The smelter accident

Written by Annie's Grandson, Peter McDonald:
 
Tuesday evening, November 20, 1917

Annie's husband, Elmer, is seriously injured in a smelter accident.

Annie woke up to feed her boys breakfast on Wednesday, November 21, 1917 and recalls,
"I was feeding the children their breakfast one morning and heard a car drive up and I looked out of the kitchen window and saw a man get out of the car and start to come to the house. And I knew that he was a man who had been working at the smelter with Elmer and I just knew something had happened, so I stepped at the door and said, “What’s the matter, what happened?” And he acted like he didn’t want to tell me. And he came up closer and he said, “Well, Elmer got burned last night.” And I said, “Bad?” And he didn’t answer. But there was a voice just over my left shoulder that said, “Yes bad, but he’s not going to die”.

Months later, Annie's husband is starting to get better;

Annie said that her husband was starting to get better. It was probably in early or late 1918, “After Elmer got to feeling better, he took Mr. Dillman’s place for a year to farm. Mr. Dillman got discouraged because it got harder every year to raise vegetables because the cotton farmers had come in there and pumped the water, the underground water out until the wells lowered down and had to pump so much water for vegetables. And so Elmer didn’t make anything on the farm.

And it (the windmill) pumped more water than we needed, so we were able to make a little garden, so we dug up the ground with a shovel and made a garden and we raised quite a lot of vegetables. And I raised chickens, I bought the chickens from Mr. Sever, he lived there and he hatched his own chickens, had a little incubator, so I bought my chickens from him. Paid him ten cents a piece the day they were hatched. And I bought me a hundred chickens and so I raised these chickens. Then we had all our eggs, our milk, and our butter and vegetables and it wasn’t very much groceries that we had to buy. Then in the summertime, the creek would come down and water would come on part of our land and we planted beans. So, we raised all the beans that we needed.”

In the middle of a dilemma of her husband being unable to support the family with the money from the smelter and the farm he was trying to manage failing, Annie became resourceful and helped the family be self-supportive so that they didn't need any money for groceries. Truly, being in the country with land to grow crops and raise animals had proved to be another great blessing that came from Annie's prompting her husband to make good on the $50 he had put down on some land back when they had lived in Douglas.

Events in Annie's life in 1911

It is reported that Annie's big brother Ben left Colonia Morelos in the late summer of 1911, as rebels in Mexico were driving foreigners out of their country. Althera and family were more than likely out of the area and on the Arizona side by now it is imagined.

Annie said, “Mother was working in Douglas, so Ben decided he wanted to come back to the United States and he came out with his family and he picked up Fred and Don in Douglas and took them with him to Show Low, Arizona and that’s where Ben and Edith lived. And they had them a nice, little place there.”

December 15, 1911
Article in the Davis County Clipper, a Bountiful, Utah Newspaper that James Hibbert worked at at one time,
"Mrs. Mary Ann McNeil of Mexico is spending the winter with her father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. William Smith of Porterville. Mrs. Smith is eighty-one and Mr. Smith is eighty-eight years old."

So, with Annie's brother Ben taking her younger brothers up to Show Low with him, Annie's mother left to see her aged parents. Annie said, “after Jess had served his apprenticeship, he was sent to Salt Lake City to machine shops there and so then mother went to Salt Lake or to Provo…it was Bountiful, Utah where she went where her mother and father lived . And she went there and stayed there with them for awhile.”

Annie's older brother Eph seemed to be the only sibling left in Douglas. He may have been in charge of the renting of the room they had for boarders.

The end of 1911, Annie had her third son, whom she named after her brother Jesse, whom she had grown up with, and who was now up in Utah.

Annie's son Jess reciting his autobiography said, “Peter Elmer Thompson, the subjects father, and his mother, Annie Frances McNeil Thompson and his two older brothers, Gilbert Elmer and Harry Wilbur had just enjoyed Christmas. So, Jess Lee Thompson was born at home on 4th Street in Douglas, Arizona on the 29th day of December, 1911. So, you can easily see that I am older than the state of Arizona, because the state of Arizona came into the Union on Valentine’s Day, 1912, and is often referred to as the Sweetheart State, very appropriately. Well my father told me sometime later, years later, that I cost him $10, that was the charge that Dr. Collins had at my delivery. But, while they were calling Arizona the Sweetheart State, my mother named me Jess for her older, favorite brother and my father gave me the name of Lee because it was the name of his long time friend, Lee Webb.”

Annie helps Jesse get a nice, cold drink of water

Annnie and her brothers

Annie said that her father built a dam so that they could have water, but she remembers that her little baby brother Willie was sick. She said her father had built a cradle for him. She said, "Mother wanted us to stay there and rock that cradle to keep him from crying." Annie says that her father had dug a well right under the dam and water would seep through and fill this little well up. She said they would use that water. Her older brother Jess and her were playing around and he got thirsty so he needed a drink, but knew if he went to get one in the house, his mother would make him sit and rock the cradle. So, he tried to convince Annie to hold onto his feet while he laid down and tried to get a drink from the well, so he wouldn't fall in. Annie says that she was trying to hold on, as Jessie kept getting closer and closer to the water, but she said she started getting pulled down too, so she turned him loose and, "he went down in that well head first". She said she didn't know how he ever got out, because she looked down there and his feet were just popping up out of the water. But, he got out of the well. Annie says about this time her mother came with a bucket to get a bucket of water and Jess was standing there all wet. So, she questioned Jess about how he got wet. Annie told her mother all about what happened. So, their mother told Jesse to get in the house. Annie said she stayed out there quite a while longer and then she went in the house and Jess was rocking the baby and his clothes were hung by the fireplace on some chairs to get dry and he had a kimono around him. Annie recalled, “I can still see him rocking the baby while his clothes dried. Our baby’s name was Willie and he died soon after that.”