Star Valley Memories

On 5 November 1908, Grant and Myrtle Stephens were married and settled into their first home near the town of Alpine, Wyoming, the following spring. It was a homestead on the banks of the Snake River. The homestead included land on each side of the river. The nearest post office was about 14 miles and the nearest store about 20 miles either way, at Freedom, Wyoming, or at Irwin, Idaho.

Grant says, "Before summer was through we had moved into our new house which we thought pretty nice. We lined it with lumber and covered with shingles. I got the logs out and took them to the mill and had them sawed for $9 a thousand for the lumber and $5 for the shingles. We put in about 20 acres of oats. On our place there was many springs and several acres of high quaking aspens and of course along the springs were willows and the ground along the bottom was a heavy dark soil covered with big thick brush and was very fertile."

By 1910 enough people had moved nearby that the Alpine area got a post office. Grant got the contract for carrying the mail for the first 5 years. He got $20.22 per month for making the 16 mile trip twice a week. In summer he rode a horse and buggy and sleigh or skis in winter. Grants says, "I had a lot of tough times while carrying the mail. Nearly every winter I would have to carry it on skis for several months. I remember one time I started out on the 2nd of January with a team and bob-sleigh. The snow was over 4 feet deep and snowing and blowing until I could hardly see the team so they could hardly follow the road at all." He eventually had to leave behind his sleigh and start off with just the horses. "I tied one horse to the other one's tail and started them for home. I was holding to the last horse's tail. It took me all that day to get home."

Many years later, when Grant was in his 70s, he took an interest in painting. They came to visit our family for a few weeks. My mother, after watching him paint on art paper, cardboard, or whatever he could find, purchased some canvas boards for him to paint on. One day, my father asked him what the old homestead had looked like. Grant's response was this painting which now hangs in my parents' house.

It will be the only visual memory we have of the setting for their early married life as the site of the homestead is now covered by the waters of the Palisades Reservoir.