Transcript of interview with Francis E. Hughes by Mark E. French, February 23, 1977

UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes i An Interview with Francis E. Hughes An Oral History Conducted by Mark E. French Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada, Las Vegas UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes ii © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2019 UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes iii The Oral History Research Center (OHRC) was formally established by the Board of Regents of the University of Nevada System in September 2003 as an entity of the UNLV University Libraries’ Special Collections Division. The OHRC conducts oral interviews with individuals who are selected for their ability to provide first-hand observations on a variety of historical topics in Las Vegas and Southern Nevada. The OHRC is also home to legacy oral history interviews conducted prior to its establishment including many conducted by UNLV History Professor Ralph Roske and his students. This legacy interview transcript received minimal editing, such as the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. The interviewee/narrator was not involved in the editing process. UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes iv Abstract On February 23, 1977, collector Mark E. French interviewed local farmer, Francis E. Hughes (born March 9th, 1917 in Mesquite, Nevada) in his home in Mesquite, Nevada. This interview offers an overview of the general lifestyle and culture in Mesquite. Mr. Hughes mother, Orilla Leavitt, was born in Bunkerville, Nevada. Members of Mr. Hughes’s family were amongst the first settlers in the Mesquite area. UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 1 The informant is Francis E. Hughes. The date is February 23rd, 1977. 10 A.M. The place is 540 E. Mesquite Boulevard, in Mesquite, Nevada. It is a Local History Project Number Two, An Oral Interview. Mr. Hughes would you please tell us when you came to Mesquite, or your relatives, when they came here, and a little bit about your family history background? Yes. I came to Mesquite on March the 9th, 1917, I was born here, and I’ve resided here ever since. My mother’s side of the family—was Thomas D. Leavitt, was her father. She was the oldest daughter of his family. She was born in Bunkerville, Nevada. I don’t know the exact date, but she lived in Bunkerville, until she was married and she was—she and my father were some of the first settlers that moved out to the Mesquite side. They helped settle the town of Mesquite. My dad was born in Wayne County, (Unintelligible) Utah. And he came to Nevada in—when he was about twelve years old. And they resided first in the Pioche area and they worked in the old—oh, what’s the name of the mine? Anyway, one of the old mines there, and during the next summer after they had been in Nevada, they—some of the young fellows drifted down in this Mesquite-Bunkerville area, during the 24th—or 4th of July celebration. They stayed here and he married my mother here and as such we’ve been here ever since. Okay. You mentioned some of the first families to the Mesquite side of the Virgin River. Now why did most of the people settle on the Bunkerville side at first? Was there any reason for that? Yes. The reason for that was that the land in Bunkerville was more accessible. There was less work to get the land cleared. And they tried to settle in Mesquite shortly after the first people arrived at Bunkerville and they ran into a problem with flood waters and the moistening out there ditch and they abandoned the attempt at this time. And a few years later there were six or seven UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 2 young couples decided that they would come back to the Mesquite side and attempt to recolonize the town of Mesquite. Mesquite is located down in the band of the Virgin River. And it derives its name from the Mesquite bush. And it’s not unusual, not like most of the Mesquite area and the Las Vegas area, valley, and some of the other places in Mesquite there was a kind of a blow sand type soil. And this wind had drifted this sand till it become great high mounds. And they used—the Mesquite brush continued to grow up through the sand and when they decided to get in, they just had little small patches of land that they could reclaim around among these big, what we called Mesquite knolls. I remember as a boy, when I first started to go to school—playing on these knolls and running around playing kid games. Some of those knolls would be twenty-five to thirty feet high. And maybe four to five hundred feet across them. And the people had this to contend with at the time that they tried to settle this area. And that’s why they just dug out a little etching in one place and they would go somewhere else, and it had little patches of vegetables or something growing in one place; where ever they could get the water ‘round these knolls to irrigate (unintelligible). Okay. After your family settled in Mesquite, when you build your homes, where did you get this material to build your homes—? Was it chopped yourself from the mountains in the area? Or brought in from outside areas? Yes. The first home that I remember was an old two room board building. Just two rooms, not—might say that— How old were you when that—about that time? No. I was born in that building. Oh okay. UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 3 I was born in that building. And that’s the first that I remember. I am the—no. Let’s see—I’d probably be the eighth child of thirteen. And all of them prior to me had been born there also. So. But this old building after I can remember, as a youngster, I remember we built an old boarded up tin roof tent, adjoining it. And we’d go out of the one room, the old two room lumber building, and go into this old tent. And the lumber, I might say, not that I was here to verify it, but my father said it came off of the Black Rock Mountain. East of the Mesquite area, between “Bundyville,” Utah, or Arizona, and Mesquite. And his father-in-law, the Burgess family, is the ones that cut the lumber, and hauled in here by wagon and ox teams. (Unintelligible) Horse and ox teams—to build the first buildings that were built here. Other than the old adobe buildings that were built on the site. The adobes were handmade on the site to (unintelligible) at the first buildings that were erected here in this valley or this town. Okay, now, as far as coming to the area, you mentioned your buildings, now what about a way of living as far as farming or ranching? What was the primary income—for the family? The primary income was small farming on a very small acreage at that time my father’s family only had about ten or twelve acres of ground. And as land became available down through the years we purchased more. But we did have a range cattle that we run on the Bunkerville Mountain. And through the two sources is the—was the means that we have of maintaining our subsistence and—here in the valley. Did you sell much of your cattle and vegetables or fruit? Whatever plants you had outside of the Bunkerville, Mesquite area? UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 4 Yes. There were men who were commercial traders. By that they had a team and wagon and they travelled to the mining camps of Southern Nevada and Central Nevada up through Southern Utah and they would trade the commodities that we had here for cash and commodities from other areas. Essentially would trade molasses. Molasses was one of the very stable crops and industry here in the valley. We would trade molasses and alfalfa seed and stuff like this for potatoes and squash and this type of vegetable from other areas, in a kind of a give-and-take or trade, I’ll trade you one thing for something you’ve got, was about the kind of economy that we had. To skip around just a moment, did you ever have any problems or association with the Indians of Southern Nevada? Only that I can remember—the Indians were here and they were—I can remember my folks talking about them, and they worked conjointly with the early settlers at that time. The Indians were raising cotton. They were raising corn and beans and squash and that was one of the reasons that this Virgin Valley was settled in the first place. Bingham Young and the Mormon Church sent a delegation into the valley to establish a cotton industry, to have cotton for the Mormon people to send back to Salt Lake. And they did work conjunctively with the Indians in the area. I can remember the Indians in my early days. I can remember them in the valley. For years, after the Indians, most of them moved out and went unto reservations, they would come back and many of them would spend the winters here in the valley. And I’ve had them, seen them in my father’s yard packing hay and corn fodder and these things for their horses and things, and they would always come around and trade roasted pine nuts. And we always looked forward to—when they Indians arrived ‘cause they would trade pine nuts for pork meat or anything that we might have to—flour, anything that was a value to them. So again, we kind of had a give and take economy (unintelligible) UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 5 Did they migrate back and forth from someplace? Yes. They would travel from the reservation on the—in the Moapa Valley, to what we used to call Shem up at Southern Utah. Just west of Santa Clara, on the Santa Clara creek. And then, there were other Indians that would come in from over in (Unintelligible) Arizona. But—they, they travelled back and forth, buggy and horses and things the same as our mode of transportation was at that time. Okay. As you were getting older can you recall some of your first trips to the Las Vegas Valley area? Yes. I very well recall the first time that I was ever out of the—actually out of the Moapa Virgin Valley, the first time I went to Saint George in an old Model T Ford, and it took us about eight hours with about twenty or thirty flat tires before we finally arrived in Saint George. My first trip out any place, the first time I ever saw a train or rode on a train, I was seven years old. We went down to Moapa and boarded the train and went up to Caliente, Nevada, up on the railroad, and had a Mormon Church service. That was one of the highlights of my life, I remember that. The first time I ever went to Las Vegas we went in the back of a covered wagon. We were five days going from Mesquite to Las Vegas. Okay. In your early years, what kind of education did they have in the community? We had fairly decent education and by the time I was old enough to start going to school, I remember in the first and second grades we didn’t have kindergarten at that time. But in the first and second grades in the Mesquite elementary school, we had twenty-six students. And that’s almost an average of what we’ve had over the last thirty or forty years until just the last few years that our attendance has picked up. But we had one teacher that would teach two or three grades. We were all in the same room. But I remember we had, oh, potbellied wood stoves to UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 6 keep us warm in the winter. I can remember how the men used to haul hardwood from the mountains, the Bunkerville Mountains. They would haul a cart of wood. And it was four dollars cut in a rigged in pile, ready for the school to—or the janitor to put it in the stoves at school. A far cry from what fireplace wood is at this time. Okay. To move on a little, do you—do you remember when the Depression hit? That era of our U.S. history? Yes. I was about fifteen years old when the Depression first started to—coming in. I recall that it, during my schooling years, I was in the agricultural program. The FFA program at the Virgin Valley High School, which was located this time in Bunkerville. And about the time that the Depression era started, we in the vocational agri program, got a chicken project; raising leghorn chickens and selling eggs to Las Vegas. At that time there were quite a lot of people that had gone in to the shipping cream now when I say shipping cream, I mean, they would separate their cream at home and send maybe two or three, three gallon containers into the old Moapa Valley Las Vegas Creamery, in Las Vegas. And that was when means through the eggs and the cream was one means of having a small amount of cash flowing into the valley. Mm-hmm. I recall we had, then, my father and brothers and I, we did most of the (unintelligible) here for quite a number of years. Went from the old horse powered, horse driven power rigs to an old steam factory, and then, finally the old gas model, Ford, engine Ford tractors. And I well recall that our yards were full of (unintelligible) alfalfa seed, grain, and all of these commodities that we had, that we would take as what we call toll, at that time, the farmer would pay us in commodity. Because he had no money. But we had these commodities on hand. But there was absolutely no sale for ‘em. We just had—ricks and ricks of hay and grain and alfalfa seeds and UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 7 these things that we couldn’t sell. I well remember when I was about seventeen years old, a man by the name of Bud Barrett. Mm. Bud Barrett at this time, was with Nevada State Highway Department out of Las Vegas office. And he came over in the valley one Sunday afternoon. And he gave my dad a contract to brush the right-a-way from the end of Mesquite, the whole highway used to go up through the fields. The fields were all lined with cottonwood trees and they were going to change the highway up over what we call the Linge Hill at this time. Mm-hmm. And he gave my dad a contract to brush that brush off of that right-a-way for the surveyors. Mm-hmm. And I remember it was fifty dollars and how my dad rejoiced at the fact that he had fifty dollars cash that he could have to buy clothes and things with for his family. How long of a job was that? That took us— (Unintelligible) That took us about six weeks. Six weeks? About five or six of us boys and two teams of horses. Six weeks for fifty dollars? Fifty dollars. When your father bought the first tractor for the area, I bet that was a surprise? UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 8 Yes. It was. In fact, he bought a tractor and a thrashing rig and the same time. We bought the both of ‘em at the same time. This tractor that we bought was an old wide ironed wheel tractor that’d go about three mile an hour. But it got the job done. Was there any doubts that the tractor would eventually replace the horses? Was there anybody to say, “Well, that’s just here today and gone tomorrow, it’ll never replace the horse”? Yes. There was many skeptics. In fact, I remember they put on a little demonstration and we had a ten acre field, and it was eighty rod long. And we were plowing it and there were five of us boys, going one right behind the other with a team of horses. We had two horses with an old walking plow. And I was just old enough to begin to be able to do things without supervision. And I remember, the five of us going down through the field and we were turning over approximately about four feet of ground. And they put three plows behind this old tractor. And even though it would only go about three miles an hour, it would turn over about three to four feet of ground, that one trip down through the field and it kept it going. Our horses—we would make a trip to the bottom and stop and let ‘em rest a minute, go back to the top and stop under a sage tree and let ‘em rest a minute, and we would do this and we’d work during the night. Conserved energy of our horses so the heat wouldn’t overcome them. But this old tractor, I remember how it kept going all the time. The only time they had to stop is when they’d stop to fill the radiator, when it gets boiling. Okay. Now to back up a moment. Mesquite was basically started after Bunkerville, it was built. Now Mesquite is much larger than Bunkerville. Why is that? The only reason that I can say as to that, at the time the highway was changed from the south side of the Virgin River over to the north side, the highway went through Mesquite and it UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 9 bypassed Bunkerville. And I’m sure that this was the turning point that Mesquite started to gain in population and Bunkerville started to— going down at that time. I might say now, that the trend has stabilized and Bunkerville has been getting a lot of new transit people moving in and settling in the valley. Along the same as Mesquite. Our population has grown quite a bit in the last three years. But I’m sure that this was the reason that the change did come and if at the same time, about the time that the highway changed, Mesquite had a larger enrollment in school. And therefore the school was changed. A new high school was built in Mesquite and these two reasons I’m sure were why Mesquite [grew] more than Bunkerville did, at this time. Did you have any early travels to the Overton area? Yes. What—? Excuse me, go ahead. We traveled to the Overton area in a wagon, horse and wagon, horse drawn wagon, (unintelligible) mode of transportation. We used to belong—after the Mormon Church, most of the population in the area were Mormons at this time. And after the state was divided and Mesquite and Bunkerville was taken away from the Saint George state and made part of the old Moapa state, with a headquarters in Overton, we traveled back and forth to Overton for church meetings and things, and they would take—leave early in the morning or in the evening and travel all night and go down and go to meeting and stay overnight and travel to come back the next day. That was before the dam was built, correct? That was before the dam was built. Was the area that’s now covered with water—was there much in that area down there? You hear a lot of talk about the Lost City. Can you remember any of that? UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 10 The only part of that that I remember — I remember the old Saint Thomas. Because the wagon road come through, down over what they called Old Key West, Dug Way, and down and come across the river down to the old Saint Thomas side. I remember that. There was eight or ten houses and a little old store. I well remember the store. I don’t know who operated it. But I do remember going there and stopping there and picking up a few little supplies and things. But as far as the Lost City and those things, I don’t recall in my time, of any of that. Okay. I mentioned the dam. Can you tell me any impact that it made on the area? Such as, did many people leave the Mesquite area to work on the dam? And did the water from Lake Mead, as it filled behind the dam, did it have any impact on this area at all? Yes. Yes. There was a number of men who went to work at the dam, they worked for—seems to me at this time, it was—contractors that was building the dam was called the Six Companies. And there were a group of men from the Mesquite and Bunkerville area who did go down there to work. They would stay maybe a couple of weeks or a week and then drive back over the weekend. Okay. Excuse me, now we’re talking about Hoover Dam, just to make the point clear. Yes. ‘Cause there is probably some small agriculture dams in the area. Okay. Yes. My oldest brother Usman worked at the dam, and I know others here in the valley who did. And that was about the time the economy and— Mm-hmm. Things started growing and we began to have a little money to use, here in the Mesquite area. And as far as any impact on the water backing up—at this time, they used to go down, what they call Grand Wash, and different fishing areas, down on the side of the lake and come up the head UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 11 of the Virgin River up in the mouth of the Virgin River. And there were quite a lot of Utah people and people from out of the valley and the area that did come through and go fishing down there. Course when they’d go fishing, they’d have to (unintelligible) maybe two or three days at a time. And they would pick up supplies and things here as they went. So there was some economy impact. Mm-hmm. Due to the dam’s construction. Did you ever cross the Colorado River, in your early years? The only time I ever crossed the Colorado River was when I was about sixteen years old, and that was across the rainbow bridge in Arizona. And that was in an old Dodge car. Oh okay. There—was there any ferry’s or was the river that large in this end of the country? Well, I’ve heard them talking about Lee’s Ferry in different places. But I have never been there, so I don’t know. Okay. Let’s talk about yourself a little bit, as far as your occupational achievements. You’ve mentioned your father starting the farm and did you take over from him? Or did you go out and start your own farm? And just a brief history up till present. Well, we stayed together as a family. We had organized what we called a S.A Hughes and Sons Organization. And we worked together. There were seven boys in the family and dad. And we worked together as a unit until two of my brothers finally left the farm and they went in the education area, and then one other one went into the plumbing area. But there were four of us that remained on the farm. After—as I had mentioned earlier, we bought any type of—any piece of property that was for sale in the valley, that we could find in—it happens to be that our property is scattered in, from one end of the Mesquite Flat to the other. UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 12 Okay. And this was brought about by buying a small piece in one area, and then buying a small piece in another. But we did stay together and operate it as a unit. And in fact, at this time, we’re still operating as Hughes Brothers Incorporated. After father passed away, we bought the portion that he had, and so we kept it as the four brothers of us operated for a number of years. Then we let two of the younger nephews come in. Mm-hmm. At this time there is six. But at this particular time, we’re in the process of turning over the operation to the two younger boys. They’re going to take over the operation and we feel that we have pretty well put in our stand on the place. We’ve been—I was born on the place, and I’ll be sixty years old in—on the 9th day of March, in just a few more days. The other brothers are older than I am. So we feel that it’s time to turn over the operation to the younger boys. And in this length of time, from about the ten or twelve acres that we had in the early beginning, we have approximately five hundred acres of arrogated ground. Hm. Have over a thousand head of mature livestock and have increased in the dairy business. We sold our range cattle about the time I came out of the service in forty-six, and went into the dairy business and we built the dairy business up from eighteen cow beginning, to approximately a thousand head of stock at this time. Your dairy business, was your first outlet for your milk, strictly the Mesquite area? No. The milk went to the Las Vegas area. Okay. You mentioned, when you returned from the service, how did World War Two make an impact on this area in your life? UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 13 Well, I remember just prior to the time that I was going into the service—course I still had my chicken project going, that I had started in high school and I had built it up to around about, almost a thousand laying hens. And I had a fairly decent income. When I say a decent income, we got twelve cents a dozen out of our eggs, but feed at this time, was only about a dollar and fifty cents a sac and we could buy young chicks for ten cents apiece. So we had increased this chicken business and early beginning of the dairy business into quite an industry. And I remember at the time that I was called to go in the service I was working in a service station. I was getting ten cents an hour for working in a service station. But I felt that I was rich. Because I always had a few dollars in my pocket and anything I wanted I could go out and buy. I could buy a pair of pants for a dollar and a half, and a pair of shoes for two and a half. And so the ten cents wasn’t a real hardship at all. It— Oh really? By being a little economy minded, we could put a little money in the bank, in which I did. (Tape one ends) To talk about World War Two some more, and the impact in made on the Mesquite area, can you recall the year you went in and what impact it had on the area? Yes. I recall the time I went in. I went in on—left home on the 30th day of October in 1943. Went into the induction station in Salt Lake City. I was the second young fellow from the Mesquite area to be called in to the Draft. And the impact at that time, Nellis Air Force Base down at Las Vegas was starting and there was quite a lot of construction going on and there were a number of the men from this area that were working down there. The money flow in the area had increased quite a bit. People had a little money. And things were getting a lot brighter than what they had been during the Depression era years. UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 14 Okay. Can you tell me what you feel are some of the key points of your life were? Yes. I think one of the key points in my early life was one that I remember most and I think one that made me mature more than anything else. As we were reconstructing our old brush dam, we diverted the water out of the Virgin River, by a means of dumping willows and brush in the river, and then, loading rock unto it to hold it down. Then the drift sand or the quick sand from the river would work itself in among it and would dam the river off. And that’s how we diverted the water out to use for irrigation purposes. I remember at this time, I was quite young and it was the first time that I had ever been allowed to go by myself, and I cut a large load of brush and I made this mistake of a young fella and I loaded the tops of the brush upstream. And the river was running high at this time, in the spring of the year. And as I went to cross the main stream of the river with this load of brush, the pressure of the water caught the brush and [threw] them over, and in the process it [threw] me under the wheel of the tractor with all these—or the wagon—horse and wagon, with all these brush loaded back of me with the water pressure on them. I don’t know how but I hung on to one line of the horse, or the reins of the horses and pulled the wagon right down stream. And as I did the water floated the brush off and released me from the grip that I was in. But I was practically drowned when they got me out. And I remember the men who were there and all of the feelings and the impact that was going on among them, to the—that they thought that I was drowned in the river. I might say that there was never anyone drowned in the river during these repeated operations of putting the dam back in. And I said, I think this made me mature more, because from that time on I began to realize there was many other things in life other than just the routine of everyday farm boy. Was there any medical services in this area? In your year—early years? UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 15 No. The only medical services there was, was the older people who used the old wife home remedies. Okay. What about—do you remember the utilities, like power, when it first came in the area? And the telephone? Did that play an important role? Yes. The telephone came in quite a long—quite a few years before the power actually come into the valley. The—I remember the telephone. We had an old one strand line, hung up on fence posts or Mesquite brush, or anything that would hold it up off of the ground. And they had telephone service between Saint George and Moapa, Nevada. I remember that in my youth and I remember the first power that come into the valley. There was one to two of the business people in Mesquite, got an old coaler plant that would run on gasoline. And they produced little electricity for their own business and for their own homes. The rest of us, that didn’t, wasn’t able to use these facilities had the old kerosene lamps. But the REA line of which is been later changed to the Overton Power District, came into our valley, and I’m not sure if it was ’35, or ’36, but it was one of those years that it came in and I remember the feeling of, oh, satisfaction and rejoicing when the power was turned on and we could (unintelligible) a switch in our home and we would have electricity. And when we’d begin to get refrigerators and stoves, and that was the time that we really enjoyed the power coming in to the valley. What—how did you keep your milk cool in your dairy business before the power came in? That was cooled now for our home use, we had an old evaporated cooler, made out of burlap sacks with a basin of water put on to it, on the top of it. And the water would drip down through the burlap and the hot wind that we had here on the desert would cause an evaporation and it would keep the milk and the cream and butter and stuff, stable enough that it didn’t sour for the UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 16 next twelve hours and for the cooling, when we went in to the dairy business by this time the power had come in to the valley and we were able to use power for cooling purposes. The method you used to cool your homes, was it similar with the burlap? We didn’t have any cooling. I remember as a boy when we would sit down to eat, mother and one of the girls or some of them would stand over the table waving a (unintelligible) towel or a branch off of some tree, to keep the flies back while we ate. But as far as cooling, there was no means of cooling. Only the hot air that could benefit that we could drop, it derived from that. Okay. The—what about the sewer services or water services to through the town? As far as more utilities? In the early days when I was a boy, everyone had a barrel at first, along—sitting alongside of the ditch. And each morning before the farmers turned their live stocks out every farmer had a few head of livestock, cows and horses and things that they would have to turn them out to the ditch to drink. But prior to the time that they would turn ‘em out, all of the people would fill their barrel out of the canal, before the stock got in to it. We had this means of water in our homes. We didn’t have any water as far as culinary water into the homes or anything. We packed the water in with a bucket to have for kitchen use or anything like this. And sewers, we had just the old outside, two-hole toilet. And a little later, I can remember my dad and brothers digging what we called a cistern at that time; was about twelve or fifteen feet deep, and probably ten feet across it. And then, the spring of the year when we called the snow water. The good water that was coming down the Virgin River, we would fill this cistern and that would do us for drinking purposes for the year, during the summer months and things until the water again became better to drink. I might state, that in the summer months, the only water that we have in our—in the Virgin River is water that comes out of the Virgin Canyon just east of Little Field and the Beaver UNLV University Libraries Francis E. Hughes 17 Dam, Little Field area. It’s all spring water and it is a very high content of mineral, just salt and iron and all of these different kind of minerals in. And the water in the summertime, we used to call it as kids, we called it Virgin Blow, and it was just about that. We would lay down and take a drink out of the ditch and we that were used to it we didn’t mind it, but if a stranger was in our valley and had a drink, it usually gave them a real good case of what we called the trots. In which, I think they classify it nowadays as having dysentery. Okay. Now as Mesquite begins to get a little population and there were different holidays that came around, did the town—did they have large celebrations where the community would get together and celebrate these holidays. Yes. Every holiday was celebrated. From the first holiday on New Year’s right on through the year. Every holiday was celebrated as a holiday. I remember how all of the men wou