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Not Forgotten Podcast
S2 Episode 5: Gail Smith- Growing up in the town of Washington
00:58:36
Gail Smith has lived and served all around the world. She and her late husband Hyrum Smith founded Franklin Quest which became Franklin Covey and their philanthropy has blessed southern Utah in countless ways. But Gail’s beginnings were in the litt
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- [00:00]
Gail Cooper Smith
It's that Dixie spirit. We were all so close no matter where we were from. I know where I'm at because of where I was raised.
- [00:08]
Lyman Hafen
Oh, once I lived in Cottonwood and owned a little farm. When they called me down to Dixie it caused me much alarm to hoe the cane and cotton. I right away must go but the reason why they sent me I'm sure I do not know.
- [00:29]
Narrator
Welcome to Not Forgotten, a weekly podcast sharing the stories of a place known as Utah's Dixie and brought to you by the Doc Booth foundation through stories as universal as they are personal. This podcast is dedicated to the memory of legendary family physician Dr. Craig Booth and to defining, preserving and perpetuating the spirit of Dixie embodied in his life and work.
- [00:59]
Lyman Hafen
Hi, I'm Lyman Hafen, host of the Not Forgotten podcast. For more than 40 years, I've been writing and publishing with the intent of connecting landscape and story in the American Southwest. I believe the words spoken by a character in a story by Barry Lopez. Everything is held together by stories, he said. That is all that is holding us together. Stories and compassion. Dr. Craig Booth was a man of stories and compassion. His personal story is one of the many that have made Utah's Dixie what it is. And his compassion is at the heart of that elusive entity we call the Dixie Spirit.
- [01:46]
Gale Cooper Smith grew up with the red sand of Dixie caked between her toes. She grew up in the town of Washington and attended Woodward Junior High, Dixie High and Dixie College. She was a champion athlete in high school and college and went on to graduate from Brigham Young University in physical education and history. She served a mission in England for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, where she met her future husband, Hyrum Smith. Together they founded the legendary Franklin Quest Company, which ultimately became Franklin Covey. Sadly, Hyrum passed away of cancer in 2019. Gail has traveled the world and lived in many places, but Utah's Dixie is her home and that connection is beautifully illustrated in her continued support of Tuacan, which began at the outset and has continued through the evolution of what has become a world class entertainment institution. An institution that embodies all the elements of the Dixie Spirit.
- [03:06]
I feel so grateful to have Gail Smith in the studio with me today. A dear, dear friend and one of the great, great ladies of Dixie, but really one of the great women of the world in all that she's done and all that she's accomplished and also the fact that she is here at this time in her life as opposed to somewhere else in the world. Because her life experience, she could have ended up just about anywhere in the world, but she's here and what that means and what that says about the Dixie spirit that's in her DNA. Gail, welcome. It's so great to have you here today.
- [03:51]
Gail Cooper Smith
Thank you, Lyman. And I want to say it's a privilege for me to be able to share stories with the great Lyman Hafen.
- [03:59]
Lyman Hafen
Oh, come on.
- [04:00]
Gail Cooper Smith
I am a fan and an admirer and afterwards I'll tell you a story that comes from your book Far Away in Cactus Flat Spiritual. But anyway, I'm privileged to be here. Thank you.
- [04:14]
Lyman Hafen
Well, the privilege is mine and I'm holding your book Shadow Fall right now. And it's a book I read many years ago. I've gone back to it many times over the years, but it's been a while. And as I've come back to it recently.
- [04:33]
I just. The way, Gail, that you capture and define the Dixie spirit, but also take it a step further and extrapolate from that, the teachings and the ideals.
- [04:48]
And what it really means over the generations is so, so awesome. And so I'm happy to be able to visit with you today and have you share some stories. And I think part of what we could do today is get a good overview of the history of Washington, where you grew up, the town of Washington, but through the lens of your own stories and your ancestors.
- [05:14]
Gail Cooper Smith
Well, I was born the tail end of the great generation.
- [05:20]
And the community that I grew up in Washington. The.
- [05:26]
Church was the community and the community was the church, it was the culture. And literally my growing up, you knew no difference as far as that goes. And its traditions were built on that pioneer tradition that goes way back. So I was blessed to be able to be raised with the pioneer traditions that my father and mother and their father and mother and my greats and so on. And so I have traditions that come from Denmark and Sweden and England all mixed together into my own family traditions growing up in that small town of Washington, Utah. It's a town where Kith and Ken were close and close knit community. You could do no wrong as a child growing up because every parent was on the next house or street. And if you did go astray, your parents got a call saying, hey, did you know? So you had to be good all the time. And that's helpful.
- [06:39]
Lyman Hafen
But you talk about your ancestors who came to Washington, where did they come from and what brought them there.
- [06:46]
Gail Cooper Smith
The first one I'll talk about is my great great grandmother. She's the first one that I connect. She Came from Wales. And she has a sweet love story. Her family was converted in Wales from an elder that was from Wales, but immigrated to the United States as a member of the church. He was an iron.
- [07:11]
Welder and made the wagon wheels and the iron parts that went to the horseshoes and things like that. And he came and he settled in Cedar City, never married. And he was called to go back to Wales as a missionary. And he fell in love with my great great grandmother, Martha Riis, sister Joanna Riis. And he was not going to come home with without her. And so it was arranged with the parents that she could go. Her name was Elizabeth, I think she could go, but she had to take her sister with her. They needed a chaperone. But he was in the branch presidency. And they were assigned to ship the Amazon, I think. And she says that there were like 830 members of the church on that ship. They were all organized in branches as they came across. And she tells the story of before she became very ill, just before they were ready to embark, leave, and how the elders came and gave her a blessing. And she describes, I saw the white doves fly by, and I was healed. And so she was able to make the trip. And she describes the storm that came upon the sea and how the sea captain came to him and said, hey, I know that you are a religious group. This ship is going to sink unless you talk to your God to get us through. And she talks about how they all fasted and prayed. The 830 people were on board and got through that storm. And she said, but, oh, I was so seasick when she answered the story. And when they landed, it was during the Civil War, 1861, 62, right in there. And she describes the burning of the towns and things that they went through. And then they got to St. Louis. And she was assigned to the Daniel MacArthur, who is the MacArthur's great great grandparents. His wagon, ox cart. She was assigned to that. She and her sister and elder Palmer. And there were others from Wales as well from the ward that a few of them all left together, but they're from all over England that went to Liverpool to sail across. And she said that at night. She describes how they would sing and dance and that Captain MacArthur loved my great great grandmother Martha and her friend. She'd say, come on, let's have you sing. And so they would sing. And she said she fairly danced her way across. But especially there was a guard whose name was Moroni Woodruff Alexander. He was a scout. He would go out in Front and scout for the best way to go. And Indians and all that comes in the path of those pioneers. So they fell in love coming across the plains. And she says that her only respite because she walked was when he would let her get in his stirrup and he would put his arm around her and hold her on the horse and let her ride that way for a while.
- [10:45]
When they got to Salt Lake, Brigham Young asked him to go back again because they were going to be arranged to be married, as was her sister, with Elder Palmer in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. But Brigham Young asked him to go back.
- [11:02]
To bring another wagon train across. So he asked a close friend who was Margaret Smoot. He's related to the Smoots who was coming to Dixie. And his folks, Moroni, Woodruff, Alexander, his folks were already here. They had come from South Carolina. And they have their own story. His father took he and his brother across to see Joseph and Hyrum in their caskets. He tells quite a story that way. But he was one of the. The Minutemen soldiers that Brigham Young had organized, and that's why he went back. So she came down to Washington and stayed with the Alexanders until he got back, that was in December. And they were married. And they had influence in Moggeson Springs. They were sent out there by the church. And I don't know if you've heard the story of that Indian scare that took place out there where they had to run for their lives. And that's quite a story in itself, in detail of how they were warned and how the Indians, they had built their ranch. He and his brother, Morona, Alexander and Murph, had built the ranch out there, and they were to raise cattle and dairy products to bring in to Washington as part of the welfare, what they called it common use back then. And Murph had taken a load into St. George, he was gone. And it was late at night. They were just about to have dinner. And Moreau and I heard noises outside. And the ranch has the peephole that you look through. And there were about seven or eight Indians out.
- [12:46]
Outside, wanting to come in, wanting food. Martha saying, don't let him in. Don't let him in.
- [12:52]
Lyman Hafen
But.
- [12:52]
Gail Cooper Smith
But his philosophy was, because he had worked with him, he had been one of the soldiers that Abraham Lincoln had asked that had gone back and rebuilt a stagecoach during the Civil War that marauders had destroyed. So he says, no, this is the approach. We need to let him in. And she was so frightened, she literally fainted. And he had to take her into the bedroom and put her on the bed. And he dressed in his military uniform. He had the jacket, put his guns on and went to the door and said. And she had had a stew in the big pot hanging over the fireplace. And he said, I'll let you in, but you've got to hand your guns in. And so first of all, they said, no, no, no. He says, okay, no deal. But the smell finally won over. And so they handed their rifles in, and he put them in a corner, stacked them up in a corner, let them in, and poured the stew in a big. Like a cake pan is what I get. They wanted more, but I have no more. And he had his guns there, and he had his knife. And then he spoke their language. He started to get after them for his. And they said, well, well, okay, we'll go. And he said, no, you're not going. You're sitting right here. And he chewed them out for doing what they had done. And Murph was expected any time, and he was sort of stalling for time. And by that time, Martha had sort of regrouped and she heard Murph coming. So she was able to slip out away and tell Murph what was happening. And between them both, they set the set of Indians out straight. They stepped out, sent them out, and they said, we'll give you your guns in the morning. And so that seemed to settle up, but I don't know how. It wasn't too short time later that an Indian friend that Moroni had, he had made a long time ago, ran from I don't know where in the detail. There's a story to warn them that there was a tribe of Navajos that were going to attack the ranch and kill their cattle, burn down their ranch. And so they packed their wagons and headed back to St. George. And there was another family that was leaving, too, going to Orderville. And they were actually killed. And the family in Washington had heard of this, and they thought it was their family. So when they showed up, they were, you know, so grateful that they had made it out safe. And sure enough, when they went back a couple of weeks later, the ranch was burned down. And so they pulled up the roots on Mogges and Springs out by Pine Springs.
- [15:48]
That's a fun Piner story.
- [15:50]
Lyman Hafen
Oh, my goodness. When you think about those folks who they had just recently from Europe and are here, and now they're right in the middle of all of this. A lot of times we don't think about the cultural shock. Shock that it must have been because they were just.
- [16:10]
Gail Cooper Smith
She describes that, she says, I came from such a beautiful place and all that's out here is cactus and desert and three feet of snow. I mean, she describes the hard conditions that she went through. And they had a little baby, but.
- [16:25]
Lyman Hafen
They, they ended up in Washington, back in Washington.
- [16:29]
Gail Cooper Smith
Uh huh. And they did several things. They worked up in, it's a Danish name, the Danish ranch, and burned coke for silver reef mines. I guess it's harder to burn the silver or refine the silver. And he did a lot of things that way to make a living while we were there. They had, I think eight or nine children, one which was my great grandmother.
- [17:00]
Lyman Hafen
Did you have ancestors that came from the south, from the southern state to Washington, talk about that? Because several of those original settlers at Washington came from the cotton culture of the South.
- [17:14]
Gail Cooper Smith
This Moroni Woodruff Alexander, his parents, he was born in Shelby, Tennessee, and they moved to North Carolina. And Wilford Woodruff came through that area preaching the gospel. And they had made arrangements with a priest in his church house in the area and invited all the people to come. And while Wilford Woodruff was teaching the gospel, the preacher that had let him use his facility said, you can't stop him no more, no more of this. And there was a man that stood up and said, hey, my place is across the street. Those who want to listen, please come over and continue. And so they all moved across the dirt road, I guess, at that time. And he describes it as a wood fence, pole fence. They literally sort of bend over. And they continued to preach. Wilford Woodruff continued to preach. And that man who offered his place was Randolph Alexander, who was the father of Woodruff. Moroni Alexander offered his place and they gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. And he and his wife and family, which was, I think he only had a couple of children at the time, joined the church. Because the rest of the children are named like Moroni Woodruff. He was named after Moroni and Woodruff, the missionary that converted them. Lamoni. There's Lamoni and on down. When the children were born, after they joined the church. But they followed the church. They went to Far west, chased out. They went to Missouri, chased out, ended up in Nauvoo. Randolph served a mission. He was a 70, he served a mission. And when they were chased out of Nauvoo, persecuted out of Nauvoo, he took his family to winter quarters, stayed a year there, winter there. They asked him to stay a winter there and then made his way to Salt Lake in one of the wagon trains. And he arrived, like, in September, October of 1840. He was one of the first families that got into Salt Lake, and they set up a sawmill, Cottonwood Canyon, I think, there in Salt Lake. And because they were from the south, they asked if they would go south and help raise Southern crops and so on.
- [19:42]
Lyman Hafen
What you've shared with those basically two families, one from Wales and one from the south, is very indicative of several families, probably dozens of families who came to Washington and settled.
- [20:02]
Gail Cooper Smith
My other. William Darby Cooper. He was born in South Carolina and his family moved to Georgia, Cobb County, Georgia. He joined the church when he was 16 and married Mary Hannah.
- [20:20]
I don't know what age, but when they were living there, joined the church. After he joined the church, they were members of the church and chose to come west to Zion. And his father, whose name was Jesse Cooper, wouldn't come, was upset at him for joining the church. And Mary Hannah had a sister very close. Her name was Lydia, and she came with them to the west. And eventually William Darby Cooper married.
- [20:52]
Her sister, Lydia. But with that being said, William Darby Cooper, when they were living in Salt Lake, he calls it holiday burg, they were living in Salt Lake. When he heard that they were trying to raise cotton down here, he wrote a letter to Brigham Young. I have this. And he basically says, look, I'm from the South. I had a cotton farm. I know how to plant, cultivate cotton. If I'm needed there.
- [21:23]
I'm willing to go. Just let me know. Give me plenty of time. He says that I can prepare my family. And.
- [21:31]
He was called and volunteered to come, bless his heart. And the sad story with him is he was a musician because musical instruments weren't handy. He made his own violin and other musical instruments. He was the leader in the Sunday school chorister and had different choirs going. He was a carpenter, and he got a call early one morning that the wheel, water wheel, and the cotton mill had broken. And why? Maybe because he was a carpenter. I don't know. They called him to come, and of course, he had to get in the water to fix it, and he caught pneumonia and died from it.
- [22:19]
That was like. I think he was, like, 47 years old. He was still young.
- [22:24]
Lyman Hafen
I know that that cotton mill, which still stands and is an amazing structure, is something near and dear to your heart. And could you talk a little bit about that building?
- [22:37]
Gail Cooper Smith
Okay. That building. My great grandmother, Margaret Everett, worked there, and her sister and families all work there. And it has so much history. You Just walk in it, and you can feel it just come from the walls. But I gave them work, and they tried several things, the silk, the cotton, but just couldn't seem to make it fail. But I'll tell you stories of what it was to work in the cotton mill.
- [23:11]
Lyman Hafen
What I wonder, Gail, is we've been talking about those pioneers and them coming here and establishing what became Utah's Dixie. Maybe now we could talk about your.
- [23:29]
Childhood here and how it connects back to those ancestors. And could you maybe just share? I know your first few years were right in the St. George Valley, and then you moved to a place that is really special to your family, where you actually grew up.
- [23:51]
Gail Cooper Smith
Okay, before I do that, though, this is a connector. George Washington Gill Everett, who was my great, great grandfather, he kept a journal. He has an incredible story, but his whole family joined the church. And he was like maybe seven or eight when the whole family joined the church. And he lists them all. And his brothers, Elisha, and they were twins, were the Masons that built the St. George Temple. But they followed the church through four west and persecuted, persecuted. And when they were chased out of, I think, four west, they were going to Quincy. The people at Quincy were willing to accept him at that point. The father, John Everett, decided to turn south instead of going to Quincy. And so he turned south and was able to buy some farm property going again. But the twins went on to Quincy and to Nauvoo, and from there they came west. But George Washington Gill Everett was young. And in his journal, he tells how he was blessed with the testimony that he knew God and he knew Jesus Christ and he knew. And how it was where. Where they were among the saints, how they took care of each other and how they loved each other and provided for each other. And what a wonderful time it was then when the saints were so close to God, despite the persecution they pulled together. I won't go into detail, but he and some friends decided when the California gold rush, he didn't come west because his mom and dad stayed. And he and some friends tells the story of his coming west to the California.
- [25:48]
Made some good gold. And instead of going back to Utah, they decided to go to San Francisco and get on a ship and sail around the Horn. And when they got to Nicaragua, the captain of the ship said, we need to stall here for three or four weeks for ship repairs. And they were anxious to get home. So they hired a boatsman to take them across Lake Nicaragua as close as they could to the Pacific side. I think there was 300 miles left. And he tells about, describes the mango trees, the avocado trees, the jungle, etc. Etc.
- [26:28]
And they start to walk from then to get back Pacific. And his friend gets sick. Sounds like it was dysentery or something. He's so sick he can't travel. And he asks George Washington Gil Everett if he will take his rifle to his son. It was an heirloom and he said, I'll catch up with you as soon as I can. So he took his rifle, but he never made it. He apparently died. His friend died there and he got to the Pacific Ocean, New Orleans, and he too got really, really sick. But he was able to make it up the Mississippi to where his mother lived. His father then passed where his mother lived and she got him well again up and going. He was a wheelwright, wagon wheels and any kinds of wheels, and a gunsmith. And he married Nancy Turnbull there and their little family started and his mother passed and his brothers now are here. At that point, I think they were in Manti helping with that temple. And they say, you know, come west. So he packs up his family and comes west and his first place is in Manti. And he describes how they had to dig a place on the hillside.
- [27:51]
Lyman Hafen
But.
- [27:51]
Gail Cooper Smith
He was able to get some farm, plant some wheat that was in good crop. And then he says he was called to Dixie. And he says when an apostle calls you, you go.
- [28:04]
So he left everything, moved his family to Washington. George Washington Gill Everett moved his family to Washington. And that time they were struggling for food, etc. And he gets in his wagon and goes back to Manti. He had a wheat field, harvested his wheat, took it back to Washington.
- [28:26]
Helped him out with food through the time. And he was assigned the water master. And he went up and down that trail to the dam that kept washing away, washing away, washing away 25 years.
- [28:45]
And so he's the father of James Everett. And James married.
- [28:54]
My great grandmother Margaret Alexander, who was a daughter of Moroni and Martha Alexander that had come from Wales. And so you have that connection there.
- [29:08]
They were all from the South. Martha was the only one from Wales. The rest came from the South.
- [29:17]
So deep roots in Washington.
- [29:20]
Lyman Hafen
And I'm going to read a couple of paragraphs here from your book Shadow Fall. Even in the 1950s, most Dixie people were descendants of the Latter Day Saint pioneer families who first came to the southwestern corner of Utah a century earlier. The call to conquer the red desert sands was issued by their prophet, Brigham Young. Many of the families thus called were originally from the south, the Carolinas, Georgia and Tennessee. Because their purpose was to raise southern crops such as cotton, pomegranates and figs, and to establish an outpost to guard the southern boundary of the Mormon territories. This part of Utah came to be known as Dixie. Unlike its counterpart in the southern United States, Utah's Dixie was not a hospitable environment for agriculture. The soil was barren and filled with alkali salts that came to the surface when water was applied. Wood was scarce, and homes were built from native rock or adobe fashioned from the abundant clay. The Virgin river, named by early Spanish explorers, was anything but pure. A capricious source of water, it dried up in the summer heat one week, and the next ripped out dams and ditches with flash floods. But by working together, the settlers eventually prevailed, building dams that held an irrigation, ditches that watered fields, gardens, orchards, and pastures. Out of the struggle and the isolation came an extraordinary sense of community. Even in the desert. The pattern of settlement followed the plan for the city of Zion, established by Joseph Smith and continued by Brigham Young after the exodus to the west. The city of Zion Platt called for communities to be laid out in neat blocks extending outward from a central common block containing the meeting house and other community buildings. It was also requisite that the streets be wide enough for a wagon pulled by a full team of horses to be able to turn around. Beyond the town were the agricultural lands farmed by the community's residents. But most people lived in homes in town, four to a block, each lot with its own garden and perhaps a small orchard, a barn and an enclosure for the animals, chicken coops and other outbuildings. It strikes me, Gail, that this is the world that you were born into. I mean, you're with us here in 2025, but you were born into.
- [32:22]
This pioneer world and what was established and settled and the foundation that was created by those pioneers. And you grew up in that. And I just wondered if you could share just memories from your own childhood and how they connect to those pioneer stories.
- [32:50]
Gail Cooper Smith
Okay. Well, when I was five, my great grandmother, Margaret Everett.
- [32:59]
Who lived in Washington, we were living in St. George, out by the Dixie College, where the old tennis courts were. That's where my first house was. And my dad adored his grandmother Everett. And the reason being is she lost her husband with eight children. I think the baby was six months old to black lung disease in the mines out in Peot and Panaka. And so it was his responsibility as her grandson. They just lived down the street, his mom to take care of her. He would go up and chop her wood and make sure that she had what she needed and was very, very close to her. And when she passed, he took the opportunity and they offered him to buy her adobe home. And it was like pioneer adobe homes. Just one, you know, with the peak roof and.
- [34:04]
An attic you climb into. And so I had the privilege of living in a pioneer home until my father could afford to remodel it and make it a home. In this home, there was a bedroom and then the fireplace living room. There was a curtain that sort of divided the bedroom and the adobe part. And then she had a lean to that was the kitchen and she had another little bedroom there. And that's where I had an older sister and a younger sister. That's where we would sleep is in the lean to and our heat was the fireplace. And so my dad would hook up his team of horseshe was a Renaissance man. He would hook up his team of horses and his wagon. And every fall we would go down to the river and we would gather the wood that came down from the floods, which he had been taught to do when he was growing up. I learned from that experience how to harness a horse and how to drive a wagon with a team of horses. Because of that, and we bring it up, the whole family would go down. Fun experiences, I can tell my sister got bit with a scorpion and one time. But we'd bring it up and we'd unload it. And then that required my dad would go out and chop the wood for the fireplace every night. And my job was to pick up the chips to put in the chip bucket to start the fire in the morning every night. That was one of my chores to do. And we had an outhouse. There was no running water, flushing toilet, and my mother had to bathe us in a number three bathtub.
- [35:54]
Lyman Hafen
Now, this was in the 1950s.
- [35:58]
Elvis Presley was on the Ed Sullivan show in the 1950s.
- [36:03]
Gail Cooper Smith
I think we moved over there. Yeah, we moved over there in 1947. I'm going to say 1948. Somewhere in there, I think I was five, just going on six. I started schooling.
- [36:15]
Lyman Hafen
You're bridging two worlds here in your childhood.
- [36:18]
Gail Cooper Smith
Bridging two worlds. And like I say, I'm so grateful I had that pioneer experience or my great grandmother. And I literally learned how to roller skate with those skates that you clenched on with the key on the hard beaten path to the outhouse.
- [36:35]
And I had a little grade to get out there. And it was probably, I don't know, 50ft. It was quite a Ways out seemed to me. So I'd put on those roller skates. And that's where I learned to roller skates out in. And we had this Sears catalog for toilet paper.
- [36:54]
You know, very thrifty. And finally my dad was able to.
- [37:00]
Get sufficient funds and probably get a loan from the bank that he remodeled, was able to remodel it and have a nice little home with three bedrooms, one bath. And we all survived and did very well. He was able to put in a panel ray.
- [37:20]
But we still had the fireplace, and the fireplace was the center of it. And one of the other pioneer things that my father did that was hand me down. We would go pinen hunting every fall. He'd take the whole family out and we'd gather pinenuts.
- [37:41]
And then the one story I'll just tell you quick was such a pioneer story, is that we'd been out. And it was always fun to go out and lay under the star or stars and have biscuits and gravy for breakfast and then get all sticky and stuff. And my job was to climb the trees because I was the little spindly one that could do it. This one year we came back and it was Christmas time. Getting Christmas time. And knock came on the door, and my mom answers it, and it's a salesman. And he just sort of pushes himself in and he's a vacuum salesman, Electrolux vacuum salesman. And before my dad could say, out of here, he was had. My mom had his vacuum out there, and.
- [38:30]
It'Ll do this and it'll sweep bugs and rugs and everything out of the windows. And he asked my sister to plug it in. And boy, we saw a show. And we'd never seen anything like that at all. It was totally new. And after he'd done his show, he says, hey, last one I have, the year's almost over. Give you a big discount, $20 off or something like that. My mom looked at my dad. I remember this. My mom looked at my dad longingly. Oh. And my dad has to say, we just can't. We can't right now. We don't have it right now. So he packs it up, puts it back in the box. My dad walks him out to his car. And next morning my mom went to work. She was a waitress at Dick's Cafe for many years, as my dad was a chef for many years.
- [39:25]
And this salesman appears.
- [39:29]
And I'm just observing this. And my dad walks around the back of the house with him, and pretty soon he comes with a gunny sack full of pine nuts and he swapped the pine nuts for the vacuum.
- [39:44]
Big secret. We had to keep it. On Christmas day, he puts a pine cone on the box, gives it to my mother for Christmas.
- [39:54]
That was sort of a fun story of growing up, but it's one where you went out and you played all day. You ran over those black hills and the boilers, the warm springs. Every day of the summer we trailed up and back to swim all day in the pool.
- [40:11]
Lyman Hafen
It strikes me another image that was at a time when, or maybe it was in your father's, in his childhood, but when the mere fact of an orange in a Christmas stocking was, was.
- [40:28]
Gail Cooper Smith
The delight it was when we'd get a sock. And I tell the tale in there of my Uncle Harry.
- [40:37]
My dad told the story of his Uncle Harry. He went off to work in California and came home for Christmas bringing a. A little box of oranges. And my dad tells how excited they were to just get a piece of an orange, you know, as they peeled it.
- [40:52]
Lyman Hafen
Imagine that taste in your mouth when.
- [40:54]
Gail Cooper Smith
You can go to the store and.
- [40:58]
See loads and loads of it. Like I say, he was a Renaissance man. Our little house on the corner, you know how you. Ours and then Aunt Dale's was on the other corner and the Adams was on the other corner. And we had our haystack and our corral for our cows. And My dad had five girls, but three of us, my younger sister is like 10 years younger. The three of us were there for a long time. And so we had to learn how to milk cows and haul hay and tromp hay and do all the things that.
- [41:35]
If there had been some boys around, that probably would have done.
- [41:39]
But I loved it. I'm the outdoors person, I'm the athletic person, I'm the tomboy. Probably the only boy my dad ever came close to. But we had to milk cows and gather the eggs and kill the pig. And I remember one year the sow died and she had a bunch of piglets and my mother fixed in little bottles and we all had to go out and feed those little piggots and help them survive.
- [42:06]
Lyman Hafen
You know, what you're sharing is the same thing that millions of other people. That transition that they went through economically and in other ways during the mid century, however, for you, it happened in Utah's Dixie. And how does that inform what, what you learned, what you experienced, the fact that you lived in this place?
- [42:38]
Gail Cooper Smith
You can't.
- [42:41]
How do you describe.
- [42:44]
A spirit of community and love? And.
- [42:51]
You know, it didn't have the modern sidewalks, it had the.
- [42:57]
Ditch that was not rock, that your water came down and you had watering turns and you all worked together. And.
- [43:06]
My family, because of their work, weren't the most active.
- [43:13]
But you never knew it because the church was the culture and the culture was the church. We were just all doing the same thing whether we went to church or not, you know, and it's not saying that they didn't. I mean, they had great testimonies and so on, but just weren't the ones that were the bishops or the counselors or whatever. Take that back. My mother worked in primary a lot, but even then, our young youth, young women was going to the gymnasium of the Rock schoolhouse. We had three things. We had the bridge, post office, Quentin Ison's store. We called him Abner. We had the schoolhouse, four things. We had the schoolhouse, the red Rock schoolhouse, and we had the church house. Those were the four important things. So when you had celebrations like school plays.
- [44:05]
Everybody came, Santa Claus came and we were all in the play and the parents had to make the costumes for whatever we were. And 4th of July, the races, 24th of July, the races. We made our own fun. And the kids, in the summertime, we'd go in the middle of the road and somebody would find an old tire and we'd build a bonfire and play games like Run Sheepy Run and tear up the town.
- [44:34]
But we had to make our own fun.
- [44:38]
Like I said, my dad was a Renaissance man. He cut his hay with a team of horses and a scythe of mower. The ch, ch. You put the thing down and then he would get his team of horses on his wagon. He had a rake, one of those that he would hook up his horse to that and he would rake his hay and then he would fold it over and then he would get us to steam of horses. He would get us to go down and he'd pile it on the wagon and we'd tromp it down. So I got on the tail end of a, you know, to cross over. I remember when I learned to drive, it was like, oh my gosh.
- [45:21]
And the other thing about growing up in a town like that on Dixie was It was a five mile drive to St. George and we had to go through the tunnel. That was always exciting to yell when you went through the tunnel. And so on.
- [45:37]
The school two, first and second grade met in one room. We had one teacher, third and fourth grade met in the next room. One teacher, fifth and sixth grade, one teacher. And so one through six, we were all close. It didn't matter age and recess times, we roller skated and we went out and played football. And I got to play football with the boys because they were sure to person to make the teams even. And I loved it.
- [46:10]
Lyman Hafen
Discourse was really important, very important to me. As you grew up, it was. Can you talk a little bit about that?
- [46:18]
Gail Cooper Smith
You know, it took me a while to understand why God gifted me with such athletic abilities, but it was probably because we had to do athletic stuff. But because we were girls and I fell in love with the horse because of my dad. When I was four or five years old, I would call the reins the brains. You know, hand me the brains, dad. And so I just grew up on the back of a horse because of that. And my dad always made sure he had his team. Sometimes we would ride those. But my, my most memorable Christmas was the year I got a pair of leather shaps. I was probably 7 years old and my dad went out and saddled old Nell and I rode horses all day in that chaps and guns on my side.
- [47:16]
So my nomenclature was tomboy when I grew up. But I love that part of it too.
- [47:24]
It made a difference when we were bused to St. George to go to school Woodward. I, you know, the girls went to home EC and the boys went to shop. I couldn't try out for a basketball team or a track. Girls just didn't have it back then. So on. It wasn't until I got into Dixie College really, while I was in high school, when they got their first woman athletic director, it was Myrna Hunsaker. I don't know if you ever met her. And she made a basketball team. And to make a basketball team, she brought a couple of high school gals that were pretty good in basketball. I was one of them, Leona Brooks was another. And we got to go to BYU and play in a tournament, play other schools and came home champions. And that's another of my great stories, is I put in the winning shot from the foul line that gave us the trophy.
- [48:27]
Lyman Hafen
That's awesome.
- [48:31]
Gail Cooper Smith
But that Washington gave me that.
- [48:33]
Lyman Hafen
Washington gave you that. And that spirit of Dixie you experienced from the athletic side as well as the. All the other aspects, they gave me that.
- [48:43]
Gail Cooper Smith
They did have church softball, girls church softball, big program for that, which I was most grateful. But I want to say when we did finally come to St. George, to Woodward Junior High, that four years you had Santa Clara, Shipton, you had Gunlock, you had Ivins, you had Vail, Washington Fields, we were Leeds, we were the bus students. And for us to all to Mesh together. And I tell you.
- [49:15]
It'S that Dixie spirit. We were all so close, no matter where we were from. In October, we had our 65th class reunion. And I tell you, it was one of the special times of my life. Elder Holland was going to come, but last minute, he had some family things that he had to do. But he did send a video, and I just want to share that. His last remarks to us were. He's so funny. He says, you know, some of us dribble up the side of our mouth, and some of us are on walkers, and some of us. He says, but you can still serve. He says, until you die, you can still serve.
- [49:56]
Lyman Hafen
That's what he's doing, isn't it?
- [49:58]
Gail Cooper Smith
Yeah, that's what he's doing.
- [49:59]
Lyman Hafen
My goodness. So were you classmates?
- [50:01]
Gail Cooper Smith
Yes, we were classmates.
- [50:03]
Lyman Hafen
That is wonderful.
- [50:04]
Gail Cooper Smith
Yeah. And in the same group. That's what I'm saying. I think this little podunk tomboy girl from Washington's best friend is Penny Hafen, who was the class president and the dressy, classy lady cheerleader. You know, we all just didn't matter.
- [50:24]
Lyman Hafen
Now they're all saying my classmate was Gale Smith.
- [50:28]
Gail Cooper Smith
Yeah, I know.
- [50:30]
Lyman Hafen
Gale Cooper Smith.
- [50:32]
Gail Cooper Smith
But we had those same roots. The same roots that draw you together and pull you together. The same background with our pioneer ancestors, and just a great bridge to cross over. My parents did that. I make the nomenclature of they had a bag of gunny sack full of the old ways, but as new ways came, they were willing to take out the old ways and put in the new ways and put up the old kerosene lamp. My mother used to curl my hair with a kerosene lamp and cooling iron. She'd heat it up in the kerosene lamp.
- [51:14]
Lyman Hafen
Well, I imagine they pulled a lot of that stuff out of the gunny sack, but some of it probably stayed.
- [51:20]
Gail Cooper Smith
Stayed.
- [51:20]
Lyman Hafen
The tradition stayed, and it's that and also just the DNA.
- [51:27]
Gail Cooper Smith
That carries on. And with that lineman. I have been all over the world, and I've met tons and tons of people, but still where my roots are, I know where I'm at because of where I was raised.
- [51:44]
Lyman Hafen
Gail, we've been talking about your ancestors. We've been talking about your childhood and your growing up here. We've kind of reached a point where you're ready to jump off into the big world, which you did at a certain point. And so we'd love to be able to talk more about that in a future episode. And we'd also like to be able to talk about Tuacan and what you and your family have done there to make that such a gift to Utah's Dixie and how it actually really, in my mind, embodies that whole Dixie spirit, what you have done there. But as we conclude today, one thing we haven't really talked about is we've talked about this place, but we haven't talked about this landscape. And again, you have been all over the world. You've experienced beautiful and amazing places all over the world. But how do you express what this landscape means to you?
- [52:59]
Gail Cooper Smith
This landscape is, as far as I'm concerned, the center of the earth. I can't get enough of it. Its beauty, its desert, The. The Red Hills, watching the moon come up over the Black Hills in Washington. The Black Ridge, where we call it, where we were watching the sunset, just riding your horse forever and ever.
- [53:25]
Out in those hills, up the Virgin river, down the Virgin river, before houses in the landscape. I mean, the canal that went around Schnabelkai. We floated down the canal, climbed Schnaubachi.
- [53:42]
You're part of the land. And.
- [53:46]
We lived off the land. We had our cows, we had our horses, we had our chickens. We lived off the land. Our apricot tree in our garden that we could plant and water at our irrigation time when it was our irrigation time. Where do you find that.
- [54:05]
And what it teaches you and how it helps you appreciate God's creations and what we're totally blessed with here. It is rougher. You do have to be careful with water. You do have to do. But it's okay. It's worth the beauty. And I don't know where you'd find the landscape. It seems to be all in Utah. I just figure that's where God planted it for us to come to.
- [54:34]
Lyman Hafen
Gail, thank you so much. Thank you for sharing in such a beautiful way your thoughts and your experiences and your feelings. I realize that there's so much more that we could go into and that we will go into in the future, but for today, thank you. And we just appreciate you being here with us today and your beautiful spirit and what you mean to this community.
- [55:07]
Gail Cooper Smith
Thank you, Lyman. Appreciate the opportunity.
- [55:10]
Narrator
The Doc Booth foundation is dedicated to empowering individuals through educational opportunities and promoting mental health advocacy. Through scholarships and funding for important community needs. The foundation perpetuates the can do spirit of the founders of this community, using the lessons of the past to chart the course for a better future. Make your tax deductible donation@docboothfoundation.org Not Forgotten is produced by Ricky Valadez and made possible by the generous support of St. George area Zag stores, industry leading tech support and accessories. Lymanhafen's books can be found@lymanhafen.com.
- [55:56]
Singer
Once I lived in Cottonwood and owned a little farm when they called me down to Dixie it caused me much alarm to hold the cane and cotton I right away must go but the reason why they say sent me I'm sure I do not know.
- [56:20]
We came to Dixie.
- [56:24]
And we called it home oh and Dixie.
- [56:30]
We'Ve lived and grown but the reason why they sent me.
- [56:38]
Gail Cooper Smith
I'm sure.
- [56:38]
Singer
I do not know.
- [56:42]
The hot winds whirl around me and take away my breath I've had the chills and fever Till I'm nearly shook to death all earthly tribulations are but a moment here and oh if I prove faithful Righteous crown awareness we came to Dixie.
- [57:10]
Gail Cooper Smith
And.
- [57:11]
Singer
We called it home oh in Dixie.
- [57:17]
We'Ve lived and grown but the reason why they sent me.
- [57:24]
Gail Cooper Smith
I'm sure I.
- [57:25]
Singer
Do not know.
- [57:29]
I hope that there's a heaven with rivers pure and clean But I know that there.
- [57:38]
Come here after me Though I may never see it As a garden lined with trees if this desert's gonna blossom I'd better plant the seeds Cuz they'll come to Dixie.
- [57:57]
And they'll call it all oh and Dixie.
- [58:03]
They live and grow they'll come to Dixie.
- [58:09]
And they'll call it home oh Dixie.
- [58:15]
They live and grow and the reason why they sent me.
- [58:23]
I think I finally know.
- [58:27]
I think I finally know.