High Water on the Colorado

This post is to satisfy the curiosity of my nephew, Pete Webb.

This month Google Earth just launched a street view of a ride down the Colorado River. Since Pete used to work on a rafting crew near Moab, he posted the link to Facebook where I offered him the story of Grandma and Grandpa Foy's death-defying trip down the Colorado in 1936. Here it is, Pete, and those adventurous types in our family.

Left to Right: Leslie, Inez, Lola, Jean, Julia, Florence on the red rocks of southern Utah

From Florence Foy’s history:

 "One day [Leslie] was going to take a man and Grandpa (Tommy) down the river to blast some rock off the cattle trail to make it wider. Jean and Lola were in Bountiful picking cherries. Florence said, 'Oh! Let me and the little ones go with you.' He said the mosquitoes were too bad, but Florence said she would dress them so as to protect them. Soon as the boat pulled out of Millcreek onto the river, she knew she had made a mistake. The river was high and one big whirlpool after another.

"They made it down to home base and landed and had dinner. When they started back, the river was rising fast and the current took them right into the middle of the stream and the motor stopped. The most terrified look was on Leslie’s face, as he was the only one that could swim. The boat was going with the current. They had no oars, just a pole to push the boat off sandbars. He said, 'Don’t panic.' Then he pushed and pulled everything on the motor. He then  began poling to get them out of the current. When they got near the shore, he said, 'if you can read a willow, work your way up it hand over hand.' Florence did this until the boat was close in to shore. Then Leslie finally go the motor started, but they stayed close to the bank the rest of the way."

From History of Leslie Thomas Foy by Florence Howard Tuttle Foy

"The children were now getting older and he would take them down the Colorado River from Moab for our cattle on the Winter Range. The only way we had of getting to the ranch was by boat, or by horse back which was over slick rock and cliffs of sand stone which was very dangerous.

Petroglyph panel along Potash-Lower Colorado River Scenic Byway (U-279)

 "I had never been down the river and was anxious to go as the Indian Hieroglyphics and Cliff Dwellings were quite a sight to those who were interested in that line - and I was. Well, one morning in June - the river was at its very highest having risen 7 ft. the night before. My husband was taking a man down to the ranch to blast off a ledge and some great desire made me want to go along. So I said, "Daddy, let me take the children and go too." He said alright as he was a man who never saw danger. We got into the motor boat with our little family of four children ranging from 8 months to 8 years [Julia, Inez, Leslie, Sarah.] As we left the side stream and started down the muddy Colorado I realized the mistake I had made as it looked like nothing but a large black whirlpool. We arrived okay, spent the day, and started back home in the evening leaving the man behind.
 

Photograph during an expedition down the Colorado River in 1909.

"As we got about 3 miles upstream the motor stopped. One look at my husband's face and I realized our danger. He told us not to get panicky and to sit still. We had no oars, just a pole to shove off from the bank and the river was so high he couldn't reach the bottom with it. At this place the current changed to the other side of the river thus throwing us out into mid-stream. You can imagine our feelings with four helpless babies and us in the middle of the great Colorado River during high-water. Under some miraculous or supreme power my husband managed, after what seemed hours, to get us poled close enough to the bank for me to reach out and get hold of the willows along the bank. Then he got hold and together we pulled the boat close enough that I could hold it while he fixed the motor. That fall a boat with 8 passengers was capsized during a cloud-burst and was sunk."

To read more about the Colorado River:
History of Grand County
Read about the first river running recreation sport trip.
Whitewater rafting in the 30s
Powell Expedition - National Park Service site


Sources:
*History of Leslie Thomas Foy by Florence Howard Tuttle Foy. © You may use text for educational or family history purposes with attribution only. Changing any portion is prohibited. 
*Photo of boat in rapids taken from the Featured Articles in Grandview This Week Newspaper Weekly Moment in Time Column.  Grandview Heights resident Julius F. Stone is shown here.
*Photo of petroglyphs from the Discover Moab site.

Character Gets Us Through Hard Times

Are we going to fall of the fiscal cliff? Are we going down with a fiscal avalanche? In difficult economic times it becomes easy to view personal finances through a negative lens. It is easy to fall into the trap of depression and negative thinking. I have to stop and remember that those who came before me, the family members that came down first to pave the way, suffered through similar hard times, if not more adverse conditions. If we take the time to ponder our place in the long chain of our family here on earth, we will have the hopeful experience of sensing our "historical continuity, the sense of belonging to a succession of generations originating in the past and stretching into the future" (Clark).

A business leader, Timothy R. Clark, writes that "to live for the moment, is the prevailing passion - to live for your self, not for your predecessors or posterity." He questions whether we of the 21st Century have the moral fortitude to learn from the lessons of the great recession just as our ancestors learned those of the great depression. We need to internalize those lessons before we can teach them to our posterity. Clark goes on to list four pillars of a WWII communications campaign mounted to help citizens survive the austerities of that war: 1. Don't waste anything, 2. Buy only what is necessary, 3. Salvage what you don't need. 4. Share what you have.

In reading through the Thomas Bingham Foy Book of Remembrance, I see many evidences of those lessons learned in the lives of our ancestors and a few additional ones as well: 5. Work hard, and 6. Don't give up. They were a hardy lot who were able to endure much. That is not to say that they never resorted to negative thinking or pessimism, but especially during the month of new resolutions, it is important to realize that they kept picking themselves back up, re-making themselves, and I'm sure at times had to even start over.

Grandpa Leslie fortified himself in times of difficulty with self-reliance and the ability to stick to difficult assignments. From one history of Leslie Thomas Foy by Florence Foy we find that he learned to work hard,  from his father, Thomas Bingham Foy. "When just a small boy they moved to Cane Springs, about half way between Monticello and Moab, Utah. Here his father operated a Pony Express Station, while the cattle were out on the range" (Foy). I can easily imagine the pony express rider and cowboys as they made do with little. Thomas's grandchildren often related grandpa's ability to make delightful biscuits with no bowls or utensils, just rolling down the top of the flour sack and mixing the ingredients on top.

Leslie on the right of his sister Edna May

Leslie once wrote: "Ever since my Grandfather William Bosley Foy trailed upwards of five hundred head of cattle and some horses into Southeastern Utah from the settlements in the central part of the state, swimming them across the silvery Colorado River at Dandy Crossing, my people have been linked with the livestock industry here and I - in my time - with them. The drive was more than forty years ago and at a time when Grand and San Juan counties were in the pink of condition from the range viewpoint. My father was an older son and was given active management of the cattle while grandfather strove to build up a ranch and a home for his family. Naturally, cattle and sheep formed the principal topics of conversation for the family and as soon as I was large enough I forked a pony and joined my father. I learned the business from the ground up and rode the range while it was yet in its virgin state" (Foy).

Thomas Bingham Foy is located top right in the picture with his family. Notice that the older boys all have sunburned cheeks where the sun beat down on them as they herded cattle and pale foreheads which had been shaded by the cowboy hat. These are, sure enough, tootin'-tootin' cowboy tans resulting from a hard day's work. William Bosley Foy and Lucinda Bingham Foy are seated center row left and center.

William taught Tommy to work, then Tommy taught Leslie to work, and the mothers taught the girls and younger boys. Leslie's history continues: "By living on the frontier he knew all about pioneer life even to the making of candles. There is a story told by a friend of the family to the effect that one time Leslie's mother was driving a team and wagon to Arizona to see her parents who were living there at the time. This one girl, Mag Taylor, and Leslie both wanted to drive. The mother in order to keep peace let one take one line and the other one the other line" (Foy).

Leslie was called on a church mission soon after his mother died. When he returned home he taught school for a half a year and then enlisted in the army. He served as a medical corp orderly in World War I in an evacuation hospital in France. Leslie's history records that "He was the only Mormon in his corps and very often he would have to take the place of Chaplin." Later he was a reporter for the Fourth Corps Flare, the first American Army newspaper published in Germany, contributed to the Stars and Stripes and was on the staff of the Amerioc, the official Army of Occupation newspaper in Coblenz, Germany.

Preparing for burial the body of soldier who died from battle wounds. Leslie experienced many of the horrors of war while working in Evac Hospital 8 in France.

Unlike many citizens who businessman Clark decries as living for self alone and "not predecessors or posterity," Leslie expended untold energy in serving his fellowman. He volunteered his time, talents and efforts to his church, his country, and community. According to his wife, Florence, "Leslie worked just as hard in civic affairs as he did in Scouting and his church. He was a member of the Rotary Club, the American Legion, the Lions Club, the Chamber of Commerce and the Associated Clubs of Southern Utah" (Foy). He offered his skills as an officer in many of those groups and volunteered to help erect historical monuments for the Idaho State Historical Society. It is not surprising that he served as chairman of the Idaho Anti-Tuberculosis Association of Malad since this is the disease that took his own mother's life.

Our grandfather carried the psychological trauma of war then known as shell shock and now classified as post-traumatic stress syndrome throughout his life and may have also have suffered the after effects of nerve gas. Despite the scars of war, he picked himself up and kept striving for a better life. A few of the jobs for which Leslie was employed throughout his life include the following.

Principal of the school in Bluff, Utah
Several years of service in the U. S. Army
Several years of ranching and stock raising
Editor of the San Juan Record
Manager of the Foy-Lester Garage (carried the U.S. Mail)
Advertising Manager of the Twin Falls Times
Owner of three small papers in Nevada and Idaho
Owner of the Cache Valley Herald
Managing Editor of the Idaho Enterprise
Manager of the National Re-employment Office of Grand and San Juan counties

For those of us struggling with tight streams of money due to a variety of causes, Grandpa Leslie would identify. He once wrote, "Of course, the real thing that caused me to cast my lot with you newspaper fellers was the need of a little occasional spending money. As a sideline at school I used to hand peg a few sticks of ink up to the old Franklin on press day for our home town papers. I guess I got the smell of the printer's ink then and it sorta lingers on" (Foy). What I hope lingers on in our minds and hearts is the sacrifices our ancestors endured. If we can accept that in our genetic memory and personality is embedded the ability to work hard, be frugal, pick ourselves up and try again.

Happy New Year, loved ones!


Clark, Timothy R. "WWII offers many lessons on finances." On Leadership. Deseret News: 8 Jan. 2013.     Print.

Foy, Florence T. "Leslie Thomas Foy." n.d. Print.

Foy, Florence T. "History of Leslie T. Foy." n.d. Print