Ruth: Well, Budge and Thelma, of course, went to school at the old Scruggs schoolhouse when they were. . . first started to school. But, anyway, they let us camp. . . let Dad camp in the school yard there because they had a well that you could pump water to water the animals and stock with, and then of course, there was a stove in the school building, and shelter for Mom and all of her kids, and Mother went along with him and cooked for the crew. The men who were helping Dad for pay, and the boys, my brothers. And I was born in that old building. Dad rode across the prairie to the Henry Allen place, south of there, and then they had an old Ford car, so Henry brought his wife Ethel Allen over to the schoolhouse to help mom in the birth. Can you imagine? I mean. . . Anyway, that's where I was born. But I never dreamed I weighed ten pounds. That's my excuse for not losing weight now.
BH: That's healthy! That's a healthy weight. So were these crops that he's talking about. . .
Ruth: Up on the mountain.
BH: At the mountain ranch?
Ruth: Yeah. At the old. . . the Paul Randall place now.
BH: And they had an acre of corn that they got to grow?
Ruth: Oh, yeah!
BH: It's had to grow corn in the San Luis Valley!
Ruth: The potatoes were so wonderful. . . oh, corn grows well there. Potatoes, and peas—we always had green peas by Fourth of July. And we had—Dad and Jess Denton—they lived right below us—always vied with each other to see who'd have the biggest potatoes by the Fourth of July. And new peas and potatoes—that was a tradition.
BH: Wow! That's a great story.
Ruth: Potatoes grew great up there, lettuce. . . and. . . onions, and beans. We raised lots of beans—bolito beans, the traditional Mexican bean. That was ah. . . pinto beans were just ah. . . hadn't come into much use at that time. That was early.
BH: Were there any plants that you're aware of that someone in the family brought with them?
Ruth: Grandpa King brought trees—fruit trees, the root stock, I guess—of fruit trees, on the train from Georgia. And they came to the ah. . . the Mississippi River. I don't know how they got there, but then they crossed the river, and then they came on the train to ah. . . to Alamosa the first year they got the train over the La Veta Pass, into the valley. But his family, my dad was five years old when they came from Georgia. And um. . . he brought this whole bunch of root stock-trees, to plant. And the first year, he didn't. . . he hadn't homesteaded the place, and they weren't settled, or something. Anyway, he built a big hole in the side of the creek, where it would be—they wouldn't freeze, and covered 'em, you know, to keep 'em from freezing. And the next spring, well the water got so high the next spring, it washed 'em out, so they retrieved what roots they could, and planted them. And they're still old crab apple trees in Paul Randall's—in the old, what used to be the old orchard there. Ah, and we called 'em Mae and Fae, the trees because they were twins, and they were very big. And it was really a good crab apple—it was about that big around. It isn't like the one they have now—it was tarter. But it—they grew, and an old. . . been something tree. . . ooh, that was a horrible apple. It wasn't a good one! But, ah, and a transparent apple tree. I don't think there. . . I don't know if the old crab apple trees are still alive in Paul Randall's , er, but I wanted—I want Richard please to go see if they are, and try to get a start of them, you know, over on our place.
BH: Oh wouldn't that be wonderful!
Ruth: And then there was a lot of wild plums that they um. . . sort of cultivated there. And we. . . the orchard. . . the top of the orchard was a lot of wild plums, and we picked the plums, and we picked gooseberries all over the hill—every gooseberry on the hill, and made jelly and jam with the gooseberries. And chokecherries of course were a staple. They still are, in my family. We love chokecherry jelly, and we pick it—the chokecherries when there are any. This year there's not going to be anything, but ah. . .
Ida lives, my daughter, up in Beulah, there's quite a few chokecherries. Well there are. . . they used to be all over.
BH: What about raspberries? Did you ever find any raspberries up. . .
Ruth: Oh, yes! Yes! The raspberries were really good. Way back then. And that was just a routine every year—we went up, camped up in the mountains, and picked raspberries. I have someplace here a picture of. . . .
BH: Did you also make jam and syrup with the raspberries?
Ruth: Oh, yes. Um hum. Mother made what you call sunshine jam. She would just um, clean the raspberries good, and then sprinkle a lot of um, sugar on 'em, and then put 'em out in the sun, and let the sugar melt, and that was raspberry jam.