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

 

 

 

The Family Home

From Dora Baty Argyle

 

The house I lived in was part log and soon my father added on to it and we all lived in four rooms.  A large kitchen and pantry were two of them.  We fixed the "cutest little front room", so we called it.  The other room was used for sleeping.  We had a cot in the corner of the kitchen and the whole family would rest upon it.  At night it was fixed out for the boys’ bed.

(1914 Ora and Dora Baty)

 

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.

 

 

In a Blizzard

 From Dora Baty Argyle:

Mother and Dad used to heat rock and brick to put on our feet in the winter when we left for school in the sleigh.  One day we got ourselves lost in a blizzard that came up suddenly.  We wandered around all day before the storm cleared enough for us to tell where we were.  We found ourselves in the middle of a field and realized we had gone in a circle all day.  We were nearly frozen and the folks were worried about us.  Mother made doughnuts and kept them hot.  When we got home, we ate them all.  We had frozen feet and fingers that day.  Leslie's shoes were frozen to his feet.

 

(1915 Ora and Dora Baty)

 

 

Chesterfield, Idaho

 

We don't have many photos from Dora's childhood because they were stored in the basement when the flood hit in Bancroft.

 

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