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Sharing our Links to the Past |
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Born: 20 Jan 1915, Smithfield, Utah Father: #M6c Eric Benjamin
Lundquist Married: The following is a brief autobiography of Ebert M. Lundquist. I was born on January 20, 1915 in Smithfield, Utah. My parents were Eric Benjamin Lundquist and Eugenia H. Lundquist. I was christened Ebert Maurice Lundquist. I was the fifth of six boys born to my parents. I was born in my parents’ new three bedroom one story home that they had just finished building. Four of my older brothers were born in a log house on the same lot as the new home. My brothers from oldest to youngest were: Milton Rocine, Charles Harris, Eugene Benjamin and Harold Edwin. My youngest brother was Rodney Earl. Our new home was of wood construction with a "pebbke-dash" finishover the exterior. "Pebble-dash" consisted of a heavy cement plaster filled with smal pebbles. When spread thinly across the surface of the house’s exterior it made a pleasing pebbly appearance and was very durable. It still stands as of 1995, when I last saw it. The old log home will be described later in my brother Milton’s autobiography. In addition to the three bedrooms there was one bathroom (Imagine the logistic problems, especially because Milton, being the oldest, stayed in there for what seemed hours at the most critical times. Oh yes, there was an outhouse or "backhouse" as we called it out behind the garage which originally served the old log house, which could be used in an emergency. It was a two-holer and was equipped with the usual Sears Roebuck or Montgomery-ward catalog. There was a hallway with a huge clothes closet between the bedrooms, bathroom and the kitchen. There was a kitchen with a view to the south, and adjacent to it to the west, was a sleeping porch. Adjacent to the kitchen to the east through a swinging door were the dining room and living room. Separating the dining and living areas was were two collonades which gave the two rooms an appearance of spaciousness, although they were quite small. I was especially fond of a walnut lawyer’s book case with leaded glass drop windows with four shelves. My father had a full encyclopaedia constisting of about thirty books, all loaded with information. I loved to look at these books as well as use them as a reference during all of my school years at home. To the best of my knowledge my father’s education was limited to grade school, but to me, he was a very well educated man, having learned all this from his fine collection of books. He wrote beautifully and his letters and writings were clear, concise and straight to the point. Another attractive feature of our home was a walnut telephone desk. There was a built seat for using the telephone and a well made built-in cabinet with pull down desk and drawers and doors for storage of dad’s personal papers. It was a favorite spot for me when studying, writing letters or telephoning my friends. Adjacent to the writing desk was a fireplace which could use either coal or wood. The "back porch", the sleeping porch was a room with a couch. This room was enclosed with several large windows which faced the south and west. You could see the sunset and the back yards of several neighbors through the block. It was used by my mother to sew and iron (press) the clothes of the whole family. But in my day, it was also used as another bedroom. From the back porch there was a hallway leading down stairs to a landing and the back door. Then from that landing there was a stairwell leading to the basement where there was a bedroom, a full size room for washing machine, laundry sinks and other utilities. (Today we would call it a utility room.) Opposite the bedroom there was a full sized room with shelves for storing the dozend of bottles of fruit that mother had "put up". [bottled or canned in Mason Jars] There was a furnace room with a coal furnace. Huge pipes ten or twelve inches in diameter routed the heat from the furnace to the various upstairs rooms. In the back of the furnace there was a plenum chamber for cleaning out the heating pipes which had a sliding cover on it. I discovered that it was a hiding place for my brother Charlie’s liquor which he bought from a bootlegger in Wyoming. This was during Prohibition. I would sample it once in a while and replace what I had taken with water. The furnace had a water jacket attached to it for providing misture to the house. We would have to replace the water every few days. There was also hot water pipes flowing around inside the furnace to collect hot water which was piped throughout the house. A similar arrangement was attached to the coal and wood burning stove in the kitchen which also provided hot water to the rest of the house. I can remember Mother making crackers and cookies on the stove top. Dad made a special recipe for buttermilk hotcakes and fried them on the stove top. My Uncle LaMont, in his narrative about my parents said my dad fried bacon and eggs and hotcakes in the morning with his hat on. Adjacent to the fruit storage room there was a coal bin with a tilting chute. I guess the coal room was about six feet wide by six feet deep by about eight feet high. I imagine it would hold about a ton of coal. The chute could be closed to keep the weather out of the house, but when the coal was delivered the chute could be opened and the coal would fall down onto the coal pile. There was a coal bucket which could be filled to carry the coal from the bin through the fruit room to the furnace. It was often my chore to see that there was coal in the furnace. The house was on a lot which I would estimate was about 100 feet wide by 400 feet deep. So there was room for other buildings besides the house on the property. There was an old barn, a chicken koop, a one car garage and the outhouse. I used the outhouse often because our one bathroom was pretty busy with six boys and two parents using it. For toilet paper we used yesterday’s newspaper and old Sears or "Monkey Ward’ catalogs. My father grew lots of chickens and usually had a pig for most of my early years. He fed the pig our table leftovers, such as meat gristle and fat, vegetables and food juices. This pig feed was known as "Swill." When each pig reached its time my dad butchered it. When the pig was dead, father had an overhead pulley which served as a hoist. He tied a rope to the pig’s hind legs and lowered it into a barrell of scalding hot water so that the pig’s bristles could be removed. We had plenty of bacon, ham and other pork cuts on our dinner table. In addition to all of the eggs we needed, on special days dad would butcher two or three chickens. We had more than enough eggs so we could take a dozen or so to the store and bring home some hamburger or groceries in exchange. There was the garden, immediately between the west side of the house and the cas dide of the chicken coop and garage. We grew most all of the vegetables. In an irrigating ditch for our lawn and garden we grew asparagas and water cress. West of the garage was another part of our lot that lay idle. I believe years before when dad had a horse and buggy this was used for pasture. I don’t remember anything growing there except weeds. I do remember using it when I was 12 or 13 as a safe place to blow up into the sky about 100 feet, a five gallon empty paint can. I would dig a little hole, fill the hole with water, put a few small lumps of carbide into the water, place the inverted pain can over the hole, then with a lighted match on the end of a long stick, I ignited the carbide gas. With a deafening "whomp", the resulting explosion catapulted the can high into the air. It’s a wonder that my friends and I escaped serious injury. Along the north side of our property my father had his paint store and shop. It was about 20 feet wide by about 50feet deep. About two-thirds of the length of the shop was like a paint and wallpaper store. On his shelves he carried a large stock of prepared paints, wallpapers and varnishes. In a back room of his shop he carried several sheets of glass in different thickness up to about 1/4" plate. There was a table where he laid out the glass and with a diamond cutter, he would scratch the glass and break it to the size he needed it. This fascinated me so much that I had to try cutting the glass the way he did it but I never could do it successfully. He also kept his bulk linseed and raw oils, thinners, colors and other supplies there. Dad mixed his paint in this back room and clened out his assortment of brushes. After rinsing them out several times with a solvent, he brushed them nearly dry on the exterior side of the two big back doors of the shop. These doors were about two inches thick and three feet wide by six feet high. After he squeezed the solvent out of the brushes he stored it in five gallon cans for settling of the solids and re-use for brush-cleaning. Over time the paint from cleaning the brushes accumulated on those two doors and what emerged was a bubbly surface that built up over each previous drop. When my father died those door resembled the bubbled surface of some dead planet which had been ravaged by volcanic mud. Every color of the spectrum reflected off these grape-sized bubbles; some bright some dull. It was a surrealistic landscape. Today, if a person had purposefully done that for the sake of art, he would be considered a fine abstract expressionist artist. I have always regretted that I did not preserve those doors for display in a museum. Sometimes he would mix his wallpaper paste in our kitchen. Here he could get boiling hot water to pour gradually over the flour while vigorously stirring the mixture. This way it was not lumpy. Otherwise he delayed mixing his wallpaper paste until he arrived at the jobsite. That way, he could use the cusomer’s hot water and the paste would be fresh. I do not know how or when my father learned his trade. I assume he must have served an apprenticeship to journeyman for a few years or started from scratch and worked up little by little. I have seen recipes for various concoctions such as for painting over silk or satin cloth, polishing liquid, and checmicals for preparing new walls and cement floors and for cleaning wallpaper. No doubt his suppliers helped him a great deal in return for the certainty of his future business. To advertise his services, father had a sign made and put up along the highway west of Smithfield. The sign read in large about six inch letters, "E. B. Lundquist, Wall Paper, Paint & Glass." Some vandals, one night, painted out certain letters in the sign and when they were finished with their prank the sign read, "E. B. Lundquist, All Pants & No Ass." There was a large apple tree outside of my dad and mom’s bedroom. I enjoyed opening one of the swinging windows and jump out to a limb of the tree. In front of our house our our grass lawn was divided by a concrete walkway from the sidewalk to the front porch. The front porch had two huge square collonades on either side and concrete steps leading down from each side. The north steps led to the path to the rear end of the paint shop and the south steps were for entry into the house from the street. My Grandmother Harris’s [Katherine Sarah Perkes AFN:2DFR-2Q] house was in Hyde Park, about four miles South and East of Smithfield. It was a comfortable one-bedroom pioneer abode. It’s exterior was of stone construction. It had a front porch that faced the sunset. The home was on the very West edge of town and beyond it to the West was nothing but farmland and grazeing pasteurs. To get there from Smithfield, my father or mother would take us brothers there by horse and buggy. Usually every Sunday we would have Sunday dinner then return home that night. Sometimes I would stay with Grandmother for several days or until I got homesick. Uncle Kirk took me home in his U. S. Mail buggy. For some reason, Uncle Kirk never married. He was not a handsome man. But he was an angel because he lived with Grandmother and brought in a good living for the two of them. Uncle Kirk contracted with the city of Hyde Park to pick up the mail from the Oregon Short Line Railroad which originated in Salt Lake City, Utah and ended up in Pocatello, Idaho by way of our Cache Valley. The railroad ran North and South about two miles west of Hyde Park. The pasenger and mail train consisted of about three cars including a baggage car. When the train, coming from Salt Lake City came whizzing down the tracks past Hyde Park station, the baggage man threw the mail sack out the door. The tumbled over and over stirring up the dust and came to rest about fifty feet later. He also delivered newspapers, including the Deseret News out of Salt Lake City. When I stayed over I was thrilled to go along with him to pick up and deliver the mail and the newspapers. Uncle Kirk was good to his horse and was always giving it compliments. In my mind’s eye I can still see and smell the horse and harness. Sometimes when the horse was trotting it would pass wind in a staccato-like sputter. Often the horse would have a bowel movement and I couldn’t believe the size of the horse manure. It would sometimes splatter all over the double-tree and the breech clout. To send the mail out on the train was a fascinating procedure. The outging Hyde Park mail was placed in a mail bag with a tight strap around its midriff. The sack had a ring on each end. At the Hyde Park station there was a steel pole that had two swivel arms on it that could be moved to horizontal and perpendicular to the railroad tracks. Uncle Kirk fastened the ring on the top of the sack to the top arm and likewise fastened the bottom ring to the bottom arm, leaving the sack hanging there in a vertical position. When the train came chugging by, the baggage man raised an arm that extended our of the car door that engaged the mail sack and by centrifugal force surged the sack of mail into his car, meanwhile kicking out any mail destined for Hyde Park. My recollection of the train zooming down the track is very clear today. Looking up the tracks, the fly-sized locomotive kept getting larger and larger; and as it past us blew paper and dust into our faces, the shrill high sound of it shifted from high to low like the winding down of a of a dozen sirens. When Uncle Kirk delivered his newspapers, he knew every customer. Many would be awaiting their news and there would be a boring conversation for a while. Uncle Kirk’s chicken koop, barn and tool shed were fasniating to me. I loved to look at his harnesses. I could freely use his tools and wood scraps to make toys for myself. Grandmother’s pantry was about 5’ by 10’ by 6’ high. There were shelves and cupboard to contain hew bottles of fruits that she had "put up"after harvest time. In this pantry there was a trap door in the floor that opened up to expose a square hole in the ground which also had shelves. It was always cold and damp down there. It was the counterpart of today’s refigerator. It was the place where grandmother kept her butter, cheese, eggs and milk from spoiing. Grandmother had a churn for butter. Her buttermilk was heavenly. She also had an ice cream churn. How delicious to have some of her unforgettable chocolate cake and ice cream. As a child, it seemed like a palace to me, it was so cozy and comfortable. All of the rooms were small but well furnished. The furniture was mostly oak and of ancient origin -- antique even then. In her dining room she had a beautiful oak chiffonier with about four huge drawers. It’s top had a head high beveled mirror. I loved to go through these drawers to view her priceless possessions. Most of her furniture was oak. There was a black leather couch in the living room which could be converted into a bed for Uncle Kirk. She had a handsome pump organ of oak construction. Above the keyboard stops was an extention which contained ornately carved figures and a mirror in the center. By changing and combining stops one could make the most exotic sounds. Leaving different combinations open I extraced the most weird and beautiful sounds from it. Thankfully Grandmother was tolerant of my music (or couldn’t hear it because she was becoming quite hard of hearing) because she never stopped or scolded me. In Grandmother’s living room she had an Edison phonograph that my Uncle Kirk had bought for her. It played phonograph records about 1/4 inch thick. Kirk also bought a Lester upright piano for her. The records were mostly classic and popular ballads of the time sang by Enrico Caruso. My favorite records were "The Two Black Crows" and "Over the Waves". Her bed was a feather bed that seemed bottomless in its snug recesses. It was warm as toast. Sometimes when I was sick, she would tuck me in and bring me Wisdom Tea to soothe my sore throat. While at Grandmother’s house I never had an idle moment. Using Uncle Kirk’s tools and some two-inch square fir boards, I made locomotives and cars. I nailed pieces on the top of the blocks to emulate the smoke stack, bells, lights, etc., and connected them with trings wrapped around nails on the ends of each unit. Then I would mimic the sound of a locomotive and race all around the house and yard chugging like a locomotive until I was dead tired and hungry. Grandmother always had cookies and chocolate cake and Wisdom Tea along with bacon and eggs, hotcakes and fruit. There was a dirt sidewalk ran along the western edge of Grandmother’s property. The street was lined with tall decidious trees. There were also trees along her property line. In the summer they formed a canopy of shade. In the hot evenings it was always cool there. Grandmother told me that this was her "Path of Tribulation." This was where she walked back and forth meditating and praying. Her whole yard was populated with lovely ornamentals and flowers that she constqantly tended. When I tired of playing at Grandmother’s house, I visited my friend, ????Vern Seamonds who lived about a block away and played with him in his sandpille. One time he and I were digging a hole in the sand, with Vern winging the blade of a hoe down into the sand and I alternately removing the sand with my hands. Our coordination got off synch and Vern brought the hoe blade down on the back of my left hand cutting a two inch gash. Mrs. Seamonds bandiged me up and I lived. I Still have a small scar to prove it. Vern and I loved to explore along the ditch that ran down the road past their house. We could see polywogs and small fishes splashing along the bank. Once in a while we would chew on a bunch of water cress that grew in abundance there. My Uncle Kirk had a fine chicken koop and chicken run in the back yourd of their Hyde Park home. Before Uncle Kirk bought Grandmother her indoor bathroom, they used an outhouse which was located within the chicken run. During the day, no matter when we went out to the outhouse, the chickens came running to the gate clamoring and squawking for food. There were plenty of eggs with enough left over to take some up to Hyde’s General Store and trade for candy and food. When I was a pre-teen I had a German Police dog named "Duke". He was very intelligent. (Aren’t all dogs?) His greatest trick was to make a difficult climb up to the porch railing and to stand on his hind legs to reach a food morsel which I had place on the capital of one of the colonnades. I taught him many of the usual dog tricks. Another nice trick was hitching him to my sleigh in the winter and have him pull me around on the ice and snow. I was broken hearted when someone killed Duke by poisoning. A series of obelisk shaped concrete post with about one-half inch diameter link chain draped between the posts was our front fence. It still stands today. I recollect how I used to sit on the chain and use it as a swing. While still quite young, probably nine or ten, I loved to go fishing with my friend Harry Miles who lived down a few houses on our street. Harry would be chaperoned by his older brother Leonard. One day we were in a canyon fishing the creek that ran through our town. Leonard was the only one who caught any fish, three or four about ten-inch long rainbow trout. They were in his fish basket. I don’t know why I did it, perhaps to impress my parents, but I stole one of Leonard’s fish. When I got home I proudly showed the fish to Mom and she was quite thrilled at my achievement. But my glory was short-lasting. Leonard came to our front door and told my mother that I had stolen one of his fish. Mother confronted me with one of her stern (dressing-down) looks and I confessed. She made me go get Leonard’s fish for him and then gave me a stern tongue lashing. When I was a pre-teen, I loved to play with marbles and spin tops. My young friends and I played these games on a wide strip of sidewalk on the sunny south side of Griffith’s Mercantile on the northwest corner of Main and Center Street. The objects of these marble games were to see who could win the most marbles or throw one’s spinning top down upon the oopponent’s already spinning top to put him out of the game. Another favorite sport was roller skating. How I loved to roller scate. In the winter there were a lot of frozen over canals and ponds where we could ice skate. Some times I skated on the frozen irrigation canal all the way from Smithfield to Hyde Park when I went to see my grandmother Harris. I loved to read the sports page of our newspaper, the Salt Lake City tribune. I followed major league baseball and also golf. Golf was not played in our valley at that time. I made a miniature golf course in my parent’s back yard. I used tennis balls and tin cans crumpled into the shape of a golf ball. For clubs I fashioned them out of a tree branch with a knot or sharp bend on one end. I fancied that I was New York Yankee (my favorite team) or a St. Louis Cardinal. I played my own ball game on our front yard lawn. I was my own full team. The Fulkerson’s pool hall was next door to us and their building was a one and one-half story brick. First I would throw the ball against the building, when the ball bounced back I considered that a hit from the opposing team, and fielded the ball for the put out. Next I would hit the ball with my bat against the building and depending on the bounce I would "run it out." Later on in my junior highs school year, I was able to make Smithfiels’s American Legion Junior baseball team. I was a third baseman. It was the joy of my life. I was fair at fielding the grounders to hot corner although one day I misread a hot grounder with took an unusual bounce and caught me on the chin. I saw stars for a couple of innings but didn’t want to let on for fear of being taken out of the game. I was a below-average hitter but do remember a lucky home run which I hit as a hot grounder down and inside the third base line. The ball "never stopped rolling" until the left fielder got it but I was home before the throw reached the plate. Baseball was quite popular in our town. Our local team had some excellent ball players and they featured at least one future major leaguer, Lou Fonseca. What a hero he was to me. Smithfield had a good baseball team. We played other cities in Cache Valley. The games were well attended. The bleachers were very small, but most people brought their automobiles and parked them perpendicular to the field on the North and West sides of the park. Some of Smithfield’s baseball players were heading to the higher leagues so they lived temporily in the hotel that was on the second floor of Griffiths’ Mercantile store. We kids hung out around the entrance to the hotel awaiting a chance to see one of them and have them notice us with our baseball gloves. My mitt must have been a hand me down because there was a hole worn in the palm of it. In Junior High School I went out for football. Our school was adjacent to the city’s baseball park. Even though the field was quite grassy it had a lot of pebbles embedded in it. I can remember that if the biggest kid was playing on the opposing team, that team won decisively. This boy wore heavy leather shoew with steel toes and no one dared tackle him. I found why when I tried to tackle him a few times. Each time I was knocked head over heels in the gravel, saw stars and was scratched from head to toe. That ended my football career. Still as a 11 or 12 year-old there was a vacant corner lot with deciduous trees on it and a lot of undergrowth and haning moss on it. It was across the street and down to the corner. In this small grove there were vines (it may have been ivy) hanging from the tree limbs. Some were about the diameter of a cigarette and were dead and dry. One of the kids in our crowd had cut a vine to the length of a cigarette and found it tasted pretty good. So we kids decided to try it out and it wasn’t bad. Being staunchly reared Mormon kids, it was fun to be evil and defy our superiors who came walking by on the sidewalk. I’ll always cherish the memories of our minor illnesses. They seemed almost terminal to us children. Mother would comfort me with love and tender care. For chest colds she gave us castor oil and placed mustard poultices on our chests. We had cough medicines but no anti-histamine or anti-biotics then so we had to "tough it out." Mother’s love and gentle care, her Wisdom Tea and chocolate drinks usually did the trick in short order. Later on in my teen years I went fishing with my brother Charlie. We would go up into other canyons in the valley. I Caught my first legitimate fish. I was so enthused that I pulled it out of the water so strongly that it sailed over my head up to a roadway which ran along the river. The winters were cold in Smithfield. Mother did her washing and then hung it out to dry on her back-yard clothes line. In my mind, I can still see my brothers’ white shirts hanging out there stiff as sheet steel. As soon as they were brought indoors, the frozen moisture evaporated and they were quite dry. During my early youth I loved candy, bananas, cokes and milk shakes. Every day I "bummid" a nickle or dime from Mom for a Mars Milky Way or Snicker Bar. You could get a three ounce candy bar for a nickle. Now one of those weighing about one ounce costs about a quarter. How I loved those Coca Colas in the shaped glass and the milk shakes at our local "Candy Kitchen." I liked to sprinkle loads of nutmeg into my shakes to enhance their taste. Sometimes my Mom would give me one or two eggs to trade for a candy bar. We always looked forward to our vacations. One year my father and mother spent their vacation on a trip to Los Angeles California via Las Vegas, Nevada. Dad had two brothers, Charles and Mr. Curea, (Possibly ???) and one sister, Hilma (Helen) who lived in Los Angeles. Our transportation was a Model T four-door touring sedan which my father had won in a contest selling subscriptions for a local newspaper. As I recall only my elder brothers Eugene and Eddie went with us also. As there were no motels in those days, we camped out each night wherever we landed. Dad carried an old mattress on top of the ford which he and mother used at night. I believe my brothers and I slept on a tarp with old quilts for cover. I don’t remember being cold or uncomfortable anytime during our camp-outs. One night we camped in the desert practically in downtown Las Vegas, which, at the time was just a wide spot in the road. Gambling had begun in the city by then. The whole trip was thrilling to us kids because we got to see the ocean, to romp on the hot sands and frolic in the warm salt water. There were two special places in California that hold fond memories, Lake Elsinore and Carpenteria Beach where we pitched our camp. A real estate man made a pitch to sell dad some beachfront property for a few hundred dollars but he turned the offer down. A few years later when any of us went to California again, we regretted that our parents did not buy because we could hve been wealthy beachfront owners. Our visits with our Aunt Helen, Uncles Charles and Uncle "Curea" (Possibly this was our Uncle Carl Emil and for some reason he had changed his name.) He ran a small watchmaking business. In my minds eye his eyes appeared very large, probably because his glasses were the magnifying type. He was not very friendly, as I recall. Uncle Charles and Aunt Helen were very cordial and loving. When I was 19 a friend and I hitchhiked to Los Angeles and she took us in for a few weeks. More about that later. Uncle Charles took a liking to my brother Eugene. Charles and his wife, Rosamind were childless. Eugene kept in touch with Uncle Charles. Soon when it came time to make a will, Uncle Charles included Eugene and his cousin, George to a certain extent in his will. The estate was chiefly apartments and real estate in Orange County and particularly in Los Angeles. Our next big trip was when the whole family went to Zion’s National Park. We took both cars. Dad drove the 4-door Model T Ford Sedan. Mother, Eugene, Eddie and I rode with him. Rodney was not yet born. Milton, Charles and Eugene drove the paint wagon. It was a Model T Ford pick-up with an open bed and shelves on each side for paint ladders and planks. Naturally, we camped out in the park. Dad and mother cooked over an open fire. The smell of the bacon and eggs mingled with the wood smoke forever lingers in my memories. On the day after our arrival, my dad and my older brothers decided to hike to the top of Lady Mountain, a peak of about ????? feet. I had to go along. When we reached the top, we got to sign a register which testified to our achievement. When I signed, my dad said that I was the youngest person to sign that register. I was about seven years old. Sometime around age ten, I began to work in my father’s painting business. I was assigned the boring jobs that my older brothers were too good to be bothered with and hated. I sanded down, puttied the holes and painted the baseboards, window sash and picket fences. The latter was the worst of all. It seemed an eternity before I finshed the fences. I must say, under my father’s watchful eye, I leared how to do a good job and to do it fast. Later, from my brother Charles, whom I helped in his contracting business, I learned to measure, cut and hang wallpaper. This skill has saved me much expense because I have hung nearly all of the wallpaper in the houses that I have owned. I have even hung wallpaper in my son Rod’s house. Now, although I did not teach her, my daughter Kristine is an expert at wallpapering. She must have inherited her grandfather’s genes in that regard. One of father’s big jobs was painting the Smithfield tabernacle, an Latter Day Saint’s church edifice. It had a high cathedral tower and was a formidable job; but dad knew how to scaffold it safely and my brothers had no qualms about climbing up to the spire with their equipment. There was a beautiful old pipe organ in the tabernacle. During the job I loved to play it during the lunch hours. Nobody seemed to mind that the tabernacle would quake with the strains of my then current jazz favorites. When I became sixteen, I was employed by the Del Monte Corporation pea processing factory in Smithfield. My job as an "Offbearer" was to lift the canned peas that came off the filling machines to a crate that was then taken to the warehouse for shipping. If done correctly one can transfer two or three cans of peas with each hand. I worked up to running a filling machine which transferred the peas in a liquid brine from a pipe line to the tin cans. Sometimes I and a fellow worker would be transferred to the warehouse where we would remove empty cans from a boxcar. We used a peculiar looking fork with tines spaced properly to accept about twelve tin cans. My wages were about $.35/ hour. At age 18, I had just graduated from North Cache High School in Richmond, Utah, about five miles to the north of Smithfield. We commuted to school on the electrified train that ran through Cache Valley from Salt Lake City to Preston, Idaho. Actually the train consisted of only one and sometimes two cars. I was a pretty arrogant fellow as most boys are at that age. My father had been having Angina Pectoris, as the heart condition with clogged arteries was called in those days. He came home every day very tired and had frequent heart pains which extended to his left arm. He would ask one of us, usually mother to massage his arms and back. On July 25, 1933, he and mother attended the annual celebration of the pioneering and founding of Utah (Zion) by the Mormon settlers. There was a parade held in Logan, Utah for our valley. Mother had asked me to drive the two of them to Logan in our Ford Sedan; because Dad was too tired to do it. I was away too busy sleeping to do this so they went without me, my father driving. About noon or so I heard our telephone ring and answered it. The voice on the other end of the line said, "This is the Herald Journal of Logan calling. Could you give us a profile on your father for his obituary?" I replied with anger, "What do you mean?" He said, "Oh, I’m sorry, didn’t you know your father had a fatal heart attack this morning in Logan?" He had just parked the Ford along Main Street when it happened. I’ve had pangs of guilt always since then because I was too selfish to go along and drive my parents to Logan. Maybe I could have saved him. I do feel sure, his heart trouble had advanced to so severe a state that it was bound to happen soon anyhow. That was before open-heart surgery and the latest heart medicines that can give relief and extend lives nowadays. When dad died in 1933 we found his ledger containing his current job costs, sales price, material lists and customer name. He listed the wages paid to my brothers and me. There were several hundred dollars in overdue accounts receivable so mother sent us out to collect them. Unfortunately due to the depression some of the customers were unable to pay. He belonged to Kiwanis and this same book contained some notations related to a forthcoming meetins. There were a couple of jokes which were listed: Joseph Gutke, a fellow member ran the local meat market. Dad wrote: "Butcher, a great cut up." In reference to some type of committee assignment, he wrote, "The larger the committee the longer it takes to find out which member is to do the work." Later on in the book there were several humorous stories Dad told on his fellow members in a meeting. In 1929 dad’s cost for car mileage was 3 cents/mile Mother received some money from Dad’s insurance and converted his paint shop to a "Lady’s Shop", and immediately went into the ladies’ clothing business. She owned and operated this shop as long as she lived. As my brother Eugene has already written, my parents were very musically talented. My mother gave piano, music lessons, sang in church functions and at funerals and was a choir leader. Her choir and young womens chorus had it’s practices in our home. When I was pre-school, I spent many hours banished in the back rooms of the house while choirs sang or mother gave piano lessons. Not only did I endure through those hours but I also listened to my brothers Eugene and Eddie practicing their piano lessons, Eugene on his violin, Eddie on his saxaphone, Milton on his trombone or Dad and his brass band rehearsing martial music. With all this musical background, although I did not take piano lessons from mother, I was abele to hum, sing or whistle every piec I heard, be it "Come Come Ye Saints," or "Prelude in C Sharp Minor." After all the lessons and rehearsals were over, I would zip to the piano and begin plunking away at what I heard. It was not in the same key as it was written though. I found that playing on the black keys in F Sharp (Using the key of F or the first of three black keys -- there are three black keys in one group and two black keys in the second group -- as "home base" just as C is home base for music written in the key of C. Gradually I learned the harmonizing notes and soon the chords and became quite proficient. I could "fake" most of the hymns, ballads and classics that I had heard over and over again. Two classics that I remember were "Ase"s Death" and "Prelude in C Sharp Minor." My mother encouraged me to take lessons and learn to read music but I was too busy for that. My music drifted toward jazz. In my teen years I stayed up late evenings listening to music on our three-dialed Atwater Kent radio with the cornucopia speaker. I could tune in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, New York and other cities. Since these were one to two hours ahead of Smithfield time, most of the entertainment was on. The radio stations had to have something to do so they featured the top bands in the country. I listened to the famous jazz orchestras like Earl "Father" Hines and others. Later I became addicted to Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Charlie Barnett and others. My repertoire consisted of pieces like "Sophisticated Lady" and "Mood Indigo. From my earliest moments of recollection, the Mormons had a celebration each year on the 24th of July. This holiday commemorated the settlement of Utah by Brigham Young and the Latter Day Saints who had trecked across the plains from Nauvoo, Illinois. I must have been only six years old at the time, but I remember clearly that each year us children put on a white cheesecloth cape with a single red Christian cross sewed on it. We marched in the parade and sang, "Onward Christian Soldiers." My father usually had a float in the parade as described in my brother Milton’s memoirs. My brother Eugene was good to me. When I was in High School he let me borrow is 1930 Ford Model A Coupe to go on dates with my girl friends. One of my sweethearts, Verda Follett, lived in North Logan, Utah, about six miles from Smithfield. Another lived in Preston, Idaho about thirty miles to the north. Her name was Rhea Lewis. She was a twin. I could hardly tell the two sisters apart, but ther was a slight difference. It seems to me that Eugene furnished the gas too. I had very little cash in those days. My brother Eddie had a 12-piece orchestra in Logan while he was going to Utah State University. His group played for dances at a hall named The Dansante on North Main Street. My brother Eugene played piano at times with this orchestra. One night Eddie saw me dancing with a girl friend in the audience and he signaled me to come up to the bandstand. He asked me if I would like to sit in with the band and (ham that I am just like my brothers Eugene and Eddie) I jumped at the chance. Since I could only play in the key of F-Sharp, or on the black keys, all of the players asked me for an F Sharp so they would be able to get into my key. I played "Mood Indigo" and "Sophisticated Lady". both by Duke Ellington. I was glad when it was over because not many in the band knew the piece that well and could not harmonize without music especially in my key. The Golden Age I stand astride of my golden age. I’ll say a few words of honest fact Just start without procrastination, And when your retirement time gets here, Dock on Gavean Fayah! Father said this when swearing. When I was about 19 years of age in October, 1934, a friend and I decided to go to California and "seek our fortune." We had very little money as I remember so we had to thumb our way there. I had just recently bought a suit. It was a brown, double breasted herringbone pattern made out of heavy wool. I thought it would be appropriate to wear when looking for work. So that was what I wore for the road. The first night out we got as far as Winnemucca, Nevada where we had to sleep along side the highway, it being pretty much desert at that time. It was very cold out there in the desert that night. We had no blankets, so my friend, Howard "Howdy" Smith got the idea of using newspapers for covers. Nevertheless, while they were some protection against the cold, lying there shivering all night, we were having second thoughts about our travel plan. In the morning, though, it warmed up quite rapidly -- so much so that in my heavy wool suit I began to roast. Home | Biographical
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