Oh boy, there was William Williams, right age, immigrant from England, working in a mine in southwest Idaho on the 1900 census.  But having chased Bill from England to Michigan then to South Dakota and eventually to Wardner, Idaho, how could I be sure this was the right one? The picture below was among family photos passed down to Ken Williams, a great grandson of Bill.  In fact there were two copies of the photo, a pretty good indication that there was a family member in it. Will the real Bill Williams please stand up?  That is, if the real Bill Williams is in this picture.  We'll probably never know which man is Bill but there is enough circumstantial evidence to place him in Owyhee County in 1900.  The clue--the photographer.  C. E. Joy had a photograph studio in Salt Lake City around 1900 and probably made trips to neighboring communities. Looking for the clues There are many clues for dating and identifying photos.  Prominent among those is resear...

By Gordon Stowe—February 10, 1968 I remember of Dad clearing the field north of the house. I think the orchard area had been cleared before – but to this land clearing – I only wish I had the words to explain the hard, manual labor involved.  It was my job to bring Dad a drink of water (in a 2 quart lard bucket) mid-way in the morning and again in the afternoon. He was grubbing out the brush, small trees and etc. Not only the brush had to be removed, but the roots as well, (big ones). This land had to be broken with a horse-drawn plow and you didn’t have any other power here, so you had to have it in good shape before you started with the plow. His procedure was to walk backwards into a clump of brush, push hard against it to lean it back a little and so he could stand straight, raise the grub-hoe over his head and swing it sideways and also glance back – to be sure he didn’t take a mighty swing and hook onto a branch behind and get hurt. Then, all set – he sunk the hoe int...