BINGHAM HARVEY FARMER MINER by EUGENE

Harvey Halverson

From the Farm to the Mines

by Harvey

"The first thing I remember wa my Dad and Uncle Thomas making adobes for the church house in Mapleton.  Another memory is a visit to my grandfather's house (Peder Halvorsen) in the Spanish Fork area.  "I was about four-years-old when we moved to Idaho.  We could look out the train window and see the Bear River far below while going through the Bear River Gorge near Logan.  I don't remember arriving in Idaho.  My mother took me, my sister Eliza and my brother Joe on the train.  Dad took my brothers Jim, Chris and Raymond and my sister Myrtle in the wagon along with what belongings they had room for.  I don't remember them leaving Utah or arriving in Idaho.  They were about two or three weeks on the road.  We lived in Ucon in a two-room log house for some months.  We moved to quite a few places including Rudy, La Belle and Sugar City, then back to La Belle before coming back to Lake Shore for two or three years.

"I started to school in Rudy in a two-room school house with had four grades in each room.  Our teacher, Mr. Steele, sat in the hall near the door so he could see in both rooms.  we later moved to Sugar City where Dad worked in the sugar factory.  I did not go to school there as it was too far to walk.  I don't remember if the older ones went to school.  Later we moved to La Belle where I went to school for two years.  We then came back to Utah and lived in Lake Shore where we went to school, a walk of nearly two miles.  When the road wasn't too muddy and a horse would pull the buggy, we rode to school; otherwise we had to walk.  In 1912 we moved to Mapleton where I completed the 8th grade.

"Dad was a farmer all of his life except for short periods so farming was all we did until we grew up and moved away from home.  None of us boys selected farming for a livelihood.  I chose mining, working in the Mammouth and Silver City mines for two years and then to Bingham where I worked for the U. S. Mining Company for over 43 years, 15 of them underground.

Signe Elizabet Holmes Halverson

"I met Beth Holms in Bingham Canyon.  We were married in 1927.  We first lived in Telegraph in a Company apartment.  The town was called Telegraph because the apartments were built near the old Telegraph mine.  We lived there for about four years and Lee and Gene were born there.  Lee was troubled with pneum nia so we moved to Lower Bingham and lived in the Panos Apartments out of the higher altitude.  Paul was born in Lower Bingham.  I had a lot of illness from 1934 to 1937 - pneumonia and silicosis - so I was off work most of the time.  I was transferred out of the mine then and worked in the compressor room.

"We moved back to Telegraph when I was transferred to outside work in 1937.  A daughter was born in Telegraph.  The U.S. shops were transferred to Lark in 1953; I ran compressors there until I retired in 1968.  Bingham was gradually deteriorating so we moved to West Jordan in 1948 where we have lived since.

"I remember my grandparents very well.  They were divorced and my grandmother lived with us until she died in the early 1920's.  She had a room by herself where she cooked and cared for herself.

Vivian, Tippy, Paul

"Dad was a farmer most of his life.  He was stern and strict, but fair.  When we were told to do something, there was no argument.  My mother was always gentle and understanding.  She died in March, 1956.

"I was always fond of hunting and fishing.  I always took my boys with me with they were old enough to go - five or six years old. 

"Gene is a mechanic for Kennecott Copper Company.  Lee runs electric shovels for Kennecott.  Paul lives in Missouri where he teaches aeronautics at Maple Woods Community College.  In February 1977 I went to New Zealand to visit some of my relatives who I had never seen, but had corresponded with for over 50 years."

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Harvey and Parker at work

Handwritten document found in 1996--After Dad and Joe repaired his mother's house caused by the 1920 floods he left Mapleton to work in the mines.  He went to work at Mammoth, Utah as a mule-skinner in 1921--1922. 

We later find him in Bingham helping a surveyor crew, date unknown.  Then in March, 1924 Dad started to work for the US Mining Co. as a miner   [these were ten hour days seven days a week]  where he hand-loaded 8 to 10 ore-cars a day weighing about one ton each. 

Worked as a fireman in June, 1937.  Compressor man in 1945.  (it was June, 1937 when Dad was re-hired and given Wride's job and Wride's house in Telegraph)

(writer of this document is unknown--possibly Uncle Jim?)