The hardest information John ever pried out of his own father, Bill Jackson, concerned Bill's father in turn — Shannon's great-great-grandfather, William Thomas Jackson, Sr.
Gleaning information from my father about his family was like pulling teeth. He would switch the subject or ask why I was so inquisitive and I knew that was the end of the interview. Fred "Soapy" Birdsey was more helpful. Soapy had known the Jacksons after they had moved from Bachelor to Stringtown (Between Creede and North Creede) and, though not close friends, was aware of the problems generated by old B.P. Jackson, the father of nine children by that time, and the general poverty and suffering of the family from his actions. I knew that William T. Jackson, Sr. had been committed to a mental hospital where he died from miner's consumption, that there had been no funeral and his body had not been returned to Creede. Soapy had a picture of a group of miners at Commodore #3 portal and pointed out a rough looking customer with a handlebar moustache he said was my grandfather. I asked him if he was really mentally unsound or if it was physical illness that forced his commitment. He replied, "He was crazier than hell!" I didn't ask for further information.
As a lad, Dad walked from Bachelor to Creede with a few other students for schooling above first and second grades that were taught in Bachelor. On his return, he would stop by the slaughterhouse below Creede's cemetery where, if Mr. Lundy was butchering, he could pick up the tail of the animal or the animals. Mr. Lundy knew Mrs. Jackson was having problems with her brood and the loss of two babies to diphtheria and would save the tails in a gunny sack for Dad to carry home. Sometimes he threw in a tongue which was a rare treat. Dad had picked up his sack with a tail one day and returned to the mesa wagon road where a teamster was on his way to Bachelor with a wagon load of goods. Dad hoped for a ride with him and ran ahead of the team where the teamster couldn't see him. The old fellow stopped, asked Dad what he had in the sack, and Dad replied that he had an ox tail. "Throw it up here, Sonny; I'd like to see a genuine ox tail," he commanded. Dad threw it over one wheel, the fellow caught it, said, "thanks, kid" and whipped his team into a gallop. Dad couldn't believe anyone could be so cruel. He ran as hard as he could, tears streaming down his face, but was unable to catch him until he started up the steep switchbacks at the north end. Dad gained ground there, got above him on the third switchback, and began stoning the teamster. He knocked his hat off with the first rock and was pelting him with every size rock he could pick up when the teamster threw the sack his way and said, "Stop it, kid, I was just teasing you. Hop on and I'll give you a ride home." Dad knew he would get a whipping for being disrespectful if his mother found out about it but he kept a rock in one hand, looked the fellow right in the eye and shouted, "You go to hell!"
When Dad was twelve years old, he wanted badly to go deer hunting with his father. He was an A student, did all his chores and more, and begged his dad to let him go on to the next trip where he was to camp out for a night with Mr. Gillespie. The old man relented and told him to gather up some warm clothing in a pack he could carry and if he promised to do everything he told him and keep his mouth shut, he could go with them. They were going to leave very early and he would wake him in plenty of time so he could have a good breakfast as it would be a long hike to the head of Rat Creek.
Dad was so excited he couldn't sleep. He could just see the big buck deer his dad would kill and nearly taste the roasts and steaks his mother would cook. Finally, after midnight, he drifted off to sleep. He awoke to sunlight streaming through the bedroom window and vaulted out of bed thinking his dad has overslept and they would be late meeting Mr. Gillespie. He had to pass the kitchen to get to his parents' bedroom and saw his mother at the stove. His dad was nowhere in sight. "Where's Dad?" he asked Mrs. Jackson. "Why, Billie, he went hunting with Mr. Gillespie this morning. I thought you knew." Dad told me he had never been so disappointed in his life. He went back to his room to dress and cry where his mother couldn't see his tears.
He never trusted his father after that and never shared another dream with him. Several years later he had to accompany William T. Jackson, Sr. (old Bullprick), so named by fellow miners because of his expertise with with a "Johnson Bar," when he was committed to Roselawn Sanitarium. He wasn't pleased with his role, but he was better able to relate to the years of torment of the family, realizing, as Soapy Birdsey so aptly put it, that his dad was crazier than hell.
My dad, William Jackson, Jr., never failed to honor an agreement with his children. He took us on hunting and fishing trips when I am sure he would rather have gone alone. He taught us more on a single fishing trip than his father had taught him in all their lives together. I loved my dad for the time he shared with us and I respected him for his honesty and his method of discipline, harsh when needed but delivered with love.
The original manuscript includes a full-page photograph here, captioned "Claude & William T. Jackson Sr.," accompanied by these four lines, presented in the manuscript as if spoken by John's grandfather himself:
I sired two girls in Leadville and nine more kids in Creede
this little boy beside me is the last one of my breed
I suffer from the torments of the hell that I've been through
if you had lived a part of it they'd call you crazy, too