Earl & Eliza Halls

(Earl) In 1936, we bought the home we are now in from Wallace Clark. It cost us $1,100 and the Clarks were good customers, so a large part of the payments was worked out in blacksmithing.

(Joy) Mother told me I was five when we moved to the house in north Morgan. What a mess that house was. I remember how dirty and unlivable it was. If I remember right, the inside had to be scooped out and there were birds nesting up in the edge of the house under the eves attracting all kinds of insects and making a mess. Mom scrubbed and scrubbed the house, but shortly after we were settled in all the beds were infested with bedbugs. Bedbugs look like a tick, but they live and breed in the corner of a bed mattress. They also would bite the occupant at night and leave blood stains on the bed sheets. It was my job to paint the corner of each mattress every day with some kind of oil, perhaps linseed oil. I hated those bugs so badly that I did a very good job. Mother made up some kind of terrible smelling mess on the stove in a big fry pan. Each bedroom had its turn to have this awful stuff in it for a day, several days, for at least a month. We finally got rid of the bed bugs. I smelled something recently that reminded me of that stuff Mom made and decided it had some sulfur in it. There were also mice to contend with until Mom found all the places they got in and plugged them up.

(Lyle) In 1936, Dad and Mother bought a home on State Street from the Clarks. After much remodeling they finally, for the first time in their lives, had an indoor bathroom. It was a home they could call their own. It was located on about five-eighths acre with the house being the only building. It was not long before Dad, with the help of his sons, was digging a fruit and vegetable cellar, building chicken coops, a garage, a barn, and other buildings for storage.

(Earl) Elden had rheumatic fever, and also mastoid trouble back of his ear which required an operation. We took him to Salt Lake City to the L.D.S. Children’s Hospital and they put in about three hours on the first operation. He almost died. Later on he had to go through it all again. Each time, Mother would go down and stay with a cousin of ours and take care of him. I would have to borrow a car that ran a little better than my Model-T to go down there and see how things were coming along. It was pretty hard going for all of us. After he came home, he was sick for quite some time. Later he got to where he could go to school, but very often when he couldn’t walk very well, I’d have to take him. But he was sure a plucky boy. He had lots of ambition and wanted to go. After he got so he could do it, he would come over to the shop and I would have him sharpen lawn mowers, and paid him twenty-five cents each time for a lawn mower. He got quite apt and did a good job.

On March 25, 1937, Elden died, and that was a blow. That was one of the hardest things I have ever had to overcome.

(Lyle) Elden was about thirteen at the time Lois was born, and I believe this was the winter that he came down with rheumatic fever. Mother not only had two babies to care for but a very sick boy. I remember his cries, those many nights as the pain would throb through his body. Mother must have suffered as much as he, as there was little she could do to relieve his suffering. Elden went through two different mastoid operations in Salt Lake City with Mother at his side each time. He remained very sick for four years. There were times when we thought that he was going to get well, but he always had a relapse. In the spring of 1937, he caught a cold and didn’t overcome it. Finally he told Mother and Dad that he couldn’t take it any longer, so on March 25, 1937, he left us to suffer no more. Only someone who had been through such an ordeal could know Mother and Dad’s feelings and sadness. Gene also came down with rheumatic fever, about two years after Elden became sick, and I can envision Mother’s feelings as another of her sons lay crying in pain. Luckily, Gene recovered with only a slight heart murmur.

(Joy) One day in the spring of 1937, I had gone from school to our old house to play with my friend Carol Durrant. I had been there for awhile when Carol’s big brother came riding into the yard on his bicycle and told me that Mother had told him to tell me I could stay as long as I wanted. Right then, I knew something was wrong and immediately headed home. When I got home, they were just putting Elden’s body on a cart and taking him out to the hearse. Mother was sitting on a chair in the middle of the front room crying, and Celest Durrant was sitting next to her with an arm around her. I don’t remember much about the next few days except that the following Sunday was Easter and the Randall family that lived across the field from us brought Lois and me an Easter basket.

Elden’s funeral was the Monday after Easter and I remember standing in the front hall crying and not wanting to go. Mother was there with me and apparently she talked me into going. During the first prayer at the funeral I saw Elden. I saw him slowly shuffling down a sidewalk looking like he had in his last years of his life, very ill. The sky was overcast and there was a dingy picket fence between him and some unkept houses. Then I saw him again, only this time, he did not look sick. He had a spring in his step and a smile on his face. The picket fence was sparkling white. The sky was clear. The sun was shining and the houses in the background were also white and well kept with flowers planted in the yards. I knew then that Elden was happy where he was and was no longer hurting. I never told anyone about my experience until just before Dean and I were to be married in the temple. I was talking to Mother and started relating the story to her. She interrupted me and went on to describe exactly the same scene I had seen that day. What a comfort that must have been to her. From things she said at different times in later years, I think she blamed herself a little for Elden’s ill health, as though she had not taken the care of him she should have. Shortly after Elden’s death, she started to study about health and nutrition and would comment that she wished she had known this or that when Elden was sick.

(Lyle) The spring after moving into the house on State Street, Mother decided to make some homemade soap using the recipe that she had used over the years. To make soap you put two and a half pints of water and one can of lye in a pot or tub. Mother used a tub. You stir this till it dissolves, then you add grease to it, five or six pounds. Any kind of grease will do, bacon grease, lard, mutton tallow. Mother mostly used grease from the hog. You build a fire and set the tub over it and let this mixture boil while stirring continually. You do this outside and stand upwind as the fumes are really strong. This day Beth and I were there watching Mother when a sparrow flew over, caught the fumes, and landed right in the tub. We both expected Mother to fish the bird out, but she just kept on stirring. She said that the lye would eat it up, and make soap out of it. It did. After boiling this mixture till it’s about the consistency of thick cream, it is poured into a pan to let cool and harden.

In the spring of 1938 Mother was, for the first time in her life, ill enough to be taken to a hospital. Lois remembers Dad carrying Mother out of the house and taking her to the Dee Hospital in Ogden where she was treated for a female disorder. She again entered the hospital about twenty years later for a hysterectomy. Lois was visiting Mother, in the late sixties and looking at some photos taken of her in the thirties. She told Mother that she looked healthier at age seventy than she did at age forty. Her reply to Lois was that she wasn’t getting enough to eat in those years. She said that when the chickens were laying, Dad got the first eggs as he had to do heavy work, then the kids came next. If there were any left, then she would have an egg.

(Joy) Dad always liked his big meal in the middle of the day and Mother always prepared it for him. After the boys had left home, I remember that after that meal was over and Dad had gone back to work, everything was left just as it was, and she would lie on the couch and either read or have a short nap. Perhaps that contributed to her long life.

(Earl) Time rolled on. On May 17, 1939, my father died in Huntsville at his beloved clubhouse. He died of a heart attack.

That fall of 1939, Lyle and I decided to borrow money to build a new shop. Lyle had married Beth Roberts on April 7, 1938. I went to the Morgan bank and they promised to loan me the money, and when I wanted it, to just come in and get it. Well, I had to build in the front of the old shop. So when I decided I was ready to build, I went into the bank one day to deposit some checks and ask for a loan. They told me that all I could get was two hundred dollars. I said, “Is that right?” “Yes, two hundred dollars is all we can let you have.” So I walked up to the teller and told him to give me what I had in there, and he asked me, “You’re not going to quit us, are you?” Well, I said, “Just what in the hell good are you to me?” So I drew out my money and left. Well, it was too late then to look somewhere else to borrow money. The next summer I started to deal with the bank in Coalville, and the president and cashier came down to look over the old shop and old Blomquist said, “Well, if anybody needs a new shop, you do.” So he asked me to come up when I wanted the money. But, in the meantime, I was in Ogden and ran into my uncle and he wanted a ride up to his apartment. He offered to loan me the money for two percent less than the bank wanted. Although I didn’t like my uncle and didn’t like to borrow the money from him, two percent is two percent. So we borrowed the money and paid him back in monthly installments. We never missed a payment, and a few times paid double. Uncle G.H. got his money back, although he had spent a good deal of time telling about his shop in Morgan. So I don’t know what he told them after he was paid back. But anyhow, the shop became ours. In the meantime, Lyle had been working in California and had sent home his payments every month regular, never missed once, for his half of the shop payments. Eventually the shop was paid for.

(Lyle) Over the years each of the Halls boys, through their ingenuity would take a bunch of parts and build a car. Lorin started with a 1936 wrecked Ford V8. He salvaged the front body section, but the rest he built from wood and sheet metal. It became a streamlined roadster with low curved windshield, cut-off doors, and flowing lines back to the spare tire. But it lacked a paint job. In the spring of 1940 Glenn, who was living in California, sent word to Lorin that he had found a job for him at the place where he was working, so Lorin prepared to drive down in his little roadster. Mother, always being a little adventurous and wanting to visit her son in California, decided to go with him. They piled their suitcases and belongings in the section that was to be a rumble seat and headed south stopping somewhere in the desert where they slept overnight. Mother, visited for a couple of weeks then came home by bus. Lorin stayed and worked with Glenn for a couple of years before returning to Morgan, not in his “dream car,” but in a beautiful 1939 DeSoto.

In 1941, our country entered World War II. Two of Mother and Dad’s sons, Lorin and Don, went into the Army. Mother must have worried for their safety, although she was not one to express her feelings. She always had two stars in the window, for she was proud of her sons and their commitment.

During the time of Lorin’s service in the army, he wrote three poems that he sent home to his family. They are included here.

THE BLACKSMITH’S REQUEST

BY P.F.C.. Lorin A. Halls

About 1944. Tinker Field, Oklahoma

My dad is the blacksmith of Morgan town.
The farmers all come when machinery breaks down.

He repairs their hay rakes, cultivators, and plows,
Even builds gates to keep in their cows.

On their picks and crowbars, he puts on new points.
With the aid of his welder, a machine gets new joints.

No matter what it is, he repairs them all.
Many’s the time he has gone out on call.

With his skilled hands, tools, welders, and such,
He fixes them up with his expert touch.

You’ll most always find him from daylight till dark.
His work is not pleasant like the song of the lark.

Farmers come in and want this fixed right now.
To hell with the rest. “I need this, and how!”

Though it needed repairing for many a day,
They knew it would be needed to put up the hay.

I never could figure it, maybe the farmer can tell
Why he waited ‘til the blacksmith was busy as hell.

Why didn’t he bring it in on that long winter day
While the blacksmith was idle and not making it pay.

Maybe each one figures he’s above the rest
And should come first by their simple request.

They don’t seem to figure Brown may have been first,
Or that he may need it much, much worse.

Though the blacksmith wishes to grant each request,
The farmers should remember and do their best

To bring in the machinery while there is still snow,
For when spring comes, the blacksmith gets busy, you know.

Nov. 30, 1943

Dear Mother,

This letter is just for Mother,
The dearest Mother in all the world, I want you to know.
I often think of you, Mother,
And your lifelong teachings are with me wherever I go.

Your don’ts and do’s all throughout my childhood
Have often helped to guide me on my way.
I really appreciate them, dear Mother,
As they have often kept me from going astray.

There are days when a soldier gets weary,
Disgusted with things, and the way they go.
He will stop and think of his mother, her sweet voice,
And the guidance she gives him. This was all not so long ago.

So Mother, when you folks at home are all so busy,
All us boys far away want you to know
That our thoughts are often of our dear mother,
No matter where on this earth we should go.

Us boys all have our troubles,
And many a long dreary day,
But thoughts of our dear mother
Make things easier as we go on our way.

Some day this war will be over,
And your sons all for home will sail.
There will be a great reunion with our mother,
Who never once was heard to whimper or wail.

So let me leave this thought with you, dear Mother,
I’ll love you wherever I chance to stay.
I will always love and cherish you, Mother,
And pray for haste in reunion on that great day.

By P.F.C. Lorin A. Halls
For the dearest Mother in the world.

Love, Lorin

MY BROTHER GENE
CAR TROUBLES

By P.F.C. Lorin A. Halls, About 1944

My brother, Gene, he drives a Studebaker.
The way he swears at it would stir his creator.

It has broken springs, and brakes that don’t work.
He says anyone who owns such a car is surely a jerk.

It wears the tires lop sided and how.
Sometimes he is tempted to trade it for a cow.

It gulps oil and gas by the tank.
When you get in, it starts with a yank.

The heater won’t work, the radio won’t play.
He’d trade for that cow, if it didn’t eat hay.

Mother told him he should turn it in for scrap.
But Uncle Say says, “I’m not that big of a sap.”

So poor Brother is stuck for the duration of the war.
It will be some time before he can get a new car.

Don’t feel bad, dear Brother, and don’t take it so,
The poor soldiers have to walk, wherever they go.

Look at the bright side, you’re really a lucky guy,
You have flat tires, but keep your chin up high.

Things could always be worse than they actually are.
You’re lucky, dear Brother, to have that broken down car.

In 1955, Gene wrote a letter to his mother and also sent a poem he wrote. Eliza then wrote a poem in reply. They are included here.

Compton, California
May 2, 1955

Dear Mom,

I’m starting a letter to you that may never be mailed or even finished, a letter that we will credit to a batch of rags. Would that I could have written as thoughts of life passed through my mind, for in that hour of sorting, deciding, cutting, and tearing, come one of my life’s greatest visions, the vision of my mother. Not her outward physical appearance, but the inward heart and soul, tender, loving, understanding, and self-sacrificing, giving of herself for her family.

Strange how the mind works. Here is a shirt, collar gone, but otherwise good, maybe short in the sleeves, but it could give a lot of wear if times got tough. Look, there is material enough here for a new shirt for a little guy. Yes, many a new shirt did my mom turn out that I was proud to wear, better than any store bought. This sport coat, it’s still good, can’t tear it up! Maybe give it to somebody who can use it. Who? Remember my first suits given to us by relatives or neighbors. Made over, they fit fine and wore good, too. These old coveralls, all faded, belly burned out and torn, strictly rags. Cut ‘em up! Boy, there is a lot of material in a pair of coveralls, two yards in a leg alone, and the color is still bright on the inside, good as new. Could make a pair of overalls for a six-year-old with this. Just turn it inside out and with a few handy stitches from skilled hands and there they are. Wore them till the buttons broke off, then stuck nails through the suspenders till they tore out. But that time I thought they were through. Next thing I knew, without recognizing it, I wipe my muddy feet on them, neatly woven into hook rugs.

Yes, Mom, through these rags I have come to recognize your greatness. I have always loved and appreciated you. But now I see and understand things that only living will qualify one to see or know.

NEW UNDERSTANDING

I think of reckless mountain trips us kids would go on.
How proud I was that Mother didn’t worry while I was gone.

But now I’m a parent, and realize she was a parent, too.
And you can’t help but worry what your kids are and do.

Yes, you knew that danger lurking, and many things could go wrong.
But you taught the best you knew. Now practice will make him strong.

You knew he’d have to trod the road of life alone some day.
And weather all the storms that come to man along the way.

You trust him to a loving God to follow through the plan.
Let him go and gain experience and prove himself a man.

Mom, you brought me through the folly of youth, and set me on the track.
Now here I am, well down that road, and pausing to look back.

I see places where I have cried, yes and stumbled yesterday,
But you were there to help me up, and urge me on my way.

So if I manage to reach my goal, and in this life I shine,
I’ll take no credit to myself, but to that angel mother of mine.

With a deeper love, Gene. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

ELIZA’S ANSWER TO GENE’S POEM, 1955

My boy you have reached the middle track.
It does not hurt you to look back.

Mistakes you made have not stayed long
Only helped to make you strong.

Of course I worried here and there.
Of course what mother doesn’t.

I was too busy to nag and scold,
God gave me many souls to guide and hold.

The only thing that I could do,
Was trust in him that you’d come through.

The rags and makeovers were just part of life
If you had to wear rags, they had to look nice.

I’m glad you were proud to wear those things,
But I can’t say that I felt the same.

I’d build up your morale at how nice you looked,
Was mighty pleased when those words took.

All was well if you liked that madeover shirt.
There was no one else in this world it could hurt.

Rags or riches, you all turned out well.
We’re proud of our family and just who is responsible is hard to tell.

It’s not what happens in this world that counts,
It’s how we accept it that tells how we turn out.

Thanks for the poem and all those words so kind.
Here’s a few in return with a deep love to you, boy of mine.

We are here to live and to learn, I am told,
I’ve no doubt that you will reach your goal.

For you have got what it takes way down deep inside.
If you don’t make it, I’ll tan your hide.

With Love, Mother

(Earl) Lyle got a job, after he came back from California, working for the Navy. Don and Lorin had to go to war, so there I was, alone again, and I bought Lyle out. Later on, Lorin wanted to buy in, which he did. Don came home and took an apprenticeship under me for four years, got his diploma, and now works for Davis County in the schools where he is the boss of a good many men that keep the Davis County schools in repair. Glenn and Gene have a safe manufacturing business in California.

(Joy) Mother worked at the school lunch program and in a short time was the supervisor. She was good at the job and was well-liked by those who worked with her. All the meals were cooked there in the kitchen at the school, then served over the counter to the students. It was the responsibility of the supervisor to plan the meals that met the nutritional standards set up by the school administration, and to order all the supplies. When the decision was made to hire only widows as school cooks, she went to work at the cabbage factory where they made sauerkraut. She used to bring some home once in awhile and that is when I learned to like it. What she brought home was very fresh and not like the stuff you buy at the store now.

Mother had worked hard all her life, but she had never been a wage earner before. Now she had the freedom to buy a few things for her enjoyment. She bought a player piano and taught herself to play it. I don’t know if she had help from anyone, but she became very good. I was amazed at the complicated music she was playing and she really enjoyed it. I think she wanted Lois and me to learn how to play, but we were too lazy. She also used her money to give Lois and me the things she wanted for us. She bought us our first store-bought clothes. I was about fifteen then. I wanted very much to take voice lessons and she made that possible for me.

(Lyle) Mother, worked in the school lunch program for many years. She progressed until she was the supervisor of several cooks, then the people in authority decided that only widows should be allowed to work in the program and she was laid off. She then worked at the cannery for several summers. Mother and Dad were both looking forward to retirement and they needed to be eligible for Social Security. Mother became eligible through her years of work and Dad by paying into a program for the self-employed.

All of the children eventually married. Glenn married Delores Carter. After Delores died, Glenn married Laurel Wilkins. Lyle married Beth Roberts. Lorin married Violet Lakarich, Don married Marie Hess and after she died, he married Barbara Hayward, who had three children. Gene married Effie Keyes and after they were divorced, he married Anna Carr. Joy married Dean Foxley, and Lois married Ray Maxwell, but they were later divorced. Earl and Eliza eventually had twenty-six grandchildren.

(Joy) Mom wanted to be active in the church, but Dad didn’t always agree with that, so she did what she could without any argument or complaint. Even though she didn’t go to Sacrament Meetings, she was active as a Primary teacher or Primary President for twelve years.

(Lyle) Now that her family was growing up and on their own, Mother found more time for church activities. For many years she was involved with teaching L.D.S. Primary classes. She was asked to teach the young boys, ten to twelve years of age, and this was very agreeable with her. Not only did she like the boys, but they seemed to like her as a teacher, and she got along well with them. She also served as President of the Primary for many years. She was a member and active participant of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers organization. When Mother was about 70 years old, she accepted the assignment to teach the adult Sunday School Class in the North Morgan Ward. She taught this class for five years. A year after being released from this position, she was assigned Genealogical representative and teacher. After two years, she had to resign as she felt that she was getting too old to do an effective job.

In the early 1950’s Dad was making pretty good money in the shop and his income was finally exceeding his expenses to the extent that he felt that he could afford to buy a brand-new car, the first new car that he and Mother had ever had. He purchased a 1951 Plymouth four-door, color green. They made many trips using this car, and stayed in motels, or they would pull their little camping trailer.

Dad and Mother spent a couple of years in California visiting with their sons, Glenn and Gene. While there, they both worked in Glenn’s safe manufacturing plant, Dad doing welding and Mother in the assembly of the safes. They flew with Glenn in his airplane the first year and drove back home in a 1946 Ford pickup that they had purchased from Glenn. This became Dad’s first camper. He built it patterned after a sheep camp, and designed it to slide into the back of this Ford pickup. It was very comfortable and served them for several years.

After Dad retired in 1955, at the age of 65, he and Mother were able to travel more, something that he had little time for when he was tied to the shop six days a week. These travels included trips to Death Valley, the Grand Canyon, and to Monticello to visit his Uncle Frank and Aunt Lizzie. Mother’s sister, Dora was included on some of these trips. He also went on quite a few fishing trips with friends, Sam Dunn and Horace Heiner, and his brothers, Dale and Clyde. He always wished that Mother would go with him, but she was not interested in fishing the first few years of his retirement, although he and Mother made several fishing trips with their sons and daughters and their families.

You have heard the saying that ”You couldn’t get the fish to bite to save your life.” There was a time in Mother and Dad’s lives where the fish not biting may have saved their lives. On August 10, 1959, they, along with Mother’s sister, Dora, left for Glacier National Park in Montana. After seeing the park and northern Montana, they started home by way of Helena, Virginia City, and Yellowstone Park. On the afternoon of August 17, they stopped at the Rock Creek campground in Madison Canyon, planning to stay the night. After having lunch, Dad got out his fishing equipment and walked over to the Madison River to do some fishing. After about an hour or so he came back to camp having caught only one small fish. Inasmuch as they were headed home, and the fish were not biting, they decided to travel on. They stopped for the night south of Yellowstone Park. At 11:37 that night, an earthquake shook the West Yellowstone-Madison Canyon area causing millions of tons of rock to come crashing off the mountain and down through where Mother, Dad, and Dora had eaten their lunch and where they would have camped. The slide killed most of the people camped in the Rock Creek campground. There were more than 300 people, many injured, who were trapped in the canyon as roads out of the area had crumpled and a section had fallen into Hebgen Lake. The final death toll was twenty-eight, with nineteen of these being buried under the slide.

In 1963, they purchased a sixteen-foot trailer and Mother started going with Dad on his fishing trips. They made a number of trips to Dad’s favorite fishing area, the Grays River and Labarge Creek in Wyoming. Dad told me some of the experiences that he and Mother had while on these trips. One was where they were working on the road and he had to pass so close to a piece of equipment that he lost the door handle off the trailer. Another time it rained most of the time and he got stuck two or three times. The trailer was not self-contained so the first chore was to dig a hole and set up the canvas privy.

Mother began to enjoy fishing, but her favorite areas were not the streams, but the lakes. They would often go to a choice place on the east side of Bear Lake where they would park the trailer near the water. They would set up the privy, get out the lawn chairs, and then proceed to fish. Mother got so that she could catch as many fish as Dad. On their last trip to Bear Lake, Mother caught thirteen fish and Dad only caught one. In asking Mother later how she was able to catch more fish than Dad, she told me that they would both bait up and cast out into the lake. After awhile Dad would get nervous and keep pulling his line in to check the bait then cast out into another area. She said that she would cast out her line then sit in a lawn chair and knit until she got a bite. She said that you have to give the fish a chance to find your bait.

There were family traditions that were important to all the family. We had many family camping trips at Bear Lake or on the Gray’s River for fishing. When everyone brought along their various campers and trailers and lined them up, we had quite a camp set up.

Another family tradition was the annual Christmas Party. All the sons and daughters and the grandkids would get together, usually the Saturday before Christmas, for dinner and games. The parties were first held in Lorin’s garage. Some were also held in other homes. As the family grew, we then moved them to the D.U.P. building and later to the Morgan City building. Always there was dinner, a bingo game, a program, singing Christmas carols, and exchanging gifts. Dad usually gave each of the grandkids a half-dollar or a dollar bill and Mother often knit slippers or some other thing for them. One year Dad wrote a poem for each of the grandkids to go along with the half-dollar.
Another of the family traditions that was part of our lives for many years was the annual deer hunt. Dad had a friend who owned property in Echo Canyon and the family would gather there to hunt deer. Glenn and Gene would come from California and Lyle, Lorin, and Don, and Dean with the grandsons and sometimes wives and granddaughters would camp out for several days. A big army surplus tent was set up as the cook tent and trailers and tents were set up around it. Eventually small motorcycles called tote-gotes were built and put to good use by the kids driving around the hills.

Grandson Brent, when he was in the fourth grade, wrote a letter to his grandparents that included a poem about his grandfather’s fishing and hunting. It said:

Dear Grampa and Gramma,

I composed this poem to get even with you for everybody you wrote poems about at the party.

I would have written a poem about you Gramma, except you haven’t done any silly things like Grampa has. Thanks for the slippers and socks. They fit perfect and they’re exactly what I needed. My toes have been sticking through my other slippers for two years.