George Hancock Pulled from Under the Ice

Taylor Centennial Stories, printed p. 217    Original source: Excerpt from ERNEST HANCOCK STORIES — by Art Hancock

George Hancock, Art, and their father were out on the Taylor Reservoir cutting ice to store in sawdust for the summer. The water was seven or eight feet deep where they were cutting, and the ice was ten or twelve inches thick. George had the tongs trying to pullout a big block of ice they had just cut. He slipped and went into the hole head-first. He came up under the ice and couldn’t find his way out, no matter now he struggled. Grandad Hancock, quickly got down on his stomach and reached back under and caught hold of his clothes and pulled him out.

Alma’s Great Ox

Taylor Centennial Stories, printed p. 58 Original source: ALMA ZEMIRA PALMER — by Rose Hale

When Alma Zemira Palmer was coming to Arizona in 1877, it took weeks, and they met many hardships and dangers. Once when they were crossing a rugged mountain, the front wheel of the wagon went off the ledge and Alma grabbed the opposite wheel of the wagon and shouted, “Haw” at his favorite ox and the ox pulled the wagon back onto the road. Later, he was so

frightened, he had to sit down for awhile. If the wagon had fallen, all on earth he possessed would have gone into the Colorado River, some 300 feet below except for the bull whip in his hand. He had heeded the call from God to come to Arizona and felt he had been protected and blessed and his family had been preserved to settle the new, country.

Ernest Hancock’s Runaway Buckboard

Taylor Centennial Stories, printed p. 218  Original source: Excerpt from ERNEST HANCOCK STORIES — by Art Hancock

Ernest was the youngest son of Joseph Hancock and he had many close encounters with death. One of these occurred when he was about five years old. He was out with his older brothers, Alf and Art. He and Alf were riding in a buckboard with Alf driving. Art was riding another horse along-side. They saw some wild burros and gave chase. The team got excited and ran away with them. The horses soon broke free from the buckboard, and it’s tongue stuck into the ground and flipped the buckboard over. One of the spinning wheels struck Ernest in the throat and cut his windpipe. Alf ran two miles to get his brother George to come carry Ernest home. When they got him home and his mother saw him covered with blood, she thought he was dead, and she fainted. She revived and took care of him without medical aid, and without stitches .. His throat healed, but it was a long time before he could eat anything solid. He carried this scar the rest of his life.

Merrill Brimhall in the Hailstorm

Taylor Centennial Stories, printed p. 109–111   Original source: TAYLOR STRIPPED BY RAMPAGING HAIL STORM — by Merrill Brimhall

This day was no different than many other mid-summer days in the Mormon villages along Silver Creek. Weeds had to be hoed, cows pulled, radishes watered, fresh mown hay turned and piled for loading, cucumbers sprinkled with “dust”, —all being accomplished at different times by the local boy population as they dreamed and chattered about skinny dipping in the creek during the hottest part of the day.

Logan Brimhall had fifteen to twenty acres of hay in prime condition for hauling to the barn. All of this was to be part of the days work for his four husky, and one not so husky older sons. First came the early chores of slopping squealing pigs whose chorus stopped as swill and grain sloshed down over their ears and snouts to their feeding troughs. Bellowing cows pleaded for relief from tanked and swollen udders whose rich milk and cream would later be pressed into cheese. Horses gently nickered for their portion of grain. Dogs yapped their glee in being tousled by the early risers whose vocal cords now added to the din some favorite ballad expressing joys of what was to be another great day to be alive.

So moved the day, like so many others before, but perhaps it was hotter and more stifling than usual, and with a certain calmness noted by their father, who was very perceptive to how summer showers would “brown” the hay. With some apprehension the “boss” and his crew watched the usual mid-summer monsoon clouds build their billowing high altitude castles. By mid afternoon an unusual bank of angry clouds were stacking themselves along the eastern horizon prompting father to send a would be herder for the cows while the others hurried the haying.

Merrill, a lad of barely thirteen, was sent on foot to bring the family herd from their pasture west of town–or more specific, west of the Taylor Cemetery, about two miles from home base on the east bank of the Silver Creek. Merrill hurried. No sooner had he bunched the stock for driving than the fury of the storm struck, a fury that was never to be forgotten by those who watched it.

Merrill’s cows scattered with the blowing dust and drenching rain. Almost immediately hail stones began falling in slanting thunderous sheets. Shelter behind large bushy cedar trees was useless as they were quickly stripped of their foliage. Bolts of lightening briefly flashed in what was otherwise total gloom. Prayer and pleading was quick in coming from the lad’s throat as he knelt under a disintegrating sage brush. He then plunged his way into the face of the storm, sometimes seeking momentary shelter such as it was, behind stripped trees whose trunks were no more than a few inches wide, thus offering little, if any protection. At two different times bellowing cows from some other hapless herd moved hurriedly by, carried by the force of the storm. Some with ripped and bleeding backs caused by sharp hailstones cutting into their hides. Rabbits and other small game huddled, some were too late. If Hell has its fury, this must be what it is like.

After what seemed an eternity, the lad found himself clutching the gate of the Quill Standifird residence, adjacent to the highway through town. All of the window panes facing east were shattered and the house looked vacant. Freezing, and in tears of terror and shock, Merrill made his way on past this neighborhood and on down to the banks of Silver Creek—-across the Creeks narrow bridge as flood waters now lapped at its base, taking it away as his feet touched the opposite shore. Fifty more feet and he collapsed. Someone looking out the window into what was now a light rain and the failing light of evening saw him as he fell. His next moment of consciousness were those of being gently slapped. His body shook unmercifully as he begged and pleaded to be placed near a fire. Drowsiness wanted to claim his conscipusness again but his father continued the long ordeal of nursing a victim of shock and freezing back to reality. A long gentle process.

On the morrow, an inventory of his clothes revealed the tatters of what had been a shirt-­ only the double seams and cuffs, collar and button slip remained. Tough denim trousers were shreds. The shoes he had lost were probably buried deep in hail stones that covered more than one square mile, where the water had carried them across the path he had

-taken. It took two months of hot summer sun to melt the icy stones that had drifted here. A leather sweatband was all that remained of what had been a new straw hat. This had saved his eyes and most of his hearing. Except for the slight hearing impairment and multiple sore purple bruises branding his left side, he was physically all right. Fortunately no broken skin. The Good Lord had given him another lease on life.

The community was soon to take toll of its situation. Crops above ground were no more. Carr9ts, potatoes and other root crops were salvageable. Anticipated fruit and berry harvest would not be. Many a window pane would have to be replaced, spotted plaster walls would have to be touched up or totally re-plastered, and many a roof shingle put back into place, or a total new roof put on many houses. It would be years before the scars on tree and shrub would be grown over with new coverings. Some-animals were scattered and had to be found while a few had to be put in the “boneyard”, out behind some hill or covered in a hole. The town stretched, yawned, and went to work repairing and living.

To this day, some thirty-eight years later Merrill vividly recalls the happenings of that day. He remembers the whisperings of a higher power accompanying him with sharp and clear directions …. “You must not go that way” …. “Get Up” …. “move”   “Look

quickly!” …. “You know the east-west fence has more strands of wire than the north­ south. Turn left into the face of the storm” “Cover your eyes”   “You can’t let a bolt of

lightening stop you” “That’s a dead cow by the fence, crawl on your stomach under the wire” “You’ll freeze to death in a vacant house. Keep moving” …. “The bridge is still good …. Run You can make it” …. “You are there”  “Someone has seen.

Early the next morning Merrill quietly crawled from his bed and before others were aware, he was awake and before they could inquire as to how he was, he knelt in prayer. and thanked his Heavenly Father.