Interview with Roy Wilhelm, December 24, 1992

'''Roy''': 5 kids.  ''(Ed. Note: 6 also Clarissa Isabell?)'' Well, they had a hell of a time, first the Mexicans, they tried to starve them out, then they got to feelin' sorry for them and gave them a little work, see, but they just damn near starved to death but they had the best damn place in the whole country there.  Some things you can't raise and when your clothes wears out, it's hard to produce them on a farm.  They  had the Greer boys, about the only friends they had but they didn't, they might as well, probably been better off without 'um sometimes and Pa was a tellin' about when Cleveland's time, it was a great depression before the turn of the century, when Grover Cleveland was in and he was elected on a certain thing that he guaranteed to do and everybody told him, says, it'll throw the country into a panic but he didn't think so but he kept his word and for 4 years they had  "Cleveland's time" and there was just no money, it just went out of circulation and that was it.  There was for 2 years there wasn't even a cattle buyer at any price for the steers that was raised in this country and the sheep men could sell a little wool on account of the government used it for uniforms for the soldiers, but the meat they couldn't sell.  Well, they had to shear those sheep and it was a nasty job and somehow they got started off they had to pay for that and they only guys that had any money was the sheepmen and they had to pay for the shearing and everybody wanted to shear sheep for them, even the Greer boys. Pa and Haight, they got a job shearing sheep and so did the Greer boys.  Pa says they was a shearin' away there and the Greer boys was down there really getting with it and oh they hated it.  They were the ones that would hold their nose  when they rode up to the camp to visit with Pa and Haight 'cause they were sheep men, see, hold their nose all the time they visited, they couldn't stand the smell here they are down in the bottom  a shearin' sheep so these two old big fat Mexicans got up there and oh, you never seen a dandy till you've seen those old Mexican sheep men, dressed up you know, they always wore suits, tailor made suits, see and they was on a, put on a new one and here they'd go a chain here with an elks tooth hangin' on it, it fastened on one side and there was a watch pocket over here and they could look at the time, lot of crap like that.  Well they got positioned up there and they each lit a cigar and they pretended that they didn't know the Greer boys was there and one of 'em says "they tell me the Greer boys do not like sheep, I wonder why they don't like sheep?"  the other one said, "That is a false statement my friend, the Greer boys like sheep, look at them.  They are hugging them!  They love them!"  Pa said if those Greers 'd of had a pistol they'd a killed those two Mexicans, he knew damn well.  There was nothing they could do about it, they had to have that money and they put up with that kind of insults. Better not play that tape to the Greers, it won't be too popular.  That ain't part of their script at all.  Well, finally there was one old man over there, an old Mexican man, come to Pa and Haight and says, "Why don't you boys go into the sheep business, that's where the money is, if you have stock, why you're all right.  Unless you can cash in on your share of this grass, you just as well give it up.  Well, they couldn't go into the sheep business, they couldn't even pay taxes,  He says,  "I'll tell you what, now these old sheep are doomed to die, maybe she's pregnant, and in the spring she would have just as good a lamb as any other sheep but she won't live.  She won't have teeth; she can't keep up, she'll die.  So every sheep man knows 'em they can go through and they can tell you just which ones won't.  He says,  "I'll let you have all that are in my herd for a dollar apiece, and pay for it when you can, I won't get nothing otherwise.  When you can!  Someday; years!  And I'll spread the word to the others and some of 'em 'll take it up."  And some of um did.  And said,  "You boys have raised all this feed."  They were working son of a guns, but they'd raised this feed cause they had nothing else to do and then nothing to feed it to, see, and that's what they did.  They bought those sheep on time, dollar a head.  They went in the sheep business that way.  After a few years, Pa said it never dawned on him until suddenly, he was a riding along and he had a new saddle and a new fat horse and following two herds of sheep to the mountains, check book in his pocket, he still thought he was poor.