P R E S E R V I N G   O U R   P A S T

The Life History of Elbert Grant Jackson

My name is Elbert Grant Jackson. I was born in Manassa, Colorado on February 15, 1922. My wife’s name is Marilyn Dean Anderson Jackson. She was born in Ainsworth, Nebraska about 10 years later. (November 20, 1931) I have three children, Bill, Debbie and Joel.

I’ll begin my story by telling you a little about my parents and grandparents. My fathers’ name was William Jackson. He was born in Nephi, Utah on August 21, 1871. As a teenager he moved with his family to Manassa, Colorado, to help form a Mormon settlement there. My father William, his two brothers, Samuel Junior and Lafayette, and their father, who is my grandfather, Samuel Jackson, Senior, all worked together in the sheep and cattle business. They called their business the "Jackson Investment Company." Grandpa Samuel Jackson built a brick ranch house there in Manassa. They eventually accumulated quite a bit of land in the area. Uncle Lafe died from cancer in 1920. Samuel Jr. and William continued on with the business until about 1930. It became too large with all of their children involved. They decided to separate the business in two. It was a difficult time in 1930 because of the depression.

Dad was very smart and a sharp looking guy. He had brownish hazel eyes and he had dark brown hair. He was eighty-five years old when he died. He had a little bit of a British accent and he liked to use British phrases. He would say, "Oh the deuce!" if he were surprised and other phrases like that. He was about 5’10" tall. He served two missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. One to the Southern States mission before he was married and the other to Great Britain after his marriage.

My mother, Mary Georgina Gilbert, was born in Riverton, Utah in 1885. She moved with her parents and family to Manassa, also. My father saw her in the congregation when he returned home from his first mission to the Southern States. That’s when he decided to get married. She was a pretty girl, brown hair, brown eyes, and fair complexion. She had long, beautiful brown hair that came down to her hips. She could hide in her hair and you wouldn’t know who she was. I remember her very well. She would braid her hair around her head and it was very pretty. She was tall for a woman, about as tall as my father was. She worked hard, and was always busy doing something. Gardening, taking care of the kids, ironing, washing the dishes, taking care of the dinners for the hired help. She even had people renting rooms in the house when the children were in school for extra money. She did all the sewing. She was involved in Relief Society and could speak Spanish fluently.

My Dad’s parents were Samuel Jackson and Hannah Maria Jaques. Grandpa Samuel Jackson joined the church in England along with his family. He came across the plains in 1856 with his mother and brother and sisters, pulling a handcart with the ill-fated Martin Handcart Company. He married my Grandmother, Hannah Maria on December 31, 1867. I never met my Grandpa Jackson because he died in 1919 before I was born. I do remember my Grandmother Jackson. (Hannah Maria Jacques) She was quite short and she couldn’t hear very well. She lost most of her hearing as a result of scarlet fever, which she contracted on the ship as she traveled to America as a young child. She was a very nice lady. She had a horn that she would stick in her ear to listen with. You had to talk into the horn. I remember she lived in her own brick home until she died in 1929.

My Grandfather, Samuel Jackson was advised by church authorities to take a plural wife, so on November 22, 1883 he married Martha Ann Jackson (her maiden name) in the Salt Lake Temple. I understand that the two wives got along fairly well. I always heard that when it became illegal for a man to have two wives in the United States, Grandpa Jackson would go sleep in a field in a haystack when he thought the authorities were going to show up!

My Dad got along well with his brother Samuel, Junior. Uncle Sam was good looking and humorous. He always made you laugh! He had a very strong personality and was a good speaker. I remember one time he spoke in church. He was very engrossing and interesting to listen to. He would never pause but would keep talking all the time. He had served missions for the church and was very well versed in its doctrine.

There is an amusing story told about my Uncle Sam when he was over seventy-five years old. One time he was pulling a camp wagon from the river ranch, (which is about three or four miles from Manassa), over to the Rio Grande River, which was about fifteen miles away, to a sheep camp. He very carefully pulled the wagon over an old rickety and rocky road with his pick up truck! He could only travel at about five miles an hour. He got all the way to the river only to find out that the wagon wasn’t behind him. He drove clear back to the San Antone River and the wagon was there where he had started. He had forgotten to hitch it up. He couldn’t hear very well so he didn’t know that the wagon wasn’t back there. Everyone liked to laugh about that! He was funny and everybody liked him.

My mother’s parents were Timothy Gilbert and Johanna Margaretha Stoutz. Timothy was from England and Margaretha from Denmark. I didn’t know my mother’s father, Timothy Gilbert. He died before I was born. I do know that Grandfather Gilbert was a strong member of the church and had two other plural marriage wives.

I did know my Grandmother Gilbert. She was born in Denmark. When she joined the church as a young woman, she joined all by herself and was disowned by her family. She worked hard to save enough money to leave Denmark all by herself and come to Utah. That’s what I call dedication to the church. She was a strong willed person.

I remember when I was just a little boy, about three years old, my mother always told me that the bathroom toilet was mine. I called it my "Poe." My grandmother Gilbert wanted to use it and I was sure unhappy about it! I remember trying to pull her off and telling her to "Get off my Poe!" She didn’t’ appreciate it! She was a tiny little lady but quite strong willed. Her voice was rather strong. She was cute. She lived with us part of the time and with my Aunt Annie (my mother’s sister) part of the time.

Another story that I heard about her was that she had a little business of her own selling butter, cream and milk. She always saved her money. She hid it, of all places, in the stove. She forbid anyone to ever light a fire but never told them why. One day when she had left for town, her daughter-in-law, my Aunt Effie, decided to light a fire in the stove because she was cold. Grandma had gotten a little ways down the road when she noticed the smoke coming from the chimney! She came running back home and tore into the house and pulled that fire right out of the stove to save her money! She was not very happy!

A story my dad used to tell is about the time Grandma Gilbert took the train to Utah to see her son, John Gilbert. My dad was taking her to the train station when she insisted they turn around and go back to the house to get a plant she had forgotten. When they got back to the station they had just missed the train. Dad always laughed about how she exclaimed, "But I was just a minute late!"

My parents had twelve children. Elvira was the oldest. She was a beautiful, brunette woman and had an outgoing personality. I know she tried to step in as the roll of mother after my mother died when I was eight years old. Elvira died in 1938 of a bad heart.

The next child born was my brother, Will. He died in 1955 of emphysema. He was a good-looking guy and quite intelligent. He had a strong mind. He was a brunette, also.

Then came my sister Louvina. She had blond and then later light brown hair. I called her "Mina" when I was a child. She was always a very good sister to me.

After Louvina came Leonard. He died when he was about two years old. My dad was on his mission to Great Britain at the time. He was asleep and felt a hard thump in his chest and woke up with a start. It wasn’t much later that Dad heard about Leonard’s death. He always thought Leonard had come to say goodbye to him on his way to heaven.

Next came my brother, Ivin. He’s always been a good friend of mine. He is about the same height that my Dad was, about 5’10" tall. He had kind of curly or wavy hair. I always wanted my hair to curl like his. I couldn’t get it to curl like he did, though. Once I even had a calf lick my head because it was supposed to make you hair curly, but it didn’t help at all! Mine still went straight! Ivin was always kind of serious. He was a little brusque with us younger kids. But he was sure good to me. We herded sheep together a lot in the mountains. We were partners!

After Ivin my sister Lorraine was born. She had blond hair and brown eyes. It is a nice combination. She could always play the piano quite well. She had an outgoing personality, too. She is rather short and a good-looking gal. She has always been very nice to me.

Josephine was my next sister to be born. She is a brunette with brown eyes. She was a real pretty girl. All the boys liked her! She went to college and became a nurse. About three months after she became a nurse she got married! Josephine and her husband, Reuben, were always good to me. When I visited them in January 1946 they convinced me that I should attend Purdue University instead of going on to Chicago to learn how to be a radio repair man.

Then came Delwyn. He was a strong guy and a hard worker. He was real muscular. He had a strong mind and a strong body. He and I did a lot of work together. We would operate a hayrack together. The guys out in the field would throw the hay up on the hayrack then Delwyn and I would tromp down the hay to keep it from falling off. Delwyn also taught me how to trap muskrats. We would get up before dawn. We used to ride the horse "Old Nell". We would lope to the ranch and check the traps about dawn. We would get back home in time to milk the cows and be to school by 9 0’clock!

Next to come along was my brother Warren. He was blond with blue eyes. He was the funny guy in our family! He liked to tell a funny story or he was always teasing someone! He was always pulling a joke on somebody. He liked to make the girls laugh at school. Sometimes he got in trouble with my father. The principal came down once and told my Dad that Warren was being mischievous in school! My Dad was sure embarrassed. Warren eventually went on a mission. He was a fun brother! He passed away in Manassa, Colorado on March 18, 1999.

I was the next child born! I was born with blond hair and blue eyes. I’m 6’1" tall. Of course, I’m incredibly handsome and have a charming personality. (This last sentence added by his daughter, Debbie)

Next, my brother Alfred came into our family. He is over six feet tall with brown eyes and brown hair. He is a really good speaker and is a hard worker and has a great big heart. He is a great brother. We’ve stayed pretty close all through our lives. He still lives in Manassa.

Last to be born was Sam. He is about four years younger than Alfred is. He was raised by my sister Elvira after my mother died until he turned about eight. When Elvira died of heart problems he came back to live with us in Manassa. We loved him very much and were sure glad when he came back home to us.

My father eventually remarried about five years after my mother died. He married Lucille Scofield. They had one child together named Ellen Jackson. She was a sweet girl. About medium height and very good-natured. She has red hair.

One memory I have of my early days at home was the time my mother gave me a birthday party. I think it was the February of the year she died. My mother was preparing me a birthday cake. Sam was a baby in a high chair and my mother gave him the pan to lick. He had that frosting all over his face. He looked so cute. I’ll never forget that! I took all my friends out to the barn to play that day. We got up into the hayloft. From there I jumped out onto the hay on the ground. This one girl named Willa Lee Holt just thought I was crazy for doing that. She wouldn’t jump but some of the other boys would jump with me.

I remember another time we were up in the hayloft and we were romping around and wrestling in the hay and having a good old time. In the center of the loft was an access port with a ladder coming down. You would get up there to throw hay down to the cows. This one day we were having a good time and I rolled over onto my back and right down through that hole and landed flat on my back on the concrete below! I fell a full story. Thankfully there was a little hay at the bottom to soften my fall. I couldn’t breath for quite a while, though!

One time my little brother Alfred and I went with our father down to the sheep camp by the Rio Grande River. Alfred and I decided to go down by the river and play while my Dad was talking to the sheepherder. We liked to throw rocks in the river. After a time my father started up the car and we heard it take off down the road. We were scared to death that we were getting left! Dad was just driving down the road looking for us but we were so scared! We ran after him as fast as we could! We must have run about a quarter of a mile trying to catch him! We were sure upset and crying!

I remember riding stick horses with my cousin Kelland and my brother Alfred. My cousin Leland would come over, too. We pretended that we had broncos that we were trying to break. We would climb trees and play hide and go seek. I liked to play ball with my brothers when my parents would slaughter a pig. We would blow up the pig’s bladder like a ball and kick it. That was fun!

One of the earliest experiences I remember as a child growing up was once when my mother gave me a very nice slipover vest that fit good and snug over my overalls. I must have been three or four years old at the time. I was to wear it to Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Annie’s house. We were eating dinner when all of a sudden I had to go to the bathroom! I ran the whole half a mile back to our house and our outhouse! I remember that I couldn’t get that darn vest off! I had a real struggle! That was terrible!

As a family we had family prayer every morning and every night! Especially morning! We would kneel down around the kitchen table. We always took turns leading the prayer. Dad would say, "You lead today." When Dad lead he could sure pray a long time. We would get awfully tired!

One time, when I was older, Alfred, Dad, and I, and a haying crew were putting up hay at the ranch when a terrible lightening storm hit. It was striking all around us! Alfred said, "Let’s pray, let’s pray!" Dad said, "We don’t need to pray now! Don’t you remember we prayed this morning?" That satisfied everybody!

In my parents home it was usually Dad who would discipline us. He would tell the one in trouble to go and fetch a stick so he could straighten us out. I would always get the smallest stick I could find. I remember one time we were making too much noise at the table so Dad sent me out to get a stick to straighten us up with. I went out and got a stick, all right! It was my Mom’s little apple tree she had just planted! She said, " Oh, did you have to get my apple tree?" Dad shook that stick at us and we were sure quiet after that! He would never hit us with it. Just shake it at us!

My mother had a lot of what were considered conveniences in our home when I was little. We had one of the few inside toilets in the whole town. We also had one of the first Frigidare refrigerators in the whole town and an "Atwater Kent" radio. We had a 1928 Chevrolet car, which was a nice car at the time. The price of wool and lambs was good in the 1920’s. Mother had a sewing machine and a Maytag washer. We were one of the first people in town to have electricity. They put an electric generator there at Grandpa Jackson’s home. It provided electricity for my Grandfather Jackson and for all the brothers, my Dad, Uncle Sam, and Uncle Lafe. It also provided electricity for the baptismal building right across the street.

My mother was very organized. She had to be with all that washing! The clotheslines would be strung clear full. There were about four lines. They extended all the way from the sidewalk to the fence. They must have been 15 or 20 yards long.

Sometimes the clothes would come in as hard as a rock from the cold. Then in the wintertime mother would have clothes strung out all over in the kitchen to dry.

After Mother would get all her jobs finished, she would go to church and go to Relief Society and things like that. I remember one night she took a few of us children to the movies at Dr. Van’s movie theatre. We drove all the way there and she couldn’t find her money. She had lost it! We drove all the way back home and she found it by our gate where it had dropped! We got the money and went back to the movie. I don’t remember what the movie was now. It was probably a silent movie back then, though. I remember when I went to first grade in 1928 they would say, "Make sure you learn how to read so you can go to the movies and read what they say!" It wasn’t too long, though, before they came out with "talkies."

I always had pets when I was a kid. We had lots of dogs and cats! We always had horses, too. My Dad used lots of packhorses up at the sheep camps. Dad and Uncle Sam had five or six sheep camps at one time and they each used about three horses. At that time they were still using horses to pull plows for tractors, also! We also had at least six teams of working horses to pull wagons! We had a lot of horses!

My dad would bring home the "Pinko’s" every year for us to take care of. These were the little lambs with no mama to feed them. We would feed them with a bottle after we warmed the milk. We would have ten or fifteen lambs to take care of sometimes! It was kind of funny how they would get accustomed to people. Eventually, we would put them back out with the herd of sheep and they would come running back over to you bleating all the way! It would take a while for them to get used to being sheep again! This was just one of the many chores we had as kids!

This one time, Alfred and I were excited to rope a calf. We were going to rope it and put a saddle on it and ride it. We had a long rope. I was out behind the granary and this calf came running around the corner and I threw the loop and I lassoed the thing. The calf went roaring by! Unfortunately that rope was right between my legs! Bang! It caught my legs! I found myself horizontal instead of vertical. It took the air right out of me! I was about nine years old. Alfred and I finally caught the calf and used bailing wire under its belly to put this old saddle on it! We used bailing wire for stirrups, too! I think Alfred got on it first. We were lucky we didn’t get hurt! We had a good time anyway!

I was a young kid when my brother, Delwyn, taught me how to play mumbley-peg with my knife. I always carried a little pocketknife with me. I remember when I started herding sheep at about eight or nine years of age we would have small herds of sheep during lambing time. Just little bunches of fifty or a hundred head. It was our job to sit and watch that bunch of sheep and lambs all day long. That was a good job for us kids. Dad would bring us our lunch. I would sit and whittle on willows. I would make airplanes and propellers and swords and daggers. I always had a knife that I can remember.

Mother died when I was eight years old. Some people in our family say from appendicitis but my other family members have said it was from another intestinal problem. Anyway, by the time they operated, it was too late! I remember when I told her goodbye before they took her to the hospital. She asked me to pray for her! Things changed pretty drastically after she passed away. Elvira stayed with us for two or three months to help us get things situated and then Sam went to live with her and her husband until Elvira’s death. Alfred went to live with my sister, Louvina and her husband, Lynn in Boston for a year. Then I was the youngest one at home. I was eight and Warren ten years old. Delwin was about twelve and Josephine Fourteen. Lorraine was sixteen and Ivin about eighteen. It was very hard for my Dad but he did a good job with us kids! He was a wonderful man!

I remember one thing that changed for me after my mother was gone. She always put my clean socks nice and neat in my drawer. Well, my socks were no longer in the drawer where mother always kept them! I would go look in the drawer and always find the one or two old raggedy unmatched socks with holes in them. About every day I would start to put them on and think, "Oh, that won’t work! No socks today!" It seemed like those same old socks were in there for years! That darn old drawer with those raggedy socks!

When I went to school there was no kindergarten. I started in first grade. My first grade teacher was Mrs. Potts. We had grade school through eighth grade and then high school was ninth through twelfth grade. School was lots of fun! I played basketball. That was my main sport! I played one year of football, also. We had football suits and everything. It was an awfully hard football field, though! You got skinned up pretty badly when you played.

If I didn’t study in school I would get a "C." If I studied, I would get a "B." And if I studied real hard, I could get an "A."

In the summer I was busy helping on my father’s ranch. I started when I was about seven years old herding sheep at the ranch. Dad would need sheep separated here and there and he would have one of us boys go out there to keep them separated. I would keep the wolves and coyotes out.

When I was about ten or twelve I started operating the dump rake. Then I learned to rake the alfalfa with the side delivery rake. Then when I was about fourteen I would cut the hay with the mower. It was a horse or mule drawn mower. I did that in the summer time or I would go up into the mountains to help herd the sheep. When I was about fourteen I started going up into the mountains with a sheepherder partner for a few weeks at a time. Then when I was fifteen I started staying all summer with Ivin. We were partners. In the sheep camp Ivin was the herder and I was the cook. I would take care of the camp and move the camp and cook the meals. I would help herd besides! When I got older then I became the herder and could tell the other guy what to do! Then he’d have to put the camp on horses and move it and set it back up and cook the dinner and go to the road to meet the supply truck and get more salt and supplies. We moved the camp every two or three days. The herder was responsible for the sheep.

One time I was out looking for some sheep in a canyon, when it got real late. All of a sudden it got foggy and then very dark. It was coal black! I was riding my horse Frank. It was bad enough when it was foggy, but when it’s foggy and dark the lights go out, period! It was a rough trail, too! There were places where the trees were fallen down across the trail and I would have to go clear down and then back up onto the trail. I must have still been half a mile from our camp. I remember I leaned over and got hold of my horse’s neck and hung on tight so that the trees wouldn’t hit me as hard! I let that horse go and he took me back to camp. I don’t know how he could see, but he actually took me down and around all of those places in the canyon where the trail was blocked and then back up and onto the trail. He must have smelled his way. He never missed a step. I’ll never forget that experience. I’ve always admired a horse for that. They may be dumb animals, but they’re smarter than us in some ways.

Quite often at night we would hear the sheep running out there. We didn’t usually know what the predator was, but if it would get too bad I would go out and shoot the gun. It could have been a horse, coyote, or bear! We had a forty- five seventy gun, almost like a cannon, that we would shoot off in the air. That would scare them off.

I remember another time when I was about sixteen I was heading back to camp. I was getting kind of sleepy and my horse, Frank, was just poking along. We came to this real soft, dried up marshy area, where you couldn’t hear your horse stepping. We had barely gotten into a grove of trees when we came upon this big old elk! We practically stepped on him. We surprised him and he came roaring up ready to charge us with his huge antlers! I sure woke up in a hurry! Frank, my horse, came rearing up on his hind legs and I was reaching up into the trees for a branch to hang onto. Just for an instant we had an impasse. Who would make the next move? Then that old elk slowly turned around and headed up the trail the other way. Poor old Frank was really scared to death. That was a little too close!

One time Warren and I were up in the mountains in Spencer Park taking care of the sheep. There was an Indian sheepherder across the continental divide and he came over to our camp and told us that there was a bear getting his sheep. He wanted to know if we had a gun and if we did if we would come and get that bear for him. Well, that sounded like a sporting event for Warren and I.! We said, "Sure!" We had a two hundred and fifty, three thousand Savage rifle. It’s a twenty-five caliber and it packed a terrific wallop. It’s not a terrific gun for a bear, though.

The Indian told us where his camp was, about a mile down the canyon, and said to come over about 6:00 in the evening and the bear would be there! So we rode our horses over and the Indian showed us where to stand behind some trees and wait for the bear. We were on the side of a small canyon by a little creek and the bear would come down on the far side.

By George, about six o’clock here came that old bear. But instead of one bear, we had a surprise! It was two bears! They were coming up the side of the hill about seventy five yards from where we were.

Warren and I had had a little target practice earlier to see who was the best shot. I must have lucked out and hit the can one more time than him because I got to have the

first shot. I had the big gun and Warren had the twenty- two rifle. I yelled at the bears to get them to stop so I could shoot. When they froze I shot…and I missed! Of course, they took off running again. So I shot again… and missed! The bears started heading up the far side of the mountain! I kept blasting away! I had to stop and reload once. I finally shot the male bear and wounded him. The female disappeared on over the top of the mountain. The wounded male turned and started back down the canyon toward us! He was running toward us and I kept shooting, "bang!" and missing, "bang!" Warren was shooting also with the .22! "Ping, ping, ping!" It wasn’t helping a bit! The bear finally got all the way down and was crossing the grass after us. I had one bullet left! I was not going to miss again! I lay down in the grass and aimed carefully. When he got fairly close I shot one last time. In the meantime the Indian had said to Warren, "Let’s go!" You could hear that Indian running, "Jingle, jingle, jingle" down the trail in his spurs! Warren was right behind him! My last bullet got the bear in the heart.

I thought I’d have a little fun with my horse, Frank, before we skinned the bear. So I went down the trail and got him and led him up the trail to the bear. He didn’t smell the bear until we were right on top of it. Well, when Frank got a sniff of that bear, he went straight up and took off out of the canyon. He went clear back to camp. I had to walk every step of the way out! I never played that joke on a horse again! We skinned the bear and flipped a coin for the hide and the Indian won so he took the hide home. And that’s the bear story! (I’ve told it to my kids at least a million times!)

When we were camped in the mountains watching the sheep we had about five blankets. We would lay about three blankets over pine boughs and put two blankets over the top of us to stay warm! Ivin and I used to sleep together. It got cold at night! I remember one dark and rainy night just about the time we were finishing our dinner the dogs started to bark and we looked outside our tent to find an old Mexican there on his horse. We invited the old sheepherder in. He had been out all day looking for some lost sheep. It got dark and rainy and he couldn’t see his way back to his camp! I got busy and cooked him some mutton and ‘tators. Ivin said he better stay with us the night and not go back out in that bad storm. Since he didn’t have a bed, Ivin invited him to sleep with us. He said, "Now Elbert, you sleep in the middle!" So I went to sleep that night with a perfect stranger in my bed. That was the way you treated strangers in the mountains. We had very few visitors. I always chided Ivin about how he made me sleep in the middle! Ivin is ten years older than me and was pretty much in charge! We said goodbye to the Mexican the next morning and never saw him again.

My teenage years went by quickly. My advice to my teenage posterity is to always go out with someone you think will be a satisfactory husband or wife. You might end up marrying him! You are eventually going to marry someone you date! And you might as well marry a rich one as a poor one!

It was sort of a sad day when I graduated from high school. All of a sudden I was finished with school. I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. I assumed I would stay home and help Dad at least a year because that is what all my brothers did. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life at that age! I would advise young people now to try and figure out what you want to do with their life while their are young so they can get some where in life. Have a goal to work toward! I finally decided to go to Adam’s State Teachers College in Alamosa, Colorado. I didn’t like it very well and only lasted there a few months. After I quit school, I went back on the ranch and helped Dad a few months. He was glad to see me! I stayed until about December. Well, then if you know your history you know what happened! December 7, 1941, World War II started, so by January 1st I joined the army and went to Denver. I was in the Army/Air Force. I was up real late one night getting sworn in! Then they hauled us out to our Army base about twenty miles from Denver. I got to bed about 12:00 midnight! They gave us blankets and a bed. I was restless but finally got to sleep! This old Sergeant came in at 4:00 AM the next morning and blew that miserable whistle as loud as he could and I saw those blazing lights in my eyes and I thought, "Where am I! What have I done to me!" That was the most gruesome feeling I ever had in my life! In his gruff voice he hollered, "Get out of there! Get moving! Get up! Hurry up!" Swearing and everything! They lined us up and taught us how to march. That was really my first time away from home! I was in that spot for a few days and then they shipped me to Texas for basic training. I sure did learn how to march!

They came around one day and asked if anyone wanted to be an aircraft armorer. I went to school in Denver and learned how to do that and then was shipped off to Florida to gunner’s school. My job was to take care of the guns. Then I went to gun turret school in Indiana. I was in Ohio for a while, too. I was in the army for about four years but never went to battle. I tried to get over seas but could never get there. It was strictly by chance that I stayed in the states. My friend and cousin Donald Jarvis joined the

Navy. I think he was on the Battle Ship New Mexico. I know he saw Japanese kamikaze pilots.

I was a sergeant but I wasn’t very good at bossing people around. Once when I was down in Florida, I had this guy named Kirby under me. I was given the responsibility to get different jobs done like clean up a plane or fix a machine gun. I would give Kirby a nickel or buy him a coke to go do his job. I was a little too nice! He was an obstinate kid. I could have had him court marshaled if I’d a wanted to.

After four years in the military, I was released on November 20, 1945 and I went back to Manassa, Colorado to work on the farm with Dad again. By January I had decided that the farm life really wasn’t what I wanted and that I had better go back to school. After four years of seeing the United States I didn’t see any future in farming. I decided that I wanted to go to Chicago and study about radios and how to fix them. I took a couple of hundred dollars from the family company and got on the train to head to Chicago. Dad talked me into stopping in Indianapolis on the way to see my Sister Josephine. She talked me into going to school there at Purdue. I started classes in February 1946. I took classes through the Purdue extension in Indianapolis. I also I took a couple of courses at Indiana University. I also took some courses in mathematics at a high school there. The following year I went to the Purdue University campus in West Lafayette, Indiana. I was going to study electrical engineering first but after a year I decided that I liked Chemical engineering better. So I switched to that. I got my bachelors degree in 1950. I lived with Josephine for a few months while going to school but then I got a separate room down town near the school in a private residence. I worked hard those four years. To support myself I had a part time job at an asphalt laboratory for a dollar an hour. I made physical measurements on asphalt. It was a sticky mess. But it was a good job because I could pretty much work any hours I wanted. I learned to be immaculately clean or I had a terrible mess. I worked 18 or 20 hours a week.

One time I saw an ad in the school paper for help needed cleaning a rooming house for a dollar an hour. I thought I would give it a try. I never worked so hard in all my life as I did that one day for that woman. What a boss! She just could not be satisfied. I was working so hard that the sweat was just coming off of me. And I thought pitching hay back at home was hard! That was the roughest job I ever had! She was a real skinflint. She was out to get every ounce of energy out of you for every penny she paid you. That was enough of that!

During the summers I would go home and work all summer helping my Dad herding sheep. I would ride the bus back and forth. It was about a three-day trip. After four years I had my bachelor’s degree and took a job in Denver, Colorado, at the Julius Heinemann company, making insecticides for a dollar and a half an hour. Then I decided to go back to school and get my masters degree. I got my masters degree in the summer of 1951 and then took a job with the General Electric Company in Richland, Washington. I worked on nuclear pile radiation experiments. I was there for two years. When I left I had one white eyebrow. Oops!

I then went to Penn State University to study fuels technology. I studied for a year and enjoyed it. I worked and got paid at the same time I studied. I finally just decided I had had enough school and sent an application to a couple of places looking for permanent employment! I took a job in September 1954 at Rocketdyne (North American Aviation) in Canoga Park, California for $525.00 a month. I worked on the Atlas intercontinental rocket fuel research program at Rocketdyne. I worked on that for three of four years. It was a very fun and interesting job. I did a lot of work in a lab. After that program was phased out I worked on combustion devices and rocket fuels that took the first men to the moon.

I met Marilyn, my wife to be, in 1956. She was my neighbor in Northridge, California. We had homes next door to each other. I thought she was cute. We liked to get together. We knew each other for about a year and a half before we got married. Since it was Marilyn’s second marriage, we eloped to Reno, Nevada. When we came back, we moved into my house and sold her house. We moved out in the country before too long and bought a brand new home just being built at 9900 Wilbur in Northridge. We had a horse race track behind us and orange and grapefruit orchards all around us. It was a nice area. We worked hard putting in the landscaping, and sprinklers, and fencing. After about ten years the wood fence pretty well deteriorated so I decided to build a better fence out of brick. It took me about a year. I remember when I was putting in the foundation I put in scraps of metal here and there and I remember throwing in old television sets and things like that. If I did it again now I would use steal rod to reinforce

it so it wouldn’t get any cracks in it. Just the same, it has held up well all these years and when we go down to visit in Northridge, it is still standing and looks in good shape.

In our early years of marriage Marilyn and I would go out to dinner, usually on Friday nights. We would go out for Chinese food at "Tang Hall" in Reseda or a steak house like "White Horse Inn." I would get home at 5:30 p.m. each evening when I worked at Rocketdyne and it was nice to eat together as a family. We also liked to barbecue outdoors when the weather was nice. We used an old wagon with bricks stacked around it and charcoal in the middle to BBQ on. It worked great!

Marilyn already had Bill when we were married and it wasn’t long before he was just like my own boy. I had a lot of fun playing with him. He has been a wonderful son!

I remember when Debbie and Joel were born. We didn’t get much sleep for a few days. I always worried when they first came home. Marilyn decided on their names. I always had a suggestion but Marilyn always won out. I wanted to name Joel, Charley, but she didn’t like that. I was good at changing diapers. I would put the kids right in the sink to rinse them off. A good "rumpim washim" was much more thorough than a wash rag!

I always liked to tease Debbie. We had some pretty good laughs. One night I got in trouble when I slipped a little piece of smoked herring in her ice cream. That made her a little bit cranky and she sure did throw it at me.

One of the chores the kids had when they got a little older was to mop the kitchen floor after dinner every night. We used to do that when I was a kid, too.

After the moon program was terminated there was a cutback in development engineers and I was laid off. So there we were in the middle of Los Angeles without a way to make a living! I decided to buy a "Pioneer Take Out" restaurant. It looked pretty good on paper. It would be enough to make us a living and give our children something to work at, also. So we bought a Pioneer franchise on December 1, 1968. For about the first three months it went pretty well. Then all of a sudden the bills started coming in. All kinds of bills we didn’t imagine! Things like payroll taxes. We got pretty worried. By the time we paid Pioneer their big cut and the payroll we didn’t have anything left to live on! The Pioneer Corporation finally agreed to let us raise the food prices. Then we were operating in the black instead of the red. When Pioneer started advertising on television our sales went way up! Then the pressure was off and we could make a good living. We owned that store at the corner of Parthenia and Corbin for eighteen and a half years until our lease was up. I didn’t want to renegotiate a lease because things were falling off by then. People were getting fearful to eat deep fried food. We used to sell well over a thousand cut up chickens a week!

We got rid of our debt working there and got a little bit ahead financially. I enjoyed working there in a sense but hated being locked into it. When I tried to leave for very long I just worried to death leaving teenage kids running it. It was a dangerous business with the gas run fryers. There was always a danger of fire. And the danger one of the kids would get hurt. Or they would sell bad food to someone. And then "Pioneer Pete" was always coming around poking their noses into our business. Telling us how to do it. They would tell us things to do differently according to their book but it was wrong. You couldn’t tell them anything because they went by their book. We would usher them out the door and then go back to preparing the food the right way! We wanted to do it the best way to keep our customers. We had many customers that would go to no other Pioneer but ours because they said our food was better.

Then I always would sweat out the health department coming around. I would bend over backwards to please them so I didn’t have much trouble with them. Then there were the OSHA people. The government labor department. If you fired a person and you were reported to the labor relations board they could make you pay fines. They were always against the employer. If there were someone I didn’t like I would try to ease him or her out gently by cutting down on their hours. We had a lot of good employees, though, through the years. And of course it was great having my wife and kids and nieces and nephews working along side with me!

Sometimes things would start to disappear, though! Money would disappear out of the register. Shortly before we got out of the business this one employee took all of the money out of the till and he and another female employee went on a three or four day trip up North. He said a woman must have taken the money when he wasn’t looking. His name was Jose. I knew he took the money but I couldn’t prove it. He took about $300.00. I watched him closely after that and it was just a few months before we were out of the business anyway.

I learned when I had my own business that I had to fix things myself. Things were constantly breaking down. Everything from the pie case, to the fryers, the refrigerators, or the plumbing. I became my own best fixit man. That’s how we were able to make pretty good money. I was always fixing things. I took quite a few classes to learn business management and refrigeration and other things. You are never too old to learn new things!

We had quite a few robberies while we were in business. I was personally held up twice. That wasn’t very pleasant. Nobody ever got hurt there, thankfully. I remember one week they broke the big window and took everything they could find. The next night they came in and held me up. They took everything out of the register and put it in their hat. They even took my billfold. The next night they broke the big window again and took the things they could find again! So the next night my dog, old Barney and I went down with my .22 gun and we went to war! I had had it! Barney was a little white toy poodle dog. He was small but he was a good watchdog! I would have plugged

anything that moved, I think. We didn’t have any trouble, thankfully, although, they did rob the laundry mat down the block in the night!

I was pretty happy when I retired from that business. Nineteen years was long enough to do one thing. It didn’t bother me to walk away from it. All our dogs missed the leftover chicken, though!

We decided to move to Boise a few years after I retired to be closer to Debbie and her family and get out of the congestion of Los Angeles. We miss our old home there and the nice climate but there are a lot of things we like about Boise. Like our morning walks by the river! And being close to the kids.

It was always sad to see our kids grow up and move out on their own. I missed having them around. Bill joined the Air Force after high school and learned a good trade in that with Air Traffic Controlling. I remember reading one of his officer’s recommendations! He was very well liked! He got married to Bonnie Bowman soon after basic training and moved to Arizona. Eventually he moved back to Los Angeles and went into the movie making industry. He also has his pilots license and teaches flying lessons! Bill has a lot of talents and is a really smart guy. We enjoy talking about different stocks that would be good investments! Bill has two boys, Ryan and Dustin. Ryan is nineteen now and Dustin is fifteen. They’re good looking boys and very muscular. Ryan is a good fisherman. It is a lot of fun when we can get together with them. Bill and Bonnie were divorced a few years ago, and now he has a wife named Tamara. He and his new wife seem to be very successful working together in the movie business.

And then there is Debbie. I remember when her husband to be, Farrell Firkins, came in to talk to me one night. He sat right down in front of me. He looked me in the eye and said that he wanted to marry Debbie! It was very nice. He was very mature. He told me he had some good ideas to make a living and he thought he could take good care of her. I was very impressed. I felt good about it. I was always a little leery about the fellows that came around. Debbie had a nice temple marriage. Then we had a nice reception at our house. We fixed the house all nice! We put in new flooring and got new furniture. Marilyn did a good job putting on the reception! It was a good time!

Debbie has five kids. Two beautiful daughters, Kelly and Kimberly. And then there is Adam and Andrew, the twins. They’re big, strong fellows! Then there is Jonathan the youngest one. He just turned eight and was baptized. Now Debbie doesn’t have any more babies. They are all growing up. But they sure are a good-looking bunch of kids. We have a lot of fun with them! Jonathan especially has been my buddy and comes to visit me a lot! I’ve enjoyed that. We have a special tradition of family dinners together on Sunday after church. Marilyn cooks up a great dinner and then we enjoy a football game or an old movie together!

And then there is our youngest son, Joel. He did a lot after high school. First he wanted to be a carpenter. Then he went on a mission for the church to Peru. I was proud of him for that! After he came home from that he was a plumber with Farrell for a while. Then he decided to join the marines. He wasn’t very happy there and got an early (but honorable) release. After that he got married to a girl named Lisa Farmer. They got an apartment down in Northridge and he worked as a carpenter. His marriage didn’t last very long. They just weren’t happy together. After his divorce from Lisa, he moved to Florida and married a girl he knew there named Leann. They had two wonderful sons together, Darrin and Mark. Joel worked hard and got a degree in computer programming. Unfortunately, after a while Joel and Leann separated. Joel moved to Kansas City and got himself a good computer-programming job there. Eventually, he and Leann divorced. Now Joel is married to another girl, named Cindy, who has three daughters. He seems very happy. He misses his two sons in Florida, but gets over to visit them as often as he possibly can. He is a good father! I just wish we could be with him and his family more often. It’s hard living so far apart.

Joel’s oldest boy Darrin is seven years old. He is a real sharp boy. He is a good speaker. We got pretty well acquainted with Darrin when we went to see them a few times in Florida. His youngest son’s name is Mark. We don’t know him very well. I knew him as a baby but he is about three years old now.

Marilyn and I enjoy going around to visit our kids and grandkids now that we are retired. Going to Florida, or Kansas City, or down to California to see Bill and our friends down there. We enjoy walking together everyday. I enjoy taking a nap. Marilyn enjoys reading her murder mysteries. We like to raise tomatoes every summer. We love to eat them and we can them every year. I also like to plant a winter squash. It makes Marilyn a little mad though when it climbs all over her flowers. I used to enjoy working with stained glass but I don’t do that much any more. We love to watch our television shows, too. We like to watch the Dodgers baseball team together and we like to watch football! I root for the Denver Bronco’s and Marilyn roots for the Oakland Raiders. It’s fun! I also like to read and I like to study the stock market. That keeps me busy. I probably watch it more than I should. I try to figure out ways to invest better since I don’t feel like working physically any more. We rely on our investments to keep us going. I have a dog named Alfred. I enjoy going fishing with my brothers, Ivin and Delwyn down in Twin Falls. It seems to be getting harder and harder to get together with them, though!

I started working in the temple in January 1998. The Bishop called me one day and asked me to work in the temple. It is challenge but very interesting. It’s helping me keep from growing old. There is a lot of memorization to do. You meet a marvelous group of men from all over the country. Each temple worker has a different story.

My advice to my kids and posterity is to save your money and stay out of debt. And stay close to the church. It will help keep you and your children close. The church is a very helpful force. I didn’t understand it until I got older. But now I understand my own father a lot better. He was a very strong churchman. He worked in the church a lot. I thought he was wasting his time sometimes. But now I understand he was just trying to protect his family and do what was right!