HISTORY OF MARGARET ANN BULLOCK GOFF

THIS HISTORY IS AS TOLD BY MARGARET ANN BULLOCK GOFF, MY GRANDMOTHER, IN A RECORDED INTERVIEW IN THE YEAR 1974, AND TRANSCRIBED BY ME, JUDYTH ANN GOFF COOK.

Margaret Ann Bullock Goff Photo courtesy of Judy Goff Cook

"I was born December 15, l897 in Provo, Utah. My parents, James A. Bullock and Jeanie Grier lived in the heart of the city. We had a ranch in Springville, Utah not too far away. There we had cattle and my father had a garden there. We would go out every Sunday. My mother would take us and she would cook a meal on this old cook stove there, and we would cook corn out of our garden.

"I was 4 1/2 years old at the time. I was with them, and I got away from them, and I had my doll in my hand. There was a barbed wire fence that was separating the two fields with the cattle, and I wandered away, and I got my leg in the barbed wire fence, and I couldn't get it out. When they did finally find me, I was talking to my doll, and I said, "Did you get your leg in that fence? And, did you pull and pull and you couldn't get it out?" Well, anyway, I was rushed home and the doctors were all called, and I had blood poison that developed--blood poison in my leg. All the hot packing and everything; there was no penicillin, no tetnus, and so the blood poison spread. It spread through my arm and my leg, and they didn't think I was even going to live. I got through it anyway. After that, why I was in a brace. I started in a brace as soon as it was better, and I went to school, and my brother used to take me on an old horse that we had in Provo, and I would go to school with him and would ride on the back. His name was "Shaky", and he would take me every morning to school, and then he would tell Shaky to go home, and Shaky knew the way home. It was only about six blocks away, but he knew; and when it was time for school to let out, my mother would turn old Shaky out and tell him to go pick me up at school, Old Shaky would, he'd pick me up--me and my brother, Kimball, and he'd ride me home. That's the way I went to school. I never had a childhood like most kids of my age. I remember we had an old mill race there where all the kids went every Saturday and every warm day they would go swimming, and I couldn't go because I was in a brace, and it was leather. I asked my mother, I said, "Why can't I go in swimming like these other kids?" She said, "You know very well why you can't go in swimming." She said, "You can't go in swimming without your brace." So I figured--I pondered on that, and I figured that she never said I couldn't go in with the brace. So, I sneaked an old dress that I had and put it under my arms and went to the swimming pool, and I put the dress on after I got there. I didn't want mother to know anything about it. I knew I wasn't disobeying her, because she said I couldn't go without the brace, but I went with the brace. So, I put on the old dress and slipped on the other so she didn't notice that I had been swimming So, I go in the pool, the old mill race, and when I got home the leather brace began to shrink, as leather will do, so then my predicament was that I had to lay in bed and be lifted around for about three weeks until the blacksmith; then we had blacksmiths that made the brace for me. It was kind of a crude thing anyway, and the strap came right up from the bottom of my foot with a large strap and came around my waist, and that's what held my brace. It's different from the brace I'm in today, because it is--different, that's it. But, anyway, this brace there was no way of me walking without it, so I had to lay in this trundle bed of mine until Adam Dederly, who was an old blacksmith that lived not too far from us made me a new brace. But, I didn't figure I had disobeyed my mother, because I told my mother, I said, "You said I couldn't go in wothout the brace, so I went with the brace--so I figured that was okay." That was one episode, and I had several of them. I wanted to be like the other little children my age.

"Judy, I never told you how I got rid of that brace. This is really a story. Anyway, I was about eleven or twelve years old, and I was going to school, and I was still in the brace. You not only saw me coming, you could hear me, because the metal on my shoe was holding the brace and it was clicking when I walked. So, one day coming home from school, I felt so bad about it, because I was getting to the age that the school was having little parties and everythin and I didn't want to go. I came home this afternoon from school, and mother was sitting there on the front porch, and I had made up my mind during that walk that I was getting rid of the brace. I'd never walk again with that brace. So, I came home and mother started to talk out on the porch. I undid all the straps buttoned on the brace. I undid it all, and I threw the brace as far as I could throw it, and the doctors had said I'd never walk without the brace because the bone in my leg was no thicker than an egg shell. But, I didn't care. I thought never walking again would be better than walking with the brace. So, I threw the brace as far as I could throw it, and my mother nearly fainted because she knew the outcome of it. And I told her, I said, "I'm never walking in the brace again." Anyway, I got up and started to walk, and the bone in the brace and thickened, because I didn't break my leg, and I could walk. That was quite a miracle for me. So, my life changed quite a bit from then on. After all, when I got rid of the brace I still had to have a lift on my shoe because I was two inches shorter on the one side, so I had to have my shoes built up. My wonderful dad, I worshiped him. He was the most understanding and seemed to understand me more than anyone. So, he said, "Margaret has to have her shoes built up, so, therefore, she must have the prettiest shoes you can buy." My dad saw that I had the prettiest shoes. Although they had to have the lift, they were still pretty. One time I wanted a coat I'd seen in the store so badly, and it was quite expensive at that time, and my dad said, "Well, do you like it?" And I said, "Oh, yes." And, he said, "It's yours." So I got the coat. I never wore the brace from then on. I went to school and I walked to school. It was close, and the BYU wasn't too far away from where we lived, and so I graduated then from the BYU (Brigham Young University). I took a normal course, a teacher's course, and my life went on just pretety good from then on out. The ladies that I taught school with--you know, they did everything for me. They carried me around almost, and I was sure blessed that way, I'm telling you. I really had a lot of friends, I really did. When I went out to teach school in l918, I went out to Duchesne. Then I met these school teachers--oh, they treated me wonderful. The next year I taught in Morgan County, and they were the same. They just about carried me around because they--I guess they felt sorry for me.

"Now, I have to tell about going to school when I went and first taught. That was the year of the flu. They kept letting the teachers go home because the flu would start up again--so many of them dying. So they let us go home. We came home, and then they called us back. We went back, and we said, "What became of Beaser,--what became of Mr. Lyons?" They said, "Oh, they all died." So, then they dismissed the school for the year, and I want home and then substituted in Provo school until I went back then to teach in Morgan. I'll have to tell you something funny about that Morgan school. Well, my roommate, Mary Star, (she was from St. George)--and I wasn't too old at that time. Anyway, this school teacher and I were roommates, and she was really an old maid. She was quite old and she had fixed ways. Anyway, I said, "Let's take a walk and go to town. I'd like to go to the drug store." Now, I hadn't known here very well. It was just about two or three days after, and I said, "I'd like to go to the drug store." And, she said, "I want you to know from the start, Miss Bullock, that I am no street walker." Well, life went on from this, but I managed anyway and I got through the Morgan experience. I lived with the bishop and his family there and they had me in all the church affairs, oh, I was a planning this and planning that. So, I planned on the next year I wasn't going to be brought up in any church, and I wasn't going to do nothing but the teaching. So, then the next year came, and that was my last year teaching, and that was in Milford. That was the time I met your granddad.

"At the time I met your granddad I was teaching school in Milford. We were both living at the same hotel, and anyway we used to eat our meals together; and after school, and so he's come over and he'd sit down and we would stop to talk. I would tell him about the school. I was trying to lose a little weight at the time, and I used to give him all my rolls, and I thing that was a drawing card too. I'd say, "Gee, I can't eat all this, would you like a roll?" "Sure," he'd say. But, although he had three (but actually had four), and his wife died when he was just a young man. She died of cancer and left him with four little children. He was such a handsome guy that really I fell for him that way, whether he had four kids or not. He's got a family already made, but anyway we fell in love. That was oh, let's see, that goes back quite aways. Well, I was married in 1920, so that was my last year. And, then we stayed in Milford, and then Kim (Kimball Bullock Goff) was born a year later. I quite liked Milford. We had a little hime there that we rented. So anyway, your granddad was a machinist there in Milford, and theyt moved the machine shop to Escalante, so we decided then where to go and, of course, it was the machine shop in Bingham Canyon, Utah. So, we decided we would go to Bingham rather than go to Escalante, because that was quite aways off, and I didn't want to go that far away from my folks in Provo. So, we went, and he did, he got a job in Bingham, and he worked for the copper mine in the machine shop.

"Well, anyway, I stayed in Provo with mother and dad until Alf could locate us a house in Bingham, and Gene was a baby then. Gene was born in 1923 (James Eugene Goff), so anyway, he went on ahead and was staying there in a hotel in Bingham, and he had written to me. He told me to pack up, that he had rented a house in Bingham, and just when to come and where to get off. I was to get off at the first fire station--"Tell the driver to let you off at the first fire station." So, I packed the kids and we went to Bingham on the bus. Anyway, it seemed like it was a thousand miles that we had to go to Bingham. Old rocky roads--finally we got there, and it was dark. Instead of me telling the driver to let us off at the first fire station, I didn't--so he took me up to the second one, and I had to walk back. We all walked back. I was so tired anyway. We had ridden quite awhile, and Gene was just a baby and he was tired. So, we got there and we had to walk up the hill. It was called Freeman Gulch, and I walked up that hill, and I thought, "What have I come to." So, I went to look at my house, and that was worst of all. He had tried to wash the walls and tried to get that house cleaned up for me, and I started to cry and I cried all night. One of the neighbors came over the next morning, and they said, "Come on over to breakfast." And, I said, "No, I don't think so, we'll manage some how. Thanks just the same."

"I ought to tell you a little bit about Bingham Canyon, Utah, because we hated to leave Bingham actually. Bingham was a wonderful place. The people there were just wonderful. Your troubles were their troubles, and there was nobody that was better than the Bingham people--and your granddad, when we moved to come down here (Midvale, Utah) we knew we had to get out of Bingham because my leg was getting bad then, and he knew I couldn't walk those hills anymore, and so we had to go.

Kimball Bullock Goff Ralph Maylin Goff James Eugene Goff Photo Courtesy of Judy Goff Cook

"There was depression times. Everybody was the same. Nobody had any more than anyone else. We were all struggling there for a living, and at night we would play cards--just simple cards, pinucle or canasata, and games that we played, mostly 500, and then we would have some lunch later on. We would usually have some chili or biscuits or some homemade soup, and that was really your main activity you really had. Of course, there was the church that was on the hill, and that was almost impossible for me to go to church because I couldn't walk, but the people there were wonderful. I've got wonderful friends here now that have been from Bingham, and we all can say the same thing. We had hard times though. It was hard. During the depression time there was no money to buy anything. I remember how I used to have to sew. If the sheets wore out, I'd make pillow cases from the best part of it, and it was a struggle. And, the kids--why, they got along. They seemed happy enough. .

"Your grandpa, he was a good old guy. There was no money to send any of the kids to the barber shop or to get their shoes mended, so your granddad always had a bunch of kids that he cut their hair for, and then he would mend their shoes for some poor people there that were really bad off. So, Alf had a cobbler's outfit there and he would mend their shoes for them, all free grattis. I know that when my husband passed away, when your granddad passed away, people would say to me, "Well, you'll never want for anything. As good as you were and as good as Alf was to all those kids in Bingham. I don't think the Lord will let you want for anything." It was the truth, he really helped people out.

"Well, life went on then. Kennecott Copper was buying out the homes then in Bingham. So, then we decided that we would go look for a place and see if we could find a place to live. Finally we found this little home here in Midvale, and we loved it. It was just right for me, because there were no steps to go down to a basement, so I had no trouble. Then, tragedy had to strike again. Your grandfather passed away with his heart. So, it seemed like to have been just one tragedy after the other, but that wasn't the end of me and my brace. It wasn't too long that my knee began to turn, my leg began to turn and my knee was slipping on the leg that I had worn the brace. It started before he passed away, and then I finally went--my wonderful son, Gene, he took me to the doctor, and the doctor said, "If you were 20 years younger I'd operate on your leg and straighten your knee. That's impossible now, and the only thing we can do is put you in a brace." So, my early life had been spent in a brace, so I was facing then more years in a brace. I have been in it now for twelve years, and the knee doesn't get better, it gets worse. Then, with the few falls that I have had, it makes it awfully hard for me to walk without a walking aid. Anyway, I guess it's all life. You wonder why it has to be. I thought I was leading a good life raising motherless children and all, but anyway, I guess they are all happy where they are, and it won't be too long and I'll be with them."

NOTES FROM SAME INTERVIEW ABOUT MARGARET ANN BULLOCK GOFF'S OWN IMMEDIATE FAMILY--BULLOCKS IN PROVO, UTAH

"I never did tell you about my mother and dad and my brothers and sisters, did I? Well, they were wonderful people and religious people. My mother was very religious. She worked in the church. My mother was Jeanie Grier and she came here from Scotland. She was the only child, and she and her father (John Grier, b. Oct. 1, 1838, Dunfermline, Fifeshire, Scotland and mother, Margaret Stenhouse, (b. Apr. 1, 1824, Dunfermline, Fifeshire, Scotland--married Jan. 13, l859 in Inverkeithing, Fifeshire, Scotland), came here from Scotland. My dad, James Alonzo Bullock, son of Benjamin Kimball Bullock, (b. Jan. 27 1821, Grafton, N.H., and Ann Sykes, b. Oct 17, 1828, in Brampton, Huntington, England--married Feb 20, 1856 in Provo, Utah), was born in Provo, Utah.

"Of course, my mother worked in all kinds of church organizations and my sisters. She was a wonderful person. I had three brothers and three sisters. There was Marion (b. Aug 29, 1900), Arvilla (b. Sep. 1903), myself and Jennie (b. Nov. 24 1892). (Grandmother also had a baby sister, Merl b. Aug. 14, l895, who died as an infant.) I had three brothers, Kimball (Benjamin Kimball, b. Jan 3, l894), James (James Alonzo Bullock, Jr., b. Apr. 7, l888), and John (John Grier Bullock, b. Nov 11, 1889). But, anyway, there's just four of us left now, John died, and of course, mother and dad have both passed away. So, there's four of us left--my sister, Jenny (she lived to be 97 years old), and my two brothers, James and Kimball Bullock. Jim's in Provo, and Kimball is in Kansas. But, we are all ailing. In Provo we had a nice brick home. My dad was a farmer, ranching--and he made pretty good money. We had quite a nice home, and our home life was wonderful. My dad sent two boys on missions. Jack was in Liverpool, England, and Jim was in Montreal, the eastern States. They worked in the church (LDS) all of them. My sister is still working as much as she can do, but Jenny is 83 years old now, and she isn't too well, and neither are my brothers--old age creeping on.

"I do remember in a way when we had lamps, and we would fill them up with coal oil. Our house was one of the first that was wired for electricity. It was very small then, and we were the first ones in Provo that bought an electric washer. There was always the old hand things. And cars, I remember that old Model-T Ford that we had in Provo when I was a teenager. Anyway, I got in it once and got a bunch of kids in it. I didn't say anything to dad about it, but I figured I knew how to run it. I got in there and I didn't know how to start it. It was horrible, I'm telling you, I was scared half to death. So, I was giving them a ride all right, and then I hit a ditch and we went in this old ditch and it stopped me, because the tires had sunk in the mud. So, I didn't know what to do. Anyway, one of them walked home and told my dad that I had the car in the mud, and my dad never swore. My dad never said--all my dad ever said when he was angry was, "By George." So, he looked at the car and said, "By George, Margaret." I said, "Well, I guess I didn't know how to turn it there--but that was the end of me ever trying to drive a car and not knowing how. But, I figured I'd sat there with dad long enough that I knew how to operate it. Oh, I'm telling you, but he didn't get mad. All he said, was, "By George, Margaret."

"We went through that Model-T, and then we got a Buick, and we were really in style. My dad was a pretty good farmer and he had more money than the average ones there. Anyway I never tried anymore to get in the car. I never did and never wanted to know how to drive. I do remember when we had coal oil lamps. You'd fill them with coal oil and light them all up. That didn't last too long though. There's one thing I remember, I never used them, but I remember when mother had the old irons, you know, the old irons that you put on the stove. In the summer when it was hot and my mother would stand over that ironing board and had a big fire and heat the irons on the stove, but I never did. When I was old enough to get married, I had an electric one; but I remember my mother would have those boards and she would iron their shirts by the hours over that hot stove. I'm telling you, life was hard in those days. I didn't have that to do. I had electric washers in the start and everything like that when we got married, but my mother didn't, she had it hard. I don't remember too much of my grandmother. Her name was Ann (Ann Sykes). My name is Margaret Ann, which I was named after, mother's mother (Margaret Stenhouse), but I never did see her. She died in Scotland, and they left her when my mother was three years old. Then my grandmother and granddad they were born in--my grandmother (Ann Sykes) was born in England, and my granddad in Provo. Her name was Ann Sykes, so I got the middle name of Ann after my grandmother. They lived in Provo. I remember her. She wasn't a big woman. She was kind of frail looking. She was a little taller than I am, I guess. My granddad (Benjamin Kimall Bullock) was a plasterer and he plastered the Logan Temple and the Manti one also. My mother and dad were married in the Logan Temple. I imagine it would be like taking a contract. But anyway, they were all very religious. My mother and my granddad came from Scotland, and Jen has got mother's life history of how she came with my granddad. Of course, he remarried. She had a stepmother. My granddad had a big restaurant. The only restaurant in Provo. He ran it for years. I remember when I was a kid, I used to go there a lot of times and eat. I remember one thing distinctly--It seemed like when we would go there to eat, I'd just love catsup, and I couldn't get enough catsup--if I ate meat or anything. I just loved it, and to this day, I just hate it. I can't stand it. I think I just got sick on it, wanting it and eating it. We didn't have too much catsup at home, but there they had catsup. I'll never forget that restaurant. It was called "The Grier's."

"My grandpa Bullock, I don't remember too much about him. He died when I was real young.

"My dad had never really gone to too much school, but he taught classes for nothing, and he taught penmanship and mathematics years ago at nights for the ones that wanted to attend. He had the most beautiful handwriting you ever saw. Dad did, he taught arithmetic and reading, free grattis. They would come at night. They had it pretty rough then.

"My mother though--she wrote beautiful poetry. She was the most beautiful alto singer that you ever heard. I didn't get any of it. I can't sing, write poetry or anything, but she did. She was really talented. It's a cinch I couldn't sing. She was a wonderful mother to me, and I guess because I had so much afflictions early in life, and she was really a wonderful person.

"My brother Jim, he was vice-president of Utah Power & Light for years until his retirement. He taught school too in the early part of his life, and he was vice-president of all the western part of Utah, and Jack was in insurance. He was with Beneficial Life Insurance Company. And Kim, he should have been an actor. Because, boy, he could act. He was in home plays and he was really good. He would go around the house falling over a toothpick. He was something. And, do you know now, he was here this summer and he doesn't look no more 81 years old. He's as straight as a string, and he goes into the doctor's office, and they say, "We never saw a man at your age coming in walking like you are as straight as a string. They are either here with a cane or they are half bent over." But, you would never know it. He looks ten years younger than I do, but he's still a comic. He's still good to be around.

"My sister, Arvilla, died when she was very young. She left a baby. She left Joyce, and Joyce was fourteen months old. Jenny took her and raised her. But, I don't know, she had yellow jaundice some way, and she died. Then my other sister, Marion, she had an operation and a blood clot hit her heart, and she died. So, there is just Jen and I struggling along here. I'm the baby. We don't know when we are going to go or anything about it."

Text prepared for website by:
Gwen Goff Hobbs
15 Jun 2000