Turnbull: History found among the day-to-day lives of ordinary people

(It was on April 13, 2001, a few years before his death, that this interview with Harp Turnbull took place. Erik Daarstad filmed the meeting for the "Sandpoint Centennial Movie" and it was my privilege to conduct the interview. Today, Harp shares in his unique way and in his own words, with some editing due to space limitations, a bit more about Sandpoint but spends most of his time recalling some of his likes and dislikes. At the end of the interview, he emotionally shares a profound regret in his life experience.)

Question: Harp, is there anything else you want to say about Sandpoint?

Harp: We got a long ways from where we started. There's a lot of Sandpoint things I wanted to tell you - about the streets of Sandpoint. We went to town with a horse and buggy. They had a place where the lodge (Elk's Club on Second Avenue) is there now that was the hitching post where they had a trough and a place you could hitch your team.

It started out there, it was an alley there at that time, and something scared the team as we came back out onto the street and they were on their way. Dad steered 'em down to Pine Street because the mud was so damned deep that the horses couldn't run to pull the wagon. Now that is the God's honest truth.

It was more developed right there where the hitching post was, or whatever you would call it, but we got down to Pine Street and he deliberately got 'em onto Pine Street because it was axle deep in mud to where the horses couldn't run with the wagon. Now, that is part of the development of Sandpoint.

Question: I got one other question for you, Harp. Compare when you were growing up to how things are today. What do you like or dislike about the changes you see?

Harp: What I dislike about the changes I think mostly, Bob, is the freedom of access I think you'd have to call it. We, as boys, young men, were virtually free to roam the country - hunt deer, hunt elk, hunt birds, fish in any stream that you came to. Now, you'll find no trespassing signs or you will get run off - you're confined. That's the main thing I dislike. I love to hunt. I love to fish. I love to travel. I love just to get out in the woods and climb the mountains, and that is very limited in this area now. It was virtually wide open up until just the last twenty years ago.

The thing that I like about the change is this. Life has been, the latter part of it, has been so much easier for us. This has been a bonanza. We are able to prepare for our old age on our own.

In the early days, if an old person's family didn't take care of them then they went to the poor house over in Sandpoint. I don't like to see people in that state. Today, we're taken care of. There is no hardship. I mean, I knew a grandmother who lived to be more than 100 years old. Never knew any niceties - never knew any niceties in life.

Bob, it's a different world. It has its advantages. It certainly has its disadvantages. You've got to compare one to the other but as much as I have belly ached about it, as much as I have found fault with progress, a person has to admit that it's wonderful. The human race has a chance to live in dignity and they (old timers) didn't.

There used to be a widow who lived here. Her last child was born three months after her husband died. She had no income, no way to make a living. She couldn't swing a broad ax. She couldn't go out and work and she just had the goodness and kindness of her neighbors. My mother used to can food, and she would say, "This is for Nelly, this is for Nettie."

Those people were kind of looked down on by some people. They were poor but all were damn good citizens - credits to their community. They lived here and they lifted themselves up by their bootstraps - they had to. And this was not the only place.

My wife and her family moved from the drought area in the Dakotas in the 1930s. We live in paradise now compared to that time. But, I still can't go up here on my favorite hunting spot without going into somebody that's got a rifle shoved in the back of my head because they have a marijuana plant a-growing, or something, so they'll run you off the place.

Now, there'll be people who might ask why I didn't keep a diary of my life. They might ask why I didn't talk to certain people when I had the chance. I don't know which is better. Back then, we were not thinking about anything. We were just trying to make a living - trying to put food on the table - trying to take care of our medical bills. This was just living day to day.

I had a great uncle who lived next door and he remembered the Civil War - do you think I ever sat down and talked to the man? No. There was a woman we called Grandma Hornsby that lived over here. Jesse James' gang stole their horses, Cole Younger shot her first husband, and I didn't have time to listen to her. She later married a man by the name of Hornsby, Michael Hornsby, and he was in the posse that captured John Wilkes Booth after he shot Abe Lincoln.

But this is all history that I went through, through this old, old lady. You talk about wanting to listen to an old person. I was just a boy. She died when I was 15 but she wanted to talk like I'm talking to you now, Bob. I didn't have time to listen to it. I'd give anything on God's world to sit down and talk to that lady now.