Here are a few little anecdotes from Grandma Olive Nunn Wixom’s life story. She used her diary entries as her life story, the whole book is mostly just daily entries so there isn’t a running story line except where she added them. I will add a few comments in parentheses.
(When Olive was 12 the family moved from Nebraska to Idaho Falls, Idaho. Here are some entries from her trip.)
Started on our trip from our home near Round House Rock to Idaho. This is my diary from day to day along the way---
June 14, 1916 In two covered wagons, 8 horses.... (they camped some nights and spent some nights with friends or relatives)....
July 26, 1916 Got stuck and an automobile pulled us out. There were very few automobiles on the roads then. The roads were all dirt and very narrow. We had to ford lots of little streams because there was not very many bridges.....
Aug. 10, 1916 Entered Yellowstone Park...
Aug. 12, Saw 11 bears
Aug. 16- (in Yellowstone) There were stagecoaches that the tourists traveled on. This was to be the last year for them. They were to bring Buses the next year. Just a few cars going through. We were frightened several times because our horses were not used to them and would shy away from them and sometimes we would be on the outside of the road that had a sheer drop off down to the river below. However no accidents occurred. I always rode in the wagon that Mama was in because I didn’t want anything to happen to her unless I was with her.
Aug. 28- Got to Drummond and camped there at night. We had stopped here so the men could work in the harvest.
Sept. 10, 1916 Got to Idaho Falls. Crossed the Snake River and camped on the west side. Decided to stay for awhile. It was coming winter.
Sept. 18, 1916 Papa went up town and had his full beard shaved off and a hair cut. He came walking back into camp and we hardly knew him. He looked really good. We had such a good time over it.
Sept. 29, 1916 Mama got kicked by a horse. She was in bed quite awhile. I was in the seventh grade. I remember helping do a lot of the cooking while Mama was sick, I cooked some of the time in the sheep wagon. I liked to fry hamburger and make milk gravy with Sego canned milk. We used a lot of bakery bread. Could get three big loaves for a quarter.
Nov. 2, 1916 Papa took sick in the afternoon, so he came home and tried to start a fire. he sat down in his big chair in front of the stove and went to sleep. When we came home he was still asleep and the fire had never started. ...It soon turned into Pneumonia and Mother had him taken to a hospital where she stayed right with him...
Nov. 17, 1916 About 9 pm Papa was worse and we were all there with him...the Doctor told Mother and us girls to go out....just a few minutes he came out and we knew that (Papa) was gone. We felt dreadfully alone having been here (in Idaho Falls) such a short time and not knowing very many people....It was decided that we should sell off everything...and all go back to Bridgeport (Nebraska). (Her brother- age 20) Elbert and Mother were going to take Papa back there to bury him in the Redington cemetary, then rent us a house in Bridgeport and Elbert was to come back, sell everything, and we would all go back together.
Nov. 28, 1916 My birthday, 13 years old. Received a card from Mama. Elbert wrote a letter to Mama after he got back from Nebraska and we had talked it over and decided none of us wanted to go back to Nebraska. She already had rented a house right in Bridgeport but she gave it up and came on back to Idaho Falls. We moved down on Third Street. I had quit school thinking we were going to leave, so I started again. Town school was so different to me. I didn’t like it and I had already missed quite a bit so I didn’t do very good.
April 10, 1917 Elbert took up a homestead out in Fall Creek Basin so we all packed up and went out there, about 35 miles east of Idaho Falls. So I didn’t pass the seventh grade and had to take it the next year.
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