A story of the life of Eugene Albert Orgill, written by my own hand, begun on Tuesday, 29 January 1985 in the 69th year of my life.

"... The sights and the sounds fade away. The voices are still and are no longer heard. The parade appears and is gone. But the written word endures".

I shall endeavor to follow the personal History Guide given to us by J. Carl Rasmussen of our high priest group, Kearns 11th Ward, Kearns North Utah Stake this year, 1985.

At the outset I hope and pray for the patience and indulgence of those who may read this record if I seem to skip ahead, and back again, and seem to wander, but it seems that has been my life. But then does every life follow a perfect pattern, every play, every game, every endeavor a perfect score? What a bore if it were! But we can at least make the attempt.

I was born at home on the 5th day of September 1916. The 5th came on a Tuesday that year. This birth took place at 872 West 14th North, Swede Town because so many immigrants from Sweden located there.

In speaking of early childhood days, I shall try to portray life as I saw it through a child's eyes as I saw it then.

There were three streets in Superior Addition running east and west, Everett Avenue, 14th North, then Duluth Avenue; then there were about three streets running north and south, Dexter Street, then next to the west was 8th West, then Chicago Street. The 23rd Ward meetinghouse was right on the corner of 14th North and Dexter Street and our house was just next to the church building to the west. Just around the corner a little further down Dexter Street was the little, typical corner grocery store. (The store is gone now). Then just diagonally across the street was another small store run by Bishop Jon A. Harter's mother. I remember her as rather feeble and on crutches. Her husband, Mr Hayes walked to work every morning about three blocks away. He was a railroad watchman. She closed the store not too long afterward.

A couple of blocks to the west and north on Chicago Street was the typical little 4 room, red brick schoolhouse with grades from 1 to 4. An elderly, gray haired lady, Miss Sherwood taught grades one and two in the same room. A young lady, Miss Genevieve Charvoz taught grades 3 and 4 in another room. This school building is no more. It burned down years later and a railroad yard is there now.

I was blessed on Sunday, December 3, 1916 in the 23rd Ward, Salt Lake Stake by a neighbor across the street, an elderly man, Peter A. Anderson. How far back can a child's memory go? I have this brief flashback of being held and just a glance, of what Mr. Anderson looked like. Mother said her brother, Uncle Otto carried me to the front to be blessed. He was a kindly looking man.

One other memory flashback was when I was about a year old, was being in my cradle out in the sun near the front porch by a rosebush under a pear tree and aunt Anna, grandma Lundin's sister leaning over the crib tickling me.

My next memories are of about age 3. I remember one night it snowed and the snow seemed so deep, it was higher than my waist, but then a 3 year old isn't so very high either. My mother dressed me warm and I loved to wade and roll in the snow.

Mother kept chickens and I would remember her bringing in the wheat, corn, and mash to warm on the stove before feeding them. We had a clothes closet with a window and for some reason I loved to play in there with imaginary trucks, trains and people. I would see my mother come down the path from the chicken coop. Those winters seemed so bitterly cold.

Our house was heated by a coal stove or heater in each room. Mother, or grandma would get up and make the fire. Grandma was usually up at 5 o'clock in the morning, made the fire and put on her coffee pot for her morning cup of coffee. However, grandma wasn't able to be up and about all the time. It seemed she was ill in bed as much, or more than she was up and about. I was so happy with her when she was up and about and I especially loved a slice of her homemade bread spread thick with butter, when we had butter, or milk. Mother nearly always had pancakes and cocoa for breakfast. Once in awhile as a special treat she would cook some oatmeal for breakfast. For dinner and supper it would be find a piece of bread or forage for whatever could be found.

Just how does one weave these multi-colored threads into the tapestry of life? Some are so bright and beautiful, and others are coarse and dark. Perhaps a skillful weaver, or writer can weave a beautiful pattern. The weaver sees, and is so engrossed with each individual thread he may miss the overall design. Perhaps someone far removed in time and distance can see what the weaver cannot.

As I grew a little older I would go exploring the neighborhood, and beyond, sometimes w-a-y beyond. I would watch steam shovels at work, big dump trucks coming and going, watch the trains go by, I don't believe a train ever went by unless I was there to watch it and wonder at what great magical city it would arrive at. I would be gone all day at times. I guess I got hungry but what kid thinks of food when there are so many wonderful trains and things to watch.

Aunt Anna's son, Martin Touse used to bring us wooden packing crates for kindling wood, for which we were so grateful. He had a bout with meningitis as a child and the doctor told his mother he wouldn't live past age 21. I don't know how old he was when he died but he had just gotten married to a German girl named Freda Nehr and was just a young man. Freda was a regular concert pianist and Martin and Freda would come and play the piano and visit. Golly how we enjoyed those visits. Mother's love and talent was also the piano, she was also the organist of the 23rd Ward. She had the ability to get a truly inspiring tone from that old church organ.

I used to think this world was such a bright, wonderful and beautiful place, how could the Lord possibly have made anything more wonderful or beautiful. The sun smiling warmly and brightly in the heavens, beautiful flowers blooming in the fields and wild sago lilies growing on the foothills - truly this was heaven itself. Could a small child have thoughts as these? These were my thoughts as a child. Mother and grandma would speak of religious things, of God and creation with each other. I would listen and take it all in and I never forgot it. Little children see and hear when adults think they don't, and they remember! I am really thankful for my mother and grandmother.

Grandma never learned the English language. She said it sounded vulgar to her, like people were swearing. Swedish is a beautiful language to speak and hear. Swedish was spoken in our home as I grew up, as far as I went speaking to grandma, I understood everything, until she died when I was not yet age 10 - about Johnny's age now (1985). Regretfully after that, Swedish was no longer spoken and was forgotten.

I remember a big steam shovel and trucks cutting through the foothill east of our place to build the Beck Street highway from Salt Lake to Bountiful. When it was completed a neighbor, a Mr. Wilkes put up a root beer stand by this highway (it was a big, modern 2 lane highway at that time, around 1920), and he told how very heavy traffic had become, why at least 100 cars an hour were going by.

This same steam shovel was later used to dig away some hills to the west of our place to make way for a double railroad track to Ogden. A team of horses couldn't have kept me away from watching that operation. A crew of men would place railroad ties under the caterpillar treads of the shovel each time it moved forward to keep the heavy shovel from sinking into the ground.

Steam shovels! The Oquirrh Mountains to the west. I would stand on a chair by the stove, soaking wet as mother changed me, and I would look out the window at those mountains to the west. Something foreboding, foretelling about them, how was I to know. Someday I would be working out there, on those very same shovels and they would be electrified by then and owned by Utah Copper as it was known then, later Kennecott Copper Corporation. Those old steam shoves were originally built and used to dig the Panama Canal with. Gee, sometimes I get the feeling I go way back in history, To this day whenever I am over around Magna and look at the Oquirrh Mountains I have a very strong feeling they were a place I have been, something there I had known and left behind in my pre-existence. What I do not know.

Well, back to the time zone of age 2 to 5, standing soaking wet on a chair, just out of bed. It's one of the darker threads of the tapestry. I had no control whatsoever over my bladder when I was asleep. Every morning of my life I would be soaking wet and the bed would be wet. These are times to try mens (children's?) souls - but not mine so much as my poor mother's! She was never angry or impatient with me, but yet what a washing job, and how did she cope with it all? This went on for years, how many I am reluctant to say. I was quite a large boy before I received any control. Only the good Lord knows what mother's must sometimes endure, and perhaps He has a special reward for them - bless their dear souls! Oh, she had an electric wash machine, but one night the porch and a part of our house caught fire and burned down, and of course the wash machine with it. It was the washboard from then on - a new one was out of the question.

Ella May and Eugene Golson, neighbors about my age came over and said I could sleep over at their house. People were helping to get furniture out of the house and mother said I could sleep on a mattress out under the tree. Sleep was out of the question, smoke and flames coming out the doors and windows, the fire engine siren, flashing red lights, the smell of burning wood and all, I felt so terrified and confused. Most of the house was saved intact, though for which we felt indeed fortunate. Something gave me very bad nightmares as a child. It would be dreams of an octagon stool or box and sometimes about one of those old wooden tub wash machines connected with some nameless terror chasing me. I was terrified beyond screaming. I must have dream walked or sleep walked because I would wake up in a different room or part of the house and I was so frightened I couldn't find my way back to bed. The house was dark and cold and standing there, wet, cold and terrified made the night an eternity, endlessly long.

One day, I was next door playing with some other children on a teeter-totter. It was a long plank on an empty barrel. I felt as though I was as high as the house when I panicked and fell off. I was more frightened than hurt. Then of all things they had bought one of those new, wooden-tub wash machines (electric), like saw in my dreams. The men delivered it and I couldn't get out of their house fast enough. They laughed and said, "Come on back. It won't hurt you". I wasn't about to take any chances.

Then about a block east of our place was a vacant field and then the old "Bramy" or electric Bamberger tracks. I could see them from our yard. They must have gone by at least every fifteen minutes, going from Salt Lake and coming back to Salt Lake. Many times there were 4 or 5 car trains going to Lagoon in the summer. I thought how heavenly it would be to ride on one of those trains! One day my mother took me for a ride on one of those trains to Lagoon. I walked on air that day, my feet never seemed to touch ground!

One day one of those trains was stopped and of course I had to run right over there to see it. I heard the conductor talking to the engineer saying some young people had opened the door and were riding on the steps when a girl fell off and was killed. Teenagers must have been just as exuberant than as now.

Another time my Mother sent me to the store for a loaf of bread. I decided to go to Ipson's store about 3 blocks, plus, up past the "Bamy" tracks along the new Beck Street Highway. On the way back I was standing day dreaming in the middle of the tracks. By Fred Allen's house across the road, (a boy my age I played with sometimes), some people seemed to be talking, looking in my direction and were they waving at me? Anyway I must be getting home with that bread. Just as I stepped off the track a train whizzed by. Did those people save my life? I like to think so. Many years later Aunt Hannah told me those people were David and Mary Wilson who were waving to me. They saw me standing on the track, oblivious to the train, and they saw the train fast approaching.

A word about that loaf of bread. It was called Liberty bread. My mother told me to always get this Liberty bread if they had it. It was very good, the best bread that ever came out of a store, then or any other time since then. (I found out many years later when I worked in Bingham Canyon, from Bill Mayne who used to live there, that bread was made in the old building right next to Dimas' store in lower Bingham.)

Sometime later I had another most heavenly adventure. My mother took me on another train ride, this time to Saltaire, the famous resort way out in great Salt Lake. We took the electric street car uptown, transferred to another one that took us to the fair grounds, all for 10 cents the standard streetcar fare. The Saltaire train depot was just across the road to the south. (Nearby was the recently built Utah Power and Light steam generating plant, built just a few years back in 1912 - it is now obsolete and no longer used.) The Saltaire train was also electric with both closed cars and open air cars. We rode the open air car to Saltaire and in the closed in car on the way back. It looked for sure like we were coming to a fantastic fairyland. It appeared like some giant arabian palace set out in the middle of the lake with its bright lights and enormous roller coaster. The picnic area and dance floor with its bright, shiny hardwood floor seemed to stretch out for acres in size. That roller coaster at night seemed to reach up to the very stars in the sky. The fun house with its slide that reached clear up to the top of the building was rather frightening. Then the revolving barrels were a riot. We laughed until we felt weak. The funhouse was just like it says! We had so much fun we completely forgot time and missed the last train out. So did a lot of other people. They decided to send out a special train to take us back to Salt Lake. A special street car took us downtown, but by then all other street cars had stopped running so we had to walk home from there. We were so tired when we got home, but it was a time never to forget! Saltaire is gone now and exists only in memory. One incident happened when we were out there, due again I suppose to teen age over-exuberance. A fellow, against all rules, dove from the pavilion into the salt water. The water was far too salty and heavy for diving of any kind and from the pavilion to the water was about 50 feet. This man's neck was broken and he was killed.

I remember at Lagoon my mother gave me a dime and I bet on horse number 7 on the mechanical horseracing game and won a box of chocolates. How good those chocolates tasted. Someone once said chocolate is food for the Gods. I thought so then.

Then a whole new world opened up for me when on occasion Aunt Hannah, Mother's sister came down for a visit. She seemed to live so very far away, way up in Midway where you even had to change trains to get there. How much grandma, mother and I enjoyed those visits. There were no extra beds, so what! Aunt Hannah simply put a mattress on the floor. I thought that would be so much fun and an adventure, I begged and pleaded to please let me sleep on the mattress. One time they allowed me to. It seemed so much fun.

Sometimes Aunt Hannah took me up to Midway with her for a visit up there when she went back to Midway. Oh what excitement! Walking up the two blocks to the Bamberger and street car tracks. I can remember grandma standing out on the sidewalk by the front gate watching us as long as she could see us until we got aboard the street car and she could no longer see us. I felt bad at leaving her. Mother was busy and wanted to see us off on the train and she would take the next street car to town. We change street cars and the other car took us west on about 3rd South to the Denver Rio Grande train station. Aunt Hannah asked the motorman if this streetcar would get us to the train station in time to catch the train leaving for Provo. He said he would try to get us there in time and I believe he did speed up somewhat. What hustle and bustle in the train station. So many people seemed to be coming or going, the station master calling out the trains. Then standing in line to get the tickets, and all the while outside the trains huffing, puffing, whistling, coming and going. Oh golly, would we make it in time? I was feeling just on the edge of panic! And where was mother? Would she get here in time? We couldn't see her anywhere. It was time to board the train, the station master had called out the train for Provo and points south. We climbed aboard the train. I said to Aunt Hannah, "Oh grandma's gone, we've lost grandma"! Sometimes kids say funny things. Then our train whistled and began to move. As we were leaving I saw mother on the station platform. I don't believe she saw us. There it was again, that old feeling of apprehension, foreboding. What did it mean. I couldn't have known it then but there weren't many years left in which to greet my mother hello, and say goodbye.

By the way the Bamberger train station stood on the corner where the Salt Palace now stands. Trains went as far north as Lewiston, or Preston, Idaho and the red colored trains went as far south as Payson Utah. Those old electric engines used to haul freight and switch cars at many points in Salt Lake City and intervening towns from Preston to Payson. Business was brisk in those days.

Then street cars were constantly clanging up and down every street in downtown Salt Lake. They were a good, dependable means of transportation, but very noisy. Newsboys on the street corners yelled out their wares, the Salt Lake Tribune, Telegram or Deseret News. One could hear them a block away. No one else could even approach them for lung power. Papers were 5 cents then.

My mother sometimes gave me a quarter to go to the corner store for some meat. Mrs. Erickson who ran the store, carried out a hind leg of beef from the walk in cooler and would cut off a whole big center slice for a quarter. The cooler was the kind where a big block of ice had to be put in every day. The ice man came around every day with a team of horses and an enclosed wagon load of ice every day delivering ice to each house. He had a heavy leather shoulder pad to carry the ice to people, using a pair of ice tongs to hold it, and an ice pick to break up the large blocks of ice into smaller ones that would fit unto peoples' wooden ice boxes that always had a pan underneath to catch the water as the ice melted. It had to be emptied every day. What fun it was to follow the ice wagon on those hot summer days as the iceman always gave us kids the small chips of ice to chew on. Then Mr. Peterson, an elderly, white haired man came around almost every day with his small wagon pulled by one horse, a very gentle old horse, selling fresh vegetables and fruit in season. Sometimes Mr. Peterson let me up on the seat to ride with him. What could be more fun than this? Well one thing could be... a short distance from home was an old yard of abandoned construction equipment and an old no longer used steam locomotive and some very old oliver dump cars, the kind Kennecott copper used around the turn of the century. Some of us kids would play in the cab of that old engine for hours. I would stuff some old newspapers and sticks in the firebox and light them making the engine smoke a little giving it more realism. Those were times never to be forgotten.

All trains in those days were drawn by steam powered locomotives, switch engines and all. I remember cloudy days in winter time in downtown Salt Lake a person could not see more then a half a block, not from fog but black coal smoke from all the trains and switch engines.

Parking was no problem then either in downtown Salt Lake. Angle parking was permitted right from the corner of one block to the next and parking meters hadn't even been thought of. At the end of each block an area or island was marked off out in the middle of the street by the car tracks for people to wait for the street cars to get on or off. On the corner of 2nd South and Main Street, we could catch car number 25 to go home, It went west, then north, past the old St. Marks Hospital, to 14th North, then on to Bountiful. On Main Street going north we caught car number 22. That one went past the old McCune Mansion (then the McCune School of Music), up the hill, down center street then past the 24th ward meeting, the old Washington grade school, past the old St. Marks Hospital and Wasatch Springs, then past 14th North to a short sidetrack by Mrs. Bonnie Angells house to wait for the return trip.

On the southeast corner of Second South and Main Street I remember stood the old Owl Drug store, later replaced by a new building the Wallgreen Drugstore, later torn down and replaced by the J.C. Penny complex. J.C. Penny's is no longer occupying this place. It is a world of change.

With the passing of years, cars became more numerous and traffic became more of a problem. No more policemen out in the intersection with loud, shrill whistles directing traffic. People were starting to complain of the congestion and noise. To me it was a magic land, full of never ceasing wonders! I loved it. So many cars now made those street car stops or islands a source of danger. A few people were struck by automobiles and they were causing traffic snarls.

In later years they began to do away with the street cars, replacing them with electric, rubber tired trolleys with double trolley wires and double trolleys on the cars, changing over to alternating current. No longer on rails these cars could swing over to the curb to pick-up and let passengers off while still maintaining trolley contact with the overhead wires. They were noiseless but they created traffic problems and people didn't like that very much either. Then they experimented with gas or diesel powered buses. Sometime in the mid-nineteen forties the last streetcar in Salt Lake disappeared forever. It was the one that went up to 13 East.

Just a few, scant years ago in 1916 when I was born, two new buildings had just been erected. One was the State Capitol Building at the head of State Street at the unheard of, great cost of four million dollars! The other was the headquarters building for the L.D.S. Church at 47 East South Temple. A five story structure that seemed so huge at the time. The Church was growing, having many thousands of members it seemed it would eventually reach the million mark and beyond.

North of Hotel Utah was a compound of a two story, red brick building known as the L.D.S. Business College.

Over on State Street, just east of Brigham Young's home, the street was very narrow to accommodate the old Eagle Gate, the original entrance to Brigham Young's property. There were some private homes next to Brigham Young's home. For some years they were used as the Church Mission home until they were torn down, Eagle Gate widened and the old stone fence moved inward to widen the street. Just east of Eagle Gate was an old apartment building owned by Joseph Fielding Smith that is gone now and being replaced by another building.

On North Temple, City Creek was an open stream running west down the middle of the street. I remember it well as the old streetcars went across it. George Albert Smith was baptized in this stream between Main and State Streets when he was a boy.

Those few Bamberger train rides to Lagoon were never to be forgotten. Rich mahogany paneling inside the cars, green velvet seats, the new smell of paint and the train in general were simply magic to a kid.

Then those train rides to Heber City, hearing the conductor come through the cars calling out, "change trains for Heber City!" To me it was the greatest excitement a kid could have. The cars were cream colored with mahogany paneling, bright red velvet seats, why a kings palace could not compare to this! The train was a local and it stopped in Midvale. One morning some school children were going by on their way to school. They waved to us on the train, and we waved back. Some appeared to be in the 3rd, 4th or 5th grades, some younger, some older. (Now in 1985 those children would be in their 70's). There was no underpass under the railroad through Midvale at this time. As I found out many years later the grade school was just a couple of blocks east of the railroad tracks.

Then the fence posts, telephone poles, and wide open fields going by, along with the coal smoke from the speeding engine up ahead and the whistle were sights, sounds and smells never to be forgotten! Provo arrived all too soon. There on another track was the train bound for Heber City, the "Heber Creeper". It was a long line of cattle and sheep cars, a few box cars and a shiny green passenger car on the end of it, half of it for baggage and the other half for passengers. This car was a light green in color inside with green velvet seats. A stove at one end for heat and gas lamps overhead for light which the conductor would light when it grew dark. Some other kids about my age also got on the train with their mother. They seemed to enjoy the train ride as much as I did. Next the train began to move, picking up speed. Then following the river up Provo Canyon. This was a new adventure all its own. In some places the mountains went straight up, the track always curving and winding. We passed some beautiful waterfalls, Aunt Hannah told me it was called Bridal Veil Falls.

One time it was night time when we arrived at Heber City. Aunt Hannah told me all those lights up ahead were Heber City. To me it looked like Aladdin's magical city. Heber City at last. It was winter, the snow crackled underfoot and Uncle Jim was there to meet us with a single seat, one-horse sleigh. They had ear muffs, overcoats, mittens, a blanket and bricks heated in the oven to keep our feet warm. They put me under the blanket and with the bricks I was warm. Then the long, 3 mile sleigh ride to Midway. Then a late supper of bread and milk and hot flatirons wrapped in newspaper put at our feet in bed to keep warm. At last exhaustion overtook me and the oblivion of sleep.

Morning came all too soon it seemed, and I awoke in a new world. A wonderful breakfast of old fashioned germade mush from Mr. Johnson's mill, fresh rich cream from Slats old jersey cow, eggs and bacon from their own pig they had butchered and cured the meat, some homemade bread toasted on the old coal stove, all the milk I could drink, and all the strawberry or raspberry jam I wanted. Aunt Hannah's pantry was an adventure in itself - no grocery store was ever like this, bacon, hams, fresh eggs, milk, fruit on the shelves, peaches, apricots, pears, and cherries - so much delicious food, more than I had seen. This old fashioned germade cereal is no longer made and is unobtainable.

Then so many wonderful things to explore and see. Wagons, old camp stoves, farm machinery, camp wagons, the front yard was so big and a regular forest of trees with the new picket fence and arched iron gate in front that to me seemed like the gateway to heaven. The fence hadn't been there long. David Wilson told me he helped build it in 1916 - it was no older than I was. Uncle Jim took me for a ride up to the farm one day in his horse and buggy. More things to explore.

On one of the trips to Midway, Ernie Sondreggar, a boy my age just across the street said to me one day, "come on over and let's play, and I will give you some cherries". They had an orchard by their house. We were always friends after that.

I explored Midway. Once again I had that old familiar feeling of foretelling, foreboding or call it whatever when I saw the big two story pot rock school building, it had grades from one through eight. Then the old pot rock meeting house and the small pot rock post office.

Midway had quite a few big old poplar trees along the streets in those days. Quite a few of the old Swiss people were still living there who emigrated from Switzerland. I remember some of them. Like Swede Town, there were those still living who had emigrated from Sweden. In both places there were those who did not learn English, and of course, those who did spoke with an accent.

Little did I realize it then that those buildings, people and town of Midway would one day become part of my life, and not very many years hence either.

Uncle James and Aunt Hannah always knelt down at the table before breakfast for family prayers, and then had the blessing on the food. In later years, Uncle Jim always said the prayer, or would call on one of us to take our turn.

The old home had no bathroom. Water being heated in the stove reservoir and in the wash boiler for a bath in the old wash tub on Saturday night, and for wash day on Monday's. The "powder room" was outside behind the granary. Aunt Hannah had an old fashioned wooden tub wash machine called "The Muskegon". The main wheel, hears and wringer were on top by the lid and the motor underneath connected by a long belt. It could be heard for several blocks away when it was in operation. As the old saying used to go, "Ach du leiber vashmachine!"

It is a world of change and, of course, I must go back home. This time the trip was in reverse, the sleigh ride or buggy ride to Heber, the train ride to Provo, change trains for Salt Lake, catch the street car, transfer to car 22 or 25 and home again to 14th North. Mother held her arms out to me and I held back and said, "I'm Nanna's boy." She looked so crestfallen. I truly feel pained to think how it must have hurt her. It was soon forgotten and I was back into the usual routine of things here.

I thought it was time at last to start school. All the other kids were going, so off I went. To start off I went in the wrong room, the 3rd and 4th grade room. Mr. Brown was teaching those grades that year, about 1922. Mr. Brown asked me if I was just starting school and I said yes. He said I belonged in Miss Sherwoods room, I remember older kids like Earl Lowe, and Willie Robinson laughing and snickering. They teased me after school about it, asking me who I though I was trying to start school with the big boys like they were in the third grade! Miss Sherwood asked me when I was born. I told her and she said to go home and come back next year. I didn't know a year could be so long.

Finally the time arrived and I was officially in school, That first day seemed like a dream. Everything seemed so beautiful and new, and all the world and its magic and challenges before us! Then there were Lucille Carlson, Lloyd Hayes, Dorothy Jensen, Bobby Holt, Clarence White, Lola Stott, Mabel Benny, Stanley Stott (a kid I had a fight with and were friends after and many years later to meet again and work with at Kennecott Copper Mine in Bingham Canyon. He has since passed on). There was Albert Keen from across the tracks over in Kinney Town. His dad kept pigs and Albert had to feed them before he came to school. Some of the aroma still clung to him when he came to school. No one liked to sit close to him. He was such a jolly kid though and I enjoyed playing with him. (Many years later he was one of the casualties at the beachhead landing in Sicilly during World War II).

We loved to play soccer or baseball, (softball) during recess. And before we could go out in this big new world of challenge we first had to learn to read and write, That seemed such a long and hard job. Miss Sherwood seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of patience. She was fair and kind, yet strict. No one was permitted to get out of line.

We had Miss Sherwood also for our second grade teacher. Then in the third grade we had Miss Genevieve Charvoy. I only had her for half the school year before being transferred to the Midway school. Miss Genevieve, as we called her, was a sweet person. She played the piano and we would sing songs as she played. She would, many times, ask us our favorite song and she would play it. Mine was "Under the Old Apple Tree". It must have been her's too because she asked me so many times. She would also play a march on the piano as we marched in or out at noon and recess, usually my favorite march, "Blaze Away", a lively march. Then Miss Sherwood would play the Washington Post march, and Sousa's marches on the old wind up victrola. We considered it an honor when she let us take turns cranking it and putting on the records.

At the end of the school year most everyone appeared to be so happy, yet Etta May Mortenson and Margaret Gerber felt so bad, they bawled out loud. To be truthful I think we all felt twinges of nostalgia and regret that those days were over. I believe I could have hid somewhere and shed a tear or two.

What is life? Is it just a series of memories? Is it just a dream?

A neighbor lady, a Mrs. Cockrell who lived two blocks away was on her way home from sacrament meeting one Sunday and she stopped and talked to me for quite sometime. Her mother, I believe it was, was full blooded Indian. This Mrs. Cockrell was one of the kindest people I knew at that time. Basically she was trying to impress upon me of loving everyone, and to never, never, ever wish anyone harm, that if I did that harm would come back to me. I didn't think so much of it at the time. The next day Lawn Erickson was rolling a large iron wagon tire down the road. I asked him to let me roll it for a few minutes. He refused. Finally he tired of it and went on to something else. I picked it up to roll it, and guess whose toe it fell on? Mine! Boy, did Mrs. Cockrell's talk get painfully punctuated for me. You see I had told Lawn Erickson, "I hope it falls on your toe"!

Another time I was playing up around the foothills where there were stone quarries and lime kilns. I was going to jump down and take a shortcut instead of taking a long trail down that wound around for quite some distance. Some intangible, unseen force, yet very real, prevented me from jumping down there. There was a point beyond which I didn't have the power to go. I took the long trail down. I looked at what I thought was a pile of soft white lime or powder, only it wasn't.