Lloyd Kunz
7th-8th Child (twin son)
August 1994 -- Smithfield Porch
Mom's Memory
Mother's face was fleshy. I think she was a little heavier than what my dad was. She seemed a little taller than my dad, too. Mom did a little cooking and working in the kitchen, but she didn't do too much because of her sickness. She made her own homemade bread all the time. She mixed bread dough and made biscuits, and scones from her.
Arlene--Our Mother
I remember Arlene very well. She took over after our mother died to clean and cook for us before Vesta came to take care of us. We accepted Arlene as our mother. Later Dad married Fern.
Wayne was in the service when Vesta married him. Marion had to sleep in a cast. They had a plaster Paris cast made for her that her little arm stuck downwards and she had to sleep on her side.
Childhood Memories
My best memory of childhood is the fun we had with Ben Price, our neighbor who lived about half a mile from us. We swam in the canal, scouting, and growing up being a young boy. When I was young I was involved in the Boy Scouts. When we were in scouting he didn't say do this, do that, because he knew we were taught to prepare yourself, and stay with your teachings. I became an Eagle Scout. When I went in the service and when the estate was sold my bandalo went with it. It was probably one of those things that they threw out. I wish I had it today to show my grandkids that I did make Eagle Scout.
Dad's Leisure Time & Religion
In his leisure time Dad tried to do things for the church. He was a religious man. We all went to church. I slouched away from my going to church. He believed on not working on Sunday; that was the day of rest other than we had to feed the chickens, and milk the cows. Other than that farm work was out on Sunday. We'd go to church Sunday morning and then we had a night meeting that we attended. He always told us to go to church and believe in God. I smoked at that time, because I was wild from being around people in the army. He encouraged me to quit smoking.
Dad and Chores
My first recollection of Dad was that he was very, very strict about chores. We traded off with different jobs. We had to make sure the eggs were delivered, the chickens and pigs fed, and the cows milked. We made a slop for the pigs from scraps from the table mixed in a barrel with grain and water. On the side of the roads grew alfalfa wild from the fields. A lot of people burned it, but we fed it to the pigs and chickens. We'd cut it by hand and get all we could carry. We had our own hay and grain to feed the cows. We had four or five milk cows all the time. We sold a little bit of milk.
The Separator
We had a separator we cranked. We poured milk into the tank that had a spout on it. We cranked it and a little thing would spin around that had different sizes of about fifty little tin disks that were separated from each other all through it and that would separate the cream from the milk.
There were two spouts. A milk spout went one way and cream spout another way. It separated it pretty good, too. You could run it through twice, but there would be very little cream left in the milk. It had to be cranked up to a certain speed. There was a disk that was four inches high and five inches in diameter it would float when the milk went down to the correct spot. It allowed it to deliver so much milk so the machine wouldn't overload itself. If it did it came over the top of the separating disks.
The waste or whey would be fed to the pigs and the cream was sold to a creamery where they made butter. Sometimes we made home-made cottage cheese. We had a butter churn with little paddles in it to make our own homemade butter, too. We put in a couple of drops of orange food coloring so it wouldn't be white.
An Old Coal Stove
We had an old coal stove we used all the time. We had to make sure there was coal and kindling wood for a fire in the morning. A trunk delivered the coal through a hole in the house and dumped it downstairs. We brought up the lump coal in a bucket. A box of kindling wood for a fire in the morning had to be kept full.
The stove had a jacket inside the coal stove to heat the water, too. We depended on that to heat our water, too. There was a forty or fifty gallon tank in the corner that heated our water. It would recycle the water from the jacket into the tank. If the stove was burning then we had hot water. Later we got an electric water heater. For the kitchen cooking stove we had to cut wood and pile it up underneath the downstairs steps. It had to be small enough to start the stove each morning.
Dad’s Profession--A Farmer and an Electrician
My best memory of my dad is his work in being an electrician and farmer.
The Farm
I worked out on the farm with my dad a lot. We had so much to do on the farm. We hauled rock. Every time we plowed it seemed like it stirred even more rocks up and then they'd have to be hauled away. The drill planted the treated grain [and would break if it hit the rocks]. We treated the grain by placing it in barrels with stuff so when it was in the ground the bugs wouldn't eat the seed. We placed it on a screen that would separate the weed seeds and scraps from the grain. When it dried out it was ready for planting. If you buy seed potatoes today they've been treated.
An Electrician
As an electrician I went with him on a lot of the jobs and wired different homes. He had all his own conduit, switches, wire and was equipped with all the things he needed as an electrician. He showed us a little bit of electrical work, but I wasn't interested enough to follow in it. When I was in the service in Camp Gordon, Georgia I was in a signal school. If I could have completed that I probably would have been a telephone installer instead of a butcher.
The Well Pump
We had an old Model-T Ford that we used to pump our water for us from the pump. We popped the back end up and put a pulley on one of the wheels and then run a long belt to two arms that would go up and down to pump the water for our horses. The well had rocks all the way down the sides to where the water was. A pipe went down in there and would fill the well with rain water and snow.
Harvesting Grain
Dad started harvesting grain early about five o'clock in the morning. As long as he could see he'd be out working. He'd give the horses a rest at noon during the hot part of the day, then he'd go back out and work until sundown. Sometimes at noon the harnesses had to be repaired so the horses got the rest of the day off. He repaired his own harnesses and they were always breaking. There were times when a couple of horses would get ornery like some women get. Sometimes they didn't even want the harness on and he'd have a heck of a time with them in the barn. They'd back up and start kicking and everything. With a couple of 'em he really had to watch his step, but they were good workers once he got them hooked up.
The Combine
We had a great, big combine. It took sixteen head of horses to be harnessed up to pull the combine. We had about twenty work horses all the time at the farm. Dad would sit up front holding all the reins from those sixteen horses. He had a box of rocks off to the side of him. If one of the horses wasn't doing his share he'd hurl a rock out there and get him behind the ears. He wanted to make him pay attention and do his share. He was good at it. It was amazing to watch him because he was so good at it. The big, heavy combine was all metal--even the wheels. No rubber tires, just great big, steel wheels. It had a sixteen-foot cutter bar, a sifter to sift the chaff out and wires to cut the grain off that would drop into a bin and we'd sack it. We sewed the sacked grain and it slid down a loose slippery slide to the ground. A lot of times I had to make sure the sacks were sitting up in a straight row so the truck could come along and load them up. It was like a conveyor belt that was operated by just the wheels. The sacks were then taken to the mill and wheat was traded for milling flour and whole wheat mush. Five to six hundred pounds of flour was stacked in a bedroom during the winter. The largest share of our cooking was done in town.
The Old Farmhouse
We had an old farm house that had an old coal stove. We didn't do a lot of cooking on the farm. The biggest share of the time we'd prepare a little something perhaps leftover from a sandwich and take it out on the farm with us. We slept on the farm while we were hauling rocks and clearing the land before we planted in the spring.
A Fordson Tractor
We eventually got more modern and got a little Fordson Tractor in place of the combine. When Floyd and I were old enough to run the tractor Dad would leave it up to us to haul off the rock and plant the grain while he stayed in town (Tremonton) to do electric work.
Feed for the Horses and Cows
Before we got the tractor we used to put the hay in a row and make shocks, which were forkfuls of hay we could throw on a wagon. We'd bring it into where the barn was. We'd use a hayfork that would open up, we'd place it down on the wagon, we'd step on it and the thing in the center of it would lock. It was called a derrick. Some of the outside derricks were run by big poles stuck up on them, but ours ran on a track in the barn. One kid would ride the horse that pulled the rope and lifted the hayfork full of about two hundred pounds of hay up into the hayloft. The hayfork would go to the top and click onto a rail. When pulled a rope off to the side opened the teeth to the hayfork and dropped the hay into the loft. The hay was to feed the horses and livestock. We'd even cut the wild grass or what was growing along the fence line to feed the horses. Wild grass makes better feed than the stuff we grew anyway. Cows cope with alfalfa okay, but horses do better with grass.
Two Big Families Together
It was quite a handful to marry the Baker family. Fern Baker still had about seven children when he married her. We did okay though as far as being all together with fourteen mouths around the table--that was quite a few potatoes! We had a long bench on one side of the huge table. There wasn't a lot of fighting; we got along good. With two mixed families of fourteen of us you'd think we'd have quite a stir. With three sets of twins it was quite a handful to take hold of.
Fern Baker Kunz, Our New Mother
Fern was old-fashioned like my dad. She was a good to us. We all enjoyed her cooking. She believed in making things from scratch--homemade bread and things that would stretch. We accepted her really as more of a mother than our real mother, because we were so small and didn't remember our real mother. We accepted her quickly as a mom. I felt bad not having a mother and missing one. It bothered me growing up. There's something that you look for--I felt like something was missing.
I didn't pay too much attention to being a twin or having three sets in our family. We just excepted it. It was unusual to have a family with three sets of twins, a set of girls and two sets of boys.
In The Service For Me
My life was affected quite a bit when Dad died while I was in the service. I was about twenty-one years old when Dad died. I had left at eighteen and I came home on an ten-day emergency furlough because Dad was very sick with cancer. It was hard to accept. He was nothing but skin and bones. It was hard for me to shave him with that skin laying on bone. There were places I cut him because there was no flesh underneath. He died and was buried while I was home. I was shipped to Cap Gordon, Georgia. I went through signal school. I got a year's extension thrown on me and that sent me to Korea--that was Uncle Sam for you. I had three years total and was getting close to being discharged and then the extension came. I was discharged in Seattle, Washington upon returning from Korea.
Dad Was Strict
The Old Straight-Edged Razor and Strap
Dad was a little, short guy. He was a stocky, little fella. He was very strict. When he told us something had to be done he wanted it done. There were chickens to be fed, pigs to be fed, and cows to be milked. If it wasn't we got the razor strap. Back then you got a razor strap on your back. A leather, razor strap was used to sharpen and straight-edged razor that they shaved with. It was about two feet long and hung behind the door. I was too scared to shave with a straight edged razor, but he was good at shaving himself. Whenever he wanted to sharpen the razor he'd hold the leather tight and go back and forth with the razor to straighten its edge. It could cut a hair so quick. A leather razor strap was to straighten a razor edge and strap our butts. There's a few of us who got it for not paying attention. Back then other people used the strap, too.
The last time I shaved dad he had to have that old straight- edge razor. It scared me to death. They sold the Gillette double-edged razors. It would come out with a dealy and then a tousle that you'd put your finger on it with a thing that folded up in to protect the blade. The handle protected the blade when they put it away. It had a little deal you would hold onto to balance it in your hand. I wasn't used to using a straight-edged razor.
Dad--A Real Wonderful Guy
My grandchildren need to know my dad was a real wonderful guy. He was true spoken. He told you the truth. He told you things you shouldn't do. He was always on the right track for you. That's what I liked about him. He was strict. I didn't have bad feelings about his strictness other than when I got a strapping with that razor strap. We knew what we got it for. It hurt! He didn't slow back on--you knew what you got that strapping for. He was plain on what we had done wrong. He was strict about doing right and that's what I liked or will never forget about him.
(Gaylene Johnson transcribed Lloyd's tape-recorded memories
done on his Smithfield, UT porch in August of 1994.)
