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 7th 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 7th,
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.
