Work at the Miami Mine

On Christmas day 1938, Soon after my parents, John Andrew Hancock and Ruby Irene Johnson were married, at the cabin in Aripine where her family lived, Andy took his new bride to his ranch home between Aripine and Clay Springs, Arizona. When they arrived at Ruby’s new home, she asked Andy “Do you want to carry me over the threshold?” His reply was “What in the world is that for?”  Ruby’s resigned reply was, “Never mind, nothing at all.” When mother told me this, my immediate thoughts were “Gone in a moment were imagined or fantasied exhibitions of displayed chivalry. Instead, a quick dose of reality. Mental adjustments of expectations were made, reality grasped, and life moved on.” I expressed such to mother when I asked, “So he wasn’t much of a romancer?” She quickly corrected me. “He was the best at that. Andy was a gentleman, he was always a gentleman, and I always thought that was nice. That was (the) kind of romantic, he did.” Apparently, Dad had never been made fully aware of the tradition of the groom carrying the bride across the threshold, or he did not feel obligated to pay any attention to it. However, if being romantic meant always being a gentleman, Andy certainly was.

Ruby remembered “Yeah, the night he took me home from the wedding, after the wedding, we left my house and went over to his home on the ranch.  We went in the house, I walked into the bedroom, and the dog objected.” There, Mother was greeted by Buck, Dad’s cattle dog. He growled at Ruby, so he was put outside. Ruby remembered “Andy made him go outside because he was growling at me”. Ruby was a stranger to Buck, so when she came in, Buck growled and then was put outside. Ruby said, “Well, that dog, he didn't ask for me.  Andy couldn’t let the dog in the house that first day, so he was ousted. He kept it around, but he didn’t let it in the house.  He (Buck) never did like me; I didn’t like him either.” Seems Buck was no longer his master’s best friend. Buck lost his place, and his rank, and was put outside; on Christmas day to boot!

Buck was a cattle and hunting dog. I believe he was the best working dog Dad ever owned. No other dog he owned quite lived up to the reputation Buck had. Buck was trained before Dad had any children. Having children around likely contributed to the challenge of training subsequent working dogs. Buck was such a talented dog; he would be borrowed by neighbors who had become aware of his skills. One friend would come and get Buck when he was hunting elk. The hunter said, “Buck would round up the elk and keep them so concerned about him that I could just ride around the herd and take my pick.”

Early in the marriage Dad was fortunate to have a job working for the highway department and worked on road construction East of Holbrook through what is now the Petrified National Forest. While working on roads, Dad witnessed the burial of national treasures. He remembered “They would take those great big old, petrified logs, and would just bull doze them into a wash, and cover them up, there was so many of them.” Concerning the burial of petrified logs, Mother remembers being told at the time, “They did a lot of that.  The government kind of got in and stopped it you know.  Then it was, if you touched a piece of that (petrified) wood, it was trouble.” The highway job there did not last very long, and Dad was back to trying to earn a living at the ranch, and any other way he could think of.

While ranching near Clay Springs, money was hard to come by and Andy thought he would try farming on the ranch. He sought a loan to buy seed for farming in order to produce a potential cash crop. Ruby said, “He applied at Holbrook for a feed and seed loan with the government so we could farm.  They never did get it to go through with him.  He kept on going back after them and they hadn’t ever gotten around to it yet.  Finally, he just had to get work so we just up and moved to Miami and got a job at the mine.” The Great Depression in the country was still keeping money hard to get. However, months later the loan was approved but it was too late. Ruby remembered, “That old man kept running him around and around. Then the guy called him back and said, ‘Your loan has gone through.’  And Andy replied, ‘What good is that going to do me this time of the year?  It’s the middle of July.  I just got a job.”

Perhaps it was a great blessing to not get the loan. The work found was at the copper mine more than 100 miles South in Miami, Arizona. By this time, they had been married long enough to have two young girls, Irene and LaVerne. For the short time the family resided in Miami, the young family lived in a small, rented home on or near highway 60, the main road going through Miami. LaVerne says, “We lived right above the mine”. Irene and LaVerne were very young and while the family lived there, Beverly was born on June 11th, 1942, in Miami, AZ. Although I do not have the dates, the whole family only resided in Miami for part of the duration of Andy’s employment there.

Andy moved Ruby and the three young girls back to the ranch house, near Clay Springs, but he kept working at the mine for quite a while. Living back at the ranch, Ruby would have had the support of her family, friends and church members in and around Clay Springs. Andy could continue working, and living at the mining camp, without the expense of a rental and be able commute home, as needed, or desired.

The work in Miami was good paying and needed for the upcoming war effort. Interviews with my older siblings indicate this young family moved from Clay Springs to Miami in the Spring of 1942. While employed in the mine, Dad initially worked at the mine as a Timber man. His main responsibility was to frame and prop up the mine with timber and then at least part of the time he worked with explosives where he learned the blasting trade, which he used to his advantage in construction, demolition, stump removal, and so forth for years to come. At this period of time our country was being drawn into and then fully engaging in the war. The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service came on the 7^th of December 1942. Concerning Dad after the attack Mother remembers, “He stayed working there, then Pearl Harbor came along, that scared the daylight out of me. He stayed right where he was working in the mine.  He was a timberman in the mine, his was a very important job in getting the copper out. He knew timbering, and he knew how to work in the mine, so he was working there and had a very good job.  So, he stayed working there until the war was almost over.” When asked about Dad also working as a Blaster she answered, “Oh yeah, he did (work with dynamite), there was dynamite there. He was a good dynamite man.” During the war effort, the national concern was intense and although for much of rural America it may have seemed to be a distant concern, still there were changes which affected even the most remote areas of the country. The need for mining products became a priority. In many areas, military service men were stationed to work in the mines. During the Second World War, many younger men, up through their 30's as Andrew was, and even older men into their 40’s, were drafted or volunteered for military service, however, because of the increased demand for copper for the war effort, Andy never served in the military but rather served his country being employed as a copper miner, during a greatly increased demand for essential ore. 

Dad enjoyed telling the following story which he experienced while residing at the mining camp where many of the miners lived while employed there. One of the crew repeatedly found his toothbrush wet when it should not have been. Upset because someone was helping himself to his toothbrush, he decided to put a stop to the unacceptable sharing. To solve the problem, before retiring to bed, this miner joined the other men wearing only his underwear. There in front of all the boys, with everyone watching he used his toothbrush as a tool to scratch himself on, usually covered, areas of his body. He seemed to get everyone's attention with this conspicuous display. One fellow with a bit of concern in his voice asked, "Is that what you do with your toothbrush?" "Yep, every day" was the answer. This fellow never again noticed his toothbrush untimely wet after his striking display.

Sometime before Dale was born on Sunday, November 7^th, 1943, Andy had moved Ruby and the girls back to the ranch near Clay Springs. Perhaps the approaching due date was a major motivation for the decision to move them back. The ranch was on Cottonwood wash, West of Clay Springs towards Aripine. Sunday morning before Dale was born, Dad took off on his horse from the ranch. He first went and got Ruby’s sister, Mildred Parker to attend to mother, then he left the ranch, rode past the New Tank watering hole then on Westward to Snowflake to find the good family friend, Doctor Haywood, an estimated 20 miles away. I do not know why a vehicle was not available or used, but it was a very cold day, and traveling by horse a rider does not maintain good enough blood circulation to keep the cold manageable by constantly moving one’s arms and legs. Instead, up on the horse, Dad was more exposed to the cold and wind. His limited body movement left his fingers, toes, and face, fully vulnerable to the cold, and his boots would have provided little protection. Dale remembered father talking about the ride on that cold November day. Dad said of his ride, that for him, “It was the coldest day there ever was”. By the time the doctor arrived at the ranch Dale had already been born. Mother said the good Doctor Haywood, who arrived too late to deliver the baby, asked, “What are you in such a rush for?  You’re just going to do this again in a few months.” Fortunately, Mother’s sister, Aunt Mildred was on hand to serve as Ruby’s midwife. Dale’s three older sisters were at home and may have been on hand, or underfoot. Surely, they were eager to help, however helpful or not. Irene remembers being outside at least some of the day.

Later the family moved from the ranch to downtown Clay Springs. Population; not many. There was no school bus service from anywhere near the ranch, so the family moved from the ranch to Clay Springs when Irene reached school age. The move was made with the only vehicle available, a flatbed truck.

This part of the story, of the move, is questioned with good reason, and to be fair it was related to me by old people, who were very young at the time. With this in perspective I will share what may have happened even though the facts are scarce and questioned. I was told, Dad had loaded up the flatbed truck with furnishings from the ranch and was driving towards Clay Springs. It was on a dirt road, and he certainly would have been driving slowly. Irene remembers, she and Beverly were seated on a sofa at the back of the truck. Irene says “There must have been some rowdy goings on. LaVerne who was always perfectly behaved and always did just what she was told was not with us on the sofa, or there would have been no problem, but because it was us two troublemakers, we tipped the sofa off the back of the truck with us on it.” Fortunately, no one was injured during the mishap. According to Irene, Dad reloaded the sofa, and the girls, then carried on. If such a spill did occur, then it certainly would have someone counting blessings and evaluating loading and securing procedures. LaVerne assures me that the father she knows would never have been so careless as to allow something to simply fall off a load, especially with little girls aboard. After all, Andy, JA, or John Andrew, was well known for his skills in tying down and securing anything, especially a load being transported. The characteristics of her father, which LaVerne has knowledge of, came from her firsthand experiences, most of which were much later than this reported incident. It is also reasonable to consider, part of the reason, Dad became so good at tying down and securing loads, may partially be due to the incident described, or some other learning experience, perhaps, not including dropping part of a load, with such precious child cargo. I feel it is probable, if such an incident ever did occur then it would be something he would learn from, and never again allow less than a completely secured load.

 

John Andrew Hancock with Petrified logs, East of Holbrook Arizona.