Carl Leroy Crawford

I, Carl Leroy Crawford, son of Daniel Crawford and Sarah Sabrina Curtis, was born in a two-room frame house on the Crawford Ranch located at the mouth of Oak Creek Canyon, a side canyon of the “little Zion Canyon”. The ranch was about two miles up the canyon from Springdale, Washington County , Utah, The event occurred on a beautiful sunny day, the 20th of February, 1904, with the family midwife, a Mrs. Stansworth, in attendance.
I lived on the ranch nearly twenty-seven years, in which time I experienced many happy moments and some that were not so happy.
I well remember many experiences of being with my father as he worked in the fields and how I enjoyed going into the field with him on horseback when I was so small he would hold to my leg whenever the horse went faster than a walk to keep me from falling. When I was old enough to ride alone I asked my father to put the harness on the horse so I could have the hames to hold on to, and told him I always wanted the harness on the horse whenever I rode. He asked why I wouldn’t like a saddle just as well to and have a horn to hold to, but it didn’t seem a saddle would answer the purpose as well, as there was only one horn and the harness had two hames.
Many winter evenings my father would romp on the floor with me before the fireplace, which with the kitchen stove furnished the only heat we had in the house, and many times the fireplace furnished the principal light for the house. Sometimes the family were able to afford two kerosene lamps, but as they were breakable and it was hard to get replacements, we had many times to get by with one lamp or maybe one lamp and a lantern. Many times the only lamp had to be used in the kitchen and anyone wishing to read or prepare school lessons did so by the light of the fireplace.
In the summer of 1925, I got a job as cleaning porter at the El Escalante Hotel in Cedar City, at which job I worked for about two months or more during which time I met and became attached to Marie Dalley, who was working at the time in the linen room. One of my responsibilities was to lock the back door after all the help left for the night, and as Marie was often the last one to leave, the door got locked a few times before she got out. As she was not allowed to go out through the lobby and front door, the only way to leave was through the boiler room where I was working. After a time or two I discovered the for her leaving by that route and often purposely locked the door before she left so I could get to tell her good night, but I never tried to date her or detain her more than having her pass through the boiler room. (now we know who the pest was in Marie's history)