History of Clair and Blanche Leonard Written By Clair Leonard 1987

Born January 25, 1911 in Price, Carbon County, Utah. Educated at Price Jr. High and Carbon High School. Married to Blanche Ellison on December 9, 1929 at Castle Dale, Utah. Latter married in the Salt Lake Temple December 9/11, 1940.

Some of my early memories was when I was two or three years old I swallowed a peanut shell and was choking on it. I had turned black and blue from not being able to get my breath when my grandmother Sarah Jane Powell came into the house. She grabbed me by the heels of my feet, turned me upside down and gave me some quick slaps on the back. I coughed up the shell. I later developed pneumonia. When I was just a bit younger I received a scar over my right eat from a pan of hot grease. Mother was in bed ready to give birth to Evelyn, and dad's brother Fred and his wife Jessie had fixed a good meal for us. My brother Lee, however, decided he wanted fried eggs. Just as he started over to the table with the eggs, doctor Piske knocked on the door. I jumped up from the table to see who it was, and ran into Lee and the hot pan of grease. Another accident I remember was when we had been cleaning up the yard and was burning the trash. Someone picked up an old piece of garden hose that had been burning, whirled it around in the air, and I caught all the hot melted rubber on my face, hands etc.

Between the ages of four and five we were on a trip out to Uncle Lots in Altonah. We were traveling by wagon from Price to Altonah when I became very sick. At the time they thought it was typhoid fever, and said they almost lost me. Years later around the year 1937 when I was living on 7th South in Salt Lake with my wife Blanche and our two children, Norma and Jimmie, I had to have my appendix out. The doctor at the L.D.S. Hospital asked my mother if I had ever had an attack before. He said my appendix had ruptured at one time, healed over, and had grown to my back and other parts of my body. He said that I was lucky to be alive. Mother told the doctor of my early supposed typhoid fever sickness on our way to uncle Lots in Altoniah, Utah by wagon, and how it had taken us over a week to get there. The doctor said that this must have been when my appendix ruptured and that I was lucky to have survived.

Another experience was when Mother was washing clothes and someone came to the front door. When she went to answer the door I had to see how the wringer worked. I hit the leaver and my right hand got caught and went through the ringer. My hollering brought my mother on the run and she hit the pressure leaver that stopped the rollers and opened up the rollers. I don't remember going to the doctors, but my hand had been split wide open and looked like a hand full of hamburger.

Mother claimed I was the hardest of her kids to raise with all the problems I had, peanut shell, appendix attack, hot hose in face, hand in wringer, etc. My childhood was filled with pleasant memories such as swimming in the river, and digging caves in the river. Whenever my older brothers, Lee, Emmett, or my cousin Roy came down they would have fun throwing those of us who could not swim very good into the river and then yelling, sink or swim. When the older boys were not around I practiced my swimming, and the next time they showed up and started throwing us younger kids in I was ready for them.

I put up a real hollering act trying to get away. They grabbed me each by an arm and a leg and threw me in the river. I came up choking and coughing and hitting the water like I was trying to swim, and then I would sink and come up putting on the same act for them. They were laughing and hollering, "Sink or swim". The second time under I stayed a little longer, and the third time I put a little fear into them by not coming up and in they came and pulled me out choking and gasping. The acting was good enough that it cured them of throwing us young kids in anymore. One day when we were on our way home from swimming, three or four kids were ahead of us and they came running back hollering that some man started chasing them with an arm full of willows. Of course we spotted Dad who had come from Ashton, Idaho and we all scattered. When Dad got back home we had one-half of our work done and this saved us from a willow or two across the legs and fanny.

Clark Powell, Ken Leavitt and four or five others went rabbit hunting outside of Price. We formed a one-half circle and scared up a lot of rabbits. I hit one, and being my first time, I went running into the circle to get it. The rest of the guys started hollering to get back before I got shot. I came to my senses in a hurry.

Another gun experience was while living in Peerless. Dick Howard got a 22 for Christmas. We were up on the cliffs above the camp shooting squirrels. He let me carry the gun, but said to keep my finger away from the trigger, keep the gun pointed away from him, and that the safety was on. We were walking along and all at once the gun went off and into the ground about 3 feet in front of us. This same Dick Howard had a BB gun and he and another kid were playing old West Shoot out and he peeked around the corner of a house and had an eye shot out. Mother would never let us boys have a guns, although Dad had a shotgun that he was good at hitting rabbits and sage hens with.

Another time up in Peerless we were playing ball and the only wide place was where the road cut up through the middle of town. We would have look-outs at each end to let us know when a car was coming. This one day some one hit a fly ball just as a gust of wind came up and obscured a car. This kid running after the ball was hit and killed. He was about 12 years old. That finished the ball playing.

I remember the years in Peerless was when I became a Scout. We had to go to Spring Canyon for School. Church, and other activities like the 4th of July, Movies etc. The scout master said they were having a state scout jamboree up in Provo. It was to be held up in the Sundance Area. In order to go we had to have our own scout uniform and field equipment. Three or four of us boys earned most of our money by the throwing rocks off a road they were building to a new tennis court and housing area. We had a good time competing with the other troops. I was first place on the bugle. We won on having the neatest camp and I passed my first class on swimming in a canvas made pool about 3 feet deep and filled with cold Icy water that came down the canyon off Timp mountain. The water was so cold that three fourths of the kids gave up half way around. The kids in our troop said to swim as fast as you could and to sort of dog paddle swim so that you would not hit the rocks underneath. I was glad to make the swim of that 20 x 20 canvas pool before I froze. The only time I have hiked on Timp Mountain was on that scout trip. Three or four of us made it three fourths of the way up around the mountain trail. The trail on the Sundance side seemed to be only three feet wide. We came to an arch-way where we had to cross to the other side. We could see the lake down below and we froze in our tracks. We didn't want to be chicken so we got down on our hands and knees and tried to crawl in compound low. Our gears would not shift though and we turned around and came back down to safety. We did not want the others to catch up with us and have a good laugh. I never could stand open heights with no rails. We used to go up to Spring Canyon, about 1 1/2 miles above Peerless to play marbles. They also had a swimming pool and other sports facilities. In the winter we would go up to Spring Canyon to go skating and sleigh riding. In the winter we would try to hook onto the back of cars going up the hill. One Saturday I grabbed onto the back of the license plate of a car, just above the back left fender. Halfway up the hill with the driver going as fast as he could to keep other kids from grabbing onto his car and stalling it, a kid grabbed my arm as we went by. It pulled my arm down over the corner of the plate and put a gash about one inch long in my hand just below the thumb and wrist joint. I was lucky to have a friend there whose dad was the chief of the first aid crew. He fixed-me up and made us stay in the house until I felt strong enough to go home. I had lost so much blood I about passed out a couple of times. 

We used to ride the empty coal cars coming up the canyon until one day two boys tried jumping on the steps and one fell under the wheels losing both of his legs below the knees. That stopped that sport. We would sleigh ride down between the houses and across the road in Peerless until one day I came down the incline so fast I could not stop by digging my toes in. They hollered car, but I was so busy trying to keep from being run over by cars on the road that I did not see the car parked by the house across the road. I slammed into the front wheel head first and I can still see that flash of light as I blacked out for a few minutes. No damage was done, however, except for a big goose egg on my forehead. Clark and I would go up to Spring Canyon whenever they had a celebration and enter the games. One 4th of July we came in first in the foot racing, bobbing for apples, and other games. When we entered the swimming contest a lot of the mothers objected because we were winning everything and we were out of towner kids. That ended that.

I had trouble with the principal one time at a show they had after school once a month. He was the bouncer and would kick out the noisy kids. We were all being quite noisy while waiting for the show to start and he came over and started picking on the crowd of kids I was with, and particularly me. He told me to leave because I didn't belong in there. He then took me by the arm up the isle and when he got about three feet from the glass doors he gave me a hard push. The doors popped open and the upper half shattered in the process. I turned around and said something to him and he came after me with his long legs. My ducky legs out ran him though and he gave up after a block or so. The rest of the kids took my side and said they were going to go to their parents, which they did. Two of the kid’s fathers were head of the miner’s socials and they met with Mitchel the principal and released him from both the bouncer’s job and the principal’s job as well. Three of the girls that I knew then now live in Springville, and were my meat customers. They came to mother’s funeral. Fifteen or twenty of the old time people that had worked in Peerless and Spring Canyon had moved to Springville, but time eventually ran out on them after 75 to 85 years.

Preston Liddiard had told me that the old principle, Mitchell, used to teach at Franklin Elementary or Dixon Jr. High, but they had also eventually turned him loose. I remember another experience with Mitchell. He came into our 6th grade class when we were having a spelling contest. Our teacher, Mr. Brimhall, gave the word Worchestershire sauce to the side that was up. The principal jumped in and said that the teacher was pronouncing the word wrong. It should be pronounced "roostershire." Of course he ruined the spelling bee and hurt the teacher's feelings.

Dad played for dances in Spring Canyon whenever the social committee scheduled one, and I would play the drums in the five piece band whenever Dad would play these smaller camps and halls. While living in Peerless, my Dad had an appendix attack. They had to wait a whole day for the train to ship him into the Salt Lake Holy Cross Hospital. By the time they got him there his appendix had burst, gangrene had set in, and it was nip and tuck for a month or more. He had to stay in the hospital for three months before they would let him come home.

It was 1925 when Dad bought our first car, a Dodge touring car. Very few bought sedans because people thought they were top heavy. Before buying the car, mother and dad would thumb a ride to Helper or Price. Whenever Standard, Spring Canyon or Castle Gate had boxing or wrestling matches they would fill in time between matches with young kids who would volunteer to fight each other. Whatever the crowd would throw into the ring the kids could keep. One Saturday night Standard had a big card wrestling match with the main attraction of Ira Dern, the state and U.S.A. champ. Clark Powell and I decided to volunteer to fight each other and asked the manager if he could use a couple of boxers for the preliminaries. "Yea", he said, "go back into the rest room and strip down to just your pants, and your pay will be whatever the crowd throws into the ting." Clark and I said we would put on a good fight but if we got tired or felt the other one was hitting too hard, we would wink.

The first round went as planned. The second and third rounds I missed his winks and so he tore into me ignoring my winks. By the end of the third round we had the crowd on their feet yelling for more and showering the ring with coins. We had our gloves off in a hurry scooping the money into our pockets. We dashed back into the rest room, emptied the money out of our pockets and started counting. Ira Dern was in the rest room waiting to on and came over and asked if we would like him to help us "Count all that money". "Sure champ", we said, and so he started counting. He then said we could divide the money three ways and we just thought he was fooling until he started pocketing the money. We asked him what he thought he was doing taking money from young kids. We had made around $30.00 for the three rounds and became the big time spenders. There were lots of penny candy, five cent ice cream cones, malts, banana splits, and movies for 25 cents.

Some other experiences I had was during two different field trips with the scouts. The first one was a hiking trip in the winter snow. We had gone up a canyon a mile or so from Spring Canyon, with the snow waist deep. We had found a shelter up under a cliff overhang, made a fire melted some snow, and made us a drink of hot Postum. It was not until the next day when three or four of us had scalded mouths, that we realized how hot the drink had been.

Another time we were on a two day camp-out just up the canyon from Spring Canyon, when three or four of us decided to go for a hike. We didn‘t mark our trail and ended up lost. After going around in circles for about an hour, we decided to go down the canyon we were in. We ended up in Price Canyon just above the Castle Gate rock. We then thumbed a ride back to camp so we could inform everyone we were safe.

Dad's job at Peerless was tipple foreman and weight boss. As the string of loaded cars came down from the mine. Emmett and Lee would unhook the cable, put it on the empty cars to be pulled back up to the mine. They would then push the loaded cars down to Dad on a dumper and scale. Each car had attached to it the miner's tag number who had mined the coal. Dad would weigh the coal, list it under the miners name, and then at the end of the day post up a sheet so the miners would know how many tons he had mined for the day. Each car would weigh from five to six tons. When Emmett was first married and working in the coal mine up in Wattes, I worked with him for two weeks. He worked just like a machine in those days. The coal was blasted down at night, and then we would pick and shovel it into the cars. One day we stayed until around 6 p.m. and I think we loaded around twelve to fifteen cars of coal. This was a record. Emmett was making good money and had bought him a Chrysler Sedan at a cost of around $2,500. This was a status car in those days.

One day while I was working with Emmett I heard a thud. We stopped and looked around, but could not see anything. However, when we went to push the loaded car out to the main line, we found that a large slab of coal had fallen on the track. The usual working time for miners was 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. A cable hooked onto the front empty car and an electric hoist, up at the mine would pull the cars up and hold the loaded car from going downhill too fast. On flat ground big electric motors were used. They replaced using horses for moving cars in the mine.

The train would haul the miners up to and inside the mine and out again each day. If you didn't meet the tram as they called, you would have to walk. We walked that day after working until 6 pm.

I did not stay on that job too long because I had seen too many miners hurt. When they had the big fire in 1921 or 1923 at castle Gate. I had a cousin lose his Dad. The miners had hit a pocket of gas that blew up killing 175 men. They showed replays of the disaster on T.V. recently when they were showing the recent fire at the Wilburg mine. Anyway, after the Castle Gate fire, my cousin had taken me with him to a large hall where they had all the caskets and men. The men were burned black like a baked potatoes cooked in a bonfire. We also went into where the mortician was working and they had a room about 30 by 40 full of blacken bodies lined up around the walls.

I also remember as a boy of I would say nine or ten, I would go up and stay with Grandma Sarah Jane Powell at the old brick home on Carbon Avenue just three houses up from our old home at 276 South Carbon Avenue. These were the times when Granddad John A. Powell was living in Salt Lake City. Grandma Powell said that I was her favorite grandchild, or helper and since she was alone, she needed me to help her with shopping etc.

During the World War One period, Dad moved us all up to Driggs, Ashton Idaho area where he had a job selling farm equipment. We lived there for one winter around 1918 or 1919. I remember it being so cold that we had to stand around the stove to keep warm. One year it snowed so heavily trains could not get through.

I remember having to walk to school with snow, it seemed banked up four or five feet on both sides of the road. I think I was in the 3rd or 4th grade at this time. We didn't stay very long in Ashton and soon moved back to Price. Dad it seemed wasn't making too much selling farm equipment, and I remember sometimes we ate whole bran for mush, the same whole bran we were feeding the pigs. When we got back to Price, I remember mother sending me to the store to buy some bologna and a loaf of bread with fifty cents, this being the only money she had and this bologna and loaf of bread was to be our food for the day.

Dad quit his job with Con Wagon (the farm equipment company), and moved us to Peerless where Dad went to work for the Peerless Mine. He stayed working for Peerless for a number of years. These were the years between 1921 and 1926. During this time my two brothers Max and Jackie were born. During this time Dad also sold suits after work, and had his ten piece orchestra made up of my brother Lee on the trumpet, my brother Emmett on the sax. Dad on the violin, and after I got a little experience playing in the High School band and a five piece orchestra, and me on the drums for about a year.

The small community of Peerless consisted of about twelve wood frame duplexes. They also had a one room grade school where the teacher taught first through third grades. All the rest of the kids had to go to Spring Canyon to school where they had grades four to eight. This is where I went to school at the time. We also attended church in Spring Canyon when we went. The kids in High School were bused into Price. Most of the men who worked at the mine lived in bunk houses. They had around three thousand.

There was also two separate bunkhouses for the Japanese with a large bath house. The big wooden tubs in the bath house were large enough to hold four or five men at a time. The Japanese also had their own dining and cook house. The other miners had their own dining and cook house. The other miners also had their own bath house, but with showers instead of bath tubs. My dad had a job as the tipple weigh boss. He earned $50.00 per week.

He also sold suits and had a band, playing for dances in order to provide for his family. In Peerless we lived in a camp house. The camp houses in Peerless had only four rooms with a cellar. There was no indoor plumbing, and each camp house has its own outside privy. The outside toilets were doubles with a partition in between with plenty of sound effects. In our camp house we had boarded off part of the cellar to make a bedroom consisting of a dirt floor and a bed. This was where I would sleep, but I really did not mind. We were always building tree houses or caves up in the cliffs to play in. We would bake potatoes, fry up an occasional stray village chicken, hunt squirrels, etc.

One of the experiences I had while living in Peerless was when Clark Powell and I decided to visit Granddad and Grandmother Powell who were living in Salt Lake. Clark came up on the school bus to Peerless with me and stayed down in the cellar bedroom. I got up Saturday morning, cooked my Dad's breakfast so he could go to work by 7 a.m. and then I took Clark down some breakfast. Saturday being wash day, we then put a big tub of water on the stove to heat and took off for Helper before my mother got up. It was so cold going up Price canyon with the wind and snow that we rode on the front of the middle engine where there was a steam boiler on each side of the nose of the train or cow catcher. We were on a coal train and they always used three engines to pull the train up Soldier Summit. We would run along the top of the coal cars once in a while in order to keep warm. When we came down off of the summit at Gilhulia we stopped for an hour or more. This is where you pass over the rail road one-half way going up to Soldier Summit. A brakeman came along and asked Clark and I where we were going and then told us if we didn't stay put he would make a whistling post out of us. So we dug down in one corner of a coal car out of the wind all the way into Salt Lake City arriving about 10 p.m. that evening at the Roper yards. We got a ride into the U. P. Station on a switch engine caboose, washed up, and took the street car out to 25 South and 7th East, got off and walked the rest of the way down to Grandmothers house. We arrived there about 12 p.m. woke grandmother up, and gave her a tall story of how come we were in Salt Lake City , and that our folks knew we were there.

Grandmother warned us about going all the way to the back of the lot to use the three holer toilet if we had to go to the toilet. A couple of weeks before granddad's sister and her young boy had been up visiting with them, and the young boy had gone out at night to use the toilet, but had only made it to the side of the porch where he had left a pile of do-do covered over with dirt. The next morning granddad was out picking up paper, etc and saw this little pile of dirt and reached down to smooth it out and came up with do-do on his fingers. He cured the boy by rubbing his nose in it and of course this cured us of the fear of the dark from house to toilet.

The next morning when granddad got up and saw us there (he slept in another bedroom so he had not heard us come in) he wanted to know about our being there. We told him how we came in with the folk's consent and he thought we were all right. Adventure was his life style and he didn't like timid souls. This is where I figure we got our aloofness, determination and desire to achieve, and to be independent. I suppose we also got it from my Dad's side according to the genealogy that Robert has done.

My Dad called to see if we were in Salt Lake, and when granddad found out we had lied to him, he didn't say much. Grandmother told us it was because of his adventurous spirit. My Dad came right in and picked us up in his car. He brought my two brothers with him, and they did not pick us up until they had gone to the Capitol Theater to see some vaudeville, and a screen show. I shall never forget our ride home. It was in February, and about nine or ten when we started down Spanish Fork canyon. I had a tooth ache. It was cold, dark, and we would have to get out and push the car up over those gummy clay roads full of chuck holes. We would get a run on the hill and then jump out and start pushing on the steep part hoping the car didn't drop down into one of the deep ruts. Another ticklish place was the part of the road we used where it ran along the river at Colten. Some places you had to pull off to the side to let another car pass, and then hope you didn't get stuck or go into the river. You would come back up onto the present road at the end of where the overpass is now. But we finally made it home.

Granddad Powell was a very stern man and didn't show much affection towards his grandchildren. Whenever we visited them in Salt Lake City on 5th East and 2515 South, kids were to be seen and not heard. I remember one night a bunch of us kids were outside playing hide and seek. We were making a lot of noise and he came out and said to be quiet. After he had gone back in we continued the game and continued to make a lot of noise. He then came out and told Clark Powell and I to come into the house. He set us on a chair to the side of him where he was reading the paper. We started giggling and he grabbed his cane, (used because of a stroke he had) and came down on the side of the chair and scared six months growth out of us. He developed in us some respect for authority. Granddad had a very adventurous spirit. When he was only fourteen he had killed his first bear, (read in the history of Price, Utah about John A. Powell and the bear) and at this early age was taking care of his mother. He had no patience with kids who were afraid of the dark and would hang onto mommy's apron strings. I don‘t ever remember granddad going to church with grandmother when I went with her in Salt Lake City. I believe he had some trouble over his polygamy with the church authorities. I mentioned this to my mother once and she just looked at me and said nothing. I believe granddad Powell was like George Mecham who believed in helping those in need on the Q.T. but judged the church by some members’ weaknesses. Of course I am only guessing on this point.

Grandmother Powell was a very likable person. She was always covering up for you and yet teaching you right from wrong. She was a very faithful church goer (See History of Sarah Jane Powell).

It was during the time we lived in Peerless that I played the bass drum in the High School band, this was during my freshman year. I then started playing with a five piece band in Peerless. We would play at the coal camp dances. At 17 I started playing in Dad's band, and did so until I got married.

I received my only speeding ticket March 12, 1925. I was in my Dad's car racing a girl down Carbon Avenue on the way from the High School. I stopped by the police 2 blocks from Main Street. The girl I was racing was the doctor's daughter and she was not stopped. The fine was $30.00. I started working after school at Piggley Wiggley store to pay off the fine. I started as a meat helper/cutter in the meat department. I did not want to tell my mother about the ticket, but it all came out in the newspaper.

Mother saw it and I thought I had a secret. Dad and I went down to see the judge and paid the fine. I worked long enough to pay off the fine. Since we were living in Peerless at the time, I had to ride the school bus to High School. We later moved back to Price when I was still a teenager. It was at this time that I decided I would like to try my wings out with a beer, Lucky Strikes, girls, etc. This of course led to gangs, and gang fights. It was during this time that I bought my 1928 Ford Roadster. Dad still worked at Peerless and started to use my Ford to go back and forth to work. He would often fill the rumble seat with coal and so I put a stop too that. Once we were over at the Willsburg dance hall, Orangeville, Utah, to a dance. It was a Saturday night, and Clark and I had been down the road where we had a bottle of Home Made beer hid in a ditch. When we were pulling into the parking place three kids our size would not move out of the way so I just put the car in gear and forced them to move. They came around on Clark's side of the car, my Model A convertible with the top down and started a fight with Clark. I jumped out and grabbed the kid causing the trouble and told him Clark would really tear him to pieces, he said "oh yea", and let me have it. He knocked me down on the front fender, put my head under his arm and started to work me over. Of course the kid did not know that Clark and I had fought in the ring a couple of times at the Ira State Champ Dern Wrestling Match. I broke loose from the kid's hold on my head, and it only took me a minute or so to take all the fight out of him. I ended up with a bloody nose and a sprained fist from hitting the car when he had me pinned down.

When the dance let out Emmett and Dad wanted to know what I had been up to. Just at that moment up walked some of this kids friends saying he wanted to fight me again, and that he could lick me this time. We all walked outside and sure enough there was the Emery Co. gang ready to fight Carbon Co. They formed a ring and we went at it again. With my experience at boxing and his at lunging he did not have a chance. When the Emery gang could see that their buddy was getting the worst of it, one of them grabbed me and told the kid to let me have it. This was when Emmett, Clark and the Carbon Co. turned loose on the Emery Co. I spent the time trying to stop the fighting and warning them that the police were arresting and locking up as many as they could in a shed. The fight stopped as fast as it had started with no one from Price getting locked up. I had a lot of fun growing up in the Price area as a teenager.

There were the usual growing up experiences of swimming in the river, digging caves, roasting potatoes and roasting a stray Fry Chicken once in a while. There were girls, dances, and a beer or two along the way. At the Jr. Prom one year, the kids heard about a Frenchman (Moyer I believe) who had some wine for his sheep camp stored in his garage. The kids emptied a fifty gallon BBL that night and of course a good time was had by all who was in on it. I was too late. However I remember that one night I did go with some kids who had discovered another twenty-five BBL wine cash. We took wine, put it into our car, and headed for the river where we had decided to hide it. As the kids lifted the wine from the car they set it down a little hard and it blew the plug popped out creating a ten foot geyser, and about five broken hearts.

Saturday night and holidays were big dance nights for Carbon Co. People would come out and really kick up their heels. There always seemed to be a fight or two because of the drinking. Helper, Price and Castledale all had open air dance halls and dances going at each one. Price also had about as many pool halls as they did other businesses.

It was right after we moved back to Price, around 1927, that I started to work in the Safeway meat department with Jack Adams. I was still in high school and worked from five to seven during the week and eight to ten p.m. on Saturdays. They paid me $22.50 per week, and I was soon able to save $150.00. With my $150.00 and another $100.00 my mother gave me, I was able to buy my first car. I was only eighteen years old and mother had to sign with me to buy the car. It was a new 1928 Ford Roadster, and cost $850.00.

I cut quiet a trail with the girls in those days. Having a car in those days was really a status symbol. Most kids were lucky to be able to get to use the family car, but not many had one of their own. Clark Powell and I, along with some other friends, bought a record player for the car. Radios were not available in cars and R.C.A. and Philco were just beginning to make radios available for the home.

I was unable to keep up with the car payments on the car, and my Dad took it over. I quit my job at Safeway when Jack Adams went on vacation. The new grocery manager told the relief butcher that they could run the meat department without my expense, and Clark Powell along with some of the other guys were planning a trip to Yellowstone and I decided I would go with them. There was Clark Powell, Ken and Ray Leavett, Ross Ellis, and George. We left in an old Model A and got as far as Idaho Falls when we decided we needed to stop and earn some money. We worked in the grain and pea harvest for $3.50 per day and room and board. The room was the hay stack. We had no trouble getting work. The thrasher on the combine would tell the farmers what good workers we were and they would give us jobs. After about ten days we all decided to write home and let our folks know where we were.  When my Dad found out he wasn’t happy.

I decided to move to Ogden about nine months when Jack was transferred to Ogden.  The Ogden store was going into the red and Safeway would pick someone who they thought could bring it out and send them there. Jack was picked to go and try to bring the Ogden store back into the black.  Just before they moved Millie asked. "What are you kids going to do?", and I believe it was a surprise to both of us, as well as to Phyliss, (Blanche's half-sister), and Floyd Stevens, her boyfriend. Maybe the three women had it all planned. Anyway we decided to get married.

We went over to Castle Dale in Emery County to get married. Emmett and Madge were the witnesses, and I had grandma Sarah Jane Powell sign for me to get married as I was only nineteen years old at the time and my mother thought I was too young. We lived in a large room up at grandma Sarah Jane Powell’s for the first few months of our marriage. Safeway then moved us to Salt Lake. We got an apartment upstairs over the Paramount. The store was at 700 South and West Temple. My weekly pay was $40.00 and I was the youngest manager in the district. The market had been losing $200/300 a month, but in my first month we broke even. It did not take us long to save up $300.00 to buy our first car. It was a 1930 Model A Sedan.

They then transferred us out to Helper for a year, and the fellow who had been managing the Helper store was transferred to my 7^th South store that I had just pulled out of the red. He was soon in the red again so they transferred me back again to that store.

I can't remember how long it was after that transfer that Norma was born, (September 1931). It was about 1933 that they wanted me to go up to Bingham and I said, "why don‘t you just take me out on the desert and leave me," so they waited a few months and asked me to go to Park City. I didn't dare say no this time so away we went for about a nine month stay. We liked it at Park City, the summer was cool and nice, but come spring and we had snow when they were cutting the lawns and tulips were out in Salt Lake. Mother was P.G. with Jim and sick every day from the altitude, so I asked the union business leader to find me a job in Salt Lake. I had served as a Union flunky, (Sergeant of Arms), for one year making sure no spies got into the meetings, and other odd jobs. The next week the district manager of Safeway called me and said he had heard that I wanted to come to Salt Lake and I said yes.

He told me, "OK, you can have any market you want or your old one back". I couldn't see any reason taking a market doing more business than my old one at the same pay of $40.00 a week so back to 7th South and West Temple. We couldn't find a place down around the store at first so we rented a home furnished at about 9th East and 4th South.

The Bishop made me work for three years to prove myself worthy to go to the Temple. Stanley and Beth had married, Stanley had gone to work for Safeway in my old job, and was then transferred to Salt Lake. He and Beth had moved into our ward and the Bishopric gave Stanley and I the teachers quorum to hobble, which we did, and increased the attendance. After three years I went to the Bishop and asked him how much longer I had to prove myself in order to be made an Elder so we could go to the Temple. The surprised look he had on his face led me to think he had forgotten all about us. He got busy and I was ordained an Elder by H.P. a bargain hunter, and a customer of mine. We had Parenthood on Monday nights in those days. One P.H. meeting he came in a sat down by me a said to the fellow on my other side, "what do you think of a fellow that steals from people all day and then has the nerve to come to church?", I looked at him and thought you old hypocrite its people like you that has caused me stay away from church 11 years and was I surprised when the B.P. had him ordain me Elder. I listened real close to every word to make sure he didn't put a hex on me, but it couldn't have been a better one. When we went through the Temple Bro Book, the adult Aaronic P.H. went with me and a single woman with Blanche. The high point was when they brought Norma (nine) and Jim (five) in dressed all in white to be sealed to us. I must have got a day off from work to go through. I can‘t remember of any family with us.

We later, 28 June 1944, went through the Salt Lake Temple for Evelyn and I to be sealed to Mother and Dad. Blanche and I were the witness for our session. My mother felt quite proud of that. When Adams moved the family to Price Floyd and I decided we would help Blanche and Phyliss get acquainted around town, but keep them from the Wolfs and of course they grew on us. There was one thing that stands out in those dating days. Millie gave a party for us (three or four couples). Clean-up time Blanche was the only one to help her mother. I looked at the other girls and thought of how frivolous they were so when Millie said "what are you going to do." marriage wasn't on my mind, so I went to Emmett and told him about the bomb shell and he said do you love her? Like her yes, Love? And then you love her and they went with us over to Castle Dale as witnesses to be married. We set up housekeeping upstairs in a big room grandma had converted for her house keeper.

We would have Grandma Powell upstairs for lunch and supper. We called it in those day. Grandma took to Blanche right now when she saw how she could cook and make bread, cakes, pies: clean house - training she received from living with her grandparents and sometimes going out helping some neighbor that needed help and a baby sitter.

She would walk to the Franklin School and High School winter and summer with Grace Anderson, her sister Gladys, and Ouinita Olsen. As I look back over the years we never carried a grudge. We would have our little spats over her not making the kids out the lawn, weed garden, the horse still in same spot they tied it two that morning. But we would go to sleep that night in each other’s arms. When I was working for Allens there was a meat wrapper that lost her husband from a heart attack and she had three girls to raise. After they got married she met a fellow at the singles dances that she put off for a year because she hated to give up her independence. And I would say I never would marry again because I didn't think I could find another one like I had. It would be just my luck to get one that would knock me clear across the room if I lipped off.

Blanche would always have a warm meal waiting for me when I got home from the store never failed to come over to help even if she didn't feel good. I remember how she and Jim worked mixing the cement for the cellar while I tamped it down. After Norma was born she was about 3 or 4 months old, we moved from Lemons Court into an apartment on 7th South just off Main Street. Screen Porch - Kitchen, Large living room where the bed let down out of the wall, bath and a good size clothes closets. We came home one day from town to find it ransacked. Some clothes taken. It was here when Norma was a few months old (6) that she almost died from a kidney infection. The doctor that had delivered her didn't know what was wrong with her. The medicine he was giving her caused her to pass blood. Millie came down from Ogden to help take care of her and I was home for dinner one day and they had the Elders come that morning so I told them we were getting a new doctor, Dr. Murphy, a baby specialist in our day. Just as I was getting ready to go back to the store here comes the doctor with Dr. Murphy. He put Norma on her stomach across his knees and as soon as he tapped on her kidneys she flinched and cried. Dr. Murphy said she had infection in her kidneys and he would subscribe a medicine for her. As they were going out the door the doctor said to Dr. Murphy was I giving her to strong a medicine. Yes. Later Blanche had back pains and female problems. Dr. Murphy checked her over and said she needed a female operation. Millie and I said no. Millie took Blanche to Dr. Danenberg in Heber, the doctor she had worked with when they opened the Heber Hospital. He checked Blanche over and said all that was wrong was that the doctor had neglected to put everything back in place when Norma was born. He used an electric needle to shrink the muscles back in shape, some packing to hold things in place, and soon the production line was ready, and produced three more children.

In August 1935 we were back from Park City living in a duplex on 8th South and West Temple when Jim was born. It had to be after 7 p.m. because I was home and I will always remember the doctor saying, "we will let nature take its course". I went out of the room for a few minutes and came back in to see Jim's head and the doctor a hold of it pulling and I swear he stretched his neck a foot before his shoulders came through. Of course grandma had the bath water ready and went to work, between kissing away the tears of a happy mother, who had just produced a nice strong health boy, My watching our boy get his first bath we were pretty happy. We had six years to strut and show off our girl and boy.

I had to just about hobble grandma when we went out someplace. She would go up to people and say, ”don't you think they are the cutest things you ever saw". I told her they have grandchildren also that are just as adorable in their eyes. But I guess I was as bad and couldn't go to town without taking them to have people tell me how cute they were. On December 2, 1941 Robert was born on the kitchen table in the four-plex next door to the apartment were Norma was so sick. It had two bedrooms. The doctor brought his own nurse and made Millie stay in another room when I told him this was her line of work, but he was afraid if something went wrong she might get upset, being it was her daughter. When the nurse put Robert on his stomach to bathe him she said. "look at him doing a push-up and looking around.

Norma was the only one that had a problem when a baby. You all had the usual colds, earaches, teeth, but when you all got big enough to ride a tricycle, you managed to tip over and get a gash under your chins by falling on the steps. Your mother would take one look at the blood and almost faint, so the neighbors would take over or call me at the store one-half block away. Jim and Robert did get sore throats quite often and Dr. Nixon said their tonsils should come out. I didn't go along with that at first because I figured they were there for a purpose. Today they don't take them out for the same reason unless they are real bad and can cause a rheumatic heart.

Blanche, not being able to stand the sight of blood had me take them up to Dr. Nixon's office where with the aid of an assistant to give the ether. Dr. Nixon could see that Jim was quiet nervous so he told him to go outside and walk around while he took Roberts tonsils out. When it was Jim's turn, he went right in and got on the table and I went in to give him moral support and watched them cut them out. Then I noticed Robert starting to move about so I went out to see that he didn't fall off the table. The first thing he said was, "how's Jimmy. is he all right?". Dr. Nixon kept them there until he was sure their bleeding was all stopped and said they could have a little juice and ice cream if the throat was starting to heal good. In those days the doctor would make house calls to see how you were doing, if you could not come to his office. The doctor always carried pills in his bag for what ailed you. Office calls were $3.50, and there was no charge if he made a house call the next evening.

Norma became queen one year of the stake Mutual dance. Jim went in for acting a couple of times up at the Dixon Jr. High. Robert liked sports and excelled in baseball, wrestling, and football. His mother enjoyed going to his games. The only time I would get to go out was at night wrestling since it was the only night sport. Robert won the honor of all-around athlete his last year in High School.

We moved from the apartment on 7th South to a house up on Lake Street about 10th South and 8th East for more room. We had just finished getting the house all cleaned and Norma and Jim bathed when I noticed the paper in the stove was not burning. I took the poker and gave it a poke from the side with Jim watching. A gas had formed and it blew the lids off and all the ashes all over us. Blanche was doing Norma's hair and they were all covered. Blanche bathed the kids again while I cleaned down walls and floors again. We had a similar experience one summer while camping out below Brighton over the 4th or 24th. We had a good camp fire going with wieners and marshmallows. We also had some fire crackers. I threw a string of the firecrackers into the fire and they didn't go off as soon as I thought they should.

I was bent over trying to fish them out with a stick when, "Bang", Jim and I were covered with hot ashes. No damage, just a big scare. The next morning we had another one. We could see fish in the water so I fixed up a willow pole for Jim and Norma with a bent pin for a hook. They were getting bites of 7/8 inch trout but could not pull them in. I took a pole and showed them how to let the line float in close to the bank and I had a fish with-in minutes. We were fishing down off the bank and didn't see the game warden walk up and say, "how's fishing". Not having a license I dropped that pole like it was a hot potato. I told him I was teaching the kids how to catch the fish and he let it go at that.

We would go up the canyon quite often with Clair and Evelyn or Loyal and Margaret with her sister Phyliss and Phyliss's husband Floyd.

Because of no progress with Safeway I decided to build a house on an acre of ground we bought from grandpa Meecham for $100.00. I had Bob Gould scrape out the dirt for the basement and Elmer Kaye put up the walls for the cement foundation and floor plus steps. I had about seven fellows from Safeway come down and run the big three wheel barrow mixer. We had two on the sand and gravel, the owner of the mixer taking care of the water and cement, and three wheel barrows going. When we stopped for lunch I had to do a little pleading for them to get going again. The muscles had stiffened up a little, but when we finished Kaye and the Mixer fellow said we had finished the job three hours sooner than their regular men. Kaye put the roof on the basement and I did the partitions and lath work. Kaye did the cupboards, floor, doors and casings. I was down lathing and didn't know about Pearl Harbor until I got home in Salt Lake at about 10 p.m.

One week-end Uncle Elmo said did you know Safeway is building a new store in Springville? You ought to see if they will transfer you down here. So I called the boss next morning and ask to come up and talk with him. "Sure", so I went right up and told him about the house and could I have the meat department. This after Park City, he wanted to know, "why Provo". I told him I was just as poor then as when I started with them eleven years ago. They do a lot of promises of bonus checks and retirement plans and then had just let go two old timers because of ulcers, and one for arthritis in his feet. I wasn't going to end up out on the street, patches on my pants, and holes in my shoes. He sat back in his swivel chair and frowned and I said, "you know it’s true".

He said he would talk to Brown, the supervisor down that way, and see if he had someone in mind. Within an hour the city supervisor came in the store and said I hear your going to Springville, and that is all he said. I figured he was told to find someone to take my place. I don't remember who replaced me but I know Stanley had it during the war because I went up and bought Pork and beef from him. Safeway could get all the meat they needed at the price of the little grocer. Stanley later moved down stairs and leased the meat market at Brookside for a few years and then went into real estate in Provo and later his own business in Salt Lake. It was early 1950 that Beth was on hormone pills from a miscarriage and they gave me a Hormone pill to give Blanche to see if it would get her P.G. It did two months later, and after 11 years, of course we were happy. Blanche carried her babies very well except Jim in Park City when she had a lot of morning sickness. Carrying Robert she was playing softball at 7 months along. At a family reunion at Lodge Pole Camp up by Strawberry she hit a home run and dad spoke up and said, "look at her go and seven months P.G. She worked at the market the day before Lynette was born and Sunday and Monday they announced the baby is born the day before and my customers that came in would ask, "was that your wife that had a baby Sunday?", "Yes, and she was in working on Saturday". They did not even notice she was P.G. Now I have tried to express my love for mother and what a good companion she was. All I can remember is the tears of joy your mother and I had when you were born. No heart breaks along the way and a fine posterity growing up who can ask for anything more. Dad with Love

What I remember about my wife Blanche.

Blanche Ellison Leonard was born May 20, 1911 at Wallsburg, Utah. Rozella Ann Meecham was the midwife on the delivery and was paid $5.00 for her services. Her mother, Minnie Addie Meecham was born April 24, 1890 at Baker, White Pine, Nevada. Blanche's father was James Ellison, born August 11, 1888. Minnie and James were married May 2. 1910. James died January 16, 1919 in Wallsburg, Utah from the flu. Blanche was 8 years old at the time of her father's death. A baby brother was born January 20. 1916 in Provo. The baby was delivered by a midwife and was all cleaned up and asleep when the doctor arrived. Because the baby wasn't crying the doctor picked it up and started slapping it and bending it. Grandma figured he could have maybe broken its back and it died while the doctor was still there. They told him the baby had done some healthy crying at birth and bathing, but he wanted to hear the baby.

Faye, a sister, was born October 3, 1918. She fell from a swing up at school in Price November 6, 1929 and died instantly. After her father died, Blanche moved in with her Granddad and Grandmother, and her mother went to work nursing to support her two girls. Blanche's mother was introduced to Jack Adams, who had five children, and they were married February 1924.

Blanche was quiet and not an outgoing personality, but once she got acquainted with people that shyness left her. Norma is like her mother. One day when I had been down feeding and taking care of Grandma Peters, it was when her gall bladder was causing her to do a lot of dry gaging, it was three before I got back to feed Blanche and then back by 5 p.m. to feed grandma again. As I came in grandma said, "I am so glad to see you,” and I said, "it’s only been two hours that I have been gone." "I know dear," she said, "but I missed you." So one day when I had a full day with the two, grandma always having to give you a kiss after and thanks, I said to Blanche, "You know, I don't think you appreciate one thing I do for you," and she wanted to know why I thought that, so I told her how her mother was and she said, "well I am not like mother, it’s hard for me to express myself," and I said "you do it to your grand kids.” But I knew here, it was her shyness and then her warmth that appealed to me, and her companionship. Millie and Roy were good for each other as Reva Burg, Roy's sister would say, ”Millie will fix lunch and off they would go fishing or on a week-end trip some place."

I was talking to Imagene one day and she said how Mr. Cottrell was so much more expressive in his affection than Elmo, yet she and Elmo had a good relationship – fishing, golfing, going on trips etc. I told her Blanche was about the same and they must of got it from grandpa Meecham because of what grandma Meecham told me of his coming back and treating her just like his courting days. Calling her honey, sweet heart. When Blanche was in the hospital with her broken leg instead of going up to feed her I went to a show one day and up to see Evelyn. When I got back I checked the charts and both times she wanted to know where I was and started to cry when they told her. I was only gone for the noon meal. After I brought her home from the hospital she would ask me to hold her in my arms at times and one day just before the end. It was before my operation, I was doing something for her and she quietly said you're the only man I have even loved. I didn't pay much attention to the remark until sometime after and then it dawned on me what she said. I walked over to the bed and just gave her a big hug and kiss. It had taken her 52 years to let that surface. It was easier for her to show her love by hearing children. All wanted and received with tears of love and being a good mother, cook and housekeeper. She loved to go and watch her children in school activities. Her joy was my joy. Loved bowling and cards (bridge). Vegas shows and slot machines. Fixing Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve dinners with family and friends.