Charles R Seymour Autobiography with added notes

Charles R Seymour Autobiography with added notes

History of Charles Reed Seymour

Transcribed in 1982 from his handwritten notes

by Joan Seymour Hamblin and Anthony C. Seymour.

With added notes and history recorded by Margot Seymour Schulzke

I have taken all of my children up to Oakley, Utah to see the part of the world where I was born. Officially, it is part of Oakley, but as I remember they called it Boulderville. The exact spot was just down the hill from where my grandpa, Charles William Seymour, lived. My uncle Will also lived there.

[When I was nine years old, my father took me to the place on the bench above Oakley, the home site so many of us have visited, and still preserved as the source of Oakley’s water supply. He identified it as the place where he was born and lived until he was six years old. Until recent years, the rocks that formed the foundation of the cabin that stood there remained in place. They have since vanished, retrieved as mementoes by family members or removed by casual visitors to make a fire pit on the site.

In about 1990, I received a call inviting me to a lecture on the history of Oakley, which would be given by Leora Fransen, the woman who typed the history of the town as written by our grandfather, John H. Seymour, a long-time early bishop there. As I was already in Utah that week, house-sitting for Kristen and Brian, I was able to be there. I was the only direct descendant of John Seymour present that day. His history, she informed us, was written at the request of the Church Historical Society. I have a copy of his original handwritten manuscript, from which she edited and transcribed the requested history. The book that was published from it, she said, was long out of print although she said there was one in the hands of the CHS.

After the lecture, she offered to drive me to the site of that cabin, in which our father was born. The cabin itself had been moved down the hill in its entirety. I was able to visit the cabin, along the road toward Weber Canyon on the down-hill side, and go into it. The owners had covered over the log exterior with modern siding, so its original log-cabin status was invisible to the casual passerby, but they opened a little cupboard window in the interior wall through which I was able to see the original log structure.

After our visit at that house (which in about 2010 was torn down and replaced with an impressive home and landscaped estate), Leora drove me into the mouth of the canyon, where we took a right turn over the bridge. From vague memories of my childhood visit, I anticipated each of these turns as we approached. As we made the crossing and then took another right turn, then swinging around the hill to the left, I told her, “This is exactly where my father took me as a little girl.”

Then we saw the homestead site a little further on, against the mountain on our left. It was exactly as I remembered it, from our visit over forty years before. According to our father, and to the woman who typed John Seymour’s history, this is where John and his family lived at least at the time of our father’s birth and for six years thereafter. By our father’s description above, it is directly downhill from the original Charles Wm. Seymour cabin..—MS]

I was born the fifth child, son of John Heber and Phebeth Ann Seymour, June 12, 1906. I had four older sisters: Eunice, born April 7, 1899, Arvilla, born the 25th day of December, 1900, Verle Leona, born the 27th of September, 1902, Thelma, 28th of August, 1904. I had two brothers, Bernard Evans, born 11th day of May, 1908 and John Edward, born the 6th day of December, 1910. I also had a younger sister who was born the 8th of July, 1916. Elizabeth died eight days later on the 16th of July, 1916. I was 10 years old at that time and remember how we all felt.

My sister, Thelma, wrote a brief note on what she remembered, "Reed, I can't remember much about your baby years. I was only two when you were born, but you were my darling baby brother as we grew up. I remember how fast you moved on what I thought were the shortest little legs on the cutest little brother. I remember how you climbed and how frightened we all were that you would fall and get hurt. Do you remember the old barn, how we climbed everywhere? You mostly in the attic and everywhere we could get a foothold or a hand. I remember you running the full length of the machine shed, with one foot on each side of the roof pitch. The one that was built with its back to the road, just at the bottom of the hill coming into Oakley from the north. It was always full of machinery. The front faced the East. You would run as fast as you could go. We would watch and hold our breath. One day you did fall. I don't think you broke any bones but you were stunned and couldn't remember for a while what had happened. We, of course, never went to a doctor. Mother and Dad would always say, "Oh, it will be all right." And it usually was.

"I remember Easter, how we would gather the eggs and hide them in our own place. The other kids would find them and take them and how we would hunt for theirs and when we found them, we would hide them in a different place. This would go for weeks before Easter. We would then gather up the eggs and take them to the store and buy candy."

Some time around my sixth birthday, 1912, we moved to Oakley proper. Oakley was a very small community of some four or five hundred people. We had a lumber mill, a flour mill, an old-fashioned, all-purpose store grocery store, and a church. Our new home was a log frame house, two stories with a full basement. The basement was of very little use, as it flooded every spring. This was to serve us but a short time, as my father had already contracted with John Salmon to build us a new eight-room concrete block house.

Measured by the standards of that day, it was a rather commodious home-- five rather large rooms downstairs and three upstairs. The three rooms upstairs were framed but never finished while we lived there. We, like everyone else, had outside plumbing and no running water. We always had a Sears Catalog and Montgomery Wards catalog (in the outhouse), which was a real good idea. We never had any money to buy anything from the catalog. For years, I thought the Sears and Montgomery Wards Catalogs were for that purpose only.

Before I forget, I want to relate an event that took place while we were all living in our first home on Boulder Bench. My mother took us all to find the milk cow. We were walking along a trail through the trees when suddenly just ahead there stood a grizzly bear, standing on its hind legs and in no friendly mood. You can imagine how my mother felt. I don't believe that any of us kids felt the danger like she did. I recall the incident, but not the particulars. My mother, in relating the story, said that she told us not to move or make a sound. I am certain, knowing my mother, that her heart was reaching out to God for help. Soon the grizzly dropped down on all fours, turned and ambled away. There was no further attempt to find the cow that night.

It was not unusual to see bears in the early morning or late evening; in fact, mountain lions, bears, panthers and other wild animals were often to be seen, especially down in the meadows along the river.

My father was a farmer, but he was in demand for timber, road contract work, building irrigation systems, bridges. He was also the bishop of the Oakley Ward while I was growing up, until I was called to go on a mission. His two counselors were Tobias Rasmussen and Levi Pearson. I wasn't baptized until I was ten. My father's first counselor, Brother Rasmussen, baptized me in the Weber River and I was confirmed the next Sunday. I don't know why my father didn't baptize me.

I attended Primary like all the other kids. We always looked forward to Primary day

(held midweek in those days). I really remember more from my Primary classes than I do from Sunday School. I think this is because our teachers were so loving and anxious for everyone of us. I am sure that our age made the great difference.

I remember some of my grade school teachers, such as Mr. Bybee, Mabel Hinckley and her sister, Afton (cousins to the later prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley). Mabel and Afton lived at our home, and we all loved them like they belonged to our family. I had another teacher, Ethel Reid, whom I thought I was really in love with.

When I was eleven years old (I don't know whether this was church practice then), I received my Patriarchal blessing on June 14, 1917, under the hands of the Stake Patriarch, John Knox Lemon; Sister Lemon was scribe. She recorded it in long hand, just as the Patriarch gave it. This has had a tremendous impact on my life. It has given me courage, helped me to realize that God has a hand in the affairs of men. It has given me hope and a dream, at at times, it has made me humble. All the positive things that have occurred in my life are included in it. Most of the conditions have already transpired. There are, of course, things yet to come and other things that will go on through eternity. One of the interesting promises is that I will live to see good triumph over evil, and the gospel preached to all the world. As I write this, I am seventy-two and this last condition promises that I could be here in the mortal body when the Savior, Jesus Christ, makes his second appearance, and ushers in the millennium. I invite you to study this blessing and realize that most of the predictions have already occurred and that the remaining conditions will take place on schedule.

When I was twelve, I was ordained a Deacon by my father on September 8, 1918. I remember the very first time passing the Sacrament. I can't recall much taking place during my twelfth year, except school, the usual chores, milking, feeding the stock, cleaning out the barn. It depended on the season just how you went about those mundane affairs. In the spring and summer, the chores were actually fun. We had to take the cows to pasture and cross the river. I remember that there wasn't a bridge so they had to swim across. We hung on to their tails or to the horses' tails. We were always willing to take the cows or to go get them in the evening. They were always nice and clean for milking.

I can't remember much happening during the next two or three years. When I was thirteen I went to work on the J.H. Dahl Dairy Ranch about twelve miles below Park City. This ranch was in Snyderville ; it was a purebred Jersey ranch of over 150 cows that had to be milked at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. There were always guests there from Salt Lake City, also from New York and other places. They had never seen cows being milked: many of them were astounded to see where milk came from. I remember two girls who must have been about twenty; they were so dumbfounded when they saw where milk came from that they wouldn't drink it again.

We had three double unit DeLaval Electric milking machines. I was given the job to supervise the milking. It was a real trick to get the machines on all four faucets and not allow the air pressure to escape in the process. When you had a cow with only three faucets, it was even more difficult. It took about five minutes to milk a cow; then she would have to be stripped. If you left any milk in the cows' udder, she would begin to dry up. The stripper would always get about a quart of milk, when you multiplied this by 150 night and morning, that amounted to 80 gallons of milk. Every day we took 500 to 600 gallons of milk to Salt Lake City.

By 10 a.m., we would be through with the morning shift. At 4 p.m., we would start on the evening shift. By 10 p.m., we were through for the day. From 10 in the morning to four in the afternoon was free time. We always had the finest horses to ride. We would ride for three or four hours all over Lambs Canyon.

We were always trying to round up maverick cattle that ran wild the year around. We had one cow that had always escaped us when we went after her - she had been running loose from early Spring to September. She had given birth to twin calves, and every time we spotted her, she escaped in the underbrush. One afternoon, we were determined to find her and bring her in with the twins. LaMar and I went after her. After about an hour, we spotted her grazing in a lush meadow with the calves. The calves by now appeared to be about six weeks old. There were about a dozen deer in the same meadow. Usually she was closer to the timber, but this time she wouldn't possibly be able to get to the timber before we could get a rope on her. We worked our way around so as to be between her and the timber or underbrush where she hid like she had always done before.

We rode in from two directions. The deer caught our presence first and started to run, then the cow and the calves followed, but she was running towards LaMar to get away from me. It was too late when she saw her mistake. LaMar was lucky with his first throw, then she charged him. He kept away until I was able to put a rope on her. Then we had her and she could go no place. Locating the calves was the next problem, but they didn't stray very far away from their mother. We tied her to a tree while we rounded up the calves. We had no problem with the calves. With the cow snubbed between us and a calf strapped on each horse, we took her into the barn.

This cow was as wild as the deer. Never have I seen an animal fight harder to be free. It took us about four hours to find her and get her back to the barn. She had to be tied down and kept locked in the stanchion for several days before she would let anyone come near her. She eventually became an excellent milk cow. She had a very interesting personality; we made friends and she actually followed me around for a handful of grain that I kept in my pocket.

I worked for Mr. Dahl the summers only, and returned home in the fall to attend school at the South Summit High. We were paid $30 a month, all the food we could eat and our bed in a regular bunk house shared by three other hired hands. We had beautiful saddle

horses that were always trained to handle cattle. Most were broken to ride, but there were several two-year-old geldings that needed to be broken very soon. Because of my propensity with horses, I got the job. I would first get them used to the halter, the bridle and to me. After a few days, we would snub them to another horse and rider, and I would get on.

In some cases, there would be no excitement. In others, this process lasted for several days. After the bareback came the saddle. I have been thrown so many times that it became an art. I learned how to fall. Somehow or another, I knew when I was going to leave the horse and [to] do it gracefully. The only real danger is when the horse falls or something else happens out of character. [Despite his knowing how to leave the horse gracefully, as Dad puts it, I remember him saying he had broken almost every bone in his body while breaking horses.—MS]

I broke two horses to ride; one was a little tan-colored with a gold mane and tail, a very

beautiful creature. I broke her to ride without a saddle or bridle. She would do anything for me but no one else. One time the neighbor’s Holstein bull broke in with the Jersey cows. I mounted this horse with a pitchfork and took after the bull. When I got close, he charged me. The horse saw him coming and jumped over him and turned so he was now right behind the bull. I stuck him with the pitchfork, and he started to run with me and the horse right behind him, but somehow the bull's tail caught the fork, jerking it out of my hand. As the bull was running, the fork would be jerked back on the bull, sticking in the bull with every swing of the tail. The bull belonged to a neighbor, Mr. Bitner. When the bull got home, he was a bloody mess from the shoulders back.

Another time I had broken a beautiful team of dappled gray draft horses to work together. I had just broken them in and hitched them to a double-decked Studebaker wagon with a high spring seat. This put me high above the horses. I was going to Park City for a load of coal. We were going down a dirt and gravel road with the horses walking quite fast, when all of a sudden the single tree and the right side came loose and dropped against the horses' heels. It plunged forward which removed the yoke from the tongue, letting the tongue drop to the ground. By this time, the horses were running wild. The tongue broke off about two-thirds of the way back. The snubbed end caught in the ground and catapulted the wagon into the air. I still had the reins, which perhaps saved me from getting killed. I flew through the air and the spring seat landed on top of me. The horses were now free. Hitting a five-foot storm fence, they snapped every wire and ran all the way to the barn. I injured my back and was laid up for over six weeks.

I actually looked forward to the fall to get home and attend school. There was always a group of good kids and we had so much fun together. We rode in either a covered wagon or a covered bob sleigh; in either case, there were always four horses. The snow time was always the most fun. Someone would cross the reins so the driver was never sure if he was going right or left. When it was really cold, we buried hot rocks in the straw to help keep us warm. I have been out in the winter storms when you couldn't face it, you would get down below and just turn the horses towards home, and they would always get you there.

While I was still thirteen, I went to stay with my aunt Winnie, my mother's sister. They lived in Blue Bell or Tobona, not far from Myton, some eighteen miles from Roosevelt. One morning my cousin, Wayne, and I were to go to Roosevelt for a load of lumber. It was a long one-day trip. Aunt Winnie fixed our lunch, and we took a bale of hay for the horses. We got to Roosevelt and loaded the lumber and started back. About halfway back, there was a bridge over a dry gulch. We considered this to be a perfect place to have our lunch. We unhitched the horses and tied them up to the wagon and gave them the bale of hay. We went down under the bridge, out of the heat of the sun, and ate our lunch.

We became drowsy and went to sleep and that is where they found us the next day. We were poisoned from the canned meat in our lunch. The poison gathered under Wayne's left arm and my right arm, like a big boil. This was very painful. As I remember, Wayne had his lanced by the doctor. I was working on a rock pile, clearing rocks from the field when mine broke. I could feel it running down my side, but that didn't matter -- the pain was gone. I went home and cleaned it all out, put a dressing on. All I have now is the scar.

I had another frightening experience a year or two later, when I was fourteen or fifteen, while riding down Weber Canyon late one night on horseback. Suddenly, my horse screamed, jumped to the left, and broke into a wild race to get away. I caught a glimpse of some wild animal running just about even with the horse, but I saw it no more. The horse was covered with lather and quivering after the incident. Had I not been quite at home in the saddle, I am sure I would have been thrown. Several times while riding past that same place, the horse was very apprehensive. [Dad had told us this story years before, and at that point said he believed it was a puma or mountain lion, which would explain the horse’s reaction. As I recall it, this animal tracked them all the way down to the lights of town. – MS]

I have always loved horses and could do almost anything with them. I rode bareback or in the saddle; it didn't make any difference to me. Before I was hardly in my teens, I was breaking horses to ride or pull the plow. I spent a great deal of time just riding through the mountains. If I could ride today, I would do it as a hobby. I can think of nothing more enjoyable, except reading good books.

Cattle Drive Through Snow Over the Uintas: Charles Reed Seymour, 1918; as told to us by our father when we were children, with added background information and additions from our sister Joan’s interview on this event with Dad late in his life. Dad told Joan at that time, “It really thrills me to remember this story.”-- Margot Seymour Schulzke

Charles Reed Seymour, the oldest son in his father’s family, had a lot of responsibility. His father was the bishop of the Oakley ward from the time Dad (Charles Reed) was six years old until about the time he came home from his mission. Reed, as he was known to his family, normally carried a lot of the load on the farm, and at this particular time, we know both John and Phebeth were busier than usual, attending to the needs of the sick all over the valley due the horrendous flu epidemic of 1918.

At this time, he was just a twelve year old boy, herding cattle high in the Uinta Mountain Range. He could have been driving the herd to the railroad stop at Soldier Summit, a destination Dad spoke of to people in and out of the family, and the closest place the cattle could have been loaded unto a train. Christine remembers him talking about going to Soldier Summit. But in his statement given to Joan, he describes their driving the cattle out of the Kamas Valley over the mountains to the Duchesne Valley.

As Dad described the situation in earlier years, he (Reed, or Charlie as others knew him in later years) was alone with only his experienced cow pony -- although we can assume he also had a dog or two along. (His later recitation of the story as told to our sister Joan made him part of a group, with him and his cow pony leading the way at the critical point of the story.) According to our friend Dr. Douglas Alder, a Utah historian, he may have been driving a combined herd of cattle belonging to several families, as that was a common practice. Dr. Alder said it was also common to expect boys as young as this to shoulder adult responsibilities. But with fuller details, he appears not to have been alone.

Dad said, “That winter the snow was so deep and heavy on the mountains that we could only travel when it crusted.” Later in the day, he recalled, “Because the snow was too soft, we had to bed down in the afternoon and evening. Up at the old mill, where we bedded down for the night, we had to dig our way down to the door because the snow was so high; it was up to the top of the cabin. … Since it would take us three or four days to make the trip, we carried grain for the horses and what provisions as we were necessary for the trip.”

“During the night, the snow would freeze and actually crack and leave crevices in the mountainside. The crevices would be as deep as the snow was deep, and sometimes a foot or two feet across at the top. The crevices had to be filled in and tramped down before we could take the cattle across.

“During the early morning hours when it was not quite daylight, we had to break the trail and proceed. This morning the horse I was riding all of a sudden stopped. Right directly ahead of us was a crack in the mountainside. The horse stood there quivering; I looked over him and saw the crack in the mountain, and I quivered too! It must have been four or five feet deep, frozen like ice, and 18-20 inches across.

Reed knew that the cattle would not make the jump, unless the cow pony led the way.“I yelled back so everyone would know we had to stop. The cattle came along single file—one cow or steer after another, like ants. I kept wondering if the cattle would stop.

“The horse stepped one foot across the opening, and kept tapping the snow so it was hard enough to hold his weight. Then he put his other foot forward and stamped.” Reed let the pony have its head, as the animal knew full well what it was doing. Earlier, he had told us the horse first approached the crevasse several times, stamping down the snow with his hooves at each step. He would go up to the crevasse, then back up in his tracks, and then forward again. Finally satisfied that he had firm footing, the pony stepped across with his back feet. This testing of his footing was entirely the horse’s doing; no one gave him any orders. Once the horse had stomped the ice and snow down so it could handle their weight, and gone across himself, the cattle followed.

They had to keep the cattle calm. Dad said, “The cattle would get frightened and get in the snow bank and flounder. We lost several cattle on this trip, because they floundered; they got snow in their nostrils and couldn’t breathe would smother in the snow

“We continued on the trip down. The minute we got over the mountain range, the weather was beautiful—no snow and plenty to eat for the cattle.”

The picture below is not Reed Seymour. This is a cowboy in Wyoming, in a photo dating to approximately the same time. The cattle go single file through heavy snow, and we can imagine Charles Reed Seymour standing guard as this cowboy is, while his cattle filed past. This cowboy’s clothing – the goatskin chaps, and the warm sheepskin jacket, are likely what your grandfather/great-grandfather would have worn. Interestingly, these are red and white Herefords, which were bred originally in a pasture opposite his great grandfather James Hughes’childhood home, in King’s Pyon, Hereford, England, the little village where James Hughes, the first of our family to accept the gospel, was born. He was baptized in 1841.

It was in the early 1900s that these cattle replaced the longhorns, and chances are good that, in 1918, this is the breed that Reed would have been driving. However, if as it appears, it was a consolidated herd from several ranches, then several breeds may have been present.

Dad told us this story about leading the cattle out of Kamas Valley through the heavy snow. But he did not tell us he had been a bronco buster in the area rodeos. His younger brother Ted told us that in later years. Ted said he would watch admiringly as his brother came bareback out of the chute on the bronco, one hand in the air holding onto his hat, the other clutching the rope – MS

One winter night, a group of us kids decided to go tobogganing on the East bench, which sloped for two or three miles down into the valley. There was three feet of snow except where it drifted and then it was five or six feet. The night was clear with a beautiful full moon, and the snow had frozen with a crust inches thick. The reflection of the moon glistened like diamonds as far as you could see. The frozen snow crackled under foot like a thousand miniature firecrackers. No matter how cold I got, there was never a thought of not doing it again. If there was ever a time to have life suspended and time stand still, it would be when you are in your teens. It is really too bad that that time passes so quickly.

The toboggans were about seven feet long with hand rails on each side. They were designed to carry two people but four could be accommodated in the seated position. Two of us got on this time and let her go. About halfway down we could see the tops of the fence posts stretching across the country. It is unbelievable how fast we were going about this time. We knew the fence was there and that it was strung with barbed wire, but we didn't know how much of the fence was covered with snow. We were really going too fast to do much about it. We would be skinned alive, leaving the toboggan at that speed. The cowl hit the top wire with such force that it snapped like a twig and we passed over the second wire. When I look back and consider the chances kids take and the many near misses we have had, I am convinced that a kind providence takes care of children and those who don't know any better.

On another occasion, again at night, we had some six or eight kids riding the front gear of a full-size bobsled. We had tied a hand sleigh to the tongue to guide it. Two of us got on the hand sleigh and the rest on the bob and off we went. We came down a rather steep hill right in front of our home. Down the hill some five hundred yards, we had to make a rather sharp turn; our speed was more than we could manage and we plowed right into the brick wall of the cheese factory. Kids were thrown in every direction. The tongue and hand sleigh were demolished. I got a slight concussion; everyone was badly shaken up but no bones were broken. It was wonder that someone wasn't killed.

My father was a farmer, but he also worked in the timber and contracted the harvesting of hay crops throughout the Kamas Valley. There seemed to be a commodity exchange going on then more than an exchange of money. I can't remember a time until after I was released from my mission in February of 1928 that my father wasn't the bishop. Our home was almost directly behind the church. We generally built the fires that warmed things up in the winter time. His two counselors were Tobias Rasmussen and Levi Pearson.

I was ordained a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood on May 22, 1921. Shortly thereafter, I was asked to speak in Stake Conference that was to be held in the Coalville Tabernacle. Coalville was some 20 miles to the north. It is one of the very early Mormon settlements. I was to be the guest of the stake president, President George Beard. At that time, I thought he was almost ancient but looking back through my eyes now, he wasn't a very old man.

He was a very fine artist, his specialty being winter scenes. This is not surprising, as you spent half of your life in that environment. I was given his studio to sleep in that night. The room was large and all the walls displayed his artistry. Pictures of winter, storms, blizzards, snow, ice, wind, flood, and rain. They filled the room and were so real that you could feel the cold, almost like being in it. It was very difficult for me to determine which was the most true to life. Somewhere, some time, I had seen most of these pictures in reality. Seeing them on canvas was

nothing more than a comfortable review.

The next morning, we all went to conference. I had been asked to speak on the Levitical and Aaronic priesthood. I had prepared the subject so that I felt reasonably confident and comfortable, until I heard my name called. I remember that I turned cold and hot at the same time; that my heart was right up in my throat. Somehow, I found myself at the pulpit, and I

remember looking at the audience. It looked like the whole world sitting there in front of me. I cannot recall what I said, only that it was over and I was back in my seat. After the conference was over, several people, including the stake president, told me how well I had done. These people were very kind, but I still felt that I had not covered the subject very well. I do, however, remember my preparation and the details regarding the Levitical and the Aaronic priesthood. Even today, after giving hundreds of talks, I find myself remembering how frightened I was

way back there.

(The following may be a different event, or just more detail relating to the other cattle drive in the snow related to us over the years.- MS)

When I was fifteen my uncle Ed and some of my cousins had to take a herd of cattle over the mountains into the Duchesne Valley. This was quite early in the spring. The winter had been long and severe in Kamas and they had run out of hay. There was no way to ship it in, so the cattle had to be taken to where feed was available. The snow over the mountains was eight to

ten feet deep. We had to travel while the snow was frozen hard and crusted over; even then, the cows had to follow a single path. Several got off the trail and just floundered. We lost six or eight head during the night. As I remember, we started out with some eighty-five head.

We made it to the halfway station late that night and bedded down in a thick grove of pine trees where there were several log cabins. The cabins were simply buried in snow; we had to dig our way into them. We had to break trail every foot of the way. Once inside, they were warm and comfortable. The next morning, we were on the way before daylight. The snow was hard and held the weight of a horse, but by the time several head of cattle had hit the trail a deep path had been cut. They could only travel one direction. About noon the next day, we reached the

summit and started down into the valley. The snow gradually disappeared and soon the cattle were able to find food which they hadn't had for two days. I would not want to do the same thing over again.

During the winter months, we did our chores before school and after school, but there was always time for a little fun and social activity. We had ice skating parties on the mill pond which was right in front of the church and only about two hundred yards from our home. We skated on the pond, the irrigation canal, and the river. We raided our own chicken houses and had baked chicken, cooked on the river bank, buried with hot rocks as an oven. We had oyster stew parties

at various homes just about every week. We played all kinds of games, games that were fun then, but kids don't even think about them today. We each took a turn telling real stories or made-up stories. Once in a while we had a special speaker invited to tell us about church history. Basketball games throughout the Kamas Valley were held just about every Saturday night. Where the team went, everybody went. On Friday nights, we always had a show or a dance. There was always a certain amount of excitement, fights, near fights, breaking up and making up with your girl friend, etc.

When I first started to date, we would go for horseback rides, it didn't matter where. We had a

two-seater surrey with the fringe all around, just like in "Oklahoma". There were blinds and wind breakers made from canvas and celluloid to protect you from the cold. I remember most of my girlfriends --there was Irma Gibbons, Alice Horton, Ruth Wilde, Vera Blazzard, Gladys Wilde, Velma Rolf. They were all good kids and we had a lot of fun together. In the winter time we had sleighs with straw and quilts to keep us warm.

I am not sure how old I was when I ran away from home. My sister Eunice had married, her name was now Mrs. Joseph W. McGinnis. They lived on Lake Street, just two blocks from Liberty Park, in Salt Lake City. I had never been to Salt Lake, and I wanted to see what

it was like. I can't remember who went with me, but we made our way down to Wanship and rode a box car on the Union Pacific into Salt Lake City. I know we almost froze to death. We, of course, went to see Eunice and that was the end of our journey. She made sure that we got back home, pronto.

The spring of the year was always a good experience. We loved it. As the ground began to thaw, the new grass made everything look like a great green carpet. The emerald green of the new leaf on the trees, the flowers came next, so that no matter where you looked everything was new and beautiful. I never thought of it then, but there is nothing more symbolic of the resurrection than what happens every spring. This time of the year always brought with it the time to plow, to till the soil, plant the crops, take the cows to pasture, clean out the barn, prune the trees, prepare the garden. The new lambs were born and that reminds me... we often went on horseback to the sheep camps and pick up the orphan lambs or those that their mother would not claim. We took them home and raised them on a bottle. Those were really great times.

My father always had road contracts, hauling gravel, repairing bridges and just taking care of the winter damage. There was always timber to be brought down from the mountains. We felled the trees when time permitted during the winter and stacked them in convenient places. Then in the spring, we went up and brought them down to the mill. There is a lake high up in the area of Mirror Lake called Seymour Lake. It was named after my father. This was in the Smith

Moorehouse area and the same place where I had been when I was returning on horseback the night my horse was frightened by a wild animal.

Much of our living came from timber, it was either sold to the mill or traded for other things we needed. Quite often I took a load of hay or grain to Park City and brought back a load of salt or coal. These trips were always a full day, even if things went right. More often than not they took until the late hours of the night. When I got to Park City, I went to the livery stables that were owned by Brother Lewis. I used to put the horses in their stalls, feed them, and then go up on Main Street for something to eat. In a Chinese restaurant, I could always get a bowl of the most delicious soup. I filled the bowl with oyster crackers and all the soup I could eat. No

one should want more.

On one of those trips, I had one real good horse and one buckskin that was a good enough horse except when it decided to balk. I discovered that when he heard a chain rattle, he would get down to business, so I always carried a short length of chain, just for that purpose. I had a full load of salt and on the way back to Oakley, as we were approaching the top of a rather long hill, the road became very muddy and slippery. Because we had to stop and rest the horses several times up the grade, I had to get out and prepare to block the wheel from rolling backward. The

last stop before reaching the top, my friend decided to balk. I was out on the ground and reached in the wagon for the chain. The instant he heard the chain, he bolted. The wheel caught my foot and ran over it. Fortunately, the ground was soft and muddy; otherwise it would have crushed my foot. I really thought it had been broken and it could have been, but I never went to a doctor to find out.

Time marches on; I am now out of high school. I did not finish my senior year. Just two or three weeks before graduation, five of us, all seniors, were expelled from school. We didn't feel that it was justified at the time. But when the effects were evaluated, there was nothing else they could do. In any event, I let my temper be my judge and refused to go back. The incident involved the senior and junior Flag Day. The seniors were just going to make sure the flag was not removed by the juniors. We went up the air shaft to the roof and crawled out to the tip of the flag pole and hung the flag. We covered our tracks all the way with axle grease. No one could follow us. We didn't realize how much of a mess we were making or how dangerous it would be for anyone who attempted it. Above all, we did not expect the superintendent (Daddy Alston) to come up. In doing so, he slipped and slid down the shaft all the way to the ceiling above the auditorium. he wasn't seriously injured but it could have been fatal. We refused to come down from the roof even after we had been told what the consequences would be if we failed to comply.

We should have had enough sense to see the position we were putting the administration in. They had no choice but to expel us. Three of the five were reinstated but two of us were just too stubborn to back down. Thirty-four years later, I wrote the South Summit High School superintendent for my credits to see what I had to do to complete high school. By this time, I had been made the bishop of the Stockton second Ward, so I signed my letter, Bishop Charles R.

Seymour. I received an answer at once from G. Reed Marchant, the superintendent. We had both previously attended that same school; he also had served as Bishop of the Peoa Ward.

Dad received his diploma in the living room of the house on Princeton. A number of the family were there. A member of that school board was visiting Stockton, and it had been arranged for him to present the official document to our father. As I vaguely recall now in 2009, we played appropriate music and there was a brief ceremony. We were all delighted for Dad to finally receive that diploma. MS

I was ordained a Priest December 15, 1922 by Elif J. Franson. (This should have been inserted earlier... probably before the flag pole incident, but this is where Dad has it.) I can't recall anything in particular taking place during the next three years that I haven't already related. I was ordained an Elder November 27, 1925 by my father. I was called and set apart for a mission in the Western States Mission November 3, 1925, by J. Golden Kimball.

We didn't go to a mission home like they do now; we went directly to the mission for our training. I took the train to Denver and traveled through the Royal Gorge. This was my very first time to see such beautiful scenery. It took about sixteen hours for the trip. I was met by the District President, Elder Shields and his companion. When we arrived in Denver, it was snowing and really working up a blizzard. We went directly to the mission home, where I met the

Mission President, John M. Knight. He was a big man, with a heavy head of hair, his voice was like thunder and he spoke with his hands and head. They all seemed to be perfectly synchronized. When he spoke in church, I was very impressed. I really loved to hear him talk, so did everyone else. His style has long gone by the wayside. I think I shall always remember John M. Knight.

Our early training consisted of instructional meetings every morning at 7 am., except Sunday and Monday. Monday was our day off, to do our laundry, clean up the house and enjoy a day of leisure. Our meetings consisted of specific instructions on how to give cottage meetings, how to tract, how to present ourselves at the door. We were expected to memorize the necessary scriptures. We studied the Bible, Book of Mormon and the other standard works. We were assigned companions and expected to be with each other at all times. We rather enjoyed giving street meetings on Seventh and Bryant, in competition with the Salvation Army.

After President Knight was released, President Elias Woodruff took his place. He was a completely different personality. A small man, who spoke very softly, very quietly, but for some reason when he spoke people listened. Elder Shields, the District Presidnt, had now been released and Elder Barker, my companion, was made the DP. While we were working together, we lived with a family in northeast Denver at 34th and Vine. It was a three-story old style house

and our room was down the hall, in the back on the third floor.

The only phone was down by the entrance hall on the ground floor. When it rang, [normally] we could not hear it; they had to call us to the phone. One night about 2:30 am, I heard the phone ring, just as plain as if it had been in our room. At first, I thought I was dreaming, but it rang again. I shook Elder Barker and told him the phone was ringing. He said, "You're dreaming, you can't hear the phone up here."

But just then it rang again. I ran down the two flights to answer it. It was a member of the church; she said her daughter was in severe pain and seemed to be having some kind of a fit; would we come down and administer to her? They lived downtown on Tremont Street, in the 1700 block. It would take forty-five minutes to get there that time of night. The street cars ran on the hour after midnight and it was now 2:45 am. We had to be at 33rd and Race in fifteen minutes. We made it. [I remember him talking about how they made it, that the cars were running late, or some such?? Does that ring a bell? JH –It does; there were some miraculous circumstances in making it to that streetcar, not just speed.—MS]

When we got there and were taken to her room, her daughter, fifteen years old, was twisted like a

pretzel, distorted with pain. She seemed to be crying more from fear than from anything else. Neither of us had ever seen anything like it. The room had a very noticeable odor, a smell that to this day I cannot identify. We felt the weight of our mission very much, but we knew that we were there for a purpose, that we were servants of God, bearing the Holy Priesthood. I anointed her, and Elder Barker gave her a blessing. While we yet had our hands on her head, she straightened out, and relaxed. Within seconds, she was in a sound sleep. The most interesting thing of the whole episode was when she went to sleep, the odor left the room and it smelled sweet and clean.

Elder Barker had been married a very short time before he was called on a mission. The thoughts of his wife were seldom off his mind. We lived in the northeast section of Denver and while we were riding the streetcar he would actually unravel the buttons from his shirt and not even realize he was doing it. One time he unraveled the brim of his straw hat, all he had left was the crown. It was really kind of sad but quite funny watching him reminisce. I just can't recall the reason but Elder Barker was released and I was appointed the acting district president.

My mission was extended from November 3, 1927 to February 15, 1928. As the District President, I had the authority to perform civil marriages. On one occasion we were called to Ft. Collins to perform a marriage. At this time, my companion was Elder Warrick C. Lamoreaux. When we arrived in Ft. Collins and found the couple whom we were to marry, we found that they had been living together as man and wife long enough to have one child and within a few months of the second. This was just a little bit more than I could understand until I had interviewed them both very thoroughly. We felt that performing the marriage, to give them legal identity was the only thing to do. They were really good people, and I have since learned to appreciate the circumstances that they had been caught up in.

While working with Elder Lamoreaux, we held many meetings in the home of Sister Anderson who lived in the stockyard district, then called Globeville, Colorado. Sister Anderson was a very good Mormon and really helped us get enough people together for a cottage meeting every week for a long time. One of the families that attended these meetings lived a few blocks away. Their home was situated back in the lot from the street. There was about a four-foot white picket fence all along the front. We opened the gate and began to walk down the walk towards the house.

About half-way we noticed a white English bull dog crouched on the porch. It stood up and started in our direction. I told my companion to just stand still and he wouldn't bother us, but as the dog came closer, my companion turned and ran for the gate. The dog passed me up and caught his coattail as he was going over the fence. I slowly walked out of the yard through the gate without a problem.

My companion, Elder Lamoreaux, and I took several week trips through the Colorado Mountains, traveling without purse or scrip. We were able to tell many people what our mission was all about. We never missed a meal and were always provided with a place to stay every night. One night it was just beginning to get late and the weather had turned suddenly cold. We

couldn't help thinking of the possibilities: sleeping out in the mountains at that elevation without

protection wasn't what you wanted to do. We were in the vicinity of Idaho Springs in a small

place called Empire. There was a grove of Aspen trees just ahead and slightly off of the road. We decided to go in among them and have a prayer. While we were kneeling, I felt the presence of someone; I just knew someone was there but finished our prayers. When we stood up, there was a man standing there with a pitchfork in his hands. He asked us who we were and what we were doing there. After we explained who we were and our reason for being there, he became very friendly and invited us to his home for the night. He had a wife, two small children and his mother also lived there. They were all very kind and considerate of our needs. They gave us a very substantial meal and a comfortable bed for the night. We remained with them for two days and had the opportunity to explain the Restored Church and The Book of Mormon. They were all very interested and I feel sure that much good was done during that visit.

When I first arrived in Denver , I moved in with five other Elders in the home of Sister Westover, 547 Clarkson. Three of us were in one bedroom and three in another. I shared the room with Elder Shields, the District President. There was Elder Shields, Barker, Wright, Giles, Goodluff, and myself. We slept there and had our meals there.

Every morning at six, we were out of bed and ready for breakfast at 6:45. We then went directly to the chapel at 7th Avenue and Pearl where we had an hour of instruction. We were always assigned to districts where we would tract and if possible we scheduled cottage meetings for the evening. We just about always had cottage meetings every night of the week except Monday. Two Elders and oone Sister would share the meetings. The host would invite as many people as she could. Very often we had a full house, with as many as twenty there.

While tracting in Englewood, we made contact with Cody family. They were really good to all of us, Elder Barker, Elder Lamereaux, Elder Orr, Elder Willis and Elder Seymour generally were there. We held cottage meetings with them for almost six months once or twice a week. They invited many of their friends to attend. They frequently had what they called Spiritual Seances (not during any of our meetings), but they insisted that we attend some of them. At these meetings, they would communicate with the dead. They actually had photographs of all the people attending plus the faces of many of their dead relatives. I am not going to try to explain any of this, because I can’t. We explained that such practice bordered on the devil’s territory and that God did not resort to such trickery. In any event, at no time while any of us were present were they able to repeat. We had some very good meetings with them.

I think Elsie, their oldest daughter, asked to be baptized first, then the father, Ed Cody, Sr., his

wife and daughter, Lucille. Ed Cody, Jr. was not baptized. They became very active members in the Englewood Branch.

(During my mission), I was in the mountains of Colorado without purse or scrip (no money!). It

really snowed in Corona, Colorado. The Western Pacific Railroad siding [had] box cars where people were living. One was a fortune teller. My companion said, “Let’s go over and have our fortune told. Warrick Lameroux and I went. This woman had a round table with a crystal ball covered with a black shawl. We sat around it, and she pulled off the shawl and said to me, I see your father on a rocking chair, and she described the porch and house. I see your dad with his legs in a cast. About ten days later, when I got back to Clarksville, a letter from Mother told me about Dad getting hurt when the timber rolled over him. This was in 1924-25.

[Dad’s father, John Seymour, had been up in Weber Canyon loading timber to haul down the canyon. John observed that a wheel seemed loose on the wagon, so he got off to investigate. The wheel gave way at that point, and at least one of the logs rolled off the wagon, breaking both of his legs. In snow and ice, alone sixteen miles up the canyon, John managed to unhitch one of the horses from the wagon and allowed the horse to drag him, with his two broken legs, over the ice and snow the sixteen miles home. I checked with a cousin, Jim Maxwell, who grew up nearby in Peoa, and Jim confirmed that sixteen miles was indeed the distance to the forested area where they cut timber.-MS]

After I was released from my mission and returned home to Oakley, Utah, I was called on a short term Stake Mission in Coalville, Utah. During the winter of 1928, I engaged myself as a distributor handling a hair dressing. I sold either direct or through barber shops. At the wholesale level I made 50 cents a bottle; at the retail level, I made $1.50 a bottle. I took six cases to the Silver Mine at Park City, Utah. Each case contained 48 bottles. After two days, I had sold out except for perhaps a half a dozen bottles, and I gave them to the barber for his help. I walked home over the mountains with my pockets full of money.

Shortly after that I bought a used Star Coupe, a 1924 model, with a rumble seat. During a regular winter blizzard, I took off for Denver. I was going back to propose marriage to Lucille Cody. The trip was one that I will never forget; the roads were so bad that it was better to take to the open country. The roads were so muddy and so full of ruts and pot holes that they were impossible. It took me over twenty hours to make the trip of some 500 miles. I wish I had that

car today; it could really take it.

When I arrived in Denver, I found everything as I had planned. I spent the night with Codys. I proposed to Lucille and we set my birthday, June 12th, as the marriage date. This was about the middle of April, so it would be a little less than two months before we were to be married. In the meantime I took a job with the Denver Steel and iron Works, just through the field from Cody’s home. This was very interesting work; I learned how to read blue-prints, how to cut, bend and temper steel. Knowing what I know now, I was surely glad I didn’t pursue that kind of work long enough to get in a rut. Diamonds are a lot more fun and not nearly so heavy.

The time flew rapidly, and soon it was time for the trip to Salt Lake where we were to be married in the Temple. We left about June 5, 1928, with Lucille’s mother and father. We had her father’s Model A four-door sedan. We traveled through Glenwood Springs, Craig, and then Vernal and on to Oakley, Utah. I think we must have had a dozen flat tires on the trip. I know we had to buy a complete set of tires before we left for the return trip.

We were married in the Salt Lake Temple on June 12, 1928. We stayed two nights at our home in Oakley and subsequently returned to Denver. Very soon thereafter, I found employment at the Denver Decorative Arts Metal Shop. This kind of work I really enjoyed. We made wrought iron lamps, fixtures, railings, anything made from metal for decorative purposes. Mr. Bullock, a German designer and a shrewd businessman owned the place. He had the most unusual custom that I have ever heard of. At lunch time, every one was to eat their lunch in the first half-hour and then take a rest for one hour. Everyone was provided with the necessary facilities. From what I observed there, I don’t think it is a bad idea. All the beautiful fixtures in the Brown Palace Hotel, the State Capitol and many other very exclusive homes were finished off by the Decorative Arts.

Early in 1929, I purchased the Puritan Creamery. This was a wholesale-retail outlet, an ice cream dispensary, a delicatessen and a limited grocery store, somewhat like the 7-11s of today. We purchased the business with borrowed money. I went to see a gentleman I had met while I was a missionary. His name was John L. Pierce, a very wealthy stockbroker with offices in the Denver National Bank Building. After renewing our acquaintance and bringing him up to date on what I had been doing, I told him the reason for my visit. I simply told him what I wanted to do. He was just as brief. He said, Do you think you can handle it? I answered, I know I can. He then

called his chauffeur who must have been down in the garage because it was no more than 15 minutes before he was there.

We drove out Broadway to Evans then east to Gilpin and stopped right in front of the store. We just sat there looking at it for a few minutes and then went in. Mr. Pierce engaged Mr. Buck, the owner, as to the purchase or sale of the store. A young man in his early thirties, Mr. Buck was involved in a divorce and wanted to leave Denver. After a while, Mr. Pierce seemed satisfied and asked him to write me out a bill of sale. He then gave him his check for $5000.00 which was the full purchase price. I wasn’t even asked for a note or any other form of security. He

asked me to pay it off monthly at the best figure I could. I paid the full amount back in 15 months. This was a good business and had I remained in it, I could have perhaps become wealthy, but I am not sure of what my lot would have been. No one can tell for sure what the events of life will bring, but I am sure that God had other plans for me that could never had

taken place, without my whole way of life being disrupted.

On the 18th of March 1929, we were blessed with a beautiful baby daughter. She was born in the front bedroom of the Cody home on Hampton Avenue, in Englewood. I watched with unexplained fascination the whole birth process. Such an experience one never forgets. We named her Patricia May; she was a real joy in every sense of the word. I am glad that I have

such a vivid memory of when she was just a baby. I have bathed her, fed her and changed her many times.

Some time before she was a year old, we began to have a serious problem in our marriage; it progressed from bad to worse, resulting in a divorce. We had built living accommodations in the back of the creamery but they were not used very long.

I had a good friend, Lewis Flader, who had joined the church as a result of initial visits while Elder Lamereaux and I were missionary companions. Louis and his two children were baptized. He was a mining engineer with no small reputation. He had been coming out to my store every Saturday and loaded up with choice meats, cakes, etc., spending a very tidy amount every time he came out.

On one of his visits, right when I was most depressed because of our marriage situation, he could see that I was in an emotional pit. I told him what my problem was and he told me to sell the place and come to Lander, Wyoming. It was really Atlantic City, Wyoming, but Lander was the

closest population center, about thirty miles away. At the south end of Jackson Hole, Atlantic City is where Lewis operated a gold mining company called The United States Mining and Milling, Inc. I sold the creamery and put most of the money in the company.

By this time, Lucille and I were divorced, and I lived with Fladers when I wasn’t at the mine in Wyoming. I eventually took over the commissary and managed the accommodations for some thirty men. One of the men was Billy Barth, a German light-weight pugilist. He and I became very good friends. More than once he fought my battles. Once a week or as often as needed,

we had to go to Denver for a truckload of groceries and supplies. Most of the time, we made this trip by driving continuously. Billy almost always went with me. He always smoked cigars, claiming that they helped him keep awake. I started using them and eventually changed over to cigarettes. I used cigarettes from then on for almost fourteen years. More on this later.

Sometime in 1932, one of the principals of the mining company, Mr. John H. Boardman, of Oklahoma City, died. He owned most of the outstanding stock. His death put the whole company in litigation. The board of directors sent me to Salt Lake City to settle the claims of several stock holders that we, Lewis and I, had been responsible for. I took the train from

Denver, an overnight ride. I was sitting on one side of the lounge watching a young lady who looked so clean and untouched that I knew she must be a Mormon.

I decided that I would make her acquaintance. I took the empty seat next to her and introduced myself. We spent the rest of the night and trip just talking. She invited me to dinner at their house the next night and I went. That is when I met Helen and I have always been grateful to that young lady.

I was staying at the Newhouse Hotel for several weeks. The very next night after I had met Helen, she called me at the hotel and asked me what I was doing that night. From then on we dated every night and whenever we could during the day. We played tennis and we played tennis. I knew there was no way out, so I agreed to marry her. We were married in the Salt

Lake Temple, December 19, 1932. I have since realized that date doubles what you have to spend for Christmas, but on the other hand, it has always helped me remember our anniversary.

After we were married, we went on our honeymoon down through southern Utah, on the way to southern California. Neither of us had ever been to California before and we were excited about the trip. We spent our first night together at a very nice motel in Boulder, Arizona. (Nevada) It isn’t difficult to remember that night. It was the beginning of many years of real happiness. In all the years we have been together, I have never regretted that trip to the Newhouse Hotel in Salt Lake City.

While we were having dinner in Boulder at the motel, there was an earthquake. Then dishes slid across the table, the chandeliers swung back and forth. Maybe that was the reason we couldn’t go to sleep.

The next morning we drove towards Barstow. It was really a fun trip, we enjoyed being together very much. Entering California was like going into a new world. Wintertime in Utah, but so beautiful here. We continued on to San Diego and on to Catalina Island. In San Diego, we flew over San Diego Park in an open bi-plane. I tell you now that was the thrill of a lifetime. If you think the roller coaster at the beach stirs up your adrenalin, try the open bi-plane with a pilot who has nothing else in mind but to help you feel the sights and not just see them. Everybody should do it just once.

We found San Diego a very beautiful city. If I had had any sense then, we would have stayed there. The trip to Catalina was also very interesting. We went over in a glass-bottom boat; we could see all the marine life, fish of all shapes and colors. In some places, we could see the ocean floor with the most interesting growth formations. Some of them would look like miniature forests. The fish, blue fish, green fish, pink fish, you name it, fish in all sizes,

swan right up next to the glass bottom. We stayed in Catalina for just a few hours, not enough time to really see the island. Catalina is 132 square miles, about eight miles by 16 1/2 miles. As I remember, about 1000 people were living there then. The return boat trip was just as interesting as before. That trip set the stage for us to travel wherever we could; we have since been to many countries and have seen much of this exciting world.

After Catalina, we drove north to San Francisco by the coast route. The roads in 1932 were not what they are today. We took two days from Los Angeles to San Francisco. We were told not to miss the view from Twin Peaks; a police officer gave us directions and we drove up; but even before we reached the top, there wasn’t a sign of any scenery; the fog had completely blanketed not just the city but the Bay and everything. We were really disappointed. We have since seen it many times to make up for the time we were so disappointed. The next day, we took in all the sights, rode the trolley cars and decided we liked San Francisco very much. In fact we said that we would like to live there some day, not knowing that we ever would. This was in the first week of February 1933.

We traveled back to Salt Lake City through Nevada. It was a cold and almost impossible trip. There is really not much excitement across Nevada in the dead of winter. We ran out of gas somewhere between … and …. I left Helen in the car and walked to the nearest gas station, which fortunately was only about two miles. We were both just about frozen by the time

that ordeal was over.

We arrived in Salt Lake without any further problems, staying with (Helen’s sister) Ruth and Orin Grant for a few days before we went on to Denver. We stayed in Denver for nine months, but we were then in the midst of the Great Depression, and finding work or anything to do was almost an impossibility. I tried to sell cosmetics, vacuum cleaners, cooking equipment, shoe waterproofing. Those were the days when all we could do was try.

We moved back to Salt Lake City and rented a house on 3rd Avenue and P Street. We tried a number of ventures. One quite interesting enterprise was a large vacant building between 1st and 2nd South on State Street. We rented this building for a song even though none of us could carry a tune in a ten-gallon bucket. We painted all the walls a dark green and then sold space for classified ads, just like the newspapers. Every conceivable thing was advertised on that wall. We made a little money but if we had to pay a normal price for the building, we couldn’t have made a dime. I remember our next venture was renting a small store on Main Street to sell liquid

shoe preservative. We barely paid the rent. No one was making any money. I finally went to work selling vacuum cleaners, and I didn’t do too badly with the vacuum cleaners.

Joan, our first child, was born March 31, 1934. She was a little beauty. We were then living on B Street near 2nd Avenue in Salt Lake City. While we were living on P Street, Helen wrote a

little verse for Standard Brands. It was an entry in a contest advertising Royal Gelatin. All she said was, Royal Gelatin has real fruit flavor and is not just a pretty colored substance to pile whipped cream on. She completed it, put it in an envelope and put it on the fireplace mantle. The last day for mailing, I said, We may as well mail this. So we did. It wasn’t too long until she received a wire from Standard Brands stating that she was the winner of a Deluxe Plymouth Sedan.

When we went down to take delivery, we decided on a different car that cost more money. Shortly thereafter, we went to Los Angeles on a business trip that just didn’t pan out. We were in Los Angeles some two weeks and then went up to San Francisco. We checked into the King George Hotel and were there almost a month. There was no work to be found. Everybody was on the street looking for work. I canvassed every business house, every office in every building. I made one connection with a gentleman by the name of D.C. Watson, an Insurance Broker. He had thousands of accounts that had to let their insurance drop because they had no money. I was to make contact with every account by foot and try to reactivate the account. I was to get $1.00 for every renewed policy. At the end of each day, I would report at the office and he would drive me to his grocer and I would fill up two large bags of groceries to take home. Sometime prior to this, we were evicted from the King George and they held our luggage as security. So far

as we know, they must be still holding it.

We went from the King George to a flat on Gough and Haight. We knew nothing about the city and later found that we had moved into what was known as the red light district. There were, however, some nice people living in the flat next to ours. One of the tenants was a family named Rumbly, an interesting family. We moved from Gough Street to 751 Clayton, a flat in a two-story building. We came in from the street by climbing a flight of stairs.

We moved from there to an apartment out on Clement Street, a much better area, in the Richmond District. Helen got a job with the Western Telegraph Company. Their office was on Geary and Market. About this time, I was selling Silver Seal Cooking Equipment. We would give house parties, cook the whole meal and then sell, sell, sell.

We moved from Clement Street because we could not pay our rent. Our next address was again on Clement in the Haight Ashbury District, the district that became famous in the sixties for the drug addicts, the flower children, the runaways, what have you, all congregated in the Haight-Ashbury area. We moved from Clement to 751 Schroeder, just a block away from the east end of

Golden Gate Park. In those days, it was safe to walk in the park day or night. We had an Airedale dog and used to take the dog and walk through the park. This was a very enjoyable pastime that didn’t cost any money.

By this time, our living quarters accommodated Helen’s sister, Dorothy, and for a while her other

sister, Margot, and Margot’s daughter, Rita. Mar’s husband, Ray, was teaching in Utah. Then their niece, Virginia, moved in. Virginia’s parents had both died by then.

We moved from Schroeder to San Bruno. The house we moved into had been the home of people who owned greyhound racing dogs that had been stabled in the garage. The whole place was crawling with fleas. I sprayed the entire place with kerosene and then hosed everything down with water pressure. We got ride of the fleas. There was a small backyard with a water

fountain. I was just fooling around one day and put a large marble on the fountain and the water pressure lifted the marble about two feet in the air. [This is the very first memory of my lifetime – I remember the pink stucco of the walls, and the marble bouncing in the water. I was eighteen months old. I don’t remember any fleas, though. MS] It stayed there until the water pressure was turned off. When you don’t have any money even little things are interesting.

[One of the treats Joan remembers from this period were the Sunday drives to Burlingame for

chocolate-dipped ice-cream cones and driving or walking down near the San Francisco airport and watching the big planes land and take-off.] We moved from San Bruno back to San Francisco, on Delores Street. We lived in two places on Delores Street, not at the same time.[One of the Delores St. places was where we lived when I was born, so it was before we went to San Bruno.—MS] The last place was only a half block from the first. By now we had three children, Joan, Margot, and Tony. From there we moved into a new home on 42nd Avenue in the Teravel District, quite close to the ocean. What is now called the Great Highway was then 48th Avenue, so we only had a short six blocks to walk. We were in the sunshine belt where the fog was the least. It was a real thrill to move into a new house that was ours. We paid $5600 for it and today it would cost close to $80/ $90,000. [written around 1976-7; in 2006, it would be at least $800,000 or 900,000.]

We had only lived there a month when I was called in to the head offices of The Federal Outfitting Co., the company I was working for now, and was transferred to Modesto to manage one of the Fereal Stores. It was a real opportunity and I couldn’t turn it down. Helen and the children remained in the home on 42nd Avenue until December. I went down to Modesto in August.

Helen came to Modesto and we found a place at 224 Magnolia, just a block from the park. We bought this house for $7,000. Pearl Harbor was attacked the day that we found the house. We moved into it at once. [And this is the same day Ernie was baptized in Toronto, Canada.]

We remained in Modesto until March of 1943. Just next door to the Federal Store was Rogers Jewelry. Rogers was owned by Harry Marks and Robert Mooch(?). We all belonged to the Kiwanis Club and always walked to lunch together every Wednesday. About the middle of February, 1943, Harry Marks and I were walking to Kiwanis, when he said, Charlie, why don’t you go to Reno and manage the Reno store? Rogers had 11 stores, one of them on Virginia Avenue in Reno.

I said, "Harry, you couldn't pay me the kind of money I am making now.” Well, after several days of negotiations, we agreed on an arrangement that would make the change worthwhile.

I went up to Reno about March 15th and Helen came up a month or so later. We found a very attractive home in a very exclusive neighborhood, Mark Twain and Walker Avenue. It was owned by a doctor who was leaving Reno. We paid $13,500. for it. That looked like all the money in the world, but in just a little more than two years, we were transferred to Stockton and sold the place for $21,000. [This is still a very good neighborhood in 2007. The house has been beautifully refurbished, at least outside, and looks great. – MS]

This is the end of what Dad wrote himself. Joan and I will start filling in the blanks from this point forward. –Margot Seymour Schulzke

Dad and Mother were socially quite active in Reno; I remember them going out in the evening with various friends, and remembered Mother as being a very pretty woman, though it was impossible to convince her of that. They had been partially reactivated in the Church in Modesto, and they continued to attend, at least a good part of the time, while we lived in Reno. Dad was trying to overcome his smoking habit, and he had surgery on his nose for cancer during this time, certainly a result of smoking. A skin graft was necessary to rebuild his nose; the graft was taken from behind his ear. But the evidence of smoking causing cancer was yet to be determined, and people really did not know the harm it did.

We moved to Stockton shortly before the birth of Christine, to a lovely Georgian style house on Bonnie Lane. It was roughly the same amount of money for which our parents had sold our Reno house, and like the Reno house, the neighborhood, just a couple of blocks from the University of Pacific, remains a good neighborhood to this day.

Christine was born just five days after our arrival in Stockton; the Sammy and Ethel Johnson family from Escalon, who our parents had known in Modesto, came up to celebrate Margot’s birthday, Easter and their daughter Karen’s birthday together. We ended up celebrating Lisa Christine’s arrival at the same time.

Dad was fully active in the Church at this point, and was called to teach the twelve- or fifteen-year-olds in Sunday School -- despite the fact that he had still not been able to break the cigarette habit. It was a very unusual thing for a bishop to call someone to a position like that who was not keeping the Word of Wisdom. But there is no doubt that bishop (probably Cleon Forsyth, as he was our first bishop when we moved to Stockton) was inspired. Dad saw a lesson coming up on that subject, and he told Mother, “I can’t teach what I am not practicing.” After many previous failed attempts to quit, this time, with that motivation and no doubt considerable prayers on his part and no doubt Mother’s, Dad quit smoking cold turkey. He never touched cigarettes again.

Another interesting memory about Dad teaching those fifteen year olds: they were behaving very poorly and had driven out a couple of other teachers before they were assigned to Dad. The classroom was on the ground floor of the old Harding Way church, and at the beginning of the Sunday School period, the boys, including the sons of both the bishop and the stake president, would climb out the windows. Dad told them that if they persisted in behaving like little children, then it would require their mothers’ help to control them, and he invited their mothers into the class to sit beside the boys. Once was enough, and the boys remained in class each week from that point forward.

After we had been in Stockton two years, Dad decided he was leaving Rogers Jewelry and opening his own jewelry store, about two or three blocks east on Main Street. To finance the new venture, he sold our Bonnie Lane house and built a new house at 1840 Princeton. This wasn’t quite as elegant a neighborhood, but still nice. It had a huge half acre lot, which Mother and Daddy landscaped beautifully, including planting a mini-forest at the back of the lot. That yard was a fairy land to us, and our parents cared for it lovingly. Dad did a quarter of the carpentry work, as well as serving as his own contractor, and making his own display cabinets and display stands to put in those cabinets, and getting his new store off the ground, all in one year. Dad had a phenomenal capacity to work, a high energy level that few could have maintained. Other funding for the store came from an attorney friend named Joe Tope. Dad would buy him out after a few years.

In opening that store, Dad determined he would never advertise nor hold a “sale”. Goods were priced fairly throughout the year, and the best kind of advertising was word of mouth from satisfied customers. Several of his customers at Rogers followed Dad to his new setting, which of course helped launch the new business. Dad maintained total integrity in all of his business dealings, and over time, the word spread all over the San Joaquin Valley that here was a jeweler who was a man of his word. I remember people who had been his customers but had moved far away, Florida in one case and Alaska in another, who called Dad when they had sons who were getting engaged. They had such full confidence in his integrity and good taste that they asked Dad to pick out the stones and settings, mount them and ship them to them.

In the first years Dad had the store, Lloyd Huddleston was his watchmaker. Lloyd was a good man, like Dad. He was also quite young at that time. When a man came into the store one day and stole some watches off a counter display stand, and ran out of the door with them, Lloyd was on his feet and running after them immediately, with his hair-spring pliers in hand. These were needle-sharp. Sprinting along after the thief, Lloyd caught up with him a couple of blocks away on Weber Street (Avenue)? He grabbed the man’s collar and jabbed him in the behind with the pliers. In this day and age, Lloyd would have been charged for that, but not then. With Lloyd in hot pursuit, the fellow had thrown the watches through an open car window along the way. Lloyd marched him back to the store, stopping and retrieving the watches from the car. The police were waiting for them when they returned.

Later on, after Lloyd had moved on, Dad hired another watchmaker who turned out not to be honest. Soon after he was hired, Dad happened to look toward the watchmaker’s bench in time to see the new watchmaker putting some orange powder resembling rust into the mechanism of a watch that had just been brought in for cleaning. His obvious intent was to lead the customer to think the movement in the watch had rusted, requiring more expensive repairs. Dad said, “What are you doing?” The watchmaker said, “They do this in all the stores.” Dad replied, “Not in mine,” and fired him on the spot.

There were days in the first two or three years when business was not enough to support both the store and the family, and Dad was up against it. One of his loyal customers, a wealthy rancher named Chauncey Bianchi, had told Dad that when such moments came along, just to give him a call. He was sure he would want to buy something for his wife, and at the same time tide Dad over. As I recall it, Dad called on Chauncey more than once.

Sometime in those years (Christine may have a more complete memory of this event) Dad developed a good relationship with the substantial community of Gypsies who wintered each year in the Stockton area. Gypsies are, or were, a matriarchal society, and the Gypsy Queen’s word was law. Because she knew Dad to be both honest and generous with what he had, she told her people never to steal from him. One of the young women in the group ignored the warning not to steal from our father, and she took a pair of earrings. The Gypsy Queen learned of her disobedience. She marched the young woman into the store, leading her by the earlobe to return the earrings and apologize to Mr. Seymour.

After Bishop Forsyth was released, Bishop Folkman Brown was called as Bishop of Stockton Second Ward, and he asked for our father to be his counselor. He served in that position for a period of time, perhaps two or three years, when Bishop Brown, who was a professional scouter with Boy Scouts of America, was transferred to Utah. At this point, Dad had just had colon cancer surgery, and was then hospitalized at Stanford Lane Hospital in San Francisco. While still in the hospital, he had a visit from I presume the stake presidency. (I was a freshman at BYU at this point, so was not at home), calling him as the new bishop to replace Folkman Brown.

It was while Dad was serving as Stockton Second Ward Bishop that he had a phone call from Leo Pierce that he and his wife Margaret had been in a terrible automobile accident. Leo was not badly hurt, but Margaret, who had been sitting on the passenger side of the car where the other vehicle struck them, had multiple internal injuries and her head was scalped.

The Miraculous Healing of Margaret Pierce,

As recalled by Margot Seymour Schulzke

I was interested in Margaret Pierce’s miraculous healing as recounted to Tony. No doubt there is a tendency for some to exaggerate accounts, but I think within the Church there may also be a tendency to downplay miraculous events, due to an excess of caution. No one wants to overplay an event like this, so instead, it is downplayed. I believe that in this case, that is a mistake.

The Lord’s hand was powerfully at work in this event. Having heard the story many times over since it first occurred, and knowing the elements of the story to be inconsistent with any other explanation other than Margaret’s actual restoration from the dead, I believe the account as Mother told it to us some forty years ago—and consistently ever since—is more accurate. The witness it bears to the truth of the Gospel and the power of the priesthood should be passed on to our descendants. The account, as given by mother, gives credit that is due to the Lord, to the power of the priesthood and to our father’s faith. The priesthood has sufficient power to bring people back from the dead.

The reasons for my believing it as told by mother, then and since, are these:

Margaret was not “near death”. She was dead, and had been so for a while. She was on a slab in the hospital morgue, with a sheet over her face.

When Leo called Daddy at the store, he asked him to “come quickly, Margaret is not expected to live.” When Dad and the brother he called to assist him in giving the blessing arrived at the door of the hospital, Leo was waiting there. His words were, “It’s too late, Bishop, she is dead.” To which Dad replied, under inspiration, “We will bless her anyway.”

Leo would not have been at the hospital door if Margaret were still fighting for life. He would have been at her side. Dad and the other brother followed Leo to the hospital morgue. Mother said Dad had to lift the sheet from her face to give her the blessing. Mother said she had been scalped. Dad observed to her that Margaret was so badly cut up that he had a hard time finding an intact square inch on which to anoint her head.

When he pronounced that blessing, he promised her not only that she would live to raise her children (a detail cited in Margaret’s account as well as mother’s), and that she would have no lasting ill effects. She recalls this as having no damage to her brain, and no, there was none. And that she would not be disfigured, and she was not. That alone is a miracle. I am a witness to both of those facts. Even thirty years later, she was articulate and sharp, and you could scarcely see a line on her face.

As Dad and the other elder left the hospital, the other man said, “Bishop, do you realize what you said? You promised her she would live, but she is dead.”

Margaret’s account leaves out his important second remark (which she may never have been told) leaving the other man to ask only “Do you realize what you’ve said?” and Dad to reply, “Yes, I do, but I wasn’t speaking, it was the Lord.” Even without the added, “but she is dead,” this context indicates that she was in fact dead, or the brother who came with Dad to assist in the blessing would not have questioned him, “do you realize what you said?”

If Margaret had still been breathing, and simply “not expected to live,” there is no reason to ask that question. That the man was so incredulous is consistent with Mother’s account that Margaret had indeed been declared dead. Otherwise, she would not have been removed from her hospital bed to the morgue.

Dad replied, according to Grandma close to the time of the event, “Yes. But I did not promise her. The Lord did.” It is the same meaning, in either case; both versions indicate the astonishing circumstance to which the man was referring: Dad had promised life and complete healing to someone who was dead.

Her being dead also explains why the doctors were so mystified by her survival, as noted by both Marie and Margaret. Marie said, “The doctors had literally given up on saving Margaret; she was practically scalped. … Her recovery had the doctors astonished. …They couldn’t figure it out, but it was the power of the priesthood and your dear father.”

Margaret said, “The doctors did not decide to operate until after the blessing.” Why not till then? The doctors did not hear the blessing, and even if they had, they would not have been influenced by it. She had been consigned to the morgue. They must have responded to a report from Leo and then saw the evidence that his wife was alive - again. Margaret reports that she was admitted to the hospital at 5:30 in the afternoon, and that Dad blessed her around eight or nine. She was not taken into surgery until after midnight. Why the long delay, if she were thought to be hanging on to life between six pm and midnight? What was medically possible at midnight would have been more medically possible at 6, 7, 8 or 9 in the evening, and urgently needed, if she were still alive.

The following morning, when Dad returned to the hospital, Margaret was bandaged from head to toe. She was fully conscious, but she could not see him. However, she apparently knew his footstep. Before he spoke, the moment he came into the room, she said, “Charlie (or Bishop; not sure about that part, as so many called him Charlie), my Sunday school bag is over by the window. Please get someone to teach my class.”

Margaret was at our father’s funeral over thirty years later, in 1987. I spoke to her personally at some length after the funeral, and discussed the miracle with her. Some of our children were with me. We stood talking on the walk, in front of the Church I had helped to build as a teenager. In her hearing, I told the kids who she was, recalling the circumstances and why it was so important. She did not correct me on any detail.

Marie Franks’ account is that our father was asked to tell the children that their mother “would not live.” (Two of those children were six year old twins; two were adolescent girls.) Dad could have phrased it that way to Marie and the children – perhaps to break it gently that she had already been declared dead. But he also knew at this point that the blessing he was inspired to give her had promised her not only her life, but full recovery. He had made clear that he knew where that blessing came from. But the thought of being the tool to bring someone who was dead back to life had to be staggering, even to a man of our father’s faith. Marie Franks heard him when he stood and announced, after kneeling in prayer with those children, “Your mother is going to live.” It seems that his blessing to her had just been reconfirmed to him by the Lord.

Our father was indeed a tool used by the Lord to bring Margaret Pierce back to life. I believe that one of the reasons this happened was in the interests of our faith, just as Lazarus’ restoration to life was in the interests of the faith of those of New Testament times. As I have shared this experience of Dad’s with others, I have, many times over, felt a confirming spirit. It is true. – (Margot Seymour Schulzke, his daughter)

Another powerful experience Dad had as a bishop was to administer to a young man, whose name I do not recall, a teenager afflicted with a terrible case of acne that had disfigured his face. He came to the bishop’s office for a blessing after having fasted. Dad administered to him, and when the blessing was finished, the young man announced with great excitement, “It’s gone, I know it’s gone.” And it was. His skin had been healed of the disfiguring acne while under the hands of the priesthood.

Years later, when I was expecting our sixth child, Stuart, I was hemorrhaging. There was no doubt I was miscarrying. Dad and Mother were there for New Year’s Day, 1974. Dad and Ernie laid their hands on my head, Dad being voice. He promised me that the child we were expecting would still be carried and born safely. Immediately the impending miscarriage stopped. I knew under his hands that without doubt, I would have that baby. I remember the absolute certainty. And obviously I did carry him –almost to term. Stuart arrived five and a half weeks early. He was jaundiced and had a “window in the wall” or ventricular septal defect in his heart, which he grew out of over the first six years or so of his life. But he is fine. (MS)

After Dad’s funeral, the then-Bishop, Dean Lambert, came to visit us and shared his memories of our father with us. He told us that when he had come to Stockton as a young businessman, Dad was the bishop. He had called on Dean, then an inactive member of the Church, and offered to teach him how to be a successful businessman and serve the community – to be his mentor, in effect. Dean accepted the invitation.

Dad taught Dean how to extend credit to people who were unfamiliar with using it, and how to guarantee they became good credit risks. Dad would allow a day or two to pass after payments were due, and if he did not see a payment come in, he would go out to collect, before the payments were seriously in arrears. Dean did that. He and Dad had many of the same customers, and they would cross paths making collections.

But what Dean saw our father doing was not part of the announced system. He would see Dad going to a door to collect. Dean learned from some of these families that Dad would credit their payment as made. But when our father noticed times were hard for them, he would spend the money he had just collected from them on groceries. He would loop back with the back seat of his car full and deliver bags of groceries to their doors.

At that point, they were building the San Joaquin Stake Center, which then housed Stockton 2nd Ward. Most or all of the funds in those days had to be raised by the local congregations. Dean reported that Dad called him one day and told him he needed to see him at Dad’s jewelry store, and to bring his check book. Dean was still not active in the Church at this point, but Dad told him that they needed a donation from him to build that church. Dean asked him how much they needed. Dad told him the sum he wanted from him. Dean said Dad must have known what the balance was in his checkbook, because Dad asked for exactly that amount. Dean wrote the check, and said it cleared.

Another event that said volumes about our father’s character was a couple of years later, after the Christmas of 1959, when he discovered the bookkeeper at his store was embezzling from him. She was expecting a baby. On the day after Christmas, she went into premature labor and did not come to work. Dad had to take over the books that day. The numbers did not add up. It was not any large sum, but he started tracking back, and back, until he discovered he was out at least $5,000. In 2008 dollars, that might equate to $75,000, a substantial sum for any small business. He wrote Joan and Jake a letter in Houston, noting – with no rancor whatever – that he figured he would rather not press charges against the bookkeeper.

Here are his words, from his handwritten letter to Joan, dated Jan. 10, 1960: “I’m sorry we couldn’t come to Arizona and at least spend a little time with you guys, but aside from being a little tired, the day following Christmas is always a busy day. It is a good thing we didn’t do it (come to Arizona). Peggy didn’t come to work that day. She had her baby the next Monday morning. The store would have really been in a mess if I hadn’t been there then. I of course had to do the books, and soon discovered a minor discrepancy in bank deposits. The further I went the bigger it was; I am not sure yet until we have a complete audit for the year, but it is $5000 or a little more. She admits taking the money.

“I have done a lot of thinking as to what to do. She is in every way I know a real good person, and I don’t think she is by nature dishonest. I have decided to keep her on the job and not make a case of it. She will be watched and checked up on every day, and she knows it. If I took the other course of action, it would completely disrupt their home and her children would have no use for anyone. Anyway, her husband agreed to pay back $150 per month. We talk about forgiving those who trespass against us. This is easy unless it has to do with your bank account. Anyway, this will help them out a little, and we will live through it.”

In spite of Dad’s generous agreement with her husband, she did not stay on the job very long. And Dad never filed charges.

Charles and Helen Seymour’s Senior Mission. Many years later, Dad sold the store and retired, so he and Mother, then in their late sixties, could serve a full-time mission. They went to the Denver, Colorado Mission, where Dad had served his original mission as a young man.

The following history is virtually word for word Mother’s account as she dictated it to me in 1994. I rediscovered it recently, September 2010, in sorting through paper files on family history. It had been lost due to earlier computer crashes. MS

Mother and Dad went on a full-time mission when they were in their late sixties, to the southeast corner of Colorado, in Burlington, fourteen miles from the Kansas state line. It was in the Bible Belt, which the young elders in the mission called Outer Darkness. It was the “Stony Kingston” of the Denver Mission, to borrow a term from Thomas S. Monson. Only two people had been baptized there within the last five years. One had moved away and the other had left the Church.

[Joan wrote, 2010: When Mom and Dad received their call, I (Joan)was sure it was a mistake. Here were these two dynamo people with such great faith and such great ability going to a podunk town on the fringe of Colorado. I was sure that Dad should have been called as a mission president somewhere. So I prayed about it. I prayed hard about it. I remember going out in the backyard of our Hayward home on the other side of the swimming pool and praying. The Lord told me that this, Burlington, Colorado, was where and when they were supposed to go. JSH …And, as things turned out, it was unquestionably an inspired call. MS]

The Church was renting a building from the Four Square Gospel. It had no baptismal font. It was an old wooden building with an entry that looked like a broken down tool shed. The rented building the branch met in had no baptismal font.

Shortly after their arrival, Mother and Dad went to Denver to see Dad’s doctor (he had a blood disorder). They also met with President Lambourne, and mother asked him, “What are we going to do for a baptismal font?”

President Lambourne was a good mission president, but he knew what it was like to work in the Bible Belt. He laughed as though it were the funniest thing he had heard in a long time, that they had the idea they were going to baptize anyone. [Yet there were twenty-one baptisms in that little branch in the eighteen months they were there.]

When they arrived in Burlington, thirteen people attended the first Sunday. Daddy phoned or wrote every member of the branch, telling them they were there, and that they would like to meet them the next Sunday. Sixty-five people showed up the next Sunday.

The second week they were there, the zone leader and his companion came. One went with Dad, one with Mom, and they went door to door tracting, which Mother had never done before. One place Dad went was to Bob Bryant’s place; Bob was home taking care of the kids. He made an appointment for them to come back a few evenings later.

When they arrived, the Bryants were not at home. So Dad phoned the next day and made a new appointment, which they didn’t keep. After the third try, Bob gave up and met with Mom and Dad. They began the discussions. By the time they had finished them, the Bryants accepted the challenge to be baptized.

The assistant to the Mission President was a farmer in Kansas. He and another Church member, maybe a stake mission leader, flew over to interview them for baptism. Dad and Mother met them at the airport and brought them to the Bryant’s house. After they had interviewed Bob and Bunnie, Mom and Dad were about to drive the brethren back to the airport, Bob called to them, “You gentlemen come back and see us sometime! You, too, Charlie.”

Dad said, “Oh, we will, Bob. You couldn’t keep us away.”

Bob replied, “I know. We tried.”

They were baptized shortly thereafter. Bunnie became a very active member of the Church, but at that time, at least, Bob was not very active.

Thelma Gray was another they taught. She and her friend, with whom she had regular Bible discussions, were very interested. Thelma started coming to church, but the other woman’s husband would not let her come. Thelma’s husband, whom she was sure would not be interested, was in the hospital. His name was Ken. Dad went to see him.

Dad talked to him about the gospel, and Ken wanted to hear more. So Mom and Dad started the discussions all over with the two of them, Ken and Thelma. She had smoked for years, and had stopped for three weeks. They set their baptism for a Saturday, but the Monday before it was to occur, Thelma came over with the Book of Mormon and all the pamphlets they had given her.

They had one son, who lived in Gooding, Kansas. They had told him they were going to be baptized, and he said, “You’ll never see me or your granddaughter again.”

They had an appointment for the next night with Mom and Dad, and they went over anyway, despite the fact that Thelma said they were not going to be baptized. They went ahead and gave them the final discussion. Ken said he was going to be baptized on Saturday anyway. They rented the Baptist church’s font for $15, and Ken was baptized.

After Mother and Dad returned home from their mission, they learned that Thelma had had a heart attack and had been airlifted to Denver. While she was there, the members of the Church in Denver came to see her regularly. She couldn’t smoke, since she was in an oxygen tent. They were so nice to her, she was really touched. Her son came to see her often and noticed the kindness shown to his mother. He told the branch president in Burlington he would no longer object to his mother’s baptism, so she was baptized at last. She only lived another year after that; her husband has since also died.

A few days before Mother and Dad were to leave, there was a blizzard, in March, 1977. They lived above a drugstore. Their front door faced the street with an indoor stairway to their apartment. The back door opened onto the roof, reached by a stairway on the outside of the back of the store.

The blizzard knocked the power out, so they had no heat. Snow was packed against both doors, so they could not be opened. So Mom and Dad spent the day in bed, with gloves on their hands, so they could turn the pages of the books they read. (There was enough daylight to see.)

The second day they were snowed in, literally, and the power out, Bob Bryant called to see how they were getting along. They told him they were fine, except they could not get out at all. Later that morning, Dad took an ice tray from the freezer to the back door, which opened in, but the screen opened out, and he used the metal tray to scoop away the snow, hoping to get the screen to move out.

About then, he heard Bob Bryant call, “Hold it, Charlie, I’m coming.” He had walked several blocks in three-foot deep snow with a shovel and plowed the steps off and the fifteen feet or so across the roof top, as well as clearing the front door at ground level. He had had to dig through drifts to get there. There were cars parked along the streets that were completely buried under the snow.

Later that day, Mother and Dad walked about a mile to see some members. Driving was impossible; they literally walked over the tops of cars under the drifts to get there. The wind and the cold had made a hard crust, so they did not sink into the drifts. (But I had to wonder, what if they had? MS)

The Parnells became their best friends in Burlington. They met them through tracting. Ann Parnell took the discussions, but her husband never did. They invited them over for dinner nearly every week. As long as they were there, Ann was convinced the gospel was true, but the next day she would talk to someone else who would talk her out of it. They were never baptized.

The branch had tried a couple of times to buy land for a building. But every time they thought they had a deal closed, the owners would back out. Daddy finally found another suitable piece of land in a good location, and arranged for the Church to send someone out to approve it.

By the time they left their little outpost, the Church was preparing to break ground for a chapel, and the branch was thriving. Dad’s energy and commitment to the work of the Lord, combined with Mother’s faith, optimism and her capacity to love people were hard to resist. They now have a nice little church there, with their own baptismal font. The people there continued to correspond with Mother even up till the year we wrote this account, 1994. Mother was by then 86 years old.

Just before they had their mission call, Dad had been found to have blood in his urine and in his joints. He was ill. But the mysterious illness was put on hold until the mission was complete. They reported to medical care in Denver at regular intervals, but they did all right. Mother had uterine cancer sometime in this time frame as well. I believe it followed their mission. She survived her bout with cancer for close to twenty-five years.

Sometime after they returned to their home in Stockton, Dad was at first diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, but the diagnosis soon turned to Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS. I cannot imagine any modern disease more devastating. Dad gradually became paralyzed, first his limbs, then lost his speech. For three years, he had no power of speech. At the end, all he could do to communicate was to blink once for yes, twice for no, or the reverse, I don’t remember which it was. His mind and his heart remained active, and he knew what was happening to him.

Dad had served for some twenty years (Christine will know the exact number I imagine) on the stake high council, after having been a counselor in a stake presidency and before that, a bishop. The stake president would come to the nursing home to consult with him on stake business. He would of course do the talking; Dad would just blink to reply to his questions. But when the stake president came to visit, the family knew it was time to exit until they had their private visit. I believe there was an abundance of the Spirit present sustaining Dad throughout this ordeal.

His faith had long been powerful and his willingness to submit to the Lord’s will was clear. He endured to the end. After his funeral, one long-time friend of the family said, “If Charlie had any sins, he has atoned for them all.” Several people, non-members, who worked in the nursing home felt the Spirit that was present with him in his room. One young man who no longer worked at the nursing home would come to visit him, just to feel that Spirit.

He died on a Sunday afternoon, too late to announce his funeral for later that week. But the word went out, and over five hundred people filled that building to pay tribute to the life of Charles Reed Seymour. We are blessed and honored to call him our father.

A few weeks or months after his passing, long-time family friend Marjorie Gilmstead went to the Oakland Temple to do an endowment session. At the end of that service, as she meditated in the Celestial Room, she was visited by her son who had died of cancer as a teenager. Referring to our father, the young man told his mother, “He is here, mother, and he is talking.” The boy did not indicate to whom or about what, but we are touched and reassured to know that our father is engaged again in the Lord’s work, and that his capacities are restored. #