Our home in Winton, Wyoming, was about fifteen miles north of Rock Springs.  It was a mining camp owned and operated by the Union Pacific Coal Company.  Our house was Number 98 but everyone got their mail at the post office - - Box 104 was ours.  We lived in a wooden house - - two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room.  It was home to my mother, father, the three of us girls, my maternal grandmother as well as my brother who lived with us on and off.

The house was heated by a coal stove in the living room and a coal/wood stove in the kitchen.  We had a cold water tap at the kitchen sink but no hot water -- it was heated in a tea kettle on the stove.  One washday my mother put large oval tubs on the cook stove to heat and then carried them to the wringer washer in the back porch.  After the clothes were washed, a garden hose was attached to the washer drain and the water went out the back gate and down the street.  In summer  the clothes were hung outside to dry.  In winter they were hung all over the livingroom.  I used to get in trouble for playing among the sheets and towels.

We had an outhouse for a bathroom and had our baths in a washtub in the kitchen.  In the summer Daddy would sometimes let us go the bathhouse to shower and wash our hair but it had to be while all the miners were working as the bathhouse was where they all headed after work to clean off the coal dirt.

The houses on three sides of ours had bathrooms and telephones because one was a boardinghouse, one the superintendent's, and the other was the mine foreman's.  I was friends with the daughters of the "super" and the foreman so once in a while I was allowed to spend the night there and bathe in a "real" bathtub.  I never felt "poor" or "underprivileged" because most of the people we knew lived just about like we did. 

Some houses were fancier than our but ours had the prettiest yard.  Ours sloped down in the back with big trees at the base of the hill.  Daddy put up tire swings with cables and tires.  The U.P. used to have contests in Winton, Reliance, and Stansbury for the nicest yard.  Ours usually won and pictures of these yards can be seen at the museum in Green River. 

The view out the kitchen window was of the hills and our ice skating rink that Daddy flooded every winter.  Even though I always liked summer best, winter didn't slow me down.  I went sledding and played in the snow a lot.  Dad would help us lace our skates and they would be so tight that our feet would go numb.  I guess that was to keep our ankles straight.  Then he would sit at the kitchen table and see if everyone was behaving when they skated.  If anyone was fighting or kicking holes in the ice, he sent them home.    At Christmastime all of the school kids were in a play that was held at the community hall.  When I was in third grade I sang a solo, "Away in a Manger."  After the play Santa Claus would sit on stage and hand out bags of candy and fruit to each child.  These treats were paid for by donations from the miners.

Our yard had a slope in back with big trees at the base where Daddy put up tire swings.  Our house had a long front porch where I played a lot.  We never had a dog but we did have several cats.  We also had baby goats for pets. Daddy would take us to the Stassinos goat ranch and have my sisters and me pick out a baby goat to take home.  We kept them in the yard and babied them.  When they got older, Daddy would kill them and expect us to eat them . . . but we couldn't eat our pets so he finally gave up on the goat raising.  Dad was an avid hunter and we had all the wild meat we could eat.  We also had chickens and I had a Bantam rooster - - it wasn't much of a pet as it was pretty feisty.  When eggs were plentiful some of the neighbors bought them from us.

There was a community hall, Post Office, pool hall, and company store in camp.  We didn't buy much at the company store as it was more expensive than Rock Springs' stores.  On most Saturdays Daddy would drive to Rock Springs where we would get groceries at the Safeway store and if anyone needed clothes or shoes, we would get them at the Golden Rule (JC Penney) or the Sweetbriar Shop.  On many Sunday afternoons we would go to Rocks Springs to visit with Dad's Italian friends.  They would drink wine (probably made by their own hands) and talk in Italian for hours.  Dad had little education but was an avid reader of newspapers and magazines.  We got the LIFE magazine as well as Reader's Digest, Saturday Evening Post, and Look sometimes.  He always kept up with current events and politics.

The first car I remember was a Dodge pickup that Daddy bought from the U.P.  My sisters being teenagers would be embarrassed to ride in the back of that pickup and be dropped off at the Riato theater for a movie.  They had to climb out of the back of the truck in their dresses.  It didn't really bother me still being pretty young - - I was just thrilled to get to go to the movies.  In 1950 Daddy bought a new tan and brown Mercury from Bennion Motor in Rock Springs - - we were in Hog Heaven!  Nila was just old enough to drive and we took our first family vacation that summer and she got to drive some fo the way.  We stopped in Pocatello, Idaho, to visit cousins for a couple of days and then on to Oregon.  Some cousins of my mother lived near Coos Bay right on the Pacific Ocean.  We were there for the Fourth of July celebration and saw neat fireworks.  While we were there Daddy learned that there was oceanfront property for sale for the back taxes and bought six lots of $180.00.  When he died these lots were left to my sisters and me.
 

About the time I started school my mother was often sick.  She had asthma and was often in the hospital in Rock Springs for a month at a time.  My sisters, Nila and Jane,  were teenage by that time and they cooked and cleaned and got me ready for school.  Daddy was quite frugal and was on us at all time to "turn out that light - - you're wasting electricity" so even if you went to the kitchen for a drink and were going right back to the livingroom, you turned out the light.

 

All his life Dad's hobby was his garden - - he raised beautiful flowers and a big vegetable garden.  Years before I was born, he had made a big fish pond in the yard at Winton.  There were foot long goldfish, lily pads, and frogs.  It got to be too much work to keep the fish alive through the winter.  He kept them in barrels in the cellar but many of them died so he filled the pond with soil and planted flowers in it.  All the houses were moved from Winton after the mines closed but you can still see the cement circle of the  fish  pond. After he retired and moved to Rock Springs, he would sometimes garden for widows in the neighborhood as well as shoveling their snow. Both photos are taken from about the same vantage point.  Note that in the top picture there is no fence around the pond and there is one made of chicken wire and posts in the bottom picture. (Photos courtesy Gene Franch)

I have Dad's sweet tooth.  He loved all food - -  meat, vegetables, fruit and breads.  His favorite dessert was blueberry pie so I always baked him one on his birthday. .   In the fall, Daddy always bought two tons of Zinfandel grapes from California to make wine and the boxes that the grapes came in were great for building houses and furniture in the yard.  He always drank his homemade wine - - perhaps that is one thing that kept him so healthy .  .  .

. . . but I miss Dad the most when I am gardening as he used to help me with the hard parts of my garden moving the dirt and getting fertilizer.