Oral History by his son, Joe L. Jarvis
taken by
Roy L. Jarvis
Joe: My name is Joseph Lawrence.
Roy: You were born when?
Joe: I was born in Almagordo on November 22, 1924.
Roy: Your dad at that time was living in Almagordo?
Joe: Yea.
Roy: Before Almagordo, where did he live?
Joe: Before that he lived a while in Silver City.
Roy: Doing What?
Joe: He had what was called Silver Truck Line, running trucks between
here [El Paso] and Silver City. I can barely remember getting in the
big trucks. During this time, him [Joe Sr.--Joseph De Friez Jarvis] and
Ben were together and they went "quebrado". They went under and after
that he [Joe Sr.] went to Alamagordo and that's where I [Joe Jr.] was
born.
Roy: Before Alamagorgo, do you remember where he was working and where
he lived?
Joe: Well, he worked for the El Paso telephone company for quite a while
during this time. He was working on top of a telephone pole putting up
cross arms and he got overbalanced and went back. He had his safety belt
on and rather than drop the cross bar on a guy below and possibly kill
him, Joe--he hollered and they jumped back and then he dropped it, but
it broke his back. So that was the end of work with the telephone
company because back then they didn't have workman's compensation, so
they laid him off.
Roy: Do you remember when your dad was born?
Joe: He was born in Colonia Juarez and the first years of his life he
lived in Colonia Pearson, Garcia, and Pacheco. His Father [my
grandfather] made a railroad line from Casas Grande to Pacheco and
Garcia. It was in operation only a short time when Pancho Villa came
along and burned the trestles and they never rebuilt it.
Roy: Did he ever mention to you about his early life?
Joe: Not a lot, he didn't have too much of an education. Lehi and Ben
were probably the only ones who got good education. They were working
only on farms. A story that he told me was--Dad knew the Villistas were
coming in and he gathered all the horses from the colony and he brought
them to El Paso with another boy. He told me his name, but I can't
remember who it was. "17 year old kids!" One of Pancho Villas men
grabbed hold of his mother's favorite mare and wanted to steal her, but
he said: "You can't have her, it's my mother's favorite horse." The man
pulled a gun and was going to shoot him, but he said: "You can't have
her, it's my mother's favorite horse." and the next morning Dad and the
other kid got up before the Villistas and gathered up all the horses
from the colony and took them to El Paso.
Roy: Do you remember about his WWII experience?
Joe: He was in the Navy about 6 months, "that's all" in Florida.
Roy: When did he come back to El Paso.
Joe: He was in El Paso when my oldest sister was born, "Josephine" and
they moved to Alamagordo and Jean was born down in the valley in a house
with no floor--it was all dirt.
Roy: Did he ever mention about my Dad [Nephi]?
Joe: Nephi and Joe--never that I know of were as close as Joe and Ben
was. Ben and Joe went into a lot of different businesses
together--trucking business and hunting guide business together. They
would take hunters down into Mexico together. Dad and Ben were down in
Gallegos together and they had a small ranch there. And while I was
overseas, that's when he met Nina and Nina was a nurse and that's where
he met her. When I came back Dad and Mom were in the process of breaking
up and that was part of the reason.
He was playing house away from the house.
Roy: My dad and Joe were together when I was a kid. They had a small
ranch above Las Cruces.
Joe: Joe Sr. was divorced from mother at that time. He and I were not
close.
Roy: Time Heals everything.
Joe: When I came back from the service I was pretty sick. I had gone
from 180 lbs to 98 lbs.
Roy: Where did you go in the service?
Joe: I was one of the first men to hit D-Day on the beach at Normandy.
I went in with the British commandos on the beaches before the invasion
and wired demolitions to underwater obstacles and mines before soldiers
came ashore.
Roy: Anything else you would like to tell me about your dad?
Joe: For years all he liked to do was take hunters into Mexico, and
scouting new territory to take them to. So when I was growing up, 10-on
up, Dad bought 30 head of cows and we lived next door to where Nephi was
living in Socorro. As soon as I was 17 I told Dad: "This is your family,
You take care of them, I'm not going to milk your cows any more." And in
less than ten days he sold the dairy. He didn't want to work.
As long as I was milking them he was fine. He could never settle
down. When I came back from the service, he had a ranch up in strawberry
canyon above Colonia Juarez not too far from Pacheco, but an ejido1
threatened to throw him off the ranch, hang him, and everything else.
When I got out of the service I went down there for a couple of weeks
after they gave me sick leave, and the ejido came up with three wagons
and twenty men and were going to throw him off the ranch and we rode up
to the line of the property and they were drinking beer and throwing
their cans out, bragging what they were going to do and one threw a beer
can out and Dad, who kept a .22 under his shirt drew it out and shot the
beer can in the air and hit it three times on the ground and I had a
30-06 and I hit it and they all took off. They talked real big until we
showed them. Dad was gone 90 percent of the time. When I went down to
Durango on vacation he was on a ranch with Ed [Joe Sr.'s half brother]
(See Tia Nina's account on this subject--to be added later. -mwj) and he
had Nina and Dad working for him and paying them less than any of the
peons working for him and he had Dad in charge of the workers and he was
still paying Dad less than what he was paying his workers.
This was Edward, Dad's stepbrother. Ed just died not too long
back. Hy, I think, is still living.
Roy: As a matter of fact, not too long ago he asked if I was
willing to sell certain family items, but I said: "No."
I'll put this information in my record. I hope to get Ben's children on
record next.
Joe: Ben has a son called Joe L. Jarvis. Oh, he's a character! You
know he had the nerve to go down to Feders Jewelry and charge his wedding
and engagement rings to me and whenever they sent me these bills, I went
there and said: "You keep sending me these bills." and said "Have you
ever seen me before?" and he said: "No sir, I don't know who you are."
"Then how in the hell do you keep sending me these bills and nasty letters
on rings I never bought?" Joe had given my name and address and charged
them to me. Joe [Ben's son] is an onery little -------.
Roy: Are they still around?
Joe: I don't know. They're probably around somewhere.
Roy: Any pictures of Dad [Nephi] around for the book? (Showing me
pictures of his dad and mine.)
Joe: I was about three years old here down in Chuchupa and the
Farnsworth boys made me climb a tree and go into Dad's storeroom and
hand out Dad's furs and he stole them all. [Louie Farnsworth]
Joe's wife (in Spanish): He was all over Mexico [meaning Joe Jr.]
and look he marries a Mexican. I think he had it in his mind all this
time, because him living in El Paso and never married a gringa [white
woman].
Joe: Every time I go to Colonia Juarez [present wife is from
there] I have to encounter these crooked cops who ask for a mordida
[literally "the bite", bribe] and it just burns the heck out of me.
Joe's wife (in Spanish): But after you got married there has
been no more mordida, right?
Joe: Right!
Joe's wife (in Spanish): That's because I stand up for our rights.
He even went to live down in the colonies, so that's why I got married.
But then he started saying: "Let's go. Let's go." You told me you were
going to live forever down there.
Joe: But I never intended to get married, either.
Roy: How are your kids?
Joe: They're doing fine. They have accepted her.
Joe's wife (in Spanish): Joe has to go to the doctor two to three
times a month.
Joe: I've had so much sickness since I got out of the service.
I've had to stay close to the doctors now.
Joe's wife (in Spanish): Of all the Jarvises living in Mexico,
none found the 20 mules with gold2 ,
but he [Joe Jr.] went to Mexico to find his treasure [meaning herself].
Joe: All pictures of Dad burned down in Alamagordo. I've got 18
grandchildren now.
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Footnotes