This is the life sketch of our grandmother, Claudia Winona Fields Moore Bradley Moore, in her own words.
“We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestor’s dwell in the
attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in
every cell of our bodies”. ~ Shirley Abbot ~
I graduated from High School at Salmon, Idaho in 1916, class with 10 girls and 2 boys. I played basketball for three years, took part in class plays, and was first alto in the Girl’s Sextette. During those three years, during vacation I worked at the Oliver Ranch, helping Mrs. Oliver cook for hired men. She was a lovely lady and a real friend.
Wasn’t I an adorable child?
In the Fall of 1916, I went to Links Business School in Boise, staying with my older sister Cecile and her husband Frank Lorance, and their seven-year-old son Marion. After school and on Saturdays, I worked in a candy kitchen. I returned to Salmon in 1917 and worked again at the Oliver Ranch.M
Grandmother’s sister, Cecile Minerva Bradley Lorance, was born in 1891 and died in 1977. She was a very beautiful and vivacious woman. She had one child.
That Fall I met Roy T. Moore, and we were married on January 4, 1918. He was the son of Reuben McKay and Olive Maude Gorham Moore. They had seven children.
THE MOORE FAMILY
Roy’s father was born in Chillicothe, Missouri, where he received his education and had a lifetime teachers’ certificate for high school and college, signed by the President of the 48 states, (President Arthur) with no further qualification needed. *His wife, Olive Gorham Moore was also a teacher, but had to give up the profession when she married, as was the custom then. *They were married October 27, 1885, in Henry, Missouri. *
They moved to Salmon, Idaho with their first three children. The doctor in Missouri said he had to go out to a high, dry climate because he had T.B He did regain his health living in Idaho.
Ruben bought a ranch in Sandy Creek, Lemhi Valley, (from a homesteader for a gold watch and a team of horses) and lived many years there for the rest of his life, ranching. Five more children were born and grew up on the ranch. He died at 76 years of age, and their mother died at 67 years of age in Hanford, California at her sister’s home. (She died from complications of Type 2 diabetes).
Over a period of 50 years, there were children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Olive and Reuben McKay Moore attending school at the Sandy Creek School. All five of our children graduated from the eighth grade in this same one room schoolhouse on Sandy Creek.
When Roy’s father died, we moved onto the Moore Ranch on Sandy Creek, going into partnership with his brother Corbin. The ranch was turned over to them by the other brothers and sisters by a “quit claim deed”. We lived here for 15 years, raising sheep mostly at first, and then later raising cattle entirely, approximately three hundred head, until Roy and Corbin sold the ranch, and we moved into Salmon.
Roy started a spraying business, and sold seed, feed and fertilizer up until the time he had a severe heart attack while spraying. He partially retired, and turned his business over to our son, Ray, and a man named Hinderlider. In the following years he had another heart attack, and this one proved fatal. He died August 28, 1956, in the hospital in Salmon. *Grandmother and grandad were living right next to Steele Memorial hospital in Salmon, and when he had his heart attack, Dr. Walt Blackader ran next door, picked grandad up, threw him over his shoulder and to the hospital, but it was too late. *
Roy was an excellent stockman, a horse breaker, and knew well all phases of ranching. He also was a very good (amateur) veterinarian. His skill was often called upon, by neighbors and friends. Roy had a good tenor voice, and we were asked often to sing at community gatherings. I helped out by helping put up crops, plant them, mow hay, all with horses, and helped milk cows by hand. I raised the usual ranch food, such as turkeys, chickens, dumb lambs, and always a garden. I also canned all of our food.
In 1929 I had a heart attack and was in bed at my sister-in-law Lora Cockrell’s home in Salmon for six weeks. Roy and the kids, except Bertie who was tiny, and I took with me, ‘batched’ at their ranch until I was able to be back.
My Grandfather Nicolas Strawn’s ancestors came from Scotland, into England in the 18th century. There were several brothers and cousins, some spelling their name Straughan, Stachan and Strawn. My grandfather’s ancestor was named Lancelot. They all married and had huge families. My grandfather was one of seven sons all having come to the United States.
*When Lancelot Strawhan was born on 23 November 1680, in Billingshurst, Sussex, England, his father, Alexander Glas Strachen, was 26 and his mother, Catherine Morris, was 22. He married Mary Buckman on 30 November 1703, in Bucks, Pennsylvania, British Colonial America. They were the parents of at least 1 son. He died on 10 June 1720, in Middletown, Bethlehem Township, Northampton, Pennsylvania, British Colonial America, at the age of 39, and was buried in Middletown, Dauphin, Pennsylvania, United States. *(from an entry in FamilySearch. There are several different versions of the history of Lancelot Strawn which can be found in FamilySearch, probably all wrong.)
Nicholas Strawn, my grandfather, settled in Ohio. He joined the army of the north as a drummer boy at fifteen years of age. Later, he became a regular soldier, until the end of the war. He was never captured or wounded. He narrowly missed being killed once. His section had been ordered forward, so they were all running, when they came to a pole fence. My grandfather put a hand on the top rail and vaulted over, and just as he went over he felt a tug at his jacket. After the battle was over, he found a bullet had gone through his jacket on the left side between his body and his arm, without touching him. *This took place at the first battle of Shiloh*.
Nick and his brothers married seven Miller sisters. He went on to Iowa, where my mother was born. They moved on to Nebraska, then after crossing the plains, with a wagon train, twice returning to Nebraska. He took his family to Colorado, where they stayed until his three girls were grown, and his son was twelve.
During those years my grandmother, Elizabeth Miller died, and Nick remarried. So, taking his new wife and son in a covered wagon they left Colorado, enroute to Klamath Falls, Oregon. They came through Wyoming and camped one night on Rock Creek at American Falls, Idaho, probably at Register Rock, then on to Boise. His wife, Edna, was too near term with their first child to start on the trip to Klamath Falls. * There is a diary written by his second wife, Edna, about their trip west. I will post it later. *
*Register Rock was a stop along the California Trail. It was tradition for the pioneers to sign and date this stop on their journey. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov) in 1978.
Nicholas started looking for a farm, finding forty acres for sale about six miles from Boise. There was a house which Edna said was quite nice. There also were several milk cows, horses, pigs, chickens, and he paid cash for the whole spread. This, remember, was in 1902. Oh yes, there was a good farm wagon too, and a plow, harrow etc. I don’t know how long they stayed there because Nick was a restless man. He never made it to Oregon. He sold his farm and bought another bigger one up in Long Valley (near McCall). He stayed there until he could no longer work, and he sold it to his son Glenn Strawn. Nick and Edna moved back to Boise. He died at age 84 in the Old Soldiers Home and was buried there. (not in the Old Solders Home, but in Morris Hill Cemetery in the Civil War section called Silent Camp.) The last time I saw him was in 1908, the year before we left for Salmon.
Silent Camp is a section of Morris Hill Cemetery in Boise, Idaho, devoted to veterans of the Civil War.
A story about Nick: When Nick was a young man, in Nebraska, he used to take in the county fairs. The fairs usually had a “bully boy fighter” that would challenge the local boys. When Nick was asked if he had ever wrestled, or would try a fall, he would say “Oh, I’m just a country boy and have only wrestled a little”. He would then proceed in tying the ‘bully boy’ in knots. “Well, I didn’t have to jump that hard!” His take would be five dollars.
He was a big man, well over six feet and weighting 225 pounds, all brawn and muscle. He used to run and vault over his wagon easily, and then say, “Well, I didn’t have to jump that hard!”
During the trip across the plains there was little, if any timber, and at the evening stop, the girls had to gather ‘buffalo chips’ to burn for fuel for their campfire. This offended the girls to think they had to pick up these ‘chips’ by hand!
About my father, William Faber Bradley: Papa ran away from home at the age of thirteen years because his grandmother was bound, he was to become a preacher. So, he got a job as a cabin boy on one of the Mississippi paddle wheel steamers. He left that and got a job with some surveyors, as a ’chain boy’. They Traveled into the Mississippi Everglades surveying.
There were quite a few big cats in the everglades and one evening the men wanted something from a store some distance away, and they had a small horse, so papa got on the horse and went to the store. And on his return, he heard one of these big cats scream near at hand, and it was following him. He ran his horse as fast as it would go for camp and said later that he got there before his horse! He never returned to Missouri until he was 18, and then only to see his grandmother shortly before she died.
It was in this little town of Mexico, Mo. where papa was born, the James Boys, Frank, Jesse, and Cole Younger and his brother, used to travel through on their raids into Missouri, and back over the border into Kansas. Papa’s grandmother and uncles knew these men well and fed them in their home. They considered the desperados as their friends. Mexico, Mo. was also in Mark Twain country.
When papa was small, uncles *I can’t read this, but judging by the age, it was probably Able* and Flood who were older, would talk him into onery thinks to do, especially when the preacher came to dinner. One Sunday the preacher came to dinner and the two uncles put him up to saying: “Grandma, there’s a hair in the corn.” She said: “Oh Will, that’s a cornsilk”. He replied: “With a nit (egg of a head louse) on it?” Another time they told him to say, when the plate of chicken was passed: “I want the guts!” Needless to say, the uncles usually got off free and Will usually caught it for these little tricks. *I guess good jokes and entertainment were kind of hard to come by in the 19th. Century, so you took what you could get! *
A couple exciting and tragic events that occurred in Roy’s and my life on the Matlock Ranch, was the shooting of Billy Daniels, Mrs. Matlock’s ex-husband, and Ben Hamilton.
Daniels had been terrorizing everyone on the ranch, hoping to get Mrs. Matlock to take him back. One day he came by in a buckboard and stopped, shouting he would kill the whole bunch of us. He had a rifle pointed at those of us in the yard, Dee Matlock, Mrs. Matlock, myself, and Roy, who was 4 or 5. Dee was sitting in his car on lawn, and he reached back in the back seat, picked up a 30-30 rifle and stepped out of the car, shooting twice, one bullet creasing one of Daniels horse, and the next shot striking Daniels in the side. The team broke into a run and was stopped by a neighbor called Snyder on the other side of the Lemhi River bridge. Daniels died a few minutes after. The coroner’s inquest was held there at our ranch, after we called the sheriff from Salmon. Dee was exonerated of any blame and was acquitted later by a jury trial.
The other event that happened was on January 2, 1932, when a stranger came into the Lemhi Valley, over the mountains from Montana, and stopped at the Johnny Belleul ranch near Tendoy. He asked for a job and the little Frenchman who owned the ranch said yes, he needed a man to work. This stranger, Ben Hamilton, lived and worked at the ranch. One day he went up to the Tendoy store on horseback, and proceeded to get terribly drunk, and passed out in Ray Pierce’s store. So, Ray called the sheriff in Salmon, to come up and get him, because he had been completely irrational and threatening and to come immediately while he was passed out.
Before the sheriff could get there, Ben came to, and went back to the ranch. Sometime later in late afternoon or near evening, two deputies, and a 19-year-old boy arrived at the Belleul place, knocked on the door, identifying themselves, and they were met at the door by Ben, armed with a rifle. He shot and killed the first deputy, Len Cummins, and as the second deputy stepped forward, Len Bancroft by name. He shot and killed him. Billy Withington, the 19-year-old boy, unarmed, leaped on Ben, to try and disarm him.
Ben slashed at him with a knife, cutting his arm badly, then also shot him, killing him. Then Ben ran up Warm Springs Creek on foot, and into the mountains. He was hunted by about 200 men, all volunteers that night, all the next day, and until evening. He was shot by a neighbor, Oscar Swanson with a shot gun. He lived for a while, but died before they reached Salmon, which was probably a good thing for him anyway, because a bunch of men were waiting for him with a rope and noose. Vigilante justice!
One morning, Mrs. Matlock was helping Roy with the milking, and I was getting breakfast. I looked out of the window and here came Mrs. Matlock without any buckets of milk. She went right through the kitchen and on into the bedroom without a word. Whild she was in there, Roy came in and I asked him, “What’s wrong with Whoosit?” He started laughing so hard and said “She was milking old “kicker” cow. (They always had to put the cow in a squeeze chute with a chain with a leather band to put around her kicking leg, and the end of the chain hooked into a nail in the wall behind the chute.) All of a sudden Roy heard her say “Bitch, get out of here!” When he raised up from the cow he was milking to see who she was calling names, she was still stooped over to unfasten the chain. At that moment old Kicker had important business to transact right there! She was just off a green pasture, so she let it all go, right on top of Mrs. Matlock’s head, and on the little cloth hat she was wearing. Roy said there were little rivulets of nice green, recycled pasture running down past her nose, over each ear, and down her neck. He just keeled over on the ground laughing. Mrs. Matlock yanked off her little hat, ran over to Roy, gave him a couple kicks in the ribs for laughing at her, and stomped off to the house!! She was still so mad she wouldn’t eat her pancakes. She never did get to the point of thinking there was anything funny about it, but for my part, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person! (Grandmother was not a fan)
My life after the death of my husband, Roy.
After Roy Died, I started cooking at the hospital in Salmon. I kept this job for three years. I had two mild strokes, and two heart attacks, which the doctor said must put t a stop to my ever working again.
After I had to quit working at the hospital, I was at home there for two years. Then Ray had a heart attack, I sold my house and went to San Francisco where he and his family lived, returning to Salmon after he had made a good recovery.
*When she first came to Aberdeen, she lived in a little room in the Bingham Hotel. I remember her teaching me to tell time with the clock on the wall. After that she moved to a small duplex in town owned by my Uncle Tommy Nelson. Before Granddad Moore died, he asked my dad to please take care of Claudia should anything happen to him, which he did without question. Grandmother lived with us most of the year and spent summers with her other children. She wasn’t a warm fuzzy person, but she loved her family, and was heaven sent to my mom when my dad died. She and I had long talks when I would get home from dates because she was an insomniac and read late into the night. She was very intelligent and taught me my love of books and to question everything before I made decisions. She wasn’t always easy to live with, but I loved her and the gifts she brought me*.
In November of 1977 I moved into the Federal Housing for Senior Citizens at American Falls. I am comfortable and content here, with good neighbors, and hope I don’t ever have to move again.
*Grandmother had several strokes and ended up in the nursing home in American Falls. She died December 21, 1985, and is buried next to Granddad in Salmon, Idaho. *
