From Gary Tietjen, Ernst Albert Tietjen: Missionary and Colonizer (Bountiful, Utah: Family History Publishers, 1992), 365–76
Amos was born in 1890 in Savoyeta Canyon near Ramah, the only son of Amanda. He remembers that his father, Ernest, and Henry George, his nearest neighbor, raised onions which they would take to Ft. Wingate to trade for flour. They made it a point to stop at the Army dump on the way back because so many useful things could be found there, including clothing and dishes.
The life and company of the cowboys had the disapproval of all the Mormon pioneers despite the fact that they sometimes had to take employment in the cowcamps themselves and both Joseph and Alma Tietjen became cowboys. Cowboys were thought of as being rowdy, profane, drinking to excess, and sometimes criminal. In that day there was some truth in their perception. By 1876 the Texas Rangers had turned their attention to outlaws rather than Indians. They compiled a list of over three thousand fugitives and circulated it to each company of Rangers. “This changed policy”, their historian wrote, “resulted in the death of scores, the arrest of hundreds, the flight of thousands.” Many of those thousands came to New Mexico. Sonnichsen wrote that “the West was the national escape hatch … The majority of the silent strangers were ‘wanted’ somewhere … They kept away from places where they might be recognized, called no man brother, and tried not to talk in their sleep.” Amos writes:
“I remember my mother bought me a little hammer. I went around hammering everything in sight. My mother never liked cowpokes and she didn’t want me to be one, so she was glad I liked my little hammer. I broke rocks and glass. I cracked peach pits and I hammered on the house.”
It was the beginning of considerable mechanical talent, and Amos might have been a successful inventor had he had a little cash to fund his inventions.
After Amanda’s death, Ernest left Amos in Ramah in Emma C’s care when he moved to Bluewater. Amos wrote that
“Emma C. was a very religious mother and she could tell the Bible—any story she knew of, by heart. She was a Sunday School teacher and she told us so many things. One thing she planted in my heart was a love for Father in Heaven and to have a good testimony. She told me whenever I had trouble to ask the Lord to help me. One day when I went down in the fields I lost my jackknife. I guess I looked ever place in the world for that knife. It was just right close; I’d seen where it lit. It come to my mind what she’d said: if you wanted something very bad to ask the Lord to help you. I knelt down and prayed to the Lord and just as quick as I opened up my eyes, there was the knife right in front of me.”
Emma C. had lost three sons. She probably longed for a little boy to raise, but on a visit to Bluewater Amos liked it so much he begged to stay with Emma O. and her son Alma who was Amos’ age. Ernest indulged him, but several boys were a handful. Emma O. had bought Albert a little red wagon for which she had paid twelve dollars. Amos pulled Albert in the wagon when they went after the cows. He got tired of pulling and hitched the wagon to one of the cow’s tails. This worked well until he accidentally discharged an arrow from his bow and it hit this cow in the leg.
“She bawled and started running. This started all the cows stampeding. All I could see was dust. My heart sure beat fast. I ran, calling Albert, Albert!”
Fortunately the wagon, bouncing over the sagebrush, came loose from the cow’s tail and he found Albert unharmed, still in the wagon, still upright.
Amos remembered their adventures as boys:
“We used to run with the Indian children. When the squaws would call the Indian children in to eat, we would go right along with them. The squaws would make a bread from green corn cut off the cob and put it in the fire to cook. When it was almost done Alma and I would gather around with the rest and open our mouths like little birds to be fed. The squaw would dip her fingers in and feed the children. We would be among them, squaw fingers and all.
“I and my brother Alma had to haul water down to what we called the Mormon Ranch, down where Emma C. lived. My brother was always a good teamster. When he had them running down that little hill, that rack slid right off and hit Old Pick, one of the horses, right in the hind leg, and Man, he began to run. As he ran, [the wagon] bounced harder and kept a jabbin’ him in the leg. He kept goin’ faster. [Alma] could see he couldn’t stop them and he could see the best thing he could do was to jump off. When he went to jump off, he stepped on the front wheel and that threw his head right down and the hind wheels hit his head. I jumped off and it hadn’t hurt me hardly any. The horses were just running away. I went back to my brother and there he was, rolling on the ground with a terrible big cut on his head—right in his head—oh it was terrible. He didn’t act like he had any life left. I said, ‘Oh, Alma, you’ve got to come with me, I can’t let you go.’ So I kneeled down and asked the Lord to help us and help Alma that he might get well, and he was able to get up. And you know, when I got through praying, he got hold of my hand, and I was surprised, and he got up, and we had quite a ways to walk to get home. When we got home, he went to bed and he was in bed for three months before he ever got up.”
“When about twelve years old, we spent most of our time out in the flats, building big bonfires to sleep by. Sometimes we forgot to come home at night. Once Mother got so angry because we did not come home. She had said she would whip us if we were not home on time. This time we were later than usual. When we arrived, we saw Mother through the window, preparing switches. We didn’t have the courage to go in and face the music. It was winter. Alma climbed up by the chimney to stay warm, and I went to the wagon shed where I had made a play house with gunny sacks. Here I stayed until about two o’clock. Then it got so cold I found a window I could open and got into the clothes closet. By morning Mother’s heart had melted. She had heard Alma whimpering up on the roof and had coaxed him down.”
About this time Amos was very good friends with another boy his age. Frequently they would swim together and Amos saw
“great big welts on his back. This was where his father had flogged him. I hated his father for being so cruel to [him]. One day when we were coming home from swimming … [his] father came out to meet us. he was very angry at us for going swimming. His father said, ‘Come over and I will teach you something for doing that.’ This made me angry at his father and I said, ‘Yes, and you will teach him to hate you too.’ This made his Dad very angry at me, and he started for me. I ran as fast as I could, but he caught me by the hair of my head and knocked me down and started kicking me. I got up and he slapped me in the face and knocked me down again and gave me another kick. When I got up, I ran for home, bawling all the way. I told Mother all about how he beat … and then me. This caused hard feelings in the family. The hard feelings went on for some time. The [the Bishop] heard about this trouble between [the two families]. He came to see me and in a kind way asked me if I would go over with him to … and ask forgiveness. I told him, No, that Brother … was the one to come and ask my forgiveness. I hadn’t done any wrong. He talked very kindly to me and told me that was not the way to feel. I should have forgiveness in my heart. Then he asked me again if I would go over. I agreed. We went over … and asked him if he would forgive me. He said, ‘I certainly will, and I am the one who should be asking forgiveness of you, Amos. I will forgive you if you will forgive me.’ We shook hands and he had tears in his eyes. We parted good friends and remained good friends the rest of our lives.”
“I remember very distinctly my father and I had to take some cattle up in the canyon, we called it, cause they had grass up there. Father had to kind of fix up a fence along there. While he was doing that, I seen an awful perty pool of water. I thought I’d take a swim. I took my clothes off and swum out in there. I didn’t know how to swim, but my friend Archie Chapman told me if it was deep water you could swim good. I started to paddle my feet and my legs and I was going all right, got out in the middle of that lake, and you know, first thing I knew I went down. I held my breath, then I paddled and I paddled, then I come up and got my breath, and I went down again, about the third time. And you know, I got scared. I didn’t know what to do; didn’t know where I was getting, so I prayed in my heart the Lord might help me. The first thing I knew I was laying on the bank, and I come to. I guess the Lord helped me out because I don’t know how I got out. I knew the Lord would help me.”
Amos fell in love with one of the Lamb girls. He enjoyed dating her during the Christmas holidays, but she asked Albert to be her date for the Leap Year’s dance. Hurt and angry, Amos went back to his well drilling. He says,
“We soon finished the well and moved back home. Father hung the frying pan on one side of the wagon and his shoes on the other side. We had to go right by the Lamb’s place, and I didn’t like the way Father had decorated the wagon, so I urged the horses into a fast trot. Dad’s shoes were bouncing and the pan jingling. Dad reached over and took the lines and slowed the horses to a walk. Then he turned to me and said, ‘All of that is just false pride, my son.’”
“It was at Sunday School that I first met the Cluff girls who had just moved here from Old Mexico. I had a mare I called Nell, who was a fancy one I loved to ride with my hat on one side of my head. I had my chaps all spangled on the 24th of July [in commemoration of the entry of the Mormon Pioneers into Salt Lake Valley in 1847]. I asked Maria Cluff to go horseback riding with me. When I brought her home, her sister Rena was there, so I stayed to talk awhile with her. The next morning I met Maria and Rena on horseback, going down to Lamb’s ranch to wash for her. I asked Rena to go riding that afternoon with me. All the crowd was going up to the falls in Bluewater Canyon. Well, I did not know there were four Cluff girls. They all looked alike, so I took Tillie for a ride that afternoon instead of Rena. That evening there was a big dance in the old Church house with gas lights. I did most of the dancing that evening with Rena. I thought it was her sister Tillie. Lorena was my choice, but it seemed that we had a hard time trying to get together. Lorena clerked up at Chapman’s store which was four miles from the Bluewater town. I used to take her up to work real often on horseback. My Ma thought it was very nice of me to help Albert’s girls out. I guess they didn’t know I was helping myself out.”
“In February, on Valentine’s evening, I asked her to be my wife. We set the time for June, as we would go up to Salt Lake in time for June Conference and the rates would be lower, as it was just half fare on the train at this time. I bought Lorena a gold wedding band which I gave $5 for. We went thru the temple. It was a grand feeling to know we would have each other for always, and also all our children would be ours … We arrived home on the 1:30 train in the morning. We were very tired but happy, with $30 in my pockets. We started housekeeping in a tent. Father was working on the drill down at Toltec. It was hard work, but we were happy. My father lived with us. We had two wells to drill which brought us $800. My father hadn’t wanted me to be a cowboy, as that was too rough a life, and he helped me get started in the drilling business.”
Allen Nielson stated that
“Amos Tietjen became most knowledgeable and adapted to the well drilling profession. His native ability and experience during this period prepared him for his vocation in life. The first machine was powered by a steam engine. They needed lots of wood to keep it going and all members of the community participated. Amos later upgraded to a gasoline type and drilled many wells in the area. At one time he took his young son, Amos Jr., with him. The father was busy doing something and the little fellow put his legs down the well hole and acted like he wanted to jump down to see how deep it was. When he got home, he told his wife Lorena. The very thought of what could have happened to him gave her nightmares.”
A daughter of Amos wrote that
“Amos was for many years the only deep-water well driller in the Prewitt, Ambrosia, and Bluewater areas. He was very good at finding water, and certainly it was not everywhere. So many times those who wanted wells wanted to tell him where to drill. He would tell them there was not much water there or it would be a dry well. If they insisted, he would go ahead and drill only to find he was right. He seemed never to be wrong in his judgment of where the best flow of underground water was. When he was not drilling, he was engaged in farming and the dairy business. He worked on the first highway between Gallup and Grants.”
In Bluewater, Amos and Lorena started out with a little two-roomed frame house that they built with lumber Ernest furnished them. After Genevieve and Permelia were born, Amos got some land in front of the old brick schoolhouse. He moved the little two-room frame house down there. To this he added a lean-to for the kitchen and another bedroom. Amos was over six feet tall and Lorena, like Maud, was under five feet tall. When they would polka, she was so tiny she really had to step around to keep up with his giant stride. She not only stepped fast, but she talked fast in her soft and friendly voice.
Amos had stood many times on the edge of a bluff and felt the wind coming straight up. He saw that when the wind hit the side of a Navajo hogan, it would go straight up, drawing the smoke out of the hole in the top of the hogan, and he admired the Indian architecture. Indeed, he and his family took many cues from the Navajos about where and how to build a home. He was not sympathetic about their superstitions, however. He and a companion went up to the Indian camps one night and
“Everything was quiet. We wondered what was the matter, and was walkin’ around there and pretty soon one of the men came out of the door there and grabbed us and said, ‘Come in quick. The devil’s here. Do you hear him hootin’ in them trees? Don’t never walk under a tree with a hoot owl in it, or you’ll have bad luck!’ They had the blankets over their heads and there was a [chanting] goin’ on, they was a prayin’ to the Lord I guess, so the Devil wouldn’t get ’em. We said how foolish that was. They told us all about that and [that] we better be careful. We said we were goin’ home. So we went out very carefully. When we got out, we took our six shooters and went bang bang at the hoot owl. He flew up and off and we went down to camp.”
Amos’ daughter Permelia said he was a great friend of the Indians and used to go visit them. He could understand them and could speak enough broken Navajo to converse with them. A Navajo friend showed him where a good vein of coal was. He and Dick George fixed a track and an ore car to go back in the mine. They would dig coal and haul it home for their families to use. Once they had a Navajo man helping them who went back into the mine to push the coal car out. In a moment out came the Navajo at top speed, screaming: “A devil, a devil!” Behind him came a wild cat, and it was not clear who was frightened the most, the Navajo or the wild cat.
Despite the fact that Maud Tietjen described Ernest as a “natural miner”, he had heard Brigham Young’s tirades against mining for gold or silver which led the people into sin: wanting something for nothing. In the process, they would neglect their farms and their families and it would be “Easy come, easy go.” Ernest knew that the valley was rich in minerals when he came there, but being in a position of leadership, he “said he didn’t want any of the people to go for those minerals because it would be the ruination of them. They should just farm and teach the gospel to the Lamanites.”
It was surprising that when Ernest came to Bluewater the Navajos there had already heard the Mormon gospel, and one of them could tell him the story of the Three Nephites, who, like the Apostle John, were privileged to abide on the Earth until Christ returned.
Amos’ close association with the Navajos led to a physical ailment. His wife related that
“Dad got up one morning and he knew the sun was shining, but he could not see. He felt his way to the wall. He was certain he would be blind the rest of his life. He got an eye disease, traucoma, from being with the Indians where it was very prevalent. He said, ‘I had to go to Ft. Defiance to the Indian Agency hospital. I left my family in a very poor condition. But the Lord was mindful of us and my eyes were healed in three months and I was able to return home to my family.’”
On another occasion Amos wrote,
“about 1936 or 37 I was walking in a barley field. I rolled some barley in my hands and ate it. Some barley husk worked its way in my mouth. It caused a serious infection. I finally went into Gallup Hospital. Here I stayed for a long, long time. Mother used to ride the milk route with Joe Nielson in to see me. At one time it was not expected that I would live. But through the faith and prayers of my faithful wife and children I was permitted to live and return home to my family.”
Amos and Lorena spent 12 “wonderful” years as missionaries to the Indians of several tribes, though part of it was a “trying time.” One of their children wrote that
“They were quite a team. Mother prepared the lessons and Father gave them. Father was slow and easy in all that he did and the Indians like that. Mother was always quick in all she did.”
Lorena was always impressed with the story told by one old Indian. When he was a little boy, he remembered that he was about to be baptized by Elder Rogers. The missionary took him up on his lap and said,
“Now I want you to listen real close and don’t you ever forget what I’m going to tell you. When you are a little Mormon boy, people will make fun of you. Maybe they will be mean to you, but if they hit you, don’t you ever hit ’em back; never, because if you’re a Mormon, don’t ever be ashamed of it. If they steal from you, don’t ever steal from them.” The Indian went on: “Now I’m an old man, I’m almost 80 years old, but I have remembered all my life what that young Elder told me in the mission field. I can say now I have never hit anybody back and when people’s talked mean about me, I’ve never talked mean about them. I have never stole from ’em”
One old medicine man, after listening to their lesson on the Book of Mormon, took out his pouch and showed them the herbs and other things he had in it, then said, “I wish I could put all them good things you have told us right here in this bag. Then when I needed them I could just take it out like I took my herbs. Then my people would be better people if I could do that.” On another occasion they taught a very old woman,
“and we told her that we had brought her her book, that told her the history of her people. She could hardly move, but she jumped up, run across the room, grabbed that book and kissed it and said: ‘I’ve been waiting all my life for this book of my people.’ She said even her grandparents had told her about it.”
Lorena was spiritually very sensitive. She recalled that
“Before Rhoana was born, I was out hanging up clothes. Now it seemed like it was in the daytime, but I know it was in the evening. It just seemed like in a dream. I looked up and I saw Grandpa Tietjen, he was come right down. He stood right there in front of me and he says, ‘Irena (he always called me Irena because that’s Lorena in German), Irena, I’ve come for you. I need you.’ And I said, ‘Oh, Grandpa, I can’t go.’ And he says, ‘Do you think your counsel is better than what ours is?’ And I said, ‘Well, Grandpa, let me tell you. If I go with you, these here little girls of mine, they’ll have nobody to take care of them. I couldn’t let Amos take them over to his folk’s place … and I can’t take them to my own mother’s. They wouldn’t have no chance to grow up.’ So he says, ‘You think your counsel is better than ours, then?’ And I said, ‘No, Grandpa, I don’t think it’s better, but oh, if you can please just let me stay until I get the children raised and I’m ready to come!’ I don’t know. That’s the last I knowed of it; that’s the last I ever dreamt of Grandpa.”
Amos never had many of this world’s goods, but he summarized his feelings about his life after seeing some of his 400 descendents: “Do you know, Mother, I am a rich man. A REAL rich man. Just look at my grandsons I have out here. What could make anybody happier than to have so many?”