Memories of Cumer Arden Green

Memories of Cumer Arden Green

Memories of Cumer Arden Green

Nov. 15, 1973

It is my 68th birthday that I start to jot down some of the eventful things that happened to me during my sojourn here on this earth. Due to the persisting of my youngest daughter LaNae I will proceed to do the best I can to leave this life history so that my progenity can read and see how we lived and survived during the greater part of the 20th century...1905 until 1973...the present time.

I was born on Marsh Creek, 3 miles west of McCammon, in the east room of a log house owned by my Grandfather Jared Green. As there was no doctor, in this part of the world at that time I was brought into the world by Mrs. Goodenough, who they called we nurses in those days. Incidentally, her great-grandson is my physician now who performs his duties in Malad, Idaho. Nov. 15, 1905 was the day the eldest son of Cumer and Nellie Green was born, a bouncing boy of 12 lbs. Later my parents bore 5 more sons: Reynold, Howard, George, Leon, and Donald. We lived at the time on the town site in McCammon, Idaho, in a two room home in the wintertime and on the bench on a 200 acre ranch that my Dad homesteaded 5 miles west of McCammon. This land was covered with sagebrush and willow trees, choke cherries and service berries. This is probably where the best recollection of my Father Cumer Green was indented in my mind.

My Great-grandfather Henry Marble of Deweyville, Utah offered my Dad $1000.00 check to let me come and live with them as I was his first great-grand child. He had come over the plains to Salt Lake City at an early age of 8 or 9 years. He had known Joseph Smith and had given him a drink of water when he went to Carthage Jail. Joseph Smith laid his hands on his head and blessed him and told him he would come west and found a new place to live (which was Deweyville, Utah) and live to a ripe old age (he lived to 92). (Joseph also told him that he was “going like a lamb to the slaughter”.) His wife was a Burbank and her ancestors came over on the Mayflower and landed at Plymouth Rock. Their name was White and I understand that they fought in the American Revolutionary War and one of them was a Lieutenant. She was also related to the great Horiculturist Luther Burbank of the California fame. It is said my mother was a duplicate of her so I also must look like her as I favor my mother in looks.

My Grandfather Green was born in Utah, his father coming from England and first settled in Cedar City and then moving to Kaysville, Utah and then Woodruff, Idaho. He is buried in Portage, Utah, 100 years ago now. Grandfather Green moved to Idaho when this part of the country was opened up to homesteading from an Indian Reservation. He jumped out of a train window in Blackfoot, Idaho and was first to the Court House in the race to get the property. He had 13 children and he took up a plot on Marsh Creek and the Bench for all of them that were of age. He became a large cattle rancher plus 3 or 4 herds of sheep before he died. He was a typical western hard worker with a fear of no man in his soul, loved good horses and was a good provider. I spent many hours in his presence as he and I would mow the hay while the rest of the community workers would do the rest of the work putting in the stack. He used to call me a milking machine when we did chores together. With his gruff ways he had a big heart. Once in a while he would slip me a dime for some candy.

My Grandmother Deloretta Harris Green, was a descendant of Robert Harris who was one of the early of the migration of Mormons to the west (a member of the Mormon Battalion). She was a hard working woman and raised a family of 13 plus cooking for workers and family. She kept food on her cook stove 24 hours a day and everyone was welcome both Indians and Pale faces. One story I remember real well that “Portneuf Charlie” would come sit down at the table and help himself to food. When he was thru eating he would get up to go, wash his hands and face and leave. This really perturbed Grandma Green because he didn't wash before ate. They lived in a log house on Marsh Creek directly west of McCammon. They had a big spring near the house that they built a shed over and kept their milk and butting in this cold spring during summer months.

My Grandfather on my mother's side was Edwin Gittins and he, his father and brothers and sisters came to America from England. However, his oldest sister and youngest brother (Edward) were left in Wrexham (Wales). Later they came to Utah. (His mother had died and his father (George) left the baby Edward with his wife's parents who did not like Mormons. When the oldest sister had saved enough money to come to America she went to see Edward and asked if she could take him with her to America. The grandparents said no. Then she asked if she could take him for some candy and say goodbye to him, they let her. So, she got on the boat and brought him to America.) They settled in Menden, Utah which is close to Logan. (When George got to Utah with his children, after traveling on the ship and railroad, they were so covered with lice the Bishop's wife cut all their hair and gave them a good scrubbing in lye soap.) He worked for the U.P. Railroad for some 30 years and it is my knowledge that he helped build the Logan temple and he saw Brigham Young dedicate it. Another incident of note is when they built the wide gauge railroad to Butte, Montana he and another man pushed a handcart over the tracks to inspect it before a train was sent over it. It took them 30 days. They eventually moved to McCammon and he was a section foreman here for many years and settled on 160 acres south of here 2 miles, plus 100 acres on Marsh Valley. He was a deeply religious man and held many offices in the church and was County Commissioner, on the School Board and other offices. He also served a mission in Texas. This was in the days when they traved without purse or script.

His father George Gittins Senior lived until he was 99 years and 9 months and always wanted to lived until he was 100 but didn't make it. They say he liked to chew tobacco and quit at 99 so it probably killed him. Anyway, one thing I remember about him is they had an Old Folks party every year and he would always stand on his head and do the Irish Jig with his feet. This went on until he died. (He also played the “Squeeze Box”.)

Now looking at Grandma Gittins, she was born Mary B. Marble at Deweyville, Utah. As our father died when we were young, most holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Sundays were spent at her house. She was a real fine cook and treated us as if we were her own children and she raised about 13 of her own. There must be a star for people like her in heaven, no one could say a bad word about us of mistreat us. She had a big garden and a large fruit orchard plus a big cellar to keep the produce in the wintertime. There was always plenty of food plus pork, foul and beef which was slaughtered every fall.

This gives a pretty good background of my immediate ancestors so I will delve into the life I can remember as a child and growing up. One of the first I have a faint memory of was that when I was about 3 years old. My Dad and Mother hooked 3 horses on a sheep wagon and made a trip to Deweyville, Utah to get a load of fruit, particularly peaches and cherries, plus going to see Grandfather and Grandmother Marble. As it is approximately 80 miles from McCammon it took a week for a round trip. I can also remember when Reynold was born as he was 3 years and 3 months younger. It was at Grandfather Gittin's house 2 miles south of McCammon. We lived in a log cabin south of their house. It was the middle of winter in January and the next day going over to see him and I got caught in a snow drift and Dad had to get me out.

On the land that we homesteaded we had to break ground out of sagebrush. We first hooked horses on a rail and ran over the brush to break it down then gather it into a pile and set fire to it and burn it. We plowed it with a 4 horse set-up and hand plow. I used to ride on one of the horses' backs and Dad would hold the plow. It was a tedious job as we were only able to break out an acre a day. Dad always said that a good crop of sagebrush would assure the land was fertile and would grown a good crop of grain or alfalfa. This proved to be true.

At this time we had a high water right out of Bell Marsh Canyon so we dug a ditch from there to our Ranch ending at the next ranch which belonged to Uncle Erban, Dad's brother. All the ranches in between were also supplied with water. This made it possible for us to grow good gardens, also alfalfa along with grain so we had good feed for out stock. This was very important as horses were the means of transportation.

Planting and harvesting the crops has some fine memories for me as there was no mechanical drawn equipment, it was all done by horses. For grain you plowed the land then harrowed it or leveled it. Then drilled it in. In the fall when it was ready to cut a header was used. This cut the grain and had an elevator on it to put in boxes or wagons. It was then hauled to a stack at a central location. When it was cured, thrashing crews came and threshed it. This thresher was propelled by a horse powered merry-go-round. It was then put in gunny sacks and then hauled to town to the elevators and sold.

For the alfalfa you first used a hay mower, a pair of horses hooked to it and cut the alfalfa and laid it on the ground. You then raked it into windrows with a hay rake powered by a pair of horses. You then had to put the windrows in bunches. This was done by pitch fork and a little muscle by hand. It was then put on a hay rack and hauled to a central location. Here was a derrick with a Jackson fork on it that unloaded the hay and stacked it with a lot of manual labor.

(One story dad tells is that his dad asked him to ride the horse bareback to the store and pick up something, he would find out when he got there. He grumbled a lot because he didn't like riding bareback. When he got to the store he found a new saddle. He also tells a story of when he and Reynold were riding their big work horse Traveler up on the bench, running him as fast as he would go, he had a heart attack and died right underneath them.)

This gives a pretty good resume of how we farmed and lived. I first went to Church or Sunday School in a little white room on Goodenough Creek. A song I remember was “Little Purple Pansies”. We then went to church in Readyville on Marsh Creek in the old school house in the summer time and in McCammon Amusement hall in the winter time. We were regular attenders of church so I got a good background as I was ordained Deason, Teacher, Priest and Elder in the McCammon Ward. I remember Bishop William Howell ordaining me an Elder.

To give some background on my schooling, I went through grade school and High school in McCammon, graduating from High School in the spring of 1923 at the ripe young age of 17 years and I missed being valedictorian by 1%. A girl by the name of Byington came here her senior year and beat me out by that much. Graduating Class of 1923 Girls: Vilate Watt, Beatrice Hale, Lucile Curtis, Mary Thornley, Alice Lilenquist, Frances Girard, Leoma Dixon, … Byington. Boys: Walton Cheney, Paul Rowe, Emory White, Royal Allen, Arden Green, Clark Green, Clarence Romriell.

I was also a fair athlete competing in baketball, baseball, football and foot racing. I could run 100 yards in 10 seconds or less and that was pretty fast in those days. One experience in football: McCammon had never had a team, so Paul Rowe and I caught blinds of a passenger train and went to Pocatello to watch Idaho Technical play. We came back and talked to G.W. Gittins the superintendent (my uncle) into having a High school team and I might say we had a good one because we beat everyone for miles around.

Well tragedy hit us in 1918 when our father died with influenza leaving mother with 5 boys. (Grandpa insisted going into the field and helping dad and Reynold bring in the sugar beets. He contracted pneumonia and died in the hospital in Pocatello as there were no antibiotics at that time.) I was the oldest at thirteen, Reynold, Howard, Leon, Donald being the youngest at 8 months. He left us with a ranch, home in McCammon, $1000 in debt which I think my mother said took her 30 years to pay off. However, she had a lot of determination, “Where there's a will there's a way”. So when I graduated from High school, “You must to to college”, was her plea. So I worked in the summer at various jobs and in September of 1923 I took off for Salt Lake City to go to the University of Utah. I paid my tuition, bought a suit of clothes and had $5.00 left and no job, so I started down one street and up another and finally got a job ushering at the Parmount Theater on Main Street 1 pm til 11 pm at 15 cents an hour. (Dad used to sneak his girfriends into the theater to watch the movies while he worked.) Now I got my board and room for $17.00 a month and I could get a street car pass for $1.50 a week so I could travel really good. I studied on the street car and on week ends so I did fairly well on grades, one C and the rest A's and B's. This took care of my first year in college. In the summer time I would come back to McCammon to work and play base ball. Lava used to give me $10.00 a game to play with them, plus a home fun once in a while would net me a few dollars.

The next year in college I decided to go to L.D.S. Junior College in Salt Lake and this was a very good choice because I was then head usher and only had to work 4 hours a night for $15.00 a week. I got to play basketball and some of the people I played and associated with because quite famous such as Richard L. Evans, George Romney, Blaine Watts, Stan Watts, Jerry Smith, Eldred Smith, Glade Berry, Norval Service, Occie Evans and Ted Jacobsen. We won the Rocky Mountain Championship that year and one of the teams we beat, most of its players went to Montana State (Golden Bobcats) Frank Ward, Orlando Ward, Brick Breeden, Cat Thompson. They won the U.S. Championship two years in a row I think, at least one.

This year was a boom to me in more ways than one. The association notary and all that goes with these were a confidence builder to a young country boy from McCammon, Idaho. I learned if you lived right and had some ambition to work you could accomplish most anything that you wanted to.

It was here while going to school that I met my first wife Nellie Adelaide Waterhouse. I spied her in the library one day when I was studying. I sat there with my mouth open, never had I seen such a beautiful girl. To myself I said, “I've got to have her”. Where there's a will there's a way. Well it took some doing, a couple of years, but I will tell you about that later. I forgot to mention our coaches Willard Ashton assisted by Vadal Peterson (30 years at Utah). Bunny Clark (All American 1916) (Juvenile Judge) and Josh West (later General West).

The next two years were spent at the University of Utah and I got a job with Safeway working after school and on weekends. On November 15, 1927, Nellie and I were married in the Salt Lake Temple by apostle Stephen L. Richards. I still went to school and Nellie taught ballet and tap dance to a number of students plus dancing on stage at different times. She danced at the old Salt Lake Theater which in those days was quite an accomplishment. I was majoring in History and Political Science and would have ended up teaching school but I was cut out to be a salesman, I do believe because that is what I did all of my life and loved it.

When spring came in 1928 I went to work for Safeway on a steady basis and soon became head checker in their biggest store on Main Street. The manager of this store was Carl Buchmiller who in later years became general manager of Payless Drug Co., one of the large chains in the western U.S. His brother was in charge of the London Temple. I ran into him on a trip to England. After a couple of months the manager of a store on 7th East and 7th South became ill and had to go to the hospital and stayed there for a month. They sent me there while he was gone. The store was in bad shape and dirty. I thought to myself, if I clean this store up and get it straightened out they might just make me manager. Well this is just what happened as I had increased the business and it was in good shape.

I stayed at this store until the following spring, in the meantime I had become a father of a bouncing baby boy which we named Jack Arden Green born in the Salt Lake hospital so I had responsibilities and never returned to college to graduate but I did have a good foundation to carry me through life.

They moved me to Ogden, Utah to run a bigger store and help run the other store and do advertising etc. I remember they paid us $30.00 a well and 30% of the net profits. My first bonus was $475.00. I bought me a 1929 De Soto car. The first thing that happened, Jack a baby, filled the gas tank full of sand. He said,”Daddy I filled with gasoline.” We did everything in the world to get the sand out of the car but never really did succeed.

Everything was going fine until 1929 and the financial crash. Banks and everything were closing, people were going broke and our business was cut nearly in half so our bonus didn't amount to much. There were no set working hours in those days so you worked from 7 a.m. until 9 or 10 p.m., six days a week and happy for it.

In 1930 in Dee Memorial hospital a daughter was bornl As she was upside down they had to turn her over with instraments they used and injuring her motor nerve and she had problems most of her life. We named her Judith Louise.

I stayed in Ogden until 1932 and it was a struggle due to financial difficulties in the country. However, they had opened a new store in Pueblo, Colorado, more like the shopping centers they have today but after three or four months they were losing considerable money so they asked me to go over and run it and find out what was wrong, so we moved to Colorado.

The first week of running the store I caught 35 shoplifters and the next week I caught three of the checkers tapping the till. From then on the store made money, so I only stayed there less than a year when they consolidated two stores in Lamar, Colorado. So they propositioned me to go there and organized.

Lamar was a much smaller town than Pueblo, approximately 5,000 to 10,000 population but it had a powerful drawing power of 125 miles in every direction. It was situated in the heart of one of the biggest dust bowls in the U.S. Many times in the middle of the day a dust storm came up and it was as dark as midnight. Many people died of dust pneumonia and the crops were bad. The grew some alfalfa along the Arkansas Valley but the rest of the country was mostly broom corn and regular corn, milo maize etc. Most of the county “Prowers” and adjacent counties 90 % were on relief.

Most of recreation was softball and baseball, dancing etc. I saw Satchel Page, the greatest Negro pitcher of all times, pitch a ballgame where he first called in the outfielders and then the infielders. No one could hit his balls in this part of the country. I played a few games of ball and went to a few dances. Had a few fist fights, at that I was pretty good. (I remember hearing a story that dad punched out a guy who was giving grief to his short friend. The next day he found out it was the middle weight champion of the country.)

We did have quite a good business here as I had 15 regular employees and a number of part-time. My brother Reynold had been out of work for a long time so I took him and his family there and he worked for a couple of years.

In 1935 they decided to consolidate some stores in Las Animas, Colorado so I was again contacted to move there. Some of the awards I won during those years in Colorado:

1. One of the 10 outstanding Chain Store managers in the U.S.

2. Outstanding Sales Award for selling the most coffee in a month of any Safeway store.

3. Chairman of Bent, CO. Infantile Paralysis March of Dimes for four years.

4. Junior Chamber of Commerce Outstanding Business Award in 1937.

5. Coached a 15 year old softball Champion of State. Jack Farris pitching a no hit and he knocked a home run score 1-0. He later became one of the great pitchers.

6. Chairman of the Committee to promote the building of the Caddo Dam across the Arkansas River. We got President Roosevelt and Eleanor to come there and I met them personally. We got the dam.

While in Las Animas my third child Carol Ann was born. Dr. William Fickel attending. We had quite a celebration at this time, closed the town up for a day as Dr. Fickel was the mayor. Headlines in the paper: Town Closed, Pop Green Has a Baby Girl and Everybody Celebrated. For a week in the hospital and bringing Carol into the world, Dr. Fickel charged me exactly $30.00. That wouldn't pay for aspirin now. I might say as a point of interest, “Festus” of Gunsmoke (Ken Curtis Gates) was born here and his father was County Sheriff, a good friend, Festus was in school while I was there. (It was here that Dad was entertained by the “Sons of the Pioneers”, Ken Curtis Gates sang with them. If you Google them you can hear their songs like “Tumbling Tumbleweeds”.)

I played my first game of golf in Colorado in 1933. Pop Francis my teacher. We played on sagebrush fairways and oil sand greens. He had two boys that played football at Nebraska, Sam Francis and Vike Francis both making All American.

As far as running the business was concerned and the fine people that lived in Colorado, everything was fine but the dust bowl and no gardens or fruit was grown. I wanted to come back to the northwest. I tried to get them to transfer me but they wanted me to go to the San Luis Valley so in 1940 I resigned and came back to Salt Lake City. For a while I had made a mistake because jobs were hard to come by. Many people that I had done favors for while here before didn't seem to know me. I went for three months without a job. At last I got a job selling for Borden Co. due to influence of L. S, Skaggs, one of the starters of Safeway. I worked about six months and the second World Ward broke out or was going to and I took a job with the U.S. Engineers.

I first started out checking materials at the Remington Arms Plant in Salt Lake City. Then I was transferred to Brigham City as Chief Expediter for materials to build the hospital there. (Dad worked there with Mr. Maddox who owned the Maddox restaurant in Brigham City. For years every time we went through Brigham City dad would stop and eat and walk right back into the kitchen and visit with him.) When this was completed, they opened up an Engineers Re-distribution Center at Tooele and I was transferred there as “assistant to the person in charge”. This was a storage depot for fire fighting equipment, the biggest west of the Mississippi. The other was in Temonium, Maryland. We had the receiving and distribution of this material for the U.S. and overseas to the rest of the world. I worked out here from 1942 to 1947 and after a couple of years I was designated the Civilian in Charge. However, they had some Army officers that became my friends for life: William Lea, he was in charge of about 30 people who traveled the world to check to see that the military got their materials on time. Andy Anderson, he went to Washington, D.C. And was in charge of Engineers for the U.S. for a time. Then he advanced to assistant to a General in charge of all storage depots.

This is quite a responsibility and I had some 600 to 800 people working for me. However, I had some tragedies. My wife Nellie died on January 13, 1945 in childbirth at the LDS Hospital and the baby died with her. She had RH negative blood and had developed antibodies that caused her death. If it had been five years later they probably could have saved her. I was left with Jack 15, Judy 13 and Carol 8. We had been inseparable for 18 years. She took care of me and I didn't know what size shoes or socks I wore.

Soon after that a few months, another tragedy hit me between the eyes. I had spinal menengitis and it was the contagious kind. Gale my nephew had stayed with me along with Reynold and Vera and I thought I would give it to them. I was unconscious for weeks and believe I spent most of the time on the other side. Between my mother begging and praying for me to live and the University of Utah interns working on me I got better. (The only medications they had to compat this was sulfa drugs and dad became allergic to them.) One of the interns put a needle in the back of my head and drew off the poison from my brain. He was so shook up he had to take two weeks off. When he came back he looked at me and said, “Didn't you die ?” My reply, “Too tough.” He claimed if I had wiggled that needle the least bit it would have done the job.

After seven weeks in the hospital mother took me home andhad to teach me to walk all over again. She decided to stay with us for a while and help raise the children. I gave her a job at the warehouse so she was happy. After about a year she decided that we could make it so she came home.

I stayed out here until June 1947 and the war was over and they decided that they would close the Engineers part of this depot and they wanted me to go to Okinawa to clean up materials there and send it to various places in the world. I told them I wouldn't go and leave my children regardless of the opportunity that it offered. They claimed that I would.

My brother Reynold had been working for Garrett Freight Lines for quite a while and we had discussed my going to work for them as a salesman, so I called him on the phone and told him I was ready to go. He got me an interview with Ray A. Hendricks, Vice President of sales and I went to work for them June 1, 1947, they day Shirlyn Donald's only girl was born. This was a good opportunity for me as I thing I was born to be a Salesman.

At this time Garrett's had about five salesmen. Floyd Larsen in L.A., Tony Mottishaw in San Francisco and one in Portland. Paul Laws and myself in Salt Lake. We divided the town at 5th South and I had the southern part of the state and Paul the northern part, mostly government installations. I was supposed to have some training but this was easy for me as I had gone to school with most of the people that owned businesses so they were willing to help me. This lasted about a year and Paul Laws was made Terminal Manager. I was made District Sales Manager. I hired Keith Sargeant in Salt Lake who is still District Sales Manager in Salt Lake. I also hired Clair Buttars as a salesman in Ogden and northern Utah. Clair had information on one of out pick-up drivers stealing, so we made an investigation and found it to be true. We called Pocatello to ask for advice because we would put him in jail. After a conference in Pocatello with Mr. C. A. Garrett, Adrian Curtis, Vice President called us to go ahead. So we made the necessary arrangement with the police force in Salt Lake and he had stolen approximately $1400.00 from us and Koppel and Love where he picked up. The merchandise was returned and he was sent to jail. When we called and told the Garrett office they asked me how long it would take me to replace Clair as we probably had several terminals that needed attention. In two weeks I lost Clair to the General office and he was made Director of Security. I replaced him with George Barry in the Ogden area. Clair worked up in the General office to the Vice president of Security and Claim Prevention however he was in Salt Lake for a number of years where we traveled together and had some fine rrelations with he and his family. We both moved to Pocatello in 1960 and I still have that fine relationship with one of my best friends (Clair spoke at Dad's funeral and I remember he said that if more people knew about it that place would have been filled with people.)

It wasn't long, about 1951 that they made me Director of Sales for the whole company and set up my office in Salt Lake. This began twenty-six years of the most enjoyable work I had ever done in my life. When I went to work for Garrett in 1947 we did about three million dollars worth of business and when I retired in 1973 we did seventy million dollars worth.

Being Director of Sales meant a lot of travel, nearly every other week all of the U.S. and Canada. At first we traveled by car and finally by plane. I became an expert on government freight which was a considerable volume. This was controlled at their MTMS office in St. Louis, Dallas, Oakland, Pittsburg and Washington D.C. This made it necessary that we call on these people so that we would be included on their routings. I was a member of the National Defense Transportation Association and became National Vice President. This is the largest Transportation Organization in the world with Government Traffic Managers plus Commercial Traffic Managers. So this was a way to get nationally known and it was a great help in getting business for Garrett. (Dad also appears in the Who's Who in American Transportation.)

Another thing I was able to do was to take a representative from each district to a certain area that was down in business to what I called a “Blitz”. Ten of fifteen salesmen were involved and we worked for a week and we covered every potential customer in the area. This seemed to be an impetus to increase business instantly.

We had always had trouble in getting freight going to California so one day I conceived the idea of hauling wheat, at least it would pay expenses if the trip. Everyone in the higher echelon thought I had lost my mind but we started it after much deliberation and I don't know how many hundreds of loads we hauled but it would run into the thousands and saved many empty schedules.

Another first was that I tried to get Ray Hendricks to recommend to the management that we buy flat bed equipment so we could haul steel out of Provo, Utah to California. He kept refusing but one day when he came to Salt Lake I fooled him. I asked him to take a ride with me as I needed some help with a customer in south Salt Lake. When we got to U.S. Steel he said, “I know what you're doing, but it won't do you any good.” Just then John Maloney, traffic manager, came out of the building going across the street to get a cup of coffee. So I set Ray next to him and in just fifteen minutes he said, “I'm going back to Pocatello and recommend we buy ten flat beds.” And he did just that. He and Mr. C.A. Garrett went to Sacramento and bought them from Walt Pavelo. This ten turned into forty or fifty and we hauled hundres of loads of steel to California. This also helped with the back haul we needed so bad. I would like to mention that John Maloney was moved to San Francisco as Western Traffic Manager for U.S. Steel. When he retired they had a party for him in the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. Some 500 people attending and when he talked he said there are some people in this audiencwe I really love and appreciate. The second name he uttered was “Arden Green” and he only named five. This really made me happy.

When I first went to work for Garrett our authority was Portland, Oregon, Butte, Montana, Pocatello, Idaho, Salt Lake City, Utah, Los Angeles, California, San Francisco, California and points in between. I would like to pay tribute to C.A. Garrett who founded the organization in 1913 and built a stable financial institution that was un parallelled in the trucking industry. Through him Ray Hendricks, Vice President of Sales and Traffic, and Maurice Greene, Attorney, they had got busy and put the rest of us to work to get more authority. As a result we bought Moab Transportation which put us into Denver and Albuquerque. Also, we joined forces with Northwest Freightlines which put us into all cities in Montana and to St. Paul. Along with that we obtained Inland Motor Freight and Pacific Highway Transfer which gave us authority north and south in California and San Diego. If you can visualize St. Paul, Denver, Albuquerque as gateways to all of the 13 western states.

I was transferred to Pocatello in 1960 and was very happy in my work. I traveled nearly every other week visiting terminals and general traffic managers all over the U.S. and Canada. This gave me the priveledge of meeting some of the biggest concers in this territory and was able to get considerable amounts of business from these national business concerns. By this time we had nine district sales managers and about seventy regular salesmen and it was a real pleasure to work with them and help to solve their problems.

It is now time to discuss my family relations for a while. In 1950 I married Fern Pinson in Logan at the home of a friend. We had been going together for about two years. We lived in an apartment on 8th East between 1st and 2nd South in Salt Lake City. In 1951 there was a son born which we named Lanny Brent and the thing I remember most was him having the colic as a baby. He cried for about three months, day and night and I walked the floor at nights till I thought I would drop with fatigue. One day after three months, all of a sudden he quit and he didn't cry any more. It was over. In about 13 months we had another baby we named Celia Ruth LaNae. We lived on 23rd South and 3rd East at this time in a duplex. She was the opposite of Lanny and she didn't have the colic so didn't cry so much. They were both beautiful babies and I loved them very much.

After moving three or four times, I finally bought a home at 2909 East 2965 South in Salt Lake. This was in the Canyon Rim district and this is where the children went to school and to church and they made many friends there.

We spent a lot of time improving the yard and the house. I even came to McCammon and went over to the ranch and dug pine trees, quaken aspen etc., bagged them with dirt, froze them and took them to Salt Lake and planted them. Would you believe they lived and grew. Along with other shrubs we bought it made a beautiful yard. We also improved the house with a drive-in garage that was made into a den. We also remodeled the portch as part of the kitchen (making a dining room) and repainted the outside. This make a very livable home and the children were happy.

In 1960 the company decided that I should be in the general office in Pocatello, so we traded our home in Salt Lake for one at 8 Toponce Dr. in Pocatello. This was a fine home: two lots, two stories, four bedrooms, two baths, rumpus room, upstairs deck and a drive-in breezeway for the car. The children were in grade school at this time and they went to Junior High and High School and graduated from there. (I remember Dad taking us to Yellowstone a few times. Uncle Donald had a cabin at Island Park and we would stay there. About 1968 dad also traveled with Uncle Howard to England and Ireland to bring cousin Chris home from his mission. Dad really enjoyed that trip and visiting with the Irish people. Recently through DNA we have found that we are more Irish than we thought. Dad would have been between 25 to 50 percent Irish.)

The same as everything else, all things come to an end. It seemed that we didn't think alike so about 1970 we got a divorce (they had been separated for about six years previous). We agreed she would get the equity in the home and I wouldn't pay her anything else as this amounted to considerable money. We also agreed that the children could lived with whom they wanted so they both came to live with me.

When Lanny graduated from High School he sent to northern Idaho to work in the forest service during the summer on the fire crews and in the fall started to the University of Idaho in Moscow. After a year there he decided he would like to go on a mission so I sent him. He went to Mexico for two years which I'm sure was a factor determining his life's course. He came back and went to school. In the meantime he sent for Raquel and they were married in the Salt Lake Temple. He had #65 in the draft so had to take ROTC at school. He graduated from college with high honors and immediately had to go in the army as an officer and was assigned to the Panama Canal Zone for three years, probably because of his knowledge of Spanish. In the meantime he has had three children (Sabrina LaNae, David Arden, Sirena Fern). I have visited them for a month last year and am going again at this writing. He wants to get out of the Army and get a PHD in the Forest Service. I think he should stay in the Army for thirty years then retire and get his doctorate.

When LaNae was in Junior High and High School she was voted outstanding student in Home Economics and won the Crisco Award twice. She worked one summer in Brigham City at a clothing manufacturer that made leather coats. She attended BYU for four years and graduated in Clothing and Textiles with a minor in business and went to work immediately for the LeVoy Company in Salt Lake. She met her husbnd Pat D'Addabbo Jr. when he was up on a visit from Mesa, Arizona where they now live.

I have two daughters who live in Salt Lake now. My oldest son Jack lives in Pocatello and we are close and get together often.

I retired from Garrett in 1973 and bought a trailer house and moved to McCammon. Built a garage, fenced it, planted lawn and have a good garden spot where I raise vegetables and fruit. (I remember he had a big patch of rapsberries and a gooseberry bush.)

When my mother was 85 years old we had a big celebration which included food, program and a dance. They said that around 600 were in attendance as we invited everyone that had been her friend. I wrote her life history and had it made into a book form for distribution. This is the greatest thing we could have done for her as it made her very happy. It was done just in time as she passed away within the next year which was a blow to all of us. But she had lived a good life and was a leader in this community and was loved by everyone.

Retirement. This is a part of your life that is considerably different from the rest of your life. You no longer get up at 6 o'clock in the morning (dad always went to work a half hour early every day, said he got more work done in that half hour than he did the rest of his day) and go to work meeting people and I ws not very lonely when I worked. I didn't retire until I was 67 but my brother Reynold had retired before I did. He was lost for six months until he moved to Seattle and took a job running an apartment house. This kept him busy three or fours hours a day and this was good for him. He said to me, “One thing you got to do is keep your mind active and your physical body active and then you will be in pretty good shape.” I found him to be right. So, in order to do this you have to develop a pattern. At least once a month I try to go somewhere for a week or two. My brother Leon at Moscow has been a great help in this. I go to his home three or four times a year. Attend football and basketball games, play golf and other activities as dancing which we both like. Also, he comes here a few times a year and we go fishing which he is an avid fisherman. We go to Henry's Fork of the Snake in West Yellowstone area and generally stay four or five days in his camper. Also, fish at the Garrett Ranch out of Dubois. Plus some fishing I the Salmon area. He is real good to me and calls me about every week to be sure that I'm alright.

Anson Garrett and his wife own a ranch 35 miles northwest of Dubois, Idaho about 2500 acres with cattle and horses. I go there about four or five times a year to ride horses, fish and hunt. They are real good to me.

Clair Buttars is still Vice President of Security at Garretts and he travels all the time and I take trips with him to California, Montana, Idaho and the northwest. This gives me a chance to see a lot of my old friends that I knew while working.

At home I raise a good garden and some fruit trees plus raspberries and strawberries adnn Iput them up in the deep freeze plus LaNae canning some (I remember bottling dad's fish, he liked to eat it in the wintertime). This keeps me pretty active during the summertime. Brad Hall, a neighbor's boy, watches my house when I go on trips and also helps me keep the house clean and drives me where I want to go if I don't feel like driving. His mother Grace Bullock Hall makes me homemade bread and biscuits regularly so it reminds me of my mother baking (I remember after coming home from a trip dad was always glad for a home cooked meal as he got tired of eating out. However, he knew all the places that had good pie.)

Tom Bullock bought my mother's home and grounds across the street from me and had done a lot of work improving it. Buitt a garage, sheds and is raising a garden etc. When I am here I generally go over and help him. I have known the Bullock family all of my life and Tom helps me with repairs etc. We also go to ball games together, play golf, go fishing and even go to a few dances. (Uncle Leon later bought a portion of grandmother's property and moved a double wide trailer onto it. So, lived across the street from dad.)

I go to Pocatello regularly and its a regular thing to have lunch with my son Jack and visit his family. I pretty regularly go to Salt Lake stopping in Ogden to lunch with Dave Anderson, a good friend. I stay at Carol and Bert's house while visiting the grandchildren. As I lived in Salt Lake for many years I have lots of friends there so visit them and play a little golf with them. They also tooke me to Las Vegas with them last spring for four days. We had a good time. They come to Pocatello a few times to go to ball games and entertainment.

Would also mention that I have some good friends in Salmon, Idaho. Ray and Bumpy Hawthorne (they were some relation). I generally go a couple times a year to visit them. Go fishing plus they like to dance like I do so we have a good time. Bumpy's mother and three sisters live there so there is plenty to do.

Lanny lives in Panama at the present time and I went down there for a month last year and will be going back this January for about two months. It is warm down there and I play golf, go fishing and swimming in the ocean, plus playing with my three grandchildren and seeing the sights and visiting with Lanny and Raquel.

I also make a trip once a year to Reynold and Vera's in Seattle. We have an enjoyable time seeing that pretty country plus dancing and playing golf. Also, visiting Joy and Geraline and their families.

At this time I am 71 years old and as I spent Thanksgiving in Salt Lake and stayed about a week. LaNae is coming home for Christmas so we'll have a tree and Christmas at homel Brad is helping me get ready. (Christmas 1976)

(I have been adding a few comments about dad's life as I have been retyping this. Dad was approached by the Bishop after he retired and asked if he would be a “Ward Teacher”. Previous to this he hadn't attended church at all in my lifetime. They put him with his cousin and dad would call him and tell him he was going out of town so they had to get their teaching done. He started going back to church and attended regularly enjoying the association. He called me one day and said he had read the “Book of Mormon” which surprised me greatly.

Dad drank coffee all his life (Lanny tried to get him to drink Postum but he could tell the difference and he didn't like it) and smoked for 40 years. One day about the time I graduated from high school he decided to stop “cold turkey”. He never smoked again, however, all the toxins that had built up in his system came to a head under his chin and he was very ill and ran a very high fever. Grandma took him to the doctor who had to lance it. Grace Hall made him some rice pudding which I think saved his life. Other than the menengitis dad was rarely sick. In the fall of 1980 dad was staying with us in West Jordan, Utah and had a gall bladder attack and had to be rushed to the hospital. Pat went with him in the ambulance. He had a softball sized mass next to his gall bladder and they both had to be taken out. While in the hospital he kept muttering something and Carol finally figured out he was saying the alphabet backwards, something he learned as a kid. About 1984 dad was having prostate problems and at the time was at Lanny's house in Boise. He took him to the hospital and dad had prostate surgery there. Having surgery that late in life was really difficult for him and he never fully recovered. Lanny sent him on a plane to Salt Lake where all three of his daughter's were now living and here we put him in a nursing home. He was very frail by then and had lost a lot of weight, being a large man all his life. Carol visited him every day after work and she and Uncle Leon were with him when he died. The day he died we were sitting down to lunch and our little Charity 5 years old said the blessing on the food. Her words were “Bless Grandpa to die so he won't hurt any more.” Within the hour I got a call that he was gone. I used to go twice a week to visit him as I lived farther away. I took his laundry home and did it for him and took my little children to visit him. Charity would wear her dance costume and dance for him. We were able to take him one day for a ride up the canyon to see the fall leaves. He really loved that but asked to go home. He was never able to. His cause of death was from congestive heart and renal failure. The only cancer he ever had was a spot in the middle of his bottom lip that he had to have removed, it was from a smoking cigarette there all those years.

I miss him a lot, especially in the car. Everytime you went anywhere dad wanted to go with you. Everyone in the family at the time had a broken visor because he would hang onto it for dear life when you drove (there were no handles in the cars at the time.) Jason was about 3 when he died and when we went to sell the car we had he said, “You can't sell it, that was the car Grandpa was in.” So we took a picture of him sitting on the car so he could have that memory.

He had a lot of wisdom and some of his sayings were: “Remember who you are. Always be honest and you don't have to remember anything. Always tell the truth but don't always be telling it. Take your time but hurry back. Don't tell people what to do, ask them. Guide people to things, don't push them. Many a truth is said in jest. If you take offense when it's intended you're a fool. If you take offense when it's not, you're a bigger fool.” Whenever Dad came to your house he would just walk right in, a little disconcerting if you weren't expecting him. He would always kiss everyone in the room as a greeting. Dad loved kids and always had some candy in his pocket to give them.)

LaNae Green D'Addabbo November 2016

1. My father was always my number 1 hero. I thought my dad was the smartest, bravest, and most loving man I ever knew. I loved him so very much. He always did things with me, taught me, was very patient with me, and I loved being with him. When he retired he would always come over in the winter months and stay 3-6 months at my house because we all loved him. My wife, Raquel, adored my Dad and took special care to cut his hair, shave him and clean his ears and nose and hands and make him her special Mexican recipes he loved. Dad would want for nothing at our house. He taught me to read Louis L'Amour books (westerns) and so even now when I pick up one of those novels it reminds me of him.

2. Dad was particular loved by his grandkids. Our youngest Terry remembers fondly of Grandpa 3 wheeler bike and his rides in the back bike basket. Terry was heart broken when Grandpa got sick and fell into a coma and later awoke with lost memory. He never understood how Grandpa could not remember him after this and would cry and cry because Grandpa didn't know who he was.

3. A special story - about 1982 I (Lanny) was in the Boise Idaho Temple in the celestial room thinking about my father's status before the Lord. As Dad had not been very faithful at the time to his religion and temple covenants, and he had not baptized me or given me the Priesthood, I found myself wondering what was going to happen to my eternal family, as I had never been sealed to him either. I was very depressed and needed help. As I sat there on a sofa, I felt the presence of someone behind me and heard these words in my mind, "Son of my son, I was called away from my son early in his and my life and he didn't have the blessing of me to help him grow up under my hand. He will come home to me very soon and when he does I will teach him all that he needs to know to be with me and you forever. We will yet be a heavenly family! Go and tell him these things." I knew at that moment who my guardian angel was Grandpa Cumer. He and I since have communicated frequently. I went to visit Dad at his home in McCammon and he and I sat outside one later afternoon (with me between his legs sitting on the ground, Dad in a chair) and I told him this story and that Grandpa had visited me in the temple with a message for him. Dad never said a word, but just cried and cried what seemed like a hour. I know Dad believed me and has a great love for his father too. Dad passed away about 3 years later and I know who was waiting for him.

4. I used to travel a lot with Dad when I became a teenager. We'd go on a sales trip and while Dad worked, he would take me to a golf course and give me $10 to pay green fees and have lunch. After work he'd pick me up and If he felt good we'd play 9 holes. Those were the days. I would rather be with Dad than any of my teen aged friends. I will never forget the day I finally beat him on the course. It was at the Country Club in Pocatello. We had played our usual 9 holes and we were tied going into the ninth hole. It came down to the putts. Dad putted his first and missed. I putted mine and sunk it. Dad just dropped his putter and walked off the green says a few choice words. Once when he and I played a course in Salt Lake with his friends, I was having a hot round, smacking the ball and driving real good. On a particular par 5 hole which was completely downhill I got up to drive and pounded the ball in the "sweet spot" and it went 425 yards and went past the next foursome between a person's legs (grass was dry and ground was hard as cement). Only thing was they were at their second shot location and looked around to see where the ball came from so I waved from the tee box and they couldn't believe it. You should have seen Dad with his chest puffed out at his son's tremendous drive. Dad talked about that shot for the next half hour explaining how his son had hit it just right etc etc etc. I was proud he was so proud of me.

Please put these things as an addition to your comments. I would appreciate it.

Best Regards, your Brother.

Lanny B. Green

COL, USA, Ret