offfice building stood.The town was made up of one general store and the post office. With H.J. Gregory the caretakers home in the rear of the building, and a school house and dance hall in one In the early days there was a saloon there but I do not remember that. For a good many years there was just one teacher for all eight grades. This was the first school I attended, part of the time I rode the seven miles horseback, and part of the time I would board with some of the neighbors who lived closer to school, then when was the coldest I would try to stay home and study but that did not work so well. Then when I was in about the 3rd grade I went to live in Lyman Wyo. which was 25 miles from my home . At the home of Jim Phelps, an old bachelor, who was very dear friend of ours, his niece and her family lived with him, they were very good to me. The next two years I boarded with friends at Lonetree and went to school. One of my brothers would come on his horse and get me Friday night and take me home, and then he would take me back to the place I was boarding either Sunday night or Monday morning.When I was in the sixth grade I went back to Lyman to school. I went to live with my sister who with husband was working for Jim Phelps. I only went about a half a year that year, that year they had some trouble with the teacher and they without a sixth grade the rest of the year. The next four years I went to Ogden Utah to school part of the time I lived with my sister and part of the time Mother and I rented a furnished room. I skipped the half of the sixth grade and all of the seventh and went into the eight ,and from there into High school. It sure made me work to get by. I was started into the last year of high school when my eyes got so bad that the Dr.told me I would have to quit school or I would go blind.My earliest childhood memories was going with my brothers to feed the cattle on the ranch.The home ranch had 200 acres of land then. Father had what was known as the Poison Creek ranch , there was about 360 acres in it .We would go either in a wagon or shield . We would haul out and feed about two or three big loads of hay to cows and calves which were most always kept on Poison Creek ranch.

Mary age 3

There was a large grove of pine trees on our home ranch and Father had a large beef pen in there. He would stack a large stack of the best hay there, then every winter he would have two or three hundred head of beef steers in there which were fed all they could eat , then in the Spring they would drive them to the railroad station which was about 45 miles away ,there they were loaded on the train and shipped to -------where they were sold.My two brothers and one sister just older than I loved to tease and frighten me . Our home was surrounded by large willow brush and it was so thick in some places that we could not hardly get through it, There was lots of wild animals around there, so they would take me out in the brush and then would run away and leave me and tell me the bears or cats were going to get me. They had me so I wouldn't step out off the after dark.We had many happy days in the summer time , when all the neighbors would go together up to the creeks to spend the day. There was very good fishing in the creeks in those days.There would be a bunch of the best fishermen go on ahead and they would be back in camp about noon with a large bunch of fish, while the fish was being cleaned some of the older men would build a good campfire, soon the would be frying and then a large table would be spread on the ground ,then what a feast we would have.

Isaac Bullock with Mary, Irene facing backward

I will now have to relate an incident which I still laugh about every time I think about it. I was about twelve years old , it was in haying time and we had large bunches of hay men , so we had a tent pitched up above the house in the brush for them to sleep in .One night we were all going to Lonetree to a dance , so I was going in the buggy with my older brother and his wife and it was such a awful dark stormy night ,they wanted the flash light so they asked me to go to the tent and get it , one of the men had heard them asking for it so he had gone to find it without saying a word to anyone . Just about the time I reached the tent he lit a match, and he was a big fellow about six feet tall, well that nearly froze me in my tracks, but I kept going on, I just as I got to the tent door and started to go in he lit another match ,well that was just too much, he looked just like some real monster. I let out one scream and started to run and he not knowing what was the trouble he started to run after me, and that made it all the worst. I never stopped screaming till I reached the house. The folks said I was so white they could see me in the dark and the fellow was as frightened as I was, and you bet that was the last time they got me to go to that tent after dark .

The first accident I can remember of was when I was about four years old. We had a big white top buggy, we went some place and Mother stopped to call on someone who was sick and left my brother and I in the buggy something happened and the team run away with us. I was thrown out of the buggy but not hurt bad. My father had a large shed where he kept his wagons and {mac or wac} when he was not using it he would tie the wagon tongue up to the roof, we kids would climb up on them and swing. Father had told me a dozen times to stop doing it or I would get hurt but I kept on, so one day when I was doing the rope that was holding it up broke and down I came with the wagon tongue across my back, my friend who was with me had to run and get someone to lift it off of me , that was a lesson to me.One day a girl friend and I was riding a old white horse of ours ,we were going through a mud hole when the saddle turned and we both fell off in the mud head first, and we both had long hair and it was just full of mud, when I fell I hit my hip on a rock , it got so bad I couldn't walk and the old horse didn't want to go till we got back on him , so we had quite a time getting home.When my mother saw us she said she didn't know if we were worth cleaning or not . But she put us in a tub of water and soon had us clean again , but I wasn't able to walk on my leg for nearly a week.Then one day trying to corral our horses and the horse I was riding run into the barbed wire fence and cut my leg.I have taken many a fall off a horse, but I believe the funniest experience I ever had was one night in the summer of 1923, I was working for my sister in law , helping her cook for the hay men. Dewey came to get me to go to the dance, so I was riding one of my brother's horses and he was sure a slow hard thing to ride, so one of the others came along on a mule and we got to kidding about the horse I was riding so he dared me to trade with him, so I took him up .We started to lope up and Dewey's horse could go much faster than I could on the old mule, so Iwas left behind, the first thing I knew the old mule fell and I took a somersault over his head,when I got myself up I could see where I was at , I found myself laying flat on my stomach with my arms stretched out in front of , under the mules stomach . I sure expected to have my head kicked off. Buy I didn't get hurt only my face scratched up a bit. I soon got straightened up and went on to the dance I never had much opportunity to go to church when I was a youngster . When I lived in Lyman and went to school I got to go once in a while, but the folks I lived with were Pres. so Iwent with them most of the time. My mother was a good L.D.S. woman so she taught me all the main principles of the church, she had taught me to pray and to have faith. We tried at different time to start a Sunday School at Lonetree but it never worked out for long at a time.

In July 1916 my father died. I was just thirteen years old then. The following year in 1917 my one sister and two brothers were married , so that left Mother and I alone, so in the Fall of 1918 Mother and I moved to Ogden, Utah to live so I could go to school. It was then I really started to go to church. I never went to Sunday School as much as I did evening meetings and M.I.A.meetings. Mother and I lived together in Ogden in the winter and on the ranch in Summer until 1923 when I was married.

My favorite sport and amusements when I was young was horseback riding, hiking, fishing, and dancing. During the winter and summer of 1917-1918 when the boys were going to the army a bunch of we girls, about 14 in all formed what we called the "Busters Club." We gave all the farewell parties and dances that were had. Just the members of our club would go on hikes and picnics and what a time we would have. Just a couple of years before Father died he and Mother built them a new home, but Father never got to enjoy much of it. Our big job at home was haying time, I would help some with the cooking and house work, but it seemed like it was always hard to get enough help, so I would go out in the field to help. Iwould drive a team on the wagon, when we used the old hay loader or stacker team after westarted to use the push rakes.

Mary & Dewey

Dewey and I went together for about two years. We were married in the fall of 1923. We moved around a lot and lived in many different places.

Mary with Ella Mae & Barbara Just before Karen was born