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Moving to the sagebrush farm
Rachal Mattson/Post-Register
Ruby Holloway, along with her husband and two children, moved to a sagebrush-covered farm in the fall of 1953. They came trying to get a start they couldn’t get in Twin Falls, Idaho.
The family brought with them farm equipment, an 8-foot-by-16-foot shack and a little trailer house.
“All we did was park on the corner in the sagebrush of our place,” Holloway said.
Holloway came with the opening of the water. Their property was located in the second area to be opened.
The Holloways knew someone in Idaho who had land in Quincy. They decided to trade their house in Idaho for 80 acres of land.
Holloway’s first act upon moving to Quincy was finding the high school for her children.
“We came the day before school started,” Holloway said.
Holloway’s daughter, Betty Kersting, was a senior that year.
“The senior class doubled in size that year,” Kersting said.
Before any crops could be planted, the sagebrush had to be cleared. Someone loaned the Holloways equipment to tear up the sagebrush with. Then they raked it and burned it with old worn-out tires that they pulled behind the tractor.
Holloway had an unusual source for getting tires. As she would come home from town, she would see tires laying along the side of the road. Holloway would pick them up and bring them home. What she didn’t know was that those tires weren’t old, unwanted tires. Those tires were used to get tractors with tracks across the road. When Holloway learned this, she stopped picking up tires.
“Mother worked as hard as dad did, as far as labor was concerned on the farm,” Kersting said. “Dad couldn’t have done it without mother beside him.”
In the fall of 1953, they planted 15 to 20 acres of winter wheat. Their neighbor, Leo Healey, offered to let them use his well and hand lines. He also loaned them his tractor to pump the water.
The Holloways didn’t have electricity until the spring of 1954. During that winter, Healey told them to park their trailer house close to his house. Through this arrangement, the family could have water and electricity until they could get their own.
That same winter was cold. Propane and kerosene lanterns were used to keep the trailer house warm.
“We kept going down to Idaho to bring more stuff up,” Holloway said. “One time we brought a radio, a game and three wool blankets. The night we came back, it was 20 below zero.”
The three wool blankets came in handy.
Finding a church was important to the Holloway family. They tried all the churches in town before attending the Presbyterian Church. They liked the minister. He sounded like the minister from their church in Idaho. The next Sunday, the family returned, and to their surprise, there was a different minister in the pulpit. Their first Sunday was the minister’s last. He had moved to Spokane.
The Holloways planted beans in the spring of 1954. They harvested 30 sacks per acre and were paid $7 per cleaned sack. The beans were sold to Jay Harper.
“That was a fortune,” Holloway said. “We paid off our loan and drilled a well.”
Holloway got a job at the Harper Bean House located by L & R on the north side of the West Canal. Her job was to pick rocks and bad beans out of the dry beans to be sold. In the fall of 1954, the bean warehouse became full to overflowing. To store the beans that were still coming in, Harper dug a hole to keep the beans in.
“They kept perfectly,” Holloway said.
That first spring, they also raised 200 chickens and set out 400 strawberry plants. They had more strawberries than they knew what to do with.
The Holloways built a house in the middle of 1956. In the meantime, they lived in the shack and trailer house they had brought from Idaho. Water was dispensed from two 50-gallon barrels welded together. The barrels were elevated and a hose ran into the house. When it was warm outside, the water was warm. If the weather was cold, getting water could be a challenge.
“As I was getting off the school bus one day,” Kersting said, “someone said, ‘Who lives in this dump?’ I got up and they found out.”
Taxes that were paid for the Holloway family’s first year of living in Quincy were $25.14 on 80 acres of land. The irrigation water payments were $1.66 per acre.
When Holloway moved to Quincy, she wanted to buy a calf. This wish resulted in White Socks, who was given to them by their neighbor. The calf was allowed to roam free.
When Holloway did laundry, she would find black hair on the clothes. She didn’t know where it was coming from until one day she saw White Socks walking up and down the clothes line, rubbing on the clothes. She didn’t have to wonder any more. White Socks was also known for running at people like he was going to plow them over, then stopping suddenly before hitting them. He was eventually given to the neighbors because he got too big.
“It was one of the best years of my life,” said Holloway. “We didn’t have anything and neither did anyone else.”
