Trading for Denece

When Denece was 4 or 5 she was very pretty.  The Indian Chief from the Blackfoot reservation took a liking to her.  He came a few times to try to trade for her. He tried to trade blankets for her, then a horse, then his own son.  Grandma Baty got so worried when she saw him coming that she would hide Denece under a big wash tub until he left.

(1937 Doyle and Denece Argyle)

 

Three Children

From Dora Baty Argyle

 

Ten months after our marriage our first child was born.  It was a boy, our pride and joy.  We called him Doyle J.  He used to spend lots of time in his grandparents home as he was the first grandchild on my side.  His Grandmother Baty taught him how to drive a car.

 

(1935 Doyle Argyle)

Four years later a little girl came to our house.  She also was a joy to us because we dreamed about a girl like her.  She weighed seven pounds and had lots of dark hair and eyes.  People told me she was a living doll and I named her Denece Ann.  I would fuss over her.   Her hair was always curled and she had two clean dresses on a day.  When she was ten months old she had "gathered ears" and she started to suck her thumb.  She and Doyle got along well.

(1937 Doyle and Denece Argyle)

 

Seven years later our home was blessed by the arrival of Doris Alene, a sweet baby of five pounds.  All my children were born at home and my mother took care of me.  A couple of months before Alene came, my father was taken in death from a heart attack on 17 March 1942.  This was our first experience with death in our family and it was hard to take but we realized the work of the Lord.  Dell and I rented the ranch from my mother.  She moved to Farmington, Utah.  Later we bought the ranch from mother.

(1943 Doyle, Doris Alene, and Denece Argyle)

 

Denece remembers her mother telling her that she had "gathered ears," but she never did know what that meant.

Teen Years

From Dora Baty Argyle

When I grew older, I used to spend time with my cousin, Beth Pace.  We used to pick cherries and also go the horse races at Lagoon near Farmington.  When it came time to go to school, Ora and I were the only children left at home.  All of our brothers had jobs and were married and Edna was a bookkeeper and lived in Ogden, Utah with Norma and her husband, Chick.  Mother stayed on the ranch with father and Ora, and I went and rented a room in the Call home and went to school.  We had lots of fun going to dances and having dates with boys.  This was in Chesterfield, Idaho, in my teen years.  I seemed quite lucky in being able to get dates, so I would take my sister along.

 

 

 

 

Chesterfield Idaho

 

 

 

Homesick

From Dora Baty Argyle

After we got lost in the blizzard, we would go to Farmington, Utah, to go to school and leave my father alone on the ranch to feed the animals and live.  I used to get homesick for him.  One time my mother let me come home to the ranch to stay with him for awhile.

 

 

 

Farmington, Utah

 

Call Me Joe

From Dora Baty Argyle, August 20, 1950

 I was very different from my sister, as I grew up to love horses and outdoor life.  I used to coax my father  to call me Joe.  I plowed, harrowed and mowed hay for him and always was his derrick boy in the hay season.  I enjoyed milking the cows and working in the fields.  My sister used to play house with her dolls.  I would say, " I would if I were used to it."  That kind of play never appealed to me.

We used to go to the church at the Hatch Ward.  When I grew older they used to let me drive the horses with my mother, Ora, and Edna, who is our older sister.  One cold day in the winter we started for Sunday School and our team got down in the snow.  I had to unhook one of the teams and go back home to get my dad.  My mother, Edna and Ora were very cold when father and I got back to them.

 

 

A History of the Farm

Lettie Baty could not stay at the farm after she found her husband dead in the barnyard.  So, they moved her into Bancroft.  She later lived in Farmington and Salt Lake City.

The dry farm was Joseph Hyrum Argyle’s.  The ranch was purchased from Grandma Baty when her husband died.

(The Joseph Hyrum Argyle Family)

 

(Joseph Hyrum's Barn)

Grandma's Baby

One thing Denece remembers about visiting Grandma Baty in Ogden is when they brought the kids in the apartment and D.Ann began to look around the apartment looking intently for something.  Finally, Denece asked her what she was looking for.  D.Ann answered, “Where’s Great Grandma’s baby?” She was a little disappointed that there was no baby.  She thought they were saying Grandma’s baby instead of Grandma Baty.

 

(1965 Edwinna, Delbert, Darlene, D.Ann, and Billy Joe Perkins)

A Trip Through the Caverns

Alene, Delbert, and Dora came to visit Edwin and Denece while they were living in El Paso, Texas.  Edwinna was about a year old.  They brought Grandma Baty with them.  They all went to Carlsbad Caverns.  Delbert was carrying Edwinna and she liked to lay over his arms.  People would comment, “look how that man is carrying that baby.”  So he’d try to hold her another way and she would howl.  While going down into the cavern, Lettie Baty started to lean backwards.  Her son told her she was leaning and to stand up straight.  She said, “I am, Delbert.  I am standing up straight as I can!” A tour guide said they should take her out of the cave before she fell over backwards.

 

 

(1953 Denece Perkins, Dora Argyle, Lettie Baty, Alene Argyle, Edwinna Perkins, and Delbert Argyle)

 

 

(1953 Carlsbad Caverns Brochure)

 

On the Way to the Honeymoon

When Denece and Edwin got married, they left on their honeymoon.  Denece heard a few of her seminary classmates were going to meet them in Salt Lake at her Grandma Baty’s (Lettie Rebecca Stoddard Baty) house.  Her class mates waited up all night on her front porch but Denece and Edwin went the other way and spent their wedding night in Burley.  Denece went into the motel office to register.  She put down Edwin Perkins and Denece Argyle.  The manager started to ask questions and Denece had to convince them that they just got married.  They believed her and gave them the honeymoon suite.

(1951 Edwin Perkins)

(1952 Denece Ann Argyle Perkins)

Dora Alene Baty Argyle's Birth

On a September day, the 7th to be exact, a very wonderful thing happened to John Gibbs Baty and Lettie Rebecca Stoddard Baty.  They had a pair of twin girls come to join their family of five.  It was in the year 1912.  Doctor Kackley came from Soda Springs, Caribou, Idaho by horse and buggy, a distance of eighteen miles to deliver the babies to my mother.  My birth place was Chesterfield, Bannock, Idaho.  How happy she was when she was able to realize her lifelong dreams had come true.  Twins was one of her life's desires and now it seemed to good to be true.

                My sister weighed three pounds and I weighed three and a half.  We were poor and as babies we gave our mother a great deal of worry.  She finally gave me cows cream and rice water, and my sister's life was saved by a dear old lady named Aunt Ruth Davids.  She was part Indian and nursed my sister until she was strong and healthy.  Our parents decided to call us Ora Norrine and Dora Alene.  I was to be called Ora, but because Carl Loveland got us mixed up when he blessed us I was named Dora Alene.

 

 

(1914 Ora and Dora Baty)

 

Written by Dora Baty August 20, 1950

A History of Her Birth

I am the after effects of a twenty-fourth of July celebration, as I was born about 9:30 on the morning of July 25, 1935.  I was the chubbiest baby my mother had weighing a fraction over six pounds.  My mother was staying with my grandmother Baty at the time.  Dr. Fitz assisted my mother.  As Dr. Fitz approached the house my only brother Doyle was playing in the yard and Doyle asked the doctor if his baby sister was in the little black bag.

 

Here is how my brother looked that day when he asked the doctor where his baby sister was.

 

Written by Denece Ann Argyle Perkins