Memories

O the lay of the land,
I will not forget.
Nor the crimson of colors,
In the bright sunset.

Nor the run of the hills,
With its shaley loam.
That nestled near by,
My acres of home.

For the years I spent there,
Has marked me well.
So much that praises,
Never cease to tell.

How much of my love,
Lays scattered around.
On that far stretch of bleakness,
That covers the ground.

For the soil is so hallowed,
That in yearning...I weep.
And the memories of childhood,
Is all that I keep.


E.P. 1908 - 1989

Claudia Ethel Womack


This is the very land that Grandma is speaking of. Part of the Jim Sage Mountains in the Upper Raft River Valley in southern Idaho. Almo, Idaho is the nearest town. She lived in a dug-out with her mother, father, and two sisters. They were home-steaders. Her father found a spring that is today called Womack Springs up Womack Canyon. Her parents claimed 320 acres around the spring and her grandparents claimed 320 acres that joined to theirs. The hill on the left they called 'Grandpa's Hill'. Ethel tells that "in the dusky hours of night the coyotes would gather and howl. This I remember as one of childhood's foremost memories."