Orson Clark-11/23/81 - Pg 4
Interviewer: Did you have a spring house to keep food cool and things like that? In the well or around the well?
Orson Clark: No. The first that I knew about their cooling was Mother had one of these homemade things. The frame was made and a can making a basin was put on top and the end of the gunny sack was in the water and came over and down. That cooled the inside.
Ruth Knowlton: They used to take it down to the well, down the hill.
Orson Clark: Yes. This well, the water that I was telling you about, they had a box there. The artisan water would come in and fill the box. It was cold.
Ruth Knowlton: Was that a cement box?
Orson Clark: No, it was a wooden box. That was before cement.
Ruth Knowlton: All right, now that's an important point!
Interviewer: Adobe was the only kind of cement they had in those days. What breed of cattle did your father have?
Orson Clark: Shorthorn, Red Shorthorn.
Interviewer: Were they easy to milk, or difficult?
Orson Clark: He used them because they were a dual purpose stock. They wanted them for milk and they wanted them for beef.
Interviewer: Were they easy to milk, or difficult?
Orson Clark: He used them because they were a dual purpose stock. They wanted them for milk and they wanted them for beef.
Interviewer: At this time, your father was directing all of Ezra T. Clark's farm wasn't he?
Orson Clark: A big share, yes.
Interviewer: How did they allocate responsibilities on the farm? Was your father sort of the foreman under Ezra T. and the other brothers worked for him?
Orson Clark: Well, Ezra T. died in 1902. So you see, by the time I got old enough to know much about it he had died. But he was the supervisor.
Interviewer: but the farm you remember belonged to your father, didn't it? That was your father's property, it wasn't the family's property?
Orson Clark: Yes. There were some others that came in on that. Uncle Joseph had a piece. Uncle Amasa had a little piece. They used to work together in putting up hay. But father was the head manager.