[Linda Shelton:] This is Linda Shelton.
And we’re in Notom, Utah.
And we’re interviewing Sharon Robison Lusko.
It is February 19, 2012.
Well Sharon we are so glad that you’re willing
to do this.
Thank you very much.
And just tell us a little about yourself to
start out.
[Sharon Robison Lusko:] Oh, well, about myself.
That’s a hard one.
The Lusko’s story is very interesting because
my husband’s folks came from Europe.
He’s a first generation, and it was Luscka,
and they came from East—what is now Eastern
Czechoslovakia, it was the Austrian-Hungarian
Empire when they came over.
So that’s an interesting heritage in itself.
He came out here from Michigan hunting uranium
and we met and, that’s how I got Lusko for
a name.
[LS:] And what’s your husband’s first
name?
[SRL:] Donald.
[LS:] Donald Lusko.
[SRL:] Mm hmm.
[LS:] What was his experience like—was he
mining for uranium?
[SRL:] Uh, when he got out of the military,
his brother was—had heard about Pick and
Steen, you know, the uranium bonanza, and
he decided he wanted to come out and get his
fortune in uranium.
And my husband said, “I can’t let my brother
go out there to the wild west all alone.”
His brother was just newly married, and so
he came out and they were here around Hanksville
about a year before we met.
[LS:] Oh.
And did they have any success?
[SRL:] They had some, but that was the tail
end of the boom and there was not the demand,
and so his family went on to Arizona and got
back in the building game, which is what they
did back in Michigan.
[LS:] Great.
And that was in the Fifties?
[SRL:] Mm hmm.
The late Fifties, and—in about Fifty-five
is when he came out here.
[LS:] Wonderful, wonderful.
Now where were you born?
[SRL:] I was born in Price.
My folks were living in Hanksville, and they
went to Price, Utah, so that’s where I was
born.
[LS:] That's right!
You had to make that drive for the medical
care, huh?
[SRL:] Then, yes.
[LS:] Wow.
Wow.
Born in Price, your parents lived in Hanksville,
and tell us a little bit about your family.
[SRL:] I’m the only child.
I was a C-section, and back then they did
not know much about such things, and when
my mother was pregnant with a second child,
they didn’t move fast enough, and the baby
lived about an hour.
With the third child, why—and she was right
there at the hospital and they let her go
into labor—she shouldn’t have—and the
uterus split open.
[LS:] Oh my goodness.
[SRL:] My mother almost died.
But anyway that was—so I’m an only child.
[LS:] And they lost that baby.
[SRL:] They lost that little girl.
Had a little boy and a little girl.
[LS:] How hard for your parents.
[SRL:] It was.
I remember my mother crying and crying.
[LS:] Mm hmm, mm hmm, my goodness.
And what was your childhood like, growing
up in Hanksville, huh?
[SRL:] Well, we were there in Hanksville,
and I just remember my dad had an old, what
they called the pool hall, it was a big false
front green building—it’s gone now.
And I just played in the dirt with all the
rest of the kids.
My folks were worried about schooling, and
so my father sold his property and we moved
and bought a farm in Green River.
He went to work on the railroad, later bought
a grocery store, and I went to school in Green
River.
And when I was sixteen, I guess they got,
I don’t know, what you call “homesick”
or whatever—he sold our farm, he sold the
store, and we came back to this country.
[LS:] Interesting.
Education was important to them.
[SRL:] Mm hmm.
[LS:] That’s amazing.
I hear that so many times, that, there were
big sacrifices by parents so their kids could
go to school.
[SRL:] Mm hmm.
[LS:] What do you remember about your school
in Green River?
[SRL:] Well.
Okay, I’ll tell you an adventure in the
first grade.
Every spring they’d go out in the hills
and pick flowers.
Excuse me.
And for some reason I was elected May Queen
or whatever you might want to call it and
they set me on this chair and had all these
wildflowers around me—my eyes swelled shut
and—
[LS:] You had some allergies?
[SRL:] Oh, terrible.
And I just sat there and wondered when it
was going to be over.
[LS:] The May Queen had hay fever.
[SRL:] Oh boy, did she ever.
No, mostly, going to school I liked the drama.
And, I had some teachers that encouraged dancing
and things like that.
I liked to paint.
I liked music and things like that, and that
got me through school.
Otherwise I thought, oh, on the first day
of school—I thought, I’ll never do twelve
years of this.
[LS:] You liked your freedom.
[SRL:] I did.
We lived on a farm along the Green River and
I had the freedom and cats and dogs and could
wander all over.
It was lovely.
[LS:] What were some of the pets that you
remember?
[SRL:] Oh, I had a dog named Cricket, he was
a Border Collie.
He had the mumps when I did, and—
[LS:] I didn’t know dogs got mumps.
[SRL:] Well I didn’t either, but he did.
He swelled up on one side beautifully.
My mother tended us both.
Anyway, he was my buddy and I missed him,
and I had lots of cats.
Loved them too, and they probably gave me
allergies, but I didn’t know that.
[LS:] That's right, that's right.
[SRL:] I had a magpie, he talked, and that
was fun.
[LS:] Now were there other children that lived
near you?
[SRL:] Oh, about an eighth of a mile down
the road there was another family with children—they
had one boy, my age—on occasion.
But, you know, back then, you worked, so you
said, “Mother, can I go play at Jessie’s
house for an hour?”
She’d call Mrs. Powell up, yes, you can
go over for about an hour, you go and play
for about an hour.
And, once in a while you'd get another half
an hour out of it.
But then you went home.
[LS:] Wow.
[SRL:] Because he had work to do and I didn’t
have any work to do, I was an only child.
But that was kind of how it was.
No, there weren’t many—the next-door neighbor
was a schoolteacher lady, and my folks ran
a store, so I’d go next door, and she’d
have a big stack of funny books.
I’d sit by her stairs and read those if
I got lonesome.
[LS:] Interesting.
[SRL:] My Aunt Ruth lived there so, there
was plenty of contact.
It was just right after the war, so years
were getting pretty good.
[LS:] Mm hmm, mm hmm, that’s wonderful.
And what about junior high, high school age?
What do you remember about those?
[SRL:] I liked the plays.
I was in plays.
But I had allergies like I said, and so I
was very bashful, very shy.
And so I was not in the in-crowd or whatever
you want to call it.
I went with my dad places.
And I went to school, did my best, and took
piano lessons and, that was about it—I don’t
have any fond, great memories of school other
than the school plays, I enjoyed that.
[LS:] Yeah, yeah.
Now, growing up, then you did not have electricity.
[SRL:] Uh, we did, out on the farm there.
[LS:] Yeah, I remember.
[SRL:] I was sixteen when we sold out in Green
River, and then we looked for property all,
all over here and then we ended up at the
ranch.
And that was—there was nothing out there.
[LS:] Whoa.
[SRL:] So we got the old ranch house, cleaned
it up, and moved in.
Kerosene lamps, packed the water.
It had a cistern—you’d run the water into
the cistern, and then, put Clorox in it, to
purify it, and bucket it out.
[LS:] Wow.
How did you feel about that change, when you
were sixteen?
[SRL:] Well, we’d spent summers on another
old ranch down on the Green in the San Rafael,
so I didn’t think a thing about it.
[LS:] Oh, so you were accustomed to roughing
it.
You knew how to get along.
[SRL:] No, I didn’t even think of it as
roughing it.
In Green River, even with electricity, my
mother made soap, and heated water sometimes
outside in a big tub, so it wasn’t, it wasn’t
that big of change.
And so did everybody else—in the farming
area.
[LS:] It’s how they did things.
[SRL:] Mm hmm.
[LS:] Um, how did you, uh, leave home?
What, what age and what were the circumstances
when you left your parents’ home?
[SRL:] Well—
[Roma Roderick:] Tell her about going to Wayne
High.
[SRL:] Well I did.
When we sold out of Green River, I was sixteen—I
lived with my aunt and went to Wayne High.
My folks were still finding what they were
going to do, and I boarded out and came home
in the summers—and that’s when we bought
the ranch.
But to go to high school, then I lived with
my aunt, then I lived with—oh, two or three
other people in Green River to finish high
school.
[LS:] Wow.
[SRL:] So I was sort of on my own anyway.
[LS:] I see.
[SRL:] And then, oh let’s see, the year
after I graduated, why, I got a job up in
Orem at the Community Press.
And I worked there ‘til I got married.
And then, well, the Green River City Chamber
of Commerce came to me—I was working there
the summer after I graduated—and wanted
me to be in the Miss Utah contest.
And they bought my clothes.
My folks were working on a construction crew.
My mother was cooking down there.
And I drove from Green River down there, told
them what had happened.
So my mother came back with me.
They’d given me, I think sixty-some dollars
to buy clothes.
[LS:] Oh wow.
[SRL:] And my mother came, and we got with
the wife of the mayor, and we went and bought
some clothes, then we went up to Salt Lake
and I was in the Miss Utah thing.
[LS:] Oh how cool!
[SRL:] I don’t know!
I was never so scared in my whole life.
I did a dance, I made up the choreography
and I danced.
And I was in the nineteen finalists.
[LS:] Wow.
[SRL:] And, at that point I thought, what
would I do if I won?
That would be horrible!
Oh!
[LS:] You’d have to do it again.
[SRL:] I was never so out of my element in
my whole life!
But anyway they had—oh what was it—the,
oh what do they call it in college where you’re
in the ROTC, that was it.
They had these young men—they were the escorts.
And all I thought was, I’m a hick from the
sticks, what am I doing here?
But—
[LS:] But you did well.
[SRL:] I’m glad, I’m glad I did.
In the following, the following, what was
it, Spring, they asked me to be in the Miss
Highway 50 queen contest.
[LS:] Hmm.
[SRL:] The Chambers of Commerce on Highway
50—6 and 50—got together and they were
trying to promote tourism or whatever, and
so they had queen contests.
And there was a gal from Selena, Kansas.
There was one from Pueblo, Colorado.
And me!
[LS:] Oh my goodness.
[SRL:] And I did the same routine that I did
at the Miss Utah thing, but then I wasn’t
afraid—I had a ball!
[LS:] Cool.
[SRL:] Anyway it was quite an adventure.
They flew us over to Pueblo, and the little
gal from Pueblo, well, she got first, and
that was the whole thing.
And I got second, and I got a suit, and clothes
and an offer to go to Lake Tahoe.
I didn’t ever go.
[LS:] Wow.
[SRL:] But anyway, that’s one adventure.
[LS:] Wow, cool.
You had to be pretty talented and confident
to be able to do both of those things.
[SRL:] I don’t know, but I—to tell you
the truth I’d almost forgotten, until you
asked.
[LS:] Oh, that’s amazing.
That's great!
How fun.
Now what, why did your father want to move
from Green River to Hanksville again?
[SRL:] Well he grew up in this country.
He was a—you'd call him an old cowboy.
His mother died when he was twelve and he
was pretty much on his own.
He worked for the Robbers Roost Ranch.
He worked for Moores.
He herded sheep for Vern Pace, I mean, he,
he survived, in this, in this country.
And I guess he was about twenty-seven when
he met my mom, and her folks had been in Hanksville.
And he just, he understood that kind of life—horses
were everything
And, horses were to him like, like a motorcar,
a motorcycle, or the things that the boys
like now—that was, if you had a horse, you
had the world.
And that was just the kind of a person he
was.
And he understood the ranching, and so did
my mom.
[LS:] Wonderful.
So that’s really—those were his roots.
[SRL:] Yes.
[LS:] And the time you stayed in Green River;
he just did that—
[SRL:] He ran a store, he ran a farm, he bought
some cattle—we rented and leased and ran
cattle.
He did about everything.
[LS:] And all of that was so you could go
to school.
[SRL:] Oh, pretty much.
And they were just, they were just starting
out in their life, too, trying to figure out
what they wanted to do.
[LS:] And so he did find a ranch in Hanksville.
[SRL:] Well, he went back to the old ranch
he'd worked on as a kid and bought it.
[LS:] And now he owned it!
[SRL:] Yep, and he bought it.
Uh huh.
[LS:] Wow, that’s a great accomplishment.
[SRL:] It was pretty run down.
It is again, too.
But, yeah, they worked hard.
[LS:] And did you stay there with them and—
[SRL:] Mm hmm.
[LS:] You were a part of the work?
What was some of the work like?
[SRL:] I didn’t do much.
Uh, they, they—when I got there, mostly
we were cleaning it up, fixing the fences,
and putting things in, then I got married.
Because I’d met my husband, what, three
and a half years before, and kept telling
him no.
Anyway, he had—when his folks left after
the uranium thing—he stayed; he got a job
in Price.
And then he answered an ad because they were
looking for tech reps, Philco, and that was
the training he had in the military with,
oh, radar and electronics and things like
that.
So he hired on and he ended up in Huntsville,
Alabama teaching radar systems and missile
firing systems.
He came back from Huntsville—thought he
could marry me and take me away from all of
that!
[LS:] There you go.
[SRL:] And all I did was be homesick.
I didn’t realize the history that we were
in the middle of.
[LS:] Yeah.
How exactly did you two meet?
I know he came here to do the uranium mining,
but what was the actual—
[SRL:] Okay.
My folks had just sold the farm in Green River,
and they were in Hanksville, and sort of camping
out at, at Rio Hunt's motel, and Don and his
family had trailers there.
And, um, they’d been there about a year.
And when I came home from school on weekends,
I, there he was, and he says he saw me and
said, “well there she is,” and so that’s
what his story was.
Anyway he got his sister to introduce us because
his sister was being good friends with my
mom.
They had met and liked each other, and so,
he started courting.
[LS:] Terrific.
Great.
Where did you live when you were first married?
[SRL:] Huntsville, Alabama.
Redstone Arsenal.
[LS:] What was that like?
[SRL:] Well, I liked it, in a way.
I was far from home, I was very homesick,
and very young, and so I—you lose part of
yourself sometimes.
But I liked the scenery.
He took me all over.
We went to, oh, museums and fun places.
Went out and listened to the Atlas rocket
static fire, and it shook the whole town.
I liked the fact that there were big nut trees
all around and we’d go up and pick nuts
from under them.
We weren’t there very long, about six months
is all, and then he got a job with RCA and
then we transferred to Fort Huachuca, Arizona.
And they—he was teaching there.
And his folks were in Tucson by then, so we
had family close and that was nice.
[LS:] Good, good.
So you were a little homesick in Alabama.
[SRL:] Oh, terrible.
I was homesick my whole life.
[LS:] Any time you lived away from here.
[SRL:] I was homesick, that was all there
was to it.
I did not live well house-to-house.
[LS:] Yeah.
Yeah.
And how long were you in Arizona?
[SRL:] Uh, we were there until ‘61.
The Spring of 1961.
And then he was transferred to Cambridge,
Ohio, where he worked on the Minuteman Missile
site.
[LS:] My goodness.
And how’d you like Ohio?
[SRL:] Those are insane little hills!
You don’t know North from South.
Oh, I’d get to about half a mile away from
home and I couldn’t find my way back, so
I didn’t do anything or go anywhere without
him.
[LS:] It all looked the same.
[SRL:] It was all the same.
And it was—uh—I didn’t do well in Cambridge,
Ohio.
[LS:] You have such dramatic landmarks here.
[SRL:] Yes!
You can see where you’re going!
And his folks—by then his parents were in
Detroit—so we got to go out and visit some
of his people there.
That’s where he was from.
[LS:] So his parents moved around a lot.
[SRL:] Oh they just moved from, well, they
moved from there.
They were in Tucson for a while, and then
they got homesick and went back to Detroit.
[LS:] I see.
I see.
Good.
And then, after Ohio?
[SRL:] After Ohio, excuse me.
He took a sort of a leave of absence, and
he brought us back to the ranch.
And so, we were at the ranch for, oh, about
three-four, oh—few months, and we filled
out some resumes trying to get closer to home.
And so he applied with the FAA, hoping to
get—there was an airport at Hanksville then.
And they accepted him, but they wanted him
at the LA international airport in Los Angeles,
so we went to Los Angeles.
We lived in Santa Monica and he worked for
the LA International in the flight line, calibrating
flight equipment for the FAA.
[LS:] How did you like the Los Angeles—
[SRL:] I liked it.
You could go to the beach and see!
[LS:] Oh good.
[SRL:] I enjoyed that.
[LS:] You liked the ocean.
[SRL:] I did.
And I ran into my mother's cousin there, so
it was really pleasant.
[LS:] Good, great.
And how long did you stay there?
[SRL:] Uh, let's see—'62 to ‘75?
‘63 to ’75.
[LS:] Uh huh.
[SRL:] Not ‘75, I'm sorry—'63, ’64,
so 1965.
[LS:] Oh, okay.
[SRL:] I'm sorry.
[LS:] You saw so much of the country!
[SRL:] Some, yeah, we did.
[LS:] And then after LA where did you go?
[SRL:] Well, while we were there, they sent
him to the FAA academy in Oklahoma City, so
we went there for three months while he went
to school.
[LS:] Mm hm.
[SRL:] Then we came back and by then his mother
had contracted lung cancer and she came and
lived with us till she died.
When she passed away, they wanted to put him
on nights, and he wouldn't leave us at night
in the city.
And so he quit, and we went back to the ranch.
And by then they had the missile site in Green
River, where they were firing it down to White
Sands.
And so he hired on there and we moved to Green
River.
[LS:] Wow!
Tell me about that, I'm not familiar with
that.
[SRL:] Oh, well they were testing all different—what
did they call—they had packages that, you
know, that they wanted to send up on a rocket-testing
thing.
It was part of the space program and so they
had about three different missiles they were
firing with different payloads down to White
Sands.
And he was head of commo there and—
[LS:] What is commo?
[SRL:] Communications, you know where they
set up the communications and then they had
the equipment to track the missile.
That was his responsibility.
When the missile fired, they had to make sure
they had all the systems working.
Now I can't remember all the names for all
the things that they did to track the missile
and the missile guidance so it would land
where they wanted it to, which it didn't always.
Once it went clear to the Yucatan!
Boy, that was something!
[LS:] Now are these live missiles—
[SRL:] Oh, yes!
[LS:] —that exploded, were exploding?
[SRL:] Oh, no, no, no, no!
They carried a payload into space which um,
tested atmosphere, I don't know what all and
then, and then after they received the information
back, then the missile would land, the rocket
or whatever you want to call it, would land
probably around White Sands and the impact
area.
[LS:] Hopefully where there's—
[SRL:] Mm hmm.
[LS:] —no people.
[SRL:] Exactly!
[LS:] And one time it went to Yucatan!
[SRL:] And sometimes there were stages, and
so the stages, they had to calibrate where
the stages were going to drop cause if it
got too close to Moab or something, why then
it was very, well the chamber of commerce
didn't really like that, because it interfered
with the tourists!
[LS:] You just had this debris falling from
the sky.
[SRL:] Uh huh, but they had to calibrate where
it was going to fall.
Anyway, that's what he did.
[LS:] Wow how interesting.
And so you were in Green River for quite a
while?
[SRL:] For seven years, uh huh, and then they
closed the base.
Then we went to White Sands.
We lived in Las Cruces.
[LS:] Mm hm, and uh, there for quite a while?
[SRL:] Oh, we came back in '75 so we weren't
there very long and once again that was—I
don't know, you can call it inspiration or
whatever.
Don was sitting at his desk, he said, and
he was planning on a promotion that he had
put in for, and he told me that into his mind
came a voice that said, “What would you
do if you lost one or all of your family?”
And he said, “Well, nothing’s worth that.”
And he told me that he said, “Lord, if I
get this position then I'll know everything
is going to be all right.
If I don't then I'll take them back to the
ranch.”
He didn't get the position.
He was offered another one about a week later,
but he'd already put in his termination papers
and he wouldn't go back on his word, so he
left his career and became a rancher.
[LS:] Oh my goodness—and was this cattle
ranching?
[SRL:] Mm hmm, cattle, calves and hay.
And oh, it was hard on him, it was rough.
[LS:] Ah.
Had he ever done that?
[SRL:] No, he grew up in Detroit.
[LS:] What a change!
[SRL:] But he did it.
[LS:] Mm hmm.
How do you think he felt about that?
[SRL:] Terrible!
[LS:] Really.
[SRL:] Well, yes, he hated it, he didn't like
it in the least.
But he knew that the kids and me, his children
and me, we were happy, and we liked it, and
in a way, he sort of lost himself there.
But he stuck with it until his son was big
enough to take it over.
[LS:] Oh, your son did take it over.
[LS:] Now how many children do you—
[SRL:] Two.
[LS:] You have a son and a—
[SRL:] Daughter, the daughter’s the oldest.
[LS:] How nice.
[SRL:] And they're both there.
[LS:] Well that's great.
They had decided to stay in Hanksville?
[SRL:] Yes.
My son went on a mission to Taiwan and when
he got back, he says "I can't stand the city
anymore!"
So he dug into the ranch.
[LS:] Did your husband feel successful at
the ranching?
[SRL:] Ah, we were for a while, then we hit
the drought.
And then some of the laws changed on grazing,
so he did not feel successful.
So he felt very disappointed and he felt like
he's wasted part of his life—that was his
feelings.
[LS:] How did you feel about coming back?
[SRL:] I felt like I was in one piece finally,
I don't—I loved it.
[LS:] Yeah.
[SRL:] I loved the mountains—I loved the
whole thing.
[LS:] You had always been homesick for it.
[SRL:] Mm hmm, that's true.
[LS:] That's great.
[SRL:] I don't know if that was great.
If I had been a really diligent wife I would
have said, hey sweetie, if you’re not happy
here, put in another resume and we'll go,
but I couldn't make myself do it.
[LS:] And your children loved it.
[SRL:] Mm hmm, oh yes, my daughter loves horses
and—
[LS:] How old were your kids when they came—
[SRL:] When they came back?
[LS:] —back to the ranch?
[SRL:] Ah, see, my daughter was fourteen and
he was what, nine going on ten?
[LS:] Mm hm, mm hm, so they were young?
[SRL:] Mm hm!
[LS:] And I guess, is your husband still living
then?
[SRL:] No, he passed away a week ago.
[LS:] Oh no, you're kidding!
Oh, that's so recent.
[SRL:] Yes, it is, it's very recent.
[LS:] I'm so sorry.
[SRL:] It's very recent.
He had a melanoma, which he ignored and thought
he could take care of himself, and by the
time he got it removed, why, it'd spread.
[LS:] Wow, how nice of you to do this.
[SRL:] But that was only about two, two, three
years.
He had a large carotid tumor also that had
developed and so he had a very rough time
the last ten years.
If only he had done something about it sooner—
[LS:] Right.
[SRL:] —he would've lived longer but—
[LS:] Well, I'm so, so sorry.
[SRL:] —but it's, but he joined the Church
before—
[LS:] Oh wonderful!
[SRL:] —he passed away and took me to the
temple and so I've had a miracle.
[LS:] That is so wonderful.
Now are you comfortable?
[SRL:] I have to move a bit because—
[LS:] Is your hip hurting?
[SRL:] Well, I've got two achy hips—I move
around so don't worry about me.
Are you sure this is what you want?
[LS:] Absolutely, absolutely.
This is wonderful.
Well how did you meet Lula Betenson?
[SRL:] Uh, in Green River, when we were living
there, when my husband was working at the
base there in Green River and there's a lady
named Una Gillies.
And she had taught my father when he was in
grade school and she taught me when I was
in grade school and uh, I'd go visit her.
She was one who had encouraged me with dancing
and the things I loved to do.
And so one day she called me on the phone,
and she said, Butch Cassidy's sister is here,
and would you like to meet her?
And so I went over to her house and there
was Lula and I got to visit her.
Una Gillies is a cousin to Lula Betenson,
she was a Gillies.
And the Gillies and the Parkers were related.
Butch’s mother was a Gillies, something
like that.
Anyway, they were all connected.
[LS:] Was he a Parker?
[SRL:] He was a Parker and his mother was
a Gillies.
His mother was a sister to Una’s father.
[LS:] Oh!
[SRL:] So the family knew each other from
the get-go.
[LS:] So, your teacher was a cousin to Butch
Cassidy?
[SRL:] Yes.
[LS:] Amazing, amazing.
And what kinds of things did they talk about
with you?
[SRL:] Oh, Lula was just there visiting, it
was a family visit sort of thing.
She was just mentioning that she was going
to write this book, and tell the truth, and
that was really about it.
But it was interesting to meet her.
[LS:] And, and there was no doubt in her mind
that that person who visited her—
[SRL:] Oh yes!
[LS:] —was Butch Cassidy?
[SRL:] Oh, yes.
He asked about his mother, it was his family.
Well he'd written, he'd written letters over
the years and so they knew.
[LS:] No question?
[SRL:] No question.
[LS:] Isn't that amazing.
And did she talk about other aspects about
him?
[SRL:] Not particularly.
She was only two, I think, when she said in
her book, when he left.
She didn't remember, but she knew what her
folks talked about and she tells his story,
I think—she tells his story very accurately—why
he left and who he was and—
[LS:] And does she say where he's buried?
[SRL:] They won't tell, but I gather it's
around Oregon or someplace near.
He was up in the Oregon area and he moved
around.
[LS:] Mm hm.
Interesting.
And so after that first visit did Lula have
contact with him then?
[SRL:] That's what I understood, yes.
[LS:] Oh, wow, that's amazing.
[SRL:] I never thought a thing about it when
it was happening, you know.
[LS:] Yeah, yeah.
Tell me about your life on the ranch.
Here you'd been all over the United States
and then you came back.
And what kinds of facilities did you have?
[SRL:] We still had water out of the ditch
to drink and all of that, and my husband and
I, we went to work, and we started to fix
the house up.
He'd done some things for my mother.
He'd built some kitchen cabinets and he'd
made it so when you packed the water in to
the sink, it'd run out into a bucket and you'd
have to pack it back out again.
He'd done some things like that.
But anyway, we remodeled the whole house,
and one of the first things he did—there
was a lot of repair.
Okay, my folks had sold the ranch a bit before,
and the people had let it go.
The ditch was completely covered with Russian
Olives, the dam was almost out.
I mean, he, we, grubbed out all of the weeds
and where the trees had grown up.
We remodeled the house, we went clear around
the place, repaired all the fences.
My dad helped.
We tried to get the ranch going.
We started out with fifteen head of cows,
and it was an irrigation system, so we had
to clean ditches and that's in the spring.
We would get the water in the ditch, you'd
clean all the ditches, set the dams, and when
you put it onto the field you had to mark
the field out and walk the water through the
furrows, and we did that.
We raised hay and we built the cow herd up
and we were doing really, really well.
And then it quit raining about, was it about
1987?
It just dried up.
We got all that rain in about '83, and it
swamped, and it was something, and then it
just quit, and so we struggled.
We sold down.
And about that same time the BLM decided to
enforce some laws that—they decided, they
got rid of the old Taylor Grazing Act which
allowed you a mile around your private property
for grazing.
They got rid of that, and so we didn't have
enough grazing property.
We had two sections and that was it, so we
couldn't do that anymore.
We ended up in court, because cows don't know
where the lines are and uh, we got that straightened
out and then during the drought we went ahead
and—the original ranch had three different
diversions, and my dad had the lower one.
Well, during the drought and the floods and
so on, the creek bed washed out.
And so the water was subbing—it was sinking
before it reached the lower diversion.
So we applied with the state to activate,
reactivate, the higher up diversions where
there was water.
And so we did that and negotiated with the
BLM, because they'd put it in the wilderness
study area.
Anyway, we had the water rights and fixed
the ditch line, the old ditch line that came
up from up higher point of diversion, and
then looked into getting a pipeline.
But we found out if you put your water in
a pipe you lose your grandfather rights where
they dictate to you when and how you can use
your water.
So we didn't do that and uh, we just sort
of limped along.
My folks were living with us part of the time.
Then they went on a mission to the Dakotas.
[LS:] Hmmm.
[SRL:] Then our son went to Taiwan and when
he got back, why we began to turn things over
to him and we just sort of coasted for a while.
[LS:] Mm hm, mm hm.
[SRL:] Because we couldn't get much income
from the ranch at the time.
[LS:] Why were some of these regulations in
place?
Do you think they were trying to get rid of
ranchers?
[SRL:] Mm hm!
That and the environmentalist push, they wanted
to make a playground out of it and preserve
it.
But you know, the battle still goes on—multiple
use and all that.
[LS:] But that way they could shut down the
ranchers.
[SRL:] Mm hm, with this wilderness they can
get rid of the ranchers, they can get rid
of the property like that.
They did it in Arizona a lot.
[LS:] Mmm.
[SRL:] There were some fabulous, beautiful
ranches down there that were just sort of
squeezed out and taken over.
[LS:] Now are you still living on that same
ranch?
[SRL:] Mm hm.
I am.
[LS:] Oh, that's neat.
[LS:] And is your son operating a cattle ranch?
[SRL:] Mm hm.
He owns the Hollow Mountain—a business,
a gas station and a convenience store at the
junction of 95 and 24—and that's the main
source of income for him.
And the ranch is sort of on the side, and
he does what he can, when he can, so the fences
need fixing again and all of that!
[LS:] That's continual isn't it.
[SRL:] Oh it is, it's hard work.
Don's brother-in-law came out and looked around
when we were running the place and said, "All
I can see around here is work."
But it's our world.
[RR:] Tell them the kinds of things that you
can plant, the kind of trees that you—
[SRL:] Oh, well, when we came back, I wanted
to see what kinds of things would grow there.
I got pecan trees and I bought everything
I could think of to see what would grow and
what wouldn't grow.
[LS:] You loved the nuts from the South.
[SRL:] Mmm, you got it.
Anyway, the gardens, we raised, oh gorgeous
gardens—by that time my folks had planted
quite a few trees—and I sold peaches.
But the drought thinned out the orchard.
We're just now getting it built back up and
trying to get it productive again.
It's taken all this time.
[LS:] Sounds beautiful.
[SRL:] My daughter-in-law loves to garden,
so we have lots of fun together.
[LS:] Wow, so your daughter-in-law and son
live there with you?
[SRL:] Mm hm.
Yes, they live next door.
[LS:] How nice, how nice!
And you have grand kids?
[SRL:] Oh we have three grandkids that live
on the ranch and I have six more—well two
of them are off on their own in town, and
they come out to spend time.
My granddaughter that is living with me, she
wants the house, and she wants the ranch,
and so—
[LS:] How old is she?
[SRL:] She's twenty.
So I say to her "What color shall, do you
want your living room and we'll do it".
She's waiting for a missionary and they'll
see if there's anything to their friendship
or not.
She loves music and she'd like a career in
music.
Right now she's just beating time.
She works for her uncle at the gas station
and lives with me right now.
[LS:] Wonderful.
How nice.
So your husband was very correct about coming
back for the family.
[SRL:] For our sakes, yes.
[LS:] Sounds like.
[SRL:] I decided the Lord loved him, so he
wanted us to be happy, but it's been, it's
been a long journey.
[LS:] And what kind of services do you have
now?
You have solar panels.
[SRL:] We have solar panels and so we have
regular power, about 110, so we have lights.
We have to run a generator to run the washing
machine because we don't have quite enough
panels and battery bank to do that, but we
have the generator for back up.
[LS:] Interesting.
And so after you'd lived all over the United
States, though, you still wanted to come back
here even though you were doing without a
lot of those conveniences.
[SRL:] Mm hm.
[LS:] You were drinking water out of the ditch.
[SRL:] We were for a while but now we've drilled
a well; we drilled a well and we have a tank.
Actually my dad had a well there too, but
it had a windmill and a pump on it, and it
wasn't plumbed into the house.
But now it is.
[LS:] Great, great.
That's a tremendous lot of work.
[SRL:] Mm hm.
A lot of work to go into a place to make it
like that—it needs a lot more work.
[LS:] Well, wonderful.
And, um, anything else about the history of
the area?
Or anything that—because you are a Robison,
so your family has been here for a long time.
[SRL:] Yes.
[LS:] What kinds of things do you think are
important to know about the area?
[SRL:] That's difficult.
What would anybody be interested in?
It was hard work and, but it was free, freedom.
[SRL:] Um, my grandfather ran goats on the
Henry Mountains—Angora goats.
[LS:] Wow!
[SRL:] And, my father worked with his bigger
brothers in the goat business.
To make a living off of the desert country
is quite a challenge.
[LS:] Yeah.
[SRL:] But they did it, and I really can’t
think of what would be important to record.
There are stories!
[LS:] What did they do with the goats?
Was it milk?
Was it the hides, or meat?
[SRL:] Angora goats.
[LS:] The Angora fur?
[SRL:] Yes, that’s, that’s the—
[LS:] So they'd shear them just like sheep—
[SRL:] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, and bundle it all up—oh,
what's the name?
Cashmere!
It’s like cashmere.
They used it for that, they stuffed couches
with it.
They tried to push the meat—they called
it “cheevo.”
But people just didn’t catch on to goat
meat.
You know, he, he went bankrupt, because the
market failed.
He brought the goats out of Texas somewhere.
My dad never knew quite where.
But that’s part of what my grandfather did
for a living.
The original land they had was in Blue Valley,
called the town of Giles.
That’s where my grandfather was.
His first wife, they had a family, and she
died in childbirth, and then he advertised
and my grandmother—my father’s mother—came
from South Dakota.
Her husband had left her with two little boys,
and so she came out and they got married in
Green River and ended up in Giles, Blue Valley.
And I hear that she sat on that blue hill
and cried.
Talk about a hard life!
Because she was a nurse and, you know, was
used to city life back then.
That was in 1907.
And, my Aunt Ruth was born there in 1910,
and then they moved on in to Hanksville—my
dad was born in Hanksville.
About 1916 they moved to Green River.
I'm writing my dad’s journal—he wrote
everything down.
He recorded all of his memories.
And the journal I wish he’d have kept, he
burned, because he was afraid somebody might
get ahold of it and sue him!
[LS:] (Laughs)
[SRL:] I could have written a Louis Lamour
out of that one!
[LS:] He really did write a lot—
[SRL:] Because he was in the bootlegging days
and was a cowboy, and he worked for all the
sheep outfits.
What I have is interesting!
He wrote down all of his memories and talked
into a tape recorder, and I transcribed it,
and now I’m trying to get it on, on a computer.
My mother—my mother’s people, they were
in Henrieville.
During the cotton boom—I guess that was
in the 1920s—my Grandfather Johnson sold
his cattle and, uh, they went to Arizona around
Phoenix, Mesa, and he thought that he would
invest in cotton.
About the time they got down there, why then
the cotton boom was over.
I don’t know just what happened.
So with teams and wagons, they came back and
they helped work on, they worked on the Salt
River Canyon when they were building the road
down through there.
And when they came back to Utah they went
to Price and my mother remembers that.
And then her Dad thought he would try to get
back in the cattle business and they came
to Hanksville and that’s where she met my
dad and he was running a, uh, what’s it
called?
A pool hall.
A CC camp was there in Hanksville and so he
was running the pool hall and pool tables
and—not a pool table, but they played cards.
I’ve never been a good card player!
So I can’t remember all of it, I'm sleepy.
Anyway, and he did that.
Even had a slot machine—a little bitty one—and
I guess somebody reported it.
Now here in dead Hanksville far, far away.
Anyway, somebody reported it and here comes
the local—that was Raymond Maxfield, you
know, came in with this gun on his shoulder
and took that and got rid of it, so he couldn't
play the poker games anymore.
[LS:] It was a pretty good business.
[SRL:] It was.
But the poker games just went back up to the
CC camp and it kept on.
They just didn’t do it with my dad.
My mom had the post office there at that time,
and I can tell you one story.
My dad did it twice.
He had a pair of pearl-handled—they call
them six-guns, I guess, they were revolvers.
Anyway, there were a couple of fellows, one
of them came in, and anyway, they played jokes
on people.
Anyway, so he said “look, I’m tired of
you coming in here,” and he drew one gun
and he says, “I don’t want to see you
in here anymore and I've had enough.”
He aims this one and he fires the other one
at the floor.
That was Bruce Ekker.
[LS:] [Laughs]
[SRL:] Bruce still tells the story.
[LS:] He thought he’d met his end.
[SRL:] Yeah, anyway, that was the kind of
world it was then.
Oh my!
Anyway!
[LS:] So your dad knew who was bootlegging—
[SRL:] Oh, yes!
[LS:] And he wrote it down in his journal—
[SRL:] Oh yeah, I can tell you another story,
he was working at the Midland Hotel in Green
River.
He was just a kid, probably about 16—something
like that—and, anyway, one fellow that rented
a room there, was doing that.
They'd make it, I guess, out in the desert
and they’d bring it in, you know, in jugs
and they’d put it in little pint jars and
smuggle it back out and sell it around.
And anyway, he was having my dad fill jars
and all of that, so he—and anyway—somehow
the landlady found out about it and told my
dad, “Well, I’ve got you another job.
You can go work for Wilcox's sheep outfit.
But you’re going to have to leave.”
So, my dad packed his suitcase, and he had
one of those jars in his suitcase!
Anyway, and so he got ready to leave and he
left his stuff there, because he reported
for work, I guess.
Anyway, he had his brother-in-law go pick
his stuff up.
And as he packed it out, this little tin suitcase,
there was a little trail coming out the door!
[LS:] Of it dripping out.
[SRL:] Oh, and I’ve got that somewhere in
his journal, that he wrote.
Anyway, so he worked for Wilcox's for a while,
and did everything.
Trying to survive.
[LS:] Yes.
[SRL:] They heard that they were hiring at
Minturn, Colorado, and so he and his brother-in-law
got on the train and, you know then, you just
got on the train, call it hoboing or whatever.
They got off at Minturn and found out that
they had hired enough.
So they just had to get back on the train
and come back.
Uh, the stories he tells about it, it's amazing.
He got awfully hungry sometimes, between jobs
and things.
[LS:] But it has always been hard to make
a living.
[SRL:] Mm-hmm.
And it’s, you know, hard to describe, what
that must’ve been like—I've got to picture
it—like I say, I’ve had a good life but
I listened to my folks and what they talked
about and what it was like then.
Now—I guess part of the reason the government’s
going broke is because they’re—they're
not doing anything anymore.
And we have all of these, what they call safety
nets, or whatever, and so that kind of a life
is not even understood.
[LS:] That kind of life of hard work and being
very conservative—
[SRL:] Frugal, yeah.
[LS:] —very frugal, yeah.
People had to do that to survive.
[SRL:] They did.
I can tell you another Butch Cassidy story
though.
My dad worked for a man named Andy Moore,
and he had a big spread out there around Flat
Tops, and, oh, I guess it was in the '20s
sometime, about ’24 somewhere in there,
’25.
Trying to get my dates right.
Anyway, Andy Moore was at his cabin out there
and it was evening and a man rode in, saddlebags
and a horse, and asked if he could stay the
night, and of course you do, you stay the
night.
The next morning he got up early and he rode
to the Flat Tops off in that direction and
he was gone, oh I guess it was all that day,
maybe longer, I don’t remember exactly.
When he came back, Andy said he wouldn’t
let him touch his saddlebags or help him or
anything, he just took them off and stayed
right there and the next morning he was gone.
But he went somewhere and filled his saddlebags
and who he was we don’t know.
[LS:] Oh wow!
[SRL:] And uh, there was the doctor in Green
River, Dr. Barton, he and his cousin they
ran the clinic in Green River, and they used
to go out hiking all over and under a little
ledge, they found a cache.
It was full of belt buckles and things that
the store would carry, all sorts of things
that somebody had taken and stashed.
[LS:] Oh my goodness!
Huh!
[SRL:] So, now who it was that came with the
saddlebags and got whatever it was and left—
[LS:] How interesting.
[SRL:] —we don’t know.
But it happened.
[LS:] Wonder how much stuff is hidden all
over?
[SRL:] Yeah, what, how much more—you don’t
know.
[LS:] That’s right, that’s right.
Interesting.
Can you think of any other questions, Roma?
[RR:] She’s so full of stories, I mean,
her knowledge—
[SRL:] I, I don’t know
[RR:] —and she's very shy, because she’s
one of the most talented people you'll ever
know.
[LS:] Right.
[RR:] She plays the piano, she plays the violin,
she plays—I mean—
[SRL:] Sort of.
[RR:] Oh no, she’s an artist, she's good
at everything, anyway.
[LS:] Sounds like it.
[SRL:] You know, you’re looking for history
of stuff and you know, it’s hard to just
think of things.
[LS:] But we’re looking for personal history
and this is what you told us.
It's fascinating—
[SRL:] Oh.
[LS:] —to see how your family has done so
many things and has adapted to so many different
situations to make a living.
[SRL:] And mostly, you know, nowadays you
get a profession and you dig into that and
you stay with it for thirty years, or whatever,
and then retire and we didn’t do that.
That’s what my husband had in mind.
He was going to have everything really comfortable
and when he got his retirement then we’d
live!
And I wanted to live now, I didn’t want
to wait!
[LS:] Right.
Right.
Exactly.
Well how wonderful that he came back here
for you and your kids.
[SRL:] I am very grateful.
I am grateful for many things.
[LS:] And when did your husband join the church?
[SRL:] Last September.
[LS:] Oh my goodness.
[SRL:] He had indicated to me last summer
that he was thinking about it and uh, we were,
he started coming to church regularly with
me.
In fact he started to come a little bit when
I was called to the stake relief society,
but, anyway.
And then there was our ward missionary, said
she just felt impressed to go ask him if he
wanted to be taught the gospel.
Because I, I, he had said, indicated to me,
well, do you go to the bishop, what do you
do?
And I says “Well, I, I can tell you about
it.”
No, he wanted it from—official.
And she came up to the car and said, “Well
Don, would you be interested, and I would
like to teach you the gospel.
Would you let me come?”
And he said yes!
So she did.
And so, they came once a week, and they went
through the missionary discussions, and he
had to use a hearing aid.
And it was not easy.
But he listened, and he told a little bit
of his story and so forth, and he listened
and, uh, then when they had finished, why,
she left a challenge— “well, would you
pray about it,” and so forth.
And he didn’t say much and a week or so
went by and she had, uh, the whole ward—they
asked them to please fast and pray on fast
Sunday, so, they did.
And finally I asked him, I said, “well do
you still want to be baptized?”
“Well, yes!
What’s taking so long?”
[laughs] And so, they, they had the—I guess
it’s the counselor in the Southern Utah
mission presidency—came and interviewed
him.
And, oh, I prayed and prayed, and I thought
oh, don’t let him do something for the wrong
reasons, you know?
And, uh, he interviewed him and said yes!
[LS:] Great.
[SRL:] And so we set up a date and his son
baptized him, and I thought, well, that’s
good.
And it wasn’t, oh, about a month or so later
President Pace came down and spoke in church
and then, he said after—they came and, you
know, said hello to us because he owns the
property below us, his grandfather that owned
that ranch to begin with—anyway, and he
said he went home that night and he couldn’t
sleep.
He said, why, isn’t there some way that
they could go to the temple, because he’s
not going to live a year to wait that long.
So he sat down and wrote a letter to the First
Presidency and told the situation.
And, oh, within a week, I mean it was like
three days later he got the answer.
I mean, that fast!
And they said, assuming he knows the policies
and the procedures of the Church, yes.
[LS:] Oh.
[SRL:] So with that letter in hand, I said
to my husband, do you still want to go to
the temple?
“Yes, that’s what this is all about.
I want to take you to the temple.”
And, uh, so we set things up.
And then the Sunday before, he fell and he
cracked his ribs on the tub and I thought
oh, that’s, he’s getting so weak.
But then, and so we set it up for the following
week and watched to see how he would do, and
we made it.
He—and when we called the temple presidency,
he said, come when I’m there—because we
told him, you know, he’s deaf, and he has
troubles, and here’s the situation—and,
he says, I’ll take him through.
So, we went, and—
[LS:] What temple?
[SRL:] Monticello.
There was no way he could have made it in
the Manti temple because of the stairs.
This way, they had a wheelchair and he could,
he didn’t have to move.
So we went to Monticello.
And these good people came.
And that is—to see his face, across the
altar—and then he said, “she’s my gift
from God.”
[LS:] Oh.
[SRL:] That’s what keeps me going.
Oh.
[LS:] Oh, that’s beautiful.
And your children were sealed to you.
[SRL:] Mm-hmm.
And he was sealed to his parents.
I’d already done his parents’ temple work,
so, he was sealed to his parents, and his
children, as a family, together.
And that’s what we did.
And afterwards, he said, “Now how does it
feel to be married for eternity?”
Wow!
[LS:] How lovely, how lovely.
Thank you for sharing that.
That’s beautiful, beautiful.
[RR:] And then the next week—
[SRL:] We wanted to—
[RR:] —he asked her if she wanted to go—your
son had left, tell them that—
[SRL:] Oh!
Oh, well, okay.
The following week, we made it—he says we
needed to get to church, so we made it to
sacrament meeting, and then he, I had to take
him to my daughter’s, because he was hurting
so bad.
The following week, everybody had gone to
church, I just, I knew he couldn’t make
it and he got up, but it was a little bit
too late anyway, and he says, "Don't you think
we ought to try to make it to church?"
And I just said “sweetheart, I don’t think
you can make it.”
And, that was just, what?
The middle of last month.
And he went downhill so fast from there.
[LS:] Wow.
[RR:] She said she had been waiting for fifty-two
years to have her husband say, “Don't you
think we ought to go to church?”
[LS:] Isn't that amazing?
[SRL:] Yeah, isn’t that wonderful?
Because I’ve gone alone all those years.
He’d go once in a while, and he went a couple
of times in Cambridge, a couple of times in
Los Angeles, maybe once in—he never did
go in Las Cruces with me, but, I had the kids,
and he thought that was good enough, I guess.
And then, and like Celeste said, this is the
daddy I remembered when we were in California
and going to the beach and everything.
She said, "It's like I got my father back
and then he left."
No, he had a rough time.
[LS:] That’s an amazing, amazing story.
[SRL:] Yeah, I, I still can’t quite comprehend
the whole thing.
[LS:] Beautiful, beautiful story.
[SRL:] I remember we went to the temple, the
temple president said “boy, you must’ve
really pulled some strings to get this,”
and I said well, we had nothing whatsoever
to do with it.
We were happy when he joined the Church, thought
that was great.
It was all the priesthood.
And the bishop felt the same impression, he
said “is there something that can be done
that they can go to the temple?”
And that was—anyway that’s worth everything
there is.
And you understand that.
[LS:] Absolutely.
Beautiful.
Beautiful story.
[SRL:] Anyway.
[LS:] Well, thank you.
Is there anything else that you'd like to
say or—
[SRL:] I don’t—
[LS:] —talk about?
[SRL:] I can’t think of anything.
As I do my dad’s story—but I don’t know
if you, if you are acquainted with Negri's
history at all?
He was out of the U of U and he came and interviewed
my father and my mother and a whole bunch
of the old cowboys around Green River, they’re
all dead now.
I had a copy of his interviews, and another
fellow came from the university and interviewed
my folks.
And if you’re trying to put together some
of this history, you’d be welcome.
[LS:] Oh, how fabulous!
Yes!
[SRL:] And when I get my dad’s story done—
[LS:] That would be wonderful.
[SRL:] Anyway.
My husband’s children are trying to put
together his life story so that their children
will know.
The one son is an army buff—World War II,
and all of that—and he knows all the history
of that.
He can tell more about—I wish I had written
it down, but I never thought to.
He told his stories over and over, and I should
have written them down.
You don’t think about things like that.
You just take it for granted.
[LS:] When you are doing a few other things
at the time.
[SRL:] I guess that’s what we know.
We don’t really know a whole person’s
story until it’s done.
[LS:] That’s right.
[SRL:] Then you get a glimpse of who they
really were.
Mostly all we see is a rough, crusty outside.
[RR:] But one thing about Sharon and Hanksville,
she loves Hanksville and she loves the old
history of Hanksville.
And she and her daughter, they are very talented
people—all of her grandchildren are very
talented, too—and so they try to keep the
old traditions of sing-along or singing.
They have the old church-house down there
and so Sharon’s family put on a Christmas
program this year, singing.
[LS:] Oh, cool!
[RR:] And, they—
[SRL:] They like to do that.
[RR:] Yeah.
So, she tries very hard to keep that old tradition—
[SRL:] I really don’t try, it just happens!
[LS:] Well how cool!
It's that sense of community, huh.
[RR:] It's that sense of community that she
wants, and her family—her daughter—is
also very much into that.
[SRL:] She would like to do things like that.
She’s so tired, though.
Alexis says she’s going to get her mother
and get her back in shape again.
[LS:] That’s fabulous.
Those traditions are wonderful, huh?
That's impressive.
[SRL:] They’ve had a lot of them.
But trying to help the young people, that’s
where we have to work, because they do not
understand a lot of this.
[LS:] The importance of it.
[SRL:] Mm-hmm.
And then what it’s like, what would they
do, liked they talked—without that little
cell phone and iPod, they’re lost.
And that’s scary.
[LS:] That's right, that's right.
Well, this will be a wonderful piece to have.
That’s great.
Well, anything else you’d like to ask about,
or—you’ve done marvelously, thank you
so much, at the end of a very long day.
[SRL:] I hope there’s a scrap of something
in there to use.
[LS:] There will be tons of things, yes, yes!
Thank you!
[SRL:] You're welcome.
