Teton Flood Story - By Scott Shirley

I had been working for Safeway in Idaho Falls and had requested and received a transfer to the Rexburg store. We were living in Idaho Falls and Jan was expecting our second child (Jeff), yet we decided to go ahead and move before the baby came. It was June 3, 1976. As we were driving north to Rexburg on our adventure, I remember thinking that life was going to change. I had no idea. (Note: Here are the "Flood Babies, Allison, Brian, Chris, Jeff, Amber and Jenna.)

We unloaded our things at our ground-floor apartment on main street in Sugar City, and spent the night with Jan's folks. The following morning, June 4, Jan went into labor. We went back down to Idaho Falls hospital, which was located near the temple, and were blessed with healthy baby boy, Jeff. We were so excited. I spent the day with Jan and Jeff, then went back to Kinghorn's. Jenna was 14 months old. The future was looking good.

The following morning was Saturday, June 5. I left Jenna with Grandma K and went to the apartment to get some things unpacked. I remember having a distinct feeling that I should just leave everything and go back to Kinghorn's. I tried to ignore the feeling, but it persisted, so I drove two blocks south back to Jenna and Grandma. As soon as I drove in the driveway Grandma K came out and told me the dam had broken. My thoughts went back to the floods of '62, so naturally I expected no more than a foot of water.

Earlier that morning, seepage was noticed on the north flank of the dam. It seems the water was leaking into the rock on the north side, gone around the grouted curtain of cement pumped into it, and was coming out on the west side. They brought some bulldozers to fill the hole, but the pressure on the other side was too much. Two dozers fell into the hole, later to be found a great distance downstream.

The water on the reservoir side had been rising at about three feet per day. This was a new dam that had never been filled. As it turned out, the spillway at the top never got a chance to be used. The photos here were taken by a lady who worked with my mother at the Forest Service. She gave Mom a complete set.

I hurried down to main street to see what people were saying and what was the plan. I remember thinking that things were going to change and wondered what would happen. Dorothy and I decided that we should stay together, so we left her car there, grabbed Jenna and headed for Brent's. We met Jean and the kids there and decided to ride together up to Rexburg Hill. We found a place in front of Lincoln Elementary. Dorothy and Jean stayed there with the kids while I walked north where I heard they needed help sandbagging the river bridge. When I got there I was told to go back up on the hill. They said that with the amount of water coming all the sandbags in the world would be of no use. I walked back up the hill wondering why I was not inspired enough to stay just one more day in Idaho Falls. As I sat on the hill with Baby Jenna and no diaper bag, bottle, or blankets, watching homes float away, I realized I was homeless. At the same time I was grateful that we had been spared. The wave came in from the north east direction. Huge columns of dust were being kicked up in front of the wave. At first we thought it was smoke. I thought there was no way Neal's house could be saved.

Dorothy and I were offered a place to stay at John and Shirleen Magleby's house. We were able to get some milk for Jenna. There was no way to call anywhere because phones were down. I walked to the National Guard station and talked to a State Trooper, telling him I needed to get word to Jan in the hospital that we were OK. He talked to some people and then made a radio call to Idaho Falls.

Jan had been sleeping that morning. When she awoke she was told the dam had broken. She turned on the TV. Reports were that hundreds were presumed dead, Teton and Sugar City were gone, and that Rexburg had been destroyed. When she got word from me she thought, "Scott would tell me that even if things were not good."

I looked out over the valley from Rexburg Hill with binoculars. As the sun was about to go down I could begin to see a few roads emerge as the waters receded. There were a few blinking rescue lights, but soon there were no lights at all to the north. It was surreal how dark and quiet things were.

I walked in the dark to the Manwaring Center to see what any news might be. As I walked across campus the screw in my glasses that kept the lens in place came out and my lens fell to the ground. What next! I entered the Manwaring and someone asked me what I might need. When I told him that I needed a paper clip he was puzzled. I used it to wire my glasses together so that I could see.

I went back to Magleby's who had prepared us a place in their basement. Grandma K suggested we have a prayer. I was wondering how I was going to get through the night with Jenna and no diaper bag and no binky. I thought I knew Grandma K, but I learned more about her through her heart-felt prayer than I had in all the time I had been associated with her. It was a prayer in which she genuinely talked to her Father in Heaven, pleading for help and protection for her family. I felt privileged to have heard such a prayer. When she finished, we settled down in bed. I held Jenna close to me. She had never gone a night without a pacifier, but that night was her first. We were blessed with peace in a most unpeaceful situation.

The following morning, Sunday, word came that we were to meet in the Hart Gymnasium. On the way there I saw Nile Shirley, my cousin. We were both concerned about Uncle Les. We found out later he had been in the tub when water crashed his house. He spent the night in a wet house with no electricity listening to distressed animals stuck in a tree.

When I got to the gym, someone had made signs for each ward in front of individual sections of the seats. The organization was calm and precise. I believe it was at this meeting (maybe a week later at a separate one) that President Kimball came to speak. First, Idaho Governor Andrus spoke. Then, President Kimball spoke. As he began, I was amazed at the true leadership he showed in comparison to elected government officials. I knew I was listening to a true prophet. He told us that he would weep for us if he thought it would do any good. He told us not to wait for the government to step in, rather pitch in and clean up. We were also told to document with photos, then go to work. He told us to do no more than a day's work at a time and not run faster than we were able. We were to be wise and maintain our health.

After the meeting, I snagged a ride in the back of a pickup that was going into Sugar. We went west along the hill to the Sugar cemetery at the foot of the hill. The bridge had been partially destroyed. There was a report that one of the new graves had been uprooted.

Huge sections of pavement were missing. There were no fence posts and few power poles. Army helicopters circled the area. Cylindrical granaries, still attached to their concrete foundations could be seen out in the middle of fields. The grain fields with stalks about six inches long, had been combed as if by a huge brush, all laid flat and pointing which way the water had gone.

I arrived at what was left of our apartment. The water had been about five and a half feet deep, but had now left about a foot of mud and straw on the floor. My belongings were there, but nothing was of use, except for my guitar, which had been on the couch, floated up to the ceiling, and did not have a drop of water on it. That is the same guitar Brandon now has.

I walked across what had been Sugar and headed for Mom and Dad's. The railroad tracks had been washed out. The rails had been bent around one of Dalling's big trees. When I got to the house it was locked, so I broke a window in the back door. I expected to find the parrot, Mrs. Bird, dead, but she just looked at me. The water had risen to the bottom of her cage and then gone down. I surveyed the situation and then wrote in the deep mud on the floor in front of the TV, "Scott was here, I have the bird." As I walked back into Sugar with the bird, I got some strange looks from people. I told them the bird had seen the entire thing, but wasn't saying much about it.

The following day I came in again by bumming rides here and there. There were people standing in the road with arms around each other crying and sobbing over their losses. Destruction was everywhere and the situation was grim, at least until I approached Mom and Dad's house. Carpets were drying in bushes and trees, furniture was moved outside. Instead of gloom and despair I saw family members joking while they worked. When I walked inside the house Dad said, "I heard you were missing." I said, "Yes, missing everything I have." We had a good laugh. Mom was in the kitchen making sandwiches out of the refrigerator which had been tipped over by the rising water. Their examples of optimism and good humor have always been an example to me.

I spotted Neal's trailer to the southwest, about half a mile away and decided to see what condition it was in. After I left Dale and Neal found the body of Mr. McCrae, one of the victims. Dale waded out in the water to see what it was as Neal watched. They told Dad they had found a body. There had been so much good joking going on that Dad did not take them seriously, but looking at their faces he knew it was real. He walked out to the man, turned him over and cleaned off his face with the water that was still running by a few inches deep. They did not know if they would recognize the man or not. I later asked Dad how he could so casually clean the mud from a victim's face with such tender care. He said, "If it were your body, wouldn't you want someone to treat it with respect?" Years earlier he and Rod had helped pick up the remains of a man hit by a train. Such stories helped me years later when I was trying to help a child struck by a car in front of Lyman Elementary. I thought, "I can't do this." The stories of Dad came to mind with the words, "If Dad can do that, I can do this."

I spent long hours working at Safeway, getting all the overtime we wanted. Safeway gave me a thousand dollars and the union gave me another eight-hundred. I had nowhere to cash my paychecks, but with so much help from the church and other volunteers we were OK. I went to the distribution center and reluctantly admitted I needed some clothes. They gave me a pair of boots and a few other things. All I owned I was wearing.

Shortly after the flood I was finally able to go and get Jan and Jeff. It was so good to see her again. Jan, Jenna, Jeff and I were together for the first time, homeless, but not hopeless. Magleby's helped so much until we were able to get a vacant student apartment on campus and later got a government HUD Hut. It was so good to spend some time with our new baby, Jeff. With all the chaos, he was a mild mannered, well-behaved baby. Jenna, who had been rather active and driving us nuts with her constant jabbering, suddenly became the ad-hoc mother. I really think she was under the impression that we had Jeff just to give her something to play with. We lived in the trailer court on Fifth West for about a year, then bought our home from John Magleby, across the road from Uncle Sterling.

It is not the things that happen to us in life, rather what we do with them. Our difficulties do not define us, rather they reveal our character. I will always remember the character of my family members during this very difficult situation, especially the leadership of Mom and Dad. They did not blink or falter, even in the face of great hardship. The Teton Dam fell apart, but our family did not. Each of our family members has had to go through very difficult trials, but never alone. All because of the quiet, calm, and humerous examples of Ross and Margie Shirley.

(Note: For a full list of those who died in the Teton Flood, as well as other information and photos, click on the link below. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~idfremon/flood.htm

Teton Dam Disaster, 1976, by Neal Shirley

Saturday, June 5, 1976, started out a beautiful day. We were planning to bless Amber the next day. Cathie was preparing lots of food for the special event. Brian was out in the yard playing with his trucks and our dog, Molly. That morning I was called in to repair a water main at what was then Ricks College. The water line was out in the median south of the heat plant. Davawn Beattie saw me working and stopped to tell me that the Teton Dam had burst. I jumped into my 1970 Chevy pickup and headed north. The sheriff deputies were stopping all traffic going to Sugar City, so I avoided them and went out through Salem to get to Mom and Dad’s place since they were in Salt Lake. I called Cathie to see if she was aware of the dam breaking. She had heard about it on KRXK. When she asked if I thought our place might get flooded, I suggested that she climb up on the roof. She saw no humor in that idea since she was still recovering from a C-section delivery of Amber.

I called Dad (who was in Salt Lake for Chris' blessing) to let him know. His first request was to get his Colt Python, a custom built target revolver. I could not find it, so I went out and parked the Bronco and the red pickup in the shop. I loaded their chest freezer into the back of my pickup, and decided to head north and see if the Teton River was showing signs of flooding. When I crossed the bridge everything looked normal. I unloaded the freezer at our place, and prepared to return to put stuff upstairs at Mom and Dad’s. Our neighbors, the Bodilys, stopped to see if we were leaving. I said that the river looked normal, and I felt like the flood would not get us. Paul pointed to the southeast, and we could see dust rising above the trees from the impact of the leading edge of the water about 1 mile away.

We decided to head to Cathie’s parents home in Plano, so Cath and I put Brian and 6 week old Amber in the pickup and we headed west. That route required that we also cut back to the south to get to the intersection at Lusk’s. We arrived at that intersection just before the leading edge of the flood. We saw the water about 100 yards from the intersection coming at us from the south and from the east. There were poles and debris rolling in the leading waves which appeared to be about 3 feet deep at the leading edge and tapering up from that depth. The water appeared to be coming at about 15 miles per hour. We saw horses in Lusk’s pasture running along the fence ahead of the wave, looking for a way out.

When we got to Plano, we listened to the CB radio that Vance had in his pickup. The report was grim. Word was that the water had taken out half of the Wilford Church, and had taken some shingles off of the church house roof. We headed back through Egin and Parker to get to Saint Anthony. There we saw the Bodily’s, who informed us that the railroad tracks had been washed up and over the highway, creating a giant picket fence. The dam created by the debris caught in this railroad track had turned the 10 foot tide to the south. Our road, 300 North, from the highway west, was dry. We took some pictures of houses floating away just a half mile to the south of our house. We had resigned ourselves to the probability that our house and car and dog and everything would be gone. What a blessed surprise to find all well at our place.

We now had a headquarters to work from when Dad and Mom and family got here. We had access to Mom and Dad’s house by driving as far as Hirschi’s, and then walking about a mile south from there. The bridge was still in place, but we had to climb up and through a lot of debris stacked up where the water had washed out the approaches to the bridge. We packed in chain saw, gas, shovels, and other stuff needed for cleanup. The mud and crud and destruction and quiet created such an unforgettable, surreal setting. We were surrounded on all sides by destruction. Yet is was a miracle that so few people died. If the flood had hit during the winter or during the night, hundreds would have perished. If it had hit our place, we would not have had our headquarters for everyone. We were happy to find Scott’s message in the mud indicating that he was OK. Mud etching was one of the few means of communication.

I retrieved the Kawasaki 100 dirt bike from where it laid mostly buried in the mud, and cleaned out the water and crud. It started, do Dad and I took a jaunt west and south to see what shape Salem was in. Uncle Fred’s big house had floated away, but his barn was still there. A couple of times we had to cross deep washouts in the road by crossing on a plank. I walked the Kawasaki across, which was tricky.

When the east wall of Dad’s shop caved in, water tried to exit through the west door. The door cables and buckled door kept most of the stuff in the shop from being washed away. The garden area probably resembled a kind of whirl pool as the water rushed around the house, trees, and shop. That’s why mud and mail boxes and such ended up there. The foot deep, sticky mud which settled in the garden area remained under about a foot of water for about a week.

As the water level began to subside, Stretch and I noticed something sticking out of the water about 30 feet west of the driveway. I didn’t want to trudge out in that sticky mud, so Stretch decided to check it out. When he got close, he got a sick look on his face. He could discern that we had been seeing the boot of a flood victim. It was a man by the name of McCrea who had been helping the Daw family in Wilford. We heard that they had been watching for the flood to come from the Teton River to the south of the Daw home. They were trapped when part of the flood went north up Hog Hollow and came upon them from behind. It took about six of us to carry Mr. McCrea out to the road since his clothing was so full of heavy, dense mud. About a week later another body was found in the canal a half mile to the west near Vernon Mortensen’s place.

East of Dad’s place the canal banks had been washed out, so we continued to have water running through the yard for a week or more. This provided some rinse water to help clean up some of Mom and Dad’s stuff. Dad had a cub cadet riding lawn mower which had a blade for the front. I got the tractor cleaned up well enough to run, and we used it to push the foot deep mud out of his shop. Dad and mom stayed at our home for a month or two, then found an apartment in Rexburg near campus.

When they got a HUD hut (Housing and Urban Development trailer), they stayed in it at their place for about a year until the Feds and the State could decide who owed Dad what. Dad and Mom built a new home in Wilford, a quarter mile east of our home. We had some framing/wall raising family building days. Everyone pitched in to construct the home, put down the well, pour concrete, etc. A year later Dad did the brick work, and I was his hod carrier. Dad hired a mover who loaded the 40X60 shop onto axels in one piece. They hauled it up highway 20 and delivered it at about 6:00 a.m. one morning. It completely filled both lanes of the highway. This whole area was a dust bowl the summer following the flood. Stinky silt covered every farm and field. The summer was dry and windy, and the sky was brown most of the time, especially in Wilford.

The Teton River bridges north of Teton were washed out. The Wilford church house had a huge hole in the east wall where the stage was. The flood waters went right through the recreation hall. The relief society had a tied quilt on the top shelf in the highest closet in the building. Water got up to it, but didn’t get it wet. Kind of like the parrot at Mom and Dad’s. They now refer to the quilt as the “miracle quilt.”

The Pre-flood Floods - By Dale Shirley

It was great to get the pictures that Scott sent me of the floods we had before the Teton dam was built. I didn't know the pictures even existed but I glad they do. With the full realization that I am now a senior citizen and subject to senior moments, I decided to write down what I remember of the floods. Hopefully the years haven't distorted too many of the facts. I remember two separate times that the floods surrounded the house.

It seems that the first one was the worst, but it could be that I was just older when the second one hit. My memory of the first one starts with a warm day in the spring of a very cold winter that had a lot of snow. There was a warm wind blowing out of the south and the playground at school became a sea of slush that we played in for a while until we got wet and cold. The wind was very strong and I remember sleeping upstairs and listening to it rattle the shingles as we went to bed. I remember being awakened in the early morning hours by mom. As we got dressed we could hear noise outside and looked out the window to see a National Guard dump truck dumping sand in the driveway. We went outside and helped dad build a barricade around the entrance the basement. It seems like we had a no sandbags so the barricade was built with straight sand around the steps to the basement.

It was still dark when I went back to bed and I slept late. As I woke up I noticed that the wind had stopped and it was light outside. As I looked out the house was completely surrounded by water. It seemed weird that it was so quiet and peaceful. I went downstairs where mom cooked us some breakfast and we watched dad sloshing around in some hip boots and tending to the dam and other concerns around the house.

I soon got bored hanging around the house so when I heard dad was going up the road, Neal and I went with him. We walked up towards Sugar and then followed the railroad tracks up to the overpass. There we found a source of our problem. The ice in the river had broken up into big chunks due to the quick thaw and because the railroad bridge and the road bridge were close together, the ice chunks had become clogged in the pilings of the bridges and were forcing the water out of the channel. There were a group of National Guardsmen there working on the ice. They had one of the men who was a bit heavy set standing out on the ice dam with a crow bar in his hands and a rope around his waist so he wouldn't fall through the ice. He would chip away with the crow bar in the ice and I remember the sweat just rolling off of him as he worked. When he would get a hole down a few feet in the ice they would put some dynamite that they had down the hole and put some sand bags on the hole and set it off. It would blow the sandbags up in the air and accomplished little else. We watched for a few minutes and then dad told us to come on and we went back down the tracks into Sugar City. We went to a house and as I remember, dad called him Stub Sondregger. Apparently dad knew this guy had some experience with explosives and dad convinced him to come with us. We went back up to the bridges and if anything, the situation was worse than when we left.

Dad went over to the National Guardsmen and probably with his connection as the Reserve unit CO, convinced them to let him give it a try. I don't think he had to talk very hard since I suspect that they were pretty discouraged with the progress they had made. Stub took a handful of dynamite sticks and wrapped them together and inserted the blasting cap. They walked along the banks of the river and found a place where an eddy in the water indicated that the water was moving down under the ice. They then pulled out several arm lengths of cord and then threw the dynamite in the eddy and fed out the cord and when it pulled tight he knew it was down under the ice. We all moved away from the river and took refuge behind a billboard that was beside the road. We were told to stand with our backs to the billboard and put our fingers in our ears and they set the explosion off. I got my first lesson in physics when they set it off. I learned that shock waves travel faster in water than they do in the air. We were standing knee deep in water and when the charge went off, it felt like two giant hands gave my legs a squeeze under the water and I just about jumped out of my boots. But then the sound of the explosion hit and it was the kind of boom that pounds on your chest and just about knocks the wind out of you. That was followed by rain as a mist of water came falling down all around us. Even though I was standing with my back to the blast I could see chunks of ice and debris splashing down into the water well beyond where we were standing.

When we were given the all clear, we looked around the sign and the sight was impressive. Huge chunks of ice had been lifted out of the channel and were piled on the bridge and banks of the river. I remember thinking that it almost looked like a giant birds nest. The National Guardsmen were pleased with the progress that had been made and grouped around dad and his buddy as they set up the next charge and they repeated the process again. This time we got near the end of the sign and peeked around as they set off the charge. They must have gotten the charge too close to the bridge because it looked like the whole bridge jumped when they set it off. Maybe it didn't but it sure looked like it.

As we walked back to the bridge, we could see that the remaining ice against the pilings had been pretty well shattered and was beginning to wash through the pilings. We left the National Guardsmen to handle things from there and walked back down the tracks to the Salem highway where we parted company with Dad's buddy and walked back to the house.

The only other thing I remember about the flood is being really bored, so we would go upstairs with dads .22 and look through the scope at chunks of wood floating by the house and when we found a mouse on one of them we would shoot at them. I rarely hit one, but cruel as it sounds, the shot would usually knock them off the raft so I would follow the rodent as he swam around looking for something else to climb up on, and when he did, I would shoot at him again.

The other flood I remember was the one that came a few years later. I found out after dad had left that he had gone up to the overpass again so I took off by myself to see if I could catch up. As I got to the tracks I could see some men walking along down the track so I assumed it was Dad and took off trying to catch up. I came to a spot where the railroad ties had been pulled out from under the rails and the water was flowing under the rails. There was a man standing there as I got there but I didn't pay much attention to him. Determined to catch up to Dad, I started across the rails hanging on to the top curved part of the rail with my hands and walking on the bottom flange of the rails. The man asked me if I was sure I wanted to do that but I went ahead anyway and worked my way across. As I got out near the middle of the rail it started to oscillate from side to side. That coupled with the water moving from right to left just a few inches below the rails made it difficult to concentrate and keep my balance. I managed to get across and as I turned around and looked back, the man was no where to be seen. I don't know if guardian angels really exist but I have often wondered if the man was sent there to keep an eye on me while I did something stupid. I hurried on up the tracks and caught up to the men about the time they got to the river bridge only to find out that Dad was not among them. I looked around the river bridges and he wasn't there either so I went back down the tracks. I evidently didn't learn anything because I went over the water on the rails like I did before. I don't know how deep the water was but I do know that it was cold and moving pretty fast. I had no other idea where Dad had gone so I just went back home. The only other event I remember about the second flood is that a big caterpillar tractor pushed an opening through Uncle Fred’s ditch bank down the road between our house and Browning’s house so the water could move through there and I heard later that Fred wasn’t too happy about it.

Janet Shirley Howell's Flood Story

The day the Teton dam broke, Ard and I had gone to Lagoon Amusement Park. We were totally unaware that the dam had broken until we got back to Salt Lake and got word from Stretch. Mom and dad were in Salt Lake for Chris’s baby blessing. I remember we went to church at Stretch’s ward long enough for Chris to be blessed, then we all got up and left to head for Idaho. If I remember right, we traveled up to Idaho in a three-car caravan, with mom and dad leading the way. We had to detour east up through Lava Hot Springs, Victor, Driggs and almost to Ashton because of road closures resulting from the flood waters before we could get down to Neal and Cathie’s place to spend the night.








The next morning we got up and headed down to mom and dad’s place. We had to walk in from the north until we got to their place. I was shocked at the devastation. Railroad tracks were ripped up and standing on their sides like a picket fence, trees had been flattened, fences were swept away. Mom and dad had a big steel building in their backyard and the east side of it was caved in and the door on the west was pretty much ripped off.





Mom and dad had a parrot named Mrs. Bird that Neal and Stretch had sent home from their missions in Brazil. How that bird survived the flood, I’ll never know, other than she was in a cage high enough that the water didn’t reach her. If memory serves me, Scott had waded in earlier in the day and retrieved her and taken her to a safe place.

When we went in the house there was a water line in the living room showing how deep water had gotten inside. There was mud and straw from the neighbor’s barnyard inside the house.
We all went to work trying to salvage what we could. We shoveled mud until the guys were able to rip the carpet up from the floor and haul it outside. (Notice the water line on the TV, also Jenna's baby picture is on top of the TV. This was where Scott had written in the mud the day before, "Scott was here, I have the parrot.")

Sometime mid-morning, I remember the guys coming inside the house to tell the womenfolk not to look out the kitchen window to the west. Well, of course, the first thing we did was go look out the window. Some poor man had drowned in the flood and his body was just below the surface of the water near the garden. Somehow word was transmitted to the authorities and a helicopter was dispatched to transport the victim. I remember the guys struggling through the mud, carrying the man out to the road where he could be picked up. (The photo at left came out in a Utah paper. It was recognized by Stretch's mother-in-law, who saved it for us. It shows the men carrying the victim.)








I remember Mom cobbling lunch together and we sat out in the front yard on kitchen chairs eating our lunch. (The photo at left shows everyone eating lunch on kitchen chairs lined up on the sidewalk in about six inches of water. Dad is sitting in the recliner at the end of the sidewalk. This was shortly before the victim was retrieved.)







(The photo at left shows the refrigerator which had tipped over on its back during the flood. Mom had opened the door, which had been water-tight, and made sandwiches out of what was left inside. What resourcefulness!)

We then went back to work until it was getting dark, then waded back out to Neal and Cathie’s place. Not a soul complained about the hard work, but our work pales in comparison to mom and dad’s courage when facing the destruction of their home and valuables. How they kept their composure, I’ll never know. Material things can be replaced, but so many photos, keepsakes and other things were ruined.

There were many stories that circulated after the flood, but one of the funny ones was about Pig Evans, a man who lived near Sugar City. The story was that when the flood warning went out, he rounded his pigs up into his trailer house and when the flood hit, they floated away together. Truth or fiction, I don’t know.


At some point following the flood, the government brought in trailers for the people who had lost their homes in the flood. Mom and dad moved into one of these trailers. It was nicknamed "The HUD Hut." When the road alongside mom and dad’s place became passable, it turned into a thoroughfare and the dust from that road was unbelievable. Mom and dad lived in the Hud Hut until their new home was completed in the Wilford area.

(The first photo below shows the HUD Hut which was provided by the government after the flood. Notice how well things had been cleaned up. The photo below shows the ever-present dust the filled the skies during the following months.)

Teton Dam Disaster, By Scott Shirley

The Teton Dam Disaster of June 5, 1976, actually began with the Flood of 1962. Early spring melting, coupled with ice-jams in the North Fork of the Teton River, caused extensive flooding in the Sugar City area. The following three photos at left were taken during the Flood of '62 from the picture window of our home, showing the view to the east. I remember the water coming through the field. I had built a snow fort on the lawn and was confident my ten years of mortal experience could fashion a snow fortress that would keep the water out. Needless to say, it didn't last very long.

This is the view to the south, showing our front yard. The water was not too deep on the road for the cars to get through. There was a lot of talk about evacuating, but Dad was determined to stay. The car is our 1953 Ford. The water was about two-feet deep according to what Mom had written on the back of this photo. Irving Ball's home is shown to the south.












This was the view to the north, showing Dad's tractor and boat. Browning's home is shown to the north. Neal and Dale would watch out the upstairs window with the .22 and pick off mice floating on pieces of debris. Believe me, they were much better off than trying to survive.














The photo at left shows Sugar City on February 12, 1962. The railroad track is shown going from lower left to upper right, with Sugar City on the right and St. Anthony off in the distance to the north. Our home was just out of camera range center-left. Some of the citizens of Sugar took it upon themselves to dynamite the ice blocking the river by the overpass just north of the city. I remember hearing the booms and wondering what was going on. The ditch to our east was acting as a dike and flooding our house. Dad cut a path for the water to get through. Some of the neighbors did not approve, but repairs were made to the ditch later.

There was a definite need to control the waters of the Teton, so plans were made to prevent such occurrences as the Flood of '62. It was to prevent floods, provide water storage as well as recreation. Little did we know the foundation of such a huge disaster was being laid. The illustration at left shows the path of the water that flooded when the dam collapsed in 1976.

On the morning of June 5, water began leaking on the west side, shown here. The water had been rising on the east side at a rate of about three feet per day. They dispatched bulldozers to plug the leak. One is shown on top of the dam to the left.

This photo and the one above came out in Time Magazine. It shows two D-9 bulldozers falling into the leak. A whirlpool was developing on the east side. It was obvious that the problem was more than they could handle.















Someone that Mom worked with took the photos at left. The erosion continued at an ever-increasing pace until it was fully breached. I had just moved my family from Idaho Falls into Sugar two days earlier. The previous day my wife gave birth to my second child, Jeff. I had stayed with my father-in-law until we could get moved into our apartment. That morning, as I tried to unpack, I had the feeling I should forget it and go and be with Jenna and my mother-in-law. When I drove up into the yard, my mother-in-law, Dorothy, came out and told me the Teton Dam had broken. My thoughts went back to the flood of 1962. We all thought it would be "more of the same." We expected about a foot or so of water. We all thought we should stay together, so I left my car at Brent Kinghorn's and we left for Rexburg Hill. I walked back to help sandbag the bridge north of Rexburg and was told that with the amount of water on the way, there was no hope. I walked back up the hill to the lawn in front of the Lincoln Elementary. Jean Kinghorn, Dorothy Kinghorn, Jenna and I, watched the water roll in from the northeast. As houses started floating around, Jean said, "That is not a good sign."

Autobiography of Ross Shirley

The following was taken from Ross' genealogy book. I was not aware that he had taken so much time to write his history. I tried to leave as much of the original grammar in the same way he wrote it. This is a great opportunity to hear his story they way he actually told it:

I, Ross Shirley, was born at our home in Salem on June 25, 1912. Dr. Shupe came down from Sugar City in a horse and buggy and delivered a baby boy to James Frederick Shirley and Sarah Francis Virgin Shirley. That’s when I came into the picture. I was the 8th of eleven children. We grew up in a five-room frame house in Salem, Madison County, Idaho. Population of Salem – about 200 people.

I was given a blessing in the old Salem chapel by George Inman, On August 4, 1912. I was baptized a member of the church in the irrigation canal that ran by the front of our home by Peter Mortensen. He baptized his son, Floyd, and me the same day since we were close neighbors and were born just a few hours apart. Christian Mortensen confirmed me in July 1920 and I was ordained a Deacon by George Hogge. I was ordained a Priest in 1931 and an Elder by David Archibald on May 22, 1932. I was President of the Elders Quorum from 1937 to 1939. I was ordained a Seventy by Milton R. Hunter on May 15, 1949.

I was ordained a High Priest by Edward S. Covington on February 11, 1968. Was High Priest Group Leader in Wilford Ward, St. Anthony Stake from 1979 to 1983.

My earliest recollections were when I was about five or six years old. At that time we ran a dry-farm east of Dubois, Idaho. Water was hauled from Camas Creek in a tank mounted on a wagon. The water was pumped by hand into the tank then hauled eight to ten miles to the ranch and allowed to drain into a cement cistern for culinary purposes. Also, to water the livestock. Periodically the cistern had to be thoroughly drained and cleaned. I was often lowered to the bottom by a rope and assisted in bailing out athe last few gallons of water which often contained a few grasshoppers and stink bugs.

We also had a ranch in Kilgore where we pastured cattle and put up hay. I remember wading in the ice-cold creek that ran nearby. It was there that I was the first to come down with “mump’s.” That fall I came home to Salem and I started my first year of school at Sugar City. When we were farming at Dubois, Dad bought our first automobile – a Model T. Ford. I remember getting stuck in the sand with it on our way across the desert north west of St. Anthony.

My health, as a rule, was pretty good when I was growing up. As I said before, I got the mumps when I was about six and nearly the whole family got the “flu” when that epidemic came around. We were nearly all seriously ill but all survived. Rod was the only one that didn’t come down with it. My most serious accident happened when I was about 12 years old. Rod and I were running across a cattle guard on the railroad track in Salem. They were the open type with ties about 10 inches apart. My foot slipped through and I fell forward tearing the ligaments loose in the back of my leg. Other than having my tonsils taken out when I was about 14 I didn’t see much of hospitals until I was well into my fifties. It was then that I had stomach ulcers and had the lower part of my stomach removed. About ten years later, I had an operation for a prostate condition and a year later had to have a kidney stone removed. My latest visit to the hospital, 1984, was to have some excess cartilage and bone removed from my right shoulder. Now, three months later, it is much improved.

Religion always played an important part in our home as we were growing up. Mother always saw to it that we attended church regularly, and it was through the faith and prayers of my parents that we all pulled through the “flu” epidemic without losing anyone. (Pictures at left provided by Aunt Myrtle from her journal).

Economic conditions were real bad when we were growing up. Father died in 1924 and Mother still had eight or nine children living at home – in ages from about 8 to the low twenties. We all worked on the farm which Leo took over and managed to eke out a living. The worst part came in late twenties when the depression struck. I was a senior in high school at Sugar City at that time and I remember the day the Sugar City Bank closed it’s doors. This was a serious blow to me as all the student body funds were in the bank which meant that all of our student activities were seriously hampered – including no year book. That was the one year that I really wanted one as I was student body president, captain of the football team and co-=captain of the basketball team.

We had about a dozen milk cows that kept us busy. Rod and I would get up in the morning, do the milking and feeding, then go to school and come home at night and do the same thing over. It was a tough way to make a living but that was about all that kept us going. Jobs were hard to find during the summer and if we did find one, it only paid one dollar a day. When I graduated from Ricks College, my first teaching job, in Teton Basin, paid $75.00 per month. The next year I got a teaching job at Sugar City that paid $90.00 per month and I didn’t have to pay rent and board. This was a considerable improvement. In fact, Bonnie and I traded in our old model A Ford for a brand new Ford V-8 which cost $750.00 – right off the show-room floor.

It was about this time that Leslie was called on a mission to Florida, so Bonne, Sallie, and I did what we could to keep him out there – as we were the only ones still at home who had a job. Then after he got back Rodney was called to a mission in England. So – Sallie and I each sent him about $35 per month. I don’t know how he managed on that amount but that was about it.

Things went on like that until 1939 when I heard of some job opportunities in the air-craft plants in California. So I went to Los Angeles and found a job with Lockheed – building P-38’s. This was a little more interesting than teaching school and the pay was much better. The P-38 was the pursuit plane that had two booms extending from the wings to the tail section. These booms were the part we built in our section of the plant. We got so we could put all the parts in a jig and complete it in one 8 hour shift. In fact, we got so far ahead that they sent some of us to another part of the plant to help them catch up. After I had been working at Lockheed for a year or so, the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The whole city of Los Angeles and near by towns was blacked out and we all expected air attacks on L.A., especially the aircraft plants. But nothing materialized.

The attack on Pearl Harbor really stirred everyone up. So – a lot of the younger plant workers were going down to the Post Office Building in Los Angeles and signing up with the Navy which was offering some pretty good ratings to any0one with special skills – such as air-craft mechanics, etc. So I went down to see what they had to offer. The best they would offer me was Seaman 2nd Class and I said “Make that 1st Class and I sign on the dotted line.” The recruiter said he couldn’t do any better at the time. So, I said “When you can, let me know,” and went back to Lockheed.

A few months later, 1942, I went to Pocatello, Idaho with Otto Jorgensen a nd took some tests to see if they would accept me in the air-corp to train to be a pilot. We both passed the test and signed up. However, they said all of the schools were filled at that time and to go home until they called us. Well, I went home and waited but nothing happened. So I went to Ogden, Utah and got a job in construction work at Clearfield and Hill Field. After about a year, I finally decided I had waited long enough so I wrote the Air Force and told them I either wanted “in-0or-out.” So they said they had all the pilots they needed so I got out. I then joined the Merchant Marine and took three months training at Catalina Island, California. And upon graduation, they took the two from each class and sent us to an officers school in Florida. After graduation from St. Petersburg, they sent me to New Orleans, Louisiana for more training. Here we took boat training on Lake Ponchartrain and also on the Mississippi River. One time we sailed down the Mississippi – out into the ocean and to Florida. When we got back the word got around that the army T. Corp would offer us a commissi8on to come work for them. So a lot of us accepted and we became army 2nd lieutenants and were sent to Fort Gordon Johnson for further training.

Finally, we were sent to the P.O.E. in San Francisco, California and landed in New Guinea. After joining a large convoy we headed for the Philippines and landed at Tacloban, Layte. This was a month or so after the initial landing so things were still a little unsettled. We often had air raids and had to head for the fox holes but outside of a few bombs nothing much exciting happened.

After being ashore for a week or so we were assigned to our first shp – an army rescue tug. With this, we were to go out with convoys and in case of enemy attack we were to tow in any disabled or wrecked ships. Our first trip was from the Philippines to New Guinea. We had trouble keeping up and the convoy commander must have finally decided after a few days that we were too slow so just pulled away and left us. It was then that I hoped the Jap subs wouldn’t find us or we would have been sitting ducks. However, we finally made it and the army decided that we were better qualified for towing barges than rescuing people so we towed barges between New Guinea and various islands in the Philippines for a long time – 7 round trips, in fact. We also made numerous short runs and finally towed a floating machine shop from Manila to Okinawa and on up to Japan.

It was in Japan that we put our ship, a 143 foot tug, in dry dock and had some repairs made. It was in the spring of 1945. The cherry blossoms were out and the country was really beautiful. However, the outskirts of Tokyo and Yokohama were a shambles of burned out buildings. Nothing much left but smoke-stacks and rusting metal. After three months here we sailed back to the Philippines and waited our turn to come home. In August 1946, I boarded a Victory Ship in Manila and after sixteen days, landed in San Francisco. Sally and Howard were there to meet me. However, I had to travel to Ft. Lewis, Washington to get my discharge 16 Sept. 1946.

When I got home I took a trip to Ogden, Utah, to see a girl that I had met on a blind date just before I went overseas. After a brief courtship, I decided she was the one for me and we were married in the Logan Temple on 14 May 1947. After our honeymoon in California we remodeled the old Tom Dalling home and settled down in Salem, Idaho. There we raised four children, three boys and a girl – in that order.

As the kids were growing up, we always saw to it that everyone went to church on Sunday and Marge always took them to Primary as she worked in that organizat65ion for many years. This gave the kids a good understanding of the Gospel and aroused an interest for all the boys to go on a mission. Neal and Dale went to Brazil and Scott to Guatemala and El Salvador. After getting back from the service I went into construction work with Fred, Rod, and Fred’s boys. For a long time we did the lion’s share of the building in Rexburg. Besides the framing and finish work, Rod and I did the brick-laying. So when we started a house, we did about everything but the plumbing and electrical work and the painting. (Family photo left to right front, Janet, Scott, 2nd Neal, Dale, Ross, Marge, about 1959).

We always kept quite busy in construction work but quite often found time to do a little fishing. Our favorite spot was Staley’s Springs on Henry’s Lake. When we first started to fish there in the 30’s and 40’s, the fishing was fabulous. There were many cut-throats and rainbows that averaged 3 to 4 pounds. Once in a while we would hook onto a tackle-buster like 8-10 pounds. Rod caught one that weighed 16 lbs. And the limit was 15 lbs and a fish. So we always came home with a good supply of fish. I remodeled an old refrigerator and made a smoker out of it. Some people used to say that Henry’s Lake fish were too mossy and not good to eat, but everyone seemed to like them when they came out of that smoker.

Hunting has always been a favorite sport of mine. Some of the most fun trips were when we used to hunt antelope out on Birch Creek. When we first started to hunt them, not many people applied for a permit so nearly every fall one or two of us were lucky enough to get a permit and away we’d go.

The antelope weren’t too good to eat but it was great sport to chase them around and finally get into position for a good shot. I still get a charge out of hunting deer and elk and go somewhere every fall. My problem is – I-m always going with young fellows that like to climb the high peaks after the big bucks. Pretty soon I’m going to have to stop that.

During the summer of 1960 I was working with the other Shirley boys on the new library at Ricks College and I was offered a job as building inspector for the college on the new Science building. This looked like a pretty good deal so I went to work for them. After that building was completed, I worked for them steady as a maintenance foreman in charge of carpentry and painting. This I did for several years and then transferred into the Security Depart. This was real interesting work and I stayed there until I retired in 1977.

It was as a police officer at the College that I became quite interested in pistol shooting and went to several shoots each year throughout the state and Montana, where I picked up a few trophies. Even now that I am retired, I’m still an active participant. The eyes are not quite so good but I can still out-shoot most of these young bucks. Otherwise, I quit going.

It was quite interesting to work at the same college that I had attended as a boy and see all the changes that were taking place. When I went to Ricks in 1933-35, there were only two buildings. When I started to work at Ricks there were three buildings and I watched it grow to its present size. After I retired from Ricks, they asked me to come back and supervise the construction of the new stadium. This I accepted and it was a pleasure to watch the new building go up and get paid for it. It reminded me of when I used to play football for Ricks. We had no stadium, no bleachers, or anything along that line. But we still won the championship and the right to go to the Hawaiian Islands. That was the first and probably the last time Ricks has sent a team to the Islands and I was real lucky to come along at the right time.

Just before I retired from work at Ricks College, the Teton Dam burst on the 5th of June 1976. Marge and I had gone to Salt Lake City, Utah to bless our new grandson, Christopher. Just afternoon on Saturday, we got a call from Neal stating that the dam had burst. We watched the news come in on television and expected the worst because they said hundreds of people had lost their lives. After church services the next day, we headed home. Dale, Janene and two of their friends came up with us to help. We couldn’t come directly home because of blockades and washed out bridges so we had to detour up through Lava, Palisades, Victor, Driggs, and almost to Ashton, then back to St. Anthony. (Photo view from northwest corner of lot looking southeast, just after June 5, 1976).

We spent that night at Neal’s home and went down the next morning to see what was left of the old homestead. The approaches to the bridge on the Teton River were washed out and filled with running water but the bridge was still there. So we waded to the bridge, climbed upon it and then waded a quarter mile or so to higher ground. The house was full of gooy muck and the basement full of water. Everything on the first level was ruined. The steel building had the east side caved in and the big door on the west was torn away. Many stored items had been washed away. The new Ford pick-up and Bronco had been flooded as well as the snow machine, snow blower, lawn mower, etc., just to mention a few major items.

We all pitched in and salvaged what we could but many of the salvaged items were ruined later because there was no place to store things out of the weather. The mice also played havoc with clothing and other items before we got our new house built. The next spring we had things pretty well squared away with the government and started construction on our new home. I did most of the work but the kids were good to help with the framing, plumbing, wiring, and painting. Finally, we got it about completed so that we had Thanksgiving dinner in it that fall. The next spring I had a mover come in and move the steel building up to it’s present location. This helped things considerable. Many of the pine trees at the old location were also moved to the present location.

During my life-time I have come from the horse-and-buggy days to the jet-age. As kids, our main means of transportation were horses. We used to drive the cows to pasture each day on horse-back. The pasture was down on the ranch where Leo and Mary lived – about 3 miles away. So herding cows took a good share of my time as a small boy. Later on we finally got a bicycle and eventually a model T Ford. My first car was a 1929 Model A, then a new ’35 V-8, then a 1937 Oldsmobile. After getting out of the service, Marge and I bought a 1949 Plymouth;. The next one was a ’63 Plymouth which lasted until we bought a new 1968 Ford Torino. Incidentally, we have 183,000 miles on this car and are still driving it – even though we have a new Chrysler New Yorker. It, the ’68 Ford, has never had an overhaul of any kind and is still in good running condition. I’m quite sure we can get 200,000 miles on it if we live long enough. (Photos of cars borrowed from various internet sites).

Yes, transportation has really changed during my life-time. Last fall we flew to Alaska via Western Airlines. This spring we flew to Washington D.C. – took Amtrak to New York City and then flew back home. That’s a far cry from the way it was when I was a boy.

Sarah Francis Virgin Shirley

Sarah Shirley Tells of Pioneer Life in Salem Ward Area (Newspaper article, Rexburg Standard Journal, Wednesday September 18, 1957).

Throughout the valley, especially in the area around Salem, the name of Shirley has been prominent for almost sixty years. Mrs. Sarah Virgin Shirley, who came with her husband to this area in 1898, still lives in the family home in Salem, a witness to the achievements of her eleven children, 50 grandchildren, and 21 great-grandchildren. A pioneer of Madison County, Mrs. Shirley has seen much development and change in the valley since she first settled here. (Note: Ross' military picture is shown behind Sarah on the mantle.)

She was born July 22, 1876, in St. Charles, Idaho. Still vivid in her mind are the experiences of her girlhood in that early Idaho settlement. She remembers especially the “wood hauling parties” which brought the men of the community together to go up into the timber and cut trees. When the wood was cut, it was piled in the public square in front of the school house, and a day would be set aside for sawing and splitting. That night when the work was done, the whole town would join in a public dinner and dance. The entire supply would be donated to the school house for its winter fuel.

Education Important. It was in those early days in St. Charles that Sarah Virgin first became convinced of the importance of education. Her father, Amos Moses Virgin), an English immigrant, never had the opportunity for much schooling. But eager to learn, he promoted study groups among the married couples in his community. Meeting in the Virgin home, they would read, discuss, and try to improve themselves intellectually.

Marries Jim Shirley. In October of 1896, Sarah was married to James Frederick Shirley and two years later, when their son Frederick was a year old, they left St. Charles for Rexburg. They arrived there October 27, 1898, going on to find a farm in the Salem area. “It seemed like a wilderness,” says Mrs. Shirley of that first farm, “only a few acres were plowed; most of the country was sagebrush. There were not even many willows along the river and I could see my husband coming with the horse and wagon soon after he crossed the South Teton River.”

While Mr. Shirley farmed, Mrs. Shirley settled down to housekeeping in the log house which was already on the farm. Wash day was especially troublesome to her. She had to pump the water, carry it into the house, do her washing, carry the water out again, then carry more in and out to rinse with. A pump handle and a washboard served as the only “automatic” washing equipment of those days, and pioneer women power did what electric power does today. In general, housekeeping was so consuming that “there was just no time left to fool.”

Fuel for Winter. While the forest had been close to the settlement in St. Charles, in Salem it was a real task to get wood for fuel and timber for buildings. The trees were far away and the roads bad. One year is especially clear in Mrs. Shirley’s mind. It was just before her daughter Myrtle was born, and the family needed wood to burn and to build a barn. Mr. Shirley was hesitant about leaving his wife, but finally it became necessary if they were to have fuel for the winter. Early one morning he left with a group of neighbors, traveled up over the Rexburg bench through “Calamity” and into the timber. That night as they were cutting wood, Mr.Shirley felt he should be at home with his wife. But it was dangerous to go over “Calamity” at night and the men held him until morning. He returned the next day to find that his daughter had been born at one o’clock the night before.

Years later, recalls Mrs. Shirley, the mines opened in the Southeast part of the Teton Valley and the three day wood trips were replaced by three day trips for coal.

In those days the railroad went through Market Lake (Now Roberts). For two years, Mr. Shirley worked at the siding there putting up ice for the railroad. The men would pull ice out of the river, pack it in a shed there, then the train would take it to Cokeville to a better storage place. (Note: Aunt Ada said there was an ice house on the family property where they would store the river ice in sawdust, which would make it last a long time. With the last remaining ice they would make ice cream).

When the Shirleys first arrived in Salem, there was one tiny store there. “Very tiny,” Mrs. Shirley emphasizes. It was located where the new church house is now, and sold the settlers staples such as bacon, cheese, and sugar. For most of their supplies they had to go to the Z.C.M.I. store on the corner south of the Court House in Rexburg.

The first school house in Salem was a small log building with a dirt roof. Although Mrs. Shirley’s children were too small to attend that first school, she still remembers Mrs. Luella Garner teaching there.

Later, a big square two-story school house was built in Salem. This building was important to the older residents as well as the children for it brought to the community some of its most colorful citizens. Mrs. Shirley had high regard for one of these teachers, Mr. Octave U. Ursenbach, a Salt Lake Man, who was much interested in music. During his years there, he organized the Salem Silver Band, of which Mrs. Shirley’s husband was a member.

The residents of Salem were enthusiastic drama fans who didn’t need professional actors to enjoy a play. The local people would get together in the old log meeting house and put on their own productions. One of Mrs. Shirley’s favorites was the play “East Lynn.”

In this same log building the Salem people gathered for dances. George Larsen was one of the orchestra members who came there to play.

When the new school house was built the dances were held there, for it had an excellent maple floor which attracted the attention of the whole country.

An early day musical organization that provided entertainment for the people of this area was the Salem Silver Band. This group of musicians is pictured here as they appered many years ago. The band was organized by Prof. Octave U. Ursenbach, who also taught in the Salem School. (Note: James Frederick Shirley is second from the left on the back row).

Sports, such as basketball and baseball, were important means of recreation. Mrs. Shirley also recalls with pleasure the ward Sunday School outings in “McMinn’s Pasture,” the site of old Fort Henry. When the Shirley’s settled in Salem, a Ward had already been organized and George H. B. Harris was bishop. Attending meetings in the little log building, Mrs. Shirley little thought that years later she would sit in a modern brick meeting house presided over by her grandson, Gordon, as Bishop.

Church Important. The Church has always been an important part of Sarah Shirley’s life. She has worked in every church organization except Primary. At 16 she was made a Sunday School teacher in St. Charles and she taught in Salem for many years. She was the first Gleaner teacher in the Salem Ward. In 1955 she was released after many years as a Relief Society visiting teacher.

Although she insists her life has not been exciting, together with her husband she built a home and helped to settle a valley. When her husband died July 24, 1924, she went on alone to raise her eleven children and to work for the good of her community. Today, all of her five sons, Frederick, Leo, Leslie, Ross, Rodney, live in Salem. Her daughters are Myrtle Belnap, Salt Lake City; LeVina (Bonnie) Jorgensen, Garland, Utah; Sarah Lund, Redwood City California; Hazel Hunter, Fresno, California; Jennette Hadley, Emmett; and Ada Moss, Idaho Falls. (Note: Ada is the remaining sibling as of March, 2011)