History of Fred James Sabin, Sr.
Written
by Fred
James Sabin, Sr.
I was born August 25, 1894 in
Salem, Utah. I am the eleventh child of
Ambrose and Margaret South Sabin. I had
seven brothers and three sisters. My
brothers are George, John, Joseph, Benjamin, Frank, and
Leroy, William and Charles. My sisters
are Elizabeth, Amanda, and Elenor. In
1899, we moved from Salem, Utah to St. David, Arizona.
My father passed away when I was eleven years
old, I had to stop school to help make a living for my mother. I worked on farms from Benson to Marmoth and
the Gila valley.
Later on, I started working on the
Southern Pacific
railroad as a call boy and in other departments of the railroad. Later on, I quit the railroad
and worked in the mines in Bisbee, Arizona for a while.
On August 11, 1914 I went back to work on the
railroad in a place called Mescall in the signal department. In February 1915, I was transferred to
Tucson, and worked in the signal shop and maintained the signals near
Tucson. I liked those trips in the
country as I liked tamales very much and I could buy them for my dinner. The place was a block or so from my work, so
I would go over and get some. One day, I
went over to get some, the door was closed, so I went around to the
back of the
place. I noticed several dogs in the
yard fenced in. I opened the door and
walked in, there they were skinning a dog to make tamales.
Well, I didn’t buy any tamales and no one
else did, as I reported it to the city officers, and they closed up the
place.
I attended night classes in
electricity; which helped
me very much in signal work.
I rode six miles on a
motorcycle
to a little Mormon church in Binghampton.
It was there I met Edna Bingham and on October 15, 1915 we were
married. We lived in an apartment on
Church
Street. On December 22, I was promoted
to a signal foreman and a little box car home was furnished for us by
the
railroad company, and parked on a siding called Irene.
We spent Christmas with Mother in St. David,
and went to our little home on wheels January 1, 1916.
My gang bonded rails from
Tucson
to Benson. Two months later, we
were moved to a siding called Amole. The
work was completed by May 16, 1916. The
signal department assigned me to a relief maintainer job.
I was sent to Wilcox, Arizona for three
weeks. Then on to Sentinal for two
months, then we moved to Aztec where I worked until September 1, 1916
when I
was transferred to Estrella, where we lived a year.
While there, we had a little brown-eyed girl
come to live with us. We named her
Margaret Elizabeth. She was born July 8,
1917.
The last of July we had a
cloud
burst. I went to the telegraph office to
see if I had any message. The dispatcher
asked me if I would go see
how his wife and baby was. She was a very
small woman. She was standing on a chair
with her baby in
her arms. The water in her house was up
to my arm pits. I carried her and her
baby up to my home; which
was on a hill.
A month afterwards, while
riding
the motor car to work, it jumped the track and I hurt my hips. I went to the San Francisco Hospital. The doctors advised me to wear a cast, made
of canvas and steel stays, and to stay out of the motor car. I was sent back to Tucson and was given an
easier job. I worked as a traveling
electrician.
The first of October 1917, I
had
two weeks vacation coming to me. We took
our baby and went to Salt Lake City and had her sealed to us in the
Temple. We lived in Tucson for a year
and three months. On November 30, 1918 a
little tow-head came to live with us, we called him Fred, Jr. On December 1, 1918, I was assigned to a
maintainers job in Deming, New Mexico.
On December 4, I left Tucson and went to Deming to work. My wife wrote me she was coming to Deming
December 20th and would be on train No. 2.
I was in the depot when a telegram came that No. 2 train had
been
derailed, so I hopped a freight train and went to Lorgsburg. When I got there, I found out it was the
first No. 2 that was carrying baggage and Christmas express. So I knew my family was on the second No. 2
train. I got on that train and went on
to Deming with my family. When we
arrived there at nine p.m., there was 18 inches of snow and the wind
was
blowing but we were glad to be together again.
We had a lot of enjoyment in Deming as we went to old fashioned
dances
and had a nice bunch of friends and would have dances in our homes
every
Saturday night.
I helped organize the first
band
in Deming. I played the baritone and
saxophone. I was dressed and ready to go
to play in a band concert when an engineer on a cattle train told he
had
trouble, and wanted me to see what I could do to help.
He told me if I couldn’t help him the train
would be held up for several hours. The
fitting on the water injector was broken.
I fixed it and he was on his way in less than an hour. Later, I received a letter of merit from the
superintendent of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company.
Along with my railroad work, I
bought and sold cars and made radios and sold them, as radio had just
come out
and was hard to get. The first big radio
I made and made a cabinet for it, I sold it to Dr. Vickers and squared
a bill I
owed him for surgery on my wife.
While in Deming, a wee little
girl
come to live with us. She weighed two
and a quarter pounds, we named her Iva Mae.
In July 18, 1929, I was sent
to El
Paso. As I was unable to ride motor
cars, a signal shop was organized and I was one of three men that
worked in the
shop. Later on, more men went to work in
the shop and I was promoted to leading signal man. In 1932, I made a
gadget to
change journals in signal head.
Previously, the company would send a gang out to change them out. One man could do the job by himself with this
gadget. This is still used.
The Southern Pacific gave it the name
of Sabin, and it is still being used all
over the Southern Pacific system.
I had a little fix-it shop and
worked on electrical appliances. Most of
my work was for barber shop and beauty shops.
This I did on my days off and evenings.
On July 28, 1934,
Margaret married Leon Goodman. In 1936,
we bought us a home at 3701 Oxford Avenue.
We were living in a house furnished us by the railroad at that
time, so
we rented our home one year, and moved in it in 1937.
We had a lot of enjoyment along with the
work. I organized a square dance club,
started teaching two sets. Within a
year, there was seven square dance clubs organized;
which I was an honorary member. These
clubs were up and down the valley of the Rio Grande and in the vicinity
of El
Paso. Fred Jr. was married January 15,
1939. In 1940, I had to have surgery and
that was the last of my square dancing.
On February 28, 1959, I
retired from the railroad. I maintained
my fix-it shop until September 9, 1960.
We decided to buy a new car and a trailer and do a little
traveling. We rented our home and left El
Paso November
5, 1960 for Mesa. We did a lot of
endowment and sealing in the Mesa Temple during the winter. May 1, 1961 we left Mesa.
We went to Alamo, Nevada to visit a cousin,
Gertrude Bingham Nelson. We stayed there
a month, then we started to Heyburn, Idaho to visit relatives. We were within twenty eight miles of Ely,
Nevada the wind hit our trailer and jack-knifed it.
The car was first on two wheels on one side
and then on two wheels on the other, seemed like we were going over. It was that way for 200 feet before I got the
car and trailer to a stop. The front of
the trailer was banged up
and three big holes in it but we
didn’t mind that. We were thankful to
the Lord that He had
spared our lives.
We opened the trailer door to see how it looked inside. We just laughed, everything out of the
cupboards, icebox, and
stove were on the floor;
together dishes, Tide,
a half gallon of milk, along with the suds, flour, sugar, cocoa,
spices, pots
and pans. What a mess.
We closed the trailer door and went on. We
got to Wells, Nevada where we stayed in a
trailer park. It took us two hours that
night to clean up our trailer. Next
morning, we were on our way to Heyburn, Idaho.
We stayed a month there, and visited relatives in Twin Falls and
Rupert. Leaving our trailer in Heyburn,
we went to Idaho Falls and went through the Temple.
Then on to Cardston, Canada, and went through
that beautiful little Temple on the hill.
While up there, we saw some beautiful country.
We went through the Glacier National Park,
what a beautiful sight it was; mountains, lakes, glaciers, and
trees. On July 18th, we went back to
Heyburn, hooked on our trailer, and was on our way to Oregon, stopping
in Boise, Caldwell, and Weiser to visit relatives. Sightseeing, never saw so many dams and so
much water. We went on to Pennington,
Oregon, stayed there two days, then went on to Portland, Oregon. While there, we went to Grants Pass, Medford,
Crater Lake, the Oregon Caves, the Mystery House and Depot Bay. On the ocean, did a little fishing. We went to Washington, and up to Mt. Adams
and Spirit Lake. While there, we picked
enough huckleberries to can and bring back with us.
We left Oregon September 8,
1961
and stopped at Twin Falls, Heyburn, and Rupert for a week.
From there, we went to Logan and attended the
last session in the Logan Temple before it closed for October
conference. That was the 28th of September. We left the next morning for Ogden,
Utah. We stayed there a week visiting
relatives, then we went on to Salt Lake.
Stayed there a few days and visited our granddaughter and other
relatives. We went through the Salt Lake
Temple. It began to rain and snow, so we
went on to Provo and visited relatives.
While there, we drove to Manti and went through the Temple. We left Provo October 12 and drove to
Hurricane, Utah. While there, we
went to the St. George Temple. That day
we had the privilege of doing 36 sealings.
We stayed in Hurricane, Utah until the 30th of October. Then we left for Mesa, spending the night at
Hope, California, then drove on the next day to Mesa, arriving there
November
1, 1961. We stayed in Mesa that winter
and went to the Temple often. In June,
we went to Show Low, Arizona and parked in the Show Low Lake Trailer
Park,
where we have been coming the last four years, going back to Mesa for
the
winter. Show Low is in the White
Mountains of Arizona where there are lots of lakes and good fishing. We will have our Golden Anniversary October
15, 1965 this year. We have three
children, eight grandchildren and five great grandchildren.