Alton Judd Chappell

Alton Judd Chappell was born to Glen Sherman and Lela Chappell on January 29th, 1944. He married Barbara Ann Hopper on October 5th 1968 in California.

This is Alton and Barbara Chappell in 2007.

This is what Alton has to say:

"What did we do for entertainment in the hometown of Lyman when I was growing up? That was a long time ago, but here is a little of it. I can't tell you everything because there is a lot that my momma didn't find out about and I ain't gonna tell her now. In the younger years as I recall I spent quite some time on horseback. As far back as I can recall I was no great shakes at work and am still considered a lazy boy. However, back when I was a small lad, before I could GO PLAY, I usually had some chores or work to do. I was supposed to hold the horse out where she could graze because we were usually short on hay. I also usually had to weed a certain amount of the garden. I hated to weed those damn carrots. I could never rush through and get away with it. The weeding usually wasn't much, but I dragged it out and tortured myself with self pity.

I also had to dig a few wheel barrows full of dirt out of the hole behind our house. In the beginning I was too small (but I was tough) to wheel the wheel barrow out and dump it so I would fill it up and then mom would dump it for me. She eventually caught on to me and made me make a lot of trips with just a little bit of dirt.

Now, this work or chores all took place after I had trailed the cows to the field to pasture. Now as I said earlier, work was not my long suit so I always made an effort and watched my chance to escape to town without doing the work. Later on when I was a little older, and when I was riding Old Sally, I got caught so many times that when mom would notice me gone all she had to do was go to the foot of the garden and yell ALTONNNNNNNNNNNNNNN! and Old Sally would whirl around and take me back home no matter how hard I tried to keep her heading uptown.

Anyway, lets get back to when I had made good my escape or had finished my work and got off to play. I don't remember how old I was cause time didn't mean anything to me then, but I do recall jumping ditches up town on Old Pet. (Now there was a good horse, she took good care of me. Many is the times she came back and waited for me to get up and get back on after a spill.) After I and my friend got a couple more years on us, and then finally had horses to ride, we tried jumping ditches as a game. When your horse didn't jump all the way or the rider fell off, which was quite often, you had to go to the end of the line. This game didn't stay with us for long because some of the kids got bruised an sore cause they couldn't stick their horse. We always rode bare back in those times."