Stuart

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            What a great privilege it has been for me to be allotted my time on earth at this particular time.  What great blessings are ours to live at a time when the Gospel has been restored and be able to partake of it and raise our families by it's teachings.  I appreciate being asked to write this brief sketch of my life.  This gives me the opportunity to record my testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the divine calling of the Prophet Joseph Smith.  If recording my testimony will strengthen yours, then it is worth the effort.  It is true.  There is no other way for the Book of Mormon, the priesthood and everything we have through the restoration to have been given other than the way Joseph said that it came about.

            In my mind, the advancement of technology in all fields has come about since the restoration of the Gospel.  I truly believe that is part of it.  One of the responsibilities of the church is to carry the Gospel to all the world.  Look what has been provided to help us in doing so.  Radio, Television, Jet airplanes, and computers, to name a few.

            Now with that introduction let me tell you where I fit in.  I was born May 17, 1918, at Ucon, Idaho to Daniel Tyler and Matilda Peterson Tyler.  I was the eighth child and the fourth boy in a family of nine children; five girls and four boys.  It was great growing up in a home filled with love.  We knew that Mom and Dad loved each other.  As their children

we felt their love daily in the many things they did for us and the way they taught the Gospel by example.  They didn't preach to us.  They taught by example.  They gave us one of the greatest assets that parents could give their children; they taught us how to work.  We played too.  Dad's boyhood, helping his crippled father to provide for a family deprived him of his childhood.  I've heard him say that he never had a chance to be a boy.  He made up for it by playing with his own kids.  Even when we were busy, we played.  We always took an hour noon when working in the fields.  After dinner we pitched horse shoes for half an hour.  After we got an electric motor on our milk separator, we played pool in the basement on a homemade pool table, while the milk ran through.  Occasionally we went fishing and in the winter time, with no television, every night was home evening.  I treasure the memories of my growing up years.

            Now to mention some of the changes I've seen: there were no gas powered tractors to farm with.  All farm work was done with horses.  The threshing machines that came at harvest time were pulled and run by a huge steam engine on great big steel wheels.  Their top speed was four miles an hour.  It took a full day to move from one farm to another.  Along with the move came the fuel wagon carrying wood and coal and the water wagon, both pulled by a team of horses.  There were a few cars around but most people did not yet have one.  Even though the machine man and the engine man only lived two miles away it was too far to go home at night.  They brought a tent and pitched camp near the straw stack.  Farm women cooked three meals a day for them.

            By the time I was big enough to work on the threshing crew, we did have gas powered tractors but they were still on steel wheels.  There were no paved roads in the valley so there was no worry about those big steel lugs on the wheels.

            Today, Rhoda and I live in a farming area where we can watch the huge grain combines pull in and harvest an entire field in a day, the combine never stopping.

            Now to make a point about these things coming since the restoration of the Gospel.  In Joseph Smith's day they didn't even have horse drawn binders nor threshing machines.  Grain was cut by hand with a cradle, tied in bundles by hand and then carried to a threshing floor where it was flailed by hand.

            There is no way I could even begin to mention all of the progress made since the restoration but I want my readers to think of just a few more.  Think of our Mormon Pioneers, making the trek west with horses or oxen pulling covered wagons, or some of them pulling hand carts.  Now think of our automobiles and our freeway system.  Great trucks with their loads, traveling the entire nation and never getting off of pavement.

            I want to mention one more.  I was in the second grade in school at Ucon, probably about 1925, when one day a little open cockpit biplane buzzed the school and then landed in Grant Andrus's cow pasture a quarter of a mile away.  The school's principal dismissed school.  I remember his words; "Let's all go see it.  We may never get another chance to see one this close."  He didn't know it, but the airplane was here to stay.  Several of the boys there that day became pilots during World War II.

            Now a bit about my flying experience.  In 1966 I was working in construction as General Foreman over concrete work, for the Fluor Corporation, on jobs they had at the time at the Atomic Energy Site in the Arco, Idaho, desert.  I had been with them nine years, all of it in a supervising capacity.  We were completing our job here and they were recruiting supervision to go to Kuwait, Arabia, and supervise the construction of a huge oil refinery.  I was asked to go.  Rhoda and I talked about it, we prayed about it and we both had the feeling that it was the thing to do.  I guess it's things like this that make me love this wife of mine so much.  She would be left with the responsibility of the kids, the cows, and the farm in Clark Ward, east of Rigby, where we lived at the time.  She has always carried more than her share of the load.  How I appreciate her.  I accepted the job.

            The company allowed us a choice of cities in which we could take a lay-over while en route.  Copenhagen, Denmark was on the list.  That was my choice.  I wanted to see the land of my grandparents and great grandparents.  I said good-by to my family at Idaho Falls, flew to Salt Lake, then Denver and then Lagardia Airport in New York City.  It was evening when I flew out headed east to Denmark.  I soon settled down in my seat and went to sleep.  Flying east at the rate these planes travel makes a short night.  I hadn't slept long when I woke up with the sun in my eyes.  It was full daylight when I got off the plane at Copenhagen but I needed more rest.  I checked into my hotel and went to bed for a little while before beginning my day of sightseeing.  I had left Idaho Falls one morning and arrived in Copenhagen the next.  I thoroughly enjoyed Copenhagen but I couldn't help but think of my ancestors, all of them, but mainly of Nina Marie's mother and step-father, Johanna and Johannes Olsen.  After joining the church in Denmark, they boarded a sail ship with their four younger children to come to America.  Nina Marie and her full sister, Henrietta, were older and didn't come at that time.  They were so long at sea that cholera broke out and two of the boys died and were buried at sea.  Arriving in America they joined a hand cart company to cross the plains to Utah.  Their daughter died in route and was buried along the way.  They left with four children and arrived in Utah with only one.  Charles Olsen, Nina Marie's half brother.  I can't help but marvel at all that God has revealed since the restoration of the Gospel.

            It's time now to look back to my teen age years.  I graduated from Ucon High School in 1936.  The four preceding years had been about the worst of the depression years.  Herbert Hoover was president of the United States and he got the blame.  In my mind, Hoover was a brilliant president with a Democratic congress.  He was no more to blame than Congress was.  In fact, Roosevelt put in use several of Hoover's plans that Hoover's Democratic congress wouldn't support when he was in office.  This was the time when the rubber tired farm wagons came into being.  There was getting to be quite a few cars around by then but due to the shortage of money, people couldn't afford to run them.  They took the bodies off their cars, took the motors out, put a tongue in them to hitch a team of horses to and called them "Hoover Wagons."

            Men were paid $1.00 a day for farm work.  My first job after I finished high school paid $20.00 a month.  At age 18 I was dating some and I think today's generation might be interested in the cost of a date back than.  Dad didn't pay us for work on the farm.  We just figured that our work was out contribution to the support of the family.  Dad would always give us the money we needed at the time of need.  Fifty cents was sufficient for a date.  Ballroom dancing was our main recreation.  A dance ticket was thirty five cents.  That left enough money that you and your date could each have a bottle of pop at a nickel each and there was a nickel left to buy a package of chewing gum.  We really didn't realize how broke we were.  We always had a good time regardless.

            It was 1937 when Dad traded the "Need More Ranch" for grazing land at Henry's Lake up near West Yellowstone.  That's when LeMond and I began our career as cowboys.  We leased spring range at St. Anthony so in the spring we would trail to there and herd the cattle on the open range for a month and then around the first of June we would trail on up to the ranch.  It was 100 miles from the farm at Ucon to the ranch.  LeMond and I would take turns staying at the ranch to watch the cattle and cut out corral poles and posts, treat the posts, build fence (all with an ax, we didn't have chain saws yet), and helping Dad on the farm at home.  Then in the fall it was trail that 100 miles back to Ucon.

            My winters were spent working for sheep men as "Camp Jack" on the desert between Spencer, Idaho, and Mud Lake.

                          ROMANCE

            It was the fall of 1939 and I was making plans to go on a mission.  I had had a desire to go for a long time.  I attended a wedding dance at Coltman.  That's where I met Rhoda.  She was beautiful.  I asked her to dance and she accepted.  (She didn't know what she was getting into.)  Before the night was over we had danced three times and I had found out that she didn't have a steady boyfriend.  We made a date for a movie on Saturday night.  The next day was Sunday and it was Stake Conference.  I was to be interviewed for my mission that day and she was to serve as an usher.  We both needed to go to conference so that was our second date.  Mother went with us on our second date as she wanted to go to conference.  That was a good move.  I think it was love at first sight for Rhoda and Mother.

            At conference they announced a dance on Tuesday night as the opening social of M.I.A.  We had to go.  I had just met that girl and we had three dates in less than a week.  I took her home after the dance and then sang all the way home.  I was in love.

            I had to make hay while the sun was shining.  It was soon time for me to head back to the ranch.  By the time we finished out the season and trailed the cattle down we missed about six weeks of dating.  Then in November my Mission call came.  I entered the Mission Training on January 8, 1940, to prepare to go to the Eastern Canadian Mission with headquarters in Toronto.  Rhoda and I talked about becoming engaged but perhaps I had an odd attitude.  My theory was, and I expressed it to her, "If I give you a ring you will feel obligated to wait for me.  I feel like that if you wait for me, I would rather it would be because you wanted to and not because you had accepted a ring."  We said good-by at Mother and Dad's house and I rode to Salt Lake City with my brother-in-law, Frank Radford.

            I had a good mission.  I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything in the world.  It was a tough mission and we saw little results of our labors, but when it was all over with and I looked back, I was the one that had gained the most from my labors.  I now had a firm testimony of the Gospel and was much better qualified to become a husband and father.  Young people, plan for a mission.  It's a great experience.

            I have always been grateful that I had the opportunity to work in Cornwall, Ontario--my last field of labor.  We found people there receptive.  I was released at the end of January and the following spring my last companion, Jay Furness--who now lives in Rigby, and the Elder who replaced me, baptized thirteen people, all people that I had been working with.  Cornwall was a great climax to my mission.

            Rhoda has written a short sketch of her life.  In-as-much as our lives came together after our missions I think this is a good place to insert her life sketch.

            RHODA'S HISTORY

            I, Rhoda Marie Stucki Tyler, was born at Coltman, Idaho, February 22, 1919.  Coltman is a small farming community about eight miles north of Idaho Falls, Idaho.  Mrs. Thompson, a mid-wife, delivered me.  Not many people could afford to go to hospitals in that day and we seldom saw a doctor.  Mother told me that soon after I was born, Mrs. Thompson died.  She was a great lady and did a great service to all the communities around Coltman.  In fact, she was the same midwife that brought Stuart into this old world.  We didn't know this until we were comparing birth certificates one day and noticed that Mrs. Thompson's name was on both of them.

            Times were hard on the farm during those years of my childhood.  Dad farmed with horses.  We milked cows, our only source of monthly income.  We raised pigs, grew potatoes, hay, wheat, barley, oats and sometimes mangoes, which were fed to the livestock.  Mangoes were like sugar beets in shape and made good stock feed.  All of the kids were expected to work on the farm.  We couldn't afford much hired help so we learned to work at an early age.  When I was about three, Mother would put a dish pan on a chair and I learned to wash dishes.  I had two older brothers, Amos and Victor, and a younger brother, Ephriam, when we got diphtheria.  We later learned that we contacted the disease from a fellow Dad had hired to help in the fields for a few days.  Amos and Victor died from the disease but I was too mean to die, I guess.  We were quarantined at the time of my brothers' deaths so a short service was held in our yard before their burial.  This was a very hard time in my mother's life.  I can remember times when she would think herself alone and she would cry bitter tears.  But she always tried to be brave around us kids.  The thing I remember most about my older brothers was their kindness to me.  I remember sitting on the step of my house many times, waiting for Amos to come home from school to play with me.  I was about three at the time.  My growing up years passed quickly.  I went to school at Coltman Elementary.  We walked the mile and a half each way so when we got to school we were ready to sit and listen.  My favorite subjects were reading and spelling.  We didn't have books at home so I enjoyed the small library at school and by the eighth grade I had read most of the books in it.  I still love books and have never read a book that didn't teach me something.

            My best friend at school was Annie Jeppson and we were tomboys.  I could outrun almost anyone in the school and Annie and I loved to climb trees and play ball when the boys would let us.  We always wore dresses at school and this was a pain.  We didn't want to be ladies.  Some of the girls were always tattling to the teachers that when we climbed trees we showed our bloomers.  Now I should tell you about bloomers.  They were overpants, about two yards of material with elastic waists and elastic around the legs.  They were worn to the knees.  They were worn over long underwear in the winter so we were always well covered, but it wasn't lady like to show them.  When I was in the seventh grade I played hooky from school a few times.  We resented the eight grade getting privileges we didn't get so a few of us would hike up the railroad track a couple of miles and eat our lunch and then come back in the afternoon.  Our teachers were Mr. and Mrs. Robins and they were sure delightful people.  They would punish us by making us stay in their apartment during noon hour and recesses.  Their apartment was in the basement of the school.  At noon we stayed in and ate our lunches with them.  She treated us to candy and nuts and cookies, goodies that we didn't get at home very often and we were really punished.  Those poor kids that were always good didn't know what they were missing and we weren't about to tell them.  I wouldn't recommend this hooky playing to any of my grandchildren because now days the procedure is very strict and it affects grades etc.  Now days they have protests marches.  I guess that is what I was involved in.

            My school years coincided with the great depression.  We worked but we were clothed and had plenty to eat.  We always raised a big garden.  We canned and stored fruits and vegetables for winter.  We had meat, milk, and eggs galore and we ate like kings.  My mother was an excellent cook and we always enjoyed everything she cooked.  We saw a movie about once a year.  Buck Jones was our cowboy hero.  The pictures were silent at this time.  The story was told by reading the captions at the bottom of the screen.  Most of the story was told by actions.  I still enjoy a story where the good guys clobber the bad guys.

            Candy was a treat that we enjoyed at Christmas time and we also got another treat at Christmas time, an orange.  We were healthy, almost never had tooth decay and very seldom went to the doctor.  Every winter we went through various childhood diseases.  Someone would get chicken pox, small pox, measles, whooping cough, mumps, and then the entire family would get it.  We never heard of colds, viruses, and such.  Mother and neighbors treated us with castor oil, mustard plasters, and all such home remedies.  It was a kill or cure situation.  Being healthy kids, we survived.

            Our two room house was heated solely by the wood stove in the kitchen and in the winter we slept three in a bed to keep warm.  When I was about twelve, Dad built a new house with a bathroom in it and we were really living.  It had three bedrooms; one for girls, one for boys, and one for our parents and new baby.  We got  a new baby about every two years and I was the baby sitter.  Among other duties, I remember helping mother when Ray was born.  From then on I tended the babies and helped Mother with the cleaning and meals.  Mother worked in the fields a lot in the summer and I cooked and tended the babies.  It was my job to get breakfast, and during school months, fix lunches and get kids ready for school, while Mother helped milk the cows.  I didn't have much time to primp or fix my hair for myself.  I just did the best I could and learned to hurry. To this day I work in a hurry, though the years are slowing me down.  I learned to do several things at once and always worked fast.  When I first helped with the house work modern conveniences were unheard of.  Our first washing machine had a wooden tub and the agitator was run by a lever that was worked by arm power.  Finally we got a Maytag with a gas motor because we didn't have electricity at this time.  This was a big improvement because we didn't have to wring clothes out by hand.  Finally after many years we got electricity and what a treat this was.  Before electricity we lighted the house with coal oil (kerosene) lamps and a gasoline lamp that did put out a pretty bright light.  Mostly we studied and worked by daylight and went to bed early and got up at daylight.  Finally the power came and we would go through the house flipping the light switches on and off and marvel that a flip of the switch could give us so much light.  We got our electric stove and refrigerator, and miracle of all miracles, a radio.  We could get music and programs with the flip of a switch.  We thought we had it made.  We even got an automobile.  All summer we rode in it and didn't have to hitch up the horses to go places.  In the winter we still used the sleigh to go places because no snow plow came to keep our roads plowed out.  The only places we went in the winter was to school, church, M.I.A., and church socials.  Mostly we just stayed home.  We had time to sew, make quilts, etc.  Dad spent his time in the winter caring for the livestock and doing church chores.

            I remember our first car that had roll up windows.  It was a model T Ford and the windows kept out the wind and cold.  There were no heaters.  They were unheard of.  If the car wouldn't start on a real cold morning, Dad would take a kettle of boiling water and pour it over the manifold.  It always started.  Then before the snow got too deep (these cars were built high off the ground and went through pretty deep snow), Dad would take us kids to school.  If a blizzard came up he would hitch up a team and take us to school in the bob sleigh.  On nice days we walked, winter too.  We had no school busses then.  We did a lot of walking.  In the spring the roads would be muddy with lots of deep ruts.  Finally we got some roads graveled and that was real progress.  They used teams and wagons to gravel the roads at first.  During my childhood, paved roads were unheard of in our part of the country.  Believe me, when people talk about the good old days I say, "You can have them, I'll take our now days with our wonderful conveniences."  I never wash a batch of clothes that I don't think of how wonderful it is to have an automatic washer and dryer, and our freeway system is so handy in moving people from place to place in such comfort.  Even though we had to work hard and didn't have all the modern conveniences, we seemed to have more time to visit than we do now. On Saturdays we visited grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  We always had a good meal and then the kids would go out and play and let the old folks visit.  Now we see relatives at reunion time and that's about it.

            I love our modern day cars.  They are so comfortable and get places so fast.  Of course if you are really in a hurry you can take a plane, but I hate flying.  I like to travel by car and see the country as I go.  There are so many beautiful places to see in this great land.  When I was a girl I rode with Dad to Logan, Utah, to finalize our new house plans with Uncle Gottleib and it took all day.  We went in our new black model T Ford.  That car was great if you didn't get on any steep hills.  I remember Mother and Dad taking us kids on a picnic up Gardner Creek one day.  That was in the Connet Valley near Swan Valley.  The hill was so steep that Dad had to turn around and back up it.  (Note by Stuart, Fuel pumps hadn't been developed when the model T Fords came out.  The gas was simply gravity flow.  The gas tank was installed on the back of the car and was placed high, at least as high or a little higher than the top of the back seat.  Going up a steep hill, the motor of the car was higher than the gas tank and gas won't run up hill, the engine would die.  To back up the hill put the gas tank higher than the engine again and the car would run.)  When we got our new 1933 Chevrolet it had a lot more power and we thought that was the greatest invention ever.  In 1984 and 85 the state literally moved a mountain.  The Connet hill is no more.  The switch backs down the hill were done away with by dozing a goodly portion of the hill into the valley and a lot more of it went to fill the canyon at the side of the dug way road.  Now we can sail through on a lovely straight road.  Progress, it's wonderful.

            After graduation from eighth grade I went to Idaho Falls to high school.  Mother was determined that I was going to become a nurse so she wanted me to get a good high school education.  I hated nursing so was a disappointment to her.  I lived with people in Idaho Falls and worked for my board and room while going to high school.  Between working and school I didn't have time for any outside activities.  Going to school the way I did had many drawbacks.  I didn't get to attend M.I.A. or Seminary so I missed out on a lot of church preparations that I needed later in life.  I'd go to Sunday School and Sacrament meetings but that was about all the church training I got.  I should tell about the Sacrament meetings we had when I was a child.  They were always held on Sunday afternoon and were two hours long.  In summer it was a pain to sit there.  It was hot and the speakers were always boring, to us kids at least.  The Sacrament water was in a drinking glass that was passed down the rows and we each took a sip from it.  Sanitary, ugh.  I told you life was hard in the old days.  It's no wonder that we all passed around the childhood diseases.  If we didn't catch them at school we got them at church from the Sacrament glass.  It was wonderful when they finally came out with separate cups.  That was progress.

            I worked in high school.  I had to study hard to make it.  I enjoyed my history classes and also my literature class.  English and math were hard for me.  I had Miss Hammer for a history teacher.  She divided the class and had us debate issues to keep us up on world events.  I used to enjoy reading and enjoyed the debates.  I didn't do much dating or go to class dances or school activities.  I was always working.

            After high school I worked at home for a year.  Mother was sick a lot and worn out so I helped out at home.  Then I attended a year of college at Logan.  I stayed with Aunt Clara and Uncle Gottleib.  About 1939 Dad bought more ground at Coltman and there was no more money for education.  When I was 21 years of age I went on a mission to Hawaii.  I was in the L.D.S. Japanese Mission.  The mission in Japan had been closed and opened in Hawaii.  It had been going there for four years when I got there.  I enjoyed the Japanese people and while I was in Hawaii I learned tolerance for all races of people.

            I had Wuta Terezawa for a missionary companion.  She was a Japanese girl raised at Sugar City, Idaho and was so special.  She is still like a sister to me and always will be.  We keep in touch and see each other when we can.  She married Roy Tsuya, a Japanese convert from Kalai.  He is a great individual and a devoted worker for the restored Gospel.  During World War II he served with the Japanese/American group known as the 442nd.  He saw action in Italy and Germany and was wounded in action.  He loves to fish and they come up once in a while and he and Stuart go fishing.  Wuta was my favorite companion.

            I enjoyed my 17 months in Hawaii and was there when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.  I was on the island of Hawaii in the city of Hilo at the time.  It was a sad time because of our Japanese members who suddenly became our enemy, even though they had nothing to do with the attack.  Many of the young men member of the church became missionaries to Japan after the War ended.  Whey knew the language and were responsible for getting the work started in Japan again.  One of these special people was Jimmy Isemoto.  He served in Italy and Germany also.  While at Anzio he met John Fretwell, a special friend of ours who served there too.  They had L.D.S. meetings at Anzio when they could and they got acquainted there.  A few years ago Johnny and Hazel Fretwell visited Hawaii and took in a session of the temple and there was Jimmy.  He was serving as a temple officiator.  These people are good members and very faithful.  Church membership brings such love for all people everywhere.

            I came home on the first convoy of ships after the war started.  I arrived in San Francisco January 1, 1942.  There were three boat loads of Navy and Army wives and also other non- essentials to the war effort that came on that first convoy.  We were escorted by several ships; we zig-zagged all the way home.  There was only one type of aircraft flying around at this time.  The China Clipper.  Only rich people traveled by air.  Everyone else by boat.

            I got home one month before Stuart was released from his Mission to Eastern Canada.  He figured he would have to go right into the military service as soon as he got home.  They were drafting the fellows as soon as they got off of their missions at that time.  I met Stuart at Salt Lake City and we decided to get married at once and have a little time together before he left for war.  Our parents weren't very happy about this but we did it anyway.  Brother David Broadbent married us in the Salt Lake Temple.  When Stuart got drafted he was turned down because of his crippled foot and he has always said that he got into all of that trouble (marriage) for nothing.  In spite of not having all of the fancy trappings of a wedding, I think this marriage is going to last.  The best part of my life began with our marriage and the arrival of our children.

            We farmed at Ucon for three years and then bought a farm at Mud Lake.  Dad and Mom Tyler gave us a start so we could put a down payment on a farm.  In the six years we had that farm we were hailed out twice and froze out once.  We finally got so broke that Stuart went to work for Uncle Roy Radford in construction on the Arco Desert.  The Atomic Energy Commission had just come to Idaho and there was lots of construction on the Arco desert.  Roy Radford, Pearl's husband, set Stu up as a cement mason and helped him learn the trade.  He was making $21.00 a day and that was good wages at the time.  We sold the farm and moved to Arco.

            Stuart started work in January and stayed with Pearl and Roy in Arco through the week.  I stayed at Mud Lake and tended the livestock and the kids.  We had three by then.  Sondra and Janet were both born while we lived at Ucon.  Studie was born while we lived at Mud Lake.  Victor was born March 23, 1951, just after we moved to Arco.

            We enjoyed our kids.  I'll never forget the first time I saw Sondra.  I had been in labor for two days and was so tired but when they put her in my arms I looked at her and thought she was the most beautiful baby in the world.  She started to talk at the age of one year and was a good baby.  She had to be, Janet came along a year later and I was busy.  I had a garden to tend, hired men to cook for, babies to tend, cows to milk, canning to do on a wood stove, lots of laundry and house keeping.  Stuart was farming 160 acres with horses and horse drawn machinery.  We were both busy and working 16 hours a day.

                STUART CONTINUES

                       24 March, 1998

            What a great life we've had together.  We have been married 56 years and we're still in love.  Life doesn't get any better than that.  Sure, we've had our struggles in life.  We've had good times and we've had bad times but the important thing, we've still got each other.  Currently we've got some health problems but so long as we can sort of baby each other we'll be happy.

            Rhoda didn't get our fifth baby born yet when she quit writing.  We can't leave Cindy out.  She has been the leaven of the loaf. We have lived next door to Cindy and her husband, Scott Campbell (75 South 1050 West, Blackfoot, Idaho) and their four children for the past five years.  It's a real good place to be as we are beginning to age.  They all help us a lot.  Actually, we appreciate all of our kids a lot.  Sondra comes from Idaho Falls on a regular basis to help out.  Vic and Janet both live in the Salt Lake area so we don't see them as often but they all have good families and we are proud of all of them.

            Now I had better get back to our story.  I have fond memories of every place we have ever lived (and we have circled this valley).  We suffered so  many crop losses at Mud Lake that we suffered financially while out there and finally had to give up farming.  We had lots of good friends and neighbors out there and had some good experiences in service.  I served in the Bishopric in the ward.  I think the position Rhoda enjoyed the most while we were there was Ward Drama Director.  This was before television and we made our own entertainment.  Rhoda loved to put on Melodramas.  She was good at it and they were fun.  It was while at Mud Lake that I began playing piano with dance orchestras.  That has been a lot of fun and helped me develop some musical talent.

            Pearl and Roy's family lived at Arco the same time we did and how we enjoyed their family and our association with them.  I played piano with Walt Jensen's orchestra all the time we were there.  I worked on the Palisades Dam, while it was under construction, and drove home to Arco week ends the first year.  The second year I bought a trailer house that we spent nearly a year in before moving to Clark Ward east of Rigby.

            The place at Clark was to be our home for 35 years.  We had just been moved in a short time when Cindy came to join our family.  She was eight years behind Vic and all of the kids enjoyed her and tried to spoil her but it couldn't be done.  She has sure been a joy.           I continued working in Scouting and in 1962 was given a Silver Beaver award.  I found opportunity to continue making music.  I played guitar with the Old Time Fiddlers, played piano with Claude Asper's orchestra, and would take my electric organ to play for Senior Citizen groups at Rigby and nursing homes around the valley.  I played every Friday night all one summer for Senior Citizens Dances at Ririe.  I enjoyed that.

            It was while living at Clark that I wrote the song "My Savior Dear" that my nieces, Roma and Loraine (Sister Alice Byington's Daughters) recorded for me.  What a beautiful job they did with it.  With the help of Steve Reed of Ririe, I produced a tape of my original music, Gospel on one side and country on the other.

            It was the summer of 1966 that the Fluor Corporation I had been working for invited me to go to Kuwait Arabia and supervise the concrete work on a big oil refinery.  Rhoda, bless her heart, held down the fort while I was gone.  While in Kuwait I was called to serve as the first Branch President of the first branch of the church to be organized in Arabia.  The experiences in the branch made me feel that I had been called there to assist with the Lords work and not just simply to build oil refineries.

            I had been home only two months when our son, Stuart (Studie) was killed in a tragic car accident.  He was 20 years old.  What a heart break.  We have found that you don't get over these things; you simply adjust your life and continue on.  There's not much choice.

            A year and a half later the Fluor Corporation invited me to come back and supervise work in Puerto Rico.  This was a family status job and I could take my family with me.  We decided to go.  It was great having my family with me in a tropical climate.  We enjoyed it and all found plenty of demand for active members of the church in a small branch and we all served.  Vic represented the Ponce Branch when he went on his mission.

            Before leaving Puerto Rico, Rhoda came down with a bleeding ulcer and underwent emergency surgery.  She came home with a case of serum hepatitis.  That was twenty seven years ago but it has finally affected her liver to the point that it is the cause of her health problems today.  How we love her.

            We came home from Puerto Rico the spring of 1971.  It was after this that Pearl came to live by us.  We parked her trailer in our yard and she was our neighbor for ten years before she died.  With her next door, her family came often to see her and we could visit them too.  I loved all of my brothers and sisters and their families but even though it is not intended, as we go through life our association with some is more frequent than others.  You become real close.

            Sometimes I feel like life is like a movie.  Rhoda and I have been the stars.  I hope it has a happy ending.