Three year old Amy arrived in Taylor with her parents and two sisters on September 16, 1885. Her father homesteaded a quarter section, 160 acres, while working on the railroad. When he had the farm proved upon, Benjamin Harrison signed the deeds, and her father brought his family to Taylor in two covered wagons. Her mother drove the second team. They also brought cows with them. It took eleven days to make the trip. Upon arriving in Taylor, her father put the wagon boxes on the ground to live in. He hauled logs on running gears from the hills to build a two room house and stable and enough wood to burn for the winter. He also traded some logs at Eagle Rock for groceries and clothing. There was always plenty of wild game, and there was no law against killing them. Before the canals were dug they hauled water from Taylor Creek, a distance of four miles. In the winter, the creek froze, so they had to haul water from Snake River six miles away. They also drove the cattle to the river to drink and said that they were usually thirstier when they got them home. The Shoshone Bannock tribe would often get on the war path, paint their faces and ride their horses up through the country. Neighbors would gather at the Arave house as it was the most central. I remember once the Indians came three nights straight. The men loaded their guns and barred the doors with the furniture. The Indians far out-numbered the white men.
After two years on the farm, grandfather (Nelson) Arave came to live with us. Father and mother decided to move to the town of Eagle Rock. There father and grandfather built a blacksmith shop and worked together shoeing horses, setting wagon wheels, and sharpening shears. I started to school in the first school in Eagle Rock. The old saloon building was converted into a school building with twenty-one pupils attending. They were: Nate D. Worth, Mary Ann Clark, Henry and Otto Kortz, Laura Wright, Millie Eastman, Elva and Theodore Smith, Sam Taylor, Joe, Ralph, and Hugh Willis, Lill Ellis, George, Joe, and Maude Brunt, and myself. I was five years old. Miss Herd was my first teacher. After a while a three room frame building was built where the O.E. Bell School is now located, and C. E. Arney was my school teacher. There were three stores – the Z. C. M. I., Alma Marker's little music store, and the old Jack and Bob Taylor building north of the railroad tracks – Dick Chamberlin's Hotel and Louie Elg's Drug Store. Z. C. M. I. is now a warehouse. There were three saloons in one block. There were board sidewalks.
After living in Eagle Rock for five years, we moved back to the farm. In January 1892 we took diptheria. There were six of us. My oldest brother, Lee, and my sister, Dorcas, died of it. The doctor said I couldn't live. They swabbed my throat for twenty days. My grandfather (Leonidas) Clark came from Utah, so my two dear grandfathers were with us. They took the two children to the Taylor Cemetery for burial. They died three days apart.
In 1892 my father contracted to build six miles of the Idaho Canal. We went with him and camped. My mother cooked for all the men. I would draw water from the only well in the country and carry it to the working men. In October 1898, my father went on an L. D. S. mission to the northern states leaving my mother with eight children. I was the oldest. The closest doctor was in Pocatello. His name was Dr. Bean. My mother was called out often to lay out the dead and care for the sick.
My husband Joseph came from Hooper, Utah, in April, 1895, in a covered wagon. He owned one horse and the wagon and borrowed the other horse from his brother. His sister and her husband came with him. I cooked my husband's first meal in Idaho. He always said that I would cook his last one, which I did. We got married on December 13, 1900. Our wedding was held in my folks new home. There were 86 people besides my brothers and sisters, to the wedding. We were married by my father, my grandfathers being witness. That night we had a wedding dance in the Taylor Church. After one month we moved to Utah to my husband's old home. It was an adobe house with four rooms. I cooked for his three younger brothers and washed for the five of us on the wash board. I also made rag carpets for two of the rooms. I did lot of canning besides picking and selling cherries.
We returned to Idaho where we bought school land at ten dollars per acre with ten years to pay at four percent interest. My father gave us a cow and a calf and four pigs, also one dozen chickens. My husband cleared the tall sagebrush, working sixteen hours a day. He would plow in the daytime with the hand plow and burn sagebrush at night. I milked two cows and made butter enough to buy groceries. On December 7, 1918, Joseph was baptized. On June 9, 1919, we took our family of seven children and were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple. In 1932 my husband went to the hospital with bronchial pneumonia. Two doctors gave him up. He was in the hospital for six weeks, then was cured through faith. In August of 1934 he was very sick again with gastric ulcer.
In 1945, we bought a home at 469 3rd Street. Joe gave our home place in Jameston to the boys and sold the 160 acre Arave homestead in Taylor to Dick and Charley. He had all of his business taken care of three months before he died of a heart attack.
Note: Amy lived in the home on 3rd Street for over 25 years after Joe died. She spent the final months of her life in the home of daughter Ida Hampton.
About her parents:
William Arave was born to Susanna Arline Wadsworth and Nelson Arave on January 14, 1860 at Unita, Morgan County, Utah. When he was 18 years old, in 1878, he came to Idaho to work for the railroad. He said at that time there was only one homesteader's log cabin between Downey and Eagle Rock, which consisted of a bridge across the Snake River, a store and a few freighter houses. In 1879, William did blacksmithing for the railroad between Marsh Valley and Eagle Rock. He sharpened bits that were used to drill through the lava rock to set the railroad ties. In 1880, the town council hired him to plow ditches down the streets for culinary water which probably gave Water Avenue its name and the town its first water system. He later helped build the railroad grade for Utah Construction Company in Island Park District. He also helped to build many canals; the Idaho Canal, Springfield Canal, and the Shelley power dam. He homesteaded 160 acres in Taylor near 100 East and 12100 South. Grandfather Arave, Dave Bybee, Ed Wadsworth, Smith Johnson, John and Ted Priest filed on homesteads here, but did not live on them even though the homestead law required it. There were problems with others "jumping" homesteads and Bybee's land was lost to another person because Bybee wasn't living on it. So the others moved onto their homesteads and once William Arave lived on his homestead long enough, the deeds were signed by Benjamin Harrison. Grandfather had been renting a house and pasture for his horses for $40 a year from W.H.B. Crow on Water Avenue in Eagle Rock. Grandfather returned to Utah where he married Ida Clark May 12, 1881, in the Salt Lake Endowment House.
Ida Clark was a pioneer of three states. She was born in Denver, Colorado on February 4, 1864, to Dorcas Cynthia Higley and Leonidas Clark. She was the second child. She traveled with her parents to Utah, Idaho and Montana that same year. Her father worked in the mines. This was the time of the Gold Rush. In October, when she was nine months old, her mother died from Typhoid Fever, while they were living in Virginia City, Montana. Her mother requested that her parents rear their two children. Her father left for Utah by stage to take she and her older brother to Utah. He encountered much difficulty getting over the Bannock Mountains. They endured many hardships, the weather being very cold. Her father froze his fingers trying to thaw out the food over little fires along the way. The stage driver set the stage on fire trying to keep the children warm. Then they continued the journey on mules with the children between pillows to keep them warm. They rode to the nearest station and took the next stage to Utah to her grandparents at Mountain Green in Morgan County. During this trip that other men passengers on the stage coach begged her father to throw her away. They said she would never stand the trip. The grandparents took the two children to Centerville, Davis County, Utah, to live for about three years, then moved to Hooper where she was living at the time of her marriage. Grandmother Arave tells how her father worked for Brigham Young while she was growing up, building the railroad into Salt Lake City. She told of visits from Brigham and his brother, Phineas Young, to her father's home. She told how they borrowed fire in those days. There were no matches. She remembers the first stove brought to the territory. It belonged to her grandmother and caused quite a bit of excitement. Cooking had been previously done in open fireplaces. She married her schoolboy sweetheart of five years. They were married in the Endowment House by Joseph F. Smith who counseled with them and wished them long lives together and to always enjoy each other's companionship. They owned a three-room home in Hooper and lived there until September 1885. Three daughters were born here, Amy, Dorcas and Bertha.
On September 16, 1885, Grandfather and Grandmother Arave decided to return to Idaho. Grandfather told how they sold their property in Hooper and prepared to make the trip north by obtaining large supplies of canned fruits, cured pork, salt and flour, and plenty of clothing. The trip took twelve to thirteen days at that time. The wagon was pulled by a four-horse team driven by Grandmother, while Grandfather drove the stock. Many times along the way he teasingly told his wife, "this is the place". It especially bothered her when he stopped on the reservation, as the Indians were not always friendly at this time. At last they arrived at the place which is now Taylor and having no home on their 160 acres which they had homesteaded, they took the covered box off the wagon and put it on the ground to sleep in, and here they camped until Grandfather brought logs from the canyon to build a two-room house. Before it was finished, he dug six miles of ditch so they could have water for use and drink. Grandfather hooked the horses onto the running gears of the wagon and hauled logs from the nearby hills to build their house and a stable before winter. He hauled wood to Eagle Rock to trade for groceries and clothing. There were only six families in this little Community of Taylor so they were very devoted to each other. These families were Grandfather, Ed Wadsworth, Abiah Wadsworth, E. William Priest, John Priest, and Smith Johnson.
The second year, in 1887, the Indians became very unfriendly and on the warpath. These families sat up nights and never undressed their children for bed. The Indians would go through their community in the day painted and decorated in feathers making their threats. This agitation was caused by an outbreak of smallpox on the reservation. Some of the papooses had died and been buried without the knowledge of their parents. The Indians also resented being quarantined. All the men of the small settlement stood guard each night, and every day a messenger was sent into town to learn if the danger was greater. They were encouraged to come into Eagle Rock where they would be safe, but the courageous settlers stayed until the danger was over.
These families also endured many hardships. Before the canals were dug, they hauled water in barrels four miles from Taylor Creek. In the winter when the creeks would freeze up, they would have to drive their cattle six miles to the river for water. Grandfather raised a little dry farm wheat for their chickens and it was threshed by beating the heads with sticks. No other crops were grown at first, as there was no water for irrigation. They went back to Utah once a year to get flour and fruit to last another year. Although they had staple goods preserved1 they indicated they could never have survived without the wild game; many wild birds were eaten, an antelope was always brought down if a trip was made into Eagle Rock. One morning, Grandfather shot a deer from the door of his log cabin home. Whenever an elk. was shot, it was divided by the families and some of the meat smoked for winter use.
It was four or five years before the canals were dug and the water was put onto the land, so they built the first blacksmith shop in Eagle Rock and lived there for three years. Grandfather's father had come to live with them and he helped in the blacksmith shop, shoeing horses, setting wagon tires, and sharpening plow shears. Grandfather helped build the railroad bridge. He said a train was never stopped during its construction. He helped build the Cedar Hollow and Foothill Canals and worked on many canals and bridges in the development of the Snake River Valley. He also built the first building in Shelley, the "Shelley Merc." Grandfather and Grandmother claimed, "Those were the best times of our lives". They often took a picnic lunch to the cedars, riding in lumber wagons or buggies. Many evenings the young people of Eagle Rock would gather and dance to Alma Marker's violin. The town was small, and everyone would have a fine time.
Would you believe when Idaho Falls was named Eagle Rock, a fellow traded a double barrel shotgun for a half block of downtown business property? That property is now the site of the Idaho Falls Public Library. A year later that man, William Arave, was having problems with his cow drying up and since he had to have milk for his children and some medicine for his ill wife, he found it necessary to trade that half block of property for a heifer that was going to freshen.
The children started to school at age five in an old saloon building converted into the first school. There were twenty-one pupils. They were Amy Arave; Nate, D Worth and Mary Chase; Barzill Clark; John, Dwight and Mary Ann Henry; Otto Kortz; Laura Wright; Millie Eastman; Elva and Theodore Smith; Sam Taylor, Jr; Joe, Ralph and Hugh Willis; sill Ellis; George, Joe and Maude Brunt. Miss Herd was the first teacher. Later, a three room, frame school was built where the 0. E. Bell School is now located, and C. F. Arney was the teacher.
There were three stores, the Z.C.M.I.; Alma Marker's Music store; and Jack and Bob Taylor's building, bought later by Anderson Brothers. They had the post office in one corner, a bank in another corner and everything in grocery and dry goods, the only building north of the railroad tracts. The depot was just south of the tracks on the Butte railroad line. There was a board
sidewalk in front of Dick Chamberline's Hotel, west to Louie Fig's Drug Store, then across the street, the Bush and later Burgess Hotel and Z.C.M.I. There were three saloons in that one block. The cemetery, with seven buried, was on the bank of the Snake River, behind the Anderson Brother's Store. Later the cemetery was moved to Rose Hill.
They lived in Eagle Rock five years, then went back to the farm. In January 1892, the family contracted Diphtheria. There were six children in the family. Amy, Dorcas, Bertha, Ida, William Lee and Earl. Lee, nearly two, died on Wednesday night, Dorcas, who was seven years old, died the following Saturday of the disease. Amy was very sick. Grandfather was very sick at that time. Grandfather Clark came from Utah. The neighbors were afraid to help for fear of contracting the dreaded disease. There were no funerals held. The children were taken to the Taylor Cemetery by Great Grandfather Arave and Great Grandfather Clark and buried. The first few years, the closest doctor was in Pocatello. His name was Doctor Bean. Later there was Doctor Mitchell and Doctor Pendleton. Grandmother Arave's Grandmother, who raised her after he mother passed away in Montana, died in Hooper, Utah, at that time, also.
In 1892, Grandfather contracted the building of six miles of the Idaho Canal. The family camped in Goshen. Grandmother cooked for the men. John Prichard owned the only well in that part of the country. It was an open well with pulleys and buckets. Amy was ten. She remembered drawing the water from the well and carrying it in ten-pound pails a quarter of a mile for the men to drink. Grandfather contracted building of three other canals after that.
By the time Grandfather and Grandmother Arave had eight children, Grandfather was called on a mission to the mid-western states. Grandmother cared for the children for the two years he was away. In 1906, he was elected Sheriff of Bingham County which then included Bonneville County. He moved his family to Blackfoot, which was the county seat, and lived there three years. In 1910, they moved back to the homestead and later went into the hotel business at Idaho Falls. The Arave Hotel was expanded from twenty-one to sixty-five rooms to accommodate the growing town. They first lived at 575. South Capital Avenue. In 1917, they bought a home at 472 Eleventh Street, where he was retired for nearly thirty years. They celebrated their fiftieth and sixtieth wedding anniversaries with a party given by their children. They were married for sixty-six years. They spent most of each winter on the coast in California. They had thirteen children, two who died during childhood. Children include; Amy Fielding, Dorcas (deceased), Bertha Leavitt, Ida Collins, William Lee (deceased), Earl, Lana Taylor, Joseph Frank, Laura Baldwin, Harold, Verna Rounds, Lloyd Elmer, Luren Spencer. Grandfather Arave died Friday, August 1, 1947 at 8:45 P.M. at his home at 472 Eleventh Street. Funeral services were held on Tuesday, August 5, at 2:00 P.M. at the Third Ward L.D.S. Church with Bishop Arthur Thomson officiating. Burial was by the Woods Funeral Home in Taylor Cemetery. Grandmother commented that after sixty-six years of marriage, she never remembered having heard Grandfather complain about her cooking. She was a sturdy pioneer woman often visiting the sick and laying out the dead. She remained at her home on 11th Street until her death on January 2, 1956. Surviving her were five sons, five daughters, 60 grandchildren, 124 great-grandchildren and 41 great-great-grandchildren. He family loved her and always loved to be around her and enjoy her wonderful sense of humor. We are grateful for their desire and ambition to homestead and develop this beautiful Snake River Valley. We are especially grateful to them for giving birth to and raising their thirteen children from whom we are descendants.