Horace Henry Flake

Alicia Burk - Linda Kay Flake - Horace Henry Flake

MEMORIES OF MY BROTHER HORACE by Lester W. Flake  Phoenix, AZ  May 5, 1998

Dolores and Horace

 Dee (3rd from left), Gladys, George, Horace

Dee, Horace, Lorna, Linda, Bob, Cheryl

Horace Henry Flake, my brother, was less than two years my junior, so I do not recall when I was first conscious of having a younger brother. However, until I was 15 or 16, I do not recall not being in almost constant (or at least daily) touch with him. He was closer to my heart (I feel) than any other person except our sweet mother.

Very faintly I recall scenes at the little ranch house near Sholow, AZ, when Aunt Jewel (Ray), mother’s sister, came to spend a short time with us. They seemed so happy to be together, and they made the little frame house ring with their laughter and singing. I faintly recall (after mother told me) that I made Horace cry one day, when I told him I was going to marry mother. “Wall”, he is reported saying, “I guess I’ll have to marry Aunt Jewel.”

The next thing that crops out in my memory was while we were still very young Dad brought home a pony for me, and Horace went with me to drive the milk cows out to the range. On the way back we decided to have a race. Horace was mounted on old Charley, a trusted saddle horse on which we both had learned to ride, and as I recall, he was so small his legs stuck straight out as he sat on the bare back of the old horse, so it was difficult for him to hold on. The horses started loping, and Horace started bouncing. Trying to catch the mane he dropped the reins, I recall each time he bounced he went further back on old Charley until there was no more back, and Horace was left sitting in the sandy lane.

Our differences were never very serious, but I learned early not to fool with Horace! He was smaller than I, but athletically gifted and had the heart of a lion. Anything I did he would try, and there wasn’t much he couldn’t do. On another occasion I made my brother cry, I have no recollection of what it was over, but mother came out onto the front porch (in Snowflake) just in time to catch a hatchet he had raised over his head, and was intending to bringing down on the top of my head.

The next recall still haunts me. We both became very sick. We were in bed together, and mother all the good women of the Snowflake area were trying to help us. It was 30 miles to get any medical help, and the doctor had to come by horse and buggy. Our pioneer father considered faith more important than medicine so we were in very bad shape before the doctor was called. We were delirious by then so I don’t recall the doctor, but I was told he stuck his head in the door and said, “Whoo, diphtheria!” Fortunately he had a good supply of antitoxin with him. When he’d done all he could, he advised mother to keep us very quiet as long as she could. “If they survive,” he said, “They will always be weak and will probably need glasses.”

Horace was hardly recovered and still very weak when he went with Dad to haul a load of heavy barnyard manure out to the farm. For some reason Dad was driving a fractious team, and seeing some person he wished to speak with stepped off the wagon, and handed the little boy the reins. Something spooked the team and they hit their collars so as to jolt the wagon and pull the little boy off and under a heavy iron wheel which went right over his head. Dad grabbed the horses then saw Horace. The little fellow’s head was flat as a pancake and he appeared as though dead. Dad picked the boy up and ran for two blocks to the house of his sister, Pearl McClause, and she went to work on the little fellow.

I was told she held the boy’s head in her hands, working it with her fingers, and blowing into the child’s mouth. Dad, a big rough frontiersman, was almost hysterical. His wife had been after him for not considering dangerous situations where we children were concerned. Now it looked like he’d have to face her with the consequences of what she had been talking about. The little boy survived that ordeal, but it was a long time before he would look healthy like the other children. In fact, he didn’t do well until after he was in high school. Then he seemed to blossom, and tried to go out for football. He was fast, shifty, and strong for his size, but the Coach said he was just too small, and he was afraid he’d be hurt.

It was about that time Dad started to subdivide the farm we lived on, and Horace became his right hand man. A man named Scott who painted houses for Dad was so impressed by the way Horace did whatever job he was given, he offered to teach him the painting trade. That was in the midst of a terrible depression, and learning a trade was considered very helpful for a young person. I was never around when this happened as I had a job at a large produce company and was bringing in a paycheck the family needed badly. But Horace became a good painter -- and was to fall back on that trade for the rest of his life.

When he was in his middle teens, the love bug bit my brother. He had by then become very popular with both boys and girls, and was a good mixer and dancer. A family from St. Johns moved to the valley and after Horace took a shine to their teenage girl, the father decided to move them back. We planned going to Snowflake that summer, so Horace promised the girl he would come and see her as the towns were only a few miles apart. The closer to Snowflake we got in the old Ford, the more anxious my brother got. We all knew how he was looking forward to seeing the young lady, and how he had been planning to surprise her.

When we arrived Horace asked Dad for the car to go keep the date he had dreamed of in St. Johns. He received a flat rejection with no explanation. In fact, Dad just turned his back on him and walked away. Horace was absolutely crushed. Mother was frightened my brother might run away -- but after the shock wore off Horace never mentioned it again. Howbeit, that day Dad lost his right hand man. When we returned to the Valley, Horace went to work for Mr. Scott who had gone into the painting business for himself. Dad saw very little of his second son after that. Horace was then called on a mission.

A year after I went on a mission for the LDS Church, my brother Horace was called to the same mission. We had a chance to work together, and I never had a better companion or one I enjoyed more. It was in MIssissippi, and the weather was mostly hot and humid. We walked the dusty country roads, ate the fare of the country folks, and shared their meager accommodations. One day we walked several miles to look for a family. It was in swamp land near the Mississippi River across from New Orleans. Coming to a clearing in the pine trees we could see a little unpainted shack.

On the porch stood a person looking our way, soon a second joined and we were close enough by then to see it was a man and a woman. Excitement was obvious and the woman went back inside. As we got there we found it was an Indian family that hadn’t seen an elder in several years. They were so happy to see us and we could see that the woman had gone inside to set a table for food. That was good news for us as we had not eaten since the day before. On the table were four unmatching plates and two huge sweet potatoes. The man cut each potato in half and that was the meal. That was their meal and without comment or apology they shared it with us. However, the afternoon was a wonderful spiritual feast!

Time came too quickly for us to leave as they obviously had no room to put us up. Like happy children we walked along the sandy road talking of how strong the Spirit had been and how we’d enjoyed the simple Saints. Suddenly, as though it struck the two of us at the same time, we stopped and looked at each other as if coming back to reality. It was Thanksgiving Day! Without another word we walked into the Piney Woods and knelt together. We then thanked our God for the most wonderful Thanksgiving Day we had ever had. In my long life I have become no stranger to the Spirit of the Lord --  but I doubt it has ever come over me stronger than it did that day with my brother in the backwoods of Mississippi.

Later, after we had been assigned to different companions, our Mission President, LeGrand Richards, came to hold a conference in a little farming community of Darbin, where Horace was stationed. Asking where the bathroom was between sessions, he was told to walk out to the ridge, “Ladies to the right, men to the left.” The good man was shocked! He asked the Elders present for one with building experience. He then instructed Horace and his companion to build two “Chick sales” (outhouses) with ample accommodations at mission expense. “This isn’t even civilized,” was the conclusion of the good man.

Soon we were ready to build a new church in Columbia, and a contractor from Utah was sent with his brother and their wives. Horace had done such a good job in Darbin, that he was recruited to help the Pierce brothers. One Elder had been a champion rodeo performer from Canada. A committee for raising building funds for the new chapel decided to put on a Western style rodeo, for the town of Columbia. The mayor was contacted and other dignitaries, who seemed to think it would be a good idea. Advertising for the needed animals produced a great assortment of mules, horses, and bovine. I heard Horace rode a wild mule and did a good job. One of the visitors was heard to say, “They are just a bunch of fun-loving boys, and to think they are all preachers!”

After his release as a regular missionary, Horace stayed at Columbia to help finish the chapel. At the finish of a hot day, a few of the local boys took him with them for a refreshing swim in the river. As my brother told it to me later, he offered to show the boys how he caught fish in Arizona. There were big “sloughs” in the dry Salt River Bed where we would swim in the summer and fish would spend the hot days back under the bank in the shade. I was told that when he reached under the bank in Mississippi, he caught what he thought was a big fish. As he pulled it from the water he faced an angry cottonmouth moccasin (close relative of the rattlesnake), and it nailed him on the arm. That ended the party. Horace was rushed to the hospital and was administered to. To the doctor and nurse’s surprise, he was up next day ready to go back to work.

We were never in close touch after that until I came home from the Army. By then Horace, Dee and their children were living on a little ranch outside of Bend, Oregon. I was having it rough trying to get started again, and when I went to see my brother he persuaded me to come and join him in running a dairy, and dealing in other ventures. I took my wife and two little girls to Bend and started a never-to-be-forgotten adventure.

It was a joy to work with Horace, he knew only one pace that was full speed ahead. I had been living a rather soft life, and the first job he gave me was to move a mountain of baled hay from out on the John Day River to the ranch (by myself) with an ancient flatbed truck and a pair of hay hooks. I lost 60 pounds in 60 days, and stretched every muscle in my body to the breaking point. But I felt useful for the first time since I had been home from overseas. In addition to milking night and morning, Horace was cutting pulpwood. Soon I was able to do all the the milking and he went full time to “pulping,” and I helped him part-time.

Working hard 16 to 18 hours a day (everyday) we seemed to literally coin money -- but there was a catch to it. We would get a little ahead, and a milk cow would have to be replaced because of mastitis or the woods would be shut down for some reason beyond our control. I never worked harder in my life and finally it dawned on me; I was not the leader anymore; “little brother” was the leader! It was a great two years, we didn’t come out with any money, but I thoroughly enjoyed working with Horace and I once more got hard as nails and in good physical shape.

I was fixing a fence one morning when Horace came to me. I could see he was worried. We talked of what needed to be done for a bit; then he said he thought we must break up, as we were just not going to make it. He offered to let me keep the dairy if I wanted to, but he had been offered a job and he and his wife had decided they had better take it. It was a dramatic moment, and we both wound up crying and hugging each other. That (to the best of my recall) was the last time I saw my brother. We worked together closing things up but communication was done by phone. The herd was sold -- and I took a job as a pick and shovel man for a road contractor until my third daughter was born, and I could move my family back to Phoenix. However, I expect to see my brother in the near future, and I hope (and feel) we’ll again work together.