TITUS WILLIAM COOMBS was born August 12, 1899, in a log house located on Pine Creek in Thurber, (Bicknell), Wayne County, Utah.
"My mother, Theresa Billings Coombs was the daughter of Titus Billings and Mary Ann Tuttle. She was a skilled mid-wife and nurse who spent a great deal of her life traveling many miles to help people who were ill. My father, David Coombs, was the son of George and Eliza Astbury Coombs, who immigrated to the Untied States in 1864 from England. My father was 12 years old at the time. They traveled by ox team from the Missouri River to Utah, arriving in September, 1864.
I was the youngest of twelve children: David Joshua, Richard Alonzo, (who died young), Arthur Warren, Ray Herman, Hephzibah Ellen (Nellie) Ivie, George Lewis, Mary Eliza (Lide) Baker, Ephraim Hyrum, Harriet Theresa Davis, Emily Covert, Vanever Chappell, and Titus William, (myself).
Pine Creek flows into the Fremont River which comes from Fish Lake high in the Fish Lake mountains, down through Loa, Lyman, Teasdale, Capitol Reef, Blue Valley, and finally at Hanksville it joins with the Muddy making the Dirty Devil River which empties into the Colorado River and the head of Lake Powell.
When I was a year old my father and mother moved to Lyman, about ten miles north of Pine Creek. There they opened a small merchandise store to help supplement the family income. Some of the older children had married and started families of their own. My sister, Lide, and her husband Fred Baker remained on the Pine Creek property. I started to school in Lyman and during the summer months I spent much time with them. I had a small pony called "Old Shet" who had a bad habit of stubbing his toe on almost anything, and falling down with me on his back.
I got into some meanness when I was a kid in Lyman. My dad had a pair of mules that he was breaking, and he was driving them around town. I ran off and hid, but he finally found me, and he put me into the buggy and started driving north of Lyman. There was an Indian camp up on the flat about three miles north and he said "Well, I'm going to take you up there and give you to the Indians." He drove right up to the Indian camp and I was sure beggin' him. I told him I'd try to be better. I sure was glad to be riding back home that day.
My brother George used to have leave money laying around sometimes. I swiped some once for the 4th of July. I must have taken a quarter or something like that. When we got into town, I asked George for a nickel to buy an orange, (an orange was a real luxury in those days), so George gave me a nickel, and when he wasn't looking I treated the other kids to an orange too.
I spent my growing-up years in Lyman until my folks sold out the store and moved to Thatcher, Idaho in 1912. They homesteaded and established a home. The Homestead Act required that a person live on the land for at least six months, then file to prove their claim. Most of the land in the lower portions of Mound Valley had already been taken, as had the water rights in the mountain streams that fed the Bear River. The place had a small four-room house on it and Mother, Father, Eph, Vanever, and I made our home there. We had a lot of the family around, since Fred Baker homesteaded on 320 acres on the North Burton Creek, Floyd and Nellie Ivie filed on a homestead south of the creek, and my brother Ray had 320 acres joining the Bakers on the west. Eph also filed on a homestead close to my father.
On August 12, 1912, my brother Ray and I left Lyman with twenty to thirty head of horses that belonged to Eph, to drive them to Idaho. We followed Route 89 through Gunnison, Manti, Thistle, and Spanish Fork. We bypassed Salt Lake City on Redwood Road, on north to Oxford, then east through Cleveland to Thatcher, a trip that took about eleven days.
The night we stayed at Thistle Valley, I got up with a toothache. It bothered me all day. When we passed Thistle Junction, the highway went along above the railroad bed. As we were going along this road, a train came down the canyon and started the horses to run. The engineer slowed his train to just stay even with the horses, and then he would toot his whistle. This kept up for some for or five miles down Spanish Fork Canyon. My brother would ride along with the horses and shake his fist at the engineer, who was having a good laugh at his expense. Somehow I kept up with them and brought up the rear.
When we arrived at Salem, where my sister Harriet Davis lived, the horses were so tender-footed that we had to stay there three or four days to shoe them so we could go on. In the meantime, Harriet took me to the dentist in Spanish Fork and he pulled my tooth. He said that I had the best pair of lungs he had ever heard.
When the horses were rested we sent on our way. Ray's horse became so lame that he had to break a wild colt to ride. He bucked and sun-fished, but Ray stayed on till the colt calmed down and he didn't have any more trouble with her. We arrived in Thatcher on the 22nd of August. It was quite an experience for me at the tender age of thirteen years.
Ray's family and Lide and Freds' were already in Thatcher, and Dave and Ivy and their family had been living there for some years. I stayed with my sister Lide and went to school at the Buttermilk School, about three-fourths of a mile away. Once Loyal White and Harley Hoopes stuffed the stovepipe and made the stove smoke so school had to be let out.
Just after WW1 started I graduated from district school. Rachael (my brother Dave's daughter) and I were the only two graduates out of a class of seven. About this time they started the Thatcher Second Ward with the Buttermilk school as the church house. I started high school the year of 1916. I lived with Ephraim and Vanever on the homestead as my father and mother had moved to Logan to do temple work. They built a home at 126 So, 3rd East. And after their death my sister Emily and her husband Tom Covert and their family moved there to live.
During the years I went to high school I had a black team of horses that we would hitch to a bobsled with a wagon box and fill with straw to go with some of the young people to Lago to dances and parties. We lived on the homestead until Ephraim went into the Army and Vanever went to live with the folks in Logan. Then I stayed with Lide and went to High School. The spring of 1918 I was classified and put in Class A for the army. When school was out I went to Wayne County and got a job with the sheep working for Leland King. My brother George was working for Leland and I went to work with him. I worked with the sheep through the summer of 1918 and then went back to Idaho to go back to high school through the winter of 1918-19. That spring I bought Ephraim's homestead of 320 acres along with the 80 that Father had proved up on and let Eph have, making 400 acres in all. I started farming and got my first crop in that year. After harvesting the crop I rented the place to my brother-in-laws Floyd Ivie and Fred Baker.
That fall (1919) Theron Duncan and I went to the Cornish Sugar Factory and worked through the campaign. After the first of the year the flu epidemic got started. I got the flu and went to Logan for Mother to nurse me through the flu. When I was well enough I went back to Thatcher and to high school for the rest of the winter and stayed with my sister Lide. After school was out I went back to Utah to work with the sheep.
My brother, Eph, had come back from the war and moved back to Teasdale, and was soon to be married to Floss Snow. A group of young people went to him and asked him for a wedding dance. He said he would get the music, and they could have a dance if they wouldn't shivaree him and his bride. I had become acquainted with Blanche Allen and was much taken by her beauty. I asked her to accompany me to Eph and Floss's wedding dance. We spent an enjoyable evening and saw each other a lot during the next few days. That was the beginning of a friendship that soon grew into love. I returned to Idaho to finish school, and we began a correspondence that covered the next few years.
I went to work at the sheep herd, planning to stay for the winter. I freighted supplies to the herds and on one trip had the misfortune of having the wagon run over my foot. I was laid up for some time with that. I continued to work for Emery King, as did my brother, George, who was already well established and raising his family. I spent much of my time with George and Mae, which allowed me the opportunity to continue my courtship with Blanche. Finally we left Teasdale and traveled to Logan, where we were married in the Logan Temple on November 23, 1922.
During the time before we were married I had planned a trip to Utah and since Eph and Floss had decided to stay in Teasdale, Eph wanted me to drive his herd of horses back down for him. After I got my crops harvested I got the horses ready and drove them back down to Teasdale. That was the second trip I made driving those horses. That was quite a little drive.
After our wedding I returned to the sheep herd to work and Blanche lived with her Father, Orson Wm. Allen, there in Teasdale. There our first child was born, Wm. LaClede Coombs. Blanche was attended by Mary Hiskey during her confinement.
The next spring, 1924, we left Teasdale to come to Idaho to put in the crops. On our way through Salt Lake we went to Madsen Furniture Company and bought a kitchen stove, a table and chairs, a bed and some springs. We had to go into debt for them because I had used the salary I had earned to pay Eph for the homestead I had bought from him when he left Thatcher. But I wasn't broke when we got to Idaho because I still had 35 cents in my pocket.
That fall we traded the homestead to Milt Robbins, taking on his mortgage. There was a two-room log cabin on this farm. It was located on the creek one mile from the grade school that was built after the Buttermilk School was abandoned and torn down. They found they could not maintain the school because there was not a supply of water close by. The new school was built of red brick, and had two large rooms, two rest rooms, and a large basement. It was used for several years to house eight grades until the schools in the lower end of the valley were consolidated and established in the former Thatcher High School in 1945.
I hired Floyd Ivie, Nellie's husband, to help with the crop and the cows. The crop we harvested in the fall of 1925 was a bounteous one, and Floyd and I hauled the threshed wheat to Grace through the winter using a team and sleigh each. I was away from home on October getting some grain cleaned to plant and Blanche was home alone with LaClede and expecting our second child. She started into labor not long after I left, and had no one to send for help. When I returned I found she was nearing delivery and I drove to Grace to get Mrs. King who returned to help through the delivery. The baby was a healthy little girl whom we named Eileen.
Together with Emily's husband Tom, we bought the first side-hill combine in the valley. The #7 Combine could be pulled with 12 head of horses on the front of it. It could have an extension put on to accommodate a total of 16 head of horses. We hired Dave Barthlome to drive that rig as he was such a good driver. It took great skill to drive that many horses, especially on the steep side hills where the combine would tend to slide.. The cutter bar was on a table arrangement on wheels which could be raised and lowered to follow the contour of the hill as it would cut the grain, thresh it, bag the grain, dump 4-5 sacks of grain at a time onto the ground to be picked up by the wagon following, and dump the straw in stacks on the ground to be picked up later or burned to make way for the plow. After a few years of this method of harvesting I sold my horses and invested in a Caterpiller tractor that could pull the combine.
In 1928 we were expecting our third child, and decided that Blanche should go to Logan, as the last birth was very hard on her. By this time I had purchased a 1925 Ford Pick-up, one of the first off the line, and the roads were better and hospitals safer. David was born on December 5, 1928, and because my father had passed away in the spring we chose to name the baby David after my father, and Allen after Blanche's father, who had also died recently.
Our next baby was born Nov. 7, 1929, and was born before the doctor could arrive. She was a "blue baby" which meant her lungs never developed sufficiently, so she did not survive. Evelyn, our fifth and last child, was born on December 19, 1931, in Logan, and was a beautiful, healthy baby, and weighed over nine pounds. What a blessing she was to us, and was such a comfort after losing little Etta, who was named after her mother, Blanche Etta Allen Coombs
Not long after the birth of Evelyn I had the opportunity to purchase the Cora Thatcher place which was situated on the main road and was one of the first settled in the valley. The depression years had been very difficult, and I was very grateful that Cora Thatcher had confidence that I could succeed. I worked hard to earn that trust.
I invested in a herd of "springing" Holstein heifers brought from California, and built a large barn to house them in. The barn had a spacious hay loft that would hold 80 tons of hay. The children were all taught to milk cows quite early, before we moved to the Thatcher place, and hand milking was the order of the day. After we moved and built the barn I installed a De LeVal milking machine, making the chore of milking easier, but not any less tedious.
When the children were old enough to take care of the livestock, the milking and help with cropping, I bought a two and a half ton truck, as felt I could make more money from my crops by storing them then trucking them to market in Utah, where there were several large feeding operations. These feed yards bought cattle from ranchers as they were brought off the range, and they were fed during the winter months to put on the weight that cattle buyers wanted. I would haul grain to feed yards in central Utah, and bring back coal from the Price area, cedar posts, rock salt from Redmond, and other commodities that I could sell in Idaho to make the trucking pay both ways. I hauled many loads of cement from Incom where the Portland Cement was located. I hauled cheese from the factory in Thatcher where Trent, Lide's son, was head cheese-maker, to Pocatello, to be processed by the Kraft Cheese Company.
When WW11 occurred, I could see the writing on the wall. My family was growing up and would be leaving, and I decided to sell my herd of milk cows and convert to Herefords. That would still leave me in the cattle business, but not so labor intensive. I leased summer pasture land north of Soda Springs and trailed the 60 head of cattle north in the spring and south in the fall. This required careful driving and feeding to insure that they did not fall off in weight too much. The grand children thought it was great fun to go along on these trail drives. Blanche would follow along with the pick-up and trailer house, and some bales of hay, and pick up any small calves that became too tired to keep up.
Eventually, after the war ended, I turned the place over to LaClede and David, as they were now married and were able to work together to maintain the farm and cattle. Blanche and I bought a small home in Preston in 1968, thirty miles south and not too far away to make frequent visits to the grand children. We enjoyed living in Preston, and attending the temple. Retirement was not really to my liking, so I spent happy days attending the cattle auctions held every Wednesday in Preston." Titus W. COOMBS
Children of Titus William and Blanche Coombs:
William LaClede Coombs, B. 24 Sep 1923 Marr. Kathleen Margaritte Boxx, 9 Mar 1946. (Died 11 Nov 1976) Marr. Deanna Murray, Sept. 1978.
Eileen Coombs, B. 29 Oct 1925 Marr. Max E Smith, 2 Sept 1944
David Allen Coombs, B. 5 Dec 1928 Marr. Anna LaRue Paskins, 27 Oct 1948
Etta Coombs, B. 7 Nov 1929, (Died 7 Nov 1929)
Evelyn Coombs, B. 19 Dec 1931 Marr. Varon Jensen, 4 June 1952.
Blanche and Titus enjoyed several years of retirement by traveling to different places…Arizona, California, Florida, and Cuba, to name a few. They visited various family members and made friends along the way wherever they went. Blanche had a history of Angina, and in 1978 she suffered a severe attack and passed away. Titus then married Myrtle Manhart Johnson, a long time friend from Thatcher, and they lived in St. George and Preston until Myrtle died in 1989. Titus remained in his home until he also died in 1992, of Congestive Heart Failure. He was in his 93rd year. He was always possessed of a pioneering spirit, and was a hard working man, and an example to his children and future generations to follow. We honor his name and memory and are proud of the heritage he gave us through the ancestry and parentage that produced him and his brothers and sisters.
"My mother, Theresa Billings Coombs was the daughter of Titus Billings and Mary Ann Tuttle. She was a skilled mid-wife and nurse who spent a great deal of her life traveling many miles to help people who were ill. My father, David Coombs, was the son of George and Eliza Astbury Coombs, who immigrated to the Untied States in 1864 from England. My father was 12 years old at the time. They traveled by ox team from the Missouri River to Utah, arriving in September, 1864.
I was the youngest of twelve children: David Joshua, Richard Alonzo, (who died young), Arthur Warren, Ray Herman, Hephzibah Ellen (Nellie) Ivie, George Lewis, Mary Eliza (Lide) Baker, Ephraim Hyrum, Harriet Theresa Davis, Emily Covert, Vanever Chappell, and Titus William, (myself).
Pine Creek flows into the Fremont River which comes from Fish Lake high in the Fish Lake mountains, down through Loa, Lyman, Teasdale, Capitol Reef, Blue Valley, and finally at Hanksville it joins with the Muddy making the Dirty Devil River which empties into the Colorado River and the head of Lake Powell.
When I was a year old my father and mother moved to Lyman, about ten miles north of Pine Creek. There they opened a small merchandise store to help supplement the family income. Some of the older children had married and started families of their own. My sister, Lide, and her husband Fred Baker remained on the Pine Creek property. I started to school in Lyman and during the summer months I spent much time with them. I had a small pony called "Old Shet" who had a bad habit of stubbing his toe on almost anything, and falling down with me on his back.
I got into some meanness when I was a kid in Lyman. My dad had a pair of mules that he was breaking, and he was driving them around town. I ran off and hid, but he finally found me, and he put me into the buggy and started driving north of Lyman. There was an Indian camp up on the flat about three miles north and he said "Well, I'm going to take you up there and give you to the Indians." He drove right up to the Indian camp and I was sure beggin' him. I told him I'd try to be better. I sure was glad to be riding back home that day.
My brother George used to have leave money laying around sometimes. I swiped some once for the 4th of July. I must have taken a quarter or something like that. When we got into town, I asked George for a nickel to buy an orange, (an orange was a real luxury in those days), so George gave me a nickel, and when he wasn't looking I treated the other kids to an orange too.
I spent my growing-up years in Lyman until my folks sold out the store and moved to Thatcher, Idaho in 1912. They homesteaded and established a home. The Homestead Act required that a person live on the land for at least six months, then file to prove their claim. Most of the land in the lower portions of Mound Valley had already been taken, as had the water rights in the mountain streams that fed the Bear River. The place had a small four-room house on it and Mother, Father, Eph, Vanever, and I made our home there. We had a lot of the family around, since Fred Baker homesteaded on 320 acres on the North Burton Creek, Floyd and Nellie Ivie filed on a homestead south of the creek, and my brother Ray had 320 acres joining the Bakers on the west. Eph also filed on a homestead close to my father.
On August 12, 1912, my brother Ray and I left Lyman with twenty to thirty head of horses that belonged to Eph, to drive them to Idaho. We followed Route 89 through Gunnison, Manti, Thistle, and Spanish Fork. We bypassed Salt Lake City on Redwood Road, on north to Oxford, then east through Cleveland to Thatcher, a trip that took about eleven days.
The night we stayed at Thistle Valley, I got up with a toothache. It bothered me all day. When we passed Thistle Junction, the highway went along above the railroad bed. As we were going along this road, a train came down the canyon and started the horses to run. The engineer slowed his train to just stay even with the horses, and then he would toot his whistle. This kept up for some for or five miles down Spanish Fork Canyon. My brother would ride along with the horses and shake his fist at the engineer, who was having a good laugh at his expense. Somehow I kept up with them and brought up the rear.
When we arrived at Salem, where my sister Harriet Davis lived, the horses were so tender-footed that we had to stay there three or four days to shoe them so we could go on. In the meantime, Harriet took me to the dentist in Spanish Fork and he pulled my tooth. He said that I had the best pair of lungs he had ever heard.
When the horses were rested we sent on our way. Ray's horse became so lame that he had to break a wild colt to ride. He bucked and sun-fished, but Ray stayed on till the colt calmed down and he didn't have any more trouble with her. We arrived in Thatcher on the 22nd of August. It was quite an experience for me at the tender age of thirteen years.
Ray's family and Lide and Freds' were already in Thatcher, and Dave and Ivy and their family had been living there for some years. I stayed with my sister Lide and went to school at the Buttermilk School, about three-fourths of a mile away. Once Loyal White and Harley Hoopes stuffed the stovepipe and made the stove smoke so school had to be let out.
Just after WW1 started I graduated from district school. Rachael (my brother Dave's daughter) and I were the only two graduates out of a class of seven. About this time they started the Thatcher Second Ward with the Buttermilk school as the church house. I started high school the year of 1916. I lived with Ephraim and Vanever on the homestead as my father and mother had moved to Logan to do temple work. They built a home at 126 So, 3rd East. And after their death my sister Emily and her husband Tom Covert and their family moved there to live.
During the years I went to high school I had a black team of horses that we would hitch to a bobsled with a wagon box and fill with straw to go with some of the young people to Lago to dances and parties. We lived on the homestead until Ephraim went into the Army and Vanever went to live with the folks in Logan. Then I stayed with Lide and went to High School. The spring of 1918 I was classified and put in Class A for the army. When school was out I went to Wayne County and got a job with the sheep working for Leland King. My brother George was working for Leland and I went to work with him. I worked with the sheep through the summer of 1918 and then went back to Idaho to go back to high school through the winter of 1918-19. That spring I bought Ephraim's homestead of 320 acres along with the 80 that Father had proved up on and let Eph have, making 400 acres in all. I started farming and got my first crop in that year. After harvesting the crop I rented the place to my brother-in-laws Floyd Ivie and Fred Baker.
That fall (1919) Theron Duncan and I went to the Cornish Sugar Factory and worked through the campaign. After the first of the year the flu epidemic got started. I got the flu and went to Logan for Mother to nurse me through the flu. When I was well enough I went back to Thatcher and to high school for the rest of the winter and stayed with my sister Lide. After school was out I went back to Utah to work with the sheep.
My brother, Eph, had come back from the war and moved back to Teasdale, and was soon to be married to Floss Snow. A group of young people went to him and asked him for a wedding dance. He said he would get the music, and they could have a dance if they wouldn't shivaree him and his bride. I had become acquainted with Blanche Allen and was much taken by her beauty. I asked her to accompany me to Eph and Floss's wedding dance. We spent an enjoyable evening and saw each other a lot during the next few days. That was the beginning of a friendship that soon grew into love. I returned to Idaho to finish school, and we began a correspondence that covered the next few years.
I went to work at the sheep herd, planning to stay for the winter. I freighted supplies to the herds and on one trip had the misfortune of having the wagon run over my foot. I was laid up for some time with that. I continued to work for Emery King, as did my brother, George, who was already well established and raising his family. I spent much of my time with George and Mae, which allowed me the opportunity to continue my courtship with Blanche. Finally we left Teasdale and traveled to Logan, where we were married in the Logan Temple on November 23, 1922.
During the time before we were married I had planned a trip to Utah and since Eph and Floss had decided to stay in Teasdale, Eph wanted me to drive his herd of horses back down for him. After I got my crops harvested I got the horses ready and drove them back down to Teasdale. That was the second trip I made driving those horses. That was quite a little drive.
After our wedding I returned to the sheep herd to work and Blanche lived with her Father, Orson Wm. Allen, there in Teasdale. There our first child was born, Wm. LaClede Coombs. Blanche was attended by Mary Hiskey during her confinement.
The next spring, 1924, we left Teasdale to come to Idaho to put in the crops. On our way through Salt Lake we went to Madsen Furniture Company and bought a kitchen stove, a table and chairs, a bed and some springs. We had to go into debt for them because I had used the salary I had earned to pay Eph for the homestead I had bought from him when he left Thatcher. But I wasn't broke when we got to Idaho because I still had 35 cents in my pocket.
That fall we traded the homestead to Milt Robbins, taking on his mortgage. There was a two-room log cabin on this farm. It was located on the creek one mile from the grade school that was built after the Buttermilk School was abandoned and torn down. They found they could not maintain the school because there was not a supply of water close by. The new school was built of red brick, and had two large rooms, two rest rooms, and a large basement. It was used for several years to house eight grades until the schools in the lower end of the valley were consolidated and established in the former Thatcher High School in 1945.
I hired Floyd Ivie, Nellie's husband, to help with the crop and the cows. The crop we harvested in the fall of 1925 was a bounteous one, and Floyd and I hauled the threshed wheat to Grace through the winter using a team and sleigh each. I was away from home on October getting some grain cleaned to plant and Blanche was home alone with LaClede and expecting our second child. She started into labor not long after I left, and had no one to send for help. When I returned I found she was nearing delivery and I drove to Grace to get Mrs. King who returned to help through the delivery. The baby was a healthy little girl whom we named Eileen.
Together with Emily's husband Tom, we bought the first side-hill combine in the valley. The #7 Combine could be pulled with 12 head of horses on the front of it. It could have an extension put on to accommodate a total of 16 head of horses. We hired Dave Barthlome to drive that rig as he was such a good driver. It took great skill to drive that many horses, especially on the steep side hills where the combine would tend to slide.. The cutter bar was on a table arrangement on wheels which could be raised and lowered to follow the contour of the hill as it would cut the grain, thresh it, bag the grain, dump 4-5 sacks of grain at a time onto the ground to be picked up by the wagon following, and dump the straw in stacks on the ground to be picked up later or burned to make way for the plow. After a few years of this method of harvesting I sold my horses and invested in a Caterpiller tractor that could pull the combine.
In 1928 we were expecting our third child, and decided that Blanche should go to Logan, as the last birth was very hard on her. By this time I had purchased a 1925 Ford Pick-up, one of the first off the line, and the roads were better and hospitals safer. David was born on December 5, 1928, and because my father had passed away in the spring we chose to name the baby David after my father, and Allen after Blanche's father, who had also died recently.
Our next baby was born Nov. 7, 1929, and was born before the doctor could arrive. She was a "blue baby" which meant her lungs never developed sufficiently, so she did not survive. Evelyn, our fifth and last child, was born on December 19, 1931, in Logan, and was a beautiful, healthy baby, and weighed over nine pounds. What a blessing she was to us, and was such a comfort after losing little Etta, who was named after her mother, Blanche Etta Allen Coombs
Not long after the birth of Evelyn I had the opportunity to purchase the Cora Thatcher place which was situated on the main road and was one of the first settled in the valley. The depression years had been very difficult, and I was very grateful that Cora Thatcher had confidence that I could succeed. I worked hard to earn that trust.
I invested in a herd of "springing" Holstein heifers brought from California, and built a large barn to house them in. The barn had a spacious hay loft that would hold 80 tons of hay. The children were all taught to milk cows quite early, before we moved to the Thatcher place, and hand milking was the order of the day. After we moved and built the barn I installed a De LeVal milking machine, making the chore of milking easier, but not any less tedious.
When the children were old enough to take care of the livestock, the milking and help with cropping, I bought a two and a half ton truck, as felt I could make more money from my crops by storing them then trucking them to market in Utah, where there were several large feeding operations. These feed yards bought cattle from ranchers as they were brought off the range, and they were fed during the winter months to put on the weight that cattle buyers wanted. I would haul grain to feed yards in central Utah, and bring back coal from the Price area, cedar posts, rock salt from Redmond, and other commodities that I could sell in Idaho to make the trucking pay both ways. I hauled many loads of cement from Incom where the Portland Cement was located. I hauled cheese from the factory in Thatcher where Trent, Lide's son, was head cheese-maker, to Pocatello, to be processed by the Kraft Cheese Company.
When WW11 occurred, I could see the writing on the wall. My family was growing up and would be leaving, and I decided to sell my herd of milk cows and convert to Herefords. That would still leave me in the cattle business, but not so labor intensive. I leased summer pasture land north of Soda Springs and trailed the 60 head of cattle north in the spring and south in the fall. This required careful driving and feeding to insure that they did not fall off in weight too much. The grand children thought it was great fun to go along on these trail drives. Blanche would follow along with the pick-up and trailer house, and some bales of hay, and pick up any small calves that became too tired to keep up.
Eventually, after the war ended, I turned the place over to LaClede and David, as they were now married and were able to work together to maintain the farm and cattle. Blanche and I bought a small home in Preston in 1968, thirty miles south and not too far away to make frequent visits to the grand children. We enjoyed living in Preston, and attending the temple. Retirement was not really to my liking, so I spent happy days attending the cattle auctions held every Wednesday in Preston." Titus W. COOMBS
Children of Titus William and Blanche Coombs:
William LaClede Coombs, B. 24 Sep 1923 Marr. Kathleen Margaritte Boxx, 9 Mar 1946. (Died 11 Nov 1976) Marr. Deanna Murray, Sept. 1978.
Eileen Coombs, B. 29 Oct 1925 Marr. Max E Smith, 2 Sept 1944
David Allen Coombs, B. 5 Dec 1928 Marr. Anna LaRue Paskins, 27 Oct 1948
Etta Coombs, B. 7 Nov 1929, (Died 7 Nov 1929)
Evelyn Coombs, B. 19 Dec 1931 Marr. Varon Jensen, 4 June 1952.
Blanche and Titus enjoyed several years of retirement by traveling to different places…Arizona, California, Florida, and Cuba, to name a few. They visited various family members and made friends along the way wherever they went. Blanche had a history of Angina, and in 1978 she suffered a severe attack and passed away. Titus then married Myrtle Manhart Johnson, a long time friend from Thatcher, and they lived in St. George and Preston until Myrtle died in 1989. Titus remained in his home until he also died in 1992, of Congestive Heart Failure. He was in his 93rd year. He was always possessed of a pioneering spirit, and was a hard working man, and an example to his children and future generations to follow. We honor his name and memory and are proud of the heritage he gave us through the ancestry and parentage that produced him and his brothers and sisters.
TITUS WILLIAM COOMBS was born August 12, 1899, in a log house located on Pine Creek in Thurber, (Bicknell), Wayne County, Utah.
"My mother, Theresa Billings Coombs was the daughter of Titus Billings and Mary Ann Tuttle. She was a skilled mid-wife and nurse who spent a great deal of her life traveling many miles to help people who were ill. My father, David Coombs, was the son of George and Eliza Astbury Coombs, who immigrated to the Untied States in 1864 from England. My father was 12 years old at the time. They traveled by ox team from the Missouri River to Utah, arriving in September, 1864.
I was the youngest of twelve children: David Joshua, Richard Alonzo, (who died young), Arthur Warren, Ray Herman, Hephzibah Ellen (Nellie) Ivie, George Lewis, Mary Eliza (Lide) Baker, Ephraim Hyrum, Harriet Theresa Davis, Emily Covert, Vanever Chappell, and Titus William, (myself).
Pine Creek flows into the Fremont River which comes from Fish Lake high in the Fish Lake mountains, down through Loa, Lyman, Teasdale, Capitol Reef, Blue Valley, and finally at Hanksville it joins with the Muddy making the Dirty Devil River which empties into the Colorado River and the head of Lake Powell.
When I was a year old my father and mother moved to Lyman, about ten miles north of Pine Creek. There they opened a small merchandise store to help supplement the family income. Some of the older children had married and started families of their own. My sister, Lide, and her husband Fred Baker remained on the Pine Creek property. I started to school in Lyman and during the summer months I spent much time with them. I had a small pony called "Old Shet" who had a bad habit of stubbing his toe on almost anything, and falling down with me on his back.
I got into some meanness when I was a kid in Lyman. My dad had a pair of mules that he was breaking, and he was driving them around town. I ran off and hid, but he finally found me, and he put me into the buggy and started driving north of Lyman. There was an Indian camp up on the flat about three miles north and he said "Well, I'm going to take you up there and give you to the Indians." He drove right up to the Indian camp and I was sure beggin' him. I told him I'd try to be better. I sure was glad to be riding back home that day.
My brother George used to have leave money laying around sometimes. I swiped some once for the 4th of July. I must have taken a quarter or something like that. When we got into town, I asked George for a nickel to buy an orange, (an orange was a real luxury in those days), so George gave me a nickel, and when he wasn't looking I treated the other kids to an orange too.
I spent my growing-up years in Lyman until my folks sold out the store and moved to Thatcher, Idaho in 1912. They homesteaded and established a home. The Homestead Act required that a person live on the land for at least six months, then file to prove their claim. Most of the land in the lower portions of Mound Valley had already been taken, as had the water rights in the mountain streams that fed the Bear River. The place had a small four-room house on it and Mother, Father, Eph, Vanever, and I made our home there. We had a lot of the family around, since Fred Baker homesteaded on 320 acres on the North Burton Creek, Floyd and Nellie Ivie filed on a homestead south of the creek, and my brother Ray had 320 acres joining the Bakers on the west. Eph also filed on a homestead close to my father.
On August 12, 1912, my brother Ray and I left Lyman with twenty to thirty head of horses that belonged to Eph, to drive them to Idaho. We followed Route 89 through Gunnison, Manti, Thistle, and Spanish Fork. We bypassed Salt Lake City on Redwood Road, on north to Oxford, then east through Cleveland to Thatcher, a trip that took about eleven days.
The night we stayed at Thistle Valley, I got up with a toothache. It bothered me all day. When we passed Thistle Junction, the highway went along above the railroad bed. As we were going along this road, a train came down the canyon and started the horses to run. The engineer slowed his train to just stay even with the horses, and then he would toot his whistle. This kept up for some for or five miles down Spanish Fork Canyon. My brother would ride along with the horses and shake his fist at the engineer, who was having a good laugh at his expense. Somehow I kept up with them and brought up the rear.
When we arrived at Salem, where my sister Harriet Davis lived, the horses were so tender-footed that we had to stay there three or four days to shoe them so we could go on. In the meantime, Harriet took me to the dentist in Spanish Fork and he pulled my tooth. He said that I had the best pair of lungs he had ever heard.
When the horses were rested we sent on our way. Ray's horse became so lame that he had to break a wild colt to ride. He bucked and sun-fished, but Ray stayed on till the colt calmed down and he didn't have any more trouble with her. We arrived in Thatcher on the 22nd of August. It was quite an experience for me at the tender age of thirteen years.
Ray's family and Lide and Freds' were already in Thatcher, and Dave and Ivy and their family had been living there for some years. I stayed with my sister Lide and went to school at the Buttermilk School, about three-fourths of a mile away. Once Loyal White and Harley Hoopes stuffed the stovepipe and made the stove smoke so school had to be let out.
Just after WW1 started I graduated from district school. Rachael (my brother Dave's daughter) and I were the only two graduates out of a class of seven. About this time they started the Thatcher Second Ward with the Buttermilk school as the church house. I started high school the year of 1916. I lived with Ephraim and Vanever on the homestead as my father and mother had moved to Logan to do temple work. They built a home at 126 So, 3rd East. And after their death my sister Emily and her husband Tom Covert and their family moved there to live.
During the years I went to high school I had a black team of horses that we would hitch to a bobsled with a wagon box and fill with straw to go with some of the young people to Lago to dances and parties. We lived on the homestead until Ephraim went into the Army and Vanever went to live with the folks in Logan. Then I stayed with Lide and went to High School. The spring of 1918 I was classified and put in Class A for the army. When school was out I went to Wayne County and got a job with the sheep working for Leland King. My brother George was working for Leland and I went to work with him. I worked with the sheep through the summer of 1918 and then went back to Idaho to go back to high school through the winter of 1918-19. That spring I bought Ephraim's homestead of 320 acres along with the 80 that Father had proved up on and let Eph have, making 400 acres in all. I started farming and got my first crop in that year. After harvesting the crop I rented the place to my brother-in-laws Floyd Ivie and Fred Baker.
That fall (1919) Theron Duncan and I went to the Cornish Sugar Factory and worked through the campaign. After the first of the year the flu epidemic got started. I got the flu and went to Logan for Mother to nurse me through the flu. When I was well enough I went back to Thatcher and to high school for the rest of the winter and stayed with my sister Lide. After school was out I went back to Utah to work with the sheep.
My brother, Eph, had come back from the war and moved back to Teasdale, and was soon to be married to Floss Snow. A group of young people went to him and asked him for a wedding dance. He said he would get the music, and they could have a dance if they wouldn't shivaree him and his bride. I had become acquainted with Blanche Allen and was much taken by her beauty. I asked her to accompany me to Eph and Floss's wedding dance. We spent an enjoyable evening and saw each other a lot during the next few days. That was the beginning of a friendship that soon grew into love. I returned to Idaho to finish school, and we began a correspondence that covered the next few years.
I went to work at the sheep herd, planning to stay for the winter. I freighted supplies to the herds and on one trip had the misfortune of having the wagon run over my foot. I was laid up for some time with that. I continued to work for Emery King, as did my brother, George, who was already well established and raising his family. I spent much of my time with George and Mae, which allowed me the opportunity to continue my courtship with Blanche. Finally we left Teasdale and traveled to Logan, where we were married in the Logan Temple on November 23, 1922.
During the time before we were married I had planned a trip to Utah and since Eph and Floss had decided to stay in Teasdale, Eph wanted me to drive his herd of horses back down for him. After I got my crops harvested I got the horses ready and drove them back down to Teasdale. That was the second trip I made driving those horses. That was quite a little drive.
After our wedding I returned to the sheep herd to work and Blanche lived with her Father, Orson Wm. Allen, there in Teasdale. There our first child was born, Wm. LaClede Coombs. Blanche was attended by Mary Hiskey during her confinement.
The next spring, 1924, we left Teasdale to come to Idaho to put in the crops. On our way through Salt Lake we went to Madsen Furniture Company and bought a kitchen stove, a table and chairs, a bed and some springs. We had to go into debt for them because I had used the salary I had earned to pay Eph for the homestead I had bought from him when he left Thatcher. But I wasn't broke when we got to Idaho because I still had 35 cents in my pocket.
That fall we traded the homestead to Milt Robbins, taking on his mortgage. There was a two-room log cabin on this farm. It was located on the creek one mile from the grade school that was built after the Buttermilk School was abandoned and torn down. They found they could not maintain the school because there was not a supply of water close by. The new school was built of red brick, and had two large rooms, two rest rooms, and a large basement. It was used for several years to house eight grades until the schools in the lower end of the valley were consolidated and established in the former Thatcher High School in 1945.
I hired Floyd Ivie, Nellie's husband, to help with the crop and the cows. The crop we harvested in the fall of 1925 was a bounteous one, and Floyd and I hauled the threshed wheat to Grace through the winter using a team and sleigh each. I was away from home on October getting some grain cleaned to plant and Blanche was home alone with LaClede and expecting our second child. She started into labor not long after I left, and had no one to send for help. When I returned I found she was nearing delivery and I drove to Grace to get Mrs. King who returned to help through the delivery. The baby was a healthy little girl whom we named Eileen.
Together with Emily's husband Tom, we bought the first side-hill combine in the valley. The #7 Combine could be pulled with 12 head of horses on the front of it. It could have an extension put on to accommodate a total of 16 head of horses. We hired Dave Barthlome to drive that rig as he was such a good driver. It took great skill to drive that many horses, especially on the steep side hills where the combine would tend to slide.. The cutter bar was on a table arrangement on wheels which could be raised and lowered to follow the contour of the hill as it would cut the grain, thresh it, bag the grain, dump 4-5 sacks of grain at a time onto the ground to be picked up by the wagon following, and dump the straw in stacks on the ground to be picked up later or burned to make way for the plow. After a few years of this method of harvesting I sold my horses and invested in a Caterpiller tractor that could pull the combine.
In 1928 we were expecting our third child, and decided that Blanche should go to Logan, as the last birth was very hard on her. By this time I had purchased a 1925 Ford Pick-up, one of the first off the line, and the roads were better and hospitals safer. David was born on December 5, 1928, and because my father had passed away in the spring we chose to name the baby David after my father, and Allen after Blanche's father, who had also died recently.
Our next baby was born Nov. 7, 1929, and was born before the doctor could arrive. She was a "blue baby" which meant her lungs never developed sufficiently, so she did not survive. Evelyn, our fifth and last child, was born on December 19, 1931, in Logan, and was a beautiful, healthy baby, and weighed over nine pounds. What a blessing she was to us, and was such a comfort after losing little Etta, who was named after her mother, Blanche Etta Allen Coombs
Not long after the birth of Evelyn I had the opportunity to purchase the Cora Thatcher place which was situated on the main road and was one of the first settled in the valley. The depression years had been very difficult, and I was very grateful that Cora Thatcher had confidence that I could succeed. I worked hard to earn that trust.
I invested in a herd of "springing" Holstein heifers brought from California, and built a large barn to house them in. The barn had a spacious hay loft that would hold 80 tons of hay. The children were all taught to milk cows quite early, before we moved to the Thatcher place, and hand milking was the order of the day. After we moved and built the barn I installed a De LeVal milking machine, making the chore of milking easier, but not any less tedious.
When the children were old enough to take care of the livestock, the milking and help with cropping, I bought a two and a half ton truck, as felt I could make more money from my crops by storing them then trucking them to market in Utah, where there were several large feeding operations. These feed yards bought cattle from ranchers as they were brought off the range, and they were fed during the winter months to put on the weight that cattle buyers wanted. I would haul grain to feed yards in central Utah, and bring back coal from the Price area, cedar posts, rock salt from Redmond, and other commodities that I could sell in Idaho to make the trucking pay both ways. I hauled many loads of cement from Incom where the Portland Cement was located. I hauled cheese from the factory in Thatcher where Trent, Lide's son, was head cheese-maker, to Pocatello, to be processed by the Kraft Cheese Company.
When WW11 occurred, I could see the writing on the wall. My family was growing up and would be leaving, and I decided to sell my herd of milk cows and convert to Herefords. That would still leave me in the cattle business, but not so labor intensive. I leased summer pasture land north of Soda Springs and trailed the 60 head of cattle north in the spring and south in the fall. This required careful driving and feeding to insure that they did not fall off in weight too much. The grand children thought it was great fun to go along on these trail drives. Blanche would follow along with the pick-up and trailer house, and some bales of hay, and pick up any small calves that became too tired to keep up.
Eventually, after the war ended, I turned the place over to LaClede and David, as they were now married and were able to work together to maintain the farm and cattle. Blanche and I bought a small home in Preston in 1968, thirty miles south and not too far away to make frequent visits to the grand children. We enjoyed living in Preston, and attending the temple. Retirement was not really to my liking, so I spent happy days attending the cattle auctions held every Wednesday in Preston." Titus W. COOMBS
Children of Titus William and Blanche Coombs:
William LaClede Coombs, B. 24 Sep 1923 Marr. Kathleen Margaritte Boxx, 9 Mar 1946. (Died 11 Nov 1976) Marr. Deanna Murray, Sept. 1978.
Eileen Coombs, B. 29 Oct 1925 Marr. Max E Smith, 2 Sept 1944
David Allen Coombs, B. 5 Dec 1928 Marr. Anna LaRue Paskins, 27 Oct 1948
Etta Coombs, B. 7 Nov 1929, (Died 7 Nov 1929)
Evelyn Coombs, B. 19 Dec 1931 Marr. Varon Jensen, 4 June 1952.
Blanche and Titus enjoyed several years of retirement by traveling to different places…Arizona, California, Florida, and Cuba, to name a few. They visited various family members and made friends along the way wherever they went. Blanche had a history of Angina, and in 1978 she suffered a severe attack and passed away. Titus then married Myrtle Manhart Johnson, a long time friend from Thatcher, and they lived in St. George and Preston until Myrtle died in 1989. Titus remained in his home until he also died in 1992, of Congestive Heart Failure. He was in his 93rd year. He was always possessed of a pioneering spirit, and was a hard working man, and an example to his children and future generations to follow. We honor his name and memory and are proud of the heritage he gave us through the ancestry and parentage that produced him and his brothers and sisters.
"My mother, Theresa Billings Coombs was the daughter of Titus Billings and Mary Ann Tuttle. She was a skilled mid-wife and nurse who spent a great deal of her life traveling many miles to help people who were ill. My father, David Coombs, was the son of George and Eliza Astbury Coombs, who immigrated to the Untied States in 1864 from England. My father was 12 years old at the time. They traveled by ox team from the Missouri River to Utah, arriving in September, 1864.
I was the youngest of twelve children: David Joshua, Richard Alonzo, (who died young), Arthur Warren, Ray Herman, Hephzibah Ellen (Nellie) Ivie, George Lewis, Mary Eliza (Lide) Baker, Ephraim Hyrum, Harriet Theresa Davis, Emily Covert, Vanever Chappell, and Titus William, (myself).
Pine Creek flows into the Fremont River which comes from Fish Lake high in the Fish Lake mountains, down through Loa, Lyman, Teasdale, Capitol Reef, Blue Valley, and finally at Hanksville it joins with the Muddy making the Dirty Devil River which empties into the Colorado River and the head of Lake Powell.
When I was a year old my father and mother moved to Lyman, about ten miles north of Pine Creek. There they opened a small merchandise store to help supplement the family income. Some of the older children had married and started families of their own. My sister, Lide, and her husband Fred Baker remained on the Pine Creek property. I started to school in Lyman and during the summer months I spent much time with them. I had a small pony called "Old Shet" who had a bad habit of stubbing his toe on almost anything, and falling down with me on his back.
I got into some meanness when I was a kid in Lyman. My dad had a pair of mules that he was breaking, and he was driving them around town. I ran off and hid, but he finally found me, and he put me into the buggy and started driving north of Lyman. There was an Indian camp up on the flat about three miles north and he said "Well, I'm going to take you up there and give you to the Indians." He drove right up to the Indian camp and I was sure beggin' him. I told him I'd try to be better. I sure was glad to be riding back home that day.
My brother George used to have leave money laying around sometimes. I swiped some once for the 4th of July. I must have taken a quarter or something like that. When we got into town, I asked George for a nickel to buy an orange, (an orange was a real luxury in those days), so George gave me a nickel, and when he wasn't looking I treated the other kids to an orange too.
I spent my growing-up years in Lyman until my folks sold out the store and moved to Thatcher, Idaho in 1912. They homesteaded and established a home. The Homestead Act required that a person live on the land for at least six months, then file to prove their claim. Most of the land in the lower portions of Mound Valley had already been taken, as had the water rights in the mountain streams that fed the Bear River. The place had a small four-room house on it and Mother, Father, Eph, Vanever, and I made our home there. We had a lot of the family around, since Fred Baker homesteaded on 320 acres on the North Burton Creek, Floyd and Nellie Ivie filed on a homestead south of the creek, and my brother Ray had 320 acres joining the Bakers on the west. Eph also filed on a homestead close to my father.
On August 12, 1912, my brother Ray and I left Lyman with twenty to thirty head of horses that belonged to Eph, to drive them to Idaho. We followed Route 89 through Gunnison, Manti, Thistle, and Spanish Fork. We bypassed Salt Lake City on Redwood Road, on north to Oxford, then east through Cleveland to Thatcher, a trip that took about eleven days.
The night we stayed at Thistle Valley, I got up with a toothache. It bothered me all day. When we passed Thistle Junction, the highway went along above the railroad bed. As we were going along this road, a train came down the canyon and started the horses to run. The engineer slowed his train to just stay even with the horses, and then he would toot his whistle. This kept up for some for or five miles down Spanish Fork Canyon. My brother would ride along with the horses and shake his fist at the engineer, who was having a good laugh at his expense. Somehow I kept up with them and brought up the rear.
When we arrived at Salem, where my sister Harriet Davis lived, the horses were so tender-footed that we had to stay there three or four days to shoe them so we could go on. In the meantime, Harriet took me to the dentist in Spanish Fork and he pulled my tooth. He said that I had the best pair of lungs he had ever heard.
When the horses were rested we sent on our way. Ray's horse became so lame that he had to break a wild colt to ride. He bucked and sun-fished, but Ray stayed on till the colt calmed down and he didn't have any more trouble with her. We arrived in Thatcher on the 22nd of August. It was quite an experience for me at the tender age of thirteen years.
Ray's family and Lide and Freds' were already in Thatcher, and Dave and Ivy and their family had been living there for some years. I stayed with my sister Lide and went to school at the Buttermilk School, about three-fourths of a mile away. Once Loyal White and Harley Hoopes stuffed the stovepipe and made the stove smoke so school had to be let out.
Just after WW1 started I graduated from district school. Rachael (my brother Dave's daughter) and I were the only two graduates out of a class of seven. About this time they started the Thatcher Second Ward with the Buttermilk school as the church house. I started high school the year of 1916. I lived with Ephraim and Vanever on the homestead as my father and mother had moved to Logan to do temple work. They built a home at 126 So, 3rd East. And after their death my sister Emily and her husband Tom Covert and their family moved there to live.
During the years I went to high school I had a black team of horses that we would hitch to a bobsled with a wagon box and fill with straw to go with some of the young people to Lago to dances and parties. We lived on the homestead until Ephraim went into the Army and Vanever went to live with the folks in Logan. Then I stayed with Lide and went to High School. The spring of 1918 I was classified and put in Class A for the army. When school was out I went to Wayne County and got a job with the sheep working for Leland King. My brother George was working for Leland and I went to work with him. I worked with the sheep through the summer of 1918 and then went back to Idaho to go back to high school through the winter of 1918-19. That spring I bought Ephraim's homestead of 320 acres along with the 80 that Father had proved up on and let Eph have, making 400 acres in all. I started farming and got my first crop in that year. After harvesting the crop I rented the place to my brother-in-laws Floyd Ivie and Fred Baker.
That fall (1919) Theron Duncan and I went to the Cornish Sugar Factory and worked through the campaign. After the first of the year the flu epidemic got started. I got the flu and went to Logan for Mother to nurse me through the flu. When I was well enough I went back to Thatcher and to high school for the rest of the winter and stayed with my sister Lide. After school was out I went back to Utah to work with the sheep.
My brother, Eph, had come back from the war and moved back to Teasdale, and was soon to be married to Floss Snow. A group of young people went to him and asked him for a wedding dance. He said he would get the music, and they could have a dance if they wouldn't shivaree him and his bride. I had become acquainted with Blanche Allen and was much taken by her beauty. I asked her to accompany me to Eph and Floss's wedding dance. We spent an enjoyable evening and saw each other a lot during the next few days. That was the beginning of a friendship that soon grew into love. I returned to Idaho to finish school, and we began a correspondence that covered the next few years.
I went to work at the sheep herd, planning to stay for the winter. I freighted supplies to the herds and on one trip had the misfortune of having the wagon run over my foot. I was laid up for some time with that. I continued to work for Emery King, as did my brother, George, who was already well established and raising his family. I spent much of my time with George and Mae, which allowed me the opportunity to continue my courtship with Blanche. Finally we left Teasdale and traveled to Logan, where we were married in the Logan Temple on November 23, 1922.
During the time before we were married I had planned a trip to Utah and since Eph and Floss had decided to stay in Teasdale, Eph wanted me to drive his herd of horses back down for him. After I got my crops harvested I got the horses ready and drove them back down to Teasdale. That was the second trip I made driving those horses. That was quite a little drive.
After our wedding I returned to the sheep herd to work and Blanche lived with her Father, Orson Wm. Allen, there in Teasdale. There our first child was born, Wm. LaClede Coombs. Blanche was attended by Mary Hiskey during her confinement.
The next spring, 1924, we left Teasdale to come to Idaho to put in the crops. On our way through Salt Lake we went to Madsen Furniture Company and bought a kitchen stove, a table and chairs, a bed and some springs. We had to go into debt for them because I had used the salary I had earned to pay Eph for the homestead I had bought from him when he left Thatcher. But I wasn't broke when we got to Idaho because I still had 35 cents in my pocket.
That fall we traded the homestead to Milt Robbins, taking on his mortgage. There was a two-room log cabin on this farm. It was located on the creek one mile from the grade school that was built after the Buttermilk School was abandoned and torn down. They found they could not maintain the school because there was not a supply of water close by. The new school was built of red brick, and had two large rooms, two rest rooms, and a large basement. It was used for several years to house eight grades until the schools in the lower end of the valley were consolidated and established in the former Thatcher High School in 1945.
I hired Floyd Ivie, Nellie's husband, to help with the crop and the cows. The crop we harvested in the fall of 1925 was a bounteous one, and Floyd and I hauled the threshed wheat to Grace through the winter using a team and sleigh each. I was away from home on October getting some grain cleaned to plant and Blanche was home alone with LaClede and expecting our second child. She started into labor not long after I left, and had no one to send for help. When I returned I found she was nearing delivery and I drove to Grace to get Mrs. King who returned to help through the delivery. The baby was a healthy little girl whom we named Eileen.
Together with Emily's husband Tom, we bought the first side-hill combine in the valley. The #7 Combine could be pulled with 12 head of horses on the front of it. It could have an extension put on to accommodate a total of 16 head of horses. We hired Dave Barthlome to drive that rig as he was such a good driver. It took great skill to drive that many horses, especially on the steep side hills where the combine would tend to slide.. The cutter bar was on a table arrangement on wheels which could be raised and lowered to follow the contour of the hill as it would cut the grain, thresh it, bag the grain, dump 4-5 sacks of grain at a time onto the ground to be picked up by the wagon following, and dump the straw in stacks on the ground to be picked up later or burned to make way for the plow. After a few years of this method of harvesting I sold my horses and invested in a Caterpiller tractor that could pull the combine.
In 1928 we were expecting our third child, and decided that Blanche should go to Logan, as the last birth was very hard on her. By this time I had purchased a 1925 Ford Pick-up, one of the first off the line, and the roads were better and hospitals safer. David was born on December 5, 1928, and because my father had passed away in the spring we chose to name the baby David after my father, and Allen after Blanche's father, who had also died recently.
Our next baby was born Nov. 7, 1929, and was born before the doctor could arrive. She was a "blue baby" which meant her lungs never developed sufficiently, so she did not survive. Evelyn, our fifth and last child, was born on December 19, 1931, in Logan, and was a beautiful, healthy baby, and weighed over nine pounds. What a blessing she was to us, and was such a comfort after losing little Etta, who was named after her mother, Blanche Etta Allen Coombs
Not long after the birth of Evelyn I had the opportunity to purchase the Cora Thatcher place which was situated on the main road and was one of the first settled in the valley. The depression years had been very difficult, and I was very grateful that Cora Thatcher had confidence that I could succeed. I worked hard to earn that trust.
I invested in a herd of "springing" Holstein heifers brought from California, and built a large barn to house them in. The barn had a spacious hay loft that would hold 80 tons of hay. The children were all taught to milk cows quite early, before we moved to the Thatcher place, and hand milking was the order of the day. After we moved and built the barn I installed a De LeVal milking machine, making the chore of milking easier, but not any less tedious.
When the children were old enough to take care of the livestock, the milking and help with cropping, I bought a two and a half ton truck, as felt I could make more money from my crops by storing them then trucking them to market in Utah, where there were several large feeding operations. These feed yards bought cattle from ranchers as they were brought off the range, and they were fed during the winter months to put on the weight that cattle buyers wanted. I would haul grain to feed yards in central Utah, and bring back coal from the Price area, cedar posts, rock salt from Redmond, and other commodities that I could sell in Idaho to make the trucking pay both ways. I hauled many loads of cement from Incom where the Portland Cement was located. I hauled cheese from the factory in Thatcher where Trent, Lide's son, was head cheese-maker, to Pocatello, to be processed by the Kraft Cheese Company.
When WW11 occurred, I could see the writing on the wall. My family was growing up and would be leaving, and I decided to sell my herd of milk cows and convert to Herefords. That would still leave me in the cattle business, but not so labor intensive. I leased summer pasture land north of Soda Springs and trailed the 60 head of cattle north in the spring and south in the fall. This required careful driving and feeding to insure that they did not fall off in weight too much. The grand children thought it was great fun to go along on these trail drives. Blanche would follow along with the pick-up and trailer house, and some bales of hay, and pick up any small calves that became too tired to keep up.
Eventually, after the war ended, I turned the place over to LaClede and David, as they were now married and were able to work together to maintain the farm and cattle. Blanche and I bought a small home in Preston in 1968, thirty miles south and not too far away to make frequent visits to the grand children. We enjoyed living in Preston, and attending the temple. Retirement was not really to my liking, so I spent happy days attending the cattle auctions held every Wednesday in Preston." Titus W. COOMBS
Children of Titus William and Blanche Coombs:
William LaClede Coombs, B. 24 Sep 1923 Marr. Kathleen Margaritte Boxx, 9 Mar 1946. (Died 11 Nov 1976) Marr. Deanna Murray, Sept. 1978.
Eileen Coombs, B. 29 Oct 1925 Marr. Max E Smith, 2 Sept 1944
David Allen Coombs, B. 5 Dec 1928 Marr. Anna LaRue Paskins, 27 Oct 1948
Etta Coombs, B. 7 Nov 1929, (Died 7 Nov 1929)
Evelyn Coombs, B. 19 Dec 1931 Marr. Varon Jensen, 4 June 1952.
Blanche and Titus enjoyed several years of retirement by traveling to different places…Arizona, California, Florida, and Cuba, to name a few. They visited various family members and made friends along the way wherever they went. Blanche had a history of Angina, and in 1978 she suffered a severe attack and passed away. Titus then married Myrtle Manhart Johnson, a long time friend from Thatcher, and they lived in St. George and Preston until Myrtle died in 1989. Titus remained in his home until he also died in 1992, of Congestive Heart Failure. He was in his 93rd year. He was always possessed of a pioneering spirit, and was a hard working man, and an example to his children and future generations to follow. We honor his name and memory and are proud of the heritage he gave us through the ancestry and parentage that produced him and his brothers and sisters.
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