James Parley Neeley
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"My grandfather was born July 12, 1856 in Salt Lake City. He married grandma on September 18, 1878. He died May 19, 1922."
"Grandpa was a well-liked man and was very husky from what I've heard. I've had people tell me that he could walk up to a loaded wagon, turn the hub off the axle, lift the wagon wheel up and slip it off, grease it, and put it back on again without emptying the wagon."
"He was a lumber man and had saw mills in the Provo River area. There is a creek in the upper Provo River drainage called Neeley creek -- that's where he used to have his saw mill. Also, not only did he saw lumber but also shingles. He must have gotten his finger in the saw at one time or the other because it was bent sideways -- the pointer finger I mean -- and he used to say to me, "Parl, go over thar and get that over thar" and I didn't know whether to go left where the finger end was pointing or straight ahead where the lower part of the finger was pointing. :-) He was a very good fiddler and he and Dad used to play at a lot of dances together (Dad played the guitar)."
"Grandpa loved music and he had a beautiful high baritone voice, not quite tenor, but down into the baritone. I heard him sing many times. I remember these songs that grandpa used to sing:
When the dew is on the rose And the worlds in sweet repose When the shades of night are falling I'll miss you Where the roses scent the air I'll be waiting for you there I'll be waiting softly calling I love you The next one's a tear jerker:
She rests by the Swanee River Where the orange blossoms bloom And the air is sweetly scented With Magnolia's sweet perfume. Where the mocking birds are singing On the treetops all the day She rest by the Swanee river Far, far, away
He used to tease mother -- sometimes he'd come out and stay with us for a period of time -- and he used to tease her with this one:
Oh, when you marry a girl for looks Her looks may look all right But you'll be tempted with eyes and with hooks And the pulling of strings on tights A Women's beauty is but skin-deep For it says so in the books And you'll find that her skin is terribly thin When you marry a girl for looks
"In Coalville he joined with a group of singers and they put on several operas -- 'The Pied Piper of Hamlin', 'Faust', and many others.
Parley R. Neeley also writes: "He was a very good fiddler and played at a lot of dances with my father (Parley Hughes Neeley) playing the guitar"
Grandpa meets one the the Three Nephites
"Grandpa used to tell when he and his brother Jim were coming by wagon down from Yellowstone Park through Idaho. You could see for miles and miles -- there weren't any ranches there like there are now. They came across an elderly man who had a long, white beard and was stumping along the road in the opposite direction. They got past the man only about 100 feet and realized "Gracious, here's this old man, way out here . . . we should try to convince him to turn around and ride back with us". So they turned right around and they couldn't find the man anyplace -- there were no gullies, trees, sagebrush, nothing to hide behind. He said he figured the man was one of the Three Nephites."
A trip to Yellowstone Park by wagon.
"Grandpa showed up at our place one day with a whole string of horses, a sheep camp, a white top buggy, and a regular buggy. He said to my Dad, "Hugh, we're going to Yellowstone Park!". Now this was just before school let out for me. He said to Dad, "You've been working too hard." So Dad dropped everything, got ready to go, and we left Coalville just as school let out and we didn't get back until school had already started. We went all up through Idaho and up over the Teton Pass. You had to cross the Snake River by ferry and the old road went up towards the base of the mountains and on into Yellowstone Park. At that time the Park, and even in later years when we went, was patrolled by army soldiers. We could always hear them coming because of their saddles and their trappings and their pack animals. The fishing was really out-of-this-world. You could catch fish anywhere -- and great big Mackinaw too! I know that they were three feet long -- they had to use a garden line to catch them. In 1909 they built the Teton dam and that's where the little village was, or used to be, but Rockefeller moved it when they put the big Rockefeller Lodge up there in Jackson Hole. Right there you could throw in and nearly every cast you'd pull out some pretty good sized trout. We really had a lot of good fishing. It was a long trip; I know that I thought that we never would get out of sight of the Tetons when we were going out of Idaho because we'd only make about 10 to 15 miles a day and those Tetons stayed in view a long, long time."
"Grandpa sold Studebaker cars and the first one he had was in 1915 and he called it the Old Thirty-Five. That means that it had thirty-five horsepower. It was a great big awkward looking affair, with high-pressure tires, pumped-up between 60 to 70 pounds and there were no oiled roads -- all just dirt roads, graveled roads, and bumpy, rocky roads. We bought one in 1916 and it was a newer model -- 6 cylinder. They were quite a car! We did have a car in 1912, and EMF, Erskin-Metsin-Freamer, we called them 'Every Minute Fix'em'"
A second trip to Yellowstone by car.
"We also went to Yellowstone Park again with the cars -- the Old Thirty-Five and the six-cylinder Studebaker, which in that day as a really sleek looking car. We had a trailer on behind and we were all summer long going up to Yellowstone and back. There weren't any improved roads and there were often stumps sticking in the middle of the roads and sometimes we'd have to get out and cut the stumps back because they were too high for the cars. We saw lots of things that you don't see today. We saw geysers and mudpots that are not there anymore -- they have gone out of existence. I know because I looked for them in later years but couldn't find them. There were plenty of antelope, deer, buffalo, elk, bear, everything imaginable, and of course, plenty of good fishing. We used to take baths in the hot-pots and there were no marked paths around the different hot-spots, geysers, and basins. It was really a paradise. The army was still running the Park then, and did up to the beginning of World War I when they were needed overseas and civilians began to run the Park."
An activity of a very questionable nature . . .
"He used to tell a story about an Irishman, a heavy-set Irishman, they used to have fun with. They used to make bets as to how far he could carry a keg of beer. They'd find some strangers in town and they'd make a bet that the Irishman could carry it beyond a certain distance.. They had someone take care of the bets and of course they had it all set-up with this Irishman that when he got close to this point he would start to stagger a bit and come close to dropping the barrel a couple of times and strangers would up their bets because they could clearly see he wasn't going to make it that far. But the old Irishman would straighten right up and make it and go a lot farther. He said they made a lot of money off of strangers with this Irishman carry a keg of beer and fooling them when he got near the point where he was supposed to stop."
"He always told a story about leaving the Kamas area on a horse with a pack saddle. He rode the pack saddle in on the horse, of course, and he went to Salt Lake City to get a sack of flour. He didn't take a wagon because all he needed was a sack of flour and he was going to sell the horse to buy the flour and he thought sure he could get a ride back. He sold his horse, kept the saddle, and as luck would have it, did meet a friend who was coming into Salt Lake. He asked this friend, Joe, if he could go back to Kamas with him and he said sure Parl, just meet me at the mouth of Parley's Canyon. I'm going to be there at 6:00 in the morning and you can go back with me if you want to. When grandpa went to meet Joe in the canyon, he had a 100 lb. sack of flour and a saddle on his back and he was walking. When he got there, here was his friend in the same fix -- he also had a sack of flour and a saddle, and he was counting on riding back with grandpa. They both sat down and laughed and laughed about it and then they hiked their way into Kamas, each carrying his sack and saddle on his back. Now how many of us would do that in this day and age?"
"In the Fall of 1916 dad and grandpa went to Yellowstone Park on a fishing trip. They'd been there before and knew where the mackinaw were. They got all the fish they needed and started home but it started to snow. They thought they'd go out the West entrance and go down through Idaho but they missed the turn-off and they started down another road and the snow got deeper and deeper and finally they stopped. They couldn't go any further so they made a bed in the old Studebaker 1916. When they woke up the next morning there was over 2 feet of snow. They started to dig out and the clouds lifted and when they got their bearings they found themselves practically on top of Mount Washburn -- that's a pretty high peak. Well they got turned around and started out down and up came the army soldiers, on horseback, with a pack outfit, to rescue them. They checked everybody into the park and out and they knew that dad and grandpa were still there caught in the bad snowstorm."
"Grandpa told some interesting stories. One time when he was herding sheep way up on the head of the Provo River he was awakened by some beautiful music coming out of the East in the middle of the night. It soon came over his head travelling to the West across the sky -- it was the most beautiful music he had ever heard, and grandpa knew and loved music. In order to make sure he wasn't dreaming he took some charcoal from the fire and wrote on the wagon wheel, "I heard beautiful music last night". Sure enough, when he got up in the morning, there was his writing on the wagon wheel."
"He loved beautiful horses, pacers in particular, and I remember some instances when we went to Salt Lake City. They lived at 2172 South, 7th East there and he had a pacer, a little mare, and at that time Liberty Park was set-up with a race track. He'd go down to the race track and I'd go with him and help him time the horse around the track, run the horse, and work the horse for a coming race. He used to enter it in the races in the State Fair and he won quite a number of prizes that way."
"I remember a race he had in Coalville. A man was boasting about a horse that he had and grandpa said, "I think I can beat that horse", and the man said, "I don't think you can". Word got around and people lined the whole streets of Coalville, on each side, looking for this race. At that time power poles and telephone poles were in the middle of the streets all the way down main. They raced the whole of main street, which was four blocks, and grandpa beat him by quite a way. The man wanted a re-match but grandpa wouldn't give him one right then. He did later though, and beat him again!"
The film 'The Life of Christ'.
"Grandpa and Uncle Jim, that's his brother James Pat Neeley who was a lawyer and a judge in Salt Lake City for years and years and years, went to Yellowstone Park. They took the show 'The Life of Christ' and they went with a sheep camp into Yellowstone Park in 1909. They went all the way through Idaho and they stayed at farmhouses and at each one they'd have this old picture show and show the film 'The Life of Christ'. Grandpa would sing. I saw the film when I was very young but Dad had to get rid of it because it was made out of Celluloid, which when old got very explosive, and they were afraid somebody would get hurt. Too bad because it was a beautiful film -- it was even in color. He had slides in color too and he would sing songs, some religious, and get somebody to play for him in these different communities. In those days there wasn't much in Yellowstone Park and you had to get your food from farmers and a few little towns along the way that didn't have much either."
"Getting back to Yellowstone trips. Lou was ALWAYS getting stung by bees. Maybe I've mentioned this before but one time we were going along and he had to go to the bathroom. He went out there and crossed into the trees and pretty soon he came back a screaming and a yelling. He'd sat down on a place where there were a bunch of yellow jackets -- these particular bees had white heads and they were quite vicious -- and they chased him right back to the wagons. :-)"
"Grandpa was always happy but it seems like in later years he lost everything he had. He had a pool hall in Salt Lake City and it burned down and that was just the 'last straw'. He'd had some difficulties and sold the ranch up in Kamas valley and made some investments -- mining stock that went bad for instance -- and he bought the pool hall and he lost that. Anyway, he'd always have money in his pocket when he'd come to see us and take us down to the drugstore and to picture shows. I remember the last time that he came out just before he passed away. It's one of the sad memories of my life and family. He came out and we couldn't figure out why he wasn't happy and why he didn't offer to take us anywhere -- apparently he didn't have any money. He said to Lou, my brother, "Go get your Clarinet", and "Parl, go get your Clarinet", and "Let's sit here and play some tunes." Well we weren't very good at it but we tried. We sat there and grandpa whistled while we played. Now he put that bent finger that I've spoken about over the front of his mouth and he whistled by wiggling it up and down and he could whistle pretty well with it. One tune he'd whistle went like this: 'Somewhere in Old Wyoming is a girl who waits for me . . . " -- he liked that and I bet Lou and I played it a dozen times. We played other little tunes too. He'd sing to us and we'd listen to him. He went back to Salt Lake City and had an operation on his appendix and in those days they didn't have any antibiotics and two days later he was dead of peritonitis. That was in May of 1922."