Juanita and Will Brooks by Walt Brooks

Juanita and Will Brooks by Walt Brooks

MEMOIR

JUANITA AND WILL BROOKS

BY: Walter Brooks

DATE: August 1985

SUBJECT: Juanita Brooks

TRANSCRIBER: Christine Gustin

WB: Observations of Juanita Brooks by her oldest stepson Walt Brooks.

Mom, as we always used to call her, joined our family while I was in the Mexican Mission in the year of 1932. Mother (Nellie Stephens Brooks) died very suddenly in 1932. I left for a mission less than four months after her death. She 'passed-out' while attending Relief Society and never regained consciousness. At that time I was playing basketball in Rexburg, Idaho, for the Rocky Mountain Junior College Championship - the North and South Leagues - Dixie versus Rexburg - both Church schools at that time. My mother and I were very close so I have missed her very much.

When I returned from my mission, Dad had married Mom (Juanita Leavitt Pulsipher) and she had a baby girl whom they name Willa Nita and called her Willa. Finally a girl in a family of six boys. Mom had a 12 year old son Ernest Pulsipher (Ern) from her first marriage. he had been named for his Father. I often heard her say, "I was a bride, a mother and a widow in less than a year." Mom, at first, thought I resented her for taking the place of my own mother but in a few months she accepted the fact that she didn't take the place of my mother - but was my father's wife and would make her own place in our lives. She was always very serious and had a hard time taking my jokes and stories which were in a lighter vein.

Dad always got up early and cooked breakfast when Mother was living. After he married Juanita he continued this practice and prepared breakfast - then called Mom and the rest of the family. Before long Mom started to get up with him to study and write. She kept getting up earlier and earlier until she was getting up at 3:00 or 3:30 in the morning - a habit which she kept until just the last few years.

One of my jokes that she didn't seem to appreciate was after I got to know the family pretty well and was carrying Willa on one of my shoulders one day. Ott Romney, the Coach at the Brigham Young University for which I was playing basketball at the time, came down to St. George during the summer to see if I was going to return for my senior year. He asked me what the baby's name was and, when I told him "Willa", he said, "I hope when she grows up she'll be a "won'ta" girl and not a "Willa" girl. This didn't set very well with Juanita. She was always a very strict person.

Another thing that I'm reminded of is when they - Ern, Bob and Grant - were young, they were always having problems. Bob and Grant were always picking on Ern and Ern was trying to pick on them when they were alone. Many times she would say, "I'll tell Walt when he comes home if you don't quit fighting." I would get home and try to straighten out the difficulties. Bob was older than Grant and Ern was 2 years younger than Grant. I used to be able to catch Grant quite quickly - because of this it kind of made him a 'sprinter.' But when Ern came along, he was a little slower but he could run farther. I got slower so I made a 'distance' man out of him trying to catch him. Ern really became a very good distance runner. Dad had built a home down in town but the corral for the cows, etc. was up on the hill at Grandpa (George) Brooks' home. Many times Ern didn't get up early enough to get the cows milked before school and, as a consequence, found himself having to run up the hill to the corrals instead of walking - and then run back again to make it to school. This really built his running muscles.

Mom never did trust the hospital and these modern doctors that we had then, so she always went to Aunt Rosina Blake's to have her babies - Willa, Karl, Kay and Tony. Willa had arrived before I returned from my mission. I remember Dad taking me down each time, with the rest of the children that were already born, to see his new son. Aunt Rosina Blake was a mid-wife and also a relative and Mom trusted her implicitly. We went down to her home each time there was a new arrival in the family.

Mom was always very cognizant of the troubles of family and neighbors. Every time that any of the family had any troubles, she was always there to try to help to solve them. It was the same with the neighbors. But if they didn't have any troubles, she was always trying to feed them. Any time anyone came to visit - whether it was part of the family or a neighbor, or even someone who didn't have anything to do with the family or she didn't know - she was always trying to make them more comfortable and see to their wants - make them have something to eat or a place to stay, if they needed it. Trying to feed everyone who came in was quite a problem sometimes but she always managed to scrape up something to eat for everyone. There was one neighbor, Mary Conger, who, after she got so she couldn't take care of herself, each morning and each evening Mom saw that one of the boys carried over a good breakfast and a good supper. Finally, Mary got so that she couldn't even walk but if the meal didn't get there on time, she sometimes scotted over on her hind-end to see what had happened or what was the matter that her breakfast or her supper wasn't there on time.

Mom was always a very active church worker until the Church kind of 'got down on her' because of her book, "The Mountain Meadows Massacre." I remember when she was Stake President of the Relief Society, she had to visit all the wards. We had one ward - way out about 50 miles south toward the Grand Canyon - called Mt. Trumbull. She visited the Bundys, Iversons and some others who were living out there. One day she needed to visit the Mt. Trumbull Ward. As I was on the High Council at the time and had a speaking engagement there, I offered to take her out. She didn't think she could go because the road was too rough and mountainous with many dugways, and she got seasick too easily. I convinced her that if she would go with me, I'd see that she didn't get seasick. Well, we took off in our 1933 Chev and she didn't get seasick. I kept her so busy holding on so tight to the side of the door and anything she could get a hold of, that she wasn't worried about getting seasick - she was just worried about ever getting there - period! We went out and back without her getting seasick and from then on she often said, "Well, I'd sooner get seasick than be scared to death."

The interesting thing about this meeting out there was - when we got there, there was no one in sight. They had a big bell there so Mom said, "You go ring that bell - that's the way we do it!" So I went over and pulled the bell four or five times and, within a half hour, we had a great church congregation. They came in from all over the east, west, south and north. Those people who lived there didn't ever both to come to the church till the people came who were going to hold the meeting. They held their own ward meetings at a set time but on the missionary and visiting Sundays they waited till the people came - because the roads were so rough they didn't know whether they'd ever get there - so they just waited at home till the bell rang and then they all gathered for the meeting.

One other time I remember when she didn't get seasick - at least not on the way back. We had been down to Las Vegas for a visit with some of her relatives there. Dad was driving and I was in the back with the younger kids. Willa was sitting right next to the back door and we were going along about 40 miles an hour in the old Chev. Dad was always a very staunch Chevrolet man. Before we knew it Willa had taken a hold of the door handle, pushed it down and it flipped the door open. The impact of the wind against it just threw her right out on the cement - on the pavement. It wasn't cement, it was an old oiled road. As Dad brought the car to a stop neither he nor Mom could move. They were both so scared. I jumped out and ran back to meet Willa coming up the road. She was a bawling and a bawling. I asked her, "What's the matter, are you hurt?" She answered, amid her cries, "No, but they're going to leave me and I've got to get there fast!" I picked her up and brought her back. Dad and Mom couldn't even move because they were so scared - both of them were as white as I have ever seen two people.

One thing that always impressed me about Mom was the fact that she could get up at 3:00 in the morning and write 'till 6:00 and then get breakfast over, if Dad wasn't there to fix it, and have the ability to work all day in her kitchen and also do her housework - then not get to bed too early but get up again the next morning about 3:00 am. Her work as a writer was kind of a consuming thing with her and she spent many many hours doing her writing when she should have been sleeping. She has written many books in the wee hours of the morning.

She also gained a terrific amount of knowledge of the history of Southern Utah, Northern Arizona, Southern Nevada and other points - because when she was first married to Dad, she had the privilege of supervising in the WPA a group of women who could type and who needed work. Mom would go around with Dad, or alone, and collect old diaries that had been either hidden away or the family didn't know much about where they were or anything. She collected diaries for years and years. She would have these ladies type them and make two copies of these old diaries. One copy was returned with the diary to the family, another copy was put here in the County. After the WPA quit Mom was hired by the Huntington Library in California to continue her research and copy old diaries, get them and send them down to the Huntington Library.

I've often said if anyone knew more about the history of Southern Utah than Mom, it was Dad, because he would always read the old diaries and would help go get them. Having been the Sheriff, County Clerk and the Postmaster of St. George, he was well acquainted with many people. Anyone who was acquainted with Dad was a friend of his - and many times he could get these diaries when no one else could. Mom used him to help her get this terrific amount of knowledge about Southern Utah.

You asked about Dad's hunting and fishing. Dad must have been a born hunter because, as long as I can remember, he was a very good hunter. In fact, when he was very young, his Uncle Frank, not his dad, would take him hunting often. Uncle Frank was a crippled brother to Dad's Father, George Brooks, my Grandfather. He and Uncle Frank had a little ranch up in Diamond Valley and he, being a cripple, would often take one of the boys - George or Will or Sam or one of the other boys - up to the ranch to help him do the chores and to work with hitching up the team and to unhitch it and do the chores that Uncle Frank couldn't do. One time Uncle Frank was taking Dad along and they had an old muzzle loader shotgun. They saw a covey of quail so Dad said, "Let me get out and shoot them." Uncle Frank loaded his shotgun, put quite a heavy charge in and Dad was looking for the quail. Suddenly he saw a chicken hawk swooping down. Dad was watching where it went. Just as it hit this covey of quail - you know where quail are threatened they huddle in a group (covey) - this chicken hawk was just going to hit this covey when Dad shot the old muzzle loader shotgun. When the smoke cleared, he went over and found he had killed 13 quail and the chicken hawk.

One of the first things I can remember about Dad was when I must have been about 6 or 7 years old. Dad came home from a hunting trip with a big horn sheep. We had the old horns and the head of that sheep around for quite a long time. I got a great kick out of showing it to my young friends. Dad enjoyed hunting. I think if he would have had his way, he'd declare the deer season and the opening day of fishing season a national holiday because he surely did enjoy hunting and fishing.

From my earliest memories when I was old enough to hunt - which was then 14 before you could carry a shotgun - Dad was always prepared and would take me and his other boys hunting with him. For instance, in deer hunting, he spent many days before deer season every came getting his bedding, his grub and everything all fixed up so he would never be found wanting when the day arrived. We always went up to the camp the day before and had a good Brooks' reunion every time we went deer hunting.

Dad also like to hunt rabbits, quail and pheasants. He was a very good shot with the rifle, shotgun or pistol and he enjoyed hunting with them all. He was such a good shot with the pistol - especially when he was County Sheriff. He would take me out, would show me how to shoot his pistol, and then he would - as an example - shoot at a jack rabbit that was on the dead run and usually get it with this big long barrel 38 Colt that he had. Dad taught all of his boys to enjoy the out-of-doors and to use a gun safely. For instance, when my brother, Karl, was in the "army bootcamp" and was being presented with a medal for the outstanding marksman of the camp, he said, "I don't quite understand this. I've got a lot of brothers and I'm the poorest shot of the whole bunch of them" I might add, though, that Karl has practiced a lot and he's a "crack shot" with the rifle. He's a very good shooter.

Like I said before, deer hunting was prepared for a week or two in advance and then, after deer season, it was talked about the rest of the year. One year we had all gone out to hunt and I was with Dad - he was Postmaster at this time. Before deer season all the post office crew had been buying telescopes to put on their guns. Dad and I both had 30/40 Krag guns. He had put a telescope on his gun. We were going up this big 'draw' and a herd of about 30 deer jumped up and "took out" over the mountain side. Well, I started shooting. Dad was looking all over - he hadn't practiced using that scope - and he couldn't find the deer in it. Finally he handed me his gun and took my gun saying, "Here, you take this damned thing and let me use yours." It surprised me because it was really strange to ever hear Dad swear.

We also used to go to about the same place. However, before this he had five or six special places. First he hunted in Central or above there, then he moved over to the Magotsu Wash, then to Motoqua, then the Danish ranch, then to Pinto. This Pinto country seemed to be his favorite because we hunted there for about 40 years. It still is a place where the rest of the Brooks family - since Dad has passed on - go to hunt every year. It was a camp along the side of the road. We were within a few miles of water. We always camped there so some of us could hunt on the north side of the road and the rest of us on the south. In fact, last year, 1984, we had the Will Brooks' family Reunion at the 'deer camp.' There were about 60 of us around the campfire telling stories about Dad and the deer hunt and many of the stories were really interesting.

The year that Dad was 87 I think was the last deer hunt that he went on. We had a horse and we let him ride it up on a ridge. I told him to stay there on the ridge and to tie the horse up - then wait for me while I circled around the area hoping to scare something back to him. Well, he got nervous and when I came back, he was gone. I didn't know where to find him. The horse was still tied there and I thought I'd better find him. I found him walking up the ridge toward where the horse was tied. I said, "What's the matter, did you get lost?" He said, "No, are you lost?" I said, "No." He answered, "Well, I thought Id come out and see if you were lost." He couldn't sit still very long when out deer hunting. A little after that when we got home, he said, "Well, I'm getting a little too old for this deer hunting business. I'm going to give it up and let you 'carry the ball' from here on." He was a very proficient and great hunter.

You asked something about fishing. He always had his little special fishing creeks, too. He didn't like to fish in the reservoirs or in the lakes - he liked stream fishing. He had a little stream up in Pine Valley that we would take him to - drop him off there - and then we'd go on up the creek farther to a bigger place or something else. He'd fish up this little Spring Branch, as it was called, up toward Pine Valley Mountain, then fish back. By the time he got back he always had his limit. Then the limit was 30 fish. I took him up to Enterprise Reservoir quite a few times, too, and he got so he enjoyed fishing from the boat - trolling or just sitting and casting a spinner, or something, into the water. He didn't like to 'still fish", he didn't like to put the worm - or whatever it was - in the water and just hope the fish would come by and take a bite of it. He liked to attract them with something, I remember one time I took him to Ensenada, Mexico, with me. He had the time of his life. He caught four big yellow-tail. You should have seen the grin on his face when he would 'hook one' and would rear back to work for about 20 minutes trying to get that yellow-tail in.

He liked all kinds of sports - coaching was my profession - and all of his boys and grandsons were very athletic. He always supported us. He had a rough time sometimes when Grant, his son, was playing on the Dixie team and I was coaching over in Hurricane. When we played against each other, he would always be able to yell for every basket that was made. In fact, he got so interested in sports that there was a time when the girls of the Dixie High Pep Club invited him to be an honorary member of their group. At nearly every game that he attended, whether basketball or football, he always had a little treat of candy or something for the Pep Club. They even thought so much of him that when they made him an honorary member, they gave him a stadium robe they had made - on which was inscribed "Uncle Will." He would get to the football game, wrap up in his 'robe' and enjoy the game seated right in the middle of the girls' pep club. One time I asked him if he didn't get bothered by the noise in the pep club. He said, "No, if they get too loud, I just turn down my hearing aid and it doesn't bother me at all."

My own mother was a perfectionist. She was a very beautiful woman and I don't remember of ever seeing her with her hair uncombed and not dressed well. She had a beautiful singing voice and was called upon nearly every week to sing in some funeral, civic function or church gathering. She was also a beautiful penman. She was Recorder in the County Court House and had the job of writing - by hand - all the descriptions of the properties in Washington County so that they could be read well. She was always very exact. I spent many hours proof-reading with her - her descriptions - so they would be exact. She was an immaculate housekeeper. I used to mop the kitchen floor or dust the furniture or seep the rug and, if she found any dirt or dust I had left, she made me do it over again. For instance, when we would mop the kitchen floor and she found a little dirt behind the wood-box or something, she'd pull out the wood-box, grab the old tea-kettle off from the stove and pour water all over the floor. By the time I got the water all mopped up again the floor was immaculately clean and I had learned to do my job well - being taught by both Mother and Dad. Dad used to say, "Anything worth doing is worth doing well." I appreciated the lessons they taught me when growing up. Mother had a little saying in the kitchen on the wall that said, "Willful waste makes woeful want!" That was more than likely her creed. She always took very good care of everything she had.

I've often said that I was the oldest girl in a family of six boys. Mother did not enjoy good health. She was quite sickly from the time her first boy was born. I was that boy. Dad and all the boys always did most of the housework and we enjoyed doing it because we knew it helped Mother. She was a wonderful woman and Juanita (Mom) has been a wonderful second Mother to all of us. We do appreciate Mom and thank her for all the things she has done for us.