Life History of DuWayne G. Squire - The Short Bitter-Sweet Life of Kirk

You might need to get some tissues ready for this installment of my dad's history.  It is a heart-breaking period early in their marriage.  Their faith in God is evident and helped them endure this incredibly difficult time.

Kirk DuWayne Squire
24 March 1950-14 December 1950

Our first son was born on March 24, 1950, in the Cedar City Hospital. He was about five weeks premature, but he looked so good and healthy, and the Doctor assured us that everything seemed to be just great. When Kirk was born, I ran up and down the hospital corridors yelling, “It’s a boy!” We were so happy, but Helen was in pretty bad shape as she was in labor for a couple of days before Kirk’s birth.

By the time Helen brought the baby home from the hospital, it was apparent that he had unnatural and excessive bowel movements. The doctors at Cedar City treated him until it was apparent that they could not find a proper solution to his problem. At that point, they suggested that we take him to a specialist in Salt Lake City. They recommended a Dr. Snow who grew up in Pine Valley and was now a resident doctor at the LDS Hospital specializing in pediatrics.

We went home and called Dr. Snow’s office and were able to get an appointment for Kirk. Dr. Snow examined Kirk and suggested that we admit him into the LDS Hospital, and he would treat him there. Dr. Snow tested and treated Kirk for a few weeks and was unable to find any cause or cure for Kirk’s problems, and so he suggested that we take Kirk to the Salt Lake County Hospital and have him admitted under the care of the University of Utah doctors. He said they could experiment and perhaps find a solution to Kirk’s problems. Dr. Snow stated that he had exhausted every avenue known to him for a solution, and so from now on it would have to be through experimentation if they found a cure. At this point in our conversation, I asked Dr. Snow if it would be all right for us to take Kirk to a Dr. Wilkinson who was once an M.D. in Hurricane but had since moved to Salt Lake City and ran a clinic which determined diseases through blood tests, and then he treated them with some form of electrical device. Because of his unorthodox type of treatment, the AMA had kicked Dr. Wilkinson out of their Association. When I asked Dr. Snow this question, he flew into a rage and told me that Dr. Wilkinson couldn’t do that child any more good than if he took a light bulb and switched it on and off in front of the child. He further stated in a rage that if we took the baby to Dr. Wilkinson, he would personally see that we would be unable to register our child in any hospital in the state and would see that no doctor would look at the baby ever again. At that point, he stomped out of the baby’s hospital room. The nurse that was in there changing the bedding scolded us by saying, “You shouldn’t have mentioned Dr. Wilkinson’s name in the presence of Dr. Snow.” I said, “Why not, since Dr. Snow just admitted that whatever is ailing Kirk is beyond the knowledge of the medical profession and from now on it will be strictly experimental work if a solution is found to help him.” I further stated that we were very upset because, as we saw it, Dr. Snow had just pronounced a death sentence on our son rather than let us try something not approved by the AMA.

Needless to say, we were too frightened to try Dr. Wilkinson, even though Helen’s mother had been going to him and had experienced miraculous healing. We took Kirk obediently to the Salt Lake County Hospital. Helen stayed at her Uncle Harvey Dalton’s home on Seventh East and Eighth South in Salt Lake and would go to the hospital and spend each day with Kirk. I returned to LaVerkin to my job until I was called into active duty in the 213^th F.A. Battalion on August 3, 1950. We were all loaded on the train at Cedar City and traveled to Ft. Lewis, Washington. Those were weary, lonely days without Helen, especially with the worry of our son’s illness. We had administered to Kirk and had faith that he would be healed. Even though we prayed, “Thy will be done,” the thought never entered our heads that the Lord may choose not to heal Kirk.

Since Helen couldn’t do anything for Kirk except visit him daily, I talked her into coming up to Ft. Lewis to stay with me. I had found a little cottage in the pines just off the base. Helen had our belongings loaded into our 1940 Ford pickup and her father accompanied her to Ft. Lewis. As I recall, she arrived the first part of October, 1950. I was so homesick to see Helen that I could hardly stand it. As you can imagine, we had a joyous reunion. Dad stayed overnight in our one-room cottage, and then we put him on a bus for home.

I believe that from the day Helen arrived, we had rain and fog every day. She became very homesick and worried about our little son lying in a hospital bed in Salt Lake City. The weather being so dreary and my being at the base from 5:00 a.m. to late evening every day added to Helen’s loneliness. She missed being with Kirk, and we were both so worried about him that those were sad days, even though we had each other at night.

About 30 days after Helen arrived in Ft. Lewis, we got a call from the hospital saying that we could come and pick up Kirk. We were so elated as we assumed they must have cured Kirk of his affliction. I was able to get a weekend off, and so we packed up all of our belongings from the cabin and headed for home. It was late evening when I got off work, and so it was rather late when we left Ft. Lewis. By the time we started up the Mt. Rainier or Snoqualomie Pass, it was very dark and snowing heavily.

We thought it unusual that we never came upon any other traffic, either coming or going, but I was so busy trying to keep the Ford pickup from sliding off the road or from spinning out as we were pushing snow with the bumper, that I really didn’t give it much thought. We were petrified at times because the snow was so deep and there weren’t any other tracks to follow. At times, we had to nearly stop to discern which direction the road was heading since all markers were covered by snow. We said prayers that we might be able to make it over the pass without sliding off into one of the deep chasms along the road. We knew that if we stopped completely, we would not be able to get the truck to move again since we didn’t have snow tires or chains.

You will never know how relieved we were when we finally made it over the top of the pass and saw some lights at a café and truck stop. We pulled into the truck stop much to the surprise of everyone there. They inquired as to where we had come from, and when we told them we had just come over the Mt. Rainier or Snoqualomie Pass, they could hardly believe us because the Highway Patrol had stopped traffic due to the heavy snowfall several hours earlier. We knew that the Lord had been with us, but we never could understand how we had passed through the road block.

We arrived in Salt Lake City and went directly to the hospital and picked up our sweet little Kirk. We were very disheartened to find that he had not been cured and that the hospital was releasing him because they had done all that they could do for him.

When I got Helen and Kirk home, I had to leave immediately to catch a bus back to Ft. Lewis, Washington. I was very busy at Ft. Lewis trying to requisition all the spare parts of the OVM (equipment for our obsolete 105 MM Howitzers). I would send in a requisition for hundreds of spare parts and get three or four small parts with all of the other parts marked “out of stock.” I then had to re-requisition all of those out of stock items along with the others that I hadn’t requisitioned as yet. Each Howitzer had a book listing hundreds of spare parts required before taking the units into combat.

In December, 1950, Helen told me that Kirk was so dehydrated and thin from lack of nourishment because of his diarrhea that she had taken him back to Salt Lake. When she got to Salt Lake, she called Dr. Snow. He was very curt with her and practically hung up on her. He said there wasn’t anything he could do, and so he wouldn’t come to see Kirk or let her make an appointment to bring him into his office.

Sometime earlier, Helen had taken Kirk to Dr. Wilkinson and he treated him for a time. After one of the treatments, Kirk became constipated and Helen had to use a suppository to relieve him. At that time, he had a large solid stool—the first one since his birth—but by this time, Kirk’s little body was so emaciated and dehydrated that he just became weaker and weaker. Dr. Wilkinson said he only wished he had been able to treat him earlier as he may have been able to save him. After the rejection by Dr. Snow, Helen called and told me how weak and sick Kirk was and said he had received a priesthood blessing and was promised to live long enough to see his father again.

I went to the commanding officer and asked for time off to go home, and I explained the circumstances to him concerning Kirk’s condition. He told me that he did not have the authority to authorize me time off due to the emergency status of our unit.

I then went to the Red Cross, and they were more sympathetic to my cause and were able to get me an emergency leave. I threw some things in a bag and went over to McChord Air Force Base to see if I could get a ride to Hill Field, Utah. They didn’t have any flights scheduled for Hill Field in the next few days, but they did have a flight going to Great Falls, Montana, They suggested that I take that flight, and then I should be able to get a flight down to Hill Field from there. I took the flight in a cold C-47 sitting with my back to the side of the plane in a canvas seat. Needless to say, I was very uncomfortable and cold, but we arrived at Great Falls to find the airfield covered with snow and a cold, icy wind blowing to greet us. I was informed that there wouldn’t be any flights out until morning, and so they were kind enough to issue me a couple of army blankets and give me a bunk. It was cold in the barracks, and so I spent a very uncomfortable night. I was up at daylight and rushed over to see when I might catch a flight for Hill Field. They told me that Hill Field was completely fogged in and they had no idea when it might lift or when they may try to fly in. I waited until late afternoon, and they told me it didn’t look very promising for the next day or two. I called Helen to report where I was and what the conditions were. She said Kirk was in a terribly weakened condition, and she feared that I may not get there in time to see him alive. I called the commercial airline that served Great Falls and was told there was a flight out the next morning, but it stopped at every little town in Montana and Idaho on the way to Salt Lake. I was unable to get anything with the air force, and so I took the flight. It was very scary to me as we stopped (or landed) on several snow-packed, small runways. It was a small two-engine aircraft. I got into Salt Lake in the late afternoon, and Helen’s Uncle Harvey Dalton came out to the airport and brought me to his home.

When I arrived at the Dalton residence, Helen was there to greet me, and we had a very tearful reunion. When I saw my poor, sick, little Kirk, my heart was broken as I was not prepared to see how much suffering he had gone through to stay alive until I got there. It was almost more than I could bear to see how emaciated and dehydrated his little body was. I held him for a moment, and then Aunt Partha took him while Helen and I went to the basement bedroom where Helen was staying. We knelt down and poured our hearts out to our Father in Heaven, thanking Him for the privilege of having such a sweet little spirit born to us, thanking Him for allowing Kirk to live long enough for us to be prepared to accept the fact that it was His will that he was not to live long upon the earth, and thanking Him for preserving his life long enough for me to see him alive once more. Then we asked that He take Kirk unto Himself that he might not suffer longer. We closed our prayer, came upstairs, and Helen took Kirk from her aunt and held him close to her. Within a couple of minutes, he passed peacefully on. That was December 14, 1950.

Early the next morning, Helen dressed Kirk in his best little suit and placed him on the back seat of our car, and we drove to LaVerkin. Our hearts were heavy and our feelings close to the surface all the way home.

We bought the smallest casket we could find and held a small funeral in LaVerkin. We found that we had so many great friends, and they showered us with great love and comfort. Of course, our families were the greatest and gave us the support we needed at that time.

After the funeral, I had to catch a bus and go right back to Ft. Lewis, Washington, since our unit was preparing to ship out for Korea within the next few days. It was with heavy hearts that Helen and I parted that day.

Life History of DuWayne G. Squire - Love & Marriage

DuWayne & Helen

When Helen and I became serious enough to contemplate marriage, we were greatly concerned about the fact that we were second cousins. My Grandmother Sanders and Helen’s Grandfather Morris Wilson were brother and sister. We did much praying and soul searching concerning this problem and finally went to Ivan J. Barrett, our seminary teacher and also a member of our stake presidency. He suggested that we all kneel in prayer around his office desk. After he prayed, we all had a good positive feeling about our continued pursuit of marriage. However, because of comments made by some of my uncles, we were still greatly concerned and frustrated. In answer to prayer, we were guided to go to Brother Roundy, our stake patriarch, to receive a patriarchal blessing to see if the answer would be given there. On October 28, 1945, we went to Brother Roundy for my patriarchal blessing. We didn’t warn Brother Roundy of our concern about marriage, but we both felt the answer was very plainly stated. At that point, we went to our parents with our desires and my parents readily gave their permission.

I guessed that Helen’s parents had given their permission since they consented to ride into Salt Lake with us to buy an engagement ring. Since I hadn’t formally asked Helen’s father for her hand, I spent most of the trip nervously trying to get up enough courage to do so. We were nearly to Salt Lake by the time I finally asked the question. Helen’s father was sitting behind me as I was driving, and so I couldn’t see his face. He never responded to my question for what seemed an eternity. I am sure that it was two or three minutes before he said anything. Dad finally gave his permission, and Helen and I breathed a great sigh of relief. Dad later told us that the reason he took so long to respond to my question was because he couldn’t think of my name. He said that all of my brothers’ names came to his mind, but he drew a blank on my name. I guess he was a little nervous too.

While in Salt Lake, we stayed at Helen’s Uncle Harvey Dalton’s home. We bought Helen’s miniature diamond ring at a supposedly wholesale jewelry outlet (Dahnkens). It cost me $127 which was about one-third of my total summer’s wages. Needless to say, we were so happy we could hardly contain ourselves as we drove back home.

The next problem was to set a date for our marriage. Helen’s mother said that the St. George Temple was closed for remodeling, and she would allow us to marry when it reopened. She had understood that it would reopen in late spring, but the temple presidency decided to open the temple for a couple of weeks in December for marriages. We set the date for December 10, 1947, much to Helen’s mother’s chagrin. Thora felt tricked as the wedding date came about six months earlier than she had first contemplated.

We were married late at night, getting out of the temple at midnight. We drove to Cedar City to the Lunt Hotel to spend the night. I well remember how uneasy I felt as we went up to the hotel desk to ask for a room. The attendant asked our names and I said, “DuWayne Squire and Helen Gubler.” I blushed greatly as I quickly said, “I mean Helen Squire.” There were two or three people in the lobby and their eyes were all upon us. I am sure that none of them believed that we were married. My habit of blushing in my shyness and embarrassment certainly didn’t help our cause. We were both further embarrassed when the attendant asked where our luggage was. We had come with a small overnight case only. We were both still flushed a bright red when the attendant showed us our room and I gave him his twenty-five cent tip. 

DuWayne & Helen
This picture was taken several months after their wedding at Helen's sister, Ramona's, wedding.

The embarrassment wasn’t over because Helen was trying to figure how she could get into her nightgown without me seeing her. When I asked if she would like to go out for dinner, she suggested that I go out and buy something and bring it back to our room. When I got back with hamburgers and drinks, Helen was in her nightgown, and when I saw her, I thought she was in a formal dress and I asked her where she planned on going. She asked what did I mean? So I asked why she was in a formal dress. As I recall, she never did eat her hamburger.

The next morning we got up and had breakfast and then rushed home since we had much to do in getting the church house ready for our reception. We held our reception in the same hall that church services were held as it was also used for all cultural events. We didn’t have any decorations, not even a wedding cake. By the time all of our cousins, relatives, and friends showed up, we had all of the benches filled to capacity and a large group dancing on the hardwood floor of the chapel. At that time, people came to a wedding reception to spend the evening in dancing, eating, and enjoying a program where the M.C. roasted the bride and groom and announced the program numbers. After the program, the bride and groom had to dance alone until some family members finally took pity on us and joined in.

There was much talk of shivareeing us by Helen’s brothers, my brothers, and friends. This made us very uneasy as we had heard many tales from aunts and uncles who were taken to the mountains where the husband was chained or tied to a tree, then left to try to get loose any way he possibly could, and then walk back to town. If the groom didn’t make it back by morning, they would go out and get him. Sometimes they tied both the groom and the bride to a tree. Other times they would put the bride on a front fender of a car and the groom on another and drive them through neighboring towns and cities honking their horns or else they would parade them through restaurants and movie houses.

With this threat hanging over us, like most newlyweds we took evasive action and made a hasty retreat when no one was looking. We went down through the basement, out the basement door, and ran for Helen’s home. When we got there, we went to her room and locked the door. We were so tired that we laid on the bed with our clothes on to wait until we felt safe to proceed on our honeymoon. It was 7:30 a.m. when we awoke. We got up and changed out of our wedding clothes and grabbed our suitcases. Mother insisted we have breakfast. We then went up to tell my folks goodbye. By then, the school students were waiting for the bus, and so we waited for the bus to come as we were too shy to take the ribbing from the high school students as we departed.

I had a 1938 Chevrolet four-door sedan that had at least 200,000 miles on it which we took on our honeymoon. When we got to it, we found that we could hardly see out of any of the windows as our friends had painted it up so much and tied strings of tin cans underneath it. We made a noisy retreat as we left for Pasadena, California. I only had $20 to my name, so I borrowed $100 from Dad for our honeymoon. We drove to Las Vegas before stopping for something to eat. With a feeling of adventure, we put our change in the nickel slot machines before proceeding onto Barstow, California. We were able to get a room even though it was fairly late in the evening when we arrived. Since my car was so conspicuous with all the writing of “Just Married” and crude jokes on it and since every time we stopped for gas or to eat we were the subject of much kidding. I got up early the next morning and took a can of water out and used my handkerchief to try to wash the car. I wasn’t too successful, and since they didn’t have car wash places in those days, we still got much more attention than we desired until we got back home.

We got to Pasadena the next day and went to the oldest and most famous hotel in town and were able to get a room for the next three nights. One night we were entertained by one of Don’s best buddies from the army days in the South Pacific Islands. Don’s buddy’s parents had us over for a delicious dinner, and then they took us all over Los Angeles. Our eyes bunged out at the sights of Signal Hill and the harbor at night. We were also overawed by the freeways, the bridges, the ships in the harbor, and the traffic going at breakneck speeds.

We had a great time on our honeymoon, but it was brought to an abrupt halt when we arrived back home. We were faced with the problem of finding a place to rent and finding enough furniture to set up housekeeping, and then there was the problem of Helen returning to high school. We were able to rent Helen’s Uncle Wayne Wilson’s home for about $25 a month, and with all the used furniture contributed by our folks, we were soon set up for modified housekeeping.

Helen was in the middle of her senior year at Hurricane High School and had to attend school for half a day. I would drive Helen to school each morning, and then I would go to work at Hurricane Motor Company. At noon, I would pick Helen up, and we would drive home for lunch and then drop Helen off at her folk’s store where Helen worked until I got home after work each day. Helen graduated with her class at Hurricane High School the following spring.

We rented Wayne Wilson’s old home for a few months, but the mice and the $25 per month drove us out. We moved to Helen’s Grandmother Gubler’s home and lived in the upstairs. As I recall, the rent was only $15 per month and that fit our budget much better. We lived there until one day John Judd came in the garage and asked me if I would be interested in buying their home and the 11 acres across the street from it. He stated that he and his wife wanted to sell to someone that they respected and who they felt would keep up the place. At first, I was very elated, but when he told me the asking price was $13,000 for the land and home, I began to realize with my income it would be beyond my reach. I was only making $125 per month, and even with Helen working in the store for our groceries, it would be next to impossible to make the payments. I went home and talked to Dad and, to my surprise, found him very excited about the prospect of owning that land. He said that land was some of the most fertile and had the best water rights on the center canal of any land in LaVerkin.

I found that Dad had secretly desired to own that land since he had moved to LaVerkin. Dad suggested that if I really wanted the place, then he would buy the west six acres for the down payment of $5,000 and I could make the payments for the home and the five acres until I paid off the $8,000 balance. Helen and I were very excited to have a place of our own, but the payments were over $100, and so we had less than $25 per month to live on. With Helen working in the store and receiving free groceries for her services and with many free dinners from Mom and Dad when we stopped there after picking Helen up from work, we barely made the payments each month.

My brother, Phil, knowing of our financial bind, suggested that I might consider joining the National Guard. He said that although he was called up in World War II, history indicated that we couldn’t possibly afford to get into another war for the next 25 years or so. I joined up for the $15 or so each month for two days drill exercises. The funds did really help. I also accepted a job with E. J. Graff at his chicken ranch (on the north end of town in the old CCC buildings) as night watchman. My hours were from 2:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. each morning. If I rushed, I would barely get home and grab a bite to eat on the way to Hurricane Motor Co. to start work at 8:00 a.m. At this time, we were doing quite a bit of socializing with Verla and Burdell Reusch and Thell and Elaine Gubler and would be up late at night playing cards or some such game. Once in a while, I didn’t hear the alarm at 1:30 a.m. since I may have only been in bed for an hour or two, so we brought in a #2 wash tub and put it by our bed. We then wound up the “Big Ben” alarm clock and put it in the center of the tub. When the alarm went off, I would usually explode out of bed since it made a terrible racket. Believe it or not, we even slept through that a time or two.

Life History of DuWayne G. Squire - The Teen Years Continued

I have been blessed to grow up in a home where my parents not only loved each other, but they adored each other.  They have a love that started as teenage infatuation and has withstood the test of time and the test of great trials. I grew up listening to the stories of my parents' courtship and it is fun to read them.

The Teen Years Continued

When I first noticed that Helen had grown up and was no longer a little pest was while I was dating Quinta Nielson and Mont Sanders was dating Helen’s cousin, Afton Wilson. We were going on a date to a high school dance and our friend, John Segler, wanted to go with us and didn’t know who to ask to go with him. We suggested he ask Helen Gubler, who was a friend of Quinta and Afton, and so he did. The six of us went together to the dance and the other activities of the evening. Before the evening was over, John, Mont, and myself noticed that Helen was the best dancer and was by far the most fun to be around. We all became enamored with Helen’s beauty, wit, and flirtations. From then on, we all wanted to date Helen. I immediately decided to start dating Helen, if she agreed. John didn’t appreciate this turn of events and let me know that he was the one that discovered Helen and, therefore, he felt he should have a monopoly on her. Too bad, John! I began dating Helen but John didn’t go down without a fight. He began asking Helen out two to four weeks in advance, so I started doing the same, plus I began taking her on dates other than to school events. John persevered for a time but he began to see the handwriting on the wall. Helen had let me know that between the two of us, she chose me. But that didn’t stop her from dating some boys from her school class from time to time.

                                                           

Helen loved to dance and I am sure she was the most popular dance partner in the school. For instance, back in those days they gave out dance cards listing the 18 to 24 dances planned for the evening. Boys would ask for a dance and the girls would write their name in and tell them which number they had. By the time Helen had danced a couple of numbers, she would have all of her dances spoken for. I soon wised up and would tell her that I was to get every other dance number. I even got greedy and once asked for all of the dance numbers. Bad mistake! I could tell Helen wasn’t happy with that arrangement, so I didn’t make that mistake again. However, being a slow learner, I didn’t make another gross error when I took Helen to a movie and skipped the dance. That was one cool evening—I mean, it got down near freezing. I can understand why Helen enjoyed going to the dances. The two best dancers in the school were my age and they could dance up a storm and Helen was their favorite partner. Needless to say, I didn’t especially like either one of them! However, even though they got the dance accolades, I got the girl!

By the time I was a senior, Helen and I were going quite steady. She did manage to shake me up once in a while with dates from fellows in her age group in the sophomore class.

Helen and I were on the go all the time in my Model A Ford. I remember on one trip we took Thell and Elaine with us to a ball game in Cedar City. It had been cold and snowy weather up in Iron County, and the roads were ice packed. We would drive down main street in Cedar City, and I would turn my wheels sharp and hit the brakes, and we would go whirling around and around for a block or so. Helen’s mother nearly chewed my ear off when she found out about that escapade; she gave me a quick lesson in driver’s education.

During my last two summers of high school, I worked for Reed Wilson on his farm and spent much time in digging ditches, thinning peaches, irrigating, planting tomatoes, strawberries, and a host of other chores. At harvest time, I peddled fruit and melons in Cedar City, Parowan, Paragonah, Beaver, Minersville, Milford, Fillmore, Kanosh, and Delta. I had many experiences while on these trips, some good and many that were not so good, which opened my eyes to the ways of the world—a world from which I had been sheltered while living in Dixie.

An illustration of these experiences happened in Beaver. A lady who was probably in her twenties bought two bushels of peaches. When I carried them into her house, she asked me to set them down and follow her into another room. We ended up in her bedroom where she asked me to sit on the bed while she tried to find her money. While she was looking for her money, she told me that her husband had been stationed in the CC Camp in LaVerkin (the CC Camp was later purchased by E. J. Graff and turned into a chicken farm), but he was now in the military service and had been gone for over a year on an overseas assignment. She continued looking in drawers and around the room, but she just couldn’t remember where she had stashed the money. Finally, she flat out asked if there wasn’t some other way she could pay for the peaches. Being very naive, she nearly had to spell it out for me so I could catch on to what she was alluding to. I stammered and told her that my boss insisted on cash for every bushel of peaches. At that point, she grabbed her purse from the dresser and handed me the money with a great show of disgust. I literally ran out of her house!

On another peddling trip, Reed Wilson sent me with his brother, Dilworth, and a brother-in-law, Carlyle Sullivan. I drove the three quarter ton truck and they drove the one and a half ton truck loaded with pears. When we got situated at Beaver, it soon became apparent that I was to do the peddling and those two were going after the women in the restaurants, telephone office, and any other place they could find them. They were both married and had several children, but it seemed that they chased women and drank liquor all day and all night long.

I sold my truck load of pears, and we loaded it full from the big truck. Since I had covered Beaver, Milford, and Minersville in those first two days, Dilworth called Reed and told him we were not doing very well and that the pears were just not moving, and so he thought it best that we try Richfield and Gunnison over on Highway 89.

Carlyle and Dilworth stayed with the women that night. They told me to get up early and they would meet me at my hotel room the next morning. When they arrived the next morning, Dilworth was with a woman and he told us to go on ahead and he would meet us in Richfield as he and his gal would drive over after breakfast. We took off with me driving the little truck and Carlyle driving the big truck. We stopped at Cove Fort and bought some cookies and such for breakfast. Carlyle said he would go on ahead of me, and so we started up over the Cove Fort cutoff road to Highway 89. The road was a dirt and gravel road with a great deal of washboard roughness. It was very dusty following the truck so I dropped back and opened a package of cookies as I bounced along. I ate a couple of cookies and laid the package on the seat, but, as we bounced along, the cookies slid off the seat by the passenger door. I was in a gentle turn when I leaned over to feel for the cookies. When I straightened up, I was on the rough shoulder of the road in the rocks which caught my right front wheel and pulled me over the steep embankment. The truck rolled completely over and ended right side up with the rear end sitting on top of a spruce tree. The engine was revving up and the rear wheels—suspended in air—were spinning 80 miles an hour. When I came to my senses, I turned the key off and started trying to get out. The cab was mashed flat to the bottom of the window on the driver’s side, and so I opened the passenger door and found that I was about ten feet above the ground. I got out and climbed down the tree I was resting on.

I was sitting on the edge of the road when Carlyle came back. He had noticed I wasn’t behind him by the time he got to the top of the pass, and so he turned around and came back. Soon after, Dilworth and his girlfriend arrived and others began stopping. We had someone stop at Cove Fort to call a wrecker. While we were waiting for it, who should come along but our old neighbor, Walter Segler. When Dilworth saw Walter there, he sent his girlfriend over to stand by me. She was in a pair of shorts with a halter-neck top, and she hung on to me giving the impression she was with me. You can imagine the story Walter told everyone in LaVerkin when he got home that day. He said that I had this little chippie who was nearly naked riding with me and it wasn’t any wonder that I couldn’t keep my eyes on the road. Anyway, it took a lot of explaining when I got home. I am sure many were never convinced I was telling the truth, especially since I couldn’t tell them that the gal was with Dilworth.

The next summer following my junior year, I worked for Reed for a while and then was offered a job on a maintenance crew in Zion National Park. I was making $5 a day for about ten hours work for Reed and would make $8 a day for an eight hour shift in Zion National Park. Dad wasn’t convinced that I should leave a steady, secure job to go for the “bucks” in Zion. If I thought Dad was disappointed in my decision, I didn’t know what disappointment was until I told Reed Wilson I was quitting. He thought he had a lifetime lease on my soul, so he treated me like dirt from that day on for several years to come. He wouldn’t speak to me unless he had to, and he was always giving cutting remarks about the fact that I wrecked his truck and was thus indebted to him. As far as the truck wreck goes, I know that he came out very well since it was covered by insurance, and the insurance company paid for many more bushels of pears than was damaged by the wreck.

I had enough points accrued toward my high school graduation that I only had to attend a couple of classes in my senior year. So, with the money I had earned working at Zion, I was able to do a lot of chasing around and dating. Helen’s folks put a damper on dating school nights which was a very good thing for both of us.

I had determined that I wanted to be an auto mechanic and have a little farm on the side. So, when I graduated from high school, I prepared and saved to go to Dixie College. I was able to live at home because that year Dixie College bought a new station wagon and assigned a driver in Hurricane to pick each of us up who wanted to attend Dixie. We had a full load, and it worked very well to be able to come home every night. I took a schedule loaded with auto mechanics and crafts for the winter.

During winter quarter, I missed a couple weeks of school because of complications following a tonsillectomy. For several years during the winter, my throat would become inflamed and so sore I could hardly swallow. On numerous occasions, doctors had told the folks that I should have my tonsils out. It finally became so bad that I went in on my own. When they looked at my tonsils, they said they were too infected to operate. They gave me penicillin shots for at least a month to try to clear up the infection. They indicated that they were still bad, but they really needed to come out. So they gave me local anesthesia and set me in a dental chair. The Cocaine and Novocain they were giving me didn’t deaden my throat at all. I could feel the cutting as though they hadn’t anesthetized me at all. I was coughing blood all over the doctor and the wall behind him. He had to keep stopping to clean off his glasses. When they finished, the doctor told me that I was immune to local anesthesia as he had tried three or four different types and none of them numbed my throat. He also told me that I was a bleeder and should alert any doctors who planned any future operations. I had lost quite a bit of blood and was very sick for the next several days. On the eighth day after the operation, I was awake most of the night gagging down blood. The next morning, I threw up a bucket of blood and the folks called the doctor. They rushed me to the hospital in St. George where the doctor said the area where my tonsils had been had rotted and sloughed away leaving a hole about the size of a golf ball. They called the college for volunteer blood donors, and a Pete Johnson came over and gave a pint of blood for me. While receiving it, I went into shock, and they stacked quilts on me about 12 inches high. That night the doctor took some forceps and clamped a wad of gauze about the size of a golf ball and had me hold the forceps pushing the gauze in the sloughed-away hole. Before he left me, he told me not to let that come out or I would bleed to death. About 11:00 p.m., I got to choking and panicked. I yanked out the gauze and called for a nurse. When she came in, she really chewed me out stating that Dr. McGregor was at a Lion’s Club meeting and would be very upset at being disturbed. When Dr. McGregor came, he was upset and he chewed me out before clamping some fresh gauze and telling me to keep it in my throat. I survived! I was reminded several times how lucky I was to be alive after that incident.

No wonder my dad is such a tough man!