Squire Stalk: Loren DeLance Squire Family History Chapter 12 & Uncle Don Squire's 90th Birthday Pictures

It was interesting for me to read how Grandpa & Grandma Squire lived through the depression and lived off of bread and milk for their meals three times a day! At the end of this chapter I have included some pictures that my Uncle Adrien Squire took at my Uncle Don's 90th Birthday.

CHAPTER TWELVE WE MOVE TO DIXIE

A few days before Thanksgiving Amelia's parents came to visit us. They had been peddling molasses in Sanpete and came on up to see us. After talking over our predicament we decided to pile our bed and sewing machine along with ourselves into the truck and move to Dixie. DeLance was a month old. There was a wagon box on the back of the Commerce truck of grandpa's. He had a wagon cover stretched over bows on this. The cab was very drafty with canvas curtains for windows. We loaded up and they took us down to the railroad station where Amelia and I and the baby caught a train for Spring City as there was a family reunion there in honor of Great Grandpa Tullgren who was ninety-three years old. The Thanksgiving dinner was at his daughters place...grandma Bradleys. Just before the dinner, he blessed and named DeLance, his first great great-grandson. Uncle Axel was there and boasted to the neighbors of having five living generations at the dinner.

Amelia's parents went down to Spring Lake to visit some friends and were to meet us at Nephi the day after Thanksgiving. A heavy snowstorm had covered the state in snow. There was about eighteen inches in Spring City and very cold. We caught the Sanpete Valley train and went to Nephi to find Amelia's parents waiting for us at the station. They had loaded the truck bed with flour to the level of the box top. We spread some quilts over the flour and climbed into the back of the truck and headed south. It continued to snow and blow. It was spoken of for years as the Thanksgiving storm of 1919. It was bitter cold as the covers flapped in the breeze and snow blew in from the sides. How we kept the baby from freezing, I don't know. The cab was just as breezy as the back as there was no heating in those days. We traveled 38 miles that day and arrived in Scipio that night cold and stiff. We got a room in the hotel upstairs that had a stove and a couple beds in. We were glad to get warm and have something to eat.

The next morning we were up early and after we got the truck started, headed south again. The weather was terrible as we only made 35 miles in all day and arrived in Kanosh about dark. DeLance was getting pretty cross as his mother did not have enough for him to eat and we did not have a bottle nor know how to feed one if we had of had one. The hotel was a large home with two women running it. They put us in a room that was as cold as ice. There was a stove in it, but they claimed they had no wood to make a fire in it. We spent one of the worst nights of our lives there. DeLance fussed all night and there was a bunch of big dogs kept up an all night howl just outside of our window. I was pretty angry at these people for when I went out to the corral the next morning I saw several cords of wood all chopped up for stove use.

Early the next morning, we were on our way again. The only method of removing snow from the roads was with teams and small graders. We came upon them a short way from Kanosh and found them froze up. They had fires on the metal wheels trying to thaw them out so they would turn and were heating oil to pour on them. We passed them up and kept on our way. There was places where the snow would push up in front of the truck in piles and grandpa would back up and take a run on it and drive over the top until it happened again. After forty-two miles we arrived in Beaver and had quite a group there at the garage to welcome us as we were the first over the road from north for a couple of days. As there was still daylight left we proceeded on our way, and arrived in Paragonah after another 30 miles making our biggest day of 72 miles. There was a one room dobbie cabin built on purpose for freighters that we got into that night. There was a stove so we again got warmed up. Early next morning we were on our way again. Got along good until just before we reached Kanarraville where the north winds were piling the snow in drifts that we could not get through. However, there was some teamsters there hiring out to pull you through the drifts. We had one of them pull us about a quarter of a mile 39 into town. After leaving Kanarraville we soon began to hit spots in the road where the snow had blown off and as we came on south, found dry roads from Anderson Junction on into LaVerkin. There was a cold north wind blowing and we were very happy to arrive. Where we could feel at home and warm up our stiff legs and joints. It was nine o'clock when we arrived, four days from Nephi that takes about five hours now. The next day I was anxious to see what kind of a home we had bought so checked it over. We found it contained an old range in the kitchen that would have fallen to pieces if they had attempted to move it and a rough cupboard with the glass broken out of the windows. We moved our bed and sewing machine in and borrowed a table from Will Hardy, got some boxes for chairs and purchased us a lamp and a gallon of kerosene and set up housekeeping. Grandpa and grandma Sanders had given us a small rocking chair as a baby tender and it was our only chair. We did have a few dishes. We found several of the window lights broken out, so we pasted cloth over them where some of it was when we tore the place down.

There were no paying jobs to be had. I did haul some wood that winter by using another man's team and wagon. He would get a load and I one load. It generally took three days to go to Little Creek Mountain to get a load of wood and would take me six weeks out of the year to get us a years supply of wood.

Amelia, as a girl had always said she was not going to marry a farmer, especially one who grew molasses cain. Well early in the spring we made plans to grow two acres of cain to make molasses in the fall as that was the only sure crop to get cash for.

I had purchased five hundred pounds of the flour that was on the truck we moved down in. We soon found ourselves completely out of money. As soon as the alfalfa got high enough in the lot to cut with a butcher knife we borrowed a cow to have the milk if we fed her and her calf. We got down to bread and milk and that only, three times a day. We did not have a bottle of fruit or anything else to eat. As spring came on it got pretty hard to hoe cain all day on bread and milk. I planted a garden, purchased a little pig with work and made plans for food for the next winter. I worked one day for a gallon of molasses and that sure was good along with the bread and milk. However, we did not get much of it. Amelia had filled a small pitcher of it to have on the table and had placed the can in one of the back rooms on the floor. DeLance, who was crawling then pushed the door open into that room, pushed the can over, the lid came off and the molasses ran into a big puddle on the floor. When we found DeLance, he was sitting in the middle of it stirring it around, licking his hands, rubbing it into his hair and on his clothes. He kept sucking it off his fingers with a big smile on his face. We got a tub of warm water and set him in it, clothes and all to undress him. Well we went back to bread and milk only again.

DeLance got the whooping cough in February and it worried us very much, as we thought he had gone on various occasions as we rushed him outside and blow into his face to get his breath back. He went black and limp a number of times.

I remember one early summer day after we had eaten our noon meal of bread and milk a neighbor brought in a pan full of ripe tomatoes. We turned back to the table and really stretched our tummies as we ate a half dozen tomatoes each with some more bread and milk.
That fall we had a stack of hay for a cow, fruit bottled, a hog butchered and other food stuff stored in the store house. From that time forth we have never to this day had to worry about not having the good things of this life to eat. Needless to say Amelia and I never ate bread and milk again for a meal.
Work with pay of any kind was hard to find. That fall it took my molasses crop to pay the interest on the debt. It was not uncommon to go weeks and sometimes months without a coin of money to our name. A gallon of kerosene once in a while was about the only utility expense we had. They did some improvement work on the water line from Toquerville town to the spring on which I worked for a few weeks. This was mostly assessment work against stock in the company. LaVerkin was not incorporated at that time and the water works were owned by a company of town people. I became a stockholder with the purchase of our home.
I worked at any odd and end jobs available and for what I could get. I got a few feet of lumber on one job, so built us our kitchen table which we used for several years and it is now in use in the cellar.
On Monday, June 6, 1921, we were blessed with the arrival of our second son, Phil, and we thought how nice that we had two boys to play and grow up together. Our battle to feed ourselves and gather enough cash to pay the interest on our loan kept us busy. Time went on and on. On Tuesday morning at 11:00 a.m. April, 24, 1923 Don made known he had arrived and desired immediate attention, which he got. Now we had three boys to play together.
As time went on we were slowly gathering things around us to make life more comfortable. Christmas toys were made largely by myself. I made three wheel barrows and painted them red along with a kicking mule and other toys that made the boys happy on Christmas morning. Labor was paid from a dollar to one-fifty a day when you could get it. I herded buck sheep for forty-five days for a dollar a day. That forty- five dollars plus another five paid the old Doc. McGregor for the hour he spent to bring Don into the world.

During these early years in Dixie I spent four summers as water master and waded the tunnel and walked the ditch each day. When Dixie Power Company got permission to use our canal I worked on the cementing of it and the installing of the wood pipe from the tunnel to the plant. I also herded sheep one spring for four months and trailed the herd from Mesquite, Nevada to Cedar Mountain, just south of Navajo Lake. I became proficient at fleece tieing and worked a few springs at the shearing corral at Goulds. During this time I sold the five acre field north of town and purchased the five west of town at a cost of$975.00. I had to scrape the land on the west side of the ditch down to get the water on it. Later I planted all the fruit trees upon it. This five acres has proven the best investment I ever made.

Time passed and on a Saturday, January 14, 1928 DuWayne arrived and began to make his wants known. Now we had four boys to play together. Then again on October 29, 1929 the stork settled at our place and left another son, Jerald, to make it five boys to become playmates. Our first sorrow and tragedy occurred when on December 23, 1930 a pre-mature baby girl was born to us, living but a few short minutes. She was a beautiful baby with dark hair. On Dec. 7, 1931 we again had a visit from the stork, who had by that time found it unnecessary to ask where we lived. At any rate we had another son and named him after my brother, Adrien who had passed on.

These were very trying times. The worst depression of the century was on. Work or money was very difficult to get. Amelia patched overalls on top of patch and hand-me-downs from one son to the next was a necessity. I had taken up a dry farm on Smith mountain a few years before, but along with the depression, we had several years of drought I plowed and planted crops, but they were total failures on the dry farm.

In the spring of 1933 Ellis J. Pickett and Joseph Snow, both attorneys of St. George, called upon me and asked if I would be interested in a job in a new organization in the state known as the Highway Patrol. They had become acquainted with me in my office of Justice of the Peace and said they had looked over the County and decided they could endorse me for the job. I didn't know anything about the organization, but assured them I was very much in need of a job and would be happy for any assistance they could give in getting it for me. Largely through their efforts on July 3, 1933,I got a long distance phone call from Mr. Pickett to be at the state capitol in Salt Lake City at nine o'clock on the morning of July 5th. I was without a dime so borrowed twenty dollars from S. J. Graff and in the morning was at Anderson Ranch where I purchased a bus ticket to Salt Lake and early on the morning of July 5th was at the Capitol. I was poor and my aged suit hung on me like I was a clothes rack as I weighed in at 132 pounds with all my clothes on. I was thirty-five years old. However, many good recommendations had been sent in and I received the appointment. This was a political appointment to work in and for the State Road Commission under a Democratic administration.

After a few days training on ticket writing, report making and riding a motorcycle, I was sent to the Santa Clara station to work at a salary of $126.00 per month. I had ordered uniforms from Z.C.M.I. and was to pay for them on monthly payments. I was a grateful and proud young man when I put on the uniform, strapped on the gun and put on the badge of the Utah Highway Patrol. Some time before this I had borrowed $250.00 and purchased a 1927 Chevrolet sedan and it still was not paid for.

I got a place to board and room with Antone Prince in St. George and started work. After a few hours of instruction I was left to myself to work my shifts. I never got one day off the first eight months. I will never forget the first check of $90.00 I received. It paid off many bills and I still had some change in my pocket for the first time in months.

On November 12, 1933 I came out home during off hours to visit and found that Scott had arrived and was claiming the attention of his mother and grandmother. He was the first one that I had not been present to welcome into this world. Mom wanted to name him Scott so I said OK if we give him the middle initial of 0 so his initials would be S.O.S. Now we had seven brothers to play together and I felt that it was high time to send out some kind of a distress signal.

Back: DeLance, Phil, Don, Uncle Axel
Front: DuWayne, Jerald, Adrien, Scott

I found a home to rent in the north-west part of St. George and on Thanksgiving day we moved into it. I wanted my family with me. Soon after Scott got the whooping cough and we spent many anxious days and nights with frequent coughing spells that seemed to be his last.

In the spring of 1934 we moved into a place two blocks west of the Tabernacle where we were close to school. However, we found living in St. George, paying rent and with nothing for the boys to do, unsatisfactory, so in the spring of 1935 I purchased a new Ford Pick-up and we moved back in the old home in LaVerkin and I drove back and forth to work for the next six years or until they closed the Santa Clara station. Our orchards at the field were starting to bear and we were able to grow a garden, a couple of hogs, have a couple of milk cows to milk and a young beef to butcher each fall. The boys had plenty to do and I had many hours to work on the farm before and after work. From this time on we began to pay off some debts and provide more comforts for the family and home.

In the spring of 1940 the Santa Clara station was closed and I was issued a used car and assigned to patrol the roads of Washington and Kane counties with trips to Cedar City. This made it much better for me as I started to work as I left home and was to be home at quitting time if not on some accident or other emergency.

During 1940 we built our new home and moved into it in November. DeLance only got to spend a night or two in it before leaving for his mission to the Eastern States where he spent the next two years in New York and Pennsylvania.

With the wars and rumors of wars the National Guard was called into service and were stationed on guard duty in southern California. Phil, being a member at the St. George company was, to our dismay, called with the guard. DeLance had resigned to go on his mission.

On October 15, 1941, took Mom to the hospital in St. George for a check and the doctor had me leave her there to be treated. About nine o' clock that night a nurse called me and asked that I return to the hospital. Shortly after I arrived a nurse came into the waiting room and informed me that I was the father of a lovely baby daughter. I could hardly believe her. Anyway the S.O.S. had paid off. LoRene had arrived and my joy held no bounds as after I got home, even though it was after mid-night, I called several people to announce the good news.

Front row: Loren, Gerald, Adrien, Lorene, Amelia, Scott Back row; DeLance, Phil, Don, DuWayne

Phil's letters were full of his plans to be home for Christmas. I well remember of standing near our radio on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941 listening to the 7:00a.m. news broadcast that related the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. All furloughs were cancelled and Phil did not get home for Christmas. War is a terrible time, especially if you have sons or husbands in the service.

DeLance came home from his mission and on December 23, 1942 he and Dorothy Hirschi were married in the St. George Temple.

The years of 1943-1944 and the first part of 1945 were times of much worry and nervous strain with the three sons in the service. The gray hair came fast into the head of their mother as she spent many sleepless hours into the late hours of the night intense worry over her sons.

The year 1945 was a joyous one as many cheerful events happened in our lives. On March 11, 1945 the stork once again made a trip which happened to be his last one to our home and left a lovely baby daughter in the maternity home in Hurricane. Again there was rejoicing in our home as Sandra had arrived. Then came the end of the war and the return of our sons.

Once again we were to have sleepless hours during the years of 1950-1951 and 1952 during the war in Korea. In August 1950 the Utah National Guard being one of the first national guards to be called into service took two of our sons with it. Phil and DuWayne being members of the St. George guard went into service. We were grateful and glad when that war was over and once again have our sons home with us.

DuWayne Squire

Time does not wait for anyone and the years have sped by until now 1960 is drawing to a close. I want to write a chapter of the family activities and then hope to have this published for Christmas 1960.