Bradfield, Charles

BRADFIELD

Posted By: Mary H. Cochrane, Volunteer
Date: 6/28/2019 at 03:43:28

CHARLES BRADFIELD

Lamoni's Passing Parage
by Joseph H. Anthony. Blair Printing Co. p. 82. ca. 1948

Early Lamoni was not without its picturesque spots, which attracted more than usual interest in the process of daily contacts and associations involved in the business of living and of commerce. To me such a place was the little blacksmith shop conducted by Uncle Charlie Bradfield, which was located upon the corner across the street south of where the Ford garage now stands.

A row of large shade trees lined this street in those days and on hot summer days the shade was especially inviting: since there were usually improvised seats of some kind – benches, boxes or some type of farm wagon or implement brought to the shop for repair – which offered opportunity for rest and relaxation, it was not an unusual sight to see a group of men or boys with idle time at hand whiling away their time and enjoying the welcome shade.

The little blacksmith shop was a dingy, ill-ventilated affair with its wide front door, which during the summer was thrown open to provide better ventilation and to allow the escapement of the smoke and fumes which refused to follow the charted course consisting of a small length of stove pipe with a flange at the end over the forge and connected to a brick chimney at the end of the room. Around and about this pipe the smoke belched forth in a great cloud as the huge bellows was pumped up and down to give added draft to the fire, making possible the heating of the metal to the desired temperature. And it was here Uncle Charlie, a little black-haired Englishman, who wore a beard that matched the color of his hair, put in his time, swinging his heavy hammer, which fell with a loud clang upon the anvil as he shaped glowing pieces of hot iron and formed them to the desired shape as readily as though they were made of putty. Here he also shod the farmers’ horses with shoes of iron or performed any of the numerous tasks which in those days fell to the lot of the village smithy.

Whenever I think of Charles Bradfield’s blacksmith shop I think of those words of Longfellow in the Village Blacksmith:

And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar.
And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing floor."
It was not always after school that we looked in at the open door but most any time we happened along that way, as it was really a center of interest to us. First of all he always made us welcome and he had so much to tell us of his personal experiences, which were unusually interesting, and then, I guess we just liked to hear him talk. Like so many Englishmen, he had a way of adding or omitting his “h’s” which often led to expressions that sounded more or less ludicrous. Upon one occasion a customer had asked him about replacing an axe handle and was curious as to what procedure he should use to remove the handle.

"You'll 'ave to 'eat it." Explained Uncle Charlie, endeavoring to be helpful.

The customer turned to us with a significant wink and a smile which emphasized the incredulousness of the task prescribed, and then as he turned to leave he paused for a moment and asked mischievously: "I am not sure I understand; what is it you say I should eat?"

"The haxe," shouted Uncle Charlie not a little exasperated. "The haxe, 'eat the haxe, and then you can drive the hold 'andle hout."

And as the inquisitive one left the shop with a broad grin upon his face Uncle Charles turned to his work and muttered "Con twist it! Why is it so 'ard for some people to hunderstand?"

The in the next breath he would relieve us of any desire to laugh at his English ways by relating some fragment of his experiences or other bits of philosophy. He was one of those pioneers who had followed the early emigrants who had gone to Utah, and during the time he had resided there he had been very closely associated with Brigham Young. Many of the stories he told were founded upon incidents which occurred while he was in the employ of the famous Mormon leader. In fact the first job he accepted upon his arrival there was for Mr. Young, and upon its completion Brigham asked him if he would like to take his pay in tomatoes.

Uncle Charlie had just recently come from the old country and had never seen a tomato, in fact, knew nothing of the existence of them, and when Brigham escorted him to the patch and insisted that he sample one, he followed the bidding, but with the first bite he expelled it instantly. The taste to him was terrible – he thought Brigham was trying to poison him.

In time he became a regular employee in the Brigham Young opera house in Salt Lake City and many were the interesting tales he told of his experience there. According to Uncle Charlie it was a wonderful “the-hater,” with a strong accent upon the “hater,” and many times we suppressed a smile as we listened to his accounts of those early days in Utah and especially those relating to his connection with this institution, which undoubtedly was on of the first to develop a schedule of shows and various forms of entertainment for the benefit of those Utah pioneers.

And while these experiences were only memories, yet in his thinking they remained unusually vivid and were a definite factor in helping to form certain conclusions. One day a customer came into his shop to have some work done and in the settlement for it there had been some misunderstanding. The argument waxed warm and then hot, but finally before either became too drastic in action, a peaceable settlement was negotiated. Nevertheless, Uncle Charlie was plenty hot under the collar when sometimes later he told us about the affair.

“E wanted to fight,” he exclaimed excitedly, “me, who used to box in a theahater: ‘e didn’t realize the risk ‘e was takin’.”

“Con twist it, yes,” he exploded, giving vent to his favorite by-word; “’e may be younger but ‘e couldn’t put a ‘and on me. ‘E never did box in a thehater.”

Poor old Uncle Charlie! He was too kindhearted to ever fight with anyone, especially ever a matter involving but a few cents, but he did not want us to think he was afraid, and bolstered up his courage with the thought that because he had practiced a little with the boxing glove when he was a young man that he was still invincible. While the statement that he boxed in a theater sounded quite professionsal, yet in fact the only boxing experiences he knew were when eh and his friends put on the gloves for a friendly bout while they waited their turn at shifting scenery.

Slight inclinations to boast did not in any way detract from his personality in fact they were but an essential element in his make-up, and the attention and consideration he gave us youngsters made his little shop a favorite stopping place. In my visits there I learned much by observation. He was the first man that I recall seeing use a center punch to make a slight dent in a piece of metal at the spot he wished to drill a hole – a common practice among metal workers – and though I have since seen it done hundreds of times, yet I rarely make use of a punch for this purpose that I do not think of Uncle Charlie Bradfield and his little blacksmith shop.

And among this rush of memories, mostly happy, are some that were otherwise: One day I had stopped in to chat with him as usual and had been there but a short time when one of the local boys came rushing into the shop and over to where I was standing. He had just been to the depot and while there a message had come over the wire bearing the news that my father had passed away in a little town in Utah. He was a missionary and had died in his field, many miles from home. The boy’s message was abrupt and startling to me, but what he lacked in tact was more than compensated for in Uncle Charlie’s demonstration of sympathy and kindness, which will always remain a precious memory.

In the thinking of the followers of Joseph Smith, and to make use of one of their favorite expressions, Charles Bradfield was truly one of the old-time Latter Day Saints. He had sacrificed much for the sake of his religious belief, he was honest and sincere. He, like many others, chose to make Lamoni his home, as he felt that in the building of a community of the type it was planned to be, it offered the most favorable environment in which to live and raise his family. His contribution may be have been a humble one, but in any event he gave the best he had to give, and like Longfellow’s village blacksmith he “looked the whole world in the fact” frankly and fearlessly, because there was nothing in his life to be ashamed of. In memory I will always think of him as an interesting companionable person, an understanding and sympathetic friend and a worthy participant in Lamoni’s passing parade.

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