C. R. Rockwell, Golden Spike Oral History Project, GS-16, American West Center, University of Utah

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ROCKWELL · 3 T: What was your mother's maiden name? R: Weiss, German family, in Omaha, and her parents migrated from Germany, from Austria I should say, near the border and lived in an area that was predominantly Germans. N: What was life like growing up in that area? R: Well, I grew up in Council Bluffs which was a small town living with not too many paved streets out in the residential areas and I was associated with_ my grandfather's type of living mainly· since my dad worked with. him, and the first house I can remember we lived in was a small one ..-room house covered with_ tar paper, black tar paper on the outside, with a big old wood-burning kitchen stove at one end and a bed down at the other and a dining room table and a few chairs, a stand with a big water bucket on it so that we had to go outside to get water to pump, and outhouses. I can recall the next house we lived in which we were so happy with because it had running water, although it had no drain so you had to have a bucket under the sink, for exampl~. T: But at least you -had running water. R: But you had running water. And my grandfather's barns and,s.lllall paature. areas. maybe one or two building lots in size were all right there. We lived right there next to my grandfather. Down at the end of the block was th.e. blacksmith's shop so that you could get the feel of the real old dirt floor of the blacksmith's. shop where the guy is making horseshoes, instead of just fitting them as they do today, and making whatever they needed for my granqfather's equipment. Just fabricating them out of metal. Lou Doty was the Blacksmith. We knew him for years and years. We used to go down and watch the muleskinners, tea~ters, at their Saturday night craps games after they got pa:i~. It was an interesting place " to grow up, and the kind of a place where you didn ' 't even worry about · kids the