Douglas County History Research Center

Speaking to the Future:
Tom Butterfield

Sedalia Historic Firehouse Museum Oral History Project

[Interview conducted] by Kathryn McCracken and Beverley Wiedeman

Transcribed by Sheila Stephens

Original transcript on deposit at
Douglas County History Research Center
Douglas County Libraries

Note: The transcript of this oral history is as accurate as possible. All text in brackets is not part of the oral history. It has been added for clarification purposes.

KATHRYN MCCRACKEN: This interview is Tom Butterfield and we are at his house over in Buffalo Creek. Tom, [laughter] tell us about your -- grandfather -- buying property up in Jarre Canyon up by Indian Park.

TOM BUTTERFIELD: Well, he bought that little place over there for a summer home. It had a brand new log house on it at that time. The well was in the basement. [unclear] right in the sink. [unclear]

MCCRACKEN: And was this right on the Highway 67 or?

BUTTERFIELD: Uh-huh. [unclear] right off the road.

MCCRACKEN: Okay, and would that be near the, the school house, then?

BUTTERFIELD: Yes. Just west, southwest of Indian Park School.

MCCRACKEN: Okay, and what year was this?

BUTTERFIELD: He bought it in 1924.

MCCRACKEN: 1924, and who did he have with him, his family?

BUTTERFIELD: My grandmother and this friend of my dad, and – [unidentified person speaks] he was, he was a doctor.

MCCRACKEN: So he took care of -- did he set up practice up there?

BUTTERFIELD: No.

MCCRACKEN: No.

BUTTERFIELD: His practice was in Denver. [unclear] He used to have tenants up there, which I told about in there. Only ones I remember were Elliots and Quigleys. [unclear] up there.

MCCRACKEN: So did they live up there?

BUTTERFIELD: The tenants did.

MCCRACKEN: All year round?

BUTTERFIELD: Uh-huh.

MCCRACKEN: And he just came up for summer trips?

BUTTERFIELD: Uh-huh.

MCCRACKEN: Like would he come up on the weekend or would he spend a month there?

BUTTERFIELD: I doubt it if he ever spent a month there. I don't remember, you know – it was pretty long ago. I was pretty young.

MCCRACKEN: So do you remember going up there as a young boy?

BUTTERFIELD: Yeah, used to wonder if I'd ever remember how to get there from Denver. [Butterfield laughs]

MCCRACKEN: So, how did you get there?

BUTTERFIELD: Car.

MCCRACKEN: And the road was all dirt, of course.

BUTTERFIELD: Uh-huh. Real crooked.

MCCRACKEN: Real crooked. And I suppose you probably came up on horses and buggies? Stuff.

BUTTERFIELD: I doubt if he ever drove his buggy up there. He had one. I don't know when he got a car. The one he gave me was a 1927 Essex. If he had horses before that, I don't know.

MCCRACKEN: When was the uh -- did he ever live up there full time?

BUTTERFIELD: No.

MCCRACKEN: No.

BUTTERFIELD: My folks lived up there. I was the first one to live up there.

MCCRACKEN: Okay. And when did you move up there?

BUTTERFIELD: I've got it written down here. Think it was [19]31, [19]32.

MCCRACKEN: How old were you?

BUTTERFIELD: Was in the second grade.

MCCRACKEN: And you lived up there with your mom and dad?

BUTTERFIELD: Lived up there with my aunt, Ruth Penley. [unclear] [Butterfield is looking at his memoirs, moving papers] Yeah, [19]31 and [19]32. And Miss Kay taught that year. I don't have any idea what her last name was. We called her “Miss Kay.”

MCCRACKEN: Now do you, did you call it the Brown School?

BUTTERFIELD: At that time, they did.

MCCRACKEN: Okay. So, you knew the Browns?

BUTTERFIELD: Right. [unclear] [McCracken laughs] Sure knew 'em, all of 'em.

MCCRACKEN: They were a big family. So, what did your uh, your aunt -- You say you lived with your aunt?

BUTTERFIELD: Yeah, my aunt wanted to stay up there. And, so she and I stayed up there that first year. My mom and sister moved up the next year, and my dad started commuting. So that would have been [19]32 and [19]33.

MCCRACKEN: So what do you remember about, what are some of your memories when you were in second grade, or that year?

BUTTERFIELD: Second grade?

MCCRACKEN: Uh-huh.

BUTTERFIELD: Learned the alphabet. They didn't teach that in Denver. [Butterfield and McCracken laugh] That's about all I remember.

MCCRACKEN: How many kids were in your class?

BUTTERFIELD: One, probably. They had all eight grades in that school. I don't remember how many kids were there that year, but some of the time, why my sister and I were the only ones going there. Then one year we had about twenty-one.

MCCRACKEN: Oh really. So how long did you live in that house that we're talking about? When you lived there?

BUTTERFIELD: Clear through high school. And uh, then I went in the service. I worked down at Littleton Coleman Motors, American Coleman for half a year, then I went in the service after I got out of high school. In the meantime, this aunt got married. She married Tracy Penley. He was one of the local people over there. And he's Mike Penley's, he was Mike Penley's dad. When Mike lived there.

MCCRACKEN: Uh-huh.

BUTTERFIELD: Kay, Ruth and Tracy lived there part of the time, later on.

MCCRACKEN: So how far, how big was the land that you lived on then?

BUTTERFIELD: 280 acres. Dad added some more to it, right at the end of the war. [unclear] what we call the Smith field over there where Mike is. Because Frank was wanting to add on to his house and make a chicken dinner place. That's why he sold that land.

MCCRACKEN: Did you ever go to like the Roundup Ranch there? I'd heard they had chicken dinners, things like that. You guys used to go over there?

BUTTERFIELD: Uh-huh. I took my oldest brother [son] when he was two weeks old. My wife was a little worried because everybody was down looking at him, you know, in his baby carriage or whatever he was in, or basket, I suppose. Afraid it would get cold or something, you know. [unclear]

MCCRACKEN: So, your grandfather was a doctor, right?

BUTTERFIELD: Bachelor?

MCCRACKEN: Your grandfather was a doctor?

BUTTERFIELD: Doctor.

MCCRACKEN: So did the folks up on the mountain, since they were far away from a doctor, did they call on him?

BUTTERFIELD: No. My dad did more of that.

MCCRACKEN: Okay.

BUTTERFIELD: My dad's practice was is Denver, but he took care of the local people too. He came, he commuted. He came home for sure every weekend, and every Wednesday, and sometimes in between. They'd come in there, then he'd come.

MCCRACKEN: So was there a room in the house that he would see patients?

BUTTERFIELD: Two different times he took [unclear] tonsils out up there.

MCCRACKEN: Oh, really.

BUTTERFIELD: That was the thing in those days. Was to get your tonsils out. And uh, so he'd bring a nurse up to act as anesthesiologist, then they'd take these tonsils out of all these people, and Gene Nelson that lives in Castle Rock, he'd carry 'em upstairs afterwards. [Butterfield and McCracken laugh] He's still livin' in Castle Rock. And I got him written in here.

MCCRACKEN: Oh okay, great.

BUTTERFIELD: Frank Penley got his out. Fly was buzzing around there, and he didn't use too good a language. “Get out of here, I'm not dead yet!” [McCracken laughs] I should put that in here. [unclear] I missed all that.

MCCRACKEN: So, did your folks raise any animals or -- potatoes?

BUTTERFIELD: We had a milk cow I used to milk when I was in grade school for years. We had horses. [unclear] Dad didn't get any beef cattle until right at the end of the war when he bought this place. We always had a milk cow.

MCCRACKEN: So he lived there until just after the war?

BUTTERFIELD: I lived there uh, well I was gone for the war why I wasn't there, of course. But I came back and was there after the war in February of [19]46. Got married in June of [19]48, and Barb and I lived there for awhile until we started getting kids. [telephone rings] Moved out. Moved up [unclear] by Mike. Just a little shack. We lived up there for a couple of years.

MCCRACKEN: What made you decide to leave?

BUTTERFIELD: Well, there was more work over here, and I was trying to ranch both places.

MCCRACKEN: So, you were ranching?

[Barbara Butterfield answers phone, her conversation is in the background]

BUTTERFIELD: Uh-huh. I started ranching until we got a [unclear]. Finally, we came over here and moved in here. Go over there and ranch.

MCCRACKEN: So you kept the land over there just mostly for ranching.

BUTTERFIELD: Uh-huh. We bought the Grand place by, soon after the war. Pretty good sized place then over there. [unclear]

MCCRACKEN: Those meadows are gorgeous. They go way back in.

BUTTERFIELD: [unclear] I guess there's just one owner up there now. They were going to sub-divide that. I think this one guy bought it all. Sounded pretty good, but --

MCCRACKEN: Bill Meyers [sp?]. Bill and Carol, they bought behind the “GiddyUpGo,” all that land that I think goes up to where your land is. The Meyers [sp?] -- Now, did they know the Forest Service Ranger? Did they ever talk to him or -- cause I know they were building Devil's tower, Devil's Head, the fire tower lookout?

BUTTERFIELD: Who? Who did you talk to?

MCCRACKEN: Your father, your grandfather?

BUTTERFIELD: No, they didn't. That was an Assistant Ranger station over there, and J.R. Stephens [sp?] lived there for awhile. Stephenson [sp?]. Then he got to be a full Ranger, and they shipped him down to -- Carbondale, and – Johnson, Ray Johnson got to be the next Assistant Ranger living over there. And he got to be a full Ranger, and they sent him to Fairplay. Matter of fact, they just used it as a work station. There was only two rangers over there. Up on Devil's Head lookout, that's been there forever, as far as I know. And we packed food and water up there one summer, with horses, and gear. Go over once a week. Kept a horse over there on Devil's Head Ranch, I think it was called, grabbed a horse and take up whatever they wanted taken up. [unclear]

MCCRACKEN: That'd be quite a trip. How long did it take you?

BUTTERFIELD: [unclear] -- day.

MCCRACKEN: Pack all the water and food.

BUTTERFIELD: Bunch of picnic table tops and [unclear] radio tower [unclear] forty foot or something.

MCCRACKEN: Can you think of any questions?

BEVERLY WEIDEMAN: Well, I was wondering. This is Beverly Weideman. I'm here just observing the interview, but I was wondering. Did, was the homestead, original homestead, did it take up the land where the “GiddyUpGo” is, where the little market is?

BUTTERFIELD: No, that was Dismuke's place. First people I knew in there was Dismuke. She was -- Iris Dismuke was Frank Penley's sister, Margaret's sister. She taught the school, fifth and sixth grades, I think it is. And we had this twenty-one kid thing in school, quite a few older kids, and Mrs. Dugan didn't have any control, no discipline. And so it was pretty much a riot and nobody learned anything. And all those kids moved on to high school and everything, so the next year was the rest of us, probably six or eight kids, and Iris Dismuke was real strict and she straightened it out. She taught for two years. And her husband would help us. Gather wood, that was one of the big projects was to get your winter wood supply in. So he did that. On the other hand [unclear].

WEIDEMAN: So they helped at the school, or were involved in the school.

BUTTERFIELD: It was her.

WEIDEMAN: She was the only one.

BUTTERFIELD: Yeah, he didn't do anything. He helped at our place.

WEIDEMAN: Okay. I was wondering about the little houses across from 'GiddyUpGo'. How did that start? Was it a little, like a little town or?

BUTTERFIELD: That was the Ed Ferris' [sp?] place, and he started what you call Pioneer Creek which is no longer there. It was a little pop stand, candy bars and stuff. And he had the ranch down below, and he sold I think some of his produce, corn and stuff up there. And uh, his brother was a carpenter and built most of those little cabins over in there. They lived down on the ranch, on the road going to the ranch. He was Charlie Ferris, but Daugherty [sp?] lived there. And I think maybe the Daughertys maybe still have that house, I'm not sure. [unclear] Clear at the west end and clear down and then back up again on Charlie Ferris' place was a cabin and Ed McNally lived there. I'm not sure about Ed but it was McNally. Mr. McNally and his wife. And late in their life, they moved in a cabin, the furthest one on top of the hill there. We went down there to [unclear] one night, and they invited us in and gave us a bunch of handouts. Just cut up like crazy when we could.[unclear]

WEIDEMAN: What happened to your, the house that you lived in. The cabin or the house that you lived in?

BUTTERFIELD: Oh, my dad added on to that with stone. That's the stone part that's there now, and I hauled all the rock. And my brother mixed all the cement, and dad would work on it on his days off. Added right on to that log house. And the log house was getting kind of deteriorated by the time [unclear] and so I think they tore it out and built another piece on there.

WEIDEMAN: Is it where that blue house is now?

BUTTERFIELD: No. No, the stone house is right across the road from the Silver State Youth Camp.

MCCRACKEN: [unclear] all the pretty aspen.

WEIDEMAN: Oh, yes. Okay. Alright.

BUTTERFIELD: And I don't know those folks' name. They bought that place. We bought this ranch and that ranch from my folks to keep it all together. We didn't want to have that house, so I think about twenty acres that we rent out. My sister had it, and they just rented it out.

WEIDEMAN: So the little Brown School, was that on your property then?

BUTTERFIELD: It was, let's see out of, well, out of what we had later. We didn't own that at that time. Not exactly sure where the corner is there. Probably out of the Smith Field that Frank Penley owned, because he owned on both sides of the road, pretty close to the road there. That little pasture right there by the school, that was part of his. So, I think it was out of that probably. I wouldn't want to swear to it, because I don't know which corner it was.

WEIDEMAN: Do you know why it's not, it lost the name “Little Brown School,” why it's called Indian Park?

BUTTERFIELD: Because my mother didn't like the Brown name, and so she changed it when she got to be secretary.

MCCRACKEN: Do you know what year that was?

BUTTERFIELD: Yeah, I would think that was when Iris Dismuke started talking, teaching. Let me get my stuff together. It would have been [19]34 I think. Mom would have started being secretary of that school in [19]34 and from then on.

MCCRACKEN: Okay, I've always been curious about that.

BUTTERFIELD: Say what?

MCCRACKEN: I've always been curious about that.

BUTTERFIELD: For awhile, the Browns were both on the board there. It was a little too many, cause two people is all it takes to sign a check. Short on any money anyway. [Butterfield laughs] It didn't look good, you know? So, mom got on there, I don't know. Frank Penley was on there, on the board -- the school board, and I don't know who the third was.

WEIDEMAN: Did any of the Curtis' go to that school when you were going there?

BUTTERFIELD: No. See, the Jarre Canyon school was down lower, by Vernon Wyatt's. I imagine the Curtis' probably went to Sedalia or [unclear] Plum Creek Road. They possibly went to school in Sedalia, I don't know. We had a sawmill in there after awhile [unclear]. Jack and, I don't know if you really want to go here. Ed bought his sawmill from the Jacksons. They had always run a sawmill. And uh, when we got these Ozark hillbillies up there and uh, it's all written in this stuff here. They ran the sawmill for dad. And then when my aunt and uncle started doing our place there, why he ran the sawmill. We were sawing – the things we sawed was some two by twelves by sixteen foot, which is a big heavy plank out of pine.

MCCRACKEN: Big planks.

BUTTERFIELD: This guy named Gene Nelson, who lives in Castle Rock, he could carry those things away. [unclear]

MCCRACKEN: Wow. Where was the sawmill?

BUTTERFIELD: We had it down below the Mike's house. I think it was down below the well, below Mike's house.

WEIDEMAN: Down that meadow then?

BUTTERFIELD: There's an old barn, maybe it's not even a barn. It was a hand-hewn log barn. I think Mike took it out. It was just be disaster. Then we put our new mill later with Frank Penley, put it down in the edge of what we call Hartman Meadow, just put it on concrete. And you can still see that down there, concrete.

WEIDEMAN: That's in the meadow across from the school?

BUTTERFIELD: No. Southeast of Mike's, southwest of Mike's house. Down the hill.

WEIDEMAN: Oh, all right.

MCCRACKEN: Across (Highway) 67?

BUTTERFIELD: No. On the, go down the hill south and west.

WEIDEMAN: So you can't see it from (Highway) 67?

BUTTERFIELD: Uh-uh.

WEIDEMAN: There's an old sawmill up Elephant Rock Road that I haven't seen but some, one of our neighbors told us about. Do you know who run that one?

BUTTERFIELD: No. Do you know who had Hawkens' place up there? That's where they took these planks to build a barn.

WEIDEMAN: No, I don't.

BUTTERFIELD: I don't know for sure where it was either. We used to ride over there, to Elephant Rock. They had a cable car underneath Elephant Rock.

WEIDEMAN: Oh really.

BUTTERFIELD: You ride this thing down, like a swing, only go on this cable and it would go down there like crazy for quite a ways.

MCCRACKEN: Wow.

WEIDEMAN: Oh, my gosh.

BUTTERFIELD: We played on that quite a bit. I don't know who put that up, but everybody that went down there played with it.

WEIDEMAN: That rope's been there a long time too. I know the Curtis property comes to the back of it, because we hiked on that one time. Well, not to Elephant Rock, but to that area.

BUTTERFIELD: I knew they had some land up there that they cut trees on. One of their sons had a, he married one of the Curtis girls. Had a sawmill, and I think he was doing some timbering there and he did some on our place.

WEIDEMAN: He must have run that sawmill that was up there then.

BUTTERFIELD: Maybe that's where he had it. I'll bet it is. I don't know his name, but he did get some timber from us. I think he would have probably married one of Dave Curtis' girls. [unclear]

WEIDEMAN: I don't know, but -- I'm sure somebody does.

MCCRACKEN: I know that Curtis was a big family. They had a reunion a couple of years ago that Helen Hooper helped out.

WEIDEMAN: Oh, is that right? Is she a Curtis?

MCCRACKEN: No, she's a friend. She helped out. She said the family was, I don't know, lots and lots and lots.

BUTTERFIELD: I used to haul the kids out of Jarre Canyon in an old car I had. I had two cars, a [19]23 Dodge and a [19]35 Hudson. Dodge was made into a pickup, didn't have any heat in it. We just sat on --

MCCRACKEN: Cold in the winter.

BUTTERFIELD: Sat back there. Had a canvas top over it. Hauled them down, and we'd catch the bus in Sedalia. And then in 1941, I thought it would be good if we had a school bus, so I got a petition down in Jarre Canyon, getting signatures that we needed a bus up there. I wanted to drive, of course, you know. I'd already been hauling for two years. I was in my senior year. So then I started up the Plum Creek Road because we were going to bus, we drop those kids off and go up Plum Creek Road and pick up down that way, then take them over Wolfensberger Hill. Well, those people down that way were a little reluctant to have me drive it, so they would sign it if I didn't have to be the driver. So, Don Cater [sp?] was the driver, and I was the substitute. Then, if he was sick, I drove it. May 1st he quit, so I get to drive it last month.

WEIDEMAN: So did you go past Wolfensberger? To pick up kids?

BUTTERFIELD: Went right over it. I think we did go south of there, then we came back and around the hill.

MCCRACKEN: You were taking everybody to high school.

BUTTERFIELD: I know the Escabel [sp?] girls were two of those. Minnie Escabel [sp?] was the, haulin mail out from Sedalia for years until just recently. I don't know what happened to her sisters. You go clear on down there past Perry Park Ranch and there's a log house that the Abbeys had. And the Abbeys had a teacher they liked real good. Guess there must have been a school down there somewhere, and they didn't want her again down there, so our school up there needed a teacher, so they hired her up there, and my sister was the only one in the school. That was the year I went to the service. So, they hired her up there, and the Abbeys came up there, and then part of the time, they'd go down to the Abbeys. My girl said she would go down there and have school down there at their place.

WEIDEMAN: At their home?

BUTTERFIELD: At Abbeys' house, I guess.

WEIDEMAN: When was the Sedalia school built, the high school?

BUTTERFIELD: The Sedalia high school?

WEIDEMAN: The one on Wilcox. Is that where you went to high school?

BUTTERFIELD: I went to the one in the main part of town. It was brand new when I started school.

WEIDEMAN: Okay, it was.

BUTTERFIELD: So, my brother might have gone there. I started in [19]38. My brother was out of there spring of [19]38. He was four years ahead of me. I'm not sure just what [unclear].

WEIDEMAN: [19]36, [19]37 maybe?

BUTTERFIELD: Oh, along in there. I don't know where he went. At first, he roomed down there at Castle Rock most of the time. At Ritters, were related to Higby's. Mrs. Ritter was a Higby. Her house was right across from the school and a little bit north.

BARBARA BUTTERFIELD: Higbys had Greenland Ranch.

MCCRACKEN: Oh really.

BUTTERFIELD: So, I think he roomed there every year. No. His senior year, Gene Nelson and him drove back and forth. The guy that lives in Castle Rock. Gene is a retired Air Force guy.

WEIDEMAN: So how far up Jarre Canyon did you pick up kids when you were driving that bus?

BUTTERFIELD: Started at our place. There weren't any on beyond us.

[side conversation between Barbara Butterfield, Barbara Weiderman and Kathryn McCracken]

WEIDEMAN: Well, did you know people that lived in uh, Kathy's house is the log house that's on up, past Roundup Ranch? Do you remember that house?

BUTTERFIELD: Good corners? The good dove-tail corners? I think it's hand-hewn. Sure. The Kennedys were the first ones that lived there. And he uh, his two boys, went to school with me. I put some stuff in here about it. Anyway, I think he had a still. He got so sick that they were afraid if they let him go to sleep, he'd die. They got him over to my dad, and dad somehow saved his life. Somewhere soon after that, they were caught butchering a beef. I think it belonged to Ray Blunt, but I wouldn't want to swear to that. He told them if they'd leave, he wouldn't prosecute 'em because they were going to use their own food. They were destitute. So they left and they went down by the Platte, Flatirons, whatever. Down there by Boulder, and I think that one of those boys married one of the Helmer girls, Violet Helmer, I think. She was in school with me in high school.

BARBARA BUTTERFIELD: Mr. Kennedy. Didn't your dad say he was laying there by the still and let that moonshine drip into his mouth?

BUTTERFIELD: That was the rumor! [laughter] There were at least two stills down Bear Gulch, below Roundup. One of those, when I was a kid, was covered with dirt so you couldn't even see it when the trail went right beside it but you couldn't really see it.

WEIDEMAN: There was one in your house.

BUTTERFIELD: Well, they said there was.

BARBARA BUTTERFIELD : That's what your mother says.

BUTTERFIELD: In a closet downstairs in our old log house. The still had barrels of mash in it, had wire piped into it. The other one was at the side draw. I'm not sure what they did for water there. Maybe had to carry it up there. Maybe they found a little spring. That's the only ones I know of a lot were before. Pretty good money-maker.

WEIDEMAN: Did you ever go to the Woodbine Ranch?

BUTTERFIELD: Yeah.

WEIDEMAN: Was it always called the Woodbine Ranch?

BUTTERFIELD: Woodbine Lodge.

WEIDEMAN: Woodbine Lodge.

BUTTERFIELD: I can't remember eating there when they had the chicken dinner place, but we went to, they had pancake breakfasts there after the war. They were probably money-makers for the fire department. One time, this Lee Brown that's mentioned in here, he was deathly afraid of bees. One got up his britches leg, and he took his pants off right there in the parking lot. [laughter] I wasn't there when he did that. Another time, he was doing something with a horse. I don't know whether he was disking or mowing, and he threw up some yellow jackets and he had to run away. I didn't get that in here. I don't know if you want that sort of stuff in there. Do you want that in there? [unclear]

MCCRACKEN: Do you know how long the Browns lived there until it became Silver State Youth, Baptist Youth Camp?

BUTTERFIELD: They were there, you know, when we came. They were probably there. They got that by squatters rights, probably from [19]24 or before maybe. Old man Brown was sick the last year of his life and was bed-ridden. I don't know what his name was. But uh, anyhow, -- I think it was about the last year I was in grade school that they bailed all their hay with an old horse-powered bailer, right there. And Colonel Miller had loaned them some money, and he foreclosed on 'em and took it away from 'em. In the meantime, why Lee had, his wife got mad at him and she came up the road. She was in the nude. Chased him up the road throwing rocks at him. And that's when he went over to the Roundup Ranch. He stayed there the rest of his life. I never saw her. But they had one boy named Bob, and he was in school -- just for one year. He was in school the year that there was so much trouble at school. He was one of the trouble-makers. Noisy. Maybe I should tell you one of the episodes is. Mrs. Dugan was deathly afraid of frogs. And I caught a frog and Bob put it in her purse. He told her he had to have the key to the woodshed to see how much wood there was, so Frank could bring some more wood. She went to get her purse, and here was this frog with it. It jumped out, she threw her purse over at Eileen Penley and Betty Gibson, who was Burt Brown's daughter, they took her mother's name Gibson. She was Burt Brown's daughter. Threw this purse right at them. I didn't write that in here. Is that the sort of stuff you want.

WEIDEMAN: It's always interesting to hear anecdotes.

BUTTERFIELD: If you need something to write on, don't --

WEIDEMAN: Actually I've got some paper here. Let's turn this off. [tape is turned off and restarted] I remember that [19]33 snow. We were snowed in for two weeks.

MCCRACKEN: Tell us about that.

BUTTERFIELD: It's in there.

MCCRACKEN: Oh, alright.

BUTTERFIELD: The uh, it started snowing the nineteenth of April in [19]33, and the first day why uh, Tracy and Orville rode over horseback to feed the cows that were in the Smith field. After that, horses couldn't go anymore, it got so deep. So they skiied over on home-made skis, then we had them stay there at our house. It was still snowing. It snowed through the twenty-first. It got to be six feet deep over there, and it caved in a lot of buildings. In fact, the barn down there on the hill place, do you know where the hill place is? West of Sedalia? Just east of Vernon Wyatt's? The old place has a big barn on it. It's on the south side. It caved the roof in, partially caved that roof in and a little shed, a cattle shed, they had these little cattle sheds that face the south. Some of them fell in and killed the cows. I may have it in there when she chased Lee up the rode with the, in the nude. Too bad we weren't around. [McCracken and Weiderman laugh] That's on that. I put a little anecdote in there about the [unclear] and Browns. I don't know if you want that kind of stuff in there.

MCCRACKEN: Oh sure.

BUTTERFIELD: In this thing?

WEIDEMAN: Ah, did you land on V-E (Victory in Europe)Day?

BUTTERFIELD: On D-Day, we didn't land because there was forty foot tides in Normandy, and LST (Landing ship, tank), when it was through would hit before the battle would. You'd still have twelve feet of water off the bow ramp, so you couldn't hardly run tanks off into that. So we had to unload them on to LCTs (Landing craft, tank) and rhino barges and uh, this tide was leaving, and so it was just like a river running by you, by your ship. They were having a terrible time getting these LCTs, they called it “marrying 'em up” to you so you could run your equipment off onto them. So, our deck officer was up there and he was giving this Captain heck because he couldn't do this, and he pulled his 45 on him, and the Captain of the LCT had one of his gun crews train a 20 mm aircraft gun at him, so our deck officer got away from there. Probably went down to his cabin. Then the LCT Captain got up, pulled up along side of us, he could pull forward but he couldn't back against this current. He pulled up beside us and he swung it around and married it up to our bow, so we had tanks and trucks and I don't know what all. We had four hundred army guys on there and their equipment.

WEIDEMAN: So you didn't actually land yourself.

BUTTERFIELD: Not on D-Day.

WEIDEMAN: Not on D-Day.

BUTTERFIELD: Next trip, we did. We pulled clear into the beach, the exterior hit, we wait for the tide to go out. You could walk all the way around that ship on dry ground. Unload all the stuff and go. You'd be there probably eight or ten hours, and so in the daytime, the allies had the air, at night the Nazis had it. They wouldn't let us shoot at the Nazis. And I'd see Nazi planes would come over. They wouldn't let us shoot at them because they didn't want to give away our location. The shore batteries would just light up the sky with flack. Those guys would fly right through it. So your plane not get hit. There were a lot of them going over. [unclear] Nazi planes going over. I don't know how many troops we hauled to Europe. We hauled wounded guys back to England. We had two hundred -- [unclear] yeah, at least a hundred wounded guys on there, all over the tank decks on stretchers. When we were on watch, I was in the engine room during normal cruising, why we were up there doctoring these guys. Because I remember I took one guy to the restroom because he didn't want to use the bed pan. I knew he had a broken leg. Well anyway, by the time I got him back to his bunk, he was green. It was hurting him so bad. They gave me a hard time about that because we didn't know what else was wrong with him. We knew he had a broken leg. Then we went to southern France, the Mediterranean. We took troops into southern France and Asia. We hauled troops into Italy. We hauled four hundred German prisoners out of southern France that were coming back here for a concentration camp. We were working some of those Germans. I had six of them down in the shaft, cleaning and painting. They caught one of 'em sharpening knives, and sharpening table knives. We quit working them.

WEIDEMAN: Now were you stationed in southern England, in Portsmouth, or where were you actually stationed?

BUTTERFIELD: The ship went different places.

WEIDEMAN: So you didn't have one base.

BUTTERFIELD: No. We were in Plymouth quite a bit, in Dartmouth quite a bit. We took one load at least out of South Hampton I remember. Like I say, I don't remember how many loads we took. [unclear] We had six Senegalese. Do you know what Senegalese are? They're Negroes that have these scars on them. Their religion says the more pain you can stand, the better person you are. They had single-shot rifles to guard these four hundred prisoners. There was six of 'em. They had a knife in their boot that they said they could flick guys' heads off with. That's what they told us. They were pretty tall guys, probably over six feet.

WEIDEMAN: Were they Americans?

BUTTERFIELD: No they were natives, Senegal or wherever it is in Africa.

WEIDEMAN: Oh, alright.

BUTTERFIELD: I don't know whether they belonged to the French Foreign Legion. I don't know. We did haul some French Foreign Legion guys, and those were the dirty [unclear]. They didn't go to the latrine, they just used the deck, you know. They didn't take, they had our equipment, jeeps and our guns and stuff, didn't care if their gun got salt water on it and stuff. Of course, the French Foreign Legion was made up of all nationalities. We even had some American guys in it. They were in the war before we were I guess. They were horrible. [unclear] I'll tell you that.

WEIDEMAN: A lot different than your life in Sedalia, that's for sure.

BUTTERFIELD: Yeah, I have this all written up about the war, what I did during the war. Another one of these things. I don't know if Barb can get this off her computer. I guess she can. So you could probably have that if you think you want it.

MCCRACKEN: All right. Well, thank you very much.

WEIDEMAN: Thank you.

END OF INTERVIEW