oral history- garth holm

8/13/2019 Oral History- Garth Holm

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Oral History of Garth Eugene Holm:

The Quiet Life of a Hardworking Farmer and Dedicated Father

Interviewed, transcribed, and edited by Alissa Holm

ELANG 322Brigham Young University

11 December 2013


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2Oral History of Garth Eugene Holm

I was born February 5, 1930 in Idaho Falls, Idaho. I was born to Arthur and Thelma Holm,the oldest of their two children. My only sister, Carol, was born five years after me. I was born andraised up in the Colton area, just north of Idaho Falls. We moved when I was five years old to the

house just up the road from where I now live in Basalt, Idaho.

My father was a farmer, so I was thrown into the farming scene at a pretty young age. I spentmany hours on the farm with my father growing up. We mainly farmed potatoes, but we also grewalfalfa and grain, in addition to raising some livestock. I remember we had lots of horses and spenta lot of time raking hay. All of these tasks brought in part of the income to help make a living.

Early Childhood

One of my earlier memories is of mother and dad working out in the fields while Carol and Isat in a wagon on a blanket in the shade. Carol and I would play there while they worked. Carol sleptand I mostly caused mischief. Overall, Carol and I got along because shed do what I told her to do.

I remember lots of things about mom and dad. I was a little closerto my mother, but I think I was pretty close with both my parents. Anotherearly memory that I have is that my dad would come in from the farm andhave dinner around noon every day. He would lie down and take a quick15-minute nap on the floor. I think this was a habit of hisand a goodone, too. I was always afraid that he wouldnt wake me up to go back outon the farm, so I would lie on his back and grab his suspenders. That way,when he woke up and moved, hed have to take me with him. I suppose itwas a little strange to lie on the floor, but thats what he would always do.If we had bad weather, he would sometimes lie across the bed, but it wasusually on the ground.

I also spent a lot of time with my mom. I remember that I helpedher do dishes a lot, even though I didnt want to. My job was usually to

wipe the dishes dry. It was all handwork back then because we didnt have dishwashers. Motherspent a lot of time out in the fields helping do thevarious jobs as well. During the harvest, especially duringpotato and grain harvest, all the farmers in the generalarea would gather together and help each other harvestall the fields. The wives would take turns making dinnerfor all these people. Usually wed eat breakfast andsupper at home, but theyd bring us dinner in the fields.

During the harvest, theyd have to cook a meal for about15-20 men. It was an awfully big job for one woman to

make dinner for all those hungry men.

As far as memories of my grandparents go, I have the most memories of my Grandpa JosefHjalmar Holm. He was younger than my mothers parents. He lived for several years after my othergrandparents passed away. My grandma, Anna Holm, died very youngbefore I was ever born.Grandpa and Grandma Holm and their two oldest sons, Axel and Edwin, came from Sweden. My

Picture 1: Garth Holm, about1933

Picture 2: Garth, Thelma, Carol, and Arthur Holm,about 1945


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3dad was born in Idaho, though. My Grandpa Holm lived two houses up the road for a few yearswhile I was young. For most of his life, he lived between here and Idaho Falls. We visited him andhis brothers quite a bit growing up, especially his brother Everett. Grandpa lived in a cabin in ourback yard for a while. He didnt enjoy that in the winter though, because it was hard to keep warm,so that only lasted for about a year or two.

One thing I can remember really well about Grandpa Holm is that he would take me to themovies once a week. They had three or four show houses up in Idaho Falls. He did this once he wasretired, so he had a lot of time on his hands. There werent many things to do back then eitherthere was no TV to watch and no radio to listen to, so going to the movies was a form ofentertainment. I think his personality was pretty much the same as my dads. A lot of the time whenit was just dad and his brothers, they would talk Swedish. I had the opportunity to learn the Swedishlanguage then and I didnt do it. Im still sorry that I never took that opportunity to learn it.

We had several unique Swedish customs growing up. In Sweden, theyd have coffee timeevery day at 4 oclock. Basically, it was a little lunch. Grandpa carried this custom into our fields.Every day, a train would come through at 4 oclock and when we heard its whistle, we knew it was

coffee time. Wed call it the coffee train. Trains dont run on time like that anymore, but back thenit came like clock work. My mother would bring out lemonade and cinnamon rolls or a sandwich tothe fields and wed take a break to enjoy the food. The kids especially always looked forward tocoffee time.

We also had a tradition of eating pickled herring at Christmas time. We would let it soak inthe brine for a while and then serve it raw. It made a pretty tasty fish. Wed also take hard and drybread and soak it in cocoa or coffee. That was delicious. You put it in a bag to dry it out and then itwould keep for a long time. My mothers pie and fresh bread were some of my favorite things to eat.Fresh bread with soft jam was great. Wed have that for coffee time occasionally. My mothers mom,Grandma Mary Jane Hayward, would also make a delicious cherry pie. Shed make bottled canned

cherries, and boy, those cherries were my favorite treat to have at grandmas house.

The church wasnt a very big part of my life growing up. I didnt get baptized until I was ateenagerwhen I was about 16 or 17. Dad wasnt a member, but mother was. She was a member allher life. I suppose I got baptized because my friends were all membersthe two boys who lived tothe west of us were about my same age and we were pretty good friends. They got me to go a littlebit and then that developed into me getting baptized.

Elementary School and High SchoolI went to elementary school in Basalt in a two-story schoolhouse. I went there for my first

eight grades. When World War II started, I was about 11 years old. I remember hearing a lot about it

in school when it first happened. Life was pretty much the same in Idaho during the war, but therewere a few differences. The main thing was Idaho went into rationing. Theyd give you a coupon tobuy a specific amount of things like gas, groceries, and tires. I think they were just making sure theyhad enough to go around. There were also prisoner of war camps nearbyone in Shelley andanother one in Sugar City. The one in Sugar City had German POWs, I think. And there were someJapanese internment camps around Idaho as well. That wasnt very fair, I dont think, but we cantgo back and change any of that, can we?


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4When high school rolled around, I played football for Firth

High School. I played the tackle position. Our rival teams were Shelley,Arco, Ririe and Ucon. I played a little basketball too. I wasnt a fastenough runner for track and I didnt like baseball, so I only playedthose two sports. I didnt box for the team in high school, but I had a

punching bag and punching gloves that I would use in my spare time. Iguess that was another form of entertainment too.

I had the opportunity to go on to college, but I didnt do it. Inthese smaller rural areas, there werent a whole lot of other jobopportunities, and I guess it was just kind of assumed I would dofarming after high school. I worked with my dad on the farm rightafter high school and then eventually we began a partnership. In the

wintertime, wed go work in the potato warehouse in Shelley or Firthwhere wed sort and bag thepotatoes and get them ready for

sale.

Marriage and ChildrenI met your Grandma Marene in high school. I dont

really remember how we met. I married her when I was 19 andshe was 18. Back at that time, most people got married at thatage. Our first son, David, was born when I was 20 years old,back in 1950. Our next son, Norman, your father, was bornwhen I was 21 in 1951. Then our third child, Deborah, came afew years later. We moved into this house when they werebabies. Originally, the house only had two rooms. We had akitchen and a main room. The bathroom was in a storage

cabinet where the pantry is now. It was little but it got the job

done. We added onto the house eventuallyprobably three orfour years after we moved in.

Those two boys were pretty good kids. I cant remember too much about when they wereborn. I do know that when your dad was born, the umbilical cord was wrapped around his left armand the arm was doubled back. The doctor wasconcerned about whether his arm was going to be usableor not. We were told that if the doctor hadnt massagedhis arm immediately after he was born and got the bloodflowing, he probably would have had a crippled arm for

the rest of his life.

Some of my favorite memories from when thekids were little are from fishing trips wed take. We go toYellowstone Park occasionally. We even took the kids toDisneyland once. Wed take day trips to get to a fishing

stream or a fishing hole. A lot of the time, this would be aspur of the moment thing. If it started to rain and we

Picture 3: Garth Holm as a football

player for Firth High School, about

1948

Picture 4: Marene, Garth, David, and Norman

Holm at their two-room house, 1952

Picture 5: David, Norman, and Grandma

Thelma Holm fishing in 1963


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5couldnt do anything on the farm, wed go where it wasnt raining and go fishing. Those were somegreat memories with the family.

At one point in my thirties, I hurt my back pretty badly. I didnt ever figure out if it wasbroken or just damaged badly, but I had several vertebrates that were twisted or pulled apart. I was

in pretty bad shape. It happened while I was out on the farm with mom and dad. We had a machinecalled a derrick that we would stack hay with. It was pulled by either a team of horses or a tractorand would pick up big piles of hay, swing them through the air, and dump them on a stack. Therewere cables on the machine that lifted the hay. My dad was a very good hay stackerhe took a lotof pride in that. There werent any haystacks that looked better than his. So I never did do thatbecause it was always his job. Anyway, we were in the process of doing this and a cable broke on themachine. The end of the heavy derrick pole fell down and hit me. I dont know where it hit me, butit knocked me out. Now, my father had a hernia that made lifting things hard for him. But when thepole fell on me, he somehow lifted the derrick pole off. Now normally, a human, let alone someonewith a hernia, wouldnt have been able to lift this much weight. But somehow he did itheprobably had a lot of adrenaline and very likely some help from above. Mother called an ambulanceto come and get me. I remember that because I woke up just as the ambulance passed us and went

on down the roadthey couldnt find us out in the field! After that experience, the doctor told me Ihad to be done farming and that I needed to find a new occupation. I proved him wrong and didfarming for the rest of my life.

I was elected to the school board while the kids were in high school. There are five areas inthe school district, and a representative from each area. I ran against Ross Berg and served twoterms for a total of eight years.

I never really hoped that my kids would go into farming. I knew that they needed moreeducation to get better jobs. Farming is a lot of hard work. It isnt eight hours a day; its fromdaylight till dark. It would have been nice for them to do farming, but I knew wed need a larger

farm and everything to accommodate them to farm here. So we never really expected them to gointo farming. But to help get our kids to college, wed buy cattle, raise them, and sell them. This wasenough to help get the kids through college.

One of the biggest moments of my life was when our potatoes were chosen for Clover ClubPotato Chips. When they wanted to get good potatoes for their chips, theyd always come to us. Imnot trying to brag, but we were proud to become the farmers that Clover Club selected. We had agood run with them. Our potatoes were also used for Country Club potato chips. My cousin, CarlHolm, would take trucks down to Utah a few times a week to their headquarters. Sometimes I madethe trip to Utah and back, leaving at about 4 or 5 a.m. We all got addicted to those tasty potato chipstheyd make from our potatoes.

Later Years

I met Ruthelda while our youngest daughter Debbie was attending Ricks College. We met atchurch. We had friends that wanted us to date each other because we were both single. Theyd getus and take us out to movies and different things. Eventually we married.


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6About 10 years later, we really got into raising llamas and goats. Ruthelda originally wanted a

llama or two and a goat or two, but I guess we went a little overboard. We ended up with 120 goatsat one time. We did really well with them. We won a lot of awards. I guess it kind of gets into yourblood because it became a major part of our lives. It turned into more than a hobbyperhaps evento be considered a profession of sorts. We started the business name Sand Creek Boers and made

sales throughout the northwest. We became known as one of the best-known breeders of boer goats. In a way, Sand Creek Boers helpedbring these goats into the Northwest. Wed figure out how to crossbreed them to get a male that had the characteristics needed toimprove the herd. Our llamas were more expensiveabout $3,000-$4,000 for just one. Our neighbors and friends would joke about howwed created the Basalt Zoo and theyd bring their kids andgrandkids to see the animals.

Advice for Grandchildren

Well for you kids, Id say that when you are ready to beginyour occupation, do the very best you can. If youre working for

somebody else, still give him or her everything youve got. I thinkmost of your siblings and cousins have already done that. Just do the

best you can, and then a little bit more. In the long run, it will turn outall right in the end.

Picture 6: Garth Holm in 2011

oral history- garth holm

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