Danny Nielsen and Timothy Nielsen

[00:04] DANNY NIELSEN: My name is Danny Nielsen. I'm 77 years old. It's May 21, 2023. I'm in Logan, Utah. My interview partner is my son Tim.

[00:20] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: My name is Tim Nielsen I'm 46 years old. Had to think about that. It's May 21, 2023. We're in Logan, Utah. I'm here with my father, Danny. Okay, so I want you to talk about you mostly. So tell us a little bit about growing up on your. Your dad's farm. Family farm.

[00:55] DANNY NIELSEN: My grandfather came over from Norway. He sold everything he had over. Well, he didn't sell it all, but. Well, he sold it, but he couldn't bring the money with him. The king of Norway wouldn't let him leave. All the immigrants that were coming to the US back then, he wouldn't let him leave with any money, so he had to kind of leave it there. Had enough to come over with. And he. They ended up settling in Hiram, just south of Logan here. And he died when my dad was in the third grade, and so my dad had to start working the farm then. So third grade education was all he got in then for me growing up. I'm the youngest of six, and I know we have pictures of my oldest brother. That's. Yeah, I don't remember how many years older. He passed away when he was 72, so his oldest is only a year younger than me, so we have pictures of him riding the old motorized contraption, I called it for going down the sugar beet rows, and I thinning them. We raised sugar beets. So every summer as a kid, as I'd get out of school for summer vacation, I didn't have summer vacation. I had to work the fields, either weed the beets or water them or hoe em or do something with them. And then in the fall, I'd always miss at least two weeks of school when we'd harvest the sugar beets, because it wasn't usually till October or late October when we'd harvest them. And as I got older, got into high school. I had two cousins that were the same age as me, and we were juniors in high school. And my cousin come and ask me, this was 1962. He says, what are you going to do about the draft? Not have to go to Vietnam? And I told him, I said, well, my one brother had joined the National Guard. So I was thinking about it, which brother? Dale. Two brothers older than me. And so we went and talked to them, and they says, well, we can't technically talk to you till you complete your junior year. But they did give us the whole info, what we needed. So our senior year, it wasn't until January that we went back and actually signed up. By then, we had a third person to go with us. And by the time we graduated, there was eight of us. We graduated from high school four days later, we were on active duty. So still no summer vacation. I stayed in the guard for eight years, got to the rank of Buck sergeant. And along the line, I ended up going on a blind date, which was kind of quite an experience because of our friends. One of them that got us lined up, they went there early and picked our dates up. So when we went, my future wife, her brother, where she was staying, wasn't too happy. And so we ended up going out. But then eventually we got married. And over the years, we have four kids, eight grandkids and four great grandkids. And they're really a joy for us. So it's been quite a family back to back up to high school. My one cousin with my name, Danny, would call me Daniel Boone. And I just. I didn't like it. But my one good friend, like a month before we were to graduate, he heard him. He says, what? What'd you call him? So he wrote in my yearbook, Boone, get used to it. That's how you're going to be known. And he drew a picture of a mountain man shooting a rifle. Well, lo and behold, in 1975, my good friend took me to a meeting. We ended up having fun finding out what it was like to do its reenactments that we do with mountain man history.

[05:30] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: You got the name. You got the name Boone before you started mountain Manning.

[05:34] DANNY NIELSEN: Yes. And so it just stuck when I started doing the mountain Mandev. A lot of them have to earn their name. I don't think we ever got one for you. Chris. Our other son, Chris, we named him little Bear.

[05:50] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Mine had something to do with a turtle or something.

[05:52] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah. I don't remember now.

[05:56] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: But don't do girls get.

[05:59] DANNY NIELSEN: No, they never did. Some of them did. That was kind of active with the. When we organized the club that we had, it was called oldie from mountain men and friends. And so that way, a gal by herself, if she wasn't married, could hold membership.

[06:15] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: You have four kids? Two of us are boys, and two of them are girls.

[06:21] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah. And growing up, the first rendezvous that I took the kids to was 1976, before Tim was born. We took them to Fort Bridger rendezvous. I had actually went the year before in 75, and I've been going every year since. And this year's their biggest 50th anniversary. They're having a big shootout with it this year, and it's held on Fort Bridger State grounds in Fort Bridger, Wyoming. So it's quite a get together of all of us that go. A few years into it, I started liking what we call a trader, and that's a person that has mountain man supplies that they sell. So I've bought and sold items for years. Take it to rendezvous and sell them. Mostly furs, but yeah, mostly been furs, but a lot of little items that. Little fur bags or little leather bags or necklaces. Beads. Different types of beads I've sold.

[07:28] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: What's the furthest away that you ever went to a rendezvous?

[07:36] DANNY NIELSEN: We went up into Montana, I think that year we went up into Montana when they had the bad fires in Yellowstone. We went through Yellowstone to get up to it. I think that was probably the farthest one away.

[07:48] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: You never did one up in Canada?

[07:51] DANNY NIELSEN: Oh, no. Yeah, I did. I didn't take you guys. I went with another friend, and then mom and I went again. It was held just up past Kalispell, Montana. We were only 35 miles from the canadian border, right across the river from Glacier National park, where almost every day somebody saw a grizzly bear on the other side of the river, which is a little uneasy.

[08:19] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: We saw a bear on our way back from the Montana one.

[08:22] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah, got some pictures of it. I know you were 14, and you were kind of surprised how easy that bear tore that log open. There was a dead tree kind of leaning up.

[08:33] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: I don't know how I saw it. I was looking out the window, and all you see is trees, trees and trees and trees. And then all of a sudden there was bear. Stop the car.

[08:43] DANNY NIELSEN: The bad thing is that was back when we had film camera.

[08:47] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Vhs.

[08:48] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah. And we grabbed the camera and we only had one picture left in it. So we only got one picture of that bear, and it had. Did it have two cubs with it or one?

[08:59] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: I know it had one. I don't know. A couple other cars had stopped at that point, and she started getting pissed.

[09:06] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah. So we didn't stay long with that one. But my other interest got me started. Just out of high school was bowling. I bowled with some friends one year, and then we kind of laid off. Then my work where I was working at more business forums, these two other guys came to me and says, well, haven't you told us you bowl? I says, yeah. So we. They got together a five man team right from work there that started back in 75, 76 season. And I was lucky that winner in city tournament to win singles, handicapped singles, which I won twice more since then. And handicap all events twice. Won team event three or four times in the city. The one year I bowled in two men's leagues, and the one year we wondez, my Tuesday team won first place. My Thursday team won first place. The team we put together for city tournament won first place. Did you go to nationals back then in 19? No, not till 84.

[10:21] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: You just went to Reno in 1984?

[10:24] DANNY NIELSEN: We went to Reno. I've been there multiple times since. But I've been going to. Been going to nationals ever since then. This year made 39 consecutive years. And it was back at Reno.

[10:37] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: They put your.

[10:39] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah.

[10:39] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Post stats up on the big board over you. Everybody.

[10:43] DANNY NIELSEN: Everybody to see. They like to announce your accomplishments.

[10:50] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: And you got us kids bowling a little bit. Was I the only one that Chris. Chris stuck with it?

[10:57] DANNY NIELSEN: Chris did a little bit.

[10:59] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Did he stick with it longer than me?

[11:00] DANNY NIELSEN: I don't think he did. So we never did. I know the girls just never. We took them bowling, open bowling and stuff. They just never had an interest to won a bowl league like we had you in the junior leagues.

[11:20] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Did the military ever, did you go out of the country other than.

[11:25] DANNY NIELSEN: No, I was basically stationed here. I joined. Well, what I joined was the Utah National Guard. So I went on six months active duty. That's what happened right out of high school. And then we'd go to meetings once a month, a Saturday and Sunday. And then in the summer, we'd have a two week summer camp type thing would do with the military. And I was in the unit that was stationed here in Logan. We were part of a battalion that was headquarters in Logan. A company was in Garland. B Company was in Boxelder. C Company was Smithfield. And service company was Smithfield. And A. B and C were gunnery. We had 155 howitzers that was towed around, and they had to set up and fire them. And we had one of the best records in the state for accuracy and time to get the accuracy. So one year we were asked to go to Wyoming to compete against the Wyoming National Guard. We went to Camp Jersey, and we got there and they had the normal set up and shoot and stuff. And we kind of, how do you say it? Kicked their butt. And so their commander says, all right, now, tomorrow we'll do the. Can't remember now what they called it, jumping. It was how fast you could come in and set up and how fast you could have effective fire for hitting the target. And that's what we were best for. In the state, we can't. Battery C had multiple, almost weightlifter guys that they could come in and unhook that cannon and lift those trails out and have it set up and just. It was. It was surprising how fast they were with getting it set up. And then you have a fire direction center that points the target for you, and you fire one round, fire two rounds, and then they say, fire for effect. That means you're on target. Usually within three or four rounds, we would hit target. So that's pretty fast and accurate. One of the funniest experiences I had at summer camp. We were at summer camp a lot of times, you set up and stay kind in the same area for a bit, and they change targets around for you. We were camped just barely over the hill for one of the gunneries, and you could feel it, the ground almost shake when those would go off. We were that close. It was one of my first ones, so I ended up having to do KP, which is kitchen patrol. You have to go help with the kitchen. And we were getting ready for the lunch, noon meal, and that have trays there that you get served on. And you kind of had to wash your own a little bit. So as the cook assistant and I was going out to light a little heater that heat up the water so you could wash your trays in. It had a tank set up on it. And then the burner was down inside a 55 gallon garbage can that was filled with water. You'd turn it on, dripping a little bit, and then you had to take this long torch, poke down in there and get it started. About the time he poked it down in there to start it, that cannon went off right over the hill. We never found that burner. He threw it so far, it just disappeared. And then the cook comes storming out of the cook truck. He had just put a cake in the oven. He was so mad because it fell. That was one of the funniest experience for military.

[15:06] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: And then you go back to your blind date with mom.

[15:13] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah, that was kind of funny, that blind date. They come and got her, and then when I went and picked her up, why, she. I think she had to call her brother to let him know that was before any cell phones, to let him know that we were connected. So we went out on the date. I don't even remember where we went now on the date, what we did, but I can just remember that aforehand. And then I guess that was her birthday in October, and then it was that next spring for graduation. I gave her the ring and one of the kind of different things for her birthday in October. She's three years younger, but her birthday is only two days before mine.

[16:12] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: You guys went on a blind date for her birthday?

[16:15] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah. Yeah.

[16:16] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: It was for your first date.

[16:18] DANNY NIELSEN: I don't know if it was right on her birthday that year, but it was close to it, which is also.

[16:24] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Close to your birthday.

[16:26] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah. So. And she did admit to me after we'd got married that she wasn't even sure she was gonna go on a second date with me.

[16:37] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: But you got it.

[16:38] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah. I pursued, pushed it until convinced her that she liked me enough to marry me.

[16:45] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: And you guys have traveled a lot.

[16:47] DANNY NIELSEN: With bowling, nationals, and she bowls. She's gone a lot. She would go with her ladies, but none of the husbands were invited to go on their trips. But she went on every one of mine that we went from Reno to Las Vegas to Niagara Falls, New York to Syracuse, New York, twice. Tulsa, Oklahoma. Dayton, Ohio. Huntsville, Alabama. Corpus Christi, Texas. Jacksonville, Florida. The year we went to Jacksonville, we took all four of you guys with us. We bowled at Jacksonville, and then we drove down the coast to Orlando.

[17:34] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Went to Disney World.

[17:35] DANNY NIELSEN: Disney world and Gatorland Zoo, went to Kennedy Space center. And that trip, to me, was the first eye opener of storms. When they would have storms on tv, you'd look at all that rain coming down. It don't rain like that, but, yeah, it does. Back there, it was just sheets coming down that.

[17:59] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Were you scared?

[18:01] DANNY NIELSEN: No. No, I was scared. You got a little scared as I was driving the roads, the big trucks. Trucks would have kind of a rut in it, and it'd fill up with water so much that sometimes when you'd hit that, it just push your car one way or the other without turning the steering wheel. And you were sitting in the front seat between me and mom, and so we knew you got a little scared from it. I tried to stay out of the ruts, but sometimes you couldn't. It just pulled you into them.

[18:29] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: The rain. I remember the raindrops because they were like the size of a baseball hitting the windshield. Was there a sunroof in that little car? No, I just remember a lot of glass and a lot of giant raindrops.

[18:43] DANNY NIELSEN: It was actually a station wagon we'd rented to have room for all the luggage.

[18:47] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: And I still had to sit in the front seat.

[18:50] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah, because there was only the two bench seats, the front and those other three in the back.

[18:55] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: And we went to Disneyland before that. Was that for bowling or just for a family vacation.

[19:03] DANNY NIELSEN: No, that was just a family vacation. That was four years before that in 84. And that was the Olympics that were down there. And we'd got, we'd kind of got shirts that was alike that had 84 on them. So we'd stand out in the crowds at Disneyland. Oh, that was. Yeah, that was a whole nother experience with the car. Do you remember that?

[19:28] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: California. I remember the fish petting. You can reach your arm in and pet a manta ray and maybe there was baby sharks or maybe I just remember it.

[19:44] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah, but we had a van. I don't remember the year exactly, but we had the base.

[19:50] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Oh, we drove our family van from here to California. Yeah.

[19:56] DANNY NIELSEN: Shelf thing I'd built in the back. That was a bed that the kids could lay and sleep. And then all of our luggage went under it. We didn't even have to put any on top. And we got there and we went. The one day we went down to SeaWorld, that was when the. We was petting the.

[20:14] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Oh, that wasn't even at Disneyland, was it?

[20:16] DANNY NIELSEN: No, it was down San Diego, actually.

[20:19] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Oh boy.

[20:20] DANNY NIELSEN: We come out from the parking lot. What time? Barely time that they close. Went to get in the van that wouldn't start. The battery was dead and I had jumper cables with and the guy jumped me. So when we got back to the motel, I backed in and got a neighbor there at the motel to jump us. That next morning I drove and found a Montgomery wards and bought a battery. Put a new battery in it to be able to come home. But that was a little. Oh, and when we were at San Diego, everybody wanted to go to Mexico.

[20:58] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Not me.

[20:59] DANNY NIELSEN: So we drove down to the border to Tijuana and with that battery I didn't dare shut it off. So we didn't even stop. We just kind of drove around for a little bit and then came back.

[21:10] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Did we stop at the ocean?

[21:13] DANNY NIELSEN: Not that day. Well, we might have stopped on the way going down. There was one day we stopped at the ocean, you guys, we want a sticker feed in the Pacific Ocean.

[21:23] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: It was so the water was too. I remember the water being not very friendly.

[21:31] DANNY NIELSEN: Cold or warm.

[21:32] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: And big waves.

[21:34] DANNY NIELSEN: Oh, yeah, there was plenty of waves.

[21:38] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: And then we went out of the country. I went to Australia for a mission and you guys came over there. Is that the only time you've been to any other country?

[21:50] DANNY NIELSEN: Well, the one trip bowling. When we were in New York, we drove up to Toronto. And then one trip we were near Chicago. We drove across to Canada there too.

[22:02] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: To Canada? A few times.

[22:04] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah. And across the border to Mexico.

[22:06] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Mexico.

[22:07] DANNY NIELSEN: Driving around, that was the only. Australia was really the only foreign trip. We've done that. Washington. The best one we could have ever done. It was a lot of fun.

[22:19] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: What are you most proud of in your entire life?

[22:27] DANNY NIELSEN: The kids we've raised, what they've accomplished, and what they're going to accomplish. I know.

[22:38] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: And you said eight grandkids. Yeah, and four great grandkids.

[22:46] DANNY NIELSEN: The youngest granddaughter is just two and a half. Our oldest grandson is. What is Colby, 30? I don't know. I think he's over 30. Yeah, he was nine when we went and got you off your mission. He went with us, him and I, his mom, our daughter.

[23:08] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: So he's 35.

[23:11] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah, that's probably right. He has two of our great grandkids. No, he has three.

[23:21] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Yeah, he has three.

[23:22] DANNY NIELSEN: He has three of them. So.

[23:29] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: So does that. Is that also what makes you the.

[23:32] DANNY NIELSEN: Most happy to spend time with family? Whether it's at rendezvous, whether it's a backyard cookout, anytime we can get together. It's getting hard to get the whole family together at once now, too.

[23:52] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: It was far apart.

[23:53] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah, not that far, but still, time wise, when people a few hours apart can have the same time off to get together. That's been the one good thing with rendezvous that's worked a lot, is. Sundays is kind of slow day, Adam. And that's been a good day that a lot of the family can come sometimes.

[24:15] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Everybody knows where to find you.

[24:17] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah.

[24:20] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: What would you want your family to know after you're gone? What do you want to leave behind? Could be your grandkids. Great grandkids. Doesn't have to be me.

[24:42] DANNY NIELSEN: Oh, gosh. Just that maybe I've accomplish something with the kids and the growth that what I've grown.

[24:58] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: That's like your legacy.

[25:00] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah. I hope. I kind of look back to see what my dad, what his legacy has put out. With six kids and I don't know how many grandkids dad has. Our greats are great. Great. Now we have quite a few.

[25:18] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: And his dad came straight from Norway.

[25:21] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah. He was converted to the church in Norway and left everything behind and came to the US somehow made it to Cache Valley and settled in Haram, became a farmer, where back in Norway, he was a fisherman. They said he had a fleet of fishing boats that he sold, so I don't know if he'd never.

[25:43] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Have we ever been fishing?

[25:45] DANNY NIELSEN: Nope. I'd never. As a kid. I could never find enough interest. I went a few times with my neighbors the almonds to the north of dad, and I just. You sit there and sit there and sit there. Sometimes you get a bite and hook one, and then it gets away, and I couldn't see a big point in it, so I never did pursue it.

[26:11] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: But you like to eat fish?

[26:13] DANNY NIELSEN: Oh, yeah. Fish is really good.

[26:18] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: So your grandpa was converted to the church. Was your dad religious?

[26:22] DANNY NIELSEN: Yes.

[26:23] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: And your mom?

[26:24] DANNY NIELSEN: He was religious to a point, but he was a farmer, and so even Sunday, a lot of times, he wasn't to church because he was watering or doing something else with the farm. But mom pretty well made sure us kids always went growing up. My mom grew up in Wellsville That's here in Cache Valley. She's got ancestry. I know one line goes back to Scotland. I'm not sure where her other branch is out.

[26:57] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: And you baptized me, and I'm pretty religious, and I went on a mission to Australia, and I've always looked back on all my good choices and looked back to when you baptized me and things you taught me about paying your tithing. Are you still religious? Do you still believe in tithing?

[27:25] DANNY NIELSEN: I still believe in all of it, but I'm not as religious as I should be. I don't get it all done. I don't get to church as often as I should. I know I should.

[27:36] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: But you still believe it all, you see?

[27:38] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I know it's true.

[27:48] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Do you think your family will benefit from the good choices you've made?

[27:57] DANNY NIELSEN: I hope so. That's part of the reason you make the good choices, is to hope to.

[28:02] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Pass it on down to your great, great grandkids.

[28:07] DANNY NIELSEN: Yep. Down to them.

[28:19] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: What have you. What has taught you the most in your life?

[28:28] DANNY NIELSEN: To be humble with stuff. And one of the biggest things is to be a caregiver with my wife. She's had three back surgeries now, and so there's a lot of stuff she cannot do, and it's just made me love her even more. To be able to do the stuff, to help her keep her going.

[28:49] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: That's taught you the most.

[28:53] DANNY NIELSEN: In the recent years? Yeah.

[29:01] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: That's good.

[29:04] DANNY NIELSEN: Just to be. To be a servant, to give. That's the one thing the mountain man stuff that I've learned and taught is they couldn't have survived without help. They weren't out here on their own completely. They had to rely on different instincts that was taught to them, or they wouldn't have made it. That same kind of self teaching or learning from others to self preservation, that you've got to be able to survive.

[29:34] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: They weren't always at war. They sometimes had allies with the native.

[29:39] DANNY NIELSEN: Well, some of them would even get allies with the Native Americans. And those. I think those were the ones that survived the best, because they learned from them. They learned the way to live on the land. And right now we're. Yeah, what are we doing to the land? We're taking it away. So I don't know what might be the future for that.

[30:06] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Do you want your family to remember you as a mountain, Mandy?

[30:12] DANNY NIELSEN: Mmm, not kind of, but more as a father that hopefully I've tried to guide him in the right way.

[30:21] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: The patriarch of a pretty big family.

[30:24] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah, it's getting pretty big.

[30:32] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: And a loving husband.

[30:34] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah.

[30:38] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: And caregiver.

[30:39] DANNY NIELSEN: Yeah. To put her first before me, I have to try to do that more.

[30:52] TIMOTHY NIELSEN: Well, I would like to thank you for letting me interview you. It's been a pleasure.

[30:59] DANNY NIELSEN: It's been a fun experience.