Grant

Grant

GRANT ARTHUR ANDERSON (written by sister Loraine Anderson Winger)

also known by us as Uncle Cy

Grant Arthur Anderson was the first son of the family of Arthur Homer Anderson and Margaret Sophia Bailey Anderson. He was born the 23 of July 1920 in a little three room home in Monticello, Utah. The country Doctor in attendance was Dr. Bussey assisted by Grandmother Annie Bailey.

His father was a handsome, blonde, athletic man with early pioneer heritage. The Anderson Grandparents had been Mormon Pioneers to Sanpete area of Utah . (Niels was from Sweden and Maria was from Denmark.) The Bailey grandparents were English (Nephi) and Denmark (Annie) to the Cedar City area and latter to the San Juan mission. Grant’s mother was small in stature. She had beautiful long brown hair which reached to her waist. She was an accomplished pianist and loved to write as well as read good poetry and had a flair for dramatics. The home was soon filled with his blonde sister, Loraine arriving Dec. 31, 1921 and another sister, Margaret who arrived on January 7, 1924. The last sibling, Jack was born March 21, 1926. This was a close knit family filled with love, music, laughter and hard work.

Arthur had come to Monticello region along with three young men named Pehrson and one named Jensen. These young men obtained land opened to homesteading in the area East and South of Monticello. They all married local girls and remained in the area most of their lives.

When the family of Arthur and Margaret (or Maggie as affectionately nicknamed) was established another homestead was obtained in the Summit Point area in Margaret’s name. Arthur did all the work of improving the land to the point of production. These were busy hard years. Arthur was a very ambitious and hard worker with the talents needed . He had spent all of his life in an agriculture area. He had all the attributes of a successful farmer.

About the time Grant was ready to start kindergarten, the family was back in the three-room house in town. Maggie was expecting a third baby. The family needed more room and a new home was purchased bout two blocks from the original one. This was to be the y home Grant knew during his maturing years. The one exception was a winter Arthur spent working in the coal mines in Carbon County. This new house was comparatively spacious with a large living and dining room combination. There was a lovely fireplace two bookcases, and large windows. Two bedrooms with an adjoining (unfinished) bathroom included lots of storage. A large kitchen with a pantry had space for the table, a woodburning cook stove, and a cold water tap was comfortable . Porches on the North and South ran the full length of the house. There was also an East porch which held the icebox needed for the icebox. A clothes line running on a pulley to the big cottonwood tree at the far end of the lawn provided the convenience of standing in one place to hang the washing. Water was heated in a reservoir on the cook stove. Baths were taken in a big round tub hanging on the back porch and drawn near to this stove for comfort. A little house out-back served other needed purposes and was well supplied with the discarded Montgomery Ward or Sears catalog.

About a half acre surrounded the house and supplied needed garden space as well as a small orchard of mostly apple trees and plums. (Winters were severe and other varieties could not survive at the high altitude.) There was a small barn , haystack and corrals, a pigpen and chicken coop, a watering trough for the livestock. The granary was necessary and an icehouse provided the needed cooling help for summer perishables. Other needs were met with a smokehouse and a “so called”garage. This building in reality served as a working shed for needed repairs and inventions of the resourceful owner. And not to mention the woodpile! This was the function that plagued the boys of town . It seemed the box by the kitchen range needed constant refilling. Perhaps the most hated tool was the spade, but it was a toss-up with the ax.

Things looked well for the little family, as both parents worked hard and were skilled in the needed talents. The two homesteads were planted in the red hard dry farm wheat which was grown by fall planting and ripening before the summer heat took away all hopes for moisture.

Margaret (Maggie) was bothered with poor health from early girlhood. Wanting to someday have children of her own, she delayed needed surgery until after the birth of Jack. Household help for the heavy chores needing attention was supplied by hired women. The children were comfortable with a helper for Mother. The girls were well trained in their early years with housework, but also helped the boys with the outside chores.

Grant, being the oldest, accompanied his father on all the care of the livestock, the garden, the feeding, watering, hoeing, cutting, hauling, chopping, digging ,mending and other chores needed. But he found time to pester his sisters, ride his horses, climb trees, build forts not only of wood and dirt but in banks of snow and sometime in trees. He had many friends with the same interests and even tolerated school to a degree.

Things looked well for the small family and both parents worked hard. The two dry farms were planted with the hard red wheat which would mature in early summer before the drowth and heat came. There was a bevy of family members including grandparents, cousins by the bushel and places to explore, and dreams for the future. There was a modest savings in the bank and an account started for the future education for Grant.

Maggie’s health had been poor most of her life. This made the hiring of household help necessary. The children were accustomed to having this help. Never the less, the girls were well trained in household tasks as well as helping with the outside work. Grant had learned all the skills needed in keeping things going. He was ready to start first grade with Miss Jessie Bradshaw . This teacher was to teach all the children in the family in the early grades.

Then the Depression hit! The banks failed. Next came a series of dry years and loans for seed were required. There was no employment to be had in the area . That fall the parents decided to rent their home to School Teachers and move to a mining camp in Carbon County. Their home was in a place called Sweets and was close to Price. They lived in a tent-house which was a tent with a rough lumber floor. The water was supplied through a cold water tap in the dooryard, but there was electricity.Here Loraine started first grade and Grant enrolled in third in a one-room schoolhouse with eight grades and one teacher. They thought it was great fun! They could watch the loaded or empty trains come and go up the canyon with the precious coal .This was their first encounter with trains or people of different cultures. They had been used to the Mexican immigrants and as few of the local Indians around Monticello, but Japanese , Italians and Greeks were new to them.

Two of the Bailey Uncles, Jesse and Elmer were also hired at the same mine. They lived in a three story bunkhouse just down the hill. One night the children were awaken by the noise and light in the tent. There was great apprehension with their parents about the Uncles. The bunkhouse was completely engulfed in flames. The Uncles could not be located in the excitement. The children remembered the rest of their lives the vision of red on the tent and the great clamor as people were brought from the burning building. The Uncles were found later as they returned from a Movie in Price. They had lost everything but the clothes on their backs and the treasures in their pockets.

Mother then refused to live in the tent house any longer and the family were able to locate a basement apartment in Price. The apartment was a new experience . It was one of two in the basement and shared a common bathroom. The other apartment housed a family by the name of Traynor and they had a son named Jackie. The children loved living there and they loved their larger school. Santa’s visit was coming soon and a highlight of the season was their first experience in a visit to the big J.CPenny Store in Price. Prior to this their wishing had all been over a catalog from Sears or Montgomery Ward. Margaret and Loraine were able to actually see and select the right dolls and Grant and Jack experienced great difficulty making a decision but settled on a sled and a first truck.

When Christmas morning arrived , they were amazed that Santa was able to find them so far from home. But the highlight of that Christmas was the gift that Jackie Traynor received. It was a foot propelled car that you could really ride in. They could not imagine such a wonderful gift. There was soon a race track around the two apartments and through the bathroom doors on both sides. Finally the Traynor mother was forced to limit the over enthusiastic Anderson children to one or two rides a day.

Springtime brought the end of employment in the mines and the family was moved n moving back to Monticello but not to their own house. It was still under lease till school ended , so they took up residence in part of Grandmother Bailey’s home. This suited the children wonderfully, but the arrangement was hard on the parents. There were just too many cousins within the surrounding blocks. The house resounded with their voices and nothing was overlooked when it came to possible entertainment (or mischief ) that presented itself.

Grant became very interested in riding horses especially. Uncle Elmer had so many good riding horses for the would-be cowboys to practice on or race with down the dusty streets. Those who he especially enjoyed were Keith, Kirk, Jed and Dick. Loyse was his ideal. The Jensen twins ,Quinn and Lyle also made an addition to the gang. These boys could be found climbing in Grandmother Bailey’s orchard, swinging from the ropes in the hay barn, feuding with the girls or any number of invented games. They became very skilled at the art of Mumbly-peg with the pocket knife. Grant became especially good at playing marbles. He had a regular treasure cache of trophy “agates”, “taws, or “steelies from his marble games. Holes in the knees of his pants were testimonials to the hours spent in these pursuits. He also loved to try his skill on the baseball field (like Dad) or the tricks on the monkey bars at the school playground.

He had already suffered one broken bone in his leg. This happened when he was five. He had tied his horse to a fence and was on top of the slippery slide. Another boy older and bent on mischief tried to appropriate the horse. The quickest way down because he was in the middle of a line on the slide was naturally down a supporting pole. So to the rescue he went with the end result of crutches and no horse back riding for a time.

A little brown puppy came to the family about the time they moved back into their own home. He was a sweet tempered dog of mixed breeds with long thick brown coat. He lived with the family for about 13 years as a beloved member—but never received a name other than Pup. Later in life Grant did obtain another dog with German Shepherd in his lineage. This was a one-man dog and he never accepted anyone else. He tolerated the rest of the family, but would not allow strangers to enter the yard. After repeated warnings from the Watermaster, Mother had the dog disposed of . Grant never forgave her for this decision.

Wintertime in Monticello found the young people riding down the hill South of town that was called Creek Hill. All the clothes they could find were piled on their bodies to keep them warm, but they were inadequate many times for the desired result. They enjoyed great times. When a CCC Camp came to Monticello in the thirties the town kids could be found hitching a ride in the back of their truck from the bottom of the hill to the top again.

The CCCs brought another advantage to this small town in the form of a movie picture for free each weekend. There had been Moving Pictures before in the old Young Theater , but they were silent movies with the dialogue printed on the screen and accompanied by a player piano.

These were talking pictures. The whole community would attend including many parents trying to keep an eye on their young people. There would be a truck come to town before the shows and anyone willing to ride in a dump truck was welcome. A return truck would leave within a half hour of the end. If it was missed, there was a long walk back into town.

Grant loved to play ball of all kinds and was an especially good athlete. His greatest love was basketball. That was what kept him at school and tied to home. His father ahead of him was also gifted in playing baseball, running, wrestling and basketball. Grant did enjoy the shop classes and chemistry in school but in spite of his exposure to good music and literature in the home didn’t seem to enjoy the English music or history type of classes. He loved action and was a good gymnast and LOVED to dance. The nickname of Cy (Cy Scissors) was bestowed on him by his cousin Keith and he heard it affectionately for the rest of his life. He was to lose this cousin in a hit and run accident in Long Beach, California about 1934 or 35.

About the time Grant became a teenager and had his first drivers license he discovered girls. He was popular with the girls and seemed to have one in each of the neighboring towns. Any excuse to get to drive to one of them was of utmost importance. Dances were held as part of the celebration of almost anything. And if there was a marriage everyone in the community was invited to the festivities. All it took was to get the permission to use some parent’s pickup or car, fill it with as many young people as it would hold, pool all the resources (a gallon of gas was 25 or 30 cents, they needed at least two or three to get there and back) and they were all set. If there wasn’t a dance in town there was one each weekend at the CCC Camp, or Out East, or later at one of the Dude Ranches.

The depression was in full swing. Father was obliged to seek employment wherever there was some available. He took Grant with him if there was something he might be able to hire on to do. This would leave Mother and the girls and Jack to keep the home going. They had to care for the animals, the gardens, the irrigation and the housework. One particularly poignant experience occurred when Father won a contract to bring poles out of the canyon for building either a telephone line or electric line. He at this time owned a beautiful head of matched work horses, named Blaze and Belle. Many times Grant and one of his sisters had ridden on their backs from some piece of machinery to water or to the field. This day Grant and his Father had returned from the mountains for the weekend and Grant was driving the team to pasture along the road. A neighbor woman saw the boy in the road, but because of the sunlight in her eyes did not realize he was driving horses. She dodged to miss the boy and hit the horses breaking a leg on each. None of the family had ever seen their father cry before that night, when he had to destroy his beautiful team and give up the dream of money to sustain the little family through a winter.

The Depression deepened.. Having traveled with his Father some Grant became restless and with one friend or another started to thumb his way across the country. He traveled back to the home towns of some of the boys he had met in the CCCs taking in the Midwest and Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan. The summer of 1940 found him in the Iowa area. On Memorial Day 1940 his brother Jack met with a terrible accidental drowning in an irrigation pond. Grant could not be located. He had left his Aunt Thelma’s house in Demoin, Iowa headed for home. The highway patrol was alerted, but he was able to reach Salt Lake City and was walking down Main street when he met his mother’s cousin by the name of Olive. She told him the news. The Police were able to get a ride for him on a mail truck going to Helper. Loraine and Margaret along with a friend Bruce Frost met him there in the early morning of the next day to complete the trip to Monticello.

This was a hard experience for all concerned . Mother was completely devastated. Jack was such a great boy. He was so happy and such a born leader. The whole family had spoiled him but he was not spoiled. The year of his death he was keeping a almost daily diary in which he wrote about his love for his brother and his great concern for Grant.

Grant still seemed to be restless, and his mother finally persuaded him to try attending Carbon College. This proved to be a good move for him. He made the basketball team at the school and also obtained his GED.He then went to Salt Lake where he worked some with an old CC friend, Willard Barlage who was cooking in a restraunt there. Loraine was also enrolled at LDS Business college in Salt Lake and they had good times together there.

When she returned to Monticello to take employment he soon followed. It was here that he again renewed his old friendships, joined city Recreation group newly organized to play in a league. The organizer was the new High School Coach who became his very dear friend for the rest of his life This new coach started to date Loraine and eventually became Grant’s Brother in Law. The two played well together and in the final game for the season became the MVPs and Outstanding Forward of the region in a tournament held at the Fort outside of Cortez, Colorado.

Loraine and Ira were married and Father and Mother were moving Loraine to Ogden , Utah where Ira had obtained employment at the Ogden Arsenal. They had plans to leave Monticello and go to Afton, Wyoming for the next year. It was July 4, 1941 and there was an accident in the Price Canyon. Mother was killed and Loraine hospitalized in serious condition. It was another shocking time for all. Grant was particularly devastated. Father was still working in Uravan, Colorado. Margaret would be graduating from High School the next Spring. Loraine and Ira returned to Monticello to be with Margaret and take care of Grandmother Bailey.

Grant was lost . He and a close friend, Wally Robson decided to travel on their thumbs again and went to the Midwest visiting Minnesota to look up old CCC friends, Michigan, Kentucky and even into Mississippi. Dec. 7 1941 found them there. They heard of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Wally was a member of the National Guard Reserves and was required to report to the nearest Recruiting Office. Grant decided he must enlist also and within the next two days had joined the Navy and was on his way to Boot Camp. His assignment as soon as he finished Boot Camp was on a Flat Top. He was to spend the rest of his life serving in the Navy with the exception of about two years immediately after the end of the war. The next time his Sisters and Father saw him was in San Fransisco when his had docked for repairs. Father had brought the family down to Los Angeles for Ira to be recruited into the Navy. There was also a first nephew to see. A fast trip was made and they were able to spend a few hours of his leave with him there.

The next time anyone in his family were to see him he had again come on his ship into San Francisco and he received word that his Father was in danger of dying in a hospital in Grand Junction , Colorado. He had just run his leave out, but was able to obtain special days and with the help of friends flew to see his Father. Loraine and Ira were in the Navy at San Diego and were unable to get home. This was yet another test for this young Sister Margaret and her brother. But it turned out happily and Father lived until 1956. Grant went on to complete 25 years in the Service of his country.

The record of his service is in a memorial document given at the time of the deposit of his Ashes at the Navy Military Memorial in San Diego. However during the two or so years immediately following the World War he left the service to try civilian life. He spent a few months in Roy with Loraine and Ira and their family and was joined by Vera, his wife who had been transferred to the Naval section in Clearfield, Utah. They bought a home in Clearfield and their first son, George was born in Ogden. Loraine became the first baby sitter for George as she teamed him up with her three. A decision was made by Grant and Vera for him to rejoin the Navy which he did and she followed him when she could. One assignment was Recruiting in Casper, Wyoming. His family was able to see him occasionally while at that post. When they settled again in the Chula Vista area they were able to get together on occasion.

Grant was so proud of his boys and the wonderful men they had become. They too loved sports and excelled at especially his favorite sport of basketball. He would go to any length to be able to watch them play often traveling hundreds of miles. He was so proud that both attended college on a scholarship for their outstanding records. He felt the greatest accomplishment of his life was the honor of being their Father.

The marriage to Vera eventually ended in divorce and eventually Grant married again. His second wife was Antoinette Marie Schmidt and they lived in Long Beach, San Juan Capistrano , San Clemente and eventually had a home Temecula all in California. While in Long Beach Toni, his wife let the Mormon Missionaries into their home because she knew it was Grant’s religion. She joined the LDS faith and the later years of their lives became faithful members. Their marriage was solemnized in the Los Angeles Temple.

The last years for all the family of Grant were filled with heartache. He became a victim of the terrible malady of Alzheimer and went through all the stages of becoming helpless and lost memory and recognition of his loved ones. He died in a Rest Home for victims of this disease in El Cajon, California. His ashes are in the Navy Memorial in San Diego, California. We loved him dearly.