I was born on the second day of April in 1892 at the home of my parents in Ward, Boulder County, Colorado. My father was William Allen McIntyre who was born on the eleventh of August 1861 at Paisley, Bruce County, Ontario, Canada. He was the son of Alexander McIntyre and Mary Jane Morden. My mother was Mary Elizabeth Whipple who was born the seventh of January in 1872 at Jefferson, Greene County, Iowa. She was the daughter of Joseph Walter Whipple and Frances Elenora Potter. Mother died on the seventh of June 1898 at 26 years of age and was buried at Boulder, Colorado. I had two older sisters - Nellie and Ida. Agnes was next younger and my only brother, Joseph, was the last child in the family.
When my brother Joseph was born, I remember going down to my grandmother's and while there saw a tornado coming. (March 20, 1895) The hail was as big as banty eggs and we all grabbed a pan of any size to put over our heads as we went to a dug cellar outside the house.
When I was about three or four years old, we were playing store and I would go down to the creek to get sand for sugar and salt. Once I stubbed my toe while running to the creek and fell on a rock --breaking my jaw bone. Of course, that ended our play for a while.
One time, my mother was rendering out grease in the oven when it suddenly caught fire. The house was burning when two men came down the road and put it out. Mother's arms were badly burned. It all happened early in the morning when we kids weren't up yet. so Mother made us get up and go out in our nightgowns. We traveled barefooted over the road of ice and snow to my Aunt Anna's house.
Once there was a flood in the next canyon from where we lived at Ward, Colorado. So of course we went over the hill to see it. Some boys had gone up to the dam, dropped the head gates, then couldn't get them back up again. It backed the water up and finally washed the dam out. One young woman and her little girl were drowned. Water from the dam had been used to run my father's mill. It therefore had to be shut down awhile because of there being no power.
I can remember seeing my first train and watching them build the railroad near our home. They used black powder in cans while grading the area. We used to go get the cans and take them to the store where they could be traded for candy. I don't remember what the store wanted them for.
When I was six years old, my little mother took sick and passed away. They took her to Boulder, Colorado for burial. We small youngsters went back and stayed with Mother's sister, Aunt Susey. While we were there I remember that their big brindle dog (a hound of some kind) was running around the house in terror. Aunt Susey opened the door to let him in and a big mountain lion was on his back, trying to eat him up. She really shut the door fast. The dog later went mad and bit my uncle. He had to go back to Missouri for treatment.
When Father came back from Colorado, we went back to our house. Well, I just can't describe the awful lonesome feeling that I had. Something was terribly wrong with our dear mother gone. Father boarded us out for a year while he went to Wyoming to work. The next summer he sent for us. There was a girl who took us as far as Laramie, Wyoming. She was probably a cousin. We stayed in the Saint Francis Hotel where we all had a nice bath in perfumed water. Of course, the wash tub had been the only bath tub we had known. Then she took us to a big store and bought us all new clothes before we took the train. We arrived in Laramie on the first day of August in 1900. During the first winter we stayed with a family by the name of Hixson and went to school there. After that we stayed in the mountains at Keystone, Wyoming with my father who was a miner. that is where we grew up until I was fifteen years old.
I started school when six years old at Ward, Colorado but never got past the sixth grade because most of my schooling was in Wyoming where school was only held during the three summer months. Winters were long and very cold with snow so deep we couldn't go far. One teacher was a Scotch Lassie named Miss Booth and she was very kind and good. But the teacher we thought the most of was a Lillian Corey. She stayed with us youngsters as my father was gone most of the time working away from home. We were taught a lot more than just school lessons because we were also instructed in sewing, cooking and manners. She was a very lovely young woman and we loved her very much.
When we lived at the mining camp at Keystone with my father, he was running a stamp mill which ground rock. There was a long tressel (sic) from the mine to the mill which was very narrow and high. One day we all got in the little ore car which ran on a track on that long trestle from mine to mill. We had one teenage boy pushing the Car. It had a foot trip on it and that boy tripped the car right in the middle at the highest part of the trestle, dumping us kids out. It is a wonder that some of us didn't fall off or through it to our death. but our guardian angel was surely watching over us.
We loved to play at Father's mill which was three stories high. We used to run up and down the steps like deer and play in the ore shoots that fed the stamps. It is a big wonder that we didn't go through the shoots into the stamps. There wouldn't have even been a smell of any of us left. Another favorite play area at the mill was the big pipe that carried water into the mill. We used to holler down the pipe and it would echo back all that we had said.
Once in about 1902, there was a big fire and there was no one in the camp but an old bachelor and we kids. We thought our dad was working in another mine, but he was out fighting fire. We were sure scared. The old smoke was rolling down into our camp and we expected to see fire any minute as the trees came right down around the house where we lived. But they got it out before it got there.
The mine had what was called a "whim" to pull the buckets of rock up. It was about twelve feet across and round. We had an old horse hooked up that would go round and round to pull the buckets up and then lower them again. I used to pump the big old bellows to the forge so Papa could heat the drills to sharpen them.
While we had the mine Dad had started a prospect hole but had quit it later. My brother and I were digging around there once when we heard a funny sound. In looking up we saw what looked like three stars about eighteen inches apart with a big zig-zag wreath of smoke left behind them. We ran up to the mine where the rest were and everyone got to see the smoke. Then we heard what sounded like a big explosion. A big meteorite weight several tons was found over in Colorado.
When I was about eleven years old, we moved from Keystone to Holmes which was about five miles away. There were some friends by the name of "Sawyer" who had five children. The oldest, Myrtle, was my age. Their mother hurt her ankle read bad so they had me help Myrtle take care of the other kids and cook. There was a little country store about two miles away and one evening Myrtle and I were sent to get some groceries. When we were going back to the their house, the neighbor's donkey gave us quite a scare. He was tied to a stump near our path and in the dark it looked like a bear. We hollered and ran back to the neighbor's house. Myrtle fell down but I didn't know it. We were so scared that the man had to go with us the rest of the way back to Myrtle's house.
Another time some of the men around the mining camp had found a cub bear about the size of an ore car. He was a vicious little beast. The teacher was going to feed him one day and told my sister to take his chain and hold him away from the pan. He turned on Ida and bit her leg. (If she hadn't had an awful thick skin, it would have been bad.) After a while he got too big for the chain so they took up some flooring board in an old house and put him there. He'd sleep under the floor. Men used to go down and box with him. I went along with the lady that cooked for miners and watched them. That bear walked over to me and put his paws on my knees. I thought he was going to chew me up, but he didn't. He just turned around and walked away. When he got too big to handle they put him in an old mine tunnel with a shed built on the outside. But he got real big and vicious, so they had to kill him. They couldn't turn him loose for fear he would be too dangerous.
Next we moved from Holmes to Arlington, Wyoming. While moving, my father was thrown out of the sled when it tipped over. His hip was broken. It was never set right and he was crippled the rest of his life. He was on crutches about four years. Since Father couldn't work, my oldest sister got a job and tried to support us.
When sixteen I met the young man that I later married. His mother, Emma W. McDaniel and his stepfather, Henry Hixson, lived about two miles from us. They had a girl my age, so I used to like to go there when I could. Walter came home for Christmas and that was when we first met. He was twenty-two years old on the eighteenth of February and we became engaged on that day. He had a team and two-wheeled cart which was a golden chariot to us.
We were married the fifteenth of April in 1908. He was a good, loving husband and father. Of course, we had our troubles in a financial way as jobs were scarce and very small pay. He had six head of horses and two wagons. His occupation was freighting and hauling lumber to Laramie, Wyoming and Walden, Colorado. Then when they put the railroad as far as Walden, it put the freighters out of work and he had to look for another job.
We took up a homestead and I stayed on it until we had it proved up. My two daughters were born about this time. Evelyn Violet was born on April 21, 1911 and Marian Charlotte was born February 24, 1913. While staying on this homestead fourteen miles from Laramie, a blizzard came up. I didn't dare leave the house with my babies in it. I needed the old work horse to go for food and wood. So I had to wait for the old house to come up by himself. He didn't do this until late afternoon. I went out and hitched him up to the buggy and put my babies down in the front in some bedding. Then I started out. I had a very dear friend that lived down the road about four miles toward town. When I stopped there, they had to carry me into the house. I stayed there four days until the blizzard finally cleared away. Walter couldn't come out at all as his only transportation was a bicycle and he would never have made it in that storm. I got to town and never went back to the homestead again.
I will relate a previous blizzard experience. Walter had a contract to make a ditch to a fellow's homestead. He had just finished the ditch when a good old blizzard came. We were living in the homestead shack and when we awoke in the morning, there was six inches of snow on our bed and all over everything. Well, we moved that day into a log house over on the creek which was nice and warm and sheltered by trees and willows.
Walter had a saddle horse that was grey with darker spots as big as dollars on him. When Walter wanted the horse, I would go out and get him. He would follow me like a dog and would come to the house door and stand nickering for me to come out and love him. He was supposed to be an outlaw and no one could ride him, except Walter. He always had to have a bucking spree each morning. Then one day he didn't buck anymore and became a beautiful buggy horse.
But bad luck was with us and we had to let everything go as the company Walter worked for charged us more than we had coming in. We had a lawyer look over their books and he said we had $1,600.00 coming to us but that we'd have to get the State Auditor to prove it. We had no money for anything like that, so gave up the horses and everything and moved to town. Walter found work in a flour mill. Later he worked at the electric light plant firing boilers.
One day I was coming through the alley to get home quicker. I had my two little girls in the baby buggy. There was a man unloading lumber. He had a horse hitched to the rig and I asked him if he thought he horse would kick if I went by. He said, No, he won't kick." After I got by I looked at the horse and said, "No, he won't kick." I put my arm around his neck and loved him. He knew me because he had been one of our horses. As far as I could hear, he was still nickering for me.
Our small house in Laramie had a little pantry off the kitchen which had a trap door. One day I went to look for something on the shelves and stepped right into that hole. Oh! Such a fall! ! I had my legs skinned from knees to feet. I didn't know if I could crawl out or not but there were my two little girls just crying as though their hearts were broken. I am sure thankful that there were no broken bones. I was really bruised up though.
We bought an old Model T Ford and I tried to drive it and got along pretty good until we moved to Medicine Bow where Walter worked at an oil well eleven miles from town. Once we went out to Rock Creek, which was about thirty miles or more, to see his mother. While going back to Medicine Bow, I let Walter off at the oil well and undertook to drive back to town. I got along fine even where the road had deep sand as the grader had just been along. I followed where he had scraped the sand. Always before this time, I had had to get and push. But luck was with me. I got to town and drove up to where we parked the car. There was a high board fence and I pulled hard on the wheel and hollered, "Whoa, Whoa ! ! ". But it didn't stop. So I knocked the board fence down. That scared me out of trying to drive and I never tried again to this day.
Then we moved to Rawlins, Wyoming and lived there for a year or so. Nellie, my sister, and her husband, John Kiger, were living in Idaho at this time. Since Walter was working on the railroad, the girls and I got a pass and went out and spent a couple of weeks in Idaho.
The next summer we loaded up our Model T Ford and with three other families traveled to Caldwell, Idaho. that summer we moved out to Melba, Idaho where we lived until 1938. At that time, we sold our forty acres at Melba and moved to Vale, Oregon to an eighty acre farm under a new irrigation project.
I should say here that my husband was the son of George Walter Greenlee and Emma Wilhamena McDaniel. He had one sister who was born when he was two years old. When between three and four years old, his parents separated and were later divorced. Little Katy died that fall. About this time Emma McDaniel and Henry Hixson were married. They were once traveling on a train on which George Greenlee was also traveling. Mr. Greenlee went in and told Henry Hixson that if he ever abused his son, Walter, that he would give him the beating of his life. Well, George never knew how badly they did abuse my husband. Anyway, Walter grew up thinking he had been adopted by Henry Hixson. Therefore, he went by his name. When forty years old, a cousin found Walter and came to see him. He told him that his father, George Greenlee, was still alive and lived in Independence, Missouri. The next summer Walter made a trip back to Missouri and saw his father. When he came back, he went to a lawyer and asked about having his name legally changed back to "Greenlee." The lawyer said, "Well, you have gone by the name of Hixson all these years --why bother." But in genealogy it must always go down as Walter Allen Greenlee (Hixson).
When in Idaho (about 1934) my husband was very low with pneumonia and the doctor said he couldn't live. A Mr. Aaron Tolman from Nampa, Idaho had been there before selling Idaho Mutual Insurance but it was in the Depression and there just wasn't enough money to go around. Besides, I had my daughter, her husband and baby to feed also. Mr. Tolman came back at this time when Walter was so sick. I met him at the door and told him that we had the flu awfully bad. He said that he wasn't afraid of it, so I let him in. He went into the bedroom where Walter lay and shook his hand and said, "You are going to get well." He stayed and had dinner with us and said a prayer for Walter. I always went into the bedroom to see how my husband was and that evening when I went in, believe it or not, Walter was asleep and his fever was gone. The doctor came the next day and he was really stumped to see Walter rational and the fever gone. He said, "I didn't think he would make it." It had been a Mormon Elder that came to see us and we got to be the best of friends. So you could say that's what converted us. Walter lived about six years after that.
In 1938 we bought eighty acres at Vale, Oregon, but Walter didn't live long enough to enjoy it as he died pretty near three years later. Of course, there were lots of missionaries that came to see us as there was a ward there. The sad part was that this first Elder went hunting and had a heart attack and died in the mountains just two months before Walter passed away. I have such a sweet letter from the Elder's wife which she wrote after Walter's passing.
But the Heavenly Father saw fit for Walter to live to join His church. We were both baptized on October 22, 1939 into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of the missionaries that came said that Walter had been a Mormon all his life and didn't know it. Walter always said that if he ever found a church where the minister didn't get a salary, that would be the right one. So we found it. They made Walter an elder on his death bed.
Walter died of cancer of the liver on the 28th of December 1940. I then went to the Salt Lake Temple where I got my own endowments on the 28th of September 1941. Walter's endowment work was done on the 2nd of October, 1941. I was sealed to him on October 27, 1941.
In about 1943, a little man came to my door one day. He had on a black suit and was so pale that it didn't look like he had a drop of blood in his body. We got to talking about the Bible and some way the conversation led us to "who would be caught up with the Savior". He pointed his finger at me and said, "You will be one of them ". I said, "Oh no, I am not good enough for that." But he said, "You are one of them". I thought to myself at the time, "it surely must be short until the end". I can say I have tried to be a better person since then. I never saw where he came from or where he went. I was too stunned to watch.
Another experience I will relate was at Melba, Idaho in about 1923. I had a dream and still it didn't seem like I was asleep. Walter was looking out the window and he said, "Georgia, come see the beautiful sun dog". It was as brilliant as any rainbow I ever had seen and the Savior was standing in this half circle. I said to Walter, "That was the Savior and it looked like he turned and stepped down out of the circle and beckoned my to follow." This has always stayed with me. My memory is clear.
Another incident in the Nyssa, Oregon hospital occurred when I had a very serious operation. As I started to regain consciousness, I was holding a roll or paper about three or four inches thick. I started to unroll the paper and read on it all the things of my life. I unrolled from the right had to the left hand until there was about an inch and a half left in my right hand. I guess that was the balance of my life which I hadn't lived yet. There probably isn't much of that roll left now.
I later married Ephraim V. Bendixen, an active Latter-day Saint on 13 July 1942. After Mr. Bendixen died in 1963, my daughter, Marian, moved me down to Medford, Oregon to be near her.
Both of my daughters have been baptized in the Church. Evelyn is not active, but her daughter and children are. Marian and her family are active members and have been to the temple.
I have fulfilled the following church offices: Primary secretary and treasurer, Relief Society teacher's topic leader, Sunday School teacher, Visiting teacher in Relief Society, Genealogy Committee for 14 years, and Secretary and Treasurer for Genealogy.
Marian and her husband moved me from Medford to Ashland, Oregon this past winter. I am not able to hear anymore and it is hard for me to get around. I spend my time making rugs, learning to paint, doing genealogy, and reading church books.
by Georgia Sarah McIntyre Greenlee (Hixson) Bendixen , age 74
arranged and typed by Ordella Irene McIntyre on March 24, 1967
