With God's help all things are possible

Autobiography
Harold R “Hal” and Mary Kay Southwick Bunderson
 
And Biographical Profiles of Our Parents, Siblings and Grandparents
The family history part of our genealogical research

CHAPTER 1

Before we met – lived far apart – yet we found each other
We grew-up at different times and places and made many different choices that remarkably dovetailed at a place and time where we could meet and fall in love.

Chapter Index

• We grew-up poor financially; rich in every other way

Mary Kay

• Born Ogden, Utah - World War II (1939-1945) was raging
• Mary Kay was a miracle baby and bore the scars to prove it
• Lumber needed for the war effort – Southwick’s reopen their sawmill
• War ends – Southwick’s move to Willits, California
• Ogden to Willits - 800 miles - scary for 5-year-old Mary Kay
• New sawmill buildings and homes – much work to do
• Riding school bus on 2-lane Highway 101 – terrifying
• The worth of a good teacher; priceless
• First winter – isolated and poor – heavy snow - miracle in disguise
• Growing up in their “wooded green valley” was wonderful
• Mary Kay: an obedient practical jokester
• After seven years - sell sawmill – Mary Kay’s parents move to Willits
• Twelve–year-old Mary Kay called to teach the 3-year-old class
• Mary Kay’s family lived in California for 12 years – “I loved it”
• Why Mary Kay’s handwriting is more like printing
• A poem for teenagers that Mary Kay liked as a young girl
• The boys called her the “Farmer’s daughter”
• Family moves to Connell – Mary Kay, high school senior - difficult
• “Oh why couldn’t I stay in Willits?”
• First full-time job – May 1961 to September 1962
• For 16 months Mary Kay saved her money - select a college
• Weber State - September 1962 – Part-time work at school

Harold “Hal”

• Born during the depths of the Great Depression - six years before Mary Kay
• My playmate was a rattle snake – not good
• From Stone to Tremonton - like moving from the frontier to civilization
• Retaining the farm in Stone presented a logistical problem
• Oleen and Nona’s boarding hosts– Ezra’s remarkable “divining rod” talent
• Provident living – be self-reliant - raise, store and prepare your own food
• As the baby in the family, I received special attention
• Three in a bed, I slept in the middle – No, it doesn’t build character
• Age five - “The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor” – Our family would never be the same
• Oleen’s roommates tried to get me to eat something bad; “waffles”
• Would you like a wooden rifle? – “Now you’re talkin”
• My parents prepared me for grade school – get all the education you can
• Everyone’s having a birthday party – I’ll throw my own - and tell mother later
• Authentic pirates - skull and crossbones flag - and everything (almost)
• I need a pirate’s cape - Delphia has a black skirt – problem solved
• Just Lloyd and me in Stone - a box of raisins is all we have to eat - I hate raisins
• Seven-years-old - Oleen completes training - we see him off to war (last we saw him)
• World War II - devastating effect on my family – could have been much worse
• McKinley Grade School – 1946 – Think you got talent?  Come on up
• “Tubby Bunderson” – For three years I didn’t fit-in
• Youth summer activities – 4-H and Boy Scouts
• I learned to play the Trombone
• A rattler! a rattler! – Pitchfork in hand, Cleo came running
• High school football and wrestling
• Tragedy, my father dies
• My life’s vocation? – As a boy - be a farmer – hugely unrealistic
• More life-changing events – Lloyd returns – Cleo is drafted – I’m in high school
• I enjoyed singing – “You should have been in the A Cappella Choir”
• Graduate from high school – Part-time work - register for the Army Draft
• County Fair – stuffed animal and powerful lesson
• First full-time job (1955-1958) - Making lead automobile batteries 
• Two-year Church mission – 1958-1960 (see Chapter 16)
• September, 1960 – Age 24 – Nana and Jim said, “Go to school”
• Age 24 – already “an old man?”
• “You might make it as an accountant”
• Work nights and go to school full-time
• Atheist psychology professor - attacking religion and looking for converts
• Another atheistic professor – also looking for converts
• Valuable lesson - Economics’ professor; “You can’t save money by spending it”
• Another economics’ professor – learn to speak and write good English
• Shocked – Must work the day shift – lose a year at USU or transfer to WSU

We grew-up poor financially – rich in every other way - In terms of worldly wealth, Mary Kay and I had humble beginnings, albeit our parents practiced provident living and cared for their families.  Measured in terms of what matters most; our parents were devout Christians and taught their children the importance of loving God, family, neighbors and country.   Our family relationships were happy and loving.  Many of our extended family lived near our parents’ homes.  In many cases, our brothers, sisters and cousins were our best friends.  
 
Most of our grandparents were converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Church).  Many of them heard the Gospel in their native country, prayed to God for a witness of what they should do, joined the Church and immigrated to America; settling in the Intermountain West.  Some of Mary Kay’s ancestors were living in the eastern U. S. when they joined the Church.  (See Chapters 20 and 23).
 
Both of our parents had a strong work ethic and labored to provide shelter and good food for their families.  They had large gardens and farm animals and were proficient in preserving their production and preparing wonderful meals.  
 
Mary Kay’s parents graduated from high school.  Her mother also graduated from college after her children left home and became an elementary school teacher.  
 
High school was not available for my parents, but they knew the value of life-long learning.  They were strong readers and taught each of their children to read and write before they started grade school.  
 
Both of our parents encouraged their children to get all the education they could, albeit financial support for education was limited to nonexistent. 
 
Both of our parents were devout Christians and members of the Church.  They taught their children to love God, family and country; and serve others.  The practice of family prayer before meals and daily individual prayer was routine in both of our parent’s homes.  
 
Our parents taught us by precept and example – they strived to be obedient to God’s commandments, covenants and ordinances and follow our Savior Jesus Christ’s example.  They sought to live so that the Spirt of God could be felt in their homes; feelings of happiness, peace, joy and accomplishment.  
 
We grew up accepting the fact that there is no paid ministry in the Church.  Attending Sunday Church services and accepting calls to serve was commonplace.  Each Sunday, we heard assigned Church members, both young and old, accomplished as well as inexperienced speakers deliver their sincere and simple sermons of faith and testimony on a selected topic 
Commentary – The contrast between the Church’s principal worship service and other Christian denominations can be striking.   It certainly was for a woman I knew who attended a Church meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for the first time.  The speakers all addressed the same topic, “The sacrament of the last supper (Matthew 26: 17-30).”  Obviously touched by the Holy Ghost, she walked out from the meeting with tears in her eyes.  She said, “The church I attend has beautifully attired leaders, ceremony and pageantry, but what I witnessed tonight was so simple; it was profound.” 
 

Mary Kay

 
Born Ogden, Utah - World War II (1939-1945) was raging – Mary Kay is the third of five children.  Her father, Ralph Southwick, had two children, Patsy (1937) and Bruce (1938), by his first wife, Erma Sophia Shupe, who died of spinal meningitis when Patsy was three.  About two years later, Ralph married Phyllis Rebecca Dickerson.  Phyllis had three children, Mary Kay (1942), Anne (1945) and Rodney (1946).  (See Chapter 21, profiles of Mary Kay’s Parents and Chapter 22, profiles of Mary Kay’s Siblings).
 
At the time of her birth, Mary Kay’s parents were living in the mile-high hamlet of Liberty, Utah, 16 miles northeast of Ogden.   A short time later, they moved to Ogden.
 
Just prior to her birth, the world had undergone financial collapse; the Great Depression (1929 – 1939).  Ralph and his six brothers; Earl, Lee, Harold, Verlon, Raymond and Dale had been working with their father in the family’s sawmill and homebuilding businesses; William Southwick & Sons.  
 
The depression caused massive unemployment.  The market for sawn lumber and homebuilding dried-up.  The Southwick’s shuttered their mill and the Southwick brothers sought other work.  Ralph found full-time employment as an airport fireman at the U.S. Army’s Hill Field, now Hill Air Force Base. 
 
Three weeks prior to Mary Kay’s birth, Imperial Japan launched 350 airplanes from six aircraft carriers in a surprise bombing and torpedoing of the U.S. naval fleet and facilities at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory on December 7, 1941.  Caught unprepared, the U.S. quickly declared war on the Empire of Japan.  While the U.S. was still reeling from Pearl Harbor, Japan began invading several other Pacific islands.  Four days after Japan’s attack on Hawaii, its allies, Germany and Italy, joined Japan in declaring war on the heretofore neutral United States.  
 
For its part, the U.S, regrouped, turned its civilian industrial might into military production and joined it allies in responding with a vengeance against all of the axis powers in the Pacific and in Europe. 
 
In the Pacific theater, a U.S. aircraft carrier delivered sixteen B-25 bombers, led by Colonel James Doolittle, within striking distance of Japan.  Doolittle’s surprise bombing raid over Tokyo on April 18, 1942 did limited damage but boosted U.S. morale.  A month later, the U.S. Navy engaged Japan in the inconclusive battle of the Coral Sea wherein each country lost an aircraft carrier.  That encounter foreshadowed the battle of Midway Island, that took place on May 4-8, 1942.  During that battle, exactly six months after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy sunk four of the Japanese carriers involved in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.  The Japanese navy never recovered.   Italy fell in 1943; Germany surrendered May 4, 1945 and Japan three months later.
 
When the U.S. entered the war, Ralphs youngest brothers enlisted or were drafted into the Army.   Thirty-year old Ralph was eligible for the draft (age 18 through 36) but was deferred; he was the father of three small children and was already working for the Army in a war-critical job.  
 
Hill Air Force Base was largely used for repairing and overhauling bomber aircraft engines; a need that increased rapidly as the war progressed.  Runway crashes were commonplace.  Ralph had been promoted to firefighting crew-chief.  
 
Mary Kay was a miracle baby and bore the scars to prove it – Fortunately, Mary Kay was born in a hospital.  She was her mother’s first child.  At the time of delivery, Mary Kay’s little body had turned in the birth canal – both she and her mother’s life were at risk.   Priesthood blessings were given that all would be well for both the mother and the baby (Priesthood blessings are always conditioned upon the faith of the parties involved and God’s will).
 
However, the delivery was prolonged and the risk of losing the baby was increasing rapidly.  In desperation, the physician used a vacuum instrument not designed for delivering babies in the breech or quasi breech position.  He placed the vacuum cup on Mary Kay’s little body, not knowing exactly which part of her body the cup would come to rest, applied suction and pulled, reapplied and pulled again.    
 
Mary Kay said, “I had two purple scars about the size of a silver dollar from the suction instrument.  One on the center of my left cheek and one on my upper back at the base of my neck.”  When she was four, her parents had the purple scar on her cheek treated to eliminate the distinctive discoloration.
Commentary - Mary Kay said, “Never will I doubt the power of faith and the blessings of the priesthood.”  She could have died, but it was not her time.  God respected the blessing and interceded so she could grow to womanhood and complete her fore-designated work on earth.
 
Lumber needed for the war effort – Southwick’s reopen their sawmill – Within weeks after the U.S. entered WWII, the military announced that lumber was a critical material for the war effort.  Ralph’s father reopened the family’s sawmill business in Ogden - cutting timber off federal forestland in the Monte Cristo mountains, about 30 miles to the East.  William Southwick asked all of his available sons to come back and work at the mill.  Ralph, already living in Ogden, quit his job at the air base and returned to the sawmill.   
 
Ralph and Phillis’s house on Harrison Street was the only home Mary Kay remembered as a little girl.  She recalled that she was sick in bed.  Her father bought home a white kitten and put it on the windowsill so she could see it.  “Kitty” was her first pet. 
   
War ends – Southwick’s move to Willits, California - When the last of the Axis powers were defeated in 1945, Ralph’s brothers, who had been serving in the military, returned home.  With the war ending, military demand for lumber collapsed.  However, the home-building sector of the economy exploded; building houses for millions of soldiers returning home and starting families.
 
Availability of merchantable timber in Monte Cristo was declining, but there was opportunity in Northern California.  The Southwick brothers found an idyllic place ten miles north of Willits just off U.S. Highway 101.  There was a parcel of likely former homestead land for sale in a small mountain valley bordered by federal forests.   The property included a one-room home, a few outbuildings and a beautiful clear-water stream which they could dam-up for a log pond.  
 
They bought the parcel in 1947 and proceeded with implementing their plan.  Most of the families chose to build homes in the valley near the sawmill; albeit school, Church and much of their shopping would be in Willits.  Verlon and Lee chose to buy homes in nearby Ukiah and commute to the mill. 
Commentary – Willits is 35 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean (from Fort Bragg).  Its elevation is 1,400 ft.; precipitation averages 50 inches annually.  When Mary Kay, our children and I moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 1972, she commented on how much she felt at home; Atlanta’s elevation (1,050 ft.), precipitation (50 in.) and 250 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean at Savanah was much like Willits, except snow was uncommon and different species of vegetation.
 
Ogden to Willits - 800 miles - scary for 5-year-old Mary Kay – The Southwick’s moved their sawmill machinery first; the families moved shortly thereafter.  Ralph and Phyllis moved their household goods on one of the partnership’s trucks – it took two trips.  Their two youngest children, Anne and Rodney, made the first trip with their parents.   Ralph planned to take the other three children with him on the second trip.  However, when he returned and had everything loaded, there was only room for one child.  He decided to take 8-year-old Bruce with him and arranged for 10-year-old Patsy and 5-year-old Mary Kay to ride the Grey Hound bus to San Francisco – a much more comfortable ride for his daughters.  He and Phyllis would drive 140 miles south from Willits and be waiting at the bus station when their daughters arrived.
 
However, when it was time for the two girls to board the “big bus” in Ogden, little Mary Kay was afraid and cried.  She said, “I was a skinny little kid and was scolded for not eating.”
Commentary – Children traveling alone can be unsafe.  However, the bus companies of that day offered a program of special services for such children.  The bus driver paid close personal attention to insure their good care and safety.
 
New sawmill buildings and homes – much work to do - When Mary Kay and Patsy arrived at the sawmill site, the men were assembling saws and equipment, constructing mill buildings and the log pond.  Ralph and Phillis had set-up housing in the one-room house located on the property – the other families constructed temporary wood-canvas shelters.  Mary Kay said, “Their house was heated with a wood cook stove.  It had no indoor plumbing – we used the necessary house (outhouse).  Everyone had a Saturday night bath with water heated on the cook stove and poured into a large metal washtub – the first kid in the tub had clean water.”
 
Riding school bus on 2-lane Highway 101 - terrifying – Five-year-old Mary Kay started grade school in the fall of 1948.  She rode the school bus 10 miles from the mill to Willits.   An experience that was particularly scary for the small five-year-old girl starting school nearly a year earlier than required.  She said, “when trucks and cars tried to pass, the big school bus pulled over to the edge of the narrow road.  I often sat by the window.  Looking down, I could not see the road – only the bottom of deep rugged canyons – I was afraid.”
 
The worth of a good teacher; priceless – Five-year-old Mary Kay was not prepared at such an early age for two life-changing events; moving to a new home and starting school. 
 
Unfortunately, her parents had little time and perhaps experience, understanding and inclination to give her the personal attention she needed to learn to read and adjust to her new environment.  Mary Kay said that starting school “was a sad experience – I was very unhappy.”  However, being with her siblings and cousins after school and on weekends helped compensate.  
 
Mary Kay had two marvelous 1st and 2nd grade teachers, Mrs. Sawyer and Mrs. Knapp that helped salvage her early education experience.  She said, “I will be ever grateful for those two teachers; they spent personal time tutoring me - reading and arithmetic.”   With her parents supporting the idea, Mary Kay was held back in the second grade, to allow her more transition time and be with more children her own age. 
 
Mary Kay said, “I have had other good teachers, but these two saw my need and gave service – rather than turn away.”
Commentary - Giving service “rather than turning away,” is an admonition to us all; particularly when it comes to helping those who are most vulnerable; children and adults incapable of caring for themselves.  In the case of Mary Kay, the loving service displayed by these two educators made an indelible impression on her.  They were role models whose example of “caring of others” she emulated throughout her life.
 
First winter – isolated and poor – heavy snow - miracle in disguise – The Southwick families had no income until the mill began producing and they were selling lumber in the spring of 1949.  Until then, they had to conserve the limited amount of cash they had saved.   Albeit each family followed the Lord’s teachings about provident living.  As soon as they could, they established a garden, dug root cellars and raised farm animals which they augmented with wild game, mostly trout from the nearby streams and deer.  Thus they had enough food storage to be largely self-sufficient.   
 
The winter of 1948-49 was exceptionally harsh.   One snowstorm in December 1948, brought motor vehicle traffic to a standstill.  The Southwick’s could see dozens of cars and trucks on U.S. Highway 101 at the bottom of their valley; spinning out as they attempted the climb the steep grades in either direction.  
 
Mary Kay said, “My dad, grandpa and uncles chained-up the wheels on their two 4-wheel drive trucks and pulled the vehicles up the steep inclines.  The grateful travelers were shocked when the Southwick’s told them, “no charge.”  However, most of the heretofore stranded motorists were so grateful, they made their own judgement as to the value of the service and paid cash – which the Southwick’s happily accepted as a Godsend.” 
 
Growing up in their “ wooded green valley” was wonderful – Mary Kay said that the families in the valley lived so close the kids would sometimes go unannounced to their cousin’s homes for meals – whomever they were playing with at the time.  An extended family joke was when a mom and dad determined “the number of kids setting at their table equaled the number of their own kids; they shut the door.”
 
The forests around their home offered adventure.  There was a lot of wild life.  The streams were a great attraction as was the mill itself.  She and her siblings and cousins had great fun exploring.
 
Mary Kay: an obedient practical jokester - Eleven-years-old and still living near the sawmill, Mary Kay’s mother, who was departing on an errand, tasked her to stop playing with her cousins and hang the newly washed clothes on the clothesline (must be hung uniformly, by color, type and size), make a batch of bread dough to rise and wash and dry the lunch and bread-making dishes (electric dishwashers did not become commonplace in U.S homes until two decades later). 
 
Feeling “rebellious and sorry for myself” yet obliged “to do what I was told,” Mary Kay reluctantly went into the house to do her assignments as her mother drove away.   She took her frustrations out on the bread, kneading the dough with uncharacteristic energy until she thought of a practical joke to pull on her mother.  She would wash and dry the dishes, but instead of putting them in the cupboard, she mischievously spread them on the table, sink and counter in a haphazard manner – then ran out to play.
 
When her mother came home and saw the mess of dishes, she did as Mary Kay expected.  Instead of examining the dishes, she immediately called Mary Kay to report – this instant.  Mary Kay sauntered-in with a nonchalant air, which further infuriated her mother.  Not wanting her mother to break a blood vessel, Mary Kay showed her that the dishes were clean – she had done her chores – the dishes were ready to be put away.   Her mother, taken aback but not losing her stern voice, told Mary Kay to go out and play – which she did with a suppressed chuckle. 
Commentary - Fifteen years later, Mary Kay learned that her mother pulled the same prank on her mother. 
 
After seven years - sell sawmill – Mary Kay’s parents move to Willits – Mary Kay wrote, “The sawmill business’s first year was hard, the second, somewhat improved, but still the income was inadequate to sustain seven growing families and grandpa and grandma.”  Verlon sold out and moved to Dietrich, Idaho where Dale was living (Dale was a professional rodeo cowboy competing for prize money in the rodeo circuit.  He left the Willits sawmill operation during the first year.).  
 
The remaining four brothers and their father continued operating the sawmill and “did quite well.”  However, Mary Kay wrote, “when grandma became ill, she and grandpa sold out and moved back to Ogden in 1954.  Grandma died a few years later.”  The remaining four brothers sold the sawmill business the following year.  It had been seven years since they moved to California.  
 
Ralph and his two brothers Lee and Harold purchased the Borden’s Dairy retail franchise in Willits and moved into town in 1955.  Raymond and Ruby moved to Othello, Washington.  
 
Ralph drove one of Borden’s open-door home-delivery trucks.  Eleven-year-old Mary Kay would (remarkably) often get up early to ride with her father when he delivered bottled milk and other dairy products to their customers.   
 
Twelve–year-old Mary Kay called to teach the 3-year-old class – At age 12, Mary Kay graduated from primary in Willits (Primary is a Church religious-education program for children under 12 - taught on Sundays).  During the customary individual recognition given to Primary graduates, Mary Kay stood at the pulpit in front of the entire congregation, and quoted the lengthy 13th Article of Faith that addresses our belief in seeking the attributes of a noble character (Philippians 4: 8, and PGP, The Articles of Faith). 

One week after graduating from Primary, Mary Kay was called to be a teacher of the three-year-old class.  
Commentary – Upon graduation, primary children decide which of the 13 Articles of Faith they will recite in front of the congregation.  Most children choose one that requires the least memorization.  On the surface, Mary Kay’s memorization of all 13 Articles of Faith and choosing to recite the most difficult one in public may seem like a small thing.  However, it is a clear example of her character and commitment at a very young age to do the very best she could – to not shrink at doing hard things.  
 
Obviously, the leaders in the Willits Primary organization recognized her demonstrated maturity, knowledge and leadership skills at such a young age – they called her to teach younger children; remarkable.
 
Mary Kay’s family lived in California for 12 years –  “I loved it” - Reflecting on this time, Mary Kay said, “It was a good life; I kept busy with school, Church and family.  When I started high school at age 14, Willits High School had a student body of around 350 – 86 in my class.  As a freshman, I won third place in the Mathematics Division of the Mendocino County Fair in Ukiah.   I joined the Pep Club, was vice president of the Nurse’s Club and received an excellent rating in the school’s speech competition.  In my junior year, I lettered in girls’ basketball and was class representative in the school districts Girls Athletic Association.”
 
She said it was an adventure when her parents took the children with them to Church conferences near San Francisco (three-hours away).  These trips included visiting such places as San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Warf for lunch and sightseeing in the city and around the Bay – exciting times.
 
Mary Kay loved being with her immediate and extended family.  She said, “I grew up having many of my cousins around me.  For twelve years we played together, went to school together and worshiped together; bonding as best friends was wonderful.”  
 
Why Mary Kay’s handwriting is more like printing – Mary Kay said, “When I was 13, I was sustained as assistant secretary in the Sunday School - and called as secretary a year later.  It was a Church position she held until she moved to Connell in 1960.  She kept the agendas, records and minutes with handwritten entries.  Because her records had to be clear and legible, she developed her own cursive style of writing – “handwriting that looked more like printing.” 
Commentary – For me, receiving Mary Kay’s letters was a pleasure; plain and easy to read.
 
A poem for teenagers that Mary Kay liked as a young girl – “In defense of the silly age,” by Ida Hunt: “I smile but to cover a heartache.  I laugh but to hide a tear.  I grin but to conceal an open wound – and giggle to hide a fear.  So please don’t think me silly, and if I laugh, don’t frown.  My smile is hiding a thousand fears that I am trying hard to down.”
 
The boys called her the “Farmer’s daughter” – Mary Kay said, “When I was a freshman in high school, some of the senior boys kept asking me for a date.  I had no interest in those boys and kept saying no.  After a while, they started calling me Farmers Daughter.”  She said, “rather than get upset or defensive, I responded with a smile or sometimes quipped back and laughed with them and then went on my way.” 
 
She thought to herself, “If I am as you say, then I am the best part of a Farmer’s Daughter, good looking and innocent - certainly not dumb and helpless.  I was determined to not get involved with boys not of my faith – and even then, they had to have a desire for goodness.  And the best way to do that was to not date them.”
 
She said that her resolve was reinforced when she heard her sister crying on-and-off at nights for weeks because she wanted to go out with a boy who our father disapproved.   Mary Kay said, “I thought if it hurt that much, I didn’t want anything to do with it.  I could learn from my sister’s experience – and choose wisely who I will date.”  
 
Family moves to Connell – Mary Kay, high school senior, - difficult – As time passed, it became increasingly apparent that the Borden’s Dairy operation could not financially support three growing families.  One family would have to go.  
 
In the summer of 1960, Raymond called Ralph with a business prospect.  He said that there was a significant market for alfalfa hay pellets; demand coming primarily from confined feedlot operators and horse racing stables.
 
Connell is located 24 miles from Othello where Raymond and Ruby lived (Ruby and Phyllis are sisters).  Alfalfa hay was a major crop grown by area farmers.   Under Raymond’s plan, they would pool their money, buy pelletizing equipment and facilities, purchase baled hay from nearby farmers, pelletize it and ship it to their customers for a handsome profit.   Raymond further proposed that the two families buy two adjoining residential building lots on the edge of Connell and help each other build two attractive chiseled-façade, colored cinder-brick homes. 
 
Ralph and Phillis agreed and moved 750 miles north to Connell in the summer of 1960.    Mary Kay was 17, getting ready to begin her senior year in high school.  She wanted to stay in Willits with extended family.   However, her request was denied, her parents wanted her to go with them.   Her mother had decided to go to college to become an elementary school teacher.   She would be living away from home for extended periods while attending school.  Since Patsy was married and had moved away and Bruce had enlisted in the Army, Mary Kay was needed to take the lead in preparing meals and cleaning the house.  
Commentary - Mary Kay’s mother focused on getting a college education so that she could fulfill her ambition to teach school, and help provide for her family.  When they moved from Connell, she continued her educational pursuit; finally graduating from BYU-Provo and teaching for many years in Utah.  When she retired, her pension benefits were a major part of her and Ralph’s retirement income.
 
“Oh why couldn’t I stay in Willits?” –  Connell High School was a third the size of Willits; 31 students would graduate the next spring.   Mary Kay, Anne and Rodney started school shortly after arriving in town.   Starting a new school as a senior was not fulfilling; she received polite acceptance from classmates, but being invited into the close-knit school community was another matter (Anne and Rodney fared better as Anne started CHS as a sophomore and Rodney a freshman.).  
 
On June 24, 1996, reflecting on an invitation to her 35th class reunion in Connell, Mary Kay commented on her nine months at CHS.  She wrote in a letter that she did not mail, “… in all reality (I felt that I was) a stranger to everyone (in my graduating class) … too few memories to share.”
Commentary – Mary Kay’s loneliness at CHS had a profound effect on her.  She was determined to become better educated and find a man to marry that shared her ideals.  Other than for room and board, she had almost no financial help at home.  If she was going to get a college education, she would have to pay for it herself. 
 
After we were married and moved our family to different cities, she reflected on her experience at CHS as it related to the effects our moves would have on our children.  She had to be convinced that the new location could provide an equal or better experience for them than the community we were leaving. 
 
After Mary Kay passed away, an invitation came in the mail for her next Connell class reunion.  I responded in her behalf, notifying her classmates of her passing and sent $50 to help pay the expenses of their activity.  The lady overseeing the event called me.  I could tell that she was taken aback when I told her of Mary Kay’s accomplishments and experiences; emailed her obituary and Boise State University’s posting of the endowed scholarship fund that is in Mary Kay’s and my name.  The lady indicated that she wished she had got to know Mary Kay better.  A worthy desire for us all.
 
First full-time job – May 1961 to September 1962 – Almost immediately upon graduating from high school, Mary Kay found employment as the bookkeeper for “Sewell’s,” a farm implement dealer and repair shop in Connell.  She needed the job to earn money for college, but she received a lot more - valuable life experiences.  
 
It was before the advent of computers. Sewell’s recordkeeping system was manual: pencils, columnar paper and an adding machine.  Mary Kay quickly observed that Sewell’s system left a lot to be desired.  She decided that her first task was to create a file for each customer and put all of the historical and in-process documents she could find into the customer’s file, e.g., completed and outstanding shop work orders and copies of billing invoices and payment receipts.
 
Complicating her task was the work orders coming in from the shop – they were often almost illegible; smudged with grease and dirt.  Mary Kay went out to the shop and worked with the mechanics to make sure their part numbers and labor hours were correct – she verified the amount each customer owed the company and immediately sent out billing invoices.  
 
Her thoroughness paid off bigtime when a man who owned a large farm and operated a lot of equipment came into the office to challenge his large bill.  Mr. Sewell asked Mary Kay to pull the man’s file and check out his complaint.   This farmer was taken aback when Mary Kay produced the farmer’s well-organized file with each equipment repair work order he had approved, the priced-out parts list and the time spent by each mechanic.  After she reviewed the detail with the man, he said, “well, it’s all here; it’s all mine; I’ll pay the bill.”  Mary Kay said that that experience was a great confidence builder for her - and for Mr. Sewell.
 
For 16 months Mary Kay saved her money - select a college – Mary Kay only considered two schools, BYU-Provo and Weber State.  She said when she prayed, she had “a feeling of peace and rightness about Weber State.” A couple of weeks after mailing her application she said, “I had the distinct impression to go to the post office and check our mailbox.  I had received a letter from Weber State.  My application had been accepted.  I was to start school in September!”
 
She had been dating a local fellow who had proposed marriage, “To take her away from all this.”  (She said that she thought, “To what, more of the same?).”  She told the fellow, “No, I’m going to school at Weber State!”    
 
Patsy and her husband, Bennett Anderson, were living west of Ogden on a dairy farm operated by Bennett and his father and brothers.  They would often pick-up Mary Kay at school for a visit.  When Anne started college two years later, she chose BYU.
Commentary – After Mary Kay decided to go to Weber State, family members asked why?  She responded, “I just feel more at peace in the smaller school, close to Patsy and Bennett.”  After we were married, she added. “It was supposed to be, Weber State is where I would meet my eternal companion.”
 
Throughout her life, Mary Kay had numerous experiences where she felt the influence of the Holy Ghost; receiving knowledge, direction, peace or comfort.  These experiences include matters affecting her children, her husband, personal health and how she should deal with the needs of others for which she provided service.  Many of these experiences are discussed in the following chapters where they chronologically occurred. 
 
When Mary Kay and I listed the events and choices we independently made on order for us to  arrive at Weber State at the same time in circumstances where we could meet and fall in love, we were astounded!   Those series of events were too complex to be dismissed as coincidental or lucky.  We learned a universal truth; God is involved in the detail of each of our lives.  He loves all of his children and without doing injury to our agency to choose for ourselves, He provides us with multiple opportunities to make the best choices so that we can return to Him.   However, if we consistently choose poorly, we run the risk of becoming the “natural man … an enemy to God,” (BM Mosiah 3:19, also 1 Corinthians 2: 14). 
 
Weber State - September 1962 – Part-time work at school – Upon enrolling, Mary Kay obtained a part-time job at the Student Union Building - Lobby Receptionist.  I was working nights and going to school full time.
Commentary – After we met and started dating a year later, I often went out of my way to walk through the large front lobby of the Student Union Building so that I could see her standing behind the counter of the reception desk; answering questions from lost or uncertain students and directing them to their desired room or location.  
 
She stood erect, dignified and cordial, with a charming, quick smile and a happy countenance – she was beautiful.  When I saw she was on duty, I stopped by her desk with a manufactured question or two of my own – just laughing and talking to her for a moment was delightful; a bright spot in my day.
 

Harold “Hal”

 
Born during the depths of the Great Depression - six years before Mary Kay – At the time of my birth, my family resided on a 200-acre farm in the remote and semi-arid hamlet of Stone. Idaho, about 40 miles northwest of Tremonton, Utah and three miles north of Snowville, Utah.  
 
My father, William Rudolph, and mother, Lucy Irene Roe Bunderson, had eight children, William Oleen (1922), Nona (1924), Lloyd (1925), Delphia (1927), Vernon (1929), Cleo (1932), Thomas (1934) and me.  All of my siblings were born in the family farmhouse – with a midwife and sometimes a doctor present.  
 
Thomas was their only child that did not live to adulthood. Thomas was a blue baby (congenital heart defect) and died when he was 11-days old.  My parents believed if Thomas had been born in a hospital, things may have been different. 
 
Because of Thomas’s death, my parents concluded that I should be born in the Tremonton hospital where medical doctors and facilities were available.   Thus, when the time for my delivery neared, my parents drove their car over the rough unimproved road to Tremonton – likely staying with extended family – returning to Idaho after my birth.  (See Chapter 18, Profiles of Hal’s parents and Chapter 19, Profiles of Hal’s Siblings).  
 
When I was born, my family was feeling the devastating financial effects of the Great Depression (1929-1939).  They had recently sold two-thirds of their land and animals at severely depressed prices to pay their debts.  They were left with their small home on 200-acres of largely irrigated farmland and horse-drawn equipment; about 50 head of cattle and horses and other farm animals.  
 
My parents lived a quasi-pioneer lifestyle when I was born.  There was no electricity in the valley, however, they did have “party-line” telephone service.  Most of their fresh water came from a hand-dug surface well with a hand-pump that required priming each time water was drawn from the well.  Water was carried into the house in metal buckets.  The family bathed and washed their laundry in a large metal washtub with water heated on the wood-burning cook stove.    About 30 yards from the home was an “outhouse.”  My father’s beehives that provided honey for the family was located in a field bordering the house.  
 
A root cellar dug six-feet into the ground with a sod-roof was nearby.  When I was a little boy, I liked to play in the cool root cellar; with light coming from the open door.  I drove my handcrafted wooden toy cars and trucks over little roads my siblings had artfully cut into the cellar’s clay walls. 
 
The farm was fenced with four strands of barbwire stapled to juniper-wood posts.  The fence was effective in keeping our cattle and horses in and our neighbor’s animals out, but had no effect in restricting wildlife.  Antelope, sage hen, jackrabbits and even mice and snakes came under or jumped through or over the fence to forage in our fields of alfalfa hay, barley and wheat.  
 
My playmate was a rattle snake – not good - My mother said before I could walk, she put me on the kitchen floor while she was working at the other end of the room.  It was a warm day and I crawled to where the closed screen door separated me from the porch.  She went about her work, watching me out of the corner of her eye.  She heard me hit the screen with my little hand, giggle, pause, then hit the screen and giggle again.  Thinking nothing was amiss, she paid little heed.  When she finally walked over to see what I thought was so funny, she saw my playmate; a deadly-poisonous rattlesnake coiled up on the porch immediately outside the screen door.   I hit the screen with the back of my hand, the snake struck at the screen, and I giggled.  
 
Momma screamed!  My father, who was working nearby, came running with his sharp-bladed shovel.  With a single stroke, he deftly dispatched my dangerous playmate to the next realm.  
Commentary – Object lesson: Choose your friends wisely.  People sometimes refer to the “good old days.”  However, that’s a value judgement that may be hard to prove.   Certainly, in the case of rearing children, the good-old-days presented many different risks and challenges than today.    
 
From Stone to Tremonton - like moving from the frontier to civilization – Motivated by their desire to live close to a high school so their older children could live at home during the school year and have modern conveniences, my parents purchased a four-acre mini-farm just east of Tremonton during the summer before my third birthday in 1939. 
 
The outbuildings consisted of a single-level, concrete-floor barn, corral and pig pens.  There barn was painted white and divided into two sections with chicken wire.   Stanchions for holding several cows while they were fed and milked (by hand) on one end of the barn and chickens penned at the other.  Their plan was to keep the farm in Stone and commute during the crop-growing season.  Augmenting their farm income with part-time work at the nearby Garland Sugar Beet Factory, tomato cannery and green pea vinery that processed the season’s harvest.
 
The home was three-bedroom wood-frame rectangular building painted white (a fourth bedroom was added later). The property was located about two miles east of the city and Bear River High School where my two oldest siblings, Oleen and Nona were students.  They also bought a new Chevrolet four-door car – reliable and most everyone could fit if the squeezed.
 
For the first time, my family had electricity and running hot and cold water, flush toilet and a built-in bathtub.  We did not have a telephone, albeit a neighbor living a quarter of a mile away did – available to us in case of an emergency.  Water came from a well, electric pump and pressure-tank.  The kitchen had a wood cook stove with iron water pipes running through the fire box to heat the water stored in the connecting hot water tank.   The living room and front bedrooms were heated with a ceramic-coated cast-iron space-heating stove that burned wood or coal.
 
After WWII, my parents purchased an electric refrigerator with a small freezer box with trays for making ice cubes.  As a boy, I used the trays to freeze a milk, sugar and vanilla mixture.  It was my ice cream substitute.  Not very appetizing today, but for a boy with few options, the hard chucks of flavored milk was a treat.   (On special occasions, mother made a wonderful vanilla-custard ice cream that we churned in our hand-crank ice cream maker.)
 
They bought a new free-standing electric washing machine that they placed on the back porch.  Washing clothes was now a breeze compared to scrubbing clothes over a galvanized steel washboard in a tub of water.  They merely bucketed hot water from the kitchen sink to the washing machine tub.  The porch was about four feet above the ground, thus the washing tub wastewater was discharged, gravity-flow, through a rubber hose into the irrigation ditch in back of the house.  When the clothes were washed, they were put through the washing machine’s wringer to squeeze the water out of the wet garments.  The water ran back into the tub and clothes were put into a large pan and carried outside to be pinned onto the heavy-wire clothesline that had been wiped clean. 
 
They purchased a floor-model radio that was our family’s entertainment center.  Each evening, members of the family gathered around the radio, setting on chairs, children on the floor, to hear half-hour broadcasts of news, comedy, theatre, music and even U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s periodic “Fireside Chat” broadcasts that he used to “refute rumors,” explain his policies and calm unsettled nerves during the troubled times of World War II.  
 
Professional boxing was a popular pastime of the day.   The radio announcer provided an exciting blow-by-blow account of the fight against the backdrop of the roaring crowd and the ring of the bell marking the end and start of each three-minute round, interspersed between rounds by the announcer’s narrative of the fight and the fighters condition.  Our favorite was the heavyweight boxing champion, Joe Louis.   
Commentary - Radio programs were characterized by actor’s trained voices, impersonations and sound effects; so realistic that the listener could imagine each scene in their mind.  A variety of entertainment programs such as The Lone Ranger, Tom Mix, Let’s Pretend and Amos and Andy were wonderful.  
 
In my judgement, society lost something when the Imagination-promoting radio programs of the past were replaced by the realism of high-definition color TV, cinematography and telecommunication technologies.  We no longer need to imagine anything; we can see graphic enactments before our eyes.    
 
Retaining the farm in Stone presented a logistical problem – My father and older brothers commuted weekly to operate the farm during the summer crop-growing season and monitor his cattle feeding on the nearby open range; generally leaving on Monday and returning back to Tremonton the following Saturday.  As I grew older, I joined them.  
 
Daddy rounded-up his range cattle in the fall, hauled the pregnant cows and feeder stock he planned to sell to Tremonton and paid Uncle Ray to feed the others during the winter.   
 
Gasp!  It’s a wood tick engorged with my blood!  As a small boy, one day riding with my father on the back of his horse as he rode the open sagebrush and Juniper covered range looking for his cattle.  My arms were wrapped around his waist, my stomach rubbing against his back.  As the day wore-on, I began to feel pain.  Complaining, Daddy got off his horse and helped me down.  He pulled up my shirt and there filling my bellybutton cavity was a wood tick, engorged with my blood!
 
Daddy was very calm and told me we should not pull it out because we would only get the body; the ticks head and blood-sucking mouth and pincers would remain imbedded in my skin.  He would strike a match, blow-out the flame and touch the body of the tick with the hot end. He said the tick would probably release his hold and back out.  It worked and I didn’t get sick afterward with fever.
Commentary – Not all wood ticks are carriers of disease.  Today’s medical profession would have not approved of my father’s remedy because of the increased risk of the insect injecting any pathogen it carried.  However, in the remote foothills west of Stone, necessity ruled.  My father used a remedy he had likely used many times before herding sheep in the west Teton Mountain Range and in Stone.
 
Oleen and Nona’s boarding hosts – Ezra’s remarkable “divining rod” talent – Mr. and Mrs. Ezra Harris, the couple who provided boarding for Oleen and Nona, become dear friends of our family – they were very pleasant to be around.  They would occasionally stop by our home in Tremonton to visit.  
 
Ezra had an interesting talent and avocation; he was a water witch (one who dowsers for water and minerals using a “divining rod”).  Many people in the region employed him to find well water and even divine for silver and gold; he said, “My talent is a gift.”  
 
I was a skeptical youth and thought he was selling “snake oil,” but remained quiet.  Mr. Harris asked if my family would like to see a demonstration of him using his divining rod to find silver?  You bet!  
 
His tool for making his discoveries was a metal wire-type rod (less than 1/4th inch diameter) which he had bent to form a protruding narrow loop with a thin wire wrapped around the neck of the loop (His tool for finding water had a different type wrapping-wire around the neck than the wrapping wire he used for finding silver.) with the two blunt ends of the wire bent in opposite directions.  To operate the device, he rested the two ends of the rod on the tips of his two index fingers.  When looking for groundwater concentrations or buried metals, he put the device on his index fingers and proceeded to walk, with the loop swinging back and forth with the wind or his stride.  When he passed near a concentration of water or mineral for which he was searching, the device turned firmly as though it had a mind of its own or like a strong magnetic pull in the direction of the water or metal.
 
Mr. Harris let me hold device on the tips of my index fingers for me to see if I could control it.   I could not control anything; a slight breeze pushed the loop. 
 
He gave a handful of silver dollars to Cleo and me and told us to go outside and hide them in the grass while he visited with my parents.  When we were ready, we were to come in the house and tell him.  Then we would all go outside to watch him find the coins.  To everyone’s amazement, he promptly found every silver dollar.  I was amazed.  There was no way he could have known where we hid the coins. 
 
His demonstration continued: He handed the silver dollars to us and instructed us to go several yards into the field in front of our house; put our backs to him and one of us was to keep all of the money - then run in opposite directions.  Sure enough, his divining rod followed the one with the silver dollars.  
 
We tried again; with our backs to him and being very careful to make sure he could not tell which one of us had the money.  But he made no mistakes; his rod did not hesitate to follow the one that carried the coins.  
 
He also took his water-divining rod and walked around our house.  He told my parents their surface well was in the wrong place to get the best supply of water.   He said if they dug a new surface well at his designated location west of the house, they would get a lot more water.  However, my parents did not re-dig our well (I always wondered what they would have found if they had.).
Commentary – I reflected on the forgoing experience two decades later when Mary Kay and I were living in Los Angeles.  One of my Firm’s clients was a vegetable seed breeder with farming operations on the Baja California Mexico Peninsula near the town of San Quintin, Mexico.   The company had a private airplane landing strip on their farm.  
 
One of the company officers, Bill, told me how they found the abundant supply of well-water they needed to irrigate a few thousand acres of farmland.  He said that they had hired a “water-witch” to help them.   As their single engine plane landed and taxied to the end of their grass-covered runway, the man exclaimed, “Stop the plane, the water is right here!”    Bill said the pilot applied the brakes and the company’s excited Production VP opened the passenger door and almost fell out headfirst with hammer and wood stake in-hand to mark the spot.
 
In fairness, many people debunk the use of “water witches,” as the stuff from which legends are born.   They assert that ground-water covers broad areas; thus, a successful well could be drilled anywhere there is groundwater. 
 
However, hydrologists have also found that it is common for water to flow through subterranean aquifers at different concentrations and speed depending on the substructure.  “Underground rivers” are not uncommon.  
 
In sum, I don’t profess to know much about groundwater, but when it comes to finding silver dollars buried in the grass, I am convinced; Ezra indeed had “a gift.” 
 
Provident living – be self-reliant - raise, store and prepare your own food - Our Tremonton home had a elevated concrete foundation with a cellar under the back of the house to kept foods cool (Underground temperature is around 55 degrees.  In-home electric refrigerators were not common until the late 1940s after WWII; in-home electric freezers by early 1950s.).  
 
My parents had a large garden.  They bottled and preserved their vegetable harvest and fruit they purchased by the bushel during a trip to the commercial orchards south of Brigham City. The cellar had shelves for storing bottled fruit, vegetables and meats.  Hundreds of quarts of shelled peas, sliced carrots, snipped green beans, whole tomatoes and juice, peaches, pears, apple sauce and even black and red raspberries and rhubarb raised in their garden.  
 
When slaughtering large animals, some cuts of meat were preserved in brine-filled ceramic crocks placed on the cellar floor.  They also bottled cuts of beef (There was no need for them to bottle chicken meat.  When chicken was on mother’s menu, we killed one or two of the birds from our flock).
 
At the side of concrete steps going down to the cellar was a root cellar for storing burlap bags filled with fresh potatoes, carrots and parsnips harvested from the garden. 
 
After the war, an enterprising fellow opened an ice cream and hamburger place across the street from the high school (Worley’s) with a commercial freezer-storage rental business occupying the back half of his building.  My parents rented one Worley’s locked freezer boxes (about 3x3 sq. ft, locker).  
 
When we slaughtered pork, beef or sheep; cuts of meat were wrapped and stored in the locker.  It was a wonderful service - no more preserving meat in salty brine (Although the old sheep we slaughtered probably would have tasted better with a little more salt - we sold our fat lambs).     
 
However, accessing the freezer box was a bit inconvenient and required planning.  For example, if my mother wanted a bag of frozen peaches or a cut of meat from the locker, a family member had to drive to Worley’s to pick it up – or make Worley’s the last stop when returning home from a trip.   
 
The home’s back porch had a large wood box that us boys filled each evening with wood and lump-coal; fuel to keep our home warm through the winter night and next day.   A hand-crank milk separator (a centrifugal hand-cranked machine that separated the cream from the milk) was also on the porch.  
 
Mother clabbered some of the skimmed milk to make cottage cheese for the family.  For a few years, they fed the milk whey and the rest of the separated milk to the pigs and chickens.  She made butter from some of the cream and sold the rest to the creamery. 
 
A few years later, the creamery began buying raw non-refrigerated milk (Class C milk) directly from the small dairy farmers in the valley.  Every morning, a creamery’s flat-bed truck with 2x12 side-boards would pick up 10-gallon cans of milk from each farmer, replacing them with empty washed cans for the next day’s milking.
To augment their cash flow, my parents began selling farm-fresh eggs and freshly butchered “fryers” (six-week old chickens).  As demand for their production increased, they built a chicken coop the same size as the barn and a smaller building for brooding baby chicks. 
Commentary – My parents used an 8-quart pressure cooker and “cold-pack steamer for bottling their food.  Canning was a family activity.  Setting on the tree-shaded front steps of our home shelling fresh picked green peas or “snipping” green beans, was quality-time; hearing mother teach us by relating interesting stories while we prepared the vegetables for canning. (Chapters 18, 19 and 20).
 
I am grateful for my parents teaching me how to grow a garden and can food; but it doesn’t work for everyone.  When living in Meridian, Idaho, a friend who had been living in Rochester, New York commented in a classroom setting, “For years I have been told that I could raise $300 worth of produce on a 8x8 ft. garden plot.  I have tried year after year, and I have never raised $300 worth of produce.”  I retorted, “That’s easy to fix.” Astonished, he said, “How.” I responded, “Raise your prices.”
 
As the baby in the family, I received special attention – In Stone, my sister Delphia, 9-years older than me, said she pushed me around in her doll buggy.  After our move to Tremonton, my family continued to baby me.  
 
In Tremonton, standing in the barn next to my mother during a heavy thunderstorm watching my brothers feed and milk the cows; I remember wrapping my little arms around her leg for protection when a very loud clap of thunder shook the building.  
 
On a trip to Stone, standing on a ditch bank with my mother watching my father work, I heard coyotes begin to howl - they seemed very close.  There was no real danger, but I was afraid and again wrapped my little arms around my mother’s leg for protection.  
Commentary - Today, the sounds of the coyote’s howl are indelibly registered in my memory - I wish I could hear that mournful sound again.
 
Three in a bed, I slept in the middle – No, it doesn’t build character – When we moved, the three youngest children, Vernon, age nine, Cleo, age seven and me, age three, shared the bedroom with a 4½ foot wide bed.  My brothers pulled age rank - I slept between them.  Two problems; when they pulled the blankets around their shoulders, it created a small canyon, I had to slide down into the bed to get warm.  And another thing.  We drew pictures on each other’s back until we fell asleep.  I never got a break from drawing.  
 
Age five - “The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor” – Our family would never be the same – Most of my family learned of the Empire of Japan’s attack on the United States over the radio.  The temperature in Tremonton was well above normal on December 7, 1941.  The family had come home from Church, changed clothes and were outside, except for my 14-year-old sister Delphia who was doing something inside while listening to the radio.  I was playing in the front yard.  Delphia’s radio program was interrupted with an alert.  She ran out onto the front porch of our home and screamed, “The Japanese have bombed Perl Harbor and their army could invade America.”   
 
One of the most immediate effects of World War II on our family was rationing of certain food and products needed for the war effort, such as sugar and gasoline.   The federal government issued ration coupon books for each person in a household, and business.  To buy a rationed item you needed to surrender the appropriate number of coupons to the retailer.  
 
Mother administered our family’s sugar rations carefully.  Each member had their own jar of sugar stored in a kitchen cabinet.  When mother made a cake or cookies, we each contributed a measured amount of sugar from our jar for the recipe.  However, consumption was less regulated – I benefited.
Commentary – As a boy, I had nightmares of a Japanese invasion.  I dreamt that the sky over our home was filled with Japanese warplanes.   However, when the airplanes in my dream were shot out of the sky and fell to the earth; I ran out to them and saw that they were not real airplanes at all; they were toys.  
 
Years later, I reflected on the symbolism of my vivid boyhood dreams; Japan was indeed a fearful foe at the beginning, but at war’s end, it was reduced to ruin. 
 
Oleen’s roommates tried to get me to eat something bad; “waffles” – I was four when Oleen enrolled in Utah State Agricultural College in Logan (renamed Utah State University in 1957).   He lived in an off-campus home with his high school friends.  Periodically, my parents took boxes of food to him.  On one trip, my parents and Oleen went somewhere and left me with a couple of his roommates.  They were eating something I did not recognize – they asked me if I would like a waffle.  I had been taught something about “the Word of Wisdom (D&C 89),” and was suspicious.  I thought it was something bad, like coffee or something, so I promptly said, “no thank you.” I thought, “I wasn’t going to eat bad stuff.” 
 
Would you like a wooden rifle? – “Now you’re talkin” – I quickly learned Oleen’s friends were very nice.  One of them produced something that was in the shape a rifle; sawed from a 1x4 inch board.  He offered to give it to me!  Was I ever excited; a toy rifle with a genuine clothes-pin trigger that shot rubber-band bullets; fired by squeezing the clothespin to release the stretched rubber band projectile– Wow, thank you!  
Commentary – One nice thing about this toy rifle is I could provide the sound effects; “ka-pow, ka-pow.”  I could hardly wait to show momma and daddy; I knew they would be just as excited as me about my new gun.   
 
My parents prepared me for grade school – get all the education you can – Our family had a small library of children’s books; mostly stories of biblical characters.  When I was small, my mother read the stories to me, holding my finger on the words as she read.  Soon, I was reading the words to her.  
 
I started McKinley Elementary in September 1942.  I walked a quarter of a mile to catch the school bus. When we were given reading assignments, my mother had me read the chapters to her.  My father also taught me by word and example.   After the barnyard chores were done, he routinely sat in our living room chair next to a table lamp reading a book, often the scriptures.
Commentary – My father had lived most of his life using the dim flame of an oil or carbide lamp.  I can only imagine how he felt living in our Tremonton home reading under a bright electric light, turned on with a switch.
 
As children, my parents attended rural quasi-frontier schools that only taught classes to the eighth grade.  Deprived of a full education, they encouraged their children to get all the education they could.  
 
Mother told us stories that her father, Thomas William Roe, related to her about his life in England.  He started attending school when he was three years old.  Later attending a trade school studying accounting and record keeping.  He immigrated to America with his mother and two siblings when he was 14.  My mother stressed that it was his education that allowed him to be successful in his business and Church responsibilities.  She admonished her children to do the same. 
 
Everyone’s having a birthday party – I will throw my own - and tell mother later - I was really excited about starting grade school and riding the school bus.  Every month, some of the boys and girls riding the bus announced they were having a birthday party at their home and invited everyone to come.  The kids got off the school bus with their host. 
 
The parties were great fun, so when my seventh birthday came around, I announced to my school bus chums that I would be having a birthday party at my home.  However, I had not cleared it with my mother first.  
 
Fortunately, mother was home when my group of partygoers arrived at our front door with presents and expecting a celebration.  Flabbergasted, but showing her resiliency at a time of crisis, she quickly organized yard games like kick-the-can; to give her time to bake fresh cookies and make fruit punch,
Commentary – After all the kids had gone home, my mother taught me an important lesson regarding birthday parties: Spontaneity is no match for organization and planning.
 
Authentic pirates - skull and crossbones flag - and everything (almost)  - My friend Archie Goodell lived nearby.  We thought it would be great fun to play pirates – but not something simple; we wanted to be as authentic as our imagination allowed. 
 
We spent countless hours making our pirate hideout.  Archie and his mother lived with his uncle who owned a pasture that bordered the irrigation ditch and barbwire fence between his uncle and my parent’s properties.  The ground next to the irrigation ditch was soft and poplar tree saplings were growing nearby.  We chose a spot and dug a cellar-type hole about four feet deep and wide and six feet long; leaving a dirt bench at one end of the dugout.  We had fashioned our hut like a potato cellar, laying scrap boards across the top of the hole to form a roof and shoveling excavated dirt on top of the boards.   Inside, we covered the dirt floor and bench with discarded carpet from Archie’s house.  The entrance was a lift-up wood door with hinges made of old horse-harness leather.  
 
We had a flagpole outside made from one of the long strait saplings growing near our lair.  We pulled down the sapling to reach the top, pruned off its branches and leaves and affixed our flag; a rectangular piece of black cloth upon which we painted white skull and crossbones.  We whittled swords made out of wood lath which we tucked in our belt.  We were fierce pirates indeed, except for one thing; I didn’t have a black cape.  
 
I needed a pirate’s cape - Delphia has a black skirt  – problem solved – Wondering how I could get an authentic black pirate’s cape that flapped behind me when I ran, I remembered that Delphia had a black skirt and a small waist.   I figured I could take a razor blade and cut the threads on the seam of her skirt up to the waist; put the waist over my head and “Shazam, I would have the coolest black pirate’s cape ever.” Archie and I had great fun until Delphia couldn’t find her black skirt.  
Commentary – Lesson learned; necessity may be the mother of invention – but there can be severe unintended consequences.
 
Just Lloyd and me in Stone - a box of raisins is all we have to eat -  I hate raisins –  Lloyd is 11 years older than me.  When I was about seven years old, Daddy sent Lloyd to our farm in Stone to irrigate our crops and do other work.  Mother packed a box of food and I went along to keep Lloyd company.
 
We left on Monday for the farm and were to return the next Saturday afternoon.  As Saturday drew closer, Lloyd announced a problem. We were running out of food.  By Saturday noon, we will have eaten everything mother sent except for a box of Sun-maid raisins.   
 
When Saturday noon arrived, I stared when he took the box of raisins, laid it on our bare wood table in the farmhouse, set the butcher knife across the center of the box and deftly severed the box in two.  He said, “You take half and I’ll take half.”  I should have been impressed that my generous brother, who was more than twice my size, divided our food equally.  However, I just looked at my half-box of raisins and thought to myself, “I hated raisins!” 
 
However, as the day wore on, I got really hungry.  Lloyd was in the fields setting the water so we could leave for Tremonton – he left me at the house with my half-box of raisins.  Finally, with my stomach growling; I ate one raisin. “Hey, that’s good” I thought; and proceeded to devour the rest of raisins.  
Commentary - From that time forward, I have loved raisins.  Mother’s raisin filled and oatmeal and raisin cookies were wonderful; but raisin pie, not so much.
 
Seven-years-old - Oleen completes training -  we see him off to war (last we saw him) – Oleen had completed two plus years of college including pilot training at Utah State, followed by months of additional  training to be a B-24 Liberator Bomber pilot at the Pueblo (Colorado) Army Air Force Base.  Circa June, 1944, his squadron was to fly to an air base in Italy (Italy had surrendered the preceding year.  Some of the Italian airfields had been commandeered for use by U.S. aircraft that were bombing Nazi-controlled infrastructure located deep in Europe.).   
 
Military officials notified my parents that they could see Oleen off.  The military likely provided extra gasoline ration coupons to accommodate their travel by car to Pueblo.   My parents decided that Daddy, Nona and I would go.   After our visit, 22-year-old Oleen, now nicknamed Bill, hugged his pregnant wife, Betty Mae and the three of us.  Then he left to report for duty - a very touching farewell – it would be the last time we would see my “role-model” brother. (see Chapters 18 and 19).
Commentary - The families of all of the airmen were invited to the base.  Perhaps as an emotional release, the military placed disarmed (fuse not yet installed) 500-pound bombs in front of one of the hangers with chalk hanging from strings.   A sign next to the bombs invited anyone to write a note on the hull of the bomb to Hitler and his evil empire.  When I took the chalk in hand, the bombs were already covered with writings, but I found enough space to write my sentiment that I wrote with help, “To Hitler:  Greetings from America.”  
 
World War II - devastating effect on my family – could have been much worse - Before the U.S. and allied forces defeated the axis powers of Japan (surrendered August, 1945), Germany (May, 1945) and Italy (September, 1943), our family would be devastated.  Oleen, stationed at a U.S. air base in Italy, was killed in December, 1944.  He had successfully completed 28 bombing missions over Nazi-controlled oil fields.
  
When the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945, 20-year-old Lloyd who had enlisted into the Navy, was reassigned to become a Marine medic and was aboard a troop ship under orders to invade the Japanese main Islands.
 
Nona became a registered nurse and Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army.  Nona’s future husband, Jim, who had been flying bombing missions over Germany, was reassigned to a Pacific island airbase near Japan.    Delphia’s future husband, Oris, was stationed at an Army base in the Philippines preparing for the invasion of the island nation.  (Chapter 19).
 
The fanatical Emperor of Japan (deified by his people and taught suicide was better than surrender) and his military leaders finally surrendered after they learned that two of their cities (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and most of their inhabitants had been obliterated by two atomic bombs.  U.S. President Harry S. Truman said, “If they do not now accept our terms (of surrender) they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.”  
 
Fortunately, the Japanese leaders complied.  When U.S. soldiers stepped foot on mainland Japanese soil, they did so as a peaceful occupying force, not as invaders. 
Commentary - When the war ended, Nona completed her Registered Nurse training in Ogden, was discharged from the Army as an officer and met and married Jim (James B.) Knighton who was discharged from the Air Force after the war ended and was living with his parents in Ogden going to college studying to become a chemical engineer, financed by the GI Bill.  
 
After they were married, they accepted a call for Jim to serve a Church mission in Colorado for two years.   During that time, Nona was the Box Elder County Nurse, lived in mother’s Tremonton home, bore their first child, and saved to help Jim finance the rest of his education at the University of Utah when he returned home.  Professionally, Jim would become an atomic physicist with more than a score of patents to his name relative to plutonium. Jim was employed on U.S. Atomic Energy Commission contracts (now the Department of Energy) at various sites across the nation. 
 
After Oris was discharged from the Army, he and Delphia married and Oris returned to Utah State, also under the GI-Bill - to be an agronomist, eventually working for Oregon State University as an agricultural County Agent.  Under a sabbatical, he obtained an advanced degree at the university and worked in several Oregon cities. 
 
When Oris retired, he and Delphia volunteered to serve an 18-month Church mission to Liverpool, England.  When they returned, they applied to serve another mission, this time to Micronesia (Guam).  Six months after they returned from that mission, they requested to serve again; nearly two years in the Philippines, the country where Oris had been stationed during WW II.   Upon returning home, their health was good so they volunteered to serve one last mission; this time, a one-year mission at the Salt Lake Genealogy Library.
      
After Lloyd’s two years in the Navy/Marines, he was discharged and went back to Utah State under the GI-Bill – he wanted to become a medical doctor.  After two years in school, he decided he would serve a Church mission and was called to serve 30-months in Norway – where he met his future wife, Lillian.  When Lloyd returned home from his mission, the draft board immediately drafted Cleo into the Army, Lloyd married Lillian and took Cleo’s place in running the dairy farm.  I was still in high school.
 
McKinley Grade School – 1946 – Think you got talent?  Come on up – I was starting the 5th grade when the school sponsored a school-wide talent program attended by all of the students.  Students were invited to come up on stage and present their talent.  All of the students, except me and some students playing a musical instrument, brought a pianist to accompany them. 
 
In my home, Nona and Delphia had an RCA phonograph and a dozen records.   They had one song that I particularly liked, San Antonio Rose.  As a boy, I would set in front of their phonograph and play the record over and over again; singing along, memorizing every word and note.   
 
As the assembly started, each student who wanted to preform gave their name and the title of their musical piece to the moderator.  
 
When the moderator said, “Harold Bunderson, fifth grade, will now sing San Antonio Rose.  I stood up; perhaps with innocent courage or maybe audacity and walked up to the stage.  Remarkably, I did not feel fear; I had practiced and was prepared to sing the song a cappella.  
 
As I walked up, I could hear the kids giggling, but I paid no heed (except I think I started the song an octave high).  I had not reached puberty and sang like a soprano.  When I began to sing, I noticed a distinct change in the audience’s behavior.  The giggling stopped, the kids were respectful and listening.  
Commentary - When my rendition was over, I received appropriate applause.  I was never quite sure why they applauded – was it because they liked my rendition or because it was over.
 
“Tubby Bunderson” – For three years I didn’t fit-in – In the seventh grade I began putting on a lot of weight.  By the time I was in the eighth grade, I weighed 162 pounds, more than twice the weight of many classmates.  My classmates called me “Tubby Bunderson.”  I was excluded from many extracurricular activities, except when a fat-boy could be useful.  
 
My parents took me to our family physician, Dr. Ficklin.  He said that my puberty hormones were not developing properly and prescribed injected serums to treat the problem.  By the time I started high school the next year, my weight was near normal.
Commentary – In later years, I viewed the rejection I received from my peers - just because I looked different - as an excellent learning experience; it helped me strive to be accepting of others who were “different.”  
 
In fact, with Mary Kay taking the lead and under sponsored education programs, we have had five children of different nationalities in our home as essentially foster children; two native American Indian children (a Yaqui girl from Arizona and a Sioux boy from South Dakota), two teenagers from the People’s Republic of China and one from Japan.  We tried to treat them like they were our own children.
 
One time while serving in the Idaho Senate, a lobbyist group publicly called me a racist because they did not like the legislation I was proposing to close a loophole in the law affecting practices on Indian reservations.  The Indian tribes were selling multiple case-lots of unstamped cigarettes (no Idaho tobacco tax collected) to customers who reportedly freighted vanloads of the unstamped tobacco off the reservation for sale on the black-market, principally in a neighboring state.  My proposed legislation limited the number of unstamped cigarettes anyone could carry in their vehicle when traveling on Idaho roads to two cartons (about 20 packs of cigarette).
 
I was tempted to confront the lobbyists and their vitriol head-on with hard facts that I had been a foster parent to two Indian children.  However, I chose to remain silent and leave my family out of it.  
 
Besides, I have learned that people who try to make their point by resorting to name-calling are generally not persuaded by facts and rational debate; the biased and opinionated pay little attention to facts.

Youth summer activities – 4-H and Boy Scouts – 4-H clubs (Head, Heart, Hands and Health) were well organized and developed in Tremonton’s agricultural community when I was a boy; less so for Boy Scouts of America.  Local 4-H clubs offered a three-day campout in a high-mountain valley east of Logan each summer.   I thoroughly enjoyed 4-H.  I enrolled in Boy Scouts, but was not encouraged to pursue rank advancement.  However, four decades later I would become heavily involved as BSA volunteer.  (Chapter 12, Service to our Communities). 
   
I learned to play the Trombone – My father, when he was an unmarried man, had a Church calling as ward and stake music director.  He formed a dance band and played the trombone.  He sang tenor in coral groups that performed at nearby church and community functions.  
 
Before I started my freshman year in high school, he took me to meet the band instructor and bought a new Trombone for me.  I was excited to enroll in the band.  Starting my sophomore year, I played well enough to join the marching band.  I received a bright red uniform and hat with gold colored buttons and braid.  I marched with the band and played my trombone at community parades and school activities, except during football games – I was on the football team.  
Commentary - I thought it was cool to be in the band.  When Meredith Wilson’s movie “The Music Man” came out in 1957, I could relate to “Seventy-six trombones.” 
 
While my father is responsible for getting me involved in music, he passed away before he saw me perform.   
 
A rattler! a rattler! – Pitchfork in hand, Cleo came running – Cleo and I were cutting and raking alfalfa hay on the farm in Stone.  He was on the mowing machine pulled by a team of horses.  I was on the “buck-rake” pulled by a single horse raking the new-mown hay into piles to dry.  I was startled when I looked down and saw I had uncovered the carcass of a four-foot long snake with its head cut off by the sickle-blade bar on the mowing machine Cleo was operating.  I jumped off the Buck-rake to inspect.  It was a huge blow-snake (Western hognose snake) – with striped coloration similar to a rattle snake.  
 
I coiled the body like it was prepared to strike and began calling to Cleo, “a rattler, a rattler.  Cleo stopped the horses, jumped off his mowing machine, grabbed the long-handled pitch-fork he carried on the machine and came running.  He saw the coiled snake and thrust the fork into the snake’s body, pinning it to the ground.  I laughed.  He saw the snake had no head; and was not impressed.
Commentary - Working the farm in Stone with horse-drawn equipment can be slow and boring for a thirteen-year-old boy.  I tricked Cleo and got a laugh at his expense.  He saw no humor in my feigned alarm. 
 
Upon reflection, all I did was insure if I had a real “rattlesnake problem” in the future and called to Cleo for help; like in the fable “The boy that cried wolf,” he may not come running the next time.  A good lesson for all practical jokesters.
 
High school football and wrestling – Cleo graduated the year before I started high school.  He played varsity football and was highly respected.  Because of his reputation, the coaches asked me to register for football my freshman year.  Registering for “Athletics” meant football practice in the spring and fall and wrestling during the winter.
 
While playing football my sophomore year, I was hit hard in my stomach; severely bruising my spleen.  As soon as I healed, I returned to school and the athletic program.  
Commentary – When I returned to the football program after my injury, I noticed the coaches had increased the exercises needed to harden player’s stomach muscles.  
 
I was not a standout athlete.  But some of my colleagues went on to do well playing football and track at different universities; Karl Jensen became the starting fullback for the University of Utah and Jay Silvester went to Utah State, standout in track and field; graduated from ROTC, stayed in the Army and became an Olympic bronze medalist for the United States in the discus throw. 
 
Even though it was physically difficult, I enjoyed playing football and wrestling.  Football taught me the importance of keeping in good physical shape and working as a team. 
 
Wrestling, a one-on-one competitive sport, taught me self-discipline.  Metaphorically speaking, I learned (don’t always follow) to never give up in spite of pain; persistence has its virtues; stay mentally alert to options - success can be just one quick hold or movement away.  
 
Tragedy, my father dies - I was just starting my sophomore year when my father died on October 18, 1951; a victim of stomach cancer and bleeding ulcers.  He was 68-years old.  
 
At the time of his death, Cleo and I were living at home.  Lloyd, had 18 months left of his 30-month Church mission in Norway.  Nona, Delphia and Vernon were married.
 
My parents had sold the farm in Stone just prior to Daddy’s death, but the transaction had not closed.  When it did close, mother used the proceeds to pay bills and make a down-payment on an 80-acre “Grade A” dairy farm (Grade A is dairy that meets high standards of cleanliness and refrigeration; routinely inspected to retain that status.).   The farm was located three miles west of Corinne and 15-miles south of our home in Tremonton.  
 
Cleo, had graduated from high school and essentially set all of his other life-priorities aside to take the lead in running the farm – irrigating and harvesting fields of alfalfa hay, field corn sugar beets and grain and milking 10-15 good quality dairy cows every morning and evening - using mechanical milking machines.  I worked on the farm when I was not in school.
Commentary – Daddy’s passing was a huge loss for us all, but was devastating for Mother.  She had lost her sweetheart and companion of 30 years.  She said, “I withdrew and felt sorry for myself.”
 
However, her attitude changed two years later.  She had made a batch of cookies and said she was taken aback when she saw Cleo and me devour all of the warm cookies with cold milk.  She said to herself, “I have got to get hold of myself, I still have two boys to raise.”
 
I didn’t realize it at the time, but for me as a 15-year-old boy, the loss of my father meant I had lost my mentor during the critical teenage years when young people are trying to understand their changing physical body as well as making life-changing decisions with a brain that is developing slower than the rest of the body.  (It is noteworthy that the University of Rochester Medical Center reported that the rational part of the brain does not reach maturity until around age 25.)
 
Cleo became my day-to-day mentor.  One time I must have said something to Cleo that was disparaging of mother, because I remember him saying, “Don’t you ever say anything like that about my mother again.”  I never did; quite the opposite.  I adored my mother.  
 
A decade and a half later after Mary Kay and I were married, living in Granada Hills, CA and Sandy Springs, GA, mother came to stay with us during the winters, Mary Kay commented on how much she loved mother.  She said, “Mother taught me more about life, cooking and handwork skills than I ever learned growing up in my own home.”

As a boy, I thought I would be a farmer – hugely unrealistic - As a young man, I foolishly believed that I could buy a farm and be successful.  Accordingly, I participated in 4-H clubs and Future Farmers of America.   
 
I was 15 when my mother bought the 80-acre dairy farm in Corrine.  I was impressed with the concrete milk house that we washed clean after every milking; mechanical milking machines (as opposed to milking cows by hand on a straw-covered floor) and milk refrigeration equipment that cooled fresh warm milk in a few seconds.  I was enamored with the tractors and other equipment that came with the farm, particularly the small John Deere caterpillar-type tractor that to me could travel, over every terrain.
 
My youthful exuberance clouded my understanding of the financial and business side of farming.  The farming industry was changing.  Small, inefficient, labor intensive family farms were in process of going out of business, being consolidated into larger corporate enterprises that benefited from economies of scale; spreading the cost of expensive equipment over greater acreage.   
Commentary - Compared to the horsepower-reliant farming we had in Stone, the farm in Corinne was an exciting step up.  But financially, it was break-even at best.   However, from a family standpoint it provided stability and fostered bonding relationships.
 
More life-changing events – Lloyd returns – Cleo is drafted – I’m in high school - When my father died, the Army draft-board gave Cleo a limited deferment - he was the only child mother had to run the farm.  When Lloyd returned from his mission 18 months later; the draft board in Brigham City did the unthinkable, they apparently decided they would force Lloyd; a 27-year-old U.S. Marine WWII veteran, would forgo his education and run the farm so they could legally revoke Cleo’s deferment.  
 
Lloyd was married in 1953 and lived in the Corinne farmhouse with his wife, Lillian.  He also found full-time work in Brigham City at Baron Woolen Mills to supplement the financial needs for his growing family.  I continued to work on the farm when I was not in school.
Commentary – The power of draft boards was absolute – quick and sometimes arbitrary.  In the case of my family, the board essentially forced military veteran Lloyd to give up his educational pursuits under the GI-Bill to run the farm so they could do what they wanted; legally draft Cleo into the Army for two years to serve at a time when our country was not at war. (The Korean war ended in 1953.  Conscription declined dramatically until the 1969 lottery draft began for people called to serve in the Vietnam War.)  
 
I can only speculate how the draft board (generally gubernatorial political appointees, installed by the Selective Service) could in good conscience justify their decision to draft Cleo.  But one thing is obvious; they gave no consideration to Lloyd, a WWII Veteran wanting to complete his education; and they blocked him.
However, God is involved in the detail of each of our lives.  Had the draft board acted differently, many very good things would not have happened in my family.   In the eternal scheme of things, that’s what’s most important.
 
I enjoyed singing – “You should have been in the A Cappella Choir” – I had a good singing voice like my father; but no training.  After two years in high school, I registered for a class in singing –called the Glee Club.  The high school also had an extracurricular program for more accomplished singers, the BRHS A Cappella Choir.  I did not try out for the Choir because I was untrained and I had no transportation for after-school practices and performances.  Additionally, there was a financial cost involved; money that my family did not have.
 
During my senior year, the Glee Club pianist, who also accompanied the A Cappella Choir, asked me to sit next to her and sing while she was accompanying the class.  When we finished the piece, she said, “You have a very nice voice, you should have been in the A Cappella Choir.”  
Commentary -   The pianist payed a nice compliment to me, but I would be graduating soon; too late to do anything about it.  Things could have been different if my musically-inclined father had lived.  But I am at peace with how things turned out.   I am still untrained, but for many years enjoyed singing in Church choirs.
 
Graduate from high school – Part-time work - register for the Army Draft – I graduated from high school in June, 1954.  That summer, Vernon secured a job for me assembling manure spreaders for the implement store in East Tremonton where he was employed.  The store received a shipment of several unassembled manure spreaders.  For the next several weeks, I worked assembling the equipment.  For the balance of the summer, I worked as a laborer for a local farmer.
 
That September, when I turned 18, I reported to the U.S. Army’s Fort Douglas Base in Salt Lake City for two-days of health evaluation and registration.   They classified me 1-A, ready for immediate call-up until I was 37-years-old.
 
Even though the Korean War (1950-1953) had ended, all 18-year-old men were still required to register for the draft.   The draft was activated again by lottery in 1969, during the Vietnam War to fill a shortfall in enlistments.  Only 18-26-year-old men were subject to the lottery.  I was 33 years old at the time, married with one child and living in Granada Hills, California.  I was never contacted.  
Commentary - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his advisors, brought the U.S. into the Vietnam War starting in 1955, purportedly to block the expansion of Communism through the rain-forests and jungles of Southeast Asia.  They placed increasing numbers of U.S. military in South Vietnam and neighboring countries in a failed war that divided America and took the lives of over two million people, principally Vietnamese civilians and military. Over 58,000 U.S. soldiers were killed or missing. 
 
The war ended in 1975 when U.S. President Gerald Ford announced its end - the U.S was pulling out.  U.S. and allied troops were being emergency-evacuated from South Vietnam leaving their former comrades to a likely terrible fate from an overland flood of North Vietnamese soldiers. 
 
County Fair – Stuffed animal prize and powerful lesson – One of my infrequent dates was going to the county fair.  Walking with my date through the concessions; we talked about winning a stuffed animal for her.  I thought I could win at the baseball-rolling, mechanical horse racing concession.  
 
My date and I observed how each player bought a ticket; then stood in front of a 6-ft. long chute with a hole at the far end – and given three baseballs.  Players competed with each other – the horse that got to the finish line first, won.  Every time a player rolled one of their baseballs into the hole, their horse, mounted on a cable, advanced a few inches on the 45-degree angle elevated race track that was painted and designed to simulate the straight portion of a horse-racing track.  The balls rolled back to the player whether it went into the hole or not.  The more times you won a game, the larger your stuffed animal prize.
 
Before we played, we observed the participants.  When they successfully rolled a baseball into the hole, most of them looked-up to watch their horse move, then looked down to roll another ball. 
 
I concluded if I was going to win, I had to focus on rolling baseballs into the hole as fast as I could; and not waste time looking up to see my horse advance.  We agreed that my date would do that for me; keeping me posted by her encouragement.  When we finally walked away from the concession, she had a big stuffed animal to take home.  
Commentary - That experience taught me a valuable lesson.  People are most successful when they define their objectives; mentally shut-out distractions and focus on what’s important.  However, I find myself often failing in that regard – I allow too many distractions.  
 
First full-time job (1955-1958) - Making automobile batteries – In the summer of 1954, Vernon got a job at an automobile battery manufacturing plant in Ogden; carpooling 25 miles from his home in Corinne.   He helped Cleo and me get jobs at the same facility.  We joined Vernon’s carpool to Ogden.  In addition to that job, Cleo and I continued to work with Lloyd in operating the dairy farm; including contributing part of our wages to subsidize the farm’s operation and purchase a used family car and a new, but inexpensive pickup truck.
    
When I resigned my employment at the battery plant in 1958 to serve my Church mission, I was classified as a “lead burner,” using an oxy-acetylene torch to weld the lead straps on battery cells.
 
Two-year Church mission – 1958-1960 (see Chapter 16) - After working three years at the battery plant, I told my ward Bishop that I wanted to serve a mission for the Lord Jesus Christ.  He facilitated my request.  
 
Financing my mission was an issue.  I explained that I had saved $800, some of my family members thought they could help, but I would still be short of the estimated $3,000 total cost for the two years.  He said I should not worry about money, he would ask certain members of our ward to help finance my mission.  
 
I left home to start my mission at the missionary training school in Salt Lake City in September 1958.  Two-weeks later I boarded a train with five other young men destined to serve in the then “Northern States Mission,” a geographical area comprising all or part of five states and headquartered in Chicago.  I served principally in Illinois and Wisconsin, albeit when I was called to be a “Traveling Elder,” I also worked with missionaries in Iowa and Eastern Nebraska.  
 
My mission was a pivotal experience.  I worked hard teaching the pristine Gospel of Jesus Christ and had several incredible experiences that confirmed His love and support for what I was doing.  My testimony of the truthfulness of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ increased both spiritually and intellectually.   I committed myself to stay focused on life-long learning, service to others and striving to keep God’s commandments.
Commentary - Serving a Church mission is a totally volunteer effort of time and money. For the unmarried, two missionaries of the same sex live together and share costs.  The monthly cost of living in Midwest cities at that time (renting a nice furnished apartment, food and incidentals) was $120 per person.
 
September, 1960 – Age 24 – Nona and Jim said, “Go to school” - While I was on my mission, my mother sold the dairy farm.   Just before I returned home, my sister Nona and her husband Jim, then living in Joliet, Illinois where Jim was working as a atomic physicist, sent $100 to me with the note that simply said; “Go to school.”  They had already been sending $20 a month to finance my mission.  I was blown away by their gesture.  They had 10 children and I was confident they needed the money for their family.  But they loved and cared for me enough to provide wise advice; a push and enough money for me to get started.  
 
This was another example of the hand of God in the detail of our lives; now coming unexpectedly from my sister and brother-in-law showing their unconditional, Christ-like love and generosity - at just the right time.  Remarkable!

Another miracle; I did not have to spend the $58 the Church gave me to buy a train ticket home.  I traveled with the parents of another missionary who had driven to Chicago to pick him up – they offered to give me a ride home, free of charge.  What generous people – I accepted. 
 
When I arrived home just before my 24th birthday, I had enough money to pay tuition and books for the fall quarter at Utah State University. (Several years later, Utah schools went to the three-semester system vs. four quarters).  
 
I lived with my mother in East Tremonton and carpooled the 25 miles to Logan with other students.   Mother saved enough money from the sale of the farm to pay my tuition and books for the next two quarters.  
Commentary - Mother’s sale of the farm was a blessing for me.  As a practical matter, small labor-intensive farms were becoming a thing of the past; replaced by larger corporate operations that benefited from technological innovation and economies of scale.   I did not understand what was happening in the agriculture industry at the time, but I knew that our farm was losing money and I no longer wanted to be a farmer.  
 
Even though I was grateful for my farming experience, I determined that if I was to have an acceptable livelihood, I needed a college education – and I needed it fast.  Many of my high school friends were well ahead of me; all were married, some had served missions and had graduated from college, employed in their chosen careers or in process of getting their masters or doctorate degrees.
My immediate goal was to get a job working nights so that I could finance my education - going to school full-time during the day.  According to my plan, I would delay marriage until I had a bachelor’s degree and started my career.
 
Age 24 – already “an old man?” – Some school friends told me that some of the 18-year-old freshman women (who would have been the same age as Mary Kay at the time) called me an “old man.”  That information certainly would have limited the dating pool, if I had one.  
 
I thought to myself: “I need to focus, work harder, complete my education and get on with my life.  I don’t want to be poor anymore and I will work extremely hard to make sure that did not happen.”

“You might make it as an accountant” – Three weeks after starting school, I was shaken to learn how poorly I was doing in two science classes.  I thought to myself, “I had better get things turned around quick or polish-up my ditch-digging skills.”   One of my friends suggested I see the school counselor at the administration building.   
 
The counselor was understanding and said, “You need to take an aptitude test.  You can take it now in the outside office and return in a week for the results.”  
 
A week later: “So, what’s my strongest aptitude?   You should be an artist!   Pause; what’s my second strongest aptitude?  You would do well as a musician.  Extended pause; Do I have a third strongest aptitude?  “You might make it as an accountant.”
 
I concluded on the spot that I would complete my first quarter classes (I salvaged a 2.5 GPA) and change my major to accounting.  The counselor helped me select the classes I needed.  I now had an academic plan; I would graduate with a degree in accounting.
Commentary – As I listened to the school counselor review the results of my aptitude test, I was not surprised that art and music featured prominently; but when I heard it from his mouth, it sounded very impractical.  The only successful artists I knew were dead.  And I had very little musical training.  I figured my ability to find acceptable employment in either of those disciplines was not good.   
 
Accounting on the other hand, sounded more reasonable.  My Church mission president was a partner in Touche, Ross, Baily and Smart (now Deloitte & Touche), one of the then “Big Eight” international public accounting and auditing firms (his partners granted him a 3-year leave-of-absence to serve his mission).  He was a terrific role model in all respects.  With no more knowledge about accounting than that, I felt confident I could make it work.  I could, “make it as an accountant.”  
 
As it turned out, fifteen years after my interview, I was a partner with Arthur Andersen & Co., Atlanta, Georgia office, one of largest of the “Big Eight” international accounting, auditing, tax and business-consulting firms.  (Chapter 11).  
 
As I look back on my experiences with Arthur Andersen, I am astonished!  Only with God’s help could a poor farm boy with no business experience have an exceptional career with one of the most prestigious professional public accounting and consulting firms in the industrialized world.   Incredible!
 
Work nights and go to school full-time – Before my freshman year at Utah State ended, the local natural gas utility announced it was hiring construction workers for the summer to install gas lines to the homes and businesses in Tremonton.  They hired me and I saved enough money for another year of school (tuition, books and clothing – no car).

Several months later, Lloyd and Cleo, then employed at Thiokol Chemical Corporation’s chemical laboratory located 20 miles west of Corinne (Thiokol), found a job for me on the night shift working at the lab.  Thiokol had the military contract for making solid propellant for the Minuteman Missile.
 
Thiokol had a few thousand employees at its sprawling site, working three shifts.  My job was to drive a company pickup to designated bunker-protected locations, draw samples of new shipments of liquid and dry chemicals and take them to the lab for testing.    
Commentary – I was delighted to get the job.  I could now finance my education and buy the car I needed to drive between home, work and school.  The car I selected, was a new white Chevrolet two-door Impala that was setting on the dealer’s showroom floor; sporty looking, but no air-conditioning. 

Atheist psychology professor - attacking religion and looking for converts - My psychology professor, an apparent atheist, enjoyed putting forth concepts designed to shake the faith of “Christians,” particularly members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as though that was what he was hired to do.  
 
He was at his best when he could get students to believe and join him in advancing his false narratives.  He did poorly when students challenged the factualness of his sweeping assertions.  
 
He often asserted that “what we think is real, is not really real at all” (whatever that means).  To make his points, he often set-up “straw men” ideas of what “people” believe and then proceed to attack the straw-man he created.  However, he struggled, and tried to change the subject or doge when class members attacked the accuracy of his “straw man” assertions.   
 
One of his strawmen was asserting “Christians” believe the earth was created in either six 24-hour days or six 1,000-year periods.  
 
I challenged him; pointing out that while some people interpret “day” literally, using their calendar, not all Christian churches teach the same thing.  For example, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches there were indeed six creative periods called either a “day” or a “time” (Genesis 1 and PGP, Abraham 4), but does not specify how long each of those periods were - or whether they overlapped.  Further, the concept of time is a man-made measure based on the rotations of the earth and has no relevance outside earth’s surface; certainly not in God’s frame of reference.  When confronted with his simplistic misspeak, he had no retort – and quickly moved on to the lesson material he was paid to teach.
 
Another atheistic professor – also looking for converts - My “Great Books and Ideas” professor sought to convince the class that the reason different cultures and religions across the globe have certain similarities in their beliefs is because they observed it in nature.  She supported her idea by approving what one class member described as two primitive people living on different continents sitting on a river bank and seeing a leaf or a stick floating on the water - and simultaneously coming up with the idea they could build a boat for themselves.  
 
I commented that while such concept may sound logical for building a raft or a canoe, it does not fit when it comes to explaining why there are threads of common beliefs in different world religions – people separated by oceans and continents.  
 
I pointed out that such phenomenon is more rationally explained by recognizing that all people have a common origin.  All originated from Adam and Eve and later Noah and were taught correct principles before they scattered across the earth.  
 
Then, left to their own devices and without written scriptural records, their culture and religion did not evolve, but rather devolved, with some distorted form of the original beliefs surviving. Millenia later, there is sufficient commonality in practices that a knowledgeable observer can see the linkage between their distorted beliefs and the original practice or doctrine.    
 
For example, I explained, blood sacrifice of animals and humans is common in many ancient cultures across the globe.  The common source of their sometimes-horrendous practices was animal sacrifice practiced by Adam and Eve, as referenced in Christian and Jewish scriptures.  
 
I pointed out that the reason God commanded them and their descendants to kill and shed the blood of a firstborn lamb without blemish, and burn parts of it on an alter; is because it was an offering to God to commemorate the infinite sacrifice that was to come when Jesus Christ, “the Lamb of God” would come to earth in the meridian of time to redeem mankind from death and sin by the shedding of His own blood in Gethsemane (Luke 22: 44) and on the cross. (John 1: 29, 36; BM: 1 Nephi 13: 40, Alma 7: 14 and 3 Nephi 9: 19-20 and PGP Moses 5: 5-12)
 
When my professor heard my logic, she immediately dropped her argument that “religious ideas come from observing nature,” and went back to teaching from the text; something she should have been doing all along.
Commentary - I have learned to never let people tell you what you believe and then attack you based on their interpretation of your belief.  
 
It is best to immediately challenge their false assertions.  When you correct them or turn the question to them, the accusers typically become frustrated or pull-back.  They become doubly embarrassed if you turn the tables and ask them what they believe on the point, often ill-prepared, their response is generally incomplete or defies logic – they are embarrassed. 
 
A case in point; during the presidential election of 2012, candidate Mitt Romney, an active member of the Church was criticized by First Baptist Church minister of Dallas, Robert Jeffress, who said to a national TV audience that “Mormonism is a cult.”  When asked why he believed that, he essentially said because the Church does not accept the (non-biblical) traditional creeds of “mainstream Christianity.”  
 
(Creeds developed by councils and committees’ centuries after Jesus Christ, e.g., the Nicene Creed developed in A.D. 325 by the Nicaean Council called and presided over by pagan Roman Emperor Constantine, or the similar Apostle’s Creed (disputed dates of origin, but today’s version published circa A.D. 700), and the Athanasian Creed, published circa A.D. 500.)
 
Former U.S. Secretary of Education Bill Bennett was on the same forum, speaking after Jeffress and called him out; saying in effect that Christians are people who believe in Christ and try to follow Him and His Gospel as best they can, regardless of denomination.  He pointed out that Jeffress was out of line and admonished him, “Do not give voice to bigotry.  Do not give voice to bigotry. … you did no good, sir, in what you had to say.”  
 
Bennett was right in saying Christians are people who believe in Christ.  Creeds and traditions are man’s creations and have no bearing on people’s individual belief about Jesus Christ.
 
A noteworthy anomaly: Except for the Church, Christian denominations agree on asserting the Holy Bible contains all of God’s word; there is no more revelation from God; the Biblical cannon is fixed and closed.  On the other hand, they have added creeds and traditions over the centuries to which they seem to give equal or greater weight than the Bible.  (Appendix 2).
 
My view on the matter is summed-up by Jesus Christ’s statement when he and our Father in Heaven appeared to Joseph Smith in 1820, “… all of their creeds (are) an abomination in his sight...” (PGP, Joseph Smith History 1:19, Appendix 2 and 5).
 
Valuable lesson - Economics’ professor; “You can’t save money by spending it” – A professor in one of my economics classes taught an important practical lesson on money management.  He and his wife were shopping for a washing machine at Sears.  The young salesman helping them, directed their attention to a more expensive model that was on sale; pointing out how much money they could save if they bought that model.   To make his point to the class, this astute and elderly professor raised his slightly palsy-shaking right hand in the air and told us what he said to the salesman: “My boy, you can’t save money by spending it.” 
 
Another economics’ professor:  Learn to speak and write good English – One economics professor taught the class as much about English as he did economics.  He told his students to become proficient in English.  He said, “Whatever you do in life, it will require a command of the English language to properly explain and defend your position.”  
 
To emphasize his point, he said, “Some of you will complete this course with a very good understanding of economics, but because you do not have good writing skills to express yourselves on your essay exams, you will get a “B.”  On the other hand, some of you will not fully understand economic theory, but will get an “A” because you know how to express yourself.” 
Commentary - Because of this professor’s instruction, I added several English classes to my curriculum.  Years later when speaking to students on campus, I emphasized the importance of taking relevant English classes; saying that whatever you do for a living, you generally will need to explain it; verbally, in writing or both.   
 
Must work day shift – option, lose year at USU or transfer to WSU – After a few months on the job, my shift boss told me I was scheduled to work days for a month for additional training.  He was kind to choose a time when I would only miss one quarter of school.  But it still upset my education plan.  Utah State did not offer certain upper-division accounting classes until the following year. 
 
My boss suggested I check-out Weber State University.  Wonderful, Weber State offered the same upper-division classes I needed starting the next quarter, I could still graduate in 1964.  I immediately transferred to Weber State and found an apartment off campus.  I was pleasantly surprised that Thiokol also provided low-fare bus service from Ogden to its plant site – I could sleep on the bus during my commute.  
 
I did not know it at the time, but there was a hugely more important reason I transferred.  I needed to be at Weber State at that time.  It was where I would meet Mary Kay.
Commentary – I did not see it at the time, but it later became apparent to me that my transfer to Weber State was more than another coincidence.  Similar to Mary Kay’s circumstances and decisions that caused her to delay starting college; then choosing Weber State; we both needed to be at Weber State at that specified time in order to meet and fall in love.  If either of us missed that narrow window of opportunity, we would not have met.
 
It is another illustration that God is involved in the detail of every person’s life, to the extent we allow it.  Mary Kay saw those divine influences at work long before me.  However, with her and God’s help, I came to understand that if we ask for God’s help and strive to find and obey His laws, ordinances and commandments outlined in His pristine Gospel, He will help us – but if we choose to turn away, we “have no promise.” (D&C 82:10).