Greg Hancock: History Drafts
http://gregorymhancock.blogspot.com/2010/12/john-andrew-hancock.html
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
History Drafts
History work in progress
Stories from the life of Greg Hancock
Cory was driving and Forrest was riding on the tractor with him when they were involved in a wreck on Friday June 18th 1965. They were hit by a pickup truck being driven by Dale Dawson with a passenger Fred Rasband. Both vehicles had been traveling west when Cory made a left turn onto the Buss Matthews farm lane and was struck by the truck broadside just in front of the rear wheels. The driver of the pickup apparently had not noticed the tractor turning left and attempted to pass it on the left. At the point of collision both vehicles were off of the highway and on the left (South) side of the road. The result was the tractor being broken into several pieces and the truck flipped and landed upside down over the roadside ravine ending upside down and the bed of the truck was over the top of Forrest. Cory had also been thrown from the tractor and was laying in the weeds nearby. Forrest remembers Buss Matthews being on the scene and helping to pull him from under the truck bed.
Article in the AZ Daily Sun
Stories from the life of Greg Hancock
Tractor vs. Truck Wreck
I was at home when someone knocked loudly on our front door and as soon as I started to open the door a man rushed in and at the same time was exclaiming; "there has been an accident, I need to use your phone". I directed him to our phone in the hall and listened as he called emergency services and reported a tractor/truck accident. After the call, Pamela and I talked with him; and from the information we received it seemed as though it was not our family members in the wreck. Cory, Forrest, & Marty had just left the yard with the tractor and mower to go to the back field to do some mowing. This man told us there were two boys involved in this wreck so it was initially thought to involve some of our neighbors. When it became clear that it was our family we did not know what had become of Marty. Later Marty was found in the kitchen eating a bowl of bread and milk and had no idea about what had happened. When asked where he had been, he said he had gone out the back way to open the gate ahead of them. The creek was in a flood stage so the tractor needed to be driven around but Marty had been sent to cross the steel foot bridge over the Gulch to open the gate between the Mathews farm lane and our property rather than ride on the tractor with the other boys. Cory may have been inspired to not allow Marty to ride on the tractor with he and Forrest as they had to travel about 3/4 of a mile down the highway. When they failed to show up at the gate and Marty had waited for what seemed like longer than necessary he just came home. The steel foot bridge spanning the creek Marty crossed was put in place after dad had brought home several tons of steel from an old bridge he worked to disassemble at Flaming Gorge and used one of those steel beams to span over the Dry Gulch creek we called the Gulch.
Cory was driving and Forrest was riding on the tractor with him when they were involved in a wreck on Friday June 18th 1965. They were hit by a pickup truck being driven by Dale Dawson with a passenger Fred Rasband. Both vehicles had been traveling west when Cory made a left turn onto the Buss Matthews farm lane and was struck by the truck broadside just in front of the rear wheels. The driver of the pickup apparently had not noticed the tractor turning left and attempted to pass it on the left. At the point of collision both vehicles were off of the highway and on the left (South) side of the road. The result was the tractor being broken into several pieces and the truck flipped and landed upside down over the roadside ravine ending upside down and the bed of the truck was over the top of Forrest. Cory had also been thrown from the tractor and was laying in the weeds nearby. Forrest remembers Buss Matthews being on the scene and helping to pull him from under the truck bed.
Before Emergency vehicles arrived, dad came upon the accident and helped extract the victims from the wreckage. He was told "the one boy there is dead" dads’ reply was "He is not dead". Dad then proceeded to lay his hands on Cory's head and gave him a Priesthood blessing. All four accident victims were taken to the hospital in Roosevelt and the two men were then transferred to Salt Lake City hospitals. Cory and Forrest were treated for head injuries, lacerations and abrasions and tested for skull fractures. The officer investigating the accident was Patrolman S Duane Richens, and he was assisted by County Sheriff George E Maret and Roosevelt Patrolmen Jay Houtz.
Initially it was somehow concluded that the accident was caused by Cory but in court during testimony, dad testified of how the accident occurred and drew a representation of the accident scene showing just how the vehicles were moving up to the collision and the result was a more favorable judgment than initially thought. Sometime later Duane Richens came up to dad and admitted that his initial conclusions regarding the cause of the accident were in error.
Part of an interview with Mother:
Tell us about Forrest and Cory getting into that accident on the tractor.
A: Honey, I didn't see it. I wasn't there, they got on the tractor, and went up and they had to get over into the pasture.
Q: They had to go across the creek.
A: They drove across the street and...
Q: They said they were clear off the street when...
A: Well they were because there was a road turned off there. They had turned into that cut off there to get over across the canal. The Gulch comes under the highway, and they had to get on the other side. That guy just come on through there with that sunshine in his face, and he saw that tractor and he kept on trying to go around it swept those kids right off. They were clear off on the other side of the road. I wasn't even at home; I was at Irene's doing my laundry.
Q: I know Pam and I were home. I opened the door, and that guy ran right in the door.
A: You and Pam were there then.
Pam: He said there was an accident down the street with a tractor. I knew the boys had just left on the tractor, and it scared me to death.
A: Who came after me? Somebody come after me in the car. I got back but dad had come from work the other way and went on to the accident and got off. He recognized who it was as soon as he saw it. He stopped and leaned down there and just in time to hear somebody say, “Well that one's dead.” He said, “No, he isn't.” He crawled down in there with both of them, and gave both of them a blessing under the tractor because they were in bad shape. He was real mad at that guy that said they were dead, no their not. Anyway, I just remember him saying that. I didn’t get down there in time to see much of what was going on. It sure did scare me. They were in the hospital for three days.
Pam: I can't remember mom. I called somebody.
Q: We thought there were three of them, we thought Marty was with them but Marty had been sent the other way across the creek to open the gates. Marty waited there for them, and when they didn't show up he came back to the house. He was sitting there eating at the table, didn't even know anything about it, because he had given up on them.
A: I remember that part.
Hauling Hay
At young ages when we boys were old enough to steer a tractor we were allowed to drive the tractor to help with hauling hay. Although all of the boys helped with hay haulin' the ones who ended up in a long term business arrangement was, Forrest, Marty, Greg and then later, Denzlo and Levi. We were able to bring in some income hauling hay and this added a line of work which helped with the family expenses. Forrest was the first to be offered a regular job with our neighbor and first customer, Lawrence Brighton. When Brother Brighton asked if Forrest knew of any other young men who could be hired to help haul in his hay, Forrest suggested his brothers. With the idea of the brothers working together on this venture Lawrence suggested that we try it for awhile to see how it went. He was satisfied with our work and other arrangements were never necessary. On some of the harvests we were accompanied by others who were hired by Forrest. Lynn Lemon was one who was one of the best hired hands who helped us on some fields. The contract price for hauling hay for most of our customers was $.06 per bale to get the hay from the fields and stacked neatly in stacks in the hay yards. I remember Forrest making every effort to insure we made the haystacks neat, straight, square and tall. We also had discussions at home regarding the enormous haystacks we constructed. Some were visible from a long distance away and their appearance was extremely important to us; there were comments regarding how good they looked. We would rise very early on the days we were hauling and work until mid day. After lunch, if we were not behind or pressed for production, we could take a nap and be at ease until it started to cool off again; then we would go out and work until dark. We counted it a good productive day when we put up a thousand bales in a day. On our best days our production was twelve hundred bales. Lawrence was a truck driver as well as a farmer and he had a bad back which was greatly irritated by spending so much time driving. While he was able to do much of the hay baling, it fell to his wife Afton to do a great deal of driving the hay baler. Afton was not nearly as experienced as her husband and she did not check the weight, compacting, dew content and readiness of the hay to be baled. As a result we were often given bales which were much heavier than they should have been; after a while we began calling all of the heaviest bales "Afton bales". When we would gather haul and stack an "Afton bale", we had more than earned our 6 cents!
Initially we hauled hay using the equipment provided by the customers until Marty built a hay trailer at his shop class in school. This trailer was built to specifications worked out by dad and Marty with some helpful input from Forrest and was designed to be primarily for hay hauling. The trailer was entered in the fair and Marty won a Grand prize best of show ribbon for his entry. At the end of the semester someone at Union High School wanted to charge an additional $100 for the estimated use of extra oxygen, acetylene and power required to construct such an ambitious project as the hay trailer. It was pointed out that while Marty was engaged in cutting and welding metal, many of the other students were engaged in playing games with the burning and cutting tools including dangerous horse play, pranks and tomfoolery; constantly using resources without constructing anything, and although it was a large project it also set an example for other students and helped them to learn. The idea of charging for excessive resources was an afterthought and as the trailer had been approved beforehand with no mention of the possibility of additional charges. The one hundred dollars was never paid. Per school policy, school fees not paid resulted in report cards being held for nonpayment. Marty never did receive his report card from the school for that semester. However he did receive credit for his class and it was probably an A. With this award winning trailer we were able to bring in considerably more bales per load, and thereafter always used this trailer for our hauling until we left Roosevelt. Upon our moving to the ranch in Arizona, the trailer was sold to Lawrence Brighton.
Denzlo remembers:
“When Afton first started bailing, the rows were not always bailed so we could get the tractor and trailer down between the rows, so the bales had to be rolled out of the way before we could even get through with the tractor and trailer. The number of bales brought in per day depended largely on how far away the fields were from the stack yards. Sometimes we had the trailer so loaded that the tractor would pop a wheelie at the slightest incline so our loads had to vary depending on the road back to the yard. I also remember the fun we had trailer surfing on the way back out to the fields. I was driving tractor for the Brighton’s before I was tall enough to set in the seat and put my foot on the clutch at the same time. I would steer the tractor down the row until it got to the end, I would then stand on the clutch with both feet because I was not heavy enough or strong enough to keep it down with one foot. Bruce Brighton would then come turn it around and point down the next row and off we would go again. I dumped them off the trailer more than once trying to let the clutch out easy. I thought I was big stuff. I can’t remember who Bruce’s friend was. It may have been Lynn Lemon. I remember eating lunch with them on those days; it was the first time I ever tasted store bought chicken pot pie.”
“When Afton first started bailing, the rows were not always bailed so we could get the tractor and trailer down between the rows, so the bales had to be rolled out of the way before we could even get through with the tractor and trailer. The number of bales brought in per day depended largely on how far away the fields were from the stack yards. Sometimes we had the trailer so loaded that the tractor would pop a wheelie at the slightest incline so our loads had to vary depending on the road back to the yard. I also remember the fun we had trailer surfing on the way back out to the fields. I was driving tractor for the Brighton’s before I was tall enough to set in the seat and put my foot on the clutch at the same time. I would steer the tractor down the row until it got to the end, I would then stand on the clutch with both feet because I was not heavy enough or strong enough to keep it down with one foot. Bruce Brighton would then come turn it around and point down the next row and off we would go again. I dumped them off the trailer more than once trying to let the clutch out easy. I thought I was big stuff. I can’t remember who Bruce’s friend was. It may have been Lynn Lemon. I remember eating lunch with them on those days; it was the first time I ever tasted store bought chicken pot pie.”
Article in the AZ Daily Sun
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The Arizona Route 66 District of the Grand Canyon Council Boy Scouts of America gathered Feb. 5 for its annual recognition banquet to honor those Scouts who earned their Eagle rank this past year. The district also honored volunteer leaders who were chosen by the district for their exceptional service to youth in the district.
The 35 Scouts who earned their Eagle Rank, the highest rank in scouting, and who were honored for their achievement are: Mateo Trujillo, Jeffery Keene Short, Christian Duclo, Jeremy Foley, Aaron Garcia, Jeremy Emry, Everett Carrol III, Trevor Wytroval, Levi Howard, Anthony McClinton, Adrian Schneider, David Scandura, Patrick Donnelly, Grady McMahon, Colter Hooker, Tanner Greene, Christian Shupe, Cyril Johnson White, Daniel Sorenson, Matthew Stradling, Jason Harmon, Edward Conley Bendel, Levin Hatch, Michael Christopher Gardner, Reese Chatwin, Kevin Decker, Ty Hancock, Corbin Nielsen, Jacob Fields, Tyson Smith, Robert Larsen, Bryson Palmer, Chris Irwin, Zack Miller and Justin Parisot.
During a National Court of Honor, the Grand Canyon Council presented the Silver Beaver award to Greg Hancock of Flagstaff for his distinguished service of exceptional character to youth in our community. Earlier in the night, Cindie McMahon, Bill Ritchey and Andy Whetten received the District Award of Merit for service to the district and the local youth. The following leaders received recognition for their service: Jeff Schwarz (Tiger Leader), Troy Jensen (Bear Leader), Carmen Ramirez (Webelos Leader), Edith Sautter (Cubmaster), Debbie Sealover (Cub Scout Committee), The Ramirez Family (Cub Scout Family), The Gage Family (Boy Scout Family), Galen Guerrette (asst. Scoutmaster), David Lott (Venturing Leader), Ed Jirsa (District Committee), Mark Wagner (Outstanding Service to the District), Michael Vollmer (Charter Representative), and Allison Dingman (Boy Scout Committee). Boy Scout Marcus Braatz was honored as Den Chief of the Year. The Virgil Bushman Scoutmaster of the Year was presented to Dr. Matthew Ricks of Winslow.
The Arizona Route 66 district, Grand Canyon Council, serves the communities of Flagstaff, Winslow, Williams, Joseph City and the Grand Canyon. The district and its volunteer leaders serve more than 1,100 scouts.
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