Albert Henry Hale Sr.
submitted by: Melanie Moon
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He was outside in a rainstorm because it was his turn to take the cows to the meadows. Then lightning struck a cow standing next to him and a spark from it hit the back of his neck! It left a white blister like a table knife blade went down his body. The concussion of the shock also knocked his brother down. His brother turned him over and called for help. It was soon dark. Everyone was worried and asked his brother what happened. News traveled, and soon many were out hunting him. It was so dark outside that the only way to see was lightning streaks and it was four hours before they found him. His father blew in his mouth and pumped his lungs. One of his dad's friends said, "he is stone dead," but his dad could not give up. It was over three weeks before he regained consciousness. His cousin sat next to him for a long time and told him how he got hurt because he lost some of his memory. He could not do anything but mope around for two years after the accident. He couldn’t even work or go to school.
He was near the lake and twelve miles further down the canal was the camp, when a wheel hit a bad rut and thirty - one hundred pound bales of hay tipped on top of him. He had read a story about President Merrill’s under a bunch of logs how he prayed and when he came to, he found the logs loaded and he was on top with his oxen taking him home. As the load fell on him, he prayed, "Oh Lord, save me as you did President Merrill!" Then all went black. Something pulled him out except his legs. He put his hand in his pocket and cut the binding rope. The load fell down. He was miles away from anyone with his ribs broken and in bad shape. Soon there was a man running in the woods. “Are you hurt,” he said. He fixed the wagon, loaded the hay, and put him on top of his bedding and took Henry twelve miles to the camp. Then he ran back in the woods.
As you can see, Albert Henry Hale had lots of crazy adventures in his life. I am glad he survived so that I can be here today.
Next I am going to talk about him as a teenager. He was herding sheep at East Canyon Creek and at the time the bears were really bad so they had to watch out for them a lot. He always had a little 44 gun that his dad gave him. But it wasn’t big enough to kill a bear. As he was reading one of his books he saw all of the sheep were running so he looked up and saw a bear chasing the sheep! He fired his gun to scare him. The bear didn’t know where to run so the bear came directly after him. The bear opened his mouth so Albert could see down his throat. Henry was going to shoot the gun down his throat. He pulled the trigger but the gun didn’t go off. He reloaded his gun and shot again but it still didn’t go off, and again the third time it failed him. One of his brothers had a six shooter and was down in the canyons. His brother heard his first shot, so he started shooting his gun and frightened the bear away.
Now I am going to talk about his adulthood. He moved to Idaho and started farming and planted corn. They lived in a very small cabin with a dirt roof. There weren’t any roads in the forest, so he had to build the house out of quite small logs. The roof was very low and he could only stand up in the middle of the room. He also built a front porch for him and his wife. In that cabin all of his family was born, four boys and four girls. He carried hay and grain to all the camps between Twin Falls and Milner Dam. He brought the first load of hay and grain into Twin Falls. At one time, he was bringing two loads of hay and grain from Oakley to a camp between Murtaugh and Twin Falls. They were then building the dam to form Murtaugh Lake. He was walking along beside the front wagon. He had tied the lines where he could get them if they needed to. The weather was very cold and the ground was frozen and there were rocks and roots poking out everywhere.